Chapters 5-7

V.

BANG!

Hermione unsquinted her eyes, peering around the cloth-draped livingroom of her dusty old home. Carefully she stepped away from the man who had Apparated at her side, and sighed in relief when he moved freely about as well, proving neither of them had been splinched during her attempt at dual Apparation. She'd been here before, but Severus hadn't, and the only way to get them here quickly enough was for her to attempt a double-Apparation.

There had been the start of a big row with her aunt back at the justiciar's office after Ron had fainted the second time, but Severus had surprised her--and earned puzzled, wary looks from Harry--by coming promptly to her verbal rescue, cutting the older woman to the quick with a few well-chosen, sarcastic sneers. With her great-aunt routed right out of the office, fuming at 'that odious man!', the two of them had been free to Apparate here, to secure her inheritance before her great-aunt could come and rob the place blind. Leaving Harry to rouse Ron and head back to the Burrow with the extraordinary news of Hermione's marriage...and the identity of her Geneamorologically-chosen husband.

In the meantime, she had her parents' house to secure. Glancing around, she spotted a few things disconcertingly missing, a chair here, a table there, some knicknacks from the mantel shelf...but not the painting hung over that mantel. "Thank god...!"

"What?" Severus enquired briefly, glancing around the place. From the modern style of the architecture, her family home looked like it was a fairly recent construction.

"The O'Keefe is still here. I thought for sure she'd have sold it since I got the investigator's report!"

"The what?" he asked, glancing over at her. She was staring at an overblown, colourful painting of a flower.

"The painting, here, over the mantel. It's an original Georgia O'Keefe, and worth thousands of pounds. It's got a security wire on it, and an anti-theft spell I put on it back in the summer after my fourth year, when we got it, but that's about it; Mum and Dad couldn't afford anything fancier, and I...well, I had other things on my mind, the summer they were killed. It was an inheritance from an American cousin."

"That is worth thousands of pounds?" he asked, staring at the colourful but otherwise boring blotches of paint.

"Yes. I know, it doesn't look like it, does it?" she mused with a small smile. It faded as she touched the mantel, and the slightly less dusty circles dotting its surface. "The Dresden shepherdess collection is gone, though. That was worth a few hundred quid... I've got to change the locks and ward the house against intrusion. Thank you again for being willing to come out here with me, right away."

"After having met your Aunt Hell--a very apt nickname for her, I must admit--it's the least I could do. Would you like some assistance in warding the place?"

Hermione was a little taken aback by the almost genial offer. "Er...certainly! As you like. I just...didn't expect the offer, really. Or...or your help with my aunt."

"We're married. The last I checked, the usual manner of conducting a marriage is presenting a unified front to the world, however things may be otherwise, under the surface."

She blushed. "Well...thank you."

He shrugged, but didn't say much else. Hermione crossed to the nearest window and tapped the frame with her wand, setting the first anti-entry warding. He moved to the next one over and tapped it with his own wand, copying her moves. They worked their way around the house, covering the ground floor, then the basement, then upstairs to the first floor, and finally the attic. It wasn't easy, crawling around in the crowded, hot space--thankfully Aunt Hell had apparently never heard of getting any of this stuff appraised at the Antiques Roadshow--and it was with relief that they both descended to the first floor, sweaty and dusty.

Severus found himself peering into the partially-open doorway of her bedroom, as she closed the attic door behind them. He'd warded her parents' room, but not this one, earlier. Shifting forward, he rested one hand against the doorframe, eyeing the racks of shelving lining the walls, the rows of books occupying them, and the stacks piled on the floor in front of them. Stacks that in some places were three rows deep. "Good god, woman...what did you do, hoard every single book to ever cross your hands?"

"Nearly," she agreed, shrugging. "I'm always reading something. It's like an addiction, with me. Fiction, non-fiction, you name it."

"I'm beginning to think the YLC wasn't quite so insane after all, pairing the two of us together. Your bedroom looks very much like my quarters, back at the school," he found himself confessing, glancing down at her. She looked up, blinking at him.

"You collect books?" Hermione asked, curious.

"I devour books," he corrected her. The wonder in her eyes stirred something inside of him. There was something else he wanted to devour, now, and that was her lips--she had a way of saying 'books' that had looked positively erotic, for a moment. He shook it off, muttering half to himself, "This is very disconcerting...you were one of my students, not ten hours before."

"Well, I'm not getting a divorce, just yet," she retorted tartly. "I can't even get an annullment for a solid year, if I'm to retain control of everything."

"Mm, yes. We do need to discuss that." Catching her wrist, Severus led her into her bedroom. She followed, a puzzled frown creasing her brow. Turning around, he seated himself on the edge of her bed, and tugged her closer. And closer still, until he sighed impatiently and pulled her firmly onto his lap. "I'm not going to bite you, Hermione...yet."

She eyed him nervously, sitting stiffly on his thighs, acutely aware of how dark and male he looked in her frilly-curtained bedroom, with its pink wallpaper--what little could be seen of it around the edges of the book-stuffed shelving--and pink-canopied four-poster. "Yet...?"

He wasn't quite sure how to start. Lifting a hand, he touched her cheek gently, cupping it in a soothing caress as she flinched slightly. Not afraid of him, exactly, but...almost innocently, and clearly uncertain of his intentions. Not that he was much more experienced than that, but he, at least, had a few more years under his robes. "Relax, Hermione; I didn't go to the trouble of agreeing to marrying you just to hurt you. However bastardish I might've been while you were my student."

She winced a little. "Erm...yes, about that... I might've charged ahead while I was under the pressure of my aunt's looming presence, but now that...well..."

He shifted his thumb, covering and stilling those soft, rose-coloured lips. "Shh. There's no hurry... I want you to know that I've never once thought of you as someone to kiss, before now."

"You, er...haven't?" she mumbled against the pad of his thumb.

Severus shook his head slightly, studying her. "No. I've always admired your brilliant intellect, a polished diamond among the dull, granite pebbles that I normally have to face in my classroom, but until this afternoon...you were my student. That was all there was. And yet...when we kissed..."

His thumb dragged down her lower lip, parting her mouth just a little. Leaning in close, Severus angled his head just enough to keep their noses from duelling, and lightly, slowly licked that bottom lip. Making her shiver with pleasure. Him, too, if he were absolutely honest. Slanting his head just a little bit more, he covered her mouth with his own, kissing her. A soft sigh escaped her, and her arms lifted up around his neck as she returned the pressure of his lips. Another lick parted her mouth, and with an indrawn breath from her and a sighing breath from him, their tongues tentatively met once again.

Her heart ached, and electricity tingled through her lower abdomen; Hermione could barely breathe, and the room was too warm, his kiss almost too hot, too intimate to bear. A portion of her mind kept trying to remind her she was sitting in her old bedroom, kissing the Potions Master of all people, but that portion shrank in size and importance the longer the kiss progressed. When he had started stroking his strong, gentle palms up and down her back, she didn't know, nor was she quite sure when she had started stroking his hair, which was incredibly soft and not nearly as greasy as she'd supposed, just very cool and silky as she ran her fingers over his scalp, sliding the strands between her fingers. But she was very aware of the moment he chose to slid one of those hands around to her ribs, and hyperaware of the moment he cupped her left breast through the cotton of her jacket, her blouse, and her bra.

Jerking back from his kiss with a gasp, she stared wide-eyed at him. She could feel the warmth of his hand searing through all three layers of her clothes. The intensity in his dark gaze was not an expression she was accustomed to seeing. Not quite like that, though she'd seen something somewhat similar when he'd been lecturing in that low, silky voice of his, fired with tightly contained enthusiasm that had always reminded her of a basement furnace, forgotten for the most part by the rest of the house but undeniably the source of all its energy.

He wasn't handsome--his nose was too beaky, his face too furrowed by his greater age, which was at least twice her own, and he needed to go out into the sun and get himself a tan, to do something with that yellowish-pale, dungeon-level cast to his skin--but he was undeniably passionate. She'd known that all along, from a scholastic point of view. Hermione just had no idea all that academic passion could be translated into sexual fervor. It was very disconcerting.

His hand slid off of her breast, making her flesh tingle. Cupping her cheek, he touched her bottom lip with his thumb, and dragged it down slightly. Parting her lips for another kiss, he claimed it with a dip of his head. She liked that part; she liked it a lot, and returned the favour. But when his hands slipped to her ribs again, she jerked back with a gasp, and an involuntary giggle.

"Oh, please, don't!"

Arching a brow, Severus studied his young wife, and flexed his fingers experimentally. She giggled again, and squirmed to try and remove his hands. Narrowing his eyes thoughtfully, he tickled her deliberately. She shrieked and grabbed for his wrists, trying to remove his hands.

"No, don't! I'm horridly ticklish!" She slapped at the backs of his fingers. He didn't remove them, but he did still them for a moment, making her hyperaware of his featherlight touch against her white-clad ribs.

"...Indeed?"

His speculative drawl, the arching of that black brow, alerted her to the danger now looming in her immediate future. She narrowed her eyes at him. "You wouldn't dare..."

"I am a Slytherin, Mrs. Snape. Dares do not motivate us...but vulnerabilities do." And without remorse, he started tickling and teasing her ribs and belly, making her shriek and laugh and squirm to try and get off his lap, away from his hands. He hooked her squirming curves firmly in place with one arm around her waist, while using his greater strength to dodge her shoving hands and keep up his ruthless attack with his other arm, making her writhe and laugh involuntarily hard in his embrace, until her voice rose to a shriek of giggling desperation.

"--Oh please! Oh please, please, stop--oh god, I've got to pee! No--please--really, I have to pee!"

Her voice rose in a desperate whinge. Deciding she'd been stimulated enough, Severus removed his fingers from her abdomen, wrapping one arm around her back to keep her close and placing the other hand on her jawline so he could pull her panting mouth close to his. Parting her lips with his thumb, he kissed her firmly, thoroughly. Marking his territory, and his rights, as her husband. He kissed her until her breathing slowed and she willingly returned it. He kissed her a little more, just because her mouth was that sweet, until she pulled back her head with a reluctant wince.

"I really do have to...go," she offered, blushing at the subject.

Wordlessly, he helped her to her feet, rising behind her as she turned to go. His hands, settling lightly on her shoulders, held her in place for a moment. Stopping her escape. When they slid down over her white-covered breasts to her waist in a deliberate caress, Hermione shivered, unsure if she should let herself enjoy the intimate touch of his hands that much. She felt even more unsure as, leaning against her and looking over her shoulder, he deftly flicked open each of the three cloth-covered buttons on her jacket.

Peeling the lapels of the tasteful white jacket back, Severus deliberately scraped the backs of his thumbnails over the crests of her breasts, stimulating the little nubs he could feel through the soft pink fabric of her blouse, and the bra cupping them underneath. Stooping a little as he slipped the garment off her arms, he murmured in her ear, "It's a little hot in here, don't you think? Go powder your nose...wife."

A proprietary pat on the curve of her backside made Hermione blink in shock, but it got her moving. She paused at the doorway, giving him an uncertain, puzzled look, then retreated to the bathroom next door. Her reflection in the mirror over the sink distracted her from her goal. Her hair was tousled from the touch of his hands, though when that had happened, she couldn't remember. Her cheeks were pink with what felt like a constant blush, and her lips a little rosier than usual, and a little puffy, too, from the pressure of his own. A glance down at her chest showed her nipples embarrassingly prominent, which only reminded her of what he'd done with his thumbnails at the last moment. And she couldn't help but hear, echoing over and over again in her head, how deep and sexy his voice had dropped on that last word. Wife.

Only now, looking into her own passion-shocked brown eyes, did Hermione begin to wonder what sort of price would be extracted in exchange for the right to claim her inheritance. And how much she could admit to herself that she just maybe, possibly, might actually like it...even as it unnerved the hell out of her.

Her. Mrs. Bloody Snape!

VI.

He had removed his frock-coat while she had been in the bathroom. Hermione stared at the back of her husband, the man who now had the right to be her lover as well--her very first lover--and wondered nervously what she was going to do. He was standing by a stack of books, perusing the pages of one of the paperbacks, apparently lost in thought. Padding over the carpet to him, she peered quizzically at the book, trying to see which one he was skimming.

...A romance novel? Startled by the choice, she looked up at him face. "Er...that's a romance novel."

Her remark was an overstatement of the obvious, but he let it pass. "I read everything I get my hands on, Hermione. Including the most luridly purple-prosed pornography ever to be thinly disguise as literature."

"--I'll have you know that Dara Joy happens to be a smashingly good author who excels as much at her sheer storytelling abilities as she does at her luridly purple prose!" Hermione retorted, grabbing for the book. "Stop reading my trashy novels! You're embarrassing me."

He clung to it, making sure to capture her attention. "If I read your trashy novels, wife, I will know exactly how you hope to be seduced. I am nothing, if not a meticulous researcher."

That answer was unexpected. Leaving the paperback in his hands, she stared up at him, wide-eyed. Taking advantage of her stunned stare, Severus slipped around behind her, looping his arms around her shoulders. Holding the book at eye-level for her, he cracked the worn paperback open to one of the more well-perused spots, and skimmed the lines with his eyes, while he listened to her unsteady, rapid, shallow breathing.

"Hmm...I don't know what a 'prautau' is, and I doubt I could procure one, given that this is merely a work of fantasy fiction...though the position sounds intriguing. Perhaps we could seek the rental of a sturdy horse sometime, instead?" A glide of pages under his thumbs, and he caught the next section she had apparently read over and over again. "Here's something more interesting. A husband seducing a reluctant wife..." Bracing open the pages with the thumb and littlest finger of one hand, he skimmed his right forefinger down the lines, and tapped one of the paragraphs. "I think I could enjoy doing this little suggestion. Indeed, if those lower lips are as sweet-tasting as your upper ones, I think I could enjoy very much doing that for a couple hours at a time..."

A flick, and he turned the page, the sound of rasping paper only slightly louder than her unsteady, not quite whimpering pants. That quiet low voice of his, which had drawled in sneers and snarls for so many years, had an entirely different quality to it now. It was actually...sexy. Stimulatingly so. Hermione flushed as she bit her lower lip, wanting to hear more, and receiving it.

"Mm...intriguing premise for the position being proposed, with the wife pinned to the bed so dominantly, yet tenderly...being ravished from behind," he murmured into her curly, chestnut-coloured hair. "Would you care to try it personally, some time, rather than just fantasizing about it?"

Embarrassment flooded her. He clearly knew how to find all her favorite bits in the bloody book. "I-I don't..."

"Shh." Flicking the book shut, he reached out and tossed it gently onto the nearest stack. "I have gone more than nine months since my last encounter with a woman. More than nine months without touching even a miniscule fraction of the passion I can now feel buried in your kisses, my wife, waiting to be unearthed between us. You, I suspect, have gone your whole young life without even beginning to tap into the sensuality you are clearly capable of appreciating, according to such well-read bits of lurid, lascivious prose." His arms wrapped around her torso, one above her breasts, the other below them as he breathed softly into her ear. Deliberately seducing her with his words. "Perhaps the YLC indeed knew that you are indeed capable of turning your vast love of learning into an equally overwhelming love of passion, with the same depth and strength that I myself can."

Hermione closed her eyes, unsettled even further by the thought of the long-dreaded Potions Master having such a high libido...and unnervingly titillated by the idea; the ambiguity flushed her cheeks.

"As we are now husband and wife, I see no obstacles, save for your maidenly shyness, to our mutual exploration of the matter. By the time I am done with you tonight, however," he murmured, his head ducked so low his lips were brushing the velvety curve of her ear, "there will be no shyness left anywhere within your delectable body."

Damn, the man's voice was bloody seductive when he set his mind to it! Head tilting back to rest against the muscles of his shoulder and chest, eyes closed to shut out the banal sight of her childhood bedroom, Hermione struggled for breath. Not because of the way he was gripping her body, but from the way his words were gripping her mind. She felt one of his arms shift, heard him whisper a word, and opened her eyes. He'd conjured a broad, tall cheval-mirror, Transfiguring it out of the stack of books in front of them.

She was confronted by the sight of herself in a white skirt, pink flats and a pale pink blouse, her ringlets falling over her shoulders and down her back to her waist in disarray, wrapped in the arm of a tall, wand-clutching, black-haired, strong-nosed man with a dark fall of shoulderlength locks, a high-collared white shirt, and black trousers and boots. He whispered another word, flicking that wand, and the buttons of her blouse started unfastening themselves.

"I, er, don't think..."

"Good. Don't think," he agreed, which he knew wasn't what she meant. He tucked his wand into his pocket again, and touched the flesh that was being bared below her throat, caressing it lightly, gently. "Feel. Try to look upon this as a venture into a new sort of research--the science of how your husband can make you shiver and sigh with pleasure. How I can make you gasp and moan with desire...how I can make you come undone in my arms, until all you can do is clutch at my flesh and scream my name...say my name, wife."

"S...Severus," she managed in a bare, shaky murmur, as he cupped one bra-clad breast, exposed when the tails of her blouse untucked themselves from her skirt.

"Hermione," he whispered into her ear, encouraging her as he gently kneaded the warm curve of flesh in his palm. "Again..."

The blouse dropped to the floor, as he shifted his other arm from under her breasts, caressing the bared upper planes of her belly. It was only then that she realized his own shirt had been unbuttoned, and was now easing down his arms, too, necessiting another shift in his embrace as the magic undressed him, too. "S...Severus...?"

"Shh. Hermione," he soothed, nuzzling her thick hair aside so that he could press a kiss to that tender little niche just below the lobe of her ear. He didn't want her panicked; he wanted her acknowledging who he was. Her husband, as well as her former Potions Master. He liked the sound of his given name on her lips, and encouraged her to repeat it, as the rasp of her skirt-zipper broke the silence of the summer-warmed room. "Again."

"Severus..." It was more breathy than stammered, this time.

Without the spells woven into his frock-coat to keep him comfortable whatever the temperature, sweat was beginning to bead on his skin in the close warmth of the summer-heated room. Extracting his wand before his pants could fall, Severus flicked it in the direction of the two windows, cracking open each with a bit of wordless magic. That allowed a breeze to flutter the gauzy curtains, and caress their bared skin. Her skirt hit the carpet, along with his trousers. A sway of his body urged them both to step back, as the Disrobing Charm unfastened his boots and removed her shoes, leaving them in their underwear, her tights, and his socks.

Those socks and tights were next, as Severus kissed the side of her neck, nibbling his way onto her shoulder. His hands caressed her stomach, her brassiere-supported breasts. He dipped a finger teasingly below the waistband of her plain white knickers, making her gasp and try to bite back a ticklish giggle. Trailing that fingertip over her sensitive skin as she snickered involuntarily, dipping it into the intriguing dimple of her navel, he distracted her from the magical unfastening of her equally plain bra. Severus determined with a brief bit of thought that it was within his budget to clothe her in scraps of silk and lace imported from France; her lush young figure certainly deserved such an accolade.

She gasped as the straps fell, clutching the soft fabric cups protectively to her flesh. Here she was, standing in front of a conjured mirror in her girlish, book-cluttered bedroom, almost entirely naked in the arms of...of...it was getting rather hard to breathe, despite the intermittent breeze freshening the air.

"Shh... Who am I?" Severus asked her gently, lifting his mouth from her shoulder as he raised his hands to cover the backs of hers. In the classroom, he had always spoken harshly to his students, but this wasn't his classroom, and this was definitely no longer one of his students.

"S...Severus S-Snape," she managed, clenching her thighs together as she felt the tickle of magic attempting to lower the waistband of her knickers, as well as tugging on the straps of her bra.

"And what am I?" Severus prompted her, meeting her uncertain gaze in the mirror. For such a normally brave Gryffindor, she was clearly out of her depth at the moment. She stared into his dark eyes through the reflection of the mirror, uncertain what to answer. Tugging her left hand free, Severus allowed her to press her forearm to her breast for protection, but lifted the signet ring on her finger into deliberate view. For such a normally brilliant young woman, she was acting a little bit slow, as well. This was not a moment for deducting House-points and assigning detentions, however, even if he still could. "What am I, to you?"

"My...h-husband..."

He kissed the top of her head in silent praise. "Again. Who am I?"

"S-Severus Snape."

"And what am I?"

"M-my husband."

"Again. Who and what am I?"

"Severus Snape...my...husband." Saying it over and over again was easing some of the panic tightly gripping her chest. It helped that, with each correct answer, he pressed a soft kiss to her hair, unnerving her in a different manner with the gentleness of his caress.

"Again."

"Severus Snape. My husband." There, she managed to say it without too much hesitation, or any embarrassing stammering.

"One more time," he coaxed her, his breath warm enough against her ear to send a shiver racing down her skin.

"Severus Snape, my husband." It was a bare whisper, but it was an unflinching one.

He cupped her jaw, twisting her head up to meet his, opened her mouth just so with a touch of his thumb, and kissed her. He kissed her until Hermione turned around in his arms, needing to feel more than just those lips and that crick in her neck. She let her bra drop, and ignored the slide of her knickers down her thighs, the fluttering of the soft knit fabric against the tops of her feet. Instead, she savored the strange, attractive, sweat-sticky slide of her limbs against his, the furry feel of his hair-dusted chest against her breasts, the stroking of their tongues and lips as they continued to kiss. Severus pulled her closer against his frame, urging their hips together, but she shied her lower body away at the hard, warm, unnervingly unfamiliar feel of his jutting erection.

Impatient with her returning shyness, intending to have her learn this lesson, too, he ended their kiss and turned her around, making her face the mirror again. "...Who are you?"

"Hermione Grang--"

His finger pressed against her mouth, silencing her. "Wrong answer. Who are you?"

"H...Hermione...Snape..." Her cheeks flushed at the gaffe, then blushed even brighter as he slid that hand down over her breast, teasing the tip of it for a moment, before feathering it down over her stomach, making her giggle involuntarily. Splaying his fingers low on her belly, he deliberately pulled her back against him, nudging the small of her back with his erection.

"Again. Who are you?"

"H-Hermione Snape."

"And what are you?" he prompted her, slipping his hand a fraction lower, teasing the curl-dusted triangle at the base of her stomach.

"Your...your wife."

"Damn straight," he muttered against the side of her throat. He caught her earlobe in his teeth, gently tugging until it slipped free and she shivered, moaning softly in her throat. "Again--who are you?"

"H-Hermione Snape. Your...wife," she added without prompting.

"Again."

"Hermione Snape, your--oh! Your w-wife," Hermione stammered as his fingertips dipped low enough to probe the crease between her thighs.

"Who am I?" he demanded in a whisper-soft caress, gliding his fingers into her feminine folds. A groan escaped his throat as he discovered how hot and wet she was.

"Severus Snape--my husband!" she gasped, arching her head back against his shoulder as he stooped just that little bit more, just enough to brush against the nub of her pleasure.

"Yes, and you are Hermione Snape--my wife!"

A deliberate, circling press of his fingertips accompanied that growled declaration. She cried out at the stimulation, shuddering in his grip, caught up in the lightning-bright glory of her first orgasm at the hands of another person. Grateful for his support as her knees turned to marmalade with the strength of her climax, Hermione choked as he continued circling her flesh with his digits, manipulating it, stimulating her in an ongoing rush of pleasure. Only when she sagged limply against his chest, supported almost entirely by the arm wrapped under her breasts, did he remove his hand from her mound.

Lifting his dew-slick fingers, he displayed the viscous moisture to her dazed eyes for a moment, then raised them even higher. Deliberately, he met her gaze in the mirror as he sucked each finger into his mouth, letting her read the passion in his eyes, and how savoury he found her essence, licking every last smear from his skin. A faint whimper escaped her throat and one hand lifted weakly towards his head. He caught it in his, bringing her fingers down to her own flesh and deliberately coating them with the embarrassing evidence of her pleasure. Bring them back up to his lips, he suckled the musky, fragrant moisture from her own skin, too.

VII.

Her eyes fluttered shut, unable to bear the too-intimate, erotic image of the Potions Master--her husband!--laving her fingers with his tongue. Feeling the soft-rough texture of it swirling around and between her fingers didn't help matters; it made her think embarrassing thoughts of other places that tongue could lash her flesh. Hermione wondered for a wild, briefly inane moment why her knees were still capable of supporting her weight, given his ticklish ministrations.

Finally, he withdrew her hand from the vicinity of those too-talented lips, that bloody seductive tongue. Releasing his grip, he slid his damp fingers down her body, making her moan as the caress ignited anticipation in every nerve touched, but he didn't return his fingers to the apex of her thighs. Instead, he bent and scooped her legs up in his arm, making her eyes fly open and her arms quickly clutch at his shoulders.

Not since she had been young enough to pick out the pink wallpaper, canopy, and curtain-frills over a decade ago had someone lifted her in their arms this easily. Abruptly aware of how strong that lean, spare frame was, she stared up at him as he carried her over to her bed. He laid her on the center of the pink-covered mattress, then settled the length of his body against hers on the narrow bed. And frowned softly, reaching under her curls, removing the soft lump caught under her hair. She blushed as he pulled out her ageworn teddy, with its striped red-and-white shirt, black little trousers, black eyepatch and red kerchief.

Severus arched a brow at the old toy. He hadn't noticed it before, and of all the stuffed animals he would've imagined in place of pride on a young Hermione Granger's bed, it wouldn't have been a pirate teddy-bear. "Who is this?"

It took her an embarrassed moment to realize he'd said a polite, interested 'who', instead of a snickering, derisive 'what'. Hermione felt a rush of gratitude for the kindness behind the phrasing of the question, and a certain awkwardness. "Er...well...it's Porthos the Pirate. But I haven't, um...I haven't felt the need to cuddle a teddy in years," she informed him quickly, not wanting him to think she was still a little girl. "I haven't even been back here since last summer."

"Porthos the Pirate, as in The Three Musketeers?" he enquired, receiving a hesitant nod of confirmation. "Hm. Well. Some things not even famous pirates are meant to see, up close." Stretching his arm back, he gently dropped the bear face-down on her nightstand. "He can rest there, for now. I'm sure one of our children will come to love him as much as you ever did."

"--Ch-children?" she stammered, staring at him.

Her surprise disappointed him. "I told you, I sought matrimony so that I could start a family. That implies having children. It's not that much different from why you chose to marry; saving an inheritance also implies children, since they would be the next ones to receive that inheritance after you yourself are gone. Surely you considered the possibility that your compatible-mate would anticipate having and raising a family with you?"

"Well...no, not really. I was a lot more focused on getting Aunt Hell out of my life," she confessed. "I mean, I didn't discount the possibility, but it was...er...a remote thing. Something to think about in the future."

"Well, you'd bloody well better think about it now," he warned her, shifting close enough to press his erection against her hip and belly. His hand cupped her back, turning her firmly towards him. "Because I am about to make love to you, and I did not bring any contraceptive potions."

Hermione shivered at his resolute murmur. His hand slid up over her shoulder, cupped her cheek, and nudged her lower lip. Deliberately readying her for his incoming kiss. In a rush that was part arousal, part the need to hide her embarrassment and confusion, and a hefty part courage, Hermione pushed past his thumb, kissing him first. He stilled for a moment, surprised, then encouraged her with a stroke of his hand down to her breast, and a stroke of his tongue past her lips.

Kneading her flesh, he kissed her back for a few more moments, then dipped his head, plumping her nipple between two of his splayed fingers. A flick of his tongue against the teased, rosy peak made her gasp. A shift of his hand, and he sucked the whole of her areola into his lips, greedily but gently, his intent to pleasure, not hurt. Her hand touched his arm, his shoulder, feathered its way into his hair, cupping his head and encouraging him to do more.

Urging her wordlessly onto her back, Severus occupied himself for a while with the worship of her young, firm breasts. But as she caressed the parts of him that she could reach, he did the same to her, and that meant his hand eventually found its way back between her thighs, his fingers delving through her slick folds. Memory of her prior, incredible pleasure clashed and meshed with the delicious shivers he was sending through her veins. Whimpering, she parted her knees, silently demanding more. Obliging, he kissed his way down her ticklish stomach, though the awkwardly narrow size of her bed forced him almost all the way off of it, angling to one side to accommodate his frame.

At the last moment, awareness of what he was about to do filtered through her pleasure-hazed consciousness. Eyes widening, Hermione drew in a breath, ready to protest at the sheer intimacy, but he parted her folds with his fingers, and lapped at their hidden depths...and her uncertain protest escaped as a shout of shocked pleasure instead. "--Severus! Oh, god!"

He didn't stop, despite the peak and decline of her orgasm. Even if her taste hadn't been liquid ambrosia, he wouldn't have stopped licking her soft, hot, wet folds. Not when she cried out again and shuddered, arching her hips up into his mouth, letting him know that, nervous or not, she clearly loved what he was doing to her. He had hesitated in doing this with other women in the past, for all that he found it enjoyable those few times he had tried. Those women had usually been of a somewhat loose nature--usually the kind who didn't care that he wasn't the handsomest man in the world, so long as his Sickles were handsome enough. But his wife was too young to be so physically jaded, and clearly too innocent in her demeanor and her responses.

And simply too delicious. He laved and nipped, savoring her musky dew as she writhed under him, devouring her as thoroughly as any book that was ever cradled in his hands. Ensuring she crested yet another peak of pleasure, and another, before easing a finger into her depths. She gasped at the unfamiliar invasion, but he didn't stop licking the little sentinel of her pleasure overlooking the opening being plundered with gentle, slow strokes. She winced a little, a twitch of all her muscles, as he eased a second finger in beside the first, stretching her flesh. Severus soothed her with another climax, easing his way inside, pressing in as far as those two fingers could go. The knowledge of how tight she was around just two of his fingers reminded him of how hard he was, of how tight she would be when sheathing his shaft.

Easing his fingers back and forth, he licked her to the trembling, whimpering verge of yet another climax...and withdrew his hands and lips. Crawling back up over her body, he saluted the peak of each breast, then her mouth, letting her taste herself on his lips. To his astonishment, she growled and pushed him over, nudging him onto his side next to her. And not only onto his side, but onto his back, where she took remarkably dominant control of their next kiss.

Hermione was on fire. All these years of respecting her professor, all these years of secretly admiring how tough and strict his standards were, something that had appealed deeply to her scholarly little heart...all these years of watching those lips lecture, deride and sneer...and only now did she get to find out that he could do such marvelous, wonderful, beyond-pleasurable things with his mouth? If this was a research project into mutually exploring their sensuality, Hermione was bound and determined, enthused by all those ruddy orgasms, to earn some serious extra-credit now.

There wasn't much in the way of shyness left in her, anymore. Having the dreaded, feared Potions Master groaning hungrily deep in his throat, hands stroking her thighs tenderly, gripping them lustfully as he buried that beak-nosed face of his in her quim, was an undeniably effective method for banishing any lingering embarrassment. And she was a Gryffindor alumni, a House renowned for the courage of its members. With that courage to guide her now, she kissed her way somewhat awkwardly down his chest, not quite sure how to make her own ministrations as polished as his had been, but determined to return every shudderingly good favour.

There was only so much about sex and sexual techniques that one could learn from a book, after all, which had formed a tangible portion of her uncertainty, earlier. But from the way he groaned and clutched at her curls, from the way his breath hissed through his teeth when she licked his nipple, swirling her tongue around the warm, soft oval of flesh, she figured she was doing alright. Hermione certainly liked the texture of his nipples, both of them with their tiny, lentil-sized nipples, Knut-sized areolas, and the circling ring of black chest-hairs guarding each one.

When she experimentally caught the tip of one very gently between her teeth, he grunted, hissing her name and tightening his fingers almost painfully in her hair. Startled, she lifted her head, unsure if she'd hurt him. And rapidly found herself on her back as he flipped her over, placing her roughly centered on the bed, and firmly slotted his hips between her thighs.

He captured her mouth in a deep, savouring kiss before she could do more than draw breath to question him--and felt her breath catch in her throat as he rubbed himself against her. Hot, hard, foreignly male, explicitely intimate, his shaft rubbed between her still-damp folds. A shift of position to get one arm down between their bodies, and he gripped himself, probing gently with the tip of his manhood until he was seated in the right spot. A shift of his hand, and he circled and pressed his thumb on her clitoris, making her gasp as pleasure came rushing back to her loins. Pleasure, and pressure.

He pressed slowly into her, the stretching pain of his invasion competing with the shuddering thrill of his thumb, until the head of his prick was firmly lodged within her too-tight flesh. Both of them were now breathing heavily, her from the aching, stinging, burning sensation, and him from the urge to thrust hard and fast, and damned with the consequences to her virginity. Resting his forehead against hers, Severus struggled against the barbaric need to claim her fiercely, roughly, until he could trust his voice enough to speak normally. Almost normally.

"...You do realize this is going to hurt, the first time. And maybe one or two times afterward," he added in an almost conversational tone. He wasn't exactly a small man; there were some things that did, indeed, correspond in their proportions, and the size of his nose and the length of his fingers were both very good indicators.

"It's bloody well hurting now," Hermione informed him through her teeth, her rough tone conveying her discomfort verbally. Her nails, digging into his back, conveyed her discomfort physically to him.

Severus winced as those unexpected talons flinched a little deeper into his skin, threatening to pierce his hide. "I'm trying to not hurt you--"

"Just get it over with!" she ordered him. "Then we can get back to doing the good stuff, again."

Eyeing her, he gauged her level of sincerity, then snorted. "...I see you haven't lost one whit of your Gryffindor courage, even though you've now graduated."

"So where's your Slytherin ambition?" Hermione challenged him back, lifting her chin slightly. "Or do the alumni of your own House typically fail to complete whatever they've started?"

Both of his brows rose at that. Hooking a hand under her knee, he lifted it up over his hip, then did the same on the other side. "Are you challenging me?"

Her heels thumped into his backside. "I'm telling you to ruddy well get moving!"

Still, he hesitated. "...We do this, and you will be irrevocably married to me, Hermione," he warned her softly, seriously. "What I claim, I keep."

That made her hesitate. He watched her eyes narrow, could almost see the whirring of thoughts in her head, but her expression was shuttered. Without actively using Legilimency against her, there was no way to tell precisely what she was thinking.

"...I've always admired your intellect, Severus," she finally murmured, surprising him with her introspection. "I've also admired your sardonic wit. You were a true challenge, to wring even the tiniest drop of praise from your lips over the years. But that was when you were my teacher. Now you are my husband...and I expect you to be very vocal in your praise of me. No more of this 'I'm Slytherin and you're Gryffindor' rivalry bullshite--you got that?"

He stared at her, blinking. A frown creased his brow. "Are you trying to lay down the law, in this marriage?"

Her jaw tilted up just a little bit more. "Yes, I do believe I am. Do you have a problem with that?"

"With the fact that you're inherently bossy? Or the fact that you're trying to take control of our relationship?"

"Either."

"If you weren't so bossy and courageous, I'd eat you alive and spit out the bones, my dear," he drawled with barely a moment's thought. "I am not a shy, retiring man, and I do believe the YLC knew that singular fact, when they selected you for me. As for who will be in control...I do believe I will look forward to our many arguments on that point, in the years to come."

Before she could retort, he captured her mouth and thrust firmly from the hips, piercing her virginity as he swallowed the pained, wincing shriek accompanying its loss. Her fingers dug ruthlessly into the lean muscles of his back, bruising as well as no doubt bloodying his flesh from the depth of her fingernails, but it was only fair, given his own harsh rending of hers. Shifting partway out, he thrust in a second, deeper time as she grimaced and whimpered, then did it a third time before coming to a rest. Not just for her sake, now that her maidenhead was torn, but for his own. The squeezing, tight pressure of her womanhood threatened to make him lose self-control, and he really, really needed to hold both of them still long enough for her body to recover and relax from the pain of his invasion.

It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt. But the kiss that had started out smothering her screams now eased the grimace from her lips. His mouth nuzzled and nipped at hers, his teeth lightly scraping over her lower lip, nudging it down as surely as his thumb could, and the comparison of that simple little act to her earlier pleasure banished some of the lingering agony down in her loins.

He claimed her mouth once again as she sighed, slowly relaxing around him; the thrusting of his tongue was gentler and much more bearable than what he'd done below, so she returned it touch for touch, eyes still shut from that breaching. She could only blame herself, too; there might've been a gentler way to do it, but she'd gone and challenged him to just 'get it over with', and he had certainly done that. At least it didn't hurt nearly as much anymore, though some of the stinging still lingered.

Severus ended their kiss with a last, almost sipping taste of her passion-swollen lips. Most of the tension had eased from her body, but not all of it. Still, there was one more obstacle to demolish. She'd accepted him as her husband when standing naked in front of a mirror with him, and had accepted her wifely right to return each of his fervent caresses, but he knew it was a different sort of intellectual demand, to visually accept him, the sour, homely-faced Potions professor when he was invading her flesh as intimately as this.

"Open your eyes, my dear."

Blinking them open, Hermione looked up into his face. It was still a little disconcerting, seeing him so close to her, yet not with the same expression he wore whenever he had snarled into her face for some class-borne infraction. No, his expression was almost tender. "Yes?"

"Who am I?" he asked her.

"Severus Snape, my husband," she replied promptly, having learnt his little lesson quite well, thanks to his seduction of her in front of that mirror.

The quickness of her admittance eased some of the tension in his chest. It also reminded him of her know-it-all tone, whenever he'd finally deigned to call on her for an answer in class. He let his approval glow in his gaze, though only the slightest smile hovered at the edge of his lips. "And you are...?"

"Hermione Snape, your wife," she stated just as promptly as before. And surprised herself with the realization that her insides tingled pleasantly from the admission. It was disconcerting to realize she had actual, proprietary feelings about those two simple words, husband and wife, but Hermione decided it was disconcerting in the same way that having the Potions Master's face buried in her crotch was disconcerting. Deliciously so. Courage rising inside her chest, she added tartly, "A wife, I might add, who is now dying to know what it's like to c-climax during intercourse."

She blushed as she stammered on the intimately blunt words, but the heat in her face was nothing to the redding flush of his own those words invoked. He stared down at her, dark eyes wide, their expression oddly vulnerable as well as wondering. Marvelling. This time when he dipped his dark head for a kiss, it stayed gentle and tender only long enough for her to return it firmly.

A sigh escaped from him as she increased her enthusiasm under the tasting of his lips Gathering her close, he flexed his hips slowly, gently as together they deepened the kiss. It still stung a little, but the friction wasn't bad. No, it wasn't bad at all. Closer to marvelous, really, as he increased the depth and the pace. Bloody marvelous, in fact...

Fire seared up his limbs and crawled down his spine. Gritting his teeth, Severus lowered his face to the curve of her shoulder, breathing hard with the need to keep thrusting strongly for her pleasure, and yet somehow avoid his own. And then--blessed!--her nails clenched more deeply than ever, piercing his flesh yet again as she pressed her head back with a keening, shuddering cry, and he was finally free to break his bloody self-control and pound into her as roughly as his previously tightly-reined needs demanded, grunting with each rapid, enflamed, demanding stroke.

She felt his climax following close to the heels of her own, heard his ragged gasp of her name, felt his flesh pulsing, warm and wet, within the depths of her own. Her womb clenched, actually clenched deep inside her belly, at the thought of Severus Snape's seed flooding her body. A thought that should've been insane seared through her body; wracked with pleasure as she was, Hermione bit her lower lip against the prickle of tears in her eyes. Less than two hours ago, it would've been utterly insane to think it, to change her mind about whether or not this sort of thing was important to her--it was important to him, though it hadn't been to her--but not here. Not now, not writhing in the throes of sexual ecstasy. Not while wrapped in her husband's fervent embrace as he kissed her shoulder, her throat, her chin, her lips...

Their pleasure took some time to subside, but it did fade into a limp sort of lethargy. Sweat dried on their skin as the late afternoon sunlight poured through the gauzy material covering the western of the two windows, and the curtains of the eastern one fluttered inward on a slight breeze. Severus knew he had to be heavy, collapsed on top of her as he was, with his face buried in the curls next to her head and his diminishing shaft still buried in her tender flesh, but he was disinclined to move just yet. All those sweet curves, which were now his to explore in perpetuity, made a marvelously feminine mattress underneath his torso. The scent of her hair--some sort of herbal, flowery potion--was entrancing to breathe, combined as it was with the heady, musky scent of sex. The languid caress of her hands on his back and his sides let him know subtly that she wasn't in a hurry to have him move yet, either.

Someone's stomach rumbled, announcing its hunger. Reluctantly, Severus lifted his head, bracing his weight on an elbow. The movement slipped him out of her body, but he'd be able to return to its warm embrace soon enough. Looking down at his young wife, he frowned at the sight of faint, damp tracks on the sides of her face, and the equally faint redness rimming her eyes. Guilt--an uncomfortable, unwelcome feeling--twisted inside of his chest. Freeing his other hand, Severus wiped gently at the lingering moisture. "I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry..."

Hermione sniffed and quickly shook her head. "I didn't cry. Well, not cry-cry. I was...I was just overwhelmed, that's all. It was just really beautiful." The glow that was kindled in his eyes at her embarrassed admission warmed her almost as much as it did him. Hermione stared up at her husband, her lover, and found herself admitting the first thing that came into her lethargy-addled, passion-muddled head. "God, you're handsome when you're happy..."

That made him blink and frown down at her. "Mrs. Snape, your jest is not amusing. I know very well what I am, and I am not handsome!"

She frowned in turn at him. "If I want to think of you as handsome, I bloody well will! And you'll take it and like it, too! It's a wife's prerogative, after all, to think her husband is handsome as sin...even when he's being an idiot."

He drew in a sharp breath to retort at the impertinence of her words--and let it out on a rueful laugh, undone by the curly-haired young woman lying intimately under him. Impulsively, he brushed her lips with his as she gave his smiling expression a disconcerted look. "Whereas I shall think of you as incredibly beautiful, as a husband's prerogative...even when you're being a shrewish termegant. Agreed?"

Some of her irritation melted away. Shifting her hand, she reached up to touch his face, and froze, staring at the reddish-brown smear on her fingertips. Both of them froze, then Hermione shoved him off of her, scrabbling to sit up so that she could peer down at the multiple, crescent-shaped cuts and bruises on his back, horror widening her eyes. "--Dear god! What have I done to your back? God, Severus, I'm so sorry!"

"Shh, it doesn't hurt that much," he soothed her, twisting and sitting up as well. His mouth twisted as well, in an amused smile; a glance at the coverlet under them showed proof of her own wounds, making both of them blush. "I shed no less blood than you did, my dear wife; it is only fitting. Should you care to mark me again like that in the future...somehow, I doubt I will mind, given what we will be doing."

She blushed at that, ducking her gaze in self-consciousness. Lifting her chin with a finger, he looked into her toffee-brown eyes. His finger trailed across the heat of one cheek in a whisper-soft caress.

"No more shyness, my wife. It will not be allowed."

"I can't help blushing!" she muttered defensively, and received a kiss on her lips for her protest. "It's an involuntary, capillary-based response!

"Blushes are allowable," he conceeded, drawing back. "But no ducking your chin, and no looking away from my gaze. You should take pride at how thoroughly both of us enjoyed this little interlude. I know I do, at hearing you scream my name in the throes of your rapture, and knowing it was because of what I did so well to you."

Her cheeks burned again, as she retorted, "No more than you did mine, during your own pleasure!"

That earned her another kiss. Letting it deepen for a few moments, Severus laid back down on the bed. Tapping his chest with a finger, he drew her attention to his flesh. "...Now, I believe you were kissing me somewhere around here, before I interrupted your research of my anatomy?"

Distinctly pink-faced, she summoned her courage with a deep breath, and lowered her mouth to his lightly furred, masculine chest.