Plan B

Chapter 8

Severus finally found a job. Took us (yes, us) long enough, and it wasn’t a dream job by any stretch of the imagination, but he confessed his funds were running disastrously low and it was a much needed job. Therefore we celebrated. Ok, cheap wine in paper cups in my dorm room was not a massive blow-out celebration, but our enthusiasm more than made up for it.


It took two months to find him employment as a math and science tutor at a private learning center for children who needed extra attention. Neither one of us said it, but we were both worried about how long he’d last at the job. It was the sort of thing that required patience and a willing to break ideas down into easily digestible bits and pieces for well… children he’d just as easily call dunderheads. Oh, and berating, threatening, and punishing were generally frowned upon by the establishment. But it was one-on-one learning and in groups no larger than five kids. Hopefully that would give him the ability to keep his temper in check. I thought it was also possible he might bond a bit with the kids and the experience would be mutually beneficial… if he kept his wand at home.


I was also worried that I’d stop seeing him at nights, in our place.


Yes damn it, our place. Our table. Our routine. I’d get there first, and order the first round of coffee, he’d come in and by 10pm he’d buy the next round of coffee. Somewhere around 1 or 2, depending on how interesting our conversations were we’d part. But it was usually around 2, because our conversations were always interesting. But now he’d have 6 am wakeups, and a real job, and responsibilities, and where did that leave me?


Gods, it almost felt like I’d broken up with a boyfriend. Wait, that’s not right.


We’d just flirted, Severus was too painfully shy, though he’d call it chivalrous, to take anything I said seriously. And I was, well, too damn chickenshit to act blatantly whoreish to get the man I wanted. Bold I could do, whorish, uh, not so much. Besides, I wanted a real relationship with the man, not a fuck. Throwing myself at him for a little slap and tickle was not the answer.


Even though the sexual tension in the air between us was suffocating.


Severus Snape could heat up my engine with a well-pointed stare. No, not a glare, he never did that to me anymore. I wasn’t some sweaty palmed potions student; that much I knew to be certain. He didn’t undress me with his eyes either, which would have been creepy and a bit lecherous, but damn if there wasn’t a spark of desire that coursed through us that just made me want to melt into him. Or rather rub myself against him like a pussy cat.


Again, I could hear Ron’s voice in the back of my head almost mocking me. ‘Mental’ he’d called me. Perhaps there was something to that.


Best not to dwell.


When he didn’t show up Monday I ordered a double espresso for myself and raised his drink in a mock salute to him.


When he was absent again on Tuesday I did not order another double espresso in his honor. Besides, the stuff is nasty. It only reinforces the stereotype that coffee’s just burned bean juice; which it is.


Wednesday night when he stood me up again; I left early.


I didn’t return either. I didn’t want to see his empty place mocking me. It felt like I’d poured myself into our fucked up and deflicted relationship and once he’d gotten what he wanted from it, he’d fled. Well, at least I hadn’t slept with him.


Where did that come from?


No, best not to dwell. He was obviously done. And so was I. I’d been used. So very well used, and Gods did it hurt.


But it unfortunately meant that I couldn’t go back to Sacred Grounds. I shuddered to think of running into him there again. What if I saw him at our booth, sipping our coffee, slowly punching his keyboard. What if he wasn’t alone?


What if I’d been replaced?


I couldn’t survive that.


I finished my term, and then the year locked away in my dorm room, brewing coffee in my percolator. It was much cheaper, and damn if it didn’t taste like it. Regardless of the quality of the grounds it always tasted like dry bitter ash in my mouth.


I spent more time during the summer bouncing between my parent’s home and the Burrow. Really I was just trying to stay busy. Filling my days with mindless activity with one singular goal in mind, the same goal as I had the day I realized that Severus was gone - to keep my mind off him. At the rate I was going I could have graduated early even from the accelerated studies program.


The boys were happy to have me at least, and affectionately welcomed me back into the fold. Ron welcomed me a bit more than strictly necessary, and well, even though Severus had never laid a finger on me, the wizard had spoiled me for every man who came after him. That, and Ron wanted to treat me like an animal at a heavy petting zoo. I guess that kind of behavior was fine for our school days, but I wanted something more. Something substantial. Someone else.


Someone with a brooding temper, an absolute menacing wit, and the kind of smooth sex appeal that crippled me and left me in a puddle of warm dripping desire. And he hadn’t touched me. Not even a single fucking kiss. What the hell was wrong with me that not even Snape wanted me?


What the hell was wrong with me in that I still wanted him?


Despite everything.


I must be mental.