A Climactic Fourth Act:

At thirty-nine years old, Severus was just hitting the prime of a powerful wizard's lifespan; where, for the next forty years or so, he would barely age at all.

In contradiction to his age and accomplishments, though, he had roughly the same amount of actual sexual experience as an average Fifth Year. As in, almost none.

His first experience with sex that didn't include his own hand had come from Bellatrix Lestrange. She'd been ordered to 'break in' the new recruit the night he'd taken the Dark Mark at a party at Malfoy Manor. That had included a round or two of Cruciatus, immediately followed by an Imperius that had him helpless on his back with his cock standing straight up in the air while his nerve endings shuddered from head to toe in echoes of the Crucios. Bellatrix had ridden him for at least an hour straight, using him like a toy. When she was too tired to chase her own pleasure anymore, she left him like that.

Severus hadn't been able to move for hours, until one of the house-elves found him in the morning and immediately retrieved Lucius to free him from the spell. The young Malfoy heir had actually been appalled and sympathetic, cementing their tentative friendship that had started when Severus was just a First Year and Lucius a Sixth.

Other than that, he'd had a few quick shags with some Voldemort's pure-blood hussies, who'd followed the handsome wizard around like he was a god, while still in his late teens because it was expected of him. But the experiences had always left him feeling even filthier than the river that ran through Cokeworth, so he'd started Obliviating and then planting false memories in the whores when he was pushed to go have 'fun'.

Planting memories was easy. From his ability as a Legilimens, he had a veritable encyclopedia's worth of knowledge that involved the carnal act of coitus that he knew was supposed to be pleasurable, but he'd never found it so. (People had an appalling habit of thinking about sex whenever they shouldn't, especially his fellow schoolmates.)

During his twenties, his own self-doubt about his looks and his admittedly ridiculous devotion to a girl who'd turned her back on him when he needed her most had kept him celibate.

And then Hermione had come to Hogwarts and any thoughts that may have lurked about maybe getting on with his life and finding himself a wife to carry on the Prince genes had instantly evaporated. His magical soulmate had left him flummoxed and unnerved since the first time she opened her mouth in his class, but he'd always been proud of her accomplishments, even if she and her friends did have a terrible penchant towards giving him a heart attack on at least a yearly basis. He'd also fallen helplessly in love with her when she walked into that Yule ball in a pink dress that made her look so much more grown up than he'd been letting himself think of her being.

He'd wanted to curse the living hell out of Krum for touching her, and the eyeballs out of the heads of every boy who'd looked at her with lust in their slobbering gazes. He'd had to Occlude his own emotions away during that first dance and then he'd taken his leave before he went insane.

The intervening years since as she pinned for, and then got together with, the youngest Weasley menace hadn't been much better. Up until now, he'd honestly never been happier in his life than when she broke up with the orange haired dunderhead.

Now, some twenty plus years since he'd last been intimate with another person, Severus had finally kissed someone for the first time, had a blow job (of sorts) for the first time, and come inside someone who didn't make his skin crawl for the first time.

That it had occurred with him on his back and 'helpless' again might have sent him into a state of panic if it hadn't been for the fact that he'd literally do anything for Hermione and that his libido had taken over his brain. He was fairly confident that his horrific experience with Bellatrix would forever be banished to the depths of his mind now that he had a new memory to associate with the position.

There'd been no pain, no blood from raking fingernails that could pass as talons, no taunting about how ugly and skinny he was and that his cock was his only redeeming feature.

Instead, he'd only been subjected to endless waves of pleasure and their thoughts and words about how nice his various parts were.

Severus would have thought it all to be a dream if it weren't for that fact that he'd never even come close to dreaming something as nice as that.

And, Merlin, now he wanted to have sex with Hermione as often as possible from now until the end of eternity. And he intended to reenact every single thought that had anything to do with lovemaking between a male and a female that he'd accidentally eavesdropped on during the course of his life.

Starting with kissing her from her pretty head to her adorable little toes.

Hermione clung tighter to neck when he pulled back from their passionate exploration of each other's mouths. "Mmmm. Don't stop. Kiss me some more," she begged. Kissing Severus far surpassed all of her previous experiences with the act. Victor's kiss had left her feeling cold despite the obvious skill, and Ron's kisses had been downright sloppy compared to Severus' smooth lips and deliberate tongue.

It almost physically hurt to know that she'd been kissing the wrong person when she could have had this perfection instead for the last three years or so. (Assuming she could seduce Snape into loving her while she was still his student, that is.)

Severus looked down at her, braced on his forearms so he could cup her face and angle their mouths as he wished, and smiled smugly before he placed one more soft kiss on her lips, his hair a curtain of black around their faces. "Trust me, I intend to, my beautiful wife."

"Oh. That's good." She smiled up at him and brushed one side of the silky curtain behind his ear to let in more light so she could see his features better, and then traced her fingers over his kiss swollen, perfect Cupid 's bow of a mouth. "I love your kisses. You're so good at it," she murmured.

Severus' chest literally filled with pride, which had the added benefit of brushing her nipples across his chest. "I'm glad you think so, because you're the first person I've ever kissed," he admitted, blushing and ducking his eyes a bit.

Hermione gawked. She couldn't help it. If her head wasn't already pressed to a pillow, she might even have reared back in shock. "No way!"

He scowled, already regretting the admission. "I do not lie."

"Oh. I wasn't saying you were!" she was quick to reassure, using a finger to smooth out the deep line between his bunched together eyebrows. It didn't last for more than a second. "I'm just astounded because you've given me the best kisses I've ever had, and you're so frickin' sexy. I admit you're not conventionally handsome like a Malfoy, but I like your features much better; they have so much more character. And no one, and I do mean no one, has a better bedroom voice than you do."

That smoothed out his brow as his expression transformed back to the boyish grin tinged with a hint of embarrassment. Hermione adored that look. It made him look almost like a teenager again, if you disregarded the subtle lines of pain and anger permanently etched into his face.

"This, I am very pleased to hear," he rumbled. "I think I would have had to go crawl under a rock and die if you were to say that Weasley was a better kisser."

"Worry not, Sevi Mine," she said with a cheeky grin, finger trailing down his patrician nose and bumping the tip. "So far, everything you've done to me has already outclassed Ron's 'Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am' approach. There's a reason I dumped him, you know. I love him dearly, but as a lover and boyfriend, he leaves a great deal to be desired."

Severus puffed up again, pleased with himself and the new name she'd given him. He liked feeling claimed by her. A lot. "I can guarantee there will be no 'Wham, Bam's' in our bed. Unless…" His voice deepened and the look he gave her would have melted her socks off, if she'd been wearing any. "…that's what you want."

Oh god. Hermione literally shivered from the predatory look in his eyes. She squirmed under his body, rubbing herself against him as much as possible, as she wound her arms around his neck again and stared into the bottomless pools of his eyes. "You can 'Wham, Bam' me anytime, when you put it like that."

Severus responded by nestling his revitalized length against her hot core and smirking like a pleased tomcat. "I'm sure I'll take you up on that, sooner than later. But first… I'm going to kiss you again… Everywhere."

Hermione's lips parted on gasp. "Oh, yes! Please do!" She had zero doubt that he'd be just as naturally talented at cunnilingus as he was at kissing.

Catching the thought behind the thought, Severus grinned widely. "Hold on to your butts!" And then he dove down and mashed their mouths together again for a moment, burying his hands deeper in her hair, before trailing his lips up and over towards her flushed cheek.

Hermione grabbed handfuls of his long hair and yanked. "Hang on!"

He raised a single brow. "Yes?"

"Did you just admit to watching Muggle movies?"

He sneered playfully. "Those mind-numbing works of pretentious rubbish? Why ever would I subject myself to that?"

Hermione gave him a mock glare. "Maybe because some of them aren't rubbish?"

Severus chuckled, dropping the sneer. "Maybe because. Or maybe because a certain someone who saw a certain movie came back for her Third Year with thoughts of dinosaurs and whether or not she could use magic to recreate them tumbling about in her mind. I gave in to my curiosity and went to see the movie myself. I found myself going to the movie theatre regularly after that." He tugged gently on the fistfuls of hair he still had. "Now, have we used up our quota of distractions yet, or shall I roll off and get comfortable?"

She wrinkled her nose up at him. "Git."

"So I've heard."

She rolled her eyes at his desert dry tone. "Just kiss me."

He waggled his sweeping black eyebrows at her, eyes twinkling. "As you wish, My Own."

Hermione giggled at the blatant reference to one of her favourite movies that came out long before she ever showed up at Hogwarts. She thought it a rather fitting one, too, considering that he already made her feel like a princess, and she was most definitely a new bride.

Severus started at her mouth again and lingered there long enough this time to make sure she was sufficiently mindless before he dared move on. He pressed butterfly kisses to every inch of her face, from her sculpted eyebrows, to her perfect nose that he dearly hoped their children inherited, to her delicate eyelids, to the widow's peak at the top of her smooth forehead. Merlin, she's so exquisite. So soft. So perfect.

Hermione smiled through the whisper soft explorations of her face, keeping her eyes closed to focus better on the feelings inspired, content to let him do whatever he wanted. The fact that he'd never kissed anyone before her made her want to give him everything he could possibly desire. Lay the world at his feet, even. What little she'd known of his life was tragic enough, but to add the fact that no had ever loved him enough to kiss him even though he was clearly no virgin was just heartbreaking.

Her smile turned to a squeak as he traveled over to her ear and nibbled on the lobe and shell. Her squeak quickly turned into giggles as his tongue tickled the sensitive tissue. His answering chuckle sent her stomach to fluttering madly and the giggles instantly stopped in favour of a gasp and a tightening of her fingers in his hair.

Severus drank in her reactions eagerly, wanting to learn every possible sensitive spot on her body to memorize for later use.

Hermione writhed under him as he moved on to her neck and the sensitive spot right behind her ear. She wrapped her legs around his and moaned like a wanton when he found a spot lower on her neck that he decided was the perfect place to suck on. And she started begging when one of his hands moved from her hair to her breasts and took turns cupping them lovingly, thumb strumming her nipples in the most delicious way.

Severus almost caved into their combined desire and slipped inside her, but he had a goal in mind that he refused to be distracted from.

Well, not for too long, anyway.

Sucking on her neck, rubbing his length through her wet folds over and over, holding her luscious breasts in his hand, and listening to her moan his name while she dug her blunt fingernails into his back was certainly worth a bit of a sidetrack.

Hermione couldn't believe how fast he had her climbing to a pinnacle again. Was it just the way their magic played along her skin that had the sensations winding her higher and higher? Was he just that good that he could somehow manage to stimulate her clit with the hard length of his cock alone?

And good grief, when had her neck and nipples become direct conduits to her core?

"Please, Sevi. Please. Please. Sev. Sevi. Oh Merlin. Oh gods. Oh fuck. Severus!"

He looked down at her in amazement when she arched her back off the bed, actually lifting him up a little bit, gasping out little mewls of pleasure, all of her limbs clinging to him like Devil's Snare. Holy shite! I just made her come! Merlin's balls, she sensitive. That certainly makes it easier for me to blow her mind, doesn't it?

Circe, I'm a lucky sonofabitch.

When Hermione pried her eyes open again, she found her new husband looking down at her with the smuggest grin she'd ever seen on a person. She almost rolled her eyes at him, but then decided that he'd earned the right to wear that look. Running caressing hands down the defined muscles of his arms, she gave him back her own version of a smug grin. "Severus Snape, we're never going to leave our bedroom for the rest of our lives if that's how it's going to be between us."

His grin somehow grew and he rocked his pelvis against hers in a not-so-subtle nudge. "I have no problems with this. I have enough galleons accumulating in my vault from my potions patents that we can literally spend the rest of our lives doing nothing but shagging, eating, sleeping, and shagging some more, if that's what you want."

Hermione laughed, not surprised at all that he was well off; he was too smart to be anything but. "I think I like that idea, as long as you add bathing to the list, and we maybe do something resembling a meaningful job for at least a few hours a day so as not to set too terrible an example for our future children."

YES! Severus had to quell the urge to leap off her and run around the room like an idiot while cheering, 'She wants kids with me! ME!'

Instead he kept it to a much more dignified pleased smile and a firm, "Done." He kissed her to seal the bargain and then looked down into her flushed and beautiful face again. Taking a deep breath for courage, he threw himself off the proverbial bridge again. "Would you perhaps be interested in telling the Ministry to go hang and instead start a company with me, specializing in experimental potions?"

She blinked, thought it over for about two seconds, and then all but blinded him with her smile. "I'd love to! That sounds like fun." She tugged him down and kissed him to seal that bargain too, and then released him to search his eyes. "But what about your position here at Hogwarts? I was under the impression that you wanted to teach, considering that you came back after the school was rebuilt when you didn't have to."

He all but shuddered in her arms. "Gads, no. I hate teaching those ungrateful dunderheads. I only came back because you did."

"Oh, Severus. You didn't have to. You could have done something you actually liked and asked me out for coffee like a normal person instead of torturing yourself."

"But would you have said yes if you didn't have this year to change your opinion of me?"

Hermione opened her mouth to answer an immediate yes, but then realized that he was right. "Possibly not. Certainly not until after I got over my infatuation with the idea of living happily ever after with Ron, anyway."

"That's what I thought. I know you, My Own, and I knew that if I were ever to have a chance with you, you'd have to make the decision on your own. Before the final battle, I was only ever your annoying potions teacher to you. And after it, I was the pathetic hero who sacrificed his life to atone for one stupid mistake. Neither of those things were something you saw as potential mate material as of a year ago. So all I could do was stay in your radar until you did."

She reached up and caressed the deep lines of sorrow that radiated from the corners of his eyes. "Oh, Severus, you really haven't had the best go of it, have you?"

He shook his head ruefully, catching one of her hands and kissing her knuckles. "Not particularly, no. But I have you now, which makes everything else more than worth it."

She scoffed. "If it makes you feel better to think so."

"It does."

"Then I guess we'll just have to make the next forty years as happy as possible to make up the difference."

His face split into a grin. "I like how you think, My Own."

She snorted. "I have about a hundred essays with red scribbles all over them that say otherwise."

He guffawed, forehead coming down to rest on her own. "I love your mind, My Own. Never forget that, no matter how many red scribbles I put on your things."

She kissed the end of his nose. "I'll do that, Sevi Mine. And for the record, I liked your red scribbles; they made me try even harder. None of the other teachers ever pushed me to be better than what I was like you did."

"That's why I did it."

"I know."

They smiled at each other rather dopily for a minute before he sighed and started pressing kisses to her jaw again. "We've gotten all distracted again, darling, which means I have to start all over," he mumbled between kisses.

She giggled, stroking her fingers down the muscles of his back. "That's all right with me. I rather like having you on top of me."

He huffed against her neck. "Tell that to my forearms. They're not used to doing a half pushup for this long."

She laughed again. "Poor baby. You know you could change your position so you're beside me instead of on top and take some of the pressure off."

He nipped the spot where her shoulder met her neck, inspiring a tiny gasp. "Not a chance. Mini Sev would much rather rub against your satin skin than against the bedding."

"Mini Sev?"

He smirked against her slender shoulder. "Would you rather I said cock?"

She made a sound that could only be described as a gigglesnort as he kissed his way down her arm, lacing his fingers with hers so he could manipulate her arm as necessary to reach all of the interesting spots. "You can call your manhood whatever you want. I just thought that Mini Sev sounded a bit juvenile for someone as serious as you usually are. But then again, I've seen about half a dozen new sides to you today that I never knew existed. I'm starting to think that the pissed off teacher persona was just an act."

Severus kissed her delicate wrist bone, black eyes flicking up to hers filled with humour and buried pain. "Oh, it wasn't an act. Pissed off and depressed is how I've spent most of the last twenty years. It's you who's given me something to be happy about again."

Chest tightening with sorrow for her man, she used her free hand to stroke gentle fingers over his brow and down his cheek even as her other arm tingled from his attentions. "Oh, Severus. I wish I could take away all of the pain I see in your eyes. I wish I'd been born around the same time as you so that I could have given you something to be happy about all this time. I know I would have enjoyed telling off everyone who was mean to you."

He smiled, kissing her palm. "And I would have loved to see you do it," he said smugly as he switched his balancing act to the other side so he could kiss his way up the new arm that had just been presented. "Especially James Potter; how I hated his hypocritical ass."

Hermione used her newly free arm to hug his shoulders as he moved, laughing softly. "I could have punched him out like I did to Draco, when he was being an asshat."

Severus paused in his oral exploration of the tender underside of her elbow to grin up at her rather evilly. "Now that, I would have paid to see. Just like your Potter, most of the school thought my Potter was all that and a bag of crisps." Including Lily.

He'd ducked his head back down just before he'd finished talking, but Hermione could almost swear that she'd heard the unspoken thought anyway. Or maybe it was just her own mind supplying the most logical conclusion to the sentence.

Either way, both of them preferred to concentrate on what Severus was doing to her over dwelling on his past unrequited love.

So Hermione closed her eyes and rested her head on the pillow again, fingers occasionally stroking his long silky straight hair that felt so different from her own coarser curls, and just let herself enjoy.

She enjoyed the kiss he left on her neck. Adored the tickling path of his tongue on her collarbone. Mumbled words of encouragement through the half hour or so that he spent worshipping her breasts until that magical thread between her nipples and her clit made her come again. Watched him with hazy and satisfied eyes as he kissed a long and torturous path down her torso and towards her center. Giggled at the sudden dip of his tongue into her bellybutton. Moued in temporary disappointment as he bypassed where she wanted him to stop the most and travelled on down her thigh. Muttered threats as he spent a ridiculous amount of time making her shiver and shudder from the attention he paid to her feet. And then, finally, moaned words of praise and obscenities as he showed her just how fast he was at learning her favourite spots between her legs to be licked and kissed and sucked and tongued.

Severus didn't let up on her hub of pleasure until she came for him twice more, drinking in her juices that tasted like what he imagined ambrosia to be, the currents of magic that burst like fireworks between them every time she shattered, and her cries of praise and completion that filled his heart with pride and joy.

And when she finally settled back into the bed bonelessly, he kissed a quick path back up her body until he was cradled between her thighs again, and then pressed his aching length inside her still rhythmically spasming channel. Lacing his fingers with hers, he raised their hands above their heads and kissed her passionately as he rocked into her with slow and steady deliberation.

Hermione didn't have the energy left to actively participate, but she sure as hell enjoyed it as her apparently tireless husband thrust into her for an endless and unknown amount of time. And when he finally found his own climax, he dragged her over again with him from the magical surge of it. Her hands clenched around his, her core exploded tingles through her entire body, and she watched his close-eyed grimace of ecstasy with a feeling of awe that it was her that had made him feel so good. I swear I'll spend the rest of my life making you happy, Sevi Mine.

Severus gasped and his eyes flew open. "I HEARD that."

She blinked in confusion. "Heard what?"

A slow and brilliant smile crossed his face as he rolled them over so that Hermione could rest on his chest without them losing their intimate connection. He used a hand that faintly trembled from exhaustion to brush her sweaty hair out of her eyes. "I heard your thought, My Own. Without looking in your eyes, I heard your thought."

"Ohhhhh. That's amazing!" She beamed down at him, cupping his face to kiss him in celebration. Then she pulled back and said, "Let's see if we can do it on purpose. Close your eyes."

His eyes practically snapped closed, a smile twitching at his lips.

She almost sighed at how gorgeous he looked like that, with his cheeks flushed from pleasure, his long black lashes resting on his cheekbones, and his skin glistening with perspiration, but didn't want to confuse things. Instead, she thought very clearly, "I love you, Severus Snape."

His eyelids flew open again for a moment, and he pulled her down to kiss her almost desperately. And while he was kissing her, with both sets of their eyes now closed, she heard his sexy voice say in her mind:

"I love you more, Hermione Snape."