Lesson Six

Lesson Six

Hermione woke with a start, greeting the first whisps of morning haze that stole across the lake, fogging and frosting the beveled, leaden windows of her dorm room. Silently, so as not to arouse her dormmates, she gathered her toiletries and headed for the shower. Everyone remained fast asleep, exhausted from their trip into Hogsmeade the day before and from several illicit parties that always broke out on Saturday nights. Many of the sixth- and seventh-years had somehow procured the Weasley twins' latest experiment...still not released for public consumption...which prevented hangovers, provided the nougat was eaten before falling asleep. They had volunteered to be the twins' guinea pigs, and nougats were passed all around before curfew.

Hermione, however, hadn't been partying with her classmates. She had wandered back to her rooms some time after dinner, late enough that Ron had asked where she had gone off to...a question to which she had had no sane answer to give. She had mumbled something about feeling a little knackered, and amidst odd stares, she had stumbled up the stairs to collapse on her bed. No doubt, Ron and a few others had probably suspected that she had already partaken of another House's refreshments, but she couldn't be arsed to care.

She had lain on her bed, palm tingling, remembering his shape through the rough fabric of his frock coat and trousers, remembering his hardness, remembering his length. Her lips had still been throbbing, burning from his feverish kisses and hungry bites as he had thrust against her hand. She had stolen a hand to her swollen lips and inhaled slowly, gathering hints of damp wool and male musk from the hand that only moments ago had so intimately touched him. A whimper had fallen involuntarily from her lips as she savoured his scent, grateful that her dormmates were not here to witness her loss of control.

She had fallen asleep after repeated attempts to satisfy the craving he had bequeathed her. Alas, there had been no satisfaction by her deft, knowledgeable hand. Each attempt had been a mere twinkle of light, the feeblest of stars in a universe full of massive stars, nebulae and galaxies. The universe had been spread before her, and she yearned to explore it. He was the vessel that would bring her closer to the stars.

Hot water pelted her body, working away at her sore muscles...for which she was solely to blame...and slowly brought with it the awareness of the day. She took her time. It was Sunday, and no one was ever up this early. She had studying to do, having fallen a little behind due to her recent inability to concentrate and constant daydreaming. The faucet twisted shut beneath her fingers, and with a sigh, she stepped out to take a towel and dry herself off.

The plan was to go to the library as soon as she was ready. Madam Pince opened the library at six, even on Sundays, and this morning she was going to take advantage of it. Looking at herself in the steam-edged mirror, she felt a little disappointed. The way she had been made to feel in Professor Snape's arms spurred her imagination into believing her appearance was more romantic, less ... bookish. Not even a drying spell improved the wild curls of hair, and with exasperation, she twisted the bulk of it out of the way, the shorter strands falling forward to frame her face. With a wry grin, she decided that at least it was a good hair day ... for her.

A little rouge blushed her lips and heightened her cheeks. A little coal delicately lined the corners of her eyes. She decided finally that she looked the picture of a virgin out of a romance novel, fresh, innocent, and blushing. With a sudden dose of reality and a small chuckle at herself, she wondered who she was trying to impress this early in the morning. And then ... she realized that she would be seeing Professor Snape this morning in the Great Hall and suddenly felt extremely nervous.

She padded silently across her room to put away her soaps and towels, picked up her bookbag, and left the room, determined to quell her nervousness with a healthy bout of studying.

~

Hermione was well into the twentieth inch of a ten-inch essay when she realized she wasn't the only one in the library. Stomach muscles clenched and she felt vaguely nauseous as she both hoped and dreaded it was Professor Snape. With more than a little inner turmoil, she finally forced her head upward to greet whomever it was.

Almost simultaneously, a bag landed with a thunk on the table across from her, and a grin, too cheerful for this early in the morning, bore down upon her, almost ominously if it were not for the youthfulness of the face which held it.

"Hi, Hermione!"

She could have groaned out loud. Dennis Creevey was the last person she wanted to see this morning, yet here he was. With great difficulty, she forced a smile on her face, though certainly not matching the cheerfulness of his, and schooled her expression into one she hoped would come across as being kind.

"Good morning, Dennis. What brings you to the library so early this morning?" She didn't really care; she wanted him to bugger off.

"Oh, it seems I've got a bit behind in my studying. I saw you leaving the common room earlier. Thought you'd like a study partner," he replied, head bobbing up and down Creevishly.

She hesitated, so the words she really, most definitely wanted to say would remain unsaid, and then hedged. "Dennis, we don't have any classes together."

"Yeah ... well, I know, but it never hurts to have company when you're studying. You never know when you might need someone to bounce an idea off..." He glanced over at what she was writing. "What's that for? Potions? I could look over it for you, make sure you have all the commas in the right place. Make sure you didn't say anything too stupid...not that you'd ever say anything stupid, mind you...because I know how Professor Snape is when he corrects essays. He's positively brutal."

Hermione snatched her essay back from his prying eyes and performed a quick drying charm before rolling it up. Studying was obviously no longer possible unless Dennis Creevey decided to make himself scarce, and she just didn't have it in her this morning to tell the boy to find another ... pursuit. Damn. And she only had seven more inches to go...she was pretty sure anyway. She would have to finish it later this morning, and since the library and the Gryffindor common room were both places Dennis frequented, it would have to be done in the safety of her dorm room.

"No, that's all right, Dennis. I mean, I'm sure you're brilliant at punctuation, but I just realized how late it's getting, and Harry and Ron must be wondering where I've gone off to. Isn't it almost time for breakfast?"

"Um, yeah, I suppose," Dennis mumbled as Hermione crammed parchment, quills, and textbooks into her bookbag.

"I'm dying for a cuppa, and I need to go freshen up a bit before breakfast. See you later?"

Hermione smiled widely, shouldered her bag, and rushed out of the library as gaily as she could. She didn't stop until she was sure Dennis hadn't followed her and then finally let the bloody jolly smile fall from her face. Then she slumped against the wall. She really could do with a spot of tea, come to think of it, and...she looked at her watch...breakfast started in 15 minutes. She'd just go down to the Great Hall and read until the plates appeared.

~

The post owls came early that morning; at least they beat Ron and Harry to breakfast, which was a good thing because the parcel that dropped into her lap was from Flourish and Blotts. Looking to either side to assure no one was looking, she unwrapped the small stack of books. The smallest book fell into her lap and bore a pencil sketch of a young woman, posed with a tilted head, staring at the folded hands in her lap. Very demure, she thought, especially for the title which flowered across the top of the page: Lady Chatterly's Lover.

Quickly, she wiped her hands on the festive, burgundy, cloth serviette that accompanied her plate that morning. Oooh, this was going to be good. She had been wanting to get her hands on this book for quite some time, but had always been afraid her mother would find it on her bookshelf or in a drawer when putting away the washing or, gods forbid, under her pillow while tidying up the bed. She was of age now, which meant she could do magic at home, and she could easily Transfigure the book into something less ... tawdry.

She jumped as Harry and Ron blustered in like a cold, December wind, plopping down beside her and effectively reducing the heat that had begun to simmer as she anticipated reading this book later on. She had already decided the Potions essay could wait.

"I'll never understand why you waste a perfectly good lie in by studying," Ron groused as he sat down, hair a-rumple, looking as though he was not happy one whit with being awake.

Hermione looked at the two boys and noticed they both wore the same haggard looks. Ron reached for the bangers and mash, had second thoughts, and instead grabbed some biscuits and pumpkin juice. Harry seemed fine with toast and tea and didn't look as bad off as Ron did. Harry leant over and refilled her teacup for her and just happened to glance down in her lap as he moved to place the teapot back on the table.

"More books? Don't you have enough?" Harry teased.

She moved to tuck the books and her legs further under the table, but before she could, Harry reached out to grab the topmost book from the pile.

"Oi, I've heard of this book. My aunt has it in her bookcase behind the World Encyclopaedia. It's all about this young girl and all the blokes she has it off with," Harry said, aghast, more to Ron than to Hermione.

"Wha'?" Ron exclaimed through a mouth full of biscuit, eyes bugging out of his head. "You're having a laugh. No way. Gimme tha'."

He reached over to take it from Harry, but Hermione snatched it back and tried to keep their prying hands away without damaging the novel. Both boys tried their best to breech her defenses, of course, and most of the Gryffindors and some of the Hufflepuffs started looking in their direction.

"Boys, I...urgh! Will you please leave me alone. People are starting to look. I don't want everyone to know..."

"Know what, Miss Granger?"

As if Old Man Winter himself had breezed through the room, the voice had rendered all three frozen to the spot.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, unhand Miss Granger ... this instant," Professor Snape drawled, spurring the boys into letting go.

Hermione cringed. This was not how she imagined greeting Professor Snape this morning, her two best...male...friends with their hands all over her, and she, having a row over a book. She wasn't even sure this book was allowable reading material at Hogwarts; it hadn't occurred to her until now. Slowly, she turned and glanced at the professor sheepishly.

He stood behind her, dark trousers and frock coat perfectly pressed, standing at attention with hands clasped behind his back, obviously enjoying the discomfort he was causing. Professor Snape glared at the two boys, who were suddenly very interested in piling all sorts of food onto their plates, and was about to leave when his eyes fell on the book she had been fighting over. His eyebrow raised a fraction, and then his eyes rose to meet hers. She blushed ferociously. For a moment, she was worried that she'd be soundly reprimanded in front of the entire student body for having such a book. Instead, he nodded almost imperceptibly at her, and she knew the fire in his eyes had nothing to do with the recently dealt reprimand.

Suddenly, she had the feeling that she had better be quick about reading this book. She wouldn't put it past him to quiz her on it.

~

She finished the book by late afternoon and took her time revisiting the areas she had marked. If Harry or Ron had been around, they would have been disappointed at some of the passages she found most interesting, as they would have rather read scenes where the characters were "having it off." Well, some of those, admittedly, were rather ... titillating to say the least, and she felt rather warm and restless because of it, but the book had actually been rather enlightening in a few areas.

She had laughed when the author wrote, "And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs."

And then she stopped laughing and started worrying a little. This made sex sound like something primitive and carnal, not really something a woman enjoyed as much as a man. But she had enjoyed the little interlude she had had with Professor Snape the night before, even though he hadn't touched her as intimately as she had him. But his kisses in chorus with his rising passion brought about by her hand had been enough to drive her own passion higher than her self-ministrations ever had.

And then...and then!...the section she kept reading over and over, because it rang so true to the way she ultimately felt, even in her blatant inexperience, was this:

"Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months ... this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to! – had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.

"And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme."

Yes, yes, yes! She knew something like this could be possible. All she had seen of relationships between the girls and boys in her own House never took any of this into account. It was merely physical attraction. This girl finds that boy fit, and the next thing you know, they're snogging in the corridors, hot and heavy, with their hands all over each other, exploring unfamiliar territory and discovering what it was like to be turned on by the opposite sex. Invariably, the following day the same girl would be sobbing in a corner of the common room, being comforted by a friend or two, because that same boy ignored her at breakfast. It made relationships between boys and girls look rather unattractive, in Hermione's opinion.

The book had been an interesting read overall. She had experienced through Connie's eyes what it was like to mature as a woman, though Hermione hoped that she would be smart enough to make better decisions in her life. It was educational in a lot of ways, eye-opening in others. The character was caught in a loveless marriage and knew not what love was or what it was like to experience reciprocal love. The character struggled to learn and in the end found herself embroiled in a scandalous relationship and pregnant with another man's child. Connie's search for love made Hermione wonder if intimacy happened because of love or if love could develop out of intimacy. In that, the book remained rather vague.

Touching was definitely a form of intimacy, whether it was a stroke of a finger on a cheek, a kiss, or a more involved form of touching ... such as what had transpired the night before between her and the professor in that darkened alcove. The physical contact she had had so far with Professor Snape had certainly been stimulating, yet it was minimal and brief and left her longing for more. She wanted to further explore the sensations brought about by their conversation and heated touches. She couldn't help but fantasize what it would be like if she were to pursue intimacy to its fullest with him.

The professor hadn't pushed her into any minor intimacies she hadn't wanted. In fact, she was ready to do so much more, if only he would ask. She was tired of being young and naïve. She wanted to explore the seemingly limitless capability for pleasure her body offered. So many times, especially these past few nights as she replayed in her mind the encounters with the professor, she had positively ached in her endeavour to feel fulfilled...to be filled. There was an emptiness, a hollowness, that prolonged her suffering, and she longed for fullness.

And she wondered if the act itself were as poetic as the author had written when Connie had finally succumbed to love and discovered pleasure in the act of sex, the act of love itself. She had read this passage over and over, her desire to experience the same thing so strong, she felt as though she would die if she didn't experience it soon.

But then she worried, as was her habit. Was it wise to pursue intimacy when there wasn't love? Shouldn't there be love first? She knew from reading the book that love didn't always follow physical intimacy. And same was true of the opposite. Connie hadn't found love until she had found a man who had awakened the sexual spirit within her. And then, the question of whether he loved her or not was always a point of conversation. The nagging bothered Hermione a bit. She'd rather know if a man loved her or not before succumbing to pleasure ... and wasn't pleasure heightened with love?

True, the desires within Hermione's body called out to Professor Snape like a siren. If it were a tangible thing, she imagined it would be rather like Devil's Snare, reaching out and encompassing the man, swallowing him whole. Was there a possibility of love with this man? The thought simmered for a while as she thought about how she had always admired his passion in the classroom, had secretly admired the way he held himself with such aplomb and determination even under the blatant scrutiny of others.

When he had paid her attention that first evening in the library, she had been receptive. She had been surprised that he had noticed her and had been grateful of his aid in the situation with Dennis. When the topic grew more intimate than just professorly guidance, however, she had felt something stir deep within her; a dragon aroused from its eternal slumber had breathed fire into her veins. Admiration had transformed into attraction.

And she was definitely attracted. Their snippets of conversation had not only been stimulating, but revealing. The man behind the professor was coming to the forefront, and she found that she liked the man and could still admire the professor as a separate entity.

Sighing, she closed the book. A look at her watch told her she was nearly late for dinner. Lunch had been lost somewhere between the pages, and to say she was peckish was an understatement. She quickly stuffed Lady Chatterly's Lover beneath her pillow where Lavender and Parvati wouldn't find it. She didn't want to add another item to the long list of things the two girls loved to tease her about.

Harry and Ron nearly tackled her as she reached the bottom of the staircase. A half-played chessboard sat in the corner and was almost upended as they bolted toward the staircase to the girls' dorm; she wondered if they hadn't sat there all afternoon, planning to pounce upon her the minute she re-surfaced from her lazy afternoon of reading.

"Alright there, Hermione?" Ron asked, jostling her and drawing her arm to loop through his.

"So, how was the book?" Harry teased with a knowing smile that gave Hermione the impression he had done more than just notice the book in his aunt's bookcase.

"Yeah, anything ... interesting? You were up there a really long time," Ron cajoled as he nudged Harry and pulled Hermione toward the portrait hole.

"Right. Uh, learn anything new?" Harry added. He was not as easygoing with the ribbing as Ron was. Hermione could tell Harry was a little shyer about his sexuality than Ron.

"Okay. Look," she began and stopped them in the corridor outside Gryffindor tower, removing her arm from Ron's. "The book was actually quite good...and I know what you're thinking, so don't even say it!" she added quickly as the boys' mouths opened to speak. "And I did learn a lot, though not what you'd two expect."

They looked briefly disappointed, no doubt having expected to hear some juicy details of what she had read. The excited blush diminished in Ron's face, and he looked almost deflated. Harry quietly accepted what she had said, but no doubt wanted to get his hands on that book regardless. The boys looked at each other and then rounded on her again, inhaling simultaneously to begin pelting her with more pleas. She cut them off before they could even begin.

"And, no, you may not borrow the book," she said emphatically, marching on ahead to the Great Hall.

"Aw, but Hermione!" Ron bawled, inspired by a challenge, and went after her. "Harry said..."

"Oh, and that's another thing," Hermione interrupted. She looked over her shoulder at the two hormonal boys. "Obviously you've already read the book, Harry...you know, the one on your aunt's bookshelf...at least the pertinent bits." She smirked as her friend had the decency to look abashed. "I know you skipped over all the meaningful parts to read the sex bits But the story was about much more than just sex. And that's all I'm going to say about it because both your minds are travelling down one track, and I know there's no hope of a detour."

Her glare made them cower, which gave her the opportunity to continue down the corridor unimpeded. She knew they were just boys, and even the mention of sex reduced their minds to unthinking, unreasoning, blood-deprived blobs of white matter. She hadn't the patience to waste explaining to them what the book was really about.

"But..." the boys chorused from behind her, wanting to prolong the argument in the hope that she'd change her mind about loaning them the book.

"No!" She shouted back. "And that's final!"

The haughty, determined manner she held as she entered the Great Hall...thanks to her exasperating discussion with Harry and Ron...drew the attention of a few Gryffindors as she sat down. She found a seat quite easily, no doubt because her fellow housemates knew not to approach her when she was in one of her moods, and proceeded to pile meat, potatoes, and sweet corn onto her plate. She didn't have to look to notice Harry and Ron entering a short while later, and her senses heightened as they flanked her at the table. They remained silent as they also filled their plates.

After finishing her meal with not a single word out of the two boys, though the cacophony of surrounding conversation rebounded off the walls of the hall, she decided to relax a bit in her stance and felt rather regretful that she had rebuked them as she had.

"Listen, I'm sorry I was such a cow. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have allowed you to see the book in the first place. And actually, I don't mind if you borrow the book," their eyes brightened a bit, "but only if you read the entire thing. Perhaps you'll learn a thing or two."

Their eyes extinguished and depression was upon them once more. To boys, sex was all about feeling good, not about learning. Hermione sighed and looked toward the star-studded ceiling and suddenly felt the need for a walk, to be able to breathe without the smothering sensation of teenage hormones that blanketed the room, to collect her thoughts and decide what she wanted right now in her life.

So she gathered her robes, stepped over the bench she had been sitting on, and left the Great Hall, less haughtily than she had entered. She felt an odd tightness, a sort of burning in the back of her head and neck, the sort of feeling one gets when being stared at intently by another person. She knew it wasn't the boys. They never looked at her with such intensity. No one else had reason to look at her, save perhaps Dennis Creevey, but that look would have been one maybe of teenage angst, of longing. No, this feeling was so piercing, so consuming, it could only be one person. It took every ounce of strength she had not to look back at the head table where the owner of those eyes sat. She was afraid that the longing she would betray in looking back at him would be adolescent, rather similar to the look of longing Dennis sported for her. She didn't want to come across as being naïve, as being inexperienced. Though she may be both of those things, the fire that burned in her belly was so much more.

She went up to her dorm to grab her winter cloak and left via the front hall to have a walk about the rose garden. Roses which grew even amongst the winter chill and occasional drifts of snow due to the magic which permeated the very grounds. The headmaster loved beauty even amidst the starkness of the season, and she was grateful, for the glorious blossoms and unfurled buds brought to mind the innocence of youth cradled and caressed by the weathered hands of the more seasoned. It gave her hope that the two...the inexperienced and the experienced...could exist together and find comfort as one.

She sat on a bench toward the outer boundary of the garden, as far away from the castle as she could get, trying to remove herself as much as possible from the rampant adolescent hormones that somehow seemed to diminish her own. And in quiet speculation she sat, watching the sparse descent of snowflakes fall upon the blood-red petals of the roses, settling carefully, melting, being absorbed by the innocent blooms, and it almost seemed as though the flowers thrived from the connection and looked brighter somehow, more vibrant ... more alive.

She hadn't noticed his approach, not until she felt a movement beside her, and her eyes stole to the left to come to rest on the now-occupied span of bench to see black, cloak-clad legs and contrastingly white hands resting comfortably upon them. There was still perhaps an inch or two of space between them in which she could still glimpse the hard stone of the bench, but she favoured to rest her eyes upon something softer, whether it be the wool of cloak or skin of hands, it didn't matter.

Shyly, her eyes stole up the front of his cloak, buttoned against the chill of winter, and finally to the sheen of black hair that hung in front of his face. It was the posture of the man, not the professor, and she felt the intimacy between them even though they were not at the moment touching. It was that feeling of intimacy, the remembrance of where her hand had wandered the night before, that brought her hand upward to brush back the curtain of hair, which blocked his face. She wanted to see him, the man who had accepted her touch, had welcomed it and been satisfied, if only temporarily, by it.

He turned his head toward her at the simple gesture, and her hand moved to his face, seemingly of its own accord. His cheek was soft and warmed still by the heat of the castle. Her eyes slowly travelled up from the curved angle of his chin to the fleshed out line of his lips...lips that she suddenly wanted to taste, but refrained from doing so...to the sharper angle of his cheeks and prominent peak, which was his nose, standing out proudly in stark contrast to the rest of his face, and finally to his eyes, which bore into hers instantly with a heat she was still not used to.

"You missed lunch this afternoon," he spoke, his voice soft to match their surroundings, the voice of the man, not the professor.

"I was reading," she confessed, aware that he'd seen the book in her lap and would assume that's what had entertained her all afternoon.

"And ... did you learn anything from what you've read?" he prodded gently so as not to frighten her away from the subject, but encourage her into conversation.

"Yes, actually," she said and looked down into her own lap, unable to meet his eyes and speak of these things simultaneously. "I learned that intimacy is not the same thing as love, that love may either precede or follow intimacy, though love does not always lead to intimacy and intimacy does not always lead to love. I learned that love can be difficult to find, and mistakes are often made in the pursuit of love."

She paused, but he didn't let the silence settle. "And from all this, what have you discovered in yourself ... What do you desire? What do you need?"

The professor guided the man, she discovered. Sometimes the professor concealed the man he was, and sometimes he released him, allowed him to follow more manly pursuits, but the professor was always there. She smiled and decided she rather liked that, that it made him more intriguing, more challenging ... or was it that he challenged her?

"I know that I'm naïve," she began, a little hesitantly. "More than anything, I am tired of being an inexperienced little girl. I want to experience life, learn everything I can, including the desires of my body ... a body that is no longer that of a little girl." She looked up at him then, suddenly bolder with her admission.

"I fear I am too young to know what love is beyond platonic or familial love. But I am not averse to striving for it. I do, though, want to explore every facet of intimacy I can, whether it be intellectual or emotional ... or sexual. I hope that through this I can possibly learn what love is."

She stopped speaking, only because it looked as though the fire in his eyes had been stoked and was now burning higher and brighter. His whole body tensed on an inhale, and she feared he would never exhale and this moment would be frozen in time forever. Would he never touch her? Would she never feel the softness of his lips against hers? Parts of her felt attracted to him as though he were a giant magnet, and the pull was too great for her to resist.

Without conscious thought, their lips crushed together hard and desperate, as though each were trying to draw in the other, filling all the empty places and fulfilling their desires. Their lips parted only to fill their heaving lungs and satisfy the all-consuming need to drink the other in. Between gasping breaths of chilled winter air...the only reminder of their surroundings...their tongues met with hard presses and shared thrusts. She felt every spear of his tongue deep within her body, where she longed to be filled by the hardness she had felt in her hand the night before. She wanted to spread her legs and welcome him into her, damn propriety and consequences, and feel the supreme satisfaction it would bring. She'd welcome the pain along with the pleasure, make the pain her pleasure as it made her womanhood complete....

And suddenly, he drew back, only slightly in order to rest his forehead against hers, but enough to put an end to their heated kisses. They panted heavily, their breath forming white clouds that dissipated into the rose-scented winter air. It was difficult to be separated even this much when she felt the pull of his body so close to hers. Every inch of her skin longed to be pressed against his. Every fibre of her being was perched on a precarious pinnacle of desire, needing...nay, yearning...for that little nudge that would push her off the edge. She nearly screamed with the frustration of it all.

"We need to slow down," he managed to say between heaving breaths. "I won't have you rushing through this as though it were merely something to get through, to learn, as though it were a book you could read in one afternoon."

He was right, she realized suddenly. She had been thinking of the ultimate act of sexual intimacy when they had yet so far to go and hadn't explored the territory. There were things about him she did not yet know, and things about her he didn't know. She'd rather explore the surrounding fauna first before conquering the mountain. Sighing in agreement, albeit reluctantly, she allowed him to fold her within his arms.

"Need we go slower than last night?" she asked, hoping he'd concede a little bit. The pressure inside of her was at dangerous levels.

"Last night was..." he hesitated, and she held her breath in anticipation of the coming words, "...was mind-blowingly brilliant," he finally said, "and I'm not sure I could retreat from that level of intimacy. I am confident we'll cover anything we may have missed while we deepen our knowledge of each other.... But we shouldn't let our passion and desire guide us past that point until we both are ready."

Her body felt more than ready, and no doubt his did as well, but emotionally, she knew she wasn't ready for that level of intimacy. She burrowed against him and placed a hand on his chest, feeling the buttons of his frock coat through the fabric of his outer cloak. There it rested until it felt the need to be reminded of what else may be felt over his outer cloak. She was certain of what she would find. But he placed his hand over hers before it could give in to temptation.

"Professor, I..."

"Shhh...." The soft hush brushed the outer rim of her ear, sending thrills down her spine. "I want to give it to you. I want to give it all to you. I..."

She couldn't resist. The student in her broke loose for a moment with the need for questions. "But why?" she asked. "Why do you want to ... to share these intimacies with me? I know almost nothing about all this. I'm nothing special. You could have so much more."

He put a finger on her lips to hush her once again before she could list any more of her supposed inadequacies. He turned her more fully to face him, releasing his hold upon her. With affection, he brushed a curl from her forehead and tucked a few strands behind her ear with a finger that gently trailed across the angle of her jawbone until it reached the point of her chin. There, his hand fell into her lap where it grasped her own. He took both her hands in his, almost imploringly, making her want to understand something, though to put voice to it would not be easy.

"Hermione, I..." the man before her blushed but continued resolutely, "...I don't remember what initially drew my attention to you. Perhaps it was your fierce determination to learn, which impressed me but at the same time was frustrating because no one else seemed to have that sort of drive to learn, to achieve, to excel. I'm not sure when it began. I think I was in denial at first. I saw you in the library one night, tutoring some hapless boy, and I could see the frustration through the kindness you managed to maintain at the boy's ineptness for the subject. I found myself going to the library more often, hoping to see you there, and when I would find you, I'd position myself somewhere no student would find me ... and just watch.

"Something like this had never happened to me before. I'd noticed relationships in the past between colleagues of mine and students...all of age, mind you...and I always felt disgusted, and it resulted in my seeing those colleagues in a different light. When it happened to me ... at first, I was disgusted with myself. But then, I couldn't get you out of my mind, and I ... I needed ..." He stopped for a moment to gather his scattered thoughts, and she remained silent, holding onto his hands for support, knowing that if she broke the silence now with more questions, he would never finish what she knew he had to say.

"I was finally presented with an opportunity that night when you were tutoring Dennis in the library and he was awkwardly trying to show you his interest, though you had not realized it. I was propelled by my desire that night, a desire for you to recognize that I was interested in you. And I suppose in some way I wanted to show you that a man was what you needed, not some ... boy." He said the word disdainfully, and she could tell he had refrained from using perhaps a more derogatory word.

"Professor?" she dared to speak even though he may want to say more.

"Wait." He looked like he was struggling with something. "You can't imagine how many times I've imagined you in my arms, Hermione. It feels so right. Yet, because you're my student, it feels wrong."

"I'm interested in the man, not the professor," she said quietly. "Though the combination is stunningly attractive."

If it was a time for confessions, she had just given hers. He looked into her eyes boldly, searching for something, she knew not what. She had spoken the truth as she knew it. She had nothing to hide and boldly displayed what she owned like a true Gryffindor. She took the opportunity to continue while they were still confessing.

"As a professor, you have always impressed me. I've always had the deepest respect for you since the very beginning and have understood the frustration you always displayed so openly at the ... less apt of students." If he was going to hold back on the more derogatory of words, then so would she. "Your knowledge is formidable, and I've always admired it. On the other hand, I recently have begun to admire the man as well as the professor.

"I don't know. I think it began gradually, noticing the way you walked, the way you stood amongst your colleagues, the way you demonstrated little things in class...not the teaching aspect of it, but the way you'd take a knife deftly in your hand to show a student the proper way of chopping ingredients. The gracefulness of your movements, the sureness of them, I couldn't draw my attention away, and I'd have to forcefully refocus myself upon the more studious aspects of what was going on.

"I will even admit to having a wayward fantasy or two, and even once a pretty vivid dream ... " The blush rose forcefully in her cheeks, but she forced herself to go on. "When you kissed me in the library, it ... it woke something inside of me I didn't know was there. You know what it is, and I cannot imagine anyone else teaching me what it is or how to appease it."

"But not as your professor," he said quietly.

"No," she agreed firmly. "I don't want you to teach me as Professor Snape. I want you to teach me as Severus Snape."

She knew confession time had come to an end when he carefully closed the space between their bodies and brushed his lips against hers. So different from his previously frenzied kiss, this one was soft, affectionate, yet it still held within it all the desire he felt for her. She returned it with equal affection, and they held hands and quietly expressed their newfound affection until they heard voices coming down the path.

Both were abruptly reintroduced to their respective roles of professor and student as the owners of the voices grew closer.

"I know she's out here somewhere. Lavender said her cloak is gone," Ron said none-too-quietly.

"But can't you just leave her be?" persisted Harry. It was an ongoing back-and-forth the two always had when she had disappeared and they endeavored to find where she might be.

Hermione looked at Severus sharply. The boys were only halfway down the path, but would find them soon enough. "Let's get out of here. Do you have somewhere we could go?"

With a curt nod of his head, he helped her off the bench and silently led her past the boundary of the rose garden into the gathering darkness outside the glow of the castle windows. The boys' voices grew dimmer until they couldn't hear them any longer. They came eventually upon a series of huts, built much in the same style as Hagrid's, but farther away from the castle and much smaller. She knew what they were, and she had seen them before at a distance. They had been built hundreds of years ago and were meant to be extra quarters for groundskeepers and livery boys when the castle housed many more people than it did now. She had no idea the huts had been kept up, but was eager to see.

He performed a few spells as they approached, ensuring that no one else about. Nodding to her silently, he led her to the farthest hut, obviously with the reasoning that if anyone came by with a similar purpose, they would be less likely to be found. He led her inside, and as he warded the door and pronounced a Silencing Charm, she looked around at the sparse furnishings. A bed, a small kitchen, complete with teapot and mugs on the sideboard and a rickety table and two chairs was really all such a small hut could hold, but everything was clean, she noticed thankfully.

He let go of her hand to loosen the fastenings of his cloak, which he draped on one of the small chairs, and then proceeded to undo her cloak, which he placed in similar fashion over his. She stood there, unable to do anything, overwhelmed with being alone with him, away from prying eyes, portraits, or professors. She hardly knew if she should stand or sit, let alone anything else.

But that was all right; he knew what to do. He waited until her eyes were firmly upon him again, instead of roaming the small quarters, and then began to undo the buttons of his frock coat. She could have swooned at such a simple gesture. She had never seen him outside the confines of his frock coat, no student ever had, and it had been the speculation of a number of girls as to what actually lay beneath all those buttons. She was about to find out. She could see from the amusement in his eyes that he knew it too. He had never done this before in front of a student, or so he had confessed earlier, which made this a "first" for him as well.

With the last button undone, the coat fell open to reveal a crisp white shirt, done up in black pearl buttons. The removed frock coat fell on top of their cloaks like something discarded which no longer mattered to him. Then he took the few steps that separated them and began unfastening the student robe she had worn to dinner.

"I don't want to be professor and student tonight, Hermione," he stated simply as the student robe fell away, revealing the casual attire she usually wore on weekends. He placed her robe on top of everything else, then led her to the bed and guided her to sit beside him without a word.

He took in her face first, cupping her cheek in his palm. He spent a moment smoothing unruly spirals of hair behind her ears and then slowly leaned in to kiss her lips. Just one kiss. She was mesmerized by the gentleness of his touch, the way he doted on her, and so she let him take the lead.

He kissed her lips once again and then traced kisses along her jawline up to her ear, where she could hear and feel his breath coming in short bursts, proving to her that while he may be taking this leisurely, his desire was definitely stronger than he was letting on.

He teased her ear with the tip of his tongue, and she shifted slightly, squirming under the delicate sensations it caused. She hadn't noticed where his hands were until she felt one of his fingers gently circle a hardened nipple, and then she realized the edge of her jumper had been hiked upwards, exposing her bra. He had not yet unfastened it, but was satisfied with teasing her through the sheer barrier of fabric.

He stopped kissing her and sat back, holding the hem of her jumper, silently asking if it would be all right to remove it. She had nothing to say against it, and off it went, tossed on the foot of the bed. Now he looked at her hungrily, and she squealed as he pulled her over to straddle his lap so her breasts were more level with his face. No doubt, he saw them straining with desire against the fabric of her brassiere, for he had the clasp open in a thrice and the contraption off and thrown over her discarded jumper.

Now he was able to service her better. Those two heavy globes of flesh men were born dreaming of suckling upon found their way to his mouth, whereupon he began his litany of kisses, nibbles, sucks and love bites. Her nipples grew taut and tender, even as he sucked his way around the underside of her right breast, his hand gently kneading the other. She couldn't believe how good it felt, much better than fondling them herself.

With his hands, he grabbed her buttocks and pulled her in closer on his lap so she could feel how his body responded to her. The contact between her cleft and his hardness, though both were still clad, sent a shockwave through her, and her core melted instantly. She ground herself against him, awkward in her movements, only knowing that she wanted to feel all of him against her, every inch of him sliding along every inch of her. And she wanted to feel the hard tip of him pushing against that small bundle of nerves at the very edge of her pubic bone over ... and over ... and over.

The kisses upon her breasts were no longer gentle, and she arched her back, trying to get him to take more of her into his mouth, and he greedily complied, sucking and swallowing around her flesh, holding them up so that he could pay them better attention. The harder she ground her lower body against his, the harder he sucked and the harder he swept his tongue across the tender skin. He growled as her hips became more persistent, as she consistently caught the tip of his hardness against the edge of her cleft, where he knew the center of her pleasure lay. His hands flew to her hips, and he helped to grind her against him, and finally, it became too much, and he fell backwards upon the bed.

Grateful of the position change, she settled herself more fully over him, her knees on either side of his hips now, her spread womanhood firmly against him. The heat between them burned her skin, though in a way so pleasurable she could not complain. She leant over and let her hair fall to either side of his face as she tilted her hips forward and back and slid up his length and back down, wanting to feel all of him, even though it was to remain hidden beneath his trousers for now.

She kissed him then, not with that frenzied passion of earlier, nor with the gentle affection he had displayed, but with confidence and eagerness, wanting to somehow show him everything she was feeling, though she couldn't express it in words even if she had wanted to speak at that moment. He returned the kisses, following her lead, but the kisses soon grew in fervour as their hips moved in counterpoint against each other, signalling their mutual need for the height and eventual end to the madness.

He held her hips down close, so there was no chance of separation, and ground against her forcefully. He growled in time with the thrusts, and she could tell he was holding something back. She pulled back, abandoning his kisses, encouraging him to give voice to his passion.

At first he just growled and moaned, mouth closed, not allowing his voice to be free. She wanted to hear his voice, that sweet mahogany timbre, tell her what he was thinking this very moment as he thrust his body so intimately against hers.

"Tell me," she said, her voice forced against the pleasure that wanted to stifle it.

Just those two words had a miraculous affect upon him, and he let loose everything he wanted to say to her in that moment as they surged against each other, striving for the completion that was bound to happen sooner or later.

"Mmm ... Hermione." Her name, a spell upon his lips, more beautiful than she had ever heard it before. "Gods, I want to rip away your clothing, have you naked before me." He paused as her hips sharpened their angle and her cleft ground against and around him with a different intensity.

"All I dream of is having you soft and warm around me ... oh, yes!" he exclaimed as she angled downward suddenly on the hard, damp ridge that was giving her so much pleasure. And surged upward again. "To be inside of you, surrounded by you ... being loved by you."

That did it. Those words brought her down, flush up against him, a final time, and then everything beyond that was erratic movements and incoherent whimperings as she climaxed hard, muscles clamping, pushing up against him so he could feel what he had done to her, still moving against him frantically, trying to prolong this glorious feeling, and him gasping under her and pushing up against her, trying to get inside her and saying her name over and over as his passion built to a peak and then crying out as he loss control of the rhythm and jerked against her still shuddering muscles, still trying to bury himself within her and groaning when he realized he couldn't....

She slowed the movement of her hips until finally her muscles stopped clenching and he no longer felt hard against her. Though she preferred to stay right where she was at the moment, still connected with him...however connected they could be with their clothes still in place. Then she realized that not all her clothes were in place and remembered her jumper had been lost somewhere in the process, as had her bra, but she oddly didn't feel self-conscious.

Leaning over, her breasts first grazed his shirt, then pressed up against him, and she rested upon him, taking solace from his less passionate but no less desired kisses upon her lips. A glorious feeling of restfulness, of satisfaction, stole over her. She had no idea that she could feel metaphorically "full" without him being inside her. It was wonderful, and she was glad to have had this chance without bypassing it altogether.

After a while of kissing and quietly musing, they were dangerously close to falling asleep. Hermione kept dozing off in between kisses, though didn't want to stop. It was too lovely being together, being able to touch like this, and she didn't want it to ever end. But it had to at some point. She had curfew to make, classes in the morning. The stark reality of the real world began filtering into her consciousness.

She forced herself to speak. "Professor, I..."

"Shhh," he implored, begging her not to say more. "If I were your professor right now, I'd have given you detention for snogging and ... well, indecent behaviour becoming a student of your caliber."

That amused her, and she gave into the temptation. "Well, you could always give me a detention anyway," she retorted lightly.

He nipped her lips harshly and, with a sudden move, rolled them both over so he was the one on top, though he was still between her legs and still flush up against her womanhood. She showed her indignation by clenching her Kegel muscles as hard as she could, which made both his eyebrows rise in surprise and his softened manhood begin to harden once more.

He groaned. "Oh, Hermione. What are you doing to me?" he ground out in a voice barely able to speak, low, gruff, filled with need.

So she clenched her muscles again. And again. And he thrust against her, hard once more. He was in control now, not her, and he thrust with experience under his belt, knowing just where the sensitive points were, and even a few times aimed to penetrate her through her clothing, which proved to her that she hadn't yet been filled when her body nearly exploded with need.

"Oh, gods!" she cried out, unable to control the emotions he was forcing out of her with every single-minded thrust against her now-dampened jeans. "I want you, I need you, I want you inside me, please ... oh, gods, I can't take it anymore!"

And her hands tried in vain to reach between their bodies so she could unfasten his trousers, unbutton her jeans, anything. He wouldn't let her. He pressed their bodies together tighter and increased the pace of his thrusts instead.

"You want me inside of you?" he growled into her ear as he rubbed himself crazily against her.

"Yes, yes, oh gods, yes, please!" she ranted through the mind-numbing passion he was building up inside of her once more. She was close, she wanted to feel him, wanted him inside her, wanted his skin against hers, needed him, why couldn't he spell their clothes away, gods she hadn't wanted anything more in her life than she wanted him right now.

His hips suddenly stroked long and hard against her, once, twice, thrice...oh, a fourth time, yes!...and she could feel the hard muscle between them pulse out its pleasure for the second time that evening, and that pushed her over the edge, and she came, grasping and clutching the shirt on his back and screaming his name: "Severus!"

He shuddered against her and held her close so that his face was buried in her hair. She could feel him breathing deeply, trying to control the raggedness of his breath and the erraticness of his heart. She felt complete underneath him, even though he was crushing her almost unbearably, and felt abandoned when he finally rolled off to one side.

She reached out to hold his hand so that the contact wouldn't end. It was bad enough they'd have to go back up to the school soon and would have to fall back into their professor-student roles once more. It felt like she was going to lose him, and she didn't want to let go just yet.

Sighing, he sat up and pulled her to a sitting position. Hesitating, he looked into her eyes and caressed her cheek, holding it for a moment in his palm. The tenderness in his gaze was like nothing she had ever seen before. He leaned in for a brief kiss, and his lips held such affection, caring, and something she couldn't quite name. It didn't last, but all his emotions had been in that one kiss, and after everything they had just experienced together, it was a fitting end to the evening.

Quietly, he helped her get dressed, and he held her winter cloak open as a final gesture of tenderness towards her. Tenderness which he could not display once back at the school. But they would find a way, she was sure. There would be more times like this. She would make sure of it.

He held her hand as they left the hut, and she burrowed into his side as they walked down the path back up to the school, not wanting to let him go. As they began to emerge out of the darkness and into the light that spilled from the windows of the castle, they let go of each other. And once they reached the front entrance, he held the door open for her, let her pass, and murmured a gentle, "Good night, Miss Granger," as he walked off to his own tower and his duties as a professor.

~ End Lesson Six

A/N: All quotes were taken from Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H.Lawrence, Copyright 2003 by Renaissance E Books.

If I didn't thank Southern_Witch_69, I would be remiss. I write best when I'm in the fog of 'the zone', and I couldn't pull myself out long enough to catch all my typos. That, and someone turned off the spell check in Word (yeah, I'm the only one who uses my laptop). So without SW, this would have read like a parody of some really fancy smut. *lol* Thanks, SW, for putting up with this unusually long chapter.