A/N: Thanks, as always, to Luna305 for a lightning fast beta in a thunderstorm, and to Anastasia, for inspiration and attitude. ;)
Phineas Interruptus
Mrs. Black disliked visiting Phineas Nigellus – really, the absence of furniture in his frame was too uncivilized – but it was preferable to…. She sighed again. A moment later, her frame was empty.
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Hermione buried her face in his neck, clinging to his shoulder, the side of his face, the solace of skin. Hands buried in her hair, his thumbs on her temples, his lips seeking, tongue tracing her eyebrow to her mouth, and she tensed and held him tightly, time in an endless spiral. Controlled, no movement, holding her, no movement, now, forever… Pain and she raked his back, pain, sharper, longer, and then he – reaching out, reaching toward, reaching – falling, headlong, in a long, slow, shuddering tremor of blinding endless darkness.
Upstairs, Mrs. Black peered down her pureblood nose toward the floor, waited, then looked inquiringly at Phineas Nigellus. He regarded the floor speculatively, considered for a moment, and finally nodded. Both portraits smirked.
Head resting on her chest, listening to her heartbeat, her fingers trailing down, resting, on his hip – hand clenching, a sudden pressure, movement, and then a sigh, drifting almost voicelessly through his hair...
…and he was in her mind, his chuckle a backdraft of heat.
Her thoughts a low, dreamlike, answering laugh. "I love when you do that."
"Mm." He raked his fingers down her sides, and his hands claimed her hips, strong, sudden, subtle, an echo.
She caught her breath. "And that."
"So it would seem." One hand lingering on her hip, a reminder of what he could do, had done, would do, when he chose; the other a brush on a lip, trailing to a shoulder, his eyes following his fingertips, a swift caress of a collarbone, a press of his palm, holding, and a slow, deliberate thumbprint on the swirling cloud over her heart.
His thoughts darkened in Hermione's mind, and her reason, which had been curled up in a corner of her mind, was awake instantly.
He felt her alertness in his thoughts, and sighed into her mind. "I would not have -."
Her thoughts hardened. "Would not have what, Severus? This? An image of skin, black hair, fingers entwined, a hand, pinning, pressing, arms straining. "Or the mark - " her thoughts gestured toward her chest.
An image of the cloud as he saw it – boiling, smoke. A shadow of a kiss on her cheekbone, resting, moving, his mouth, breath, breathing warm behind her ear. The tension in her body eased and she held him more closely.
"I've not asked. Does it hurt?"
"No – it's just… wind. Blowing. Rushing."
"You can hear it?"
She nodded against his forehead, his lips brushed her ear. "In my mind." She brushed a fingertip lightly down a strand of hair, watching as it reflected the sunlight, as the reflection traveled at her touch. "Sometimes it screams."
He clutched her to him, then, his palm on her face, hiding his anguish in her hair, the scent of her skin, the heat of her pulse.
A wordless thought in her mind, a shape, a sound, a movement, a snapping, rippling inky swirl. Something like regret. Something like apology. Something like gratitude. And something like… curiosity?
She pressed her lips to his forehead.
That burns," his thoughts breathed.
She blew gently where she had kissed. "And now?"
A pause – guarded – suspicious. "Now it doesn't."
"Forgiveness works that way."
He looked at her. Her eyes were dark again.
"Does logic tell you this?" His tone was mocking.
Her eyes crinkled with impatience. "Those were my tears, after all, Severus. They were forgiveness if I say they were."
He did not say or think anything that she could hear for some time. Finally, his voice was in her mind again.
"… and this?"
"A cryptic question," she thought, trailing her fingers down his spine. His skin was alive again and he shivered.
An incoherent grumble, in counterpoint with something that sounded very much like "More."
Laughter.
Grumbling.
More laughter.
"That tickles, he complained.
"Then stop being amusing."
In a flash he was over her, pinning her hands over her head.
More laughter, of a different kind. "Does that… tickle?"
He growled.
The two on the couch, and the two in the portrait, were all shocked when something large, heavy, and very, very solid crashed in the kitchen.
Hermione looked at Severus. Severus looked at Hermione. And Mrs. Black and Phineas Nigellus looked at each other, their eyebrows arched to the ceiling. Then they heard voices. In a flash, the two portraits were crowded into Mrs. Black's frame in the hallway.
Severus and Hermione, fully dressed, wands out, came into the hall. "I told you, it's not the wards," he said.
"Someone in the Floo, then?"
"It's not a person, Hermione. I don't know what it is."
"But - "
"Cease your chatter and let me listen!" he hissed.
Phineas Nigellus and Mrs. Black tried to crane their heads around the kitchen-side edge of the frame.
"I'd have your job, you old bat," Phineas Nigellus sniggered, as Severus and Hermione inched past them.
"Mudblood whore," Mrs. Black cackled approvingly.
Hermione shot them a look of exasperation.
"Really, Severus, a Gryffindor." Phineas Nigellus made a dry "tsk" noise.
Hermione glared at the portrait. Mrs. Black drew him back slowly. "Watch out for that one," Mrs. Black whispered. "She's got a nasty right hook."
"And claws," Severus muttered.
"Is it true what they say about the nose, then?" Mrs. Black continued, conversationally.
"Severus, please brew me some turpentine."
"Shush, Hermione."
"Me! What about them?"
In a fluid movement, he had her pressed against the wall, wand arm pinned, arching menacingly over her. "You, I can control."
"Ha."
Her wand was pointing at Phineas Nigellus' ear. He ducked behind Mrs. Black.
Hermione put a hand on Severus' chest and pushed. "Kitchen. Crash."
Severus considered, and countered, "Wall."
Hermione shoved him away harder. "Later."
The portraits grinned lasciviously.
Severus let Hermione go and she pointed her wand at the bridge of Phineas Nigellus' nose. The portrait went slightly cross-eyed. "If you breathe a word of any of this to Professor Dumbledore - "
"He already knows." Phineas Nigellus chortled.
Severus and Hermione both winced, looking for all the world like two Third Years caught snogging after curfew. Phineas Nigellus let forth a sharp bark of what might have been laughter.
"He sends his regards, and a message."
Snape arched a slow, malicious eyebrow.
"He says to tell you that if you hadn't murdered him, he'd fire you for this." The portrait turned to Hermione. "And you, young woman…."
Hermione gulped and leaned weakly against the wall.
"He says that unless you defeat the Dark Lord and save this maudlin old bat from himself, you've no chance of making Head Girl. He gives you a week."
Severus scowled and stomped into the kitchen. Death had not improved Dumbledore's sense of humor.
