Story Summary: An Autumnal collection of Snape/Reader one-shots and ficlettes based on my main story, Dream Sequence.
Length: 1,406
Rating: Hard T
Warnings: Callback to Lockhart and what he did in Act 1, Scene 11 of Dream Sequence.
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Master List
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“I’ve been thinking…”
His warm baritone pulled you out of your concentration, and you peered up from your book to find him exactly where he’d been standing for the last half an hour; bent over a cauldron at the nearest work station in his private lab, working on a potion he’d claimed was for lecture purposes only. He hadn’t bothered to tell you what the lecture would be on, and you hadn’t asked. He’d told you he didn’t require your assistance to brew (shocking) as he’d already been working on it for a few days, but he wouldn’t mind your company if you wanted to stick around. You’d accepted his offer gladly, summoning the soft, brown leather chair you had dreamed of curling up in as a student… and made your dreams come true by doing exactly that. You’d been reading a new collection of Stephen King novellas, and you’d just been getting to the meat of The Langoliers when he’d spoken up.
“That’s dangerous,” you quipped, folding down a corner of the page and closing the book, tucking it between your hip and the back of the chair, as you were draped across the arms. Your smirk only grew wider when he rolled his eyes.
“I’m being serious,” he objected, and you were ever so tempted to remind him that he was always exceedingly serious. But you kept that little witticism to yourself this time. It was much too late to be razzing him.
“What were you thinking then, love?” you prompted, yawning into your hand before tilting your head towards him. You watched as he carefully measured out a teaspoon of some pearlescent powder, using the back of a silver knife to level the spoon, before carefully shaking it over the surface of the potion.
“I was hoping you could help me with an upcoming lecture.”
Your eyebrows shot up at the suggestion, and you lifted your head from where it was propped against the armrest. “The lecture for the potion you’re brewing?” you asked, and he nodded with a quiet ‘mmhmm’. You sat up slowly, feeling a few of your bones pop as you righted yourself in the chair, you know, how chairs were supposed to be sat in, and grimaced a little as you rubbed your back. “And which potion would that be?”
Severus hesitated then, appearing to be concentrating on counting the number of turns he was giving with the stirring rod. But you knew apprehension when you saw it. Rising slowly from your chair, you made your way across the room to his work table, standing on the opposite side of the cauldron as you watched spiraling wisps of steam began to rise from the glossy surface of the potion.
“Amortentia,” he finally answered as he removed the stirring rod, looking cautious as he lifted his gaze to meet yours. You… weren’t pleased by this. At all. And he must have seen the apprehension on your face. Must have been expecting it, as he reached across the table to cup his hand over yours.
“You always said you weren’t sure if you did the right thing, not telling people about Lockhart. About what he did.” He brushed his thumb over the soft skin of your wrist, and your eyes drifted down to your joined hands. “It’s unfortunate that some students, mostly young girls, have these… starry-eyed ideals, in regards to love potions. They think they’re dreamy. Romanic. And they don’t have the faintest idea of what love potions can really do. Or what they’re really used for.”
You shuddered, the tremor gripping your whole body, and prompting him to step around to your side of the table. You accepted his embrace readily, pressing your forehead against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around you. “Lockhart is still in Saint Mungos,” he reminded you firmly, lifting one hand to smooth down your hair. “It doesn’t matter anymore, whether he was famous or not. You told me in a letter once, that you were worried he may have taken advantage of more people. And that you might have been able to prevent it, if you had actually reported him.”
He pulled back from his hold, and you lifted your face from his shoulder, nodding miserably as you remembered that letter quite vividly. Severus nodded in return, pushing your hair out of your face before brushing his thumb soothing against your jaw. “I thought you might… Might like to have the opportunity. To finally tell your story, or at least a version of it, and be able to help others in the process.”
You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth as you gazed up at him, and he leaned forward, placing a kiss between your furrowed brows. It almost instantly dissolved the tension in your face, and you huffed out a little laugh as you leaned into him again. “I brewed the Amortentia so that they’ll have an idea of what to look for, if they’re ever faced with it,” he explained, tilting his head over towards the shimmering cauldron, the mother-of-pearl surface gleaming brightly as corkscrews of steam continued to rise. “Know what it looks like. Know how it smells. Know what potions to take if they are ever dosed with it. They won’t get to know how it tastes, but that’s okay, because you’ll be able to tell them.”
You snapped your head around in a panic, opening your mouth to protest, but he placed a finger to your lips. “You were not given Amortentia,” he assured you, and you eased slightly. “You were given a really, really terribly brewed Amortentia that was subsequently mixed with alcohol, which I believe was the reason for the headaches you experienced.” You pouted, but nodded. That made sense. You knew there were all types of love potions out there, but the truth was that they were all just cheap variations of Amortentia.
“I regret not giving a lesson like this years ago,” he said softly, and you shifted your attention from the potion back to him. “I never wanted to even touch love potions in my class. I thought they were frivolous, and would give people the wrong impression. But… I was thinking, perhaps educating the students on the dangers that they pose might be a… decent alternative…” He looked almost bashful as he glanced away from you, and you finally felt yourself begin to relax, a small smile spreading on to your face.
It was… terribly sweet, actually, that he wanted to do this. Not just for his students, but for you. Giving you the chance to resolve the guilt you felt over never reporting Lockhart. Maybe even putting some closure on it, especially if it helped even one person avoid being manipulated as you had been. You rested your head on his shoulder again, looking into the swirling mist that rose from the cauldron. It wasn’t romantic at all. Love potions were utterly vile, as far as you were concerned… but from the stance of being an educator… from the point of view of a Potions Master… Amortentia was really quite elegant.
“Fireplace,” you said softly, and you felt more than heard the confused grunt from Severus’ throat. “Rain on fallen leaves,” you continued, closing your eyes as you breathed in deeply, filling your lungs with the scent of him. “Teakwood, coriander and clove-bud.” You turned your face up to him, and grinned at the stunned expression on his face. You reached up to mirror his motion from before, brushing your thumb over the sharp cut of his jaw, and his astonishment melted into adoration.
He turned his face slightly, and pressed a soft kiss to your thumb as he too took a deep breath. “Warm butter,” he murmured softly, and your smile widened, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Bees wax.” He hummed as he buried his face in your hair, rubbing his palms over the small of your back as he held you close. “Vanilla. Lemon. Roses. I thought this would be good for you…” he trailed off.
“I’ll do it,” you answered, finally, and you felt his arms tighten slightly around you. “Gladly, in fact. I think it’s a fantastic idea.” You lifted your head, and he did the same, still looking slightly apprehensive. But you kissed the tip of his nose, which he always pretended to hate, and smiled up at him gratefully. “Thank you, Severus.”
Similar to the popular Inktober, Snoodetober was a month long art event, inspired by my SnapexReader/OC fan fic, Dream Sequence, and celebrating the ship of Severus Snape and my OC, Gwendolyn Goode. The event was created by @blooeyedtroll, and together, we created a list of prompts, one for each day for the month of October. Bloo took the traditional Inktober route of drawing a picture for each day, and I participated by writing a one-shot ficlette for each of the prompts.
I’ve never read Dream Sequence!
I recommend you do! It’s a pretty good fic, if I do say so myself. Dream Sequence is a muli-part Snape/Original Female Character fiction, told in the 2nd person, which also sort of makes it a Snape/Reader fiction. You can read it here on tumblr or over on AO3! Now, if you wanted to read Snoodetober without reading the main fic, that’s fine! You just may not get a few certain references or characters.
I HAVE read Dream Sequence!
That’s great! Thank you so much! So what YOU need to know is that Snoodetober is going to take place in a sort of Bubble AU, separate from my main story. You can assume that Sev and Gwen have been dating for a little while (less than a year, probably) and there is little to no angst or conflict involved 9w9 This is going to be a celebration of fluff and slices of life and good feelings uvu! It’s going to be entirely separate from the main story line of Dream Sequence, but will still include some major elements. I guess what I’m saying is, you don’t HAVE to read Snoodetober if you don’t want to. Nothing written here will elemental to the main plot of Dream Sequence. But I think you will enjoy it none the less!
Anything else I should know?
Just like Dream Sequence, I’m re-uploading Snoodetober this year, after my blog got terminated in July. This is just me re-uploading the stories from a past event that took place in 2019, so it’s not exactly a current project or anything. It just felt appropriate to go ahead and do it in October while the time was right :’) I know all the links in Bloo’s art are going to be to my old blog, but what can you do YwYr
