Black and White

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Chapter 26- Black and White

The repercussions of the Prophet article were felt quite swiftly and with a force of backlash Hermione had not been prepared for. How was she supposed to get any teaching done anyway with students finding her lecture boring and her choice in supposed bedmates much more worthy of their attention? Her pupils seemed to all have a one-track mind today, and giggling about the article was the only thing their minds could fathom at the moment. As far as this relationship was a stretch and hard to fathom, she had hoped her sixth and seventh years would be better behaved.

They had only been worse.

After all, these elder students knew the intricacies of a romantic relationship and were eager to speculate on Snape's sexual prowess. Granted, they had all been courteous enough to whisper about it and not speak to her directly. But she was acutely aware of some of the things being said.

Was he the dominant type?

Could you even imagine sleeping with that?

Did Snape keep a cage in his bedroom?

Are there any rope burns on her wrists?

What about fang marks hiding under her hair?

Bugger it all!

The end of the day could not have come swiftly enough for her aching head. Even skipping lunch, to tend to the bushel of letters brought in by owls throughout the morning, had done nothing to calm the twitter. It had only increased it. Apparently Severus had not shown up either. Apparently that was enough to spark new rumors that they were in some dark alcove snogging. Seeing her last student out the door at the chime of the last bell was a relief she was sure would rival that of an orgasm. Only about fifteen more hours until she would have to see them again. She was looking forward to a quiet dinner in Severus' chambers.

The note he had dropped in her office for her during his free hour had given her the feeling he had encountered the same trying day.

At least they could commiserate together.

Hermione sat at her desk in the classroom and began opening new letters just arriving. She had received fan mail before, especially after the war and the accounts of her standing by Harry until the very end. There had been a steady stream of it, according the Weasleys, since the Order of the Merlin awarding ceremony. But she had asked them to take care of it for her. Now that the world knew she was here at Hogwarts, they knew where to send her owl post.

Dear Hermione,

G.

She placed the edge of the parchment in the flame of the candle upon her desk and watched it shrivel and darken. Transfiguring her scratch parchment bin into a flame resistant vessel, she dropped the letter in with a satisfied sigh. Glancing at the other letters, numbering into the hundreds, Hermione stood up and began the long process of dumping them in handfuls into the burning bin. She had never contemplated arson, or even considered herself a pyromaniac, but this exercise was oddly gratifying.

Now if only she could find that bug and squash her.

The door opened behind her, and too concerned with her present task, she did not look up. "You've come just in time. Pull up a seat, warm yourself."

"I vould rather not," said the accented voice behind her.

Hermione spun around on her toes to come face to chest with Viktor. She slowly looked up into his eyes and stepped back a meter. "What is it Viktor?"

He held out the paper for her. "Vy him, Hermione? Ven you said there vasn't someone else ... even if there vas someone else ... I did not think it vould be him. Perhaps Ron or someone like him, but not him."

"Do you have a problem with it?" she asked, her annoyance rising rapidly.

"Do I?" he asked incredulously, his large fist crumpling the paper in his hand. "Of course I have a rather large problem with this. How does one choose him over me? Tell me!"

Hermione withdrew her wand from her teaching robes. "Don't step closer, Viktor, or I will hex you."

He help up his hands in defense. "Tell me, Hermione!"

"Viktor, I love you, you know that. You're very special, but I am not the woman you want. Trust me." Hermione kept her wand leveled with his chest. For anyone who had been gifted enough to be around him, they knew that he was imposing. But irate, he was utterly frightening.

"I vould like to think for myself voo classifies as vat I vant!" his accent grew thicker with each heightening rung of anger he passed.

"Viktor," she began slowly. "I know his past. I know. Trust me, I do. But he really is a good man, underneath it all. I can't explain it to you. We just go together so well. Like black and white. We're two complete opposites, each of us powerful in our own right. We're fine separate, but we're amazing together."

He inched closer. "I refuse to believe this Hermione. You cannot!"

Obviously, the sometimes slow Bulgarian was not going to take "no" for an answer, or at least needed a much more forceful Hermione. She pushed back her robe sleeves, muttering an Aguamenti at the fire burning at her side, and then turned back to him. "Viktor, I'm serious here! We had our fun, and I'm never going to forget it, but you must just let this die."

"Vat does he have that I do not?" he questioned. "He's got no wealth. He is a Death Eater. He cannot even be handsome to you! Vat, Hermione?"

"And I, Viktor, would like to think for myself when it comes to what attracts me," she exclaimed. "You have no right to come in here and do this! You have no claim over me. You know that. All you need to know is that I find him amazing."

With that, she left the irate Bulgarian alone in her classroom, leaving through the door. The resounding wooden slam, she hoped, would be heard by all the castle inhabitants, no matter how remote their quarters were. Marching purposefully through the throng of students on their way to the Hall for dinner, she went straight down to the dungeons, seeking some relief for the screaming in her head. He had told her the password to his chambers Friday evening, but she did not need it, finding the door open and the wards off.

Stepping into the room and slamming the door behind her, the man across the room putting a book back into one of his bookcases spun around to face her. "The doors are old, Granger, I wouldn't test them like that."

Sending a deathly glare at him, she stomped over to the liquor cabinet he kept, poured herself a tumbler of Ogden's and downed it all in one short gulp.

"I see your day was about as lovely as mine was," he noted sarcastically.

"The day was nothing compared to the argument I just had with Viktor," she huffed, falling onto the sofa, finding blissful oblivion in the warmth of the Ogden's coursing through her body and the warmth of the orange fire on her skin.

"Ah," he intoned, moving lithely through the maze of furniture to sit carefully in the seat beside her. "How did the ape take it?"

Hermione frowned. "He didn't. I left him in my classroom. I couldn't stand his prattle."

"So I haven't lost you to him yet?" he asked, almost in complete wonderment.

She scoffed and looked at him, "You have nothing to worry about, now be quiet and hold me."

He raised one of his brows curiously, but complied with her wishes and pulled her close to him, draping her legs over his so that she could rest fully against his chest. It was a surprisingly strong chest, and just comfortable enough that she would rather be in that spot than in any other place in the world... ever. His arms were soothing, shielding appendages as well. His light woodsy scent and bodily warmth were only a plus, almost like she were wrapping herself in that old security blanket with the puppies on it.

"I do believe this is the first time anyone has ever come to me for comfort," he remarked.

Hermione giggled into his neck, placing her lips there lightly, her hand traveling up his chest and around his neck to rest on his other shoulder. "I've waited all day for this."

"So have I," he admitted. "However, I am quite hungry. Skipping lunch to deal with that mess of mail in my office was not a good idea."

"I burned all of mine. It was oddly satisfying," she suggested. "You should try it."

"Floo the kitchens for food, and I will go get the mail. We will see just how satisfying it is," he replied.

Hermione begrudgingly unfurled herself from her spot, allowing him to stand up and leave the room. He left through one of the back rooms, and she wondered if there might be another door connecting his office there that she had never seen before. Flooing the kitchen quickly, she began the process of removing her teaching robes. For it always being spectacularly frigid in the dungeons, his private chambers certainly were warm. She set the robes across the back of the wingback chair in the corner of the room and returned to the settee. He reappeared a minute later with a rather hefty pile of letters.

"Have you read any of them?" Hermione asked, as he set the box down in front of the flames.

"No," he shook his head. "I don't think letters saying 'you sadistic bastard, how dare you do that to such a perfect child!' are quite my taste."

She giggled and got up, sitting cross-legged on the run in front of the fire. When he did not immediately join her in the same position, she glanced up at him curiously. "Don't just stand there."

"Severus Snape does not sit on the ground," he scoffed, crossing his arms imposingly over his chest.

Hermione scoffed back and reached for the hem of his frockcoat. He stepped back and out of her reach. "Then conjure a damned chair."

Severus glanced across the room, at one of the easily moveable chairs, and reached for the wand in his pocket. Instead of calling it to him, he turned back for a moment to consider her.

"Why do you have to be so difficult about it?" she asked, reaching deep into the box, pulling an armful of letters out, and tossing them into the fire. The parchment cracked and sizzled, shriveling away into black and grey ashes. When she glanced back, expecting to still find his boots firmly rooted to the ground, she found he was carefully lowering himself into the spot across from her and onto the floor.

He settled down, eventually deciding he would have to unbutton his frockcoat to sit comfortably, and looked at her again. "You do realize, now that I am down here, I most likely will not get up."

"You're not that decrepit, Severus," she admonished, reaching in for a handful this time. "Now, get to it."

The next half hour continued in this fashion, each of them stopping every so often to read a letter or two...to gage the public's opinion...by choosing letters at random. Most of them were accusing Severus of causing the debauchery of a beautiful young witch, who could do much better with that Ronald Weasley or Viktor Krum. Others were incoherent ramblings of past students.

"Oh, now this one is interesting," he said, his eyes scanning the parchment again. "Very interesting."

"What does it say?" She looked up at him and caught the hint of a playful twinkle in his dark eyes. In the past she might have considered it an evil glint, but she knew now that they were merely flashes of humor from a thought he did not express aloud.

"Nothing, it's for my eyes alone," he said, folding the parchment again and made a show of slipping it into his pocket.

"That is certainly not fair!" she exclaimed, reaching for it.

He batted her hand away.

"You know that not knowing is going to kill me!"

"Not kill you," he grinned wickedly. "Cause you a great deal of pain, yes, but it most certainly will not kill you. Do not give me that face. You know very well that it does not work on me."

She harrumphed and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him as he merrily went along emptying letters into the fire. How dare he? This was pure torture to her! He knew very well that her head would explode if she was not allowed to see the contents of that letter. It would keep her up at night until she knew. She would become so sleep deprived that she would not be able to do her job correctly, and she definitely would not be pleasant to be around. Did he really want that?

Hermione felt for her wand in her pocket and cursed under her breath. Of course she had left it in her robes, not that it would matter much. He would expect her trying to use magic, verbally or nonverbally to get the letter. Severus was coiled enough like a spring as it was. She could not imagine what he would do if she tried to use magic now.

In an instant, she formed a plan and implemented it.

It was not a very well thought out plan, though. Indeed, as soon as she had lunged at him, and pushed him back onto the ground, she decided it was actually a rather awful plan. Her idea had all the good merit of a well-placed surprise attack, but it was not one to use on the man of her current admiration, who apparently also felt the same about her.

Perhaps felt even more ardently about her, according to the rather prominent bulge now pressing against her thigh.

Neither did she think he would be stronger than her, but his reflexes were fast and his muscles unusually powerful for being so stringy. She quickly found herself on her back and pinned to the floor.

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Granger," he said lowly, "but you've misjudged your enemy."

"Apparently I have," she said, trying to decide which would be better to pay attention to, the fact that he had insinuated his thighs between her legs to hold her down or the fact that she was in a very vulnerable position with her hands pinned over her head. "Though, I can't quite admit that I'm unhappy at how this turned out."

The left side of his lips curled up into a devilish smirk. "Neither can I."

His lips and the sensation of them touching hers was originally fleeting, but in an instant he had come back to her and engaged her in a searing, completely mind-numbing kiss with lips and tongues dueling in a heated battle. Her wrists were freed as his own arms traveled to more easily support himself over her. She snaked her hands up his arms and across his shoulders, entwining her fingers in his hair.

Thank the gods he was a quick learner. That is, if he was learning.

What if he wasn't?

How many women had he slept with in the past?

Damn being logical!

He had sensed her apprehension apparently and backed away a bit. "What is it, Hermione?"

"I...," she began, but paused. There really was not couth way to ask this. Hopefully he would not take it the wrong way.

"Continue," he urged.

She felt a blush on her cheeks, adding to the already rising temperature of her body created from his amazing lips. "I, um, you see, I know a few things about Death Eaters... and I know what happened to certain Muggles and Muggle-borns captured by Death Eaters."

"I suppose we have not talked about that, and we should," he said quietly, easily lifting himself up and depositing himself to her left, resting on his side to look down at her.

"I'm just curious, Severus," she said. "It won't stop this from happening, but I just need to know."

He gave her good-natured roll of his eyes. "Of course."

"Well?"

"There were times when I was invited to do it, Hermione, but I never did," he replied. "I couldn't do it. Even in the depths of my days when I truly believed anything having to do with Muggles was bad. The way they cried and begged some of those men to stop...my friends...it brought back too many memories from my childhood, and I could never do that to a woman, Muggle or not."

He paused a moment, his hand finding her waist and squeezing slightly.

"I know what you're going to say, 'But you killed people. How could anything be any worse than killing?'" he asked the quiet room. "You have killed as well. As have Ron, as did Harry, as did Krum. But you wouldn't for a moment believe them capable of hurting a woman like that. It is the same with me. I killed because I had to. Fortunately, my bitterness did not extend far enough to women."

Hermione reached up and brushed a lock of his black hair behind his ear.

"As vexing as women are, I do hold them in the highest esteem," he said. "Especially you, my dear."

She smacked his chest playfully and laughed. "I won't deny that I'm vexing."

He laughed with her.

"Have you had any experience at all?" she asked.

He lifted a brow tauntingly. "Knowing what you do about Lily, and now knowing that I did not participate in the Death Eater revels, I should it think it leaves little question as to my knowledge."

"Never?!"

"Don't sound so surprised, Miss Granger," he said.

"You never once paid for it? There were no Slytherin girls in your school years that tempted you enough for that one night stand? Never ever?" she clarified.

He grumbled lowly, but nodded his head. "As for Slytherin girls, they were all after Lucius, and then Regulus, not mention their penchant for ill mannered Gryffindors. As a spy, I didn't allow myself the pleasure. It would cloud my mind and ruin everything. And that year in Azkaban... Well, let's just say I would have been much happier with Bellatrix as a suitemate than Crabbe and Goyle Senior."

"Oh, yes, quite a stretch to spend time with Bellatrix," Hermione said.

"It is," he said. "She knew my secret, and she let me know everyday that as soon as she got her wand back, I'd be subject to a particular Unforgivable Curse."

"Ah," she smiled, giggling lightly. "Okay, I'm satisfied with your answers. Now, to get back where we were..."

"Not so fast," he said, pulling back from her grabbing hands. "What about you? I think it is only fair you tell me your experience."

"Oh, you don't want to know that," she said and shook her head.

"I think I do," he replied. "Who was it? Weasley? Potter? Krum?"

Hermione sighed. "Not Ron."

"It was a Weasley, then," he said.

"Charlie. Don't you ever breathe a word of this to Ron."

Both of his brows shot up to his hairline. "Why Miss Granger, I'm surprised."

She felt the heat of a blush rise to her cheeks, "Okay, enough of this. It was two weeks of complete insanity when we were on a mission for the Order."

"Only him?"

"As far as sex goes, yes," she said. "Now, can we get back to where we were?"

He gave her a small smirk. "Certainly."

Just as he was leaning back down to kiss her, a resounding pop startled them both out of their embrace.