Beyond Pathetic

A/N: Well, a large batch of entirely pleasant reviews was certainly unexpected. This is my first fanfiction story, ever, so I was slightly expecting either a whole lot of nothing or flamage. While I’m hoping to make this story a sizable, moderate length, I return to school in two weeks and start work again tomorrow, so I apologize in advance if I don’t update as much as I could, or with as much substance. But thank you all immensely for reviewing, it gave me warm fuzzy feelings and such.
I’ll be doing a bit of Hermione’s POV in a bit, but I can do Severus so much better because sarcasm comes naturally to me, and he’s probably the most fun character in the entire series.
I’m also going to release a slight bombshell at the end of this chapter, and I hope it doesn’t alienate you fine people from my story.
Thanks.


-------___-------

One cold winter’s morning, Severus woke up, sneered at the clock on his bedside table, and proceeded to dourly wash and dress.

The previous night had been considerably hard on him, spent in the Library with Hermione after hours. They had spent half the night poring over texts in the Restricted Section, the proximity of Hermione and her delicious-smelling hair far more enticing to Severus than the crumbling books depicting the torturous capabilities of Transfiguration.

Hermione had displayed a mind numbingly sado-masochistic side, causing his fantasies that night to consist of her complete dominance over him, running whips down his back, tying him to his bed, forcing him to pleasure her, and finally bringing him to release with a few pumps inside her sweet body.

The image of her clad in revealing leather faded as he stroked himself to completion, a feeling of horrible incompleteness in its wake. He got up to complete his new ritual of cleaning himself off, and had returned to bed to contemplate the woman of his dreams and the hold she really did have over him.

“Pathetic,” he mumbled to himself, before drifting off to a restless sleep.

The next morning, therefore, he was not in a particularly good mood (although what is a ‘good’ mood with dear Professor Snape?) for breakfast, grunting a greeting at his colleagues, and saving a tight-lipped nod for Hermione as he buttered his morning toast.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his coveted female lick a lost bit of porridge from her lip in what looked to be slow-motion. He choked on his dry toast, and had to deal with the always-kind Hermione slide her hand onto his back and ask if he was alright.

“No!” he wanted to bellow, “I am absolutely NOT ALRIGHT, you foolish witch!” Followed up by a senseless shag in a broom closet.

Instead he nodded and went to class.

He set his simpering fifth years to an elegantly long essay about counter-jinxes, and began to grade a batch of mediocre tests from a first year class, trying to rid his mind from Hermione for a few moments.

Suddenly he heard giggling.

His head snapped up, looking to the source of the outrageous noise. The entire class let out a slight collective gasp, a sound Severus always took a perverse joy in hearing.

The perpetrators were a pair of girls, one of whom had the unpleasant surname of Weasley. Which of that family had bred to produce this gem was something Severus had not chosen to remember, but here she was attempting to hide a small wad of paper in the palm of her hand.

“I’ll be taking that, Miss Weasley,” Severus said in a slow undertone, holding out his hand.

The little girl trembled, but walked up to the front anyway to hand him the paper. He sent her a sneer as she turned, a judicious “Fifteen points from Gryffindor,” rolling off his tongue.

He opened the note, if only to watch the Miss Weasley in question to wince and bury her reddening face in her hands.

It turned out to be exactly what he had expected. A worthless pile of sub-par grammar (‘Why in the name of Hades don’t we teach these morons basic skills?’ he thought.) depicting an invitation to the Yule Ball the following night. The signature at the bottom pointed out the other culprit, a young, bespectacled Mr. Malfoy, who was shrinking in his seat and pretending to be busy with his essay.

As vastly amusing as the potential pair was, he had a duty to uphold.

“And another fifteen points, Mr. Malfoy, from Slytherin,” he said, “I do not appreciate the level of intelligence either of you have chosen to display in my class. I do not believe that your essays will write themselves, so if you would…kindly…return to writing and refrain from using my class time with setting up your personal lives…”

A soft twitter around the classroom that Severus chose to ignore signaled that the two perpetrators had been sufficiently humiliated. Miss Weasley was a popular, well loved girl, and would be hideously embarrassed to have been asked to the ball by a bookworm such as Mr. Malfoy, who was a mere shadow of his father and grandfather, with little charisma to speak of.

The class ended, and Severus leaned back in his desk chair, angry with the two hapless students for reminding him of the ball. He had always had the obligation to attend these things, during which he sloughed as many points as possible from over-stimulated teenagers before leaving early for his quarters.

This year, however, his ‘friendship’ with Hermione would require him to speak with her, and she would undoubtedly be wearing something disgusting and vile that would give him fodder for his dreams for weeks.

The day passed slowly, with Severus skipping lunch in order to finish grading papers, which is what he convinced himself, at any rate.

Classes for the afternoon ended, and Severus could not deny his hunger. Slowly he made his way to the Great Hall, enjoying a well-practiced “Ten points from Gryffindor,” from a second year running in the halls.

He sat down at his customary place, nodding to Hermione before concentrating on his plate.

“They were in rare form today,” she said, gesturing to the bustling noise of students busy stuffing their faces.

Her voice wrapped around him like some kind of ridiculous happiness spell, which instantly left him irritated.

“Who, Miss Granger?” He asked, busily slicing his meat a tad more violently than was necessary.

“Our lovely charges,” Hermione said, waving her hand to the mass of half-grown larvae-humans, “All a-twitter about the Yule Ball and such. I confiscated about a half-dozen notes containing either an invite or a detailed description of what the females will be wearing.”

Severus into his food and told her his own story of that morning’s fifth years.

“In my day,” she went on, “I didn’t particularly care if I had a date to these things or not, and I don’t remember all of us going into hysterics if we didn’t.” she said this last comment pointedly toward the Hufflepuff table, where a girl had just burst into tears. Hermione rolled her eyes.

Severus didn’t want to painfully explain to her how he had never had a date period, let alone to a school dance. He then caught a whiff of her silken hair, and his pants immediately tightened. A glance down proved fatal, seeing Hermione’s crossed legs tight against the thin material of her robes.

He stood up, explaining the need to turn in early in anticipation of the next night, and bid her a curt good evening.

Slamming his way into his quarters, Severus locked the door and headed straight to the shower, ripping off his clothes and turning the faucet to ‘scalding’.

His vicious erection was easy to get rid of, his mind moving to perverted images of forcing a naked Hermione to her knees and pushing himself into her mouth, followed by bending her voluptuous body over his desk and pounding himself out, hands on magnanimously soft breasts and hips.

He released himself into the steaming water, choking out her name, followed with what he tried, to no avail, to convince himself was not a sob.

Severus turned off the water and shakily dried himself off. Sliding on his dressing gown, he collapsed into an armchair by the fire in his study. He rubbed his face, telling himself that he had gone over twenty years without crying, and he wasn’t about to let little things like love and sexual frustration tarnish his reputation, not that anyone would see, of course.

With a sigh, he let himself think about the real reason he wanted to cry like a child. For as old as he was, (and he thought himself quite old) Severus had never had the intimate company of a woman. He had always thought of visiting a brothel, but those girls were unintelligent oafs, and the good ones he would inquire after were far too expensive for him.

He thought again, as he always did on dark nights, that Severus Snape would simply have to face the unpleasant, depressing, and roundly pathetic fact that he would probably die a virgin.