A/N: Hey folks, and welcome to the chapter you have all been waiting for. :) This one is a little longer than usual, and I think it features the highest number of horizontal lines and halfway aborted sentences in all the chapters of "Accommodations" so far. I hope you won't mind.

Also, because this is a special occasion, you will receive trigger warnings for this. This chapter features non-con and sexual relations with minors. I suggest you read no further if that is a problem for you.

There is also an OC in this chapter who I coincidentally named similarly to a Marvel character. That is a complete coincidence. I earn no money from writing this fanfiction.

Thank you for your many reviews for the last chapter, I've appreciated every single one of them! But now, I'll let you get to it. Enjoy, and let me know what you like most about this!

Tuesday, December 24th, 1995

"And who might that be, Miss Granger," the professor queried, "your first choice?"

Hermione worried her lower lip for a moment, until Professor Snape stepped forwards and pulled the offending lip from between her teeth, looking as if he might chastise her for making him wait. He remained there, his thumb still pressing on her lower lip and Hermione kissed the digit before answering him.

"Isn't that obvious, professor?" she asked, her lips brushing against the thumb still resting against them as she spoke. "It's you."

This Tuesday had started out as any other Tuesday might, if only different by the fact that it was one free of lessons, because it was the holidays. Severus had enjoyed the silence, the freedom to remain in his own quarters and not face any students nor colleagues, and had set onto something he rarely had the time for – research.

Of course, this research wasn't quite of his own choice, but rather at the command of the Headmaster who had requested a quick remedy for the injuries of one Arthur Weasley, curtesy of Nagini. As it happened, however, Severus had long taken an interest of his own in possible measures that might be taken against the venom of the Dark Lord's familiar, for He was quick to anger and equally swift in carrying out His punishment, and Severus was only waiting for the moment at which said punishment might be carried out by the huge snake at the justice's feet.

Fortunately, the research took his mind off of the annual Christmas meal for friends of the Malfoy family at their manor, for which he had a standing, if inofficial, invitation, and, to top things off, an official invitation in thick silver paper sitting atop his desk. There was no polite way around attending, but Severus would be damned if he let that fact ruin any of his free days, and so he had delved into his research.

It wasn't until late in the afternoon that he experienced a break-through that was worth being called such a thing. Why exactly it was that he hadn't thought to add Essence of Dittany before, which he was nowadays prone to carrying on his body wherever he went, he did not know. Yet when he added a few drops of Dittany to the potion he was working on, it seemed to be the necessary ingredient to heal inner organs which had been affected by the venom.

In the firm knowledge that the Headmaster would want the victim's wife to know of any developments immediately, Severus exhaled a deep sigh and made his way over the school grounds, Disapparating the moment he stepped over the Hogwarts boundaries.

Entering number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Severus was glad to see that nobody was in sight. A localized Homenum revelio revealed the kitchen to contain only one person. Confident that the only one to spend any time in the kitchen alone, while the children were in the house, would be Mrs Weasley, he descended the stairs into the basement to finish the task he'd come here for.

A few minutes later, Severus would curse himself for his inattention. Too glad had he been that he'd escaped the firm grasp of the Weasley matriarch (he believed they called them hugs, and shuddered at the notion), and that he'd managed to talk his way out of a dinner invitation, both for the current and the following Christmas day; all he'd wanted was to leave headquarters as swiftly as possible, lest he stumble upon anyone.

That, in his haste, he would stumble upon the girl, of all people, he had not expected.

Yet there they were, the two of them, and after haphazardly revealing to her his reason for coming to London, he'd even allowed the girl to lead him to a bedroom. Of course, that the room for their 'private conversation' would turn out to contain a luxurious, freshly prepared bed, he had not known beforehand, yet now Severus had to wonder whether he should have known. Her nervousness, her fidgeting, her slightly trembling voice…

He had reacted as any man trapped by a woman in a lavish bedroom might – he had lashed out at her, called her horrible names, and accused her of lying with criminals. No, 'criminals' had not been the word he'd used, of course. He'd said –

And then, she had revealed a couple of things to him. For one, and most importantly, that she was still a virgin. His mind had reeled at that statement alone. Did that mean she had no intention of following his demand in ridding herself of her innocence, subsequently meaning that she had no intention of further attending his private lessons in the new year, which in turn did subsequently mean that she had no intention of acquiescing to his demands of lying with him?

And all of those thoughts came crumbling down when the girl had revealed something further to him, and that revelation had shaken him to the core. She meant for him to be the one, the first, to bed her. Him. It had to be a joke, surely? There was no way a stunning, powerful, independent young witch like her would choose somebody like him to desecrate her.

And yet – something was still nagging at his mind, distracting him even from his own disbelief –

"Protective runes?" Severus asked.

"Yes, professor," the girl affirmed. Noticing that his thumb was still resting against her lips, Severus quickly withdrew his arm from her body.

"Why, Miss Granger?" he sneered. "If you've decided to give yourself willingly, what would you need protection for?"

Rather than be insulted, the girl actually smiled.

"I have been told that there is power in a virgin's blood," she answered, "and these runes make sure to protect that blood from ill intent."

"If you expect me to violently rob you of your blood, Miss Granger," Severus queried with no less malice than before, "why offer yourself to me at all? Why even allow yourself to be alone with me?"

The girl's audacity to widen her smile, though with less confidence in her eyes than her lips sought to pretend, had Severus's blood boiling in anger.

"The blood will not lose all of its power the moment it leaves my body, nor the moment I lose my virginity. It will retain much of its power, and whoever carries the blood, carries the power. These runes pose, indeed, some protection against robbery of the blood, even later on, so that anybody I might freely give the blood to will be supported in maintaining his ownership of it."

Severus ignored the fact that the girl had said 'his ownership' instead of 'their ownership', thus defining the sex of the one she might gift her blood to. Or perhaps, he justified his gross ignorance of this little distinction, he was simply too incensed to have noticed it in the first place.

"If all you need is somebody to help extract the blood, Miss Granger," Severus's sneer was firmly in place and his voice was scathing, "then why not ask the mutt for assistance? Why trouble me?"

"I don't want Sirius," the girl stated simply.

The 'not as much as I want you' was left hanging in the air, unspoken, yet heavy on Severus's soul.

Silence hung between them for a while, with words unspoken filling the room with a tension that was almost palpable. Strike the 'almost,' Hermione thought to herself, the air is so thick that I have trouble breathing.

When it became obvious that he would not speak, Hermione broke the silence instead.

"Will you have me, professor?"

That snapped him out of his reverie.

"I am your teacher, Miss Granger," he spat at her, as if offended at the thought of bedding her.

"And yet, you have no qualms in whoring me out to yourself, professor," Hermione shot back, reminding him of their conversation of earlier. "And here we are, in the least school-like environment we're going to find ourselves in anytime soon, so what better place than to begin this – whatever it is you want from me."

"I want nothing from you, Miss Granger," came the immediate reply.

"You promised to allow me to want something from you, though, professor," Hermione pressed on. "Don't you remember?"

As if that was a conversation he would be able to forget anytime soon, Severus scoffed inwardly. The memory was burned into his mind, the girl sitting in the tub, wholly naked, he assumed, and asking him in that strange voice whether she might be allowed to seek him out if the need gripped her.

"If you will remember, Miss Granger," he countered, "that conversation pertained only to any relations from the year 1996 until the end of the war, and was bound to the condition that you find a discrete way to communicate."

"What way is more discrete than in a safe house in the middle of Muggle London, sir," the girl pressed on, "when everybody is busy doing something else, hidden away in a room rarely used?"

Severus had no words to that.

"And in fact, this has everything to do with your conditions for our continued lessons in the new year," she continued, "as it was your condition that I shed my innocence beforehand, and I have yet been unable to find any suitable… suitors."

That prompted him into speaking once more.

"Have you, though?" he asked. "I had thought that Black was your choice."

"A choice I'd rather not have to make, sir, so please, don't force me to," the girl replied. "Sirius is an agreeable alternative should you reject me, professor, but suitable is not a word I would use to describe him in this particular context."

"Why me?" Severus asked, but it had been too quiet for the girl to hear.

"Please, professor," she begged again, "because it's Christmas?"

Severus scoffed.

"I don't do Christmas, Miss Granger."

"If not for yourself, sir," she tried anew, "then as a present for me?"

"I don't do presents, either," Severus insisted.

"Not for just anybody, you don't, professor," the girl countered, "but for me, you do."

Severus's eyes widened. He remembered gifting her a favour for her birthday. Her sight then had blown him away, pushing him off-kilter, and making him make an ill-advised promise to the girl.

Her sight now, of course, did little to persuade him. She was clad in long, fluffy pants to shield her slender legs from the cold, and a shapeless jumper. Her hair was a mess, not the controlled corkscrew curls he'd become used to over the past three months, and was piled in an equally messy bun atop her head.

In a word, the girl was radiant as ever. Her reasoning was sensible, her logic air-tight. This was no school setting, and tonight could be the most innocent of their meetings of this nature. He had a chance to make it right for her, and yet –

A clock sounded the hour in an adjacent room. A quick Tempus confirmed Severus's fear – he was very nearly late to the Malfoy Christmas Dinner.

Opening his mouth to make his excuses to the girl, for once electing the polite way out rather than just leaving her standing there, he fixed his eyes on hers and found hers staring wide back at him. The expression was one so hopeful, so innocent, that he found the words to finish his earlier abandoned thought.

He had a chance to make it right for her, Severus knew, and yet he had no experience with virgins.

"Miss Granger," he began, but was cut off.

"Please, sir," the girl pleaded with him. Stepping forward, she crossed the few inches that had separated them before and put her hands flat against his chest. Severus was certain she must feel the erratic beating of his heart thrumming a staccato against her fingers.

"Please," she whispered once more, and Severus was lost.

Severus was lost to the present and transported back to the first Malfoy Christmas Dinner he had ever attended. It had been lavish, like everything he had come to expect from the Malfoy family, and a grand affair. Everybody who was anybody had been attending, even some of the minor Pureblood families, those stemmed from lesser sons and younger daughters of the Sacred Twenty-eight, who had been forced to take on a lesser name if they wanted to have their own family.

Lucius had left school by the time Severus was first invited to one of these Christmas dinners, but many weeks had been spent together at Malfoy Manor during the summers. Severus had learned the ways of the aristocracy, as Abraxas had been fond to teach him, and had revelled in the magnitude of the Malfoy library. This Christmas, shortly before Severus would be turning fifteen, he appeared to have been deemed groomed enough for polite society.

Never had Severus felt more out of place than at this first Malfoy Christmas Dinner, he remembered. Around him had been the crème de la crème of wizarding society, and even those with lesser names were still worlds above him in social standing. And yet, he had been introduced to powerful and influential wizards left and right, Abraxas showing him around the room, until Lucius had excused the two of them.

He had drawn Severus into an adjacent parlour, where a governess was watching over a group of young girls, none older than twenty, Severus guessed, who were not allowed to mingle with adults and men.

"Choose one," Lucius had whispered into his ear, although loud enough for the girls and their governess to hear. He had laughed at the shocked look on Severus's face, nudged him in the ribs, and inclined his head towards the girls.

"Why?" Severus had asked, and Lucius had become impatient.

"Fine," he had said, "I'll do it for you then. Still into redheads?"

When Severus had merely blushed, Lucius had sauntered over to a young girl with auburn curls, had offered his hand, and dragged her out of the room when she'd accepted it. The governess had huffed at an embarrassed Severus, still standing in the room, now alone with a group of women, and he had hastened to follow his older friend.

Lucius had crossed back into the ballroom where everybody else was chatting and drinking – dinner had not even begun yet, this was the gathering before the table would be set – and was climbing the elaborate stairs to the first floor. Glancing behind him to see if Severus was following, the blonde man let his eyes scan the guests in the ballroom, and eventually focused on one of them. Severus followed Lucius's gaze just in time to see a middle-aged man nod at the Malfoy heir, before the three of them had reached the first floor.

Lucius had led them, Severus and the redheaded girl, along a few corridors, around a couple of corners, before opening the double doors to a lavish bedroom and leading the girl inside.

"Make yourself comfortable on the bed, my dear," he had said, before ushering Severus inside and warding the door against any escaping sounds.

Severus did not walk far from the door. In fact, he stood so close to his only exit that he felt the crease the doorframe made in his robes. His eyes sought to avoid looking at the girl, but he could not help noticing how beautiful she was. She must be about his own age, about Lily's age, and he knew that Lucius had selected her for that sole reason. What he had selected her for, he dared not think, though he believed that he knew that as well.

"What is your name, Miss Carlysle?" Lucius asked the slightly trembling girl just then. As the Malfoy heir, it was expected of him to know the guests attending the Christmas dinner. He had no doubt recognized her father who had seen his daughter climb the stairs at the arm of his host's son.

"Vanyssa, my lord," she answered quietly.

"And just how old might you be?"

"Sixteen, my lord."

"Beauxbatons or home-schooled?"

"Beauxbatons, my lord."

"I wonder," Lucius said, all the while stalking closer to the bed at a deliberately slow pace, "if those blue school robes go as well with your beautiful cornflower eyes as I imagine."

She had no answer to that.

Lucius mustered her intently. Severus watched on, his breath coming shorter than usual.

"Do you know why you are here, Vanyssa Carlysle?" Lucius eventually asked.

"I believe so, my lord," she whispered. A single tear ran down her rosy cheek, smearing the powder.

"Why don't you tell my friend Severus here," Lucius suggested, waving in his younger friend's direction, "why you are here."

"I am here because my father wishes for me to please you, my lord," she breathed, her gaze never leaving where it was fixed on her hands, wrung in her lap.

"Severus is no lord, my dear," Lucius laughed, "and your father wishes far more from you than to simply please me, though that is, of course, part of your task. Do you know," he now turned towards Severus, "why some men bring their daughters to these parties and some don't?"

"I – no," Severus stammered, and despite the acoustical similarity, Lucius understood his reply to signal his lack of knowledge.

"Some of the lesser Houses, like the Carlysles," he began to explain, "have high hopes of marrying into the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Young Vanyssa here is such a hope to her father. Her task this evening is to spread her legs for me, and leave this house with a Malfoy bastard in her belly. A bastard her father hopes my father will legitimize by marrying the girl to me, making the result of her lost virginity the next heir to one of the greatest Houses of wizarding England. You are a virgin, are you not?" Lucius asked, as if in an afterthought, and before the girl could answer, there was a golden glow surrounding her shivering form on the bed, brought about by a flick of Lucius's wand.

"You are," he said, obviously satisfied. "Now, Vanyssa, let me explain the task I have for you tonight. After I am done with you – because we would not want to disappoint your father by sending you back still virginal, now, would we? –, you will accommodate my friend here. You see, he is on the brink of crossing into manhood, and you will be the one to lead him there. Isn't this exciting?"

"Yes, my lord," Vanyssa replied automatically, though the fear was screaming in her expression so loudly that Severus flinched when her eyes eventually landed on his.

"Marvellous," Lucius grinned, and motioned for Severus to come closer.

"Get over here now, Severus, I wouldn't want you to miss a thing."

And Severus didn't miss a thing. Much as he wanted to close his eyes to the horror of a young girl getting defiled against her will, much as he wanted to spew all over the rich, expensive carpet covering the lavish guest room at the thought that a man would whore his daughter out on the small hope of becoming part of a powerful, more prestigious family, he stayed where he was, his eyes wide open. For deep inside, he was still a teenage boy on the brink of becoming a man, and he was excited to learn what all the fuss was about, and eager not to embarrass himself in front of Lucius who he knew would later be watching him in turn.

And so he watched on as Lucius demonstrated the Divesto spell, pulled a trembling and now openly, though silently crying Vanyssa closer to the edge of the bed, rested one of her feet against his shoulder and shoved the other downwards, so that Severus could see how he penetrated her, and studied every plunge of Lucius's cock into her centre.

When Lucius tensed and then pulled out, Severus knew it was his turn. As his friend had not undressed, other than open and slightly lower his dress pants, Severus did the same. He took his position between Vanyssa's thighs and entered her as Lucius had done. Immediately upon bottoming out inside her, Severus felt that he wouldn't last long. Occlumency, which he'd been studying for a few months already, helped keep his rising orgasm in check, but it wasn't long before her tight wetness proved simply too much for him. In that moment, it didn't matter to him that the girl beneath him was openly crying, her makeup smeared with streaks of liquid salt, or that her wetness came only from her own blood and his friend's seed; Severus felt pleasure as he'd never felt before. When his orgasm came over him like a storm, he was too surprised and too caught up in the sensation to pull out, and he ended up adding his own release to Lucius's.

When Vanyssa realized that, she began to sob loudly, cursing Severus for what he'd done, defiling her in such a way. Lucius's next words silenced her right up.

"Don't worry, Miss Carlysle," he said, all young lord of the manor now, "no bastard will be growing in your belly. No Snape, and no Malfoy, either."

A swish of his wand had all evidence that the past hour had ever happened vanish from her body. A few more flicks righted Severus's and Lucius's own clothing, and they were out the door. Before shutting the double doors behind him, Lucius leaned back into the room.

"There is a mirror and water in the adjoining bathroom, Miss Carlysle," he offered. "We wouldn't want anybody to see you like that, now, would we?"

"Please," Hermione said once more, and the professor's gaze sharpened, as if he was coming back from a memory of a time long gone by.

"No, Miss Granger," he simply replied.

"Please, sir," she pleaded, "please, let me –"

"No, Miss Granger," he reiterated, louder this time. "You are not prepared for what I have to offer you, and –"

"Then help me, professor," she begged. "Help me prepare, show me how, please, professor, I –"

"Stop it," he whispered, yet the quietness of his words had an impact on Hermione as if he'd screamed at her.

She stopped.

She watched on, anticipation and nerves whipping her heart to take on an erratic rhythm that Hermione was certain her chest might explode, as Professor Snape took a number of calm, deep breaths.

"Remove your clothes from the waist down, Miss Granger," he eventually spoke into the silence, "and sit on the desk over there."

Hermione merely looked at him, completely bedazzled.

"But sir," she began to say, "surely the bed would be –"

"You asked me to help you prepare, Miss Granger," he cut her off. "So kindly allow me to do as you asked."

The girl nodded and, without any further ado, removed her pants and knickers. Severus had to stifle a gasp as he saw the emerald green silk with the white borders.

Innocent as a pine covered in the first fall of snow, he thought to himself, and felt even more uncomfortable and inadequate than before. There had never been another virgin for him, not after accepting Lucius's sloppy seconds that Christmas so shortly before his sixteenth birthday. It had simply been unthinkable for Severus to touch something, someone, who had previously been untouched. He had tortured countless people, of course, innocents most of them, since joining the Dark Lord's ranks, but he had never defiled a virgin, or forced himself on anybody, virginal or not, since Vanyssa Carlysle.

Lucius had later told him that Abraxas wouldn't let him marry Narcissa Black before his twenty-first birthday, so that he could have his fair share of girls. Severus had been abhorred to find out that his older, much respected friend abused the privilege that came with his family's name to violate quite the number of girls, most of them virgins, leaving them with much worse prospects for a good marriage than they had had before lying with him.

It didn't take long for Severus to find out, either, that Lucius had actually held back that Christmas, though he knew that it had been more for his own, Severus's, sake than for Vanyssa's. Lucius's taste and preferred kinks were rather advanced for someone as young as Severus, and he had not wanted to scare his friend with chains and whips and all the other toys that could be found in the Malfoy dungeons.

With the girl standing before him in her shapeless jumper and green silk knickers, Severus vowed never to allow Lucius Malfoy to possess her.

Hermione forced herself to remain calm and keep her back straight underneath Professor Snape's blazing gaze travelling over her body. She had only taken off her pants so far, but already his eyes were devouring her.

A certain sense of confidence made her chest swell with pride formerly unknown, pride at making an accomplished man like the one standing before her desire her. More so, making him lose his cool by letting his mask slip and showing her with his eyes, knowingly or not, that he desired her.

Suddenly her shyness returned, though, when she remembered that she still needed to remove her knickers and stockings. From the waist down, he'd said, and from the waist down would need to be done. After all, how else would they accomplish what they were here to do?

It unsettled Hermione more than a little that the Potions Master had insisted on using the desk for whatever he had in mind. It would not do for the ritual to be in vain. Of course, there were other ways to utilize her blood if they did it anywhere other than within the runic cycle underneath the bed sheets, but Hermione would not allow things to come to that. If the professor did not agree to the bed, Hermione would insist he leave.

But before that happened, she decided to trust him. He had agreed to prepare her, now, hadn't he? Whatever those preparations might entail, Hermione would go with where he led her.

That didn't mean that she was going to undress while facing him, though. She took a few steps towards the desk, if only to create some distance between the pair of them while she still could – Circe knew that distance would need to vanish into inexistence later on – and bent over to remove her knickers.

Somewhere behind her, she heard a groan. Hermione started, almost falling over in her precarious position, bent over with her knickers around her ankles as she was, but managed to regain her balance and stood straight once more. For a moment she thought that the only one to emit that noise could have been Professor Snape. But then again, the professor would never get so carried away as to utter anything of such nature, much less a groan, so she must surely have imagined it.

Distracted by the noise, or non-noise, whatever which it had been, Hermione hopped onto the desk. Keeping her legs firmly closed, and glad for the long hem of the jumper hiding her assets from the professor's view, she sat there. After a moment of silence, she realized that her stockings were still on. She had failed in his assignment to undress.

"Oh," she exclaimed, now far more embarrassed at her inattention than she might have been had she been sitting with her thighs wide open in front of the Potions Master's eyes, "I'm sorry, professor, I forgot –"

She had already set to the task of removing her stockings, grabbing the lace top of one and pulling it down her thighs, when a single word stopped her.

"No," he commanded.

Severus did not know where the rumbling quality to his voice had come from, but if he'd been forced to guess, he might have assumed that it was from the tightness suddenly settling in his chest, similar and yet wholly different to the tightness suddenly apparent in his trousers. Watching the girl bend over and pushing her shapely bum upwards and into his general direction had been difficult enough, but seeing her actually pull down the fabric covering her cheeks…

He had never had a preference before, but now that he saw her lips peeking through the gap in her thighs, pink surrounded by fluff, Severus realized that there was nothing he loved more than the colour of rose petals in the midst of the softest chestnut curls.

Severus had not managed to shake himself from his reverie – until, that was, the girl apologized for her inattention and made to remove her stockings.

"No," he had begged, and he had meant it.

They were of the sheerest silk, and that must be why he had not noticed them earlier – that, or the fact that he had been unable to tear his gaze away from the emerald silk with white trimmings covering her womanly mound.

He walked closer to her, stood directly before her, and asked, "Allow me to do that for you, Miss Granger, why don't you?"

"Yes," the girl breathed, and Severus was satisfied.

Instead of rolling the girl's stockings down her legs, however, he merely grabbed the chair standing in front of the desk and took it with him a few steps back. Looking bereft, the girl simply stared at him in confusion.

"Later," he explained, and the smile that was unwittingly tugging at the right corner of his mouth made the single word almost a promise.

"For now, Miss Granger," Severus stated, "I want you to show me what Miss Johnson has taught you."

What Angelina had taught her? But –

"I can't, professor," Hermione confessed, her voice so small it was barely audible. "I never – I could never quite –"

"Try," Professor Snape demanded.

And so Hermione slowly lifted her right hand towards her centre, inching lower and lower, until she could feel the coarse curls against her fingertips. The professor never once lifted his gaze from her body, though she more felt than saw the heat originating from his eyes and sending red hot waves of excitement through her veins.

Attempting not to give anything away, nothing visual at least, Hermione pressed her hand between her thighs, spreading her legs only far enough in order to squeeze her hand in between them. She cursed herself for not knowing any kind of spell to soften her knuckles, so that they might be further compressed and so that she might not need to open her legs quite as far. There was nothing to help it, though, and so Hermione pushed herself further.

Her searching fingers stumbled over her little nub of nerves more by accident than as a result of successful and systematic searching, with her other nerves wracked as they were. Opting for a soft circling motion, Hermione caressed that little nub, forcing herself to relax.

The thought that relaxation was not to be reached by force, however, never appeared to her, and so she pressed onwards, not realizing that there was nowhere further to go in the way she was approaching the path Professor Snape had demanded she take for him. Eventually, her rubbing seemed to have some effect, but there was no way she could actually reach her climax. Not that she'd ever managed to do that by herself anyway, of course, but there was no chance of accomplishing that here, now, with him watching as intensely as he did.

Hermione wanted to cry.

Severus saw the girl struggle. First, she struggled to fit her hand in between her closely shut thighs. Then, she struggled to create any motion against her core. And now, she struggled to find some grip, any grip, with her legs dangling over the edge of the desk she was sitting on.

Severus had not intended to join in on the foreplay. After all, the girl's sight appeared to be enough these days to get him immediately ready for action, and this was supposed to be all about the girl. However, it now seemed to him that she had been correct when she'd told him that she couldn't reach an orgasm all by herself. Perhaps he might need to help her.

He would be damned, however, if he laid a hand on her before she was thoroughly prepared to receive him. There was no way, after all, that he could be sure he would be able to refrain from progressing things at an unreasonable pace, once he touched her.

She did need his help, though, if they were going to progress things at all tonight. Now that he had already thrown caution to the wind and had decided to miss the annual Malfoy Christmas dinner, without notifying his hosts in any way, he would finish what he'd come here – no, what he'd stayed here for.

And yet, Severus thought, how to help the girl without laying a finger on her?

And suddenly, there it was. A solution to this peculiar problem. With her intense reactions to his voice previously, perhaps it would be enough to coach her through this.

First, however, he would need to do something about her legs.

Severus stood up, abruptly enough, it seemed, to surprise the girl, if her gasp was any indication. Dragging the chair closer to where she sat perched on the edge of the desk, Severus sat down in front of the girl. Carefully, he took her left foot into his hand. His eyes never left hers, which were in turn fixed on his, as he lifted the appendage and set it gently down onto his right knee.

His own legs were spread in the way only a man could without appearing indecent, so the movement had the girl's thighs part for quite a bit more than she might have liked. She never seemed to notice, though, so riveted did she appear by the sight his face posed to her. What it was exactly that she thought she was seeing there, Severus did not know, nor did he ask. For the moment, he was glad that she did not object as he stabilized her other leg, as well, and thus offered her room to move her hand a bit more.

When he was done, he removed his hands from her person, leaned back, and, without allowing his gaze to ever leave her eyes, said, "Proceed, Miss Granger."

A shiver ran through her whole body, sending pleasant sensations into every fibre of her being, at the professor's softly spoken command. The velvet of his voice caressed places she had never known could be reached, much less so by mere words, and her wand hand set into motion once more, seemingly of its own volition.

Professor Snape, however, never once looked down. Hermione dared not close her eyes, lest he use the moment to look at her intimacy, even though deep inside she knew she need not fear. Not in this very moment, at least.

Suddenly, her hand's motions did wonders to her, for her, and Hermione felt herself climbing the ladder towards her impending orgasm. Where her legs had before been struggling to find purchase, they were now safely perched on the professor's knees, her toes curling into the soft fabric of his trousers as her calves tensed and braced themselves against the flooding wave that was sure to come. Whether it was the memory of his velvet voice, or whether it might have been the fact that he was watching her, yet not looking where she did not want him to look, she could not say, nor did she care. The only thing, everything, there was to care about was falling apart under his watchful eye.

There was just something missing, some little thing she could not quite name –

Severus saw that it was time. Her toes were digging into his legs just above his knees, her breath came in ragged gasps, her eyes were practically begging for release, but she could not find the words to utter what she needed.

Severus, on the other hand, could.

"Come for me, Miss Granger," he rumbled.

And she came.

Hermione had only just enough time to think that this was nothing like what it had been like with Angelina, before the wave hit her. Overwhelmed her. Drowned her.

Stars burst before her eyes as the ocean of pleasure was pulling her under, suppressing her air supply, robbing her of oxygen, and she was gasping for breath, gasping for air, gasping for more, and there was more, and more, and more, and –

And suddenly it was over.

The room around her took its sweet time to stop spinning, but she could make out Professor Snape quite clearly anyway. When it had been exactly that she'd closed her eyes, Hermione could not remember, but here they were again, brown orbs openly staring into black.

"How –?" she asked, unable to put her question into words. "I've never –"

Again, she stopped speaking. Professor Snape, however, seemed to understand her without words.

"It's often better when not done alone," he suggested.

"But I – you – we – you didn't touch me, professor," Hermione countered, not understanding.

"It was enough," he stated, as if things were that simple.

Yet then again, maybe they were. Maybe it was as simple as not being alone in a room, maybe it was enough to be together, even if not… together in the biblical sense. Hermione did not quite grasp the concept, but decided that maybe something wondrous as that magical experience right now was better not dissected or the miracle would disappear into thin air.

"Now, Miss Granger," the Potions Master broke through her reverie, "I believe you should be quite prepared. Have you changed your mind yet? You could still go to Black, if that was what you wanted."

"No, professor," Hermione was quick to assure him, and she thought that the slight change in his eyes might have been relief. "I am quite happy where I am."

"Is that so, Miss Granger," he drawled, though the professor's voice now had a pleasant tilt to it. "And here I was thinking you might wish to adjourn to the bed."

"I do, professor," Hermione hastened to agree. "I merely meant that I am happy here – with you."

There was no time to explore the expression that now graced the Potions Master's face, for before she could begin to ponder, he had grabbed her by the waist, turned around, and thrown her – carefully – onto the middle of the bed.

"Now then, Miss Granger," Professor Snape said, and a flick of his wand had the lock click into place – Hermione shuddered to think that they had forgotten to lock the door before –, "let us begin."

Coming up: Chapter twenty-six, wherein a tetrahedron is crafted.