Eros

Chapter 2: Eros

"I keep expecting to see Ron here," Harry whispered to Ginny. "Saying something horribly inappropriate, like 'I can't believe she's marrying that git. Mental, that one.'"

"Hush. Her parents are coming," Ginny whispered back, grinning. "I know. Me too."

The Grangers, looking subdued, took their place at beside an even more subdued-looking Molly Weasley. A fiercely approving Minerva McGonagall officiated. The bride looked serene; the groom looked pale, nervous, and almost too young. The mountaintop ceremony was brief: vows, rings, a kiss, and then it was over.

Ginny was the first to kiss the bride, flinging her arms around Hermione and saying, "I'm so happy for you. You look good. Glowing. You're you again, Hermione. Welcome back."

Molly hugged the bride tight, crying and stroking her hair. "Hermione, if you need anything – anything – the answer is yes. You'll always be my daughter. Our home is always your home. Oh! Kingsley sent a bottle of Ogden's Old Finest ahead to the inn and says to take your time until you're ready to come back; the office isn't going anywhere..."

Hermione heard Snape inhale at the mention of Kingsley and slipped her hand into his, leaning trustingly against his arm.

Harry hugged Hermione with one arm and said to Snape, "I wish you all the happiness, sir." He looked like he wanted to say more, but at the sight of Snape's compressed lips, he backed away, amused.

Hermione waited. Her parents hung back, wary of their child since the war.

"Mama," she said softly, and her mother cried out and held her widowed daughter, and Hermione said, "Mama, I love him." Her father hugged Hermione next and shook hands with Snape, and that was it. Professor McGonagall sent up a shower of sparks over the couple; they turned together and Apparated to their honeymoon.

Hermione's father blew out his breath. Her mother turned to McGonagall and said, "He looks so... sepulchral. Like someone who never sees the sun. Hermione's really safe with him?"

"There's none safer," said McGonagall tartly. "I've known Severus Snape since he was a lad of eleven. It's a good match. There's not many I would say could be a good match for either of them, powerful as they are."

"He does look like death," said Hermione's father, musing.

"Actually, it's love," said Harry. "He studies love, now that he's not teaching. As an Unspeakable. That's what he does. In a room that's kept locked at all times."

Hermione's mother asked, "He's not anything dangerous, then? Not like you – or like Ron – running the risk of getting killed every day? He's not anything to do with Dark wizards, is he?"

As the other three Gryffindors suddenly avoided each other's gazes, Ginny said briskly, "Oh, it'll do Hermione good to be with someone scarier than she is, for once. Why are we all standing around here? Doesn't anyone else want tea? I'm starving."

~~sshg~~sshg~~

The lovers Apparated directly into their room at the inn. Hermione slipped Snape's wedding robes off his shoulders and spelled them into the wardrobe, then removed her wedding finery. He watched Hermione's nakedness emerge from her clothing a layer at a time, his eyes riveted, his face open and young, his mouth slightly parted. She looked younger when naked, curved through the belly and hip... and there were her bare breasts, full on her slender frame. He stood immobile by the bed, heart beating rapidly. It seemed impossible that this beautiful naked woman was approaching him and kissing him with her warm mouth. They had kissed many times, yet it still felt beyond belief that another person could want to do such a thing with him.

He gave a hoarse cry, unable to bear the arousal, and gripped her head hard as he returned her kisses. His hands swept over her naked back, slipped over the divine smoothness of her buttocks, plunged back into her hair as she pressed her breasts against him. Oh. Oh. That softness. That roundedness. Not an accident this time, not something he must pretend not to notice, but a woman's breasts deliberately offered for him to feel. He swept his hands up her sides to grasp her breasts, pulled away from the kiss to hold one in each palm and look, sweep his thumbs over her nipples – oh, that was good – and back again. He let all his fingertips reverently touch that enticing flesh that felt so different from anything else, impossible to resist. With a moan, he bent his head to each nipple, kissing, licking, then sucking with deep pulls on each breast until she cried out, too.

"I want to see you," she breathed, unbuttoning his shirt. "Let me look at you." He stripped off his shirt, hesitated nervously before removing his trousers and socks, then gasped as she fell to her knees before his crotch.

She rubbed her palm over his erection through the cloth of his pants, then her cheek, then her lips. Snape rested his hands lightly in her hair as he threw his head back almost in agony, his knees starting to shake. She peeled away his pants where the fabric was translucent with pre-come. She stretched the elastic carefully with her fingers and eased the pants down over his hips, freeing his cock. He was so hard that the flesh was shining. She took a deep long look, bringing her face close, touching his balls with one hand, breathing in his humid scent and exhaling audibly. Deliberately, she took his cock into her mouth and gave it a firm sucking lick.

"Ohhh. Hermione. I must lie down. My legs won't hold me up anymore."

"All right, love," she said, looking at Snape's wild, aroused face, his lips such a dark pink they looked unreal, his eyes dazed. He tugged the covers off the bed and pulled her down with him, groaning as her naked torso pressed against his side, gasping as her breasts brushed his bare chest.

"Let me look at you," she said, sweeping her hands over his chest, fondling his nipples. She settled with one hand wrapped loosely around his cock to stroke it while she looked.

His body was unblemished, completely pure along all its lengths: the white skin over his clavicle and shoulders, the cut of his hips, the loose slope of his belly under the cock she was stroking, the lean sweep of his thighs and calves and feet. Not a blemish, not a scar on him, just the Dark Mark faded like old newsprint on one arm, flawless everywhere else.

"You're beautiful," she murmured. "You're so beautiful. Let me lie on you. Is that all right?"

He nodded and she rose to straddle him, centering herself over his cock. She lowered her body over his, his erection nestled against her belly. She swept his hair out of his face with one hand, luxuriating in her lover's gaze and reading him as deeply as she could.

Then it happened. Like a shutter closing. At a level that felt like a halfway depth in his gaze, neither at the surface nor all the way down. Something happened in his eyes. Snape froze under her body and squeezed his eyes shut in anguish, his brows furrowing as he fought to resist the feeling. Hermione felt his muscles go rigid and wrong under her, and she sat up beside him immediately, terrified.

"Tell me what's happening, if you can."

Snape choked out, "I don't know what's happening. Stay close to me. Don't leave."

Hermione stared at him, heart hammering. His eyes were tracking rapidly back and forth behind his shut lids. His focus was so internal that the air seemed to chill between them.

"Okay. Okay." Snape opened his eyes and took in Hermione, hovering too near in her alarm. His expression was remote and fearful.

"I require a moment alone," he said brusquely. "I will let you know when I have finished."

There was nowhere else to go but the washroom. Hermione shut the door and used the loo, wiping away the heavy lubrication between her legs. She flushed, washed her hands, lowered the lid and sat on it, her mind aimlessly racing. She was just about to Summon a book when Snape knocked.

"Please..." he said, his face pale. Hermione took his hand, and he led her back to sit on the bed.

"I want to help," she said.

"Look away from me for a moment," he instructed.

Hermione broke eye contact and turned her head. At his word, she faced him again. He nodded once to himself, lips turned down.

"I'm going to quench the lights now," he said. "Just for a moment. Nox."

Darkness settled over their eyes and seeped into their lungs, violet-black, portentous. Hermione felt Snape's warmth beside her. She sensed his other hand reaching for her, an arm around her, a kiss on her shoulder.

"Lumos."

The daylight streamed back into the room, and Hermione shut her eyes against it.

"As I suspected. I can't stop Occluding, Hermione," he said, and Hermione paled with horror and understanding. "It's automatic at this point. It seems that sex – no, love – exposes me. When you look at me, I'm exposed before you. Instinct kicks in. I defend myself against the exposure, even though I welcome it. I tried to touch you anyway, to see if that would help. But it felt wrong – sick – to touch you while shutting you out."

"But when it's dark?"

"I think... there is a chance I can fight the Occlumency then," he said. Hermione had never heard him sound so shaky. "I can relax my guard and override that reflex. It helps when you're looking away from me, but I'm still on guard. I need darkness, Hermione. The dark is where I feel safe. I don't know if it will be every time, or just my first. I don't know. But tonight, can you wait until nighttime, if you still want me? Can you take me as a lover and not look at me?"

Snape shook his head. "I am sorry, Hermione. This is hardly the wedding night I wished for you."

Hermione cried out and put her arms around him. Of course he'd be afraid he'd disappointed her.

"Yes, let's wait until dark, love," she said. "You will let me hold you now, won't you? Will you help me dress for dinner?"

Dinner was good. Dinner was slow. Hermione held Snape's hand on the table the entire time.

They were still holding hands when they reentered their room, closed the door behind them, and turned to look at each other. Snape's eyes were dark with love as his brilliant wife smiled at him warmly, turned him around, and placed both arms around him from behind, enveloping him.

"Salvio Hexia. Protego Totalum," she chanted softly. A golden glow arose from between them and hummed into visibility, resolved into lines of golden-hued energy that projected and criss-crossed each other to form a protective dome over the lovers. Even after a lifetime in magic, the beauty of love gold still silenced Snape with awe. He turned to shake his head admiringly at Hermione. Yes, this would help him feel safe. In the kindness of this protective light, his joy in her unfurled, rose in his eyes, uplifted his lips and his countenance.

"Nox," he said, his voice going dark. The dome of threaded light glowed brighter, then subsided, although the feeling of protection remained.

"Nox," Hermione agreed softly, and they were cushioned by the darkness and its warmth.

Snape turned in Hermione's arms so they were facing each other, but in the darkness, there was nothing to see – it was all feeling, and breathing, and tasting. Urgent hands cupped either side of Hermione's face. The lovers laughed softly as they kissed, hungry sucking kisses with tongues that were almost obscene in their frank tasting of each other's mouths.

"Bed," he suggested, and she turned to pull down the covers as he moved to stand behind her, holding her hips and rubbing his erection against her buttocks. She laughed, turned back to him, kissed him, gave his cock a squeeze. She was about to undo his trousers when he growled playfully, spelled off all their clothes and seized her. He guided her onto the bed and climbed on top of her, kissing her breasts, her neck, her hair. They could feel the shapes of smiles on each other's lips as they kissed again. Then Snape moved down on the bed to part her knees with his hands and settle his face between her legs, learning his lover with his hands and his mouth.

"Yes, there," she whispered. "That's where your tongue goes, or your hand. That's where you lick to make me come." He worked his tongue over her clit as she guided him, licking her steadily, and she could feel his tongue and lips shaking with the intensity of his hunger. "And there. That's where your cock goes. Yes, put your fingers inside, feel what's there waiting for your cock. You can do that harder. Harder. Ah. Fast or slow; either way is good."

With a final kiss on her clit, Snape moved back up her body with a triumphant laugh. She gasped to feel the smoothness of his cock touch her body and lifted her hips as Snape found her entrance and guided his cock in with his hand, moaning. He lay his head on her and rested there for a moment, cock all the way in her, just breathing. He took a few experimental thrusts, almost whimpering, and Hermione stilled him with a hand so she could shift her hips and raise her knees. He sucked in his breath at the change in angle that opened her further to his cock. Hermione settled her hands lightly on his hips, and he began to thrust.

"It's all right to go faster," she whispered. "You can go harder. Yes, like that. You can pound into me as hard as you want. Ah – ah – that feels so good..." Hermione fell silent with the beauty of it, a man pounding with almost unbearable thrill into another for the first time, a man learning the world of fucking and feeling the knowledge change all of his nerves. His cry as he climaxed was unguarded and raw, an edge of pain to his voice, an almost panicked protest at the relentlessness of his pleasure. She held her hands loosely over his sweaty back and felt his heart pounding against her as he quieted.

When his breath returned, Hermione shifted beneath him and he experienced, for the first time, the tiny poignant loss of pulling out: both partners gave a little cry as he withdrew, his cock hot and fragrant. He lay down beside Hermione and asked awkwardly, "Did you...?"

"Here. I'll show you," she said, placing his hand over her own as she slipped her middle finger onto her clit. He drew in his breath as she showed him her pressure and her rhythm.

"Do you want to try?" she asked, but he said no, he just wanted to feel and learn this time.

"It makes me come harder if you suck one of my nipples while we do this," she murmured, guiding his head to her breast. So it was with his tongue on her nipple and his middle finger thrust within her that Snape first knew a woman's orgasm, heard the climb of her gasps, felt her walls grow thick and plush with her climax.

"Do you feel that?" she asked, holding his hand down where it was. "Did you feel how I contracted when I came? It feels really good for me to start fucking right after I come."

"I'll be sure to remember," said Snape, pressing slow kisses on her face.

Hermione moaned at that, an extravagant sound.

"Just the sound of your voice, making promises," she breathed. "It makes me want you all over again. I could take you again right now."

His kisses stilled; he said nothing for a while, but his arms tightened around her.

"No one's ever said anything like that to me before," he said, quietly. "Obviously, since I've never slept with anybody until now. But I don't think anyone's ever even thought of me that way."

"Never? I find that hard to believe."

"Not that I'm aware of, no. Certainly not when I was young. And when I was spying, I couldn't want this. It would have weakened me. The work was too difficult."

"Yes, I remember. I was there for some of it. You did it well."

"Averse as I am to lugubrious self-pity... nobody has ever wanted me until you."

"I'm glad for it," she said fiercely.

"Glad? Why?" he spat. "It's hardly something to celebrate."

"Because you are pure," she said, emphasizing every word. He felt her sit up in bed, imagined her fervent face as she made her point. "Nobody ever exploited your sexuality. Dumbledore didn't need it of you. Voldemort didn't need it of you. They didn't twist it. They didn't use it. They left it alone. You came to me freely, love. You came to me a virgin. All of this was still yours and now it's ours. Nobody else has ever seen this part of you."

All the darkness seemed to fill with his thoughts, swirling silvery through the air as though the room were a Pensieve.

"I was never attractive," he said, "and then I became middle-aged. I didn't think this would ever be for me."

"It's dark right now, love," she said. "We're safe, and I want you, over and over again, and you are beautiful."

"I feel beautiful with you, in the dark," he whispered as he pulled her back down and buried his face in her hair.

"Marry me," she said.

She felt his smile. "It seems I already have," he replied. "I never expected a second chance to do something like this. I've been given so many second chances, and they didn't feel like gifts. Every single one of them was for something grim. Meant for someone else. Or to atone for the sick, wrong things I'd done. I never had a second chance that was just for me before."

Hermione went still.

"This isn't a second chance," she said. "You're still on your first. This is something you've never done wrong. You're still whole. You're still new."

~~sshg~~sshg~~

They settled Snape's things into Hermione's house after the honeymoon. He owned little except for his books, which they spelled directly into Hermione's library, complete with the shelves that already held them. He didn't even need to move his brewing equipment; he kept all of those things at his office.

He resumed work immediately. Hermione wanted to avoid the Ministry until she was sure the tabloids would leave them alone, but she worked for the department from home. They settled into a good pattern: calm by day, intimate at night. They had not tried to make love in daytime after that first time. It all felt too new. Decades of terror had imprinted Snape with Occlumency. It would be folly to fight it with a fledgling bond. They would need night after night of lovemaking to forge love magic strong enough, months or even years.

It was better for Snape to restrict the sex to the dark, anyway. Sex damaged him enough as it was. The chaotic flooding rush of emotions undid him, hours and days after the act itself ended, collapsing the internal architecture that had been his life's work. He had become prone to unpredictable flashes of rage lately, triggered by nothing that he could identify. Memories from thirty or forty years ago surfaced vividly and refused to release him for hours. He spent one perplexing morning in his office doing nothing but weeping.

Sex dazed him. It seemed incredible that anything could be so new, all the things Hermione did because she thought he might like them. She dragged her erect nipples gently over the skin on his neck, his ear, his closed eyelids, his cheeks. She introduced him to the broad flat lick of fellatio. He learned the thrill of a woman drinking down his semen. When he kissed her after, he learned his own taste. He learned how fellatio felt different when her finger massaged his prostate, learned the strangely addictive nervy feel of a prostate orgasm, learned that the ejaculate tasted acrid, sharper – tasted the way prostate sex felt. It was different with a partner. His decades of routine masturbation seemed so flat now, nothing at all like the succulent fervor of partnered sex.

Suction slew him the hardest. All his life he had felt the gnawing greed of want. Now, when he desired his wife, he could take her into his mouth. He could take deep pulls on her nipples, working his tongue around the edge of the areolas and into her flesh. He could suck between her legs, licking over her clit in great arcs. With suction, he knew himself stronger: I am. I want. I. I exist.

How was it that ordinary men went about their lives by day when this sacred magnificence was performed on their bodies by night? Would they not look different, sanctified, if they had known these acts even once? Did they all have sex? Was it possible? Not just despicably virile specimens like Kingsley, who was undoubtedly hung like a demigod, but the unremarkable ones, the mousy ones? Did Arthur Weasley...? Had Neville Longbottom...? Bill Weasley with his wife Fleur, of course; but the nondescript men he saw daily at the Ministry but barely noticed, men like Reg Cattermole, who had married Mary Macdonald? Did these mysteries take place in their marriage bed as well? Had everybody known but him, all along?

There were nights when Nox didn't work. All the protective spells, all the darkness they could conjure were sometimes not enough to fight the reflexive Occlumency that slammed shut his mind and refused to recognize his wife. Sometimes, when that happened, he would put on his wire-framed spectacles, Hermione would cast Lumos, and they would sit up in bed and read together. That was good, too.

Other nights, when Nox worked beautifully, the two of them made a game of casting the golden dome together, not for its inviolable protection but for its beauty. They would maintain the dome at the thread stage and each conjure more love strands with their wands, adding them decoratively to the dome's thickness.

He couldn't tell her the whole truth. His love was growing, but so was a new dread, growing faster, even, than his resistance to Occlumency. The more he loved her, the thicker his defenses grew. He worried that the next time his Occlumency slammed him shut, he wouldn't be able to fight his mind back open. Yet he didn't tell her his fear. He couldn't stop longing to make love to her in daylight. He couldn't stop wanting to look at her.

~~sshg~~sshg~~

It wasn't anyone's fault when it happened. There was no reason for them to think it would. They always woke at odd hours to read in bed by wandlight. If one of them was tired, they'd just sleep through it. This was normal for them.

Snape's dreams must have been erotic; his erection was rampant underneath the bedclothes, and his eyes flicked back and forth beneath his closed lids. Hermione glimpsed his hard-on when she came to the end of a page and simply paused to look at him. That was all. She barely ever got to see her husband with an erection; they were so careful to compartmentalize their sex life away from the light. She just ran her eyes up and down the length of it and thought about touching it. If she decided to wake him up and touch him, or lie next to him and masturbate, she'd be sure to cast Nox first, as was their habit. She looked at his sleeping face, lashes long against his pale, dry skin. While she was looking, he opened his eyes, still dreaming, and smiled at her. He reached for her breast with one hand and touched himself with the other before he jerked fully awake and stared at her in panic.

"Nox!" she screamed, but it was too late.

Light blazed through the room as Snape's wand leapt to his hand, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a feral snarl, the blaze in his eyes physically pushing Hermione back against the headboard. She saw barrier after barrier slamming down in his eyes, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, Snape's rage exploding around the room like thunderbolts.

The screaming was coming from him.

"I told you not to look at me," he screamed madly. "I told you. I told you." He held his head between clawed hands as he howled. Hermione felt his words as clearly as if he had spoken them: I can't stop this. His screams were unvoiced now, but they still tore through her.

"Stay where you are, Hermione," he commanded. "Don't try to help." He shot out an immobilizing spell, but she had already erected a powerful shield around herself that deflected any magic, even the protective spell he cast at her. From within that invisible shield, she stared at him, terrified.

The window of the bedroom kept shattering and reassembling. Wind whipped into the room from the darkness outside. Jagged lights shot everywhere, shards of hot-white and gold. Snape roared with frustration as he commanded them away with imperious sweeps of his arm, pushed them away from the bed, screaming, "No. No. No."

By force of will, he got the shattering to cease. A glimmering mound of dangerous glass shards remained, contained by a tremulous dome of golden energy.

Five seconds passed. Ten. Both of them fixed their eyes on the solidifying glow of the dome until Snape's breathing evened out. The gold light dimmed and dissipated.

Snape waved his wand carefully. The glass rose in a subdued sheet and re-formed into a window.

He walked over to the window, ran his hand over the glass, rapped it with his knuckles. It was fine. He leaned against the wall next to the window and slid down the floor, turning a weary gaze to his wife.

"Finite," Hermione whispered, and the air pressure changed as her shields went down.

"I won't be able to unlock my Occlumency this time," he said dully. "It's a more intractable variant."

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I have contained my emotions; that is the limit of my powers, I'm afraid," he continued, as neutrally as though reporting to work. "I was uncertain I could achieve even that much. I trust you sustained no damage."

"Not a scratch, love," Hermione whispered, tears starting in her eyes.

He shut his eyes grimly at the word "love."

"I am not a coward, and I will never flee again," he muttered, his eyes still shut. "But I require privacy. Please leave me for a while."

"No," she whispered again. "I can't leave you."

Snape glared at Hermione with such hostility that she instinctively threw up her shields again. She studied his face for a long moment. She took a deep breath and lowered her shields with deliberate care.

"There's nobody here but us," she said quietly. "You have nobody to protect but yourself. I can protect myself. I'm not going anywhere. I won't interfere; I won't try to help. But I'm not leaving you here alone."

His snarling expression didn't soften. He flicked his gaze from the bedroom door to the closed window to the frightened witch sitting on the bed, knees pulled up to her chest, face white.

"I'm going to the sitting room," he announced tersely. He walked out and closed the door behind him, shutting his wife inside.

~~sshg~~sshg~~

Hermione forced herself to endure an hour of waiting before she went to him.

The couch was too short for him; his legs were tucked awkwardly beneath a blanket, his feet protruding.

"Let me fix that for you," Hermione said softly. She enlarged the couch to fit him.

He groaned, sat up, and Summoned himself a glass of water. Hermione tentatively reached out to touch his shoulder. He suppressed a grimace but tolerated the caress.

"Will you come back to our bed?" she asked.

"No," he snarled, then shut his eyes and made a visible attempt at civility. "Not as long as I'm fighting this."

"You'll come back to me after?" she asked, her voice small.

He sighed. "I don't know. I don't know what to do about this. I hardly know where to start." She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. "There's no literature on this. None. There's nobody I can ask."

"There's got to be!" she started, and he cut her off again.

"The research we have on the subject was written by me, Hermione. Nobody else has studied this aspect of Occlumency to such a degree."

That shut her up.

"Time and space matter in magic," she quoted, crying softly. "I don't know if I can bear not having you in our bed. I don't want you to leave."

"They do matter," he said. "And I don't want to leave. That's why I can't be in our bed. I won't leave you, Hermione. Or our home. But I will need to be alone and apart from you to fight this. I can't fight this and fight the urge to shut you out, as well."

"You... you shouldn't have to sleep on the couch," she whispered, heartbroken. "Let me clean out the guest room for you, at least."

He gave her a skeptical look. "I do know what's in the other bedroom, Hermione." She didn't answer.

"It's almost morning. I may as well go to work," he said finally. He groaned, weary of the drama, and slumped back against the couch. Hermione flopped down beside him.

"I bet this never happened with Weasley," Snape said mock-resentfully.

"Yeah, well, he's dead, isn't he, so a lot of good that does when I want to get laid," Hermione mock-snapped in reply.

"He was, however, normal. I'm sorry your current model is rather defective."

"You've no idea how much work it took for me to live with a normal man. Honestly, you're loads easier for me to handle."

"So, Ms. Know-It-All Granger. Will you live up to your publicity? Think up a clever way to fix me," he said.

"I had to marry the one Occlumens who could fool the self-proclaimed world's greatest Legilimens," she grumbled. "That loser."

"Retired Occlumens," he corrected. "Trying to be retired."

"Retired," she agreed. "Oh, love. You've worked so hard. You're allowed a bit of trauma."

He snorted mirthlessly, and she looked at him to see if he had softened toward her. But his gaze was so impersonal that she shuddered and looked away again.