FICLET: Under Your Skin (Severus/Tonks)

[deslea.livejournal.com]

Title: Under Your Skin
Character Pairing: Severus Snape/Nymphadora Tonks, implied Salazar Slytherin/Helga Hufflepuff
Prompts: A prank gone terribly wrong, carved pumpkin, Chamber of Secrets
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1158
Summary: Tonks had always wanted to get under Professor Snape's skin. This wasn't what she had in mind.
Author's Notes: Warning for teacher/student flirting (Tonks is seventeen). Just a bit of fluff for Trick or Treat at rarepair_shorts.

NOW AT AO3

Comments

[demented-mei.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written! I had a little trouble following the tranfiguration up until it was deteriorating to turn back into the snake. :D Perfect fix, I think.

As for your concerns about who can open the Chamber: Ron did it. Harry did it. I see no reason why Tonks can't.

[deslea.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I found myself succumbing to the spectre of a plot and having to rein it in to the wordcount, and I think a bit of clarity got lost in the resulting shorthand.

As for Harry and Ron (and Ginny), good point. And as they're all from Pureblood families, I suppose they might have diluted Slytherin blood, too - what with them all being distantly related and interbred. I do love how HP is such an intriguingly incestuous universe!

[brightflower]

I love the relationship between Tonks and Snape here! Very nice banter and such. :)

[deslea.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

And I loved the idea of messing with the Teacher-Schoolgirl trope, where she flirts, and he calls her on it rather than giving in to it (which, however popular - and hot! - a scenario it may be, I actually can't imagine Snape doing). And Tonks is sassy and self-assured enough that she'd take it goodnaturedly rather than being rejected and mortified, I think.

[lyre-flowers.livejournal.com]

Really like the pairing! The pumpkin transfiguration is just so Tonks, and their banter is lovely.

*grins* Well done!

[deslea.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, I'm glad you liked it!

I've always liked the idea of seeing Snape in a mature adult-to-almost-adult teacher-student relationship, like the ones I see with my son's teachers at school. (He's sixteen). Snape was respected by the children of his own House - it stands to reason that he's capable of that sort of relationship as long as he respects the student involved. And Tonks would have had to navigate that to make it into the Aurors.