Chapter Three

III.

...

Hands stuffed in her pockets, letter clenched in her fingers, thoughts chasing each other in fruitless circles, Hermione mounted the stairs to the upper floors of the Three Broomsticks. After the debacle of trying to hold a secret meeting over at the Hog's Head Pub on the other side of the wizarding village, she knew it was wiser for the two of them to meet here, and was grateful Rus had realized this, too. The noise and bustle of the crowd crammed into the public room downstairs would guarantee far more privacy than the alternative location; conversely, the fact that the boisterous lot downstairs was a lot more friendly and law-abiding ensured that, should she scream for help, that help would come running.

Provided there isn't a silencing-charm cast on the room, Hermione thought morosely. Then chided herself. He's in the Order. Professor Snape knows him. He's not going to force himself on you, you silly little twit; Molly Weasley would have his guts for garter-strings faster than you could say 'Howler'!

It wasn't exactly going to be forcing either. Well, sort of... On the one hand, the contents of his second-to-last letter had been so salacious, she had touched herself under the direction of those neatly penned words and brought herself to a heady orgasm not once, not twice, but no less than seven times in the past four nights. The first night, she'd done it only once, and had been mortified by how turned-on she had grown. Mainly because she'd read the instructions in the letter, following through with them, knowing they flowed from Rus' pen...but heard the words spoken in her mind with Professor Snape's own voice. That had been Tuesday night. Wednesday night, she'd tried to resist, but couldn't. That had been just the once, too.

After a Thursday of double Advanced Potions, listening to her teacher lecturing nearly the whole class long...she'd frigged herself twice that night, imagining his voice as she re-read those instructions on how to stroke and cup her breasts, how to tease the dip of her navel with an essence-moistened finger, how fast or slow to plunge two fingers into her tight canal. Last night had been twice more, and this morning, well, she'd been in such a heated state, waking from an erotic dream involving two men who had crossed each other visually, both of them looking like Severus Snape...a sort of formally-clad wizarding version and an oddly casual, Muggle-clad one...she had actually imagined that Rus was the Potions Master...and had mortified herself with an explosive climax that had made her grateful her curtains had still been warded with the lingering silencing-spell she'd applied hours before.

Room 28. Second floor, near the back of the hall. Far from the noise of the pub on the ground floor. Ten-thirty a.m., not more than half an hour into her Hogsmeade trip. Pulling out her watch to double-check the time, she extracted Rus' latest letter next, consulted the instructions, placed her hand on the wooden frame, and murmured the words Rus had written, ones that would permit her to pass through the wards. "Duodans luchambron."

The plain weathered wood sparkled for a moment, and the latch clicked, the door opening under her light touch. Peering inside, she found a largish room inside, one divided into two sections, a bedroom half and a living room half. Aside from the wardrobe, mirror, and four-poster bed...a very popular fixture, in the wizarding world...over by the windows, and the table, chairs, settee and armchairs grouped by the crackling hearth, the room was empty. Curious, she stepped inside. The door swung shut behind her, latching and sparkling again. All she would have to do, Rus' letter had explained, was call out 'exit', and the door would open again, the wards banished...but unless she did so, no one could enter or leave without the proper password for each activity.

Still, not wanting to leave just yet, Hermione removed her woolly cap and took note of the tea-things set out on the table. A bit early for tea, but almost perfect for elevenses. There was a kettle steaming softly as it hung over the fire, and a plate of biscuits had been set out invitingly. A folded bit of black fabric stood out against the bleached linen of the tablecloth, along with a folded bit of paper stood on edge so that it formed a little tent, marked with her nickname. Mione. Picking it up, she flicked it open, and read the contents.

'My dear Mione;

Rus'

Could she trust him? Dared she trust him? Would she trust him?

Debating long and hard with herself, Hermione finally sighed, pulled out the chair that had its back to the door, and sat down. She chose that seat as a further sign of her trust in him; she knew well that sitting with her back to the door, blindfolded or not, made it nigh impossible for her to hit an intruder with a hex, even if she was aiming that hex while literally blind. Setting the note aside, she carefully noted the placement of the little silver bell, and picked up the scarf. Black silk; how elegant. Tying it over her eyes, Hermione debated how tightly to pull it, and left it just a little bit loose, so she could look down the sides of her nose and react, if need be. She'd have to tilt her head back to see anything above knee-level, but she wouldn't be left completely in the dark, either. Tipping her head back, she located the bell with a bit of squinting, then leveled her head, grasped the handle, and rang it firmly.

Her heart pounded as she waited for a response. Thirty or forty seconds later, her ears picked out the sounds of the door opening and closing quietly, and the snapping of the wards as they crackled magically back into place. She almost asked if it was him, but worried that someone might've heard her speaking the wards and followed her inside. Instead, she cagily asked, "Who is it?"

No one knew why she was up here, after all. Hermione had only told Harry and Ron that she was meeting someone to 'discuss books and things', and had done so while they were in the Quidditch supplies shop down the lane. Suitably distracted, her two best friends had let her go without a quibble, and now she was seated here, blindfolded, waiting for a reply.

"Rus."

The single word sent a frisson of excitement, apprehension, and yes, a little lust through her body. In one word, one short syllable, he had proven his voice low, husky, and rich. She heard the sound of clothing rustling, and bit her lower lip. Was he...? "Erm...hello, Rus. May I take off the blindfold now? I haven't screamed or anything, and the wards are up again now that the door is shut, so it should be safe to do so...right?"

"Not yet."

"Are you...getting naked?" she asked nervously, as she heard more sounds of undressing.

Rus had a husky laugh, just a few chuckles at most. "No. Just getting comfortable."

My, he does sound like Professor Snape...if Snape could ever let himself have a sense of humor. She hesitated a moment, then carefully stood, and fumbled near-blindly at the fastenings of her cloak. "I'll admit it is a little warm in here. The fire feels nice, on such a snowy day."

Hands took the edges of her cloak from her as she finished unclasping it. Hermione couldn't see him when she discreetly turned her head a little to either side; he had to be directly behind her chair. He took the jacket that lay underneath, as well, reaching around her with delicate fingers, barely touching the body underneath as he unbuttoned her coat. Her breath caught as he almost brushed those fingers against her breasts as he worked, arousing her with those teasing, tantalizing near-caresses. His voice itself was like a caress as he peeled the coat away and retreated to the coat-tree. "Yes, the warmth feels good. Please, sit."

Definitely not Professor Snape; he's never bothered to be polite in his life... She obligingly sat, wishing she could turn her head and tip it back and still be discreet about trying to spy on him before the blindfold came off. Unless he was going to let her take it off now? "If we're going to have tea while we chat, it might go a bit more neatly if I can actually see what I'm supping."

A sound that was a hybrid between a snort and a laugh escaped him, as she heard him hanging her cloak and jacket upon the coat-tree by the door. "Patience, Mione."

Yes, he definitely sounded like the Potions Master...save that her professor had never called her by her full first name, never mind this particular nickname. Nor spoke with such tangible warmth in his tone.

"After a year and so many months, I finally get the chance to meet you in person, and you really expect me to be patient when you continue to insist that I can't even look upon you?" she asked him, turning her head to try and glance his way. She caught sight of a pair of black trousers, and the lower part of a white shirt tucked into them, clothing a lean body...for a man who reported himself as being 40, that belly of his was as flat as a board, and not the least bit inclined to pudge. Exactly as promised. She wondered what he would look like naked, and lamented silently the white shirt and black trousers that lay in her way. "That hardly seems fair."

A hand came into view, the nails trimmed short, as he pressed a finger to her lips. Silencing her, and sending a thrill through her flesh that was twice as strong as the sound of his voice. At last, the touch of his hand upon her body. Peering down through the gaps in the blindfold, she studied that hand as she heard him crouching beside her. There was something familiar about that hand. She knew that hand...she knew it from somewhere...

That hand shifted, caressing her jaw-line with gentle but firm fingers, turning and tilting her head slightly as he knelt beside her. Just enough to see a chin and a pair of thin, equally familiar lips blotting out what little view she did have. And then he kissed her. He kissed her, and it was a dozen times more intense than his hand and his voice combined. This wasn't a boy kissing her; this was a man. He knew exactly what he wanted from her mouth, and he evoked it with skill and hunger. From the sliding, nipping pressure of those lips, to the teasing, devouring strokes of his tongue, coaxing her own into play, he taught her exactly what he expected from their kiss. Everything.

But it was the scent of him that arrested her attention. Male, warm, musky...and faintly overlaid with the odor of herbs, some pleasant, some pungent, some bitter, some sweet. All of them familiar. All of them...all of them potions ingredients. He smelled like the Potions classroom.

Dark hair, dark eyes, pale-complected, scarred, beaky-nosed, voice like a sinful dessert...and his suddenly being nice to her, on the very day that their relationship changed...a day he surely must have secretly mocked her for, already knowing what was written in all of those letters he'd sent her...

Stiffening, pulling her head back, Hermione reached up impatiently to pull off the blindfold, angry at the deception. He caught her wrist, stopping her. There was a moment of struggle, but only a moment; he was stronger than her. She stilled, frustrated; if she reached up with her other hand, he'd just capture that wrist, too, and that was her wand-hand.

A moment of silence between them, then that voice, his voice, murmured, "...You've figured it out, haven't you?"

"Five points to Slytherin, Professor!" she spat, angry and disappointed and humiliated. And sick to her stomach. He had been toying with her, all this time. "I don't know what sick little game you think you've been playing...!"

"Game," he growled, and released her hand in favour of yanking off the blindfold. Severus Snape glared into her eyes as she blinked, startled by how close he still was to her, his saturnine face filling most of her vision even as he dropped to kneel on one knee beside her chair. "Do you really think this is a game? Do you think my affections are a mere game?"

Catching her other hand, he flattened it against his chest. It was distracting, seeing him in just his shirtsleeves for once. There was no starchy, stiff, formal black frock-coat making him look like a repressed black bat as well as a greasy git...but she could feel the pounding of his heart under the warmth of his chest. It matched the rapid beat of her own, roused by the anger in his voice. But as he pressed her hand to his sternum, the anger crumpled in his eyes and faded away. As she stared at him, his head lowered, his hair curtaining some of his expression.

"It was never a game..."

"You lied to me," Hermione pointed out, emotions unsteady from being tumbled about by this revelation. Her whole perception of the past year-plus, of their correspondence, of all the things he had written about his work, his colleagues, everything, felt as if they were a house built on a rapidly eroding sandbar. "You lied to me about your name, and your job, and your...your underlings, Professor Snape!"

"I know who I am, Mione." The sound of her nickname, the one Rus...he had said he'd preferred, but stated with those lips, disconcerted her. Not nearly as much as the black gaze he pinned her with, though, lifting his head slightly to peer at her through the dark locks brushing his face. "But more, I know what others think I am. You would never have taken me seriously, nor given us a fraction of a chance, had I approached you any other way."

"...Us? Us?" Hermione retorted, feeling beset by her affection for Rus, and her distress that it was Severus. "You're my teacher, for god's sake!" That one point, she could not get past. She could not believe he was the kind of man to take advantage of one of his students...he just couldn't! "What was any of this, if not a game to toy with my affections, and mess with my head?"

Again, she tried to tug her hand free as she spoke, but he held it trapped against his breastbone, pressing himself into her palm. He tossed his hair back and stared into her eyes without any curtaining between them. "If it was a game, then it was one that has been played in deadly earnest. Do you remember the diary?"

She frowned in confusion at the bizarre segue. "The what?"

"The diary," the man kneeling beside her chair repeated impatiently. "Sirius Black's diary! From the summer right before your sixth year?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"And do you remember the potion I brewed, the weekend you returned to school?" he added, prompting her memory. At her nod, he continued. "Do you remember who you saw when you supped of it, Mione? Me. Do you remember who I myself saw in return? You."

"I don't understand!" she protested. In her confusion, she no longer struggled to free her fingers from their trapped position between his chest and his covering palm. "What has that to do with any of this?"

Professor Snape's hand...Severus' hand...caressed the back of hers. His voice was quiet, low, and intense as he explained. "The Curse that the stranger reported, which Black wrote into his diary, it is called the Withering-Heart Death. It is an ancient piece of Dark Magic, and if it were not so rare, virtually unheard-of in this day and age, it would be classified as an Unforgivable by the Ministry of Magic. When cast upon a target, it acts similar to the way a Dementor can suck all the joy and happiness out of a person. Only with this Curse, it tears out all of your emotions, and does so quite literally, starting with the strongest, most positive ones a person can feel. If the process is stopped mid-attack, if the spell is disrupted by attacking the caster, or interfering with the magic...the victim cannot feel those missing emotions anymore, once they have been extracted and eradicated.

"The capacity to experience those emotions once they have been stolen away is literally gone, Mione. And with the Curse draining away the positive emotions first, even if you stop the spell, the wreckage is often too great to allow the witch or wizard so affected to continue to live," he told her bluntly, pinning her in place with those dark, intense eyes, a contrast to the warmth of his heart, and a compliment to the intensity of its beat. "Without tenderness, without compassion, without joy or happiness or consideration for others, what is left behind of that person becomes worse than a sociopath. Worse than a psychopath.

"Pain and darkness consumes their soul, as their darker emotions grow without restraint or counterbalance to fill the void in their heart. It would be far better to let the spell run its course, sucking all of the emotions out of the victim until they literally dropped dead from the emptiness inside, than stop it mid-curse and doom them to such self-destruction...and the destruction of those around them who still love and care for them."

Hermione stared at him, aghast. "That's horrible!"

"That's the Withering-Heart Curse," he stated flatly. "There is only one known counter-spell to it. To fill the victim ahead of time with the one emotion that is vast enough to slow the initial stages of the extraction process, providing enough time for the spell to be broken during its casting. Time enough for the curse to be ended before it can actually begin."

She could hardly think, her mind was in such a whirl of thoughts, many of them clashing and conflicting as she tried to wrestle the pieces of her broken perceptions into some semblance of order again. "What...what emotion?"

"Love."

The pieces scattered from her mental grasp. Hermione sat there, staring at him. Dumbfounded by his revelation. "...Love?"

"I said love," he confirmed bluntly, and she felt his heart skip and pound for a few beats under her palm at his sober confession. "Only true love can withstand the extraction process, for it is the only emotion that is endless. Bottomless. If it is true."

She could feel her own heart racing, as he continued.

"That potion I brewed...there are perhaps twelve Masters at most around the whole of the wizarding world, besides myself, who could brew it correctly. But its purpose isn't to act as a counter-spell to the Curse," the Potions Master informed her with only a hint of arrogance for his success; his demeanor and the subject were both too sober for self-congratulations. "Instead, it reveals to the drinker who their true love is. The only person who, as I said originally, can counter such an ancient, forgotten, forbidden magic with any guarantee. And, as I told your friend the afternoon that the diary was read...the counter-spell can take years to bring into effect.

"I knew you wouldn't understand what needed to be done, at that early point in time. You were too young, and too wrapped up in who you thought I was, to make an honest effort towards the cure. You'd have resisted it with all your might, because of what I am. I knew you'd rebel at the very idea of trying to build a relationship with me. I know what people think of me," he added firmly, though there was a faint look in his eyes that made her heart ache. Pain. The kind of old ache in his eyes that told her he'd long since come to terms with its presence. She'd never seen so much emotion in his eyes before, but realized he really was serious, taking this risk in revealing it to her. Implacably, he continued. "I have cultivated that image, as a part of what I need to do to keep people from guessing my true feelings, and my true loyalties. But aside from the way I hedged around names and identities, every last one of the emotions I poured out to you in my letters, all of my thoughts, my feelings and my reactions...those were all true."

Severus pressed her hand more firmly over the rhythmic warmth of his heart, and her own skipped a beat in response.

"You know me, Mione; you know me now as no one else does. Not even Albus Dumbledore knows all the things I've told to you...though the old bat does come closer than most," he amended dryly, almost lightly. His free hand lifted to her face, his knuckles brushing the softness of her cheek. "You know me. As I know you. And what I know of you, what I've learned of you...I can finally see why the potion showed you to me, of all the witches in the world."

She pulled her head back slightly, remembering. "You were angry, that day. You didn't like me. You didn't like the thought of...of having to court me."

Dark eyes bored into light brown, as those thin lips twisted slightly. He wasn't conventionally handsome; he could in fact qualify for Tall, Dark, and Ugly...but there was too much of the Rus she had come to know in the man kneeling next to her, speaking to her, for her to see him as ugly as he'd painted himself. She hadn't considered him truly ugly to begin with, but this revelation...Hermione didn't know what to think, her mind feeling somewhat numb and shell-shocked as she listened to his reply.

"You are my student. I would no more consider courting a student of mine under normal circumstances than I would of crawling back to the Dark Lord with an earnest desire to rejoin his madness. I had no idea the brew would show me to you, nor that it would show you to me, proving itself true. And no, I didn't like you, then. I didn't know you, then," he emphasized firmly. "It's easy to dislike someone you do not know, and to continue disliking them out of apathy and disinterest. It takes courage and determination to set aside old prejudices and seek out the truth of an individual, to come to know them as they should be known."

Her initial shock, outrage, and embarrassment were finally receding. She didn't feel numb, however, though surely she should have felt that way, given the magnitude of this revelation. All the clues had been there, from that shortened version of his own name to his commentaries on the doings of his 'underlings'. And Research & Development...that one was actually quite clever, since his students technically are researching and developing their Potions skills... Merlin, how do I feel about him, Hermione asked herself, as he fell silent, waiting for her to process everything he'd said, everything he'd revealed, now that I know Rus is really Severus? He's not acting like I know he would act, like he should act...but that is the word for it, isn't it? Act. Which is the act, and which is the real Severus Snape? The cold-hearted bastard of the school, or this half-stranger kneeling before me now?

She licked her lips, unsure what to think. His eyes tracked the movement, dipping to her mouth and following the path of her tongue. It was a very male thing to do, a very you-female, me-male thing for him to do, and just that simply, the sexual tension was back, hovering between them. The tension that had been there during their first kiss, their first touch...the first sound of his voice, upon entering this room. Unbidden, she recalled the words in his previous letter, and heard them in her mind in his voice, without any doubt as to their originator's identity.

...and while your left hand is gently tweaking your nipple, I want you to circle your right forefinger through your wetness, to tease your clitoris for me for just five strokes...no more...and then bring it up to your lips, painting them with your own desire, to tease me into wanting to kiss you until you cannot feel your thighs, let alone your knees...

This man had written that, and so much more. She felt her face flushing at the memory. This man...the greasy, gitty, black-hearted bastard of her school. She'd pleasured herself to the thought of things that Rus, Severus, wanted to do with her. This man, who had painted himself as Tall, Dark, and Ugly when asked to describe himself. She remembered nearly ever single word he'd penned...and everything he'd said. He'd described himself as ugly not once, in the letter, but twice, in person.

Yes, he knew what other people thought of him...but Hermione didn't think he was ugly. His face was a little too stark, his nose a little too long for him to be called truly attractive, but she'd always thought it held just enough character in it to be intriguing, and surely that was enough to call it handsome. Lifting her hand from the armrest of the chair, Hermione hesitated, her fingers hovering an inch from his jaw. He didn't move, but she did feel his heart suddenly thumping again in his chest, beating firmly against her other hand.

Shifting forward, she closed the last of the gap between them, touching his cheek. It was smooth along the upper half, and faintly raspy along the lower half, where the faintest blue-grey hints of a beard-shadow could be seen, now that she was this close to him in a room filled with more daylight than his dungeon-level classroom normally contained. An inane thought flitted across her mind. It escaped her lips before she could censor it.

"You lied, you know. About your skin," she added for clarification as his expression turned cautious, wary. "It's not the least bit like freeze-dried boomslang."

He blinked at her. That was an inane thing to say...but it was an opening, a start to a conversation that didn't involve serious recriminations. Silly ones, maybe, but not serious ones. Hermione waited breathlessly to see if he would take her unwitting bait, hoping he would.

The corner of his mouth twitched up after a moment of thought, accompanied by a second blink. "...And my hair?"

She looked up at it, and lifted her fingers to the thin, black, untidy locks above his high, flat forehead. If he'd combed it this morning, the walk to Hogsmeade had long since disheveled it. Daringly, Hermione gently tugged his head down, her heart skipping a beat as he complied without protest. He wasn't going bald on top, she was relieved to note, though his hair was as thin and straight as hers was thick and curly. The texture, however wind-tangled, was still a lot softer than expected. Silky, as she gently finger-combed it. A bit less greasy than expected, too, but then he hadn't spent the morning with his head stooped over his students' steaming cauldrons...and she recalled a promise he'd made to make himself presentable enough, the day they would finally meet.

"It's definitely softer than century-plant fibers. Another lie, then."

"And my eyes?" he asked, lifting his head to look up at her again; he had sunk back on his heels to lower his head far enough for her to comfortably inspect his hair.

Even with the winter sunlight glowing through the gauzy curtains hanging over the windowpanes, there wasn't enough light to really tell what colour they were. Removing her hand from his chest and drawing her wand, Hermione muttered. "Lumos."

He winced a little, blinked from the nearness of the glow, but held his ground. After a moment of adjustment, he even widened his eyes, deliberately giving her a good look at his irises. Hermione peered at them, shifting her wand a little, watching the pupils contract. It was astonishing, when she finally discerned their colour.

"...I can't believe you were right, in your letter. They are dark grey. A sort of dark, charcoal-gray. I could've sworn they'd be dark brown, if anything," she muttered, amazed. He really had told her the truth, in his letters to her. Aware that her wand was still glowing brightly, she extinguished it. "Nox... I've never seen such unusual eyes." Tucking her wand back up her sleeve, she reached up, hesitated only a moment, then touched his nose. Stroked the length of it as he held warily still. "I'm afraid your nose is another lie, though the eyes were a truth. It's a little too big to be a real cassowary's beak, and not nearly black enough...but it suits your face. At least, I can't imagine you with any other sort of nose; it would look all wrong, otherwise."

His hand came up, capturing hers in a gentle cage of her fingers, drawing them away from his face, back down to rest against his sternum. "Should we call that one half a lie, then?"

...He was teasing her. That had to be it. At least, Hermione hoped that was what he was doing with her. The way how he narrowed his eyes and let his gaze drift down to her lips as she licked them again made her think of other things. Blushing, she sat back in her chair, gently tugging her hand free. Or rather, tried to tug it free; Severus...she couldn't think of him as Professor Snape right now, not while kneeling in a white shirt, pressing her palm to his chest...still didn't let her hand go. He kept it trapped against the white cotton of his shirt, against the hard warmth of the lean flesh underneath.

"Erm...what do we do now?" Hermione asked, floundering a little in her inner turmoil of conflicting emotions, impressions, and lingering confusion.

"Given the Curse is known by the Dark Lord, the prophesied threat to your existence is still valid. What we should do, Mione," he instructed her, still using that nickname for her, though she got the impression he had to restrain himself a little from saying 'Miss Granger' out of formal teacher-student habit, "is what we have been doing. Getting to know each other, and encouraging the development of our feelings towards each other." His gaze drifted over her face for a moment, before returning to her own. "I must admit, this is the most agreeable counter-curse I've ever attempted to implement. Your mind alone is enough to fascinate me...I truly meant every compliment I ever wrote to you."

Memories assailed her. Painful memories. "You called me an insufferable know-it-all. Numerous times through the years. And worse things."

The look he leveled at her was a firm one. It emphasized his words. "And I apologize for any hurt I may have caused you...but you must realize that every time you open your mouth in class, you intimidate all of the other students. If there is a know-it-all in the classroom, the other students will come to rely upon that person providing all of the tough answers for them, so that they need not study nearly as hard to look for those answers themselves. And when the know-it-all gets all of the corresponding credit, that gives the others little motivation to study further than the absolute minimum. It is a lesson that I didn't learn myself, as a know-it-all student...but which I learnt over the years through my observations as a teacher.

"But I could not give you this advice openly, for that wouldn't have been in-character. And you frustrated me...a pupil smart enough to be a true pleasure to challenge and teach, yet Sorted into a House I have never gotten along with, and could never favour openly in any way, given I am the head of its acknowledged rival. You will also note that my demeanor towards you in the classroom and the halls of the school has not changed one whit. It cannot afford to change, publicly."

"Save for recently," she pointed out, "in those rare moments when we're alone together. In the mornings, in your classroom...you were nice to me then."

Even though it technically wasn't a question, there was one in her tone, just a little bit. He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he freed her hand from his shirt, saluted it briefly with his lips, then rose and moved to the other chair at the table, the one across from hers. Seating himself, he extracted his wand from his sleeve. "Accio tin."

Something flew out of the robes hung on the coat-tree, thumping into his hand. Another flick of his wand, and the gently steaming kettle lifted from the warming hook at the fire, levitating over to the table. Shaking out the dried contents of the small, lidded tin into the tea- strainer, he went through the ritual of brewing a properly prepared pot of tea. When he touched the handles of the sugarpot and the creamer before filling the first cup, she shook her head; obligingly, he served her a cup of straight tea. To her surprise, he added a spoonful of sugar to his own. The Potions Master had never struck her as a sweetener-in-his-tea sort of man. It was a tap-leveled spoonful, not a heaping one, but it was sweetened tea all the same.

The fingers that had stirred all those cauldrons with great precision through the years stirred his tea precisely eight times, then set the spoon aside and lifted the cup to his lips. Only after she had done the same to her own, finding it fruity in flavour with a citrusy-spicy bite that she liked, did he speak. "...I find it increasingly difficult to treat you as I should treat you, given our perceived positions. Yet I must.

"I compartmentalize my life, you see. When I am a professor, I am a professor renowned for terrorizing his classes and favouring his own House," the wizard across from her admitted dryly. "When I am in the Enemy's presence, I am indistinguishable from any loyal Death Eater. When I am reporting to Albus Dumbledore, I am his most valuable and appreciated spy. When I am stalking through the school halls, I am the terrifying, black-hearted bat of the dungeons. Only in the privacy of my heavily warded chambers could I ever simply be myself, before now. As I do not receive visitors in my quarters, save for perhaps the Headmaster on rare occasion, I have had virtually no one to be myself with...until our correspondence began.

"I found being free to be myself a liberating, and yet grounding experience. After one too many years, a spy can lose himself in the roles he must play...and I came close to losing myself, to forgetting my innermost identity, immersed as I was in each of my various roles. But through our exchange of letters, I have been able to find myself again. I wanted to share more of myself with you, and once your birthday came and the Headmaster's restrictions were lifted, I could not help but seize the opportunity to show you in person something of how I really felt, in those rare moments in the mornings when we were alone together."

" 'The Headmaster's restrictions'?" Hermione enquired, puzzled as he sipped at his tea. "What restrictions?"

"You mentioned how improper it is for a teacher to interact with a student in a non-professional manner," he stated delicately. "Yet the Headmaster and I knew that the final confrontation would occur at some point around the end of this, your seventh year in school. I had less than two years to implement the counter-spell, to teach you to love me, and to teach myself to love you. Though it is just now the start of December, we don't know how many months we have left. It could be four, it could be eight. Or two, or three, or seven. You could be out of school by a handful of days, or still in it with several weeks to go. We have no way of knowing.

"With this uncertainty in mind, Albus decreed that, as your birthday falls in September, early in the school year, I could encourage a strictly platonic friendship between us until the day you turned eighteen, to secure a strong foundation for our relationship, and at the same time heed as many of the rules of the school's policy on proper conduct between a professor and a pupil. But, after that point, I could pursue the...other aspects of the counter-spell, exploring more intimate emotions than a mere platonic friendship would allow...which would include engaging the previously forbidden level of physical needs in our relationship."

That made her blush. Hermione sipped at her tea to try and cover it. She nearly choked as she recalled some of the most recent...and daring...things she had written to him. Things about physical needs. Things about how he should touch himself, in the privacy of his own bedchamber, the way she wanted him to touch himself as he thought about her.

If he noted her flushed cheeks, he didn't comment. Thankfully. "If there were no Curse to fret over, but that potion had still been drunk for other reasons, revealing us each to each other...I might have opened a covert correspondence with you. And I would have considered being kinder to you in those rare moments when we were alone and unobserved, as I have been recently. But I would not have crossed the boundaries of professional behaviour while you were my student; I would have waited until you had passed your N.E.W.T.s and exited the school for the last time, and only then worked on pushing back the boundaries of our platonic communiques.

"I would have courted you slowly, carefully, the kind of draught that takes a thousand days to brew. I would have given you the respect, and our friendship the consideration, that it is properly due. And I would have broken the truth of my identity to you more gently than today, and given you time enough to come to terms with these revelations. But we do not have a thousand days. We may not even have one hundred; there is no way to tell, given the vague warnings contained in the diary.

"There are only two ways to proceed, from here," he concluded after taking another sip. He paused, resting his cup and saucer on the table. Legs crossed, elbows braced on the armrests of his own chair, he laced his fingers together, the picture of intellectual contemplation. The only thing keeping his demeanor from being coldly clinical was the warmth in his eyes, the flicker of emotions on his face. They were glimpses into his true thoughts that Hermione knew from her past observations of him that he didn't normally reveal to anyone, let alone a mere student.

"And those are...?" she prompted, curious. And a little distracted, when he licked his lips; she could remember all too clearly the kiss they'd shared, back when she'd been blindfolded.

"Option one: we put an end to our tenuous relationship, and you take a vow to stay out of harm's way. No haring off on adventures with your two best friends, no standing at Harry's back with Ron during the final confrontation. Even if you have to be locked up in a tower, or a dungeon closet, or in house-arrest at Order Headquarters, you will stay out of harm's way until Voldemort is dead."

That made her set down her own teacup and fold her arms across her chest. "What gives you the right to think you can keep me away from my friends at the moment they'll need me most? And don't tell me it's because you're my teacher, because that has nothing to do with this matter."

"I take that right; it is not given to me," he retorted arrogantly, holding her gaze steadily. "I take it because I love you."

If she'd been drinking her tea at that moment, she would have choked. As it was, Hermione still felt the urge to splutter. Her cheeks burning, she tried to come up with something to say, but could only find her mind absolutely blank. Hell, there was nothing she could say to an astounding revelation like that. Severus Snape, greasy git of a Potions Master, the black-hearted bastard of Hogwarts, did not go around professing his love to anyone. Least of all know-it-all Head Girls still under his jurisdiction as one of his pupils. There were certain constants to the universe, after all, and that had been one of them.

'Had been', being the operative words. Clearly, the paradigm of the universe had shifted. The urge to hyperventilate passing, Hermione attempted a reasonably calm question. "...And the second option?"

There, she was proud of that. It came out smoothly and steadily. Almost rationally, in fact, with little to no hint of the turmoil making her head and heart reel.

"Option two: we accelerate our relationship. With absolute honesty this time," Severus acknowledged wryly. "Daily notes to each other, instead of corresponding only once every two to four days. Notes written truthfully, with the naming of names, the describing of situations exactly as they happened, with no holds barred in our thoughts, reactions, feelings, or commentary on everything and anything we feel the need to discuss...though for safety's sake, they should be written in a way to keep them from being read by others' eyes. I would not care to have my actual, honest thoughts written down where anyone else could read them, and learn where my true loyalty lies.

"We will also arrange time for...intimacy. On various levels. The Headmaster will have to be informed, of course, but arrangements can be made to link your chambers to my own. That will help ensure absolute discretion on both our parts."

Hermione grimaced. "Does he have to know? That we're...?"

Those dark eyes blazed with something at her words; it wasn't the lightning-like laughter she'd been before, but something equally sharp and hot. His tone, however, was even and calm. "Albus already knows about our situation; I even let him know that I was going to be meeting you here, for the revelation of my identity. The moment I learned that the Enemy knew the Cuorum Curse, a year or two before his fall at the Potter's house back in Godrick's Hollow sixteen years ago, I informed the Headmaster of it, and what it would take to counteract the spell successfully...and the dire consequences of failure.

"I have seen the Dark Lord use this ancient Curse three times before on some of his own followers, and twice more on victims, though thankfully not since his return to power. Each time, the victim was left in a partially erased state, emotionally...and each time, the Death Eaters eventually had to kill the...the experiments, as he preferred calling them."

"Why would he want to extract positive emotions from someone?" Hermione asked, confused on that point.

"The Dark Lord doesn't believe in love. He doesn't think it has any value, save as a negative drag on the emotions he does value: ambition, greed, hatred... Compassion is also a waste of time to him, as well as some of the other feelings in the brighter end of the emotional spectrum. No, he sought to create the perfect Death Eaters by extracting those qualities," Severus enlightened her grimly. "The results were...inhuman, to be polite. He soon saw its potential as a torture, however, and turned to extracting emotions out of his victims. I have thankfully not heard one whisper of his using this foul curse since his return at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament...but he has the knowledge, and he has the will. He may indeed use it again, when the moment is right...and if that mysterious visitor's words are as prophetic as feared, he will attempt to use it on you, to distract young Mr. Potter so that he will falter under the weight of his grief, and fail in his task at the crucial hour.

"Either you must be protected by a deep and abiding love when that day comes, or you must be safely ensconced elsewhere. There are no other viable options, for all our sakes. Even back when the curse was first revealed, before I knew you, I knew how valuable your presence would be at Harry Potter's side one day. But...now that you know who 'Rus' is, I will not presume to dictate what happens next. As you so aptly said, back on the day the diary was first read, this is your curse to deal with, thus the decision of how to deal with it is entirely up to you. Which leads us to your decision: which will it be?"

Hermione had no idea how he could possibly be so calm about all of this. She couldn't abandon her friends in the battles to come! Being threatened by a three-headed dog, petrified by a basilisk, chased by a werewolf...with mental apologies to Remus...being cursed by a Death Eater, threatened by centaurs and giants and Death Eaters and all sorts of nasty things, none of it had slowed her down. None of this was going to slow her down, either.

Besides, Hermione decided daringly, he is the same man I fell in love with, in my letters. The same man who was kind to me recently, before the other students came around for their classes. The same man that I heard in my mind last night, the same man whose written words gave me such pleasure...

It was getting rather warm in the room. Hermione wondered if her Gryffindor bravery would give her enough courage to take off the jumper she was wearing...which would expose the camisole and brassiere she wore underneath. Deciding she wasn't quite brave enough for such a brazen action without at least a little fooling around first, she picked up her tea and sipped from it. Those dark eyes...who would've guessed his eyes were dark grey?...tracked her movements. Watching her like the proverbial hawk. It was then that she realized he wasn't entirely as calm as he appeared to be over what her answer might be.

Putting him out of his misery, she set down the cup and saucer, cleared her throat, and spoke. "I think I'll take the second option. Proceeding with our relationship, I mean. I'm not one to sit back when my friends are in danger...and, er, I count you among that number, now." It was odd, but she blushed a little at that revelation. Clearing her throat, Hermione continued. "And if I am not there, then Vo...the Dark Lord," she amended as he flinched a little, clearly not liking the dreaded, forbidden name spoken aloud in his presence, "might turn the Curse on someone else, someone like Ron, whose emotional breadth still hasn't quite matured enough to embrace something as vast and profound as true love...why do you look so smug?"

He did look smug, smirking as he picked up his saucer and cup. "I had thought you would choose this course, Mione, based on something you said earlier; I am merely pleased to know that I guessed correctly. I am not smug."

Well, that was an honest answer. "You are not 'merely pleased', Severus," Hermione retorted, daringly using his first name. "I've seen that smug-git look in your eyes plenty of times before, you know! You're about as smug as a Slytherin can get, right now!"

"If I am as smug as you say, do you really think there is anything you could do about it?" he challenged her softly, sipping at his tea, those dark eyes glittering over the porcelain rim.

Her brash, Gryffindor courage finally raising its head, she lifted her chin and retorted without thinking, "Well, I could always kiss that smugness away!"