Beyond Pathetic

Severus Snape knew it was far beyond pathetic. He knew it was remarkably more than creepy. He even knew that he was too far gone to care.

Poor Severus Snape was in love. Poor, poor Snape.

He awarded himself the sickening diminutive adjective (sarcastically, of course) one cold night after supper, because not only was he in love, he was in love with the genius beauty of Hermione Granger, once student and war hero, and now fellow professor, widely recognized and respected, heart of gold, and so on and so forth.

He had watched her grow up with a detached sort of amusement. He knew all along she was blindingly intelligent, destined for great things, not in the least of which would obviously have to do with her choice of friends.

Snape was no pedophile, nor did he even notice Hermione for anything other than her intellect until after the defeat of Voldemort. She walked into an Order meeting, dressed, not as a student or child, or even as a Muggle, but as an adult witch. Faced with this, and the first-ever sight of her gorgeous figure, a small seed of…unpleasantness…was planted in Professor Snape’s mind.

When Headmistress McGonagall announced briefly to those present that not only would Snape be returning to Hogwarts as Defense professor, but that Miss Hermione would be taking over the Transfiguration post as well as the headship of Gryffindor House, that little seed took root in Severus’ thalamus and would not be uprooted.

And so it was that Severus began the slow decent into the madness of love.

He saw her every day. Every meal. Usually in the corridors. Staff meetings. Hogsmeade. She frequented every place Severus had, until that point, taken a small ounce of pleasure in visiting. Every time he saw her she was wearing something hideously attractive, and seemed to be more ravishing than the last time.

Torment, he thought miserably one bright morning, watching his goddess eat an incredibly lucky bowl of porridge for breakfast. If I could bottle this, I’d go down as the most talented and depraved Potions Master of all time.

Not that I won’t anyway.

Here his problem (or the reason his problem could not be solved) began. He looked at Hermione and saw life, potential, youth, beauty. When he looked into his mirror, he saw an old, scarred greaseball Death Eater.

The men he watched Hermione date over the years were fabulously opposite of Severus. There was Ronald Weasley, of course, followed by a few others from that particular batch of dunderheads. That Krum character came and went, as well as other dashing young celebrities, all eager to sweep the lively Granger off her feet for the cameras.
It was enough to drive a man insane.

What really began his fall, however, was that Hermione began speaking to him. And he enjoyed it on an intellectual level. She was stimulating his mind, something that had honestly never been done before. True intelligence was rare, but finding someone who shared his dry wit and could discuss theories about the varied uses of poppy stems in the making of potions was a shocking find.

It started in a staff meeting, when the Headmistress had been droning on and on and on and on for centuries about the safety hazards of so many idiot children together with new hormones to cope with. Hermione had leaned close to his ear and whispered something massively amusing about the morons and their probable inability to figure out how to procreate on their own.

Severus had had to pretend to choke on his tea, the laughter had consumed him so. He also felt her breath on his face, which stayed with him far longer than her comment.

Following the staff meeting, he had approached Hermione in the halls, set to demand an apology and ridicule her for her childishness and ability to give him a raging erection with only her breath.

She cut him off before he could begin on his senseless tirade, apologizing for the distraction.
“I’m truly sorry, Severus. I simply couldn’t help myself, but it was inappropriate and uncalled for during a professional meeting.”

His mouth went dry. She was horrifyingly mature.

And he could see her cleavage when she had her arms crossed like that.

Well, what could he do but concede?

“Yes, Miss Granger. It was highly inappropriate, however…disgustingly true…it may be…” he said, smirking a bit.

They spent a few moments abusing their students, absently walking down to his dungeon quarters, where the first of their conversations ended over a bottle of wine and the promise of a friendship.

But friendship was worse.

That night, after Hermione retired to her own quarters, he first fantasized about her. It took all of his willpower to think about stopping, and when he did, his mental Hermione took off her top, crushing all resistance as he slid himself out of his pants. He didn’t last long at all, and his escape of deliciously fornicating Miss Granger to bits was shattered with a stain on his shirt and a large bout of depression.
He cleaned himself off and returned to bed, sighing with what he refused to admit was starting to look like what he had always sneered at: love, the unrequitable kind.