Much Less Innocence
Cast all, yea this white linen hence ; There is no penance, much less innocence.
-John Donne, Elegy XX
Severus was sitting in his study, waiting for a knock at the door.
He had carefully arranged his quarters to have an air of stressful indifference, with heavy volumes of transfiguration theory littered casually about, student essays stacked neatly into two piles. He took care to make one appear higher than the other to evoke an air of business, and had otherwise fussed and made sure his quarters were neat, but gave impressions he thought might be favourable to his guest. The drink he held in his hand now was well-earned.
When the knock finally came, he had been arranging himself in his armchair, reading, changing position ever so often to make him look superior, then casual, then suave. He told himself he should appear busy, but not too busy, so as to not evoke the impression that he had been waiting for her. His performance neither convinced himself nor Phineas' portrait, which was smirking at him, reading his own leatherbound, oil-painted volume upside down pointedly. Severus ignored him, and swallowed drily as he heard the knock.
"Enter," he said loftily, remembering not to look up.
Unsurprisingly, Minerva entered, closed the door behind her, and came to a halt in front of him.
"Good evening, Severus."
"Minerva." There was a pause. He turned a page.
"Are you going to offer me some tea?" The witch enquired, seating herself in the second armchair without invitation. Again, he did not move at once, taking care to appear busy. He had wanted to appear as though he was just about to turn in for the night, but now had abandoned his plans – hardworking was better than tired.
"Of course." He lazily flicked his wand and a steaming mug of lavender scented tea appeared on the coffee table. Minerva peered at it, but did not seem to mind.
"Thank you," the witch said. There was a pause. "How long will you be?"
"I am not sure yet," he replied, deliberately vague, fixedly staring at the same "the" on the same page he'd been looking at for the last minute. "This is a fascinating book."
The derisive snort from the portrait was barely audible over the sudden rustle of fabric across. He frowned and stared at the page, but couldn't resist. When he looked up, Minerva was methodically working on her robes, her busy fingers precisely pushing buttons through the holes, the loosened fabric opening them up a little further, then continuing with the next button, leaving pale inches of skin behind. Her hat was already resting on the coffee table, her shoes looking up at him dolefully from under it. When she caught his dark eyes as he was looking at her, she gave a half-shrug, continuing, unfazed.
The visits had started some time after Christmas. They had never spoken about it much –kissing during nightly patrols had become a regular habit, and the occasional silent frolic against the wall of an abandoned classroom had soon followed. Severus would have been happy with things to stay this way, without too much discussion, but Minerva with her blasted frankness of course insisted on bringing up the subject one afternoon. She had pointed out that she was not getting younger, and that in spite of the heat of their passion cold walls against her buttocks with portraits cheering them on leeringly did nothing for her anymore.
They had moved to her quarters, but the close proximity to Gryffindor tower had proved to be rather bad for his mood – lying on top of his warm, willing, lithe, and most flexible colleague, pinning down both her hands with one of his, gently torturing her with his other quickly lost its appeal when the close and busy silence was suddenly interrupted by whooping cheers from Quidditch fans next door who, even in the dead of night, insisted on celebrating their latest victory. Dissolving in hopeless giggles at one particularly bad rendition of a lion had completely ruined Minerva's mood, but Severus' plans to dock points for bad animal impersonations had not been met with Minerva's approval.
Thus, they had moved their loosely weekly meetings into his quarters today. Severus was not happy about it. He rarely entertained, and imagining his prim colleague down here only highlighted crinkled parchment, lonely socks, and an elderly cheese sandwich left over from the day before. Setting the scene properly had taken more of his time than he had initially been willing to invest, but now, of course, it was over.
"I shall wait for you, but I'm going to fall asleep if you leave me for too long," she said, pulling down another long, sensible stocking, exposing a slender, pale calf which briefly shone golden in the candlelight before she put it onto the ground again. A sudden image of his hands on these calves flashed through his mind and he quickly pushed it aside.
His collar seemed uncomfortably tight all of the sudden, but he persisted, unwilling to have her see his budding desire. He looked back at his book.
"Hurry up, will you?" she said, getting up, leaving her robes behind.
Her uncaring attitude towards her own, naked shape always puzzled and amazed Severus. He preferred being dressed and had actually been more apprehensive when she had insisted on meeting in a bedroom, since this implied complete exposure. Even when alone in his quarters he usually retreated to a dark corner of the room, turned his back towards the door and disrobed hurriedly before diving under the covers, if he bothered at all and did not just use magic to change from one state of dress into another. Minerva's disregard for common decency and his watching eyes was both startling and arousing.
Even now, he could see the white crescents of her buttocks move away in the darkness, swaying invitingly with each step. He cursed under his breath, got up, hesitated, put down his book, ignored the leer in Phineas' portrait, extinguished the light, and followed her.
Once he reached his bedroom, she was nowhere to be seen, but a faint rustling sound from under the covers told him that she was already there. He made to advance.
"Stop," she said.
Surprised, he did so.
"Stay where you are, Severus. Where I can see you."
He hesitated in mid-move.
"I thought you were tired and wanted things to hurry along?"
"I'd like you to undress first," she said. "Where I can see you."
He flushed, unmoving, too aware of the light of two torches next to him outlining him against the darkness of the entrance to his living room. Minerva on the other hand was entirely covered in blankets and darkness.
"Go on."
Her voice, wavering over out from the darkness, had a slightly sharper tone, and from prior experience he recognised it as slightly pressing, which sent a sharp twinge of desire down his spine.
With strangely shaky fingers, he reached for his wand.
"No, you will not require any magic for this," she admonished. "Put it down."
Glaring into the shadows, he stood, frozen, but did not put it down. In the end, he pocketed it again. He did trust Minerva more than anyone, he really did, but he still did not want to give up his wand for her. Trust only went so far, especially if you were faced with someone you couldn't see, and felt this nervous.
A/N: I stole the line from Donne's Elegy On his Mistress going to bed like a magpie because it was pretty. Still, I feel the need to explain why it's this particular line. You'll know that the most common rendition of this line is "There is no penance due toinnocence", perhaps sweetly alluding at his lover's purity and the purity of their exploits, introducing an almost blasphemic twist, as it's likely that the lover was married, and adultery is not innocent.
Then, there's the other, later version that has him say, "There is no penance, much less innocence", possibly showing that both are knowledgeable in the arts of love and he'd prefer to get to it, wanting her to cast aside her white linen already and get to bed. While I, with apologies to Helen Gardner, am tempted to agree with others in the preference of "due to innocence" in l.46 of Donne's elegy, I don't think this version would fit our two heroes here. Severus is, in fact, not innocent. Having said this, I don't wish to make any commentary on the soul of ElBed, as I'm no scholar and just stole it for decoration.