Title: The Absinthe of Reason
Author: Mundungus42
Rating: R- and you finally get some R-rated stuff in this chapter
Disclaimer: For anyone who was under the impression that I gained control of all things Harry Potter between this chapter and the last (I mean, this chapter is about 3 days late), I didn't. Really!
~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hermione swallowed hard. "An oral exam, sir?"
Snape gestured to his bed, and she obligingly sat down on the edge. She was dismayed to find that her feet did not touch the floor. To avoid swinging her feet, she drew up her legs and slid her feet off to the side. She would have thought he was not interested in the display, but for the way he straightened his robe and spoke even more testily.
"Yes, Miss Granger, an oral exam, and perhaps a short practical to follow, depending on how your oral skills satisfy me."
Hermione could not control the blush rising in her cheeks. Was he doing this on purpose?
"Miss Granger, look at me."
She reluctantly met his eyes. He looked unamused at best. "Your answers will be graded on accuracy, completeness, and the depth of your references. You will be penalized for excessive hesitation, for incomplete answers, and," he narrowed his eyes, "for blushing."
She met his glare with one of her own. "That's hardly fair, sir."
"Neither is having to give an exam to a lingerie-clad student," he replied in a dry voice. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes, Professor," she answered promptly.
"Good. Question number one, what do I have in this glass?"
"Absinthe sir, also sugar and carbonated water." They hadn't covered absinthe potions in her study, but between her assigned reading and monthly hormone-induced penchant for nineteenth century melodrama, she felt fairly confident on the subject.
He nodded. "And the ingredients?"
"I don't know completely, sir," she said honestly, "since I haven't read Le Calvez's recipe, but Henri Pernod used aniseed, fennel, hyssop, lemonbalm, and trace amounts of angelica, star anise, dittany, juniper, nutmeg, and veronica. Wormwood, the active ingredient, contains the neurotoxin thujone, which is why it has been banned in-"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "That will do. What causes the green colour?"
To say the least, she was disappointed with his questions. "Chlorophyll from the plants, sir, though sometimes dishonest brewers used copper sulfate, turmeric, aniline green, and occasionally toxic substances, like mercury."
"To what do you attribute its reputation?"
Odd. This was the easiest exam she'd /i had from Snape. If she didn't know him as well as she did, she'd suspect he was making sure that she passed. However, she was certain that no matter how he felt about her, he was going to make things difficult. Which meant he was taking another approach to getting rid of her.
He cleared his throat, interrupting her thoughts. Oh right, the infamy of absinthe in a hundred words or less.
"Well, apart from the wormwood, a number of recipes include calamus, which is thought to have psychoactive effects: namely a heightened sense of reality in milder recipes and visual and auditory hallucinations in higher concentrations. Others, like Arsenius Jigger, feel that thujone is the likelier culprit. I am more inclined to agree with St. Hilaire, who attributes the dishonest absinthe brewers and their questionable quality control for the number of people who did unpredictable things while under the influence of absinthe."
"Including going mad and occasionally dying, " he put in. Dry humour was a good sign, but she could have named a thousand things she'd rather be doing with him at that point, and that was a conservative estimate. He was definitely stalling, and she was getting tired of it.
"Professor, do you honestly think I failed to complete my assigned reading?" she asked, unable to conceal her irritation.
"That is precisely what this test is intended to determine. And I was under the impression that I was making this exam, not you."
"If this is a typical exam for one of your independent students, your assessment of student intelligence in class is spot on, " she said, with no small bite in her voice. "Neville Longbottom could have passed this exam with you and his grandmother looking over his shoulder."
His eyes narrowed. "Miss Granger, do you wish to receive credit for your independent study or not?"
"If you plan to test rote memorisation and not the things I've actually /i this year, then what do I care if you give me full marks or no marks?"
"With the condition you placed upon me, I should think you would care a great deal."
"You only agreed to let me spend the night with you. If you continue with this line of questions for all the potions and alcohols covered in the reading, it will soon be midnight and you'll insist that I leave. No, Professor," she said, crossing her arms resolutely across her chest, "That is not how I intend to let the evening proceed."
She wasn't sure which had hit him harder, her accurate description of his plan to get rid of her or her threat to take away his examiner's privilege, but for a split second, he looked shocked. To his credit, he quickly recovered. "What you intend is of no interest to me. And thanks to your interruption, you may consider your grade lowered by five percent."
The threat was empty, and both of them knew it. Covering a smile of triumph with a sip of absinthe, she deliberately slid one silk-clad thigh over the other until her legs were crossed. Two could play at the double entendre game.
"By all means, Professor, continue with the examination."
She was delighted to see an infinitesimal amount of colour come to all of his exposed skin. The scowl, however, deepened. "Miss Granger, do not try my patience further. Were you finished expounding the infamy of absinthe, or was there more you'd like to add."
"I'm done, sir."
"Very well. According to your alcohol journal, this evening was your first experience with absinthe. Please describe it."
I had the privilege of seeing it brewed by a Potions Master," she said with a grin.
"I doubt that, unless you have been hiding in my quarters for the past two weeks."
The compliment had merely been a test of his mood. His response had been dry rather than cutting. She was suddenly filled with a giddy surge of confidence. In his own way, he responded to her. Not just the underwear, but to her, temper and all!
"Well then, it depends entirely on what you mean by 'experience,' sir," she said, absently trailing a finger along the strap of her garter belt. "Do you wish to know what fascinating things I've observed evening, like the colour change when sugar is added, or do you wish to know how it has affected me?" "
"Why on earth should I care to know how alcohol affects you?"
"Because," she said seriously, "I want you to be sure you won't be taking advantage of me."
"The thought hadn't crossed my mind. Now answer the question before I banish you to the hallway, agreement or not."
"Very well, then, sir," she said. She took a deep breath, looked into his face, and began to speak.
"Absinthe. I knew about its nasty reputation, of course. I must confess, it rather intimidated me for some time. But upon later examining the things I thought I knew about it, I found that a great deal of the horrible things attributed to it were either exaggerated or completely untrue. That's what happens during troubled times in history- something must take the blame for death and degeneration. Why not absinthe? It looks like acid-green poison, deadly by the drop but consumed by the glass."
He gave her a sharp look. "You think it completely undeserved of its infamy then?"
"Nothing is completely innocent, but one must keep all things in perspective, including the sensational and melodramatic tendencies of the media and popular fiction."
He finally broke eye contact and walked over to a chaise that sat near one of the bookshelves. He set his glass of absinthe on a nearby end table and regarded her stonily. "What do you know of historical context, Miss Granger?"
She rolled over on her stomach to face him. His face was in shadow, but the soft lights of the room were reflected in his eyes. "I know that anything that survives such a campaign of intolerance has much more to it than meets the eye. I should like to learn more. I'm not afraid of what I may learn in more intensive study.'
The eyes were still fixed on her. "Little fool," he said softly. "You have no idea what you're getting into."
"Perhaps not. But I'd like to." She propped herself up on her elbows. "Have you any other questions for me about absinthe, sir?"
"One more, if you wouldn't mind satisfying my curiosity."
"Of course not, sir. May I consider it extra credit?"
"I don't give extra credit."
"Yes sir, sorry sir." She looked at him expectantly.
"What did you think of your first taste tonight, after all of your study and reading?"
At last! She slid off the bed, grateful to have floor under her feet again and went over to the bench where he lay half recumbent. She drained her glass of absinthe, welcoming the cooling sensation that followed the sweetened bitterness, before setting it on the end table and sitting next to him. He was still looking in the direction of the bed, but she felt his awareness as keenly as she felt her own excitement pouring off her like heat waves. Not yet daring to touch, she leaned toward him, just stopping short of his neck and inhaled.
Faint notes of whatever he used for washing, but the strongest scent was Severus, clean and warm. Glorious! She heard him inhale suddenly, and her thoughts tumbled out on her exhalation.
"I savoured my first taste with no adornments. The scent made me want to taste, and it was unlike anything I'd ever tasted. Bracing. Bitter. Complex- but with a clean finish that made me eager to taste again."
She saw gooseflesh rise on his chest from her warm breath on his neck, and she brushed her cheek against his clavicle, bringing her lips to rest in the hollow above his breastbone. She felt rather than saw his Adam's apple bob. She began to press kisses along his clavicle in earnest, and was surprised to feel his hand seize hers and press it against his bare chest. His heart was hammering beneath his skin. She looked up into his face, which was faintly suffused with colour, but surprisingly calm for all of the adrenaline that was being pumped to other parts of his body.
His thumb lightly brushed the back of her hand, and she jumped. His other hand reached to tuck a few curls behind her ear, and he traced her jawline with his fingertips. "Tell me, Miss Granger, what did your second taste reveal to you?" The question was professorial, but his voice most certainly was not. Something ragged was lurking beneath the surface of measured words and modulated tone.
She caught his hand before he withdrew it and punctuated her next words with kisses planted on each fingertip. "Equal parts fresh. Bitter. Ferrous. Cedar. Sweet. Salty." The final word was spoken over his palm. The sibilant "s" and kiss in the centre of his life line sent a shiver through him, and she met his eye with a half smile. "Mostly, it made me want to explore further."
"Foolish girl," he whispered, lips barely brushing her earlobe. "What we want isn't always good for us."
His warm breath in her ear made her entire body twitch in a way that very nearly destroyed her ability to form a coherent sentence. "Professor," she said when the red and yellow patches had retreated from her peripheral vision and her breath had returned to nearly normal, "if you expect me to continue bantering for much longer, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed."
"Pity," he said in a disinterested tone. "Clearly, reading up on a subject isn't everything."
Hermione felt a truly feral smile grip her features a moment before she dove in and proceeded to snog the living daylights out of her Potions professor. Apparently, he had a very similar idea, as her own living daylights were nearly out by the time she realized that her body still required oxygen in order to maintain consciousness.
He took advantage of her disengagement to attack her neck with the voracity of a pack of werewolves under a full moon. She soon found herself underneath him on the bench, gasping for breath as competing impulses for breathing and shrieking ecstatically fought for control of her lungs. His lips were warm, but his kisses on her neck felt like tiny lightning strikes, each shorting out another section of her brain.
Pulling together what rational thought still remained, she managed to say, "Don't you think the bed might be a better place to continue?"
He blinked, bringing his eyes back into focus. "What? Oh, I suppose so."
Feeling an unexpected surge of pride in seeing Snape looking so thoroughly kissed, she couldn't resist asking, "Does this mean I passed your oral exam, sir?"
The soft curve of his swollen lips hardened as he pursed them suddenly. "What makes you think it's over?"
"You mean, you want me to..." she trailed off, partially from embarrassment and partially in disappointment in such an obvious and crass tactic.
He merely gestured to the bed. Honestly! One minute her heart was in time with his, and the next he was ordering her about with hand signals! She huffily tossed herself down on it and buried her face in the smooth cotton.
He sat down next to her and slapped her bare behind hard enough to make her raise her head and glare at him. He began smoothing his hand over the abused cheek and chuckled. She looked at him curiously, and his expression became serious.
"Miss Granger, if you wish to share my bed, I must make one thing abundantly clear. If you cannot bring yourself to ask for what you want, you are very unlikely to get it. Likewise, if there are activities or parts of you that you wish not to share with me, then you must tell me so clearly. If you wish me to treat you like an adult, then behave like one. Now that you know the rules, please explain why you are sulking on my bed."
Somewhat nettled by his patronising, she snapped, "I'm not sulking, and I'm not afraid of the phrase 'oral sex,' I just hadn't expected you to really follow through with the oral exam idea. It seems, well, a bit trite."
He raised an eyebrow. "If you think oral sex is trite, then your previous partners have done you a disservice. Now," he said, still gently massaging the flesh of her cheek with one hand, "if you are closing down that avenue of foreplay, it makes me curious as to what you had in mind for this evening's activities."
She pressed herself into his hand. "Well, this is nice. More of this would be a good place to start."
He obligingly released the clips that connected the backs of her stockings to the garter belt and began running his hands over both cheeks and the backs of her thighs. A satisfied hum began in the back of her throat. Encouraged, he released the straps on the outsides and insides of her thighs, giving him even greater access to the sensitive parts of her upper legs. She gave up on twisting around to watch him, and instead wriggled herself against those warm hands that made her skin tingle.
She lifted her hips to give him access to the front garter clips, and before she realized what was happening, he had not only released the clips but also the garter belt itself. She gasped at the cool air on skin that had not been uncovered for days, but he quickly warmed it with his hands.
"Please sir, the stockings."
Rather than pull them off by the toe as she would have done, he carefully rolled one down her leg and tossed the neat torus of silk away. Curiosity and arousal were a fascinating combination, she thought as she rolled over on her back and raised her other leg, resting her ankle on his shoulder. She wanted to see his hands against her skin.
He did not disappoint. With a bemused look at all that her position had to offer, he took the top of the stocking in his fingertips, carefully folded it over, and rolled it down her leg with such agonising slowness that by the time the second stocking joined its mate on the floor, she was about to hook her foot behind his neck and yank him down on top of her. As if sensing her intent, he grasped her ankle and began kissing it with equal parts lips and tongue.
Her eyes rolled up into her head of her own accord, and she gasped. The hot mouth continued moving up her leg and was soon joined by his hands, whose palms seemed to have been replaced with white-hot steel. She silently begged him to bring his hands around to cup her rear, but he did not. Using the lightest of touches, he trailed his fingers and kisses up to the top of her thigh until she suddenly twitched away and slammed her legs together.
Not even giving him a chance to make a cutting remark, she smiled apologetically. "It tickles."
The down turned corners of his mouth relaxed at her explanation. "You really must learn to control yourself, Miss Granger," he said with a dramatic sigh. "Now, where were we?" He drew her thighs apart, opening her up to his fingers, which teased the inflamed flesh with more pressure so that it tickled less.
It was lovely, but something was missing. She managed to tear her eyes away from his fingers to look at his face. He returned the quizzical look.
"Yes, just like that," she said when his finger brushed a part of her that sent all of the muscles in her lower back into pleasant spasms, allowing her eyes to fall shut. "When you trace along the outside, yes, please don't stop, please- AAH!" She was quite unprepared for the first time his finger encountered the bundle of nerves she suspected he would find. She just managed to keep her legs from springing together again, but her eyes sprang open and she emitted a loud yelp. It was too much.
"What is it now?" He straightened his robe with a savage yank.
Ahah! That was it! She gestured towards his robe. "This isn't working for me."
"It seemed to be working for you a moment ago."
"That was before I realized that you're still completely covered up and I'm lying here with my nether regions in your face. Vino vendibili hedera suspensa nihil opus est." [A good wine needs no decorations (to attract drinkers)]
The irritation on his face faded into amusement. "I see." He began to remove his robe, but she got up on her knees and stopped his hands.
"No. Let me."
She eased her hands into the vee over his chest, encountering smooth, warm skin and two very taut nipples. Good. She pinched them very gently, and felt the skin around them tighten. She then bent down to kiss the pale skin and eased the robe from his shoulders. The act revealed a slender body and nearly bare chest, with only a few dark hairs around his nipples. She began running her hands in circles over his skin, marvelling at the texture and warmth.
At one point, he must have managed to disentangle his arms from the sleeves of the robe, because she suddenly found them around her, rubbing any and all bare skin that he could reach- her rear, her hips, her upper thighs. She was doing the same, palms stroking small circles on his firm flesh.
Increasing the radius of her circles, she wrapped her arms around him to explore the skin of his back and sides. She quickly encountered the robe, which was still tied loosely around his waist. That would have to go. A few tugs on the back of the sash released the knot, and the robe fell loosely on the bed.
Hermione half wished she had been able to see his entire body as the robe fell away, but she was far too distracted by the feel of his firm buttocks in her hands and the sudden pressure of his erect penis pressing against her stomach.
They both gasped at the sudden contact and she drew back suddenly.
Hermione drank in the sight before her, hardly daring to believe it was real. The flat plane of stomach below his navel was flanked by narrow hips, and an inverted vee of dark hair framed his erection, which twitched enthusiastically as she stared.
She reached down to stroke the impossibly smooth skin of the tip, and he inhaled sharply through his nose. She grasped the shaft with one hand, and sent the other further south to cup his scrotum gently. He twitched away from her lower hand, and she hastily withdrew them both.
"I'm sorry, sir. Was I too rough?"
She had never seen such a blaze in his eyes before, but she couldn't read his expression as he drew back from her.
"Vino vendibili hedera non opus est, Hermione," he said, allowing the second syllable of her name to scrape the bottom of his vocal register. Before his use of her name or his variation on the proverb had a chance to penetrate, his hands were on her, fumbling with the myriad hooks on her bustier as eagerly as a child ripping open birthday gifts. When he had tossed the restricting garment aside, Hermione filled her lungs with air only to have it expelled by a forceful embrace.
Nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of full body contact, Hermione dragged him down to the bed. There were no limits to where their hands could go- the fingers that had formerly been overwhelming before were now part of a greater communion of flesh and heat. Legs and arms entwined, hips sought hips, and lips and tongues meshed in kisses that sent seismic waves through them both.
At last, a well-aimed pelvic thrust on someone's part- they were never quite sure whose- catapulted them over the point of no return, beyond the burning bridge, into a place where nothing existed but bodies, sweat and sweet friction. When the culmination of their exploration lit the room with blinding flashes of mutual ecstasy, all thoughts fled their conscious minds, leaving nothing but physical aftershocks in their wake.
Up in the Gryffindor Tower, four seventh year boys suddenly woke from vivid dreams to somewhat embarrassing messes.
Albus Dumbledore glanced up from his pensieve at the sudden flash of light from a dingy plaque in an unlit corner of his office. He lifted his hot buttered rum in salute.
"Well done, Miss Granger. Well done."
~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Author's note: Dana and Jeff, O Glorious Betas, where would I be without you? With a much less cohesive story and a general feeling of dissatisfaction. I salute you both!
Dearest readers, if I were you, there is no way I could forgive myself for posting this chapter three days late (my betas gave me too many things to fix), unless I had given myself something chocolaty or lemony to enjoy. Let me know if there were ample dashes of both.
This isn't the end- there's more to come! Ten points to your house if you correctly guess what happened in Dumbledore's office in this chapter. ;) Thank you all so much for your reviews!
Author: Mundungus42
Rating: R- and you finally get some R-rated stuff in this chapter
Disclaimer: For anyone who was under the impression that I gained control of all things Harry Potter between this chapter and the last (I mean, this chapter is about 3 days late), I didn't. Really!
~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hermione swallowed hard. "An oral exam, sir?"
Snape gestured to his bed, and she obligingly sat down on the edge. She was dismayed to find that her feet did not touch the floor. To avoid swinging her feet, she drew up her legs and slid her feet off to the side. She would have thought he was not interested in the display, but for the way he straightened his robe and spoke even more testily.
"Yes, Miss Granger, an oral exam, and perhaps a short practical to follow, depending on how your oral skills satisfy me."
Hermione could not control the blush rising in her cheeks. Was he doing this on purpose?
"Miss Granger, look at me."
She reluctantly met his eyes. He looked unamused at best. "Your answers will be graded on accuracy, completeness, and the depth of your references. You will be penalized for excessive hesitation, for incomplete answers, and," he narrowed his eyes, "for blushing."
She met his glare with one of her own. "That's hardly fair, sir."
"Neither is having to give an exam to a lingerie-clad student," he replied in a dry voice. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes, Professor," she answered promptly.
"Good. Question number one, what do I have in this glass?"
"Absinthe sir, also sugar and carbonated water." They hadn't covered absinthe potions in her study, but between her assigned reading and monthly hormone-induced penchant for nineteenth century melodrama, she felt fairly confident on the subject.
He nodded. "And the ingredients?"
"I don't know completely, sir," she said honestly, "since I haven't read Le Calvez's recipe, but Henri Pernod used aniseed, fennel, hyssop, lemonbalm, and trace amounts of angelica, star anise, dittany, juniper, nutmeg, and veronica. Wormwood, the active ingredient, contains the neurotoxin thujone, which is why it has been banned in-"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "That will do. What causes the green colour?"
To say the least, she was disappointed with his questions. "Chlorophyll from the plants, sir, though sometimes dishonest brewers used copper sulfate, turmeric, aniline green, and occasionally toxic substances, like mercury."
"To what do you attribute its reputation?"
Odd. This was the easiest exam she'd /i had from Snape. If she didn't know him as well as she did, she'd suspect he was making sure that she passed. However, she was certain that no matter how he felt about her, he was going to make things difficult. Which meant he was taking another approach to getting rid of her.
He cleared his throat, interrupting her thoughts. Oh right, the infamy of absinthe in a hundred words or less.
"Well, apart from the wormwood, a number of recipes include calamus, which is thought to have psychoactive effects: namely a heightened sense of reality in milder recipes and visual and auditory hallucinations in higher concentrations. Others, like Arsenius Jigger, feel that thujone is the likelier culprit. I am more inclined to agree with St. Hilaire, who attributes the dishonest absinthe brewers and their questionable quality control for the number of people who did unpredictable things while under the influence of absinthe."
"Including going mad and occasionally dying, " he put in. Dry humour was a good sign, but she could have named a thousand things she'd rather be doing with him at that point, and that was a conservative estimate. He was definitely stalling, and she was getting tired of it.
"Professor, do you honestly think I failed to complete my assigned reading?" she asked, unable to conceal her irritation.
"That is precisely what this test is intended to determine. And I was under the impression that I was making this exam, not you."
"If this is a typical exam for one of your independent students, your assessment of student intelligence in class is spot on, " she said, with no small bite in her voice. "Neville Longbottom could have passed this exam with you and his grandmother looking over his shoulder."
His eyes narrowed. "Miss Granger, do you wish to receive credit for your independent study or not?"
"If you plan to test rote memorisation and not the things I've actually /i this year, then what do I care if you give me full marks or no marks?"
"With the condition you placed upon me, I should think you would care a great deal."
"You only agreed to let me spend the night with you. If you continue with this line of questions for all the potions and alcohols covered in the reading, it will soon be midnight and you'll insist that I leave. No, Professor," she said, crossing her arms resolutely across her chest, "That is not how I intend to let the evening proceed."
She wasn't sure which had hit him harder, her accurate description of his plan to get rid of her or her threat to take away his examiner's privilege, but for a split second, he looked shocked. To his credit, he quickly recovered. "What you intend is of no interest to me. And thanks to your interruption, you may consider your grade lowered by five percent."
The threat was empty, and both of them knew it. Covering a smile of triumph with a sip of absinthe, she deliberately slid one silk-clad thigh over the other until her legs were crossed. Two could play at the double entendre game.
"By all means, Professor, continue with the examination."
She was delighted to see an infinitesimal amount of colour come to all of his exposed skin. The scowl, however, deepened. "Miss Granger, do not try my patience further. Were you finished expounding the infamy of absinthe, or was there more you'd like to add."
"I'm done, sir."
"Very well. According to your alcohol journal, this evening was your first experience with absinthe. Please describe it."
I had the privilege of seeing it brewed by a Potions Master," she said with a grin.
"I doubt that, unless you have been hiding in my quarters for the past two weeks."
The compliment had merely been a test of his mood. His response had been dry rather than cutting. She was suddenly filled with a giddy surge of confidence. In his own way, he responded to her. Not just the underwear, but to her, temper and all!
"Well then, it depends entirely on what you mean by 'experience,' sir," she said, absently trailing a finger along the strap of her garter belt. "Do you wish to know what fascinating things I've observed evening, like the colour change when sugar is added, or do you wish to know how it has affected me?" "
"Why on earth should I care to know how alcohol affects you?"
"Because," she said seriously, "I want you to be sure you won't be taking advantage of me."
"The thought hadn't crossed my mind. Now answer the question before I banish you to the hallway, agreement or not."
"Very well, then, sir," she said. She took a deep breath, looked into his face, and began to speak.
"Absinthe. I knew about its nasty reputation, of course. I must confess, it rather intimidated me for some time. But upon later examining the things I thought I knew about it, I found that a great deal of the horrible things attributed to it were either exaggerated or completely untrue. That's what happens during troubled times in history- something must take the blame for death and degeneration. Why not absinthe? It looks like acid-green poison, deadly by the drop but consumed by the glass."
He gave her a sharp look. "You think it completely undeserved of its infamy then?"
"Nothing is completely innocent, but one must keep all things in perspective, including the sensational and melodramatic tendencies of the media and popular fiction."
He finally broke eye contact and walked over to a chaise that sat near one of the bookshelves. He set his glass of absinthe on a nearby end table and regarded her stonily. "What do you know of historical context, Miss Granger?"
She rolled over on her stomach to face him. His face was in shadow, but the soft lights of the room were reflected in his eyes. "I know that anything that survives such a campaign of intolerance has much more to it than meets the eye. I should like to learn more. I'm not afraid of what I may learn in more intensive study.'
The eyes were still fixed on her. "Little fool," he said softly. "You have no idea what you're getting into."
"Perhaps not. But I'd like to." She propped herself up on her elbows. "Have you any other questions for me about absinthe, sir?"
"One more, if you wouldn't mind satisfying my curiosity."
"Of course not, sir. May I consider it extra credit?"
"I don't give extra credit."
"Yes sir, sorry sir." She looked at him expectantly.
"What did you think of your first taste tonight, after all of your study and reading?"
At last! She slid off the bed, grateful to have floor under her feet again and went over to the bench where he lay half recumbent. She drained her glass of absinthe, welcoming the cooling sensation that followed the sweetened bitterness, before setting it on the end table and sitting next to him. He was still looking in the direction of the bed, but she felt his awareness as keenly as she felt her own excitement pouring off her like heat waves. Not yet daring to touch, she leaned toward him, just stopping short of his neck and inhaled.
Faint notes of whatever he used for washing, but the strongest scent was Severus, clean and warm. Glorious! She heard him inhale suddenly, and her thoughts tumbled out on her exhalation.
"I savoured my first taste with no adornments. The scent made me want to taste, and it was unlike anything I'd ever tasted. Bracing. Bitter. Complex- but with a clean finish that made me eager to taste again."
She saw gooseflesh rise on his chest from her warm breath on his neck, and she brushed her cheek against his clavicle, bringing her lips to rest in the hollow above his breastbone. She felt rather than saw his Adam's apple bob. She began to press kisses along his clavicle in earnest, and was surprised to feel his hand seize hers and press it against his bare chest. His heart was hammering beneath his skin. She looked up into his face, which was faintly suffused with colour, but surprisingly calm for all of the adrenaline that was being pumped to other parts of his body.
His thumb lightly brushed the back of her hand, and she jumped. His other hand reached to tuck a few curls behind her ear, and he traced her jawline with his fingertips. "Tell me, Miss Granger, what did your second taste reveal to you?" The question was professorial, but his voice most certainly was not. Something ragged was lurking beneath the surface of measured words and modulated tone.
She caught his hand before he withdrew it and punctuated her next words with kisses planted on each fingertip. "Equal parts fresh. Bitter. Ferrous. Cedar. Sweet. Salty." The final word was spoken over his palm. The sibilant "s" and kiss in the centre of his life line sent a shiver through him, and she met his eye with a half smile. "Mostly, it made me want to explore further."
"Foolish girl," he whispered, lips barely brushing her earlobe. "What we want isn't always good for us."
His warm breath in her ear made her entire body twitch in a way that very nearly destroyed her ability to form a coherent sentence. "Professor," she said when the red and yellow patches had retreated from her peripheral vision and her breath had returned to nearly normal, "if you expect me to continue bantering for much longer, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed."
"Pity," he said in a disinterested tone. "Clearly, reading up on a subject isn't everything."
Hermione felt a truly feral smile grip her features a moment before she dove in and proceeded to snog the living daylights out of her Potions professor. Apparently, he had a very similar idea, as her own living daylights were nearly out by the time she realized that her body still required oxygen in order to maintain consciousness.
He took advantage of her disengagement to attack her neck with the voracity of a pack of werewolves under a full moon. She soon found herself underneath him on the bench, gasping for breath as competing impulses for breathing and shrieking ecstatically fought for control of her lungs. His lips were warm, but his kisses on her neck felt like tiny lightning strikes, each shorting out another section of her brain.
Pulling together what rational thought still remained, she managed to say, "Don't you think the bed might be a better place to continue?"
He blinked, bringing his eyes back into focus. "What? Oh, I suppose so."
Feeling an unexpected surge of pride in seeing Snape looking so thoroughly kissed, she couldn't resist asking, "Does this mean I passed your oral exam, sir?"
The soft curve of his swollen lips hardened as he pursed them suddenly. "What makes you think it's over?"
"You mean, you want me to..." she trailed off, partially from embarrassment and partially in disappointment in such an obvious and crass tactic.
He merely gestured to the bed. Honestly! One minute her heart was in time with his, and the next he was ordering her about with hand signals! She huffily tossed herself down on it and buried her face in the smooth cotton.
He sat down next to her and slapped her bare behind hard enough to make her raise her head and glare at him. He began smoothing his hand over the abused cheek and chuckled. She looked at him curiously, and his expression became serious.
"Miss Granger, if you wish to share my bed, I must make one thing abundantly clear. If you cannot bring yourself to ask for what you want, you are very unlikely to get it. Likewise, if there are activities or parts of you that you wish not to share with me, then you must tell me so clearly. If you wish me to treat you like an adult, then behave like one. Now that you know the rules, please explain why you are sulking on my bed."
Somewhat nettled by his patronising, she snapped, "I'm not sulking, and I'm not afraid of the phrase 'oral sex,' I just hadn't expected you to really follow through with the oral exam idea. It seems, well, a bit trite."
He raised an eyebrow. "If you think oral sex is trite, then your previous partners have done you a disservice. Now," he said, still gently massaging the flesh of her cheek with one hand, "if you are closing down that avenue of foreplay, it makes me curious as to what you had in mind for this evening's activities."
She pressed herself into his hand. "Well, this is nice. More of this would be a good place to start."
He obligingly released the clips that connected the backs of her stockings to the garter belt and began running his hands over both cheeks and the backs of her thighs. A satisfied hum began in the back of her throat. Encouraged, he released the straps on the outsides and insides of her thighs, giving him even greater access to the sensitive parts of her upper legs. She gave up on twisting around to watch him, and instead wriggled herself against those warm hands that made her skin tingle.
She lifted her hips to give him access to the front garter clips, and before she realized what was happening, he had not only released the clips but also the garter belt itself. She gasped at the cool air on skin that had not been uncovered for days, but he quickly warmed it with his hands.
"Please sir, the stockings."
Rather than pull them off by the toe as she would have done, he carefully rolled one down her leg and tossed the neat torus of silk away. Curiosity and arousal were a fascinating combination, she thought as she rolled over on her back and raised her other leg, resting her ankle on his shoulder. She wanted to see his hands against her skin.
He did not disappoint. With a bemused look at all that her position had to offer, he took the top of the stocking in his fingertips, carefully folded it over, and rolled it down her leg with such agonising slowness that by the time the second stocking joined its mate on the floor, she was about to hook her foot behind his neck and yank him down on top of her. As if sensing her intent, he grasped her ankle and began kissing it with equal parts lips and tongue.
Her eyes rolled up into her head of her own accord, and she gasped. The hot mouth continued moving up her leg and was soon joined by his hands, whose palms seemed to have been replaced with white-hot steel. She silently begged him to bring his hands around to cup her rear, but he did not. Using the lightest of touches, he trailed his fingers and kisses up to the top of her thigh until she suddenly twitched away and slammed her legs together.
Not even giving him a chance to make a cutting remark, she smiled apologetically. "It tickles."
The down turned corners of his mouth relaxed at her explanation. "You really must learn to control yourself, Miss Granger," he said with a dramatic sigh. "Now, where were we?" He drew her thighs apart, opening her up to his fingers, which teased the inflamed flesh with more pressure so that it tickled less.
It was lovely, but something was missing. She managed to tear her eyes away from his fingers to look at his face. He returned the quizzical look.
"Yes, just like that," she said when his finger brushed a part of her that sent all of the muscles in her lower back into pleasant spasms, allowing her eyes to fall shut. "When you trace along the outside, yes, please don't stop, please- AAH!" She was quite unprepared for the first time his finger encountered the bundle of nerves she suspected he would find. She just managed to keep her legs from springing together again, but her eyes sprang open and she emitted a loud yelp. It was too much.
"What is it now?" He straightened his robe with a savage yank.
Ahah! That was it! She gestured towards his robe. "This isn't working for me."
"It seemed to be working for you a moment ago."
"That was before I realized that you're still completely covered up and I'm lying here with my nether regions in your face. Vino vendibili hedera suspensa nihil opus est." [A good wine needs no decorations (to attract drinkers)]
The irritation on his face faded into amusement. "I see." He began to remove his robe, but she got up on her knees and stopped his hands.
"No. Let me."
She eased her hands into the vee over his chest, encountering smooth, warm skin and two very taut nipples. Good. She pinched them very gently, and felt the skin around them tighten. She then bent down to kiss the pale skin and eased the robe from his shoulders. The act revealed a slender body and nearly bare chest, with only a few dark hairs around his nipples. She began running her hands in circles over his skin, marvelling at the texture and warmth.
At one point, he must have managed to disentangle his arms from the sleeves of the robe, because she suddenly found them around her, rubbing any and all bare skin that he could reach- her rear, her hips, her upper thighs. She was doing the same, palms stroking small circles on his firm flesh.
Increasing the radius of her circles, she wrapped her arms around him to explore the skin of his back and sides. She quickly encountered the robe, which was still tied loosely around his waist. That would have to go. A few tugs on the back of the sash released the knot, and the robe fell loosely on the bed.
Hermione half wished she had been able to see his entire body as the robe fell away, but she was far too distracted by the feel of his firm buttocks in her hands and the sudden pressure of his erect penis pressing against her stomach.
They both gasped at the sudden contact and she drew back suddenly.
Hermione drank in the sight before her, hardly daring to believe it was real. The flat plane of stomach below his navel was flanked by narrow hips, and an inverted vee of dark hair framed his erection, which twitched enthusiastically as she stared.
She reached down to stroke the impossibly smooth skin of the tip, and he inhaled sharply through his nose. She grasped the shaft with one hand, and sent the other further south to cup his scrotum gently. He twitched away from her lower hand, and she hastily withdrew them both.
"I'm sorry, sir. Was I too rough?"
She had never seen such a blaze in his eyes before, but she couldn't read his expression as he drew back from her.
"Vino vendibili hedera non opus est, Hermione," he said, allowing the second syllable of her name to scrape the bottom of his vocal register. Before his use of her name or his variation on the proverb had a chance to penetrate, his hands were on her, fumbling with the myriad hooks on her bustier as eagerly as a child ripping open birthday gifts. When he had tossed the restricting garment aside, Hermione filled her lungs with air only to have it expelled by a forceful embrace.
Nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of full body contact, Hermione dragged him down to the bed. There were no limits to where their hands could go- the fingers that had formerly been overwhelming before were now part of a greater communion of flesh and heat. Legs and arms entwined, hips sought hips, and lips and tongues meshed in kisses that sent seismic waves through them both.
At last, a well-aimed pelvic thrust on someone's part- they were never quite sure whose- catapulted them over the point of no return, beyond the burning bridge, into a place where nothing existed but bodies, sweat and sweet friction. When the culmination of their exploration lit the room with blinding flashes of mutual ecstasy, all thoughts fled their conscious minds, leaving nothing but physical aftershocks in their wake.
Up in the Gryffindor Tower, four seventh year boys suddenly woke from vivid dreams to somewhat embarrassing messes.
Albus Dumbledore glanced up from his pensieve at the sudden flash of light from a dingy plaque in an unlit corner of his office. He lifted his hot buttered rum in salute.
"Well done, Miss Granger. Well done."
~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Author's note: Dana and Jeff, O Glorious Betas, where would I be without you? With a much less cohesive story and a general feeling of dissatisfaction. I salute you both!
Dearest readers, if I were you, there is no way I could forgive myself for posting this chapter three days late (my betas gave me too many things to fix), unless I had given myself something chocolaty or lemony to enjoy. Let me know if there were ample dashes of both.
This isn't the end- there's more to come! Ten points to your house if you correctly guess what happened in Dumbledore's office in this chapter. ;) Thank you all so much for your reviews!