Part Third: The Hart Subvertant: Prologue Part 4

Prologue: Like a Plant Kept in the Dark, Part 4:

Then Evan and Felina made their grand exit off to their honeymoon, and Severus left the Rosiers' manor and went back up to Snape Hall to make his preparations for an extended holiday at Malfeasant.

Lucius had, as he promised before his departure, sent an owl with various keys and instructions regarding wards and security at Malfeasant, so Severus was able to let himself in when he arrived on June 1st, just before the Blacks were to arrive. A small group of house-elves arrived to greet him and take his new cloak (also acquired at the Malfoys' bespoke tailors, a week before) and take his trunks, the same ones Octavia had given him when he was ten. The elves ushered him up to his accustomed little garret guest room and helped him to unpack.

Aunt Tamora and Uncle Abraxas greeted him at a small but sumptuous family supper in the sunroom on the day of his arrival. The three of them discussed the upcoming Wiltshire social season and events planned for the summer, as well as plans for Lucius's wedding in October of the next year. Severus nodded understandingly as Aunt Tamora bent his ear about how disappointing it was to have to push the wedding back six months, and nodded understandingly again as Uncle Abraxas described the necessity of sending Lucius away for the year and remarked that there was nothing like a year in the Third Kingdom to bring colour into a young man's cheeks.

"There's those that send their children to Italy for a fresh and robust character, but I say, I'd take a year with the Fae any day," his uncle averred. "And hopefully he'll pick up some of the Faeries' magic, like old Buck Swain did. Have you ever been introduced to the Swains, nephew? No? Pity, they're a fine old lot, salt of the earth, really. Well – " Uncle Abraxas exchanged a look with his wife " – except for the new branch on the family tree, but the native wife and daughter seem harmless enough, both easy on the eyes, and no hankering to move here, thank Merlin. But Faery magic, that's the thing, tricksy stuff it is, never could quite get my head 'round but a few charms of it, but let's hope Lucius fares better than his old dad, shall we?"

"Of course, Uncle," Severus replied.

"Buck Swain's a fine fellow to learn it from. He's practically a Faerie himself these days, except without the long ears, of course," Abraxas Malfoy said with another swallow of brandy, and Severus chuckled dutifully.

After supper, Aunt Tamora took Severus into the garden for a walk. After he had duly admired this year's crop of roses, she gave him the rundown of upcoming events, and a list of things it would be absolutely wonderful of him to help her with – and by the end of that talk he had sent for a scroll of parchment and quill and had a To-Do list longer than his arm, but Aunt Tamora was beaming at him, saying that she'd always thought Eileen Snape had brought her son up to be a young gentleman with the best of them.

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Lucius's fiancée arrived two days later, in demure, high-necked robes of lacy pink silk, a straw picture hat, and white gloves, accompanied by her mother Druella, in her usual elaborate mourning, and younger brother Menzentius, slouching in an expensive tweed jacket. Severus and Aunt Tamora were on hand to greet them. A small troop of house-elves arrived to take their mountain of luggage as Aunt Tamora invited their guests in to high tea, and Severus had to step up and cough forbiddingly at the teenage Menzentius, who was dangling a little valise just out of reach of a pair of frustrated elves.

"I had a visit from your grandmother," Druella Black said, apropos of nothing, as Severus took her arm to escort her to the dining room.

"Really," Severus said.

"Is she still living in the Ollivander penthouse in Mayfair?" Druella rasped, a petulant expression puckering her wrinkled countenance even further.

"Yes, she's still living in Mayfair, Aunt Druella."

"You've been visiting her, haven't you."

"Yes, now and then."

"She's still a trustee of the wandmaking firm?" Druella barked.

Severus looked up, at a loss. "Er... I don't know," he said truthfully.

"You're with us for the summer?"

"Yes, Lucius asked me to help his parents this summer," he said politely. "I'm glad to see you all."

Druella fell silent as he handed her into her chair at the table, her eyes raking over his new day robes and new boots, and sulked at him. Perhaps she was offended that her great-nephew had found less high-interest patronage elsewhere, or perhaps she was just much fatigued from her journey, and that put her out of sorts. Severus poured her out a cup of tea and handed a silver basket of hot scones across the table to her.

Aunt Druella barely spoke to him at lunch, somewhat to Severus's consternation. But he had no way of knowing at that time that Druella Rosier Black and Octavia Ollivander Prince had once been rival belles of Slytherin House, and while his grandmother's late husband's family had solidly maintained their fortunes throughout the years, the Blacks had not, and while Octavia's Grosvenor Square home was appreciating in value every year, the Blacks' London properties were depreciating every year. Severus was also only sketchily aware of the history of the Ollivander family, who had cornered the market on British wandmaking well over two thousand years ago and had held it ever since, despite the efforts of numerous other companies to carve out even a niche in the lucrative wand market. Due to the matter of the promissory notes, Severus had, all unawares, become a bone of contention between two wealthy and powerful society matriarchs without even realising what had happened, but at that moment, all he knew was that his great-aunt was not altogether pleased with him about something. It is of course never pleasant to be put in the position of having to console someone else for being thwarted in her attempt to take advantage of you, so he remained silent throughout most of tea.

Druella's eyes raked impatiently around the table. "Has anyone heard from Bellatrix yet?"

"No, she said she'd be here today though," Narcissa replied, demurely replacing her teacup in its saucer.

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Very late that evening, Bellatrix finally arrived.

Severus had been appointed to wait up for her and, after a few glasses of Uncle Abraxas's brandy, had fallen asleep in an armchair in the great front hall. He awoke to the sound of a key turning in the front door lock – and a moment later, Bella's silhouette appeared from the foyer... tall, dark, beautiful, smoky-voiced, sophisticated, unstoppable force of nature... Bellatrix Black.

She was wearing a long black silk travel robe with a red velvet frock coat, and a cunning little red velvet hat. She smelled of some exotic Oriental perfume, and was still rouging her lips deep red.

Bella set down her pocketbook and a little train case, both of sinfully expensive black dragonhide, and pulled off her black satin gloves. A small group of sleepy house-elves materialised behind her to take her luggage, a matching black leather Holding Trunk, the latest thing from the Taerdis Co. "You is in the Rose Room, Miss Black, miss, it's up in the west wing – "

"Yes, I know where it is," Bella said, cutting them off with a tiny sneer.

She headed out onto the rose-garden veranda just outside the front hall, nodding to Severus as she passed. He followed her out, intending to ask how her trip had been. "Bring me a drink, would you, love?" she said, when he appeared in the doorway. "Brandy would be nice."

"Er, sorry," he said, and went back into the hall for a drink.

"Get one for yourself, silly," she said when he returned with the single glass. "And come sit with me."

Severus's pulse had spiked upward immediately upon her arrival, and his palms were growing damp at this proximity to his erotic ideal, alone and late at night, but he forced himself to maintain a proper host's decorum when he rejoined her, a glass of brandy in hand.

Bella took off her gloves, very slowly and deliberately; flash of pale hands in the moonlight. "Mum and Cissy and Menz are all here already? Which rooms do they have?"

"They've all got staterooms in the east wing, I think."

"Mmm." She plucked a couple of fragrant red blooms, and held them to her lips. "Where did they put you?"

"The westernmost gable garret."

"Ah. There's a nice view of the gardens, from that high up." She took a cigarette out of a little silver case in her breast pocket, and lit it. In a moment the air was full of the scent of some fragrant Egyptian tobacco like clove and spice.

"Yes, I've always liked it."

"Too bad for Lucius, isn't it, that he has to be off roughing it with Faeries, while the social season's going on. He's going to miss all the fun."

"Yes, it's rather a pity they had to reschedule the wedding. Narcissa seems awfully disappointed."

"Oh, she is. She can't stop bloody whining about it. That's why I wanted to get here after they were all in bed, so I wouldn't have to listen to her for one whole day." She looked pensively off into the garden, the cigarette dangling from her languid, tapering fingers. "Mum's not at all happy about this Faery page thing, not happy at all. She really doesn't like the bloke who's sponsoring Lucius, thinks he's cracked in the head. Didn't he marry some native woman with a daughter?"

"I don't know, I hadn't heard anything about him until Uncle mentioned him the other night."

"Mum met this bloke's native wife at some Wizengamot thing a few years back, and said she was just a haughty piece of work like you wouldn't believe."

Severus shrugged. "I've never met her."

"So, which cotillions are we all on for, then? Do you know?" Bella took a long drag off her cigarette, and exhaled slowly.

"We're having a duck hunt here this weekend, and the Wilkeses are throwing a ball the weekend after that, and there's a dance at the Mulcibers', and Evan and Felina are hosting a garden party at the end of the summer. There's more, but I'd need to get my notebook to give you the proper list."

"How about the Parkinsons? Aren't they hosting something?" Bella aimed an incisive look at him; even in the moonlit darkness, her eyes seemed bright.

"Er, that's not until September, I think."

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The Malfoys' duck shooting party was held the Sunday after the Blacks arrived at Malfeasant.

The participants began to arrive just before sunrise – Cassius Mulciber and his father arrived first, bringing with them a large, high-strung black Labrador retriever. They were followed by both the Nott cousins and their golden retriever, and not long after, by the dark, haughty Emmitt Parkinson, with his craggy cheekbones and disdainful manner, an obedient black and white English spaniel trotting beside him. The men all appeared in tweed coats and caps and high leather boots suitable for trampling through high grass and bushes after their lake-dwelling prey. Severus and his Uncle Abraxas were on hand to greet them, and the group stood about talking of wigeons and pintail and Gadwalls and shovelers, and throwing sticks for the dogs to chase, while here and there a house-elf stood about offering mugs of steaming tea.

Narcissa arrived a few minutes later, in a pearl-grey tweed hunting costume and high grey boots, her long blonde hair clubbed up in a thick braided knot, and took a seat on one of the benches near Severus. She sat primly, glancing from him to the elves with their trays of hot tea until he brought her a cup.

The men amused themselves with a bit of clay pigeon target practice out in the field beside the house before they set out. A group of house-elves scrambled frantically about to load the trap with targets and launch them into the air when one of the gentlemen shouted, "Pull!"

"Ever done this before, nephew?" Uncle Abraxas called to Severus, then waved him over when he shook his head No. "Come on, give it a try then. When the target flies up, you'll sight down your wand just a fraction ahead of it, and track into the way it's flying as you speak your incantation, like so – yes, there's a lad. All right, have a turn then. Shout, 'Pull!' when you're ready – that's right."

A clay disc skittered up into the air, and Severus's keen black eyes sighted down his wand – "Reducto" – and the bolt of golden energy fired from his wand clipped the edge of the target, shattering it into fragments.

"Nice shot, my boy!" his uncle crowed, clapping him on the shoulder. "You take to target shooting like one of the Black sisters, really, it's amazing who turns out to have a talent for marksmanship." He nodded politely toward Narcissa, still sitting primly with her teacup. "I'll never forget when little Miss Narcissa Black stepped up the other summer, pointed her pretty little white cherry wand at the sky and blew away all those targets one right after the other. And Bella – you remember that Bella, there was no stopping her."

"Here the lady is now – come on, Bella, show these blighters how it's done!" Cassius Mulciber called, beckoning to her from across the grass.

Bella had just arrived on the lawn, dressed for hunting in a full black tweed split skirt with matching short jacket, and high black boots. She threw back her dark head and sauntered across the lawn to join them, and once Bella's wand came out, she blew every single target away with an ease that provoked admiring glances from some of the men, and envious looks from others. She smiled triumphantly at Emmitt Parkinson, but he seemed more interested in throwing a stick for his dog than he did in congratulating her on her shooting prowess.

As the summer's visit progressed, Bella would outshoot every other guest at target practice with such regularity that the game was no longer as much fun when she participated. There was no competing for first place, but for who would be the first loser after Bella stomped them all.

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Soon the duck hunters were all assembled on the green, and Uncle Abraxas, Nott, Mulciber, and Parkinson let the dogs off their leashes. They quickly caught the scent and were off across the lawn in the direction of the woods and the lake just beyond, and then the party tramped into the brushy woods after them, wands at the ready.

As it was Severus's job to make certain Narcissa had an escort to all events that season and to prevent Bella from doing anything unseemly before guests, he tried to stick close to both sisters under the pretence of making sure they traversed the muddy bogs safely. But then Narcissa dropped her wand in some brush, and he had to retrieve it for her with a quick, "Accio wand," and when he looked up, both Bella and Emmitt Parkinson had disappeared. Oh, bloody hell.

He veered off from Narcissa's side, looking fervently for Bella – and glimpsed her talking to Parkinson just beyond a dense stand of oaks, saw her come very close to him and look meltingly up into his eyes, then try to put her arms around his neck. But then Parkinson turned disdainfully away, holding up his hand to fend her off, his posture stiff as a ramrod. Bella crooned something to him, and Parkinson made some kind of vehement denial – but then Narcissa was calling rather peevishly to Severus not to fall behind, and he had to turn away and catch up to her.

He emerged from the trees to the edge of the lake, where the other hunters were assembled. The retrievers were loping up and down stands of trees and bushes, sniffing out ducks and flushing them into the air – Narcissa sighted down her wand with cool, insouciant competence, and downed a sleek female with her first shot. An excited retriever dove into the water after the bird as it dropped from the sky.

A moment later, Bella stalked out of the trees to her sister's side, alone and clearly furious, just as the dogs sent another cluster of startled birds flapping into the air from some bushes. Her dark, angry eyes tracked into the ducks' path as they frantically made their escape, and then her wand was in her hand, pointing – "Avada Kedavra!" she hissed through gritted teeth.

Her Killing Curse caught a large, proud drake dead on, and it spiralled lifeless into the lake, pursued by the dogs.

"Nice work, ladies, good show," Uncle Abraxas said, clapping Narcissa and then Bellatrix on the shoulder. "That'll be fine eating tonight at supper."

"Thank you," both sisters murmured. Just then, Emmitt Parkinson emerged from the trees, his eyes stubbornly averted, and Bella glowered murderously in his direction.

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Early that afternoon, the hunting party brought their bags of freshly shot duck back to Malfeasant, and the house-elves busied themselves with plucking, gutting, and roasting them for dinner while the hunters cleaned themselves up and dressed for dinner. The hunters rejoined the Malfoys and all their guests for a before-dinner cocktail on the rose garden veranda outside the drawing room; women in light summer at-home evening robes, and the men in dark robes and smoking jackets.

Emmitt Parkinson arrived rather late, in the company of his silver-haired and very much bejewelled and overdressed mother and a younger sister, who somehow managed to look dowdy in expensively hand-tailored robes. Mrs. and Miss Parkinson formed an airily chattering barrier between Parkinson and the sulky Bellatrix Black, who wore a red velvet smoking jacket over smart black satin robes. Perhaps for revenge, she sat amidst a group of admiring men with a brandy snifter in one hand and one of her spicy Egyptian cigarettes in the other as Uncle Abraxas told the story of how she and Narcissa hadn't missed a shot that day – "I tell you, lads, these young ladies could keep us all in roast duck, all summer. Bloody good show, girls, bloody good show."

While Emmitt Parkinson's affection for Bellatrix seemed to have definitely cooled, she was the object of a tremendous amount of overheated admiration from another quarter. The Malfoys' visiting nephew found many occasions to make himself invisible on the periphery of the group, and to steal more admiring glances at Miss Bellatrix Black. He continued to do so for many, many evenings following.

Before she had been at Malfeasant for a week, Severus's lust for Bellatrix had become the fodder for all of his solitary nocturnal gratifications; as he caressed his own hardening sex, he would imagine her hands and mouth doing it for him, imagine her slim thighs parting for him, that slender white neck bared under his lips. He would come upon her in some secluded spot in the woods, and she would be glad to see him... they would begin with a single hesitant kiss and end up naked, sweatily clutching each other, her pale body lying brazenly supine on his black cloak amidst the shifting, dappled sunlight... it would only take a minute or two of these sort of fervent imaginings before he came, spasms of hot wetness spurting into his hands.

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As long as Severus could remember, the Malfoy greenhouses had had a splendid display of every kind of flower imaginable, but upon his arrival after leaving school, it had become obvious to him that many of those plants had pharmacological value beyond their mere beauty – foxglove, oleander, henbane, belladonna, rare opium poppies, bittersweet nightshade, fragrant hemlock, mugwort, woodsorrel, and a dizzying number of others. Tamora Malfoy had another greenhouse set aside for her herb garden and the cultivation of magical plants, to be used in the kitchen and in domestic potion-making, and it seemed to Severus that she had everything. Fluxweed, ginger, nettle, mint, sneezewort, asphodel, hellebore, scurvy-grass, lovage, gillyweed, shrivelfig, knotgrass, even mandrake, and much-prized Arcadian amaranth, which produced an oil that rendered any oil-based potion exponentially more potent.

Severus's indispensability as in-house apothecary began innocently enough – the house-elves ran out of Magical Mess Remover on a Saturday evening, and Severus pointed out that all of the necessary ingredients were within easy reach in the greenhouses, so he could mix up a batch with minimal effort. More and more of these situations began to occur in the weeks that followed, until a small greenhouse chamber had become his personal laboratory, complete with braziers and cauldrons, phials and specimen jars, drying racks, alembics and distilling apparatus, and he had been given free rein with the Malfoys' account at the local apothecary's in the village. As the weeks went by, it became increasingly obvious to him that no one was paying much attention to what he ordered from the apothecary or how much he spent; so as long as he produced the hair tonic or sedative tea or headache remedy or beautifying potion his aunt and uncle or their guests occasionally requested, he was free to research whatever interested him, and he was interested in a great deal. It was more or less like having the world's biggest and fanciest chemistry set and access to whatever ingredients took his fancy, and he was having quite a good time pursuing whatever caught his interest.

That is, until his solitary study was disturbed by one Miss Bellatrix Black, who sashayed into his laboratory on a balmy afternoon not long after the duck hunt – and wearing short violet silk summer robes that showed off rather a lot of long, slender neck, creamy white bosom, and shapely leg.

"Severus?"

"Afternoon, Bella," he muttered.

"What are you always doing down here?" she asked, approaching him with a brazen, playful smile.

"Just... doing some work is all," he said, looking up from the linden complexion tonic he was formulating for Tamora's and Narcissa's use. "Entertaining myself more than anything else, really. Uncle Abraxas said I might have a bit of a workspace, just to keep busy."

"I see." She wandered around for awhile, her hands clasped behind her back, looking at everything. Severus had been doing some rather fine mincing for the linden extract, and now he was finding it very difficult to get his concentration back, what with Bella's lips and bosoms and arse – er, with Bella right in front of him like that.

"So... can you make any potion?" she asked, after making a slow circuit of the room and coming back to talk to him.

"I'm acquainted with quite a few of them," he said. She was standing disturbingly close to him now; when he turned and moved away toward the opposite table, she followed at the same proximity.

"Could you make one for me, if I wanted one?" she teased, looking boldly into his eyes.

"I... probably could, depending on what you wanted," he said. "What would you like? A complexion tonic? Something for headaches?"

She fixed him with another of those tiny, wicked little smiles. "Could you make me... an aphrodisiac, if I wanted one?"

Severus swallowed hard, feeling his neck suffuse with heat under his collar. "Er... I've never tried that, but... I don't know."

"Would you try it, if I asked you to?" She was standing close to him, too close for politeness, approaching intimacy, her unshockable eyes seeking his.

"Well... I suppose, but testing it might be... difficult," he finally replied – which sent Bella into peals of smoky laughter.

"Oh? You don't have someone you could try it out with?" she asked, the corner of her red, red lips curling up in amusement.

"Well... er, no," he replied. His self-possession failed him at her nearness, her receptivity, and he turned away from her with a touch of an uncharacteristic stammer.

"Aww, what's wrong, baby?" she whispered, close to his ear. "Don't you like me anymore? I thought you did, back when we were in school... you used to look at me all the time. I hoped you thought I was pretty. Now you don't even want to talk to me." Fingertips delicately stroked downward from the top of his spine, down to the small of his back.

Instantly, his heart rate lurched, and sweat came out on his brow, arousal that swiftly turned to frustration, then anger. All right – enough with the cheap, obvious provocation. He knew she was only doing this because Emmitt wouldn't give her the time of day, and she was probably just bored, seeking amusement with the nearest callow youth, and he'd be damned if that unfortunate bloke was going to be him.

He pulled away from her caressing hand. "Oh, don't fucking play with me, Bella," he snapped. "You always knew what I thought of you. I know you're angry at Emmitt, but that's not my fault. So why don't you go torture someone who has a chance, all right?"

She surprised him by just laughing at his stern ultimatum, another of those smoky, avid laughs. And then her arms were around his neck, and her breasts rising against his chest, and she kissed him once, lightly. He recoiled, staring at her, his hands flexing convulsively on her shoulders – and then he had wrapped one hand around her waist and thrust the other into her hair, bent her over the table and kissed her, more than once, not lightly.

"Wait, darling," she crooned, pulling away from him with a tender giggle. "Not so fast and furious, hold still... " And then her lips were sinking into his again, melting sensuality like nothing he'd ever felt before, her tongue insinuating itself between his lips to softly caress his in a way that sent scrotum-tightening chills all through his highly flammable young body. "Yes, love, that's it... "

It was just too good, too exciting to be borne. His skin felt hot and tight, he was already hard as a dozen rocks, he just wanted to fling her onto the table amidst all the flowers and leaves and tear off her clothes and consume her, mouth and neck and breasts and that infinitely enticing quim between her thighs; but he held back, held all of that frantic lust in reserve, lest he offend her or scare her off. No, for now, he would just let her kiss him and hope that she wanted more than that, and miracle of miracles, it seemed that she did... her shameless little hands were exploring the taut spareness of his back, slithering downward – that was Bella, she'd kiss him like an angel the first time, but the next minute she'd grabbed his arse and wasn't he glad she had wanted to do it.

"Poor little thing, you're shaking like a leaf," she whispered, her tongue coiling in his ear. "What are you doing tonight, baby?"

Whatever you want, he gasped, and then was lost in another kiss.

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Formal family dinners are a difficult proposition when you are trying to pretend that there isn't a hand continually creeping onto your knee and stroking your thigh under the table. It is also challenging to keep a straight face while saying things like, Pass the butter, please, and Yes, Uncle and Thank you, Aunt and Yes, of course, Aunt Druella while ignoring the fact that you are at that same moment possessed of the kind of raging erection that makes thinking nearly impossible, especially when one is an eighteen-year-old virgin still excitedly remembering his first kiss that afternoon.

The Malfeasant elves had come up with another delicious menu that evening, whole roast suckling pig that his uncle carved into melting slices of honey glazed pork with baked pineapple, but Severus barely tasted the meal, not when she was playing with him like that, toying with him; letting a few minutes go by in demure conversation while her fingertips administered a series of ever-lengthening caresses to the inside of his thigh. He was almost entirely silent throughout the meal, but as this was characteristic for him, and all anyone generally required of him as far as conversation went were quiet affirmations of what they themselves had just said, no one even noticed.

At last supper was over, and Severus excused himself from the usual games of whist or bridge in the drawing room, claiming he had a headache and wanted to retire early. He lay in bed for a long time, reading the Metamorphoses of Ovid, one of his mother's old favourite volumes from the library back home, for a bit of light reading – Lastly, the goddess endows him with a trembling fear: Actaeon that heroic son of Autonoe flees, surprised to find himself so swift a runner...

Much later that evening, he awoke with a start from a dream that someone, a woman with a voice like smoke, was calling his name.

His book lay tented on his chest, and the candle beside his bed had burned down into a pool of wax in the candlestick, and was now giving off only a wan, guttering flame. He blinked hard, trying to clear the fog of sleep from his mind, but it seemed that the dream continued – a woman, or many women, were calling his name, and laughing softly, just out of his sight. His body felt unutterably heavy, leaden, as though a voluptuous weight was pressing him deep into the bed.

Finally, he raised himself on his elbows with an effort, set his book aside. He pulled the green velvet comforter up around his bare chest, shivering, and the faraway laughter and susurration of soft feminine voices continued in his ears.

Severus... That smoky voice again...

"Bella?" he whispered. He was suddenly, embarrassingly, so hard that it made the roots of his teeth hurt.

"Severus... "

Bellatrix Black's voice, whispering his name. And then she appeared at the foot of his bed, subtly wafting into existence, as though a shadow covering her with darkness had suddenly lifted – and he saw a silvery cloak drop to the floor. She was sitting at the foot of his four-poster bed, half-obscured in the velvet draperies, her bright, heavy-lidded eyes raised expectantly to him. Wearing a little black silk robe and, it appeared, nothing beneath it.

Nothing more was spoken. He fell back against the pillows as she slithered up the sea of green velvet to drape her body over his. He lifted his face supplicant to hers as she bent down and kissed his trembling lips. Somehow he felt that something should be said, some invitation extended, some permission given, but there was no need. It seemed that she knew what he wanted without words, and all he had to do was let her do as she liked with him. He was nervous, shaking, passive, but her confidence was absolute. Whatever a woman like this wanted to do with him, however she wanted to orchestrate this experience... there was no doubt in his mind that he couldn't help but enjoy it.

Then she had slid beneath the bedclothes beside him, her lips leaving his to gently nibble down the length of his throat, then draw a line of kisses down his collarbone... and then her sharp little teeth bit hard into his shoulder, just a second's pain that made him gasp and shiver, and then her lips were warmth and softness again. Her hands were stroking down his bare chest, meeting nothing but complete, breathless yielding from him. She found the grey flannel pyjama trousers he had worn to bed and had him out of them in a moment, her silk-clad body lying over him, naked, warm slipperiness flowing over his bare skin, and then her fingers were tracing their way down over his quivering stomach to warmly close around the base of his cock, and he threw his head back on the pillow with a heartfelt groan. He'd wanted her to do this to him forever, imagined her kissing him and touching him for so long... he couldn't believe it was actually happening.

Finally some strength returned to him, and he tugged at the little silk belt of her robe... it seemed to sigh open under his fingers, leaving her warm skin naked under his timid hands. Gods, she was beautiful, infinitely enticing, his erotic ideal made flesh... pale, perfect breasts, not too large or too small, such red, red nipples, a tiny supple waist, soft, plump thighs... yes... he had seen pictures of naked women before, but had never undressed one himself. Never touched a lovely, eager, nude woman; certainly never had one in his bed before.

It was simply too good. His head sank back onto the pillow with an involuntary moan as her pliant thighs straddled his hips and he felt her hand poising his cock beneath her, trembling with the instinctual drive of every male who ever lusted for woman. Then he groaned aloud again, falling down, as he felt her tight, slick sex suck him in like an eager mouth. An instant after that deep inner warmth had encompassed him, it felt like every cell in him was clamouring upward for more... yes, ohhellyes...

"No, not yet," she whispered, her movements pausing. "Wait, baby... don't move... "

She stretched her tigerish full length over him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her fingers interlacing with his and pinning them down on the pillow above his head as she rode him slowly and shamelessly; indescribably hot liquid warmth sealing down on the helplessly sensitive length of his cock, kissing him until he was light-headed, till his breath felt completely sucked away... yes, oh yes... it was all he'd imagined, it was even better than he'd imagined, his toes were curling against the sheet, his every muscle straining up into the impossible sweetness inside her; the effort of keeping himself still for her was nearly taking the top of his head off, but all he could do was shudder and writhe against her grip, a victim of the most delectable torture imaginable.

Then she was moving faster, sealing down on him even tighter, grinding herself down on him... she took his hands from the pillow and drew them around her breasts, little erect nipples in his palms like bits of stiff taffy... and then she groaned feelingly, her eyes closing... then ground down on him harder and groaned again, louder... then her head had lolled back and he could see sweat standing out between her breasts, and then she gave a wild cry, and just convulsed down around him. His heart lurched – it was too much, he couldn't believe it, Bella slipped into his room and into bed with him and now he was having her and he had just made her come, come so hard that she threw her dark head back and cried out with maenad pleasure.

She collapsed onto his chest, sweating and gasping, and he seized a handful of that silky hair and kissed her with everything he had, still hard and eager, his body straining up into hers... but then she had gotten up off of him, making him almost yelp in dismay. But no, she wasn't leaving, she was reclining on her back, pulling him over her... her silky thighs around his hips again. Come on, baby, she was gasping in his ear. Fuck me, fuck me hard...

She didn't need to tell him twice. A second later he was on her like the hopelessly randy teenager that he was, hard strokes, groaning, and she was urging him on, whispering in his ear, Give to me, love, do it hard, be rough, I like that...

But then the orgasm washed over him, mounting pleasure and exaltation unimaginable – and after he had come, he felt anything but rough, felt nothing but boneless exhaustion and the most delicious glow of euphoric contentment. All he wanted to do was lie in her arms, holding and being held; to stay here with his dark head pillowed on her breasts, his entire body wrapped adoringly around hers. And all he could think of as he lay there was simply – she was wonderful, beautiful, the most perfect being in all the world... and this was all just so, so good.

"Was that nice, baby?" Bella cooed to him, stroking his hair, and he responded with something like Mmmmmmmmmmmf, and a little sigh.

Perhaps five seconds later, he was asleep.

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Severus was, much to his chagrin, alone when he awoke the next morning.

He would have very much liked to wake up with Bella, would have liked to see her lying on the next pillow with her dark hair all tousled and her dark eyes all sleepy and perhaps awakened her with a kiss, and perhaps suggested giving that another go that morning... but she wasn't there. Damn.

He looked around the room, at the nightstand – he'd heard from the other boys in his House that it was customary to leave one's lover a note, perhaps attached to a rose, if one had to leave while he or she was still asleep, but she had left no such tokens for him. His room was entirely undisturbed, and everything looked very much as though nothing had happened.

Bella wasn't in the bathroom, or anywhere to be found.

An hour later, he was half-convinced it couldn't have really happened, even as he washed the scent of her off his own skin in the shower. Or it must have just been a fluke. She was going into someone else's room and she ended up in his by mistake. She was sleepwalking. She needed a really efficacious cure for insomnia. The previous night's idyll was just too much like one of his sexual fantasies about her to be real. Anything was more likely than the notion that Bellatrix had come into his bedroom and seduced him shamelessly, that he was no longer a virgin and Bella was his lover, because that sort of thing just didn't happen to him. This was not his life, it couldn't be his life – his hands were jittering as he lathered his hair, stood under the spray to rinse it.

"Well, would you look at that – who would have thought little baby Snape would turn out to be hung like a stallion... that's very pretty," someone's smoky voice crooned from perhaps a foot away. Severus nearly jumped out of his skin.

Bellatrix was leaning outside his shower door, all tall, sloe-eyed, full-breasted, long-legged of her. Wrapped in nothing but a towel. Looking him up and down and licking her lips.

"'Morning, lover," she drawled. "Can I join you?"

Severus raked his soaked hair out of his eyes, staring at her. His heart had instantly accelerated within his chest at the sound of her voice; now it was pounding fast enough to make him light-headed – but he controlled himself with an effort, refusing to be a shrinking virgin in front of her.

"Sure," he said. "The water's fine."

The door opened, closed – then his arms were full of warm womanflesh and her slick breasts were pressing against his chest, and she was tilting her head back, letting the water drench her long dark hair, stretching her pale throat taut. Gods, what a neck, he just wanted to devour it, bite her, bruise her, but he settled for covering it with famished kisses. There was no way to hide how hard he was getting, what with her naked body in his arms like this and the hot water raining over both of them, but she just sighed, trailing her fingers over his tip. "You were so good last night, pretty little boy... now I just want to keep you in my pocket."

He might have been nervous with any other woman, but Bella was so confident and unselfconscious about her nakedness that suddenly it didn't seem important that he hadn't liked for any of the other boys in his dormitory to see him changing clothes, that he didn't like his thin body with its bony joints and visible ribs – if Bella wanted him, then he must have some undisputable claim to desirability. Then there was nothing but her flesh on his, her saucy arse under his hands, hot water running down between her breasts, dripping off her erect red nipples, heat and beauty and skin, tension pounding between his legs, and sometime later he was reclining on the hot marble floor and she was sliding onto his straining cock, her legs wrapping around his waist. One arm ground her hips against him, the other hand was lost in the wet silk of her hair. His lips were buried in hers, in that infinitely biteable drift of white neck flesh. Steam billowed all around them.

Soft, mocking laughter. Her tongue was caressing his as she rocked lusciously on him. "Sweet little baby Severus," she sing-songed, cradling his drenched dark head on her breasts. "You're adorable. I'm your first, aren't I?"

"Yes," he gasped. "Oh, yes."

"No one's ever used this cock before me?" She writhed sinuously on his lap, making him gasp aloud.

"No, never... "

"None of the boys has ever sucked you off in the shower? No little girl's nailed you against the greenhouse after the Yule Ball?"

"No... " The very idea was impossible.

He felt the urgency rising in his body again, felt swallowed in her arms. Her spasms began again, inner muscles clamping down on him, accompanied by soprano cries of ecstasy – then his own orgasm rose from him and exploded in the tight depths of her in a rush of unendurable sweetness. His head slumped onto her shoulder, gasping, all composure lost, undone with bliss. He could still hardly believe that this was happening, that he had become Bella's lover, that he had spectacularly satisfied her the night before and again that morning, and she liked him so much that she wanted to keep him in her pocket. The world was upside down, and he clung very tightly to her, falling.

Bella was kissing him again, jealously gloating over him, and he was kissing her like it had just been invented and was the most astonishing new practice in the world. Was there anything more luscious than female lips, breasts, the divine pudendum... oh, brave new world, that has such delight in it. Severus would never have fancied himself the poetic sort, but upon his discovery of kisses, of sex, of mutual orgasm, every hymn of erotic praise he had ever read seemed absolutely true and profound... Your eye contains the sunset and the dawn; You spread a stormy evening's fragrant smell; Your kisses, philtres from your mouth's flask drawn, Embolden children, and the hero quell...

"Tell me... who was it that first kissed you? Was she as good as me?" Her fingers tugged sharply at his nipple, making him gasp in both pleasure and pain.

"You did... yesterday... in the greenhouse... "

"Mmmmmmmmm," she crooned. "My little untouched virgin. I wanted to rape you from the second I got here."

"Bloody hell, I would have let you," he sighed – why even pretend.

"No one's ever kissed you before... " She bent down and gave him another of those slow, luscious, druggy kisses; he felt himself hardening again, even though it seemed like only a few heartbeats had gone by since he had last had her.

"No," he groaned. "Not until you... you're my first everything."

"Oh, good. You're mine now," she said, in a fierce whisper. "I'm going to love corrupting you, you gorgeous little slut."

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It was perhaps a week before he loved her with his entire body and mind, with his whole being, reserving no quarter for himself, in the manner of lonely, overintense, introverted eighteen-year-old boys with their first lovers. He loved her so much that he thought he would explode with it. He also couldn't believe his own luck – Bella was lovely, clever, and charismatic, and now she was dragging him into hidden nooks and corners to kiss him. Every man he knew (other than Evan the adoring new husband) wanted her, and now she was sneaking up into his bedroom every night. She was strong, capable, self-reliant, and got her own way in nearly everything, and now she seemed bent on having her way with him in every way physically possible, and it all felt so shockingly good that he couldn't have imagined wanting to say no to her.

One afternoon she had unexpectedly come upon him in the library, reading one of his aunt and uncle's many rare grimoires, and started by kissing him hungrily, and ended by easing him down on his back behind the sofa for a quick, luscious session of lovemaking while both remained almost fully dressed. Afterward he lay blissfully on her breast, her arms cradling his dark head, kissing him and making much of him.

"There we are, there it is," she said, tapping his lips with the tip of her finger.

"What?" He couldn't keep a tiny smile from creeping onto his face at her playfulness.

"There it is again," she said. "That little smile... do I make you smile, baby?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, turning away from her in mock ignorance – but she was still grinning at him, and it was contagious.

"Come on," she crooned. "Smile for me, sweetheart, darling, my pretty little boy."

Her teasing was too much for him – he let his head fall on her shoulder with a shy chuckle, grinning like a madman.

She laughed delightedly, and her arms tightened around him. "You have such a nice smile, and such a nice laugh. Why don't you ever use them?"

"I never have much to smile and laugh about, usually," he said, shrugging.

"You have me," she said, kissing his forehead.

"Do I?" he asked. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to keep what he felt for her from quivering in his voice.

"Of course, silly." She kissed him again, lingeringly.

"I just get worried. And I think every man we know would take you from me if he could."

"Oh, come on, baby," she said, nuzzling him reassuringly. "Lucius is too pretty and totally bent on making a row of little versions of himself, and Flint is too ugly, and Bulstrode's an ape. Macnair is too grabby and everyone knows Sirius is queer for that Potter bloke and that Remus is queer for him. Crabbe and Goyle have something like two brain cells between them, and Evan's too boring and too nice. Felina's welcome to him."

"What about Emmitt?" he asked anxiously.

"Emmitt is a dull old-fashioned prude who can't get it up half the time," she scoffed. "He's not got a patch on you, baby."

"Really?"

"You're the best, baby," she sighed. "Oh, yes... it's always the quiet ones." Her pale arms encircled his neck, and he thrust his hand into her mussed-up dark hair and kissed her with bruising intensity.

In the weeks following that first night together, they became conspirators, hiding their new love affair from everyone. They became expert at composing their faces blamelessly in an instant, at pretending they weren't flushed and out of breath. They would steal long, impassioned kisses while hidden in a bank of rose bushes ten feet from where Aunt Druella and Narcissa were making inane conversation about the croquet green Narcissa wanted to put out when she was lady of the manor, then emerge a moment later with flawless decorum on both sides.

Bella seemed to him indescribably daring. One evening, the Malfoys held an elaborate dinner party, the house full of people, and she pulled him into Uncle Abraxas's deserted study, just off the main front hall. A moment later she had slid down his body to her knees, unfastened his clothes, and took him in her mouth, even as he blushed horribly and worried that they might be interrupted at any second. Her clever mouth brought him quickly to orgasm while the guests went on talking in the hall not five feet away from them, complaining about how the wandmaking Ollivander family were still stubbornly refusing to go public or sell any trade secrets and somehow seemed impervious to monopoly lawsuits.

These sort of demands went against every ounce of decorum he had, ran directly counter to maintaining the fragile dignity that was so important to him, but somehow he couldn't refuse – even his own body had betrayed him, was betraying him now; he didn't care that someone might come into the room and find them out, not while Bella's red, red lips were drawing on him like that and her lipstick was getting everywhere, and then he was biting into his own hand to keep from crying out as he came, the other hand clenching a fistful of her rich dark hair.

Then she was in his arms, licking his ear, crooning to him, telling him he tasted better than chocolate, and all he could do was cling to her in helpless, shivering adoration.

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Despite her unabashed wildness in private, Bella was strangely reticent about the slightest display of affection or even courtesy in front of others. If Severus went to her side and took her arm while on a walk with her mother and sister, or lingered over helping her on with her cloak, she would withdraw and turn away. She might take all sorts of liberties with him under the dinner table, but would not let him lay his hand over hers on the table. At the tea dance thrown at the Mulcibers' two weeks after their first night together, she had barely paid any attention to him at all, leaving him to deal with Narcissa's fretting and bring her cups of punch.

He quickly began to find this disquieting, for much as he was enjoying their secret new sexual relationship, his affection for her found within him a deep vein of old-fashioned chivalry of the first order. By the time their involvement had been going on for a month, he would have been more than happy to make his entirely honourable intentions toward Bellatrix known to all concerned, on whatever terms her family required. But when he brought this up to Bella, she declared that she wanted nothing to do with their society's courtship traditions, preferring to pursue this relationship with him on her own terms, and in secret.

"Bella, I know what you mean, I think all those rules about chaperones and no premarital sex and social debuts and all that are behind the times too. But I wish we could stop acting like we're not together now. I don't like pretending we aren't."

"It's just till the end of the summer, baby, don't worry," she said, winding her arms around his waist and kissing the back of his neck.

"Tell me the truth... are you ashamed of me?" he asked softly. "I know I'm not rich like Emmitt or Lucius... "

"No, no," she said, her arms tightening around him. "But we can't tell anyone, silly, especially not with my mother living here with us. She thinks I'm still a virgin, and she'd have a fit if she knew about us. All these old fogies wouldn't think it was proper."

He shrugged disparagingly. "I don't care what they think. If your mother has any problem with it, you could come and live with me. I've already got my own house and everything."

"I know, Lucius told me it was... really picturesque. Great view of the ocean," Bella said brightly. "But I wanted to ask you, do you still think you could make an aphrodisiac for me, like we talked about?"

"Probably. What did you have in mind?"

"Here... " She brought a little book out of her dressing gown pocket, an old, very yellowed little volume that looked like some village wife's collection of personal remedies jotted into a pocket-sized blank book. Potions for soothing menstrual cramps, potions for headache and morning sickness, a couple of early contraception potions, and at the back, a whole range of potions to enhance the quality of lovemaking. There were a wide array of ointments to enhance pleasure for women in various voluptuous ways, to produce intense arousal in both sexes, and potions to help premature ejaculation problems and allow a man to stay erect longer, even some theoretical brainstorming on the idea of an orally taken contraceptive potion for men.

"Look interesting?" Bella asked, leaning over his shoulder.

"Who wrote this?" he asked, over his shoulder. "There are some really creative formulas in here – Ointment to Make Marital Bliss Even More Blissful? Well well well – this witch's husband was a really lucky man."

"I don't know who wrote it, but we think this was all written during the last century."

"That male contraceptive potion is some interesting stuff – all the orally taken contraception potions on the market right now are for women. I wonder, if I could complete that formula, that would be... " He thought for a moment about being the bloke who first produced a Contraceptus potion for men – now that would make him some Galleons, and for certain. "Are you sure you don't know who wrote this book?"

"No idea, the author didn't sign her journal anywhere." She leaned over his shoulder and turned to the potion intended to prolong erection in a male. "What do you think of this one?"

"Inflating Draught – oh, now that's clever," he said, with a dark little chuckle, then started to turn the page.

"No, wait, could you, you know, whip some of that up?" she asked.

"Er... I wasn't aware there was a need for it," he muttered, after a long pause. He hadn't been aware that she had any complaints about his stamina – as far as he knew, he had always brought her to orgasm before he did himself, and being young, in good health, and terrifically eager, it didn't take him very long to gather his energies for another round, either. Truthfully, her wishes had not yet begun to tax his eighteen-year-old physical vigour – he couldn't recall ever leaving her unsatisfied. (Indeed, he could recall one or two instances when she had declined a fourth round to the evening's, er, festivities, complaining of a bit of soreness.) If she had wanted to prolong the act, he would have been more than willing to find the natural limits of his staying power if she had so desired.

"Well, would you like to try some, just for fun?" she whispered enticingly, nuzzling the back of his neck.

Severus leaned back into her caresses for a moment, then pointed to another formulation – "Actually, I would think this More Blissful Marital Bliss ointment sounds like it would be more, ahem, enjoyable for you," he said, delicately caressing her bare thigh. "Clove oil produces a sensation of heat when it comes in contact with the skin, and then with the ginger to enhance blood flow, and... well, that compound sounds like a good time to be had by all, if you know what I mean. Why don't I see about throwing that together in the greenhouse tomorrow afternoon, and then I'll bring it to bed tomorrow night?"

"Why not throw together a bit of both?" she suggested, leaning down to kiss his temple, his cheek, the corner of his lips. "Why not try... everything?"

"Yes," he muttered, taking her chin in his hand and drawing her lips down to his, "why not try everything."

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The next night – after a combination of a small dose of Inflating Draught and liberal amounts of the unknown author's Marital Bliss ointment resulted in a long, exhilarating night of sweaty, endlessly drawn-out bliss for both participants – there was little Severus wouldn't have done with, or for, his new lover. Bella seemed fascinated by the idea of magical aphrodisiacs, and Severus wouldn't have denied that trying them was the most delightful pastime imaginable. So whenever Bella brought him another grimoire with different approaches to the theme of enhancing sensual pleasure, she found in him a willing co-conspirator.

Bella seemed to have access to all kinds of rare grimoires and potions collections – scarcely a week went by when she wasn't showing him something new – so they went through an extensive pharmacopoeia of formulations together that summer. Various animal and plant hormones, combined with magical ingredients, and prepared by certain rituals produced potions or ointments that increased blood flow to the genitalia, that generated sensations of heat or coolness in sensitive tissues, that increased friction in some areas and decreased it in others, that slowed down the time-sense so that a single act of lovemaking seemed to take several slow, languorous hours.

It would have been an array of aphrodisiacs to stagger a jaded libertine of forty, much less sate the desires of a healthy young man who has spent much of his life deprived of any kind of physical or emotional intimacy. Truly, Severus was still caught up in the delights of what Bella called plain old vanilla – to him, just the sensations of kissing, of lovemaking, of holding and being held, of gazing into his beloved's eyes as they lay on the same pillow, were enough to induce a state of narcotic bliss. For the first and perhaps only time in his life, his existence was entirely steeped in pleasure, and he couldn't get enough of it. He wouldn't have seen the need for anything other than Bella, a room with a bed, and perhaps food and water now and then.

The only time he felt really alive was when he was with her – everything else now seemed hopelessly mundane, unimportant, just what he had to get through until the moment when he could hold Bella again, enjoy her full attention. But if his beloved liked to enhance their lovemaking with various potions and unguents, and continually gave him access to tomes of fascinating and obscure potion formulas, that only made her all the more alluring to him.

Sometime in July, after they had been lovers for perhaps six or seven weeks, Bellatrix sneaked into his bedroom one evening and showed him a book – a grimoire written by hand on very old, fragile parchment pages. There was no title stamped on the cover or the spine, and no title page – but he recognised it as a scholarly magical work as soon as he turned a few pages.

And as he continued to turn pages, the magic detailed within that book became more and more disturbing – and interesting.

Rituals and spells for inducing barrenness or miscarriage in a rival without the other woman's knowledge, for rendering a man impotent. There were any number of abortifacient potions, and potions to make a woman only able to conceive by the man of her choosing – "The Adulteress's Friend," read the page heading. There were stealthy ways to diminish a lover's sex drive and ways to increase it, all without the knowledge of the person being affected. There were rituals the author claimed could bind a lover's devotion, by means of incantations and rituals involving a man's sperm and a woman's blood spilled during sex.

"Bella... this is Dark Arts stuff. Really extreme sex magic." He bent over the book, fascinated, turning the pages quickly, as though afraid someone would take it away before his curiosity was sated. "Where did you get this?"

She giggled. "Don't worry about it. I temporarily borrowed it from someone." Her hectically red lips inclined to his ear – "There's a potion in here that makes me wet just reading about it... see, here. What do you think?"

He read over the page she was pointing to: Potio Carnalis ~ To secure the sexual submission of an unwilling man or woman.

"Could you brew that?" Bella asked, nuzzling the back of his neck.

"This is... well, yes, I could probably make this," he said, leaning back into the nuzzling. "Actually, if you substitute musk ox testes for the civet, you could probably make it stronger... but Bella, really. This potion would be so strong that to give it to someone and deny them sexual release would be... it would be painful. This could be just as much a torture drug as it is an aphrodisiac – you wouldn't just experience heightened pleasure with it. There's no antidote, either – you have to let the effects wear off. If you kept feeding it to someone, they could get dangerously exerted and dehydrated. They could even have a heart attack or a stroke."

"What if we just tried a drop or two?"

"Even a drop or two would be strange stuff, Bel. Like I said, this wouldn't be just heightening sex – this potion is meant to subvert someone else's will. Its whole purpose is to leave someone so aroused that they'll pretty much go to bed with anybody."

"But I want you to subvert my will," she whispered. "I'd like to be this wild to do anything you wanted. Wouldn't you like that?"

He just looked at her, his lips hovering over hers, his black eyes dulled with lust. "Well... yes," he whispered.

"Come on – you can get the ingredients, can't you?" she slithered down his body, trailing her long dark hair over his chest, and sank her sharp little teeth into his shoulder in that way that always made him hard enough to hammer nails, then slithered down and imprinted a heated kiss on his hipbone. "Won't you do this for me?"

"Well... "

Her hot breath was making its way southerly, and he could deny her nothing.

"Yes," he sighed.

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Severus set to work on the potion that weekend, albeit somewhat hesitantly and grudgingly. He knew on some level that the compounding or possession of the Carnalis potion was probably subject to Ministry controls or even illegal, as were all the other substances he knew of that significantly impaired another's judgment. However, the idea of having Bella completely at his tender mercies, as wild to be mounted as a cat in heat, was enough to leave him in a perfect fog of adolescent testosterone. He knew he was lucky to have her at all, and he'd be damned if he was going to complain because his beautiful, clever, unutterably sexy lover wanted him to make up a potion for use in some ferociously kinky sort of encounter with him.

He got all the ingredients easily enough, although the village apothecary did raise his eyebrows slightly upon receiving an order that included the powdered carapaces of queen Asian army ants, raw musk ox testes, and the sex organs of tarantula hawk wasps. (Severus wondered now and then what the apothecary must think of all the aphrodisiac ingredients being ordered up by the Malfoy household; in all likelihood, he thought Uncle Abraxas and Aunt Tamora either had the hottest marriage in Wiltshire, or that Malfeasant must have been the site of many a stupendous orgy.)

The process by which Carnalis was created was an exacting one, requiring that many of the ingredients be prepared on a precise time schedule – as such, its composition required most of Severus's attention. The potion required some weeks to reach full potency, and he was now spending at least three or four hours in his greenhouse laboratory working on it, reporting on his progress every night to Bella. Between accompanying Narcissa and Aunt Druella into the village or Diagon Alley on one of their unending shopping excursions, keeping up on any number of secretarial duties for Aunt Tamora and Uncle Abraxas, serving as house potions master and working on Bellatrix's potion, and his almost-nightly trysts with Bella, he spent much of that summer working at the kind of punishing rate only the very young can maintain.

Bella was extremely interested in the potion's progress, and he liked telling her about his work, and liked seeing her lips parting and eyes dilating as she hung on his every word even more. It is one thing to have all the lads in one's year acknowledge one's cleverness, but quite another for the woman one adores to make much of your subtle and penetrating intellect while lying naked beside you in bed. Severus lived for the moments when he could have her undivided attention at the end of the day, and hear her exclamations of surprise and delight when he told her how well he was progressing in this task she had devised. She seemed so impressed by his cleverness, and he glowed under her approval.

After so many years spent admiring her from afar, he thought he could have spent forever just holding her, lying nestled in her arms, listening to her smoky voice sighing You're brilliant, my love, absolutely brilliant in his ear. And then there was their lovemaking, which seemed the fulfilment of every robust teenage sexual fantasy he had ever had, and had given rise to a whole host of new ones besides.

To say that Miss Bellatrix Black was quite a sensualist was rather like saying Alexander the Great did sort of all right at conquering Asia. Their time alone and in bed together at night scarcely seemed like real life to Severus at all, more like a fever dream with no limits, boundaries, or taboos. She would materialise at night in his candlelit room, from under the Invisibility Cloak that she had mysteriously procured from somewhere, and to him, she seemed more like a succubus conjured up from another world than a young woman hiding a love affair from her prudish family.

She had made just such an entrance that night, clad as she always was in some enticing black lace erotica under a man's red silk foulard robe, with her long dark hair loose and her lips rouged deep red. Severus was already lying in bed reading, naked under the bedclothes, and he put his book aside and motioned her in beside him with a languid gesture of his hand.

He stretched luxuriously out beneath her as she greeted him in the usual way, draping herself over him, and kissing him deeply. His hands slid eagerly beneath the red silk robe, over her breasts, barely restrained by a veil of black lace, over her soft gartered thigh – gods, he was starting to love suspendered stockings, loved the sight of that drift of pale thigh bisected by garter strap and stocking top. As usual, the feel and sight of her draped over him in the faint candlelight, the odour of Oriental perfume and a whiff of exotic tobacco smoke was enough to leave him randy as a crowd of satyrs. A moment later he was slipping her black lace knickers down her thighs and off, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Then he was back to kissing her, long, slow, open-mouthed kisses while his fingertips teased in the wet cleft between her legs, stroking her softly in the way he knew she liked, one fingertip circling her clit, slicked with her own moisture.

Bella sighed, arching against his hand like a cat, then laughed, low in her throat. "Merlin's teeth, you just want it all the time, don't you, baby," she crooned to him, her lips brushing over his.

"Yes," he replied, instantly – why even try to hide it.

"Wait, wait... " She took his hands in hers, eased them above his head on the pillow. Then she took her wand from the breast pocket of her robe – Incarcerous, she breathed, pointing her wand at his wrists – and then cords had fastened around them, securing them to the bedpost. Now you're mine, she whispered, stretching herself contentedly over him, breasts sealing against his chest, hot breath on his neck, sharp little teeth worrying his earlobe.

Severus shivered apprehensively when he felt himself bound, felt his straining arousal wilt slightly – there were those people who might have been inspired to greater abandon by the sense of being tied down helpless to a lover's whims, but he would never be one of them. Something deep and fundamental within him would always prefer exerting control over others, and feared surrendering control to someone else.

But before he had too much time to get nervous, she had slithered down his body and taken him in her mouth, and all he could do was strain against his bonds and moan. That was Bella – she may have been a rich, patrician beauty, but any gutter whore would have envied the things she could do with her mouth. It seemed to him that she could all but unhinge her jaws and swallow him whole like a snake, and no man could have thought rationally with those ravenous red lips fastened on him. Bella... yespleaseohMerlin... Bella...

Many another woman would have left off as his climax neared, but Bella only wrapped her arms tight around his hips with a long groan and drained him completely. He collapsed against the bonds holding him to the bedposts, panting and sweating.

Once the afterglow of orgasm wore off, however, he glanced up at the bonds securing him, and hoped that she would not take a long time about untying him. He didn't much like the sensation of being restrained, not at all. While he couldn't quite have articulated where his misgivings were coming from, the idea of allowing Bella to render him completely vulnerable filled him with a mysterious, but palm-dampening and immediate, terror. Something in him would forever regard her like a tiger raised in captivity – no matter how deceptively purry and kitten-tame her behaviour, the predatory urge to rip and tear was instinctual, always just under the surface.

"All right, love, let me go, come on," he whispered, as she stretched herself over him afterward. He lifted his face into another long kiss, felt a pang of ribald pleasure at the taste of himself in her mouth. "I'd rather like to do the same for you now."

But she only laughed, then kissed him more deeply, her tongue going deeper into his mouth, her fingers stroking up the tense muscles of his arms. Her hand went into the pocket of her silk robe, came out with the pretty little inlaid porcelain jar which he had filled with the Marital Bliss aphrodisiac ointment as a special gift for her. Then she reached down, caressing his spent organ with slick fingers, and the sensation of voluptuous heat washed over him, until he felt himself start to rouse again. Her warm hand coaxed him along until he was hard enough to be mounted, and then her thighs wrapped around his hips, and he hardened even further at this contact with female warmth, and wetness.

You're mine, she sighed in his ear, and then she slid down onto him to the hilt. Mine, she whispered as she rocked lustily atop him, her muscles sealing down on him... he threw his head back on the pillow, his bound hands clenching into fists, straining up into the most secret depths of her, and all he could do was sigh Yes, his senses full of the rapture that was belonging to Bella.

Her hand went again into the pocket of her robe, and then he felt something in her hand, cool metal... and then just the softest whisper of pain at the topmost curve of his upper arm – "Bella? What's that... ?" he asked, his breath labouring.

Gods, you're so hot, baby, I just want to keep you on a leash. You're mine, no matter what happens...

"Oh, Bella... what are you doing... " A thin line of something warm and wet was slowly dripping down his arm, and then her lips lowered to it, murmuring some soft incantation. "Bella... "

Mmmm, I want to bind you to me, my pretty boy, sweet little slut... you'll let me, won't you...

He knew in the back of his mind what she was doing, having read the same Lëof Cnotta Spell that she had in the sex magic grimoire she had loaned to him. Lëof Cnotta was intended to create a passionate bond between the one casting it and the one it was cast upon; it was much like a milder form of the illegal Love Potion, that forced the drinker to love someone else wholeheartedly, no matter how he or she had previously felt about that person. But as with Love Potion, Lëof Cnotta had no effect whatever on someone who was already in love – had Juliet worked it upon her Romeo, it would have wrought no change in him. Now, as Severus was already completely devoted to the lady who laid it upon him, the spell had no extra effect at all.

"You don't have to try to bind me to you. You've never had to," he whispered brokenly. "I always wanted you."

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That night, like so many other nights they spent together, Bella kept him in a constant erotic whirl until he passed out asleep. Severus slept very well that night – he discovered that summer that nothing eased his insomnia like a few profoundly satisfying rounds of lovemaking – but as usual, he was alone when he awoke that morning. She was at breakfast when he arrived, however, sitting across the table from her mother in light, sleeveless summer robes of wine-coloured muslin, smiling with catlike satisfaction as she stirred her morning café au lait. The two of them exchanged sultry glances as Severus got a cup of coffee and a plate of breakfast from the covered silver dishes on the sideboard. Oblivious, Aunt Druella remained bent over the Daily Prophet.

Narcissa arrived for breakfast a moment later, a porcelain doll in pale pink silk, her long blonde hair in a soft braid down her back. "Bella, Severus, Mummy, today is the big ball at the Wilkeses'."

"I know, Cissy," Bella said patiently. Narcissa had been unable to talk about anything but the Wilkeses's ball for the two weeks previous.

"What time do we all want to go, then? I need to have time for the elves to do my hair and nails and lay out my dress – "

"What time do you want to go?" Severus asked, before Narcissa could list off all the various details of her ball toilette. Bella smirked at him.

After much dithering, Narcissa finally hit on half-past six as an acceptable time for the group to make their way to the Wilkes's. Narcissa's preparations for the ball meant that she would spend the entire day on her toilette and wouldn't need his assistance with anything, so Severus took the opportunity to spend a few extra hours in his greenhouse lab working on the Carnalis potion. He took only a half-hour's break for lunch, and didn't leave off until half-past five p.m. or so, when he had to make his way back to his little garret bedroom and get ready for the ball.

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The ball at the Wilkeses's manor was a formal affair held in their grand ballroom, with an elaborate supper served at many white-draped tables and a dance to follow. Narcissa and Bellatrix looked like a study in contrasts when they appeared together: the blonde, porcelain-fair Narcissa in dress robes of pale pink silk chiffon, her fair hair done up in a fussy Psyche knot, and Bellatrix in a black velvet gown with a sleeveless over-robe of red Chinese silk embroidered with golden dragons, her dark hair blowing free to her waist.

Severus, the Malfoys, and the Blacks dined together at a single table. Afterward, Bella left Severus alone as usual, except for the occasional sultry glance or smile across the room, and he trailed Narcissa and her mother about like a tall, thin, black and white shadow. Before long, he had withdrawn alone to a small table on the gallery balcony, with a glass of Scotch in his hand. The Wilkeses had stocked the bar with a fine single malt, which he was glad of after weeks of the perpetual brandy one got at Malfeasant.

"Severus, hi!" Beatrice Rookwood, a former classmate and fellow Slytherin, came up to him and put a very airy and sixteen-year-old-girlish sort of kiss on his cheek before sprawling in the chair at his right. Beatrice was a year or two younger than Severus was, and had been studying for her O.W.L.s at the same time he had been studying for his N.E.W.T.s. She had gotten a little taller and a lot more curvaceous since he had seen her the previous year, and looked very pretty indeed that night, in white silk robes with a pink sash, her black hair done in a soft upsweep.

"Hello, Beatrice," he greeted her. "How have you been?"

"Oh, just finished my sixth year and doing the junior deb thing, getting ready to be a real deb the summer I leave school."

"And how exactly does one 'do the junior deb thing', in order to get promoted to a 'real' deb?" he asked, in the manner of a wise old anthropologist investigating some superstitious custom of a primitive tribe.

Beatrice laughed, grinning at him. "Well, as far as I can tell, it consists of wearing robes with too many buttons, and sitting still for hours while they do my hair up like my grandmother's, and then going to a lot of parties where people sit around and talk about the dullest old shite you can imagine," she said pertly.

"My, don't you sound enthusiastic about making your illustrious debut into society," he replied.

Beatrice giggled again. "Oh, come on, you know how it is – a girl's got to get married someday. So what have you been doing? Wait, let me guess – " she quickly looked him over – "new robes, good haircut – you've done like everyone knew you would and gotten a fantastic job with some huge Potions firm, and now you're making pots of Galleons, aren't you, lucky thing," she said, perhaps a touch enviously.

He smiled faintly. "Still working on that, I'm afraid."

"You'll do it, it'll happen," she said, with all the naïve confidence of a teenage girl with a rich father.

"Snape, good evening," a man's voice said beside him, and Severus looked up to see Emmitt Parkinson standing beside the table. "I haven't seen you since the dance at the Mulcibers'. How are you?"

"Just fine, thanks," Severus replied, but although Parkinson had spoken to him, he was looking at Beatrice. Or rather, Parkinson was regarding Beatrice as though he might a particularly delectable bit of confectionery.

"Ooh, you went to that big dance at Cassius's house? I wanted to go to that, but couldn't take the time off from school," Beatrice said, turning to Severus with wide violet eyes.

"Yes, it's a shame you couldn't make it, it was lovely," Parkinson said. "I do beg your pardon, miss, I don't believe we've met... ?" He slanted a meaningful look at Severus.

"Oh, of course. Beatrice, may I present Mr. Emmitt Parkinson. He's a friend of my uncle Abraxas Malfoy. And Emmitt, this is Miss Beatrice Rookwood, who is, I believe, going into her seventh year at Hogwarts," Severus said politely.

"That's right, I've got N.E.W.T.s coming up this year," Beatrice said. She held out her hand to Parkinson with a sweet, disaffected smile. "Hi, nice to meet you."

"It's a pleasure," he said with a suave nod, warmly pressing the girl's slim little hand between both of his – and at that moment, Severus discerned the pair's future with almost clairvoyant certainty. Parkinson was richer than Croesus and wanted a sweet young thing to marry, despoil, and father his heirs upon, and Beatrice was resigned to the fact that a girl had to get married someday, preferably within her own station or above. Both were, in their own way, perfect for the other.

"Well, hello, you lot," came Bellatrix's gay voice to Severus's left. She smiled brightly at all three of them, especially Parkinson.

"Hi, Bella! I wanted to tell you, I love your robes. You look beautiful." Beatrice beamed another brilliant, candid little smile. "It's so cool to get to meet you. I started school the year after you finished, and everyone in the Slytherin common room was always talking about you and your sisters, " the girl gushed happily.

"Thank you, dear," Bella said, smiling; but her smile was more than a little forced. Beatrice had innocently drawn attention to the fact that Bella was eight years older than she herself was, and in the pureblooded English Wizarding world, to be a beautiful woman well into her twenties and still unmarried was to be made aware that one's shelf life was rapidly expiring. Beatrice had also committed the cardinal sin of mentioning that Bellatrix had not one but two sisters... and the Blacks didn't talk about Andromeda, not ever. "You have me at a loss – we've never been introduced."

Severus made haste to correct that omission, and the four of them made idle party chatter for awhile. Before long, it became apparent that it was a tangled web indeed that was unfolding before him – Bellatrix somehow managed to smile and yet look at Beatrice like she was a loathsome little insect, and at Emmitt like a starving predator surveying a juicy side of beef, while all but ignoring Severus himself. Meanwhile Beatrice exchanged witticisms with her amusing old school friend Severus, honestly seemed to admire the stunning Bellatrix, and was both attracted to Parkinson and intimidated by him. And Emmitt Parkinson's eyes were devouring every inch of the lovely, virginal Beatrice and watching Bella like a poisonous snake, and had discounted Severus's existence entirely.

Meanwhile he sat amidst them all making inane conversation, pitying Beatrice her dull lot as a society debutante, wishing that he could pack Parkinson off to some especially distant region of outer Mongolia, and longing to have Bellatrix's attention all to himself again.

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Bellatrix was in a particularly intense mood when she appeared in Severus's room the day after the Wilkeses' summer ball. She appeared from under the Invisibility Cloak in particularly racy lingerie and dangerous heels, then fell to kissing him hard, aggressively, then forced him back onto the pillows as matters progressed.

"Mmmm, you were so hot the other night, struggling against your bonds... you look so good all tied up, baby," she crooned in his ear.

She drew her wand out of her breast pocket again, but he gently took the wand out of her hand and put it aside on the night table. "Look, I don't want you to do that again. I don't... really like that sort of thing, sorry," he told her.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her elegant brows creasing.

"I don't like being tied up, and I really didn't like being cut, not at all. That's all a ruddy great turnoff for me," he said. "I don't want to do any of that again, not ever."

Bella scowled faintly. "Why?" she asked.

"Look, I just don't. Why isn't an honest No ever enough for you?" he protested, a trace of vehemence creeping into his voice.

"Sorry," she said, in a pettish tone that didn't really sound very sorry at all. "I just don't like doing it the same old way every time. You didn't seem to mind while it was happening."

"Bella... that's not it." He could tell that she was getting annoyed with him, and given his continual worries about where he stood with her, this was making him very anxious indeed. "I just... I have a lot of bad memories involving that sort of thing, and I'd rather not remember that while I'm in bed with you."

"What, someone's tied my sweet little virgin up before?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No, I've never gotten tied up before, it's more like – " More like my father pinned me against a wall and screamed that I was stupid and ugly and blacked my eye when I was nine – "I don't like being restrained, or held down. I don't trust it, it makes me uneasy. I've nothing against people who like that sort of thing, but it reminds me of... " he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly – "it reminds me of things I'd rather not remember."

"Aww, someone used to hit you, baby?" she crooned to him, drawing his head onto her breast.

"Yes," he admitted, averting his eyes. "Rather a lot."

"Tell me who he is, and I'll Crucio his arse till he pisses himself," she said, stroking his hair.

"Don't worry about it. He'll never lay a hand on anyone ever again, where he is," Severus replied, with a dark little chuckle.

"Oh, the bloke's dead then?" She looked at him penetratingly for a moment. "Was it your father?"

"Of course. The only person who could kick the shite out of me with complete impunity," he said bitterly. Her arms tightened around him, and he sighed. The sensation of being held and sympathised with like this was a new one for him, but he thought he could probably grow to like it very much.

"Yes, I think I'd heard someone saying that your father could be a tough customer," Bella said, brushing her lips over his forehead. "Your mother had a hard time of it too, didn't she."

"She... " Something in his chest went scalding and liquid, yet at the same time broke. "Yes, she had a hard time of it with him."

"You're shaking," Bella whispered. "This really upsets you."

"Yes... I suppose it still does, it was just... I was just this little sodding kid, and I couldn't help her, and by the time I was getting old enough to maybe be able to do something for her, I couldn't... I didn't get to... because she died." His voice broke, and he took a moment to calm himself. "Whenever I saw someone bullying a girl at school or whatever, my hands started to shake and I wanted to kill the bloke that was doing it. I still feel like that, all the time. I don't know what I'd do if someone ever tried to hurt you."

"Aww," she crooned, and kissed his forehead. "Don't worry, baby, you're safe with me."

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Author's Note: The verses Severus recounts after making love with Bella for the second time are from the poem "Hymn to Beauty" by Charles Baudelaire.