Marked

16. MARKED

Bruises. Blood.

Rage. Fury.

He had hurt her.

He who had never lifted a finger to hurt a woman.

Any woman.

Even a woman who hurled hexes and curses and left him quivering and convulsing in a graveyard at midnight, a woman whose "tender" ministrations left him screaming with his face in the dirt until he had great clods of it in his mouth.

And despite the fact that he'd clutched his wand in his hand and could have destroyed her with one well-placed word, he hadn't even hurt that woman.

Because she was a woman.

He had never hurt a woman.

Because he was not his fucking father.

He hung his head.

He had hurt her.

As he waited for the potion to cool, to cure... the potion that would take away her pain safely...

He stared at the Dark Mark on the tender flesh of his inner arm and wanted to blame it, wanted to blame Him, the bastard, the Dark Bastard, for sending evil coursing through his body and taking away his awareness, his control...

But he also remembered the rage, the fury that had rocketed through his body even before the Mark burned in him. The rage that she dared throw herself on his mercy, as if he had any reason to want to protect her. The rage that Lucius had attempted to claim her for Draco, knowing full well that claim would mark Draco a man, and bring him to the Dark Lord to accept his own Mark. The rage that he, Severus Snape, who had spent his adult life protecting ungrateful children, would even make this sacrifice to protect Draco from his own father's political aspirations.

Rage. Fury. Anger.

Hours before the Dark Mark called him.

He had only to look at his near barren laboratory to remember that.

Could he really blame the Mark for her injury?

Could he ever allow himself to touch her again now that he knew what he was capable of?

X

He was awakened by a warm body curled against him.

Correction.

The body had evidently been there for a measure of time without his noticing. It was the soft moan that broke his sleep and jerked him to a state of awareness.

He dug through her hair until he found her face and touched her forehead. No discernible fever.

She'd had bad dreams before. It might be another.

She broke off in mid-whimper and gasped, then silenced; she was awake. He felt her begin a torturously slow process of inching away from him with an occasional audible little sound of discomfort.

"Miss Granger?"

"I'm sorry. Did I – did I wake you up?"

""Lumos". He raised his wand, the better to see her.

She was clutching her lower abdomen.

That shouldn't be. He sat up quickly. "How much pain are you in?"

"It's not bad."

"Miss Granger, you're a terrible liar."

"I don't want to be a bother."

"You're always a bother," he said with absolutely no malice. "I'm growing accustomed to it."

She gave him a pained look.

"Describe it."

One hand drifted to the juncture of her legs. "It's throbbing."

Throbbing. Fuck. Just that word spoken in her sleep-rasped voice made him throb in an entirely different manner.

Her hand joined the other on her abdomen. "And cramping."

"I'll apply the freezing potion again," he said, forcing himself out of the warm bed to prepare.

But still, cramping?

She didn't voice a protest.

He performed his own Protego Frigeo. She spread her legs open, and he was relieved to see the bruising had diminished already. It must be the new wound that was causing pain, even though luckily it, too, seemed to be healing well.

However, her folds were swollen and the silvery scar was pulled taut; it was no wonder she throbbed with pain.

He bit back a curse when he realized his error. She had no business sitting on the incision and helping prepare potions immediately after the procedure. She should have stayed reclining, and he was a dunderhead because any housewitch would have known as much.

This time there was no cry when the liquid ice hit her skin. Her jaw clenched and her hands gripped the towels he'd placed under her, but otherwise, she was silent.

He waited for her fingers to relax and realized he'd been holding his breath.

"Better?"

She nodded, but the tight lines between her eyes didn't completely disappear.

"I'm disturbed by the cramping," he said, and braced himself for her next reaction. "If it continues, I insist that you see Poppy."

She turned her head away from him, but this time she didn't argue. Her brow wrinkled, her expression perplexed. "What's the date?"

"The fifth of September. I suppose it's the sixth, now."

"Oh." She wrinkled her nose. "There's no need to bother Madam Pomfrey."

He must have looked particularly obtuse because she added, "At least I'm not pregnant."

Oh.

Oh.

She rolled over with a wince, and stood up, and caught herself on the edge of the bed when she staggered.

"For god's sake, get back in bed before you make things worse," he snapped. And then, belatedly, "What can I do?"

"My trunk. It's under the bed."

He summoned it. It resisted before sliding out; it weighed much more than he would have imagined.

She reached over the side of the bed and waved her wand. Her trunk opened to reveal an array of small boxes.

"It should be near the top," she said, leaning further to look, her mouth drawn and white. "There, the red box."

He handed her the small red box and watched as she used her wand to bring it to its normal size. Opened, it revealed several potions and a cloth bag that held, he presumed, whatever feminine items she needed.

And thus it would begin. Her "feminine items" would take over his bathroom.

He gave her the bag with a show of good grace that he didn't feel. "You need to stay off your feet until at least tomorrow, except for necessary trips to the loo and such," he said calmly as he helped her to her feet and walked her to the bathroom. Her grip on his hand was strong, but her steps were slow. He gratefully watched the door close between them. "If you need anything, I'll be right here."

He crossed back to her red box and its potions to check for himself. He snorted his disapproval at the first few, vetoed the next for immediate use, and sighed. After everything introduced into her system in the past few hours, he really didn't see much help for it.

Other than tea or a tisane and a hot water bottle, she was doomed to endure without adequate pain relief.

He went to bathroom door and cleared his throat. "If you'd like, I could attempt to brew some of that tea you're so fond of."

The bathroom door opened and she stood there scowling up at him. "I'd prefer you get it from the kitchens."

"You think I can't brew it to your standards?" Insolent chit.

"I'm quite sure you'd surpass my standards and establish new ones of your own. I'd rather have something I can do better than you, though, if your ego can stand it." An impertinence which would have been much more effective if she hadn't been attempting to cross the floor gingerly, with one hand on her abdomen.

He grabbed her arm and assisted her the rest of the way. "Back in bed," he ordered, then went about sending for tea and assorted biscuits.

"Would you please check and see if Crooks is in the corridor?"

He lowered the wards and the wall opened. The half-kneazle entered, bottlebrush tail straight up in the air. By the time the wards were back up, the beast had leapt onto the bed and was sniffing and kneading Miss Granger's belly, and she was allowing it.

Before he could voice his disgust, however, the cat had circled and plopped down and begun a loud, vibrating purr. Miss Granger's eyes were closed and her hand stroking the orange fur, her face as relaxed as he'd seen it in recent hours.

Well. He supposed he could skip the hot water bottle. At least the creature knew how to make itself useful.

"Has it occurred to you," he asked with visions of obtuse Gryffindor prats dancing in his head, "that the one male in your life who is even halfway attentive to your needs is a half-wild beast?"

She opened her eyes and gave him a considering look, and then closed her eyes again. "You make an interesting point."

X

Hermione was beyond thinking anything odd, strange or bizarre. Thus, an impromptu tea party on a pile of pillows in Professor Snape's bed felt as natural as sitting in his Potions class.

Moreso, actually.

Potions class seemed like another lifetime.

And of course, he'd dosed the tea with firewhisky, which definitely ruined a good cuppa, but at least it wasn't her PG Tips being ruined. And the firewhisky did make her feel a tad ... floaty. A little removed from the pain, even if the pain was still there.

He was pressed back against his pillows, his face twisted in a light scowl as he dangled a chocolate biscuit from his fingertips.

"Thank you." She took it, bit into it, and savored the bitter chocolate crème center with a happy sigh. "You don't like chocolate?"

"I like chocolate." He sipped his tea and avoided her eyes, continuing to scowl at midair. Evidently he was finding their tea party more distressing than she was.

"Why are you giving them all to me?" Chocolate crumbs scattered on the front of her shirt. His shirt. Their shirt.

His gaze flickered to her abdomen and away. "I believe you have more need."

"You'll make me fat," she announced. "You can have the others. Although ... that coconut biscuit... "

He handed her the biscuit without looking at her, and after a long moment, took one of the remaining chocolate ones and devoured it in two bites.

"Professor... " She waited for him to meet her eyes. "Now that you've confessed your Ravenclaw strengths, I really think... "

Did she dare say it? She couldn't stop the grin from spreading across her face.

Chocolate had that effect on her.

Or maybe it was the firewhisky?

No, it must be the chocolate.

"I do believe you should consult your inner Ravenclaw the next time you decide to pay me a compliment. Because your Slytherin compliments suck arse."

He slid her a malevolent glance.

She laughed. Or maybe giggled. "Or," she shrugged lightly, "not. I mean, next time I might be able to read between the lines before I hex you."

He snorted his disdain. "Next time I'll know you lack the subtlety to understand my appreciation for the devious."

"Git." She grabbed her stomach and gasped. It felt as if her uterus was wringing itself out in an effort to empty. She lay back on the pillows and squeezed her eyes shut, pushing Crookshanks away. His weight was suddenly an agony.

A new warmth replaced him, lighter and gentler, and the inner pressure relaxed a bit as she drifted, taking slow, deep breaths, easing through until the cramp had itself eased.

When she finally opened her eyes, she found Professor Snape on his side, watching her, with one of his long, supple hands splayed across her stomach.

"And I don't suppose you've gone to Poppy for this, either."

She gave him a patronizing smile. "Honestly, it's just part of being female."

"Miss Granger, there are ways for dealing with routine menstrual cramps, and there are also menstrual cramps that aren't routine. I hardly trust you to judge for yourself now that I know how much pain you're willing to endure and consider it normal."

"I usually take potions."

"I've seen the potions you take. They're inadequate."

She started to argue with him, but it hardly seemed worth the effort.

His hand felt so nice on her stomach. Without thinking, she put her own hand over his to hold it there. "Thank you," she said softly. "I promise not to tell."

"Tell what?"

"That you're patient and kind." She knew her smile irked him, but was beyond caring.

"Don't be ridiculous."

He tried to pull his hand away, but she clutched it to her. "I knew it, though. If nobody else did, it's because they're dense."

"You could not have known, because I am neither patient nor kind."

"I knew," she repeated languidly.

"You could not have known any such thing!" In his frustration, he seemed more like her dreaded Potions master than the man she'd been sharing a bed with.

She leaned close enough to whisper, and he seemed to lean closer despite himself. "I ... knew."

Oh... lovely chocolate...

"Explain your delusion, please." His words were crisp and cold.

"It's obvious... You are patient and gentle and attentive and caring... " She glanced up at him through her lashes and found him staring at her almost in fear, which was very very very odd. "...with your potions."

His mouth fell open and he stared at her in total disbelief.

"Are you quite finished?" he demanded.

It took a moment for her to realize he was talking about their tea. She nodded, and he cleared the bed of the mess with a finger-flick, and after his quiet, "Nox," they were in darkness.

X

Her labored breathing beside him, the soft, broken moan, confirmed that he'd fallen asleep and allowed his comforting charm to end and had allowed his hand to drop away from her.

Well, he did have to sleep sometimes, he thought irritably.

He pulled her back into his body, letting their curves fit together like spoons in a drawer, and placed his hand firmly over her lower abdomen again. With his free hand, he fought with her hair until he'd managed to secure it out of his face.

He waited for her to protest. She didn't. He waited for her to start talking. She didn't. Her body wasn't even stiff against him. She simply sank back into him and relaxed, and soon he could feel the easing beneath his hand, the slight change that told him she was finding some relief from pain.

But now he was awake, or rather his mind was. There was so much to consider and it made no sense, no sense at all.

A girl who accepted pain as normal, who accepted a horrid first sexual experience as normal, who didn't protest against sleeping on the floor or being mistreated (and even though it hadn't been intentional, he certainly looked back over the past week with a calculated acceptance that she'd been mistreated).

If it had been any other girl, he'd assume she was some horrid weak creature with low self-worth.

But this wasn't any other girl.

This was Hermione Granger, and of all her faults, he couldn't list weakness or low self-worth amongst them.

"Professor?"

He sighed. Of course she'd want to talk. She was Hermione Granger.

"Why have you been thinking about the Sorting Hat?" she asked drowsily.

"It doesn't concern you. Go back to sleep."

"So you weren't just wishing I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw so you wouldn't be stuck with me?"

"Fucking hell, girl, did I say that?"

"I'm not whinging," she announced. "But it certainly seemed to be the subtext."

"Everything is not about you."

"Well. I'm glad we've got that settled."

"Will I have to put up with this kind of cheek every month?"

"In my experience, I always remain utterly reasonable, while Ron and Harry turn into total imbeciles who can't breathe without getting on my last nerve, every single month."

Oh, the priss.

"Is that what I have to look forward to from you?" she added warningly.

"Undoubtedly." He supposed having her talk was better than having her moaning in pain. "The problem with the sorting procedure is that it goes for the obvious. Every time I allow myself to consider what I could have done with the Weasley twins..."

"You despise Fred and George!"

"I despise that they were allowed to waste two of the most profoundly gifted natural talents this school has seen. Anybody could see that they had Gryffindor strengths, but had they been forced to develop some Slytherin subtlety..."

She snorted at that.

" ...there's no limit as to what they might have accomplished, and could still be accomplishing. Their genius – and I admit it with all the bitterness in my heart, it is sheer genius – is wasted on jokes and games, while it could be used..."

"For Voldemort."

"Don't be stupid. A Weasley working for Voldemort?"

"So... you've been fretting over not getting Fred and George into Slytherin." She sounded skeptical.

"They were simply an example."

Her "Hmm" was noncommittal, followed by, "Who else was mis-sorted, in your opinion?"

"Potter, of course. If the little prat had been in Slytherin, I would have been able to steer him instead of have my every attempt to help him..."

"By bullying and treating him like the filth beneath your shoe."

"Out of absolute necessity," he said, daring her to challenge him.

"Bollocks." But she pushed on. "Who else?"

"I find this discussion fruitless."

"Nevertheless."

"Draco." He felt the hollowness in his stomach at the thought that had been eating him alive....

"You think Draco Malfoy should have been in Gryffindor?" she almost shrieked. Fortunately her mouth was aimed away from his ear.

"Ravenclaw." He was careful to keep the pain out of his voice. "If the Sorting Hat had encouraged his intellect instead of making the most superficial of judgments and sending him to Slytherin – when his cunning had obviously already been finely honed... "

"Oh, grand. You'd have Draco and me both in Ravenclaw. I suppose you'd have us married, after all," she sighed, and she sounded quite miserable.

The clutch at his gut was involuntary. "I must mark my calendar so I'll be forewarned of your monthly forays into insanity."

"You're a wretch."

"I wouldn't want you to think I was kind."

"You're also dreadfully easy to tease." She yawned and snuggled back against him more firmly, and he concentrated on not "reacting."

It was enough to make him withdraw his hand, his charm and any other comfort he could give, and leave her to whinge and cramp the rest of the night.

She rolled over to face him and even in the dark, it was evident her face was all too close to his. Before he could draw back, she leaned even closer and he could smell the firewhisky and something else, something so sweet, on her every breath.

The potion.

That's all it was. The potion he'd created because he didn't like the taste of morning mouth, and of course it meant that her breath smelt of mint and rosemary and even a hint of eucalyptus.

That's all it was. The ruddy potion.

"Professor...?" she breathed softly, and her soft, sweet breath shuddered through him.

He closed his lips over hers, feeling a small clutch in his throat, a tightening that was part sadness and part joy.

This was insanity.

This was danger.

But he couldn't stop himself, nor could he stop his body from responding very rebelliously when she melted into him with a small sob and flung herself into his kiss, totally and completely.

She was injured, she was in pain, she was a student...

She was his wife, she was in his arms, she was kissing him...

And oh those frightening, dangerous kisses were addictive.

He'd be quite willing to simply lie here with her in his arms and kiss, to snog like a teenager the rest of the night.

So soft, so sweet, so unexpectedly perfect in his arms, her body longer against his than he would have thought. She simply ... fit.

Which made his agony even more intense when the burning hit him, the call of the Dark Lord piercing and insistent, and his left forearm seared with pain.

He almost flung her away in his haste to get his arm away from her, as if having her anywhere near it, much less embracing it, put her at risk.

He jerked upright in the bed and clutched it and flung his head back.

And knew a moment's fierce gratitude for the Call.

For the reminder of who and what he was.

"I have to go," he said, forcing his voice to be cold. "Don't let the wards down for anyone."

"Lumos!" she said, and her wand illuminated her on the bed as she searched his face, her eyes wide. "Please," she said softly, "be careful."

"I wouldn't be alive otherwise," he snapped and summoned his robe and mask. "Go to sleep."

He left without looking back at her, without allowing himself even a last glimpse.

He bit his lower lip until he tasted blood, and bit harder to erase the memory of those lips, that kiss.

And as he made his way across the grounds to the Apparation Point outside the gates, he tasted fear as he realized the danger they were in if he didn't mask his thoughts and memories from the onslaught of the Dark Lord's probes.

He dug deep and drew upon his rage and frustration, and pulled forth the images to support them, and flung away any sense of shame he should feel for sharing them.

The Dark Lord wanted to see her suffer, and Severus knew with a sickening sense of satisfaction that he had enough images to delight his master and enough experience with Darkness to consume whatever weakness he'd allowed to surface.

He wouldn't be alive otherwise.