Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Lucius enters the members' entrance at TPE and finds himself in a nearly empty sitting room. Its only inhabitants are two dominas, sitting together against the far wall, drinking tea and speaking in quiet, earnest tones. The first is a woman called Lady Jane Seymour. Lucius has known her for years. He finds her abrasive and uncouth.

But her companion is a different woman altogether. She is perhaps ten years his junior, a woman built along the voluptuous lines of the ancient goddesses of Athens. She has an indisputable air of good breeding, and with her glamour, she is an auburn haired, blue eyed wonder.

Lying within her reach on the coffee table is a black leather riding crop. He shivers.

When he looks at her again, she coolly meets his gaze. After a moment, she resumes her conversation with Lady Jane, effectively dismissing him.

His lips curve in appreciation.

After a moment, Sir Channing Casey strolls in with his submissive, Corinna. She is a plump, pretty woman wearing a jewelled collar. Sir Channing holds her lead.

"Sir Ambrosius," the man says. "I'm surprised to see you here on a Friday night."

Friday night? Bother. Friday night is couples night. He has no partner and no wish to acquire one. He's looking only for a spot of fun.

Sir Channing and Corinna disappear into the party room, and Lucius is pondering how to entertain himself, when KiKi enters.

"Oh! Good evening, Sir Ambrosius. How lovely to see you."

Lucius gives her a regal nod.

"You're actually just the man I'm looking for," KiKi says.

Lucius raises an imperious eyebrow.

"I have a rather insistent submissive here tonight, demanding to see a dominant. I told her it's couple's night, but she insists I check to see if anyone is willing to session her."

She really does not sound like his sort, but he's a bit at loose ends, as it were. "May I know the . . . desperate submissive's name?"

"She's called Kitty, Sir...oh, I beg your pardon. She prefers Kitten now."

Kitty? Truly? Perhaps it is a lucky night for him after all. He moves towards KiKi to engage her in quiet conversation.

"Has this Kitten seen my good friend, Sir Tobias Prince? He recommended her to me, you see."

KiKi had begun to look troubled, but at these last words, her face clears, and she smiles broadly. "Yes! Shall I tell her you'll see her?"

Hermione stands in the dark of the session room, wearing naught but the white robe. Being here is her choice. It's a good one...it must be. Tonight will help her realise there's nothing special about her sessions with Sir Tobias...no, she'll think of him by his true name...Severus Snape. Any competent dominant can satisfy her and make her feel as safe and protected...and simultaneously as wanton and weak-kneed...as Snape does.

She's sure of it.

Then why does she feel so very sad? And why does she have an inchoate ache behind her breastbone, as if her hopes and dreams are shrivelling in her very soul?

Now she hears the door open, and the new dominant enters.

Lady Grey, Lady Jane's companion, considers the blonde from the corner of her eye, only half-listening to Lady Jane's conversation. The blonde is tall, the way she likes them, and broad of shoulder. There is about his face an arresting beauty, which manages to be nevertheless entirely masculine. She can see his eye colour quite clearly, despite the dim gas lighting...it is a nearly translucent grey.

He steps forward to converse with the club manager...something about a needy submissive. He has no need of her services, it would seem.

She turns back to Lady Jane.

Mere seconds later the door bursts open and another man enters the members' room...a man who seems strangely familiar. The blonde steps forward and speaks to the less-than-comely black-haired newcomer.

"Here, old friend! Haven't you forgotten something?"

The scowling newcomer stops to glare at the blonde. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demands roughly.

The blonde smiles, and Lady Grey feels a little tingle. He is a handsome devil. He could undoubtedly use a bit of a ... firm hand.

"Oh, had the chance to slip out for the evening, you know." The blonde steps closer to his glowering friend and says quietly...but not so quietly that Lady Grey cannot hear him..."Where is your glamour?"

The newcomer makes no effort to speak quietly. "Bugger the glamour. I'm not here to see you."

The blonde arches his eyebrows, but he does not appear offended. His response is spoken rather drolly. "Well, that's put me in my place, hasn't it? Never mind. Why don't you have a cup of tea and relax? I have an engagement."

The blonde walks towards the doorway to the playrooms, then glances over his shoulder and says in a provocative tone, "It seems your little Kitty is in need of ... sustaining company."

Lady Grey is rather surprised when the black-haired wizard grabs his friend by the front of his robes, a wand materialising in his fingers. The business end of the wand probes the underside of the blonde's exquisitely formed chin, and the dark man says, "You will never even think of touching her...unless you care to encounter the Ball-Breaker Curse?"

The blonde's answer is an expressive eye-roll, and the dark man releases his robes with an unbalancing shove.

The blonde climbs gracefully to his feet and checks the drape of his trousers and the cleanliness of his robes before he speaks to his aggressor.

"Well. I'm happy to know you've worked through your issues concerning her, at any rate. Please, don't let me stop you."

The blonde makes an elaborate, somehow mocking bow, and motions for the violent man to enter the corridor. That is when Lady Grey stands and walks away from the still talking Lady Jane.

The blonde watches Lady Grey's approach, but she already knows the outcome of their conversation. It's too easy, really...scarcely a challenge at all...because his eyes move from her impressive chest to her riding crop, where they become riveted.

He's pretty to look at, though. And possibly trainable.

When Severus enters, she's standing with her back to him, on the white circle in the middle of the floor. His body reacts with anticipation, seeing Kitten in her white robes, ready to yield her power to him. And the needy inner part of him rejoices, insisting that she sees him and knows him and understands him. But neither his body nor his puling inner weakling is running the show tonight.

Severus Snape, forty, fully formed, and full of resolution, opens his mouth to speak.

He is forestalled when Kitten, unbidden, drops her robes to reveal her nakedness, then turns to face him.

He is instantly...and possibly unjustly...infuriated.

Her mouth drops open when she sees him, unglamoured and scowling, advancing on her with great purpose.

"Have you lost what passes for your mind?" he bellows, reaching her only to drag the robes up from the floor and wrestle her back into them, taking little care to be gentle.

If she wants gentle, she ought not to be looking for her fun at TPE.

"I didn't ask for you! I'm supposed to see Sir Ambrosius! I don't want you! Get out!"

She is shouting too, her disguised face twisted and furious, with tears glinting on the lashes of her glamoured blue eyes.

"For your information, your 'Sir Ambrosius' is actually Lucius Malfoy. Do you still want to be naked and helpless for him? Take the robes off, and I'll go fetch him for you."

The horrified expression is real enough, he can clearly see. She has accepted Draco into her life as an extension of Potter, but to Severus' knowledge, she has never spoken to the elder Malfoys since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Some old wounds take longer to heal than others.

Her voice rises to a screech, her anger all the worse because of the fate from which he has just saved her.

"I hate you! I never want to see you again!"

She reaches up to scratch him, tears now running freely down her face, but he imprisons her wrists.

"If that's true, then why are you crying?"

He is slightly calmer now, the flare of violent jealousy calmed by her actions. She asked for another dominant only to make him jealous...and it worked. But she isn't behaving like a woman who hates someone.

She struggles fruitlessly against his relentless grip on her, then sags against him. She stares down at the floor and mutters something.

"I can't understand what you're saying when you natter to the floor."

She raises her face again and speaks is a calmer tone. "I said I always cry when I'm angry."

"Are you going to try to hit and scratch again?"

She shakes her head.

He releases her and says quietly, "I think we should talk."

She looks at the floor again, her arms wrapped protectively around herself. He wants to soothe her...to pick her up and carry her to the sofa and pet and kiss her until she is calm...but he has no right to do so.

She says, "I don't know what we have to talk about."

"Miss Granger..."

Her head comes up, and her eyes are blazing. He wishes she weren't wearing the glamour...her brown eyes would be magnificent filled with that fire.

"My name is Kitten."

Kitten? She wants to be Kitten? Well, Miss Granger and her high-handed dignity belong in his office at Hogwarts, but Kitten? Kitten belongs to him, anywhere and everywhere.

He swings her up into his arms and carries her to the wide sofa...why do they always end up in the green room?...and rather than fighting him, she puts her arms around his neck.

He sits on the sofa with her in his lap, and she leans into him. He presses his cheek to the top of her head, and ever so gently, he rocks her in his arms.

He hasn't weighed all the pros and cons of his behaviour and arrived at a logical conclusion. No, he's thrown himself carelessly from a cliff, clutching his prize in his arms.

Perhaps before they hit the ground, he will remember he knows how to fly.

"Would you please remove the glamour?" he says.

Hermione looks into his eyes...the endless, midnight eyes...and strokes his hair.

"I'm not as pretty without the glamour," she says.

"Bollocks," he replies.

She laughs...can't believe she feels light enough to laugh.

"You're insane," she accuses him. "If people see us here together without glamours, we might as well invite in the reporters and photographers."

"We'll put the glamours on again before we leave," he says. "And after today, I don't know why we need to come here again. Do you?"

She sees him...Severus Snape, unaltered, with a bit of five o'clock shadow and hair beginning to show some end-of-day oiliness...looking at her, speaking to her with intimacy, holding her on his lap, even. It's all a bit much. And to hear him saying such things...things she's dreamt of, but would never dared have spoken aloud...gives her a feeling of unreality.

He is wearing his teaching robes, and she grasps one of the buttons on his cuff, staring at it as if it's the most fascinating item imaginable. "No," she says, speaking to the button, "I don't know why we need to come here again, either." She raises her face to look in his eyes, and with the wave of her hand, her glamour disappears. "Not if we're going to see one another ... elsewhere."

His eyes widen when she reveals herself to him, and although he doesn't smile...not as other people do...one side of his mouth curves up, and his eyes are alight with warmth. "Kitten," he murmurs, and wrapping one hand in her hair to control her movements, he kisses her.

It is their first kiss in weeks, and it goes on for a rather long time. When he lifts his head from hers, they are both a bit breathless, and she's delighted to know that the stiffness beneath her bottom is definitely for her, and her alone.

He wraps his hand lightly around her throat, his thumb and first finger at the pulse points on either side of her neck. This excites her, and her heartbeat quickens.

"I'll see you whenever and wherever you permit, little one. As often as you permit. In public or private. I would be very proud to be seen with you...for people to know that you're mine."

The words register...she hears and understands...but the emotional impact is like a bubble of joy that swells inside her until she can hardly breathe. "For them to know you're mine, you mean," she says in a tiny voice, but it's very clear that he hears and understands her. Because he tumbles her over, until her back is on the sofa, and he's on top of her, his black hair hanging down and his entrancing eyes fixed on her face.

"Who has your power?" he asks her, and to hear the words finally in his own voice...a voice that turns her insides to jelly...gives Hermione a thrill.

"Here...in this room...my power is yours. But I want it understood that outside the playroom, my power is my own."

She watches his face carefully, wondering how he will react. It had been hard to say the words...hard to break the mood...but judging by the firm length pressing against the vee of her thighs, his mood is unchanged by her clarification.

"That's exactly the way I want it," he says, and then he grasps her wrists and holds them down on either side of her head. "It doesn't matter which of us has your power, my Kitten. You're mine. You belong to me. Everyone will know that."

She presses her hips up against him. "That's exactly the way I want it," she says, in deliberate imitation of his words and tone. "And everyone will know you belong to me."

He murmurs an incantation, and they're naked, his body over hers, full skin-on-skin contact, and she's overcome with the divine perfection of it. For the first time, he shows himself to her with nothing held back, and she loves him for it. How hard must it be for him, with all his years spent hiding his agenda, to trust anyone enough for this sort of intimacy?

She urges him over, until he lies upon his back, his black eyes burning with emotion. She sees the enormous scar at his throat...how had anyone survived such an injury?...and with the lightest of touches, she traces a portion of it, then presses her lips there. Though he doesn't say it, she suddenly knows an irrefutable truth: He has never shown this scar to anyone before. Other than the Healers at St Mungo's, he has voluntarily revealed it to no one.

Next she takes his left arm and turns it to see the mostly faded black mark he's worn since he was younger than she is now. She can feel the tension in him...the thin white line of his lips, pressed together to prevent speech...almost as if he expects her to see him, fully and completely, and reject him for his imperfections.

Silly man.

She presses her lips against the defunct Dark Mark, in greeting and acceptance.

Her actions...her tender acknowledgement of all he has been and all he is...draws something from him, something deep, powerful, and overwhelming. How can she...how can anyone...accept with such love the things he is most ashamed of?

He kisses her roughly, tongue thrusting too hard, too fast, teeth scraping her lips and skin around her mouth, but rather than object, she sucks him in, matching his intensity. He doesn't have the words to tell her what he feels...he cannot even articulate it to himself...but he can show her, with his hands and mouth, his tongue and cock, the strength of his arms, and the superior bulk and weight of his body.

She seems all eagerness to receive this demonstration of thankfulness. She is as frantic as he to twist and wriggle into a position from which their bodies can join. They find a balance, and he thrusts inside. She is beneath him, her real face less pretty and infinitely more beautiful than the non-descript guise she had worn before. He knows he is ugly compared to Sir Tobias, but somehow he also knows she prefers him this way, exactly as he is, and that knowledge gives him the assurance to fuck her with all his skill and might.

He pounds deep, giving her no respite, finishing his thrusts with a finesse that impacts her inner vaginal wall. He sees her lovely brown eyes widen with each tap against her sweet spot. She grasps his wirily muscled upper arms so tightly that her nails dig into the flesh, and she bites on her lower lip, whimpering noises coming from deep in her throat.

"Don't hide from me, little one," he says, panting from effort. "Let me hear you...tell me how it feels when I fuck you so hard."

She responds instantly. She releases her lip, and with his every thrust, she utters a sharp cry. She wraps herself around him, legs holding onto his hips, and she arches the lovely column of her throat, her eyes squeezed tight, a little chant beginning softly and coming more loudly with every second.

"Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh SEVERUS!"

She is flame, and he is fuel, and together they are wildfire, burning everything in their path. He erupts with a shouted roar of rapture, their orgasms binding them tightly together, wrapped in blazing light, the echoes of their passion reverberating around them as they fall irrevocably into one another.

She is in his heart, nestled in his soul, a permanent resident of his waking mind. He is her breath, her sinew, the beat of her heart and breath of her lungs.

But time, and the world it rules, has little respect for the reverent hush of newly acknowledged love. Their playroom interval has passed, and the room must be vacated for the use of others.

Severus and Hermione are quite ready to depart.

Their things are in a heap near the door. Severus dresses whilst Hermione goes into the dressing room to retrieve her clothes. They reapply their TPE glamours, and he takes her out through the members' sitting room.

They are holding tightly to one another, still wrapped in the mystic cocoon of their oneness, when through the open door to another playroom, Severus sees Lucius, still in his Ambrosius guise, kneeling at the feet of a voluptuous redhead. Lucius is deeply involved in his interaction, so Severus does not interrupt him.

He has found what he wants in this unlikely place, and he is content to leave with his prize.

As they exit the building, they remove the glamours for the last time.

Hermione walks with her love...the answer to her unspoken prayer...down a street where once she stalked him, hiding herself in every way. Now she is open. She is fully revealed to him, and he to her. They have seen everything there is to see, and nothing could be more exquisite.

The shops are closed, but the Christmas decorations are lovely, and without consultation, they turn as one to walk along and see the sights. It is as if they are reluctant to return to Hogwarts, to resume their responsibilities and identities, deputy head and teaching assistant.

There are few people about at this late hour on a cold December night, and the feeling from their lovemaking...that they are the only people in the world...wraps them in enchanted silence. Hermione is surprised to hear something resembling a laugh come from Severus, and when she turns inquiring eyes to him, he leads her to stand beneath a gaslight.

"Look up. Even the weather adores you," he says, and she sees that snowflakes are falling...winter's first snow.

It's an extension of their world of two. He bends to kiss her, and she twines her arms around him and surrenders to the magic they make together.

"Hermione? Is that you?"

A voice...a loved voice, but an intrusive one, nevertheless...speaks her name. She stops kissing Severus, but he will not permit her to pull away...the most she can do it turn in his arms, her back warm against his chest.

"Hi, Harry. Yes, it's me. Out to see the snow, much like you, I expect."

Harry and Draco stand together, hand in hand, the snowflakes collecting in their hair and scarves. Draco murmurs something in Harry's ear. Harry looks at him incredulously, but Draco speaks to Severus.

"I see 'perhaps' has become 'definitely'."

Another rare chuckle comes from Severus, a vibration against her back and a deep rumble in her ear.

"Definitely," he agrees, tightening his hold on her.

"Is this a secret? Shall we keep it to ourselves?" Harry asks, looking from Hermione to Severus.

Hermione can tell from his tone of voice the answer he expects to receive. She opens her mouth to speak, but Severus beats her to it.

"Shout it from the rooftops if you like," he says. "We certainly will."

Draco laughs out loud, then hooks an arm around Harry's shoulders, forcefully turning him. "We'll see you for Christmas Eve drinks?" he asks over his shoulder.

"We'll be there...won't we, Kitten?"

Harry and Draco stop and turn around, their mouths open in surprise. Harry says, "Did you just call her..."

"Kitten," Hermione supplies, turning her back to them, looking up to Severus with imploring eyes.

"Take me home," she murmurs quietly.

Half a smile and he says, "Your room or mine?"

She nestles in his arms, holding him with all her strength, breathing deeply of him. "Yours. Crooks has a houseguest."

"You'll have to tell me about that," he murmurs.

"I'll tell you everything," she promises. "Just ... take me home."

In the dark of the night in the snowy Scottish countryside, an ancient castle hosts a medley of dreams come true.

On the third floor, white fur twines with ginger before a glowing fire.

In the dungeons, a man who could not work out what his life was good for finds his answer, deep in the harbour of his life's love.

And the woman with no one to call her own finds her heart's desire in the undisguised face of Severus Snape.

Finite Incantatum

A/N:

This story would not be what is it without the careful beta reading and Brit-picking provided by Diabolica. Thank you, darling. I am forever grateful.

It was written for the 2014 sshg_giftfest on Live Journal, for Amorette. The story is a blend of two different prompts:

- A year after the final battle, Hermione starts working as a Professor's Assistant as part of training to become an actual professor. She gets assigned to assist Professor Snape in potions. They have to overcome their differences and work together.

- Era: Eighth Year. Snape is obviously still "up to something", exhibiting mysterious and secretive behavior. Now that Harry's not in school, it's obviously up to Hermione to find out just what it is that Snape is doing.

Title for this fic comes from the song Into Your Sun by No Second Troy. If you loved this fic, I wish you would give this song a quick listen.

Before I saw your face, it was done

You were always the one

Before I knew your name it had begun

You were always the one

I follow your eyes as they're kissing mine

And it's there I want to fall asleep

The light begins to fall upon my crooked mind

You're the one I thought I'd never meet

And by the way I'd like to tell you

After all that I have done

I spent every moment looking for you

I cross the shadow and step into your sun

Your faces leave their traces in the places where we meet

And all the places we will go

And it's never been so easy as I'm down on bended knee

A husband and a wife will know