A/N: A huge thanks to my new beta, thepurplewombat! Also, fair warning: welcome to another smut chapter. It's been a while.
The loft was exactly as Severus left it. He wondered briefly if he really ought to start referring to it as his home, finally, as he placed his traveling bags on the island in the kitchen. It was home, he knew, even as the pang of longing for Kowloon settled in the hollow of his throat. Never let it be said that Severus Snape was as acutely decisive as he liked to pretend to be.
He filled up the kettle from the sink, somehow still preferring the muggle way of brewing tea. It was the small ritual of the thing he liked. Boil water, patience. Drop in tea, ponder eternity. Let it cool, embrace the monotony of time one has no control over. Reap the rewards in varying degrees of sweetness and bitterness.
"You're home."
Bloody-fucking-motherless-cock-sucking-fiendfyre-fuck-hell. He didn't even notice another presence in the loft. He was on a knee taking cover behind the island before he could stop himself. Before the sound of the voice registered with the appropriate receptors in his brain. Light, feminine with a full bodied pitch. Granger.
Granger, with a poorly concealed smile playing across her face. That halo of honey curls framing her face. A slight flush to her cheeks, a laugh in her eyes. "You're getting soft, Snape," she teased.
He huffed, rising back to his full height. He ran his hands along the wood of the island, attempting to bring the adrenaline back down. "You set wards in my loft?"
She nodded. "I knew it was protected, but, you can never be too careful and well…" She shook her head. Her shoulders tensed slightly, and relaxed. She let something go, and he wasn't sure what. "Oh, fuck it."
Fuck it, she said, as she closed the distance between them faster than he anticipated. Her hands cupped his face and her lips were on his before propriety could object. She was earnest, her mouth forcing his open as she rose to the balls of her feet to claim him. Tongue demanding the taste of him. It apparently didn't matter that he was travel worn, smelling vaguely of sweat and foreign soil. She needed something from him, badly, and he wasn't sure he had the power to deny her.
Slender pale hands gripped her by the hips, pulling her away just enough to watch the flush engulf her entire face. Those brown eyes shining with their own dark, wicked thing. She had the look of someone who had been denied oxygen for too long, desperate and almost hungry. There was no time for a role reversal. No time to put each of them in their properly labeled boxes. It terrified him.
Something in his eyes must have answered her own darkness, because she grinned wickedly up at him, closing the distance between their bodies again, hips pinning him against the wood counter. "Fuck it," he growled.
Fuck it, as he let her flood him. Overwhelm his thought patterns and overwrite everything he thought he wanted in a gust of hands, nails, teeth and those god damn hips. He dug short nails into them, the only thing keeping him afloat in the middle of the storm.
She dragged him away from the counter, his feet dancing backward as she nearly slammed him against a wall. His rear smacking against the brick uncomfortably before she grabbed him by the belt loops of his trousers, pulling his hips back to her. The incredibly human response he couldn't have hid if he wanted to drew echoing sighs from the both of them.
"A month. No word." The words a growl, a grunt, an accusation. Loud above the nips at his neck and her hands ripping away his blazer.
He said nothing, remaining pliable in her hands, unsure if he should try and stem the tide or enjoy the process of drowning.
"A month, you bastard. I was starting to think…" She didn't finish the thought. Just shook her head.
Small hands tugged his white shirt free from his trousers and they stilled against the flesh of his stomach. The warmth of his skin seeming to slow her down long enough to think. "You don't get to leave the way you did before, understand?"
The thought that crossed his mind ran him straight through the chest. He didn't want to think, especially about his own demise. Not now. Not with blood loudly pounding in his ears and elsewhere. Not when this beautiful storm had the very real power to wash him away completely.
They stood in the eye of it for a moment. Two. Her eyes trained on the buttons of his shirt, hands splayed against his sides, trapping his slim waist between them. It made his chest hurt, somewhere near the place where the pain for Kowloon settled in. She missed him, and didn't want him to die (again.)
Had anyone ever actually missed him? He was quite sure his mother never did, always giving him the same pained look of resigned grief whenever he returned from Hogwarts. His father sure as hell never had. In his father's eyes, he was just a gaping maw of waste. A walking, talking black hole where money always seemed to disappear to.
Had Lily?
Hermione's hands twined through his hair. He flinched, self- conscious at the state of it. It's current texture embarrassingly familiar to him. She pulled him down by it, bringing his ridiculous nose to hers. "Do you understand me?" She demanded.
He dipped his head slightly.
She smiled at him and let her forehead rest against his. "Good. Now, where was I?"
He stepped away from the wall, a foot coming between hers and pivoted. He slammed her against the wall, holding her chin in his hand to keep her head from meeting the same fate as the rest of her. "Fuck it, I believe?"
She nodded, hands coming back under his shirt to rest at his waist again. "Right, right. Fuck it." She used her hips to push away from the wall, walking him back across the floor. Her mouth working at his with renewed fervor. It was easier now somehow, still hungry, but a touch less frantic.
His knees hit the back of something and with a firm push to his chest, he was down. Long legs splayed as he tipped backward onto the thrice-damned futon. She crawled across him, legs pinning him still with hands firmly planted on his chest. He didn't care that his legs fell asleep as she raked her nails down his sides. As those small hands played at the buttons up his shirt, parted the fabric and just rested on his chest. She breathed in time with the frantic rhythm under her hands
He struggled to find the words in the storm. Snatching the easiest ones he could think of. "I'll take this to indicate that you missed me, Granger?"
She rocked her hips forward, and his brain short circuited.
"Do shut up, Snape."
He nodded, a sheepish smile on his face.
At some point, he demanded she either stop or finish what she started. Sometime after his hand held hers firmly against his erection and her lips were swollen with mindless needy lust. To her credit, and his own chagrin, she stopped. Growling something about the right time and both of them needing a shower. He despised her self-control. He admired it.
Though he wasn't sure when the last time he had such an enjoyable solo adventure after being wound tighter than a clock spring. The pain of it was exquisite, and he bit back a moan as his hips thrust into his palm. Teeth sinking into his shoulder as he came. The hot water beating a merciful staccato atop his head and down his back.
Severus retrieved the fresh pair of trousers he left on the edge of the sink and threw the towel around his shoulders. He hissed as the sudden change in temperature from outside the bathroom hit him, the steam dissipating in a quick huff with the open door.
He found her curled up on his bed, like a contented cat. Dead center like she owned the damn thing. He hated it. Pale fingers played at the ends of the hair that framed her face. She had fallen asleep, sometime after her own shower and, he hoped, her own release. They had both carried too much.
"I missed you too, pet." The words a quiet whisper.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, playing with her hair. Long enough for his skin and the towel around his neck to grow cold. At some point, she turned her face to his palm and tasted the salt of his skin. He nearly laughed.
"It's in my bag if you want it," she mumbled. Her voice still husky from sleep.
"What is?"
She yawned, stretched, and rolled onto her stomach, making room for him. "My homework."
The smile broke out across his face before he could help himself. "Good girl."
She hummed.
It is said in some mythos, that a feather is about the same weight as the human heart. Severus tested the weight of her words in his hands. Were they the same as her heart, or lighter? He read them as she slept, hand idly trapped in her hair. Some of her days more insightful than others. Some days filled with a reluctance to face the thing that ate at her, and a desire to fling herself at the feet of anything to dull the ache. Other days she was willing to touch it. Willing to face it with a stubborn, resigned courage. To dismantle her own anxieties with bald logic. He filed away her fears, her curiosities, her surprisingly creative scene ideas, away in the box labeled 'Pet' in his head. He made an additional mental note to find an excuse to raid her flat for ideas of items to transfigure.
A small, delicate hand clumsily slipped up this thigh. A dark eyebrow rose as he watched slim fingers, drunk on too little sleep, walk their way upward. They veered out to his hip, stumbled at the waistband of his trousers. A pause, hesitant, before slipping to the skin of his pale waist.
"Have you ever seen the sun?" She asked.
He knew she meant it playfully, but his answer was the same. "Never."
"So the rumors of your vampirism haven't been totally unfounded?"
He scoffed. "Honestly, Granger."
She began noting points in her fingers. "Never sees the sun. Enjoys employing teeth on necks. Has an uncanny ability to billow a cape for dramatic effect. Did we ever see if your reflection is visible?"
He looked down at her, a wicked smirk on his lips. "I believe we tested the mirror theory already. You seemed to rather enjoy it if I recall."
She sputtered. "Quite."
He basked in it, shameless. "And your conclusion?"
Hermione sighed, rolling onto her stomach. "Only human."
"Isn't that enough?" He asked.
There was a note in it, something curious and bitter. She caught it in her hands as she raised herself up and put a finger to his lips.
Isn't that enough?
He didn't expect an answer. He didn't expect her to sprawl across him and drink that note from him until his hands clung to her and his breath came in short bursts. Until war drums beat in his head and the wordless pleas flowed from him like water.
"It's always been enough, Severus." A hushed confession.
He stilled beneath her. Eyes focused sharply on the curve of her swollen lip, unable to meet her eyes. The world was far too big and he was much too small.
Severus Snape was never what one would call a man of god. Filthy with sin from the moment he first sucked air into his lungs. The product of at least seven of St. Paul's grave mortal sins, and any number of venial. He knew he was damned the moment his foot hit the flagstones of the crumbling Saint Mary's Cathedral in Cokeworth. Breath burning in his throat, heart pounding in his ears as he ducked through the heavy wooden doors to avoid his neighborhood tormentors. He gazed into the faces of the statues of saints, some lost in the throes of divine passion, others in seraphic pain. They frightened him then, though he never did come to understand why.
Father Barltrop found him hiding between the pews. A dirty little boy, shaking and sticky with sweat, reeking of neglect and something just north of fear. When the kindly old preacher spoke of god and saints and heaven, Severus wondered briefly if such things were really meant for him. Forgiveness, grace, the golden gates of heaven, all seemed too good to be true. And of course, he was right. For as every preacher proselytizes of heaven, he must also remind the flock of the horrors that await them in the sulfur pits of hell. It was the first time he could recall feeling small. He hated it.
It wasn't long after that he first spotted Lily Evans, all pale legs and peals of laughter that sounded like bells, playing with her sister in that shabby playground. Eyes that shone with something so brilliant he had to look away. She was like looking into the faces of those horrifying saints. He knew then, the true face of heavenly grace.
Severus blinked, black eyes coming back to focus on those deep pools of honey. Even in the darkness, he searched for the burgundy undertones that couldn't hide a thing even if they wanted to. He read a mild fear, a warm curiosity, a heavy worry, and something else he couldn't quite find the words for. Her fingers played around the sharp angles of his jaw. She tilted her head in an unspoken question. Had she said too much? Was she out of line? Had he heard the whisper of his name across her lips?
He swallowed hard.
Her eyes softened then, and she let her fingers trace the line of his jaw, to the jagged raised skin of the scar on his neck. Down the center of his chest and past the second scar toon the right. He sighed as she marked him with featherweight traces of her fingertips and nails. Runes he couldn't recognize, spellwork so delicate he wasn't sure it was real, but it lit up his nerves like a Christmas tree. Every touch cut him to the quick. He bit back her name more than once, nearly swallowing his own tongue. Desperate to maintain some control; to keep her out of the deep recesses of the hollow place she had begun to occupy in his chest.
She kissed a trail of fire down his stomach and he swore, a gentle thing under his breath. She laughed with it, the cheeky little snit. Her pert little nose grazing the strained mound of his trousers and he bit back a moan.
"You don't have to-"
Hermione cut him off with a laugh, shaking curls out of her face. "If you think this is for you, you are entirely mistaken." Something deep rumbled in her voice, something needy and hungry and far more attractive than he was prepared for.
She released him from his cloth confines and held him firmly with elegant fingers, eyes fixed on his face as she did it. Annotating every motion of her hands with its corresponding reaction. Watching as his jaw clenched and his lip curled in a snarl. He was the splintering cracks before breaking. A moth pinned under glass.
When she tasted the salt of him, he was quite sure he found the gates of heaven somewhere behind his eyes. Her fingers drummed delicate prayers along the length of him as her devilish tongue worked its way around the tip. The agonizing, feather light strokes of her lips sent his hips arching off the bed.
He hissed when she finally took him into her mouth. A slow, sharp intake of breath that sent his head reeling. The warmth of her mouth and those blasted cognac honey eyes that just kept fucking watching him. He closed his own, unable to confront the grace in them. Unable to look into the face of angelic scrutiny. It took the last scraps of his control not to watch her through heavy dark lashes. Instead, he went inward, drifting along with the strokes of her mouth. The feel of those silken curls between her fingers. He was entirely Id as she worked.
She was eager, and he was desperate. It was an intoxicating mix, and he held her down for a moment, two, three. He nearly cried out when he hit the back of her throat, a low growl his only gift to her. She struggled slightly under his grip before she tapped his thigh, signaling a need for air. He sighed and finally looked into her face. She was red from the lack of air and the force of his hands on the back of her head. An unreadable smirk playing on her lips as she continued to toy with him.
"I'm sorry, I-"
"Shut up," she said and took the full length of him again. Eagerly taking him to the hilt, working him until her own gag reflex became too much to ignore.
"Fuck, Granger."
She came back up for air, a shameless grin on her face, an elegant eyebrow arched in a mocking question. "Is that all it takes?"
He nodded, an unintelligible sigh of agreement rumbled in his chest.
"Good. Let go," she commanded.
It didn't take long once she found the right combination to send him tumbling over the edge. He tried to raise her head, to give her time to be ready for it, but she was too deep in her work. Steadily working her mouth around him, her hands keeping pace as his hips rose again and again to meet her, the rhythm needy and frantic.
He was nerve endings and fire. He was delivered and damned. He was pain and need and sweet mother have mercy on our ruined broken souls, this girl will be the absolute end of everything. With that beatific mouth that seemed genetically engineered to bring him to rapture and those god damn eyes that burned every inch of him they gazed upon. This beautiful wicked perfect pet with those blasted too-small hands going frantic and erratic and please please please god oh god-
He breathed.
He howled hymns as he spilled into her, back arched. She dug nails into his hips to keep him still as she drank him in.
Sweet mercy, but she was celestial sent to destroy him.
She released him with an audible pop, a finger coming to wipe the last of him from her lips. She kissed him, and he drank down the strange taste of him on her lips. Something masculine and familiar tinged with a sweetness from her he couldn't quite place. They tasted profane and glorious.
She pulled back enough to watch the blush on his cheeks and the boyish sheepish grin in his eyes.
"Holy hell, Granger."
She laughed.
A/N: *phew* That was an adventure. Thanks again to thepurplewombat for taking the time to beta this for me, and agreeing to do more. I am still getting used to writing smut, and I hope you all enjoy it. I had quite a bit of fun with this one.
