Chapter 6

Chapter 6

November arrives with sheets of icy rain and freezing mist, and Hermione's spirits match the weather exactly. She goes through her days on automatic pilot. She teaches her first and second year classes, and the students see that the cheerful Miss Granger is gone, replaced by a person who is an almost exact mix of the two deputy heads. She is as uncommunicative and unencouraging as Snape, and as stern and humourless as McGonagall.

She hears the students talking about her, but she doesn't care.

In the deputy heads' office, she clears her desk every night before she leaves for the day...even when the work keeps her past supper. She goes in the quiet of night to the kitchen, and the house-elves feed her, but they won't let her eat there. They still remember the badly knitted garments she left scattered around the Gryffindor common room in the misguided attempt to save them from their lives of drudgery.

They will feed her, but they may never trust her again.

In her room, she eats the food but has no appetite for reading before sleep. She attends to Crookshanks, feeding and brushing, but her heart isn't in it.

She blows her candles out and lies in her bed. She stubbornly recites the Twelve Uses of Dragon Blood or Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration and its Five Exceptions...anything to keep her unprincipled mind from dwelling on unproductive thoughts.

But always, her body betrays her, and she sleeps. In sleep, she is vulnerable to dreams...and in dreams, he comes to her. He is faceless in her dreams. She hears his words, his diction and intonation, but it's Snape's voice that speaks those words. Over and over again he kisses her, he teases her, he spanks and fingers her...he pushes himself into her body, and they are one being. And through it all, Snape's voice in her ear, breathing her name.

Kitten.

She wakes from these dreams in distress, sometimes in the throes of orgasm, sometimes in the thrall of tears. Either state is untenable for her...she cannot bear to think, bear to remember...bear to be tempted to return to TPE to ask for Sir Tobias.

Severus strides through his days, busy with teaching, with administering, with discipline, with patrolling the cold, stone corridors. He stuffs down his feelings...a word he cannot even say without a sneer...as he has always done, and he gets on with life.

It is only at night, in the solitude of his quiet rooms, that he thinks on the flash of hope he felt when Lucius said, "Perhaps she is using an additional enhancement glamour...as a newcomer, she would be insecure and wish to use all her resources to engage her partner."

Severus does not believe Kitten used additional magic to ensnare him. He is fairly certain no one could use magic in his presence that he is unable to detect. Kitten's allure isn't about beauty or physical attractiveness...though he certainly finds her physically attractive. No, it's about something deeper...something internal, somehow.

The word spiritual flits through his mind, but he bats it away impatiently.

Still, Lucius' words instilled an idea in his mind that he cannot banish. Suppose the emotional impact of his encounter with Kitten had been a one off? If so, he could see her again...touch her again...without endangering himself.

She is only a very young woman, after all. Yes, she looked at him as if he had personally hung the moon for her delectation, and he liked the admiration. But if she were looking for a boyfriend...a word he would never permit to be applied to him...or a husband, she would not be looking at TPE. That is not the purpose of the club. People come there to escape their everyday lives, not to find lifetime partners.

Which is not to say that some people of his acquaintance had not developed long-term relationships, up to and including marriage, after an introduction at TPE. But such happenings are aberrations...he is sure of it.

He leaves off wondering to change into his nightshirt and climb into bed. But the unruly part of him takes over in the darkness, and he relives again and again his time in what he's begun to think of as the Kitten Dimension.

When sleep comes, she does not leave him, but nestles in his arms and perfumes his dreams with her sweet scent.

Three weeks into November, the rain lets up, and a Saturday morning dawns with enough sunlight to generate mild warmth beneath the bowl of welcome blue sky.

After a quiet breakfast in the Great Hall, Hermione throws open the heavy draperies in her room to let the sunlight in. It lifts her spirits to see a break in the dreary weather. She determines that she will go into Hogsmeade for lunch...visit the shops, enjoy the sunshine...she's weary of being sad all the time.

The brisk walk to the village is accomplished with no interruptions. The students avoid catching her eye, and she sees none of her colleagues along the way.

Her first stop is the Post Office, where she arranges for a large eagle owl to deliver a paper-wrapped parcel to her mother...it is a novel she enjoyed and wishes to share with her mum, who has similar taste in books.

It isn't until she pays and turns to go that she sees Professor Snape in conversation with the assistant Post Mistress. She is about thirty years old, with laughing eyes and dark red hair.

Hermione wonders if Snape fancies the woman. Then her eyes briefly meet his, and she escapes into the sunlight and window-shops her way along the High Street.

Being in Hogsmeade reminds her of her student days, and she feels a pang of nostalgia for Harry and Ron. But the brief flare of sadness disappears when she enters Scrivenshaft's...the boys were never interested in shopping with her here. She cannot explain why, but the stationery shop is second only to Flourish and Blotts in her esteem. She loves the smell of parchment, the colourful inks, and the variety of feathered quills available for purchase.

She browses through the selection of parchment, from the rough sort used by students for completing reams of homework, to the creamy vellum used by artists and calligraphers. Then she rounds the end of the aisle to browse the other side of the shelf, where personal stationary in varying shades and patterns is available for one's correspondence needs. Hermione is attracted to a soft pink set with deckle edge paper, the envelopes bearing a raised circle on the flap, embossed with a large cat.

She ghosts a finger over the image, wondering if it might be a lioness. With a little thrill of pleasure, she picks up the box and continues down the row, just to be sure there isn't a set more to her taste.

When she completes her browsing and goes to the counter to pay, she finds Professor Snape again, this time in conversation with the shop assistant. Refusing to be daunted, she marches up to the counter, and the clerk turns away from him to assist Hermione. This woman is nearer Snape's age than the one in the Post Office. She has silver streaks in her dark hair, and she is pretty.

No wonder Snape likes her.

Does he have a flirt in every shop and business in Hogsmeade?

"I begin to think you're following me, Miss Granger."

Her impulse is to turn on him and say something snippy, but Hermione keeps the rigid control she has learned to use in Snape's presence.

"I was about to say the same thing to you, Professor."

She accepts her change from the shop assistant and darts a quick look at Snape's face. He is watching her with something approaching amusement in his dark eyes. Perhaps he appreciates it when she shows she is not afraid of him or his needling.

Then she turns away and leaves the shop, heading for the Three Broomsticks.

Severus completes his business with Scrivenshaft's, and he has completed his to-do list, as decreed by McGonagall that morning.

"We've left it very late, Severus, making arrangements for the Christmas cards."

Severus thinks the practice of Hogwarts sending Christmas cards to the Board of Governors and other significant contributors and friends of the school is a waste of time and gold. Nevertheless, it is a duty of the school head to make it happen, and when McGonagall tells him it's "his turn" to do it, he does not argue with her.

Now he has ordered the cards and arranged for the necessary fleet of owls. He is free to go to the Hogs Head Inn and have a pint and a quiet chat with Aberforth.

It is over lunch, which Hermione tops off with a second Butterbeer, that she decides she will return tonight to TPE. She will ask for Sir Tobias. If he isn't available, she might go to Harry's Place or simply return to Hogwarts...but she also might accept another dominant's ... ministrations.

Pleased with her decision, she begins the trek back to school, her mind full of imaginings...full of Sir Tobias.

It is over his second pint, drunk with Aberforth in the musty old pub smelling of goats, that Severus decides he will go to TPE tonight. If Kitten is there...if she asks for him...he might see her again, to test out his theory that a second encounter will have less impact than the first. If she isn't there, he might offer his services to another submissive.

Or he might drop by Draco's new restaurant, to see how business is going for him and Potter.

It's been three full weeks since he was knocked off balance by his encounter with Kitten. He's fully recovered now. There can be no harm in going back to TPE.