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his movements were quick and efficient as he patrolled the classroom. his posture was stiff and he only stopped to offer a sneer or a comment, 'mr. longbottom. how many times have you failed to follow instructions?' the scent of fear was in the air. it came off the children in waves.

when he stopped by miss granger she did not glance up. her potion was perfect and the surface of it shimmered a light blue. he looked down his nose but did not say anything. when she looked up he hesitated the tiniest bit before moving on to the next student. 'potter. i fail to see that you have learned anything in this class,' his mouth curved into a smirk that he did not feel in his heart.

the granger girl. he had seen something in her eyes. a certain slyness. her face had been expressionless but her eyes had been secret and smug. it was disquieting. the girl was only in her second year. only-

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he had been surreptitiously observing miss granger these past few weeks. he had watched and was disturbed. when she spoke to him her voice was eager but underneath the eagerness was something like distilled poison. it festered. when he watched her from his seat at the head table with the other teachers he would find that when he looked at her she would be observing him, her mouth lax and pliant. the slyness was underneath her skin, it was like blood. it glanced up at him through her muddy brown eyes and through the curve of her mouth. sometimes he thought she was smirking at him.

he considered going to dumbledore for advice. he sneered at her in the classroom but in his rooms he worried. dumbledore could not help him. dumbledore already thought him too paranoid and brushed off his concerns wherever the golden trio was involved. any protest against potter and his friends was quieted down. it galled him.

something had gotten inside miss granger. it had slipped into her and inhabited her. he could feel it sly and secret in her eyes, in her very scent. he had heard of such possessions in his circle. of others summoning spirits and being inhabited themselves. damn the girl and her curiosity. he thought of the muscles in her legs flexing as she ran, he thought of her wild hair. he had to do something. he had-

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he knelt and inhaled the clean scent of her hair, his eyes closed and the harsh lines of his face relaxed fractionally, before taking out the knife. it was warm and slick in his hand, it felt alive. her hair was coarse and earthy beneath his free hand, it grew wild and unhindered. the knife easily shore a lock. when he looked upon her face her mouth was still a moist o of surprise and only the undersides of her irises were visible. the slyness had slipped, slithered, underneath the surface. it waited patiently. he could feel it twisting inside of her-

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when he returned to his potion it was a dark green and roiled and hissed. the heat emanating from it was humid and reminded him of the touch of her sticky fingers. he touched the lock of hair to his nose and inhaled, again, the scent of her hair. carefully, he added it to the potion and stirred it exactly thirty-seven times. exactly. his hands never wavered, just as they never wavered when he pressed his lips against the warmth of her skin and wondered how such evil could reside in an overconfident know-it-all. as he mixed the color of the potion changed to a deep red. it reminded him of the blood slipping down her thighs after he had found himself kneeling next to her, bloody knife in hand. his memory prior to that was a mist that threatened to suck him in, it hissed at him.

when he bottled the potion his hands were steady. he savored the bitter scent and it left an imprint on his tongue, like crushed herbs. the potion bottle was warm in his hand and he thought of the heat of her skin, soft. his resolve was strong. he would help her. even if she was an annoying know-it-all. she-

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her fingers twitched and there was a slippery line of drool from the corner of her mouth to her ear. a word, 'enervate,' and she was blinking up at him with those muddy eyes. first confusion and then fear, the slyness swam up into view and he could see it in her expression. it was inside her, smirking at him.

her soft mouth mouthed his name first and her voice was rough with innocent confusion when she said his name, 'professor snape?' she sat up and he could smell her fear. it was a sour rank smell that made him start. the sly thing inside of her was trying to trick him; it would have her look at him with tears in her eyes and have him let her go. let it grow in her until it was too late. a seed had been planted and he must raze the ground it grew in until there was nothing left of its curving roots.

he said nothing except for, 'drink this. you have been very ill.' he held the open bottle to her lips and her nose wrinkled when the bitter smell drifted up.

her mouth opened, 'no.' her eyes were dry and shiny but her mouth quivered. it quivered and trembled like a separate thing. the sly thing mocked him, it used her voice. when he pointed his wand at her and threatened her she cowered and her hands rose, protecting her face. he pressed its cold tip against her head; it disappeared into the mass of hair. she wept and her eyes were wide with fear. he had no use for crying girls and he told her so. 'miss granger. you will need to drink this. i will take no excuses.'

her hands tugged on his robes strongly and he felt a quiver of desire. it teased at him and made him tremble. his posture grew stiff. he was above such things. her hands tugged at his robes again and he used imperio. her eyes grew blank and the slyness slipped out of them. she drank the potion and lay down, her legs spread wide. her arms were crossed over her chest and her breath was steady and even.

he sat next to her and felt her forehead. it was heated and he knew that the potion was slowly destroying the thing in her mind. when he pressed his thin lips to her neck her breathing did not change. her eyes were closed and her eyelashes were soft and silent on her cheek. she was twelve. only twelve. his robes felt too tight and he was hard. he tried thinking of harry potter and his hatred of the boy but the erection did not ease. it stayed, it felt rooted in his belly and-

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she was hunched in a corner, her small body rocking. her arms were wrapped around herself. so tightly. he blinked once, hard, and he saw the wide blank eyes. he crossed the room and reached for her, for comfort or to shake her like a rag doll, he did not know. she flinched away from him, saying the same words over and over again, like a talisman. 'avada kedavra, avada kedavra, avada kedavra.' her voice had no inflection and he was chilled. what had caused this?

he had given her a potion and then had waited. patiently. which was strange for a man so impatient. he had felt her forehead burn as the effects of the potion took place and had watched her breathe. the slyness had been destroyed by the potion. he had seen to it.

he sneered at her, the expression ugly. his alarm did not show. 'miss granger, what is the meaning of this?' she only shook and her lips moved, as if in prayer. she did not look up at him. when he took her arm she hissed at him, like a cat. she seemed to swell in size, her body puffed up in fear. her eyes were empty; he could see himself reflected there. his reflection in her eyes shook and wavered. he reached for her again and-

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when the aurors came for him he protested in a quiet, deadly voice that he had done nothing wrong. he explained the sly thing hidden inside the girl and how he had cast it out of her with a potion. dumbledore looked old and somehow shrunken. the sneer withered on snape's face when he saw him. he had felt like a boy again, confessing his sins. except he had no sins to confess this time, save for using subterfuge in dealing with the slyness that had lurked beneath the surface within miss granger. he had not been untoward. he had maintained his distance except for checking her forehead to make sure the fever did not get too high.

one auror spat at him, 'i wish i could show you pictures.'

his pallor, normally pale, was that of a dead man when he was in the court, but his hands were steady. they did not shake. they remembered stirring the potion exactly thirty-seven times.

a pair of blood splattered underwear was presented. the blood looked like dried chocolate milk. when he saw them his face went blank. he barked out, 'i did not do this.' they did not relent. picture transcripts were shown. even when he saw her small white thighs encrusted in blood and semen he did flinch. he had not done this. he had only taken care of the thing. he saw her waking up and in the picture transcripts he had been standing pale and composed with blood on his hands, a sneer on his face. his robes had been buttoned up in the transcripts, every last button done. but the blood.

when the jury looked upon him he saw no humanity in their expression. he told them, 'i did not do this,' in his very best classroom voice. unlike the children they did not cower. they only looked upon him with contempt.

they did not offer him the remains of his wand when it was snapped. the snap of the wood was like the snap of bone. he heard it over and over again in his dreams. he-

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hermione granger had been obliviated. the ministry had been insistent. they had wanted to sweep the whole sorry business underneath the rug. they did not inform her of their decision.

she could be seen afterwards laughing with harry and ron. her face shone and her legs looked very white beneath her school skirt.