Part Five

Anti-Litigation Charm: I do not own these characters, nor do I make any money from them, nor do I own any stock in the manufacture, promotion or distribution of Murtlap Essence.

IV, Young Night-Thought, A Child's Garden of Verses – RL Stevenson

He looked deeply into her eyes. Hermione was staggered at the pure fire she saw in his gaze. He was such a curious mix of power and vulnerability. And he was a flirt, and a tease to boot.

Suddenly he rose from the bed, pulling her to her feet. "I want to remove the rest of your clothing," he said, his voice glazed with the lust. "Then I want you to get on your hands and knees, like a good little girl, and let me take you from behind. But most of all, I want some recovery time. I'm not a machine, pet."

She gave him a lazy, canary-eating smile. "I'll try not to break you."

He gathered her in his arms, and pressed his forehead to hers. She was warm, and a little flushed from their exertions. He kissed her, tasting her sweat on his lips. "Your welfare is touching. I thought you only desired me for my body."

She gave him another one of her Mona Lisa smiles, then took a step back and started unbuttoning her skirt. He stopped her. "No. It's my turn." She looked at him with a mixture of passion and assent as he quickly removed the rest of her school uniform, trying not to think about the connotations of undressing a student. Instead, he distracted himself by placing soft, biting kisses on her lovely, silken throat. He found that to be a most satisfactory diversion. He unfastened her shoes and peeled her socks down smooth, shapely calves, planting kisses along the way.

Her knickers were drawn down next, and as he knelt, he placed a kiss on the soft nest of honey-coloured curls between her thighs. The scent from her was truly delicious. He'd heard of the smell of sex making one's mouth water, but it had never happened to him, until now, and he took another deep, appreciative sniff. She made a sweet, mewling plea, and he chuckled and gave her little mound another kiss before pushing himself to his feet.

Sometime between undressing him and sucking his brains out the slit of his cock, she had removed her shirt and bra, and when he cupped her lovely breasts, so full and creamy and rich in his hands, he had a sudden vision of her nipples dripping milk over his pale fingers, and a little black-haired baby suckling one nourishing teat, and his own mouth laving the other.

Silently, he turned her around and led her toward his bed. She crawled upon it, and he stood behind her, simply drinking in the sight of this stunning beauty, who had changed his life in thirty short minutes. It made him dizzy, as if he was in some Muggle movie played on fast-forward.

Hermione was poised, ready for him. He hesitated, and she moaned, "Please, Severus, love, please do it now! I need you... don't tease me anymore -" She arched her back with a soft, purring stretch that showed off her lovely bottom to perfection. He shook his head, wanting to accept this so badly, wanting the gods to smile on him this one time. He could gladly accept the shit he'd been force-fed his first forty years, if only this wasn't some sort of sick, twisted joke.

"Why me, Hermione Granger?" he asked, looking down at the delicious little witch waiting for him on his bed. "You have glorious breasts and an arse most men would kill for. Your minge smells like candy and I'm going to go out on a limb and wager it tastes the same. You could have any wizard your choose." He stroked her lovely arse, hating himself for asking a question that practically set him up to fall. Exasperatedly, he asked, "You certainly have my attention. Now you want my affection as well. Why? Why do you want me so much?"

Hermione turned and looked at him over her shoulder like a girl in a porn mag. The apology was already on his lips when she rolled over, hopped off the bed and stood by him. Looking up into his eyes, she said, "Do you want the list?"

Severus dropped his eyes. "It would be... helpful," he replied, refusing to meet her eyes.

Hermione took one of his hands in hers, and together they studied them. His was long, slim, with slender fingers and myriad scars from countless nicks and burns and battles with uncooperative ingredients. Hers was warm, feminine, elegant; it was the colour of cream and softer than anything he'd ever touched. "I love your hands," she murmured, raising his to her lips, pressing a kiss against the tip of each finger. "You can tell so much by a man's hands." She lowered his hand until it nestled in the crook of her thighs. He slipped his long fingers between her silken labia. She was slick and wet and needy, and he moved his hand until he found her clit, hard and stiff and hot, and he rubbed against it teasingly. She leaned against him and closed her eyes.

"Is that it? Just my hands?" he asked, and she smiled at the insouciant tone of his voice. "Any other body parts you've considered?" She shifted to allow him better access, and he pushed her back down on the bed, so that her legs dangled over the side. "Do spread your legs, Hermione. How am I to fit my shoulders between your lovely thighs if you have them clamped together so tightly?" He sank to the floor and crouched between her soft thighs, placing kisses against the firm, smooth flesh as he traveled toward his teasing fingers. He could hear her soft, hopeful whimper, and between kisses he said, "Keep your focus, pet. What else?" He licked the seam of her cunt and raised his head with a jolt. "Circe's girdle, you do taste as sweet as candy. I definitely regret not locking you away now."

Hermione gasped and giggled, shaking as his wicked tongue curled and danced around her folds. She made a little growling noise. "I'm sure I could have forced myself to make the sacrifice if this is what you had in mind."

He laughed his nasty, orgasm-inducing laugh. "Indeed. Think of how good you would have been for my anxiety. Bend your knees, darling. I want to get a little deeper. Where was I? Oh, yes, I would definitely have benefited from this in the last few days before Tom Riddle decided to rearrange my larynx."

She giggled and gave a little squeal. "Are we bad to be talking so glibly about those days like this, Severus?"

"I think this is the only sane reaction to those days, don't you?"

Hermione stilled, so much that Severus paused, and lifted his gaze above the apex of her thighs. She looked like a right little reprobate, and Severus felt his heart flip dangerously in his chest.

She took a handful of his greasy hair in her fist, and cooed huskily, "You want to know why I want you so much, Severus Snape? You excite me. You're the smartest wizard I know, and you don't make me dumb down. You make me think, you make me crazy, you make me want to make you smile.

"You make me want to suck your cock at every available opportunity just to hear the sound you make when you come." She used his hair to pull him back up to face her. He let her. "You smell like Amortensia, you have the nastiest laugh in Wizarding Britain, and I could look into your eyes for the rest of my life and never get bored of what I saw."

She placed a soft kiss on his large nose. "And most of all, you make me want to crawl into your pocket and stay there forever."

Severus paused, looking up at her. She met his gaze, her eyes glassy and her cheeks pink. Suddenly, all of Severus' questions didn't matter one damn bit. She had already given the only real answer he'd ever wanted. "Are you in love with me, Hermione Granger?"

"If I say yes, will you please shut up and finish eating me out? I'm on fire."

He blinked. "I will take it under serious consideration." He grinned. He couldn't help it. Here he was, wet from forehead to chin with the juices of a witch half his age, feeling like he'd been born yesterday and could live forever. Why not lie here between her lovely thighs for the rest of his life, gurning like an idiot and making her scream like a banshee? "Well? I'm waiting, Hermione."

She smiled and rolled her eyes. "Yes, you great pillock. I love you." Her eyes grew soft. "You bring out the worst in me, Severus Snape. And I bring out the best in you. And you don't believe it, but I seriously believe you're actually worth the trouble. Do you love me?"

Severus felt something large and heavy crack in his heart and fall away, allowing him to breathe again. It might have been a Horcrux, forged in the fires of Lily's rejection, burned within and caught in the blister bubble of Dumbledore's death. It might have been etched there by the jagged edge of one of his father's broken gin bottles, or stained by the ink of his Dark Mark. Whatever it was, it had been weakening steadily under the pressure of his undeniable desire for her. Now it was gone, and he couldn't remember why he had held onto it so tightly in the first damn place.

The realisation that she meant what she said made him smile, and sent his libido into overdrive. Without warning, he pushed himself back down to the apex of her thighs and plundered her red, wet cunt, tearing a sound from her throat that made him lightheaded. He flicked his tongue over her sweet smelling folds, and she shuddered and began to undulate against him.

He did everything he'd ever done or ever wanted to do to a woman, and when he plunged his tongue into her tight passage and rubbed his nose against the little pearly button, she seemed to gather inwardly, as if preparing to take flight. Her clit was as stiff as one of her little nipples and he suckled it the same way. His long fingers pumped in and out of her tight, tight cunt while he performed the charm to ease the way into her tiny fundament. She yielded to him like fruit ripe for the taking, and he moaned into her, sending vibrations through his body as well as hers.

"Severus, oh, gods, yes," she babbled, clearly almost gone.

"I told you what I wanted, witch," he growled, outside himself with desire. "Do it for me!"

She gasped, and he felt her body tense so much she actually lifted from the bed, and her lovely pulsing, clenching pussy clamped down on his fingers, and he sucked her clit into his mouth again and flicked it hard with his rasping tongue. Her thighs clamped against his shoulders. "Oh, yes, Severus, don't stop, don't, please!" She grabbed his hair and surged upward, into his waiting mouth, screaming his name with each breath, with each pulse of that beautiful little nub of flesh thumping like a heartbeat against his tongue. It was amazing; he'd never actually felt a woman orgasm.

"That's my girl," he said, his voice gentle, as he tried to hold the pleasure within her. "What a good girl, to come so hard for me." He placed a gentle kiss on her clit, and watched as her tight passage quivered open and closed, like a tiny, gasping mouth. All the breath left his body. "Oh, you sweet little succubus," he marveled.

Even as her legs splayed apart with blissful relaxation, he climbed over her like the richest, most sumptuous of coverings, all velvet and silk and darkness, and as he slid up her body, he entered her as naturally as if she'd been designed for him. "Does this answer your question?" he whispered in her ear. "Does this answer your question?" He kissed the words into her mouth, and withdrew from almost entirely. With a triumphant roar, he drove into her as hard as he could, and proceeded to fuck the words directly into her body. Does. This. Answer. Your. Question. Witch?

They moved together as one, their bodies tangled, until they were fighting to reach the bottom of the other, each trying to beat the ecstasy into one another, moving like lightning, fast and electric, their cries like harmony, like incantations. Hermione's body, primed by what felt like a lifetime, enveloped his in a pulsing, clutching vise that made her scream his name again, scream it like she truly wanted to shatter the glass in the windows, shatter all the fear and pain and desperation he'd felt since the night he found her comforting another black-haired boy and jealously wanted it to be him...

He cried out in counterpoint as his orgasm pulled him inside out, flooding his rigid body and mind with so much pleasure he knew he'd never survive it. He cried out her name, and sprayed his seed into her, praying for it to find purchase, wanting to make her pregnant, wanting to etch a new Dark Mark on her skin, piss on her if he had to; anything to mark his territory, to keep her in his bed until he died...

He was heavy as he collapsed against her body, and they both struggled to breathe. "Does that answer your question, Hermione Granger?"

"Yes," she said, moaning feverishly, kissing him, crawling all over him. "Yes!"

He kissed her passionately. "Mine," he said, his voice hoarse from shouting. "You have given yourself to me, Hermione. You're mine now. I'm a selfish, possessive man, and now you belong to me. Mine. Say it!"

"I'm yours," she breathed, holding him close, delirious. "I'm all yours-"

"No!" he said, pulling away from her, leaving her bewildered and exhausted. "I already know that! Mine. Say it," he pleaded. His eyes were enormous and nakedly vulnerable. "Claim me."

Hermione pulled him down to her breast, and his mouth was soft as comforting to her as her flesh was to him. "You're mine," she breathed into his black, tangled hair. "You gave yourself to me. You belong to me now, Severus. You're mine."

He nodded, and rolled off her, pulling her into his arms. "Thank the gods."