I can't do a memorial story for Alan Rickman. It would be too painful. However, I can do this…
Severus' —their?— bedroom was a large, square room with smooth walls of midnight blue. His scent was everywhere. Hermione shucked off her shoes and let her toes curl into the deep, soft carpet. She wasn't looking at the bed…
Her nerves pinched in her belly. This was her idea. And she wanted it and him. Merlin, where was her spine? She looked at the bed. A vast, ebony-wooded monster, with a dark silk canopy and layers of silks and pillows. It was…decadent. And not something she thought that the austere Potions Master would find his rest in. Though he didn't plan to rest, did he?
Severus sighed. "Foy believes that I need a nest. Hence the plethora of pillows."
"He cares for you a great deal."
"He does." With a flick of his wand, the pillows were piled on a nearby chair. "He knew." Severus ran his palm over his hair. "What Albus asked of me. Gods, he was angry." A wry smile ticked at the corner of his mouth. "And he shared it with the other Hogwarts elves. Albus had his sweet dish empty for a whole week."
Hermione's heart tightened. "Then, that year, you weren't totally alone?"
"Not totally, no."
Her hand hesitated, before her fingers stroked the smooth sleeve of his frockcoat. He looked prim again, having tidied himself up on the way up the narrow stairs. She liked the look. Just as much as the annoying-Minerva Severus Snape. "Good. I'm glad."
Severus looked down at her, that strange little smile still there and he teased back the wild strands of her hair. A long breath escaped him. "Marry me."
Hermione blinked, her mouth opening and closing. Hadn't she already agreed to that? She was here in his bedroom, ready to seal their bond, commit her life to him…
"I cannot present you with a ring." His hand brushed over her bare ring finger, the touch light and flickering heat under her skin. "When our bond is…proven, magic will mark it there. A sign for others."
He looked at her, his dark eyes fathomless. She could lose herself in his gaze…
"I would like to think," his voice was soft, as much a caress as his fingers, "that perhaps, years from now -perhaps, six- that we would have found this moment ourselves." His gaze fixed on her hand, watching his thumb slide a tantalising stoke across her skin, again and again, increasingly teasing and forcing her breath to hitch. "That we would be standing here, you a world-renowned Charms Master and I," his hand slipped over the bare skin of her wrist to her arm, "a not quite so bitter –but still remarkably taciturn— Headmaster."
Hermione's heart pounded. The slide of his palm, the tease of his fingers over her bare skin and his words… "Where would be have met again, Severus?"
His head tilted as he eased the strap of her dress over her shoulder. He traced the line of her exposed collarbone. "I would not have approached you as an apprentice. Nor have something as prosaic as us finding each other at a Grand Ball." He drew a line to her other collarbone and the other strap to her dress fell away. "Though to see you in your finery…" His eyes held hers and she forgot to breathe. Such darkness and heat. "Another pleasure that awaits me."
Her imagination conjured the proper time and place. "Early summer. The Livraria Chardron in Porto. On the staircase."
"Where else?" He cupped her shoulders before his hands slid down over her shoulder blades. A cool hint of magic chased down the zip and her dress loosened. Severus stepped closer. "Would you ignore me, Hermione? Try to slip past your former, not-quite-so hated Professor?"
The sly tease in his voice made her smirk up at him. "Fishing for compliments, Headmaster?" She pulled in her courage and let her dress fall free to pool at her feet. She lifted her chin, fighting the blush that she was sure reached all the way down to her bra-clad breasts. "I would be…coolly polite. And would keep it to myself how I ached to do this…" She snaked a path down and between the carved-jet buttons of his frockcoat. Her fingers curled away. "We would met again a fortnight later in Milan."
Severus hands dipped to her waist and she shivered under his slow caress. "My, we are well-travelled."
"It's the summer and we have no ties."
He lifted an eyebrow, before his lips brushed against her temple. "None?" The question was little more than a rumble. "You're…what?Twenty six, I believe. No one in that time has pursued and…caught you?"
Without Ron's proposal she would never have known of her soul-mate bond with Severus. Uncommitted sex would still be an option. A possibility… Her chest tightened. Severus' scent wrapped around her fresh, the tantalising hints of skin and something so essentially male. And there…the delicious, enticing hints of her Amortentia scents. No… In that moment, with his heat, the tension, the promise of what was to come, she didn't believe she could want anyone else.
"No. No one would've caught my eye. Or I, theirs. No one would've spared a second glace at Hermione Granger, the wild-haired, ink-stained bookworm."
His lips brushed the shell of her ear. "My wild-haired, ink-stained bookworm…"
Hermione couldn't stop the escaping little whimper. She pressed her forehead to the warmth of his coat. "Gods, Severus."
His velvet voice wrapped yet more enticement around her. "In Milan, I would invite you to take coffee with me." His finger drew a slow line across the band of her knickers and she squeezed her eyes shut against the low, tight pulse in her belly. "You –with your newly revealed fascination with my buttons— would agree."
"I would. Yes."
The words tumbled out. He'd hardly touched her and her skin was on fire, her thoughts a mess. She wet dried lips and focused. She wanted to spin out this scene, give them a logical, concrete foundation to such a magic-touched start to their life together.
"We would lose hours…and at the end, with the waiters giving us the evil eye, because they wanted to shut up and go home, I would live up to being a Gryffindor and…and kiss you."
She looked up at him, her heart in her throat. She could almost feel the warmth of an Italian night, the dim light of the few streetlights seemingly caught in his dark eyes. She stretched up onto her toes and sucked on his full bottom lip. She grinned at him. "Just like that."
"And I would say…"
Hermione squeaked as Severus' large hands cupped her backside and lifted her up, her hands scrambling for his neck as her legs wrapped around his waist.
"…that you need lessons in kissing, Miss Granger."
She glared at him, her eyes finally level with his. "I'm a very good kisser, I'll have you know, Headmaster Snape."
"Will you prove it to me in that little back street in Milan?"
"Yes. Yes, I will." A smile broke from her at the silliness of her declaration. Her face flushed.
"And so we kiss."
Severus' lips brushed hers. Something sweet and slow. Her fingers threaded through his hair and she opened her mouth to him, to the heat of his tongue and to a deepening of the kiss that whipped the fire surging in her veins. She breathed a mewl into his mouth as his hands squeezed, urging her against him. The strangely delicious bite of his buttons into her bared flesh—
"So…" He dropped a light kiss to her parted lips. "We have…recognised an interest in Milan. Now," he carried her towards the bed and her pulse rocketed and she rolled her hips against him, nervous and wanting her ache to be eased, "I am a cautious man. I withdraw."
He placed her on the bed and stepped back. His long fingers slipped over the carved buttons of his frockcoat. Light gilded him and his slow, slow tease. So this was why he'd straightened himself up. She completely approved.
His declaration hit her. Withdraw? Hermione blinked, pulling her attention away from the tantalising reveal of his snow-white shirt. Her gaze fixed on him. "And I'm having none of that." She smirked at the dark amusement in his eyes. His coat drifted to a chair and he untucked his shirt. Again. "I am…tenacious."
His eyebrow lifted, his fingers pausing at his throat. "Really?"
That single look, the single word throbbed through her and she crossed her legs, and fought not to wriggle on the smooth bed cover.
A smile quirked his mouth. "Is there something the matter, Miss Granger?"
His smooth, dark voice rumbled over her and she wanted him. Naked. In this bed. Inside of her. How could anyone deny them this…connection? The wizarding world would rue this day, a day it tried to take away what was hers.
"You are principal speaker at a Potions Conference in Prague a week after Milan."
"Again with the travelling," he murmured and the shirt joined his coat on the chair. "Such a busy life I lead."
His chest was silver with scars, a thin black line of hair chasing down to the band of his trousers. She fisted the bed cover, trying to remember the tale she wanted to weave. Of a dark auditorium and him, standing at a lectern, a tall, black-clad wizard…whose fierce power radiated from him. Sure and proud…
He toed off his boots and socks. And her mouth dried as his dextrous fingers turned to the placket of his trousers, all thoughts disintegrating. He smirked at her, looking up at her through his long, thick lashes. "You were saying…?
Her mouth opened. "Prague." It came out on a strangled breath. "I have memorised your schedule."
"Yes, you are a know-it-all, aren't you?"
"I am in the front row, in your direct line of sight." She held his gaze. That endless dark. The heat and power of him. Everything she wanted. "I'm prim and proper. Master Granger. Charms prodigy. But the only thing anyone thinks of when they see me is the ongoing bet. The one that's been with me since school. Namely how many cats I'll have when a nervous colleague, in a hundred and fifty years time, finds my half-chewed corpse."
Severus' eyes narrowed. "The Weasley twins."
She nodded.
"I will be having…words."
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "No one believes me when I tell them you're so sweet."
"Prague. I am holding your gaze."
His trousers joined the rest of his clothes and Hermione bit her lip. She stared. Stared hard. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She'd felt it pressed against her, wanted it, gods how she wanted it, but there, the reality—
"Hermione…"
He cupped her cheek and her eyes jolted to his. "I…"
"I promise," his voice was soft and sincere, "I'm packing a monster and you won't walk straight for a week."
She stared at him, hardly believing… And then a wild peal of laughter burst out. She slapped her hand to her mouth, and half-snorts broke from her. She wagged a disapproving finger at him. "You!" escaped her several times in between breathless giggles.
His eyes shone. "Prague, Miss Granger."
Hermione glared at him, but didn't complain as he moved to stand between her thighs. The alien brush of his skin against hers, so rough against the smoothness of her own legs, and it danced desire under her skin. She pressed a hesitant hand to his chest, feeling the solid beat of his heart. He was all shadow and heat and skin. Gods…
"The prim charms master." Her head tilted. "Who is sitting watching you. And is the naughty little witch who isn't wearing her knickers that afternoon, whilst her thoughts are filled with such licentious images." She drew a finger over his flat stomach—smirking as his breath hitched—and followed the tantalising trail of dark hair. "Taking you into her mouth as you lecture. Licking and sucking. Tasting…"
With a groan, Severus took her mouth.
They toppled to the bed in a delicious tangle of limbs. Magic flared over their skin, his or hers or the soul-bond itself, Hermione didn't know, but all barrier of clothes simply…vanished.
She gasped at the press of him, so close to the wild ache in her flesh. Her hips pushed against his and Severus swore.
"I want more. Not a fuck, not—"
Hermione wrapped her legs around him. She was a bloody Gyffindor and she wanted this man. He was hers. Her soul-mate. The perfect wizard for her. With their luck some disaster would strike, dragging them apart. She pressed a kiss to his mouth. "Fuck now. Slow later. The wedding breakfast is getting cold."
His laughter rocked him against her in such…interesting ways. He murmured a contraception spell before he asked, "So this is what happens after Prague? I'm dragged off and you have your wicked way with me?"
"Yes. Absolutely." Her hands slipped over his back, delighting in the heat of his skin, the smooth run of muscle and it simply being…him. Her thoughts were tangled. This was right. So right. And it would only get better. "Gods, Severus… Please."
His fingers teased the crease of her thigh and she squeaked, squirming against the intimate touch, wanting it, and fighting it as it overwhelmed her senses. And then he stroked her clit—
She bucked against him, arching, straining as a sudden flare of heat smashed over her. Gods. Gods… Was that…? Had that been…? And pressure as he pushed, tight and hot, with his firm hand on her thigh, and his eyes. Merlin… Fierce and wild...free. Hermione couldn't breathe. Didn't want to. That moment was her everything. She wanted to savour it. Her first time. Their first time. And still he pushed deeper... More of him. All of him.
She pressed her hand to his jaw, her thumb dragging at his parted lips. And the magic of the soul-bond, surging over them and around, fire and light and heat. Her tears leaked. It was all so unbelievably right. She met his hips in a slow, slow grind, the pleasure of it a white fire in her flesh. "More." It was a growl. Hardly her own voice. But she needed it. Needed him. "Fuck your wife, Severus Snape."
His black gaze fixed on her, and a dark, wanton smile touched his mouth. He drew back with an easy twist of his hips that pulled a gasp from her…and thrust forward. "If you…insist."
Hermione arced under him, fisting his hair, snatching at his shoulder. "Yes…" She met another hard stroke that fed the tightening coil of need in her belly. And another, Severus driving, pounding, taking her, making her his. As she made him hers. Together. A wild, ferocious claiming.
And there… There. A blistering surge of magic and pleasure, smashing over them both. Fixing their souls. Joining them. Always. Always—
Hermione cried out, lost in him, his touch, his power. Wanting him with her. For him to have the same wild run of pleasure—
"Gods, Hermione..."
His fierce, uneven thrusts, caught and whipped her own joy and broke another hot wave over her flesh. She found his mouth, kissing, biting, taking…until the kisses slowed into a soft, soft tasting, a tease, gentle sighs…and his forehead against hers with his brilliant eyes closed. She pressed light kisses to the thick, black sweep of his eyelashes.
Severus sighed and pulled her to him, burying his face in the wild mess of her hair. His lips burned against her ear and a murmured "Thank you" forced fresh tears.
"You never have to thank me." Her throat tightened. "Never."
Severus eased onto his back and tucked her into his side. He let out a long breath and for a moment, a blissful silence held them. Perfect peace. Beautiful. Just them. As one. And in that moment, Hermione loved...and felt loved.
The last light of the day slanted across the bed and with it, Severus lifted her hand, his thumb tracing over the dark patch of skin on her ring finger. "It's official," he murmured.
A black ring twisted around his own finger and she let out a happy little sigh…as her stomach growled. Something long and low, as if she hadn't had food for a month.
Severus slid her a look. "The wedding breakfast is required?"
Embarrassed, she nodded and let him sit up in the bed. He called for his wand, flicking out a spell and Foy's little feast appeared on sliver trays above the sheets. The rich scents of venison and truffles, shellfish, an extravagant soufflé, little cakes, coffee and champagne smacked into her. Her stomach growled again. And Severus laughed.
"Have I made you hungry, my dear?"
The endearment tugged at her. Was she? Had that moment before been real? True? She pulled in her courage, even as her pulse rioted. "We left one thing out of our travels." He lifted his eyebrow. "Where do we fall in love, Severus?"
He performed a securing spell, ensuring nothing spilled or slipped before he turned to her. He cupped her cheek, his gaze soft. "Here." A smile lifted his lips. "And now."
She gasped, slapped her fingers to her lips and blinked. Hard. Tears fell anyway. "I think, I think this has been happening all year." She pressed her lips together again, unsure. Hopeful. "Hasn't it?"
"Yes." He wiped the tears from her eyes. "Yes, it has."
Severus went back to arranging the trays on the rumpled bed and she pulled herself back together. Love. The start of it at least. So unexpected…and wanted. There was desire, yes. And she hoped he'd liked her. But love? Truly? She bit her lip to deny a stupid grin and his dark gaze slid to her.
"If you have finished squeaking…?" He lifted an imperious eyebrow and Hermione wanted to throw herself at him again.
Had she squeaked? She didn't care.
"Your food, madam."
Oh, she did like him all snarky and imperious. And told him so, to his soft chuckle before she fell on her food. She ate as if she hadn't seen a meal in a week, demolishing Foy's beautifully prepared banquet. Who knew great sex could make her quite so ravenous?
With a flick of his wand, Severus sent the plates and remains back to the kitchen. Hermione full and happy snuggled up against him. She wrapped her arms around him till he grunted. He smelt of her and him, of sex and pleasure. Of lust and of…love. The perfect combination. "No, you were absolutely right. I can't walk. For at least a month." She pressed her chin to his chest and smirked up at him. "In your professional opinion, as my official debaucher, do you recommend staying in bed?"
He pushed back a tangled strand of her hair, his dark gaze stern. His lips twitched. "Yes, Madam Snape, I recommend complete bed rest." He kissed her temple and let out a soft, satisfied sigh. "Sleep, my wife."
She opened one eye. "And there will be more debauching later?"
"I promise." His smile curved against her skin. "Forever…and always."
I have to think that two such clever people need to engage their minds as well as their bodies. :)
As ever, let me know what you think.
Next week: Severus meets the parents. And there will be…words.