Understanding

Disclaimer: One of the many things that distinguish me from JKR: she owns this stuff.

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Sunday, 11 May 1997

Around much of its circumference, the shores of the lake fell away quickly into deep water. The water always looked dark, but it was a different quality of darkness depending on the season. In cloudy weather...which was frequent at Hogwarts...it could look as black as obsidian, with just the faintest translucency at the surface quickly giving way to total obscurity.

Today, the noon sun sent shafts of greenish light down into the water, the top few inches of which were almost warm.

Ginny Weasley trailed her hand along the boat's side and smiled lazily at her brand-new boyfriend. Harry was rowing the boat up under the sheer cliffs directly below the school so they could have a little privacy on this beautiful day. The second best day ever, thought Ginny, yesterday having been the pinnacle.

'Just here, I think,' she said, and Harry backed oars and stilled the boat. She lifted the small anchor from the bows and dropped it over the side, watching as it plummeted down through the green water and out of sight, twenty feet and more.

'We're right over Slytherin, aren't we?' remarked Harry.

'I suppose we are.' Ginny grinned. 'Troglodytes.' She pulled two wrapped sandwiches and a bottle of pumpkin juice out of the bag at her feet. 'Mind if I join you?'

Grinning back, Harry scooted over on his thwart to make room for her beside him.

It felt so good to have his arm around her, to smell the spicy sweetness of her hair, to know he could kiss her right now.

He looked down into her smiling eyes. 'Ginny,' he said. 'Ginny...'

'Yes,' she said. 'I know.' And she kissed him.

* * *

Twenty or so feet down, the boat anchor bumped gently along the foot-thick glass of the round window in the ceiling of the Slytherin Head of House's sitting room. In the centre of the window, seen from below, the sun was a small white disk swimming in the green glow of lake water.

Severus stood unheeding before his hearth, half in the circle of filtered sunlight.

There was a girl just over there, in his bathroom. The girl. The girl he wanted, and who against all expectation wanted him back. The girl who had, until a few minutes ago, been curled up on his lap on his sitting room sofa as they each learned how to breathe again.

What was taking her so bloody long?

He walked over to stand outside the bathroom door. Water was running inside, into the sink. 'Hermione,' he called. 'Are you all right in there?'

'Oh, yes, yes, I am.' Her voice was a little muffled. 'I'll be out soon.'

Soon. Whatever that meant. Stifling his impatience, he replied, 'Right, I'll just put the kettle on.'

From the sublime to the utterly banal in mere minutes, he groused to himself as he stalked towards the laboratory. The fucking KETTLE.

He stood before his workbench and closed his eyes. Yes. But she's still here. She's really here.

At the crucial moment, he hadn't been able to send her away, and for that he was now unspeakably, savagely glad. He felt alive, exultant. Defiant.

When she'd gone off to the bathroom, a measure of his reason had returned. With it came the certainty that he meant to keep her as long as he could manage it. The timing was disastrous, the risks immense, the circumstances... distasteful..., but he would find a way. He'd be damned if he'd give her up now that he knew what he knew.

He lit the flame under the kettle and began to focus his intellect on a familiar set of issues: secrecy, intelligence gathering, disinformation, and damage control.

* * *

He didn't sit next to her on the sofa when she returned from the bathroom.

This did not seem like an encouraging sign, and Hermione was much in need of encouraging signs. She felt herself in unmapped territory and she was more than a little afraid she was there on her own.

The expression on his face wasn't encouraging, either...no soft or loving looks there. Not even any lascivious looks.

No: he sprawled, scowling, in an armchair on the other side of the cluttered coffee table.

She'd spent as long as she dared in the bathroom, trying to make sense of the developments of the past hour. But she still hadn't a clue how to start talking to him. So for the moment she kept silent, tucking herself more tightly into the corner of the sofa and hiding behind a cup of his wretched tea.

It was so unfair. He knew everything about her feelings for him...seriously, everything. And she knew nothing about what he felt. The longer the silence between them persisted, the more his cruelest words...'crudely arousing'; 'execrable efforts'; 'you have fostered a delusion'...echoed in her head, chipping away at her courage.

Did he really mean all that? What is he thinking NOW? She was beginning to feel a little desperate.

Severus was thinking, Well, this won't fucking do.

Hermione was over there on the sofa, huddled in a corner and clutching her cup. He was over here on this chair, a chair he never sat in and now realised he hated. It was a damned ugly, uncomfortable chair.

A coffee table lay between them. As did this silence, which was growing more bloody unbearable by the second.

She'd taken a good twenty minutes in the bathroom...an eternity...emerging finally with her shirt and jumper on, her hair up, and her face scrubbed. Her eyes and nose were still pink from all the crying she'd done, but to him she looked good enough to eat.

By then he'd identified several possible courses of action.

He'd also spelled his buttons back on, judiciously closing his shirt while leaving his waistcoat open and shedding his frock coat.

He'd thought to procure some sandwiches from the kitchens, since it was clear to him that neither of them would be appearing in the Great Hall for any part of the lunch hour.

'Sir must be hungry,' piped the house-elf who had taken the order.

'Very,' he'd growled, glaring at the creature. It squeaked in fright and cracked out, then back, then out again without another word.

He'd had time to lay out the tea things and sandwiches on the coffee table and fuss them around rather a lot.

'Oh,' she'd said when she saw them. 'Tea.' And she had gone to sit on the sofa, leaving plenty of space for him.

At that moment, it had struck him as prudent to sit over here. This had been an idiotic impulse. Now he'd have to work his way over there.

He shifted in the stupid bloody chair.

And fucking tea. What a joke: An Italian, a Russian, and an Englishman are each alone in a room with the girl they want to shag. What does each one do to seal the deal?

Oh, fuck it. Just say something.

'That book is rubbish, of course.'

She looked up, startled. 'What book is that, sir...I mean, um, Severus?' Her face flooded with colour, so damned lovely.

'Magic for Modern Lovers.' He smirked. 'You're too young to remember...as are your accomplices, Miss Brown and Miss Vane...but the first edition of that... volume... occasioned quite a scandal. It sold brilliantly until the courts and the hospitals started to register the consequences of incomplete research, haphazard fact-checking, nonexistent testing, and piss-poor editing.'

Severus grinned at her discomfiture. 'The original publisher was bankrupted, the author fled to Portugal, and every copy of that edition was recalled and destroyed. Or... nearly every copy, I suppose.' He sipped his tea. 'The new edition sold even better than the first, though everyone agreed it had... lost a certain edge in the stricter editorial process.'

Hermione closed her eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side, and then her shoulders began to shake, and then she was laughing out loud. After a minute or two, she smiled at him ruefully and said, 'Sorry, I just had a rather ghastly private joke.'

'Yes?'

'It's just...on Wednesday I was so angry with Harry for casting a spell whose origins and effects he didn't know...that awful slicing spell he used on Malfoy. And here am I, not five days later, doing precisely the same thing. I could have found that out...what you just told me...in five minutes in the library. I just...,' she looked at him searchingly, 'I just never thought I'd ever, ever use that spell. I seem to have fooled myself. Quite spectacularly, really.'

She leaned forward. 'I'm very sorry, sir. That must have been a horrible shock. I wonder... I was in the library when your owl came, about to try to find out what went wrong with the spell... I still don't know. Can you tell me?'

Ah, the eager student returns. Christ, she's adorable.

He put his cup down and looked her steadily in the eye. 'I can tell you several things. Four things, in fact. First, yes, it was a shock, but a far from horrible one in the end.'

He stood up and pushed aside the coffee table with his foot. 'Second, I really would prefer it if you called me "Severus" rather than "sir," at least while we're alone.'

He plucked her teacup from her hand and set it on the table. 'Third, I can tell you exactly what went awry last night, and I will do so. Later.'

In one liquid series of movements, he dropped to his knees in front of her, pushed her knees apart enough to fit his body between them, and ran his palms up the sides of her thighs to her hips. His face was now on a level with hers, and inches away.

'Because, fourth, I'm going to kiss you now,' he said, and he raised his hands to her face.

'Oh, thank god...' was all she had time to say.

This time he kissed her more softly, deliberately, his parted lips pressing against hers, slowly drawing her into the kiss, building its intensity until everything else in the world fell away.

He discovered he loved kissing Hermione Granger. Loved it. Could do it for weeks at a stretch. The taste and feel of her, her forthright appetite for his kisses, her passionate little sounds. I am kissing Hermione Granger, he announced to himself, and for once no cynical or self-disgusted internal voices answered him. He could feel his magic pooling like quicksilver in his lips and hands where they touched her.

That's different.

He was also very aware of his cock straining into the sofa cushion between her knees, inches away from its goal.

Hermione broke the kiss and leaned her forehead against his for a moment before pulling back to look at him. Her eyes were dark, her wide mouth red and swollen with kissing. His cock leapt at the sight.

'Talk,' she said with an obvious effort. 'You said we would talk. We should...'

'Right.' Damn it.

Frowning, he got to his feet and sat down beside her on the sofa, putting nearly a foot of space between them.

Hermione stared down at her lap and fidgeted with the hem of her jumper for a long minute, then made a sound that was half-sigh, half-laugh. 'I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's so much easier to... kiss you... than talk to you. I mean, at the moment. Usually the talking is not so hard.'

To hell with it. He'd talk, but he wasn't going to not touch her while he was doing it. He took her hand and laid it with his on the cushion between them.

'Hmmm,' he said, avidly studying her profile, the slight pout of her bottom lip, the way her eyelashes veiled her downcast eyes. 'I agree. The kissing has gone remarkably well.'

He leaned in and skimmed the tip of his nose over the outer edge of her ear and murmured, 'Hermione. I enjoy kissing you. I want to kiss you more. I want to do more than kiss you.'

'You do?' She jerked around and stared at him, red to the roots of her marvellous hair.

'I mean, I want, um, want that too. It's just that you said, um, you said, love's not, not possible. You said what you, er, um, what you saw was crude and, and, and execrable and you didn't want to, ah, "play naughty schoolgirl and nasty master" with me.

'If that's true, if you don't...' She stopped talking for a moment. Her lower lip had begun to tremble. 'Then I'm just confused...' She trailed off and averted her eyes.

Oh. He sat back and sighed. 'When I said all that, I was trying to get you to leave. I would have thought that was obvious.'

She frowned, still not meeting his eyes. Is that how she gets the courage to speak, by not looking at me?

'It was obvious. What isn't obvious...to me, anyway...is why you want me to stay. I mean, all those things you said about me and, and you are true. I am young. You are my teacher. Nobody we know would think that us k-kissing each other is a good idea. Not to mention... you know.'

Severus experienced the strangest dual reaction to this speech. First, irritation: Is she trying to make me declare myself to her? Then, something akin to wonder: 'You know,' she said, and with those two words, a thick, hot haze of animal desire and questing magic filled his chest. Ah, fuck, what she does to me...

He narrowed his eyes a fraction, reckoning how many cards he would need to lay on the table to secure her.

'Yes,' he finally said. 'Those things are true. And if someone had asked me two months ago whether any circumstances would permit... an intimate relationship between a teacher and a student, I'd have scoffed at the idea. I did scoff at myself when I began to realise I had strong feelings for you. Feelings of attraction.' He ran one forefinger lightly from the back of her hand up to her wrist, and she shivered. 'Feelings of desire.'

She was staring now at their hands, entwined on the sofa between them. Her colour was still high, and he could hear her breathing.

He modulated his voice. He'd had some experience of the effect it could have on women, and he used it now to coax his girl, his little wild bird, in from the windowsill where she was poised.

'I tried so hard to make you go because I wanted you to stay so badly. And in the end I couldn't let you leave, though I should have. It was a moment of weakness, but just now I cannot be sorry for it.'

He reached his free hand over to tip her chin up so she faced him, and he pitched his voice just a little lower, a little softer. 'Hermione. I find you utterly lovely. Your feelings for me are a revelation. Your... fantasies... are wonderful. You intoxicate me.'

Some perfect instinct...Circe knew where it came from...prevented him from bending down to kiss her. She would need to have her say, and she would need to give him an indication that the next kiss was welcome. He couldn't just take it.

She regarded him worriedly for a moment or two. Then she closed her eyes and sighed deeply. When she opened her eyes again, they were full of a familiar warmth.

That's how she looks at me when we're alone. And I've never let myself see what it means.

'Hermione...' he said.

'I'm intoxicated, too,' she whispered.

And when he lifted her hand and pressed his lips into her palm, she looked it...flushed, heavy-lidded. Ripe. Mine. He bent to claim the next kiss.

* * *

The disk of the sun had disappeared from the circular window, and the water showed a deep dappled green.

Hermione, rumpled and dazed, sat quietly in her corner of the sofa.

Severus was in the bathroom. She squirmed a little whenever her mind wandered to what he was probably doing in there.

She tried to focus instead on what had been happening out here until just a few minutes ago.

There had been quite a lot of kissing. And touching.

Her hands under his shirt, stroking the skin she'd first touched last night in her bed. How different it had felt now...no longer quiescent but rippling with living muscle under her touch.

His hands inside her shirt, gripping her waist, gliding up her sides to cup her breasts over her bra. His fingers dipping inside, their rough pads drawing a gasp from her as they grazed her nipple, circled, pressed, gently pinched it. She remembered moaning and arching into his hand.

He'd kissed her mouth and neck and ears, seeming to learn what she liked from changes in her breathing and the sounds she made. When she had kissed, nuzzled, nipped, and caressed him in return, he'd found the wherewithal to use a few words...along the lines of 'gods' and 'shit' and 'fuck yes'...to direct her.

He swears a lot, she'd thought at first, but soon the words only made her burn hotter. Some fragment of her brain that was still noticing and commenting on things had noted that this was something Percipio Corium could never give her.

Also, the taste and smell of him. His mouth, tea and tobacco; his skin musky, salty, faintly sour, with a trace of spice from whatever he used to shave.

In time his waistcoat had come off and his shirt was unbuttoned...this time by her hands. Though her own shirt was still on, it was partly unbuttoned, and her bra was unhooked. Her jumper was under the coffee table.

His mouth on one breast, his hand on the other...she'd thought she might die from the sensations. Or perhaps she would die if she couldn't touch him more moremoremore. She'd slid her hand down...there. She could feel the heat of his cock through his trousers, and it lurched when she placed her hand over it.

'Ah, fuck,' he had groaned harshly. 'Ah, Jesus, yes. Hermione.'

Panting, he'd pulled back from her and fixed her with a fathomless black gaze. And asked her a question.

He had obviously been surprised...even taken aback...by the answer.

Then he'd asked her another question. Her answer, given even more diffidently than the first, didn't seem to improve the situation.

In fact, he'd said, 'Ah, fuck.' And not in a heated, you're-killing-me-keep-going sort of voice. It had been more of a choked, why-the-hell-do-I-have-to-die-like-this sort of voice.

'Never?' he'd croaked.

'No, never. I mean, Viktor and I, um, touched each other a lot, but it was always... we were always mostly clothed. And he's the only one I've ever, sort of, done anything, um, like this with.'

'McLaggen?'

'What? No! Oh, god, disgusting, no! He dragged me under some mistletoe at Professor Slughorn's party and, and, slobbered on me, but that was just the once and... ugh, awful.'

He'd shifted away from her, wincing. 'Then how... All those fantasies were so... full.'

She'd felt like her neck and face were on fire. He thought I'd actually DONE those things? Oh GOD, this is HORRIBLE!

Mortified, she'd simply said, 'I do read quite a bit.'

And he... had laughed. Out loud. 'Remarkable.' And pulled her into a hug, and kissed the top of her head, and laughed again.

He'd tipped up her chin and looked in her eyes. 'You're beautiful, Hermione. I want you. Badly. But this will have to go a little differently than I'd... imagined. Which means that just at the moment I need to go into my bathroom and... collect my thoughts.

'Don't move.' And he'd risen and walked, rather stiffly, through the door leading to his bedroom and bathroom.

That had been at least twenty minutes ago. What was taking him so long? I thought men went faster than that...

Hermione was startled out of her reverie by a muffled thumping, scraping sound from overhead. She glanced up at the ceiling window in time to see a small boat anchor begin its ascent to the surface.

Squinting, she could see the faint outline of a small boat high above the window. She wondered distractedly how long it had been there. Not that anyone could see into the room at this depth. Except merpeople. Grindylows. The squid. She began to giggle, imagining the denizens of the lake swimming past and getting an eyeful of her and Professor Snape...Severus...grappling on the sofa.

'Something funny?' Severus was standing just inside the room. He was buttoned back up in shirt and a new waistcoat (the one he'd been wearing was still draped over the teapot), and had tied his hair back in a queue.

'Oh, I just saw the shadow of one of the school dinghies pass overhead. It worried me for a second before I realised no one can see in here from the surface of the lake. Then I started imagining an audience of grindylows and squid. It made me laugh.'

'Indeed.' He made his way to the sofa, sat beside her, and threaded his fingers through hers. 'Which brings us to a most pertinent topic. Does anyone...anyone at all...know of your... feelings... for me?'

She shook her head. 'No. Who would I tell? My two best friends would... they'd have trouble understanding, to put it mildly. There's no one I could...oh, well, I did tell a Muggle friend of mine, Jill Fletcher, that I fancied one of my teachers. But that was months ago and she's a Muggle...she doesn't know anyone else from the wizarding world. Doesn't even know there is such a thing.'

He looked at her gravely. 'Hermione. Perhaps I don't need to tell you this, but it's absolutely crucial, so I will say it. For the moment...for the foreseeable future, really...no one must know what we started here today. You are aware of some of the... issues... and possible bad sequelae.'

He brushed a lock of her hair away from her cheek. 'I am glad, beyond words, that you are here now. But the risks are even more serious than you may imagine. We'll talk about this more later. Meanwhile, we must both be silent and very, very circumspect. Do you understand?'

She nodded, all the laughter gone from her face.

'Good.' He raised her hand to his lips, brushed a kiss across it, and placed it back in her lap. 'Now, unfortunately, I have a bit of business to attend to.'

He rose and reached for his frock coat. 'Stay for a while. Eat something.' He gestured at the plate of sandwiches on the coffee table. 'Prepare yourself to meet your friends.

'If anyone asks you where you have been, it's best to tell them the truth...you were here. Working on a big new project. Let's say... an improved system for tracking and predicting student progress and identifying deficits? That should discourage most people from probing further.' The ghost of a smile glinted in his eyes.

'We may not have a chance to talk again until tomorrow afternoon. Alone, that is. If you need to reach me before then, send an owl. I'll find you. I'll think of a better system of communication by then.'

He was buttoned up now, standing before her, looking thoroughly Snapeish...saturnine, aloof. Rather sour. There was nothing of the lover about him anymore, and Hermione's heart gave a painful heave. Rising from the sofa, she flung her arms around him and craned up to kiss him. His embrace lifted her from her feet and his kiss was fierce and possessive. A reassuringly lover-like kiss.

'That's my girl,' he murmured into her hair when they finally stopped kissing and stood holding one another. And then he was gone.

She drifted towards the door that had closed behind him and laid a cheek and both hands on it. His wards rippled gently around her, affirming her right to be there.

After a minute or two, she walked back to the coffee table, seized a sandwich, and, lost in thought, began to devour it.

* * *

A/N: Hi, beloved readers. *pets you and coos soothingly* I know. I feel your pain. BELIEVE me, I do. Next time I write a smutty SS/HG story, she's NOT going to be 17, or a virgin. But at this point in this story she is, and we all have to deal with it, as does Severus. As does she, for that matter. Talk about jumping into the deep end. Always one for a challenge, the dear girl. *loves HG*

Also, in the next chapter we will finally move on from the Declaration of Feelings part of the story, which has only taken about, um, *counts* three chapters to unfold. Maybe next time I also won't explore both points of view quite so thoroughly. Or maybe I'll stretch it to five chapters next time. Buwahahaha!

Thanks to greenstuff, hechicera, and lifeasanamazon for your unflagging support and discerning eyes. I give you X and O!