Chapter Twenty-nine: Carried Away

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to JKR. I just borrowed them for a bit.

Chapter Twenty-nine: Carried Away

Snape's eyes settled on the young wizard lounging on Hermione's bed. "I suppose I should have expected to see you here."

Blaise met his head of house's glare with a shrug. "Someone has to be here for Hermione."

"Take care with your tone, Mr Zabini. Your housemates would not suffer the loss of house points lightly."

"Do you really think that is appropriate, sir? If I'm not mistaken, you've come to discuss your relationship with my friend here. House points are hardly relevant." Blaise continued to look at ease on the bed despite Snape's dominant position.

"What I have come for is no business of yours, Zabini. Leave now, or suffer the consequences."

"No."

"No?" Snape's back stiffened in disbelief. "You dare defy me?"

Blaise finally levered himself off the bed. "Yes, I believe I do."

"Blaise, perhaps you'd better go." Hermione's attempt to defuse the testosterone-laden tension fell on deaf ears.

"I'm not leaving, love, until I force some sense into this man's skull. I see you pushing your food around your plate every meal and studying until you can hardly keep your eyes open. You try to hide it, but this problem you have with Professor Snape is tearing you apart." He turned to Snape, who had subsided into stunned silence. "And you're just as bad, avoiding meals and stalking around the hallways looking for anyone you can offload your foul mood onto. Don't you think it's time you grew a pair and explained yourself to the woman you profess to love?"

"Zabini..."

"I'm leaving. Take off as many points as you like. You should know by now I don't give a toss about the House Cup or my housemates' opinions. Give me as many detentions as you like, but stay here and talk to Hermione. Please... sir." Enclosing Hermione in a tight hug and ignoring the Potions master's venomous gaze, he whispered, "Don't take any nonsense from him, Granger."

"Thanks, Blaise." His Gryffindorish display brought a smile to her lips as she closed the door behind him and turned back to Snape.

"You have quite the champion there." Snape's sneer broke the uncomfortable silence settling over the room.

"Blaise is a good friend. He's just trying to help."

"I'd rather he didn't try to help in your bedroom at this hour."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You don't think for one minute he..."

"I might have done before Christmas, but I can see now he's moved on. Rumour has it he and the Lovegood girl are something of an item."

"Rumour would be correct. It's early days, but there's definitely a spark there."

"Good. Perhaps she'll take his mind off our business." Snape pulled out the chair from the desk and sat down. "But once again we're avoiding the subject. I came here for a reason."

"I assumed you did." Hermione sat on the edge of the bed. "I only hope Ron hasn't collapsed in the common room in terror at the thought of you cornering me in my..." Her voice faltered when she noticed the slight tremor of Snape's hand as he wiped his brow.

"Why are you here, Severus?" She searched his face for some indication of his intentions. Finding none, she closed her eyes and waited.

"Look at me, Hermione." His words were simple, but somehow intimate in the confines of her bedroom. "What do you see?"

She frowned and met his gaze. Studying his beloved face, she noted the creases on his brow, deepened over the last few weeks. She saw the way his hair fell over his face, lank and uncared for. Noting the paint stains discolouring his fingertips, she smiled a little.

"You've been painting."

He nodded. "It helps."

Looking at his face again, Hermione discovered his eyes, for once unguarded, need and desire bathing her in their warmth.

"I see you, Severus. I see creativity and passion and brilliance. I see loyalty and courage. But do you know what I see most of all? I see love."

He abandoned his chair to kneel before her, reaching up to cup her cheek. "You're a remarkable young woman, Hermione Granger. Know that I do love you, will always love you, but do not ask me to consider this ill-founded notion of marriage."

She pulled away from the joy of his touch. "But why? Surely the circumstances don't matter. We want to be together. This is our solution."

"I want more than anything on this earth to bind you to myself and never let you go, but this is not the time. You have your whole life ahead of you. It's not right to commit yourself to someone so much older and more damaged while you're still at school. Imagine what it would do to your reputation."

"And if I tell you I don't give a shit about my reputation, and I'd rather spend my time looking forward to a life at your side. Would that make a difference?"

"Hermione, you're only nineteen. You have years ahead of you to grow and mature. And change your mind."

"And you're only thirty-nine. A young man in wizarding years. Don't tell me you're too old. Don't tell me you're too damaged. We were all damaged by Voldemort one way or another. I saw far too many people die. I hunted Horcruxes. I wiped my parents' memories and sent them to Australia with no guarantee I could retrieve them, for Merlin's sake. I'm no naïve young girl!"

With her brown eyes sparking temper and her hair escaping its tie in unruly curls, Severus's head lost the battle with his heart and body. He reached up and claimed her mouth with his, igniting the ever-smouldering bonfire of need in both their bodies. Groaning, he tasted her sweetness with lips and tongue while his hands sought the silk of the skin under her shirt.

Her instant response sensitised every nerve in his body, and the caress of her fingers down his bare chest overwhelmed any errant sliver of conscience. Flat male nipples pebbled as a tongue swept them into arousal, and his reciprocating gesture drew a gasp from his witch.

Clothing, suddenly superfluous, magically disappeared until Snape lay on the bed in only his skin and a passion-dazed expression beside an equally bare Hermione. Finding her wet and wanting when his hand and mouth drifted down from their exploration of the delicate skin of her belly almost had him exploding before she performed her own voyage of rediscovery.

As her mouth claimed his rampant desire, the last lingering vestige of honour and duty decided to raise its unwelcome head and shout for attention. Louder and louder it clamoured between ragged breaths and mind-addling pleasure until the pressure became too much, and he ejaculated his seed and shouts of denial simultaneously with her release.

"No. No. NO!"

Lifting her head a few minutes later, Hermione stared at his face with a bemused expression and a droplet of semen on her lower lip. "No?"

"No. I mean yes. Oh, shite." He flopped back onto the bed and covered his face with his arm.

"What's the matter?" A mischievous finger trailed down his belly to linger in wonder at his softened penis, mapping its length and teasing the still sensitive tip.

"I didn't..." He captured her hand in his. "Don't. I can't think when you do that."

Pouting, she pulled his hand to her body and held him close against her breast. "Thinking is overrated. Just feel."

He indulged her with a tweak of her nipple, then reclaimed his hand. "Hermione, I didn't come here for sex." He raised his hand as she opened her mouth to speak. "I know. I started it. I take full responsibility. But we have to stop giving in to our libidos every time we get within arm's reach. Minerva may be a hypocrite, but the rules are clear. Either we marry, or we stay away from each other."

"Then we marry."

"It's not that simple."

"Severus, it is that simple. I love you. You love me. We want to be together. Yes, people will talk and disapprove and probably cause trouble. But together we can face it. Together we are strong."

"You're young. Too young to be committed to marriage with anyone."

Hermione shook her head at his persistence. Suddenly, a shred of memory fell into place, producing a triumphant smile. "A hand-fasting then? I think I've read about those types of ritual where a couple is joined for a year and a day and after that decide whether they will formally wed. Neither of us would be tied to a lifelong commitment that way."

Severus nodded slowly. "That may be sufficient to appease Minerva – and my conscience."

"I'll start researching it tomorrow. Meanwhile..." She shifted closer, pressing the warmth of her body against his cooling skin.

Turning and gathering her into his embrace, Severus pressed his lips to her forehead, a somewhat chaste gesture considering where his erection was nestling. As her knee bent and her leg lifted over his hip, he found her tight heat enclosing him for the first time in months and surrendered to the inevitable.

***

Waking in an unfamiliar room with a naked witch draped across his chest and hips startled Snape into an attempt to sit upright and reach for his wand.

"Wassamatter?"

Hermione's sleep-muddled voice reminded him where he was. A slow smile crept across his face as he relaxed back onto the pillow and stroked the tousled hair strewn across his chest.

Allowing her a few more minutes rest, his mind recaptured the moments of passion the night before as they had made love into the early hours of the morning, urgency and heat melding with exquisite tenderness until they had fallen asleep entwined in each other's embrace.

Nudging her shoulder, Snape watched her eyes reluctantly open. "Wake up; it's nearly dawn."

"S'not morning yet."

"Do you really think I should wait until your friends are up and about before I leave?"

This time, Hermione sat bolt upright. "Shite! We fell asleep!"

Amusement softened his expression as he propped himself up beside her and dropped his gaze to her exposed nipples peaking in the cool air. "It seems we did, not that we should be surprised after all that physical activity."

Noting his concentration on her chest and the tent appearing in the sheet where it barely covered his groin, Hermione grinned. "I thought you considered yourself old. Looks like one part of you doesn't know when it's had enough."

Snape looked down and with a smirk slowly pushed the sheet aside, allowing his erection to spring up unencumbered. Her sharp intake of breath and restless shifting beside him encouraged a long finger to circle a nipple and then delve under the flimsy cotton still covering her to find her equally ready.

"Tempting though it may be," he murmured, fingers sliding in and out of her heat, and his own desire bobbing in encouragement, "I must use your bathroom and remove myself from this room."

"Not until you finish what you started, you prat." Hermione countered with a swirling fingertip and a firm stroke or two.

"Bloody hell, woman. Keep that up and I'll not last."

"Neither will I, so..." In a matter of seconds she had straddled his hips and proceeded to reduce him to a state of blissful incoherence.

He refused her entry into the bathroom afterwards on the grounds he would never manage a quick shower with her assistance. Once dressed again in immutable black, Snape drew Hermione to him for one last prolonged kiss.

"Severus?" Hermione looked up at him as she stepped back.

"Yes?"

"You don't regret last night, do you?" Her voice was steady, but anxiety clouded her eyes.

"How could I? Yes, we shouldn't have done it, but I'd never regret a single moment spent with you in my arms." He glanced out of the window at the lightening sky. "But I really must go."

He let himself out of the room after checking all was quiet in the corridor beyond. A noise behind him stalled his feet just as he closed the door. Turning, he swore under his breath as Neville Longbottom made an equally cautious exit from the room opposite Hermione's.

Neville pulled up short as he came face to face with his Potions professor. Taking in the man's creased clothing and shower-damp hair, Neville smiled. "Oh, good morning, Professor," he whispered, then walked toward the common room.

Snape followed the young man, toying with the idea of a quick Obliviate briefly until he noticed him stop and turn with a finger to his lips.

"Stay put." Neville walked out into the common room and in a much louder voice began speaking. "Ron? What are you doing out here? Isn't it a bit early for you?"

The redhead unfolded himself from the armchair he'd been sleeping in and rose to his feet. "Was jus' waiting for Snape to leave. He was in Hermione's room! No idea why. Thought I'd better check she was okay, but must have fallen asleep."

Neville had circled his friend slowly until Ron had his back to both the corridor where Snape was waiting and the entrance to the common room. Placing an arm around Ron's shoulders, he waved Snape to the door as he encouraged the younger wizard back to his room. "You must have dropped off pretty quickly, Ron. I saw Snape leave not long after he'd arrived. He probably wanted to talk to Hermione about her Potions project."

"What Potions project?"

"No idea, but she's bound to be doing one, isn't she?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah. That's probably it. Thanks, mate." Without looking back, Ron shuffled off to his room to catch another hour or two of sleep.

Snape slumped against the wall of the main corridor for a moment as he pulled his scattered thoughts together.

Longbottom? Now I owe Longbottom again? Although, if I'm not much mistaken, that was Malfoy's room he was leaving. I suppose I should have seen that coming, the way they've been behaving in class.

Perhaps we have a mutual understanding then.

The shuffle of Argus Filch's footsteps motivated him into moving in the opposite direction without further contemplation of Neville Longbottom's or his own sex life.

***

"Late night, was it?" Blaise winked as he grabbed some bacon before Ron emptied the plate.

Caught mid-yawn, Hermione could only nod. "Something like that."

"I don't remember seeing him leave last night." Blaise dropped his voice to a low murmur and raised both eyebrows as she blushed. "You do realise if he's in a filthy mood today, you'll only have yourself to blame for keeping him up all night. And stop looking so smug, Granger, you know I didn't mean it that way. He'll have a hard time teaching if... Oh, fuck, I give up. You're impossible this morning." Shaking his head at the giggling witch beside him, Blaise turned to speak to Luna.

Hermione's hands shook with mirth as she tried to pour herself some pumpkin juice. Slopping a little in her plate, she managed a few swallows before she glanced up at the staff table to see Snape leaning back in his chair looking relaxed for a change. Her smile dissolved as she caught the headmistress's expression.

Bloody hell. He's sitting up there looking for all the world as if he's been shagged senseless. Which he has. Whatever happened to Mr Poker Face the bloody spy? Professor McGonagall is already looking suspicious. Come on, Severus, say something horrid, for both our sakes.

As if receiving her thoughts, Snape suddenly straightened up in his chair and scowled. Turning to Pomona Sprout, seated beside him chatting to Hagrid, he snarled a request. "Do I need to Accio the teapot, or could you cease prattling for one moment in order to pass it this way?"

"No need to be rude, Severus. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" Pomona passed the pot with a huff.

Without replying, Snape poured his tea and lifted the cup to his lips, eyes roaming down to the Gryffindor table to find Hermione watching him with an anxious frown. His eyelid drifted down in the barest of winks before he set down his cup and tackled his breakfast with rather more appetite than usual.

Thank Merlin. He finally started using the brain in his head. What is it with men? One decent shag and they lose all ability to think.

I think my job's easier.

***

A/N: This was written for the TPP Every Flavour Auction for shalimar1981. Thanks to my alpha and beta, quaffswinegaily and karelia. I don't have a gamma...