A/N: A bit of a character study on a semi-OC that EHWIES, StoryGirl and I invented for the marauder era. ((Stop by the forum, The Reviews Lounge, Too, too see the - slightly hilarious - origins of Mildred LeProut in the "Big Bang: Marauders" thread.)) -- Also, the title is not capitalized for stylistic reasons.

Enjoy! RxR?

it would be so easy.

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It would be so easy to be with Severus Snape. Snivelly Snape and Mildew Mildred. It makes sense.

It works.

But Mildred can't, just like she can't change her horrid last name, (LeProut ,the foreign equivalent of a gassy bodily function) or her toad-like looks(pudgy face, straw-thin hair, pus-filled acne she just can't solve.)

Severus and Mildred; Mildred and Severus. They are both tagged with dreadfully outdated names; they're both causalities of an adolescent cruelness, picked on by almost everyone, even the much younger first years. And they both have them in common.

Them is the only way she can bear to refer to those horrid Gryffindor boys. In some ways she wants to be them – attractive, self-assured, and absolutely never alone. They pick on her for her ugliness, which she is sure spreads to her core, and she hates, hates, hates them. She daydreams of pushing them off the Divination tower or feeding them to the strange and horrific creatures . They point and laugh at her, calling her names. (Except for one. Remus never partakes in the teasing, but he is the one she hates the most; she hates his pitying looks, his weak attempts to shush his mates, and the glimmer of relief in his eyes when he realizes he's not her.)

Severus must undergo their torture, too, but it's more about their leader's jealously than anything else. Severus has an in with everything one of them wants but can't get: a pretty little red-head with such a diminutive understanding of what it's like to live the life of the physically unblessed.

Mildred knows it would be so easy to be with Severus; they could support each other, providing a shield to the constant myriad of verbal attacks. It's what people expect of her: to aim low and hit even lower. To marry a man not much better than her and to live forever in a squalor of mediocrity.

But it can't work, and not just because Severus, as degreed by an understood slytherin rule, must reject her. (She's a Hufflepuff, though she's neither kind nor loyal; Hufflepuff is the dumping ground for those like her who just don't belong.)

Both their blackened, hardened hearts lie with another; him to a pretty little red-head, her to one of them. And in this way she plays the part of ugly well; she could write the book on it. She knows how she is supposed to act – it's required of her to crush on the unattainably pretty. Sirius Black is all of that and more.

She knows it's flawed, stupid, and never going to happen, but there's something about his joking manner, aristocratic features, and casual elegance that she can't ignore. It is wrong; he is wrong, but it happens anyway. Her heart is as ugly as her appearance for playing such a cruel trick on her. She hates him, she loves him; she embraces every snicker and glare like a present on Christmas, just as an ugly, desperate girl should. She does all the right things someone of her insignificance should; she trips in his presence. She stutters her responses; she blushes like a cherry red tomato when the situation calls for it.

The rule of ugly says that she should end up with Severus one day, but then she's gone and broken that rule. It's absolutely silly to think that she could ever be truly happy and married to someone like Sirius or any member of them. Pretty little red-heads get what they want, not girls with lackluster black hair. She can't be content with it, though; she's done the stupid mistake of expecting better things for herself.

She can't ever end up with Severus Snape.

But it would be so easy.