Chapter 5

"Do exactly as I say, and we will get through this quickly and efficiently. I am quite sure that you have no more wish to prolong this experience than I do."

Hermione supposed that she ought to be offended by this, but truthfully, he was right. She just wanted to get it over with... though this did not keep her from audibly gasping when Snape began removing his outer frock-coat.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Surely, Miss Granger, this isn't the first time you've seen a man disrobe. Or perhaps it is? Has young Mr. Weasley not indulged you?"

She set her lips together in a thin, hard line. "That's none of your business."

"Apparently not, then." He draped the frock-coat over the back of the large, ornately carved chair at his desk, standing before her in only his white long-sleeved shirt and his black trousers. Hermione realized suddenly that for all her years living in the world of magic, she had no idea how non-Muggle trousers opened. Did they use zippers, or button-flies, or... Focus, she told herself. You'll have your answer soon enough.

Snape was right, of course. She'd never seen Ron with his clothes off. Not for lack of his trying; he'd certainly suggested it or something similar often enough. She thought again of his fumbling attempts at groping and kissing her, and how she'd... yes, indulged him in it. He'd wanted more. How many times had he suggested to her hopefully, "I know a place we can go, 'Mione...?" But she'd told him she wasn't ready. And she wasn't. Not with him, anyway.

No, apparently you were saving yourself for Snape. She quirked the corner of her mouth up in a bitter smile; Snape noticed, and sharply said, "Something amusing?"

His eyes were frozen black pools. She closed her own eyes to compose herself, and said, "No, Professor."

I can't do this, she thought. It's Professor Snape. I can't. This isn't happening, can't happen.

With a rapid flick of his wrist, Snape's wand was in his hand, and Hermione instinctively flinched. His mouth twitched, but he said nothing to her, only muttering incantations as he traversed the perimeter of the large, drafty room, casting repelling and silencing spells as he went. He paid particular attention to the sturdy wooden door and to the large stone hearth set into the far wall. Yes. Good. Bad enough that they had to do this; worse if they were to be discovered.

She'd been afraid that he would take her to his bedroom. She didn't think she could have borne that added humiliation. But it seemed it was to happen right here in his office; otherwise, he wouldn't be so carefully securing it. It was a small relief; the office felt safer, somehow.

After finishing the incantations, Snape concealed his wand, as quickly and dexterously as he'd produced it in the first place. He sat down in the high-backed wooden chair that Hermione had used earlier. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, and she forced herself to breathe. Snape regarded her for a moment in seeming evaluation, and then, in a flat and disinterested tone, said, "On your knees in front of me, Miss Granger."

This is it, oh Gods, this is really it. She did as she was told, carefully kneeling on the cold, stone floor in front of her seated professor. She thought distantly that her knees would ache before long.

"Open my trousers," he told her.

She bit her lip and looked at his waistband, seemingly featureless, and then tentatively slid her fingers along the inside, pushing her hand between the fabric and his skin, feeling for a clasp or catch. Snape closed his eyes and exhaled sharply--whether in irritation or impatience, she couldn't tell--and then took her hand in his and guided it to the right spot. "Here," he said. His voice was cold and dispassionate. She felt the buttons then, sewn in oddly off to the side. Concentrate on the buttons. Don't think about touching Professor Snape. But she was touching him; her hands pressed against the bare skin of his hip as she undid the buttons of his trousers. There were seven, and she wondered if there were some sort of magical significance to that, but the thought was fleet and brief because then Snape shifted his hips slightly, reached down to make some adjustment that Hermione couldn't quite see, and freed his cock from his trousers.

Her lips went suddenly dry. So that's what one looks like close up. As she watched, it twitched and lengthened. She caught her breath. Was she making that happen? The newness of the situation made her forget her embarrassment, her humiliation. She watched the stiffening flesh in front of her with unabashed intrigue.

Snape didn't know exactly what he'd expected from the girl; revulsion, maybe. Horror. Certainly reluctance. But not this... attentive interest. She had moved closer to watch his cock, and he could feel her breath on the sensitive skin there. He'd thought that he might have to use an enhancement potion, but no, that would clearly not be necessary. Not necessary at all.

Hermione found that his cock jerked and lengthened every time she exhaled. That's Professor Snape's cock, and it's getting hard while he looks at you, Hermione. His body was otherwise rigid and still. She was quite sure that his arousal had nothing to do with her specifically; likely he was envisioning someone more to his liking. Someone with pretty hair; someone who wasn't a student. Someone that he hadn't done everything in his power to deride and humiliate for the past six years. But she watched his cock twitching and reacting to her and thought, it's not someone else making that happen. That's me. I'm doing that. I'm making you twitch. I'm making you hard. Whether you like it or not.

"Use your tongue," he said, the sound of his voice breaking through the girl's preoccupied thoughts. His voice was still disinterested and flat, almost bored. Yes, Hermione thought. That will make this easier. But it was already easier than she'd expected. A part of her mind was caught up in horrified shock that she was kneeling between Professor Snape's legs, about to use her mouth on him, but another part was curious... almost eager. If I can make it twitch just by breathing on it, then what can I make it do with my mouth?

His cock was so hard now that she could see the veins in it pulsing rhythmically. She wrapped her fingers around it at the base to steady it. His entire body tensed, but he made no sound.

She was unsure exactly what he meant for her to do, but she was hardly going to ask him to explain, as though she were asking if her ingredients were correctly prepared in Potions class. But then, if this were Potions class, he would snidely respond that she would know she had done it incorrectly when he informed her of such. You can't say I haven't learned that lesson, she thought.

Tentatively, lightly, she touched her tongue to the skin of his cock, just at the base. He jerked, but then stilled himself again. And then she traced the tip of her tongue all the way from the bottom to the tip, circling the top a time or two, and then traced back down again. Hermione was a keen and careful observer in this as in most other circumstances, and she noted that her professor's flesh had become even more hard and taut since she'd begun. He likes this.

Snape's jaw was clenched and his eyes were tightly shut. He was using every ounce of his self-discipline to keep from audibly moaning. How long had it been since a woman touched him this way? Years? Decades? There had been a few girls after Lily's rejection, and a few... unwilling girls after he'd become a Death Eater. But then he'd begun feigning impotence. What woman would have had him anyway? A sallow, greasy Death Eater: hardly. It had been a dozen years or more since he'd felt a woman's mouth on him, willing or unwilling, and...

Hermione's tongue found the sensitive slit at the tip of his penis and slid into it. This at last drew an uncontrollable moan from him. She noticed, she must have, because she did it again, pushing the tip of her tongue in and circling it back and forth. He moaned again, and this time pushed his hips forward to meet her.

No, he thought, I will not lose control to her. I will not. But he moaned again even as he thought this; the feel of her mouth moving over him was unbearably good. I can't make her stop.

I won't.

Hermione concentrated her efforts at the tip; his reactions told her that he was the most sensitive there. It sent a dark thrill through her when he began to moan and thrust. She could tell that he was holding back, that he didn't want to reveal his enjoyment.

She began leaving little nibbling kisses around the swollen head of his cock. He gasped and shifted his hips, and she realized with a shock that she was enjoying herself as well. This thought should have been disturbing, repellent. But... it wasn't. Yes. Yes, I am enjoying this. I am enjoying making him hard, making him moan. I am enjoying this so very much indeed.

Snape, for his part, was rapidly losing the battle to maintain self-control. He had underestimated the Granger girl's capacity to be a quick study, even in this situation. Especially in this situation; she never learned a new spell as quickly as she learned how to suck your cock. Another moan escaped his lips. He could not stand much more of this.

Roughly, his voice neither calm nor detached anymore, he said, "Take it into your mouth; all of it." She paused for the first time and looked up at him with searching brown eyes--sending him rocketing even closer to the edge--and then she nodded quickly and did as he'd instructed. She instinctively knew how to maintain the right amount of pressure. He could feel her lips sliding up and down his cock, and he could feel her moaning. Gods yes, she was making little quick noises in the back of her throat every time she took him fully into her mouth. The finest mind in House Gryffindor was kneeling between his legs with her lips wrapped around his cock, moaning.

She is going to hate me after this humiliation. Even more than she already does.

He was seized by the sudden impulse to draw it out and make it last, to make the girl between his legs work for her prize. He reached down and wound his hands through her hair and pulled, just a bit, and then a bit more, just to see what it would take to make her stop, to distract her from her task. But if anything it only seemed to drive her even harder. He was hurting her; he could see tears of pain in her eyes. But still she wouldn't stop. He realized dimly that this was having the opposite effect that he'd intended, that he was so much closer, so much faster, but he had stopped caring. He heard himself gasp, "Don't stop," and knew that he was pulling cruelly at her hair and pushing her head down onto his cock again and again, but he didn't care about any of that; she made gasping little ecstatic sobs that he could feel more than hear--how much would I have to hurt this girl to make her stop sucking me?--and her mouth was so good...

Hermione knew that Snape was inflicting pain to try to control his own pleasure. He's using you, she thought, but this realization only made a warm ball of heat expand deep inside her. He's using you for his pleasure. His hands pulling her hair hurt a little, but he was inflicting that hurt because he was enjoying her mouth so very much.

Go ahead, pull as hard as you want, Professor; I won't stop. She was faintly aware that he was moaning actual words now, "don't stop," and then he pulled her head down tightly onto his cock and thrust it deep into her mouth. Her eyes watered, and she gagged a little bit, but then her mouth was full of a warm, salty liquid and her knees went fluid and weak at the realization of what she'd done to him. Of what she'd made him do.

Snape closed his eyes and let his head rest back on the chair; the girl was swallowing it. All of it. She was--he hissed--gently sucking the rest out of the tip. He released her hair and let his arms fall to his sides, feeling his heart hammering in his chest.

She said something, but her mouth was muffled against his thigh. His stomach turned over; she would likely be full of recriminations. Or tears. He felt he could stand neither from her.

She turned her head and swept her hair away from where it had fallen across her face, and said again:

"Bellatrix Lestrange."

She gasped a sob of relief then, and looked up at him with bright, glittering eyes. "Professor Snape," she said, "I have a lot to tell you."

Snape wasted no time in putting himself back together, rising and donning his frock-coat again. With it buttoned all the way to the high collar, he looked as he always did, as Hermione was used to seeing him, and some of the terrifying surreality of the preceding incident was swept away. Did that really just happen? she asked herself.

She licked her lips and tasted the salty residue there. Yes; it had happened. But Snape apparently had no interest in discussing it, which she found a relief. He sat now in his usual chair, and she took a seat in the high-backed wooden one, and they faced each other across the broad mahogany expanse of his desk. A single bead of sweat glistened on his brow; it was the only sign that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

For his part, Snape noted that the girl had regained much of her usual composure and confidence. She sat tall in her chair and faced him levelly; her pale faltering from earlier was gone.

He steepled his fingers and regarded her with one slightly cocked eyebrow, considering his next step.

"Miss Granger," he said, "you are going to tell me everything."

She opened her mouth, but he said, "Forgive me," and before she had time to react, he invaded her mind again. Just as before, it was as easy as sliding into a quiet pool of water. She has no defenses whatsoever; if she went before Voldemort, he would read her like a book.

Snape rifled through her memories, scene after scene playing in her mind's eye for his examination. This time was different than before; this time, he wasted no effort rummaging around in her thoughts about the Weasley boy, or N.E.W.T. exams, or her holiday plans. He sought something specific: the moment she'd encountered the Death Eaters in his office. Her panic rose as she realized what he was after; she didn't want to relive that. He felt her trying to force him out of her memories. His lip curled. Her efforts had no more effect than a butterfly's wing flapping. You think you can keep a master Legilimens out of your mind, girl?

He kept pushing, kept driving forward towards the memory he wanted. Granger gave up resisting, undoubtedly realizing that her attempts were useless... and then he reached what he sought. There was no wall stopping him from seeing the memory this time. No, this time it was as clear and sharp as though he'd been there himself.

In the girl's mind, he saw her leave Gryffindor Tower, descend into the dungeons, and enter his own office with her research proposal in hand. She had been surprised that his wards were down, and called out his name, only for a Death Eater to cast Petrificus Silencio on her before she even had time to react. He heard Bellatrix Lestrange's mad, high-pitched laugh, and he watched Lestrange and another Death Eater, Jensen...Snape recognized him as one of the Dark Lord's sycophants...advance on the now-helpless girl.

Granger moaned in protest, but Snape was relentless, inescapable. He gave her no choice but to relive what had happened next.

She could not possibly hate me more than she already does.

He sank deeper into her mind, watching the rest of the encounter unfold. Bellatrix laughed at Granger, taunting her, asking why she wasn't fighting back. The Death Eater noticed the fallen parchments and nudged them with her foot. "Mudblood scratchings," she said with scorn. "Burn them."

Jensen scuttled over to scoop them up from the floor and did as his mistress had commanded. Hermione could hear the fire roaring up off to her side and the scrolls crackling and burning.

"Oh, poor Mudblood, were those important?"

The hair on the back of Hermione's neck rose up. Bellatrix had circled behind her, standing well out of sight. Every nerve in the girl's body screamed for her to run. But she couldn't. She couldn't even twitch, could barely even force air into her lungs. And then Lestrange touched her wand lightly to the nape of Hermione's neck. The thrill of terror that coursed through her was so intense that it felt almost like an electric shock.

I am going to die, she thought. She thought of her parents, of Harry, of members of the Weasley clan, all flashing through her mind in the space of an instant. But Bellatrix only laughed, prodded the back of Hermione's neck with her wand, and said, "Poor little Mudblood, you thought I was going to hurt you! No, I have better plans for you."

She withdrew her wand and snapped at Jensen, "Come with me." They disappeared somewhere to the rear; Hermione could hear them moving around, rummaging through bottles and flasks. They were in Snape's private laboratory and storeroom, looking for something by the sounds of it.

"He has it!" Lestrange cried. "He is lying! I know he is! It must be here! Find it!"

But based on the sounds the girl was able to overhear, they hadn't found it. Snape, observing this memory, smiled humorlessly. Of course they hadn't.

But then Bellatrix's voice had turned sly and giggly, a sound he knew all too well.

"No matter," she told her associate. "You have the potion I made up? Give it to me."

As Snape/Hermione listened, they added it to... something. Bellatrix giggled again, a mad awful sound, and then muttered to herself, at the very limits of Hermione's hearing, "A special brew for the Potions master... I think he'll enjoy it very much indeed. Oh yes, he'll simply love it, and the next time he goes before our Dark Lord and tries to hide all the foul thoughts in his filthy mind, he'll pay." Her cackle rose into a shriek, "Our Dark Lord and master will see him for what he truly is!"

Snape's spine went cold. Lumia potion. They must have dosed his tea with Lumia. Had he taken even a single sip since returning to his quarters and finding Granger frozen? He thought he had not... though thanks only to her warning.

And her repayment is you invading her mind for the second time tonight without permission.

He brushed this uncharacteristic thought away as being indicative of a morality that he had neither the time nor the patience for.

In Hermione's memory, Bellatrix and Jensen returned from the storeroom, flanking the frozen girl on either side. "Let's have some fun now, Jensen!" Bellatrix hissed. Her tone reminded Snape of Voldemort's lisping tenor, and he wondered, not for the first time, how many of the Dark Lord's proclivities and inclinations were imprinted onto his twisted, broken plaything.

Bellatrix positioned herself directly in front of Hermione, her face completely filling the girl's field of vision. Snape felt the girl's rising terror and panic. The Death Eater tapped a finger on her own chin thoughtfully and said, "You look like the type of girl that would run and tattle on us! We simply can't have that. You'd ruin all our fun!" With a giggle, she pointed her wand directly at Hermione's throat and incanted, "Logocaesura!" Hermione felt her throat constrict briefly, then relax again. Lestrange put her wand away with an elaborate flourish.

"There, that's sorted!" she said, and then frowned. "But that's not very sporting, is it? That's not very fair. You'd like a fair chance, wouldn't you?" She waited expectantly as though Hermione were going to answer, and then with another giggle--the sound grated on Snape, even filtered through someone else's mind--she said, "Of course you would. So here's what we'll do, my delightful little Mudblood. We'll give you a chance. A... challenge, you might say. Naturally, you'll fail." Another giggle, and this time, Jensen joined in with a grunting chuckle and a leer. "But if, by chance, you don't... then you'll be able to tell anyone you want anything at all about what you saw here today." Lestrange's lips stretched into a wide rictus, and she leaned forward until her nose was almost touching Hermione's.

She whispered, "But you won't tell. Because you won't meet this challenge, darling little Mudblood. Although perhaps.... mm, yes, perhaps you'll have lots of fun trying."

Then, more loudly, as though announcing it to a crowd, she said what Hermione had repeated to Snape earlier that evening: "You're to kiss Professor Snape, and it's to be a good kiss. A real kiss." Snape noted, with a faint wrench in his gut, that when Granger had related this to him, she had failed to mention the complete and consuming horror and humiliation she'd felt.

Not, of course, that I care. Or would have expected anything else.

She'd been forced to choose between either degrading and humiliating herself with her Potions professor, or letting him be murdered by the Dark Lord. He told himself that her horror and humiliation were to be expected under the circumstances.

He knew what came next and could have withdrawn from her mind at this point, saving her from having to relive it. But he wanted to know exactly and precisely what Bellatrix had said to the girl. Perhaps Granger had left out some important nuance, some critical detail, when she was relating the story to him.

If it occurred to him even for a moment that he might want to see the girl's reaction to being told she'd have to suck his cock, he dismissed the thought instantly. It was of no matter to him how she felt about it.

No matter at all.

In the memory, Bellatrix laughed gaily and went on, "Of course, that's not all. That's only the first part. Would you like to know the second part? Hm?" She giggled, and Jensen's face lurched into a grinning sneer.

"This is the part I think you'll enjoy the most...the part you'll savor. Oh, I do hope you try, even though you are utterly... and completely... doomed to failure." Hermione's heart pounded in her chest so hard that she thought she might be on the verge of fainting.

The Death Eater leaned down so that she was level with Hermione, and caressed the girl's face, drawing a line down her cheekbone with a single long nail.

"You're to suck your professor's cock, little Mudblood. Get him nice and hard," she said, tracing her fingers down the curve of Hermione's jaw and onto her throat, "and then, at the end, you're to swallow his come. Mm, doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't that sound lovely?"

Snape was almost forced out of Hermione's mind, just as he had been the first time, by the shockwave of her reaction. Thoughts flooded her mind, half-formed and panicky: I can't it's Professor Snape there must be some way to I can't do it I've never done it he'll kill me for even being in here he'll kill me for making him do this he won't do it I can't do it it's Snape it's Snape it's Snape what do I do we'll find another way I can't let him drink the tea I can't let him die but I can't do this either oh Gods I don't know what to do...

No, he supposed she didn't know what to do, and he also supposed that this was very unusual for her. Miss Hermione Granger, book-perfect at casting spells and brewing potions, always first in the class, always quick to know the answer to every problem. Every problem but this one.

He allowed himself for just a moment to relive the memory of her lips on his skin.

Her next memories were of himself, entering the office and finding her there frozen. He had no need to view those; he remembered very well what had happened afterward, and he had no desire to feel the hatred and revulsion she'd experienced during the... event.

A voice whispered inside his head, but she was moaning in pleasure. He suppressed it harshly. She imagined someone else. Or perhaps her moans were of humiliation, not pleasure; either way, it is of no consequence. She is a student, and a particularly irritating one at that, and if I experienced a moment of carnal pleasure with her, it's only to be expected after denying myself for so long. Nothing to do with her at all.

He withdrew from her mind; she jerked forward and gasped, and for just a moment, their eyes locked, hers blazing with cold intensity.

"You didn't need to do that," she said.

"It was the best way."

"No. I know. I mean, you could have asked."

He lifted an eyebrow, and she said, "I would have said yes."

He shrugged with a slight twitch of his shoulders, and said, "It is done, and would have been either way, so asking you was completely irrelevant." He saw her face darken with anger, and continued smoothly, "Miss Granger, much though I am sure we would both enjoy the flurry of accusations and recriminations you are clearly about to shower on me, I must inform you that there is a rather immediate problem. One that I admit I am quite surprised that someone of your obvious intellect has failed to observe."

"Oh?" she said, visibly taken aback.

"Yes. Your efforts today have at least given me some warning, but the fact remains that the next time I go before the Dark Lord, I am likely to die."