And What I Feel, I Must Reveal

A/N – What can I say to start this chapter other than, “WOW!”

I’m touched, humbled, exhilarated, and any number of a thousand other feelings. My most humble and grateful thanks to you all … you made me number one in the chaptered category! I haven’t been with TPP that long, but I’m incredibly touched and happy that my welcome into the fold has been so thorough and enthusiastic; I got second-place with my first challenge entry and now this! *hugs everybody*

Okay, now that my gushing is finished, some notes on the chapter itself: there is some smuttiness ahead. As such, I’ll issue a warning that if you don’t like sexual content – in this case, descriptions of masturbation, etc – please steer clear. I don’t want to offend anyone. Though, I happen to think that’s the best part. *smirk* Anyway, read on! Oh, and thank you all for your wonderful reviews (wink wink, nudge nudge).

~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

Chapter Five – And What I Feel, I Must Reveal

Severus was dreadfully uncomfortable. That’s all there was to it. Here he sat, in a little sterile room in St. Mungo’s, too anxious and embarrassed to even think about doing what had to be done. Twenty minutes had passed, and he’d only been able to calm himself enough to stop pacing and sit down. Perhaps Healer Levy was right about transfiguring the furniture; it stood to reason that if he felt more comfortable in his surroundings, he’d feel more at ease with …. Dear God, what had he gotten himself into? Sitting in an exam room in St. Mungo’s, masturbating into test tubes? Was he out of his mind?

“This isn’t helping,” he said to himself, scrubbing hands through his hair and across his face. “You’re just making yourself worse by working it over like this.”

Perhaps reading Joy’s letter would help him calm down enough to get a handle on the situation. Digging into the pocket in his robes where he’d stowed the epistle, Severus unfolded the parchment with twitching fingers.

Thursday, January the 26th, 2012

Tobias,

I suppose turnabout is fair play, though I will admit that it makes me slightly nervous to reveal what I look like. Not that I don’t trust you, of course, but my physical appearance has historically been both unremarkable and a source of great angst in my life (especially with those of the male gender). But you were good enough to share with me, so I will return the favor, dubious as it is.

I am:

- Of a slightly greater height than the average female. I stand approximately 170 cm tall (UK average, of course, being 163 cm).

- Of a rather pale complexion as well. Years of spending all my time buried between book pages instead of out playing Quidditch or sunbathing like most other teenagers, I suppose.

- In possession of rather bland features, in that my hair and eyes are both a somewhat unremarkable, medium shade of brown. My hair extends to just past my shoulder blades and is curly.

Severus noticed a small inkblot just before this last word. For some reason, she’d hesitated before stating her hair was curly. Perhaps she was insecure about it? The stick straight styles of his Hogwarts years must have been popular during her formative years as well.

- Somewhat unbalanced, physically. I got both my father’s trim hips and my mother’s small shoulders, so I don’t really have much curve to me, as lots of other women do. Naturally, this fact, compounded with the fact that I also received my mother’s small(ish) breasts, made for a decided amount of teasing as an adolescent, as well as far too many jokes about being flat-chested. Children are so cruel.

As you said, it’s hard to sum up a person in such bare details, but that is me, in my simplest form.

Yours,

Joy

PS – Healer Levy informed me that you have an appointment with her today. I warn you, she’s rather forward, with more than the usual amount of cheek.

Severus scoffed loudly. “An understatement if I’ve ever heard one,” he muttered.

I find that I enjoy this about her – I always respect people who speak their mind, as you well know – but it may be off-putting to someone who is unfamiliar with her candor.

There was a large break in her writing, as if she had carefully considered her next phrase before penning it. At least an inch down the parchment from her post-script, Joy had written:

This means the world to me. Good luck.

After a long moment of staring down at it, Severus gently placed the page on top of the rolling table. Joy’s letter had done the opposite of calm him down, but not in an unpleasant way. Her self-depreciating description of her appearance and her earnest, careful entreaty at the end had only made him want to help her more. No longer nervous, Severus was determined to offer this sweet, enthusiastic, intelligent woman everything he could towards having the child she obviously wanted so desperately.

With a firm nod, he stood and regarded the room. Healer Levy was quite right in that he should transfigure the furniture to make his surroundings more comfortable, so Severus systematically worked his way around the small chamber, changing this as he saw fit. The walls dimmed in color, darkening with the charm until they were a rich crimson. The exam table became a low fainting couch in plush black leather, the rolling table changing into a mahogany end piece. A flick of his wrist and the candle sconces around the room dimmed to barely a hush of light. Severus pointed his wand at the small rack of test tubes, and with a grimace, said, “Expletum.” Satisfied that his charm was good, Severus removed his outer robes and settled on the chaise in just his shirtsleeves and a trim pair of black linen trousers. He slowed his breathing as he lay – something he’d become quite good at during the war; it helped mask any signs of nervousness or lying – and stretched out, trying to get comfortable. The trick, for him, would be thinking of a powerful enough mental image to initiate a response. Severus let his mind wander as he lay there in the small, warm room, waiting for something to occur to him as a potential arousal tool. Usually when he pleasured himself, he was in such hurry that he would simply call to mind the most recent concept or event that had given him an erection, knowing it as a “sure thing,” and let his imagination do the rest. Now, his mind was strangely blank.

As his eyes drifted shut, an image slowly drifted up behind the lids. He thought of Joy, little wonder, but this time, the shadowy concept of her that his own mind had put together was being filled in by the details she had given him. A tall woman – at least, relatively speaking; nothing to his own towering height – materialized there, swathed in the peacock blue robes that most Ministry departments chose as uniform. He imagined her to wear sensible, low-heeled shoes, as Joy was far too practical for the spiked, arthritis-inducing abominations favored by most women these days. A tumble of medium brown curls spilled over slim shoulders, shot through with highlights of golden strands like that of the one he currently kept in his top desk drawer. Her face was strangely out of focus in his mind; not absent and not featureless, merely blurred enough that the individual features had no distinct characteristics.

In his mind, Joy walked towards him in this very room, her slim hands waving across the front of her body, a charm causing her robes to open at the front and reveal her undergarments. His Joy slipped out of the robes completely as she walked, bending next to remove her shoes, which provided him with a wide view of her décolletage, displayed above the coffee-colored brassiere. Straightening, he imagined her stopping just in front of him – in a bizarre sequence where he could see his own lower half, as if she were really here in this room with him. Her erect nipples were just visible through the material of her bra. Severus’s breathing sped, and his pulse began to race as his dream Joy made to reach around her back for the clasp of her brassiere, the arch of her back making the small, high breasts seem to leap towards him. He could see his own hands extend and curl long fingers around the peak of her nipples, pushing against the silky material. His whole body ached in longing as the bra fluttered away from her body, leaving his hands to pull delicately at the rose-tipped breasts heaving in front of him. A low, throaty exhalation of voice rang in his ears as he imagined her moan from the attentions he paid her.

In the warmth of the exam room and the growing warmth of his body, Severus opened the buttons of his white linen shirt and released the buttoned front of his trousers. With a gruff exhalation of voice, he slid his fingers beneath his undergarments and curled them around his growing erection, squeezing his eyes shut as he let his mind play out the dream. In his head, Joy knelt before him in nothing but a pair of coffee-colored knickers. Joy’s ‘intentions’ became clear nearly immediate as he watched her small hands flying across the fastenings of his dark trousers. Normally, the act that she had begun to initiate repulsed Severus; after all this time, he still found it far too reminiscent of his foolish early days within the ranks of Voldemort when he had been drunk with power and determined to pay back any woman who dared to pull a disgusted face in his direction in the most subjugating way possible. No woman had laid lips below his waist since, as the gesture always made him nearly ill with guilt. But oh, how his skin warmed and his penis went rigid beneath his hand as Severus imagined himself lifting slim hips to allow her to tug away the offending trousers.

In his head, the golden tumble of her curls cascaded across his stomach and Severus nearly believed he could feel the tickle of it as his hands skimmed his erection. He groaned out, far louder than he’d intended, as he pictured Joy taking him into her mouth. The hand at his erection fairly flew across his skin as he stroked himself roughly, imagining the warm, wet cavern of her mouth and how intently she pulled him into ecstasy between her lips. Much sooner than he would really care to admit, Severus felt his breath catch as his orgasm ripped through him. At the last moment before his climax struck, sudden and laser-keen as a bolt of lightning, Joy flipped her head up and pinned him with warm, intense mahogany colored eyes.

For the first time, and only for a split second, her face was clear and distinct. In that crystalline second, Severus nearly thought that he recognized this face with its pale, peachy skin, slim nose and wide, thin mouth. Before he could hold onto the image, his orgasm was upon him, and whatever visage his strange moment of clarity had given Joy fizzled away, unnoticed. His slim hips spasmed and twitched as the ebbs of it began to die away. As if through a haze, he tilted his head sideways to regard the table next to him and the four thin vials; only one of them had filled completely and the next was not even half full. Healer Levy had specifically requested that he try his best to fill all four. He took a deep breath at the idea of climaxing at least twice more in reasonably rapid succession, but his pride refused to let him back down. He would simply have to think long and hard – he gulped at his own word choice – for more ‘material’ to continue his fantasies. Closing his eyes, he imagined pulling the nearly naked Joy into his lap to remunerate for her attentions.

His whole lower half seemed to twitch in anticipation. Perhaps this wouldn’t be all that difficult after all.

Hermione sat at her desk, staring at the note that had just dropped through her office fireplace. One hand’s fingernails tapped nervously on the desk as she read it a third time.

Hermione,

I’m sorry that I don’t have time to stop in and tell you this myself, but the plan has changed a bit … Don’t fret, nothing bad, just something I hadn’t counted on. Tobias is here with me right now, just finished his physical exam. I have to say, he really didn’t appreciate the more intimate aspects of the physical, but I guess that’s just one of the perks of my job. The unexpected part was that, rather than give me a small semen sample for diagnostics now and schedule a second appointment to donate to the rest, he elected to stay long enough to give a full specimen now. As such, he’s busy “at work,” and I’ve finished up the remainder of the Bill of Health paperwork, which I’ve copied and included here. Assuming that all goes well with his sample (I’ll owl/Floo you as soon as I’ve run a diagnostic), you should be able to schedule an appointment for our first round of insemination attempts later this week.

By the way … it’s not any of my business, really, but I’ve known you for nearly a decade now, so I don’t mind giving a final parting thought: without revealing anything that would break Healer-Patient confidentiality, I can tell you that it’s a damn shame that you’re not getting the baser benefits of his part in this process. God bless men like Tobias! Wahoo!

You’ll hear from me as soon as I have the full sample.

Cheers (and try to stay calm),

E. S. L.

Euterpe S. Levy

Head Healer, Women’s Health Division

St. Mungo’s Hospital, London

Hermione shook her head as she finished reading the note. Portions of the letter had made her feel calmer about the situation at hand, but most of it had made her feel infinitely worse. She had in her hand Tobias’s clean Bill of Health, it’s true, but she was inexplicably unnerved and more than a little upset that he had chosen to stay at the hospital and immediately donate the full amount needed for a four month run of insemination attempts. This was clear proof that he wanted to combine his visits to St. Mungo’s so that he might get this business over with as soon as possible. Well aware that this had been the initial plan, Hermione couldn’t explain the ache in her chest as she realized that Tobias wanted to speed her on her way, but the pain was acute and confusing. He had seemed so touched by the fact that she’d asked for his physical description. Tobias had given it without hesitation and even asked for hers in return. Perhaps that was the problem; maybe he had read her physical description and realized that she was less than he had expected? A wriggling coil of nervousness wound through her belly.

No. She was being silly. First of all, she’d hardly been explicit in her description; secondly, Tobias was not that shallow. Certainly, Hermione was just unnerved and insecure about giving away any amount of her security blanket of anonymity. That, and she was more than likely mentally avoiding the last part of the letter. The part that had not only amused her but embarrassed, unnerved and intrigued her all at once. Despite the fact that Euterpe had not been terribly explicit – the law, not to mention good sense, would have prevented her from speaking more directly – Hermione was positive that she had gleaned the correct meaning from the Healer’s ribald closing paragraph. Apparently, the unexpectedly candid and cheeky Healer had been duly impressed with Tobias’s … anatomy. A deep red flush rose on Hermione’s cheek, causing her to swivel her chair away from the open door of her office. As long as Hermione had known Euterpe Levy – they’d met at a War Orphan benefit early in her career at the Ministry and Hermione secured her as a personal health consultant the very next day – she’d always enjoyed the witch’s candor and teenage mischievousness. The strange thing, though, was that however frank and cheeky Euterpe was, she’d never devalued serious situations by making light of them. She’d simply use humor and good-natured jabs to relax her patient. And yet, here she was making rather impertinent statements about Tobias’s genitalia. A helpless laugh escaped her for a moment; she couldn’t imagine that Tobias had cared for that one bit.

Come to think of it, Hermione realized that this entire process – the physical part, not the letter writing – must be excruciating for someone as private as Tobias. He was being marched out, put on display, and then treated like a milk cow. A deep furrow appeared between her brows as she considered this. A part of her felt almost as if she should apologize to Tobias for abusing their friendship this way, but the mass majority of her reminded her – loudly – that this was the reason their ‘friendship’ had started in the first place: they had struck up a pen-friendship despite the fact that he was going to masturbate into a test tube so she could get pregnant.

At that thought, Hermione’s reddened cheeks flamed to life again, and she snatched Euterpe’s letter off her desk. “He’s ‘busy at work,'” she muttered, reading aloud. “Dear God …”

He’s … busy. Right now. Tobias was, most likely even now while she sat her contemplating it, in a room in St. Mungo’s … masturbating. Suddenly, the room seemed to close in around Hermione, and she could barely breathe. Her heart raced. Right now, Tobias was halfway across the city; he was probably physically closer to her at this moment than he had been yet. And he was probably masturbating right now. This very moment. Hermione’s whole body seemed to have spontaneously turned to jelly. A sudden impulse rose up in her, and for the first time in quite a while, Hermione didn’t fight the urge she was now experiencing. Rocketing out of her chair, Hermione strode across her office and swung the door open with such force that the knob banged into the wall.

The graying, round woman at the desk just outside looked up, surprised. “Are you all right, Hermione?” she asked. “You look a tad peaky. Have you eaten yet today?”

“Uh, no,” she said. “I mean, yes. No.”

She scrubbed her hands across her face and tried to clear the fog from her brain. The secretary just waited patiently, a motherly look of concern on her face.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Hermione said. “No, I haven’t eaten.” She looked quickly at her watch and held back a swear word. “I know it’s late, Adah, but I’m just famished and I haven’t eaten lunch. Would you mind if I Apparated home to take a long break?”

“You certainly don’t have to ask my permission,” Adah answered. “It’s your office. And really, you should just take the rest of the afternoon off.” When Hermione started to protest, Adah reached out a warm hand and clasped the top of her arm.

“You work too hard, dear,” she said. “One afternoon to yourself won’t muck things up too much. I can handle everything here.”

“And then some,” Hermione agreed with a smile. Knowing that if she hesitated any longer she’d talk herself out of an afternoon playing hooky, Hermione went back into her office and grabbed her cloak and purse from the peg behind the door, drawing her wand as she did.

“See you tomorrow morning, Adah,” she said, waving behind her as she strode out the door and towards the lift.

Hermione stumbled as she hit her front stoop. Usually accurate to the centimeter in her Apparition, the lack of balance showed Hermione just how much her previous train of thought had discombobulated her. On wobbly legs, Hermione waved her wand to take down her wards and crossed straight through the entranceway to the stairs, dropping her cloak and bag as she went and barely noticing the disruption of her usually tidy décor. The instant Hermione entered her bedroom, she collapsed on the bed and stared at the ceiling, a hand over her heart as she tried to process the feelings running through her. The idea that at that very moment Tobias could be sitting in a darkened room stroking himself had shocked her nerves with strange electricity and caused her blood to pound against the walls of her veins. Even sitting, her knees wobbled, and her legs felt the urge to twitch.

What was wrong with her? Her body certainly seemed as if it was betraying all good sense and patently ignoring the fact that she was no longer a hormone-swamped teenager. Despite the fact that she was over thirty, despite the undeniable fact that she had only the dimmest notion of what the man looked like, Hermione found herself drowning in giddy lust at the idea that somewhere in London the man that she loved was stroking himself in pleasure. For her.

In a manner of speaking.

What is he thinking of? she wondered as she scooted back to prop herself up against the pillows. Previous liaisons? A scene from a dirty film or book? He didn’t seem the type to fall for typical erotica or pornography, and she had a feeling that someone as rigidly principled as Tobias was would hardly resort to stroking himself and thinking of a past shag when providing semen for someone else to get pregnant. So what did that leave? Could he possibly be thinking of her? Feeling her whole lower body start to tingle, Hermione sat up against the headboard and hugged her arms around her knees. Would Tobias think of her? Perhaps the letter …. No, that was silly. He wouldn’t really get sexual pleasure out of just a bare description of her physical features. But then again, she had lain awake last night for a long while, only to dream of a tall, dark-haired man with an angular face who watched her silently from the shadows once she did fall asleep. And oddly, the feeling of being watched had comforted and excited her. So perhaps he had been as affected by her description as she had by his.

Hermione’s eyes dropped shut. For a long moment, there was only blackness behind her eyes, but soon enough, she had a startlingly distinct picture behind her eyes. She was walking towards a man seated in shadows. She walked slowly, sauntering seductively, keeping eye contact with the man in the chair. His long legs stretched out in front of him negligently, his elbows resting against the arm rests as the long-fingered hands draped across his lap. His facial features were cast into shadow, the light providing only a highlight of his high cheekbones and strong jaw. Even though she couldn’t see them, though, she felt his eyes upon her. Unable to resist the tension whip-sharp in the air, she raised her hand and silently said the charms to release the clasps on her robes. They dropped to the floor in a hushed rustle of raw silk.

Hermione rocked back against the headboard of the bed, her curls tumbling down across her shoulders. As she squeezed her eyes tighter closed, her fingers waved across her front (just as in her dream), causing her robes to drop away. Her skin prickling in the cold air, she ran her fingers across the hardened tips of her breasts and shivered in anticipation. Once again swathed in her dream, Hermione bent to remove her shoes; she could feel the heat of Tobias’s eyes on her chest, so she angled forward to give him an expansive view of her modest décolletage. She watched from behind a curtain of curls as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then sat up rigidly. Certain that she’d tortured him enough, Hermione closed the rest of the distance between her and Tobias, reaching around her back for the clasp of her brassiere, the arch of her back thrusting her breasts nearer to his hands. Tobias extended his long, leanly muscled arms and curled slim fingers around the hardened peak of her nipples. Thankful that she was alone in her bedroom (which she’d made sure to safeguard with strong Silencing Charms), Hermione let her head drop back and a full-throated moan escaped her mouth. Without further need for ‘foreplay,’ Hermione lowered her chilled fingers and pushed aside the coffee-colored cotton of her knickers. Her chest heaved as she threaded her fingers between her legs, stroking at the thrumming center of her pleasure as she pictured Tobias bending to wrap his lips around her aching nipples. After only a few moments of taking her pleasure from Tobias’s ready attentions, the Hermione in her dreams lowered herself to the floor between his legs with a sultry smile that should have scorched for all its intensity.

Disconnectedly, Hermione wondered at the path her little fantasy had taken. Normally of the impression that male oral sex fantasies were degrading to women – this fact being aggravated by Ron’s previous entitlement complex that he deserved oral sex to be given whether he reciprocated or not – Hermione had never found any particular pleasure in erotica or films that featured this act. And yet, it thrilled her to watch her own body kneel in front of Tobias’s lanky form. The muscles in his legs were clearly bowstring taught as her small hands flew across the fastenings of his dark trousers. Oh, her skin definitely warmed and that thrumming apex of her body slickened her fingers as she watched, as if she were not even the person piloting this fantasy.

In her head, she could hear Tobias moan; his hips jerked and she could nearly feel the silky, searing skin of his erection as she slid her mouth around him. Strangled noises that were nearly sobs left Hermione’s mouth as she stroked herself roughly, imagining the hot skin of him in her mouth, the strong fingers knotted in her hair or tugging at her nipples. He twitched and jumped as she pulled him back and forth between her lips. When she felt his muscles bunch in anticipation of his climax, Hermione imagined threading a hand into her knickers, stroking herself, already wet, as she let her mouth sing across his skin. At the last moment before her climax struck, Tobias’s head tilted down chin to chest, and she gazed up to lock onto his ebony eyes.

For the first time, and only for a split second, his face was clear and distinct. In that crystalline second, Hermione so nearly recognized the face, with its pale, ghost-white skin, strong jaw and large, prominent nose. Before she could hold onto the image, her body stiffened and a powerful jolt of electric pleasure shot through her, sizzling her nerve endings and chasing away the vision of Tobias’s face. Hermione lay quiet and unmovable for quite a long time, not even able to remove her fingers from the tingling slick folds of skin at the top of her thighs. Her chest heaved; her pulse raced. And she refused flatly to allow herself to analyze this act or its motivation, for fear that whatever she might discover would scare her away from this whole situation completely.

A/N - Aha, the plot thickens. I hope you enjoyed the smut, as there is an entire chapter's worth that will be coming soon. No pun intended. Okay, a little pun intended. Anyway, stay tuned. As I said in the last chapter's A/N, the next few chapters are already written, so I won't make you wait in agony ... too long. ^_^