Lesson Three

Lesson Three

It was amazing how a single kiss, a kiss that would have been insignificant to someone a little more experienced perhaps, became an obsession. It was all Hermione could do to keep her mind on her Potions homework. It had taken an hour to write half a foot on the various antidotes using black beetles; she found her attention wandering and her eyes glazing over as images of Professor Snape plagued her mind. Images of him standing at the front of the class, images of him lecturing, of him stalking the classroom, of long fingers chopping ingredients... stirring a cauldron...

"Oi, Hermione." Ron's whisper broke her reverie. "Do you feel all right? I can't believe I actually finished my essay before you."

Sitting up straight, she stared at Ron blankly for a moment while reality slowly infiltrated her muddled brain. The lights in the library seemed to burn garishly for a moment, and the sight of students studying at the tables around her felt just a little off, a little surreal for some reason.

"Mm, yeah. I'm all right, thanks," she muttered, trying to clear her head of the visions that clung like stubborn cobwebs in the corners. She sighed. She was never going to finish this essay at this rate.

"You don't look all right. You wanna copy off me for a change?" Ron handed her a slightly wrinkled and smudged piece of parchment.

Laughing a little at the irony of the situation, she said, "No, Ron. It's all right. I can finish it before class tomorrow." She started to place her books back into her satchel and looked around to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, double-checking for good measure. "I think I'm going to go up to my room. I just can't concentrate on this right now."

"Well, if you change your mind, I'll be in the common room later," Ron added, bowing his head as Madame Pince reproached him silently from a few tables away.

Hermione nodded in answer, tucked her bag up onto her shoulder, and left the library. The walk back to the dormitory did nothing at all to clear her mind like she had hoped. The air was warm and slightly humid, clinging to her skin, fogging her head, making her yawn. She tried to stifle one behind the back of her hand when she heard voices up ahead.

"You would do well to remember that, Mr. McGroarty." It was unmistakably Professor Snape's voice, and she slowed her pace unconsciously, wanting to hang on every word, even if the words were not meant for her. "I doubt you wish to spend your Friday night in detention."

That made her stop short. Tomorrow was Friday. Tomorrow she was supposed to spend detention in the Potions classroom for inappropriately kissing her teacher. Her stomach fell somewhere below her knees at the thought of his lips upon hers, softly encouraging her to yield to him, tenderly caressing her own.

Euan McGroary nearly ran into her as he fled around the corner, forcing her to focus on her surroundings.

"Sorry," he squeaked and rushed down the hallway in an attempt to make it to Hufflepuff territory before Professor Snape could follow.

Hermione murmured something unintelligible in response, turning back only to run into the source of the boy's chagrin: the professor himself. It was a good thing Professor Snape was more aware of his surroundings than she, for he arrested the forward motion of her body with ease. The weight and heat of his palms seemed to burn her flesh as they rested upon her shoulders.

"You should watch where you are going, Miss Granger." His voice dropped to a less intimidating timbre. "I would hate for you to get hurt... or worse, for you to earn yet another detention."

She wished his hands were holding her up instead of keeping her at bay. Her knees had suddenly lost their firmness and were in danger of giving out at any moment. She thought momentarily of collapsing against him, forcing him to accept her weight... anything to find herself in his arms.

Instead, she answered, "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

"Of course," he continued at a near whisper, "I'm sure I could think of myriad things for you to do."

The intensity of his gaze washed like a wave over and through her. Not only was it difficult to stand any longer, she could hardly see. Want had never been so palpable; it had clouded her vision. He left her standing in the open hallway to stalk his next unwitting victim, and she found herself leaning against the wall for support.

~~~o o~~~

Warm hands and delicate kisses caressed her body. She had never felt anything like this before. The intensity was all-consuming. Desire lay upon her like a heavy blanket, covering every inch of her body. No one had ever kissed her so thoroughly, so simply, yet so exquisitely. Each touch of his skin against hers sent quick electric jolts down to her center, making her flesh swell in anticipation.

"Tell me what you want," he coaxed from somewhere in the darkness. She couldn't see him; all she heard was bittersweet dark chocolate as it melted over her senses. "Tell me what you need."

His voice was like an appendage, stroking her, building her up, bringing her closer to the edge. All the while, his lips nipped and teased the line of her jaw up to her ear, nibbling the edges, making her shiver. At the same time, all ten of his fingers seemed to spread out over her body, never quite where she would have liked but teasingly close, as he massaged her shoulders, creating an unbearable tension that screamed for release.

His heated breath tickled the inside of her ear. His tongue traveled delicately in its wake, and vaguely, out of the haze of desire he was brewing inside of her, she hear him murmur, "Tell me, Miss Granger. Do you want me?"

Tiny pinpoints of light burst into a golden display of fireworks behind her closed lids. Her back arched off the bed with the force of her need collapsing in on itself in silent convulsions, her tortured flesh succumbing to the touch of his voice. Her nipples ached. Her skin seemed to beg for more. Her loins throbbed in uneven time with her heart, wishing for more, for something more substantial than a whisper, than an ethereal touch.

She tried to slow her breathing, which came in harsh bursts, moist against her lips, heavy in the already heavy humidity of the room. Relaxing, she realized her nightclothes now stuck to her uncomfortably, and even her hair was a little damp from the exertions of her dream. It was only a dream.

But, what a dream it was. She had gone to bed thinking of him and had willed herself to dream of her professor, of meeting him in the hallway, of perhaps stealing a kiss in a darkened alcove away from prying eyes. Instead, she had fallen into an abstract vision of hands and lips that never left her body, yet frustratingly refused to roam beyond the boundaries they had already visited. Still, what little her dream professor had afforded her had ignited a fire so strong that her body was consumed by it. She expelled the last of her dream with a final, shaky breath.

It was a little unsettling to realize that she wanted her professor in such an inappropriate way. Looking at the clock next to her bed, she counted down the hours until detention.

~~~o o~~~

Thankfully, morning found her a little more coherent than the night before. She finished her essay quickly before breakfast, before she had a chance to lose her mind to the realm of fantasy once again. Once she finished her work, she would allow herself the luxury of a little daydream, but not until then. She hoped so, anyway.

Her bag packed, she jogged down the stairs to meet the boys for breakfast. Fridays were always a little more active than usual, and this one was no different. Girls hung about the doorways and traveled between the bathroom and their dorm rooms, readying themselves for the day. They always put a little more into their appearances on Friday mornings, hoping for that last minute date, not wanting to be left out of the goings-on of the weekend.

Hermione smiled at a couple of first-years as they timidly moved out of her way. Remembering how intimidating the seventh-years had seemed to her when she first began Hogwarts always made her give the younger students an extra smile or a word of encouragement. She skipped down the last three steps into the burgundy tapestried room to find Harry and Ron casually lounging about the far wall, talking to Ginny and one of her friends.

Ron waved, noticing her approach. "Oi, Hermione! You ready?"

"More than ready. I'm famished!" she replied, smiling, and they pushed their way through the portrait hole along with the majority of their house.

For some reason, that morning Hermione felt different. She felt more alert than usual, more aware of her surroundings, and her senses were heightened. The students milled about as usual, but she saw them from a different perspective. She watched as they laughed, talked, nudged, and joked with each other, almost as if she were not being jostled between Harry and Ron. Almost as if she were an outsider.

What had changed between yesterday and this morning, she wondered? She knew that it had something to do with her newfound interest. She highly suspected it was because her newfound interest was a professor and not a student. All the other girls, she noticed, were whispering and giggling over this boy in Ravenclaw or that one in Hufflepuff. Doesn't he look smashing in his Quidditch uniform? How would he react if I just grabbed him by his tie and snogged him to death? Isn't he just the perfect height to do it up against the wall? The girls giggled. Hermione had to shake her head at the last one, trying to clear the image of some fourth-year and Colin Creevey shagging in, hopefully, some very dark corner.

Suddenly, Hermione knew that the problem wasn't that hers was a more worthy love interest, but that she didn't have anything in common with those of her fellow students. How many girls had crushes on professors that had ever come to fruition? Not many, she wagered. She felt decidedly different, more so than usual. She just couldn't imagine walking with a gaggle of girls, giggling over pulling Professor Snape down by the lapels of his teaching robes and snogging him to death... or shagging on top of a Potions table. It made a nice image, but it wasn't something to converse about.

Harry nudged her sharply in the ribs, making her look up and scold him crossly. "What was that for?" she asked, rubbing her side.

"Where are you this morning, Hermione? We've been talking to you, and you don't even hear us. Has someone bewitched your mind or something?"

It was then she noticed that Ginny had her arm laced through Harry's, albeit inconspicuously. She glanced back up at Harry briefly, avoiding his gaze. She had totally missed the fact that her friends' relationship had advanced another step.

She sniffed, a little annoyed with herself. "I don't know. I guess my attention is wandering a little."

"A little?" Ron exclaimed. "Only we've been saying how you've got this dreamy look in your eyes like Luny Lovegood and thought that maybe visions of Wrackspurts were dancing through your head."

"Thanks a lot, Ron." She half-scowled in his direction, although more so at herself than at his comment. She knew she was behaving oddly...for herself, anyway. Still, if people were going to start comparing her to Luna Lovegood, she had better snap out of this half-conscious state quickly.

The Great Hall seemed louder than usual. On second glance, however, the amount of activity was not unusual for the last day of classes before the weekend. She sighed, edged her way onto the bench next to Ginny, and reached for some toast and pomegranate jelly.

She ate in silence while everyone chattered around her, trying to keep her mind on what was going on. Finally deciding to ignore the din, she gently steeped her tea and let her mind wander. Ron had really hit home with that remark about Luna and Wrackspurts, so she determined to stay firmly rooted in reality for the rest of the day. Then, for some odd reason, her gaze passed over the head table, and she noticed that Professor Snape was also dipping a tea bag into a steaming cup of hot water.

He didn't notice her right away, so she gave in to the temptation and watched as his long fingers plucked the tea bag from the mug and gingerly squeezed out the last drops of liquid before discarding it. The motion of his hands, quick and decisive yet never rushed, reminded her of the deftness of his hand at chopping herbs and roots, his adeptness at knowing just when a cauldron needed to be adjusted to a low simmer. A low simmer... It was an appropriate analogy to how her body was reacting.

"...be late for Potions. Hermione!!" Harry grabbed her book bag from beneath the bench, effectively knocking her out of another daydream. Eyes finally coming into focus, they met Professor Snape's steady gaze from beneath a raised brow.

She grabbed her bag and followed her friends quickly to their first class of the day.

~~~o o~~~

"I don't think I did that badly," Hermione retorted hotly. "So what if I mixed wormwood with monkshood? It's an honest mistake. They're used in almost nearly the same potions."

"Sure, it's an honest mistake for a first-year," Ron argued. "Even I knew the answer."

"Well, then, why didn't you raise your hand, Ronald Weasley, if you knew the answer? I mean, you could have saved me the embarrassment."

"Why should I raise my hand when you always raise yours? I can just sit back and settle neatly into the background, never having to answer a single question with you there to do it for me."

Ron grinned. She knew he was teasing her, baiting her into an argument, but she wasn't about to fall for it. Not tonight, at any rate. She had detention in 15 minutes.

"Sorry, Ron, but if you're looking for a little excitement, why don't you have a go at Harry? He seems to be getting quite excited."

Hermione waved her hand in Harry's direction, drawing Ron's attention away from her and onto his little sister who was sitting squarely on the lap of his best friend. They were in the middle of a tickling match, and Ginny was writhing and squealing on Harry's lap.

"I'll see you later, Hermione," Ron said brusquely, walking over to break up what little action his best friend was getting.

She had to chuckle at that. She could draw Ron's attention so easily in different directions, freeing herself up for things she would rather be doing or thinking about. He was predictable, like an old pair of shoes. When she was with him, she knew exactly how he would act to a given situation.

He was so unlike her professor, whom she had thought she had figured out a couple years ago, but whom she now knew could be so... so... what was the word she was looking for? Sexy didn't do it justice. He wasn't a sexy man. Although, she supposed that wasn't a fair assessment since she had always seen him in layers of clothing. How could one discern sexiness properly without a decent view of the other's body?

No. Sexy wasn't the word, but perhaps passionate was. The man had an underlying passion that he hid beneath all those robes, yet she could sense it in the tone of his voice and the touch of his hand....

Blast! Where did the time go? She had less than five minutes to reach the Potions classroom. She was going to be late.

~~~o o~~~

She reached the Potions classroom a little more disheveled than she would have liked and entered it nearly two minutes past seven o'clock. She winced as she opened the heavy oak door and entered. There were two other students already at work, one scrubbing cauldrons with his sleeves rolled up past the elbows and the other chopping something with extraordinary care. They both grimaced at her in sympathy as she entered and took a seat in the middle of the room.

"You're late, Miss Granger," the professor's voice drawled from the storage cupboard. "I would take points from Gryffindor, but I have a much more satisfying way to punish you for your indiscretion."

She stood and walked toward the cupboard to find him standing on a tall ladder, peering down at her. "I am so sorry for being late, Professor. It's inexcusable."

"Mm," he replied noncommittally, lowering his voice below the scrubbing and the chopping of the students beyond the door.

He slowly stepped down the ladder and off the last rung to stand in front of her. She craned her neck to meet his eyes, noticing how dark his irises had become, how his eyes looked like vast oily pools when his pupils were dilated to such a degree. One of his hands reached out to trace the line of her jaw, ending at her chin, holding it in place.

"Umm... what would you have me do, sir? For...for my punishment, that is," she stuttered slightly, a little nervous at his close proximity.

"Well, let's see. I have Mr. Greene scrubbing cauldrons as a punishment for melting yet another one of mine today in class. Then, I have Miss O'Neal chopping Mandrake root as a punishment for forgetting half of her Potions kit this afternoon, of which her knife was one of the forgotten items. As for you," he breathed, his volume lowering even more and the distance between the two of them closing, "I was tempted to have you brew the Draught of Living Death to teach you the importance of time, but I haven't enough sopophorous beans. I suppose the importance of timing can be taught in a different way."

His hands had dropped to her hands, and he slowly drew his fingers up the length of her arms, pausing briefly at her elbows and retreating back to her hands. She felt as though she were about to faint from lack of oxygen when his fingers began playing amongst her own, lacing through them and slipping around them, yet never quite grasping her hands in his.

Drawing in a sharp breath, she asked, "H...how would you sug...suggest I learn that, sir?"

She only wished she didn't sound so nervous. One of his hands lifted and brushed back a lock of hair that had come out of place in her hurry. He carefully tucked the lock amidst the others that she had pulled back into a loose braid earlier that day. Feeling his fingers perform such a personal act as fixing her hair eroded her self-control nearly to he breaking point. She grasped tightly onto what little she had left.

"Understand, Miss Granger, that timing is everything. Just like brewing a potion, one's actions should also be carefully timed. If one does not pay attention, time can slip away, and one can react too late to a given situation, thereby negating the reaction. On the other hand, if one is too eager and reacts too quickly, the result is less than... satisfactory, even to the point of being displeasing."

The sound of his voice gently stroked her nerves much like his hands were doing to her body. They teased the edges of her awareness just enough to titillate all of her senses without overloading them. The combination of his voice traveling up her spine and his hands caressing her shoulders in light circles was infinitely better than the grab-and-grope approach many boys her age adopted.

"How..." She cleared her throat to find her voice. "How does one know what the proper timing is?"

It was too difficult to speak with his hands touching her, moving around her neck, nestling in her hair, unfastening her braid, and letting her hair fall loosely about her shoulders. It was so difficult to keep her eyes from falling shut, from losing herself in this sensual embrace. Unable to prevent her body from reacting any longer, she placed one of her hands on his waist.

"Mmm... Very good, Miss Granger," he murmured into her hair as she circled her thumb over his hipbone.

Even over the robe, frock coat and shirt, she could feel the bone of his hip through the flesh. Suddenly, she wanted to know him further, to find out what all of him felt like under the overly conservative clothing he always wore. Both hands moved around his body and up toward his collar. The professor's eyes closed momentarily as she passed over the buttons on his chest and smoothed across his lapels. However, when her fingers eagrly reached the top button of his coat and began to work it free, they snapped open and he stayed her touch.

"Remember what I said: Do not react too quickly."

She didn't understand why he was stopping her. Any red-blooded male would appreciate a woman's hands all over his body... and more. She wanted to feel him, to know him, and she was tired of waiting, tired of the tension she had been feeling almost continuously these past few days. She felt as though she were about to explode.

"But I want to feel you. I need to know what you feel like beneath my fingers. I..."

He stopped her frantic whispering with a single finger on her lips and carefully pushed her against the shelves. The length of his body pressed against hers, and he looked down into her eyes, expecting her to understand how her quickly roaming hands could lead to much, much more. He smirked as her eyes widened slightly.

His body did not press up against hers with any pressure. In fact, she could have slipped under his arm and walked away quite easily. His body touched hers through the layers of heir clothing very lightly, much like his fingers had caressed her shoulders and face, much like his mouth had softly teased her own, much like his voice had traveled up and down her spine. Yet, beneath all those layers, his hardness was very present and pressed against her stomach just enough that she knew without a doubt that it was there.

At that moment, through the haze of the passion and the desire that boiled feverishly in her brain and made her skin flush with heat, she knew that if she let her hands go unchecked, she would get more than she bargained for. She wanted this feeling to last. She didn't want to culminate their interaction too quickly. She wanted to find out more about him, but not in a way that would negate everything else. She wanted to know his mind as well as his body.

"That's right," he said. "If I would have allowed you to continue, we would have reached an end, but perhaps not exactly the end you were looking for."

She nodded and he stepped back. "I understand. I see what you mean, but I don't understand how you can remain so calm." Her hands trembled as she fixed her hair back once again into a braid.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a second and smiled almost imperceptibly. "I think you've learned your lesson tonight," he said. "You are excused."

Hesitating, wanting to reach out to him but not sure if she should, she said, "Good night, sir."

"Good night, Hermione," he replied as she turned to leave the classroom.

~ End Lesson Three ~