Of Slytherin Descent (Snape/reader)

Ch. 12: What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You

A/N: Snapetok is the only thing getting me through this half the time:)

••••Snape's POV••••

Stupid Girl, she  forgot to put the Thyme away..

Snape picked up the Thyme and put it back in the cabinet, Y/N had done her maintenance of the Felix Felicis after lunch the previous day in order to get ready for the Yule Ball. This was now the morning after. Snape made his way around the classroom in the late morning, he had stayed up rather late after the Yule Ball, though he didn't wish to miss his daily duties of stirring the Felix Felicis. How would it make him look as a Potions Master if he slipped up? Even if he was utterly exhausted. In addition to his typical insomnia, he was thinking about something else.

What a foolish girl, truly thinking I wouldn't recognize that perfume in such close....proximity...but why had she done it?

Why had I let her?

I could've denied her, or pushed her away.  I could've told her I didn't dance or that I was strictly responsible for watching the students.

The latter wasn't completely untrue, but he was still permitted some festivities.

Instead I told her some of my most personal stories and danced with her half the night.....what a fool I was....

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and finally got down to grading the papers that he had successfully neglected the night prior.  They weren't due for another week, but at the very least, he could use them as a distraction.
All of them were First Year essays, which equated to them being a scribbled mess of nonsense written by 12 year olds.
Snape rarely had a genius First Year, and when he did,  he sometimes took a liking to them because they reminded him of himself. 
After a good half hour of grading utter nonsense, he frustratedly stood up with his hands planted on the desk. 
Snape paced the room for a bit, allowing himself to daydream and get lost in his mind.
He watched the birds flying around each other out of the window, their wings almost wrapping around each other.  He opened the window closest to him and took in the smell of cedar and rain.
But no matter the view, he couldn't shake his mind of Y/N, not entirely.
Then suddenly he slammed his hands back on his desk with a huff and shook his head.

What does it take to rid my mind of her?  Surely some foolish girl can't invade my job, social life, safe place, AND mind?  I spent years becoming an Occlumens so that my mind wouldn't be penetrable....and now it's as if it was all for nothing....

Something is off about her, that's why I've done it, I'm simply...suspicious of her character.

Snape was furious at himself; nevertheless, he desperately wanted to project his anger onto the one who unknowingly 'tormented' him.
Her perfume had even seemed to cling to his dress robes, he had shoved them in the back of his closet, not wanting to have to deal with washing the smell out.  However, this had quite the opposite effect, his school robes reeked of her.
He could smell it just where he stood.
Snape promised himself to dig deep into whatever it was she was hiding, surely he could get her fired and rid himself of her then.
His mood was tainted enough to last the rest of the day, and he would surely take it out on his First Years and their nonsensical essays.

——————————————————————-

•••Your POV•••:

It was finally Saturday, I spent most of the night grading papers because I hadn't been able to sleep and I got that odd late-night motivation to actually be productive.
The students had done pretty well for their first grade, it was just over some simply curses. Not enough to harm, but rather, inconvenience someone.
I was deep in thought throughout the last few essays.

What if I just ruined my career?  What if Snape thinks differently of me?  Would I mind if he did?

Eventually, I gave up on grading in fear that I would lazily scribe a wrong mark on some poor kids paper.

I had this empty feeling for quite a while now.  Sure, I'd had many great 'loves', friends, enemies, lives...but now it's just like I don't know where I am anymore.  I've been looking for 'home' for years, I'm only now realizing that home may be Hogwarts.  And maybe 'Home' could even be a person.

But I hadn't found it -them.

Perhaps I never will.

I began to reminisce in the silence of my own thoughts...

100 years ago...

I hurriedly made my way through the Forbidden Forest, watching to not step on any branches and give away my presence.  I had to find it, I felt it, cold against my very existence.
A part of my soul was locked into a ruby ring, one that I had put it into willingly when I was young and naive.  I vowed the Dark Witch at the time a piece of my soul, in exchange for my family to stay safe.  With my soul, I'd have to follow her, to keep myself alive. 
Unfortunately, she disappeared without a trace not long after, taking the ring- my horcrux- with her.  Now, years later, I yearn to find it once more.
I made my way to a burned down building, what used to be the Gaunt Manor, my home.  It was a family heirloom of the surviving Slytherins.  The Witch had burned it just before she left.
I stepped over burnt family records and broken glass.  I walked around my mother's splintered bed frame and my father's blackened workbench.
This Manor was the last place she could have been.  I searched for hours, every crevice, under every ash pile.  Nothing.  My anger, my reluctant realization grew the more I search...
I felt despair overtake me as I fell to my knees and sobbed.  I would never be able to fully die, so long as that ring was intact.  I had already outlived my loved ones.
Where my skin was supposed to be wrinkled, it was glowing with youth.  I hadn't aged a year since the Horcrux.  This didn't make since, I was still supposed to age with the Horcrux, but I have a feel that the Witch did something to cause this outcome.  To ensure I would survive no matter what....

A decade after this, 10 years of searching, I found a prophecy revolving around what I suspected was my ring, the 'Ruby Serpent Ring'.  But the only thing I remember of the prophecy is a name...Lily.