Chemistry

Like the Muggles Do

Chapter 8

Chemistry

A/N's at bottom.

This chapter is rated W for my attempt at the description of lewd acts.

Severus heard a gasp from across the room and stilled his hand. His pen hovered above the equation for kinetic energy. Physics was proving to be a bit more challenging than chemistry had been. Severus had spent almost a week experimenting and exploring the organic and inorganic aspects of that subject. With a vigor he had only seen once since his own experience as a student at Hogwarts, he had indulged his love of learning with a passion. He studied the Muggle periodic table of elements and devoured the many University textbooks available on the bookshelves dedicated to the equations and experiments.

The bookshelves in their large office had been Hermione's favorite aspect of the large room. They lined the wall that was set a few meters back from the door, spanning as far wide as their bedrooms likely went. Unlike the bookshelves in their living room, before which he sat with Hermione every night, these bookshelves were full and did not contain novels, biographies, magazines, or other reading material. These shelves held solely textbooks, most of which Hermione explained were for University students. Hermione had pointed out to him the various subjects. A large portion of the books was dedicated to Muggle sciences; Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Psychology, and others. There were also many levels of mathematics ranging from algebra to trigonometry to calculus. History textbooks focused on London in the late 1800s to the present or American history and their revolution and civil war, as well as books about the first and second World Wars.

Hermione had taken Muggle University courses during her Summer holidays away from Hogwarts. She held a basic understanding of each subject and tried to give Severus a general idea of the different areas. It hadn't taken much for Severus to content himself with learning Chemistry.

Severus had found interest opposite the many books. Along the back wall, which had no doors or windows, was a series of cabinets, drawers, and shelves-- all part of a storage space as tall as the ceiling. This area was divided into three equally long and tall pieces. The two outside sections stood out from the wall a few metres, large enough that Severus or Hermione could sit comfortably inside any of the cabinets. The middle section came out only half as far from the back wall.

This middle section was simply rows and rows of shelves. The distance between the shelves would change to accommodate the size of whatever was put on them. They had been full when Severus first saw them. Upon further inspection, he had been thrilled to find bottles, cans, jars, vials, bags, and boxes littered throughout the shelves, holding and filled with all sorts of interesting fluids, powders, gasses, and objects. He had been reminded of the shelving that he kept up at Hogwarts. He liked to have a few creatures floating in jars for his students to look at while waiting for his attention. Amongst the many unknown entities on these shelves, however, there did not appear to be anything resembling a pickled body part. He had been anxious, after simply looking at these shelves, to find out how to use and understand everything that he saw there.

The first section had many drawers as its bottom half, differently sized in depth. Some of these drawers held cutting knives or stacks of paper, the deeper drawers held large bowls and other equipment. Above the drawers in this first section, cabinet doors opened to reveal spacious cupboards filled with various tools and toys.

The third section was comprised of four cabinets. It was split into three equally wide cupboards, but the middle cabinet had then also been split in half, to make two equally tall cabinets.

Severus had marveled at the obviously expensive Chemistry set contained within the cabinets. In just a week he had made a small dent in the multitude of objects and tools to explore and play with, as he learned how the elements interacted with each other.

It had been a pleasant surprise when he had found a cabinet in the first section filled with clocks, telephones, light bulbs, radios, and a small T.V. And found in a drawer beneath it the tools required to take them apart and put them back together. Hermione had, from within the bookshelves, quickly found several tomes for him dealing with how each device worked in general and instructions on how to understand the inner functioning gears and wires, as well as step-by-step directions to assemble or disassemble each device. Severus immediately scoffed at the assembling directions, but thanked her for the other reading material which he wouldn't 'need' in order to understand these machines, but might provide further information.

Although having no personal vendetta against the patron of the Weasley clan, Severus was loathe to admit that he felt, while working with these machines and seeing how they worked, a bit of the giddy rush that Arthur Weasley must always feel about his Muggle artifact discoveries. He even surpassed the excitement of Arthur Weasley flying his new car when, after two days of tinkering, he had managed to put together a working telephone.

He would never admit how much it pleased him when Hermione had applauded him and his success. She had insisted on taking him out to dinner that night, where she ordered champagne and toasted team Snarky-Smarty for having made it to their second Wednesday, passing ten days as Muggles. Over several courses, she told him of her insatiable curiosity when she was twelve and insisted on taking apart all of her parents possessions to see how they worked. It had taken her over a week to properly understand the mechanics of the telephone. It had taken her another week after that to reconstruct a working telephone. That he had figured out the telephone in a few days, she said, was pretty amazing. He reveled in her praise but covered it up by teasing a bit about his superior advancement. Hermione was gracious enough to smile and accept his gloating, never pointing out that he was thirty years older than she had been, and she had had to experiment on the one phone her parents had allowed her to study and deconstruct, while Albus had provided Severus with several.

He had been studying physics at his desk for two days now, since finishing his work on the telephone. For the several days that he had spent experimenting with his Chemistry kit and all of the materials, he had determined that his desk was not been a suitable place for such exploration. Nor had it been a suitable place to study and deconstruct complicated machinery. Because of this, he had not spent much time at his desk as of yet.

There were 4 worktables in the middle of the room. They ranged in width and length but were all the same height required to make experimenting comfortable, with two stools tucked underneath each. Even with the stools pulled out, there was ample space between the tables, a testament to the size of the room. He and Hermione had, at times, both worked at the tables and only once or twice had they bumped into each other.

Each had their own desk at opposite ends of the room. They were large and rectangular, with one of the shorter sides flat to the wall, leaving the desk to protrude into the room. The desks had been identical except that the one on the left wall faced the cabinets, and the desk on the right faced the bookshelves. Other than that, they had the same things on them and had been arranged identically. After almost two weeks, however, the desks looked almost nothing alike, as their owners had rearranged and added supplies as they saw fit. To the left side of each desk there were drawers going to the ground. On the surface there was a nice lamp, a pencil sharpener, stapler, some tape, scissors, and a multitude of pens and pencils. There were also little cups full of rubber bands, stamps, thumbtacks, and paper clips. On the wall right above the desk was a corkboard. Apparently he could put things on this board and make them stay by using... well, he knew he had to use either thumbtacks or rubber bands but he couldn't remember which.

On the right side of each desk was a computer, a large whirring device with a multitude of wires protruding from the back, disappearing through a hole in the desktop. There were many devices connected to the large, noisy block and the 'monitor'. There had been several books on computers available on the bookshelves, but many of them Severus took offense to. He expressed disdain that the Muggles should be making people feel like a 'dummy' or an 'idiot' for simply wanting to understand the computer more. He imagined that the books must be full of small words, written in a condescending tone. Hermione had held only a basic knowledge of the contraption, which made learning about yet another "new" device of which he was ignorant and the exploring of it a bit easier to bear. Together, they had been able to identify the keyboard, printers, and speakers with ease, and then started trying to teach each other what they could.

Once they had the mechanics down, they thought themselves rather clever. They had mastered pointing and clicking, dragging and dropping, cutting and pasting, saving and printing, files, folders, the desktop, and a general idea of what almost all of the buttons on the keyboard did.

It was in the application of these new skills that Severus and Hermione couldn't learn from the manuals.

Hermione had cared much more than Severus did about actually using the damned thing, as opposed to understanding it but leaving it alone. She had been intent on 'surfing the web' and fiddling around on the machine, until she felt herself a 'competent computer user.'

Severus had taken to Chemistry while Hermione studied Psychology 'in-line.' Hermione was more open than he to new and different ways of gaining knowledge. She had been happily goggling any subject she could think of, and occasionally stopped Severus, telling him to come over and look at a picture or reading aloud her findings.

Severus considered himself a purist – Hermione used the word 'snob' – concerning the acquisition of new information; he much preferred the weight of a tome in his hand, the musty smell of an old book, the sound made when he turned a page, or the old, crackled leather on an ancient volume.

Besides, his one foray into the world-wide-web had resulted in 5 and a half hours lost to a 'hearts' tournament. He no longer remembered how he had found himself on the gaming site, or how he had found himself already signed in and waiting to play. He had done well, though, third place out of thousands of players. He was almost proud of himself. His father's voice told him repeatedly that third place was no place for a Snape, but his father had never played internet hearts with that many players spread around the world. Severus had played many games in those five hours of staring at the screen before him, losing only one. Every victory was bittersweet, though, as he watched snarkysmartysevy rise on the scoreboard. All in all, he was proud of his third place but boasting about it would only lead to people seeing what player held the title of third place, and he did not want anyone encouraged to call him Sevy.

He had sworn off 'online gaming' after that, preferring to have books and that strangely lined paper, which was bound by some kind of swirly wire and had three holes down its left side.

It was above one of these 'notebooks' that Severus' hand hovered, the ballpoint pen poised to jot down that KE = 1/2 x m x v^2. When the silence after Hermione's gasp faded into giggles, he set the pen down, looking at the clock to affirm that it was time to retire for dinner anyway.

==

She watched the man jerk wildly. He was naked, showing off his well-muscled body, his skin glistening with sweat. He held his – very large – penis in his hand, while his left played with the skin at the back of his balls. The dark patch of hair around his shaft led to an enticing line that ended (or did it begin?) at the belly button of his flat, toned stomach. His pinkish-brown nipples stood out against a very light dusting of hair. The muscles in his neck strained and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he gasped. His hair had fallen in front of his face until he threw his head back, silently gasping his orgasm.

She had watched him slowly undress for her. His eyes had not changed focus once during the stripping, and she felt her irises connected with his. When he had removed his cotton boxer-briefs, a smirk came over his face. His proud, hardened cock sprang free of its confines and bobbed at her.

When the first drops of pre-cum glistened on the tip of his turgid member, he had spread it around his shaft before bringing his hand up to lick the warm, salty, opalescent fluid from his fingers. His tongue laved at it, suggesting that it was rather tasty.

He had started slowly, stroking the sign of his arousal gently, while moving his balls around softly with his fingers.

The confident man had sped up his strokes until he found the perfect tempo.

His hips had started moving, in rhythm, with his hand. As his enjoyment continued and the intensity increased, his hips jerked without control. He came, the hot cum dripping down his hand and thighs.

He continued stroking, riding his orgasm past its peak, until the hard, jutting cock began to return to flaccidity. Once completely satisfied that he had coaxed every last bit of pleasure from his ministrations, he turned his face back in her direction, satisfaction and a remainder of desire flashing in his eyes.

==

"What is the meaning of this, Granger?" boomed the Potions Master. Hermione jumped a bit at the unexpected sound of his voice.

"I have no idea. It just popped up." She began to giggle again. "No pun intended."

"But what is it?" asked the perplexed man now standing behind her. She barely controlled her giggles as the gorgeous, spent man on her screen disappeared to reveal a fully dressed man in a suit. It was a completely sexless sight, if not for the distinctive bulge in his trousers. The man was jerkily patting his groin and pointing at her, while next to his image, she was told to Order Now! in flashing letters.

"Um, I think I've just been witness to internet porn," she said, shrugging her shoulders at the phenomenon that she had only been warned of before. She moved the rat to click on the little X in the top right corner of her screen, closing the window.

As soon as the aroused man disappeared from the screen, a new box sprang to life. Nothing within it was moving or flashing, but there were several pictures. In the middle, one button said Order Now! while another said See More. Pictures surrounded the buttons and bits of text, each with a description below. She looked at the images and descriptors, reading each of them aloud.

"Girl on Girl, Chicks with Dicks, Bondage, Shaved, Girl on Girl on Girl, Hot Chix and Horses, Hungry for You, Hot Chix and Animals, Hot for You, Sucking It, All Tied Up, Watch Me Strip, Watch us Fuck, Teh Hott Sexxors, Tit Play, Anal Play... These are disgusting."

If Ron were standing behind her, he would undoubtedly be trying to shove her out of her chair, one hand fumbling with his pants while the other attempted to "see more" or "order now."

Severus merely sneered, his face twisted into disgust and loathing. His pants were gracefully bulge-free. He leaned forward.

His arms encircled Hermione as he leaned over her, one hand resting on the edge of her desk, the other covering the hand with the rodent. He glided her hand so the pointer was positioned exactly where he wanted. His breath was hot on her neck, and she allowed him to guide her hand. He used his forefinger to apply a gentle but insistent pressure on hers, clicking on his desired targets.

He repeated the process a few more times, hand over hers, coaxing her to click where he wanted. His hair brushed against her ear, and she refrained from twitching under the tickling sensation, her body remained still except for her hand, which followed where he took her.

When the screen finally clicked to black, he removed his hand and returned to his usual impeccable posture. Her neck felt cold at the sudden loss of his presence and her hand fell limply to her lap, as though it would no longer take from her, instead only functioning with Severus' hand guiding it. The mouse sat idly on its pad on the desk, as though nothing special had occurred.

He turned and calmly left the office. After a moment, she stood and followed him through the door.

His long black coat was on by the time she exited her room with a pair of shoes added to her stockinged feet. Severus helped her into her coat before opening the door.

He proudly re-locked the dead bolts with the jangling keys and turned to her.

"I would prefer to neither speak of, think about, nor find myself looking at anything like that ever again."

"Amen to that," Hermione replied with a sigh, stepping down onto the pavement.

They made it a block towards downtown, a route they both knew now with very little trouble, when he broke the silence again.

"A man what?"

==

Hermione had reached the eighteenth century in the history of Christianity – occasionally promising Severus that Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam could be explained later – when they stopped walking. Severus had been rather interested in her lecture on Muggle religions, but was not completely dismayed that she had paused in her 'summarization.'

He followed her gaze up to the bright white board with its black lettering.

"We should see a movie. Can we see a film, Severus? Please? I'll let you pick the restaurant, even though it's my turn."

Severus would have readily agreed when she first suggested going to the Muggle cinema, as it was something they hadn't done, but he was wanting to experience. But if he could avoid going to another of Hermione's choices for dining, he had no qualms about taking advantage of the situation. He pretended to internally debate the pros and cons while she watched him with a hopeful expression. Their outing tonight would be highly satisfactory; usually Hermione chose an unsuitable location or other variable he did not approve of, but tonight he would be entirely un-opposing of their itinerary. He had always enjoyed having an advantage.

==

Hermione held her breath as she watched him debate her request. Were she dealing with her father, she'd squeeze his hand and draw out her 'please.' If she were dealing with the boys, she wouldn't have asked, she'd have taken her 'know-it-all' stance and told them that they were going to a movie. If she had been trying to convince Albus, she'd point out the concession stand.

Severus, however, was more difficult, but no more or less predictable. He had nothing against the Muggle cinema and would eventually agree, but the question was, how many decisions would she have to relinquish to get her way? He didn't yet know about the general genres found in cinema, or what kind he would like (drama) and what kind he wouldn't (romantic comedy). He also didn't know if he preferred buttered popcorn or extra salt. She wouldn't mention to him now, of course, that she would be choosing anything after his agreement to attend. She would let him believe that the only decisions there were to make were up to him.

He relinquished his hesitation and agreed. She smiled.

"Good. So, first we go to dinner," he looked about to interrupt when she continued talking, "at the restaurant of your choice." He looked satisfied with her summarization. "And then we'll come back here to see a film."

She stepped to the side a bit and gestured for him to take over the navigation in order to direct them to his choice of restaurant. He took a thoughtful moment to decide, then looked about. Once he had a general idea of where they were, getting somewhere would be much easier.

Apparently, his mental map included these cross-streets. He gave a curt nod and turned, heading to their left.

She quickly followed him.

==

"I resent their depiction of wizards. We do not all look like Albus Dumbledore..."

"Yes, there was a conspicuous lack of witches as well. In fact, I don't recall any really strong woman portrayed at all..."

He continued as though she hadn't interrupted. "And elves do not look like that."

"I'm sure S.P.E.W. would have been much more popular if they did."

"And what in Merlin's name is a Hobbit?"

Hermione sighed. "You finished 1984 last night, right?"

"Yes, why?"

"I think I know what you should read next. It's by a man called J.R.R. Tolkien..."

Severus did not mention again their movie-going experience, except right before beginning The Two Towers, when he confidently told Hermione, "The book was much better than the movie."

==

Team TiT for TaT has, regretfully, dropped out of our game. The Twins in Trouble for Trickery and Tomfoolery could not help but live up to their reputation, or their team name.

==

"Really," said Severus, sneering at the letter in his hand. "I was surprised they lasted that long."

Hermione chuckled. "I wonder what they-" she paused, as her imagination began conjuring possible scenarios. "No. I don't even want to know what they did to those poor

Muggles."

Severus shook his head, moving to put the letter with the other missives from the sadistic old wizard.

The doorbell rang and Hermione and Severus looked questioningly at each other. As Severus was already standing, he walked to the door and opened it.

The postman looked alarmed, retreating a step backwards. Severus scowled at the man. After a moment, the bewildered fellow stood a bit straighter and held out an envelope, briskly stating, "You must be Mister Snape. Here you go." And with that the young uniformed gentleman turned on his heel and fled.

Severus closed the door, growling, "It's Professor, you simpering dunderhead..."

Hermione looked at her friend and then at the letter he held, raising her eyebrows questioningly. He handed her the letter and left the room, moving in the direction of the loo.

She opened it and was not entirely surprised to see a short typed message with the signature of Albus Dumbledore.

Please be aware that on Sunday there will be a maintenance wizard coming by your apartment to renew certain wards and charms. Your absence is appreciated. The crew should only take about 10 minutes, but scheduling does not permit an exact time for their arrival. Therefore, please be away from the residence from 8 am to 9:30 pm.

Best,

~~~~

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Author's Notes ::