Chapter Thirty-Four
WARNING: SMUT/LEMON/ADULT CONTENT/NSFW
"What are you doing here?"
His tongue felt thick in his mouth, his eyes wincing against the light he'd turned on when she'd arrived, stepping from the fireplace with damp hair and wild, copper eyes.
"Igor named me."
Severus snorted, "Did you suspect he wouldn't?"
His arm stretched back to hurl the glass tumbler to the fireplace she had exited.
The remnants of whiskey exploded upon impact, scarring the mantle.
He poured another glass and watched as she sat beside him, smelling of rain and candied oranges.
He detested that perfume.
"What are you doing here?" He repeated, swirling the amber liquid in his glass, "You shouldn't leave the safehouse."
She shifted on the sofa beside him, reaching down to unbuckle her boots and slip her small feet from them, gathering her legs beneath her until she sat cross-legged, and reached her hand out.
"Can I have one of those?"
He noticed the soft slur to her voice, the flush to her cheeks.
"Should you?"
Snorting, the dark-haired witch reached forward to snag the bottle from his fingers and pressed it to her lips. Severus watched her throat constrict with each swallow until several centimeters of the bottle had been depleted.
Charlotte sat the bottle in her lap and leaned back, running a hand through her damp hair.
"Everyone's gone."
Snape grunted in response.
He was perfectly aware that everyone was gone.
Her precious Black had been arrested nearly four weeks ago. Lily was dead. The Lestranges had been incarcerated last week. Karkaroff had gone on trial two days ago, and amidst the many names he had spewed during his trial, he had spoken Charlotte's.
Had Dumbledore not strictly instructed him otherwise, Severus had debated breaking the wizard's neck.
"But you're still here," she breathed and took another swallow from the bottle in her lap, "I'm glad you're still here."
A harsh laugh left his mouth, and she glanced at him through impossibly thick lashes.
Regulus had told him Severus would survive this war and see Charlotte through it. He had been successful, to the detriment of everything else. The Dark Lord had lied to him, and Dumbledore had failed in his promise to keep Lily safe.
Perhaps it was a curse, set upon him by the younger Black brother, for coveting his wife.
Charlotte leaned forward until her head rested on his shoulder, and they drank in silence.
Severus hated the smell of her perfume. It was one Sirius had given her, he knew, as it was sickeningly sweet. He preferred the other of her regular rotation that left her smelling like cardamom and clove. As his nose inhaled its aroma with every breath, he imagined his hands tightening further and further around Black's neck.
A detestable, sickening man. Snape had hoped to rid himself of Black – and the Marauders – upon graduation. They had not proven especially talented in Potions, and he had imagined for a time that upon leaving Hogwarts, he was unlikely to encounter them again. When Black had shown up at his first Death Eater raid as a trainee auror, Severus had been joyful at the sight of the older Black brother for the first time in his life.
He felt the tangible opportunity for revenge.
Severus glanced to the witch resting against his arm and caught another breath of her perfume.
He could, with perfect clarity, recall the feeling of her pressed against him in the alleyway – the way her hot breath had heated the skin of his throat, and the wild, terrified look in her eyes. He wondered if such an expression would have been on her face had it been him, being chased by aurors down the streets of London.
Would she have looked terrified?
Would she have been afraid? Would she have come for him, too?
His stomach clenched, and he took the fresh bottle of firewhiskey at his feet and poured into the last unbroken glass until amber liquid spilled and smoked against the coffee table.
"I'm sorry, Sev, about Lily," the dark-haired witch whispered.
A wave of nausea crashed over him and he pressed his thickened tongue to the roof of his mouth, willing it away.
He did not want to think of Lily Evans – her broken body on the floor of the house in Godric's Hollow, its limbs distorted and her bottle green eyes unblinking.
Severus could not echo her sentiments, he found. There was no sorrow in his body for her loss of Sirius, or Rabastan. Perhaps there was regret. Regret that she had lost everything now, as he had. He could be sorry for that, he thought.
But it was a lie, for some part of him enjoyed that Sirius was rotting in an Azkaban cell. There was joy at the thought of the eldest Black brother – who had tormented him for over half his life – broken and lost. There was revenge in that alone, he thought, staring at the espresso waves of the witch pressed against his arm; and that Black's coveted witch sat in his home, the skin of her cheek touching his shirt sleeve, her knee pressed against his thigh.
Severus felt lighter at the thought of Black's loss of Charlotte Fraser.
His fingers stretched forward, abandoning the glass upon the coffee table to reach and brush against the strands of her hair.
He had always wanted to touch her, he thought. Not in an attempt to pull her from danger, or towards it. There had been no opportunity. By the time the smoke had cleared from the London house and the death of Regulus, she had been secured at Rabastan's side.
A classic, Slytherin beauty, they had called her.
They didn't know that she hummed nursery rhymes when she was frightened, or that she slept with a single leg thrown from beneath the covers. None of them had known that she bit her cheeks when she cried until they bled, and smoked clove cigarettes in the gardens behind Malfoy Manor. Rabastan had never watched her in another's body and known it was her by the grace of her walk and the subtle tilt of her head when she was listening especially hard.
Someone who knew such things about her, he thought, should be allowed to touch her.
A soft sigh escaped her mouth as his fingers wound themselves in her mane, and he felt a sudden urge to cover it with his own.
Black be damned.
Rabastan could rot.
"I don't want to be alone again," and her voice sounded like a whimper.
His fingers fisted at the back of her skull; her long locks wrapped around his palm like a silken rope. He gently coaxed her head back until her bronze and copper eyes stared back at him in the fireplace's yellow glow. They were molten pools he could lose himself in, he thought, as he moved forward and covered her mouth with hungry lips.
For a moment, she stiffened as he dropped the glass from his hand to slide it beneath her jaw, craning her neck until her mouth opened and his tongue could stretch past her lips. He tasted smoky whiskey and clove cigarettes, his tongue hungrily exploring her mouth.
He felt her hands on his chest and froze.
The muscles of his abdomen constricted when she stretched towards him, her hands fisting into his shirt. Her tongue ran across the length of his lip, and it was perhaps shock that admitted her access.
A slap, perchance, or an incredulous laugh, he had expected. There had not been a scenario which lived in his mind that involved the dark-haired witch crawling over him until her legs straddled his lap.
"Charlotte," he murmured when she moved from his mouth to lock her lips against the space at his jaw below his ear, his body shuddering.
He wanted to stop her. But when his mind pressed against her own, and saw what flashed across there, he found his hands tightening to grip her thighs and pull her flush against him. A soft sigh left her mouth as her lips burned a path to the hollow of his throat, and he felt his breaths growing ragged.
Severus pushed himself forward until he settled his feet beneath him and pushed with his thighs until he stood, and felt the witch hook her ankles at his back.
His footsteps were too steady for the copious amounts of firewhiskey which had been consumed, he thought, as he walked towards the staircase. When his foot touched the first step, he found her lips back at his own, and her teeth hooked his bottom lip loosely between them.
He took the stairs two at a time, his grip bruising around her thighs.
Her fingers had begun to slip buttons from his shirt until her cool hands splayed across the flesh of his chest.
By the time his foot had kicked open his bedroom door, his shirt hung from his elbows, and her mouth carved a dangerous path up his neck's side.
When he pressed her back into the bed and pulled away from her, an audible whimper left her mouth. He looked down at the metal-eyed witch beneath him, with her bruised cupid bow lips and flushed, pink cheeks. She breathed in soft pants, the swell of her chest rising and falling.
"I need you," she whispered, her eyes fringed in thick, charcoal lashes.
He slipped off the unbuttoned shirt and crashed into her.
His mouth caught hers with renewed hunger, and his hands encircled her thighs. Abruptly, he pulled her towards her until the bulge formed in his trousers pressed against the heat between her legs.
A moan left her mouth and he felt gooseflesh crawl across his skin.
Severus slid his knee forward to replace his pelvis between her legs, and his hands rose to grip the edge of her sweater. He peeled back damp cashmere and felt his throat constrict at the sight of her milky skin, and let his fingers splay across the angry, silvery scar across her abdomen that disappeared into the waistband of her pants.
He leaned into her until his lips brushed the swell of her breast, and carefully mapped a line to the valley between them as her breath hitched and rose with each mark. His hands explored the expanse of her waist, his fingers crawled up the notches of her ribcage until they met the thick strap of her bra, and deftly separated three hooks, and pulled the fabric with him when he straightened.
She squirmed beneath him; her cheeks flushed with color as she pressed against the knee between her thighs.
Severus doubted he had ever seen such a woman.
His hand outstretched to brush his fingers along the curve of her exposed breast, sweeping the underside. He circled around and ran the pad of his thumb over a hardened nipple.
Charlotte's breath hitched, and he descended upon her.
His mouth encapsuled the pebbled bead as his hand stretched to attend to its neglected twin. He listened to the witch whimper and gasp as he ran his teeth across the flesh. His teeth nipped at the hardened bud and her back arched into him.
Between them, her hands stretched to work at the buckle of his belt. He pulled them away, wrapping her wrists in his palm to press against the mattress above her head.
"Severus," she protested, her hips rising to catch friction on his knee.
Snape could feel her mind pressing against his own and moved to capture her mouth.
His free hand smoothed the expanse of her belly until he met the edge of her waistband and let his fingers crawl beneath the fabric. Her hips rose to edge him closer, and his palm pressed her back to the mattress.
Too many nights had been spent imagining each movement of his mouth against her throat, the soft rose of her nipples, and the sweet swell of her breasts to rush, he thought.
Severus had never wanted to simply fuck Charlotte Fraser.
He wanted to burn her to his memory until she was branded across his eyes.
His fingers hooked around the waistband of her trousers and pulled them down. He eased them over her hips and down her thighs, discarding them at the foot of the bed.
"Beautiful," he murmured as he stared down at her trembling, bare figure.
When he released her arms, she crashed against him. Her fingers scorched paths down his sides, skimming across the flesh of his abdomen. His mouth caught hers as she disconnected his belt and pulled it from his hips.
Adjusting his grip on her, his arm broke free to slide through the seam of their bodies. When his middle finger met its purchase, he groaned at the wetness gathered between her legs. The pads of his fingers spread her folds.
Stumbling, broken sounds left her mouth as his fingertips moved in slow circles against her clit.
His lips dragged down the milky length of her throat as his name came in desperate whines from her lips. He remodeled his tactics, until he slid a finger into her and felt her clench around the digit. She whimpered as he began to pump in and out. When a second finger slipped within her, a strangled noise left her mouth and he pressed his thumb against her clit to curl his fingers inside of her.
Beneath him, Charlotte Fraser had turned to a panting, moaning creature. Her hips lifted to bring him deeper as his lips captured a pebbled nipple.
When her breaths began to grow into stuttering, whining cries, he withdrew his fingers.
His hands discarded his remaining clothing and wrapped around her knees. He pulled her across the sheets until the backs of her thighs met his knees.
Framed with lowered, charcoal lashes, her metallic eyes stared up at him catching the light from a single lamp lit on his dresser. It illuminated the thin layer of sweat darning her skin and caught the chasms of her scars.
"Severus."
At his name, he leaned forward to carefully notch his lips against her. He lined his hips with hers and slammed his length into her. The strangled noise that left his mouth made him still, his eyes watching her face until the startled look left her eyes and her face began to smooth into contortions of pleasure. Her hips lifted, and he felt his lips pull into a grin.
"Don't stop," she moaned, her hands reaching to press manicured, pointed nails into his hips.
Her muscles clenched against his thrusts, but Severus took his time. He fit into a slow, measured pace until her lips twisted in frustration and her nails bit into his flesh. When he slowed to adjust his grip on her knees, she took advantage of his distraction.
Quickly, her legs tightened around his thighs, and she pushed herself up from the elbows. In a matter of moments, the potions master found himself on his back, and the milk-skinned witch above him, her hair falling in dark waves to cover her breasts.
If this were to be his hell, he thought, he would do it all again.
Her hips rose and fall with the pattern of her breaths, her eyes watching him through charcoal eyelashes.
When her pace quickened, her watched her open and her eyes close.
"Charlotte," he breathed, "Look at me."
His hand spread between them until his thumb moved in circles against her clit. When her eyes opened, he felt her muscles begin to clench around him.
His name left her mouth in a whimper.
Severus lifted his hips, matching her rhythm to stroke deeper. Moans spilled from her lips and she leaned forward to press her hands into his chest. He adjusted his legs until he could meet her thrusts with harder ones of his own, and felt his pleasure beginning to crest.
"Come," he whispered into her ear.
Stuttering cries left her mouth, and he felt her muscles lock around his length. His hips moved quickly, making sharp, shallow thrusts until he felt his own end coming. Quickly, he pulled from her and spilled his seed into the sheets beneath them.
Charlotte moved forward, her head dropping to fit beneath his chin. Her breaths slowed until they were soft hums against his throat, and Severus felt the dark-haired witch begin to rise. His arms tightened around her.
"I didn't give you permission to move," he murmured against her hair.
A soft laugh left her.
He hadn't set the heat in his bedroom in days, having taken to sleeping in the living room. Soon, a chilly air sent gooseflesh across her skin, and he grimaced.
"Are you cold?"
She shook her head, burying her nose against the hollow of his jaw.
"You're cold," his fingers brushed the pebbled skin of her arm, "Go shower. I'll leave clothes for you."
Her nose wrinkled as she pulled from him, her dark hair mussed, "Then I won't smell like you anymore."
A sharp bolt struck him as though a current had run through his belly.
Severus reached his hands to adjust the muss of her hair, sliding through her damp, silken locks.
"Would that bother you?"
He watched a smile pull at her bruised mouth and felt his stomach twist when she nodded.
"Why?"
The thought of her answer made the nerves in his abdomen twist painfully, and he felt his hands tightening around her. How long had he wanted the dark-haired witch to look at him the way she had tonight? How often had he thought of her writhing beneath him, his name spilling from her lips?
He had enjoyed his hell too much, he thought.
He wanted to stay there for just awhile longer.
"Because I love you."
A blush spread across her flushed cheeks, and her teeth sank into her bruised lower lip.
Muggles, Severus knew, thought hell was a creation of suffering and chasms of fire. It was a place of endless pain to repent for life's sins.
Severus tightened his arms around the dark-haired witch until she crashed against him, soft giggles escaping her bruised mouth.
If this were hell, he thought, he wanted to stay.
He would gladly burn in it for all eternity.
Author's Note: WE HAVE SMUT PEOPLE! Rejoice! This is just a bonus chapter. I am looking for a smut beta who can help me write these better. If anyone is interested, please feel free to DM me!
No House Cup breakdown for this chapter, folks. However, you can still earn points for your House towards the Cup!
Bonus Points for House Cup (+5) - What is your favorite book/movie of the Harry Potter series?