Emotion, Exclusive

“I don’t get it!” shouted Harry.  “Either you’re pretending to be bloody oblivious or you really are that dense.”

Snape had his back to him; he appeared, against all the odds, to be doing something administrative with a filing cabinet.  “Don’t bawl, Potter.  Unless you wish to bring the entire school down on us?”

Harry considered throwing something at him.  The echidna spines within reach of his right hand were looking like a good, attention-grabbing option.

“Don’t,” said Snape without even turning around, “even think about it.”

Damn you to hell, thought Harry virulently.  He hoped the Legilimency picked that up, at least.

“Language, Potter.”

So much for that.  Harry tried another tack.  “Look, you know how bad I am at Potions, right?”

Snape spared him one glance.  “Indubitably.”

Harry took a deep breath.  “It’s your fault.”

“I’ll thank you, Potter, to keep the blame for your abysmal grades directed at yourself, instead of pitching them with the utmost inconsideration at others.  Not an admirable trait for one so heroic.”

“It’s just…I can’t concentrate,” Harry babbled on.  “You remember that one time during mid-years when I blew up Lavender’s cauldron?”

“Completely unforgettable, I assure you,” returned Snape.  “It took four first-year detention crews to get the stain out.”

“That…that was because you did that thing.  With the hair,” finished Harry lamely.

Snape finally turned around to face him in full.  “Potter, I refuse to be the subject of your ridiculous adolescent fixations.  Take your fawning elsewhere.”

The familiar wave of rage flared in Harry again.  “And that’s what I mean!” he shouted.  “I can’t stand how you can’t stand me! I wish you were dead!”

“Indeed,” said Snape unforgivingly.  “As does Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Longbottom, along with most of Gryffindor and probably half the school to boot.  If it were really your desire to single yourself out for my attention, I’d suggest a more exclusive emotion.”

“Exclusive?  I doubt anyone else in school feels the way I do!”  Harry stared at the flagstones with sinking realization.  “They’d have to be bloody insane.  Oh, god.”

“Angst does not become you, Potter,” Snape informed him tersely, rearranging his stationery.

“I could have had any girl in Gryffindor.  It just – it just had – ”

“The honour flattens me.” Snape collected his stuff, and whirled on Harry.  “And if you turn up one more time in my dungeons uninvited, I will send you for detention.”

“What?” snorted Harry.  “With you?”

“Attractive as that might sound to your depraved mind, I fear I would have to donate you to Professor McGonagall.  Perhaps your youthful charms might find themselves of more use in that arena.”  Snape scooped up a pile of materials, and swept towards the door.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a conference to attend.”

Harry flung himself desperately before the dungeon door.  “Look, Professor, I can – ”

He barely had a chance at an intake of breath before Snape grabbed him by the front of his robes and pinned him against the door.

A fuse blew in Harry’s brain.  While his neurons ran around screaming in complete darkness trying to find the emergency fuse-box, Snape leaned till their faces were a bare inch apart and whispered, in a voice that sent a disturbingly delicious chill up Harry’s spine, “Weren’t you paying attention, Potter?”

Then he opened the door with his elbow and dropped Harry.  Harry fell like a log.

“Get you gone, boy,” ordered Severus Snape, from what seemed like miles up.  Then he swept past Harry’s face and out of his newly-inverted sight.

Harry covered his face with his sleeve, groaned, and banged his head against the flagstones a couple of times, for good measure.