an awfully big adventure...

Black and Snape broke away almost instantly, panting and Snape yammering as Black looked crushed.

But they weren’t fast enough as Minerva’s head poked around the corner, and she uttered a disturbed “oh” of surprise.

“Oh…hello Severus…Sirius.” She said calmly, trying to keep her voice from shaking with laughter. She tried carrying on as if she hadn’t just witnessed two male Professors at Hogwarts kissing like madmen…well, at least Black had been.

“Having a pleasant evening?”

She felt her buggy gaze drag to Snape as if his solemn isolation all made sense.

“GET OUT!” Snape roared at the two of them. Minerva obliged quickly with a stark look of fear, but Black just looked to Snape obviously crushed.

He hadn’t even had a chance to fully taste Snape’s lips before Snape was slapping and yelling for him not to touch him. But, that wild look in Black\'s eyes still remained, and that’s what unsettled Snape.

“I said, get out.” Snape hissed angrily, pulling his wand from his pocket. Black nodded silently, and with tears welling up in his eyes he left, closing the door behind him.

Snape felt his stomach lurch as he recalled Black’s manly lips all over his own. Gads, it was horrid. He ran to his bathroom chambers, and promptly spat into the bathroom sink, and let the cool water run into his hands, as he splashed it onto his pale face.

He looked to his almost trembling and pale reflection in the mirror, and felt himself growing ill. He sighed, as did his image.

“I need a drink.”
____________________________________

“No Harry.” Hermione said primly, sitting on the crowded bleachers of the Quidditch field, “I haven’t. And you’re not going to copy my homework any more this semester!”

Harry sighed, dropping his broomstick beside him as they sat ther.her. He looked to her with pleading eyes. Even though they were surrounded by people, Hermione was distracted by this.

“C’mon ‘Mione!” he pleaded shamelessly. Hermione rolled her eyes and recalling all she had done to his Godfather nodded hesitantly.

“Strange.” Harry said suspiciously. “Normally you give me a lecture about applying myself and how I’m never going to make it to University if I don’t try harder.”

Hermione felt herself grow uncomfortable at the scrupulous look Harry was beading down on her, all the laughter che cheering around her was lost as her heart dropped and she shrugged forcing a laugh.

“I suppose…there’s no point Harry. Either you’ll apply yourself or you won’t.”

Harry raised an eyebrow in a very Snape-like manner, and looked as if he were calculating something.

“It’s just a little suspicious, ‘Mione, I mean y-”

“Hey Potty!” Draco suddenly interrupted from up in the field, and Hermione was actually thankful for the interruption. “We’re starting! You can talk to your girlfriend later!”

Harry and Hermione rolled their eyes, giving each other a sigh as Harry jumped onto his broom and prepared to defend Gryffindor.

That had been too close.
_________________________________________

December rolled around lazily, along with the onslaught of Christmas. The rumors had been squelched after one LONG and threatening conversation with McGonagal, who claimed she had said nothing to anyone…except Dumbledor.

Snape had cornered her in her desolate classroom one afternoon, and after this confession had stayed the HELL away from him.

As had Black. Everytime they passed in the hall, Black would keep his head down and humbly stride past a disgusted Snape. Snape still didn’t know what was going on with Black. He assumed thier prior...encounter had been because of their close quarters for so long, and the heat of the moment.

Perhaps Black felt pity for all the wronging of his past. Snape was searching for ANY reason as to why the elusive ladies man had kissed him so passionately. He blamed it on something Black had eaten.

To stifle rumors they hadn’t been alone together at all, and when meals came, Snape sat abnormally far from him, as did Black respectively. That was how he liked it.

At the current moment Snape looked normally miserable, always seeming like a shaft of darkness as he tread across the annoyingly bright snow.

Sure he wouldn’t admit it, but he did like the definite sound of snow crunching under his feet. He almost felt at peace, until a large snowball hit him in the side of the head.

“TWENTY POINTS FROM HUFFLEPUFF!” he roared as the frozen students looked to him in fear. Damn their miscalculations!

They nodded and managed a squeak of apology before they ran off in utter fear. Snape smirked to himself, enjoying the power that courserougrough him. At least he had their fear, he didn’t need their respect.

Suddenly a bushy-haired figure made its way down the narrow path to the school from the dormitories, coming straight towards him with her nose in a book.

Hermione Granger.

Snape groaned lowly at this, with the prospect of having to speak with her. Those damn perverse thoughts were haunting him nightly. He went to bed thinking of her in it, and woke up wanting her beside him.

It certainly wasn’t love, for who could love an annoying know it all Gryffindor? Certainly not he. But the way she moved and spoke, and held herself…

“Oh, hello Professor.”

Gads. He hadn’t even noticed she was that close. He forced a scowl on his pale face and couldn’t help but notice how fetching she looked.

“Granger.”

The month’s worth of detentions had been maddening. Her there in the Potions class all the time, writing and flitting her quill down her cheek as she thought, sometimes dragging it down that slender white throat of hers while he tried desperately not hit a breaking point.

And as it went on, he’d have to go to his chambers after the detention, and pleasure himself over the edge, calling out her name as he did so, feeling dirty and perverse and enthralled the whole time.

“Having a pleasant Christmas break?”

Her lips and cheeks were so rosy from the cold, her hair was lifting as the icy wind surrounded them. Snape noticed was was shivering slightly and broke from his reluctant reflection.

‘I can warm you up, Granger.’ He thought deliciously evil, looking at her rosy face and trailing down her robes, then flicking that oily gaze onto hers.

He instantly berated himself for looking at her like a piece of meat, and for thinking about seducing her in the first place. She was a young, foolish Gryffindor. He kept thinking this, but couldn’t convince himself.

She was looking at him strangely when he didn’t answer immediately and noticed him looking at her in a way that was much too Slytherin.

“Well, I can see your busy.” She said sharply, causing him to wince as she spoke. “I’ll see you at dinner, if you attend.”

She knew very well he would. He always had. She had been certain that she could seduce the elusive Severus Snape, but it hadn’t been as easy as planned. First of all, she was scared shitless of him, everytime he came near her she felt her heart beat like a jackhammer and she’d get just plain nervous.

She knew it mostly guilt, guilt for spraying Black with that STUPID love potion, and having Black fawn all over Snape...oh, and the fact that Snape was a monster who hated everyone he met. But other than that, the man was sex on legs.

She had sta staying away from Black. There was no point in throwing yourself in front of a man who is so very concentrated on someone e The They don’t see anyone else, only the object of their current and immediate affections. Black was in the past.

But as Snape stalked off wordlessly from him, a lump of coal in the snow as his black robes billowed out behind him, one question arose. Black may have been in the past...

But was Snape the best decision for her future?