Hell's Last Lantern | A Severus Snape x OC Romance

Chapter Twenty

Severus had had the conversation with Moreno following his meeting with Umbridge and had found that the boy was willing and even eager to take the fall for the poisoning of Filch, immediately confessing to the prank. He had to suspend the boy for two weeks and promise him a month of detention upon his return. He'd accepted without complaint, which Snape wasn't sure what to think of, but mostly it was a relief that it was all over.

Unsurprisingly, the Weasley twins received no punishment, whether because they were Gryffindors or because they were not properly implicated, he wasn't sure. A petty part of him wanted to implicate them, encourage Umbridge to banish their toxic candy, make her aware of their own histories of misconduct; the "pranks" they had pulled that had caused real harm. He knew in some way it was because a part of him relished the idea of Umbridge exacting punishment and retribution on behalf of the victims, the way he'd wished Dumbledore had done when he himself was bullied at Hogwarts during his most formative years. But Gryffindor already had enough eyes on it as it was, what with Harry being an insolent, outspoken, self-righteous, arrogant little twat.

And then there was her. Images of her on his bed, touching her body in the way he wanted to, desperate little whimpers coming from her soft lips, writhing between his sheets and coming for him coursed through his mind with imposing ferocity.

He'd tried pushing it from his mind since then, tried not to look at her, not to meet her eyes. He didn't want to see her hurt, her disappointment. He hated himself for ruining her firsts—for making them tarnished with his essence, his needs, his issues, his boundaries. It should be all about her. About making her feel good, worshiping her body, kissing and loving it, giving her pleasure beyond her wildest dreams.

And within minutes, there she was again, entering his classroom...a lovely, delicate thing, standing out so prominently against the harsh canvas of his bleak existence.

Breaking his own rule, their eyes met and his heart might've stopped in his chest.

Her eyes whispered, "Do you still want me? Am I beautiful? Do I meet your standards? Do you wish you could kiss me again?" and it drove him mad.

How desperately he wanted to pull her aside into the potions store room at the back of the class, lock the door and ravish her there; to answer her unspoken questions with unspoken answers—to kiss her soft cheeks, her pink lips, to cradle her face in his hands. He wanted to tell her with his hands, his lips, his body all the ways that she was enough—more than enough. How she'd redefined beauty for him and had become the very standard by which all other beauties were measured...to tell her that he saw how carefully she carried his heart, so delicately and thoughtfully, and not at all in the way he'd carried hers. He had dragged her through his own mess, his highs and lows, through his weakness. And yet she was still there, astonishing him each time she returned to him. 

Fuck, he was hard again.

He jerked his gaze away, occluding behind his walls, and for the first time in...years, he realized he didn't want to hide away. Not from her. It was an odd and terrifying thing. Destabilizing.

He quickly shoved aside his rigid tumescence along with his reprehensible thoughts as he prepared for his last class of the day, now a few days after the...second incident. The fact that there had been a first was bad enough. 

The class went by in a blur, and he wasn't sure whether he managed to teach the students anything about poisons, antivenoms and the effects of coercive potions; his mind was consistently dragged elsewhere. He dismissed the class and watched her go, stopping to glance back at him, which he struggled to look away from, keeping his eyes on his grading.

That arsehole Sharpp had managed to avoid him, mostly. Currently, he was using the classroom to work on the potion he'd been creating the last few months, or "perfecting", as he'd put it, now that their last class of the day had been dismissed. Snape rose without words and retreated to his office, bolting the door. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart, bringing his hand over his chest and rubbing it anxiously. Waves of panic had been threatening him for months now, but he always managed to keep himself just barely beyond the reach of their tide, retreating further and further into himself.