Calling

A/N: My thanks to my beta-readers for this chapter, Indigofeathers, AnnieTalbot, and the inestimable Anastasia, who understands the art of white space. And, as always, my additional thanks to FerPorcel and Melenka, who, along with my betas, always listen patiently to writerly whinges. Finally, a nod of gratitude to docmara for recommending the artist who provided the chapter title: Leonard Cohen, in the song "Who By Fire?"

Her breath caught as her skin strained for the air where his hand had been but a moment before.

He turned and led her out of the library.

---------------------------

Hermione's thoughts flayed themselves into wild spirals of individual coherence, beckoning her with a screaming urgency, each negating the other whilst insisting on primacy.

All because he had trailed one promise down her throat.

A contract, nothing more...

Don't lie to yourself, for once... you want him...

Not what I wanted.

Liar.

He will drink the stain ...

Only he can.

I've done nothing to be ashamed of!

Liar.

But he was your teacher....

But he's done enough....

He wants you.

Liar.

He's taken you, left you broken in a hundred dreams.

You're already broken.

Liar.

You want him to take you.

Liar.

You want to lie, helpless, strong beneath him.

You want him to use you.

You want it to be real.

It is real.

Liar.

You want to him to lie over you, his breathing hot, ragged on your skin as he arches, straining...

It's going to happen.

To break you, leave you broken... you deserve it....

But his soul –

Soon.

But what if I –

Now.

What if I –

You know you want to.

The door closed and clicked locked behind her.

She jumped, although she pretended not to.

He looked at her, his eyes a strange, unreadable shadow.

He held his hand to her, and her mind went quiet.

Too quiet.

A fleeting sweep of something –

Worry?

– on his face, in his eyes, only fleeting, then it was gone.

"If I reach for your soul, you can stop me?" she asked, her voice low.

"I can." Probably. He extended his hand a fraction closer. "Come, Hermione. We haven't much time."

"No, I suppose we – no," she agreed, and her fingertips brushed his palm and her hand – small, cool – slipped into his.

His fingers closed.

He saw a sharp edge of something in her eyes and knew he would cut himself on it.

Badly.

His hand tightened.

But the spiral of hair trailing on the curve her neck called his eye, unbearably, and his hips tightened with a low, insistent heat, and he ached to make that one lock of hair tremble in hesitation before the rest of it spilled down upon him, and his fingers tightened around hers and he steeled his arm, drawing her inexorably, inevitably to him, his skin alive beneath rough wool and worn leather.

Forward, compelled, drawing her hand downward to rest at his hip, a sharp inhale, his jaw clenching.

Between his leather, her fallen sleeve, his finger a slow, twisting, intricate spiral on her forearm, drawing an answering flare from her breath.

He did not know what he was tracing, nor the words he was breathing.

His hand rough, heavy, under her hair... her eyes falling closed... his breathing a slow rhythm on her throat... hers slowing in answer... his voice a whispered compulsion: "Closer."

Her mind still, she obeyed.

His fingers trailing up her arm, fabric dragging upward, his palm insistent, warm, at her elbow.

His grip powerful, deepening; his nails sharp, dragging on her skin; her eyes widen, open, drawn into his – dark, piercing, aware –

He was your teacher.

I don't care.

Liar.

A sharp gasp that might have been a strangled sob clutching in her throat.

You want him to use you.

His hand smooth to her throat, gently stroking, a soft, gentle stroke, closing, pressure, increasing, intensifying...

So easy, to fall ...

... and he felt her tension dissolve, relax, felt her lean into his closing hand...

... so easy, to fade... black....

And she was spun sharply against the wall, her arm twisted fiercely behind her back, her cheek pressing into the gritted roughness of stone.

Light blurring to shadow at a gesture, his dark chuckle on her neck eclipsing her thoughts and masking the sound of his wand clattering to the floor.

"Did you forget, Hermione?"

"I –" she gasped.

"I will not permit you to use me to punish yourself."

She shook her head.

His weight more firmly against her, forcing her breath out of her lungs.

"Did you forget?"

She nodded.

His lips a heartbeat from the pulse at her ear, he whispered, "Liar."

And the corner of Hermione's mouth raised.

He felt her lip curve against his skin. Interesting.

But a brief image of her as a schoolgirl swept away by flashes of envy imprinted in her eyes, an echo of a memory reflected in a cloudy mirror, a memory that never was, a memory that should never have been; an innocence lost, a woman too far gone – her allegiance to the truth but a moment, lost, forever receding into incalculable distance.

And his heart twisted in passion, compassion and shame; his eyes tightened and closed – and she felt his eyelashes as his head bowed over hers, and even as a "Why?" knifed through her heart, her smile deepened, and she arched her back against him.

And the pain in his hip an instant reminder of the night on the stair, and a low growl escaped his throat, and his muscles surged forward and he was lost.

Her breasts pressed into the wall, aching for the weight of his hands, she inhaled, shifting her back against the length of him pressed close behind her.

His hips flexed against hers.

"Reflex?" she murmured.

"Bitch," he chuckled.

"Language," she whispered against the stone.

His hips flexed again, a deeper movement.

"Oh," she breathed.

Another chuckle.

Hermione closed her eyes. She had never done this before.

She wondered if she should tell him...

Another movement against her hips – slow, intent – and he stepped back only enough to turn her toward him, then leaned against her, easing her back against the wall, his fingers releasing the clasp at her throat...

... a fall of fabric, spilling to her waist...

... and in his eyes a feral glow, glimpsed hard, long, then his mouth sought hers, warm, urgent, imperative, undeniable...

... and she couldn't remember the thought she'd just lost to save her soul.

----

Between them, silence.

A brush of leather on skin.

A sweep of a hand down an arm, lower.

A clutch of hands on shoulders as she fell; a fall to forearms on softness as he braced, and held –

A smudge of darkness in shadow.

A distance closed, a melt of snow.

Buried deep within the other; fast, strong, deliberate –

A flare of shadow on stone.

A light, a heat, a darkness.

And far, far beneath the castle, deep in the ground where its great stone rested on rock far older, far more solid, a crack.

A fault.

A flaw.

Stone groaned against stone; metal anchors twisting, screaming; a slow grinding; a sudden release of heat as far beneath the castle, the ancient iron anchors of the castle flowed, molten, out of pattern, into shape, reclaiming their buried purchase, deep within stone.

Rock dislodged, fell raining into spaces long left buried, into empty caverns that had never felt summer, never seen sunlight, never known rain.

Far above, Hermione's eyes flew open.

Out of the vacuum, a wind was rising.

And in the place beneath her dreams, in his arms, held in the steel of his long, smooth body arching, straining, beyond place, out of time, she felt it rise, and, her small hands driving long, burning gouges into his pale, pale skin, she called it to her.

----

And out of time, it came.

Fast.

Strong.

Deliberate.

And it flew to her outstretched hands, silencing her cry of triumph as it buried itself deep within her.

----

He knew it was soon, knew it was impossible, knew it was now.

Lost within her body; alive without; nerves tensed, screaming with restraint, with need – lost, buried, alive, he sensed its presence, its agony, its rage.

It had destroyed, and annealed, and, insatiable, promised destruction.

And he welcomed it, and, deep within her, a recognition, an acknowledgment, and it opened, yielding back, easing aside, and finally – softly... finally... it closed behind him.

And far beneath the castle's bed of rock and metal, where the molten earth consumed itself in an endless cycle of birth and regret, it swirled black on its sudden cooling surface to dissolve again and again into pulsing waves of rising, insatiable hunger.

----

In the silent shadows of his chambers, he dredged a stillness out of memory, forcing himself to pause, to look, to breathe.

He would not be able to hold himself for long – even now he could feel the fingers of darkness curling low, slow, around the base of his spine, urging him forward – and she opened her eyes and it was there, in her eyes, as he'd known it must be, as he'd feared, as he'd hoped, and his breath caught, satisfied, terrified, and her eyes blinked once, long, slow, lazy, and the fingers at his spine trailed lightly down, dancing, sharp, reaching for the dark bruise at his hipbone, for the broken place in his skin...

... and the salt of her sweat entered the wound and he hissed, throwing his head back, and her hand – small, slow, unbearably smooth – left a blazing trail upwards, smoothing over his chest, smooth on his throat, a small pressure....

Not looking down, a dark chuckle tinged with the sparkling salt of sweat and blood, acknowledging pain shared, a confession of pain enjoyed, the release sharper, sweeter, deeper for the small delay.

"Adequate compensation, Severus?" she breathed, the lightest touch to his bruise.

His eyes stilled in anticipation, and he eased a finger into her hair on the blanket, tracing its length, a trail of barely lighter darkness against the field of black, feeling its ends twisting between his fingers.

Her fingers tensing, flexing, her nails resting gently on his abraded skin.

She felt his smile far above her, felt his breathing liquid against her in the darkness, and, with her eyes, and something more, saw the perfection of his soul gleaming whole in his eyes.

It was exactly the color of moonlight, and she reached –

"Use my body," he breathed.

Her reaching paused, but she could not stop it.

He ground his hips against her – deep, sharp – and her aim flew aside.

"No. My body," he growled. "If you must break something, break that."

Her sharp, mocking laughter slashed through the shadows, and she reached again for his soul.

But again he moved; again, she missed.

The gleam in his eyes drew closer as he leaned down to her, his hands closing in her hair.

"Do you want it, Hermione? Do you?"

Another thrust, a cry of frustration, and she reached, again.

"No." His teeth closed on her shoulder, hard, and he tasted blood. Forcing her head aside, his breath hot, voice heavy on her ear: "Use my body."

And again.

His fists in her hair, and he wrenched her head backwards, sharply. Very quietly, "I said, 'No,' Hermione."

His lips the softest pressure at her temple, leaving the soft pink tinge of blood.

At the sharp tang of her own blood, she paused, trembling, aching, and a single hot tear slipped from her eyes, and slowly she withdrew from the Darkness and forced her rage into her hand –

He knew what was coming –

Hand tensing, fingers flexing, nails dragging over broken skin, fingers driving, digging deep into muscles torn and bleeding, forcing a deep, wrenching agony down through his bruise.

And he drove his hip deeper into her fingers.

It was always better when you met it halfway.

Through the blinding flash of searing white, a single thought: Finish it now, Snape.

And he snatched her hands away and pinned her arms over her head, stretching painfully, shoulders extended just this side of much too far, and the storm within him broke.

And as he drove her beyond the last shred of reason, Hermione thrust her bloody hand into the fabric of time, her fingers tangling in the dropped threads of their lives. She closed her fist around them, and pulled.

Hard.