Chapter Text
All mistakes would be blamed on failed office politics.
Severina packed away the last remaining items on her desk. The nameplate reading "Dr. Snape" on the lab door had already been removed; she felt no ripple of emotion. She had been angry, she had argued, she had fought against the injustice she suffered, but in the end, she was still swept out the door like a stray dog.
Minerva’s hesitant expression at the door earlier had brought a wave of bitterness to Severina’s heart.
Things having come to this, there was nothing left to say.
Years of grueling study, all-nighters in the lab, constant exposure to toxic chemicals—all just to publish high-impact papers and actually achieve something real. She knew perfectly well that as a woman, making a mark was far harder than for a man. A few papers and patents weren't enough to earn special regard in this desperately competitive academic circle.
Fortunately, her talent and hard work had finally paid off. She earned her Ph.D., stayed on to teach, and became a young associate professor—securing her own research funding, getting a lab with her own nameplate, and earning the deep, albeit fearful, respect of her students... Success was right before her eyes; the good days were just ahead.
But all of this burst like a bubble just before her 36th birthday.
An issue arose with a batch of funding, and the university declared a thorough investigation. Simultaneously, anonymous letters accused Severina of academic fraud. Overnight, Severina fell from grace, reduced to a figure people whispered about whenever they saw her.
Initially, she fought it, trying to prove her innocence and that the evidence was forged. She pleaded with Dean Dumbledore and her mentor, Professor Riddle. Both promised to look into the matter, but once the seed of doubt was planted, rumors spread like wildfire. Even that crucial paper was inexplicably retracted, seemingly cementing the narrative that Severina was a corrupt, embezzling, and fraudulent academic.
Severina had received her termination notice a week ago.
She attended her classes and handed over her work as usual, as if none of it concerned her. But God knows how much she wanted to scream and flee whenever her colleagues and students cast those probing, gloating, or pitying glances her way.
Today would be her last day at the university. Severina carried her box of belongings toward her Golf. It was an old car, the one she had picked out with her very first savings—an estate model that no one would give a second glance to in the British traffic. But the previous owner had cherished it, and a well-maintained Volkswagen would never fail at a critical moment. The only modification Severina had made to the car was on the day she bought it, taking it to a garage to repaint the dull black body into a dark, brooding sapphire blue. In the perpetual gray drizzle of Manchester, it felt like her sole, secret rebellion—the only touch of brightness in her rigidly conventional life.
"Professor Snape, Dean Riddle is looking for you." Luna, the lab assistant, stopped Severina just as she was about to make her second trip.
Severina nodded in silence and walked toward her former mentor’s office.
"Ah, Severina," Riddle greeted faintly from behind his desk.
"Professor Riddle."
"Losing you is truly a great loss to the university, but, as I’ve told you before, your arrogance is the best excuse others have to destroy you." Riddle leaned back in his wide leather chair, his long fingers steepled. He watched her with a hypocritically compassionate gaze, as if admiring a piece of art he had personally shattered.
Severina stood perfectly straight, offering no reply. Her pale face, perpetually deprived of sunlight, betrayed absolutely no emotion.
"You possess the most brilliant mind in the entire faculty," Riddle sighed, his tone dripping with sickening regret. "If only you had been willing to put my name on that project proposal, or learned to smile at the sponsors during the board dinner... if you had just learned to bow your head to me, just a little. Severina, you could have become the youngest tenured professor. But you stubbornly clung to your ridiculous pride, refusing to take sides, refusing to cooperate."
He stood up and walked slowly toward her, radiating a condescending, oppressive presence. "In this building, talent alone is not enough. You don't understand power, and so power will crush you without mercy."
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with my experimental data," Severina finally spoke. Her voice was low and gravelly, like cold, hard sandpaper grinding against glass, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. "Those fabricated accusations of 'data manipulation' and 'ethical violations' you concocted hold no water."
"Is that so?" Riddle chuckled softly, a malicious mockery flashing in his eyes. "But that doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that the academic committee took my word for it and stamped the papers. And..."
He paused, deeply savoring the sudden tension in Severina's jawline before delivering the fatal blow. "That core manuscript you spent the last two years pulling countless all-nighters to produce... without my signature as the corresponding author, that paper will never see the light of day in any journal. It is now nothing more than a pile of waste paper in my lab."
Severina's pupils contracted sharply. Her nails dug deep into her palms.
That was two years of her blood and sweat, her entire pride, now effortlessly snatched away and trampled upon by the man standing before her.
"Not only that," Riddle retreated to his desk and picked up his long-cold black tea. "I’ve already 'put the word out' to the medical research institutes in Manchester, and indeed across the UK. No one will hire a troublemaker carrying the stain of academic fraud, whose character has been publicly condemned by her former mentor. Severina, the doors of academia are permanently closed to you."
On the drive home, Severina's fingers were ice-cold. Like a pre-set program, she mechanically pressed the accelerator, speeding down the road, entirely indifferent to whether she was breaking the limit—a few speeding tickets were the least of her concerns right now.
It wasn't until she parked the car that she realized her hands were trembling slightly, her breathing was rapid, and her face was stiff.
What was she supposed to do next?
She had a car and a dilapidated little apartment left to her by her parents. Other than that, she had nothing. All her savings had vanished a year ago, swallowed by her mother's medical bills. It turned out that a single cerebral hemorrhage was all it took to drive someone into poverty. Her mother was still in a rehabilitation hospital, paralyzed on one side, requiring daily care from a nurse. The monthly nursing fees were astronomical.
At this rate, she wouldn't even be able to keep this rundown apartment. A stable job was far more vital than she had realized.
Weighed down by heavy thoughts, Severina tossed and turned in bed, finally slipping into a long-overdue sleep, though even in her dreams, she was haunted by empty bank accounts.
Severina didn't allow herself to wallow in despair for long. After all, money wouldn't magically appear, and the hospital bills would arrive right on schedule.
She scoured the internet daily for part-time gigs, eventually taking on a translation and proofreading job while keeping an eye out for anything else she was qualified to do.
The incessant Manchester rain seemed intent on waterlogging the entire city. Severina sat in a cheap chain coffee shop on a street corner, a long-cold Americano sitting before her. Facing an old laptop with its cooling fan whirring furiously, she typed expressionlessly, translating an excruciatingly dull German medical device manual into English.
Fifteen pounds per thousand words. That was her net worth now.
Meanwhile, sitting quietly in the slightly frayed pocket of her black coat was a bill from the Stockport Rehabilitation Hospital. The number printed on it felt like a rusty knife, pressing precisely against her throat at the end of every month.
"...I swear I only uploaded three videos of me popping balloons while wearing pantyhose, and I didn't even show my face!" The irrepressible, excited laughter of a young girl drifted over from the next table, mixing with the scent of cheap perfume before reaching Severina's ears. "And guess what? Someone just wired me five hundred quid! Five hundred pounds! I quit my morning shift part-time job. This money comes way too fast."
"God, is OnlyFans really that lucrative now? But what if someone you know recognizes you..."
"That's why you don't show your face! You just need to create some atmosphere. Men online eat that up right now..."
Severina's fingers paused over the keyboard for a fraction of a second. Her first reaction was an instinctual repulsion and disdain. Selling softcore pornography for cash was, to her mind, just as idiotic and skill-less as those in the lab who sold their dignity for a co-authorship.
But the figure "five hundred pounds" echoed inexplicably in her mind on this damp, dismal afternoon. She looked down at her pale, knobby fingers, then touched the crippling hospital bill through the fabric of her coat.
Dignity couldn't pay medical bills. Money could.
That night, for the first time in a long while, Severina didn't stay up late doing translation freelance work. Instead, she took a hot shower, changed into a loose black turtleneck sweater, and sat at her slightly wobbly desk. After much hesitation, she opened the OnlyFans website.
Severina spent a day decoding the platform's mechanics and current trends—aside from young flesh, there was a specific demographic that lusted after the bodies of older women, categorized as "MILF". The screen full of intertwined bodies and heavy panting initially left her feeling clinical and numb. But as the night deepened, the accumulated exhaustion, her ruined academic career, and the crushing weight of the bills morphed into an unbearable pressure with nowhere to vent. Watching the vivid, unbridled desires pouring out on the screen, a primal instinct she had long suppressed beneath her immaculate professional attire suddenly tore open a fissure. That night, uncharacteristically, she touched herself at her desk, riding out three messy, desperate orgasms in a near-breathless shudder. She realized with a profound sadness that she wasn't just a bankrupt, unemployed scholar; she was a parched woman who couldn't even remember the last year she had been held.
She took off her clothes and stood before the full-length mirror, scrutinizing her pale body. Accustomed to a lack of sunlight and a preference for long sleeves and trousers, her skin possessed a startling pallor. There was no trace of athletic toning, but fortunately, she was lean enough, with a pair of long, straight legs. Severina stared at her chest; her nipples stood erect from the cold, and her breasts possessed a full, rounded plumpness that starkly contrasted with her slender frame. Finally, her gaze moved to her face.
She had always known she wasn't beautiful, a fact confirmed in her early childhood. Inheriting her father's prominent nose gave her an overall gloomy, ugly appearance, making her a target of mockery—Big-nosed Snape. Even well into adulthood, there were times she maintained the habit of walking with her head down, just so people wouldn't see her face.
Severina carefully examined her face. A high brow bone connected to a Roman nose; lips that were too thin, lacking sensuality; and dark eyes that resembled two deep, stagnant wells, utterly devoid of ripples. Even her long hair hung down like a featureless black curtain. It was by no means a face that would immediately evoke a desire to protect; it was too sharp.
Severina silently pulled on her pajamas, clicked back to the webpage, and began filling out her profile.
Account ID: The_Discipline_Professor.
She had no intention of using straightforward nudity to cater to the male gaze. For her avatar, she chose a highly oppressive, low-exposure silhouette: no cheap soft-focus filters or artificial color grading, only a suffocating contrast of stark black and white. In the image, she tilted her tense jaw up slightly, exuding a condescending disdain; yet, tracing down her pale neck, delicate lace outlined a deep, exceedingly full cleavage. There was no hint of pandering, yet it offered enough limitless fantasy to make someone want to drop to their knees and explore.
Severina closed her laptop and walked to the window, gazing at the dim yellow streetlights below and the sporadic cars speeding by. The rest could wait until tomorrow.