Chapter Four

IV.

...

The teacup rattled against the saucer as he quickly lowered it from his mouth, though thankfully he didn't splutter his tea back into the cup. A moment to compose himself, and he swallowed. It was the least composed she had probably seen him, outside of those rare moments when his rage had escaped its leash during a stressful situation in her presence. Certainly the saucer and teacup rattled again, as he returned them to the table with an imperfectly steady hand.

Severus kept his gaze on the china until he was certain it was safely placed on the table. Only then did he look up, meeting and holding her gaze. Uncrossing and bracing his feet, he shifted the chair back with a soft shuff of wood sliding over carpet, and settled his wrists with studied carelessness on the armrests.

"...I am entirely at your disposal for such an experiment."

Those tawny eyes widened in surprise, and she nibbled enticingly...if unwittingly...on her bottom lip as she considered his offer. He watched as, her cheeks turning a becoming shade of pink, she glanced down at the table, no doubt uncertain as to whether or not to take up his counter-challenge. Her eyes alighted on a puddle of black silk, and sharpened. Severus could see it coming, as she smiled slightly and picked up the scarf he'd laid out for the blindfold. He watched her rise with youthful grace from her chair and move around the table, fingers busy unknotting the fabric they grasped. Resisting the urge to watch her, he listened to her move behind him. There was a pause, then she spoke.

"We, er...need ground rules. For right now," she clarified, and brought the blindfold down into his field of vision. Her hands trembled slightly but visibly, and her voice sounded breathless from her daring. Still, he could see why she'd been Sorted into Gryffindor as she continued briskly. "You don't remove the blindfold until you want the game to end. Unless I take it off for you, of course. And...we behave ourselves, since this...since this is technically our first...date." Merlin, that was a weird word to apply to one of her professors. Swallowing, Hermione clarified her meaning. "No hands straying underneath each other's hemlines, or unbuttoning anything on the other person. Agreed?"

"Agreed." Severus felt a mixture of responses to her suggestions. He didn't know how long he would be able to withstand her rules, not being able to slip his hands under the fabric shrouding her flesh. He'd stroked himself to completion several times over the past few nights, thinking about what she might have done after reading his most salacious letter to her, and re-reading her own reply, following her innocent but arousing directions for achieving his own pleasure. Even now, he was thinking of what he would do to her if he were free to do so. The possibility of being blindfolded and at her mercy was unnerving to a man who was used to being in control of everything around himself...but he wasn't about to say 'no', either. Only a fool would say no at this point, and Severus was no fool.

She wrapped the cloth around his head, just tight enough that it would be difficult to see down the sides of his nose. He knew from how easily the blindfold had been removed from her own head that she'd used that trick to see at least a little bit of what was going on, earlier. Not that he could blame her; caution was a good habit to develop. But after she knotted the blindfold in place, she did nothing. Cocking his head slightly, Severus stilled his lungs, listening for her breathing.

She was behind him. No, she was moving, coming around to his left. She was...within arm-reach, he determined, and lifted his left hand from the armrest, stretching it out. Within inches, he encountered something knit-textured...and softly rounded.

She squeaked. Apparently, it was her breast. Severus smirked, shifted forward in the chair, and scooped his arm around her ribs. Dragging her carefully, if firmly, onto his lap.

"You...you cheated!"

He knew she could see his smirk, since he didn't bother to hide it. As she squirmed a little, he wrapped his arms around her warm, soft, slender curves, hitching her closer to his chest; she was bigger in his lap than he'd imagined. That pleased him; he didn't want a child in his arms. He wanted a woman...and she had the curves to qualify, thank Merlin. "You merely said I couldn't take off the blindfold, Mione, unless I wanted the game to end. You never said I had to sit here and be passively pliant under your every command."

"Well, I...urgh, this chair arm is poking me in the thigh..." A sizzle of sound...no doubt from the flicking of her wand...and the chair shifted shape under them. Severus found himself sinking from a surface of firm, smooth-carved wood into soft, springy cushions as the hardwood chair softened into what felt like a broad recliner. "That's better. I definitely had certain ideas on how this was supposed to go, you know."

Hermione squirmed again in his lap, pushing away from him. Severus grunted and tried to catch her again. "Where do you think you are going, woman?"

"Nowhere, but here." She returned, but not by sitting sideways on his lap as before. Instead, with remarkable bravery, he felt her straddling him. The armchair, or whatever, was deep and wide enough that she was able, by dint of some enticing squirming, to snug herself firmly over his lap. To the point where, if she rocked forward just a tiny bit more, he could have enspelled their clothing elsewhere, and thrust into her body. If she hadn't been wearing those thick Muggle jeans, if he hadn't been wearing his woolen trousers...and if he hadn't already read her confession of being a virgin, not a dozen letters ago. He caught her hips as she squirmed again, holding her firmly still. Severus wondered if she'd felt his erection, and was doing it on purpose.

"If you keep that up, Mione, you are going to make me think you lied about your inexperience, in your letters." His voice was husky, moreso than he'd intended, but it froze her in place and gave him time to calm himself down.

Until the witch deliberately swirled her hips, rubbing herself against him. A surprised grunt escaped him. Catching her hips firmly in his hands, Severus stilled her for a moment...then ground up into her. The sound of her breath catching in her throat was sweet. Letting himself smirk, Severus eased his head forward as he guided her movements in counterpoint to his own. Sure enough, he encountered the nubbly-soft knit of her jumper, somewhere between the curve of her breasts and the arch of her neck. Nuzzling his way to her throat, he teased her with the tip of his nose, and little licks of his tongue. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and with surprising aggression...he didn't know why he should be surprised; she was a Gryffindor after all, scion of a very brash House...she tipped his head back and claimed his mouth with her own.

Severus couldn't imagine a more erotic kiss than this: blindfolded, straddled and pinned in place by a sexy young witch determined to have her inexperienced but enthusiastic, exploratory way with him. She investigated his lips with her own, and he gladly reciprocated. She squirmed a little on his lap, and he squirmed back. She panted and whimpered slightly as he slid his hands up to her breasts, cupping and massaging them through the nubbly knit of her jumper, and he groaned faintly, encouragingly when she placed both palms on his shirt of her own volition, exploring and rubbing the muscles of his chest beneath the crisp fabric.

Her fingertips brushed over his cotton-covered nipples, making him shiver. When she did it again, Severus felt the same thrill streaking through his nerves a second time and groaned out loud, deliberately releasing a sound of pleasure into her mouth as they kissed, letting her hear how much he liked it. He knew she was inexperienced, after all; if he didn't show and tell her what he liked, she'd never learn how to please him.

She was a quick student, as usual; emboldened by his groan, Hermione did it a third time, this time gently raking her fingernails over the tiny nubs pebbling under the stimulation of her touch, despite the fabric that lay between her fingers and his flesh. He wanted to return the touch, but the thickness and texture of her jumper was too awkward to work through effectively. Frustrated, Severus sucked on her lower lip, thinking quickly. The exact rules of this little game were...

...Ah-ha. A loop-hole. Smiling to himself, Severus flicked his thumbnails over the general region of her nipples...it was too damned hard to tell their exact placement through her thick jumper at the moment...then shifted his fingers to the buttons of his shirt, continuing to share a hot, tongue-tangling kiss with the innocent vixen straddling his lap. It took her a few moments to realize what he was doing. In fact, it wasn't until her hands, still roaming over his torso as she caressed him, encountered the bared skin of his chest that she noticed.

Their kiss ended as she stilled her hands and pulled back. A sharp intake of air told Severus that she was startled. While she was distracted, he peeled the edges of his shirt further back, tugging the tails out of his waistband. Her voice was breathy, yet breathless as he released the last two buttons. "What...what are you doing?"

"Come now, Mione; you're an intelligent woman," he chided her mildly . "You said we couldn't unbutton each other's clothes...but you said nothing against undoing our own."

"That's not what I meant, with that rule," she protested. It was a weak one, without much effort or conviction behind her words.

Severus smiled, imagining her tawny, perpetually curious eyes examining his chest. Yes, for a man in his prime, he had an excellent physique; he could all but feel her eyes caressing his skin, felt his nipples pebbling at the very thought of her staring at them for the first time. "I am not only a Slytherin, my dear, I am the Head of Slytherin. A House renowned for its members' ability to manipulate the rules to our personal advantage. Not to mention I thought you might consider it a sign of my trust in you, for me to bare all of my..."

His words died as he felt her fingertips caressing the left side of his ribs, tracing a ragged, roughly diagonal path down his side. He'd forgotten about that. He'd forgotten about it, and about her possible reaction to the sight of what her skin now touched.

"...For me to bare all of my imperfections," he finished quietly, carefully. He didn't want her to know how nervous he was at the thought of her rejecting him for those imperfections; that wasn't the sort of thing a man cared to reveal, though he'd bare his soul in other places for her to peruse.

"What happened?" she asked him gently, shifting her hand to trace another scarred patch of skin, this time a set of pockmarks over on his right side.

"Those were from a Potions accident early in my career. The other one...I displeased the Dark Lord."

"It looks recent," she observed, returning her fingers to the long, purplish scar angling down his left side.

"It isn't. I earned it years ago."

"Does it still hurt?"

That wasn't a question he'd answer for anyone, under normal circumstances. But, this wasn't a normal circumstance. Quelling the protective urge to tell her to mind her own business, Severus managed a truthful, "...Occasionally. If it's bumped hard. But I've grown used to living with some level of pain."

Her palm pressed very gently over the old injury, warming it. "I wish it didn't hurt you."

"There is a potion available in recent years that could fix the problem, removing the ache and the scar that causes it...but it has its uses, as is," he confessed. "If I feel the urge to be nice to someone, or to laugh at something humorous, I need only secretly prod myself on that side, and the urge vanishes under the resulting ache. A light touch does not bother it," he reassured her as she started to withdraw her hand, no doubt thinking she was paining him. "The ache is contained in the deeper tissues."

"When the war is over, will you take the potion for it then?" Hermione asked him.

"Probably, but until then, I live with it. Does it...repulse you?"

"No; rather, it evokes my compassion and sympathies. It looks a lot like the mark of Dolohov's curse, back from the end of my fifth year," she murmured, gently tracing it with her fingertips. Tickling him. "Only I had that wound across my chest and shoulder, before it faded and vanished."

"It was the same curse," he confessed. "Applied by the Dark Lord, but in a less damaging area than where you yourself were struck."

"Why did he strike you with it?" she asked.

Severus knew she would ask that question. He knew he had to answer, and he also knew he couldn't predict how she would react to that answer. His only choice was to give her the truth. Edited as to the details, and tersely delivered, but the truth nonetheless.

"...He wanted me to rape and torture someone. I refused. He punished me until I complied. With the torture, not the rape," he clarified as he heard her suck in a sharp breath. "It's nearly impossible for a man to rape someone if he is not stimulated by the act...and I was not." He could feel the tension flexing and fading in her body, and didn't want her to misunderstand him. There had to be nothing but the truth between them, in private moments such as this. "Mutually consensual play-acting is one thing, Mione. I like to be able to throw a little titillation and spice into an encounter once in a while with a mock-struggle, even a little experimentation with bondage, and I enjoy the stimulation of someone feeling helpless in the face of a lover determined to give them pleasure, whether I'm the binder or the bound...for it could just as easily happen with the woman being the dominant one...but only the consensual kind of play-acting appeals to me.

"Being blindfolded is a form of helplessness, and I am not normally a man inclined to feel helpless in any situation," he reminded her, feeling her fingers gently tracing the lines of his ribs and the muscles of his abdomen. "Yet I sit here, knowing you have a distinct advantage over me in being able to see, that you could do almost anything to me and I would not be able to react adequately in time, rendering me somewhat helpless and at your mercy...and I find that thought stimulating." He heard her snort and smirked. "Laugh if you will, but you could cast a body-bind on me, and tickle me, and I would not know you had drawn your wand until it was too late to counter the spell.

"But I also know that if I requested you to stop, you would. And that if you requested it of me, were our positions reversed, I would stop. That is the nature of such consensual play; it is only fun when both parties agree to it, and abide by certain rules. When one is in the Dark Lord's service, refusal is rarely an option. I tried to refuse what was demanded of me, and was punished for my refusal. I then complied with what I could do, to get him to stop hurting me. When I had finished doing what he wanted...he struck me down with the curse as a final punishment for trying to defy his will. After that, I knew I would be wise to not refuse to do anything else. Not without coming up with some reason that would satisfy the Dark Lord sufficiently enough to not punish me again."

"Is that...is that what led you to defect to Professor Dumbledore's side?" Hermione enquired carefully.

"No. But it was one among the many straws being laid upon the proverbial camel's back...and I would rather not further talk about such things at this moment. It isn't exactly conducive to the original mood, if you hadn't noticed," he added dryly, tugging the edges of his shirt back into place. Certainly his arousal had literally as well as figuratively diminished.

Her hands stopped him. "Why are you covering yourself?"

"So that my scars do not repulse y..."

Her fingertips covered his lips. "They don't repulse me, Rus."

The sound of his spurious nickname on her lips suspended his heartbeat for a moment, before making it skip into double-time. Abandoning his shirt, he gently caught her hand, kissing her fingertips, her palm, her wrist. The cuff of her knit jumper prevented him from going any further, but he deliberately teased the edge of it, licking the exposed skin with the tip of his tongue. He could smell a faint sandalwood-like perfume from whatever soap she had used that morning, along with the natural perfume of her skin. Caressing her knitted sleeve, knowing the touch was unsatisfactory for both of them, he laved the bared section of her wrist with kisses, making love to what he could of her flesh to make up for it.

His efforts paid dividends; she shivered under his touch, squirming restlessly on his lap as her breath hitched in her throat. A moment later, she freed her hand from his grip and brushed her fingers against his brow. They glided past his ears, following the edge of the black silk barring most of his sight...and unknotted the blindfold. He blinked as she removed it, adjusting his eyes to the glow of the winter sunlight filtering through the curtains at his back. That glow, coupled with the dark red of her sweater, gave her chestnut curls auburn highlights. In direct sunlight, he knew there would be glints of gold, but here and now, her hair looked more sultry than sunny. Beautiful. He debated whether to kiss her immediately, or to play with those luscious curls first.

And then she surprised him. Biting her lower lip for a moment, Hermione crossed her forearms, and grasped the hem of her sweater. Pulling the jumper up over her head, she freed her long curls with a tug of her head. Underneath the sweater she was wearing a pale pink camisole. The garment was made from thin silk with a sweetheart neckline emphasized by a deep-pointed triangle of soft lace, and held in place by quill-thin, satiny straps. They did nothing to obscure the matching pink straps of her brassiere, nor was the material opaque enough to hide the fact that the cups of her bra were also quite lacy.

He never would have guessed the Head Girl enjoyed silk fripperies like these; she always dressed casually when she was out of her school uniform and clad in Muggle clothes, downplaying her gender around the others in the school. Of course, she did have two males as her two best friends, males whom she just wasn't interested in as potential boyfriends; the outer layers were probably protective camouflage. Still, it was very effective; who knew she'd been hiding such feminine undergarments under such slouchy clothes?

Severus studied her figure, gauging her charms without touching her just yet. Her breasts were comfortable handfuls, apple-sized, neither too large nor too small. And, without the bulk of her jumper getting in the way, Severus could see the soft nubs at the crests of those mounds. Her nipples. Their very existence begged him to play with them, to stimulate and fondle and suckle their soft-hard tips...

He wasn't some impatient, fumble-fingered boy. He was impatient to explore her body, yes, but Severus could curb his needs. Lifting his gaze to hers, noting the shy blush contrasting with her brave stare, he shifted his arms. Touching the backs of her hands with his fingertips, he glided them up the soft skin of her forearms, tracing meandering patterns on her skin. Shifting to the insides of her arms, he teased the delicate flesh at the bends of her elbows for a few moments, noting when she shivered how her breathing shuddered a little, and how her nipples tightened visibly. Only then did he trace patterns up her biceps, trailing his fingers over the tops of her shoulders, skimming over those straps to the muscles of her back.

Here, he firmed his touch, gently massaging the tension in her shoulders and spine. Eyes drifting closed, she moaned softly, swaying with his ministrations even as she leaned back into his hands, letting him know how much she was enjoying his touch. Working his fingers down her spine, Severus smirked a little as she leaned further back...thrusting her silk-covered breasts up into range. The unwitting invitation was too much to resist.

Lowering his head to her camisole, Severus captured one of those pert curves with his mouth. Stroking the material with his tongue, he laved the peak as she gasped, startled. As his fingers continued to massage her spine, working their way down to the small of her back, Severus dampened the double layer of material with his saliva until it clung to the flesh underneath. His ministrations exposed and defined the darker circle of her nipple from the paler expanse of her breast, when he pulled his head back to check his handiwork.

The sight enflamed him, as did the blush colouring her cheeks when he glanced up at her face. Clutching her hips, Severus rubbed their loins together, dipping his head back to her breast to tease and torment it some more. The texture of the silk was both an impediment and an enhancement of the experience; he longed to strip off camisole and bra and taste her flesh directly, but restrained the impulse. These were her rules; she trusted him to abide by them, and he would abide...but he would also do his best to make her want to remove her clothes herself, which was thankfully within the letter of those same rules. So far, it was working well; without the wool of her jumper getting in his way, he could caress and kiss most of her flesh, either directly or through her thin undergarments.

Turning his attention to her other breast, he suckled on that peak as well, dampening the layers of pale silk until they, too, clung to the underlying flesh. She writhed on his lap as he divided his attention between the two moistened peaks, her fingers threading through his hair, tugging lightly on his sable locks whenever he did something that particularly pleased her. Such as suckling as much of one soft mound into his mouth as he could, then gently scraping his teeth together until they nipped at the turgid little peak. Or flicking his tongue rapidly across the other peak, teasing her nipple with a slow circling around the saliva-dampened tip, then flicking it again, and again. Her squirming against his lap told him how much she liked those things, as did the way she whimpered, and licked her lower lip, and scrunched her eyes shut to better focus on the sensations generated by his touch.

Severus liked the squirming best; her hips had a natural rhythm, a sort of figure-eight motion that drove him higher and hotter with each circling twitch. It was easy to imagine what she would be like, writhing on his lap without any barriers of clothing, inexperienced fumblings, or lingering shyness. He sucked harder on her breasts at the thought, ignoring the ache in his slouched back as he guided her hips into rubbing against him a little harder, a little closer in his lap...her fingers tugged harder on his hair, her breathy, soft moans growing louder. He could smell her now, a rich, musky, feminine perfume, warm with body-heat. Her passion had been stirred by the way her cotton dungarees were rubbing over his wool trousers, by the way she was rocking the apex of her thighs over the apex of his loins, stimulating both of them.

Nose twitching, Severus inhaled deeply. The scent of her arousal drugged his senses, until he had to release her nipple from his lips and drop his head back, resting it against the high, cushioned back of the broad armchair cupping them; as she continued to rock against him, he struggled to control his panting. The sight of her hands gliding over the curves of her breasts, fingers released from his hair to play instead with her abandoned nipples, tweaking them herself through the damp silk clinging to each peak, that was his undoing. Clutching at her thighs, Severus ground himself up into her, shuddering as his stomach tightened and his eyes closed in ambushed ecstasy.

"...Ah, god, Mione! Ah, god...ah...goddess," he grunted huskily, panting heavily as his stomach tightened again with an aftershock, his lower abdomen coated in wet warmth inside his clothes. He thought he was too insensate to do anything but blush at such an adolescent gaffe...but her own moan and shudder snapped his eyes open. The bucking of those nubile hips, that peculiar hitch to her breath...he prayed that could only mean one thing. That she, too, had climaxed just now, sparing him the ignomy of being the only one affected by their mostly-clothed lap-dance.

The sleepy way she opened her eyes after a few seconds, and the blush that stole down over her cheeks to her throat and collarbone, confirmed the matter. Confirmed it, and kept him firm inside his dampened trousers. Lifting a hand to her jaw, he caressed it lightly, keeping her chin lifted so that she would meet his gaze.

"That was unexpected, and embarrassing...but divine," he murmured, grateful for the support of the deep, high back of the easy chair. Unless there was an emergency, Severus doubted he would be able to make his muscles move very far for the next few minutes. A wry twist of his lips and he confessed honestly, for the sake of soothing her own embarrassment, "I normally have a lot more self-control over the culmination of my pleasures than that. I'm a full-grown man after all, not some clumsy teenager who can't even wait to get out of his pants before climaxing. But I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it...and if you dare laugh at me over this, I'll have to hex you on principle alone. Just to give you fair warning."

She blinked, blushed harder, and licked her lips. "I'm not...I'm not going to laugh. It would, erm, be hypocritical anyway, since I also just...ah... I'm wondering...does this mean our tea is over, for the day?"

"Oh, I could brew a second pot in a minute or two if you like, without any trouble," Severus reassured her, smirking at the perfect opportunity for an innuendo. "And perhaps even brew up a third about ten to twenty minutes after that one is done, though it might take me a few hours to recuperate enough for a fourth brewing, today."

He enjoyed the way she blushed harder than before. "That isn't what I meant, exactly. I..."

"...'Mione?" a half-muffled voice called out. Severus stiffened and Hermione sat up, staring past the edge of the chair at one of the windows. "...Hermione? Is that you?"

"...It's Harry!" she gasped, stiffening, then quickly crossing her arms over her breasts, since the angle at which she sat probably left most of her camisole-clad body exposed. "He's on a broom outside the window!"

Gritting his teeth, Severus fished out his wand and snapped his wrist. The shutters banged shut on the outside of the building, darkening the room. The heavy curtains also rattled together on their rods, darkening the chamber that much further. In the flickering light of the fire, Severus met her gaze with a disgruntled glare, voice slowly rising out of a quiet growl despite his efforts to control it. "I have been trying very hard to get over my prejudices against that boy, and the associations I have with him because of his father and how much he looks like the git...but I am tempted right now to hex him so hard, not even the Dark Lord would think him a threat, afterwards!"

She stared down at him, chewing on her lower lip in worry. "You're not really going to hurt him...are you?"

"...Don't tempt me," he muttered gruffly. "For your sake, I shall do my best to refrain. But I remind you that I am in love with you, not with the Bloody Boy Who Bloody Lived. Yes, he is your best friend, and yes, I've realized through our letters that he's not nearly as much like his father as I'd like to think, to be able to remain trapped in my former cocoon of grudge-wrapped hate.

"But right now, he is a bloody twit...and if he were on the school grounds, I'd give him the worst detention possible for being a Peeping Harry!" Severus growled. "Don't bother to deny his voyeurism, Mione; we're on the second ruddy floor of this inn. He shouldn't be flying close enough to the windows to take a look inside and recognize whoever is beyond them. Especially through gauze curtains that should've sheltered us from a simple, casual look during a simple, casual fly-by."

"I wasn't about to protest," she concurred, frowning softly. "He shouldn't be this close to the Three Broomsticks, I'll agree with you on that... God, this is going to mess things up horribly! I don't think he saw any part of you except maybe your arm, from the angle of the chair and everything, but he's going to want to know if it really was me, and what I was doing in here with someone, and...and why I've got my jumper off, and who I was meeting..."

"You'd better dress and go." Her disappointed look warmed something inside of him. Pulling her close, Severus brushed his lips against hers. She deepened the kiss with a sigh, and he permitted it for a few moments, returning the teasing strokes of her tongue with ones of his own. Ending the kiss, he urged her off his lap. "Really, you need to get dressed and leave; if I know the idiot, he'll try to come tearing up here, looking for you. Even if the room's warded against intrusion, his presence and persistence will draw the curiosity of others, making it difficult for either of us to escape unnoticed. And he'll probably think it heroic rather than annoying, saving you from the attentions of some unknown, unapproved soul. Or at the very least, he'll claim it's his right to be nosy about your private business, as a concerned best friend."

"You're probably right...though his nosiness won't be nearly as appreciated as he'd think. As if I needed saving from being snogged by someone else," she snorted, picking up her discarded sweater from the floor. Righting it, she tugged it into place, while Severus used his wand to clean himself up without having to remove his trousers. Popping her head through the neckline, she pulled her hair free, adding, "Especially if it's someone I want to be snogging." A pause and she looked at him uncertainly, tugging absently on the hemline of her jumper to get it to lie smoothly in place. "Er...when will we meet again? In private, I mean?"

He knew she meant meeting in private like this, not seeing each other in the halls and classrooms of the school. "I'll talk to the Headmaster about the necessary arrangements. In front of everyone else, nothing will change," Severus cautioned her as he rose from the chair once he was clean, catching first her eyes, and then her hand. His thumb caressed the back of her hand in counterpoint to his words. "I will still be the greasy, gitty, black-hearted, sour-tempered, Gryffindor-loathing bastard I've portrayed all along.

"You in turn must continue to be the obnoxious, bossy, know-it-all Head Girl with too many questions and too many answers for her own good. No secret smiles, no furtive looks, no attempts to communicate anything that would be out of character with me directly. Not where anyone could witness it...and that includes the occupants of the wizarding portraits. Our safety, our very lives, depend on our acting ability. It isn't what I want to do, Hermione, but it is what I will do, because it is necessary to do it...do you understand that, Miss Granger?"

She nodded her head, chewing on her lower lip once more. "I understand, Severus; I really do. I don't like it, but I'll do it. Just...how long until you've got that special way to communicate worked out, sir?"

Grateful she understood...to the extent of making a point of differentiating between the addressing of him as 'Severus' and 'Sir', as he had between 'Mione' and 'Miss Granger'...Severus mulled it over, releasing her fingers. "Within a few days at the latest. I'll let you know when everything has been arranged."

Nodding, she padded over to the coat-tree and pulled down her jacket. Severus followed her, removing her cloak and holding it for her as she finished buttoning the coat. Draping her in the dark folds, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, feeling the rasp of the tightly woven wool against the strip of his flesh bared by the unbuttoned edges of his shirt as she leaned back into his embrace.

"I will miss you, even though I know I will be seeing you at supper in just a few more hours. It's not the same as being able to hold you," he murmured next to her ear, kissing the curls sheltering it. "And...I want to thank you. For not screaming and trying to hex me, when you realized it was me."

"Well, it was a close thing," she muttered. If it weren't for the hint of a laugh in her voice, and the slight curve of her mouth, Severus might have thought she was serious; as it was, she was probably only half-serious. No, not very serious, he decided as she twisted in his embrace, facing him with a charmingly ambivalent smile, somewhere between shy and salacious. "The holidays are coming up...and I'm staying on the school grounds.

"I told Harry and Ron it would be as much to keep myself close to the school library for studying, as to keep the two of them company...but even I know that all study and no play makes Mione a very dull girl. And we do have an appointment to keep," she reminded him, making Severus frown softly in confusion. "With your sofa? And a big, dry-as-dust book culled from the school library about The History Of Something-Or-Other?"

It took him a moment to recall the first 'intimate moment' image he had written to her, back in September. "...Ah, yes. Though if it's to be a book that's new to both of us, perhaps I should look into ordering something from Flourish & Blotts. I'm fairly certain that, between you and I, we've read most of the good books in the school library...'good' by our standards, that is," he added with a last, slight smile, before eyeing her soberly and speaking with some of his usual crispness. "I'm giving you a homework assignment, Miss Granger: I want a list of all subjects you're interested in reading. No less than fifteen different general categories, each with a minimum of ten sub-categories of subjects that are of specific interest to you."

She nodded soberly, though there was a hint of merriment lurking in her eyes as she agreed obediently. "Yes, Professor Snape. When would you like the list turned in to you, sir?"

"No later than eight o'clock tonight, sharp," he directed her. "I've a few free hours tomorrow in which to Apparate to Diagon Alley. Bring it by my office, and don't be late, or I'll assign you a detention."

Her tawny brown eyes gleamed at the possibility.

Severus cut that thought before it could finish budding. "...A detention served with Argus Filch, you naughty-minded girl." Kissing her disappointed pout, Severus pulled back, keeping the contact brief. "You'd better go, Miss Granger, while we both still have our wits about us."

Nodding, she turned to the door and twisted the knob. Nothing happened. She did it again, jiggling the handle. The door didn't budge. Severus, recalling what was wrong, nudged her aside. Positioning himself so that the door would shield him from view when opened...he still hadn't fasted his shirt, let alone donned his frock-coat over it...the Potions Master fixed the problem with a single word.

"Exit."

Magic sparkled across the door, releasing the wards with the simple command. Twisting the knob, he opened the door, glancing warily through the small gap between the door and the hinge side of the frame as she stepped through. Just in time to see her stepping in front of a pink-cheeked figure bundled in wool, glasses still somewhat steamed from the transition from the cold streets of the village to the warm corridor of the inn.

"...Oh! Harry! I didn't expect you to come up here." Her voice sounded suitably surprised.

"Hermione! I saw you through the window, and I wanted to know what you were doing up here."

"Harry James Potter, do you mean to tell me you were peeking through the windows of this inn? And where did you get that broom, anyway?" Hermione demanded sharply. "That's not your Firebolt!"

Severus let her close the door behind her, pressing his ear to the panel so he could hear the Boy Who Lived as he was deliciously put on the defensive.

"I was test-flying it, and while I was testing the braking-charm, I came to a stop outside the windows, and that's when I saw you...and you were naked!"

"I was not naked! I have on a pink tank-top under my jumper. It was warm in there, so I took off the jumper to cool down for a little while. And you really need to get that broom back to the shop, before the owner thinks you've stolen it."

"Like I'd steal anything!" the other Gryffindor snorted. "But why were you up here, Hermione? Who were you meeting...?"

Their voices were growing fainter, more obscure. She was leading him away from the door, no doubt herding him back down into the more public areas of the inn. Severus strained to hear her reply, wondering how she'd classify their assignation.

"I was simply meeting an old friend of mine..."

You'd think I had gray in my hair...'old', indeed. Straightening the edges of his shirt, Severus started re-buttoning the material. Time for him to gather his belongings and vacate the room. A flick of his wand when he had dressed transfigured the armchair back into the original wooden one. Another flick evaporated the tea; the biscuits he swept into his kerchief and tucked into a pocket of his cloak to take with him. Albus would appreciate them, when he visited the Headmaster to arrange for the necessary means for the two of them to continue exploring a relationship together.

All in all, their face-to-face meeting had ended spectacularly well. From the moment she had complained about Professor Dumbledore having to know about their advancing into the previously forbidden level of physical intimacy...before she'd officially made up her mind...Severus had guessed she would say 'yes'. Elation had filled him, at the realization. There was only one insect threatening to mar the perfect potion of this meeting: he'd leapt out onto a limb earlier, telling Hermione that he loved her ...but she had yet to reciprocate. She had to requite his love for her, to admit it and return it with equal fervor, or the counter-spell to the Cuorum Curse would not take effect. As much as he still considered young Mr. Potter to be a prat...and now a Peeping Harry...Severus knew the Boy Who Lived needed both of his best friends at his side, giving the young man enough emotional stability to hopefully prevail.

Nervousness, uncertainty and worry put him in the appropriate mood to scowl as he checked the room one last time to make sure it was clear of their presence, before stalking downstairs and striding back through the more populated sections of the inn.