Chapter 10. Reality and Dream
Momentum hurled them backwards. Hermione landed on her back, legs splayed, her robes up over her head. She gasped and breathed, her head spinning and her ears ringing. A tug on her hand reminded her that Professor Snape had grabbed her as she tried to pull the Master Prefect out of the compromised Doors of Perception mist.
She sat up, and her memory clanged into place: the icy rain, the strange forest, Hagrid's hut that wasn't Hagrid's – yet; the rope bed and oh, Gods…Hands pulled her to her feet. Snape was already standing, looking at her with shock and surprise. They were fully clothed, they were still at the Potions Masters' Conference, and the Master Prefect was harrumphing, preparing to speak.
Unsteadily, she returned to her seat, Snape beside her. She dared not look directly at him. The Master Prefect thanked them for their demonstration, and then went on to introduce the other contestants. Hermione sat as still as she could, longing to be out of there.
Finally, all the experiments had been performed, and the prefects adjourned to judge them. Snape stood over her. "There's tea served," he said. "I think we could use some." She rose and followed him.
"What happened? Did I dream it?"
"If you did, so did I. Are you all right?"
Hermione's hands were shaking badly. She accepted a cup of tea and sat down in the nearest chair. "Are you all right?" Snape's normally sallow face was an unhealthy shade of green. He sat down next to her and looked down at his cup and saucer
"I think so, Look, Miss Granger, your creation has some characteristics which might prove dangerous in the wrong hands."
"Ah, so it's my creation, is it?" She could have bit her tongue. "I'm sorry, Professor. My mind keeps wandering back to that – dream."
"I wasn't referring to that whatever-it-was. When you demonstrated the experiment to me, I experienced a most unsettling effect which was not in keeping with either the runes or the potion."
"Tell me!" Hermione felt a chill of foreboding wrap itself around her neck and shoulders, like an unwelcome boa.
Snape set his cup and saucer down on a small table next to his chair. He looked at the woman sitting next to him – the rotten little thing – and his heart twisted in his breast.
"I am not sure whether I was looking at the future or the past," he said in an almost inaudible voice.
"The runes show both, as well as the present," Hermione said. "Tell me the images you saw, and I'll try to match them up with the rune reading, so they can be interpreted."
He drew a breath. "You know I don't think much of your runes. In any case, they're fortune-telling tiles out of Celtic prehistory. What have they to do with a Pliocene jungle?"
Hermione's jaw dropped. "Pliocene! What was it?"
Snape rose. "I shall research it," he said, and that was the end of the subject. "Are you coming? The recess is over."
She trailed behind him back to the finalists' area.
After all the noise, the hurrahs, the applause, the heavy trophy, which, thank the gods, had its own levitation spell; the congratulations and the toasts, after the banquet of too much food, too much noise and too many speeches. Hermione was more than ready to go home.
She hadn't had any time to consider the Doors of Perception dream, as she had labelled it. But she couldn't recover; it had been too real and too disturbing. When I'm home at Hogwarts, I'll be able to puzzle it out, I hope, she thought to herself. Incredible – she and Snape, in bed together, preparing to Do It! She expected to shudder, but instead she felt an unfamiliar and sad little quiver in the pit of her stomach, a quiver that wanted holding and oh, Mother, no, some gentle stroking from inside…She clamped her lips together and stood straight, as Snape strode towards her.
"Are you ready, Miss Granger?"
"Yes, Professor."
They Apparated to a point near the boundaries of Hogwarts, took their brooms from their pockets, restored them to their original size, and flew home.
Hermione, her hair rolled up in rags, laid out her clothes for the following day, made sure her books were all in order, set her wand on the bedside table and prepared to climb into her bed. Crookshanks was comfortably ensconced on her pillow, in the pose that cats call The Silent One (and humans call the meat loaf with a head): paws tucked under chest, haunches raised. He lifted his head, eyes slitted, and Mrowed at her.
"Oh, Crook, I'm so glad to be home," she said, settling down. Crookshanks rose, stretched and deliberately walked onto her stomach. He began the soothing kneading motions she loved, humming lullaby purrs as he worked.
A moment later, there was a light tap on her door, and a soft voice with a Gaelic lilt called, "Hermione? Are ye sleeping?" Hermione sighed, sat up and waved her wand to open the door for Dame Angharad. The Green Lady entered, closing the door behind her, and came over to sit on the edge of Hermione's bed. Crookshanks sniffed the druid's hand, rubbed his head against it, and went to curl up on a pillow. Hermione burst into tears and put her head on Dame Angharad's lap. "You won't believe what happened," she sobbed.
The Green Lady listened quietly, her brow furrowed. "And so, then, after all that, ye had no pleasure of him?"
Hermione snorted. "The only pleasure I could say I had was putting my freezing feet on him and making him jump," she said.
'Now, I Saw ye," smiled Dame Angharad. "Ye had finally got him to rights, when the spell broke and ye were hurled home. "Tis frustratin' for ye to be ready to receive him, and himself ready as well, and all for naught."
'But," cried Hermione, "it was only a dream!"
"Not this time, love. 'Twasn't a dream at all, it was real as we are sitting here. 'Twas a pinch in the cloth of time, in which ye dwelled until it smoothed out again."
Hermione shuddered. "What if we had been brought back as we were, naked as the day we were born, and him with a right boner—" She leaned against Dame Angharad's shoulder and giggled.
"I daresay ye would have been the entertainment of the evening," said the Runes Mistress, "and—" she laughed until the tears ran from her eyes –"all the masters trying to cover ye with robing spells!"
They sat together for a while, Dame Angharad taking the rags out of Hermione's hair and tying her curls in elflocks. Hermione found it easy to speak to the druid of things that were too embarrassing to discuss with anyone else, and she took the opportunity to ask questions that had been on her mind.
"Dame Angharad, I've snogged with boys before, but I think it would have been different with the Professor. His –member- is rather large, and it seemed curved, and I don't know if it would have fit, but my body wanted it badly."
The Runes Mistress nodded and patted Hermione's hand. "Yes, yes, a grown man's wand always seems so, and your Professor has all that a man should have to --"
"Wand?" Hermione interrupted her. "Why do you call it a – oh, I see!" She blushed. "It does its own kind of magic, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it is made for ye, and specially to pleasure ye, but it should not hurt at all, and ye should be able to enjoy it easily, once ye know how."
Hermione considered. "Is he supposed to show me how?"
"Few men know, because they have no true understanding of a woman's body. "Tis simple. Although ye want to wrap your legs around him, 'tis better if ye do not so at first, 'twill make your passageway too short. Let him enter slowly, slowly, and stay thus for a time."
"And stay still?"
"Just for a bit, until ye're used to the full feeling. Then," her elfin smile played at the corners of her lips, "rock him slowly, and find a nice pace for your dance of love."
Hermione hugged the druid. "Thank you," she said. "It makes perfect sense. I wasn't sure how to begin with that great wand."
"Well, there's much ye can do with it," said Dame Angharad. "Tis made for ye to enjoy in many ways; 'tis a marvellous toy."
"Toy!" cried Hermione. "Gods, I can use it as a Quidditch bat!"
"An interestin' idea, but ye'd have to detach it from himself first."
The druid rose. "Tis time for ye to sleep now, love." She smiled. "Pleasant dreams." She snapped her fingers to extinguish Hermione's candle, and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
The owner of the great wand, now lying flaccid and diminished against his thigh, was trying to read and not having much success.
I shall go mad from these dreams, he thought. This was one of the worst. Coitus interruptus: it sounds like the most dreadful curse one can inflict or suffer, and it is.
And that rotten little thing, of all the females in the world! I can't bear inexperienced women. They are too much trouble for too little result: work on them for hours to get a hiccup and twitch out of them; endure their false-modest squeals when they're asked to return the favour!
He was not in the habit of deluding himself. Hermione Granger was not the usual inexperienced woman. She had a mind of her own, and she knew what she wanted. He had finally unwrapped the sheet and as he looked down at her lovely body, she had reached for him with knowing hands, gentle and steady, to draw him close. His eager manhood strained towards the wet pink rose she offered him. Then, they were flung backwards into the Potion Masters' Conference.
Damn. I should have liked to enter her slowly, then draw out and place my lips on her stomach and move them down slowly…the limp soldier started to pay attention and began to throb. He took it in his hand. No, he would not do it himself, dammit.
He rose and threw on a long, full robe, an antique wizard's garment, left his dungeon, ducked through the Floo and came out next to Hermione Granger's bedroom. What am I doing? Am I mad?
He stood staring at her door. It opened, and he walked into the room. The door closed silently behind him. Hermione Granger was sitting up in her bed. She held out her arms: "Where were we?"
He walked slowly over to the side of her bed and stood still. Hermione untied the belt of his robe and opened it. She looked up into his bottomless black gaze, then looked down the long pale length of him and curled her tongue over the centre of her upper lip.
Snape closed his eyes, his breath catching raggedly in his throat. She looked up at him, mischief in her glance. "What a marvellous toy," she said. "May I play with it?"
