Sweet Appetite

Disclaimer: Canon got you down? Me too. That's why I am writing this piece of anonymous, nonremunerative fan fiction whose characters I do not own or claim.

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She wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and cry. But instead she ran back towards the school.

She was scared. She wanted to be with him.

Can't, he needs time, I need space, it's not okay what he did, but think where he's been, horrible, and he's worried, and his hand is bloody, and he says he's in hell and we need to talk, oh GOD why can't I just be holding him now, how can it be right to not be holding him, but that was SO AWFUL...

And round in circles she went in her mind. Finally, running up the stairs to the castle door, she thought, I'll see him at breakfast, see how he looks.

He wasn't at breakfast. She sat there for half an hour, pretending to read and picking at a piece of toast, and he never came.

And he wasn't at lunch. She was there for the entire hour, her stomach in knots. This was unbearable.

There were twenty minutes before afternoon lessons started. Hermione ducked through a small door off the entrance hall. She pulled out her Galleon.

I am in entrance hall cloakroom. Worried about you. Come if you are near.

* * *

Three minutes and forty-five seconds was what it took to get from the staff room to the entrance hall if one was in a hurry. Not running flat out...that wouldn't be wise...but moving fast.

Through the door, close it, survey the room there she is!, lock and ward it. Breathe. Turn around and...she was in his arms, squeezing him hard and spilling a torrent of words into his waistcoat.

'Oh thank you, thank you for coming. I kept thinking I'd see you in the Great Hall but you never came, and I felt like I couldn't wait until tonight to be sure you're okay and to tell you I'm okay and I'm not angry and I wish I could be with you every minute today. And also this.'

She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him once and twice with soft, closed-mouth kisses, then pressed her lips to his, urging his apart with gentle persistence. He responded gingerly at first, but he soon forgot his self-consciousness and kissed her hungrily.

'Gods, this is better,' she whispered as he angled his head to get access to her throat. 'Severus.'

'Hermione. I'm sorry. So sorry.'

'Shhhh. I know.' She pulled his face into her neck. 'Shhhh, my darling.'

He crushed her to him and stared out over her head. 'I don't deserve you.'

She laughed a little and smiled up at him. 'Maybe not. Or maybe I don't deserve you. Doesn't mean I don't want you. Right now, though, we're going to be late for class.' She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a little tin. She opened it and showed him that it was half-full of little shards of hard caramel. 'May I hold your hand?'

* * *

The potion wore off an hour before dinner, but Hermione felt it had done its work. Severus had hardly let go of her hand all afternoon.

He was back at his place at the staff table for dinner. She gave herself permission to sit facing him and to very occasionally glance up at him. He looked tired and sour.

After about half an hour he pushed back from the table and stalked out of the room. She sat a few minutes more, hating the circumstances that wouldn't let her follow him.

When she couldn't wait any longer, she pulled out her Galleon and wand under cover of the tablecloth. Can I come now? she sent.

A minute, then yes.

When she opened the door to his rooms, he was sitting at his desk marking papers, face closed and shoulders hunched. He pointed his quill at her usual chair. She hesitated, then walked over and sat down. So they were back at this level of formality. Why? This was chilling.

Impulsively, she leaned forward and reached her hand across the desk to him. He hesitated, then took it in one of his and caressed it with the other, staring intently at it as he did so. Then he put it down and sat back in his chair.

And began to talk.

* * *

After her first torrent of tears and disbelief...impossible; Dumbledore can't die, we can't lose him now...she piled into his lap and tried to talk him out of it. He can't make you do it; it's against every law and every right thing; it's insane; it's sick; it's horrible; it's suicidal; there must be another way; why you; how can he ask it of you, it's like throwing you away; and, his favourite, we'll just have to get you away from England, somewhere safe; you've done enough.

He finally stopped this vein of talk by telling her he had taken an Unbreakable Vow to do this thing. He didn't tell her about Draco and Narcissa's involvement, but a Wand Oath was a Wand Oath and she could neither dismiss it nor find a way to reason him out of it.

She cried again for a while, head burrowed into his chest like a child.

She cries so easily.

'Hermione. Hush. This is the way it has to be. Even without the Wand Oath. I am the only person who can do this. And it will, in a way, keep me safer for a while. Soon Dumbledore won't be here to protect me. If I refused, the Death Eaters would make it their first order of business to hunt me down.'

She wailed, 'Instead, the Order of the Phoenix will make it their business to hunt you down!' and started sobbing anew.

He pulled back from her. 'Hermione. Please go and sit in your chair now. I can't say the next part with you in my lap.'

She didn't like it, but she went. He stood and walked over to the fireplace. He ran a finger along the mantelpiece and fixed his gaze on one of the jars lined up there while he spoke.

'Now you know that I'm about to become... a murderer and, if I'm lucky, a fugitive. And you won't be able to defend me, because my success...and my life...will depend on no one knowing what side I'm really on. You must bear the secret with me, and you must continue to hide our, ah, relationship. Or...'

He turned to face her. 'Or I can Obliviate you. Wait, please; let me finish.

She subsided into her chair.

'I am capable of, hrhmmm, of a very refined, subtle Obliviate. I would use Legilimency to pinpoint both the memories to be elided and the memories that need to be kept...that would be any memory that you know or could infer is shared by someone else; for example, that you are my TA and spend Tuesday evenings here. These memories are sequenced into a potion along with the Obliviate spell, so that when the potion is drunk, Obliviation commences. The side effects are minimal compared to a standard spell-based Obliviate, and the overall, um, mental fabric retains a much higher degree of integrity.'

He turned back to the fireplace. 'And,' he murmured, 'if one is careful, it is fully reversible. If... provided we, um, we both survive.'

'Oh!' A pause. 'Oh.' Then silence. She was thinking. He picked up a poker and scraped at the grate. He refused to look at her or give her any sign.

'So,' she said after a while. 'The questions are: can I be trusted to keep your secret; can both of us be trusted to keep our relationship secret; what is our contingency plan if we are found out. What else?'

He closed his eyes. Beautiful, brilliant girl.

'Contingency plan if you are captured,' he said quietly.

'Oh.' She turned pale.

'With the Obliviate, all those questions would be moot.'

She snorted wetly. 'Doubtless. But I will agree to the Obliviate only if we cannot answer those questions to our satisfaction. The idea of abandoning you or forgetting that I love you and starting to hate you because you're a murderer makes me want to kill someone myself. Starting with your stupid Dark Lord. And I might want to hex Professor Dumbledore a lot. If he wasn't,' she gave a little sob, 'if he wasn't already so sick and d-dying.'

She sagged into her chair and began to cry again. He stood where he was, watching her.

'God,' she finally muttered. 'I cry too much. We need to sort this out.

'But first,' she said, rising and walking to him, 'I need to tell you I won't leave you unless I have to. I didn't want to before today, and I certainly don't want to now.' She put her hands on his shoulders and glared up at him. 'If you and I can't work out together what to do, no one can.'

Surely this was his cue to kiss her. So he did.

* * *

Severus's clock struck nine, and far above the dungeons the school clock did the same.

'We have an hour until curfew,' he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'Let's go over it again.'

She referred to the parchment in front of her.

'One. Can I be trusted to keep the secret? This is related to, well, to all of the other questions. I have the glamour and two potions to help maintain my façade. We agreed that I will Obliviate Jill using a standard, spell-based Obliviate, which you will teach me, and that I will make sure those letters have really been destroyed. You will begin training me in Occlumency and Legilimency, though we won't be able to depend on my skills very far. Beyond that, it is a matter of pure trust.' She looked at him. 'I feel I'm up to the task. Do you think I am?'

He looked at her levelly. 'I trust you.'

'Thank you.

'Two. Can we be trusted to keep our relationship secret?' She sighed. 'We will need to be more careful. No more impromptu meetings. No more s-sex in the DADA classroom.' She blushed. 'Only use Galleons or caramels when we are sure we're alone.

'Let's see. Oh, yes. You will teach me the full suite of concealing, deflecting, and locking spells you use. You will lend me this book,' she put her hand on it where it lay before her, 'and you won't ask why I need to manipulate a goblin Protean Charm; you will simply trust that I need to do so.'

He scowled. 'That is correct.'

'And overall I will do my best to act as though I don't like you very much.'

'Without overdoing it.'

'Right. A kind of tepid distaste, like you have for me.'

Let's get through this blasted list so I can get you into bed for five minutes, for gods' sake.

'Moving on. Number three. What shall we do if we are caught? This will depend upon circumstances. Each of us must be prepared to make a quick assessment of the risk. Each of us will consult with the other before taking action, unless we judge the risk to be too high. In the case of someone confronting us, we will employ distraction, denial, Confunding, and Obliviation, in that order, as needed.'

How coolly she talked about Confunding and Obliviation. 'Yes. Quite. Next.' He shifted in his chair and tried not to dwell on the many contingencies this plan left open.

'Four.' She swallowed. 'What shall I do if I am captured by Death Eaters?' She raised her eyes from the parchment and stared at him steadily. 'You will make the Obliviate potion for me, pelletize it, and place it in a poisoner's ring that I'll wear on my finger. If I am captured I will t-take it and wipe out my memories of our, our relationship and my feelings for you and my knowledge of your true affiliation.'

And she began to argue again. 'I still don't see why I can't just destroy the part about your loyalties and keep my feelings and memories...'

'We've discussed this, Hermione. For one thing, it leaves too many holes; your feelings of, of affection and your sudden "discovery" that I was a murderer would be so incompatible that you might actually suffer a psychotic break.'

'But if I were captured by Death Eaters, how much would it matter if I went insane? They'd just torture and kill me anyway.'

And I can imagine being forced to do it, to prove myself loyal. 'Stop talking nonsense; you know very well that it matters,' he said impatiently. 'Our aim is to survive the war, together if we can and separately if we must. If you lose your wits you're likelier to lose your life. And if you Obliviate, I can bring you back later. But I cannot cure you if you are mad.'

She looked like she was about to start crying again.

'What else is on the list?'

'Um, number five. My parents are at risk already because of my friendship with Harry, and might be even more if you and I were discovered. They ought to be, to be,' she savagely wiped away a tear, 'relocated. Hidden. Obliviated. Soon. You will help me with this; if we can't organise it safely or in time, I will ask someone else in the Order to help me. You think maybe L-Lupin could do it.'

'Anything else?' he asked, getting ready to rise from his chair. He knew that was all that was on the list.

'No,' she said quietly, staring down at the parchment. 'No. Except... well, except for one thing...'

'What's that?' It's nine-twenty. He could feel the minutes slipping away and it was making him angry.

'Why,' she started and fell silent again. Something was percolating in that bushy head.

'Hermione. Speak.'

'Well. Why do we care so much if we're found out? What does it actually matter, in the larger context?' She waved her hand around to indicate the larger context. 'Up till now, I've gone on the assumption that we needed to be very careful because you could lose your position if we were caught. But, god! What exactly will Dumbledore do to you if he finds out you've been sleeping with a student? He can't fire you; he needs you to murder him first. Ha! We are operating in a whole different moral arena, aren't we? Do the normal rules even apply? I'm not sure they do.'

She was up and pacing. 'For that matter, what will He-Who-Is-a-Pile-of-Dragon-Dung do? If you can hide your actual feelings for me, and your true loyalties for heaven's sake...if you can hide those things, what will it matter if even he finds out you've been sleeping with me? Couldn't you make up some horrible little story that would please him, like...I don't know...that you seduced me for a bet, or something like that?'

She stood still in the middle of the carpet, a blazing look on her face. 'All I can see that really matters is that he not know you and Dumbledore were working together...that you pass this insane loyalty test. I'm right, aren't I? The rest is secondary. We can wear ourselves out trying to sneak around and planning to club people over the head if we are found out, or we can concentrate on being together while we still have the chance.'

He finally found his tongue. 'It would be best if we were not caught.'

She flapped her hand at him dismissively. 'Of course it would. I don't propose to start snogging you in the corridors. We'll be secret, we'll be careful, but we'll keep our focus on what matters: being together as much as we can, and keeping you as safe as possible through this horrible nightmare of a sham murder that makes me so angry.'

She began walking around the room again, ticking points off on her fingers as she spoke. 'I'll keep using the glamour and the potions. I'll still work on the, um, the Protean Charm...and I wish I could tell you why; it's just not my secret to tell.

'I'll carry the Obliviate potion because my doing so will protect you if everything goes completely pear-shaped. I think... it's a good idea to Obliviate Jill and my, my parents. Two separate issues, but, um, both important.' Her lip trembled. 'But if I can only be with you once a week, and only for another week or two? That is Not. On. No. No. No.'

'Aren't you forgetting something?'

She stopped short and looked at him eagerly. 'Am I? Oh, tell me!'

He curled his lip. 'There are other consequences of discovery. Do you really want everyone at Hogwarts to know you are sleeping with me? And after? How will it be when everyone looks at you with pity and disgust because you had an affair with a murderer and a traitor?' And a greasy git.

That seemed to subdue her. 'That would not be very much fun,' she finally said. 'And it will be hard, especially, to know what I know and endure everyone hating you so and not be able to defend you. It will be lonely. But.' She lifted her chin. 'If you can do it, I can do it. I'm not afraid.'

He persisted. 'Your best friends would never approve if they knew, even leaving out my shocking betrayal. They already loathe me. Surely they'd think I am... beneath you.' He let the curtains of his hair fall forward and peered out at her intently, like an animal from its cave.

She was no fool. She could read between the lines. Her mouth fell open in astonishment. 'You think I'd be ashamed of you? You think I could ever be anything but proud that you chose me? I'm, I'm young and, and shrill and swotty and a know-it-all and hardly even pretty and just, well, young. And I don't exactly have boys lining up at the door for me...well, one maybe, but that's neither here nor there.

'No.' She came over to his chair and curled herself into his lap. 'I know you're not to everyone's taste, and that's fine with me. I'm completely mad about you. Besides, be damned to what Harry and Ron might think; what do they know? God, Ron spent five months lip-locked with Lavender Brown!' She grimaced.

Hermione threaded the tips of her fingers into his hair, stroking it back behind his ears. 'I sometimes... I don't know how much you've thought about it, or if you think about it at all, but I sometimes think about us after Hogwarts. Just little daydreams of our having dinner together in a nice restaurant, then making our entrance at Grimmauld Place, where we sit next to one another holding hands under the table and sleep in the same bed and Mrs Weasley can't say a thing about it because we're adults and colleagues in the Order and it's none of her business.'

She smiled at him. 'Silly. And now I know that probably will never happen. But my point is, you are a prize. My prize.'

She kissed him all over his face...brows, temples, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth...

I love your silly daydreams, he thought. I could lose myself in them.

This is not wise; I'll need to remember what's wise. In a little while I'll remember.

She spoke against his lips, the words tumbling out between kisses: 'It's nearly curfew. But I don't want to leave yet. I want to make love to you now, in your bed. You can walk me home, late. Just this once. Tomorrow we'll be prudent again.'

No wisdom tonight. No prudence. He stood up with her in his arms and carried her into his bedroom.

'Do you know what I want to do?' she asked, slipping down out of his arms onto the bed.

'No.' He yanked at his coat sleeves and shrugged the thing off.

She knelt before him on the bed. Her hands were on his waistcoat. 'I want to unwrap you and kiss you all over. No, I'll lick you all over. Then I want to ride you.' The waistcoat was off and she whispered in his ear as she unbuttoned his shirt. 'I want to get on top of you and fuck you into the bed.'

His cock jumped for joy. 'Where did you learn to talk like that?' She never used that word.

'Here and there,' she said offhandedly, smirking at him. 'I love to read. Have an excellent memory. You've taught me a thing or two. Haven't we discussed all this before?'

She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and stared greedily at his chest. She swept her hands, fingers spread wide, from his sternum to his waist and settled them there while she dipped forward to lick and suck one of his nipples. Jesus FUCK.

'Mine,' she murmured, and trailed her tongue across to the other nipple. 'Mmmmmine.' She hummed it into his skin. He held her head, buried to the wrists in her wild hair. She kissed and licked her way across his chest and stomach, making him shiver.

'I love this whole part here,' she said, tracing two fingers along his clavicle and out to his left shoulder. And now she sowed kisses all the way down his inner arm, sucking lightly on the skin inside his elbow and continuing along his forearm...treating the Marked flesh as though it were just another expanse of skin...and his wrist, palm, and finally fingers, which she pulled into the soft cavern of her mouth to suck and kiss.

When she was done with his fingers, she brought her silky wet mouth up to his and kissed him so thoroughly that his lips buzzed with blood.

Meanwhile she undid his trousers. They fell to the floor, and she rested her hands on his hips while she kissed him. She moved one hand to his cock, cupping his balls briefly before skimming her palm up the shaft.

'And I love this,' she whispered, mouth against his ear. 'I love everything about this.'

Now both her hands were on him, stroking him, and she kept talking. 'You know I want to fuck you everywhere. Here. In the next room. On the floor. Against the wall. On the sofa. In the bath.' Those words in her mouth and her hands on his cock and balls drove him nearly mad, but he kept still, letting her take the lead.

'Imagine this. You are sitting at your desk. I get underneath it and do this.' She slipped off the bed and knelt to take his cock in her mouth, slicking the shaft with spit so she could work it with her hand while her tongue and lips swirled around the tip. She hummed and grunted with appetite. He'd never felt more self-satisfied. Though he was getting just a little impatient to get to the riding part.

As if sensing this, she looked up at him and said, 'Get on the bed now, please.' There was a little bit of business as she helped him out of his boots and the trousers still pooled around his ankles, and then he was completely naked and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Hermione pointed to herself. 'Clothes on or off? Your choice.'

'Off.' Ridiculous question.

'Right.' She smiled and blushed, a delectable combination of brazen and shy. She pushed off her shoes with her toes. 'Now. I'll do the tops, you do the bottoms.' She began unbuttoning her shirt.

Growling, he shoved his hand up under her skirt to pull down her knickers. With the other hand, he unzipped the skirt; it fell to her ankles with the knickers. Her shirt was off and she was unhooking her bra; he reached out to touch her cunt, sliding his fingers through the wet curls at her centre and up between the soft fat lips to her entrance.

She dropped her bra. He looked into her flushed face and pushed a finger into her, crooking it and dragging it back out over the sweet spot inside her. He moved his thumb over her clitoris, then drove two fingers into her.

'Ah, godmmm, that's so good,' she moaned, bracing herself against his shoulders and leaning into him. After a few more strokes, she pushed him onto his back. She skimmed her hand over his cock, which leapt in her palm as though magnetised to her flesh.

'Lie down there.' She pointed. He moved, and she climbed onto the bed, swinging one leg over him to straddle his waist. For a moment she looked down at him, running her hands over his torso. He could feel the wetness of her on his belly, and her sweet, ripe arse pressing against his cock.

She lifted up then and, with a little maneuvering and one false start, positioned herself atop his cock and slowly pushed down onto him. He breathed, worked, to keep himself in check.

Her eyes closed and her mouth fell open as she filled herself. When she opened her eyes they were dark and wild. Bracing herself with her hands, she rose up and drove down again, a smoother stroke this time. A smile crossed her face...triumphant and a little smug...and she bent over to kiss his mouth before concentrating on the task of fucking him into the bed.

He thrust up to meet her, filling his hands with her arse and his eyes with everything else as she rode him. She was... exquisite. Every inch of her was flushed and alive to the feel of him inside her, fucking him, hungry for him. She loves me, said she loves me.

He reached one hand to finger her clitoris, and with the other he cupped a breast, flicking and pinching at the nipple in rhythm with her strokes. She needed to come soon, because he could not last much longer. She growled and gazed down at him, eyes unfocused, mouth open and panting, her strokes growing more urgent as she reached for her orgasm, and there it was oh Jesus Christ, squeezing him as she wailed and shook, and he put his hands on her hips and took over driving, driving as she came apart above him and he was getting there and Oh. FUCK.

He shouted her name. He burst free of time and space. He was fire and liquid magic and she was the ocean and the earth and the sky and everything he needed to live. He was so fucking alive.

She collapsed onto him and they held each other, slick and panting, as the candles on the bedside table guttered and smoked in the hot wax.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: *looks fondly at S&H* I love them together.

Thanks again to my dear greenstuff, hechicera, and lifeasanamazon for beta/Britpick.

Thanks for reading.