A Slytherin Prank Gone Exceptionally Askew

I want to give a great big thank you hug to CourtneyRochelle for combing through this and helping me make this presentable for reading. I really appreciate it a lot. Thank you!

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Severus hated meal times: sitting up on the staff table and staring out at all the dunderheads as they masticated their food. His eyes swept the room, his gaze falling on Hermione Granger each time he looked at the Gryffindor table. It was the same every night, watching her laugh and talk to her friends with a book propped up in front of her plate. She was so like he had been at her age that it was annoying. At least she'd come back, so close and yet so unattainable. He scowled, returning his attention to the Slytherin table. So many of the seventh-years had been forced to return to repeat Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts as well as the new courses implemented by the Ministry, Political and Social History of the Wizarding World and Psychology of Marriage, Family, and Human Relations in an attempt of preventing racial and heritage prejudices. Severus doubted it would work.

He lifted the goblet to his lips, expecting the de-alcoholized red wine preferred by the majority of the staff, and was surprised by the smooth and generous flavor of the beverage with its nutmeg-scented pear and cream flavors, ripened cherry aromas with a shade of sweet oak, which was pleasantly round and refined through the finish.

Suddenly he felt warm. Unusually warm... and tingly. Especially down there... He sat up stiffly as a part of his body reacted to the one face that suddenly caught his attention again, as if she were hit with a spotlight. Miss Granger was looking at him. Smiling. He stared at her across the Hall, his gaze riveted, and his eyes narrowed slightly, as inappropriate images of the girl assaulted his thoughts. He felt his chest tighten, and his palms became sweaty. Miss Granger tilted her head, looking at him with concern.

Severus quickly looked away, and his gaze fell immediately on Mr. Malfoy, who snorted as he set down his goblet. The insolent boy looked at Miss Parkinson, then up at Severus and began rolling with laughter at the Slytherin table as he watched him. Miss Parkinson, who'd been watching Mr. Malfoy intently, obviously with her hand on his thigh, was now staring at him, aghast. Severus rose quickly and left the Great Hall, taking the goblet with him, praying that his confining clothes and brisk walk would hide the discomfort in his pants.

He threw off his robes and frockcoat as he entered his lab, tossing his waistcoat on the pile, and unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt. The heat of his skin was making even the thin cotton shirt and light wool trousers nearly unbearable to wear. He poured the wine into a cauldron, noticing how the goblet immediately refilled it's self. A few simple tests and he had his answer, not that he wasn't already aware of what the outcome would be. "It's a blasted philter!" he growled as he tossed the offending goblet against the wall.

The knock on his door was like a funeral knell and could only be one person, the very person that at this very moment he least wanted in his office. "What?" he bellowed as he searched for the necessary ingredients to create an antidote.

"Sir, are you all right?" Hermione asked as she entered his lab. "I heard a noise."

"No need to bruit, Miss Granger," he said sharply, hoping a foul temper would be enough to dissuade her from coming near him. Of course, it didn't work. "Why did you follow me? What exactly do you think you are doing?" he asked as she stepped into the doorway of his private stores.

"Sir, I just..." she began as he stepped closer to her.

His pulse was pounding, he was throbbing, and she was looking up at him with her warm whisky-colored eyes. She backed up as he moved forward, the predator cornering his prey simply because his steps were longer than hers because of his height advantage. Suddenly, her back hit the solid wood of the door, and she craned her neck as she looked up at his face. He leaned into her, placing both hands beside her on the wood, effectively trapping her, and pressed forward. He inhaled the fragrance of warm orange and sandalwood that was innately hers as he leaned over her, his lips teasing hers, urging her to kiss him back. "You shouldn't have come," he said, trying and failing to keep the soft drawl from accentuating his words. He could see the effect of his honeyed tone in her reaction, and it only provoked the predator instinct gnawing at him. Her hands seemed like fire on his chest through the thin layer of his shirt. He leaned down closer to her ear, and he heard her sharp intake of breath as she held her breath. "I'll ask you again, what are you doing here?" He nipped her earlobe, adding, "What is it you want?"

"I wanted to know if you were all right," she replied, her voice throaty. She was shivering, but to him the room was a scorching aestival temperature, like the very pinnacle of summer's heat.

"No, Hermione, I am most certainly not," he replied while brushing his lips languidly across hers. The mere contact of her mouth sent a wave of relief though him and alighted a craving he'd been denying ever since they'd both returned to the castle after the final battle. "You are my juju, witch" he said, as his mouth sough the tender skin of her throat. Her responding moan shot straight to his groin. "I cannot resist you, no matter how acrid, acerbic, or condescending I try to be, or how much I lambaste you... you are the... bane of my desire." He kissed her with the fierceness of the potion-induced desire now fully inflamed. Unable to control himself, his hands explored her body, squeezing and cupping her breasts and bum as his mouth assaulted hers. She struggled slightly, her body rubbing against his as her nails raked his back. His mind warred against the effects of the philter as he fought to control his actions, ignoring the responsive actions of the witch in his arms.

With every fiber of his tortured self-control, he managed to disengage himself and push away from her, both of his hands set firmly on the door on either side of her as he tried to fight down the continuing, surging urges the kiss had awoken. He hadn't managed to wall off his emotions, steel himself against uncontrolled actions successfully for years without learning how to bottle it all up and... Gods help him, but he wanted this woman.

Her arms went around him as she pulled their bodies closer, crushing her frame against his. "Please," she pleaded, "don't stop."

"As if I have a Hobson's choice!" he said, crushing her lips in a searing kiss. The potion was wearing off, he could feel it, but his own desire for the young woman in his arms had already been let loose. Her responsiveness, the touch of her hands as they explored his body, excited and fomented his need for her. "If I don't make you leave – if you don't go – this will go too far beyond appropriate behavior," he uttered between fevered kisses, his own hand sliding on her body. "Merlin, girl, I want you."

"I've waited years for you to admit that and do something about this," she replied as he reached down and removed her jumper.

"You can't," he stammered as she removed her blouse, exposing a black bra. "How did you know?"

"Years of pulling my braid, punching my arm, and hateful comments," she replied as she deftly unbuttoned his shirt.

He watched her as he fingered her breast through the silky fabric of the bra. "I never pulled on your hair."

"Figure of speech," she said, tracing feather-light trails on his skin, eliciting spasmodic shivers of his heated flesh. "My mum always told me that little boys do things like that to girls they like because they don't know how to tell them that they like them."

"I'm not a little boy and I couldn't..." he started to say and stumbled, his mind going blank as she let her skirt fall to the floor, revealing the tiniest strip of lace he'd ever seen. There was no way that tiny triangle of lace and string could be her knickers.

"No, you are not. But in every detention I've had with you since my sixth year I could cut the tension between us with a spoon," she replied, unfastening his trousers. "I never wanted a boy anyway. It's always been you, although I always knew you were unattainable."

He stared at her for a second as his mind registered what his eyes were seeing.

She was the one that closed the gap, wrapping her arms around him as she reached up on her toes to kiss him. "And I know what you drank at dinner, and what will happen if I even attempt to leave, so why fight it?" The contact of her skin against his made all reason vanish from his mind, and he grabbed her, crushing her against his storeroom door.

~*~

Hermione left his office feeling elated and like the world had suddenly turned bright. Even the cold stone of the dungeons looked far more appealing than they ever had before.

"So you had a detention, did you, Granger?" Malfoy sneered as he passed her in the corridor.

"Yes," she replied, looking at him with a sneer, "and every night for the next four months."

"You're kidding? What did you do?" he asked, looking at her in disbelief. "There is no way you got caught Cursing anyone, and I know you didn't do anything in class. I also don't think interrupting class with your endless questions would gain you that many detentions. So what did you really do?"

"I had the house-elves switch your goblet with someone else's at dinner, and was caught," she replied. Malfoy looked at her and his eyes narrowed. "Yes, I know what you bribed Mintsy to put in your goblet, so I thought I'd have Kreacher switch the goblets with your Head of House."

Draco's pale face went snow white.

"Oh, yes," she replied, grinning maliciously. "And he knows whose cup he received." Hermione turned to go and then paused, looking at him over her shoulder. "Oh, and thank Pansy for me, will you?"

Draco stared at her dumfounded. "Whatever for?"

"Oh, she'll know. She's serving detention with Hagrid tomorrow, so I'd warn her to be careful not to repeat the same mistake," Hermione snarled, as she walked away, laughing that he apparently bought that act though she knew she hadn't been that convincing.

~ fin – but you are welcome to add your own imagination as to what happens next ~

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Author's Notes:

Just a little fun. Hope you liked it.

The word list (swiped from the past week's list from dictonary.com).

1. philter (philter)

2. knell

3. aestival

4. bruit

5. juju

6. Hobson's choice

7. foment

.......Words with Definitions. ......

philter \FIL-tur\, noun:

1. A potion or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love.

2. A potion or charm believed to have magic power.

transitive verb:

1. To enchant or bewitch with or as if with a magic potion or charm.

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knell \NEL\, verb:

1. The stroke of a bell tolled at a funeral or at the death of a person; a death signal; a passing bell; hence, figuratively, a warning of, or a sound indicating, the passing away of anything.

intransitive verb:

1. To sound as a knell; especially, to toll at a death or funeral; hence, to sound as a warning or evil omen.

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aestival \ES-tuh-vuhl\, adjective:

1. Of or belonging to the summer; as, aestival diseases.

2. Of, relating to, pertaining to, or appearing in summer. [Spelled also estival.]

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bruit \BROOT\, transitive verb:

To report; to noise abroad.

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juju \JOO-joo\, noun:

1. An object superstitiously believed to embody magical powers.

2. The power associated with a juju.

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Hobson's choice \HOB-suhnz-CHOIS\, noun:

A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing.

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foment \foh-MENT; FOH-ment\, transitive verb:

1. To nurse to life or activity; to incite; to abet; to instigate; -- often in a bad sense.

noun:

1. Fomentation; the act of fomenting.

2. State of excitation.