Severus Snape was a Potions prodigy, a master of the craft despite being a mere sixteen years of age. He was a youth of harsh, unpromising exterior; sallow-skinned and hook-nosed far removed from any notion of conventional handsomeness. He was a creature of the dungeons, more at home with the simmering of a cauldron than the social graces of the Great Hall. Yet, Severus never anticipated the day he would nearly consume a Love Potion at your hands.

It had been a blunder of the most precarious sort. Tasked by Madam Pomfrey to deliver a restorative Cough Potion to Snape, you had, in a moment of haste, snatched up a phial of Amortentia that bore a treacherous resemblance to the medicinal brew.

The air in the cold dungeon laboratory was thick with the scent of dried herbs and bitterness. Severus took the phial from you with a curt, sweeping motion, his dark eyes fixed on the parchment before him. He uncorked the bottle and brought it to his thin lips, the liquid shimmering with a tell-tale pearly sheen that went unnoticed in the dim, flickering torchlight.

However, the moment the fluid touched his tongue, his instincts sharpened by years of obsessive study, reared up in alarm. The taste was far too floral, far too sweet, lacking the grounding acridity of a healing draught.

With a sudden, violent shudder, Snape spat the liquid onto the stone floor. He looked up, his black eyes flashing with a mix of revulsion and cold, calculated fury as the scent of the potion began to fill the small space between you.

"What." He hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous, silky low as he wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, "Is the meaning of this?"