Temptation

Disclaimer: Severus and Hermione and the whole entire Potterverse belong to JKR. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good with them, and that I make no money from this work of fanfiction.

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Sunday morning, 8:30

Neither Granger nor Potter was at breakfast, which was a pity. Severus had been rather hoping to watch her squirm under his gaze. Even if she thought she'd got away with her prank, he was sure her guilt would be in evidence. She was terrible at hiding her emotions.

Weasley was there, however, looking hung over (like most of the older Gryffindors who'd managed to make it to breakfast) but not particularly nervous. Perhaps he wasn't in on the joke. Severus sneered as he stabbed at his fried egg. Weasley the third wheel.

When the post came, Severus beckoned to one of the departing school owls. 'Pick up in the Staff Room at quarter past nine,' he told it. It hooted sulkily and flew off to the Owlery.

He had decided it would be best to get it over with this morning. Albus would be back this afternoon, and Severus had no doubt that Granger and Potter would suffer more if McGonagall were the one meting out their punishment rather than the Headmaster.

He entertained himself for a few minutes imagining the two of them trying to explain to their housemates just why Gryffindor had lost enough points to be out of the running for the House Cup to the end of the century.

Severus didn't give a damn what the gossip said about him. He'd be gone or dead soon enough. She, however, would have to stay, and he thought it would be exquisitely fitting if it were whispered that she had cast an erotic spell on a murderer and traitor. It would be worse than losing House Points, worse than anything short of expulsion.

Eleven o'clock would do, he decided, rising from his chair. And he'd deal with her first, to make sure his hypothesis was correct. Potter could wait.

* * *

Hermione slunk into his office at eleven exactly, wearing a grey jumper, a bedraggled ponytail, and a guilty expression. She looked as though she'd slept about as much as he had.

Good. And a sleepless night is only the beginning of her worries. By this time tomorrow, she'll wish she'd never met Harry Fuckwit Potter.

'Give me your wand,' he said, holding out his hand across the breadth of his desk.

'My wha... my w-wand?' she squeaked.

'Your. Wand. Now.' He snapped his fingers.

Whey-faced, she handed it over.

Prior Incantato, he said silently, and images of hands and skin and light flowed out of her wand like coloured smoke. Aura flashes, he thought, slightly taken aback by the colours...the clear, bright red and pink of passion and desire, rather than the muddied hues of cruelty and vengefulness.

Severus Banished the images and stared down at his desk.

It appeared she had cast an astral spell. Percipio Corpus, or Corium, or something like that...legal in most countries only if used consensually, though it was easy to conceal its nonconsensual use. You simply had to add some gold dust to the potion to keep it from reciprocating. Granger must have left out the gold, whether through malice or carelessness.

He didn't even try to keep the anger out of his face when he looked at her. 'Miss Granger,' he growled. 'What possessed you to use an illegal reciprocating charm on a teacher in this school? A fourth-year pupil would have no difficulty tracing that spell. Are you going to tell me that you cast it by mistake, or are you actually insane?'

The exchange that followed, increasingly whinging and desperate on her side, only enraged him further. She was caught red-handed, damn it! Yet she appeared to still want to take advantage of the intimacy he'd permitted to grow between them.

She FANCIES me? He'd never heard a more absurd, repellent lie. What the fuck was she playing at?

But then...

Veritaserum? Legilimency? Now we're getting somewhere.

Severus didn't hesitate. If she thought she could bluff her way out of this, she didn't know whom she was dealing with.

Like any Legilimens, Severus had experienced the ways each mind was different from any other...not just in what it contained, but in its entirety...its ineffable savour, its bent. Even without focussing on any specific thought or memory, a skilled Legilimens could quickly gather a broad sense of what might be called the person's character.

Harry Potter's mind, for example, tasted of deep loneliness and submerged anger, of stubbornness and independence and loyalty and recklessness and courage. There was also a fair-mindedness that reminded Severus, most unhappily, of Lily.

Hermione's mind was lovely: a tirelessly churning intelligence sweetened by generosity, empathy, bravery, and loyalty; tempered by a tendency to rush to judgement and to worry; and veined with passion.

Severus felt himself in a warm and capacious place filled with elegant structures organising vast amounts of knowledge, memory, association, and... feeling.

For there it was. Respect. Trust. Admiration. Loyalty. Attraction. Lust, for fuck's sake. Liking. Adoration. Tenderness. Worry. Hurt. Guilt. Pride. Hope. Despair. All for him.

He could hardly recognise the version of himself that filled her mind.

Fucking hell, she does fancy me.

The earlier memories where she defended him to her friends were disorientating enough, but he felt himself becoming unhinged when he arrived at a huge and varied cache of sexual fantasies starring him.

It was like experiencing his own dreams of her, but with the roles reversed and, really, rather filthier. Something like awe flooded him as he examined each one. How did a girl like this come up with such... inventive... scenarios?

His pulse quickened and he began to tremble. Nearly everything in him screamed at him to seize her and never ever let go for even a minute. Mine, she's mine!

No, no, NO! He broke their mental connection and reeled away, fighting hard to remember the truth: she was a child...a child. He was going to kill and die. He could not have her. She could not have him.

Why not? his body howled. Take her! Take her and work it out later!

Because... danger... Voldemort... Dumbledore... Draco... But his rational brain was crippled. The blood it needed to function properly had been commandeered by his cock, which was in no doubt about what to do.

While he struggled, Hermione had been weeping wetly and clinging to his desk. At last, she began to talk again, apologising to him. She knew, she said, that her feelings had nothing to do with him. She'd thought, she said, that what she'd done would be safe.

His anger spiked. She'd carelessly upended his world and she wanted his forgiveness? He'd show the damned girl how indifferent he was to her, and how fucking safe she was.

Four strides took him to her, and he wrapped one arm around her chest and shoulder, the other around her belly and hips. He jerked her back, making sure she could feel his indifference rubbing against her arse.

Her head fell back on his shoulder, exposing her neck, and her sharp little gasp pierced him... and... gods... she was pushing against his body, trying for even more contact. His cock went from hard to harder.

His chastisement, when he managed to form the words, sounded far feebler than he'd planned: 'Does this feel safe to you?' How could he scold when he was coming undone from the smell and feel of her pressed into his body?

She shivered at his words, or perhaps at the touch of his lips on her ear, and yes her smooth white neck was just... there... As he bent to mouth her skin, desire overwhelmed the last traces of his anger.

'Or this?' he whispered, talking to himself as much as to her. No, not safe, no...

'N-no,' she stammered.

Right, he should stop, send her away with a warning, with a curse, rather than just... tasting... her neck, soft as white rose petals... her pulse fluttering right there...

One moment she was limp and shuddering in his grasp; the next she was facing him, grabbing his robes, hauling his face down to hers, and staring into his eyes hungrily.

'Yes, you stop,' she said hoarsely. 'My turn.'

Her hands snaked up his neck to his face and into his hair. Then she was kissing him full on the mouth, urging his lips apart with her own, groaning when he opened to her.

She covered his mouth with fierce, open-mouthed kisses, grazing his lips with her teeth but keeping her tongue back. She was like a ravenous little animal, whimpering faintly as she left one last devouring kiss on his lips and began to make her way down to his throat.

* * *

I am kissing him and oh GOD... Hermione groaned. She'd wanted this for so long. And he was letting her kiss him, not stopping her... In fact his hands were on her arse and her back, pulling her in to his body. His open mouth was warm and firm and wet and real; her hands were in his hair and on his skin, dragging his face down to hers. I want to eat him up, I want him, god, want him...

Tears were pouring down her cheeks again, but she hardly noticed. She was struck by a memory of that place at the base of his throat where his collarbone dipped, and she began to kiss her way down to it, greedily mapping the smooth contours of his freshly shaven skin, the sharpness of the bone beneath the flesh of his jaw.

Her hands released his head and he let it fall back, baring his throat to her...or well, god damn it the top third of his throat. Growling at his collar, she began to fumble at his buttons...

And then his hands were like clamps on her upper arms as he pushed her away and held her at arm's length.

'Wha...?' she gasped. 'No! Please...' She struggled in his grasp.

'Stop it,' he rasped. 'Stop before, before I can't stop...' He looked wild, his hair hanging down in front of his face, his thin lips twisted into a grimace. They were red and wet from her kisses, and so was a spot on his neck right below his jaw.

He shoved her away and she stumbled back against his desk. He turned and strode to the other end of the room, putting as much space between them as he could. For several long moments, they stared at each other, panting, like adversaries in a prize fight.

'Please... I don't understand,' she said at last. 'I thought...'

'No, you didn't,' he cut in harshly. 'You didn't think, and you aren't thinking.' He shut his eyes.

'I just wanted to touch you,' she whispered.

'I have apprehended that much, Miss Granger,' he snarled, scowling at her and thrusting one hand through his hair. 'However, I am not interested in playing naughty schoolgirl and nasty master with you.'

He cut his gaze down and away. 'You have fostered a delusion concerning me, and you must cure yourself of it. There is no happy ending possible here. No connection. No love affair. No love.' He flung the word out as though it were the vilest curse, and looked back up at her, his face clouded with pain and anger. 'Do you understand now?' he spat.

That last line, as it happened, was a tactical mistake.

Hermione set her mouth in a line and glared at him. 'Don't patronise me. You're going to have to do better than laying down the law and trying to cow me. Because I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not delusional. You felt something. You wanted me.'

Severus threw back his head and shouted at the ceiling. 'Ha!' He strode back towards her, stopping when they were toe to toe and he was towering over her.

'Men...of whom I am one, as you've so cleverly discerned...are visually oriented people when it comes to sexual matters. And I've just been treated to the spectacle of you fucking me seven ways to Sunday.'

He glowered down at her, and his voice was low and rough. 'I've seen you bracing yourself against a chair while I take you from behind. And I've seen you rubbing your various... charms... over me as I strain against the cords tying me to the bedposts. Wasn't there some feather work in there somewhere, and quite a bit of sneaking around and seizing our pleasure in unorthodox and inappropriate places?'

His mouth twisted into an expression of disdain. 'I'll admit it was all rather crudely arousing. But altogether I must say those were execrable efforts for a sixth-year of your intellect. Based, I suppose, on some trashy reading and the witless gropings of other... pubescents.'

'Stop,' she whispered. 'Stop saying those things. Stop treating me like a child.'

'You ARE a child, or barely more than one,' he shouted into her face, 'and you are my student, not my peer. I AM your professor and no child. That is all and everything we need to know about one another.'

He turned and walked to the fireplace, where he stood, trembling, with his back turned to her.

Go, go, go away, go away, he pleaded with her silently. 'Go,' he rasped. 'Go now. Let's forget... everything. You did not cast that spell and this morning we discussed...' what? '...we discussed the fact that I no longer require your services as a teaching assistant, effective immediately.' Gods, just go.

She didn't go, not quite yet. Instead she walked up and stood a few feet behind him. He could feel her there, pulling at him without touching him. He burned for her to come closer, to come all the way to him.

'Of course, that would be best,' she said quietly. 'And I'll go. You could have sent me away without insulting or belittling me.' She paused, then hurried on, pushing out the words. 'I know what you saw. I know it wasn't just... sexual fantasy. You saw how I feel about you, how I admire and value you, how I worry about you, how proud I am of you, how I... care for you.

She gulped, obviously on the verge of tears again. 'I am... sorry... that it's all so repellent to you. I suppose...I suppose I don't really know you at all, do I? I let myself forget how harsh you are. Cruel when you don't have to be.'

She walked to the door and put her hand on the handle, then turned back to him, puzzled. 'Sorry, what was that?'

He half turned towards her and closed his eyes against the spinning of the room. 'I do,' he said again, a little louder this time. 'I do have to.'

Hermione stared at him as he stood there, pale and swaying slightly. He looked ill. 'Sir...?' she said. Then, 'Oh.' She dropped her hand from the door handle. 'Oh.' And she walked back to him, stopping, again, a few feet away.

There was only one thing she could think of to say, for all the good it would do. 'Severus Snape. I am your friend. I... I love you. That's all.' She reached out a hand but stopped short of touching him. 'Darling Severus,' she whispered. 'Darling man.'

Stunned and sick, he watched her walking away again. Don't don't don't go, don't leave me alone, I want you... 'Hermione,' he groaned. 'Please.'

And he was across the room, grabbing her by the arms. 'Stay. I can't... If you leave... Just... damn it to bloody, fucking hell!'

Hermione just stood there for a minute, looking down. When she raised her reddened eyes to his, she wore a sort of half smile. 'Congratulations, Professor. You've won the day's rhetorical prize. Well argued.'

With a growl he pulled her into his arms, smashing her cheek against his scratchy, buttony chest, crushing the breath out of her.

She didn't get the chance to catch it properly for some time, either. He loosened his grip on her just enough to grab her chin and turn her face up so that he could fall upon her mouth.

Like hers, his kisses were hungry...starving, even; ferocious where hers had been merely fierce. Both of his hands wrapped around her skull, holding her head where he needed it to be while he took what was his, pushing her lips apart even as he suckled and nipped at them.

She didn't try to kiss him back. It felt like a battle she would quickly lose. She just clung to him, trying to stay upright as he pushed deeper and deeper into her mouth until he'd claimed it completely.

When he began to move from her mouth to her throat, his hands moved too, capturing the hinges of her jaw between his two thumbs, his other fingers fanned out and pressing into the back of her neck, the base of her skull.

Her throat was like roses and plums, like rain, like the deep desert pool that was no mirage. At last. He would taste every molecule of that creamy flesh, get as close as he could to the heat of her blood pounding under his lips and tongue. He wanted to bathe in the sounds she was making...gasps, moans...and in the feel of her submission.

She grasped the back of his neck with one hand, hanging on him, pulling him in to her; the other clutched his robes at the shoulder, her arm bent tight between his own stronger arm and her body.

There were the finest wires, tight and quivering, between the places he was kissing her and her brain, spine, skin, breasts, belly, and sex. Each kiss, each lick, each half-bite sent surges of heat through the wires; each instant of lessened pressure as he moved his open mouth over her skin left her dizzy and desperate for him to renew his attack. She was being owned, and not one iota of her body or brain had any objection.

He reached the collar of her jumper and pulled back. Locking eyes with her, he pinched a bit of the wool between his fingers and growled, 'This goes.'

It wasn't a request, but the two words...or perhaps it was the absence of his mouth on her skin...somehow restored her ability to think and speak and act.

'I'll do it,' she said. 'You do these.' She pulled at one of his buttons and frowned. 'Fair's fair.'

She saw his objection forming on his face, and before he could say a word, she pulled him down into a kiss.

This time she teased at the seam of his lips with her tongue, then tugged at his chin with her thumb to open his teeth. Once inside, she caressed his tongue with hers, then flicked it lightly and withdrew.

He took the invitation for what it was, kissing her hotly and thoroughly, then receding and letting her take the lead again.

Finally she broke the kiss. 'Both of us,' she panted into his mouth, giving him five or six more little kisses before stepping back and putting her hands on the hem of her jumper preparatory to pulling it up over her head.

Then she paused, and blushed. 'You first,' she said, and raised an eyebrow as a scowl overspread his flushed face. 'I did notice that you haven't agreed yet, and this won't work if it's just me.'

This was too much talk for Severus's liking. 'Fine,' he rasped. Diffindo. The silent, wandless spell sent all sixty-four of the buttons from the front of his frock coat, waistcoat, and shirt clattering to the floor. 'Satisfactory?'

She gulped. 'It's... it's brilliant, thank you, sir.' A strip of pale skin strewn with black hair appeared between the plackets of his open shirt and above the line of a thin white singlet. She could see that little dip at the bottom of his throat where his sternum began. I can't believe... is this happening?

'Call me Severus,' he said. I want my name in your mouth.

'Severus,' said Hermione, very quietly. She delicately pushed apart the edges of his shirt collar and, stretching up a little, pressed her lips against the top of his sternum. Her fingers slid along his collarbone underneath his shirt.

With a snarl, he picked her up and carried her to the sofa. He sat with her across his lap, still bundled up in his arms, and began to kiss her mouth, face, and neck. One of his hands cupped her face, the other burrowed into the warm space between her jumper and her shirt; hers were grasping his head, tugging it to where she wanted it most...her ear, apparently, and the skin just behind and below it.

Hermione's head lolled back. Oh... sweet... Jesus how can kissing feel so good... She felt his hand splayed out along her back under her jumper, and she wanted it on her skin. She pulled his head away from her neck and looked deep into his eyes before yanking the whole assemblage of jumper and shirt up over her head and flinging it aside.

The sudden chill of the dungeon air on her skin woke her up to her surroundings.

For a second or two she just gaped at him. Then, gasping, she wrapped her arms around herself.

Merlin's ghost she was sitting on Professor Snape's LAP and his SHIRT was OPEN and HER SHIRT WAS OFF! He was looking at her like THAT and he was panting! Her hand darted up to the spot under her ear he had just been kissing...KISSING!

I'M SEDUCING MY TEACHER! I'm a, a, a SEDUCTRESS!

Severus could read the expressions that moved across her face. Oh hell, he thought, going too fast. He acted quickly. Before she could scramble off his lap, he had Transfigured her jumper into a blanket, which he wrapped around her. He folded her back into his arms, tucking her head under his chin.

'Shhh, shhh,' he hissed through gritted teeth. He carefully kept his embrace loose and tried to will the tension out of his body. He was outrageously, painfully aroused and he wanted nothing more than to take her right now on the bloody sofa. It just about killed him to cover her up with the blanket and to keep his mouth and hands away from her skin. But she'd taken fright, so for the moment he would settle for keeping her in his arms.

The brazen woman of fantasy was really an awkward girl after all. She needed gentleness, reassurance.

'Hermione,' he said, assuming his smokiest, most velvety-silken voice and stroking her back through the damned blanket. 'Don't be afraid, and please don't go. This is... astonishing... for both of us. Let's just sit a moment and then... then we can talk.' And then, Merlin willing, I can get back to tasting you...

She let out a long, shuddering breath and nestled in to him. Which was what he wanted her to do, of course, though it didn't make his immediate situation any easier.

'It's just...' she began in a small voice. 'It's just that... I'm in love with you.' And she curled up a little tighter into herself, as if for protection.

He rested his chin lightly on the top of her head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, his mouth and brow creasing into a grimace. He breathed in the scent of her hair and let out a sigh of his own. 'I know,' he said a little jaggedly. 'I know that now.'

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A/N: Whew! I don't know what else to say about this chapter. It was the hardest one yet to write, but I have to admit I like how it turned out. ☺

Thanks to greenstuff, hechicera, and lifeasanamazon for putting up with my multiple drafts, wibbling, and general neediness. *kisses each of you and places flowers in your hair*