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Severus Snape had never been a man prone to whimsy. His life was a tapestry of calculated risks, bitter regrets, and the unyielding pursuit of mastery over the arcane arts. The war had left him scarred- physically and emotionally, with the ghosts of loyalties betrayed and lives lost. He had survived, against all odds, thanks to a phial of antivenin he’d kept on his person at all times and the swift intervention of the most obnoxious pain in his arse- Harrie- now Harriet- Potter. At forty-five, he existed in a relentless cycle of consultancy for the Ministry of Magic- brewing potions for Aurors and Unspeakables- and the solitude of his Spinner’s End home.
It was in this sterile existence that Harriet Potter re-entered his world, not as the insolent child who had been the bane of his teaching career, but as a woman of breathtaking capability. The Girl-Who-Lived had become the Woman-Who-Conquered, and in her transformation, Snape found an unexpected obsession. She was twenty-five now, a senior Auror with a string of commendations that would make even Alastor Moody envious. But it wasn’t her career that captivated him; it was her precision, her intellect, her unapologetic command of every situation. Somehow, when he wasn’t looking Harriet Potter had become competent. Exceptionally so.
He first noticed the shift during a routine consultation in the Ministry’s Potions Laboratory, a cavernous room buried in the bowels of the building. The air was thick with the acrid scent of bubbling brews- wolfsbane simmering in one corner, Veritaserum distilling in another. Shelves lined the walls, groaning under the weight of jars filled with pickled mandrake roots, powdered bicorn horn, and iridescent phoenix tears. Snape stood at his workbench, his black robes stained with faint green residue from a recent experiment, his long fingers deftly crushing beetle eyes with a mortar and pestle.
The door swung open with a whoosh, admitting a gust of cooler air from the corridor. Kingsley Shacklebolt strode in first, his broad frame filling the threshold, clutching a vial of murky liquid that gleamed ominously under the torchlight. “Snape,” Kingsley rumbled, his voice authoritative as ever. “Potter’s team raided a poachers’ camp last night. They found this unknown potion- I was hoping you’d be willing to identify it.”
Snape set down his mortar and idly straightened a stack of his notes, prepared to offer a terse acknowledgment, prepared for Kingsley’s presence, prepared for whatever ludicrous excuse for a “potion” the Minister felt entitled to foist off on him.
He was not prepared for what came through the door behind him.
Because when Harriet Potter stepped into the lab, Severus’s world narrowed to a point of potent singularity.
The room was impeccably kept and organized beyond reproach, filled with humming with burners and softly simmering cauldrons- it was an environment he controlled down to the smallest vial and reagent. Nothing ever surprised him here.
But she-
Merlin, she...
She was not in Auror robes.
Not in Wizengamot formalwear.
Not in anything he had braced himself for.
She wore Muggle clothing, must have just gotten back from a jaunt into metropolitan London- and the sight arrested his lungs and redirected his blood flow in one fell swoop, causing near bodily catastrophes.
She wore a short, black skirt that ended far too high on her thighs for the safety of his equilibrium. A long, fitted jacket in deep green that shaped itself to her waist like it had been tailored by a sadist bent upon torturing the male species. Bare legs- pale, smooth, perfectly proportioned, the kind of legs that made rational thought falter and buckle.
She was no longer the scrawny, bruised waif of her Hogwarts days with those knobby knees peeking from under too-large robes, her hair a perpetual bird’s nest, and those atrocious glasses magnifying her wide-eyed innocence. In her place walked a vixen, her body a study in pinup perfection; her wide hips swaying with hypnotic grace, a tiny waist that begged to be spanned by hands like his, and generous breasts that strained against her clothing in a way that was utterly distracting.
She stepped fully into the light of the potions lab, and the glare from the crystal sconces caught on her skin. She seemed to glow, impossibly vivid against the monochrome sterility of the room.
Kingsley said something but Severus didn’t hear it.
Because she was walking....
Toward his workbench....
Her stride was confident, authoritative and seductive. Merlin, those legs- long, shapely, practically designed to wrap around a man as he discovered nirvana between her thighs. Snape’s hands twitched involuntarily at his sides, itching to trace the length of them, to savor the heat of that silky skin, but he clenched his fists, forcing the urge down.
His gaze betrayed him- sliding downward before he could control it.
Down the long line of her legs, the subtle shift of muscle beneath smooth skin. Down to the stiletto heels that looked equally as dangerous as they did enticing. Each click on stone was a pulse straight to his groin. His mouth filled with saliva. He wanted those heels wrapped around his ears while he licked every inch of their shiny surface.
Back up….up to the soft, devastating flare of her hips. The short skirt flared just enough at her wide hips, emphasizing the dramatic flare that narrowed impossibly to her small waist, cinched by a wide leather belt with a silver buckle that caught the light. Above it, she wore a fitted white blouse, the top buttons undone just enough to hint at the swell of her generous breasts, the fabric clinging to her curves. Draped over it all was the long, tailored jacket- forest green wool, falling to mid-thigh in a cascade of sharp lines, the lapels crisp and the shoulders structured to give her an air of effortless power. It was open at the front, allowing glimpses of the blouse beneath, and the sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing slender forearms adorned with a set of simple silver bracelets that jingled faintly. He was entirely bewitched by the movement of her hips, as they dipped and swayed with each step, marking time with his heartbeat.
He felt heat climb the back of his neck. He had no right to look. No right to want.
He looked anyway. Couldn’t have torn his eyes away even to ward off death.
Her hair- long, thick, dark- a little too wild for the rigid polish of her clothes, was pinned back but not tamed. He imagined it falling over naked shoulders, her rosy nipples peeking through as she rode him in his bed. Merlin, his trousers had grown uncomfortably tight.
His gaze reached her face last, and somehow that was what undid him.
Because she was focused, businesslike- Auror Potter on official duty. But behind that composure was a sweet layer of warmth. Something that made her beauty strike deeper than the perfect proportions of her body.
She was a woman grown. Powerful, stunning and utterly self-possessed.
And he- ex-Headmaster, war hero, master of discipline- felt a raw, visceral bolt of attraction that nearly had him prostrating himself at her feet, worshiping at the altar of her body.
Snape’s pulse quickened, a wild attraction surging through him that he quickly buried beneath layers of disdain. He didn’t want her to know, couldn’t let her see the way his gaze lingered, how his mind flashed to pinning her against the workbench, and claiming her as she screamed his name until she went hoarse. He schooled his features into his trademark sneer, turning back to the vial Kingsley proffered.
“What makes you think I have time to waste on Auror trifles, Minister Shacklebolt?” he drawled, his voice laced with venom to mask the heat coiling in his veins. But as Harriet approached, handing over a report with a confident tilt of her head, Snape’s hands itched anew- desperate to grip those hips, to pull her close and shatter his carefully crafted facade. He wouldn’t, of course. But the wanting… that was a new form of torture he had not yet encountered.
“Snape,” she greeted him softly, her voice smooth as glass.
If she heard the quiet catch in his breath, she didn’t show it.
Snape inclined his head with what he prayed was his usual cool indifference.
“Auror Potter,” he replied, and hated that the words came out lower and rougher, than he intended.
Kingsley began explaining the circumstances of the vial’s discovery. Something about verifying the contents of the vial and ascertaining its potency…Snape could not be bothered to interpret the words. Not while she was standing that close, her thigh a scant few feet from his fingertips and the faint scent of something warm and elegant rising from her- honey, citrus, something he could inhale for hours.
He forced his eyes to focus on the parchment she had placed on the table in front of him.
Focus.
But then she stepped up beside him to point out what he assumed was pertinent information. She leaned in slightly, one hand braced on the table and her jacket shifted open reveling a slight gap in the buttons of her blouse where more pale, glowing skin met his gaze. Her skirt rose an impossible half inch further up her lean thighs and brushed the empty air near his hand, close enough that he felt the ghost of its warmth seep into the back of his fingers.
For a heartbeat, Snape forgot where he was.
Forgot his reputation.
Forgot himself.
He was simply a man ensnared by a woman.
His hands curled against the bench’s edge, his knuckles turning white from the force of his grip. He wanted to fist his hand in that skirt, bunch it around her waist, bend her over the shiny surface of the worktop and watch the buttons on her blouse strain against her breasts as he drove into her. Wanted to feel the silk of her thighs rasp against his hips, the bite of her heels in his back. Wanted to grip her hair and force her to meet his eyes in the polished copper of a kettle while he fucked her senseless.
“Your methods of experimental reverse potion engineering are exactly what we need here. They are renowned for their elegance, Snape. Please? Will you help us?” Merlin, she begged so prettily, glancing up at him beneath those lashes with her infamous doe eyes.
Elegant.
She was calling his work elegant while standing there looking like that?
His gaze dropped to her mouth (red, wet, fuckable), then lower, to the pulse hammering at the base of her throat. If he leaned in, just a fraction, he could taste it. Could drag his teeth across that frantic beat and feel her shudder.
“A compliment, from you Potter? Shocking,” he managed.
Kingsley cleared his throat. “Snape?”
Harriet didn’t flinch. She held his stare, green eyes glittering behind lashes he wanted to feel flutter against his jaw while she came apart on his fingers. One crimson nail tapped the table (tap, tap), a rhythm that matched the throb in his cock. She knew. She had to have guessed how badly she was affecting him.
He wrenched his gaze away, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Leave it,” he snarled at Kingsley. “I’ll need time.”
Kingsley hesitated, then nodded and stepped back. The door opened, closed. He was alone.
Severus Snape did not lose control.
Except- apparently- when Harriet Potter walked into his laboratory in a short skirt and long jacket.
—----------------------------------
After that day, he seemed to run into her everywhere.
At the Auror training grounds in Devon, Harriet led a practice session, demonstrating advanced dueling techniques to a group of recruits. Severus had been invited as a consultant on potion saftey, but he found himself transfixed by her. She was fast, and through- dodging hexes with acrobatic grace, her wand a blur as she countered each one with almost preternatural intuition.
He watched as she paused to observe her students, her idle hands putting her hair up into a mess of a bun, exposing the elegant line of her neck and as she played absentmindedly with the silver locket draped there. She paced slowly through the mock duelers, picking up slack where recruits faltered- correcting a stance here, adjusting a grip there.
Severus pined silently from the sidelines. He admired her efficiency and her command of others. He could not help the visions of her using such strict control on him- pushing him to his knees in front of her, dragging him by the hair to her weeping center. Commanding his pace, his technique, even his attempts to gain his own pleasure.
Growling he turned away from the vision before him, occluding so hard his ears rang faintly.
—------------------
“Severus” she’d said, her voice husky with sleep- or lack thereof, it was ungodly early, or late depending- not even dawn- and she had sought him out in his lab once more. The teenage venom that used to pervade her tone when she spoke with him was long absent; now it was laced with respect, earned through shared survival.
“I need your expertise,” her tone was still authoritative despite the hour, as she handed him another vial without ceremony.
“It’s a modified Draught of Living Death. The victims aren’t fully comatose; they’re trapped in a waking nightmare. We need a counteragent, fast.”
Snape uncorked the vial, inhaling the faint, sickly sweet aroma. His mind raced through formulas and cross-referencing publications. “This is appallingly sloppy work. They’ve substituted boomslang skin with viper scales- making it highly unstable. The counter would require essence of hellebore to neutralize the hallucinogenic component, blended with a drop of unicorn tears for stabilization.”
Harriet nodded, pulling a notepad from her jacket pocket. “I thought as much. I brewed a prototype on site using what we had- hellebore and unicorn tears. It immobilized one victim, but the other effects lingered. Can you help refine it? I am swamped with managing the blowback.”
He paused, his dark eyes meeting hers. She had brewed under pressure? In the midst of a crisis? The competence of it sent a thrill through him, and lust began pooling in his gut. This was no reckless Gryffindor; this was a strategist, a master of her craft. He imagined those capable hands measuring ingredients with precision, her focus unbroken amid chaos. The image aroused him in a way that was both undeniable and intoxicating.
“I will see it done,” he replied, his voice steady despite the internal turmoil. “You may expect its arrival by this afternoon.”
She jotted it down, her quill moving with efficient strokes. “Perfect. I’ll have the team implement it as soon as it arrives. Thank you, Severus.” He watched her arse as she strode away, not even attempting to look away.
—-------------------
Harriet sought his expertise on case after case, her questions revealing a mind as sharp as any Master’s. “How would you detect a trace of Amortentia in a blood sample?” she’d ask, leaning over his workbench, her auror robes adding an air of gravitas to her already dignified countenance. Snape would respond, all the while fighting the urge to trace the line of her figure with his eyes, imagining the noises she would make as he helped her to shed the clothes that hid it away.
One particularly memorable afternoon came in the Ministry’s archives, amidst a labyrinth of dusty shelves and enchanted filing cabinets that overflowed with preserved knowledge. Snape was there researching ancient antidotes when he heard voices echoing from a nearby aisle. Peering through a gap in the books, he saw Harriet confronting an Unspeakable, a portly man named Hargrove with a penchant for bureaucratic obstruction.
“I need access to the file on the Curse of Eternal Echoes,” Harriet said, her tone even but firm. She stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes burning with intense fervor.
Hargrove puffed up. “That's classified, Auror Potter. Level Nine clearance only.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t raise her voice as she once would have. Instead, she changed it subtly- lowering the pitch, adding a layer of persuasion that bordered on and Imperius without the spell work. “Mr. Hargrove, I’m aware of the protocols. But this curse is linked to three recent attacks. Delaying could cost lives. If I escalate to the Minister, your department will bear the scrutiny. Surely we can find a compromise- supervised access, perhaps?”
Hargrove hesitated, his bluster deflating under her unyielding gaze. Snape watched, transfixed, as she wielded her confidence like a machete. Her competence in negotiation was masterful, a coupling of intellect and will. The way she stood her ground, sent heat surging through him. She would never allow his sharp tongue to penetrate her conviction. She would stand firm through everything he could throw at her. There were exceptionally few people that could weather Severus Snape. And even fewer he would tolerate during the attempt.
Within minutes, Hargrove relented, handing over the file. Harriet thanked him graciously, her poise unbroken. As she walked away, parchment in hand, Snape retreated deeper into the shadows, his breath ragged. This woman, who had once been nothing more than a burden, now embodied everything he admired: intelligence, control, power. His efforts to hold her at arm's length were wearing thin.
—-----------------------------
The Auror briefing room was another long, windowless room beneath the Ministry. Harriet stood at the head of the table in full Auror regalia, the high collar of her robes unfastened just enough to reveal the hollow of her throat. Her voice rolled through the room, low and smoky, every syllable clipped with authority as she traced the dealer’s supply lines with the tip of her wand. Names, dates, safe houses.
The others scribbled notes. Snape did not.
He sat three seats down on the left, hands folded in his lap, his spine straight and gaze ostensibly fixed on the map. In truth, he had not heard a word in the last five minutes. His eyes were locked on her hands.
Those hands.
They were deceptively dainty and fragile looking with thin graceful fingers, her nails lacquered the color of fresh arterial blood and the ends sharpened to a point. Each time she gestured, the crimson tips caught the light like tiny blood soaked knives. He could feel them already- the sweet pricks of pleasure, the sting as they dragged down the ridge of his spine, carving furrows through his skin while he drove into her. In his mind the briefing room dissolved- their robes vanished and the table became his bed lined in black satin sheets. She was beneath him, her thighs locked around his hips, her back bowed off the mattress.
He imagined the first rake- a sweet searing heat, sweeping from his shoulder blade to his waist- as he thrust deep and held, grinding against her until she moaned out a version of his name that only snakes could understand. The second would come faster, harder, her nails hooking into muscle when he pulled back and slammed home again. Blood would well in thin lines; he pictured licking it from her fingertips while she gasped out her pleasure in that smoke-rough voice that curled around his cock like a tongue.
Her real voice cut through the fantasy- “Snape, your assessment of the base compound?”
Every head swiveled. He didn't so much as flinch.
“It is a hallucinogenic derivative of the muggle drug lysergic acid more commonly referred to as ‘LSD’ or simply ‘acid’,” he said, the words sliding out smooth and cold, betraying nothing of the pulse hammering in his chest. “Cut with powdered dragon toad spikes. In high doses it is lethal.”
Harriet’s eyes met his. One crimson nail tapped the map once, twice. The sound echoed in his skull, attempting to pull his gaze back towards his current fixation.
“Good,” she said. “Have an antidote prepared by the end of the week.”
He inclined his head, the picture of obedience. Inside, the fantasy flared hotter- her on top now, riding him with merciless rolls of those wide hips, her crimson nails scoring his chest in time with every downward slide. He would grip that tiny waist, leave bruises shaped like his fingerprints, watch her breasts bounce above him until she threw her head back and screamed.
—--------------------------
It all came to a head at the Ministry’s annual Victory Ball, a lavish event held in the Atrium of Gringotts which had been transformed into a glittering ideal of decadence and prosperity. Snape attended reluctantly, dressed in severe black robes, nursing a glass of elf-made wine in a corner.
Harriet arrived fashionably late, and turning heads, as usual. Her dress was a masterpiece- a blue so deep it appeared to be black in the dim lighting, studded with crystals shaped into constellations. Diamonds glinted at her ears and around her neck. She moved through the crowd with grace, shaking hands with dignitaries, her laughter light and distinctly false.
He watched as she danced with Weasley, her movements fluid, then with Draco, discussing policy mid-twirl. When a lecherous foreign ambassador approached, his compliments veering into impropriety, Harriet dispatched him with a witty retort that left him red-faced and retreating. Competence in social warfare, too.
Snape’s grip tightened on his glass. The way she navigated the room, so beautiful and so untouchable, made him ache with want.
As the evening waned, she spotted him and approached. “Severus. Not mingling?”
“I find the company… lacking,” he drawled, but his eyes drank her in.
She smiled, tilting her head. “Ever the cynic. I have noticed though…. you’ve been watching me. A lot.”
The directness caught him off guard. “Merely appraising your social finesse, Potter.”
“Harriet,” she corrected, stepping closer. Her perfume- honeyed citrus with a hint of black tea- enveloped him. “And I think it’s admiration. Or maybe… something more?”
The air crackled. Arousal thrummed through him, her proximity amplifying it. But old habits died hard; he retreated with a sneer. “Delude yourself as you wish.”
She smiled, slow and knowing, the curve of her mouth a quiet challenge. “Have it your way, Severus.” A soft laugh, barely more than breath, then she turned. The constellations on her gown caught the light from the chandeliers and scattered starlight across the marble as she glided away, her hips swaying with the same lethal grace she’d used to fell the ambassador.
A tall man in olive green dress robes intercepted her before she’d even gone ten steps. He was broad-shouldered and golden-haired; the kind of effortless handsomeness that made lesser men scowl.
He bowed with a theatrical flourish and she laughed again, a genuine one this time, and placed her tiny hand in his. The orchestra struck up a waltz. They moved into the swirl of dancers like they’d rehearsed it.
Snape’s glass cracked in his grip. A hairline fracture, nothing more, but the wine bled crimson down his knuckles. Fool. He had pushed her away with the same reflex he’d used for decades. Now she spun beneath the stranger’s arm, his face lit up with victory, her head thrown back in delight. The man’s hand rested low on her waist, his thumb brushing the dip just above the swell of her hips. Exactly where Snape had imagined his own.
The fantasies came unbidden and vicious.
Those blood-red nails raking down the strangers back, not Snape’s, as the golden man pinned her to the wall. Her thighs locked around his hips while she gasped filth into his perfectly tousled blonde hair. The stranger’s mouth on the hollow of her throat, tasting the pulse Snape had imagined marking with his lips too many times to remember. Her body arching, breasts spilling from the constellation gown as the man peeled it down and took. Took what wasn’t his.
Intolerable.
He set the broken glass on a passing house-elf’s tray and cut through the crowd like a blade. Couples parted without enough time to complain about the intrusion. The stranger saw him coming- too late. Snape’s hand closed over Harriet’s wrist, his grip firm but not bruising and his hard obsidian eyes locked on the man’s perfect blue ones.
“Cutting in,” he said. Not a request.
The golden man opened his mouth, thought better, and melted away with a stiff bow.
Harriet’s eyes glittered up at him, amused and triumphant. “Possessive much, Severus?”
“Shut up,” he muttered, and pulled her back into the waltz.
The music had slowed and became something lush and minor-keyed. He settled one hand at the small of her back, the other cradling hers. The heat of her seeped through silk and crystal and sank deep under his skin. She fit against him perfectly- her breasts brushing his chest with every breath, her thigh sliding between his as they turned.
“Better,” she whispered, laying her head onto his chest. “This is much better than you watching me from the shadows.”
He didn’t answer with words. He spun her out, then reeled her back in so her spine arched, gown shimmering like a night sky. When she returned, her lips were a breath from his. The room blurred; nothing existed but the pressure of her body, the hitch in her breathing when his thumb traced the fragile skin of her dainty wrist.
“Harriet,” he said, her name rough in his throat.
She smiled, soft this time, and looked up at him with expectant eyes..
“Harriet,” he began again, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “Would you… consider dinner? With me?”
She blinked, a slow, knowing smile blooming on her petal pink lips. “I’d like that, Severus. Very much.”
In that moment, the past died and something new began.