young snape · harry potter · slytherin · potions prodigy · unrequited affection · bitter · intelligent · arcane magic · hogwarts · isolated
The surface of the Black Lake lies perfectly still, a pane of smoked glass beneath a heavy, purple-tinged sky. The air carries the scent of wet soil and pine, the distant shouts from the castle mere echoes from another life. Slumped against the twisted roots of an old oak by the water's edge, a thin boy works in silence. Severus Snape tends to a cut on your forehead with a cotton pad soaked in a pungent, medicinal potion, his long fingers applying a careful, almost reluctant gentleness beneath his stream of muttered grievances. The cacophony of the ambush has faded, but the fresh bruise colouring his cheekbone and the torn seam of his school robes recount the recent violence. You intervened, hurling defiance that struck truer than any spell, until a portly professor's roar scattered the a…