Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"I wish Harry could do that," Hermione said sadly as she washed her hands one night just before dinner.

Severus glared at her and snarled, "Potter did his job. He is the beloved hero of our world. So, what has he to be miserable about?"

Hermione and Severus were discussing Harry's difficulties after the war. Hermione was very concerned about him, especially since he had left so abruptly after seeing Severus for the first time. She was also angry. Angry at Severus for how he had treated him when he had come all that way to restore his memories to him and angry at herself that she hadn't gone after him and tried to smooth things over.

Hermione looked at him sadly. "Don't you realize how guilty he feels?"

"He should feel guilty, the ungrateful tosser!" Severus snapped. "For years he wanted to think the worst of me, just like his arrogant father..."

"...Severus, don't you hear yourself?" Hermione bellowed as she faced him. She didn't care. She was going to get through his thick head once and for all.

"Harry never got a fair shake from you. Sins of the father were visited upon the son! The first day in class you just had to be a nasty bastard to him, mocking him, saying things that were untrue, pushing a standard onto him that he never could live up to!" she reminded him.

"So, fine. Harry didn't like you. He didn't care about you one whit. He was just as prejudiced against you as you were against him! But you know what, Severus? He was the child, and you were the adult. At least admit that you were too emotionally crippled to see that Harry wasn't James."

They stared at each other in silence. Hermione wondered what he was thinking. She wondered if he would walk out. Had she stepped over the line?

He pulled himself to his full height and said coolly, "I think you are sufficient in preparing the table yourself, Miss Granger." He turned on his heel and left her in the kitchen alone.

***

Dinner had been subdued. Eugene looked miserable. He kept looking back and forth from Severus and Hermione. Hermione wished she could do something to fix what she had done, but she couldn't. She sat in silence as Severus ate with an unreadable expression on his face. Not one word was passed between them.

She went to bed early, feeling low and alone. She sat in bed, hugging her legs to her chest, looking out her window, wishing she could even summon the tears to cry, but she couldn't. She felt so numb. She absent-mindedly played with her plait she had made out of nerves. She stroked the edges of her hair, wrapping one curl around her finger over and over. She couldn't stand being in bed for another minute, so she took one of her hardwood chairs and sat in front of the window, leaning her elbows on her knees, watching the gloomy rain and sleet come down.

She heard a soft knocking on the door.

"Come in, Eugene," she said softly, still looking out the window.

The door opened, and a deep voice said, "It is I, Hermione."

Hermione turned sharply towards the door. Her chest felt it would explode from the tension. He was still dressed and stepped into her room slowly, closing the door quietly behind him.

He was silent for a minute as he slowly made his way towards her. "Hermione, I apologize for tonight. I resented your tone and felt I needed to leave. I don't appreciate being addressed in the manner you did," he said stiffly.

"You don't seem to have a problem chiding me when it suits you," she retorted. Then she turned back to look out the window, crossing her arms angrily.

"I know that I will have to adjust how I respond to you," Hermione heard him say from behind her. "It's not easy when you have lived a certain way for so long."

"And all I ask is to be treated with dignity and respect," Hermione said curtly. "I treat you the same way. When you love someone, you refuse to allow them to live a lie that they are always right. I won't do it, Severus. You are grossly blind where it comes to Harry, and he is no better. I have told him that as well!"

She felt his hands on her shoulders. "Please don't shut me out, Hermione. I know I have faults, I am all too aware of all of them. I just hated you knowing and looking at me with such disdain as you counted them out to me one by one," he whispered against her head.

She turned and placed her hands lightly over his. "I'm sorry, Severus," she whispered. "I should have been more temperate with my words."

"It just goes to show you how truly breakable I am," he choked out. "I've never allowed anyone to ever know me as you do. I am terrified you shall crush me."

Hermione stood up and wrapped her arms around him. "Never, Severus. I would never hurt you like you have been. You have suffered enough for two lifetimes. I just want us to love and respect each other."

Severus took her face into his hands. "I was so afraid you would never let me return to your bed," he whispered softly.

"Our bed, Severus," she reminded him as she began to kiss him around his sensuous mouth.

He slowly gathered up the bottom of her nightgown from her as he kissed her languidly. They teased each other with their lips and tongues as they took each other's clothes off. Hermione fell backward onto the bed, and he stripped off her knickers before straddling her to remove his own clothes. Hermione watched with tingles shooting up and down her stomach, waiting for him to complete her. Soon, he was looming over her, and in her, thrusting deftly, taking his fill of her.

Hermione.

The voice called to her. He was desperate for her acceptance. "I love you, Severus," she whispered.

Severus continued to make love to her, kissing, suckling and biting her flesh. Hermione's breath hitched.

She screamed her release into his hand that he had clamped over her mouth, and he shouted into hers as his seed filled her. Hermione lay gasping on her pillow as Severus continued to hover over her. He watched Hermione as her breathing slowed to normal.

"Do you even know how incredible you make me feel?" he gasped as he kissed her throat.

Hermione smiled lightly as he continued. "I'll do anything for you, Hermione. I'll go and release Potter from his guilt and forgive him. Obviously, he needs some sort of absolution from me, although I can't see why."

"It's about him, anyway, Severus. It's not about you, it's about how Harry feels about himself." She opened her eyes and stroked his chest. "You could tell him numerous times that he is released and forgiven, but it is himself he can't forgive," she whispered.

Severus nestled next to her on the bed. "Are we unforgiven because of ourselves or the ones we hurt?"

"I think it could be both, but I believe it is due to ourselves. We all need to release ourselves from the chains that hold us down to the past and the hurt from days gone by. But, Severus," she whispered, "sleep. You need to rest."

The unlikely couple held onto each other and easily fell into a peaceful slumber, knowing they had found the love and acceptance with each other, after they had waited so long.

***

"How the hell did that happen?" Severus bellowed as he jumped up from the chair.

"Well," Hermione said calmly as she sat down in her chair across from his. "Do you recall the first time you put your penis inside me? Well, it looks like your sperm were ready to do exactly what they had been created to do."

Severus had stood there, pale, and speechless. Finally, he remembered the newspaper in his hand, folded it up neatly, and tossed it onto the coffee table. He clasped his hands behind his thin frame and said, "You know this for certain?" he asked stiffly.

"Yes," she had said as she had smiled up at him. "It was simple mathematics, after all. We've only been together for two months, so when you look at the calendar and figure it all out, I can say with a great deal of accuracy that it was the first night we made love that I had conceived."

He looked out the picture window, as he usually did when he needed to ponder something. Hermione watched a smile creep over his face, and she felt her cheeks growing hot.

"Severus," she said shyly, looking down at her lap, focusing on her knitting. She knew what he was thinking.

"Look at me, Hermione," he demanded softly.

She looked up hesitantly and saw the proud, self-satisfied smile on his face.

"You are insufferable!" she said, irritated, but happily just the same.

"Well, well," Severus said aloud. "It seems my sexual initiation was... fruitful." He was really looking smug now, his chest was puffed out, and his head was raised cockily while his eyes glittered at her.

He slowly made his way towards her, and Hermione started to feel like his prey. "You weren't on any birth-control, Hermione. Why was that?"

"I WAS on birth-control," she snapped.

"You were?" he said surprised. "Did you forget a dose?"

Hermione glowered at him for that.

"So, all the time you were with Weasley..."

"...I never told you I was with Ronald Weasley!" she barked.

His eyes continued to glitter. "Please, Hermione, that boy had it bad for you since you were third-years, everybody knew that. Those who were thick enough to not notice certainly knew by your sixth-year, after he started up with Miss Lavender Brown. That was quite disturbing," he muttered.

"What was disturbing?" she asked.

"I don't know how many times I caught them doing... their attempt at the act of intercourse, but I do recall vividly a disturbing scenario. Miss Brown was a rather attractive young witch, but watching her being pawed over by that fumbling idiot was almost enough for me to intervene solely so I could tell him that even I knew he was doing it wrong!"

"What was he doing that was so wrong?" Hermione asked.

"He was pummeling the poor girl. She was actually crying. I thought he was assaulting her, and he nearly got hexed...but the witch started complaining and whining for him to go slower, touch her more delicately, etc. It was revolting."

"When you told me about your lover before me, I figured it had to be Weasley. Only he would be daft enough to treat a woman like a slab of meat."

Hermione winced, and he apologized. "So, this method of birth-control was what you have always used?" he asked.

"Always," she answered coolly.

A feral smirk spread across his face. "Well, that doesn't surprise me. Weasley was always on the slow side. Why his sperm should be any different shouldn't be a surprise."

Hermione stood up and placed her knitting aside. "I think I've had quite enough of this discussion. Ronald Weasley is off limits," she declared.

She tried to walk past him, and he barred her way. She tried to dodge him, and he blocked her as well. He began to advance, and she stepped backwards away from him until he had her in a corner.

"Tut, tut, Miss Granger, it seems you are in a spot of bother, doesn't it?" he said silkily. "What shall the Daily Prophet say? I can see the headline now, 'War Heroine up the Duff.'"

"Severus," she warned him. "Do not toy with me. You are acting like a kitten with a ball of yarn, and I don't appreciate it."

He smiled and leaned into her. "Tell me you don't want me to continue to tease you," he whispered into her ear. "Tell me to leave you alone."

Hermione felt her cheeks grow hot, and he kissed the apples of them as she smiled. He kissed her more arduously until they were sliding to the ground, unbuttoning each other's clothes. When he had finally pushed inside her snugly, he looked at the body of his witch underneath him and whispered, "You've made me happy."

He thrust into her shallowly once, and her back arched in reaction to his slow movement. He continued to pause between each thrust, taking the time to build the tension.

"You like this, don't you?" he whispered against her neck.

"Yes," she moaned.

He languidly sucked on each nipple as he continued to tease and play with her senses.

Hermione.

The voice was back. Hermione loved it when he spoke her name in that tone. It shot straight between her legs and made her melt around him.

Severus.

Hermione had no idea what her voice did for him, but he began to moan and speed up his thrusts.

I love you!

Never!

She was feeling the soaring pleasure that signaled her pending orgasm. She gasped as he growled out his own release, grasping her thighs and panting his love for her against her neck. She screamed and screamed as she clung onto every word he whispered to her. She tightened up and squeezed him inside her as she milked all the satisfaction she could from him, and then they collapsed onto the floor, heaving breathlessly.

They looked at each other intensely as Severus drank in her face. "I love you, Hermione, and I love our family."

The tears ran down her cheeks as she smiled at the look of joy in his black eyes.

Severus looked nervously around him and whispered, "I'm afraid if I asked you when you were in complete control of your senses, you would say no. After all that has transpired with our last disagreement, I wasn't so sure you would remain with me."

Hermione's fingers traced the angles of his face. "Marry me, Severus," she asked him simply. "Please, marry me. I will never leave you."

He buried his face into her shoulder, and she felt the tears on her skin. He was trembling and looked so vulnerable that Hermione felt like weeping for him. How sad that he would react so to her declaration of love. They lay together, naked and not ashamed at their vulnerable state. After a while, Severus kissed her feverishly and said, "I will marry you, Hermione. Will you marry me?" He withdrew to look intently into her face calmly.

"Yes, Severus. Always, yes," she said passionately.

He rose and picked her up to place her on the dining table. He leaned her back down, and he stood looking at her exposed body. He held her legs apart and gazed upon her parted flesh that was his for the taking with a sigh. His face was unreadable, except for his eyes, which were smoldering as he continued to stroke her body. His hands smoothed where the baby was and drank in the sight of the woman he loved.

"It's almost too much," he whispered as he gasped. "It is so erotic to see you like this. You have my child inside you. I know how to make your entire body succumb to my touch."

Hermione sighed in satisfaction, happily being under the control of the man above her. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and made a path downward with his fingertips, taking his time to massage and knead her breasts before skimming along her waist and the apex of her sex. He gently brushed over the hair lightly in a gentle exploration of the hidden wonders there. Hermione sighed as she shifted her legs apart further. He grazed her inner thighs and whispered, "I love feeling your thighs surround me."

He bent over her and plundered her mouth. His hands deftly traveled upwards to touch her hardened nipples. She gasped in pleasure as he pinched and rolled them with his strong, white hands.

"Put me inside you," he growled as he made his way down to suck on one pink tip.

Hermione stifled a squeal of delight as he sucked and swiped it with his tongue. She reached down and felt his hardened cock twitch as her fingertips brushed it. A growl escaped Severus' throat, and a thrill of anticipation ran through her. She was quivering with anticipation for that first thrust. She ached for him to ravage her in a way she had never felt before, not even with Ron. It had never been a choice with him; yet, with Severus, she could have a choice on what she wanted and needed.

He was still laving and nibbling her breasts when she had finished placing him at her entrance. He slowly eased in and watched Hermione's face change from impatience to fulfillment.

"Amazing," he whispered. "You really want me to do this to you, don't you?" he asked her. If any other man had said that, Hermione would have thought he was taunting her, but Severus was truly astonished that she wanted him...and only him.

"Yes," she panted as her eyelids fluttered.

He plunged into her, and she cried out passionately for him.

He paused to look at her in wonderment. He began to pound and force himself inside her, faster and faster. It was only a minute; he couldn't handle all the sensations and power of taking a woman so wildly.

"Hermione, I can't...I can't!" he shouted just before he wailed out a cry so primal and deep, it frightened her.

She watched him as he withdrew from her, panting and glistening from his exertions. His cock was moist with her juices. She went to hop off the table, but his hands clamped down forcefully on her thighs. "You need more," he gasped. "I want to watch you make yourself come."

Hermione was nervous. His face was right there between her thighs. She reached down, slid her fingers between her lips, and began to tease her clit. She glided her fingers and worked feverishly to reach her completion. Soon, she was climbing the heights and shrieking as Severus tugged and twisted her swollen nipples as she reached the edge and spilled over. Her hands stilled as her chest heaved as she closed her eyes to rest...just for a minute.

She heard the running of water and felt more adored and worshiped than at any other time in her life. As she laid out, sprawled on her dining table, open for her lover, she felt completely like a woman. She knew this wizard had been created for that purpose.

He stood up and hovered over her. "My darling rose," he whispered. "How sweetly you open for me." His hands stroked her hair and face, and she felt her eyes grow heavy with sleep. The last thing she remembered was his lips on hers, soft, supple, and yielding.