I awake hanging once more in the cell, the rough cloth again searing into me. I try to see you but can't seem to open my eyes. Then I begin to understand, they are open! Little wonder your decent was so rapid, a few moments of this has me nearly panicked. I try my voice in the bitter and vicious silence, "Hermione, are you there? It's still dark, They brought me back early. What can it mean? I have something to show you, a plan maybe." As I struggle to remember the past few hours, I find visions of you with me, your image burned into to my brain now. I took strength from that somehow, and keeping my mind from Them was so much easier than it has been. Maybe protecting you was all incentive I needed. Did I alert them to your appearance to me, both in my thoughts and here, in my cell? No, I'm sure not, but then why are you so still that I hear no chains and no breath while you sleep? I nearly scream for your attention, afraid that you aren't sleeping, unwilling to think what else could still you so, "Answer me now! Don't give up now; They brought me back in the dark. Why? So early?" Authority hiding the fear in my voice.
When you answer your thoughts are calmer, you seem again the whole and purposeful young woman I knew such a short time ago, hundreds of years before this dungeon. I struggle to follow you in the darkness that surrounds us on the path to your sanctuary; the pain in my body follows even to this journey.
As you stop my invasion of your inner self, suddenly the light fills my brain and I am whole again. I understand that you have forced me to find my own appearance for you here. The question flies off to you before I can stop it, 'that simple? Did you do that or did I? What charm is this Miss Granger, that you so easily invade my brain and yet yours is chaos itself.' I don't want the answer suddenly, afraid that I am not saving you, that you are infecting me. Dragging me into madness with guile and seduction where They failed with pain and terror. I drape my image of myself as I am most guarded, in full Professor's robes and my usual carefully arranged appearance. I feel suddenly like a predator, preying on the innocent child you were in my classes, the child you no longer are.
You admonish me gently, sweetly, but with seduction and easy, casual sensuality dripping from even the cotton dress you wore that summer day. I try to recreate that day's attire for myself, the disguise of a businessman, one of so many that day in London before I followed you into the wizarding world as unseen guardian. Of course, you did see me lurking in the shadows. Ashamed I try to make myself more what you might invite into this garden, one I realize I must know. Familiar somehow...
I give in finally, beginning to understand your intentions, hoping the languid young woman in the tree remains, and the pale, thin, fragile desperation you are does not return.
"I fail to see what there is left to fight about, and please call me Severus if you insist on looking at me like that," but you are not happy with my younger self, why would you want this dark and ancient monster instead? The sarcastic teacher who must surely have made your circle of friends resentful and angry. I content myself to relish the possibilities of this new arrangement, and fight the urge to remove the monster from your mind, me. There is something new in your personality, something refreshing and tempting, but I feel it is also dangerous. I get the answer like a rush of cold water through my heart, you are not longer afraid of death, you are sure of it! Resignation mixed with certainty has turned you confident, insistent, and I find completely irresistible.
But we have company, and as I recognize my own image of the snake, my loyal guardian to my deepest secrets I pull you from your tree with anger and fear. You hit me with the memories of your journey through my mind with a quiet force that nearly sends me reeling back down the path into... darkness. As I struggle to remain not only upright, but here with you I finally know: I am truly mad. In that final resignation I am released, much as you now seem. Free in a way I have never felt.
You want the same answers I do, how is this happening, the woman child with a power greater than any I have ever stood up against. And then you push toward my final fear, your wish to share the memories of your torment, one I can never erase for you, could not save you from. The torment that brought you here, to this darkness, to me. I try to will myself to see, you seem to need me to see this. I find I cannot, no matter how hard I try. I have to admit my failure to you, and I'd give anything not to, to let you believe I fear no thing and no task.
I cover my failure in a mask of criticism, of you as well as of myself, and draw you to me protectively. I'm overwhelmed with the need for forgiveness. Something I've never dared ask of anyone else, not even myself, I need of you. My body, my real body alone in the darkness in chains and pain, cries out with the final defiance of this need. And then I know, that's why THIS garden, my garden this time and not your own, because you have already forgiven. You know all I am, saw it through my own consciousness, and found nothing there to condemn me for. I tell you about this place, the last place I remember being truly unburdened. Try to explain my utter lack of answers for you gently, "I don't know how you did this, why you can. I've never heard of such strong telepathic links, nor such sanctuaries before. But then, I've not been raped..." You draw my final regrets of failure from me with an achingly soft finger to my lips. I want, no I NEED to give you... whatever it is you are asking for. Hoping that this will finally set you free, make you back into that confident and charming young woman gaily trying on shoes and picking through a bookstore a lifetime ago.
Your answer is shocking, real and unafraid. The wanting of your spirit has bathed this 'body' before me. "Silly man, this will do it. Maybe both of us. I don't understand, but what do we have to lose? They come to kill you tomorrow, and I can hide myself from them, but I am dying already, you know that don't you? See the weakness settled into me, starved and fading. Give me this, willingly, because you want to. Trust that tomorrow, hope will find us well. There is a fraction of hope," I cover your mouth with mine before I can find a chance to talk myself out of it. Drive the thoughts of reality from our hideaway with one hungry kiss. All the world melts away, every nagging question of the dungeon is driven out in a rush of carnal need. I find it is your need I feel and its intoxicating me, pulling every fibre of my fractured mind together into this wanton, shaking, desperately needy frame of the sternly clad professor. Your hands run down my chest and the costume melts away. My last secret takes over, and the body you feel is not my own entirely. Where your hot little hands (hands, what hands, if not real as they feel, then what is this) roam my body I am smooth, clean and completely unblemished. Tiny moans gather in your throat and leak into my mouth. Passion racks my body, never felt this hot, this needy, this terrible greed...
You feel so pure beneath my touch, loath to hurt you or force anything so my hands twist into your hair in an attempt to push this lust away from you. But you won't let me, pulling me to you and we are falling, so slowly, defying gravity in your will to lie in the cool grass with my weight crushing the nightmare out of you entirely. I hear your chant, one thought rolling over and over, 'undo Their lesson, show me what it can be.' And I'm powerless to stop you, your will becomes my want. The desperate need to wrap myself in you completely. I'm plagued with a tiny driving question, just beyond my reach. If I reach for it, you tug me to you, smothering me in desire. Skin, the whole world is your silky warm skin, perfect and sweet and so very female. The moments spin into years, balanced here on the edge of intrusion. I force your face to mine, eyes burning with lust, and filling my soul with quaking fear. I am lost. Gone forever into your eyes, you slowly grind yourself onto me, burying me within you in a final act of supplication and domination. The ground drops away as I'm finally completely terrifyingly whole, not only my manhood but my soul covered to the very edges of myself with your fragile but enormous spirit. Seduction, no, this is so much more. We rock to each other's rhythms, the climax building together like an inevitable storm. My hands feverishly searching your small frame for a grasp to keep me from losing my mind entirely, finding only your neck vibrating with the force of your moans, your back arched in to complete me, your hips swaying and shaking with the power of our lovemaking. Spinning in the void, you are above me, covering my chest in kisses filled with growls of passion. The screams of release are ripping from my throat and you gather them in with your mouth, licking the corners of my mouth with trembling kisses and I'm flying away into the void after this powerful climax.
"Severus, come back to me. So much to tell you about this, please," you whisper to me. A secret, an important little thought returns. "I know, we have no bodies here so what have we joined together? I think you know, spirit soul and mind, and something precious and powerful has taken over me. I have a way out, I only hope I haven't driven you mad with this... gift. For you Severus, I'll gladly leave this garden forever, if you lead me home."
I turn the thoughts back into myself. Home, of course. One I can save, my saviour, my redeemer. For you, anything for you my love, to make you safe, Hermione. Into the darkness, into the void, into the mouth of hell itself to carry you to safety. An idea, ancient and untried magic, all the protection I can think of creeps slowly into my brain. Dangerous, desperate, but so necessary. Must try, but sleep, dreamless and painless is calling, and I can't resist that either. So very lost...