All's Fair in Love and War

The Woes and Revelations of Severus

Severus was furious. Not only did he have no knowledge that he would be receiving an assistant, but of all the wizards and witches in the world, the very last person he would have wanted or expected was Hermione bloody Granger. She had never shown the slightest bit of interest in that subject while he was teaching and, indeed, failed to pursue a career in the area after graduation.

He attended a class of first-years, still seething, and immediately deducted fifty points from a Hufflepuff girl who fainted upon his arrival. By the end of the lesson, three other students had fainted and fully half the class was in tears (curiously, it wasn’t the Slytherin half). He decided, however, not to confront Albus about Hermione. He didn’t want to give the old, presumptuous bastard the satisfaction of having gotten to him. Truthfully, an assistant could prove useful to him, though his pride would never let him admit it to anyone else – being the only Potions master in the school was rather time-consuming. He loathed the idea of being undermined by a much younger and less-experienced witch. Especially if that witch was Hermione Granger.

Severus growled inwardly as he reclined before his fireplace at the end of his first official day of term, a bottle of Firewhiskey resting upon his knee. He didn’t know whether Hermione was still interested in him. He certainly hoped not, though he highly doubted that she’d still want him after over two years. He stared into the flames, transfixed, his pallid complexion highlighted orange by the glowing tinder. Hermione was a less stressful thing by far than the other situations on his mind at the moment.

Another year at Hogwarts, he mused silently, flecks of fire darting around inside the bottled amber liquid like so many living fairies. Not that he’d ever enjoyed teaching an entire school’s worth of incompetent, supremely untalented fools. But this year, a dramatic turn of events had fallen into place to ensure that Severus’ school year would be entire more pleasurable than any he had previously experienced.

The Dark Lord was dead. Voldemort had been defeated.

Late in the summer, the death of Lord Voldemort had marked the conclusion of the greatest war in magical history. The war had raged on in the open for little more than a year, and several very talented witches and wizards had been lost to the cause. The enlistment by Voldemort of dozens of Death Eaters striking to kill and hoards of magical creatures had assured the Dark wizard’s victory from the start, or so it seemed. The outcome had begun to look bleak for the Order and its supporters when Harry had unexpectedly slain Voldemort. No one knew exactly what had occurred – Harry had been most reluctant to divulge information – but rumor told of the use of the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

Severus leaned back in his chair briskly, nursing his now half-empty bottle. Isn’t that what life was, half-empty? He had been a double agent, a spy for both Voldemort and Dumbledore simultaneously. In the final hour Severus had revealed his loyalty to Albus and the Order, leaving many Death Eater’s rubbed the wrong way and out for his traitorous blood. Although there were many of them still running rampant, freed through a combination of lies, pleas and the exchange of gold, the death of Lord Voldemort had nevertheless dealt the Death Eaters a fatal blow, lessening the threat to the wizarding world dramatically.

Severus had never fathomed a world without Voldemort, a world without pain and the freedom to do with his life as he deemed fit, to make his own choices without the weight of the magical world resting upon his shoulders and the strength of his Occlumency. The sensation was all so new to him that he didn’t know quite what to do with himself. He performed the same routines, the same tasks day to day as he had done while in servitude. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything different.

Lately, however, he had begun to think of the future, and what it could hold for him it he so wished it… how the remainder of his years could be best spent (thirty-eight, after all, was hardly the end of his life, though he had accepted long ago that it may be cut drastically short). Severus was a selfish man, though ironically he could never imagine himself becoming anything more than a servant for the greater good.

He grunted non-commitally, taking a long, deep swig of Firewhiskey, and the alcohol burned away his doubts for the time being. The bloodline of his mother was one of the oldest known. If he didn’t produce an heir, that bloodline would die with him. Severus Snape needed to produce an heir.

But what witch could possibly want a man with his background, and rightfully so? He was not to be trusted, after all…

His thoughts gradually shifted back to Hermione and his encounter with her the previous night. A wry smile tugged at his mouth. He had seen something in her eyes then… fear, maybe? Could it have been lust? Whatever it was, it had been refreshing to Severus. He hadn’t seen true emotion in a woman’s eyes for a long time.

Severus twitched, an outward sign of his reluctance to allow his thoughts to stray in direction to which they were headed. She was his student, for God’s sake, not some whore on a street corner, and certainly not a woman he desired.

She’s not a student anymore, nagged the part of his brain that had to argue, always had to argue. She’s a colleague now. An assistant. Your assistant. And Albus never specified what exactly she was supposed to be helping with.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered aloud, massaging his temples. He rose to his feet with a momentary swagger and made his way into his sleeping quarters, picking up that morning’s issue of the Daily Prophet from his desk. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. The Potions master skimmed through the classified articles before jotting down a few notes on a piece of parchment, wrapping it with a string of green and silver ribbon. Slytherin colors.

Severus tossed the rolled-up piece of parchment on his desk and disrobed, hanging the clothing neatly in his closet before climbing into bed. He lay there, silent, motionless, his hands folded beneath his head as thoughts flooded through the broken dam and into his mind. At first, he wasn’t sure what he wanted in a surrogate mother, but as the minutes rolled by and he thought about what he would teach his own children, Severus realized that there was one trait that appealed to him above all others: intelligence.

Unfortunately, there weren’t nearly as many intelligent witches as ones who would just as easily spread their legs.

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HALP. I’m losing inspiration. I’ve only received three comments so far and I don’t even know if people like this enough to continue reading it, let alone for me to continue writing it. I don’t know, should I? Also, sorry for the short chapter - it was sort of a bridge between the previous one and the next.