Dance With A Serpent

A Little Water

Snape wanted to fling his glass of fire-whisky into the fireplace. What must she think of him? Ari had teased him to no end about the young girl in his quarters, touching his precious books. But he'd made her shut up, hadn't he.

Snape smirked as he remembered the flair of hatred that had bloomed in Ari's blue eyes.

Poor Miss Granger. He shouldn't really have put her in Ari's line of fire... but....

The girl had saved his life; she had found the Second Breath Elixir in his rooms and fed it to him.

Was it her fault that he saw her in that stupid goddess's mirror? Was it her fault she saw him?

Severus let his head fall into his hand.

Stupid girls.

Freja, goddess of love...HA! What did she know? Lonely silly tart that she was. Nordic gods were useless, they were even mortals... if hadn't it been for those damn apples of longevity...

He shook his head, what was the use to blame a nearly extinct religion?

The problem was his old time enemy: Love.

Love. He had no wish to be dragged in to its clutches again. Last time it had abandoned him, married his most hated bully, yet made him risk his life for seventeen years and nearly resulted in his death. No. Love could stuff it for all Severus cared.

Not that he was in love now, but females, the mirror, plus a ball could very well drag him in a catastrophe that centred on that old wretched emotion.

Ari and her bottled up emotions and her stupid pride.

Miss Granger with her messed up emotion and her annoying innocence.

Minerva and her mirror-game and her insufferable Ball.

Yes, females were entangling his life again, and the result could only be a disaster.

Severus's eyes reflected the dancing flames.

He had an undesirable urge to look in to that mirror again. To see a girl wanting him. The images from his dreams of the little brunette danced in the fire.

How ridiculous he was, an old man looking at her, wanting such a precious rose.

Severus could picture Ari's response if she knew how right she had been about the head-girl. Even so, he couldn't shake those brown eyes out of his mind, the curving of her lips, the scent of her hair.

He tore himself out of his armchair and flung his glass into the fire.

It blazed, and the images that had danced in it disappeared.

He promised himself that this silliness would end tonight. He would never entertain thoughts like these ever again!

"His room was a compete mess? I don't believe it!" Ron said happily, with half a toast in his mouth. He shouldn't really have it. They were walking off to class and him being a prefect and all.... But Hermione let it pass this once.

"Yes, it is quite a surprise. He seems to enjoy order to the extreme," she said smiling.

"Positively fascistly if you ask me," Harry agreed.

"Truly," Ron agreed. "So what did the evil old zombie do when you were sorting his books?"

Hermione wasn't sure if she even wanted to talk about Miss Winter even if she would be allowed to. She instinctively didn't like her. Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that the woman was interfering on her turf for some reason. Odd really. Snape wasn't hers. She didn't want Snape. Yet she knew she didn't want the Ari woman to have him. The feeling that Snape was hers yet not wanting him would give her a headache. It had last night. She had barely slept, and just kept thinking of him seeing her and wondering why she felt that Ari were interfering with something she didn't want.