The Things our Heart likes, without our Brain's Consent - A Severus Snape Story

Chapter Eleven - The things Severus doesn't quite approve of.

Tilly Donnely sat in the Gryffindor common room, bent over a roll of parchment so violently her nose almost touched the parchment, her quill moving, then stopping, then moving and stopping again.

It was when her nib split she scrunched up the parchment and added it to the growing pile of paper balls melting in the fireplace.

"What is it now?" Imogen Trimble asked over the top of her parchment, on which she was writing an imaginative recount of her interaction with Godric Caddick the sixth-year, captain of the quidditch team.

"I just can't get this right!" she wailed, falling backwards against the head-rest. "And he'll kill me if I don't hand this in, he already thinks I'm stupid!"

"Who?"

"Professor Snape!"

Imogen rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Tilly, your essays are literally perfect. He gave it a five the other day."

"But I missed this lesson on antidotes and cannot understand their difference for the life of me. Plus, the other teachers give me ten."

She peered anxiously at the books she had opened around her, then shuddered.

"And they don't call me a squib. Or shout at me."

"He's an idiot, don't let him get to you," Imogen muttered absentmindedly, scribbling with a furious obstinacy at her work of fiction, although she didn't quite use the word idiot.

Three pieces of scrunched up parchments later, Imogen looked up again.

"You know what, if you're so bothered, why don't you go and ask him for help?"

Tilly stared at her as though she was mad.

"What? You're the one who told me that teachers like you if you pay attention in lessons and try hard enough."

Yes, that was true. And yet no other Professor, not even Professor McGonagall, was the bane of Tilly's educational existence. Professor Snape was, simply put, terrifying. He would sweep around, silent and sinister, not an ounce of agreeableness in his eye. Whenever he brushed past and cast a disapproving eye over her work, she felt herself bristle and dropped the wrong ingredients into the cauldron, getting her almost rock-bottom grades in Potions. And his rage...

Tilly shuddered, frightened at the prospect into silence. Imogen gave her a look as she clutched at her knees and bit her lip.

"Oh, honestly, Tilly. Look, I'll come with you if it makes you feel any better."

"I don't want to go."

"Then good luck in explaining to him why you didn't do the homework. Which is due for tomorrow, may I add."

"You haven't done it either."

"Yes I have."

"Those three inches don't count as an essay, Imogen."

Imogen shrugged and swept back her long, black hair away from the parchment.

"At least it's done. Oh, come on. Let's go. He can't shout at you for no reason. And if he does, just tell McGonagall. She can put anybody right."

In the end, they snuck up to the Potion Master's office. Imogen didn't look as brave as she sounded back in the corridor and kept sniffing and sighing.

"Stop shaking," she hissed at Tilly. "Honestly, girl, he won't bite your head off."

"You stop shaking," she muttered, as they rounded the corner and spotted the office. "There it is."