Consummation

He dreamt of consuming her. He would take small bites and savour the taste of her as he chewed and swallowed. Bite by small bite he devoured her until there was nothing left. There was no bushy hair, no buckteeth, no quick eyes and no quick brain.

He found himself watching her. He noted how she would cut the crispy rind from her bacon and save it for last. He noticed how it took her two hitches to get her school bag settled on her shoulder. He observed how she would laugh at Potter and the Weasley boy or rolled her eyes at them when they were being particularly dense.

He liked the eye roll. He saw it often. The whites of her eyes would show as the pupils rolled under her eyelids. He watched as she bit her bottom lip when she was worried. He watched it swell and it shielded away from thoughts about other possible ways of bruising her mouth.

He started to look forward to teaching the Slytherin and Gryffindor class. He would choose her to answer his questions so he could hear her voice. He would award her points so he could see her teeth through her restrained smile. He created reasons to give her detentions which he would supervise himself so he could spend more time with her.

All too soon this was not enough. He started following her from class to class. He spent his evenings standing in an alcove outside Gryffindor Tower waiting for her to appear. His life was consumed with her.

Two weeks after dreaming of her nightly, the headmaster summoned him to his office. "Severus, do you have anything you wish to tell me?" The headmaster asked.

He looked at his boss, his commander and his confidante. "No." He said.

That night he dreamed of her asleep. She was naked and stretched out on a bed of alihotsy, lovage and sneezewort. He could not bring himself to touch such a perfect site. He leant down and inhaled. Her hair smelt of lavender, her buckteeth smelt of peppermint, but it was her skin that he could not get enough of. It smelt vaguely of soap and scurvy grass.

He began to find fault with her potion making skills. He would lay his hands on hers while showing her the correct way of slicing, grinding or stirring. When this close, he allowed himself the luxury of smelling the lavender from her hair and whatever she had for breakfast or lunch on her breath. He could feel the soft skin, the calluses and the roughness of her bitten down nails beneath his fingertips. It was while he was this close to her that he could not help but remember his first dream of her. He found that he had to resist the temptation to bite her ear.

He started following her to all her classes. This resulted in him being late to teach his own classes except for his Slytherin and Gryffindor class.

He needed her.

Before long he found that the times between seeing her started to physically hurt. An hour without a glimpse of her led to a tightening of his bowels. Four hours incited nausea. Eight hours induced dizziness. A night would leave him feverish and almost unable to tend to his morning routine.

He realised that he needed some way of seeing her at all times. When she slept, toileted, ate and studied. That night he enchanted a bracelet. It was a simple spell that was often mistaken for a protection charm. Whenever she wore the bracelet he would be able to watch her though his pocket watch. He planned to check the time frequently. It worked for five hours. He watched his pocket watch in horror as the headmaster approached her and took away the bracelet.

He felt fear.

He felt sick.

He could not see her.

She was so far away.

He had to get to her straight away.

This would not do.

If he could not watch her from afar he would watch her close up. He set off from his office straight away and headed to the library where he had last seen her.

"Miss Granger. You must come with me at once." He said to her as he swooped towards the table she and her friends had sat at.

"She hasn't done anything wrong!" the Weasley boy stood up and protested.

He looked at the red headed boy who spent a lot of time with her. "I did not say she had. Miss Granger?" He watched as she quickly gathered her books and shot the red headed boy a look that communicated enough to have him sit down and be quiet. Once he saw her shoving the last of her books into her school bag he turned sharply and headed for the exit. He could hear her throw her school bag over her shoulder as she followed him and listened for the two hitches it took for her to be comfortable with the weight.

The headmaster met them at the library entrance.

"Ahh, Severus, there you are, and Miss Granger, good to see you again." He smiled at them both. He looked at the headmaster sharply. He did not have time for this interruption. He had to get her to his quarters. He could watch her there. "Severus, I have been looking for you. Madam Pomfrey has received a shipment of potions and is rather unsure of their quality and was hoping you could check them."

"Yes Headmaster. I will attend to that tomorrow morning." He made a movement in order to pass the old wizard and continue on his way.

"Unfortunately she is in need of one of the potions urgently, otherwise she would have waited until dinner to ask you herself. Please excuse us, Miss Granger?" He did not hear her response as he was led by a firm grip that the headmaster had on his arm towards the infirmary and away from her. He turned his head back to see her watch their departure before returning to the library.

Seven days later he sat quietly on a bed in a private room off the infirmary. He hoped his clothes would be returned today. Having to stay in this room was embarrassing enough, let alone staying here in pyjamas. He smoothed away a wrinkle from the bed's blankets and wondered who was covering his classes. It was getting close to lunch time which meant that Madam Pomfrey would be in shortly with another dosage of the antidote to the Consumitis curse and his lunch.

He hoped there were chicken and egg sandwiches for lunch.

He knew he should apologise for attacking Madam Pomfrey. It was not something he was looking forward too, but it would be necessary.

Five days later he was back in his classroom waiting for his Slytherin and Gryffindor class to finish the potion that they were meant to have learnt in his absence. He had already taken fifteen points from her and her friends for being too loud and given twenty points to his Slytherins for trivial things. He had seen his Slytherins visibly relax as they felt that their Potions Master and Head of House had returned in sane mind.

He asked her to stay after class. He had absolutely no desire to apologise or to remind anyone of his recent behaviour. However, he felt that he had put her in an awkward situation and that she should be reminded that it would never happen again. He watched her stand there quietly as the rest of the class filed out. She continued to stand without a sound as she waited for him to speak.

"Miss Granger, my behaviour in the last month was not fitting" He took a deep breath and admitted "I was under the influence of a rare curse. That curse is now broken and you can be reassured that my behaviour will not be repeated. That is all. You are dismissed."

She nodded, picked up her school bag, hitched it twice on her shoulder and walked out of his classroom without saying a word.

Severus Snape sat down at his desk and remembered the smell of her hair, the sight of her white teeth gnawing on her pink lip, the way her hands held onto the knife and fork as she dissected her meals, and the way her skin tasted slightly of salt.

The problem with the Consumitis curse, like the Unforgivable curses and most magic, is it had to be based on something real. Like hate.

Or desire.