Three Years Later

7: Three Years Later

It was a warm night in August. A thunderstorm was coming down heavily, soaking the dry earth with cool rain and casting faint, white flashes of lightning through the dark sky. The thunder rumbled, and the windows of the small house at Spinner's End were rattling with every bang. Of course there was no danger that they would break, but Snape liked the powers of nature and had refused to ward his house too strongly. Each curtain was drawn back; the window in the kitchen stood open a crack. He could smell the rich, wet earth from his garden, a fragrance just strong enough to stand a chance against the garlic he was chopping.

Half past eight in the evening and there was a knock on his door, a strong, demanding knock that told the Potions master his visitor didn't like to be kept outside in the rain. Placing knife and garlic on the wooden plate he was working on, he took a cooking spoon instead and stirred the sauce that was peacefully simmering on the hearth.

Knocking again. Well, Remus usually was a patient man, but Snape had to admit that it was more hail now than rain, so he went to open his door.

"Lupin," he said and brought the spoon up to his mouth, licking off a drop that threatened to drip onto the floor. "You are early. That's certainly..." He stopped in mid-sentence and stared at the visitor on his doorstep.

It wasn't Lupin. It wasn't a werewolf. It wasn't even a man.

"Good evening," said Hermione Granger, brushing her wet hair out of her face.

Snape continued to stare. Then he wiped his lips clean with the back of his hand, became aware of the wooden cooking spoon in his hand and seemed somewhat surprised that he had taken it to the door.

"I was in the neighbourhood," Hermione continued and wrapped her arms round her shivering body. "I thought I'd drop in and say hello. But if this is a bad time..."

Snape suddenly realised that he was inside, in the warmth of his house, and that she was still standing outside in the storm. "Get in," he snapped, "before the rain floods the hall."

******************

She followed him into the kitchen, leaving wet tracks on the light planks of his floor. Wordlessly, he gestured to a chair, then went to the fireplace. A short conversation through the fire told the werewolf that the dinner appointment had to be cancelled, and no, everything was fine, and yes, Snape would get back to him soon. Later. No, not today. No, nothing bad had happened. "Good night!" Snape said, his voice impatient, and finally got up to face his visitor.

Hermione. In his house. After three years in which he had managed not to think of her too often. After she had left school and the country as well. After such a long time, and right at the moment when he had begun to believe he could stand the thought of her not being part of his life – not ever.

Her hair was longer and, due to the rain, not as curly as he remembered it. Her eyes seemed darker, but that could be because of the flickering candles and the flashes dancing outside. She seemed pale, and she was unusually quiet. She certainly followed hesitantly when he walked past her back into the kitchen.

Those big, brown eyes – he could feel them piercing his back, and Snape's heart made some painful flips in his chest. Gritting his teeth, Snape thought, Unbelievable, how extremely one night of passion can complicate things.

Time to stir the sauce. Maybe it wasn't necessary, but at least his hands were occupied.

One night of forced passion, he corrected himself silently. Never forget that.

Before that night, she had been a student. Intelligent, eager, helpful. Friendly. Someone whose company he enjoyed.

After that night, she had turned into someone he dreamed about. Someone he longed for and knew he couldn't have. Someone he had tried to rip out of his heart; obviously to no avail, as his heart reminded him right now how much he had missed her.

He didn't have a clue why she was here and what she wanted, but he sincerely hoped it wasn't to accuse him of what he had done to her three years ago. The memory of that night was dear to him. He didn't want her to shred it to pieces, rightful or not.

Snape turned from his sauce to the still silent woman and looked her up and down. He frowned. She looked older. She looked thin, cold, and unhappy. She was wet, and her whole body was shaking.

"Merlin, girl, have you forgotten that you are a witch?" Snape growled, waved his wand and had her clothes dry in an instant. With a second flick, he cast the rain out of her hair, and it suddenly wasn't plastered to her skull anymore, but stood round her face like a halo, fluffy and soft like the little dandelion parachutes he used to blow into the wind as a small boy.

I'm staring, he realised and angrily turned round to have a look at his pots and pans. Over his shoulder, he said, "As you have messed up my plans for the evening so thoroughly, I consider it only fair that you will join me for dinner. Sit down and pour yourself some wine."

Do you really have to be that rude? he asked himself. Unfortunately the answer was obvious. Yes, of course it was necessary. That she probably expected him to act like that was one reason. The other one was even simpler: Where she was involved, he was vulnerable, and whichever reason she had to be here, in his house, he wouldn't show her how happy he was to see her. Maybe she had cared for him, back then, before he had thrown her out of his rooms. Certainly she didn't care for him anymore. And he had no desire to get hurt; therefore, he would continue to be cool, controlled, and occasionally rude. She would leave after dinner. He would continue dreaming about her. Problem solved.

He mixed the dressing for the salad and watched her out of the corner of his eye as she shrugged out of her coat and put it on one of the chairs around the large table. As she continued to shiver, he went to close the window. Thunder and rain were still loud outside, and the wind had been blowing its chilly breath into his kitchen.

Silently, she took a seat, poured herself some wine and emptied the glass in one go. She was watching his every movement from beneath her crazy hair. It made him nervous, but he refused to let her see it. After all, he was used to many pairs of eyes watching him whenever he was in class – one single pair of eyes shouldn't bother him at all.

Sternly, he placed dinner on the table about fifteen minutes after she had knocked; in all that time she hadn't said a word. Twice, she had filled up her glass. She didn't move to put anything on her plate, and so he did it for her instead and didn't stop glaring at her before she had taken a bite.

She ate the first bit of food slowly; soon she shovelled in her dinner accompanied by more wine. Two helpings, salad, and dessert – she must have been starving.

"You are too thin," Snape stated after she had scraped her plate clean with a bit of the bread he had baked earlier on, but he was strangely pleased that she had liked what he had served her. "What's wrong – is the banking business going that bad?"

Her head snapped up, and she lowered the glass she had just taken to her lips. He saw that there were dark rings under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in a while, and she was paler than she should be at that time of the year. And yes, she didn't weigh enough, not even for the relatively small woman that she was and although she had light, fragile bones.

"Why do you know I'm working for Gringotts?" she asked quietly.

Her voice had changed. It was darker and sounded as if she didn't speak much, which seemed like a ridiculous observation in itself, her being the babble-mouth that had driven him crazy now and then, always talking, always asking questions.

Well, she just had asked him a question. "I'm following your career. Although I would have thought you might take up potions, I wasn't really surprised that you chose Arithmancy instead, working as a consultant for Gringotts' Italian branch. I expected you to be good enough in your job, though, to buy yourself regular meals. Or new clothes." He nodded at her faded blouse with the worn sleeves.

"I don't care about clothes," she answered and took a big sip of the wine.

"And not about food, either?"

She sighed. "I was in Venice last week. Holiday." She said it as if the implication of her words should be obvious to him. When he didn't reply, she continued, "I met someone whilst I was there. A young Italian guy. Not as tall as you, but with black hair and dark eyes. As always. His eyes were only a bit lighter than yours – like dark bitter chocolate. We went out for dinner, we went for walks. He told me how beautiful I am and how much he loves me." Her voice faltered.

Icy fingers trailed along Snape's spine, and a large, burning stone appeared in his stomach. He didn't want to hear what she was telling him. Before he could hinder himself he asked, "What happened?"

Her eyes were flat when she looked at him. Still brown, of course, still big, but there was no joy in them. "I fucked him, of course," she snapped. "It was awful. I hated it. I pretended to have fun. I made all the right noises at the right time, and afterwards he lay on his back and smoked a cigarette and there was this look in his face..." Disgusted, she shuddered, but not from the cold this time. "He looked so self-satisfied, and all I wanted was to go, and then he said he'd make me scream out again in another few minutes. As if he could. As if he did the first time." She drained her glass. Snape took the bottle and refilled it without asking.

"You don't get it, do you." Staring out of the window and into the rain, she added something he couldn't understand.

Carefully, he leaned back in his chair. This here was way beyond his experience. He didn't really know what to do with this young woman who was so deeply unhappy and had come here to tell him things she should tell a friend, but not him of all people alive – not him at all. Of course he didn't have a clue what to say.

"Why did you push me away from you?" she asked, louder this time, and hung her head as if fearing his answer. "I hated Beauxbatons. I hated the Potions mistress, and she hated me. I missed the project I had worked on with you. I missed your classes. I missed you."

A flash. Thunder followed. It gave Snape time to think of an answer and to keep his voice as cold as he wanted it to sound when he answered. "I had to make a choice, and my choice was to send you away out of my reach."

Harshly, as if she hadn't heard him, she continued, "She was so sweet and friendly and false, and I couldn't cope with it. You were nasty and cruel, sometimes you were bitter and hard, but never unjust. At least not in my last year. And you were honest and direct with your praise as well as with your wrath."

"Hermione," Snape said, and she smashed the glass, threw it at him. She missed him only by inches. Her eyes were blazing with something close to hate.

"How dare you," she hissed.

"What..."

"How dare you address me with my given name after what you have done to me!"

He had known it would come down to that from the moment he had seen her standing on his doorstep, and he had dreaded it. Getting up, he began to put the dishes away, well aware that her eyes were following him.

"Answer me! That's why I am here tonight, to get some answers from you. Professor!"

Snape flinched at that title. Not because he wasn't used to it – every student and even some of his colleagues called him that. But from her lips, it burned a hole in his soul. Out of her mouth it was an insult, and she knew it.

Obviously, he couldn't flee her accusing eyes any longer. He had managed it for three years. Now she had him cornered. Putting the dishes in the sink, he turned to her.

"I apologise," he began, expecting more hateful accusations any moment. "Not for sending you to Beauxbattons, of course. That was necessary. But for that night. And for everything I forced you to do during that night. I should have apologised three years ago, but found that I couldn't even be in your company for too long. I feared you might touch me, I... I might have..." He stopped himself just in time. He couldn't let her know that he had been close to dragging her back to bed that evening when she had poured tea for him. Instead, he calmly said, "You had come close to me – too close. So I arranged for you to go to Beauxbatons, and I threw you out of my rooms. I did that in your own best interest."

Her eyes narrowed. "Ah, honest words, it seems. And you really thought you acted in my best interest? Nice you haven't asked for my opinion on the matter! I would have told you that I didn't want to go to Beauxbatons! I didn't want to leave your Potions lessons or the projects we were working on! I wanted to stay at Hogwarts! With you!"

"I know," he said quietly. "You... liked me more than you should have. I couldn't allow that. I was your teacher, and I had forced you into my bed. What you thought you felt was nothing but a reaction to what had happened that night."

"The night you fucked me," she said coldly.

She could as well have hit him. But the pain only lasted a second before he managed to get it under control.

"Exactly," he hissed. "The night I fucked you. Against your will, if you may recall that. I was driven by a potion your friends had laced my tea with. I would have never touched you otherwise, and you know that. But you... you began to care for me, afterwards. The healing spell, the tea, the sandwiches. Your letter. When I realised that you were about to make the biggest mistake of your life – falling in love with me – I told Albus as much as I could without compromising you. I couldn't allow you to harbour those feelings. They weren't real. They were born out of your loyalty and your Gryffindor bravery and..." He took a deep breath. "And out of sexual pleasure. So I sent you away."

She had paled at his words and needed several attempts to say, "You... you knew I cared for you and still... you still did that to me?"

"Of course," he answered and nearly choked at the words as he knew they gave the wrong impression. To her it must sound as if her caring had been unwelcome, her emotions unwanted. And that wasn't the case. After twenty years in solitude, after two decades mourning Lily, he had fallen in love with her that night, just like that, easily and without wanting to. Had fallen in love with her tenderness, her bravery, her smile – with her, his student. Impossible, unacceptable, of course. And certainly nothing he would ever tell her.

Nodding her head in understanding, she picked up her coat from the chair and pulled it on. Raising her chin, she headed towards the door, and he followed her in order to lower the wards. Her hand on the doorknob, she said, "Thanks for telling me – that you couldn't stand my company, that you even dreaded to touch me, that is. It will be easier for me to forget you now that I know how disgusted you were by my sheer presence. At least I won't punish myself anymore with stupid hopes." One step and she was out in the storm. The wind slammed the door shut, and she was gone.

Snape stared at the wood in disbelief. What had she said? How had she... what?

Two steps and he nearly ripped the door off its hinges. He feared he would find nothing but wind and rain and darkness, but no, there she was, once more dripping wet, only this time with her back towards him. Her shoulders were shaking, and even through the thunder he could hear that she was crying.

He stepped out into the rain and closed the door behind him. Inside it would be warm and dry and bright; outside, where they could barely see each other's faces, it might be possible to talk without saying all the wrong things.

"Hermione," he whispered and placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt her muscles tense, felt her trying to pull away from him. She didn't try neither too hard nor too severely.

"I couldn't allow you to harbour feelings for me," he repeated, breathing into her hair and remembering how it had felt on his naked skin. "You were so young and so innocent. You still are. You have your whole life ahead of you, your career, your future. I did not despise your company – on the contrary. I wanted you there, in my rooms. Seeing you laugh, seeing you sitting opposite of me as if you belonged there was unbelievably wonderful. But if I had allowed you to stay in my class, to continue working with me, if I hadn't sent you away, I would have allowed you to throw all that away for someone who... for someone with the wrong reputation, for someone twenty years your senior, for someone who is still feared in our world. To risk it all for me? I could not let that happen."

With a quick twist, she freed her shoulders from his grip. "You loathed me being there, in your bedroom, in your bed. You hated needing my help!"

With force he turned her round, but she refused to look up at him.

"I had raped you, Hermione! And you thought, for some reason I will never understand, that you liked me nevertheless, that you should look after me. I saw it in your eyes. I read it in your letter. You wanted more! You thought you wanted me! But I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let you..."

"... fall in love with you?" she finished bitterly. "Don't be ridiculous – as if one night in your bed could have been the trigger for that. It seems you still don't get the point, Professor. I already had fallen in love with you before I came to you that night – weeks before, before Valentine's Day. That's why I gave you that rose. It happened whilst we worked together in your lab and you for once didn't growl all the time but decided to use patience and friendliness to teach me. When you were more human than ever before. When you showed me that you had some humour after all, and when you allowed me to see that you can get tired and bored. When I saw you smile now and then." She came a step closer, her eyes blazing with rage. "So each of your actions came too late. They only hurt. What you did to me after I had left your bed hurt. Badly. I asked you, even begged you to sleep with me. I did not consider it rape, not for one moment. In case you didn't know that, Professor."

Most people would have sworn an oath that Snape, terrifying bat of Hogwarts' dungeons, didn't own a heart. So how could it hurt so much? "Please don't call me that," he whispered, the title she had used to address him still ringing in his ears.

She snorted and impatiently wiped her rain-heavy strands from her worn face. Her usually amber eyes had become dark with anger and sadness. "What shall I not call you? Professor? Oh, yes, I remember, you forbade me to address you like that. Well, maybe you are right. After all, I'm not your student anymore. So what shall I call you then? Mr Snape? Actually, I wondered how I should address you ever since you closed the door in my face. Luckily, I only saw you from the distance after that – I might have slipped and called you by your given name. Like I did in your bed." Her every word was dripping with sarcasm. They were sharp and each one cut him deeply.

He let go of her shoulders and just stood before her. "I can't stand you calling me 'Professor'," he found himself confessing. "Not after that night. Not after you called me..."

"Severus," she said softly and slapped him hard across the face. "You are one damn bastard, Professor. I've been in love with you, you ignorant, cruel idiot! I still am! And you had no right to make decisions for me! You had no right to send me away, to steal my love, and you certainly have no fucking right now to tell me it wasn't even real! You lousy, worthless, stupid, arrogant, egoistic... man!"

Stunned at her outburst, he staggered back a step and tried to find something sensible to reply. He failed.

"Now then, Professor, can you take it off me – this love I feel for you?" she shouted and pushed him back another step. She was stronger than she looked, and he nearly slipped on the wet grass.

"Can you take those emotions you caused off me? Can you stop me feeling like I have to burst when I am not near you? No? I thought not! You are in my dreams and in every one of my thoughts when I'm awake, and it destroys me. I'm unable to have a relationship with anyone. I always think of you. You, you, and you again. Your eyes, your hands, your burning skin and your voice and your damn cock. Isn't that great? I feel as if I'm bound to you, I..."

Suddenly, she swayed. Suddenly, she seemed to have an idea, and her mouth sagged open.

"Hermione?" Snape asked, alarmed at her sudden change. "What is it?"

"Tell me it's the potion," she whispered and grabbed the front of his rain-soaked shirt, whirled him round and pushed him further out into the rain and towards the trees. She shook him like an adult might shake an unruly child. Her chest was heaving, and her frizzy hair was not frizzy anymore, was soaked again like her clothes, her shoes, like him.

She brought her face close to his. "Tell me I am affected by this awful aphrodisiac. Tell me you... somehow... you sweated it out through your pores that night! And then it got into my system and in combination with the blood... That must be it! Please tell me this is just potion-induced! That I am in fact just bound to you! Tell me this is potion-induced and that you can take it off me! Please!"

Silence dropped down with the rain. Each drop washed away her hope as he just sadly shook his head.

"What you feel – your emotions, your... love – is not because of the potion," Snape said. "It's absolutely impossible that it affected you without you actually having taken it. I wish it were different. I wish I could help you. I didn't mean to cause you harm. I only hoped I could protect you. I never, ever wanted you to suffer like you do. That is the reason why I sent you away. It was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do to protect you and to give you a chance for a life."

With one wet sleeve, she wiped her face only to find the rain too heavy to succeed. "Great," she murmured wearily. "That will make going on like this a lot easier, knowing that it there really is no chance to get over it. Tried it the last three years. Didn't work."

Out of an impulse, and because it was so reassuringly dark, Snape reached out and cupped her cheek, wet with rain and tears. "Why did you come here tonight?" he asked. "Why tonight – why not a year ago, two years ago, why not right after you had finished school?"

She shrugged away from him once more, which caused a cold shiver to run down his spine. He hadn't known how successfully he had made himself forget how much she meant to him.

"Why the hell would I?" she snapped. "You didn't want me. You closed the door in my face, and I decided you weren't worth the effort to come creeping back to you, begging for attention."

He had to clench his jaws at those words. She certainly had learned how to hurt in the past years.

"I hoped I would grow out of loving you," she continued, her voice hard. "I thought what I felt for you would vanish after a little while. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Whoever I slept with, it always had to be someone dark-eyed and dark-haired. In most cases, this someone was older than me. But last week in Venice, when I turned that bloke into a toad only because he tried to kiss me, I realised I had to come here and at least try to get you out of my head and my ridiculously stupid heart."

It had taken him most of the three years to repair the broken walls around him. Her words tore them down in a moment as if they were made of paper instead of stone. For a moment, he considered his options and decided that he had nothing to lose anymore. Therefore, he asked, "You slept with him. So why hex him for a kiss?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I don't allow anyone to kiss me. You didn't kiss me that night. Whoever has tried it since had to find out that I am not a girl that likes to be kissed."

Dear Merlin, he thought in despair. Is there anything I didn't mess up?

"I didn't kiss you because it was the only thing I could spare you," he whispered. "I had taken your virginity, I had forced you into a situation no one should ever have to be forced into, and I wanted you to be able to kiss the one you wanted to kiss without being reminded of that night. Of me."

She pondered that for a while as she stood in the rain and stared into the dark garden without moving. She was a only few feet away from him, but to Snape it seemed as if she couldn't be farther away if she had still been in Venice.

Then she turned and approached him, anger and aggression clearly written in her face. Her hands gripped the collar of his black shirt. "I so much wanted to kiss you that night, but didn't dare," she stated and ripped off the first button. "You were so vulnerable that night, so very dependent on me, so absolutely different from your usual self, and I didn't want to do something so very intimate. Stupid, isn't it? I shagged you in every possible way and considered a kiss too intimate to share."

Cold wind bit into his skin, but her fingers were hot. He shivered and didn't hinder her from getting whatever she was after.

"You are the only man I ever wanted to kiss, and you are the only one who didn't bother to do so," she hissed. The second button went flying into the ankle-deep grass, and Snape stared at her, dumbstruck. Her hands were strong – a plain shirt was no challenge for her. The third and fourth button, one last rip and he stood there with a bare chest. She placed a burning hand on his hammering heart. "Tell me – did you want to kiss me back then?" she demanded to know. "Did you want me in your bed? Or did you just use me because of that potion, because you didn't have another choice?"

Should he lie? Should he crush her with a few words, her and the love she felt for him for whatever insane reason? It would be so easy. If he lied to her, she would be gone forever, and his life would go on uneventfully. Hadn't he longed for that all those years whilst he was a spy for Dumbledore, an uneventful, peaceful life? But if he lied to her, he would bury himself alive. And he would hurt her yet again. Last time, he had believed it to be in her best interest; if he told her anything else but the truth, now he would be the monster most people still claimed him to be.

"Yes," he answered, barely audible over the pouring rain. "I wanted to kiss you. I was lost the moment I saw you standing on my hearth rug. The potion was running through my system, and I couldn't think clearly. But I would have attempted murder on anyone else. I wouldn't have touched anyone but you. That it was you, you of all women... you cannot imagine how much it meant to me that it was you who came to my bed – voluntarily."

She dug her nails into his pale, cold, wet skin. "Then why didn't you tell me?" she bit out. "Why did you let me believe you didn't want me? Why hurt me so much?"

Her nails were leaving marks on him, but he didn't care. "I didn't know you loved me." How hard those words were to vocalise. Had he known the truth back then, he might have been right enough to act differently. But he hadn't. Hadn't even considered the possibility. "I thought your feelings were the result of that one night and could be quenched before they turned into something strong. Something like this. I just wanted you to be happy with someone of your own choice, not someone who had been forced upon you."

Surprisingly gentle, she clasped her hands behind his neck. She laughed without humour. "Do you really think I would have come to your rooms without having feelings for you in the first place? If it had been Hagrid dosed with an aphrodisiac or Professor Flitwick, I simply would have told Professor Dumbledore. But it was you, and I wished... I hoped..." Her voice faltered. He could feel the clammy fabric of her blouse on his naked skin and her breath on his chest. Pulling herself up and thus standing on tiptoes, her tongue sneaked out of her mouth and licked off some rain that ran down his neck. "Bastard. I hate you," she whispered in his ear and used her hip to push him back a step. He staggered and tripped over a root hidden in the grass. Grabbing her round the waist he protected them both from tumbling to the ground.

She fastened her grip. The sensation of her hand on him was arousing and disturbing at the same time as she was so clearly in a murderous mood. Her hands came down, left his neck and searched and found the rim of his trousers, went lower, grabbed his arse. At the same moment, she hooked one of her feet behind his, pulled and pushed simultaneously. It was an easy, but still very effective way to make someone fall, and Snape naturally lost his balance and landed hard on his back. A soft "Ouf" emerged from his lungs, then Hermione landed on top of him. Her thigh pushed between his legs, and he hissed with pain when she squeezed his balls.

Her mouth brushed his lips when she said, "I thought I would come here to tell you that – that you are a bastard, and that you don't mean anything to me and never did, and I wanted to hurt you and shout at you. And I did. I did tell you. And I did shout. But it's not enough."

Carelessly, she nudged his chin up and bit his throat. Her fingers trailed up his face and buried themselves in his hair.

Snape just lay there, getting soaked even more by the wet grass and the pouring rain, and wondered how this evening could have gone so dreadfully wrong. He couldn't see her expression as it was too dark – it would be close to midnight, he guessed – but he could smell the wine on her breath, and suddenly he could hear the slight slur in her voice. She might not be really drunk, but she wasn't entirely sober, either.

"Please, stop that, Hermione," he begged, when she began to trail kisses along his collarbone, and placed his hands on her waist. "You had too much wine... Let's go inside..."

"It's not enough," she repeated, ignorant to his words. "Hereby, I decide that I want more." With a sudden movement, she brought one arm across his throat, thus pinning him down effectively. "I think I came here to take what's mine. Let's see if you can make me scream again. Let's see if you can repeat what no one else has managed so far – to make me come. And then I will leave you behind like you have left me behind. I hope it will hurt every bit as much as it hurt me."

"Herm..."

"Don't you dare call me that, Professor!" she shouted through the thunder and brought her mouth close to his as if she wanted to kiss him. Instead, she pecked her lips to his cheek, and the mockery in this made him cringe. She wanted revenge, that much was obvious. He wasn't sure if he could stand it.

But then, hadn't he earned whatever punishment she considered fair?

Snape began to shiver, lying half naked on the cold ground. Lightning flashed still through the sky, but the rain had subsided slightly. It was now a constant patter on his exposed face, and he found it hard to keep his eyes open.

She placed her long-fingered hand loosely round his throat. Moving her hips, she straddled him, grinding her bum into his lap, and made herself comfortable. Involuntarily, he got hard. He hadn't had a woman in quite a while, and her attention, although unwanted, made him remember certain needs. "You want me to leave?" she asked, obviously well aware of his arousal.

"No." What else he could say? He didn't want her like that, but he wanted her to leave even less.

In the darkness, she brushed his lips with her fingertips. "Good. Because you are mine, and I am going to take you. I don't care if there's someone else." She ripped her blouse open to cast it away, then got up briefly and was out of her jeans in no time. Naked she stood in the rain, a wild, fierce creature with fire in her eyes and desire in her voice. "I want you. Now. Here. I've waited long enough. You are mine, and I will take what belongs to me."

She was on him a second later and ripped his trousers open, and he didn't dare to hinder her. When the soaked fabric didn't relent to her will, she moved her hands and vanished it. Like the storm itself she flung herself at him; her mouth, her lips didn't kiss, but bit and licked his now equally naked body. Snape could do nothing but give in to her, as the only other possibility would have been to push her away with all his strength. He didn't want to do that. He couldn't do it. He had pushed her away once, quite successfully, and it had nearly broken him. He wouldn't be that stupid again.

He was hard for her and he couldn't deny that he wanted her. Still, he didn't really enjoy what she was doing. This was nothing but a dirty, meaningless fuck. She was greedy in her lust and didn't give a damn about him. Her mouth was everywhere apart from his; her hands didn't leave the smallest spot untouched. She smelled him, tasted him, rasped her rough tongue over his chest, his belly, his cock. When she slipped on top of him, she just took his length inside her. She rode him mercilessly, seeking her orgasm, and if he had thought she would be finished with him quickly, he had been mistaken. She used him for her own pleasure, forced his hands where she wanted them, raked her nails across his back and shouted her lust and her desire and her sorrow at him through the thunder that was still rolling in the sky above them.

He could do nothing but try to satisfy her in her fury whilst she used his body as she might have used a sexual toy.

Her eyes were squeezed shut when she came, her face hard, rain mixing with tears. She seemed to hate him even more, now that she had what she wanted.

She never spoke his name.

She didn't kiss him, either. And he was glad about it.

******************

It didn't take her too long before she was sated – definitely not long enough for him to climax. It was still raining when she stopped as suddenly as she had begun. Silently, she sat on top of him, his still hard cock inside her, and she stared at him as if she had just woken up from a bad dream. He could feel the raindrops running down his sides. He could fell the small wounds her nails had cast.

He could feel the tears, falling from her cheeks to his chest. They were small, hot little reminders that she was still as unhappy as she had been when she had first entered his house.

"What have I done?" she murmured, clasping her hand over her mouth in terror. "What on earth have I done?" She flung herself off his body. Slipping on the muddy ground, she crawled away on all fours through the slippery grass. Only when she reached the oak and nearly bumped into the ancient tree did she stop and press her hands at the bark, never looking back at him.

Thunder growled above, reminding him that they were in the middle of a storm.

Staring at her back, Snape tried to understand what just had happened, and found he couldn't. He could only accept it. Doubting very much that she would ever as much as look in his direction again, his head fell back to the ground, and he stared up to the starless, cloud-filled sky with wide eyes. The raindrops that covered his face could have been tears as well.

Then, with a sudden, unpleasant vengeance he became aware of his hardness and remembered her embarrassed whisper when she had told him three years ago how it had hurt to be so close to a climax and then being left unsatisfied. His own still hard cock now told him how she had felt back then – and that she had been right. It hurt.

Sighing with relief – or with despair? With longing? – he wrapped a practised hand round his length. A few tugs were all he needed to spill into his fist. But he was not satisfied. Not at all.

In the silence that followed a thunderclap, he heard her sobs, silent and suppressed. She sounded like he felt – lonely, miserable, lost. It broke his heart to be the cause of those emotions, and he made a decision.

He was on his feet and beside her in no time, knelt next to her and enwrapped her in his arms. Although she went rigid at his touch, although she tried to get away from him, he didn't let go of her. He just held her close.

She began to tremble, to shake, and then her arms flew around him. Her tears were as hot against his chest as the rain was cold against his back.

He realised only after several moments that she was murmuring words as well. After another few moments he understood that she was apologising.

"I'm so sorry, please, forgive me, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I beg you don't hate me, I'm sorry, I'm..."

"Enough," he said and lifted her up. She was light as a child, and she clung to him as if she feared she would drown otherwise. The feeling was mutual – had anyone ordered him to let go of her, he wouldn't have been able to.

Another sob against his neck. "Don't throw me out!"

He smiled against her cheek. "Even if I wanted to – I couldn't throw you out of my house as we are outside already." He pressed her tighter against him and crossed the lawn in long strides. "I'm taking you inside. You are not going anywhere tonight. I won't allow you to leave – you will stay, and tomorrow, we will talk." With a swift kick of his naked foot, he opened the door, stepped in and shoved it closed with his shoulder, warding it with a silent spell. Then he carried her through the hall and upstairs. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck.

"Don't throw me out," she whispered again.

He found his bedroom in the darkness, avoided contact with the furniture, and finally placed her in the middle of his bed.

There she sat, her arms wrapped around her legs, her head lowered to her knees. Of course she was still naked – their clothes were somewhere outside in his garden – and she was wet from the rain. Grass and earth stuck to her skin, water dripped from her hair onto his sheets. She looked like a drowned kitten in the small light of the one candle that lit the room.

Standing in front of his bed, he looked down at this unbelievable woman. That she was here in his house was nothing short of a miracle. That she was in his bed seemed simply not possible. But there were her soft sobs of despair, her cold skin, the sound of her chattering teeth.

Time to end this.

A murmured spell and she was dry and more or less clean. A second spell did the same for him. Her head snapped up when she felt the tingling of magic, and she stared at him, wide eyed and beyond embarrassment. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked, her voice not completely steady.

His lips quirked into a smile when he sat beside her and brushed her wild hair out of her face. "Nothing," he answered. "But I would be grateful if you could move a bit."

Her eyes grew bigger, and her gaze shot from him to the bed she was sitting in, then took in the rest of the room: desk, fireplace, wardrobe, door, and another door, presumably to the bathroom. Books everywhere and parchment piled on the desk. A shirt hung over the only chair in the room. She must have assumed this to be the guest room, so clear was her surprise that she was in his room instead. "But..." she stammered, "I can't... you surely don't want to..."

"You are tired. I am tired. We need to sleep, and therefore we will go to bed. Now. Here. Unless you want me to sleep on the couch in the living room?"

She closed her eyes. After a long moment, she said, "I never wanted you anywhere else but next to me," and moved to the outer corner of the bed.

He took that as an agreement that he could sleep in his own bed and blew out the candle.

When the bed dipped under his weight, he felt her stiffen. When the covers moved, she nudged another inch away from the heat of his body.

Then his arms reached out, found her in the darkness and pulled her close. She struggled, but he ignored it and pulled her to him until she rested with her back to his chest. Protectively, he slipped one arm under her head, the other over her waist.

He felt her heart beating like the wings of a caged bird. Her breathing came too fast, and he could feel her whole body tremble from toes to shoulders. "You will sleep now," he said firmly. "And just for your information: my bedroom has even stronger wards than my private rooms at Hogwarts, and it is impossible for you to alter them even from the inside. I learned that much from our last encounter. So don't even try to sneak away. Understood?"

"Yes." Barely audible, but she moved her hips to a more comfortable position. Her shivers subsided under his sure embrace.

"Yes, what?" he growled right into her ear.

For a moment, she didn't seem to know what he meant. Then she relaxed in his arms. One hand searched and found his in the darkness. "Yes, Severus," she whispered, closed her eyes and was asleep.