Due

IV.

A veil of silence fell between them after Hermione's attempt to discompose Snape. She couldn't decide whether he was keeping quiet out of awkwardness or irritation; certainly on her part it was a bit of both. The lack of communication in the following days was comfortable at first; Hermione was glad Snape seemed to have no desire to comment on or analyse her actions. Eventually, however, she began to feel lonely, and it was this unwanted sense of solitude that finally drove her to ask a question at breakfast one morning.

'What's the plan for today?' she enquired as she buttered a piece of toast.

Snape looked up from his plate, mildly surprised at her attempt to start a conversation, but he answered readily enough. 'We're going to Ramsey Island,' he said. 'It's situated just off the end of the peninsula beyond St Justinian.'

'Oh... what's there?' she said, conscious of what a strain it was to keep talking after so many days of avoiding it.

Snape's eyes narrowed. 'You'll see. Finish your toast.'

After the meal, they walked to the harbour in St Justinian and boarded a boat at the dock of the Lifeboat Station there. Ramsey Island, Hermione read from a leaflet as they crossed St Brides Bay, was a bird sanctuary as well as the home of many other species of wildlife, including red deer and grey seals. She watched with anticipation as the boat approached the island and gasped with delight when she saw, as the boat docked in a small cove, the dog-like head of a grey seal emerge from the calm water to observe the passengers disembarking.

Snape's lips quirked when he heard her exclamation, but he said nothing, leading her in silence to the cliffs above the dock where the flat plain of the island stretched in front of them, punctuated by the looming bulk of two rocky carns. When Hermione turned round to look back at the mainland, she was surprised at how close it seemed: she could see the dark shape of Carn Penberri, the outcrop that guarded Snape's cottage, in the distance, and she was certain that when they climbed further up the island, they would be able to see the spires of St David's Cathedral reaching skyward from the vale of the river Alun.

Fancying she could also make out the vague grey shape of Ireland to the west, she followed Snape across the plain along a well-worn path that was dotted, most prosaically, with mounds of sheep manure. When they reached the opposite side of the island...a walk of no more than ten minutes...they trudged up the side of Carn Llundain, the smaller of the two outcrops. None of the other tourists wandering the island had ventured up the rocks, so Hermione and Snape were quite alone at the top of the hill.

Taking advantage of their isolation, Snape taught her a new incantation that, when applied to music, would call animals to her while she played. She knew the legend of Orpheus, of course, having studied it in her early days at the conclave, and she was delighted to discover that what she had thought pure myth was really possible. Not having brought an instrument with her, Hermione tested the spell by singing. Her pure alto sounded across the cliff, snatched from her lips by the wind and carried all the way down the rocks to the sea. After a minute or two, beetles started to crawl from beneath the heather, and butterflies arrived to rest delicately on the purple flowers. Glowing with her accomplishment, Hermione grinned at Snape while she sang, and he, to her complete astonishment, added his own voice to the song, a rough baritone that seemed to resonate in the stones beneath her feet. This extra depth appeared to strengthen the spell; not long after Snape joined in, birds began to land around them, puffins and falcons, choughs and swallows. They sat solemnly on the ground as if listening attentively, disinclined to eat the insects and tiny mice that clustered around them. Hermione marvelled that her music and her magic had the power to make these animals so disregard their nature and instincts.

When the song finished, the animals dispersed, like an audience filing from the stalls after a performance, and Hermione and Snape were left alone atop the carn once again.

'That was incredible,' breathed Hermione, dazed.

His face inscrutable, Snape nodded his agreement. Then he said, 'Would you like to see the seals now?'

'Oh, yes,' she affirmed, glancing involuntarily at the sea below. 'Where are they?'

'Further along the cliffs,' Snape answered.

They descended the outcrop to the plain and made their way along the western cliffs to an overhang where, Hermione finally noticed, most of the other visitors to the island had gathered. Snape seemed uncomfortable standing so near them, regarding the tourists with barely moderated suspicion, but he waited patiently as Hermione leaned out over the edge to gaze fixedly on the rocky beach far below where a number of grey seals and their tiny white pups lounged in the weak sunshine. She looked and looked, unable to get her fill of the fascinating creatures, and stood there so long that the other tourists began to drift away in groups of two or three.

'Can't we get any closer?' she asked, turning to Snape at last.

'It would only disturb them,' he said, joining her at the cliffs' edge. 'But there is a way to get their attention.'

Exhibiting a great deal of uncharacteristic patience, Snape showed Hermione how to throw her voice to the bottom of the cliff and speak to the seals, who turned their heads interestedly to and fro, searching for the source of the sounds. One or two even emerged from the water, flopping in ungainly undulations over the rocks to join their companions. With their perked heads and whiskered noses, they looked so like roly-poly dogs that Hermione began to fall in love and vowed to herself that she would immediately look into joining or supporting any organisations whose purpose was the protection of grey seals.

The sun had passed its zenith by the time Snape finally drew her away from the overhang and insisted they climb the other outcrop, Carn Ysgubor, before catching their boat back to the mainland. She went reluctantly, turning back often for a glimpse of the seals' beach until it was completely out of sight. This ascent was much steeper than what she had become used to, and she found herself growing breathless as they manoeuvred their way up the staircase of shale and boulders. Periodically, they reached good stopping places, small plateaux of heather and long grasses where Hermione could stand still and heave great gulps of air, and Snape could do the same whilst pretending to tap his feet impatiently.

One such plateau was a small area of spongy grass that looked out to the sea rather than over the plain of the island; Hermione leaned carefully over the drop-off and saw the water directly below, crashing against the cliff in a declivity that looked as if it had been gouged out of the earth eons ago by a giant hand. In the westering sunlight, the rock of the cliff face seemed to shade from a deep purple-black slate at the top to a burnished copper colour closer to the water.

'Look at how lovely this view is,' urged Hermione, and she backed away from the edge, gesturing for Snape to take her place.

He stepped forward and crouched down, peering over the side of the precipice to regard the sun glinting off the rocks. 'Yes, it is very beautiful,' he agreed.

And, rising to a standing position, he stumbled against the gusting wind.

In less than the time it took her heart to stutter a horrified beat, Hermione's brain raced through the possible outcomes of Snape's stumble: he would fall to the water eighty feet below, he would break every bone in his body, he would freeze, he would drown... And so she was already reaching for her wand before he even attempted to catch himself; through the deafening screams inside her head, the intention of her unarticulated Levicorpus shot through the air with the force of divine fiat. The spell caught him before he plummeted out of sight, hoisting him back up to eye level by his ankle. He hung there for less than a second; then Hermione, mindful of his dignity even in her panic, whispered, 'Mobilicorpus,' and his body drifted gently to solid earth at the direction of her wand.

She stood in helpless indecision for a moment as he lay there, shivering in relief. Should she go to him? Should she be worried that any of the Muggles on the island had seen what she'd done? Then Snape let out a shaky sigh and put his hands over his pale face, and she moved involuntarily to his side and knelt on the spongy turf.

'That was a very near miss,' she said quietly. Taking advantage of his momentarily obstructed vision, she placed her palm on his chest. She could feel the ribs beneath her hand vibrating against the rapid beating of his heart.

'I know,' he murmured. 'Thank you.' Firmly, but without offence, he pushed her hand away and sat up.

Surprised, she leaned back onto the balls of her feet, her pity and relief morphing into confused suspicion. Snape didn't thank people. He certainly didn't react so calmly to invasions of his personal space. She was not going to comment, though; at least, not at the moment.

When he felt steady enough, he got to his feet and gestured up the hillside. 'Shall we go on?' he asked. His voice was almost... friendly.

Hermione nodded, and they resumed their climb.

Nothing further ensued on Ramsey Island...at least, nothing unusual; and Hermione found herself extraordinarily tired as they rode the boat back to the mainland and walked along the narrow, winding roads into St Davids. She nearly groaned aloud when Snape made the turning onto the north road; it was two more miles to Ty Gwennol, and she wasn't certain she had the energy to walk. The obvious thing to do would be to Apparate, but the city centre was filled with people in the fading afternoon, gathered around the market cross or strolling down the pavements, and there was nowhere they could depart from without being seen.

Then Snape, whose slow step and hunched shoulders gave her cause to believe that he, too, was a bit weary, turned in to the Farmers' Arms and asked, rather curtly, what she wanted to drink. She waited with him at the bar until they had been supplied with two pints of Welsh ale, then led the way into the beer garden where she sank gratefully onto a bench and took a long swallow of the cool liquid.

Over the mossy wall of the garden, the spires of the cathedral could be seen, the ancient stones stabbing gracefully at the sky. A sparrow twittered nearby and flew over to sit on the strings of fairy lights that decorated the terrace. Hermione sighed. As much as she and Snape didn't get along, she could easily picture herself in this part of Wales forever, surrounded for all of her long life by the slow, deliberate pace of the sea, hills, and cliffs. A low, charming cottage like Snape's would suit her; if it had a big enough yard, she could host ceilidhs, she thought with a smile. She would make her living teaching music and poetry to children, and she would spend her evenings entertaining the locals in pubs until her reputation for lyricism rivalled Snape's...

'If you would kindly remove yourself from your fantasy,' Snape's voice interrupted acidly, 'we should speak about your assessment.'

'My assessment?' Hermione repeated vaguely, noticing with a start that half of her pint had disappeared.

Snape rolled his eyes. 'I told you many days ago that I would be judging the quality and relevance of the compositions you produced, did I not?'

'Er... yes,' she affirmed.

'For the next three days, then, you will occupy yourself with perfecting one such composition. You've started a number of different projects over the last few weeks. Choose one and be prepared to perform and defend it three days from now.'

'All right,' she agreed. In normal circumstances, being given so little notice of a test would have sent her straight into a panic, but with the better part of a pint inside her tired body, she couldn't manage to drum up even a bleat of anxiety. Instead, she leaned her elbows on the table and let the murmur of conversation wash over her.

'What, no complaint?' Snape mocked. 'How very...'

'Shut up,' Hermione interjected without hostility. 'Do you want another round?'

Smiling...actually full-on, teeth-revealing smiling...Snape nodded. Hermione levered herself up from the bench and weaved her way back inside, wondering what had got into the man and wishing she had had occasion to save his life years ago.

***

By nine o'clock, the darkness of the night was absolute, and Hermione was feeling no pain. White fairy lights swam before her eyes.

'I don't want to leave,' she complained when Snape jostled her, standing as if preparing to depart from the pub. 'I'm too tired to walk.'

'I'm not at all surprised,' he commented drily and gripped her arm at the elbow to lift her from the bench. She allowed him to move her, leaning heavily against him for support, and went without protest to the gate of the beer garden, through which they emerged into a deserted, pitch-black street.

'I can't walk,' she said again, trying to stand there without swaying. 'You talked to me all evening,' she blurted suddenly, apropos of nothing. 'What did you say?'

Unable to concentrate, she swayed again, and he put his arms round her waist to hold her upright. They had talked and talked, she knew, but now she could remember none of it. What had torn the veil of silence they had constructed in the previous days? Oh, yes, she had saved him from tumbling over the cliff... She giggled, inordinately amused at the melodrama inherent in such a scene of daring rescue. Only it hadn't been daring, exactly...she had simply flourished her wand, and voila, he was safe.

'What's funny?' murmured his deep voice in her ear. In the thick darkness, she was reminded of the night she had arrived at Ty Gwennol, when he had stuck his wand in the small of her back and demanded that she sing. The memory sent her mind careening down a new path.

'Do you know the story of Caedmon?' she asked him.

'No, but please, tell me. The middle of a dirty alleyway is perfect for story-telling,' he said sarcastically.

Ignoring the tone, she narrated, 'Caedmon was a shepherd who worked for the monks at Whitby Abbey. He was thought of as a simpleton who could neither read nor write; his only talent was in herding sheep. One night, while the monks were singing their hymns to the Lord, Caedmon decided to sleep with the animals in the barn; he was sad because he knew no songs. But in his sleep, an angel appeared to him and commanded, "Sing me the story of creation." And without knowing how, and after much protesting, he began to sing a beautiful song. When he awoke in the morning, he remembered the song and went to see the abbot. When the abbot heard Caedmon's hymn of creation, he knelt and praised the Lord for His great gift. Thereafter, Caedmon became a monk, and he used his gift to turn the sacred stories and histories into the most perfect, God-given verse.'

Snape made no response. Hermione was shielded from the night's chill, wrapped up in his arms and grateful not to have to stand on her own feet. She relaxed further against him, almost snuggling, and turned her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder.

And then she felt warm lips against her skin where her neck met her shoulder. Tiny pecks inscribed a circle of heat there as a hand slid up her back and threaded its fingers into the hair at her scalp. Was this Snape still?

The hand tilted her head back and to the side until she was gazing into his face: Snape's face, indeed, slightly lined, serious, intense. He bent toward her until their lips were touching, then he began to kiss her.

Through her drunkenness, Hermione was dimly aware that this behaviour was bizarre, but she could not come up with a good reason why this should be so. After all, was she not talented? Was she not a wonderful story-teller? Was she not attractive? She knew that all of these things were true, and so it was not unheard-of for men to want to kiss her...aha! What was bizarre was this man's apparent desire, when hitherto he had given no indication that he was attracted to her, and she had certainly never given him reason to believe she was attracted to him. She wasn't attracted to him, in fact, but she let him kiss her, because his mouth was nice. It was more than nice, even...it was delicious and hot and sensitive all at once, and when she stroked his tongue with her own, she felt his anticipatory shudder and the reactive tingle in her own body.

The hand that wasn't directing her head into deeper and deeper incendiary kisses dropped from her waist to her hip and snaked a path under her shirt. When Snape's cold fingers touched her bare skin, Hermione's mind seemed to blaze toward clarity. Why on earth was she allowing this to happen? She should put a stop to it before life at Ty Gwennol became any more awkward than it already was. But the very idea of a Snape who wasn't sniping and backbiting and treating her with contempt was intriguing...

And suddenly Hermione discovered another emotion stronger than loathing and irritation and resentment: curiosity.

Without breaking the kiss, Snape tightened his grip on her and spun, popping them out of the cobbled street behind the Farmers' Arms and directly into her bedroom at the cottage. Then she was pushing him toward the bed, climbing into a straddling position on his lap when he sat down, opening her mouth against his as if to devour him, running her hands all over his face and head to set off further tingles and quivers of excitement.

His reactions did not disappoint; he was squeezing her, touching her everywhere, his breath coming in deep gasps, his hips jerking up to meet hers as she rocked on his lap; she revelled in the feel of his erection through his trousers. Impatient hands ripped at the zipper of her waterproof and pulled the garment off; she helped him yank her shirt over her head and gasped when his fingers deftly unfastened her bra and tore that from her body as well. He pushed her back into an arch and fastened his lips over her breast, tugging at the nipple and laving it with his tongue until she cried out. Then he moved to the other breast and did the same before shifting his body round so that she lay on the bed with him overtop of her.

There was a protracted moment during which he divested himself of his own jacket and shirt, and finally Hermione felt the warm skin of his chest on her breasts. His back became fertile ground for exploration; she massaged his ribs and slid her palms up the ridge of his spine, earning a low moan and an urgent nip on her jaw.

Somehow, amongst the tangle of limbs, Snape found his wand and got rid of their remaining clothing, at which point he nudged her thigh with his knee, and she opened her legs eagerly. He leaned to one side and dropped his head to her breast once again, sucking and kissing while his fingers sought out her core and found it slick and welcoming. She gasped, arching her hips forward when he twisted two fingers inside of her and skilfully stroked her inner walls. She was whimpering aloud, she knew, a sound that seemed to enflame his passion further; he slithered down her body until he was kneeling between her legs. Then, nestling his head between her thighs, he used his tongue to play a poignant counterpoint to the urgent movements of his fingers.

Hermione didn't want to speak, fearing that it would derail the progression of events, but she really didn't want to wait any longer, so she grasped his shoulders and pulled him up. He followed her direction readily and settled on top of her again, his weight pressing her deliciously into the white duvet. She wrapped her legs round his waist while he braced himself against the mattress, and finally...finally!...he angled his hips so that his cock, burning hot and impossibly hard, hovered at her entrance.

'Yes!' she hissed involuntarily, thrusting upward, and he sank inside her with a groan that managed to express, simultaneously, both satisfaction and further need.

Echoing the sentiment, she thrust again and was rewarded by his sudden and total loss of control. Crushing her mouth with his lips, he buried himself in her body over and over. He panted between kisses, spearing into her heat as she squeezed his thick hardness as tightly as her muscles would allow. Her eyes rolled back in her head as their bodies danced; she was reaching upward as though climbing the cliff at St David's Head, moving faster and pushing harder with every thrust. Wordless cries escaped her mouth to fill the tiny room.

And then she began to convulse in waves of pleasure; Snape's movements became more urgent as he drove like a piston through her orgasm. His cock grew ever more rigid and seemed to swell, spurring Hermione to new heights of ecstasy, until at last he came, shuddering and gasping, into her slow, diminishing spasms.

As Hermione drifted back into her right mind, she began to wonder whether Snape was a cuddle-during-afterglow sort of person. She rather imagined the idea of holding someone tenderly, insensible of the bodily mess that resulted from sex, would not appeal to him...so she was more than a little astonished and pleased that he immediately moved to one side and curled his body around hers, completely ignoring the messiness, and nuzzled into her neck. She stared at the ceiling for a while, her mind curiously empty; when she felt his muscles loosen and relax into slumber, she told herself he was unlikely to move again for a while, and allowed her own eyes to fall shut, exhaustion overtaking her at last.

V.

Hermione awoke early the next morning, aches in her head and liver testifying to her overindulgence the night before. Moving from the bed was agony; she stumbled into the toilet with her eyes half-closed against the intrusive sunlight and drank cupped handfuls of water directly from the tap over the sink. When she returned to the bedroom, she saw that Snape was still sleeping placidly, his pale face for once smooth and relaxed, his dark hair stark against the white pillows.

Tenderness infused her; he was not so dreadful, really.

The sound of tapping at the window drew her attention from Snape. She unfastened the catch to admit a grey barn owl, which offered her a note tied to its leg. Hermione let the bird nibble her fingers for a moment; when it had ruffled itself and flown off once again, she seated herself at the small desk and opened the parchment.

She recognised Owain's handwriting at once:

My dear Hermione, I hope all is well in Wales. You haven't written since you arrived there! But this is understandable, of course...I'm well aware of your thirst for knowledge and magnificent powers of concentration. Severus was a bit doubtful about teaching again, of course, but I think I convinced him it would be a good idea. You are learning a lot and having new experiences, I trust? Do let me know. Your room at the conclave is ready for you if you've found the past few weeks, well, less than suitable. Yours, Owain.

Ha! He had been unsure from the first whether it was a good idea to send her to Snape, and so he had not told her it was Snape she was going to see. Hermione snorted softly, amused by Owain's uncharacteristic cowardice. Perhaps he'd had personal experience of Snape's prickly demeanour.

She reached for a self-inking quill and turned the piece of parchment over.

It was very sneaky of you indeed, Owain, to send me off to my old teacher without giving me any warning! And yet Professor Snape is a good teacher, if perhaps unorthodox.

Pausing, she glanced over at Snape's sleeping form. 'Unorthodox,' indeed.

I think I'm having all of those 'life experiences' you said I needed, but you needn't rely on my word. Prof. Snape will be evaluating one of my compositions in three days' time. I'm sure he'll let you know if it turns out to be inadequate! 'Less than suitable' is a very diplomatic way of suggesting that he and I might not be getting along, and you're not far wrong! We've had a fair few arguments. On the other hand...

Hermione put the pen down again, wondering how to put exactly what she wanted to say. Snape sighed and rolled over in the bed. Her eyes were drawn again to the black hair fanned across the white pillow. Something about the conjunction of light and dark niggled the back of her mind, but she felt too shaky with hangover to examine it deeply at the moment. For now, she simply nodded, accepting the sight as a pleasing one, to which she would, perhaps, return when she figured out at last why it felt so fitting, so perfectly representative.

Turning, she bent over the parchment to finish her letter:

On the other hand, conflict is the spice of life...isn't that what they say? I'd take that over boredom any day. If that's what I have to suffer to learn the best from the best, I'll do it gladly. Thank you for keeping my room ready, but I shouldn't think I'll need it yet. I'm not ready to leave...not by a long shot.

Hermione.