Amortentia ↠ James Potter

TWO

"Let me get this straight Sev, you want to brew a love potion and slip it into James Potter's goblet?" Marcella, the brightest witch in fifth year (maybe even Hogwarts), was confused.  "But I thought you liked that muggleborn Lily?"

Severus scowled at her assumption, and explained his seemingly ridiculous plan, "First of all, Marcie, if you want to pass your potion O.W.L.S., it's called 'amortentia'. Considering your intelligence, you should already know that. Secondly, you'd be pouring it in his drink because I'd never be allowed close enough to the wanna-be hero table to do so myself.  And finally, it's not to make him in love with me, I still like Lily,"  He spoke slow, like she was a child and had trouble comprehending English. 
She didn't.  And she didn't like him acting like she was.

"Sev, I'm not Lockheart from Ravenclaw, you don't have to treat me as if I'm a fool.  I just don't understand the 'ingenuity' of your idea, or how making James in love with some girl will be revenge, it'd be a favor," she rolled her eyes, "Lily would never go for him, and he needs to finally move on."

Then, after she pondered for a little while, she added, "Unless we make him have the hots for that girl from Hufflepuff who is irrationally obsessed with him.  I think she'd actually chain him up in her dormitory to make sure he couldn't change his mind about her."

He shook his head, but amusement was clearly found on his features.  "As fantastic as having James date Wendy Fortescue sounds, I have a different girl in mind."  Marcella waited for him to say the name of the girl who would soon be tortured and suffocated by the affections of the bespectacled boy.

"Out with it, Sev.  This is an advanced potion if I recall correctly and even you, Mr. Half-Blood Prince, will need time to brew it," patience had never been one of Marcella's finer qualities.  She had spent most of her life waiting; waiting for her father to come to the orphanage to take back her and Tom, waiting for her brother to send her an owl (to at the very least prove that he was alive), and waiting for Severus to get over Lily so he could finally notice her feelings towards him.

She didn't feel like waiting right now.

"I think that it would be best," he hesitated, "ifwemadePotterfallinlovewithyou."  He knew Marcella was not daft nor deaf, and as soon as she understood what he had mumbled, he saw the raw fury in her eyes.

"Y-You want Potter to be magically infatuated with me?" her voice was shaky with anger (and also a little bit of sadness Severus didn't catch).  Additionally, she could no longer bring herself to say 'fall in love with' because the thought of James Potter 'falling in love' with her was much harder than the thought of him 'magically infatuated' with her.

"Marcie, more than anyone, you will capable of breaking his heart and hindering his efforts to woo you," Severus tried to coax her.  It wasn't working.

"Don't you think I want a love life, I don't know, that is built from actual feelings rather than using magic?" Marcella didn't want to tell him that she didn't want to do this because she didn't want to be like her mother.  And she most definitely did not want to tell him that she didn't want to do this because she liked him, Severus Snape, and not Potter.

"It's the perfect idea, you have to admit," Severus was desperate, "He'll stop going after Lily so I can have a shot and he won't prank us in an effort to impress you."

"You honestly believe that all they've done deserves this?  Those silly pranks they've pulled aren't worth all these unnecessary risks you've somehow conjured up," Marcella was fisting her hair, trying to make herself forget about the pain in her heart from thinking about Merope.  Not her mother, Merope.