Chapter 22: Manifestation

A/N: So yesterday, I drove to Droxy's house to visit with her and with SBrande. I had scarcely made it in the door with the bakery box of muffins before they turned their wands upon me and did a joint Imperio.

Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a joint spell cast by two powerful Death Eaters carries quite a punch ...

Accordingly, please find below the next chapter of The Love You Take. This one's for you, Drox and Sonia!

Chapter has been partially Brit-picked by MagicAlly, beta-read by Deemichelle, and alpha-read by AnnieTalbot. Much love and chocolate to them all!

Chapter 22: Manifestation

Exhausted, as close to broken as he had ever been, Severus Snape huddled in the forest clearing near his grandmother's home in Yorkshire and held the crying girl to his heart. Safe! Sweet Merlin, they were safely away, against all odds. He had by no means been sure he would succeed in delivering her from a meeting with the Dark Lord.

Her sobs began to abate, and he cradled the back of her head with one hand whilst using the clean handkerchief he had conjured to dry her face. The faintest change in the quality of light told him that dawn was near; he had taken her to bed at ten the night before, so she had gone now for eight hours without relief. It was certainly no record; she had gone for longer times without having the compulsion assuaged, but his experience with her had been that stress exacerbated the curse, and she had certainly looked at him with need in her eyes before the battle had begun.

Peering down now into her wan, pinched face, he felt as if he were seeing his own handiwork, and he hated himself for it. Without speaking, he reached down and ran his fingertips up her inner thigh, and she trembled.

'Like this, for now,' he whispered into her hair. 'Properly, when we return to Prince House.'

She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his robes. 'Will you ...' she tried, her voice harsh and painful sounding.

'Don't try to speak,' he said.

She lifted her fingertips to his face, touching the edge of the dreadful mask.

His lips tightened in self-reproach...how could he have forgotten how he appeared to her? He swept the offending item from his face and touched her cheek.

'Better?'

In answer, she turned her face into his hand, her lips pressing a kiss of thanks there. He moved the hand again, beneath the ruined white cocktail dress to the damp slickness of her quim. Relaxing against him, she allowed her thighs to fall open, and he deftly parted her labia, two fingers slipping into her body with practiced ease. She sighed and ground against his hand, fisting his robes in one hand as she gave herself over to him. With his thumb, he circled her clit, earning a guttural moan. She would need a proper fucking before he could sleep, and as much as he enjoyed sex with her, he wanted nothing now but a shower and his bed. Nevertheless, there was sufficient potency potion amongst his toiletries at Prince House, and it had never failed to help him rise to the occasion; he would do the necessary to make her comfortable, and then he would set Scampy to make sure that no one woke them.

She shifted position, releasing his robes and wrapping her fingers about his wrist, pressing his hand against her with more force than he would have used, raising her hips and grinding until she gasped and stilled. He removed his hand to her upper leg. 'Are you comfortable?' he asked. 'Shall we go on to Prince House?'

Her nod, with slumberous eyes fixed upon his face, wrung a glimmer of interest from his libido. He stood and pulled her to her none-too-steady feet, then wrapped his arms securely about her and Disapparated to their room in his grandmother's house, reflecting wryly on the peculiarities of the male physiology.

He did not call for the house-elf, but while she repeatedly brushed her teeth, he drew a bath for the girl himself, and then he assisted her to ease her battered body into the warm water.

'I'm going to my room to shower, and then I will return,' he told her. 'Do you have everything you need?'

She nodded wordlessly.

'Speak Scampy's name if you need her,' he instructed. 'Even with your whisper, she will hear you.'

She nodded again, her eyes closing as she slid down further into the water.

When he next entered the bathroom, the girl looked as if she had not moved. Was she breathing?

'Hermione?' he said urgently, moving swiftly to her side, and she opened her eyes, her expression haunted. He crouched beside her, on her eye level. 'How can I help?' he asked, his treacherous prick stirring to the sight of the naked girl in the bath.

In answer, she slipped momentarily beneath the water, emerging mere seconds later to a sitting position, passing to him a bottle of shampoo. He took the bottle willingly, pausing only to remove his dressing gown...there was no point in getting it wet. Naked, he poured the fragrant substance into his hand and rubbed his palms together before beginning to massage it into the girl's hair, which appeared nearly black when wet. A shudder passed through her body when he touched her scalp; she would need his cock in her quim before she slept, and the knowledge brought his hardening, lengthening prick to further attention. He needed her, as well...needed the comfort of her needing him, needed the knowledge that only he could bring to her the relief she required...needed the safe harbour he found when he reached deep inside of her with his cock and his mind and ...

He frowned and gave his head a tiny shake as if to dislodge an improper thought, the damp ends of his clean hair slapping against his neck. He was exhausted and rattled and distraught after the ordeals of the audience with the Dark Lord and the battle; he would do well to guard his thoughts and control his emotions.

Conjuring a ceramic pitcher of warm water, he tilted the girl's head back with one finger to her chin, and he poured the water through her hair, filling the ewer again and again and rinsing until she was shampoo free. Vanishing the pitcher, he looked down into her face, now scrubbed clean and relaxed, her dark eyelashes sooty upon her ivory cheeks, her full lips parted in pleasure at his ministrations. Her breasts were half-submerged, the coral of her nipples tantalisingly visible to his eyes; he could barely discern the dark of her pubic patch beneath the water, yet he felt an immediate desire to bury himself within her.

Bending over her, he nuzzled her throat and allowed his hands to trace down her shoulders to cup her breasts, lightly lifting and squeezing them as his teeth nipped at her skin, his long tongue sweeping out to soothe the bites in quick succession. She sighed and murmured as he began to arouse her, twisting and squirming. She reached for him and pulled his mouth over to hers; for the first time, he experienced a full-on upside-down kiss, his tongue in her mouth from this new angle feeling simultaneously foreign and electrifying. He slowly tongue-fucked her warm mouth, his fingers tormenting her nipples with plucking and gentle pinching, until she was moaning against his lips. He stood, his cock hard and glistening, and waited for her to stand.

She astonished him by turning and rising to her knees so that she faced his groin. She took his cock into her hands, as she had done many times before, but before his mind could process what he was seeing, he felt her lips seal over his slick knob. Her eyes closed again, as if to aid her concentration, and he felt the tip of her little tongue swirl over the head of his cock. He groaned out loud and pushed her head away from him, his knob popping out of her mouth with an audible slurping sound; the sight and sound were so erotic that his cock visibly twitched.

She knelt in the cooling water of the bathtub, her nipples crinkling in the chilly air, her head tilted to one side as if to question him. He swallowed and stepped out of her reach, a slight frown on his face. She was undoubtedly feeling grateful to him for bringing her safely away from the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters; she had never made such a gesture before, and he had certainly never expected such a thing. He was well aware that decent women never performed such acts, although indecent ones did, if they were properly paid.

'Come,' he said, taking up a towel and holding it for her. 'You need to rest, but before you sleep, we will attend to the compulsion.'

She stood and stepped from the tub; he wrapped her in the thick towel and set about drying her. He did not linger with touches and kisses as he might have done at another time; her gesture had unnerved him. He wanted to do what had to be done and then to sleep; he did not want to think...not for one more moment.

She turned away from him and walked into the bedroom; his eyes riveted upon her bottom, he dropped the towel on the floor and followed her. He was privileged to see her breasts bounce as she climbed onto the bed, then she lay back and confounded him by holding out her arms to him. Would her acceptance of him ever cease to baffle him? Would he ever feel he deserved her?

In his mind, desire collided with compunction, and desire won, hands down. Climbing to kneel betwixt her parted thighs, he positioned himself and slid his cock deep into her quim, their bodies synching in rhythm. Her channel at once sheathed and welcomed him, warm, squeezing and releasing, expanding to permit his intrusion, then snugly encasing him, making him wish this perfect moment could last forever, with her needful eyes fastened upon his as he fucked her. He shifted, his thighs widening and urging hers wider as well, and he snapped his hips at the apex of each thrust, watching as her eyes darkened to incoherency. Her head tossed upon her pillow, hopelessly tangling her wet hair, and then she emitted a rasping cry as she began to come undone. In his mind, Severus saw again her lips closing over his cock, then he forced his gaze to her face, where her passion-smudged eyes regarded him as if he were a god descended to earth to ravish her. Feeling like one, indeed, he began to climax, each gush of seed into her womb shattering him a bit more, until he splintered into infinity, his fragments blending with hers into a mosaic of spent passion.

And then, they slept.

It was a dream...he knew it was a dream...but he couldn't make it stop, couldn't make himself wake up. Repeatedly, the Dark Lord turned to Morgen, who stepped forward, raised her wand, and cast Avada Kedavra! In his mind, repeatedly, Severus measured his affection for the girl against the best for the Greater Good, and each time, he stood and watched the girl fall bonelessly to the floor, her eyes staring and lifeless. Repeatedly, Dolohov and Pettigrew scurried forward, jostled by the other Death Eaters, to be the first to ravage and rape her dead body.

'Hermione!' he shouted hoarsely. 'No!'

Gentle hands smoothed hair back from his face, damp with sweat...and tears?...and cool lips pressed to the corner of his mouth. At last, Severus was able to force himself out of the dream, and his eyes were open. The room was hazy with the frail sunlight of an early spring morning, and the girl, her eyes all but closed, soothed and calmed him with her touches and kisses. The miniature ormolu clock on the table reported that they had been sleeping less than two hours before he had woken them with his foolish nightmare...but here was the girl, warm and soft and naked in his arms, wishing nothing but his peace and comfort, even in the depths of her own exhaustion.

He rose on one elbow and tilted his head to the side, pressing his lips to hers. She sighed into his mouth, and his tongue stroked against hers, his fingers wandering her flesh as if to reassure himself that his dream had been all untrue. His hands encompassed her breasts, drawing a murmur from her, and he slipped down to suckle, finding a primitive comfort in the sensation of her nipple between his lips, pressed to the roof of his mouth by the action of his tongue. Her hands found his head, her fingers twining in the strands of his hair, as if to pull him more firmly to her, to urge him to suck harder. He complied, applying the slight pressure of his teeth to her areola, pleasuring first one breast, then shifting to the other.

Glancing at her as she lay upon her pillow, he might have thought she was deeply asleep, save for the demands of her hands in his hair. Soon, her hips began to squirm towards him as her hands deserted his hair in favour of pressing upon his shoulders, as if to encourage him to move down her body. He released a nipple, smiling against the soft curve of her breast and drawing the milky flesh into his mouth, deliberately marking her with a love bite. The greedy wench could have her quim eaten out, if she wanted, but he would mark her as his...oh, yes, for she most assuredly was.

He nibbled his way down her abdomen, smirking as she strained towards him, and when he reached his destination, he lifted her leg and settled between her thighs, the musk of her slick arousal sweeter to him than clover in summer. He opened her up and laved her perineum, pausing to delve his tongue into the channel so preferred by his ever harder cock, then continuing up the labia minora to her clitoris. Closing his lips about this delightful protrusion, he subjected it to the same treatment lately enjoyed by her nipples, sucking as much of the surrounding flesh as possible into his mouth and lashing the bundle of nerves with his tongue, then releasing it with a soft popping noise, only to repeat the process.

When she shuddered her climax, he delivered a parting kiss to her inner thigh before moving again to his pillow and urging her to turn her back to him. Spooning up against her, he took himself in hand and found her entrance, then buried his face in her crazy mass of hair, rocking within her for an eternity, until the pulsing of his release ejected him from his body again into sleep.

The first blow barely stirred him from the depths, so deep down in slumber was he, and the clout was glancing, at best. The second, delivered from a sharp elbow to his solar plexus, woke him with a gasp of annoyance. Why the fuck could he not enjoy an uninterrupted sleep? The girl had never been a restless sleeper before, but enough was enough. He would return to his own room to rest.

Summoning his dressing gown from the bathroom floor, he stood to slip it on, turning to glare down at his erstwhile sleeping companion. Her bushy hair had dried into a frizzy halo upon her pillow, knotted and tangled. Her face, usually smooth and innocent in sleep, bore a frown. And as he watched her, knotting his dressing gown about his waist, her frown deepened to a scowl and her limbs began to twitch beneath the bed clothes, the earlier jabbing shove which had brought her elbow into contact with the pit of his stomach devolving now to irregular clonic movement.

Good God, she was having a seizure.

'Petrificus Totalis!' he commanded, and her body snapped to rigidity. He flipped the bedclothes from her, doing a visual inspection for abnormalities, but he saw nothing amiss. He covered her again against the cool air and turned to the wardrobe, where he found the bag containing her toiletries. He opened the bag with a murmur of approval; the girl was, as always, faultlessly prepared. He extracted the jar of Enchanted Mistletoe Crème, and settling beside her upon the bed, he began to massage it into her muscles, beginning with her ankles.

She had experienced a convulsion once before, when her level of need had reached an extremity, but that could not possibly be the reason for this seizure. He had brought her to orgasm several times in the last few hours. Methodically, he worked the crème into her flesh, and mentally, he reviewed all possible reasons he could imagine for her attack.

When he had rubbed the unguent into her shoulders, he sat back on his heels and inspected her again. She slept naturally, it seemed, the Full Body Bind having worn off during the course of his ministrations. With an inward sigh of weariness, he covered her, then stretched out beside her upon the bed again, on his side, facing her.

'We'll have no more of that,' he admonished her sleeping figure, then he closed his eyes and slept again.

The next time, his eyes were open at the first shift in her position.

'Miss Granger,' he said sharply.

She didn't answer him, and he moved up onto his elbows. Her eyes were closed, as if she were asleep, but her face did not show repose; her lips were pressed firmly together, bracketed by a grimace he recognized well.

He cast the Full Body Bind and called for Scampy. The house-elf popped into the room at once. 'Sit with Miss Granger,' he ordered her. 'I am going to bring the Enchanted Mistletoe Potion.'

He hurried through the connecting passage to his room, setting his hand unerringly on the potion she had brewed for his migraine headaches. It had helped him through his recovery from an hours-long session with Lord Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse...surely it would completely alleviate the symptoms of less than a minute under the wand of Morgen Leclercq.

Three hours and two convulsions later, this optimistic thought was completely banished. The girl lay upon the bed, wan and unconscious, and Severus was out of options. The unguent and potion created from the Enchanted Mistletoe lay abandoned on the bedside table, having failed him for the first time. He turned to his grandmother, who had willingly come at his request.

'I cannot help her, Severus,' the old witch said, sheathing her wand again, the glow of her diagnostic spell fading as she spoke. 'We need professional assistance.'

He looked down at the girl, panic scrabbling sickeningly about the edges of his mind. How could it be that he had carried her off successfully from the aftermath of a Death Eater battle, only to lose her, somehow, in this inexplicable, senseless way? What if the convulsions brought on a cerebrovascular accident of some sort? What if she never regained consciousness?

What if she died?

The disturbing notion dribbled like acid into his bloodstream, spreading through his body in a slow burn of agony. He crouched beside the bed, staring at her, fruitlessly fumbling for indifference. It was not his place to feel these emotions. Unconsciously, he shielded his belly with his left arm, pressing as if to contain the sudden onset of terror-induced nausea. His right hand hovered just above the girl's brow, halted in the motion of smoothing her hair back from her face, just as she had earlier done for him. With agonising deliberation, he withdrew his hand and stood to his full height.

'Scampy,' he said, and the house-elf was immediately at his side, her enormous eyes fixed unblinkingly upon him. 'Go to Hogwarts and bring back Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey. If necessary, follow them to wherever they are spending their holidays. Tell them a student is in urgent need of their assistance.'

He wrenched his eyes from the girl and looked down into the anxious face of his grandmother's servant. 'Tell them to hurry.'