Melancholy Affection

Author's Note - Hope you enjoy this. Please bear with me, it's a work in progress! I don't have a beta, so any mistakes you see are mine entirely. This fic is for my gorgeous hubby and my mate Geoff, who thought up the title.

The war was over. Severus Snape had played his part, but he was not a boaster. All he wanted now was a quiet life. The Ministry of Magic had given him a large pay-off to make sure that he didn’t take any of the limelight away from Harry Potter - the boy who, in Snape’s opinion, was milking it just a tad too much. The boy had always been a bit too big for his boots, but the way that he had been since The Boy Who Lived became the Boy Who Triumphed. The Ministry had deemed it good for the morale of the Wizarding community that their “hero” be seen to have triumphed alone, rather than be told the truth, that he had been encircled by members of the order who had helped more than just a little bit.

But now Severus was tired. Tired of all the false smiles and insipid happiness that seemed to be the Wizarding world. He took the money that was offered and bought himself a small cottage in a Muggle hamlet in the remotest part of the Ireland he could find. The cottage was four rooms, two upstairs, two downstairs. He had chosen it because of its’ sea view and because it had a real fireplace. He hadn’t realised exactly how dependant Muggles were on electricity, or how few Muggle cottages there really were that hadn’t been modernised, but once he had his little hideaway, he was quite content. The cottage had no electricity, no gas and no telephone. Just the way that Severus liked it.

He hung his teaching robes in his wardrobe and spent his days reading from his vast library that he had brought from his rooms at Hogwarts and installed in his living room, or in the potions lab that he had constructed in his cellar. He stayed completely isolated from the Muggle community, only occasionally going into the village twenty miles away for food. He was happy in his solitude, and nothing pleased him more that spending time concocting the most difficult and complicated potions he could dream up.

But something was missing from his world. There were times, lying in his bed at night, that he yearned for something else. Part of him wanted something more than just academic and intellectual pursuits. Severus had always had an appetite like every other man, but he had never needed any more than a cold shower or, in extreme cases, his own hand.

Severus sat before the fire, a tumbler of fire whisky resting on the arm of his chair, his book abandoned on his lap. He was horny, extremely horny. He closed his book and laid it on the coffee table in front of him. He grasped the tumbler of liquor and knocked it back, grimacing as the strong spirit burned its way down to his belly. He set the tumbler down next to his book and stood up, stretching the ache from his muscles and smoothing his hair. It was greasy again, he really needed to get to work on finding some potion to deal with it, but he had been saying that since his last year at Hogwarts. He needed some company. Severus may dislike inane and meaningless chatter, but there were times when part of him felt empty without someone to share his love of potions or his knowledge of the magical world. At least at Hogwarts there had been the other teachers, or even the students if he had been desperate, but here he had just himself. He had considered finding himself some sort of familiar to keep him company, but the muggle side of him laughed at the thought of living alone, slowly sinking into eccentric senility with a cat or a bird for a best friend. Besides, a cat or a bird couldn’t help him with the urges he was feeling tonight. Severus sighed. Resolutely he headed for the shower, hoping that the cold water might do something to help him sleep.

Much later that night, Severus lay awake in bed. The sheets seemed to stick to him and his nightclothes smothered him. He threw back the covers and sat up. He stood, rubbing the scar on his arm where once the dark mark had been. Now an ugly burn mark tore across his flesh. He headed for the door to his basement lab, to mix up a sleeping draught.