Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Tell me now, is it so,

Don't let me be the last to know,

My hands are shaking,

Don't let my heart keep breaking 'cause

I need your love, I want your love

This Guy's in Love With You

7 July, 1998

Hermione wandered aimlessly into the kitchen...boredom, rather than hunger, directing her actions. If she went outside, her friends would pull her into some sort of activity or conversation in which she had little, if any, interest. Severus had chosen to spend his day away from her, shunning her offer to accompany him...in a rather uncharacteristically nice way, perhaps, but it was still rejection, wasn't it?...so she was at a loose end. It was ever so much more pleasant to think about the way his endless black eyes blazed when she touched him, but it was just frustrating to imagine seducing him when he was not at hand to receive her attentions.

The lunch things had been tidied away, but the stoneware jug of lemonade Molly had stirred up was on the sideboard. Hermione fetched a goblet and poured the pale yellow liquid, her mind skimming from one subject to the next, seeking a place to light that was not in direct relation to sex with her husband.

She was anxious to receive her NEWTs results. She wasn't worried about them...she was confident that all would be Outstanding...but the Salem Witches' Institute was awaiting the report of her marks. Professor Moneta Muninn, the Head of the Wizarding Mnemosyne Project, had assured her that approval from the Board of Admissions was a mere formality.

She slid into the chair at the head of the long wooden table, the place usually occupied by Arthur Weasley, and reached into her ever-present bag, searching out her copy of Transcendent Quality of Remembrance. As always, she was distracted when she opened the cover to see the slight tear on the frontispiece...any damage to a book was anathema to her!...but other than making another mental note to mend it at the first opportunity, she put it from her mind and flipped through pages to find the hidden piece of folded parchment. She smoothed it open, reviewing again the documents required for application to the Salem Witches' Institute. Each item had a tick beside it, save for the final transcript.

'All right, Hermione?'

She slammed the book closed, her heart slamming into an anxious rhythm...but it was only Remus Lupin, standing in the doorway, his head cocked to one side.

'Don't worry,' he said with a teasing smile, advancing into the room to stand over her. 'Severus is still gone.'

Hermione glared at him, pricked by how close Lupin was to the truth. 'I'm not worried,' she snapped.

He sat down beside her, drawing the crumpled parchment from the pages, smoothing the edges smashed by her precipitate closing of the book. 'So you've shared your plans with him?' he asked, perusing the admissions requirements.

'Not that it's any concern of yours,' she said crossly, 'but no, I haven't. I will, though...just as soon as we leave this place.'

She felt badly, snapping at her friend, but she was protective of Severus now, as she had never been in the past when sharing her concerns with Lupin. He was one of the few who knew Hermione had married Severus for no other reason than to remain at Hogwarts. Lupin had been a candidate for her husband, and she had been strongly tempted to choose him...except that she would have been forced to leave school to live with him, and that would have been counter to her main purpose, which was to remain with Harry. Still, six months ago, she had thought Lupin would make a nicer husband than the snarky Potions master.

Now she looked Lupin over with the critical eye of a woman deeply involved with another man and found nothing but fault with him. His hair was shot through with grey, unlike Severus'; Lupin's face was scarred and rather scruffy, whereas Severus was always clean-shaven (although his face did become rather deliciously rough in the night, when it was near time for another shave); Lupin's hands were large, square, and blunt-fingered, in contrast to the Potions master's rather elegant, long-fingered hands. The mere idea of Lupin's hands on her gave her an inward shudder of distaste. How could she ever have imagined she would prefer him to Severus?

Now Lupin watched her with calm hazel eyes, and she felt a flare of irritation. He would sit there and accept whatever abuse she chose to heap on him; he would seldom rouse himself to defence, unless someone he cared for was threatened. No wonder Severus couldn't abide him.

'Have you definitely decided to study with the memory group in Salem?' he inquired mildly, one fingertip tracing down her ticks.

Hermione leant over to see what he was pointing to. Honestly, what business was it of his? All right, she had probably confided in him about it, but couldn't he see that she had no need of his hand-holding now?

'Am I ... interrupting?'

The silky, dangerous voice fell on Hermione like a shock of ice water, and she gasped, sitting back from Lupin guiltily, as if she had been caught out in wrongdoing.

Severus stood in the doorway, menace pouring from him in waves. He was coiled like a cobra, tensed to strike, his left hand repeatedly opening and closing, obviously missing the rowan wood wand he was not permitted to use in this place. His lips were frozen in a snarl, all of his attention focused on the werewolf.

'You...you're back,' she stuttered stupidly, desperate to fill the icy silence, to defuse the atmosphere.

He did not glance at her...seemed as if he had not heard her...for he never took his eyes from Lupin. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lupin fold the parchment...the one she desperately did not wish for Severus to see...and place it carefully in the book, pushing the tome to her before standing.

'Good afternoon, Severus,' he said pleasantly. 'Molly left a lunch plate for you in the larder, I believe.'

Lupin nodded to Hermione and walked toward Severus, obviously intent on departing the kitchen. Severus watched him approach, his eyes narrowed, both of his hands now fisted at his sides, and Hermione wondered desperately if the werewolf would hurt her husband in a physical brawl. Good God, of course he would...surely some of that werewolf brawn resided in Lupin's slightly stoop-shouldered frame! Then, at the last moment, Severus stood to one side, and Lupin slipped through the narrow space allowed him, leaving the Snapes in possession of the kitchen.

Hermione busied herself returning her book with its accusing parchment to her bag, inwardly lamenting her decision to even come downstairs. If she had remained in their room, he would have found her there, and they would be undressing one another at this very minute, instead of being in this awful stand-off, with her guilt and his anger clashing fierily in the air, raining her with sooty regret.

She looked up at him with a tremulous smile, hoping to soothe his prickly temper. It was wrong for him to be so cantankerous anyway, but if she could lure him upstairs...if she could get him into their bed...she could easily distract him from whatever was bothering him now.

'I wasn't expecting you before supper,' she said, rising and approaching him.

He finally looked at her, and the expression in his eyes gave her pause. He was visibly, if inexplicably, incensed.

'That, madam, is abundantly clear,' he replied in arctic tones. 'You need not have troubled to say so.'

She moved forward in spite of his untouchable demeanour. This was just silly...there was nothing for him to be angry about.

'Severus?' she said softly, laying fingertips upon a clenched fist. 'What's wrong?'

He jerked away from her, the snarl once again distorting his lips. 'Why don't you go find your werewolf friend and ask him?' he hissed. 'Perhaps you'll catch him before he hooks up with the Metamorphmagus...or perhaps you don't mind a little threesome.'

In an instant, Hermione was filled with powerful fury of her own. Without thought, she slapped his face, catching him completely by surprise and knocking him off balance, forcing him to step back to regain his footing.

'I'll make you sorry you said that, you awful man!' she cried.

The imprint of her fingers was clear upon his cheek, his eyes were wide with astonishment, and he reached a hand for her, but for once, she was too fast for him. He missed her arm, and when she flounced out of the room, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, stupidly holding nothing but the strap of her ubiquitous bag.

Afterwards, he sat at the kitchen table with Hermione's bag before him, ruefully rubbing his face. Merlin, what a mess. He'd hurried back to the house, expecting to find his wife in their bed, waiting for him, and instead, he'd walked in on her with the werewolf, their heads together as if they were sharing confidences. Even now, alone in the room, he felt his lips pulling away from his teeth in a feral grimace at the very thought of his woman in an intimate situation with another man.

He pushed the bag away and stood, fighting the impulse to go, to find her and make her ... What? What could he force her to do or say? He'd never been able to coerce behaviour from Hermione Granger. Why should now be any different?

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe rhythmically, feeling his heart rate slowly decreasing. Why had he not done this, calmed himself, before speaking to her and saying such ill-advised things? Because he'd seen her with Lupin...seen her with the man she had very nearly chosen for her husband instead of him...the man he would have happily pushed her off on to spare himself the inconvenience of marriage to a schoolgirl. He'd seen her with Lupin, and the sight had filled him with a blind white desire to throttle the life from the werewolf.

Jealousy. It was puerile, adolescent jealousy, and he had been helpless to prevent himself from acting it out.

As he calmed, his mind cleared, and he could easily see how foolishly he had behaved, though he could not swear similar circumstances would result in a different reaction. Hermione had been at first concerned...guilty! his inner adolescent insisted...and then she had been enraged by his carelessly blurted words.

As well she should be.

Fuck. He owed her an apology, but there was one problem: Severus Snape never apologised.

He forced himself into action, but rather than following his wife outside that he might beg her pardon, he walked into the larder and retrieved the plate of food left for him. He settled at the table again, his eyes on Hermione's bag, and began to shovel the fuel into his mouth.

He would eat and consider what he ought to say to her...and then he might go in search of her...but not to say sorry.

10 January, 1998

They stood facing one another in the loft, phials of Pepper-Up in their hands. Her hair was completely back to normal now, bushy and brown and free of plaits and pins and petals of rosebuds...he had always thought her hair an annoying feature on an irritating young woman, but now he only wanted to bury his hands in that hair and control her movements as he kissed her, backing her towards the bed. Her eyes were bright, shining with purpose, and she held her phial aloft as if for the toast neither of them had thought to offer with the crystal flutes of champagne.

'To wakefulness!' she said.

He lifted his hand, wondering what he ought to say to her...not that she would remember it, of course. 'To the weekend,' he temporised, and they drank, laughing when steam poured from their ears.

'I hadn't taken that into account!' Hermione giggled. 'Are you sure you want to shag a girl with steamy ears?'

Severus smirked at her and took her hand. 'Don't you know how to make that stop?' he asked, prodding his swotty bride in her sore spot.

She obediently followed him down the stairs again. 'And you call me an insufferable know-it-all!' she chortled gaily, as if every ill-natured thing they'd ever said to one another...and he was unquestionably the guiltier party in that area...was now forgiven, in some joyous bacchanalia of reconciliation.

He pulled her into the bathroom and kicked the door closed behind them, anxious to touch her again. The room was square and as large as the sitting room, with a toilet, a rather modern-looking shower enclosure, and an enormous old fashioned claw-footed tub, filled with water, its surface sprinkled with rose petals.

'How pretty!' Hermione cried, her expression softening. 'And there's a Warming Charm on the water!' She glanced shyly at Severus. 'It's so romantic! Did you do this?'

He bit back the acerbic rejoinder that leapt to mind and closed a hand about her narrow wrist, pulling her to him and pushing the dressing gown from her shoulders, fighting the crazy urge to pull her into a crushing kiss.

Steady on, old man, he thought, forcing himself to look away from her nakedness and make eye contact again. Don't overwhelm her.

'I'm sure the house-elf did it,' he informed her, retaining his hold on her and pulling her to the shower. 'You may bathe later,' he said, releasing her and shedding his dressing gown, inordinately pleased to see his cock making an admirable show of readiness. 'For now, a quick, cold shower will douse the steam.'

And the erection, he though regretfully, but he didn't say it aloud.

Without permitting her to think about it too much, he jerked her into the enclosure, ignoring her screeching protests...something about not wanting a cold shower in the middle of winter...and thrusting her ahead of him to block her exit, he turned on the cold water with the wave of a non-verbal spell.

Her screech escalated to a blood-curdling scream as the icy water soaked her, but he was grimly satisfied to see the huffing jets of steam desist. Gritting his teeth, he pulled her tight against his body and bent his head to permit his own ears to be drenched.

When they were both steam free, he warmed the water until it created its own steam in the cold air, and as she warmed, Hermione stopped fighting him and became pliable in his arms.

No man living had grown to adulthood without imagining a naked woman in his shower, but Severus had never thought he would encounter that particular luxury. He made a show of washing her, the soap gliding easily over her warmed, wet skin that became slick beneath his ministrations. He returned the soap to its dish and used both hands to smooth down her breasts, feeling the nipples harden beneath his palms. She gasped aloud, igniting his urge to possess her again.

He backed her against the tiled wall, the perfectly warm water splatting their skin, his thumbs brushing slowly, repeatedly over the tips of her breasts, his eyes hungrily absorbing her passion smudged eyes and then her parted lips, ready for his tongue to invade and begin the inexorable drive towards completion.

Her chin tilted up, no passive participant in this venture, for she gazed into his eyes and her hand closed firmly about the base of his cock, fully recovered now from the brutal, icy cold shower. He drew a sharp, shocked breath through clenched teeth. Before tonight, it had been years since a woman had voluntarily...without the inducement of gold or Death Eater favours...touched his cock. And Merlin, she wasn't simply touching...she was giving him a thorough examination, as if learning his thickened, hardened contours by memory.

The decadence of this touch, so other than his own, was all but incalculable. His hands closed about the rounded globes of her breasts, gently kneading, and he wondered if, without their anchoring weight in his palms, he would be able keep his feet beneath this assault of abject pleasure.

She grasped him with one hand and with the other, she encircled the head, slowly, almost reverently, stroking downward, foreskin moving with her fingers, until the unsheathed, sensitive head of his cock was exposed to the air...to her eyes...and she was riveted, her fascination evident. His hands ceased the rhythmic compression of her breasts, all else forgotten in the wonder and novelty of this concentrated attention. The stroking hand continued down, completing the downward arc, and then rose again, ever so lightly passing over his most sensitive spot, tightening beneath the flared tip of his penis, and stroking more firmly all the way down.

Severus felt himself becoming boneless, as if all the sinew that held him up was concentrated in the appendage in Hermione's hands. The hand at the base stroked down, through the wiry black hair to his sac, and she cupped its weight, gently hefting, her palm rippling, slightly lifting, and distinguishing between the two orbs contained there, the sensation ringing through him, at once bell clear and deafening.

His hands settled on her shoulders, whether to fend her off or to pin her in place he couldn't know, but the decision was taken from him.

'Here,' she said, as if the word were a full explanation of her intention, and she guided him about with his bits as her leverage, as if that were a perfectly reasonable action to take. When her hands released him, he felt a wave of sorrow, but she was urging him downward, and that shelf where one might settle one's foot when washing a lower leg was beneath his arse, a seat in the shower. Before his stupefied gaze, she sank too, on her knees now between his legs beneath the lovely, warm, raining shower, her parted lips and questing tongue continuing the examination begun by her curious hands.

The dream-like quality of this entire night flowed over him, its course down his body followed by a shudder of pure lust. Not content with trailing the flat of her tongue up the fleshy underside of his cock, she encased his knob in the perfect warmth of her mouth, her tasting, teasing tongue sweeping all around it. He groaned aloud, every notion of dignity or self-control deserting him like vermin fleeing a sinking ship. Before he could stop himself, he threaded his fingers in her sodden mane, wordlessly entreating her not to stop.

His tempest seemed unaware of his lost poise, for she was intent upon her mission, working at it as diligently as she would any project...almost as if extra class credit might be in the offing. The thought, both amusing and distracting, touched his mind and was gone, for his world was swiftly diminishing, until only her enveloping, sucking mouth and his straining, licentious cock existed, and he repeatedly lifted his hips, seeking more and more and more.

In a paralyzing streak of triumph, he gave a final thrust, making his only contact with the back of her throat, and he came in her mouth, a gout of his fluids spasming from him, a sound he'd never heard before issuing from his throat at the same moment. He sagged against the tiled wall, his vision somewhat blurred as he strove to catch his breath. Hermione turned her face, adorned with threads of milky white fluid near her lips, into the stream of the showerhead, and hating to see her wash it away, he dragged her up onto his knee.

'Are you proud of yourself?' he asked, his voice at once rough and breathless.

She stared into his face, her eyes unnaturally wide, her pupils dilated. 'That depends,' she said softly, and the puff of her words smelled of his semen. 'Did you enjoy it?'

He kissed her none too gently, teeth scraping the soft flesh around her mouth, and his tongue plunged into a dizzying flavour of pure Hermione, overlain now by the salty residue of his contribution. Without thought, he tightened his hold on her, warring needs to dominate her and safeguard her clashing in his mind. One arm held her immobile whilst the other explored the body that now belonged to him, squeezing first one nipple then the other, drawing deep moans from her.

Had he shot some of it down her throat? Into her stomach? Why did the mere thought make him wild with conquest?

He inhaled her groan of pleasure and slipped his fingers into her cunt, finding her slick with desire.

Releasing her lips, he fingered her clitoris, watching the blurring of her focus as she avidly slid about upon his hand. 'You liked it, didn't you, little tempest? You liked having my cock in your mouth.'

Her eyes closed, her thighs parting wider, wanting more contact, more stimulation. 'Yes,' she hissed, drawing out the sibilant, her neck arching.

'I had no notion nice Gryffindor girls were so ... naughty,' he murmured, touching her teasingly, moving his fingers away each time she seemed to establish a rhythmic movement of her hips.

'Don't,' she whimpered, eyes open again, attempting to close her legs, trapping his hand where she wanted it. 'Don't tease...wasn't I nice?'

He felt his lips curve into a toothy smile, the type he seldom ever permitted himself. 'You were outstanding,' he assured her, amused by her self-satisfied smirk.

He grasped her waist, propelling her off his knee and up, until she stood behind him upon the bench seat.

'What...' She began to question him, but before she could finish, he made his intentions clear.

With another flick of his fingers, he ensured that the hot water would continue long enough for him to accomplish his purpose. Then he twisted about, parting her labia lips and burying his face in her slick cunt. She was so wet, so keen, that his labours were neither intensive nor long-lived. Had he ever been with a woman more ready at the least provocation to be coaxed to completion?

Then all thought of any female save his tempestuous Hermione was swept from his mind, and he was inundated with the aroma, the taste, the texture, and the unmistakeable sounds of his wife, so recently learned yet already a cell-deep memory he would never lose. He lapped at her vaginal opening, his index and middle fingers slipping within to slowly thrust in and out, as the bridge of his nose applied pressure to her pleasure centre. Unhurriedly, he turned his face up, until the tip of his nose stroked her clitoris, only to be replaced by his lips, softly suckling, applying the slightest pressure, followed by lashing from his stiffened tongue.

Alternating between these two manoeuvers, suckle and lick, suckle and lick, he tracked her progress by the strength of her fingers in his hair and the increasing volume of her cries. When he judged the moment to be propitious, he increased the tempo of his digital thrust and latched onto her clit, sucking it firmly between his lips as he swirled his tongue over the nubbin. She pulled on his wet hair, his scalp stinging at the assault, and mashed herself against his face, momentarily depriving him of breath. For a millisecond she stiffened, every muscle tensed, and then she gave voice to her orgasm, her body vibrating against him with the force and violence of her pleasure.

He moved from the bench, crouching beside it as he assisted her to slide down to a sitting position. She did not speak, but kissed him, humming with a certain, sated bliss, and he was overcome by the fusion of her sweetness mixed with the lingering saltiness of his own secretions, their tongues twining with lazy, leisurely afterglow.

7 July, 1998

Hermione sat alone on the boulder perch at the edge of the stream, the stormy cast of her countenance enough to warn off her friends...she was obviously in a snit about something.

She was in a snit. How dared Severus say such things to her? As if she wanted sex with Lupin? As if she wanted sex, full stop! It wasn't his business what sort of sex life she chose to have. She hadn't interfered with his sex life since they'd been married, and she was quite certain he'd had one, unlike her.

The image in her mind, of Severus holding Septima Vector...of him kissing her, his black hair blending with Vector's dark brown...gave Hermione a pain-like pang in her stomach. She'd had suspicions of Vector, had been ridiculously jealous of her friendship with Severus, but thinking of them together now, after the intimacy they'd shared in this house, made her feel almost ill enough to throw up.

She fiddled with her plaited hair, a bit lost without her bag. What if he looked inside it? Saw her book? Decided to remove it and look through the pages?

What if he found out she was leaving England before she took the opportunity to tell him?

She huffed angrily. Let him snoop around and find out she was leaving him. She didn't care.

'A Sickle for your thoughts.'

The velvety tones were close...how did he move so silently, sneaking up on her like some sort of spy or something?

Well, never mind that.

She turned a stony glare on him, wanting to strike out, to wound as she had been wounded.

He continued, his tone conciliatory. 'What, you won't part with them for a Sickle? When the going rate is only a Knut? It's a bargain.'

He jingled the money in his pocket, as if he actually planned to hand her a coin.

'Better save your gold,' she said tightly. 'You may need it to entertain your women.'

His flaring black eyebrows drew together in a frown.

'What are you babbling about?' he inquired quietly.

Her chest swelled with the indignant breath she drew. 'I do not babble!' she informed him in an angry under voice, aware that eyes were watching them, their housemates bored and looking for any distraction.

'Not as a general rule,' he agreed with her. 'But this talk of my so-called "women" is inane.'

She pushed her face pugnaciously close to his. 'No more so than your babbling about Lupin and me. As if I'd ever!'

His eyes narrowed, and she could almost hear him flipping through the information available to him, determining what weight he would give to her words. After mere seconds, his thin, finely formed lips twisted in a grimace.

'Touché,' he muttered, staring at the ground, as if his black boots were sublimely interesting.

The capitulation took the wind from her sails. When had Severus Snape ever backed down from an argument? When had he ever implied that he took her opinion about anything into account?

'We've been ... close, these last days,' he said, sounding as if the words would barely make it through his lips, so grudgingly were they given. 'I do not ... care to see you in close conversation with any man who is not me.'

Realisation dawned on her like sunshine breaking through stormy skies. He was ... explaining, if not apologising. Had he been jealous? Of her? Oh my God, had they just had their first lovers' quarrel? The very notion flooded her with longing and delight and a renewed wish to lure him upstairs.

'I can't bear to think of you with another woman,' she confided softly, touched by the swift glance he darted at her face, as if to convince himself that she was speaking the truth.

He cleared his throat, plainly drawing a mental line through that conversation, and he began another.

'Perhaps you'd have the time to assist me with an ... experiment,' he said, no longer staring down, but looking out over the gurgling brook and watching her from the corner of his eye.

She gazed at him with pleasure, the sickening jealousy of mere moments before washed away by the delight of having him close, of having him flirting with her, giving her his undivided attention. She drank in the well-known hawkish profile, the breadth of his shoulders, the tightly cinched belt at his waist.

She was flooded with the sudden onset of mind-numbing, debilitating desire to have him inside of her.

'I am ... entirely at your disposal, Professor,' she murmured, making no attempt to conceal from him her meaning...or her emotions.

His hands closed about her waist, lifting her to the ground, and she clung to his upper arms, loving the feel of his biceps beneath her fingers.

'I need you in our shower...the one on the landing, outside our door,' he said quietly, his hands lingering on her a moment too long.

Hermione pivoted away from him, throwing a deliberately provocative look over her shoulder at him.

'I feel positively dirty,' she said, and went hurriedly toward the house...until she remembered to slow down and swing her hips invitingly.

She knew instinctively that a man follows more attentively if there's a promise implied with ever sway of a jeans-clad bottom.

This week's song is a little known version of This Guy's in Love with You, by Harry Connick Jr.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4mRfxLItY