Warning: Lemonade

Chapter 10: Sans Interruptus

"What is your name, really?"

He pressed her hands between his. "I have as many as there are days, but my parents named me Jareth."

Hermione mouthed the name a few times. "Jareth. I like it. It seems to suit you." Her eyes closed as she said his name, and Severus could feel the song of the Earth in her pronunciation— something the majority of humans could never manage to grasp, let alone pronounce properly.

His name had always felt oddly hollow when spoken by humans—

Until Hermione— and he supposed the human part was a bit of a shady area thanks to her entourage of devoted vault lizards.

She reached out to touch his hair, soothing its wildness with her hands. "This is why you always greased your hair down."

"My hair is insufferable."

"No, mine is. Yours is— mmm. Seriously sexy."

His eyes widened. "You— really mean that, don't you?"

"I'm not a liar," she sighed. "Lying gives me awful migraines."

"People give me migraines," Severus said dryly.

Hermione smiled. "So, I give you a migraine?"

"You are not a people," he said with a patently fake scowl. "You are Hermione, Bu'danak, Migraine to those who would dare oppress society's undervalued. Accepter of impossible things and even more impossibly random situations. Culture-Weaver. Adopter of Wayward Vault Lizards."

"That's a lot of names to put on a business card."

"You should see mine ," Severus muttered into her neck.

"I'd rather see all of you," Hermione breathed into the shell of his ear. "If you would be so kind— Your Majesty. Let there be no question of how much I want you. Right now. Here. Damn whoever's watching."

Snape's growl was utterly feral as his mouth captured hers in a fierce, scalding, possessive kiss.

Their buttons weren't long for the world after that.

The cavern's moist yet extremely fluffy moss-covered floor, assisted by beams of expertly funnelled light from the surface through countless expertly polished prisms, seemed to welcome their bodies as he shed his robes and then assisted her in removing herself from her self-imposed torture and the strange binding devices females seemed to subject themselves to quite willingly.

Yet as Hermione's breasts were freed from their confinement, his mouth worshipped them, his tongue sliding against her undoubtedly interested nipples.

She let out a whimpering cry, her fingers weaving into his wild hair as her body writhed beneath him. Her legs parted in anticipation and instinctual, heated need. With every lick and flick of his tongue, she moaned, her fingers tightening against his head as her feverish body involuntarily seized and arched up against him.

His hand moved between her legs, his fingers deftly seeking the seat of her pleasure even as his eager cock rose to the occasion and told him in no uncertain terms that he was more than ready to do what generations of goblins and humans had done since the dawn of creation. He found the nub he was looking for, and she immediately cried out only to be muffled by his mouth covering hers in a searing battle of tongues. His tongue thrust as his finger moved against her clitoris, and Hermione's hips ground upward in the midst of her pleasure. Her moans, muffled by his mouth, only spurred him on, hardening the engorged flesh of his cock, and his fingers slid into her waiting vagina almost so easily that he didn't even realise they had—

Had she not cried out so exquisitely into his mouth—

Her warm hand grasped his cock with an almost viciously direct pull to position him to precisely where she wanted him, and the most primal growl caused him to to break free of any and all inhibitions he might have harboured in now being sure she truly desired all that their consummation would entail.

He thrust inside her, the feel of her walls both welcoming and clamping against his engorged flesh— and he was but a rutting beast, growling as he thrust over and over in his driving need to sheathe himself inside her.

Merge their bodies .

Merge their souls .

Their magic .

Their very lifeforce .

Her hands seemed to be everywhere he wanted them.

Every single nerve was on fire.

Her newborn claws scratched down his back, and there was a roar echoing in his ears as he could feel his teeth sharpening—

He was panting, growling, even snarling as his hands wove into hers and pressed them down into the moss. He felt her legs wrap tightly around him as he thrust, desperate to feel him as he was to feel her skin against hers.

There was a blinding white light that seemed to form in his mind as he thrust, every mewl and cry of pleasure from Hermione driving him mad with fervour to touch what had been previously unreachable—

That oneness.

That perfection.

That ecstasy.

He felt that pressure building inside himself, mirrored both in spirit and his lower body, and he felt her body spasm as her climax drove him over the edge. His teeth buried into the softness of her neck, and she babbled incoherently as the flood of sheer rightness flooded over every inch of their bodies.

Venom glands he didn't even know he had channelled his very special cocktail into her blood, driven to all corners of her flesh with the powerful pump of her arousal and climax.

He held her tightly, wrapping her with his body as her body quaked against his. He could feel the ripple of scales across her skin, the texture of them feeling so utterly right—

He looked into her eyes— and the soft glow of the Underground shimmered within those orbs. Her eyebrows were now finely scaled, markings accenting her brow ridges with delicate, upswept effect as if painted by a brush. Her lips were parted, but the sharp points of her teeth glinted as her pink tongue flicked out and over her lips.

"My beloved," he whispered. "My Queen."

Glowing crystals had burst out in clusters within the cavern, and Severus realised with some awkwardness that the other crystal cavern may have once been his parents' own christened consummation spot—

But as he looked around— the cavern had come alive.

Glowing plants and fungi sprawled in all directions and down the tunnels. Crystals glowed with shifting colours as the sunlight refracted into them and all around. The once barren walls, save for the growing moss, felt right again— something that hadn't happened since—

Since—

The cavern had collapsed on his mother.

The unnatural foreign feel to the stone since his mother's untimely passing was gone. He could hear the whisperings of the stone in the area as he could in other places. It was as if something had been made right. Something had been put to rights.

His hand touched the crystal formation near him, and it seemed to sing with the resonance of the Goblin Nation. He could feel—

No … impossible.

The sprawling Labyrinth had expanded beyond the greater goblin city, no longer forced to remain separate from the human, waking world.

His people— were reunited again.

The vault lizards were excitedly chittering, flying around from all nooks and crannies to rub up against Hermione before making beelines to each and every goblin and promptly biting their face.

Each goblin seemed to shudder and spasm as their magic was released, the ancient covenant between the vault lizards and the goblins was suddenly remembered— the reason goblins even existed.

They grew taller, their bodies standing more erect. They now stood tall, proud—

The strange social rift that had seemingly transformed the smaller, malformed goblins that had remained in the Underground for fear of being overrun by humans and the scarier looking goblins that had chosen to live their life in Gringotts— they were all shedding their stunted bodies and long-suppressed magic.

The vault lizards seemed to gleefully spread their unmitigated power to release the goblin people, empowered by their queen, their love, and the combined power the king and queen brought to the Goblin Nation when united.

All of this he saw reflected in the glow of the cavern's crystals as the stone no longer shut its soul from the Goblin Nation.

Magic danced across the Goblin Nation in all of its glory once more.

They were free .

His hand touched a small cluster of shimmering crystals, and he plucked it into his hands and blew on them.

The crystals glowed brightly as they formed themselves into a dazzling diadem of precious goblin metals and rare crystals. He gently placed it on Hermione's head, smiling as it seemed to slither around her crown and fuse there. Her stalwart lizards hummed in approval from their perches in her hair, having refused to leave with the others in "biting duty."

Hermione's eyes were wide. "Will this happen every time we—"

"Have mind-blowing, life-affirming, soul-binding, magic-shattering, curse-releasing sex?" he offered dryly.

Hermione's eyes flitted to the side. "Mmm. yes?"

"If it does?"

Hermione licked her lips. "Could we possibly test the hypothesis again—?"

Jareth's expression was feral. "Right now?"

"Unless you happen to have another pressing commitment—"

"My only pressing commitment, Hermione, is you ."

Hermione's shriek of ecstasy and cry of Severus' multiple names echoed throughout the vault levels as the entire Underground burst into multiple forests filled with an incredible array of fertile mushrooms, glorious crystal caverns, vast underground lakes and waterfalls, bubbling hot springs, crystalline flowers in every colour of the rainbow, and rich, expansive new veins of goblin precious metals.

By the time King Jareth escorted his blushing bride back to her quarters to discuss the upcoming move into the royal chambers, the Underground was so vibrant and full of life that it was hardly recognisable. Goblins of all shapes and sizes— all remarkably taller in stature, bowed to them as they went by.

If the customers on the surface noticed the new glimmer of smug satisfaction in the goblins tending the desks, they did not seem to show it, even as visitors pointed at and oogled over the poster advertising the Goblin King's grand masquerade ball.

The goblins, safely tucked away in their glamours, could only smile unnervingly as the gilded scroll that detailed the peace treaty glowed an unnervingly bright gold within the heart of Gringotts. The human visitors, however, did not seem to notice, as some musty old goblin scroll had little to do with them or their money. And if anyone happened to notice the eerily still vault lizards poised on many a pillar, desk, chair back, or hanging from the chandeliers, they paid them no heed.

They were only worthless beasts, after all.