Pride & Polyjuice (Professor Snape Story)

Chapter 22

Silence sat uncomfortably between us.

"How did you do that?" I repeated in what sounded like disbelief, I had felt like the wind had been forced out of my lungs.

"Legilimency" He answered, even more pale than usual, he looked like someone who was about to get sick, a wonderful complexion given the memory that had been relived. He didn't bother explaining the word, though thankfully I had learned about it at home from my brother; who tried to, but failed at, teaching me.

I waited, staring down at my feet, feeling like I should just leave, given the silence; but also not knowing how well my feet would work at the moment.

"Why are you making that face." I tried getting him to speak, to gauge his tone better, "Look if it was bad for you or whatever it's fine."

Still silence.

"I'm not going to tell anyone." I said gratingly. Most likely he was concerned about his reputation, unsurprisingly of course, weren't we all?

"Would you shut up." he hissed, shocking me, and increasing the size of my frown.

"Excuse you?" I snapped, my hands finding my hips in the 'oh-so-teenage-girl' way, not comprehending his attitude. He quickly moved behind his desk, away from me and stared down at the blackened wood, as though he was trying to see through it.

"Would you please just use your people words." I said growing more annoyed by the second. Half curious if the reason he was making some sort of show was to continue to play ignorant to our activities. He looked up briefly, something flashed behind his eyes that I couldn't place but quickly faded into his normal expression.

"That was not me." He said slowly, as though it was something I could have obviously known.

"It...what?" I laughed dryly, feeling the same knot swell up in my stomach. A knot which slowly grew as realization slapped me.

It wasn't...it wasn't him.

"No. No." I swallowed shaking my head, blonde strands of hair swinging in front of my eyes. "You're lying, because who would do that?"

He remained quiet.

"Who would turn into someone else and...and...and just-" my hands shot up to my mouth involuntarily, momentarily feeling like puking.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed him taking a step closer but then stopping and retreated back behind the desk.

"You couldn't possibly think that I would have had intercourse with my student." He said in his typical ice cold tone, the tone almost exclusively reserved for Gryffindors. The breath was sucked out of my lungs with an inaudible gasp.

"Severus-" I started, stepping towards him and stopping immediately when I noticed he seemed to retreat even more behind the large bog oak wood desk suddenly felt like a large ditch that I would tumble in if I got too close. "Severus what are you saying," his name tasted odd on my tongue.

"Leave." He ordered just above a whisper.

I felt my chest tighten as though something had latched onto my heart.

"This relationship is inappropriate and as of now, terminated." His piercing gaze finally rose from the desk and looked straight into me.

It seemed as though I had forgotten something terribly important.

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I sat at dinner, wedged between chattering students, feeling the frown on my face without bothering to fix it; until a nudge against my leg knocked me out of my thoughts. I turned and raised my eyebrows at Draco, who sat to the left of me, hoping he hadn't asked a question, as I had been to absorbed to hear.