Warning: I'm not sure this chapter adds to the plot in any way, shape or form. But it's fun. :o) (and has the added bonus that my boyfriend has promised to do to me anything that Severus does to Hermione in this chapter. :oD)

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"Slower, not like that. Use a gentle circling motion," Severus snapped. "You're never going to get the right results if you keep doing it like that."

He caught Hermione's eyes over the young Hufflepuff's head and shot her yet another apologetic look. Up until an hour ago, the students of Hogwarts had been behaving astonishingly well and he had been very confident that this evening it would be just him and Hermione alone in his classroom.

That was until a barrage of magical snowballs had pelted him from behind as he had been leaving the dining hall earlier in the evening. Two second year Gryffindors and astonishingly a first year Hufflepuff had been behind Severus' very wet and cold neck.

If it hadn't been completely against his character, he would have let them off with a large loss of points and a cutting reprimand. Except Albus had been watching him with that irritating raised eyebrow and that even more irritating knowing look, so he had been forced to do the right thing and find ways to torture and torment the students who had dared ruin his evening with Hermione.

"If you are going to waste my ingredients with your incompetent mixing, I will make you go out and find me some more in the Forbidden Forest, Miss Markland!" he snarled at the terrified looking Hufflepuff.

"Professor?" Hermione asked, looking up from her dicing. "I'm nearly done here. Is there anything else you want me to do?"

Severus looked at the neat dishes of chopped, diced and shredded ingredients on her table and tried to ignore the stab of guilt that went through him. She had done nothing to deserve this detention, yet she had saved him at least an hour's tedious work of chopping and sorting ingredients. And she had managed to do it nearly as meticulously and neatly as he usually did.

"There are a large amount of files in my office that need alphabetizing," he said, his voice cold. "I don't want you alone in there - I'll bring essays to grade while I make sure you're doing it properly."

He picked up some random papers off his desk, which could have been papers to grade, but admittedly could quite as easily have been some of the porn he had confiscated from a Ravenclaw Fifth Year earlier in the day. Severus was past caring if anyone believed he was going to grade papers or not, if he didn't get to be alone with Hermione soon, he was going to resort to something drastic. He'd even caught himself starting to bite his nails earlier, a habit he hadn't indulged in since he was five years old and had been soundly whipped for. Anything that showed weakness had been frowned upon in his house.

In Severus' opinion it took Hermione far longer than necessary to get through the door and into his office. But once the door was closed and he had her standing so closely to him that he could smell her shampoo that smelled strangely of cinnamon and oranges, he was overcome with a nervousness that only Hermione seemed to be able to provoke in him.

"I'm sorry you had to perform detention tasks, when you hadn't actually committed any misdemeanor deserving of it," he apologised stiffly. "The students saw fit to pelt me with snowballs earlier and I couldn't let them escape unpunished."

"That's okay," Hermione said, with a careless shrug. "It was still more fun that being beaten at Wizards Chess by Ron for the eightieth time, which is what I would have been doing if I wasn't here. Bloody barbaric game."

"Hermione, you've fought in battles before, and done more than your fair share of bludgeoning and maiming the enemy," Severus pointed out with an affectionate shake of the head. "Yet enchanted chess pieces attacking each other is too violent for you?"

"You're not meant to understand me," Hermione pointed out absentmindedly. God, his mouth is sexy. "You're just meant to love me."

I do. Severus groaned out loud and pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms around her. He lowered his mouth to hers and started kissing her, almost desperately. He pulled her tightly to him, crushing her against his chest. His hands cupped her face and his fingers tangled in her hair.

"God, I want you," he moaned against her mouth. "I've been thinking about your mouth all bloody day."

"That's nothing," Hermione gasped against his mouth as his fingers brushed against the side of her breast. "You have no idea how long I've wanted this."

Hermione's heart pounded as he pulled away from her to look at her. Had she said something wrong?

"I don't know what I've done to deserve you," he said, caressing her bottom lip gently with his thumb as he looked at her. "But I'm not a good enough person to push you away, Hermione. I should, for your own good, but I don't think I can."

"If you think I'd let you push me away, after all we've been through to get here, you've got another thing coming," Hermione declared heatedly. "So for my sanity and yours, don't try."

Severus' warm chuckle was Hermione's complete undoing. She had been doing so well, not doing anything that would make Severus back off, but her restraint had suddenly snapped as his laugh had washed over her frazzled nerves.

She slid her hand through the gap in Severus' robes and under his shirt. She let her fingers run over the skin of his bare stomach, feeling how silky his bare skin was and lightly touching the soft hair that started just under his bellybutton.

"Hermione." He whispered her name, his eyes closing as her fingers touched and stroked their way upwards until they brushed against his nipple.

God, she loved the way he said her name.

"I want to make love to you," she whispered back, leaning up to kiss the warm skin of his neck. "I need to make love to you."

Severus felt a shiver of something go through him, and he bent down and caught her lips with his own. He kissed her passionately, possessively, wanting to tell her that she was his, and no one was ever allowed to touch her, or even look at her again. He pulled away and she whimpered in protest.

"Not here, not like this," Severus said, his voice rough.

"Like this?" Hermione asked, confused. What was wrong with what they were doing?

"Not on my office floor," he clarified, with a rueful grin. "As tempting as it is."

"There's always the desk…" Hermione's grin was cheeky and dirty all at the same time and Severus gave in to the temptation to kiss it off her beautiful face.

"Your first time was not as it should have been," Severus pointed out, breaking the kiss to hold Hermione close, letting his fingers run up and down her back and sending shivers of pleasure down her spine. "Your second time is not going to be on my office desk."

At Hermione's snort of laughter, Severus pulled back from her to shoot her a teasing smile. "Maybe your third time."

"You just don't want my arseprint in the middle of your nicely polished desk," Hermione pointed out. Then she turned her head to look at the desk and her eyes widened in shock.

"Bloody hell, I didn't think you of all people would be a slob!" Hermione exclaimed, actually pulling away from Severus to take in the sight of his incredibly cluttered desk. "If I took a picture of this and showed it to my friends, they still wouldn't believe you were capable of this. There wouldn't be room for us to have sex on your desk!"

"I know where everything is," Severus said defensively. "It's organised clutter."

"Of course it is," she said, deliberately condescending. She stood on tiptoe to pat him on the head. "You just keep telling yourself that."

Severus gave an annoyed growl, before easily pinning her against the desk with his body. "I would take points from you for your insolence, but I'd much rather punish you this way."

Gasping after being thoroughly kissed to within an inch of her life, Hermione smiled up at him. "If that's punishment, I'm going to start misbehaving far more often," she informed him, leaning up to kiss him again.

"That, Miss Granger," Severus informed her, his voice sexy and low, "would be impossible. You couldn't get into any more trouble than you already do."

"How about past misdemeanors then?" Hermione asked, running her nails gently down his back. "You could punish me for those instead."

"There are too many to count," Severus pointed out, with a wry smile. He lifted her easily so that she was sitting on the edge of his desk, before moving so that he was standing in between her legs. "But I will try."

He kisses started out gentle and Hermione melted into him. She felt like she had turned to liquid in his arms, and for the first time in her life, she couldn't think – all she could do was feel. By the end of the kiss, both of them were breathing hard and clinging desperately to each other.

Severus shifted position as he stood between Hermione's legs and she moaned quietly as she felt him hard against her thigh.

"Are you sure sex on the desk would be an entirely bad thing?" she asked, hopefully.

"I had completely innocent plans for you this evening," Severus said, trying to slow his breathing and calm himself down.

Albus, think of Albus. Naked. Eating Lemon Drops.

"Completely innocent?" Hermione asked speculatively, with one eyebrow raised.

"Mostly innocent," he amended. "Give me a moment to get rid of those imbeciles in there and I will show you, if it's not too late in the evening. Are you tired?"

Hermione shook her head. Did he really think that after all this time, now that he was finally acting like he gave a damn about her, that she would ever want to sleep again? Sleeping would mean spending valuable hours and minutes away from him. And what if in that time he suddenly decided this was all a mistake?

Severus looked at her for a second, seemingly debating whether she was telling the truth or not. Then he nodded, as if coming to a decision, opened his office door and disappeared back into his classroom.

"Of course, sir! Never again, sir!" the voices of the younger students assured Severus desperately, as they sped past the office door and away from the dungeons as fast as their legs could carry them.

Facing Voldemort would terrify them less, Hermione thought, wrapping her cloak tightly around her body as she watched them scurry away. Maybe that's why he does it?

Severus appeared next to her in the office doorway and took her hand. Wordlessly, he led her through the door to his chambers, through the living room and into his library. Hermione looked at him questioningly as he opened the door that led into the living room at his house and gestured her through.

She looked around the unchanged, soft, comfortable perfect living room. It seemed like years since she had stood on it's soft carpet, telling Albus and Severus that there was no way she was going run away.

She found herself being taken through the hallway, through a door she had never even noticed before. Her eyes widened in pleased surprise as she took in the most perfect and exotic bathroom she had ever seen. Its walls seemed to be made of rough, grey stone; the kind that looked like it came from a ruined castle. One whole wall of the bathroom was taken up by a steaming hot waterfall, which was falling into a beautiful rock pool below. Beautiful, lush green plants were growing from the walls, giving the illusion that this really could be an outside courtyard in a ruined castle.

Taking up an entire corner of the bathroom was a giant, sunken stone bath. It was big enough to take at least six people comfortably and it was full of steaming water, covered by thick, fluffy, frothy bubbles. Water ran into the bath constantly from another, smaller waterfall, and Hermione watched in fascination as the bubbles churned and mixed in the water.

There was a stone sink with a mirror; the mirror was surrounded by something that Hermione guessed was hanging ivy. The room wasn't lit with actual lights, but when Hermione looked at the ceiling she gasped in surprise. As she looked up she was greeted with the perfect picture of the night sky, with the moon itself lighting the spectacular bathroom.

"If you need more light," Severus said, smiling at Hermione's amazed reaction, "You just point your wand at the ceiling and pick a different time of day. If left to it's own devices, it mirrors the sky as it is."

"It's beautiful," Hermione said, lifting her hand to the waterfall in the corner and letting the warm water run through her fingers.

"Yes," Severus agreed. "Now I want you to get into the bath and relax for a while, while I make us some supper."

Hermione gazed at Severus with a puzzled expression. "You want me to have a bath?"

I really, really should have washed my hair this morning.

"I want you to relax," Severus said gently. He walked over to Hermione and started kneading her shoulders with his hands, making her moan and drop her head forwards onto her chest. "I haven't been making sure you were looking after yourself. That stops now."

"You've not been here to do that," Hermione protested. "And I've been looking after myself just fine."

Sort of, she added to herself with an inner grimace.

"You haven't been letting yourself relax and you haven't been eating or sleeping properly," Severus said gently, still massaging her shoulders. "I am aware that you have had your reasons, but just for now I want you to forget everything. I want you to close your eyes and relax your mind as well as your body. I'll look after you – you've got no need to worry about anything right now."

Hermione moaned again. Her knees nearly buckled underneath her as his fingers worked out a tight knot in the center of her shoulder blades. God, so tempting…

"Stop thinking, stop worrying. Nothing is going to happen to you – let me take all your worries for tonight at the very least," Severus said softly, pulling the robes off her shoulders and letting them pool around her feet. He slowly undressed her, stopping every few seconds to touch her; to stroke, massage and occasionally kiss her exposed skin.

Severus only let his eyes feast on her completely naked body for a few seconds, before scooping her easily up in his arms and lowering her gently into the warm bath.

"I'll be back in a second with something for you to drink," he told her, brushing a lock of hair back from her face.

Hermione sighed contentedly, letting the heat of the water soothe her tightly wound, aching muscles. As she rested her head against the side of the bath, she realised that what looked exactly like stone, was somehow soft and was gently cushioning her head as she let her body relax in the heavenly scented water.

She lazily opened her eyes as Severus re-entered the bathroom, carrying a champagne glass in one of his hands.

"It's just grape juice," he explained with a smile, as he placed it in her outstretched hand. "Alcohol and caffeine free."

Hermione contemplated sticking her tongue out at him as she lifted the glass of ice-cold juice to her lips. She closed her eyes as the sweet liquid trickled down her throat and decided to forgive him for the caffeine barb.

"I should be pampering you," Hermione pointed out, without any real conviction. No part of her wanted to get out of this bath now that she was in it. "You've only just come out of hospital."

"Some other time we can be pampered together," Severus said, his eyes on her breasts that were barely covered by the soapsuds. It was taking a huge amount of willpower not to get into that warm bath with her and offer to wash her from delectable head, to delectable toe.

"Come join me?" she asked lazily, seemingly reading his mind. She put her glass on a conveniently close by, flat stone, before giving him her very best imploring look.

"Don't tempt me," Severus said, his dark eyes burning into hers. "Or neither of us will be getting any food tonight."

"I'm less hungry for food, and more hungry for you," she confessed, feeling her cheeks colour as she heard herself speak. Somehow Severus brought out a side of her that she was barely aware she even had.

Hermione watched as Severus' eyes closed. He seemed to fight with himself for a few seconds, then he shook his head.

"Tonight is for you," he said, perching on the stone edge of the bath. "You are exhausted, Hermione."

Hermione looked at him carefully. Did he just not want her?

Severus' eyes narrowed. "I want you, Hermione. So much I can't think straight," he told her with a reprimanding glare. "Don't ever think that I don't."

Hermione bit her lip, not wholly believing him. Severus groaned and lifted one of her hands from the side of the bath. He lifted her hand to his lap and pressed her hand hard against his aching cock, that had been hard ever since he had started to undress her. He thrusted briefly against her hand and groaned again.

"Do you see what just looking at you does to me?" he whispered, looking into her eyes. "But I haven't waited all this time just to break you the moment I get to be near you again."

"I'm not that delicate, Severus," Hermione said, letting the palm of her hand stroke him through his trousers.

"Are you going to that ridiculous Christmas costume ball?" Severus asked, putting his hand over hers to still her actions. He couldn't think straight with her touching him like that.

Hermione pulled a face. "I have to," she said with a grimace. "I'm head girl."

"After the dance, come back here and let me show you how your first time should have been," he said. "Let me make you come apart in my arms, let me touch you and taste you until you are begging for more, let me show you…"

how much I love you.

"Are you going?" Hermione asked hesitantly. "Are you chaperoning this year?"

Severus flashed Hermione a brief smug grin. "I got out of that dubious pleasure this year," he admitted. "But I will still have to spend an hour or so there – Headmaster's orders."

And of course I will spend that hour making sure the student's don't have toomuch fun… he added to himself with an inner smirk. A lot of his apparent hatred of the students had been exaggerated to add to his Death Eater, bastard of Hogwarts persona, but a lot of it was just, well, fun.

Making the students miserable may have the added bonus of making Albus regret his mule-like perseverance in making me show my face at the bloody Christmas ball, Severus thought. Ridiculous ball. Just an excuse for people to grope each other under the pretence of 'dancing'.

He had been scheduled by Albus to be chaperoning the dance all night; a possible attempt by the headmaster to make him 'enjoy life', as he so often told him he should do. The same day Severus had been given the hideous job of chaperone, he had blackmailed Filius into taking his place, quietly hinting that he would tell rest of the staff about his rather worrying collection of thongs if he didn't comply. Filius would have done it as a favour anyway of course, but Severus hated being in anyone's debt and the panicked look on his fellow professor's face had made the halfhearted blackmail even more amusing.

"Do you have a date for the ball?" Severus asked, hating himself for asking, but needing to know anyway. He wasn't sure exactly what he would do to whichever unfortunate boy Hermione was taking, but he was sure it would be something incredibly nasty and painful.

"Yes," Hermione said, with a grin.

Years of keeping his emotions tightly reined while in the presence of Voldemort served him well as he merely nodded, his face blank. He Summoned a sponge and some liquid soap from a stone shelf underneath the sink. He had brewed it especially with Hermione in mind, along with the bath oils she was currently soaking in. They were meant to relax, soothe, and promote sleep.

He gestured for Hermione to sit up in the bath, then he ran the sponge under the warm water of the waterfall and covered it in a creamy, sweet smelling soap. He leant forward and lifted the wet tendrils of hair from Hermione's neck and put them over her shoulder, out of the way.

Of course she would be going to the ball with someone, he thought, squeezing the sponge a little too hard, making the carefully brewed soap ooze out of it and fall with a 'plop' into the bath. Why wouldn't she? She didn't even know I was well again until today. And it's not like she could go with me, even if she wanted to.

So why did it rattle him so much that she was going with someone else? To a function he thought juvenile and pointless?

At the first long, firm swipe of the sponge, from the top of her back to the bottom, Hermione groaned and leaned further forward in the water, letting her hair trail in the water in front of her. Heaven…

"Aren't you going to ask who my date for the ball is?" Hermione asked, loving the feeling of her slightly rough sponge on the skin of her back. She arched her back, drawing Severus' attention to her breasts as the water ran in rivulets over and off them.

"No," he said, shortly. Sod keeping his feelings hidden, she was his witch and he was going to let everybody know that. He was going to tell everyone – screw his job, his reputation and his haven at Hogwarts – he was going to announce it to the world.

Except she wasn't his witch, was she? Just because they'd had sex once and that had resulted in a child, didn't automatically mean Hermione was bound to him for life. She seemed like she cared about him, but did she really? It had been a couple of months since he had even touched her, before this day. And a month since they had really had a conversation. Had she changed her mind? And now she was going to the sodding ball with…

"Ginny Weasley," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm going with Ginny."

Severus raised an eyebrow. The Christmas dances were notoriously romantic affairs. Relationships were sealed or broken on those ridiculously frivolous nights, and Hermione was taking Ginny Weasley?

I didn't know Ginny was a Witch's Witch, he thought to himself with a smirk. That explains why she liked Potter so much – I always thought he was a little on the feminine side…

"We're going as friends," Hermione said, shaking her head in an exasperated way. "We were fed up of all the politics that go along with having dates for the balls at Hogwarts, so we decided to be each other's dates."

The hand with the sponge moved slowly over Hermione's shoulder and started moving in slow, wide circles over her breasts. Hermione leaned back on her hands and threw her head back, letting her hair trail in the water again as she closed her eyes and let Severus completely take over her senses.

When the sponge started to get lower on her body, Hermione automatically opened her legs and raised herself out of the water. She whimpered in protest as the sponge was suddenly taken away. She opened her eyes to glare accusingly at Severus, then they snapped shut again as she suddenly felt his slippery, soap covered fingers sliding between her legs.

"Fuck," she gasped, drawing in a quick breath at the feel of his hand sliding against her over and over again. She spread her legs even wider and balanced on one hand to run a soapy hand of her own over her breast, flicking the nipple with her thumb.

"You're supposed to be relaxing," Severus murmured in her ear. "And you're not looking at all relaxed right now."

"Get in here and fuck me," Hermione demanded, groaning and bucking her hips against his hand.

"Not for another three days," Severus said, his silky voice sending a heat through her body that pooled between her legs and made her move harder against his hand. "Patience is a virtue, my dear Hermione."

Hermione muttered something that sounded very like 'bastard' and Severus chuckled.

"I have a compromise," he told her, sliding a slippery finger into her and making her gasp. "But you have to promise to lie there, like a good girl, and let me be in control."

Hermione moaned. "God, yes."

Severus quirked an eyebrow and decided to file that reaction for pondering on later. Maybe Hermione would enjoy maybe being tied to his bed one night? God, he'd give anything to take his hand to that luscious arse of hers and make it flushed and tingling, before bending her over his bed and screwing her senseless from behind, his hands on her breasts as she gasped with each thrust.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his thoughts. He had vowed to wait and he wasn't going to let his fantasising break him so easily.

With a flick of his wand, he was naked. He gave a smirk as Hermione opened her eyes and gasped. Her eyes roamed over his body, taking in his state of arousal, before flicking to his face, questioning him.

Severus stepped into the bath and dropped to his knees. He moved closer to Hermione, kneeling in the water between her open legs. Hermione reached out a hand to touch him and he moved slightly away, shaking his head.

"Ah-ah, Hermione," he said, with a smile. "No touching. Now lie still and move your hands to either side of the bath."

He watched her as she leaned her head back against the cushioned back of the bath, and stretched her arms out to grip either side.

"If you let go of the sides at any point, I will stop," he warned, taking an ankle in each hand and moving them even further apart. At a quickly spoken word, her ankles seemed to be tied with invisible bonds, holding her so that her arse was just out of the water.

"Comfortable?" he asked, running one long, elegant finger from her ankle to the very top of the inside of her thigh.

At Hermione's nod, he let himself explore her skin, first with his fingers and then with his mouth. When he finally let his fingers slide inside her again, he watched as her fingers gripped the sides of the bath so hard her knuckles briefly turned white. When he bent his head and started fucking her with his tongue, he was sure that if this was a normal bath, she could have snapped the sides without much more effort.

He fucked her with his tongue, occasionally moving his tongue down to move against her arse, making her hips jerk upwards and a gasp come from her mouth. He still hadn't let his tongue or fingers touch her where she needed to be touched, and he vaguely wondered how long it would take to start her begging. But God, she was responsive, and she tasted so good. He found he wanted to make her come as much for himself as for her. He wanted her gasping and whimpering under his tongue.

His tongue moved upwards and started moving in firm circling motions. The moan that came from Hermione was so full of need that Severus nearly threw away all his good intentions and scooped her out of the bath to screw her on the warm, mossy stone floor.

It took all his willpower to keep moving his tongue against her, stroking her thighs and stomach with his hands as he did. God, he loved the noises she was making; the little frantic whimpers and moans.

When she came, Severus held his tongue hard against her, moving minutely, letting every aftershock go through her, before he gently lowered her back into the water and reached for her hands to unclasp them from the sides of the bath. He scooped her limp body up in his arms and cradled it against his chest as he sat back in the water with her.

"I'm relaxed now," the sleepy, half dazed voice came from his chest.

He laughed and held her more tightly. "I'm glad."

Hermione lifted her head enough to plant a light kiss on his chest before burrowing closer, clinging to him.

"I'm glad you're not dead," she informed him, her voice slightly slurred with tiredness. "Very glad, in fact."

Severus laughed again, a sound which Hermione decided she hadn't heard enough. God, he had a sexy laugh.

"Lie here a second, and don't fall asleep," he said, lifting her from his lap and settling her next to him. He stood up, the water running down his body, as Hermione watched in fascination.

If only I had the energy to explore that body, Hermione thought, trying to keep her head up and her eyes open. When had she become so tired? Usually it took hours of reading and then tossing and turning to get her to sleep.

Severus was back, seconds later, fully dried and dressed in a fluffy white, toweling dressing gown – the kind Hermione had seen in expensive hotels and had secretly longed to steal and hide in her suitcase.

He had an insanely large towel in his arms, and he put it on a rock before reaching down to grasp Hermione's hands and pull her to her feet. He helped her climb out of the bath, and then pushed her gently so she was perched on the stone edge of it. Then he proceeded to dry every inch of her before wrapping her in another smaller, identical dressing gown.

Then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the bathroom and carefully up the stairs into his bedroom. He pulled the thick, velvety covers back and placed her gently onto the bed, pulling the heavy covers back over her.

"Hungry?" he asked, gently, brushing a damp lock of hair from her face and letting his fingers trail over the soft skin of her cheek.

"I doubt I could stay awake to eat," Hermione said, with an apologetic smile.

"Try," Severus said, placing a plate of biscuits and cheese next to her on the bed, along with a small bowl of perfect looking grapes. "Just have a few bites."

By the time Hermione had polished off at least half of the food she was almost asleep. After promising Hermione on pain of death that he would eat the rest, he reached under the covers to untie the dressing gown belt, and pulled it off her shoulders. When she was finally naked, with the cool, soft texture of the sheets against her skin, she lay back against the pillows and smiled.

"So tired," she muttered, half asleep already.

"Sleep," he said, taking the plate from the bed and forcing himself to eat the rest of the crackers, before he too could get into bed.

"Love you," she murmered, before sleep finally overtook her.

Severus closed his eyes, as if in pain. He leaned over and planted a soft kiss against Hermione's forehead.

"Goodnight Hermione," he whispered into her hair. Then he walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled back the sheets.

"Nox," he said, with a wave of his hand, plunging the room into darkness. He dropped his dressing gown to the floor and slid between the cool sheets. He turned on his side and smiled, able to relax for the first time since he had woken, now that Hermione was close enough for him to know she was safe.