Raptus Regaliter

Chapter thirteen

The first thing she heard was the sound of ducks laughing and splashing outside and felt the foreignness of the sheet's strange sensuous material in darkest of dark greens and of the many different layers of bedclothes, topped with a fat eiderdown of deepest black silk. The sun was partly in her eyes, and in shielding them could see that it lit the heavy brocade curtains falling down from the canopy from above her and draped over the whole wide four-poster bed and perceived the source of the light blasting through a massive half-circled window with its curved seat below. Pieces of dark, heavy furniture, simple in style but very worn were scattered round the room. Looking past the curtains she could see what looked like fragments of ancient tapestries placed behind glass round the panelled walls, very faded and brittle. More the bedroom of royalty than a teacher. She could sense the body heat of him beside her, and a strong breathing sound.

At least he doesn't snore.  

When she turned completely onto her other side, she observed him lying sprawled beside her on his stomach, his hand near but not touching.

Not used to this is he? Even in his sleep he keeps his distance.

With her arms underneath her head on the stout pillow, she sighed and studied him with pleasure. There were not many times when she could do so without his awareness reflecting back to her. There was the potions master, the ex-Death Eater, with his mouth open and his eyes closed in blissful sleep, a vulnerable, breathing living being beneath her gaze. His hair, mussed and limp, covered half his face and some of his substantial nose and she was tempted to wake him. She lay there smiling, and her hand wandered in to his warmth and stroked him gently on his back and he half-opened his eyes.

"What are you smiling at?" he growled sleepily. "I didn't give you permission to smile."

His eyes had a further depth that did not seem possible, had surfaced so soon from that darkness of consciousness and that world of the fantastical and the magical and the horrific, where one is vulnerable and open, a puppet of one's own mind.

Where had he been to have such a look?

She pushed him over and lifted herself up and sat astride his torso and he grunted in pretend agony.

"You're a monster," she said, her hair falling onto him, the light catching both of them. "You're not very imaginative with your disparagements," he replied in mock scorn, as he rubbed his dark stubble and studied the joggle of her breasts above him. The proximity of her seat on him was doing something quite spectacular to the region of himself that neither of them could see.

"I'll give you disparagements," she said, and bending down, she sucked at the firmness of his mouth and searched for his thick viperous tongue, then lent back and grasped the solidity that she could feel behind her against her rear. Then she massaged him and watched to see his face change with the sharp intake of breath and his back trying to arch.

It was such pleasure to have him under her.

"Now I've got you," she jeered, as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. Then stopped immediately the words were out, memory overtook her and took her hand away as if his flesh burnt. For a few seconds he was puzzled, then realized what was going on, and put an arm around her neck and tried to pull her down on him, but could feel the strength of her reluctance.

"Elrin, it's all right."

She stared away towards the window, the fine furrows on her brow crushed.

"This is fine with me," he spoke with a low voice. "Look at me." He moved her chin to make her look at him and said carefully to her. And if eyes and with them their thoughts could have burrowed into another's, they would have done. "I will inform you if it is not acceptable to me. This is not oppression. I want you to do this to me. Do you understand?" She nodded as she laid her head on his shoulder, still astride him, but was afraid.

"It feels like power to me: power over someone. You might be able to handle it, but I don't think I can, now. I used to think I was – different, not a person who could do forceful things to others."

 "It is a power, and you need to come to terms with it and learn how to use it, but it need not be oppressive." He took a deep breath. "What I did to you – in the storeroom" and he got his words out slowly,  – "with the ropes, now that was oppression."

"Yes, it was, but I did want you," she said, surprised at him talking about it, because it had haunted her dreams.

"I was aware of it."

"You were?"

"Of course," he said, a smug look about him, his eyes glinting in the sun.

I could hit him, I really could.

"Nevertheless I had put you in that situation where you had no free will at all. It was not a joint freedom; it was one dominating another."

"You really thought I was a spy?"

"I had to be certain that you were not. You know what the parchments could mean in our fight against the Darkness. It was and is my job to protect them. I had to be sure. I am not going to apologise for it."

"I'm not asking you to," she replied, the scene replaying in her mind.

"I had you in a position of complete disempowerment. When I found you without guile to my hands and with a dignity I could never have imagined in that situation, I stopped." He spoke close to her cheek as he continued. "I wanted to go further because you were so beautiful, so desirable, but I could not do that – not to you, nor anyone."

"And the Veritaserum? You would not have used that?"

"Ah. That is a slightly greyer area. No, I did not intend to use it on you and since you behaved impeccably. I had no need to, but I would be more than capable of crossing that line if necessary, rather than rape. If I had found even a tiny amount of guilty behaviour in your demeanour or actions, I would have used it."

"How else could I have reacted under your treatment?"

"Many, many ways but you smelt of integrity all the way through. However, I could read from you that there was something that did not make sense. You were telling the truth, but hiding from me as well. I could read it."

"You would have found how much I wanted you, and I could not have handled your scorn."

"There was that, there was something else, quite likely the power which you didn't realize you possessed. I was able to feel it and I needed to know its' nature. To know whether it was for good or ill."

"I could not have been hiding something I didn't know I had though, could I?"

"Oh yes, a part of yourself, not acknowledging that you could possible have such strength. The Muggle world has brainwashed everyone to believe that they do not have such potential."

"It turned out to be for ill and I became guilty though didn't I?"

"Unfortunately, with the use of the Dark Arts at the highest level, the choice of what it was was taken away from you. We knew that when you returned after you had been kidnapped. You had clearly been changed, but we didn't know how and to what extent."

"That was dangerous keeping me around the place. I think I would have locked me up."

"The staff certainly wanted you to be. But Albus and I wanted you in close proximity to us rather than let you be taken by the Ministry. I know only too well what they would have done to you," and he frowned at the thought. "Or much worse still, letting you wander back to Voldemort. With either route, it was improbable that you would have been able to recover, and you would have been part of the enemy we would have had to destroy."

She paled at the thought and dug closer to him, but said lightly, "Ah, to keep the enemy where you could see them? And I thought you just cared," she said mocking, though her heart did not mock.

"And so we did."

We, not I.

"I was busy, apart from trying to keep you out of mischief, making a potion which I hoped to reverse the problem, but I could not find the right remedy without knowing the problem; the sounding not being within my sphere of knowledge. If we had had you locked up, there would have been no chance at all of reversing it."

"And you did, without potion or wand – just yourself – I remember," she said and held him tight and whispered into his ear. "It was the most magnificent thing that anyone could have done and I have you and all the stars under heaven to thank for it. I can't believe I'm that lucky."

"In that case would you mind finishing what you started?" he reproved, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. I'm in agony here."

And between her reluctance and his encouragement, she soon had him clutching the bed with sucking and licking and stroking and teasing and the rapture on his face was something to behold.

For both of them, the rare treat of being enfolded in another's arms, warm flesh to warm flesh breathing each other in, listening to steady heartbeats and the quiet was sufficient and they lay there, just two small bodies within a whirling, crazy universe as their own worlds shifted orbit into one another. They had been spinning round one another for some time and had even threatened to collide, but a part of each now lodged itself into the other and though physically they might spring apart, there would always retain a sizeable chunk of the other lodged into the strata of their souls.

Fortunately it was the weekend, and in this one he had no official duties to attend to, not even at mealtimes, so both of them could relax and take their time.

What did I do to deserve this? What star was I born under to lead me to this? I wouldn't mind a visit to Fawkes sometime. I miss him.

After they had lain together for sometime, she told him she would like a bath.

"Stand between the cabinet and that table and say 'bathroom,' it will open," he said, as he threw back the covers and grabbed a huge bathrobe for himself and his wand. Pointing it at a chest of drawers in the corner, he said "Accio shirt" and between the drawer shooting out and back in, a shirt flew through the air to him and he threw it to her to catch.

Well, he wouldn't have problems finding his socks.

The second he had his bathrobe on, and she out of bed with the shirt on, he snapped "Dobby" and clicked his fingers. He had not considered whether she minded being seen in his bedroom in one of his shirts only just covering the minimum. Not that it mattered. Dobby was there in the instant.

Didn't they ever go to the bathroom or anything?

Dobby was all ears.

"Yes Professor Snape sir, what can Dobby do for Professor Snape?"

"Dobby," he said to the elf, minute against the tower that was the Head of Slytherin, "would you do me the honour of exercising Aelfsidene for me? If you have the time and the inclination."

His saucer eyes blinked at her for a millisecond, then at him.

"Of course Professor, sir. Dobby would be delighted. Your horse is a pleasure to ride."

"Not too many treats," he warned, glowering.

"No, Professor" and grinned.

"Oh, and could you ask someone to bring up some food – a variety of sandwiches perhaps, some fruit, coffee and…" he cocked his eyebrow to her as if asking her if she wanted anything to add.

"I know it's a long shot, but you don't do French Pastries by any chance do you?"

"They are Winky's speciality!" Dobby cried, "and Winky will be over the moon that Madam Elrin asked" and with his great ears waggling, he cracked away.

How odd. Severus was polite and respectful.

As she began to make her way across the room, she told him her surprise.

"Well?" he said as he shaved with his wand in the corner mirror, keeping his hair well out of the way.

I wonder if he could do that on my legs?

"I'm so used to you treating those around you with abruptness and, and - ."

Condescension. I'm digging a pit here.

"Condescension," he finished for her. "Why would I treat those badly who are dedicated to the benefit of the school, and are the foundation upon which it runs smoothly and comfortably and without whom it would collapse. They also do it with skill and with fervour, and without recognition."

Someone like you perhaps?

"Without students, it would collapse," she countered.

"They will always come," he said with a sneer. "Do I assume you consider that I treat my students badly?" He purred provocatively.

"Pretty ferociously, yes," she said with her chin up.

"Yes, and they need it, believe me, and do you want a bath or not?"

As he said this, the food arrived by Winky looking like spring sunshine. She laid in on the table, winked at Elrin and as they both thanked her, she waved and disappeared.

"You have made her week, maybe even month, Elrin."

Something else made her think as she got to the cabinet and turned to him.

"How would a small house-elf manage your horse when even you have a certain amount of difficulty?"

Is that question going to dent your ego?

"Dobby is a free elf," he said, looking at her through the mirror, "he has his own magic. Besides, Aelfsidene means 'elf-influence'".

"And you don't want to use your magic when you ride?" She understood his answer before it came.

"Certainly not, it would take all the fun out of it."

"Masochist," she said.

"Masochist?" he said with a soft low menace coming towards her, slipping his wand into his pocket and putting his arms round her hips and slipping his hands under the shirt onto her bare buttocks.

"I'll give you masochist" and he paused for a few seconds, then Accio'd a flattish cushion from a chair.

"Bathroom," he growled to the wall.

It was a huge bathroom as she might have expected and sunk low so that there were steps down to the floor, then a large sunken pool in the centre of that.

"Oh, black, just for a change," she smirked. For the whole bathroom was in black tiling. It looked very – male, sparse, and luxurious.

With a quick 'Aquatrinium,' the bath began to fill rapidly; steam rising while he selected some toiletries for them. He took a while over it, as she might have expected.

"Do you make your own?"

"Of course. Why would I go to the trouble of buying commercial products that are unimaginative and are of an inferior nature? I loathe them." He left her sniff the one he had decided upon. It smelt like nothing she had ever smelt before: it was an exhilarating scent, but could not even begin to analyse the ingredients. She had thought that maybe he would have chosen something ultra male, but it was obvious that he had chosen something that was neither, but was sensuous and beautiful and strong.

"I've got you there haven't I?" he said smugly, tipping an amount into the pool. He adjusted the temperature by sticking his wand in. "You may get in now."

After she had stripped off the shirt, she lowered herself by the vertical steps with tall handles at the top into the blissful warmth, throwing herself back into it with joy. He threw the cushion down on the floor between the steps, and slipped into the water from the side. It was neither too deep nor too shallow, the water coming up to about half her height and they swam and frolicked like two ducks, their hair wet and their bodies clean. He still had a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Oh, oh. He's definitely up to something.

But for now she lay on her back, floating, the water lazily slipping over the length of her body and he crept towards her carefully, in order not to move the water too much. A wet hand running over her breasts was stimulating enough but then the other one reached between her legs and gently, oh, so gently, massaged her until she gasped with the pressure of the rising tide of her pleasure. So much so that she broke her floating position for fear of going under the water and they both stood in the water as it ran down their bodies, hair in wet tangles, wet body to wet body and the heat of him seemed more intense. His black eyes glittered.

"He is the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in his coiling there is joy. If he lifts up his head, he and she are one.

With a quick movement, he took hold of her wrist and led her to the ladder with the cushion lying between. "Hold on and place your head on the cushion." From his wand by the side of the pool, he raised the water level until it was as high as it could get.

"Lift your legs, he commanded and ranged his hands over her, her bottom sticking slightly out of the water provocatively. He bent over and kissed her on the neck and then concentrated on heightening her arousal with his fingers and her body flooded.

"That's what I like to feel, you getting ready for my arrival," he growled approvingly. She was beginning to suffer, and when he was satisfied that she was, climbed on top of her and held the rail above her own hands.

"Spread your legs my lady, I'll give you masochist." 

She was taking a fair bit of his weight, but the water took some, and he used his arms to relieve most of it, feeling his hardness strong against her. Then he backed off to ease his way in, searching for the right place and gently laid back onto her.

Gradually, he increased the rhythm and the depth to which he could penetrate and she gasped with the fullness of him. She had not done it this way before and she had always thought it was a rather cold and animalistic way of having sex, but the reality of it was completely different – she felt the whole of his body on her back as an enclosing force-field and his face was a little higher than hers but it was close and it seemed more intimate than she had ever would have imagined.

He was upping the pressure by degrees and the water was beginning to spill out over onto the floor and she juddered with each thrust.

"Wait…"

"Finding it too much for you?" he asked triumphantly, slowing his pace.

"No, but I'm afraid that if I let go of here," she panted, "I will sink."

"I won't let you sink into the water."

"But – you'll be otherwise engaged…"

"Do not thwart me Madam. You need to trust me."

And the weird thing was, she did.

Having slowed to talk, he then continued at a faster and more vigorous pace until she could bear it no longer, his hair slapping across her face and then for a flash, and as he almost reached a peak of his driving force, in the briefest of brief instances, he lent his head down and thrust his tongue out against her cheek.

If he droops down his head at her, and shoots forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and they and the earth are one."

Then he thrust for all he was worth in a wild and angry frenzy, water everywhere, and she relinquished her hold and bucked in her ecstasy, her head back and he grabbed her as she let go and held her head above water as he came inside her and then sank briefly beneath the water still holding her up, came out of her, and then broke the surface, gasping. She wanted him still in her and she cried out with the loss.

"My darling.." The look on his face made her want to hold him tight and she did so, his face relaxed.

"My Elrin," he said and they clung to each other like that for a while.

"Lesson number one," he said as he kissed her gently, "that's what happens when you call me a masochist."

"Some lessons always need repeating," she said, wiping the wet hair clinging round his face.

"That is unquestionably true," he said, pleased.

It was beginning to be uncomfortable as they were, so he reduced the water level right down to a much lower level and altered the temperature, and then with a 'Wingardium Leviosa,' brought the food and drinks down to the side and they ate greedily. When it came to the fruit pastries, she peeled off a large slice of strawberry with cream from the top, held it in her teeth and offered him a bite from it. He sank his teeth into it and took.

"You pig," she cried, "you had most of that."

Then he returned the favour with a piece of pastry with peach from his, and then licked her lips for her.

When they had washed it down with coffee, kept hot by a simple charm, she asked, "Can you bring the shampoo over?"

He magicked it and she lathered his hair while she knelt behind him on her heels, he sitting like a lamb while she kneaded and strongly massaged tiny circles on his scalp so that he began to drift in his mind. He could never have imagined that something so mundane and which normally took him a matter of seconds to do could be so erotic. He felt her thighs by the side of him in the water and rubbed them idly with the flat of his hands.

I remember the first time you did that. You had wanted me then and I had not known. Who would have thought it would come to this?

That he had never experienced this kind of intimate relationship was clear by the dazed look on his face that he didn't even attempt to hide from her. She imagined that he had had perhaps short, brutal affairs when he was a Death Eater, but nothing like this. But then neither had she, but at least she had known it existed. She doubted whether he had had any idea of its existence or if he had, he would have completely derided it as a fabrication or for the amusement of the dumb.

He looked funny with a white lathered head and she laughed as she moved round to his front. He sneered at her amusement and grabbed her to apply the shampoo on her. He had no idea how to deal with long hair but he tried to do what she had done to him, and although he was inexpert and growled with impatience, she loved his hands on her head and she helped him a little. Then when she was done, she leant over and kissed him fully, lather streaming down both faces and bodies.

Later, when they had dried themselves off, he said "I have some work to do" and she wondered, by the way he said it, that maybe he thought she might object.

"Fine," she said happily, putting on her clothes after he had used a Quickleen spell on them, "In your office rather than in here?"

"Yes, damned first year's work. Dismal. Standards are dropping rapidly with the kind of student we're getting today."

She hid a grin from him as he was buttoning his shirt up.

"May I come too?" she asked, the thought of being away from him tearing unexpectedly at her insides.

"Very well," he said, "Assuming that you are not going to distract me Elrin," and looked at her with a soupcon of menace.

"Certainly not," she said with pride. "It's just a long time since I have been in your office – since – " and trailed off.

"It might not be a bad idea. But no – "

"Distractions. I understand Professor" and she gave him a mock bow.

He leered at her as he shrugged his robes on, which made her want to kiss him again.

It nearly came out of her mouth, then.

I love you.

But held it back. It was quite likely that he would have scuttled back under his emotional rock if she had not done so.

His office felt cold, so he lit the fire and then sat at his desk, a pile of scrolls by his side, and a derisive curvature to his mouth. She wandered around slowly, gazing into jars stuffed full of organic material and into glasses, such beautiful glassware containers, great bellies of glass full of alluringly coloured solutions, twisted and straight tubes in a confusing complexity of connections, and then there were the obscure objects in murky waters. She hoped that they were all capped tightly. As she looked around for the first time clearly, without other pressing matters, her respect for him grew, since the order and clarity and beauty of what lay before her spoke of his professionalism and his dedication. She flicked her eyes to where he was seated, in his usual black outfit where he sat as a spider in the centre of his web, in the centre of his world, only to find him watching her.

"I'm not distracting you," she said defensively, moving further away, and round behind a table. Even though it appeared she was.

"Don't," he muttered, and turned to scratching and striking at the papers.

No doubt with the red pen rather than the black.

She looked out over the lake, the sun brightening the area around it, but not penetrating the dark of the lake as if it could, by withholding light from its surface, it could keep its secrets and the different life forms within its depths, from harm. Above, the sky was as blue as she had seen it, and the birds rocketed their way through the air, dive bombing and squabbling and showing off. She saw Hagrid in the extreme side of her view rowing a boat and decided to go and see him soon. She would have to tackle the problem a little more strongly, and not be so passive. She felt she could try that now. She would have to see Xiomara privately too somehow.

After spending some time, gradually circling the room, poking here and there only tentatively and peering at objects and weird texts and symbols, she decided to sit by the fire and then hesitated, not really wanting to sit in her own usual seat. Nevertheless, she decided to try, and immediately a flooding of the sound came rising up into her mind and she stuffed it back down again, frightened, her heart beating strongly.

What if it took over? What if she hurt him? What if he couldn't stop it a second time?

She knew that it was unreasoning of her; she knew she was 'clean' from the Talisman, and was more or less, back as she was before, but it associated in her mind with the dark side and she feared herself. So, breathing heavily she removed herself and sat in his and it felt comfortable to be in the same space and the moulding of his body, his scent just faint in the cushion. Her mind quietened and she could hear the scratching of his quill like some kind of musical sound against the gentle sounds of outside and the sizzling of the fire and the warmth made her sleepy. Her body felt like as if it had never felt before, as if it were somehow not hers alone anymore, but more hers than ever before. As if the constituency of hers called to the materials around her, the firmness of the leather chair she was sitting on, the sensuality of the large cushion upon it, the rugged roughness of the fireplace stone. So that was how cats felt. She curled up with her arms wrapped round the cushion as if it were a lover, smelling it and drifted off.

To wake with Severus kneeling by the side of her, holding a cup of something hot that he put down beside her.

"Have I been out long? Have you finished?"

"Quite a while, and yes I have, at least for now," he said, still kneeling and on her sleep filled face placed a loving kiss. She held his black-robed substance to her and quietly searched for the curve of his mouth, sending a wave of tenderness through her whole body. She made a little sound of sleep-filled pleasure and then lay back to study him as he took her usual seat in front of her, adjusting his robes that seemed as if they had become bulkier or more powerful by their short absence. Such a peculiarly amazing human being embodied into such a distinctive manifestation and he was with her.

"I love you," she said, shocked that it had slipped out of her and it was too late for wishing it back.

He blinked and she waited for the sound of retreat.

Raptus Regaliter     Royally Screwed