Chapter Six: Athame and Bolline

Thank you for your amazing comments - they are like Valentine's Day Candy - definitely moreish! Just a pause in the action to remind you that these characters are the property of JKR and Warner Brothers, and that I make no money from this fic.

The High Priest has a terribly important responsibility in Beltane. He is the catalyst to everything that has to happen in order to have a successful rite. Without him, the High Priestess cannot become the goddess, and if this doesn't happen, the High Priest cannot become the goddess' consort, and the entire Beltane ritual will fail like a failing thing. I know it's a little confusing; it's hard for me to get my head around sometimes, and I'm an authority on the subject. Suffice to say that a wizard is a wizard and a witch is a witch. I don't know how to put it any simpler.

~Chapter Six: Drawing Down The Sun, or Preparing the High Priest – The Witchhiker's Guide to Beltane

~o0o~

Sky's Father, Wise Father, Sun Father, Song Father!

~Beltane Ritual

She was barefoot; her hair was bound high on her head, but several curly tendrils escaped the chignon, falling about her face like honey-coloured streamers. She was clad in a simple, low-cut white cotton robe, its long sleeves tightly fitted against her wrists. She looked like a lovely, ghostly apparition, called forth from the mist.

She crossed the clearing, and walked up onto the platform to join him. According to the Witchhiker's Guide, reacting to this ritual with carnal lust was not only acceptable but expected, but Severus still felt shame roiling in his belly. It was bad enough feeling like a shabby pervert; it was another thing entirely to prove himself one. He promised his poor cowed prick all sorts of masturbatory workouts later if it would just maintain a little self-control now.

Hermione favoured him with a tense smile, her expression closed, but he could see the determination in her eyes. Nervous she may be, but she wasn't going to do anything to spoil the moment. "I have come to purify," she said, her voice soft.

"I accept your tribute," he answered, thankful he could still think straight enough to remember the words of the ceremony. "May I be cleansed in soul as well as body."

In the semi-gloom, their eyes met, and in that heartbeat between them, Severus saw something in her face he'd never seen in a woman. It looked like it carried a heavy weight, as if it had been borne of the humid air and the powerful kiss they'd shared. For a moment, she rewarded him with a chance to Legilimise into her mind, and he was almost far enough gone to accept it. Then, watching her prepare his bath he thought he must have imagined it.

She first rinsed his hair, then drizzled shampoo over his head and began to scrub. Her strong, slender fingers slid through his mess of hair, as he gasped as her short nails raked over his scalp, hitting every nerve centre on his head.

"Too rough?" she asked.

"Not at all," he rumbled sleepily, too relaxed and blissed out for subterfuge."With the exception of my mother, you're only one of two people who has ever washed my hair, other than myself."

Her wonderful ministrations ceased. "I see," she said, in a soft voice. He could actually feel her drawing inward, like a mussel retreating into its shell. He was thrown out of the dreamlike state of the ritual, leaving him feeling alone and strangely bereft.

He frowned, and looked up at her. She was upside down in his vision, and the look on her face was anything but relaxed. If anything, she seemed disappointed. Uncertainly, he added, "Right after the war, Poppy used to wash it for me while I was recovering. Raising my arm was too painful on that side, and I learned the hard way it's nearly impossible to wash my hair one-handed."

Hermione started, and a smile grew on her face. "Madam Pomfrey? I thought you were referring to-" she closed her mouth abruptly, then started to wash his hair again, her movements gentle and relaxing again.

"Referring to whom?"

"Doesn't matter." She resumed her delicious administrations, and it might have been his imagination, but it seemed her hands were moving slower, more deliberately, with greater care and attention. In any rate, by the time she was done, he was purring and too zoned out to ponder her odd behaviour. Knowing Granger, she would probably tell him anyway.

All too soon she was rinsing the soap from his hair. He idly wondered if he could somehow convince her to do this on a regular basis; it really was a marvelous feeling, lying back and having someone scour his scalp like that.

Once his hair was rinsed to her satisfaction, she knelt by the side of the tub, her expression neutral, but her face set in lines of intent. He was suddenly nervous in anticipation of what was to come, and judging from her stiff posture and refusal to meet his gaze, she felt the same.

Finally, she looked at him, her pretty face flushed. In a breathless, low voice, she intoned. "May this cleanse your heart and soul, and make you worthy of the goddess."

Slowly she untied the ribbon at the neck of her robe, and removed the outer robe, revealing a sheer, sleeveless shift underneath. Severus swallowed as he saw the dark outline of her nipples through the fabric. They were very hard, and Severus knew then and there no matter what entreaties he gave to his nether regions, they simply weren't going to be up to the task of obeying him, not with Granger's hard nipples and soft hands inches away.

Hermione waited for his nod of assent, then plucked a small flannel from a stack by the tub. She submerged it in the water, and Severus held his breath as she stroked his face with the warm, wet cloth. "Blessed be thy Mind, that learns of the ancient ways," she said, startling him with the words of the ritual. He'd forgotten that they were here for a reason. The soft cloth slid over his forehead to his closed eyes. "Blessed be thine eyes that have seen this day."

The cloth moved across his jaw, then to his lips. "Blessed be thy lips, that speak our rites and keep our secrets." In spite of himself, he sighed as her fingers slid over his neck and down to his collarbone.

He opened his eyes again, and saw that her nipples were very close to his face. He willed his body, begged his body not to respond. It no longer cared for his futile threats; it was how he was supposed to react. The goddess was ministering unto the god; they were one and the same, light and dark, yin and yang.

A warm breeze of magic fluttered between them, and it spoke to him. There is no wrong in this place that will be done... all that is done is good and meet unto the moment... With a jolt of realisation he accepted that the magic would not allow anything to happen that was not meant to happen. It was a marvelous freedom; he had only to follow the magic they created.

It was at that moment that Severus knew he was not Severus anymore; he was the High Priest, the living embodiment of the god. He looked at Hermione, bewildered.

She smiled. "I wish you could see yourself," she breathed.

"And you," he said, aching to touch her again. "I feel so..." he closed his eyes, as his strength waned.

"It's alright, Severus," Hermione replied reassuringly, her hand on his bare shoulder. "Let's move on. I think you'll become overwhelmed with it, otherwise."

As she washed his chest and arms, he involuntarily flinched as her hands moved over the faded smudge of his Dark Mark. She gently whispered, "Does it hurt?"

Well, that was a question, wasn't it? That damned tattoo had caused him more pain than he was willing to ever admit to anyone. It had been used in a dozen hideous ways to punish, to reward, to demean, to subjugate, and he hated it as much as the man who'd placed it on his skin. "No," he said, his voice a whisper. "It's just... I'm ashamed of it."

Giving him a look of great tenderness and compassion, took his hand. "You're a good man who made a wrong choice as a very young boy, Severus. You've got to learn to cut yourself some slack."

Severus laughed in spite of himself. "You know, that might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

She rubbed his shoulder, a friendly, caring gesture. "Then I need to work on that."

Leaving him to ponder that cryptic statement, Hermione stood, and indicated for him to follow. Slowly, Severus obeyed, rising from the water on unsteady legs. She started with his lower body, washing his long, pale thighs and calves. As her hands moved slowly over his limbs, she murmured, "Blessed be thy knees, that shall kneel in supplication before me." To wash his feet, she made him lift them out of the water and balance them on her knee. She felt surprisingly, comfortably solid. "Blessed be thy feet, that have brought thee to my Sacred Altar," she breathed, as her robe grew wet and more transparent.

Her hands moved across the taut flesh of his buttocks, and he could not prevent his body from responding. He remembered what the magic had told him; nothing could happen that was not supposed to happen. "Blessed be thy phallus, for without which I could not receive life," Hermione whispered hoarsely, as her soapy hands closed over his raging erection.

She licked her lips, all the while staring at his straining, soap-slicked cock. Oh dear gods and goddesses. I am a dead man, he thought, moaning helplessly. She cupped his balls and stroked him. Looking down at her, Severus ground out, "Hermione, please..."

"It's alright, Severus," she replied, her eyes large and dark, entranced. Slowly she stroked his shaft with her slippery hands, and when he reached for her, she pushed his hands away. "Let me."

"Oh, gods," he moaned, giving in to her lavish ministrations, pumping his hips until he was fucking her hand, and nothing was going to stop this...

He came spectacularly; white ropes of semen sprayed from his twitching cock, spilling on the ground, as Hermione milked him with shocking expertise. Panting, moaning, Severus shuddered as his spent cock slipped from her fingers. He gaped stupidly at her, too stunned to try to make sense. "Why did you, I mean... what... why...." He gave up, and managed to collapse back into the tub without doing himself damage.

She was looking at him with large, bewildered eyes. "I'm sorry. I just... it's like I couldn't help myself." She licked her lips again, and Severus was tempted to pull her into the tub with him. "Did I... did I hurt you?"

"Wha...?" he gasped, too muzzy to be obtuse. "Granger, you just jerked me off. Let's just say I'm not complaining, but I wasn't exactly expecting a happy ending, either. I don't know what's going on in that brain of yours, but I can't decide whether to run away screaming or try and talk you into doing it again."

For a moment, the both looked away, too shocked to face one another. Finally, he forced out the words he'd wanted to say the minute he stopped coming all over the Room of Requirement. "Did you enjoy it? Doing that to me, I mean?"

She glanced at him warily, as if afraid of giving the wrong answer. She swallowed, hard, then nodded, still not quite meeting his eyes. "I loved it. It was the most erotic thing I've ever done."

"Well, that makes two of us," he muttered. Another slow, agonising moment passed.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice, her face crimson. "I mean," she added, and rolled her eyes, "I feel I took horrible advantage of you."

Severus stared at her, marveling. He was quite sure in that moment he was never going to truly understand how a witch's mind worked. "I accept your apology, if that will make you feel any better," he said, putting just the right amount of Slytherin martyrdom in his tone. "However, if you feel you must atone, you're more than welcome to try."

Several heartbeats later, he saw her lips curl into a smile. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

"From my vantage point, very much so, Hermione."

She laughed, and the warmth of her smile seemed to raise the temperature of the clearing. "The magic of the ritual doesn't allow anything to happen that is not meant to happen, Hermione. We haven't... youhaven't done anything to be ashamed or in fear of."

"I know," she answered, her eyes soft. "Neither of us have." With great ceremony, she stretched her arms outward to him. "Blessed be thy body, formed in strength and power," she intoned, her voice rich. She smiled at him. "Now rise. You are bathed in the power of the goddess."

Relieved that they were back on even keel, Severus patted her hand, and prepared to rise from the tub. He stood too quickly, and the combination of heat and alcohol and post-coital angst went straight to his head, causing him to sway alarmingly. Hermione reached out to steady him, but he pitched forward, his arms windmilling as he tried to catch his balance. "Oh shit!" he yelped, as his foot caught the edge of tub, and he went lurching toward Hermione as if she'd Accio'd him.

She tried to halt his forward motion, but his foot slipped and together they crashed down onto the forest floor, arse over teakettle. Severus grunted as the impact jarred every bone of his body. Good thing Granger had been there to cushion his fall, really...

He had barely got his breath when he realised he was suffocating the poor girl beneath him; he was a dead weight, and her scrabbling hands frantically pushing at his slippery flesh added nothing to the mood, except to make him feel even more idiotic than he'd felt languishing in the tub. "Gods, Hermione!" he gasped, trying to scramble off her soft, yielding body. She was desperately gulping in the air he'd knocked out of her.

He somehow managed to clamour off her, still feeling woozy and weak. He plopped on his backside, hissing as his bollocks frantically tried to crawl inside his body and away from the cold dirt floor. "Are you alright?" he gasped, frantically. Her torn robe and disheveled hair made her look like an assault victim in Knockturn Alley. "Gods, Hermione, I'm so sorry. I felt dizzy, and..."

"No, no, I'm fine. Well, not fine yet, but I think I'll live," she said, shakily. She was holding her side, and he realised he had landed on her directly.

He gingerly helped her onto her feet. A wave of remorseful, protective fear roughened his voice. "Are you sure you're unharmed? Perhaps Poppy..."

"No, thank you, really, Severus," she answered hastily. "All I need is a bit of a cleanup and I'll be right as rain." She tried to smile, but it was a pathetic thing, and it made Severus feel like hippogriff dung.

"Remind me never to mix alcohol and hot baths. Especially in conjunction with pagan rituals and hand jobs," he muttered, still naked and feeling more foolish by the second.

She tried to smile. "I'm sure one day we'll look back on this and laugh."

"You'll pardon me if I'm not in that big a hurry to enjoy yet another laugh at my expense," he shot back. At her startled expression, he looked away, feeling too battered and vulnerable to deal with it. "Right. Perhaps we could just finish this? I believe I've had about as much preparation as I can endure."

They were both covered in mud and dead leaves; Hermione performed a hasty Tergeo on herself, then conjured a large bucket. She scooped water from the bath, and sluiced it over him until he was clean again. Silently, she dried him with a large white towel, and he allowed himself to be placated as the soft cotton towel moved over his body. Her touch was firm, enveloping him with comfort and care. When she had finished, she tied back his damp hair with a burgundy ribbon.

Lastly, she gathered her wild tumble of curls in hand. She flicked her hair first across his chest, then down toward his stomach, the timeless symbolic gesture harkening back from the days when a Priestess would dry the High Priest using only her hair as a towel. The feel of her soft hair brushing over his bare skin was shockingly intimate, and palliative in a way that made him feel even worse for snapping at her. He felt an old familiar ache within. Once again, he'd managed to hurt someone he cared about by being an arse. He felt limp and dazed, and for some silly reason, near tears. He was so tired of inevitably screwing up even the most unassailable of moments.

Once she was done, she stepped back, her arms at her side. Severus concluded the ritual by kneeling at her feet. "I am your humble acolyte, my goddess," he recited wearily. "I am purified by the honour you have bestowed upon me. I will be perfect for my duties as your consort." He lowered his head, and he felt her hands caress the crown of his damp head.

She answered, "You are purified in my regard. I await your pleasure within the circle." There was something in her tone that made him relax. I understand, it seemed to say. We don't have to be perfect in one another's eyes. He rose, and took her in his arms, and she melted against him. It was unbearably sweet...beyond passion, beyond this poxy ritual, it was just so damn sweet to hold someone who accepted him, warts and all...

There was no gradual reduction of temperature; in an instant, the misty, wooded clearing simply changed to a stark white box so chilly Severus could see his breath mist the air. It was too cold to even appreciate what the drop in temperature did to Hermione's nipples...he was too busy trying to keep his genitalia from disappearing into his stomach.

"Killjoy," he muttered under his breath, as his flesh goosebumped and Hermione shivered. She quickly retrieved his robes, and helped him to dress, then donned her own robes. The moment they were both properly dressed, the climate grew pleasant again. It was enough of a warning call to them both, and the sensual atmosphere bled out of the room. Severus saw a trace of embarrassment on Hermione's face as she turned to leave him. He had the presence of mind to catch her hand in his; he felt her pulse quicken beneath his fingers.

"Hermione," he began.

"Yes?" she answered too quickly, too hopefully, and the temperature lowered threateningly again. Severus stood staring down at her, but it was as if he'd been hit with a Silencio. Nothing seemed appropriate, and yet he needed to tell her...

His hesitation lasted a shade too long, and Hermione's expression grew resigned and self-conscious. "It's alright, Severus. I understand."

Alarmed, he tried to say, "Understand what? How can you understand when I don't have the first clue?" But she was walking away, leaving him frozen to the spot, unable to decide the next course of action. Do something, say something, you idiot! Don't just stand here like a lemon while she walks away!

"Let me go! I need to fix this!" he growled to the room. It took Hermione leaving the room for it to reset it back to normal, and he could move again. He dashed out into the hall, and caught sight of her moving toward her quarters. For a short little thing, she could certainly eat up the mileage when properly motivated.

He strode after her, determined to catch her before she decided that he was too much of a lost cause even for her.

"Excuse me, Professor Snape." Severus whirled around impatiently, ready to cut his interrupter to ribbons, but calmed at the sight of Argus Filch stumping toward him in some haste.

"Yes, Argus? Is there a problem?"

"I was wondering, sir," he said, "If you needed anything out of your classroom before I start cleaning it tomorrow. The doxy bomb has to remain undisturbed for two days."

Severus thought. "Actually, yes I do. I'll take care of it first thing in the morning before you start. Thank you, Argus." He turned to leave, but Filch stopped him again.

"Well, that's the thing. I was hoping to get started a little early, you see. I was wondering if you could go and take care of it now, before your meeting."

Severus frowned. "What meeting?"

"The one you have with Professor Granger in the RoR, sir." Argus gave Severus a faintly chiding smile. "It's on the schedule. Don't tell me you forgot already, Severus. Professor Granger won't be too pleased about that."

"The meeting's over. We're done for the evening."

Filch looked almost crestfallen. "Oh? Wasn't it scheduled for nine o'clock?"

With a shrug, Severus replied, "Everything's subject to change."

"But I were right, though? It were for nine?"

Puzzled at Filch's insistence, Severus replied, "It was, but we changed it. Pardon me, but is that all, Argus? I have a matter I must attend to."

"Of course," Argus said, waving him on. "Good night, Professor. Don't forget to get those papers."

"Yes, yes, alright," he answered impatiently, already on the move. "Good night, Argus."

He rapped on her bedroom door. Suddenly it seemed more important than ever that he speak to her. "Hermione!" he hissed. "Please open the door."

After a moment, she opened the door. She had changed from her white robes into a pair of Muggle tracksuit trousers and a faded Weird Sisters t-shirt. Her expression was shuttered, and for a moment he felt strangely guilty.

"Why on earth did you storm away like that?" he said, his voice rougher than he'd planned, and he cursed inwardly as she recoiled slightly. Gods, things were going well.

Woodenly, she answered, "It's alright. I told you I understood. Let's leave it at that. Goodnight, Severus." Before she could duck into the safety of her room he barged his way in, running on pure instinct.

"That's the second time you've said you understood. Explain it, then. Help me to understand." He took her face in his hands, she wouldn't meet his eyes. "Hermione, if we're going to do this ridiculous ritual thing, we need to talk. And I'm not talking about how many times I have to snuffle all over your tits to placate Cernunnos, or whoever is keeping count. Something is happening between us. I don't know if it chills or thrills me, but we just can't keep dashing away from one another. If we're going to work through this Beltane nonsense..."

"I know you don't really feel this way about me. It's the magic."

She might as well been speaking Mermish for all that her words made sense. He looked down at her blankly. "Who says I don't feel what way? Hermione, please remember you're talking to a wizard, not a god, which means I'm clueless to the ways a witch's mind works. I don't know what I've done wrong."

She was shaking her head, and he was stunned to see tears in her eyes. "This isn't fair. It's not fair on either of us. Minerva was wrong to put us both through this."

Severus frowned. "Granger, I know I'm still slightly drunk from the mead and your bathing skills, and I can't be sure my swan dive from the tub didn't addle my brains, but this riddle is doing my head in. What are you talking about?"

Hermione grew more flustered than ever. "Oh, I shouldn't have done this! I knew it was horrifically masochistic but I couldn't help myself. I just wanted to be near you, and I thought..." She ventured to look up into his face, her lovely eyes full of resignation. "I remember the trials, the Pensieve. You... you still...I mean, in the memories you said you'd love her always..."

Severus stilled. "Oh, Merlin's saggy mantits." He closed his eyes, and pictured the one woman who had come between him and every possibility for happiness he'd ever known. "Lily."

She all but cringed away from him. "I'm sorry!" she said, her face stricken. "Minerva kept telling me I needed to talk to you about her, but I didn't want to bring up all these painful memories! I know you'll never care for anyone else and it was stupid of me to have any false hope..."

"Oh, Circe wept," he spat, and slumped against her. He grasped her shoulders and shook them gently, almost playfully. "You don't mean that you believed all that tripe, do you? Didn't Potter tell you?"

Hermione gave him a look of such profound confusion he nearly laughed. She closed her eyes, and screwed up her face. "What should Harry have told me?"

"May we sit down?" At her nod, he followed her into her quarters, which he found surprisingly like his own...a trifle messy, stacked with books and quills and parchment. Several pairs of her pointy shoes lay strewn haphazardly beneath a comfortable looking chair, and a tray of tea and biscuits sat under a stasis charm on a nearby table.

"I had the elves bring this. I desperately needed a cuppa," she explained. "Would you like some as well?"

Once they were settled on the sofa with a brew, Severus began, "Hermione, I thought Potter would have told you the entire story by now. As soon as all this book nonsense came about, I knew he'd be as much in the spotlight as I was because of my so-called relationship with his mother. I had to tell him the truth." He rolled his eyes. "I suppose I assumed you, Potter and Weasley were so joined at the hip thoughts just passed telepathically from one buttock to the next."

"Oh, cheers for that," she said, and laughed unwillingly. "I never realised you gave my buttocks so much consideration."

"You've no idea," he countered. He leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to reset his brain to thinking mode again. "Hermione, when I gave those memories to Potter in the Shrieking Shack, I knew had to give him something profound. I had to tell the boy that he was supposed to allow himself to be killed." He turned to her. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to do that?"

She took his hand. "I can't imagine at all," she said, rubbing the soft pad of her thumb over the inside of his wrist.

He nodded. "Yes, well, I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind at the time, you know. I thought I was dying. I needed to impress on Potter the validity of what I had to tell him. And so I padded it full of sweet memories and pledges of undying devotion and remorse and grief and everything in between. And all those things were true, lest you think me even more a cold-hearted bastard than you probably already do.

"I did feel horribly guilty. I had brought about the death of the first real friend I had ever had." He felt the grip of her hand change, from sympathy to support. "Much has been said about my undying love, but in reality, Lily and I had grown apart long before her son was born. She went with James Potter and I, well, you know.

"It will also come as no surprise that I was a completely objectionable shit with a penchant for the Dark Arts and running with the wrong crowd. She wanted to be popular, to be the Gryffindor sweetheart. She was the perfect golden girl, and I was a petty, greasy git, even then. Not exactly boyfriend material, wouldn't you say?

"So she spurned me for falling in with the Death Eaters. I just wanted some control over my life. And I exerted it by calling her a Mudblood in front of the entire school population and making an absolute arse out of myself."

Hermione was quiet for a moment. Finally, she said, "I appreciate you confiding in me, Severus, but all this is well-known. These are all memories you gave Harry."

He nodded, and took another sip of the excellent tea. "Yes. Well, when Rita Skeeter's tell-all Book of Snape Shit came out, I knew I had to set the record straight. By that time, all the Marauders were dead, so I could tell the truth. Yes, I cared for Lily, but by the time we finished school, I was sick to death of her. She was a pretty, popular, nice girl, but she was no saint. At first, I thought she just used me, but she wasn't above doing whatever was necessary to get her way.

"She used to give Slughorn handjobs to garner better Potions grades once I was no longer propping them up. She had a go with every Marauder, Pettigrew included. And when she wasn't sleeping around with Sirius Black and that werewolf Lupin, they were tucked up in the Gryffindor dormitory screwing one another and James Potter."

To keep Hermione's imminent fainting spell at bay, he hurriedly added, "Mind you, I didn't tell Harry that part. They were his parents after all; I wouldn't sully their reputations just to launder mine. I despised James Potter, and I told Lily so, but that was more about the history between me and the Marauders, not Lily and me. No matter what people think, I'm not that much of a prick."

Hermione's eyes were huge, and for a moment he thought he had repulsed her. Lupin's memory was still sacrosanct amongst the Order. "I'm sorry, but that's the truth. I left school thinking myself well shut of her. Of course," he sobered, "when I heard the prophecy, I put the wheels in motion that destroyed all those lives..."

He was breathing hard; this was still so damn hard to think about, much less confess aloud. "I swear to you, Hermione, when I told Tom Riddle what I'd heard, I had no idea it pertained to Lily in any way. I didn't even know she was pregnant, much less having a son. I didn't love her anymore, but I wished her no ill will. The day she was killed, the guilt I felt over it wrecked me. I was the reason she was dead."

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "And so I defected and went to Albus. I thought if I could make amends and do right by her son, I could somehow erase the guilt. I had to make him hate me, to keep me at a distance, don't you see? I couldn't be Dumbledore's so-called Master spy, otherwise. And to be honest, he looked so much like sodding James Potter, hating him wasn't nearly as hard as it should have been."

For a moment, neither spoke. Hermione opened her mouth twice to respond, then closed it. "Fancy that," Severus marveled, sitting back. "If I had known this story would render you this speechless I'd have started trickle-feeding this information to you starting the day you arrived as a professor."

"Oh, don't be such an arse," she said, absently. There was an automatic tone to it, as if she were merely going through the motions, saying what she felt was expected. "How did Harry react to all this? I mean, I know he regards you with a fair amount of hero-worship now."

Severus stretched his cooling muscles with a soft groan. "He was actually quite stoic about it. He had always thought the memories were a little too pat. And by then, he understood Albus a little better," he said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He shrugged. "And apparently Black himself regaled the boy with some of the Marauder's less- pure-than-driven-snow adventures."

In the silence that followed, Hermione made a strange sound, somewhere between a snort and a giggle. "I'll bet Sirius didn't tell Harry about him and Remus." She shook her head, squinting her eyes. "I knew there was something between those two! Remus always acted so strange about marrying Tonks," she mused. "Not that I didn't love them both to bits, but it really was a one-sided relationship."

"Yes, well, Lupin was very upset about Black's unfortunate demise. I personally don't think he ever got over it." He cast a sly look at Hermione. "On the other hand," he added, "Lupin was an unrepentant flirt." He watched her reaction out of the corner of his eye. "Male or female, didn't matter. If it had a pulse..."

"Are you implying, Professor Snape, that Remus Lupin chatted you up?" Hermione challenged, her eyes dancing.

He nodded solemnly. "He did."

She gasped and laughed her delicious laughter. "And did you take him up on it?"

He gasped in revulsion. "I most certainly did not! Besides which, I would have thought by now that my sexual preferences were quite obvious, Professor Granger."

"Oh, quite obvious, Professor Snape," she retorted playfully. "So, you only enjoy flirting with the witches, huh?"

"I've never had much opportunity, to be honest," he said, drawing his robes together with grave dignity. "Besides, I don't think it's all that effective if you have to announce it beforehand."

She shook her head, marveling. She gave him a sly look out of the corner of her eye. "Still. Can you imagine him and Sirius going at it in their animagus forms? They'd be stuck together like a cork in a bottle for hours."

He suppressed a snort of laughter, and they relaxed. Something stretched between them, and it felt good, like a tenuous connection grown solid and strong. The self-conscious discomfort was gone, and Severus felt a passing dizziness that resembled nothing more or less than gratitude.

They sat in a companionable silence that Severus thought he could easily get used to. Crazymaker or no, in any case, Granger was a good listener. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, and she rubbed his back soothingly, as if stroking a pet. It was strangely comforting, and he thought that, if he was never afforded the opportunity to see her body in that sheer gown ever again, he could live with her gentle touch. It didn't feel pitying or conciliatory; it felt like a nice, Granger-ish version of normal.

"Hermione. I have to tell you something else."

Sensing the change in his tone, her palliative strokes stilled. "Yes, Severus?"

The magic allows nothing to happen that is not to happen. "I'm not hopelessly in love with a dead woman. I'm not gay. I'm not particularly interesting. I'd have to say that most of the women I've spent any time with in the last ten years liked the idea of getting to know the so-called Unsung Hero, but none survived the morning-after reality that I'm just an ugly wizard who got caught up in something huge. I played my part, but I'm nothing special."

At last, she gave his back a pat. "Well, I can't agree with a lot of what you said."

Severus sighed. It wasn't the first time he would be misunderstood; it wouldn't be the last. "Whether you agree or not..."

"I don't agree that you're nothing special. I don't agree that you're not interesting."

There was a sudden wrench, and Severus found himself facing her. Hermione put her hands on either side of his face. "And if you're ugly, then you're the most handsome kind of ugly I've ever seen."

When he raised his head, Hermione put her arms around him. Her warm breath tickled his ear as she whispered, "There is a moment near the end of the Beltane, where Cernunnos chases his goddess through a field. You are Cernunnos, and I am the goddess. I'm supposed to evade capture, but if Cernunnos catches me, it is his right to take me in the moonlight and make me his consort.

"As soon as the field is planted, we'll go there, just you and me. Now, I'm going to run like hell, and if you think I'm worth it, you're going to chase me." He shivered as her lips brushed against his. "I dare you to catch me."

He didn't bother keeping the smirk from curving at his lips. "Another dare?"

"Yes. One with benefits."

"You heard the man, Rita. My information was accurate. You can't deny it."

Rita glowered at Filch. He was right, but she hated wasting time. "Alright. I'll admit your information has been spot on; but near-misses don't write good copy." She tried to front the old Squib out, but he seemed implacable."Give me something I can use, Filch, or the deal's off."

He nodded. "Tomorrow we'll all be meeting for the first run through."

"Who cares?"

He leaned in, touching her arm. "In two weeks we start creating the field around the magic circle. You know the rite; Cernnunos chases the goddess through the field, and if he catches her..." he made a lewd gesture that made Rita's skin crawl. "That's a scoop worth catching, my dear."