Special thanks to Whitehound for BritPicking this chapter and catching other minor mistakes. :)
I woke in semi-darkness. The fire had burned low in the hearth and only one candle was lit by the bed I was lying on. I was tightly swaddled in the duvet. For an instant a terror gripped me. Am I alone?
"Snape?"
"I am here."
I turned and found him sitting up against the headboard. He had given me all of the pillows. He could not have been comfortable. He reached back and grabbed a glass of water from the side table and as I struggled to sit up he scooped an arm around me and helped.
After I drank my fill, I narrowed my eyes at him.
"What have you done, you stupid, stupid man!"
He smirked and turned away to replace the glass.
"All that I can," he replied. When he faced me again I could tell he was deadly serious.
"Why? Why would you bind yourself to such a foolish vow? There is no hope for me. I am beyond saving."
He scowled at me and answered my question with a question of him own.
"Why did you try to protect me that night?"
"I have no idea. I think I thought it might have been the right thing to do. But it has been so long since I had such thoughts, I do not really know."
"And yet, knowing me as you did, knowing how despicable and pathetic a human being I am, you could not but do what was in your nature, could you?"
I nodded, suddenly wondering if he had read all my thoughts that night. His eyes lit up with amusement but his expression didn't change.
"I can do no less. You are the last of all that was bright and good in our world. How could I not try to change your circumstances?" His words angered me, I was not that girl anymore. He remembered a dead girl.
"Because you can't! There is nothing for you to do but try to give me false hope that will destroy me in the end!" I struggled out of the duvet and threw it off me. "Who are you to ride to my rescue? I see no shining armor; I see no prancing steed! All I saw that night was a has-been, washed up potions master! As pathetic as all these Death Eaters are in my eyes, you managed to make them all look like cultured nobility! You do not have the power to save me!"
"Perhaps I needed a cause," he said quietly while picking lint off his sleeve.
"And what if you succeed? What if you save the fair maiden? What happens when you realize all you have won is a worn out prostitute?"
"Don't call yourself that." I swear he looked like he wanted to stamp his foot.
"It is what I am, Snape!"
He hissed like an angry cat and leaned in, nose to nose with my face.
"If that is what you are, after I rescue you, it will be because that is what you choose to be! I will see you safe enough to make your own choices."
"You cannot! And now you have bound yourself to a foolish vow that might cost you your life!"
He stills and his eyes search mine.
"Why would that bother you?" he asked softly.
Tears sprang from my eyes and I could barely speak for the trembling of my mouth.
"Because you are the last person that remembers when I was bright and good and I only just found you." He sighed and a hand came up to my face. He brushed away a strand of hair that had caught in my eyelashes and then let his hand fall away. He leaned forward until our foreheads touched, his massive nose crowded out my small one.
"Let me try." he asked.
I reached up and pulled him closer, my face pressed into his neck. I nodded my head and then let out a sob of a laugh. "You have no choice now, you foolish man." His chest rumbled with his own wry laugh. He patted my back awkwardly and pulled away. He grabbed the duvet and snapped it out to cover me.
"You should sleep."
My face must have reflected my confusion because he drew back suddenly and frowned.
"I did not take up your entire evening to make you work. I would not ask that of you, you silly girl!" he hissed.
"Then why…"
"I needed to see if you were alright. I felt we needed to speak. This was the only way I could arrange it."
"Oh." For some reason I felt disappointed. As if he heard my thought and it confused him he tilted his head to the side. A scowl swept across his features like a storm and he pushed back off the bed and started searching through the pockets of his robes.
"I brought some Dreamless Sleep and Calming Draughts if you would like them. I also brewed you a Strengthening Solution and a Vitamin Infusion, but you should take those in the morning." He was babbling. I smiled and pushed two of the pillows back over to the empty side of the bed.
"No, thank you. I do not want anything tonight. But if I am to sleep, then I insist you do as well."
He turned to look at the loveseat and I snorted.
"Oh, please, Snape there isn't enough muscle relaxant or pain reliever on the planet to cure you of a night on that. I know, I have slept on it and I am half your size. Now get in bed."
He nodded and turned away from me to unbutton his robes and I suddenly remembered how lost he had looked when I first saw him a few weeks before. My savior was just a shy little boy with a nasty temper. Hurrah for me.
He draped his robes over the back of the loveseat and came and sat on the bed and worked off his boots. I noticed that the quality of his clothes had improved a bit since that first night. His long ropey muscles were offset by his sharp shoulder blades under his fine linen shirt. He shifted to get under the blankets but I stopped him with a gesture.
"Belt. If it snags my peignoir it will cost me three weeks' worth of tips to replace."
He hopped back up and unbuckled his belt and slid it out of his trousers. Lifting up the blankets he stopped at another gesture from me.
"Socks. No man is allowed in my bed still wearing socks. Not even saviors."
"You are pushing your luck, woman," he growled as he turned and pulled off his socks.
"Be nice or I might just choose to be a fishwife after you save me."
"Who's to say I won't find you somewhere safe and then run like hell," he muttered, finally pulling half of the duvet over himself.
"I'll just keep wandering out into traffic so you have to keep coming back to save me. You'll have no choice but to stay."
"There's no traffic in Antarctica," he threatened lightly.
"Ah, but the Dark Lord holds vast influence over penguins, don't you know. You would be stuck freezing with me even there." I giggled at my own humor. It had been a long time since I had bantered around like this. Of course he had to ruin it.
"You would still want me near after you are safe?" The pleading undercurrent in his voice was not lost on me. Whoever had broken this man deserved to burn in hell.
"Since we are playing pretend, let's pretend we won't drive each other 'round the twist while we live happily ever after. Yes, I will still want you around." I leaned up and blew out the candle. I heard him take a shuddering breath in the darkness.
"Good night…Severus." It was the first time I had ever said his name. It made me feel rather like a grown up.
"Dream well, Hermione," he voice floated up out of the darkness, deep and rich.
I had trouble falling asleep. My mind could not seem to wrap around the fact that I had gone to bed with a man and not had sex. It was a gift, another gift, from him but one that left me feeling slightly empty. Maybe I did not know how to have a relationship with a man outside of a sexual context anymore. Did I want to sleep with him? I never had a choice before. I didn't know the answer. He wasn't attractive physically, but I found after examining my thoughts that I had stopped thinking of him as ugly at some point in the evening. I thought back to our previous encounter and remembered the fire in his eyes, the way he seemed to burn for me. Severus Snape, the same man that stormed throughout a castle and terrified students, had been lost in a haze of lust. For me. Only me. I was his first. These thoughts were heady stuff. I found he wasn't repulsive physically anymore either.
I listened to his breathing even out and then turned on my side to watch him sleep. The embers from the fire were enough to see by now that my eyes had adjusted to the light. I reached out and carefully picked up a lock of his hair. It was so fine and had no body at all but it felt incredibly silky to the touch. I lifted it up to my nose. It smelled clean but it also smelled like him. A personal scent that I rather liked.
I'm smelling Professor Snape's hair!
Life was so strange. I wished there was someone I could share this moment with, but the last person on the planet that really knew me was lying in bed next to me having his hair molested by me. I bent my arm under me and laid my head down on it and contemplated his profile. It was…prodigious. Noble, in its way. His face looked younger in his sleep. I guess everyone's does. The harsh lines of strain were gone and his eyes had a gentleness to them that I liked. I liked. I found I was liking a lot about this man. I reached a hand over and laid it on his shoulder under the blankets. My eyes were glued to his face to see if I disturbed him. When no reaction was apparent I slid my hand across his chest and felt the muscles there. I was again surprised by how defined they were. His chest was sharply angled, his shoulders were broad and his waist was narrow so his long torso formed a pronounced triangle. My hands roamed across this new territory and I found I had to breathe through my mouth to stay silent. I felt his lower ribs and then skimmed my hand down his taut, flat belly. His hand grabbed mine so fast I squeaked.
"Hermione, don't. Please, I am only human." His voice was strained.
"I know. I just found that out recently and I find it remarkable."
"Sleep. You do not want to do this…you are just confused by the circumstances." He pushed my hand back towards me. I wriggled it out of his grasp and leaned up to look down on him. His eyes were hooded I could not see them well in the darkness.
"You said it would be my choice." I was suddenly full of doubts. "Unless you do not want…unless you don't find me…I'm…" I was mortified. I started to back away, maybe the loveseat wouldn't be so bad for me, when his hand grabbed mine again.
"No. Don't think that," he said. He brought my hand back to his body and together, his hand and mine, we skimmed down his taut, flat belly and down to the iron hard erection below.
"I have been like this since I saw you downstairs. Gods, I have been like this for weeks since we last met. Do not think that I do not desire you." He took my hand away and brought it up to his mouth and placed a kiss on my open palm. "But do not think that you are under any obligation. I would not ask it of you. Ever. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"
"Yes. Yes I do, and I am profoundly grateful for your gesture, but I find that I want to." I looked into his eyes to stress what I was trying to say. "I have never wanted to before." His breath came out in a deep sigh. He swallowed several times and finally just gave me a short, sharp nod of his head. He was so tense and his whole body was shaking.
I ran my hand back down his body and cupped his length through his trousers.
"Ohhh," he groaned. I could tell he had tried to hold it back but couldn't and the sound made me wet. It felt like my brain was on fire. I undid his trousers quickly and reached inside. When I clutched him he spasmed and gave voice to a ragged howl that made me feel so incredible. Three strokes and then his cock pulsed in my hand as he came screaming 'fuck!' repeatedly. I'm sure he was mortified, but me? It made me feel so desired.
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