Eight years after the Dark Lord's fall. The Boy Who Lived has yet to tread the halls of Hogwarts.

Pain seared across the side of my head, blinding me temporarily in my left eye. I tended to get headaches when I traveled, especially by magic.

Perfect. My first night in Hogwarts, and I had to go running to the nurse for some ibuprophen…if they even had it. More likely, they'd give me boiled toad juice or something. I was pretty sure that I could love the crazy culture of this place, but it would take some getting used to.

Madame Pomfrey's office. That's where I needed to be. I rolled out of bed, feet hitting a thick green and brown carpet. I focused on the feel of it rather than my reeling head. Though I knew it to cover a stone floor, I felt no cold creeping through its weave. More enchantments, I supposed.

Nausea washing over me, I threw a zippered gray hoodie over my white wifebeater and Guinness pajama pants and shoved my bare feet into the closest pair of shoes—my scuffed, tatty Chucks. Some Professor of Muggle Studies I was—more like Professor of Muggle Fashion Disasters.

A portrait of a thin crone snorted in her sleep as I slipped out of my new chambers. Hand pressed to my temple, I started walking. Surely I'd bump into someone who knew where the hospital wing was, right?

Fifteen minutes later, with a progressive migraine slamming against my skull, I had done a spectacular job of getting myself lost. What's more, my headache had become severe and prolonged enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. Fatigue shoved me against a corridor wall. The stones, apparently not enchanted like my room's floor, cooled my flushed cheek, though they started to slant beneath me.

Jaw clenched against the rising bile, I pushed myself away from the wall's support, leaving only a palm against them for balance. Sighting a large portrait of a caveman at the end of the hall—maybe he'd have directions?--, I bowed my head and almost made it to my destination when I passed through a pocket of cold air.

"Oiy! Going somewhere, Professor Tighe?"

I twitched backward, jarring the headache within my skull. "Don't even start, Peeves," I said, trying my best to glare at the apparition without looking through him.

"Say, you're a bit green around the gills. Have a bit too much butter beer at the faculty feast?" He gave a cackle that about split my head in two, making my stomach flip-flop.

"Peeves, please. Just tell me where the hospital wing is. I need medicine."

"I'll say you do! Let me help you out. The hospital—" he leaned in, pausing. "—is in the castle!" He gave another howl of laughter and took off before I could curse him into a second death.

"What. An. Idiot!"

My growl woke the Neanderthal in the portrait. "Well! I never!" He said, in a voice that was surprisingly sophisticated for his humble setting. He wrapped his furs about him and stomped off before I could apologize.

"Of all the freaking, ridiculous—argh!" I clenched my fists, so hard that the knuckles of my index fingers popped and began tromping back the way I had come. What was the point? No one was going to help me. I'd do best to try to stave my travel sickness off with a cup of green tea and a night's worth of sleep. No promises on how affective it would be. "Save me from the arrogance of magic," I grumbled at the rubber toes of my sneakers.

And then I slammed into a black linen wall. I followed the line of buttons up to Severus Snape's face, white, cold, and condescending. "Why are you following me?" Even to me, the question didn't make sense.

"You think so much of yourself that I track the every move of a woman I know in name only?" He arched an eyebrow. On anyone else, it would have been with humor. On him? It just added to the irritation coming off him in waves.

"Yes—er, no. No. Not at all. I'm sorry—" I could feel the blood pulse in my cheeks, even as the nausea returned full force.

He wanted me to ask why he was really there. I could see it in his face. Well, damn him if I would do what he wanted! I stared him down as fiercely as my migraine would allow.

When he broke first, I did a little victory dance on the inside.

"The spirit Peeves informed me you were here, looking ill—hoping to do further harm, no doubt, by sending me."

I raised my chin defiantly, though it cost me in the vertigo department. This was bad—very bad. "Well, then, it looks like he misplaced his hopes."

"What makes you so sure I won't harm you?"

"Because there's no sport in insulting a woman who's three seconds away from puking all over you."

No shock crossed his face as he flicked his wand at me, muttering an incantation. "I do not profess to have any great skill in healing charms, but I would prefer you refrained from vomiting upon my robes." Suddenly, the nausea abated, leaving only her headache to contend with. "Magic may be arrogant, Tighe, but it has its uses." He wrapped his robes around him and turned on his heel.

I watched him go, his dark figure a shadow's haze in my blurred vision.

"Come quickly!" he snapped.

My feet reacted before I could process the command, and I stumbled down corridor after corridor behind him. Finally, we reached the potion supply cupboard. He went to the one of the bottle-lined shelves and moved a phial in a series of complicated maneuvers, and the back wall opened to reveal his private chambers.

The ceiling was beyond anything that the enchanted one in the dining hall could have conjured—it vaulted thirty feet overhead, supported by thick oak beams. There were leather armchairs and a backless chaise by a colossal marble fireplace, and a surprisingly delicate oaken desk, filigreed in gold down its legs. The walls, too, were wood-paneled, and set off by carpeting colored the golden echo of fresh cream.

I followed after Snape, trying to absorb everything the room presented. I ended up landing by the fireplace, smoothing a fingertip along the strange green marble, while he sorted through yet more bottles in an armoire.

"So much in one spot, for as rare as this stone is. Connemara marble," I said, almost to myself. "Only the Emerald Isle provides such a beautiful green."

I ached a little for the familiarity of Ireland. I had lived there, in my family's ancestral home, before being invited to teach at Hogwarts. Why not? I had thought, when I received the offer. No different than teaching English in Korea.

"I didn't bring you here to exchange trivialities about rocks. Sit." Snape struck out a finger, indicating the chaise behind me.

Right. No different.

I clenched my jaw at his tone, noted the jar in his hand. "I'll stand, thanks."

"Sit. Down." He took three huge strides and pressed me down with a palm on each shoulder onto the chaise. "Unless you enjoy being racked with pain..."

My hoodie went flying off me, onto a hook by the door, before I even understood he had casted a spell. "Excuse me!" I started to rise, but he stooped directly in front of me.

"Not another word, Tighe, or I will revoke my invitation for you to be here."

I sagged weakly onto the couch again, shaking slightly. What has this wizard capable of?

He crossed behind me, opened the squatty canister, and set it on the leather seat. Brushing my hair off my shoulders like he would dust from his cloak, he smeared a dollop of salve across his palms and began massaging my trapezius muscles. Immediately, I felt myself relax into him, my defenses dropping. God, he had strong hands.

"What kind of magic is this?" I mumbled, slurring my words like a drunk.

"It's not." His voice was flat, sonorous, mesmerizing. "It's Eastern medicine. There are three things magic cannot cure, Professor, and you'd do well to remember them: migraines, cancer, and death."

"Are you telling me I could die from a headache?" I fought the impulse to giggle. What was in that salve?

"Don't be foolish. Only the weak die from pain. Though there has been some discussion that migraines are the mind's attempt to literally tear itself apart—not a fate to which I think you wish to succumb?"

"Uh…" I found it impossible to answer, for at the exact moment he finished speaking, he pushed the spaghetti straps of my tank top off my shoulders—along with the purple bra straps beneath them—and dug his fingers into a pair of particularly snarled muscles.

I went silent as long minutes slid past, letting my tension be siphoned away. His cool fingertips, coated in the tingly-hot salve, quickly became the center of my world. There was a strange intimacy to this encounter, as he clutched my muscles in a lover's embraces. Eyes closed, I leaned backward, seeking some sort of anchor before I was completely lost at sea in the fog his ministrations created.

At some point, he must have knelt behind me. When I pressed against him, my shoulder blades met his chest, while the small of my back rested in the cradle of his hips.

The arch of my spine cupped something else entirely.

Had I really aroused him? The contact made my own desire twist in the pit of my stomach.

He froze as our bodies touched, his dancing hands collapsing on the stage of my neck. "We're through here," he said, starting to shift away.

"Wait." I gripped his wrists, pulled him down to my level again, and caught his mouth with mine. If I thought he had frozen before, he was positively petrified now. It wasn't so much as kiss as it was my attempt to fuse us together. It was only a couple seconds long, and then I released both his mouth and his hands.

He let out a long, hot breath. "What are you playing at, Tighe?"

"I'm not playing at anything," I said, standing. "If you want me to stop, I will. Just say so. But I'm tired and lonely, and I bet you're tired of being lonely, so we're going to do this, here and now." Throwing caution and care and chastity to the wind, I kicked off my shoes, crossed my arms over my chest, and pulled my tank top off, standing before him in just my bra and pajama pants.

He put a knee on the chaise between us, invading my space—which was only fair, since I'd been doing that since I'd arrived at the castle. Not meeting my eye, he drew a finger down the valley of my breasts, resting it along the lacy V the two cups made in the material. Under his scrutiny, I found that my bravado had deserted me, and I tried not to think about.

"This is what you want, is it?" he hissed, looking from beneath heavy brows with his inky-black eyes.

Moving quickly, his hand captured the back of my neck and he kissed me, deeply, deeper than I thought possible. His tongue wasted no time in pressing against mine, his teeth scraping my bottom lip. His hands moved lower, clasping my ass, while he moved across my throat, nipping and sucking. God! I was wet already, and he had barely begun.

I curled my fingers through his hair. "Please. Oh, please!"

"Tell me..." His mouth barely moved away from my collarbone. "…what it is…you want."

"Let me touch you, too. Please, I need to touch you."

He pulled back, eyes hooded, surveying me, like the very serpent that represented his house. Watching my every breath, he withdrew his wand from his robe. He flicked the fire into a low smolder, conjuring thick blankets and pillows in front of it. Wand stowed in an inner pocket, he began unclasping the long row of buttons down the front of his jacket. When I moved to assist him, he shoved my hands away.

"No!" I winced at his sharp tone, and he softened his voice. "No. This, I must do." Then, watching his fingers loose those round prisoners from their confines, I realized he trembled. How long had it been since he had taken a woman to his bed? His manner certainly did not invite such escapades, and yet here I stood.

Finally, he removed his overcoat, shoes, and socks, and stood before me in trousers and shirtsleeves. Moving slowly to make sure this was acceptable, I slipped the top three buttons of his shirt. Loosening the collar exposed his chest, feathered with dark hair. Eyes shut, I kissed his lower lip, with perfect softness, closed-mouth, gently. I rested my mouth there for a long moment, with the lightest of pressures and no insistence.

It seemed to break him—the tension fell from his body and without a word, he pulled away, only to scoop me up into his arms. I was on the small end of average, and being held by him only made me feel tinier. He crossed to the fireplace and laid me upon the blankets, pulling my pants down my long legs as he did so. I lay draped across the floor in nothing but knickers and a bra, feeling not self-conscious, but self-aware, as he looked over every inch of my freckled skin. My body hummed with sensuality under his unwavering gaze, and I made a noise deep in my throat, like a cat greeting its long-absent owner.

The sound seemed to jolt him into action. He shed the rest of his clothing and lay next to me, revealing a body thick with muscle, and a strange, faint tattoo of a snake and scull on his left forearm.

"Nice ink," I said, reaching to touch it, but he jerked his arm away from me. Fear crept in with my blush, but was quickly forgotten when his mouth fell on mine.

My suspicions that he didn't have a consistent love life didn't seem to matter much; he went on to prove he knew his way around the female body. His tongue swept into my mouth, thrusting against mine, drawing and pressing my bottom lip against his teeth. While he kissed a trail to my earlobe, his hand cupped my left breast through my bra, palming and squeezing just hard enough to intensify the pleasure with pain.

He abandoned my breast to brace a hand on either side of me, nipping at my earlobe, sucking at the skin beneath my jaw. I trailed my fingers down his spine, feeling gooseflesh rise. He let out a long breath and sat up long enough to release the front clasp of my bra. He rolled each of my nipples between his lips, careful to give them equal attention.

I writhed beneath him. If not for my underwear, my thighs would have been slick with my own wetness. Following an impulse—since that seemed to be the name of the game this night—I palmed his cock. He gave a shudder and pressed his forehead against my sternum. Rolling him onto his back, I scooted down and captured just the head of him in my mouth. I tongued the glands, then the slit, eliciting a groan from him.

"Tighe…"

I popped him out of my mouth, making him groan again. "Yes, Professor?"

"Merlin! Don't stop!"

I hid my grin by taking in half of his substantial length and giving a low hum. He made a straggled noise and tangled his fingers in my hair. I wasn't very experienced with performing oral sex, but the few boyfriends I had practiced on had expressed more than enough satisfaction.

Truth be told, I loved everything about giving head—not just the power I knew I had over the guy, but also the connection that came from so intimate of contact. I could feel every twitch and tingle on my tongue as I l curled it around his thick staff. Some women claimed a direct line between their nipples and their clit, but for me, it was all about having a cock in my mouth. Kissing, biting, licking, sucking. Everything about it turned me on.

His fingers still twisted in my hair, I let him control the speed of my bobbing as I took him down my throat, again and again. Once, on the uptake, I tilted my head to the side, so that the top of his cock pushed against the inside of my cheek. He jerked, and yanked my mouth off of him.

He locked me within the iron cage of his arms and rolled, so that I was pinned beneath him again. I breathed in through my nose, like a strung-out horse. He put a forearm on either side of my shoulders, his hips heavy on mine, and bored into me with endless eyes. For a long time, he stayed still, and I watched the jumping pulse in his throat settle into a slow jog.

"You liked doing that, didn't you?" His voice lingered over the words.

"Liked what?" I purred. It was hard not to be coy, with him bearing down on me like the waters of Noah's Flood.

"Liked having my cock in your mouth. You know you did." One hand wandered down the flat of my stomach to cup me through my knickers.

"Yes. Oh God, yes."

A smirk raised one corner of his mouth. "You know what that makes you?" He leaned in close, almost, but not quite, nuzzling my ear. "It makes you a whore. Only whores like the taste of cock."

I shivered at the filth of it all, the wetness between my legs suddenly unbearable. "Please, Severus. Just do it!"

"What a slut. Look at me!"

I snapped lust-hazed eyes open as he slid one long finger under my panties and directly into my weeping quim.

"Admit it. Admit you're a slut, and I'll give you exactly what you deserve—because it's also what you want, isn't it? You want a good fucking." Suddenly, the knickers were gone—magic?—and he added a fellow to the finger deep inside me.

"God, yes! Yes. I'm a slut. Use me up. That's what I'm good for."

Both his hands came beneath my ass then, lifting me, and all of him dove into my center at once, filling me never enough. I found my own hands scratching at his back, my short nails digging in for purchase against the onslaught of his thrusting. He surged against me, like the ocean against the cliffs of Dover, plundering the depths of me even as his hips made a delicate friction against my clit. My breath was ripped from me as quickly as I could draw it, escaping as sobs instead.

"Come for me, Tigue. Come. Gods, I'm so close. Just go, whore, and I'll follow you. Go, go, please, go—"

My entire body rippling inside and out, my head lolled to the side. Absently, I noted how beautiful the roll of his hips thrashing against mine was translated by the fire into shadow. In that one moment of distraction, I was able to let go enough to capture my release, and I slammed against that empty wall, hard.

I clenched down tight on the cock within me, and he gave one final shove against my resistance, gasping, collapsing, shuddering. He bent down and kissed me, drawing blood from my mouth even as I drew his own hot nectar from him.

He lay upon me, as involuntary jolts rushed across our skins. Then, he pulled back, a smudge of my blood still glossing his lips.

"What're you doing?" I said, languid pleasure still pulsing through me.

He plucked up his frock coat and picked through its pockets.

"Come, come. You didn't honestly believe that you were the only whore in the castle, did you, you insufferable mick?" Taking up his wand, he muttered an incantation, and I slid into a delirium not unlike the one brought on by his massage. I allowed myself to think the blankets around me were actually his arms, as he clutched me to his chest.

In the morning, I found myself naked, in my own bed, with my clothing folded neatly on top of my dresser. Next to the clothes was the crock of salve from last night with a note—"For any other aches you might have. Welcome to Hogwarts. SS."

And that, I supposed, was that. Salve or no salve, the muscle tenderness I experienced while I hobbled back to bed would twinge for a week. Welcome to Hogwarts, indeed. With Severus Snape around, I mused, it was a miracle anyone was able—or wanted—to leave the place.

I felt a smile, not unlike a smirk, curve my mouth, and I knew exactly from whom I learnt the gesture.