CHAPTER TWO:

Put A Feather In Your Cap.

Severus Snape's P.O.V

Severus Snape took two cold showers that brisk September morning. Two cold showers, two vials of suppressors, two more lonely dates with his fist, and just for good luck, though Snape was never a man to leave such significant things to the intangible baptized chance, two squirts of that completely awful Mandrake spray up the nose to numb the olfactory senses.

It was intended merely to be used in emergency environments, such as being stuck with a rutting Alpha or an Omega in heat you were not inclined to… Help, but, Severus thought darkly, his state of sanity was a close quarter crisis.

And it worked.

By seven twenty-four, he was back to himself.

Relatively speaking.

He still had a sort of simmering heat under the collar, one blooming his normally sallow skin pink, a hideous shade if he ever did see one, and his glands were tender in a way he had never felt before, burning and prickly to the touch, but, determinedly, he ignored all that.

Ignored it as he ignored what took place last night in the safety of his bed, and once in the shower, and another in the middle of getting dressed for the day.

It was not a difficult task.

It seemed, in the cold autumn air this morning, to be part… Hallucination. Feverish and frenzied as it had been.

He would have believed it to be nothing but a dream-

Nightmare, he mulishly reminded himself, if he had not awoken that morning infuriatingly fifteen minutes late, in the depraved mess that he had.

He was still picking out bloody feather's from his dark mane of hair after his second shower.

He must have passed out after-… After.

It was best not to think about it in too much detail.

Best not to think about it at all.

Yet, that was before, and this was now, and if anything Severus Snape was good at compartmentalizing his myriad of issues.

So he locked it up.

Locked it up tight, bolted the box, and thrust, perhaps that as the wrong tenure to use given the circumstances, shoved, better but still not great, the whole thing deep into the back of his mind where he hoped never to touch it again, in the dark where it could rot.

As he got dressed for his day, packed his satchel, slung it over his broad shoulder, and left the Slytherin dorms to meet Lucius in the common rooms, Severus didn't catch hide, hair or whiff of the sudden thorn underneath his foot.

His shoulders sagged.

Why?

He wasn't quite sure, but he told himself it was in relief.

It was the home stretch now, as his muggle father would say as he got sozzled in front of the telly watching the latest football match as his mother, with fresh fingerprint bruises around her neck, busied herself in the kitchen. Partly to get Tobias's lunch on the table before she earned herself another slap, and partly to be anywhere else but the room her mate was in.

He shoved those memories into the dark too.

Shoved them deep, deep down.

He needed to concentrate. His first Potions lesson of the term would begin in half hour, and once he was inside, he was safe.

The transfer students were in the year bellow them, or so Bulstrode told Parkinson on the common room chesterfield as he was passing.

Far away.

Their lessons wouldn't interject with his own, and, wonderfully, once schooling was in full swing everybody should be kept blissfully busy and far, far, far away.

Far away from his nose, and glands, and Mordred damned mind and-

It was the home stretch.

He just had to make it to Potions.

It was not the home stretch.

Slytherin had Monday morning Potions in the dungeons with Ravenclaw. The Dagworth-Granger girl was already present, waiting outside the door for Slughorn to open up for the lesson ahead, ten minutes early. Lucius cocked a curious brow at him, but kept mum as the two settled a few feet away, awaiting entry.

She shouldn't be there.

She was in the year below.

She shouldn't be there unless-

Unless the transfer students were given the option of taking advanced lessons.

And if that was the case, then perhaps-

No.

Surely not?

Certainly, fate did not hate him so?

Sure, Severus had done some… Dubious things, but never enough to earn this kind of Karma.

He must not have, because for the following ten minutes, ten minutes that felt like a lifetime, as if he were strung up over a cliff, seconds from dropping but the fall never coming, idly paying courtesy to the inane prattle that came emitting out Lucius's mouth, there was no sign of another transfer student.

Not one.

Just the Dagworth-Granger girl, who reeked of old parchment, ink, earl grey tea and an unforeseen pop of lemon, excruciatingly Alpha. The hallway filled with ready students, in silver and blue.

Severus could hear Slughorn in the classroom behind the stone wall, bustling about, setting the cauldrons ready.

He'd open the door, as he always did, in exactly one minute.

There.

Safe.

From the corner of his eye, though he swore he had not been watching intentionally, he saw the Dagworth-Granger girl's face darken into a fierce scowl, peering past him as she caught a glimpse of something down the hall, and fate took the finishing blow on the peel of her voice.

"Circe, Poppy! What happened to you?"

He should be grateful, really, for the unintentional heads up the Dagworth-Granger girl gave him. Just as a blur of white, black and green came sweeping past him, Severus managed an inhale and a swift, sharp hold.

No breathing.

It was fine.

Truly.

Who needed breath?

Or air?

Or, while he was at it, sanity?

The tiny haze came to a shuddering stop in front of the Ravenclaw. Severus should have waited further away. He should have gone to the back of the orderly file of students as soon as he saw the Ravenclaw waiting at the head. He should of-

But he didn't.

He didn't and, from only a few feet away, he could see her perfectly clear.

She looked… Tired. Her Slytherin robes dishevelled, hastily shirked on, her own school bag haphazardly thrown over her chest.

Worst of all, she was wet, he noticed. Glistening in the unfriendly morning sun of the Scottish Highlands, wrangling her dense shock of damp hair into a bun. He saw a bead of water lap down her pale, thin neck, plunging into her moist spotted collar, rolling down asininely leisurely, trailing, dipping-

Fresh from a shower.

A hot shower.

She was still blistered pink on the tip of her nose and arcing cheeks, the slope of her ears, a delightful red the same shade as fresh spring blooms and-

His fingertips tickled as they constricted around the strap of his satchel.

His own shower had been frigid. So cold it had almost burned.

Her's looked to be as if it nearly melted her skin off.

Involuntarily, his breath hitched.

The Mandrake spray was expired. So were his suppressor potions. They had to be.

They had to be.

He could smell her even through the cold bite of stone hallways, and the tangy sweat of the students around him, and the overpowering expensive cologne Lucius preferred, even through her little Alpha friend and-

Dear Merlin, he could scent her, and that wasn't the problem. The suppressors and spray were meant to soften smells, certainly, but their key perquisite was to numb reactions.

By the unexpected compression of his trousers, there was nothing subdued about Severus Snape below the waistline.

"I overslept. Don't push it."

And that was how Severus Snape was damned to the fiery pits of Tartarus.

Not with a smell.

Not with a spell.

Not even with a potion gone wrong.

He was damned with a voice.

There was a bitter bark to her, so out of place on an Omega. Omega's were typically delicate things, easy in every regard, low and gentle, voices like wind chimes.

This one, she, sounded dusky. Like soot and smoke and smoulder, soft, but in all the dark ways.

If Severus thought her scent was wicked, then her voice was straight from the sticky reveres of all his dirty little dreams, depraved and debauched.

The Dagworth girl did, in fact, push it.

"Overslept? You barely look like you've had an hours kip. Are you alright? You're looking a bit… Rosy."

She shook her head at the Ravenclaw. She shimmered in the light, glistened like starlight, and if Severus just moved three steps over, only three, and lifted his hand he could-

"I'm fine. I went for a jog this morning and then a shower."

"I thought you said you overslept and-"

"'Mione, drop it. Please."

The sound of his satchel strap tearing resonated out unbearably loud in the narrow hall as, obviously, it ripped itself clean off the bag in his hold and the whole thing went slipping out his grasp to tumble to the flagstone floor.

His books and parchment scrolls spewed out.

Snape swore under his breath as he stooped to collect his scattered belongings, his voice washed out by the few snickering Ravenclaws behind him, and the elegant huff of Lucius as he too bent to help collect his things hastily.

Poppy glanced behind her at the loud noise.

She met his eye as he crouched, wavering, ensnared, hooked over his belongings. Eye to eye. Black to green.

Her nostrils flared.

Her jaw set like cut glass, piercing and unforgiving. She-

She glared at him.

The potions classroom door opened, Slughorn rounded and jolly in the doorway.

"Hello and welcome! Come, come, we have much to get through today. In you get."

She bulldozed past the Professor to get into the classroom before Slughorn had finished speaking, leaving him there, stooped over the floor.

It was one lesson. It was going to be tolerable. Particularly because as, the last to enter after plucking up his strewn possessions, and giving himself a moments breather in the hall as Lucius filed in, promising to follow in a moment with the excuse of a headache, Snape chose the desk at the very left back of the echoey chamber, and she, in toe with her Ravenclaw friend, had chosen, perhaps, the most opposite desk to his own at the far front.

Even as the Ravenclaw grumbled about wanting the front and centre desk in the middle of the room, perfect for taking notes from the chalkboard, Gaunt had unforgivingly jostled her to another.

One lesson, and Gaunt was far across the elongated room, and-

And Slughorn dashed any hope Snape had with smile.

"Ah, wait a moment… you two must be our new transfer students, correct? I never miss a new face, you see."

Snape could see the Ravenclaw nod.

"Good! May I just say welcome to Hogwarts and I hope you have a fantastic year here with us. I've read both of your transcripts, and I must say they are promising indeed! Especially you Miss Gaunt. I look forward to seeing your talents in person. However-"

No.

No he wasn't.

He wouldn't.

Slughorn would.

"Given the dramatic… Variances, should we call them, in Durmstrang and Hogwarts curriculum, I believe pairing you two up with one of our own students might be beneficial, in the off chance either of you come up stuck. Now who would-"

Don't you dare you great, blubbing, myopic sycophant.

Don't you do it.

Don't-

Slughorn met his dark gaze through the crowd.

His face lit up.

Fuck.

"Ah, yes, of course! Severus Snape is our prized pupil in Potions. He would surely help you. How about…"

Give me the Ravenclaw.

Give me the bloody Ravenclaw you bastard.

Do it and-

"Miss Gaunt, given your own talents, why don't you move back and take a seat with Mister Snape? Perhaps you two can show each other new practices. Dolohov, move forward and sit with Miss Dagworth-Granger will you, my boy? Yes, yes, that will do nicely."

Dolohov, who was sedentary beside Snape, began to move, likely excited to get near the Dagworth girl he had been eyeing all morning, but that damned voice cut across.

It was a blessing.

It was a curse.

"I don't think that is necessary, sir. I assure you; I am well versed in potions. I had a very... Thorough teacher back home. I doubt I will need any further help and-"

"Don't be silly, girl. Think of it not as help, but a cultural exchange, yes? I'm sure you and our young Snape here have a lot to teach each other. Off you trot now dear, so we can get down to work."

She stalled near her desk, and even from this distance, Snape could see how rigid her shoulders were.

Stiff.

Inflexible.

Unfortunately for them both, not as inflexible as Slughorn seemed to be on this matter.

She only moved when Dagworth whispered something in her ear.

And then she was moving towards him, crossing Dolohov on his way to her vacated seat-

Looking anywhere but at him.

She took the stall, but only after obnoxiously dragging it across the stone floor, as far away from him as the desk would allow, pressed to its side.

Of course she did.

Of course she didn't want to sit next to him.

Look at him.

He scowled too much, and snarked too much, and his trousers were hemmed this year for the fifth time and still, even now, only reached his ankles because he never seemed to stop growing. He was lanky in all the wrong places, hard and unforgiving in any light.

Severus Snape knew, painfully, what he looked like.

Yet, he loathed her all the more for it.

This dreadful feeling of… inadequacy she bubbled up in his chest like bile.

Inadequacy he shouldn't be feeling because he doesn't want her to look at him and see more.

More than the awkward boy in the meagre clothing with a frown as his defining feature.

Her bag thumped at her feet, as she kept her gaze dead ahead.

Severus shuffled his own seat as far away as he could.

It didn't help a lick.

Despite being located in the dungeons, where the stone was dank and icy, the Potions classroom, when the cauldrons were lit, became a sweltering pot. It wasn't uncommon for students in the mists of brewing to whip off their outer robes and roll up their sleeves. For the first time, Severus joined them in losing an article or two of clothing.

He reasoned that it was the extra two cauldrons added to the classroom that tipped the scale from just bearably warm to boiling.

He almost bought the sound logic too, if the heat didn't bloody flare every time Gaunt decided to shuffle beside him.

Circe, she'd taken her robe off too. Unbuttoned the buttons to her oxford shirt and he watched, mute, as she tugged her necktie down, loosening the knot, exposing that pale throat-

Gaunt had not spoken to him.

Not one word.

Neither had she looked his way.

She had gotten her ingredients for the Potion listed on the chalkboard, and set to work as if he didn't even exist.

That stung.

The invisibility she blanketed him in.

He wasn't used to such... Neglect. Even if it was to only snicker at his nose, or shimmy away as he entered, people noticed him. When he was a child, crying as his parents argued downstairs, as he heard his father beat-

Well, he had prayed to be invisible then, when he was young enough to believe something as silly as praying would help. Back when he was naive enough to think anybody or anything would ever help him. It never worked. Tobias would stumble up the stairs, drunk again, and find Severus hiding beneath his bed.

Until he was thirteen and hit his designation, and the rather immense growth spurt with it, where, one night, hearing his mother cry, he had snapped and-

Not here, and not now.

Snape thought that was what he had wanted, for Gaunt to ignore him and he her, and everything to be peaceful, but it... chaffed. Irked him beyond reason that she wasn't looking, peering, seeing and-

Side by side, silent as could be, barely daring to breathe, the two set to work on their potions.

Gaunt may not have looked, but he sure fuckin' did.

Severus didn't mean to watch out the corner of his eye, but he found his attention drifting over, beyond his control, cautious and tepid.

Her hands were as small as she was. Deft and long fingered things. Pale, scarred too, he could see.

I must not tell lies.

And that burned. Raged in him, yet, another style of fire lit in his gut all together when he saw them move.

They flowed like water, he thought. Precise, calm, collected. Hands of a person who knew exactly what they were doing. Swift and sweeping as they chopped and diced and descaled the mermaid flesh.

It was sinful.

More sinful than it should have been watching just a pair of hands prep their ingredients.

His tongue felt fatty in his mouth. Swollen.

Useless.

As she minced the Hemlock, his own knife stuttered in its chop, chop, chopping, gearing down too fast, and he nearly sliced his bloody pinky clean off.

Severus thought he could feel those fingers then, gliding on the back of his neck, dancing down his spine, a blaze of fire burning its way down, lighting up his nervous system like a yard of yule tree lights.

Sinful.

Absolutely, utterly sinful.

"You're doing it wrong."

The knife stalled in her hand, half-pressed, and it took Snape far too long to realize he had spoken.

She didn't look up, or glance over, scowling down at her work, and her voice was as husky and thick as his had inadvertently been.

"I'm not doing it wrong. I'm doing it differently."

Severus glanced to the chalkboard.

Lopus Beatles.

It needed to be diced, not crushed, as she was doing.

"You're doing it differently and wrong."

The knife clinked as she slapped it down onto the desk, discarding it as she braced her hands on the table, squaring her shoulders, as if she was fighting down the urge to turn and strangle him.

strangle him with those delicate hands and-

Slowly, she turned.

Slowly, she met his eye.

The fire in his gut burst.

"Can you not bloody speak? I'm trying to concentrate and your voice is-"

Her jaw clamped off keenly, as if she was gnawing her own words between those pretty white teeth all lined in a row.

"Irritating me."

The fire morphed to anger.

He irritating her?

Her; with her scent and her fuckin' voice and those Circe damned eyes and her... Her... Everything?

"Irritating? If we are on the topic of irritants, perhaps you should learn to shower better. You reek."

They're like sand and grit, Severus thought. Abrasive, tearing against one another, grinding and-

He winced sharply.

That was not the right thought to be having.

Her face went that delightful red, and Severus was glad, so very, very glad, he was sitting down.

"Are you saying I'm dirty?"

...Wait.

That wasn't what he had meant.

She smelt of everything Snape could ever want, of all the things he wanted to wrap himself in and never leave, but what he wanted to do to that scent was decidedly dirty.

So very dirty.

Nevertheless, Gaunt didn't give him time to answer, no time to fix his misunderstanding, as she rounded on him, eyes lit and face flushed and chest heaving.

"At least I shower at all. When was the last time you bathed? A week ago? I could smell you from common room to classroom. Everywhere I turn, there your stench is. If we are to be at this table all bloody term, stuck together, do us both a favour and head to the third-floor prefects bathroom sometime soon."

The snarl rippled across his face, the muscles in his stomach clamping in... in... Something.

"You self-righteous little chit. I'll have you know I showered this morning when-"

Now it was his turn to chew his own voice, as his jaw clenched and he wavered.

When I spent all night wanking myself raw to the memory of your scent and the way your skirt skims your thighs when you walk.

Snape, thankfully, had some self respect to stop himself from spewing all that.

And then she reached for him.

Her hand darted out, and she had to pull up on her tip-toes to reach, and there was a flutter in the air as her hand came close, to the side of his head, and it felt like her scent hit him like a back-kick from a pissed off Griffin, straight to his chest-

Straight to his groin and-

Her wrist was close. Too close. All he had to do was turn his head and bite through the shirt and-

His hair ruffled, his neck strained, he began turning and-

Her hand snapped back.

Held out between them, as she dropped back down to her heels.

Feather pinched between fingers.

"Well you didn't do it well enough, did you? And Merlin dammit, roll your sleeves down. Where I'm from, showing off your… Your… Your wrists like that is indecent."

Severus only heard the rejection, the distaste, the apparent horror of having to see his, his, glands lining the soft skin of his wrist.

He couldn't think right, with her so close, with this anger and heat swirling in the bottom of his gut, to cognizantly realize for there to be horror, of any kind, she must have been looking.

"Then how about you button your collar? I do not know how Durmstrang operates, but Hogwarts isn't an Omega brothel for you to go around flashing your glands to anyone who-"

"So I'm a whore and dirty now? You great big, over-sized oaf with a-"

"You vain tiny terror of-"

A hand slapping down on their desk broke through the steam.

"I said stop this instant!"

The two teens jumped, stumped.

Slughorn was before them, wide-eyed, staring.

The classroom was-

It was empty.

Severus glanced back as he heard the sound of shuffling.

He took a long stride back, as did Gaunt, when the two faced each other again and noticed, in their heated argument, how close the two had pulled together.

Severus didn't remember standing up at all.

As if a bucket of ice water from the Black Lake had been dumped on them, the two jerked away.

Slughorn shook his head disparagingly at the pair.

"This behaviour will simply not do. Not at all. Severus, my boy, I expected better from you."

There's a slice of disappointment wedged in Slughorn's voice.

The professor peered down to their empty cauldrons.

"If either one of you had been listening, you would know it is the end of lesson, and both of you have failed to produce even the beginnings of the potion I requested. Most dreadful, indeed. Detention, tonight, eight o'clock. You can finish them then."

Gaunt heckled visibly, as did he, tormented by the idea of another hour in her presence, this time in a vacant classroom and Slughorn who, possibly, would retire back to his personal chambers to mark essays as he got the students to clean the storage cupboard.

"I have a meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore at eight and-"

"I have an appointment with Professor Flitwick about my last year dissertation on-"

Slughorn clapped.

Loudly.

"You both will rearrange your schedules. Not only have you spent the majority of this lesson not working together, as I clearly requested, you spent the last half bickering. Detention."

Snape was the first to break.

"Yes, Professor."

Gaunt followed suit, but she sounded as if the Professor had forced her to swallow broken glass.

"Yes, professor."

Slughorn nodded.

"Good. Now go. Both of you. Everybody else left twenty minutes ago, though I tried to tell you, you both seemed to be too engrossed in arguing."

Gaunt fled the scene almost as fast as he did.

Almost.

Perhaps if he had waited but a moment, one step too late, fought the urge to flee just a little harder, Severus might have saw Gaunt linger at her desk, hand darting out to snatch at the feather she had plucked from his hair and dropped to the table, as she hastily, and maybe, with the flush to her cheeks, shamefully, shoved her prize deep into her robe pocket before yanking up her bag from the floor and storming away down the hall.

Yet, he didn't, and he saw nothing.

A.N: I know some readers do not like quick updates, especially posting on Fridays with the low foot traffic, but I couldn't help myself. I had this all written out, and I hate sitting on chapters, so here you go! I hope you all liked it, and thank you all for the lovely reviews. I read every single one and they all made me smile like a looney, lol. I'm glad there's someone out there who enjoys whatever hell this is I keep cooking up.

As always, if you have a spare moment, don't forget to review. It feeds the muses, and keeps the updates coming fresh and hot from the bakery.