Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!

Notes: Severus Snape bares his fangs. A double-drabble (200 words exactly).

Hunter
by

What did you expect, boy? A gentle deflowering? Someone to open your kiss like a soft, warm present--someone to treasure you?

No, of course not. You were always wiser than that, weren't you--a wily little thing under those ragged, honest robes--body sleek as a fish and just as difficult to catch.

But I've caught you now.

How many weeks of touching have brought you here? How many glancing caresses to your throat, your mouth, your hands? You thought you were being worshiped, didn't you? But you're still a child, unable to understand the difference between worship and hunting--all you can comprehend is the hunger common to them both.

Oh, there is hunger. I give you that.

How many clever words did I string up like beads, tempting you to decorate yourself in them, a necklace that has now become a noose? All shattered at the first brutal pressure of my hands around your wrists, the terrified swallowing of black around the green of your eyes. The struggle of you, so fierce, the sweat-salty terror of a young animal.

Flee not, sweet creature. Despite all our differences you are, after all, the more cruel of us both.

* FIN *