Disclaimer: The regular disclaimer still stays in place, I owe nothing but the AU and OC. The rest belongs to JKR.(pl)


Chapter 25

With that, he had walked out and closed the door shut behind him. If Snape had stayed around a little longer, if he had dared to look back at his wife, he would have seen the dawn of realization on her face. In the empty bathroom, amidst the sound of water and her whispers of breath, she had uttered an epiphany, "But it was one lone panther, that made me feel…" And Ron was never close to being a panther.

No, the room had lost its warmth. She was a fool to think otherwise. The air around was hazy. The water still lapping around her was lukewarm. But to her the place felt cold. Freezing. Dreadful and ominous. She knew in her heart he was the missing piece. Ron…was Ron this warm, hot even? He was sweaty. Though the last time she had held him, he was cold like freezing winter.

She was alive. He had snatched her off the teeth of Death and had held her rooted back to life. Who would in their right mind do that? For someone like her? Pretentious, letting her lover die, and saving her own skin. Scandalous, instead of moaning the death of her love, here she was thinking and wanting, pining right now to be held by her new husband. She might have told him, she still loved Ron, but did she? Could she lie to herself?

Was it fair to compare the advances of a fumbling boy with that of an experienced man…who had perhaps bedded several women in his lifetime? Bringing her crinkled fingers to her lips, she had languidly traced over them. What was he thinking of, when he had kissed her like that under the night sky?

Was there any room for doubting his intentions? Even now, he was thinking of her. She could feel his sorrow, his grief and his helplessness through their lingering mental connection. He had said, he loved Lily. Now, he had held her like she meant the world to him. Will he ever mean, the world to her? Through every sigh that had echoed through their connection her husband, Severus Snape had been asking her the same question. Will he ever mean the only man she would grow to love and die happily with?

How starved was he? Terribly, or else how could he have so readily consumed her in his warm embrace, plunder her insecurities and for some stranded moments purely made love to her. Severus Tobias Snape had made love to her and in return had taught her how to make love to him. showering her with possessive love bites, which she could now see, imprints of his firm lips over her pale skin. Breathing in new life through those enlivened pores. Rekindling fire in her dying spirit. Where did he learn to alight such wild passion?

Instead of plowing her into the mattress, he had given her the reins to ride him in the beginning. While she had stared into his obsidian eyes, she had seen the spinning universe, she had traveled through space, to his traumatic childhood, to his insecure teen years and had lived through his shame and humiliation. Each and every journey she had made at his pleading, he had drawn a new score, through a nip here, a bite there, tightening and losing his grip on her.

Till the very end, his eyes had begged her to give him one token of reciprocation. She had met his thrusts, reluctantly, or perhaps the bond itself had made she do all those unspeakable things with him. She could have spoken his name aloud, but she couldn't. She could have showered an equal number of love bites, kisses, and nips on his already disfigured body, but she couldn't.

What kind of man was Snape? Possessive, ruthless, loving, caring, nurturing, sensitive, emotional, insecure, a man to fall for again and again….in a space of a single night, a single episode of sealing their bond, through a single sheering kiss, he had managed to rock her beliefs. He had managed to steal away her false self-assurance. He had shown her how brittle her resolutions were, and how easily he could make her fall for his charms. Was he a charming man? With that voice, he was a phantom, stalking old buildings, with those hands he was Hades of the underworld.

He smelled of sandalwood and parchment, ink and potion ingredients. Now all those individual smells had soaked themselves in her skin, even now she could smell him on her. How potent was his musk? Could a potion master invent something that would make him virile? Most definitely. Did he consume something like that? She doubted that. His kiss alone had made her pass out. The blinding truth behind it had shattered her identity as Hermione Granger. She was now hanging between nowhere particular.

Would he make love to her again? Would he come back and join her here? Would he nestle her within his arms and legs and brush away her growing melancholic mood? Heaving a deep sigh, Hermione had let her hand travel down her wet body and stop over the apex of her thighs. Even that felt alien. He had robbed her of her own pleasures. He had claimed each and every part of her as his own and had dared to mark them as his property. She knew this because she remembered that sharp pinch even while riding her way through her many of the first orgasms. Snape. She was Mrs. Snape. She was the mate of an elusive, tracking, hunting seductive panther. Mrs. Hermione Snape. Even that sounded concrete, heavy, decisive and sure, just like the man when he would face the world on his own. Not like Hermione Weasley, a name that mirrored light-heartedness, a lot of laughter, less of the convoluted puzzles of the real world.

Which one would she like to be? An easy-going housewife, or a driven woman who had a right to have her say in these challenging times? She would have to leave this tub, for now, this was so oppressing. Standing up she had looked down at her. Along with love bites, he had also left behind his palm prints. Over the one that had appeared near the curve of her slender hip, she had softly pressed her own. Small and delicate, definitely mousy! A blush had crept up her cheeks, he had called her "love" not once but several times, and with such complete devotion, that the word 'love' itself had grown tendrils of affection and had mingled with her thoughts. He had fondly nuzzled against her neck. Was he fetish about it? What was he fetish about? What did he like to do the most? Bait first, make his lovers plea and pray, and then ravish them?

Hermione had groaned aloud. Slapping her cheeks with her both hands, he had pleaded her mind, "Hermione, stop, shut up, stop swooning over your…Snape, he is Snape, and you are Ron's, as of now."

In the confines of this room, her mind had chastised her again and again. Get a grip of the reality before you girl, Ron Weasley is dead, and you are married now. You are Mrs. Severus Snape. Accept it.

She had crumpled down in a heap once again, beside the tub, No, no, not yet, no so fast, she needed to keep Ron alive in her mind, she had no one else. Not even Harry. Even he had left. She had no right to know where he was. He had a family. He was not with Ginny. They had broken up before the war. Their relationship was never to mend itself. She had by now started crying aloud. Oh! Ginny, how would she manage to move past Harry, she had loved him longer than Hermione had pined for Ron. Who was she forced to marry?

The law was necessary and yet a cage of its own. It got each of the wizards and the witches protected through ancient binding spells, coupled with her own design of "the process" it cemented their defensive quotient. Even if it bordered the Dark Arts. What started as a joke, now had a chance to save each one of them from the clasps of Greyback, the new threat to the wizarding world.

A joke to create something similar to dating sites in the muggle world. How had Neville got interested in this weird project of hers, she could hardly remember. But here they were survivors rebinding together, trying to live, adjust to their fast-changing lives, waiting for the werewolf to strike again, but this time, this time, they might succeed in vanquishing him.

A chime from somewhere beyond the door had startled her. Grabbing a fresh towel from the rack beside the washbasin, she had wrapped herself with the soft fiber and had made her way towards the door. The chime had echoed through the quiet chamber once again. Where was he, that was not the clock? She had remembered how the clock sounded from before. That had to be an alarm. Was Hogwarts under attack. She had to be prepared in that case. She needed her wand now. Throwing the bathroom door open, she had marched into the bedroom. Glancing over the slept-in-bed, she had blushed once again, a niggling thought had made her growl, will this ever happen again?

Was she mad, had she not succeeded in pushing away Snape far enough that he had gone back to calling her, Miss Granger? Her shoulders had dropped at that stark realization. Why did he have to leave her wanting more? There were voices coming from behind the door that led to the living area, grabbing her wand from the dresser beside the door, she had crept closer to it. The former was joined by the later. The second had belonged to Snape. Snape, what would she call him now, here within these walls? She had tried to say the word, Severus. It sounded heavy, and soft, like freshly made chocolate, cooling crust outside, molten lava oozing out from inside. Just like the man…his voice had flown in like soft silk over her thirsty skin reverberating through her mind, "Stay where you are, sleep in Herm... Mrs...Miss Granger."