Three: A Soul For Sale Or Rent

Anti-Litigation Charm: Nothing you recognize belongs to me. All characters are property of JK Rowling and not me. If they did belong to me, Severus Snape would be alive and well and snarking his way through Hogwarts even as we speak.

Thank you for all the lovely reviews. I'm relatively new to the fanfic world and I appreciate all comments and suggestions. Thank you!

For the next few hours, they held each other and spoke little. He did not volunteer any information about Hogwarts, nor did he ask her anything about her plans. They lay on their sides, facing one another. After their first frenzied coupling, he'd been unable to relax, until he checked her inventory and reinforced their wards.

Once he'd convinced her that Harry and Ron wouldn't be disturbing them during the night, she undressed him and made him lie down with her. She now lay curled up with him and felt warm for the first time in weeks. She snuggled as close to him as humanly possible, and he in turn wrapped his arms and legs around her, giving her his warmth.

"I wish we didn't have to be who we are," she murmured, dreamily. It was a silly statement, and she instantly wished she hadn't spoken her thoughts aloud.

He smirked and reached out to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear. "Who would we be then: Darren and Martha? Jules and Cynthia? Howard and Hilda?" He raised one elegant eyebrow in challenge.

She chuckled. "Somehow I can't quite picture you as either a Darren or a Jules, or a Howard for that matter, but you get the idea."

He uttered a short, sharp bark of a laugh, then sobered. "I suppose it doesn't matter, as long as we don't have to be who the world demands us to be. Even if it's just for a few moments in time." He sighed harshly. "I confess that right now, I'd give anything if I could relinquish being Severus Snape to anyone who wants the aggro."

"So you could become Darren or Jules or Howard?" She was trying to distract him and he knew it; he was grateful to her for the attempt. He rewarded her by roaming his hands over her body, his touch soothing and life affirming. Whoever they were or would ever be, they knew each other so well.

He had freely admitted he was not a terribly experienced lover, but he was a very quick learner, and Hermione had come to him as a virgin with no expectations. They had taught each other, and being the single-minded swots they both were, used their formidable powers to develop the ability to be what the other wanted and needed. They even learned how to surprise one another, and to Severus, this had been a revelation. He had thought himself beyond the scope of being pleasantly surprised by anything.

He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her nose. This segued into a longer, sweeter kiss upon her lips, and his warm tongue played gentle insistence against hers. Each kiss deepened, until their limbs entangled and their mouths fused together, battling for supremacy. Severus pushed her onto her back, his body glowing in the soft light of the tent like a fallen angel, seeking any available heaven. "Perhaps it's time to forget for awhile, love," he murmured, stroking her cheek with his fingertips. Hermione felt her heart bloom. Her secret Severus, who called her love.

Hermione opened herself and welcomed him, her nipples drawing to an aching peak at the mere thought of his hands on her. His eyes were shining and full of desire. His gaze lowered to her breasts, and an almost fond smile played about his lips. "I love these little buds," he said softly, his voice rich and warm and full of promise. His fingernail scratched and teased the crinkled tip of her peachy aureole.

"Sweet little buds... so hard and warm and begging to be sucked," he crooned, giving each word gravitas and meaning with his purring, mesmeric, silken cadence. Hermione cried a soft, endearing sound of gratitude as his warm mouth nuzzled her nipple. She heard the intake of his breath as he inhaled her scent against her skin, teasing her, making her wait.

She pleaded with him, imploring for the soft suck of his lips, the cradling tongue, the sharp nip of his teeth. He growled possessively as he placated her, feasting on her swollen flesh as she writhed beneath him.

He lowered his body until he reached the apex of her thighs, and smiled up at her. He enjoyed watching her watching him, as if she could take her eyes off him as he sought to give her pleasure. Hermione held her breath, as he parted her labia with long slender fingers and lowered his mouth to her turgid flesh.

He took his time giving her pleasure, enjoying the sounds wrenched from her, almost against her will. His tongue was long and as sensitive as his nimble fingers. He flicked it across her swollen and jewel-bright clitoris, his movements practiced and precise. He knew her body completely and his finger slipped into her slick folds with all the gentleness of a man who eagerly waits to hear his lover's gasps and cries of pleasure.

He became more abandoned, more selfish in his own arousal, and his tongue laved against her clit, even as he nipped and sucked it into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue. She grabbed his hair and pulled none too gently, and he smiled in spite of the pain. It was a sure sign she was about to come. He inserted his long, slender fingers into her tight sheath and pumped one, twice, and Hermione screamed her orgasm to him, calling out his name over and over.

He lifted his head and watched her coming, his fingers worrying her clit relentlessly. He rewarded her with a smug smirk, clearly pleased with himself, and her. He slithered up her body, living up to his House's mascot admirably. His mouth, warm and musky with her juices, covered hers, his tongue lashing into her mouth so lasciviously she made a growling noise, which he answered with a soft hiss of his own.

He sat back on his haunches and pulled her to him. "I want your mouth on me," he commanded. She responded so quickly, she almost threw him off the bed, and he laughed at her eagerness to please him. In a single graceful movement, she enveloped his cock in her warm, welcoming mouth, conjuring from him a secret sound he'd only ever made for her alone. As she licked and nipped and sucked the tip of his large cock, she reveled in the scent and taste of him. He was so beautiful, all pale and glowing in contrast to his dark, wiry pubic hair.

Hermione was also a fast learner and memorized his every reaction, so that she knew how to pleasure him before he even asked. She stroked his heavy sac in the way he'd taught her. She rubbed and cupped and squeezed his balls, before sliding past them to press her fingers to his perineum. He whimpered, a sweet, boy-like sound that made Hermione vow to do whatever it took to make him moan like that again.

He leaned back, propping himself up with his hands as she knelt before him, her hands and mouth sure and knowing. His head rolled back and he closed his eyes to the bliss of the young woman worshiping his cock with so much devotion. She stroked and sucked him, pausing on the upstroke to lightly pinch the edges of his foreskin over his glans. He gasped at the sensation, a soft, mewling sound escaping his lips. Hermione played with his glans and foreskin before continuing to suck him, and his hips rolled sensuously, languidly.

Her movements became stronger, swifter and harder, and he rose up on his knees to thrust his hips against her stroking hands and sucking mouth. Hermione continued to stroke his balls and perineum as he began to rock against her. Gently, Hermione's fingers slid back between his legs and tenderly rubbed along his anus. He spread his legs further as a single slender, strong finger, then a second, entered his rectum, and he shuddered and thrashed as she finger-fucked him. He was helpless now.

His fingers threaded through her hair, moving her head with his body, his thrusts growing faster, losing control. It seemed that tonight, she would be denied another orgasm, but she didn't care, as long as she could make him shiver and beg and whimper again.

Even as Hermione thought he was about to lose his control and his balls tightened, Severus roughly pushed her away from his cock and down onto the bed. Eyes blazing, he rose over her and entered her with a hard, slamming thrust that took her breath away. Rearing above her, he placed his large hands over her abdomen and uttered a low incantation. Hermione opened herself to him, her arms above her head, her body and mind completely abandoned to him. She could feel his magic flowing into his hands as he stroked and pressed them against her vulnerable belly.

As he began his slow dance inside her, his calloused fingers traced mystic symbols over her stomach, and he chanted the soft incantation over and over. She could not understand it and did not care. His body felt so damn good, filling her perfectly, taking her where he pleased. He cleaved into her, and each time it was as beautiful as the first time.

He moaned with pleasure and lowered himself to cover her with his body. Soon he would be so close he would meld with her, and he would become aggressive. His voice grew ragged with power. He slipped his arms behind her back and hooked his hands over her shoulders and began to drive her hard into the mattress, moaning ceaselessly. His face was slack, eyes closed, lips parted, utterly and beautifully abandoned.

In that moment he growled, "Love me, Hermione." It was a plea and a command, and she could no more deny it than her next breath.

"I love you, Severus," she whispered automatically, feeling their magic gathering around them. "More than anything. More than my own life," she cried, feeling her orgasm building like a great wave.

Again he muttered his incantation, but it was in a language Hermione did not recognise. He chanted it in time with his lightning-like thrusts, fucking her mercilessly, his voice rising in cadence with hers, begging her, commanding her to love him.

An orgasm like no other rose in Hermione, and for a moment it frightened her, as if coming would mean her own mortality. His body fused against hers, and she wanted this to never end. "I'm so close," she sobbed, lost in a delirium of sensation.

"No, love. No, no, don't let it end yet," he begged, shaking his head, knowing it was too late. He felt exquisite, pounding into her, his hips bruising and bruised. He looked into her eyes and knew she was lost, and he mourned his own impending climax. He put his chin against her shoulder, knowing he, too, was losing to his own sweet release.

Then she shattered apart and screamed her love for him over and over, ashamed of her own screaming yet delighting in his...

-o0o-

She promised herself that this time she wouldn't cry when he left. It was unseemly. She promised herself she wouldn't.

They had spent most of the night talking, making love, touching. Hermione thought momentarily about Harry and Ron, sitting around a campfire and a warming charm, and she tried to feel a little guilty. She couldn't do it. Tomorrow, perhaps, but not now. Now Severus was getting dressed and preparing to leave, and her heart was trying to remember how to keep beating.

"I'm holding everything together by a thread," he said, his voice harsh, irritated, as if he was somehow blaming her. "Mr. Longbottom and Miss Weasley are all but planning mutiny. The other Professors despise me. Minerva has pretty much sussed out Dumbledore's plan, but she can only do so much. I had to force her to make an Unbreakable vow to keep the status quo."

"Oh, no!"

Severus made a dismissive gesture. "It was either that or Obliviate her, and I couldn't make myself do it." He looked at Hermione almost sheepishly. Well, sheepishly for Severus Snape. "It helps a little to know one person in the world isn't staring daggers into you every moment of every day."

Hermione stroked his arm gently. "I don't."

He smirked. "I don't see you every day. If I did, I truly would give myself away. It seems, my dear," he roughly kissed her hair, "I'm very transparent where you are concerned. I spend nearly all my time in the Dark Lord's presence nowadays hiding you from my mind."

Hermione gasped. "Oh Gods! I'm sorry, Severus. I've been so selfish. If he were to see me..."

"Oh, he has."

Well, that shut her up. He almost laughed. "Oh, I'm quite the degenerate, didn't you know? He thinks I fantasise about capturing you and making you my pet." He gave her an exaggeratedly lecherous look and twirled an imaginary mustache. There was an underlying bitterness in his banter. "He's promised to reward me with you as a prize. Apparently, I have plans to keep you chained in a room to rape at my leisure. A spoil of war." He sobered. "Bastard. He thinks I've been lusting after you since the Yule Ball during your fourth year. They all do."

He turned and looked at Hermione, his eyes bleak and shamed. "I never did, you know. I don't think of students in that way at all. Especially you."

"I know, Severus." She rested her head against his chest, hearing his steady heartbeat. "Believe me, I do know." She could feel his shame. He had thought of her often. He had noticed her at the Yule Ball. How could he, one of the most observant wizards alive, have failed to notice the budding rose?

"Anyway," she retorted playfully, looking up at him with a mischievous expression. "Tell me about these plans for this room of yours. Bristling with chains, you say? It sounds a little kinky to me, Professor Snape."

Severus rocked back, bemused, then something like the old snarkiness returned to his countenance. He smirked, drawing his robes around his body imperiously. "And what of it, Miss Granger? Fancy a little time being chained to the wall at the mercy of the Greasy Bat of the Dungeons?" he purred, not above a little self-deprecating humour.

"Oh, stop it," she said and snaked her arms inside his robes again. Unable to resist, she slyly added, "Who said anything about chaining me?" It was worth the look on his face. She laughed and kissed him. He chuckled darkly and returned her kiss, grateful they could laugh about the Dark Lord, albeit a dark sort of laughter.

"In any case, I need to return to Hogwarts. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to see you. I was, as they say, in the neighborhood." He shrugged. "I had only intended to bring you the potions and the food, but---" He sighed and tugged his ear. "I couldn't help myself. I miss you. I'm a man." He shrugged. "The opportunity presented itself that I could be alone with you." His smile was sad. "I wanted to wish you Happy Christmas."

"I'm glad, Severus. I've missed you so much. I think about you constantly."

"I make myself not think of you. It's the only way I can function anymore. That's why you have to take better care of yourself. I can't afford to worry myself sick over you."

Hermione nodded, unsure what to say. "What is the Dark Lord's plan?" She'd learned never to say Voldemort in his presence. His Dark Mark all but bled when the very name was mentioned.

Severus shrugged. "Right now he's just trying to gain full control and gather his troops. You three are the main priority. Britain is being combed now for you."

He turned to her in that swift and sudden way Hermione knew so well and grasped her arms almost painfully. "Whatever you have to do to find these godsdamned Horcruxes, hurry up and find them, Hermione!"

She huffed. "That's just it!" she cried, her frustration welling inside her. "Bloody Dumbledore told us nothing! We're just stumbling around out here!" She sat down and rolled her neck stiffly. It made creaking noises, like car tyres crunching over gravel. "All these clues, all these cryptic messages. Why didn't he just tell us?" Hermione heard her voice rising in fear and anger and frustration, and Severus took pity on her.

"I don't know. He told me nothing as well." He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "I'll do what I can. I'll try to find some time to do a little research, if Ginevra Weasley and Neville Longbottom will stop using their vigilante tribe to stir up trouble night and day. I have to sleep a little as well sometime." The first vestiges of self-pity sounded in his voice, and Hermione's heart went out to him. He hated feeling sorry for himself.

Hermione sighed, casting about in her mind for a solution. "Get Minerva to call them off. Surely as a member of the Order she could do that in the guise of trying to protect them."

He nodded. "I've thought of that. In the meantime, I'll help when I can, but it's all coming to a head. I give it a matter of a few months or so."

Hermione stared at him, and her blood turned to ice in her veins. "So soon? What will happen?"

"I don't know. All I know is that the Dark Lord grows more afraid and paranoid with every passing day. Nagini, his familiar, is his constant companion. He uses the snake more than his own spellwork now." Severus looked around, his face grey with exhaustion. Now that he was preparing to return to Hogwarts, he looked like a man returning to the gallows. Hermione felt fear creeping into her bones.

There was something singularly fatalistic about his demeanor that had troubled her since he arrived. He'd deliberately distracted her from it, but now that he was dressed and ready to leave her, the veneer was cracking. Hermione couldn't put her finger on it, but it terrified her. Then he turned and looked at her, his expression naked, and she felt her heart slamming in her chest and she gasped in understanding.

Hermione flew to his side, clutching at his robes. "Severus, listen to me. Listen to me carefully, please. Please. Don't go into his presence without some sort of precaution. A bezoar, anti-venin, something." She looked into his face, her expression frantic.

Severus looked at her blankly. For all his reaction, Hermione wondered if he had actually heard her. "Severus, please. Don't go to the Dark Lord without being prepared. Promise me."

Severus smiled slightly and nodded, stroking her cheek absently. He said, tiredly. "You must know by now, my dear one, I don't hold out a lot of hope of surviving, don't you?"

"Don't say that!" Hermione all but shouted. Don't cry, she thought, even as the tears pricked her eyes. "Don't you dare walk out of this tent planning on dying and leaving me with this shit! I've had enough! How am I supposed to do it without you?"

"Hermione---"

"No!" She was past caring now. If he wasn't going to listen to reason, by the gods, she'd force it down his throat. "You always taught there was another way. That there is always another chance. That we fall back and fight again and never give up."

Severus' shoulders slumped in surrender. "Perhaps I don't have any fight left, Hermione. Perhaps..." he looked past her. "Perhaps I'm not meant to stay. Perhaps I have another chance to make things right with---" He tried to stop himself, but the damage was done, and he saw the desolation in her eyes. She began to shake as understanding dawned. He lowered his head, contrition and guilt shadowing his features.

He took a hesitant step towards her. "Hermione, I don't know what to say---"

"It's alright," she said, soothingly, and something like grace settled on her shoulders. She took his hands in hers and kissed them. They were cold. "I understand." At this his head shot up and his haunted eyes searched hers accusingly.

Hermione stood her ground and nodded. "You can't stop loving her, Severus. And," her voice broke, "I can't stop loving you." Tears spilled out from her eyes and Severus watched her, his black eyes pain-filled. She didn't have to be told who 'she' was. There was always a 'she' with a man like Severus Snape. Why, Hermione thought, just this once, can't that 'she' be me?

Finally, Severus pulled her into his arms and held her so close she could hardly breathe. Hermione broke then and sobbed like the motherless child she was. She kneaded his coat, twisting the fabric in her hands. "Promise me," she gulped, her sobs so hard it was difficult for him to understand her. "Promise me you won't go into this, whatever this is, like a lamb to the slaughter. Promise me that, with or without me, you'll chose to try to live. I can live without you in this world if I have to as long as you're alive and---"

Severus groaned. "Hermione..."

"No! Promise me, Severus," she said, tears streaming from her eyes. "Promise me you will try to live." Her selfless façade broke and she thought: to hell with being noble. "Promise me you'll at least give us a chance. Promise me that you'll just let me try to make you happy."

His response was to hold her until her tears subsided. Finally he tipped her chin up so that she looked into his eyes. "I can't promise you that I'll survive. I will promise I'll try."

"That's not good enough!" She cried even harder, knowing she was being unreasonable, and unable to help herself.

Severus frowned, but his expression softened. "It will have to do for now. I am more worried about you." A ghost of a smile graced his lips. "How could I survive, knowing you'd done something foolish like gotten yourself captured or killed?"

Hermione held onto him harder, and he had to push her away gently. "It's time. I have to go."

"No!" she cried, panic making her shiver. Her eyes were wild and fearful. "Not yet, please!" She clutched as his sleeve. "I'm so frightened for you! For all of us!" She was shaking, trying to read his inscrutable expression. "Severus, I'm so bloody tired of being hunted. I'm tired of being the brave one!"

He shook her gently, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were as bleak and desolate as she felt, but his voice rolled from him like a deep river, steady and dark. Even at its silkiest, there was a strand of steel, finely spun and binding. "You must be brave, Hermione. It's the only way I can survive Hogwarts and the hell my life has become. If I can just picture you, safe and alive, then maybe..." His voice grew softer. "Maybe I can be safe and alive as well."

She held onto him until she knew he'd start disengaging himself, and still she clung to him anyway. "Here now," he said, almost indulgently and smiled down at her. "It's almost dawn. Your man-cubs will no doubt want to come in soon, my little lioness. Right or wrong, they need you. You have to greet them as if I never happened."

He kissed her then. A sweet, passionate kiss that told her more than she knew, that asked more questions than it answered, raised more feelings than it quelled. His soft lips and tongue battled against hers, his soft moans of longing and sadness breaking her in so many places she knew she'd never repair them all.

His kisses covered her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, the satiny hollow of her throat. "By all the gods, Severus Snape," she whispered, shivering to feel his mouth gliding over her skin. "If you are certain of nothing else, know this: you are loved. I love you, Severus Snape." She felt the tears threatening again, but she bravely fought them. She didn't expect him to reply. He had declared his love with his box of food, the traveling apothecary he'd made for her.

He'd shouted his love with his body, the unknown, protective spells he'd cast with his semen. For whoever she was, Hermione accepted the simple truth that Severus Snape, no matter how much he had initially fought against it, loved her and would keep her and her friends safe.

When at last his lips moved away from hers, he rested his forehead against hers, holding her still. "Get rested and keep yourself well fed and healthy," he said, his voice brisk and businesslike. "I expect to see you at Hogwarts as conquering heroes, not ragamuffins."

He placed a hard kiss on the top of her head. "Stay alert. Don't forget for one moment that you are in danger. Trust no one." He kissed her forehead gently. "Don't forget, I'm waiting for you."

In an unguarded moment, he raised her hands to his lips and kissed each one. He pulled back from her and looked down at her hands with a scowl. He rolled his eyes and drawled, "Merlin, Hermione, use that skin salve I brought. Your hands are like sandpaper."

In spite of her sadness and fear, she smiled. She knew him enough now to interpret his words. They were Snape for, "I love you."

"I will. Don't get dead."

"I won't." He walked toward the door and hesitated, breathing hard. Almost against his will he turned back. "I won't see you until it's over. If it goes against us---"

"Don't!" she all but shouted and put her hands over her ears, knowing it made her look immature but unable to stop herself. "Please don't say it." She lowered her hands and looked at him beseechingly. "I can believe we'll win as long as you don't say we won't." She was shaking.

He almost laughed. He settled for a smirk. "Gryffindor. Typical. Be well, Hermione." He turned away from her again.

"I love you!" she sobbed, but she spoke to the opening of the tent. She felt the trembling emptiness of his presence, moving silently through her wards.

On impulse, she peeked out of the tent window. Dawn was just breaking, and the Forest of Dean was a water colour portrait in greys and browns and blacks. He would have looked at home there, silhouetted against the misty morning. Suddenly, she wanted, more than anything, to see him again.

Hermione had once heard that you always remember your first kiss, but you never remember your last, because you never know which one it will be.

She wondered if she'd just shared her last kiss with Severus, and it fretted her that she hadn't paid more attention to it. She should have studied his face more, watched his eyes slowly close at the touch of her lips. She should have imprinted on her mind the softness of his mouth, the texture of his skin, the feel of his hair sliding through her fingers. She should have paid greater attention.

She crawled into the bed that smelled of him and the love they'd made. Hermione cried until she fell asleep, the evidence of his passion and his protection drying between her thighs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Title from Save Me, Queen

Words from The Power Of Love, Frankie Goes To Hollywood