A/N: So...I am not British. I'm sure that is very clear to many of you. However, I tried writing some internal dialogue and was told the Northern accent was "off". So, I did a bit more research and followed what I read about a Mancunian accent. Apparently, I was still mixing some southern in there so the awesome Emmaficready helped me out and rewrote that bit for me! Thank you so very much! 3rd times the charm!
Chapter 26: I Got 99 Problems, But a Witch Ain't 1
Hermione was on cloud nine the following Monday at breakfast, which Severus had forced her to go to with sound logic about being seen to prevent suspicions, blah, blah, blah. He had a point, loath as she was to admit it. He had kept true to his word and hadn't allowed her out of his bed all day Sunday except to use the facilities. Well, and to make love to her on his deliciously soft rug. And when he bent her over the coffee table in front of his fireplace, his fingers on her clit and his cock pistoning in and out of her arse like a well-oiled machine, thanks to a very handy lubrication charm. And when he had her reenact her first true lesson on control, her arms and legs tied to his chair while she had to magically start and stop a vibrator until he gave her permission to come.
Apparently he had really wanted to watch the original performance but hadn't trusted himself, and with good reason since as soon as she had finished coming loudly on the vibrator he had replaced it with his cock and fucked her so hard the chair had collapsed. They were both so far gone they couldn't stop, even though the pile of wood under them was not very comfortable to lie on and Hermione was fairly certain she had gotten a splinter in her bum.
Adding in riding him in the bathtub, being spread out on his sofa and feasted on and being trussed up like a turkey, suspended from the ceiling once she got over her trepidation, while he fucked her mouth and really, he hadn't lived up to his promise at all. She had spent much more time out of the bed than in it but she certainly wasn't complaining. Thank Merlin for magic because she probably wouldn't be able to walk without it. Unfortunately, healing spells were the only magic they saw all weekend as the explosion of magic from the previous evening did not repeat.
Regardless, all of this added up to one very happy Hermione sitting down to breakfast with nary a care in the world and a very optimistic outlook for the rest of the day, though she was worried about her potions class that morning and how she was going to resist dragging Severus into the storeroom for a morning quickie. Another morning quickie. Hermione giggled.
"Someone is very happy this morning," Ginny grumbled as she plopped down next to her best friend.
"Someone else isn't," Hermione retorted. "What's got your knickers in a twist? You're usually a morning person."
"Frustration of the sort you certainly don't have to worry about," Ginny snarled. "Ron, that arse, was so aggravated that Harry and I spent whatever time we might have had together liquoring him up and calming him down so Harry could drag him home."
Hermione had forgotten all about Ron and felt really horrible now that he had been brought back to her attention. "I was a little harsh with him. I'm sorry I ruined your night."
"Girl, don't worry about it. It isn't your fault my brother can be a total knobhead and it certainly isn't on you that he did what we Weasley's do best…overreact. He shouldn't have cornered you like that, like you should have just been waiting around for him."
Hermione watched Ginny pile her plate high with more food than Hermione could eat in two meals and marveled at how the girl stayed so fit eating like that. If Hermione didn't hate flying so much she might play quidditch just to keep in shape. The girls ate a few bites in companionable silence, both lost in thoughts and content to just coexist until that silence was broken by a very-panicked Neville practically falling onto the bench across from them.
"Hermione do that thing, that buzzing thing, right now," Neville pleaded, eyes darting to the high table so frequently Hermione wondered why he bothered taking them off of it to begin with.
She cast the muffliato, encasing the three of them in relative privacy and smiled encouragingly at Neville. He didn't see it because his eyes were glued to the head table, apparently coming to the same conclusion Hermione had and not bothering to look away.
"Neville, what's wrong?" Ginny asked, snapping him out of his daze.
"I'm a dead man, Gin and I am way too young to die," Neville answered, voice serious as a heart attack.
"Well, that's a bit dramatic to be shared over kippers," Hermione remarked, trying to lighten the mood.
"It's kind of your fault, 'Mi," Neville barked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You can't help who you love. Wish you had decided to show that love somewhere other than a public corridor where two people looking for a bit of their own privacy could stumble upon you and one of them who was up to that point unaware of said love could get a clear glimpse of the object of your affection ripping your clothes off against a door. But yeah, you can't help it so…" Neville trailed off as Ginny choked on a mouthful of pumpkin juice and Hermione felt all the blood drain from her face.
"I'm sorry but…what?" Ginny asked when she could breathe again."Who? What? What did you do?"
"What do you mean, what did I do? I took her back to her room and shagged her senseless and then acted like I didn't know what she was talking about and did my best to convince her she didn't see who she thought she saw. I don't know if she bought it but she did promise not to say anything on the off chance that she is wrong and she gets you expelled and Snape thrown in Azkaban on false accusations." Neville darted another look at the head table, squeaking when this time Snape met his eye and sneered.
"Who? You didn't say who saw us, Neville. I need to know who it was," Hermione pushed. Two people knowing was bad enough, but now they were up to four, by her count, and the secret was bound to get out sooner rather than later with numbers like that.
"I don't want to say," Neville mumbled.
"You don't get that choice, Neville," Hermione growled. "My life and his are on the line here so you will tell me who."
"Hannah Abb…" Neville started, flinching when Hermione abruptly canceled the charm and pushed away from the table.
"Hermione, what are you going to do?" Ginny hissed as her friend turned to the Hufflepuff table with shoulders set and determination in her eyes. She was scary Hermione and Gin was worried.
"Handle it," Hermione answered steadily, ignoring Neville's plea for her to wait and Ginny's outstretched arm trying to physically stop her.
She strode over to the pretty 'puff and used all of her self-control to ask very politely if the girl would come talk to her for a minute. In Hannah's room. It was so much closer and she really needed some privacy for this conversation. And then she followed Neville's girl back to the room where he had "shagged her senseless". The setting of this conversation was important, one less thing Hermione would have to try and remember in minute detail.
"Ok, Hermione, what's up? Did I really see what I thought I saw?" Hannah asked, curiosity and a bit of disgust on her face. She held no attraction for Snape, to be sure, and was probably turned off by the idea of anyone shagging him, let alone a student.
"Yes," Hermione answered simply. "You saw Professor Snape hold me against a door in the dungeons, kiss me, tear open my dress…I'm not sure how far we got before you left but if you were there a bit longer you would have seen him fuck me against that door."
Hermione watched as Hannah took it all in. She could read the girl's face like a book, which worked for her plan because she needed to know what emotions to play with when she modified her memory. She couldn't leave a feeling of disgust behind on a memory without a reason for the disgust, for example. The girl would just go crazy trying to reconcile her latent feelings with events that didn't match those feelings.
Hannah's face reflected surprise, a bit of lust probably at the idea of someone ravishing her against a door, a dash of disgust, and a smidgeon of fear. Hermione could work with those. Casting a petrificus, she watched the younger witch slump to the side, her blonde head hitting the pillow a split second before Hermione locked their eyes together and cast legilimens. Hermione had taught herself legilimency and occlumency in hopes that she could actually pass on the skills to Harry, when his lessons with Snape weren't proving fruitful. She never thought she would use the skill like this, however. Well, not again, anyway, not after her parents.
Diving into the girl's mind, Hermione pulled the memory of Saturday night to the front, replaying what she had seen thrown over Neville's shoulder a few times to get a good image in her own mind. She had done something similar when modifying her parents' memories, pulling them out and cementing them in her own mind so she could make subtle but necessary changes before replacing them in her parents' heads. She did so again, paying attention to every little detail, even the girl's own feelings of arousal for Neville, the buzz of blood rushing to her head as she hung upside down, the itchiness of her costume top across her nipples… And then she did the same with the memory of the events following, skipping through the shagging, impressive and somewhat surprising really but not requiring modification, and moving on to the conversation about what she had seen, all the way through Sunday just to make sure she hadn't spoken to anyone else or thought about it in any way that would need editing and ending at being petrified in her own room.
Hermione pulled out of Hannah's mind, well aware that she had been in there for long enough that they were both going to miss their first class of the day. She called for Tibby and sent messages to Severus and Madame Pomfrey, informing the first of the situation and that she was handling it and informing the second of Hannah's blinding headache and need for a potion and excuse from class, in Hannah's handwriting no less.
Then she settled down on the floor to meditate so she could clear her own mind and focus on modifying the memories just enough to make them believable. She allowed Hannah to "see" her and Snape and left the feeling of surprise intact. She modified Snape's image so that he was a little shorter, a lot stockier, and wearing robes that, while black, were not anything Hannah could recall Snape wearing. This would cast doubt that she had actually seen Snape. The disgust was left but Hermione inserted the thought "why would anyone want their boyfriend to dress up as Professor Snape?" into the memory to sow even more doubt as to the identity of the lovers.
She left the lust and fear alone for the most part, letting Hannah's mind naturally attribute them to her own aroused state and the fear of getting caught. Modifications done she moved on to the conversation she had had with Neville, leaving it mostly alone and only tweaking a few remembered sentences here and there to reflect the modifications she had already made. Hannah's side of the conversation wasn't about Hermione shagging Snape, it was about Hermione shagging a Snape look alike. It worked well with her existing memory because there was a moment where Neville had been naming other people that Hannah might have seen and trying to offer up other explanations.
She did change the part of the conversation where Neville had asked her to be quiet about it so as not to make false accusations about a teacher, instead having him ask her to remain silent so as not to embarrass Hermione about her apparent crush on the bat of the dungeons and so that it didn't get back to said bat and lead to an even more humiliating situation were the object of her affections to learn of the incident and take offense.
She added on to the memory of Hermione admitting to shagging Snape to show a tear-filled confession about her unnatural attraction and asking her boyfriend to meet her in the dungeons dressed as the surly professor for a spot of role playing, convinced they wouldn't be caught since Snape was busy at the ball, conveniently skipping over revealing the name of the made-up boyfriend. She made sure to make her memory self very red in the face with shame and inserted feelings of pity and empathy on Hannah's part. The new conversation lasted quite some time, with both of them missing class and Hermione suggesting that Hannah just claim a headache and writing her own note to Professor Snape, ostensibly to apologize for missing class, claiming womanly problems and accepting whatever punishment he saw fit to dole out.
Satisfied with the result and positive it would hold up to further scrutiny, Hermione put her wand to her forehead and extracted it, popping it into a small dish meant for jewelry sitting on the nightstand. She cast a glamour on her face to make her look red and puffy, as she would look had she actually been crying, and then turned her wand on the petrified witch. Apologizing to the girl, Hermione cast obliviate, skillfully deleting Hannah's memories up to that point before inserting the replacements, casting a finite, and striding to the other girl's door.
"Thank you so much for talking to me. And promising to keep my secret. You are an absolute peach and I'm so happy Neville finally plucked up the courage to ask you out," Hermione shot at the confused witch clutching at her head. "I'm sorry you actually ended up with a headache; thank goodness we got the potion from Pomfrey, eh?"
Before the girl could ask any other questions, or any questions really, Hermione ducked out into the hall, removed her glamour, and made haste to the dungeon just in time to catch the second half of her double potions class.
"Miss Granger, so good of you to grace us with your presence," Severus drawled while the rest of the class tried to make themselves as small as possible to escape his wrath. "I take it you have…resolved…your issues?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione responded, making her voice small as though intimidated or embarrassed.
"Then by all means, find…your…seat."
And that was that. Hermione rushed to her seat and proceeded to catch up to her peers. She was halfway through the required reading when she felt it, his magic, washing over her skin as he cast privacy charms around her table.
"Talk," he said simply.
Hermione's hands kept working as she spilled, "Neville made an unfortunate choice of location for a tryst with Hannah Abbot. She saw us, recognized us, or thought she did. Neville tried to dissuade her but she wasn't entirely convinced. I replaced her memories. Now she thinks I have a thing for you, quite unrequited I assure you, and that I talked my boyfriend into dressing up as you for a naughty tryst of our own. I left her in her room with one hell of a headache."
"And if she thinks it's too good a secret not to spread around the school that you're hot for teacher?" he asked, his voice rumbling down her spine.
"Well she had a whole day to spread around that I was shagging teacher and she didn't…didn't even think about it, actually, so…" Hermione trailed off meaningfully.
"Let us hope that she is a true testament to her House, then."
Magic skittered across her skin as he cancelled his charms and stepped away. And that was that. For now.
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Neville cornered her after class. To be expected really. Of course, Hermione wasn't expecting it because she hadn't been there the previous year when Neville had found his backbone and his self-confidence. She truly hadn't considered that he would drag her into an alcove, and really why did a sentient castle home to children have so many damned hidden alcoves? It was almost like the castle wanted the students to get into mischief.
"What the bloody hell did you do to my girlfriend?" he demanded, standing entirely too close and making it very known that he had certainly grown since their 6th year.
"Nev, back up before I hex your bollocks off."
It was probably the matter-of-fact, overly polite way she said it more so than the actual threat but Neville lost his spine again and took an instant step back. In hindsight, it might have been the fact that he knew how capable she was of carrying through. Either way, effective.
"I modified her memories of this weekend," Hermione answered after casting an overabundance of privacy charms. There were still other students in the corridor, after all. "She thinks I have a sexual attraction to Severus and that my boyfriend dressed as him on Halloween and we snuck down to the dungeons when we knew Snape would be chaperoning the ball to carry out a fantasy."
Neville seemed to need a minute to come to terms with how he felt about the situation. Hermione saw anger at the idea of Hermione modifying Hannah's memories, confusion as to why Hermione had let her believe there was a real attraction, disgust at the idea of any man willingly dressing up as another for any sexual purpose, and reluctant acceptance of the overall solution to the Hannah problem.
"Have you told Professor Snape yet?" he asked.
"No," Hermione replied, noting the look of relief on Neville's face. "I told him I was handling a problem. I see no need to give him any more details, since it is no longer a problem."
She was lying through her teeth, of course, having already told Severus about it, but Neville needed reassurances and Hermione needed him to stay on her side. So if she had to lie to him to maintain his loyalty and, not more but just as importantly, his silence, then so be it. She really would have made an excellent Slytherin.
"Thank you, 'Mi. Really. For not telling him and for not obliviating her completely. I only just got her; I didn't want to lose her already."
Hermione grinned. "Oh, from what I saw in her head, I'd say you have no chance of that. Just keep shagging her senseless, perhaps against a door, and she'll stick around forever."
Neville couldn't stop the violent red flush from stealing across his face and Hermione couldn't hold back her laughter. He stammered a few lines about checking on Hannah, getting to class, whatever and ducked out of the alcove, yelping like a Pomeranian when he nearly collided with the snarky potion's professor but not letting it slow his departure one bit.
Taking Neville's place, having no trouble seeing through her impressive, and impressively excessive, wards and charms, Severus merely crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow, letting his face say everything.
"Yes, I know I didn't want you to mess with my friends' memories when they found out but really, Hannah is more of an acquaintance and needs must. And all that."
And there went the other eyebrow.
"Don't give me that attitude. I want to keep on with you for as long as possible and though I honestly believe Hannah wouldn't have said anything, I didn't know that prior to swimming around her head and since I was already there, why take chances? She might have thought she was doing me a favor and you were taking advantage or something."
Severus's eyebrows dropped down low over his narrowed eyes, nostrils flaring and lips thinning in anger at the idea, or the reminder that he had been taking advantage, even if only in his own mind. Hermione rolled her eyes and wrapped her arms around the impossible wizard, resting her head against his chest.
"I don't want this to end, not now, and I certainly don't ever want anyone to think what we have, what we do, is wrong or that I am some kind of victim. So I will do what I must to preserve our secret until we are ready, if we are ever ready, to make it public," she stated firmly, noting how his heartbeat sped up.
"We just have to be more careful," she assured him, kissing the center of his chest and casting a revelio to ensure the halls were cleared before she too took her leave of the alcove, leaving behind a very conflicted Severus Snape.
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Sev, breathe, he commanded himself, suddenly gulping in air as if breathing had stopped being an autonomic response and he willfully had to remind himself of its necessity.
His mind was a jumble of disjointed thoughts. He wasn't concerned about Hermione's lack of compunction in modifying Miss Abbot's memories. In truth, he was impressed with her skill and quick thinking and touched that she would do something so risky to protect him. It was her words, about them, about how long they were going to last, about going public at some point, about an implied future, that had him so thrown.
She wanted what they had to last "as long as possible" and didn't want it to end "now", which suggested she knew it was going to end eventually but also thought that they would get to a point where they were "ready to make it public". If she felt it was going to end, why would she intimate a future in which others would be made aware of them? Severus had never had the luxury of thinking about the future, of what it might hold for him. He didn't afford himself the luxury, fully expecting to die in the war and thinking he would do so still clutching on to the memory of a dead woman who had loved another, whom he had loved and promised to love always.
Thinking of promises of always made him realize that he hadn't thought about Lily while with Hermione. She had completely taken over his life, waking and sleeping, and he felt a bit disloyal to his vow to Lily's memory now that he was aware of just how long it had been since the redhead had crossed his mind. He prided himself on keeping his word when given and the realization that a 19 year old girl, Lily's son's best friend, had been able to make him break his word, his promise to remain loyal, was shaking him more than it probably should.
She was very much like Lily in some ways and yet very different in so many others. Lily had been smart, truly gifted in charms, brave enough to risk his father's wrath by hiding Severus out at her house and joining the order, rash enough though to throw herself in front of her child not thinking that if she were to die, there would be nobody to protect the boy anyway. She had been kind and loyal, but also intolerant and unforgiving when something went against her own moral code. Like Severus had. She was a true Gryffindor, through and through.
Hermione, on the other hand, was Ravenclaw intelligent and witty, logical enough not to make rash decisions unlike her fellow lions, yet kind, and funny, hardworking and loyal as a 'puff. True to her house she was also noble, and brave, yet cunning and as ambitious as any Snake…Circe, it was like she was a perfect amalgamation of all 4 houses rolled into one deliciously sexually deviant package.
Severus leaned against the stone wall, feeling a bit weak in the knees. He wanted her, more than he had wanted anything other than Lily. Maybe even more than that. He wanted her in his bed, definitely, but also in his shirt, reading while lying supine between his legs on the sofa. He wanted her across the table, eating a meal he had taught her to cook or whatever they could summon when they were too wrapped up in each other to bother putting clothes on. He wanted her laughter and her swotty superiority and the way she sighed his name before she fell asleep. He wanted her impossible hair choking him awake in the morning and he wanted her dominance almost as much as he wanted her submission, equals in the game they played.
You love her, Sev. Like you loved Lily. Maybe more than you loved Lily. Admit it, even if just to yourself; you love her and you are scared shitless.
And there it was.
The witch had stolen his heart away from the girl who had held it since he was a small boy and, just like he had then, he knew now that he had nothing to offer the woman currently holding it in her plucky, muggle-born grip.
He was 38 years old, broken and battered, disillusioned with life, cynical and sarcastic and often sadistic. He was a teacher at a boarding school with no prospects for better employment despite his status as a war hero due to the ugly mark on his arm and a distinct lack of trust from the general public. His house was the same rundown hovel of his childhood in a distinctly muggle neighborhood requiring he pay muggle taxes with what meager pay his job afforded him. Apparently having all living expenses covered for 10 months of the year meant that a teacher's actual pay need not be much.
It hadn't actually bothered him as he had plenty left over to spend on his lab equipment and his books. Not to mention how exorbitantly expensive his robes were. Seeing no need to save much money as, again, he fully expected to die young, and certainly not wanting to put a single knut into the hellhole he grew up in outside of what was required for general upkeep, his vault at Gringott's wasn't exactly brimming with gold and silver. Meaning, he was stuck teaching until or unless something else came along.
What beautiful, intelligent young woman with the world in the palm of her hand would choose a wizard she wouldn't see most of the year who wouldn't bring anything other than bad habits and an even worse reputation into the deal? The public would crucify her, figuratively speaking, and him probably quite literally speaking. They would make insinuations, accusations, about his proclivities and her morals. It would be her 4th year all over again except worse, so much worse.
Ruin.
That's all he had to offer her.
If you love something, set it free. Isn't that how that damn saying goes?
Severus squared his shoulders and pushed away from the wall. He had classes to teach and didn't want to think about this anymore. Or ever. He knew their time was short but he was just selfish enough to take what he could get but also just honorable enough to keep his feelings to himself so as not to oblige her to reciprocate and potentially ruin the rest of her life.
She reads thee like a book, boy. Yer nor 'idin ' nowt from 'er.
S'good thing am a master occlumens, then, innit?
So, wha's thee gonna do lad? 'ide be'ind t'walls and think she ain't gonna notice when yeh turn inta a righ' nasty bastard again? Come off it.
An' spy an all. Didja forge' tha' part? She waint notice owt. It'll be rate.
If 's all fine, as yeh say, then why am I 'ere? An' why are yeh all ov a sudden thinkin ' like yer back in Spinner's End? Forge' all yer fancy talk, boy?
Shurrup, Da. Dint need yeh then and don' need yeh now. Crawl back in t'pauper's hole yeh came from. Be'er yet, keep diggin' straigh' back t'ell!
When no reply was forthcoming, Severus smirked triumphantly, refusing to think about why he had just had a mental argument with a dead man, or why he was so pleased that he had won a mental argument with a dead man, and cleared his mind. He would enjoy his pet and then he would let her go live her life when she was done with the game and ready to move on.
And if she foolishly decides she loves you back? She's a teenage girl, after all, and you are her first real relationship. Not to mention, her Gryffindor heart might decide it's worth the ruin.
Severus brushed the thought aside as nonsense. His mother hadn't loved him enough to leave his abusive father. His father hadn't loved anything enough to give up the drinking and the fighting. His best friend hadn't loved him enough to forgive a word spoken out of bruised pride. His…whatever Albus was…hadn't loved him enough to spare him the pain of assisting in his suicide. Severus knew, had always known, that he was always destined to love too much and be loved not enough in return. So even if the chit decided she loved him, Severus knew it wasn't going to be enough to keep her from the rest of her life.
And if she was foolish enough to think otherwise…
Well, he was a right nasty bastard, after all, and was confident he could disavow her of that notion without breaking a sweat.
So it was that, with walls firmly in place and his equilibrium temporarily restored, Severus Snape returned to his classroom, prepared as he always was for the inevitable sacrifice and accompanying heart break that was the only constant in his life.