Dead On Time

Dead On Time

Stamping on the ceiling, hammering on the walls

Gotta get out

She scrambled along the sofa, crab-like, terrified, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. When she reached the opposite end and could move no further, she opened her eyes to a narrow slit and peeked across the room. What she saw made her freeze in place: the candles were lit; the furnace hummed comfortingly; Snape, young and austere, was sitting calmly in the armchair across from her. Two mugs of tea steamed gently on the coffee table.

'No!' Snape said urgently, answering her unspoken thought. 'No.' He kissed her again heatedly, impassioned, trying to drive the nascent plan from her mind. Outwardly, she surrendered to him again, silently determined to remember this thing, too; and she was pleased to discover that, because this was a dream, her responses to his touch were in no way diminished a second time around, or a third.

***

When Hermione awoke, every muscle in her body ached and screamed in protest when she tried to move. A minute or two passed before she realised why: she was curled into one corner of the sofa, her head resting on the arm, and her body had cramped up while she slept. There was a pain behind her eyes, too, which felt suspiciously like a red-wine headache. Her mouth tasted awful.

Gingerly, massaging her neck and back, she sat up and stretched her legs out in front of her. She remembered exactly where she was; her headache made her grateful for the pitch-black of the windowless basement. When she finally felt able to stand, she groped her way to the stairs and ascended them to the kitchen. The cold, grey light of early morning filtered through the windows.

Groaning, she filled the kettle and spooned some instant coffee into a mug. Her first swallow of boiling, black caffeine revived her somewhat, and she was able to sit relatively painlessly in one of the kitchen chairs and consume a piece of toast. Her brain felt incredibly sluggish, but she forced herself to think while she chewed her breakfast mechanically. Something had happened during the night, something she had to remember...

I need to remember. She remembered the Urim and Thummim; she could recall quite clearly the succession of questions and answers. And then Snape had appeared, frightening her out of her wits, and she had had a dream...

What had she dreamt? The tasteless tea, she remembered that; the debilitating pleasure she had experienced in Snape's arms was as clear to her as if it had really happened. There had been other things, too, things she had commanded herself not to forget! But she could not force her thoughts away from Snape now that they had drifted in his direction. Snape, naked. Snape, doing that to me. A look of contentment came into her face, and she wondered idly if she had the marks of any new love bites this time.

The sudden rush of recollection hit her like a freight train, making her gasp aloud, the memories tumbling over one another in quick succession. I cannot alter reality – at, least not under the present circumstances... You're messing with my soul!... I can't make you feel things you don't know how to feel.

'Oh, my God,' she whispered.

Then she was on her feet, snatching quill and parchment from her bag hanging on the back of the kitchen door. She scribbled:

Edward,

P.S. I don't know what you saw in my hallway, but I assure you, I have no boyfriend.

Apparating to Grimmauld Place – thankfully empty of Harry and Ron, who were still on their training course – she tied the scrap of parchment to Pigwidgeon and shoved the tiny owl briskly through a window. Just as quickly, she was home again.

Breakfast forgotten, she stood in the kitchen and unashamedly stripped off all of her clothes to inspect her skin. She regarded triumphantly the love-bites that dotted her body: there, just above her breast, and another on her hip, and another on the inside of her thigh. She was right – her theory was right! Snape could affect things in the physical world, but perhaps without realising how, or even that he was doing it. She knew, of course, that the marks on her body could be psychosomatic, but she doubted this was the case.

Being Hermione, however, she could not let her theory go untested; this was the reason for her hastily scratched letter to Teach – and for the rash excitement, the hectic heedlessness, she currently felt. She would test her theory this evening and perhaps kill another bird with the same stone: there were certain things she was determined to 'know how to feel' before too many more nights had gone by.

***

By the time seven o'clock rolled around, Hermione was on her fourth glass of wine. She had just tipped a load of linguine into the saucepan of water boiling on the hob when she heard the telltale crack that heralded Teach's arrival. She set her wineglass carefully on the countertop and pushed her hair behind her shoulders. Strange, how she didn't feel at all nervous, but rather recklessly confident. She would have liked to blame it on the wine, but she knew it was a product of the anticipatory excitement she had felt all day. New discoveries were beckoning from the edges of her awareness, and she was determined not to let the opportunity to reach them slip away.

'Miss Granger? Are you here?' Teach was calling from the sitting room. 'I'm sorry I had to Apparate straight in, but I wasn't sure if it was wise to try it on a Muggle street...' His voice trailed off when she entered the room.

Hermione secretly enjoyed his expression of astonishment; she knew what he was seeing, having perfected it in the mirror earlier, and his reaction delighted her. Her hair, wild and tousled; her smoky eyes; her perfectly smooth skin, given a golden sheen by the candlelight in the dining room; her body, artfully revealed in the tiniest red dress she could find; her bare feet and painted toenails. She had hoped it would make him think of sex; it didn't look as if she were going to be disappointed.

'Wine?' she asked politely.

Teach nodded silently. She Summoned the bottle from the kitchen and poured the dark red liquid into one of the wine goblets on the table. She was at leisure to look at him as she did so; he wore yet another dark suit, this time without a tie, and the top two buttons of his shirt were open, revealing the barest hint of hard, bronzed chest beneath the hollow where his collarbones met. His light brown hair was windblown and just slightly too long where it brushed against his high cheekbones on either side of his face. Hermione had no trouble imagining herself carrying her plan through: he was gorgeous. Not in the same way as the youthful Snape, who was lean and angular, but with a robust hardness that she appreciated almost as much.

When she handed him his wine, she allowed her fingers to graze against his; then she stood back again and waited for him to drink. He glanced briefly at the glass in his hand, as if he had no idea what it was, and returned his gaze to her, seemingly unable to stop staring. Finally, he tore his eyes away from her body and put the wineglass on the table. 'Miss Granger,' he said and stopped uncertainly.

'Hermione, please,' she breathed, swaying a step closer and lifting her chin to look up into his face.

Her subtle movement appeared to be all the encouragement he needed: in an instant, she found herself crushed between his body and the table, returning his deep, heated kisses with fervent enthusiasm. His hands tangled in her hair and angled her head so that he could plunder her mouth more fully, then his fingers swept over her shoulders to slide the straps of her dress down her upper arms. She was breathless, her eyes closed, imagining Snape, then Teach, then Snape again, and powerfully aroused. She had felt this way in her dreams, yes, but now there was a living, physical body pressed against her, bending her backward over the table so that nothing seemed more natural than for her to lift one of her legs and twine it around his waist, and the sensations coursing through her frame were even more devastating and wonderful than usual.

One of Teach's hands was tracing her sternum now; the other grasped her thigh, lifted her knee higher on his hip, and slid beneath the hem of her dress. When his fingertips came in contact with her knickers, he groaned, and she answered him by plunging her tongue deeper into his mouth, unconsciously imitating the fantasy she was envisioning. She felt oddly free and light-headed; a sense of infinite possibility and capability overtook her, making her wonder if her current elation was at all similar to an overdose of Felix Felicis.

Teach hooked a finger around the waistband of her knickers at her hip. With another groan, he pulled his lips away from hers and fastened them onto her neck, just beneath her ear. 'Tell me,' he panted between breaths and kisses, 'about your breakthrough.'

Her head fell back, granting him access to the rest of her neck and chest. 'Souls,' she answered, bringing her hands up to push his jacket away from his shoulders, 'can affect the physical world.'

He bit the top of her shoulder gently, then flicked his tongue across her skin. 'How?'

'I don't know,' she breathed and turned her attention to the buttons of his shirt. 'It happens when the people around them...' she broke off to moan as he dragged her knickers down to the tops of her thighs '...are emotionally charged.' She was not at her most articulate, but then the fact that she could maintain a coherent thought while he was stroking her bare hip was accomplishment enough.

Teach kissed her lips again, driving his tongue between them, and pulled her forward. Off-balance, she lowered her leg. Her knickers fell to her knees, and she opened her legs slightly, allowing the garment to drop to the floor. Teach noticed; a second later, she was back on the table, her dress pulled up, both legs wrapped around his waist, while she tore his shirt from his body and scraped her fingernails over his chest. He ground his pelvis against the soft skin where her bare thighs met; the evidence of his arousal was hard against her flesh and shockingly hot, even through the fabric of his trousers.

He was bent over her now, kissing her still as she lay directly on the rough wood of the dining room table; she was ready for him, she knew, and she was just beginning to wonder when he was going to get on with it when a sound from the kitchen distracted her. Teach froze. 'What was that?' he whispered.

Hermione smiled. 'I think the pasta might have boiled over.'

He drew back, straightening her dress for her. 'We should check. Wouldn't want to catch your kitchen on fire, too.' He grinned.

She slid from the table, leaving her knickers discarded on the floor, and walked into the kitchen. The pasta had indeed boiled over; the sound she had heard was the hissing of the bubbling water as it fell onto the flame of the gas burner. Some of the water had splashed onto the floor, too; with a sigh, she lowered the flame on the burner and stepped away from the cooker to find a towel.

The instant she moved from in front of the hob, the pot of boiling pasta hove violently upward and flew across the room like a shot, straight at Teach, who had been standing near the back door. Incredibly, he managed to leap out of the way just in time; the saucepan crashed into the door, showering that side of the room with sprays of linguine. Before Hermione had a chance to react – where was her wand? she thought desperately – the cupboard doors burst open, a chain reaction exploding first along one wall and then the other. Plates and mugs, knives and forks flew into the air and crashed against the ceiling and walls. Another pot rocketed off the cooker, clattering into the kitchen table and spilling its contents. Bolognese sauce streamed across the floor like a river of blood.

Horrified, separated from Teach by the rain of cutlery and dishes, Hermione watched helplessly as he snatched his wand from his pocket and began to blast a path through the whirling utensils. Seconds later, although it seemed like hours, he reached her and grasped her arm painfully, pulling her behind him as he edged toward the door to the dining room. She preceded him gratefully into the next room, gasping and near tears, only to find that they had escaped almost literally from the frying pan into the fire.

Books soared from their shelves as if thrown by an invisible hand, pelting Hermione and Teach mercilessly as they dashed into the sitting room. Hermione tore at the lock on the front door, trying to ignore the hail of paper and the sound of her favourite possessions ricocheting around the room. Panic numbed her fingers; she almost sobbed aloud when she finally managed to undo the locks and fling the door open. They ran into the street, Teach slamming the door closed behind them.

The narrow street was silent in the chill October air. They stood in the road, panting, Hermione leaning against Teach's firm chest, until they caught their breath. Then he pushed her away and stared at her, his eyes running over her body. 'Are you all right?' he asked.

'Yes,' she answered shakily.

'Good. Then you can tell me what the hell that was!' he shouted, enraged.

'I don't know,' she whispered, shrinking away from him.

'Oh, yes, you do,' he countered and reached out to hold her in place. For a moment, she thought he was going to start shaking her, but he simply gripped her shoulders and waited for her to respond.

Sighing, she admitted, 'It was my ghost. I have a ghost. In the house.'

His astonishment was obvious; taken aback, he seemed to grope for words before asking at last, 'Is it Severus Snape?'

Despite her fear and the hectic rush of adrenaline through her veins, a curious calm suddenly fell on Hermione. 'No,' she lied, looking him directly in the eye. 'It's always been there. The neighbours told me about it. It's just a ghost.'

He seemed satisfied with her answer; releasing her arms, he dragged his fingers through his hair wearily. 'Is that the man I saw upstairs last time I was here?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. I've never seen anyone. It just moves things around sometimes.'

Teach shook his head in amazement. 'Doesn't it scare you?'

'Of course,' she responded casually. 'But there's not much I can do about it. Most of the time, we live together quite peacefully.' She smiled, hoping her dishonesty wasn't showing in her face.

'Are you going to go back in there?'

'I suppose I ought to, really. That mess will need clearing up.' She wrapped her arms around her chest, barefoot and shivering now in the cold.

'I'll help you,' he offered, turning back toward the door.

'I appreciate that,' she said sincerely, placing her hand on his arm, 'but I don't think you should go back in. It's used to me; it won't mind if I'm there alone.'

He favoured her with a doubtful glance and noticed that she was hugging herself. 'All right,' he sighed. 'But if anything else happens, you know you can come stay with me.'

She nodded, then looked pointedly at his bare chest. 'Thank you. I'll bring your clothes out.'

A few minutes later, when Teach had Apparated away with his shirt and jacket, Hermione returned to the kitchen and sat down, exhausted, at the table. Blankly, she surveyed the remains of her dishes. She was aware that she had stepped in the Bolognese and now had mince beef and tomato clinging to her feet, but she did not, at this precise moment, care.

'I know you're here, Snape,' she said conversationally. 'You know everything that goes on in this house, don't you?' Unconcerned, she swirled her big toe in a puddle of sauce. 'Do you enjoy spying on me? Watching me in the shower, perhaps? Are you a jealous ghost?'

Slowly, Hermione got to her feet and went to the door of the basement. Uninterested in the red footprints she was leaving behind her, she descended the wooden stairs and switched on the small lamp, taking up her place from the night before on the indented cushion of the sofa. The bag with the marbles was still on the rug where she had dropped it. She picked it up and settled back, shaking the bag idly. 'I'm not going to go through the process of asking for you by name,' she stated calmly. 'I think my intentions are clear enough.'

The only sound in the basement was that of the marbles, rattling around in the sack. Finally, she asked, 'Was that your little fit of temper upstairs?' She reached into the bag and withdrew the green marble. 'Ah. I thought so.' She replaced the marble and shook the bag again.

'Oh, and tell me,' she added sarcastically, 'was that your version of a warning?'

Green again.

'Are you trying to warn me about Edward Teach?' she asked.

Green again.

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. Then, without warning, her arm drew back, and she threw the tiny green marble against the opposite wall with all of her might. It slammed into the drywall and bounced, rolling back toward her across the rug. When she picked it up again, she saw that it was cracked along one curve, a jagged slash that reminded her of the one in the Resurrection Stone.

She situated herself more comfortably on the sofa and rested her head against the cushions. She had passed beyond angry and was now drifting in the sweet calm on the other side of her fury. She was determined to discuss this incident with Snape face-to-face; he would learn that he could not manipulate her like that again. Wearily, she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come.

But Hermione did not dream that night.