Hello lovely people, we have returned after a longer than usual wait!
We've been very busy the last couple of weeks and we're very sorry! But we definitely wanted to make sure this was in the best possible shape before releasing it. We think we've accomplished that, but you tell us!
Now listen close: this is a dreamscape segment, so this is your smut warning. It applies more so for the next chapter than this one, but this one is far from innocent. Though as it calls back to the Summer of 1998, there is also a light warning for PTSD/emotional turmoil, mentions of blood/massive injury, one-sided alcohol ingestion, 18-year-old Hermione, and technical if not explicitly defined infidelity. In fantasy, at least.
In short, this one goes out to all of you hurt/comfort fans! Including our amazing beta, Marilynn aka hizqueen4life! Happy Early Birthday and thank you sooo much for all of your patience and ideas! ? 🎉🙌
Cover art by the brilliantly talented OpalChalice - Enjoy! Please let us know what you think!
~ Kristina & Abby
The Ties That Bind
No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread. – Robert Burton
Chapter XVI: The Whetted Dream - Part I
"By night, beloved, tie your heart to mine and let them both in dreams defeat the darkness." — Pablo Neruda
~•~
Saturday, 29th November 2003 – Sometime after Midnight
Whilst still locked in a haze of vexation, Hermione had finally achieved in getting herself properly dried and then clothed into the emerald-green jumper, her damp clothes laid dutifully in front of the hearth, and her scattered bearings no more easily corralled. It felt as though every individual sector of her body was either unbearably, carnally feverish from his surviving presence, or still bone-chillingly hyperborean from their joint, polar bath. Most galling of all, her ever-edacious tendency toward officiousness refused to rest. Indeed, the inquisitive witch both desired to appraise every commodity and artefact, every crevice and nook, every wrinkle of the floor's wood or peel of the wall's paling Lincrusta, whilst also, wanting nothing more than to retain herself stiffly and determinedly within the confines of his bed. Cocooned by his bedding. Supported by his head cushions. All of which emitted his personal scent of dried ink, mortared wolfsbane, and freshly chopped sandalwood. Swoon, indeed.
Normally when she suffered from such bouts of fermentation at night, she would be inclined towards a bath. That leisure, however, was irrefutably out of the question given their aforementioned encounter with his washroom's basin. Her other dilemma, that of her insatiable horniness for the man and everything that comprised him, was fairing no better in opportunity for immediate alleviation. For as inflamed and tremulous as the bale of nerve endings persisted between her thighs, the act of self-pleasure seemed far too indecent, and too staunch a breach of his private, most personal habitation, to abandon herself to partaking in altogether. In addition to roosting in an article of his wardrobe, even if he clearly hadn't worn it in decades, it, nevertheless, seemed imprudent to 'taint' – no matter how exceedingly tempting that very fact forged the abstraction to appear. Yes, the gratification of her loins, in any fashion, whilst in Severus' bed, must be prohibited. Even at the self-enforcement, and detriment, of her own hand. Oi, an unfortunate selection of phrasing that had been.
Finally relapsing unto her customary recourse, the young witch plucked up the cherished text he had leant her, waiting idly for her attention on the bedside table, and endeavoured to put 'pupils to page'. Always an effective remedy, surely.
Yet, she could scarcely manage to parse through the satirical science-fiction novel without being fervently reminded of her husband's derisive demeanour, the robotic character of Marvin, of course, being the primary culprit. Though to grant Douglas Adams his due, and the starch benefit of the doubt, Hermione was convinced that no volume within Severus' vast collection would be exempt from that derelict fate. On this night, leastways.
Her own ill-conceived reference materials – which she had foolishly been inclined to transport with her to his – were obviously far worse an option to even consider trifling with. Especially given her most recent subject of research from a few nights prior. So, it was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that she continued to foster in the hopes of sedating her nomadic thoughts.
This undertaking she continued to pursue until her eyelids, finally, grew judiciously heavy enough that they began to droop, her respiration was staggered by enough flirtatious yawns that her jaw had begun to ache, and her consciousness was too consumed by its sinking down to further dwell at the surface of the world created by the lettered pages, to excuse the book's continued occupancy within her hands.
Thus, at length, she abandoned it to the table from whence it came and fell quickly into a fitful, but oneiric, slumber.
A dreamy recollection, a fantasy, or, perhaps, even a wish, soon emerged from the recesses of her subconscious, throwing the young woman into a 'scene' that was of such a visceral, realistic quality that she, might as well, have been awake.
~•~
The setting was unmistakable – it was just over three weeks following the post factum "Battle of Hogwarts", and Hermione Jean Granger couldn't claim to have had so much as ten minutes of solitude since. One could presume such constant companionship would be a boon for an only child who had essentially orphaned herself in every way but literally. But no, not for the young woman who had cemented herself as the designated logician in her motley crew; the level head in their kingdom of sackcloth and ashes. For every well-intentioned blessing and survey of her sanity, every act of selfless gratitude she was shown, there came the lofty weight of expectation; the quandary which resided within every benediction. Namely, the innate but unspoken requirements of stability, support, and sagacity, none of which she felt as though she exemplified nor could offer up in sacrifice. But she couldn't possibly have imparted that, she could never have shown such overt signs of instability, not when she was the cornerstone, and not without sabotaging everyone else's attempts at self-rectification around her.
And failing to have a single instance of self-elected quarantine, inescapably fated each and every part of her that felt fragmented to steadily crumble ever further under the strain of bearing the rest of her up. Inevitably, something had to give.
Thus she found herself somewhere amidst the foliage in the Weasley's vast, back garden, camouflaged as well as she could accomplish, perched on a half-dilapidated wooden bench, nursing the dregs of a bottle of firewhiskey in a valiant effort to avoid the overly-supportive, still-mourning lot of the Burrow's occupants. And, subsequently, felt awful about doing so. About putting herself first, for once. About being selfish. And most of all, for ceasing to be the friend that she usually was, and that they so needed her to be, currently. A sensation that only added to the mounting upset that she so desperately craved an outlet for. She wouldn't dare to sulk in the presence of any of them. No. Particularly not Ronald, who, for all of his own grief, was overcompensating his attentiveness to ensure that she was 'okay', suffocating her numerous times a day to inquire if, in fact, she was so. And in so doing, only proved to alienate her away from him with iniquitous, but steady speed all the more.
Before she could drown wholly under that swampland of penitence, however, there was a stuttered crunching of the grass a few metres ahead. And in a swatch of moonlight, she saw Harry Potter's meandering lineament closing in on her at a jog. While such an eventuality was far from ideal, her disappointment was allayed by the sheer rectitude that it wasn't her equally intoxicated paramour.
"Oi! 'Mione. You're pissed as a fiddle. Come on, mate, gimme the bottle. Or at least let me catch up!" Harry called out as he approached her hunched silhouette from a few yards away.
He fleetly stole the bottle from her and took a hearty swig before throwing his own war-weary body down next to her disconsolate one, offering the bottle back, despite how little she likely needed it, as a makeshift 'olive branch'.
"Look, trust me, I get it. I don't fancy being round anyone either, but since I can understand that… at least talk to me? Besides, I reckon I know what it's about. There's still time, you know. Loads, really. Don't fret just yet, yeah?"
Hermione managed to dredge up a shoddy, impatient excuse-for-a-smile as she received it, though she made no immediate comment, nor did she even grant him the expected look of disapproval at his boyish antics of minor 'larceny'. Her only other preliminary sign of tolerance for his ambushing company was a slight shift to the left of her bum to provide him just enough room to sit before she set the bottle's edge to her lips to skol anew.
For though his manner was certainly fallacious, Harry was one of the less intrusive souls who could have come along, and that was something to celebrate at the very least.
"Which disaster shouldn't I fret about today, exactly?" she conclusively piped up as she immolated the bottle back to him blandly, in the event he was simply offering spontaneous, transmissible condolences for the immeasurable number of issues that could be to blame for her distress.
"Our world is still in utter shambles; everyone's either dead or grieving for someone who is; my poor parents are still Obliviated and have been cast away to another fucking continent – likely for forever; the Prophet is obsessively trying to procure the most dramatic headlines about Ron and me, when they aren't preoccupied with stalking the three of us – which, I'm sure you've noticed has seriously impeded their ability to report on anything of actual value, and that's on top of their already trembling credibility issue; Snape is still missing without a word after three bloody weeks and almost no one is consciously acknowledging how terrible of a thing that really is, after all, he's done for our me world. Furthermore, Dumbledore's name has been completely dragged through the mud – and rightfully so, in many cases, granted – but it's, nevertheless, tarnished each and every one of us in the process. Neither of you are going back to school with me this year, so that experience will surely be a miserable one. Meanwhile, I want to sort everything but I don't have the slightest notion as to how, or where to start, and, I, apparently, exist only to either be everyone's live-in therapist, or their supportive girlfriend, or their fucking legal counsel. Which is quite unfortunate for those seeking out any of my 'services' for I'm barely able to feel sane for more than three minutes, myself! So, Harry, you absolute imbecile, don't you fucking dare tell me not to, 'fret just yet'!"
"Okay, okay, okay! Oy, 'Mione, I'm sorry, Merlin. I didn't ask for a bloody essay on it all, though, er, I'm glad you got it out of you," Harry hastily retorted with an apology as he wrapped a tentative arm around her shoulders.
"Look, I know all that shite is going on for you. And I'm so sorry. It's absolutely unfair. You get the brunt of everything and of everyone. But, honestly, if I may say so, save for the Ron stuff, 'cause I think we both know that that ship will be hard to keep afloat after a while, everything else you're handling quite well. Which is why so much gets entrusted to you. Now, this is the biggest loss we've ever suffered, and likely ever will, but…I can't help but wonder if this Snape business, particularly, doesn't mean more to you than you're letting on. Rather poorly, might I add. You're even bloody talking like him. 'Imbecile', I may be, but I'm not as thick as Ron, no offence to him now, but, the number of times you've been checking for any sign or word from him hasn't escaped me…" The-Boy-Who-Lived let out a deflated sigh, the bubble of enthusiasm he had clearly displayed for having been correct 'for once', popping.
"You might think you're being clever about your worry, but, trust me, I know more than anyone the anxiety that builds up in you when you're waiting for a letter. No matter the kind. So…."
Hermione wrestled the firewhiskey out of Harry's hand with an obstinate lour. Though for all of her demonstrative venom, she chose not to fight off his attempts to console her, permitting his arm to frame her shoulders with distant assent.
"Yes, please, remind me of another thing I'm failing at," she returned with acute derision, measuredly leaving his 'accusation' unanswered, however. Not out of spite nor secrecy, not at all. She simply didn't have an explanation to give him. Not a logical one, anyway. Reasons there were many, but none of them explained the overwhelming, and sheer dread that grew in the pit of her stomach every time the subject of Severus Snape and his uncertain fate arose.
"I….just feel helpless, and guilty. Both things I despise feeling, as you know. And I want to learn, for a fact, that something we did wasn't too late to prevent a disaster, that's all."
"I hope you realise that's not how I meant for you to take that, 'Mione," Harry hugged her melancholy figure closer after prying the bottle from her with finality, setting it on the ground and to the side lest she bid to reach for it once more. "You and Ron are very, very different people. That's all. And whilst I adore my two best friends being 'together', I also want us all to carry on that way. And well, don't you ever have the cheek to tell Ron this, but, if you feel like you're having to force it, just… don't, okay? Do whatever is healthiest for you. I'll have your back no matter what. Promise."
He ran a loose hand down her sleeved arm and twisted his lips as he gambled the next subject matter with calculated prudence.
"Now then, why are you so worried about Snape? Yeah, it has been a bit over three weeks, granted, but so what? The man's on the run . Remember how many of our friends thought we might have been caught, or dead, at any given moment when we were chasing Horcruxes? He's just… busy. Probably brewing batch after batch of Polyjuice Potion somewhere in a hut in the woods since that nose of his is a rather dead giveaway," Harry snickered, making mock fun of the man with the aim of, hopefully, lifting the spirit of her mood.
Acquiescing wearily into his vacillating embrace, Hermione exhaled a cheap chuckle – as much amusement as she could muster – before sighing and settling herself against the bench's rear wall, subtly liberating herself from his hug in the process.
"Thanks, Harry," she answered, though she was just sober enough to stop short of continuing their contretemps. It was best she left him feeling like he'd accomplished something, surely.
But, for all of his honourable ambitions, none of it mattered. She wouldn't leave Ron. Not when he'd just lost his brother, nor when his family were essentially taking her in, no matter how infuriating he could be or how little he understood her. And, as consoling as it felt imagining Snape wandering about in the forest, content to let the world believe him dead, it was, categorically, a desolate pipe dream. It would have taken a miracle for him to have survived, and she was hardly a saint.
The image of Snape's blood seeping with reckless speed from his mouth and throat flitted through Hermione's mind and she blanched, shying away from her friend's probing gaze. That image would reside within her psyche for years to come. There was no doubting that morbid fact.
"I'll be fine, I just…I just need a moment to be… miserable without everyone fussing over me. Okay?"
"Alright, if you're certain that you don't want me to stay, I won't. Just don't make yourself sparse for too, too long? I'll worry. For the meantime, however, I'll keep the wolves at bay, our third 'member' especially. Though, I'm fairly certain I left him asleep on the table after his seventh shot within only an hour, so we likely won't hear much from him for the rest of the night, I reckon," Harry stood woodenly, stretched and reached for the nearly empty bottle on the ground, tucking it under his arm before he relented and proffered it to her one last time.
"No more though, tonight, okay? And look, 'Mione, yo– we put forth our best effort for Snape that night. And it was a damned good one at that. He's alive. I'm sure of it."
Her eyes rolled at the increasingly banal, invariable circumstance she had left Ron within, as she accepted the bottle again, taking an extensive, crowning swill from it before she, cooperatively, corked it. Though did proceed to place it back upon the bench beside her, unwilling to surrender it into Harry's custody just yet.
"Who do you think I took it from?" she returned finally with purposeful simplicity, an applicable excuse to retain it safely outside with her versus acceding Harry to embark on his return journey to the Burrow with it. She may drain the dregs, she may not. Given that her head was beginning to spin from that last 'hurrah' she thought not, but she'd prefer to exercise the autonomy to choose how hungover she would be in the morning.
"You're probably right…but regardless, I promise I'll 'behave'. Go on," she urged him, gesturing back towards the teetering house with a tilt of her head. "Ginny's probably looking for you."
Harry gave her a lopsided grin and a short nod. "Right. Love you, 'Mione. See you inside."
After echoing back a fraction of his smile, the witch sat stiffly in reposed silence, attentively eyeing her best friend's retreat towards the Burrow. Only once the door had securely closed behind him, and she was left alone with the garden gnomes and her thoughts, did Hermione begin to openly weep.
For every tear she had repressed in the preceding days, ten seemed to spawn. For innumerable reasons, and from multitudinous haemorrhages, she grieved, finally given the unimpeded opportunity, sans deponent or propagator. There she sat, hugging her knees, warranting the pooling of emotion behind her eyes that had been threatening to break for days the liberty to fall readily into the stillness of the starlit night. Contrition, exasperation, fright, sorrow, bitterness – she'd repressed them all, bound them closely to her chest and cached them away. Every nightmare, each instance Ron infuriated or clung to her, every ridiculous headline, the fallacious alacrity in everyone's tone when they spoke to her whilst simultaneously hanging upon her every admonition. The dereliction that shot through her when Molly would call her 'family' with expectation in her eyes. The inadequacy of yearning to do everything and accomplishing nothing.
Here was where she freed them, consigned them to the grave, and prayed they'd remain buried once she was through. And she likely would have abided in such a state of lachrymose until daybreak, had the flapping of wings near her left shoulder not interceded.
Hermione's heavy head lifted, and of the droves of images she would have expected to see, the effulgent eyes of a sleek, black crow were nowhere amongst them. Alighted on the back of the bench, it clipped its beak with a diffused snap and seemed to lock its gaze volitionally with her own.
The witch was initially convinced that she had hallucinated this act of acknowledgement, however, the corvid accorded a determined caw in greeting, startling her out of her moroseness. She jerked backwards.
"...May I help you?" she chanced to vocalise meekly, feeling somewhat ridiculous for speaking to a crow as though it, bizarrely, hosted a clandestine agenda.
But as if in forthright rebuttal to her scrutiny, the sable bird lifted off, its wings flapping only once or twice before it glided fluently and diametrically to a neighbouring branch some feet away. There, it reported with a dip of its tail feathers, its black eyes liting on hers afresh. Then, with an air of command, she – Hermione postulated it to be a she, though how so had obtained such a conviction she could not speak to – bellowed a sophomore squawk of subpoena, as if mandating her to follow.
The cultural and spiritual significance of such an occurrence from many a myth and pantheon rattled about within the 'temple' of her inebriated mind, and yet, be it Bran or Apollo, the fiercest face of the Morrighan or the façade of a trickster, she did not need to be asked twice.
Choking the bottle roughly around its neck, and wiping the tear stains from her cheeks, Hermione stood and cautiously converged upon the tree where her strange messenger awaited her. Surely enough, as soon as the witch drew close to her barbican, the crow ascended anon, swooping even farther this time, across a small stretch of field and into a verdantly overrun grove of trees. There, in the only slice of moonlight visible, the young woman beheld her shadow plummet resolutely to the Earth's veneer, divergently chirping her encouragement for Hermione to traverse along as it settled itself amongst the brush.
This gave her pause. She was well alert to the fact that she was being lured farther into the vespers of the concise thicket of woods, and thus, away from the refuge of the house, and yet, she discovered herself too zealous in her pursuit to terminate it. And too recklessly despondent to protest it. Indeed, for even Atë herself could have swayed her in this moment to accompany her into Pandemonium, and she would scarcely have blinked an eye, let alone have marinated the decision to refuse her. She did, however, retrieve her wand from the pocket of her spring jacket, commandeering it in her unencumbered fist as she proceeded into the coppice illuminated by Selene's radiant satellite.
Originally, she saw nothing but copsewood and brambles, shadows and dense turf. Then, her little winged omen bellowed again, causing her to virtually start in injury as the bird abruptly moored herself on Hermione's narrow shoulder. The crow dunked its head, a small mass clasped within its curved beak becoming evident. Frowning in mystification, she laid the bottle down in the crux of the nearest tree before tentatively extending her palm.
A button, coated in a distinctive Stygian fabric, suddenly was deposited in the centre of her palm, and the bird, her pilgrim guardedly dispatched to her harbour, and her crusade now complete, flittered in the night's hooded horizon as briskly and enigmatically as she had come. Hermione was reminded in that moment of what else 'The Crow' was fabled to represent: 'Death'.
'Death', or, 'Resurrection'…
Left unchaperoned in the gloaming, with an inscrutable answer to an unasked question, a fresh dirge of sorrow swelled in her throat from the cavity of her soul, for she was no more versed in the knowledge she so direly longed to acquire than she had been before.
She had chased an ignominious harold of misfortune into the wilds, alone and vulnerable, like some desperate damsel waiting for her knight, and she still didn't know what to do with the rest of her life. She still had no inkling as to what she wanted. And worst of all, she still lacked any direct understanding as to the well-being of the man who had inexplicably begun to haunt her dreams, and nightmares alike. Yet one more element to add to the augmenting list of conundra she was unable to decipher. All she had to fall back on as an explanation was attrition, but surely no amount of remorse could conjure up feelings for someone she had never previously possessed? Surely…?
Her potential disappointment to save him was not capable of enlisting her to want him. A dupe of the mind, it had to be. Just, as it seemed, a bloody avian couldn't show her the arcane panacea for her problems. Sometimes a bird was just a fucking bird, and contrition was just regret, with prettier packaging.
What else had she expected? A revelation, a message, an animagus? She couldn't say. But something – anything – more explicit than a lone button would certainly have helped.
A button that either was or resembled – and remarkably so – one of the many that littered those of Severus Snape's teaching 'uniform'; his sleeves, specifically. And, it had been gifted to her in a seemingly deliberately chosen patch of wood that reminded her uncannily of one of the sparser corners of the Forbidden Forest.
Was it a sign, a warning, a terrible coincidence? A message? Who the bloody hell was to say? Certainly not her absent animal consort. And certainly not, Hermione, herself.
Up until that calamitous night in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione Granger had never bought into prophecy. She'd dropped divination, for fuck's sake. But now, standing in a moonbeam on a bed of dandelions – which had appeared as if magically , and without her full perception, and after following a mysterious creature in the middle of the night, anything felt possible. Anything, and, nothing, at all.
"Thank you. How….unbelievably vague!" she managed to exclaim unctuously towards the heavens before a sob of helpless confusion overtook her once again in the Cimmerian shade. And sooner rather than not, many more were hasty to follow.
"Shhh, Miss Granger, calm yourself, it's only a button, after all. The world shan't crumble for its loosening just yet…" Severus tutted her upon pressing his arcuate lips against her right ear to hush her cries in a tender act of solacing, lest the young woman descend into such a plight of anguish that even a Dementor's Kiss would be met with greater favour than to tarry in her current circumstances.
The whilom triple-agent, ex-professor, loathed-headmaster, and next-to-shattered man, had been monitoring the witch with meticulous intensity the instant her delineation had breached itself into his panorama, prompted by Nyx's trusty, governed lead. And since his eyes had first fixated on her flummoxed profile, he'd been tirelessly palavering with himself over whether to present his person to her in the stead of maintaining his sly surreptitiousness. For the wizard had tightly pressed himself within the shelter of an umbrageous length of a yew tree just a few metres to her right.
An ironic 'choice' of an undercover sanctuary given their 'churchyard symbolism', to be sure, but our dear Severus had always been partial to gothic ironies and had simply been unable to resist the temptation to indulge in his humour. Regardless, there hadn't exactly been a great myriad of hiding places to choose from. And, when it came to 'choice' these days, he'd usually found that he had little to none. As such, he'd bloody well steal those ones that he could.
Upon hearing her howl of misery, however, the choice was decided for him, and by him, for he had no other one. It was utterly ineluctable. For at the harrowing ejaculation of her cry, his gut wrenched and his heart proliferated before rupturing for reasons he knew not, nor cared, not about. There seemed to be an infrangible bind between their two bodies – their two personages – that neither better judgement, self-discipline, common sense, nor all his clevernesses combined could possibly embark on disenfranchising. Go to her, console her, soothe her, save her – he must.
A gasp wrung from the stern of her throat at the brusque, remote advance of the umbral contour now unmistakably at her back, but before the shrill inhalation could clangour through the trees and compete with the nocturnal ballads of crickets, or the distant hooting owls, her body was engulfed and her mouth covered by a large, strangely tepid palm, given the night's brisk air. Her grip on her wand tensed, a delayed reaction that surely would have doomed her if the person had meant her any brand of harm.
But at that moment, the voice which had just reverberated in her ear washed over her in full and she gorgonized, as riveted as if she'd been turned to stone, and all her burgeoning attempts at emancipating herself fell away, categorically forgotten.
It couldn't be. Could it?
The man (for that, at least, she was certain of) held her sturdily, though without force or malice, and thus, gradatim, she began to overpass his fingers' commodity of her visage so as to pivot her head around with probing curiosity. There, in the spectral blaze of the moon, she caught just enough of Severus Snape's iconic profile, with its thick ridge of brow, roman-nose, and thinly-bowed lips, to perfervidly, vindicate her presentiments. And with that, deliverance, dither, and choler all descended upon her in one resoundingly fell raid of her plenary being.
Though her knees were in jeopardy of arcking, Hermione ordained her deportment to ease until his hold loosened, and only then did she swivel round in his arms, propelling herself against his chest enough to revise his face with greater interest than any text she'd ever stuck her nose in. She adamantly was not seeking to banish him away from her, no, never away. For within this fae-like dreamscape, she wantonly coveted for him to linger exactly where he was, phantasmagoric, until the end of time. All the better to ensure she hadn't gone mad. Or far more to the crux, lest she bitterly lose him forevermore to an insubstantial nightmare.
"Severus…!? " she whispered gingerly.
"Hermione," he echoed resolutely.
"You're… alive? "
Her tawny retinas scoured his obsidian ones in earnest, a virgin trial, and one performed in such intimate proximity to his earthly being, that the event felt, almost, protrusive. And they were as beautifully breathtaking as they were dangerously arresting. Everyone assumed or was want to state, that they were nothing more than that of an opaquely, beady black hue. Threatening, alarming, formidable, and perilous to behold. Not a set that was advisable to cross on either the literal or the metaphorical level. But that sentiment was totally and utterly fictitious, not to mention erroneous. The veracity of their splendour was far, far beyond any brilliant thing she'd ever had the privilege of bearing witness to discern. Even in the shallow light of the moon, she could see that.
"So it seems," the wizard confirmed gruffly, an intrepid smirk daring to twitch at the edges of his lips as his thick digits flexed into her sides possessively.
As soon as the foremost wave of staggering disbelief abandoned her, the cavity that was left in its wake presented an invaluable opportunity for a plethora of emotions to arise in an effort to commence its filling. And fill it they did, depositing themselves in its caldera until they threatened to spill over. Damn how bloody unjust, indelicate, or temerarious they were. Outrage and ire, habitually in propria persona, raced ahead – though stark confusion at his otherworldly emergence, and a tumultuous, woeful genus of despondency, galloped not long behind. Her subconscious held none of the reservations that her waking mind might have considered tantamount.
"What the bloody hell, Professor!? What have you been doing all this time? Where have you been? You were meant to tell us that you were all right! That you'd made it! I thought you were… dead! Everyone….everyone thinks you're dead, or off bleeding somewhere in the distant wilderness, alone, like some arrowed centaur. And, most horrid of all, I thought I'd...failed, I thought I'd botched it! Mucked it up and…and…!"
Her tears were summoned anew as her fists landed blow upon blow in junction to his unyielding chest, heedless of the predominating fact that her unbridled aggression and resentment were centred entirely upon herself. Every plight and puzzle she couldn't resolve; the sum total of what she could have done and hadn't been quick or clever enough to engineer or realise, and every single, individual exigency she still felt powerless to control erupted forth and were taken out on him. Her vocalisations grew more and more disarrayed and addled through each bewailed syllable she hiccupped to profess with a candour only dreams could allow.
"I thought I couldn't mend it! There was so much…so much blood, from all over, and with the venom… I…I don't even know how I did it. I didn't…I didn't have time to check – and then you were gone! And I couldn't help…anyone else, and I kept…trying and failing. Always failing, and I can't fail anymore! I can't stand it any longer!"
"Miss Granger…. Miss Granger! Silence your prattling of such utter shite this instant! Look at me, I need you to Look. At. Me. Now!" Severus hissed with a bass that surely hit Hades, his hands flying faster than if Hermes wings were on fire from her waist, northward, to bookend her face in a cradle that was as tender as it was taut. Taut indeed, for in order to begin to quell her inner, anxious agitation and torment, he knew that she must also still her body and her mouth.
"You didn't fail! Not at all. Can't you see, it's me? Right here. Alive. I'm alive! And only because of you. You brilliant, clever, resourceful, cunning, girl. Now, stop talking rubbish, and breathe, Miss Granger…. PLEASE!? "
For all of his efforts, her tears wouldn't cease, yet her words did falter and breathe she did. Obediently, Hermione sucked in multiple gasping drags, though they did little to placate the wretchedness that had deluged her psyche as she stood shaking in his unforeseen embrace. There were too many unfathomable and arcane emotions built up inside of her, and nothing short of the shock and reprieve of his appearance could have coerced them out of her – but why she still couldn't say, even as her eyes opened and found his nigh-on pleading gaze once again. It only served, however, to thrust her into a cavalcade of apprehension and panic once more.
"But I'm not! It was sheer, dumb luck! It must have been. I'm not… Everyone always wants me to rectify everything, always, and sort it all with a bloody smile on my face. To play every role from heroine to nursemaid. That, just because I'm not as fatuous and dense as they are, I should take it all on, and I don't know how one is meant to do that! To… sustain those expectations. It's maddening and exhausting! The war, the danger, chaos, it's meant to be over, I'm meant to be happy, and I'm not, not at all. I'm lost and listless, and my existence is utterly fucked! They all believe I'm the 'brilliant one', that I've always been the solution, but I'm just as helpless and pathetic, and guilt-ridden as they are. I'm a fraud, don't you see? I'm not even capable of carrying my own burdens, so how am I meant to help anyone else?! "
Severus's eyes searched her own in insurmountable indignation at her unearned self-chastising. Cloudy, too, with disoriented perplexity at hearing the one student he ever insipidly hypothesised might have matched his own intellect at her age(s) berating herself with such unforgiving animosity. It was heartily undeserved and incomprehensibly inaccurate.
Running the pads of his thumbs under her transuding orbs to collect and wash away any and all offensive tears from her face, Severus licked his lips as his pupils darted to her Lilliputian mouth before returning to her eyes. He peered into them with an intensity unlike any desire he had ever jousted with before, and as such, speedily, was vanquished by it. He cleared his throat of a restive sigh before muttering an amatory, "Oh, for fuck's sake…" before leaning down to silence her, himself, with his very lips.
He kissed her. He kissed her hard. And in full. And more than any other persuasion, he kissed her frenetically. Desperate to ease the bubbling pangs of woe that were frothing from her chest and flowing through her ducts, and desperate, too, to touch her in some manner that would reach through her, and court her very heart.
If silence had not been what her quondam professor was seeking, it was certainly what he'd ordered. Stunned, immobilised silence was what beset the young witch. For the first five seconds, that was, before the shock dissipated, and she began to return the driving pressure of his mouth on hers with gradually mounting ardency. Her hands, once curled tensely at her sides, sought him out in blind hunger to clasp onto something, anything to ensure she stayed upright, and that she wasn't dreaming. She needed to know that the mad urgency she felt for what she'd never dared to ask for wasn't a terrible hoodwink of her dyonysian mind.
Though once her trembling fingers found the indubious corporeality of his form beneath the pliable fabric of his turtleneck, her grip tightened and it was as though she were stunned all over again. Her mouth disengaged with a gasp, but she didn't pull away from him. In fact, she moved her face only so far from his so as to afford her the opportunity to study his weathered features in the stunted shafts of the moonlight, her bygone despair temporarily subverted by pure fascination and perplexity. And total, complete bafflement at his resplendence.
"Merlin… That was… I mean… Wo – why…?" Hermione stammered, too besotted and thunderstruck to effectively phonate any singular inquiry. Until finally she ran aground upon that transcendent, penultimate inquest. Why? Why had he left, why show up now, why lure her here, why console her, why salute her with such a kiss? Her reddened eyes strove to comb his own, despite their focus being compellingly lured back down to the curvature of his lips.
"Because, Miss Granger, it's your turn," Severus informed her simply, his right hand nebulously falling to wrap snugly round her waist, clutching her against his beaten form tenaciously.
She gawped up at him, eyes bulging, diligently awaiting some further utterance. A catch, a pretext, a bargain, a mockery…. Yet nothing of any such breed transpired. Miraculously, it seemed that the intention behind his assertion might be as crystalline as stated, and yet, by degrees, infinitely more complex. But at that moment, chest-to-chest with him amongst the swaying of the yew trees in the night's twinkling light, Hermione was unable to condone herself to fret. She comprehended what he'd imparted, what his words had envisaged, somehow, deep within her, and she wanted nothing more than to accept his offer. To cocoon herself in whatever assuagement he immolated, and to believe that it was proffered unconditionally, and without any pedigree of compensation.
Did such a concept exist? Could the unfettered gratitude and reverence of the man who had spent so many years disregarding her really fill the hollow pit within her soul? All things considered, she should be unnerved at his confidential grasp, and yet she'd dreamed of it so many times by now it felt like coming home. But she needed to be certain. Of his lucidity, and of her own.
"... My turn for what, precisely?"
"To be ' the taken care of one', Miss Granger," Severus met her query with pragmatic pointedness, arching his mesomorphic left brow in a hypothetical invitation to challenge him. Would she have the temerity to contest his blazoned decree? Would she vehemently try to assert that it was anything but a delinquent fact that was egregiously long overdue? Snape, for one of the few times in his life, was dreadfully vacillant about the matter.
Hermione's throat bobbed in contradictory awe, fastened in reticence whilst that deceptively elementary prospect overtook her cognitive logic, encompassed her thudding heart, and resurrected tenets and doctrines that had been exiled from her consciousness for what felt like a millennium now. Because it was a compelling statement, spoken with emphatic sincerity, and most significantly, it was correct. And yet, there were parts of her which riled outrageously against it.
Her very nature, this dream-one and surely her conscious one, was at utter odds with the notion that this, hitherto, gravely-injured man was standing, conjoining her and, positing to care for her when, surely, the reversal of roles would be the pertinent contingency. Though, that was the 'thesis' of her plight, was it not? The perpetual, self-elected martyr. The ingrained allure to worry over the condition of others before that of her own was her primary labour and creed, the Nemean lion that she could never quite manage to slay. But his force of logic was ever stronger, and she had to ask her inner syllogist, by juxtaposition, which of them was the inebriated and blubbering one, in the forest, in the dark of the night without acumen of a singular reason to protest how the other was incorrect?
It was, certainly, not Severus.
Many a person had bestowed her with cognizance, sanctuary, and even sympathy, efforts she could not begin to ponder to discount and was even compelled to defend, yet so rarely without presentiment. And there, it seemed, she had cycled all the way back with the rejoinder to her earlier lamentation, tacitly and gallantly, staring her in the face.
Against all odds, however, and before the witch could fully fathom or charter it within herself, she realised that she was nodding her head in enraptured ascension at his ineffable overture.
"I'm…not certain I even know how to submit to being 'attended to', anymore," she confessed with delicate dolefulness, one shoulder rising out of her jacket in a diminutive shrug.
"Nor would I expect you to after the way your services and person has been being taken advantage of by those two imbeciles, let alone everyone else round you, even if not done meretriciously," the wizard hummed perspicaciously, "From what I've gathered, Mrs Weasley's the only one that's treated you how you deserve to be treated: as a weary, burnt-out war heroine, who is in vital need of a bloody break from all responsibilities. Let alone the ones that you, foolishly, choose to adopt of your own magnanimous volition," his words receded into the air, the rest of his thought residing in a state of enshroudment for it was not needed, nor would it have been useful to attaining his objective with her.
The arm that had property of her waist tightened considerably as he leaned his face down to hers, their pupils locking briefly before she shuttered hers closed, thus allowing him to brush his lips against each of her eyelids on his mouth's trek to her left ear where he latched them to its curvature before husking in a deep refrain, "But none of that matters, don't you see, Miss Granger? Because I'm. Here. Now. And I am the only soul on this planet that knows what you're experiencing, in its specific shade, and therefore, I am the only one who can genuinely, truly save you. Who can fight in your stead. And most precious to me of all, love you. Just as you saved me. Just as you fought for me. And just as, perhaps, one fateful day, only you can love me. So you see, it's time to move on from childish 'playmates', my dear. And it's time to drop your wand and your defensive stance…"
He then, as if to insist on her resignation of service, performed a nonverbal disarming spell that coerced her instrument of battle from her fist, clearing his throat as it thudded softly to the dandelion-ed turf by their stationary feet as if to place a permanent full stop on the symbolic manoeuvre.
"...Because the war is over. You are not a soldier anymore. You are a veteran. And you will be treated with honour and respect, and given the rest and relaxation that you so earned after all of these years, the most recent especially. And do you know why that's going to all be possible, now, Miss Granger? Hm? " he pressed his towering stature into hers as his lips peppered kisses alongside the vaulted rim of her ear.
Some thwarted, anguished aspect of herself longed to find fallacy within his oration to latch onto and dispute, be it for spite or reassurance, or only for dominion over the mercurial progression of her thoughts. But there was nothing, not a single iota of oversight; every syllable sailed through her ears and filled the hollow pit that had been boring through her marrow with visceral, libidinous warmth. Though on the outside she shivered.
She didn't even flinch when her wand flew from her weakening grasp, though her knees wavered with troubling instability and her already cantering pulse gave a staggering leap as his verbal caress against her ear made manifest to the sensuously visceral.
"W…why is that?"
"Because, 'Daddy's' home," he finished soundly, pursing his lips against the tragus of her ear as the digits that were still durably stationed there began to caress her cheek as its palm urged her head to press against his, as if every pore in his body needed to align with those of hers in order not just to survive in this fractured, ameliorating world, but in order to persist, in order to prevail.
A sane woman perhaps would have questioned the fervency of the sentiment, or at minimum its lascivious undertone, but the chord he'd struck with that antiphon was nothing short of harmonious. It was the only befitting response, yet an invocation she would never have dared to bring forth of her own volition.
"Is he?" Hermione managed to probe, a quivering quality lacing her breath, needing to confirm that the proposition he was putting out was as veritable and contained as much meaning as he seemed to have instilled in it.
"Quite so, Hermione, quite so," the former Potions Master confirmed, revoking his visage's placement by her left profile to pull back and seize her orbs with his, to affirm his words with his look lest she be, at all, concerned that his edict be false or worse, facetious. "I'll be here for you. Always. You shan't have to rely solely upon yourself, ever again. I'll. Take. On. That. Privilege. Readily ."
The witch re-entwined their gazes, hers shining with nothing short of pure yearning. Yearning for his protective glove to encase her always. Yearning for him, alone, and everything he could provide. Fuck it all, yearning for a ' them' .
Though the creeping concern of rationale came knocking, as it ever was want to do, apparently, even within the images created by her subconscious during slumber, and she was compelled to question even that which she wanted nothing more than to collect without pretence.
"But, …don't you have your own predicaments to sort, before even thinking of taking on mine, Professor?"
"Hermione, your 'predicaments' are my 'predicaments'. Your future struggles, upsets, stressors, and issues are now all, unequivocally, mine. And as such, I fail to properly see how there are any conflicts of interest here. If anything, they are rather complementary," Severus countered with a wry grin as he brushed her hair behind her ear only to then reach for her chin, tilting her head skyward so that she could bear witness to just how severely he meant the words he was declaring, his eyes searchingly darting betwixt hers in a calm frenzy of protective ardour.
Hermione's lips began to bow, echoing his grin with a candid vigour as she surveyed him, and his melodious words, with nothing short of veneration. And as she absorbed his sensationally romantic assurances, her gaze radiated a sentiment that surpassed mere fondness by such a margin that she could scarcely recall its name.
"I always did have a... fascination with you, Professor. And I was right to," she disclosed candidly, an accolade to them both, concurrently.
The dejunct agent's brows rose in unadulterated consternment, hijacking a few seconds of silence to fully process her confession before considering how he'd proceed in addressing it further, his digits flexing into her sides as if to test that she was no ethereal being teasing him with such a, coquettishly gratifying, reveal.
"Is that so, Miss Granger? Please, do expound upon that initial 'publication'. Your ex-professor is certainly quite keen to learn more, let alone the rest of 'the class', I'm sure," he purred knavishly, glancing to Nyx who had suddenly reappeared, and who, now, emanated a clamorous 'caw' in agog endorsement of his request, ardently voracious, too, it seemed to 'learn more about the young woman's newly exposed infatuation with her beloved master.
Hermione's eyes ascended to the treetops in sportive suspicion at the sudden 'alleluia' from his likely familiar, though her focus hastily, hereupon, returned to the wizard encompassing her with unflinching constancy. His thumb and forefinger still propped beneath the point of her chin, there was little else she could look at, and nothing else she desired to.
"Mm, yes. Contrary to what it appeared, any nihilism I've directed your way has been mostly frustration with your continuous refusal to acknowledge me, even when I was actively trying to impress you. Though it was very… motivational. I could even call it, 'stimulating' ."
Severus emitted a guttural growl at her 'hiring' of her last word, adjusting his clutch
of her chin to enable his outer fingers the dexterity needed to stretch downward to the elongated span of her neck, the tips of his pinky, ring, and middle finger languidly stroking her throat as he glowered into her eyes fiercely before paralleling that very locution, " 'Stimulating', you say? I'm assuming you mean of the mental, academic, variety, Miss Granger? Unless, you've stored away a dirty, little secret for me over all of these years?"
"Is there…that large of a difference?" Hermione murmured, as her eyelids fluttered in stupor at the contact, with no temptation to combat the hoydenish reaction. Intellectual and physical stimulation were, by and large, immeasurably interwoven for her, and she had little doubt that he understood that elucidation quite well. Her fingers, still loosely knotted into the ebony fibres of his turtleneck, coiled more tightly into its fabric, the only outward representation of her discomfiture at being so, blessedly, resigned.
"Secrets, dirty and otherwise, have become my enterprise. When one's dealing with life and death on a consistent basis — as you, yourself are familiar with — surely a stray thought or two of my being splayed over the Potion Master's desk is inconsequential at best. And you seem well aware that your voice is no small weapon," she elaborated with thoughtless disregard for the 'consequences' of her admittance.
"I'd be a prevaricator if I insisted to claim that I was totally oblivious to the prowess that its cadence holds. Though, I'm quite pleased to be informed that you, too, subscribe to its charm with helpless abandonment, Her-mi-one," Severus rumbled between married teeth as his hand fell fully to her throat now, briefly grasping its circumference as he continued. "Perhaps, next time I'll make a wager with myself to test if I can pleasure you with it, and it alone. For now, however, I rather think that your prescription should be for a purposeful touch by a man skilled in the ' tactile arts'."
To illustrate his point he herded his mitt south, the edges of his strong, stocky fingers ghosting trails along her throat's epidermis, delighting in the goose pimples that visibly arose in their wake before he landed on the centre of her clavicle charily.
A wayward moan susurrated from her parted lips, her skin prickling beneath his caress. In fact, her entire body quivered, her nerves jolting to attention as her nipples tensed beneath the thin fabric of her shirt and her toes curled into the grass beneath her feet, seeking balance. Perhaps she should have been 'spooked' at the intensity of her reaction to such a small gesture, but the insinuation had been wickedly stark despite its subtlety and much appreciated on her part.
"Well, assessed, as per usual," she agreed enamoured, nibbling at her lower lip. "But no reason to be singular, Professor. Your class was always equal parts 'show' and 'tell'…"
A glutinous chortle of reclusive amusement poured out of the cathedral that was his mouth as it made its pilgrimage from the rear of his throat, forwards, and through the gateway of his uncinate lips at her decisive choice of phrase, the usually-tense and stern shelf of his brows lifting heavenward as he pilloried her impish with one of his own.
" Oh, was it, now, Miss Granger. How very titillating to discover. However, at the risk of that, at the very least, a portion of your words are mere, false sycophantic ramblings in order to perspicaciously cajole my temperament in hindsight for your fancies. Now, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to… Be. More. Specific."
His fingers, meanwhile, had pressed themselves against the dallying bit of skin that was exposed around her upper sternum, that both her blouse and zipped jacket had so charitably sanctioned to remain accessible, in a parsimonious caress that was intended to barely fulfil the requirements that would constitute the composition of a 'tease.' The thudding of her vascular organ would have been deafening had it's 'ticking' not been so dulled by his paw's mass. Even so, its soundwaves surely travelled up the length of his proffered arm and joined in with the rhymed throbbing of his own – two hearts perfectly synced, pulsating as one in so perfect a harmony that he could no longer perceive where one pattern ended, and the other heart began.
With effort, the young woman corralled the careening trajectory of her staggered respiration, her attention meandering south to where their flesh was conjoined before re-eloping their eyes. Whether it had been the passionate nature of his prior declarations or the niggling effects of whiskey in her circulatory system, Hermione couldn't say, but any diffidence she would have normally employed was entirely in absentia. She couldn't have lied to him even if she had desired to – and she, strangely enough, didn't.
"Merely remarking on the aptitude of your 'prescription'. Your hands have always been as fascinating to observe as your voice to hear. Being attended to by both is quite the blessing."
"You. Don't. Say. Miss. Granger," the infatuated man answered with a bemused cocking of his chin, his forehead creasing and eyes blossomed wide in cerebration of the full imputation of her statement with reverent analysis.
As he had delivered his disjointed laconic 'obiter dictum' his hand had migrated south to grasp the zipper of her jacket before listlessly commencing to disengage it from its steadfast occupation.
"That leads me to conclude, then, that my start of term's 'opening speech' must have been quite the auricular affair for you to experience."
The right corner of the witch's mouth hitched upward, manifesting the brunt of the proverbial 'pricking of her ears' that accompanied the very mention of that specific recollection. She had been fixedly intrigued by every subject the school of magic could offer from the start, but something about his inaugural presentation had always been inordinately memorable. An understatement indeed, and she willfully emphasised as much, taking a promissory half-step back within his grasp, granting him reign to finish the parting of her zip.
"Oh, it certainly caught my attention," she admitted softly. "It set the terrifying tone of your class exuberantly well, and left me with a lingering captivation of you that not even your dismissal of my overly enthusiastic, younger 'self' could totally extinguish."
Severus grunted in appetising approval at her sustained flattery, noting with reticent contemplation the vitality of her lips as he comprehended just how long a time she'd, apparently, held a reservation for him in her consciousness.
"I'll be sure to take that into consideration," he murmured in ersatz dismissal as the zipper arrived at the base of her jacket, thus, successfully, parting its pastel pink seas. His digits then abandoned the handle of metal altogether and fell to his side in covert stillness while his eyes parried in a standoff with her own, lulling her into a false sense of stational security.
Before she could blink, think, or foolishly attempt to voice a smart remark of any fortitude, Severus Snape took full advantage of his espionage techniques and his proficiency for the Tango, abruptly elevating his previously stagnant palms to rest snugly on her shoulders.
Once posted there, he flashed her an espiègle grin and parted his wide-set lips to remark, "Like. Right. Now," and promptly spun her on her heels, tugging her form backwards as he did so.
This impetus of motion triumphantly accomplished his primary goal, which was to establish full body contact, for, with an arousing 'umph', Hermione's back slammed against his tensed torso and pelvis, deftly caught at her hips by his dexterously swift hands. His head tilted down, brushing aside her unwittingly obstruent, cinnamon locks with his nose before faintly ironing his lips to the curvature of her neck and began to kiss upwards to her ear.
Upon arrival, his devilish mouth creaked open and began to husk the first few words of that infamous speech, his cadence like warm syrup having lingered in the sun, absently forgotten, on a hot summer's day.
"You are here, Miss Granger," he began as he ran the edges of his fingertips along her hourglass sides, only pausing when they reached her underarms where they slyly changed route, passing under the supple curvature of her breasts until they located the splayed edges of her summer's jacket. Clutching the textiles betwixt his extremities fixedly, he then, continued, "to learn the subtle science, and exact art, of," he halted his speech, again, however, this time so as to strip her of her jacket in a fluid, solitary motion, momentarily stepping backwards so it could descend to the ground before reestablishing himself behind her intimately once more as he finished with the final, poignant word of his first line's delivery, "love-making."
She had known to expect something. The air was too thick, too contracted, to prevail to be static for much longer, and then her world was spinning. Even once she'd landed against his chest with a sensuous gasp, the intoxicated feeling endured, and it felt as though his purchase of her body was the only thing that was keeping her both stood, and, alive. He held her fastly, ever the consummate showman, thus even when her knees gave a threatening shake as his lips caressed the side of her throat, she felt no fear of collapse. Both the cool night air and the recurrent ache of tears behind her eyes were equally as insubstantial; the only sensations she could truly clock were the solid heat resonating through his body through her back, and the sparks that his words, initially incoherent, were shooting through her bloodstream and erupting from every inch of her flesh into shivers.
Slowly but surely, what precisely he was playing at registered with explicit lucidity in the margin between her ears, and if she could have summoned the air to chuckle, she might have done so. Nevertheless, she began to grin, a knowing hum of astonished approval the only elucidation for the brief moment of frigidity when both his body heat and her casement were torn away, leaving her in a rather flimsy camisole that did little to shroud her form. Gooseflesh arose again over her bare skin for all of a moment before the security of his body returned, along with its heat, and a telling carnal rigidity began to press against the small of her back.
"I'm taking notes, don't worry, Professor …"
Chuckling darkly at her playful retort to the sudden adoption of his 'Professor persona', Snape pursued his 'assault' of the concave arch of her neck, reinstating his lips against it once more to sample its taste properly. He, now, fluctuated his mouth's industry between peppered kisses and dragged nips. Occasionally opening his mouth wider than one might think as being a 'romantic' shade of the act, and, instead, as a lesser, lascivious 'mutation' of it, he gingerly made his way below the nape of her hairline to greet her other side. To Severus, however, the latter only indicated an arduous sentiment all the more. But, he was quite the dirty bastard when it came to carnality and its executions, that was a certitude.
"As there is little foolish ' wand -waving' here," he purred against her left ear now, ensuring to emphasise the euphemism with both his intonation and his pelvis – zealously gyrating his cock's aching bulge upon her arse, he then completed the 'line' with a haughty metaphorical wink to his endowment, "you will hardly believe mine isn't magic."
Hermione's head hung loose, swinging to and fro on its own axis in intrinsic, rapacious coordination with his worrying of her flesh. Her hands, failing idly, found a way to elucidate her encouragement, one finding its way behind her to hook around his own neck whilst the other covered his larger mitt where it held onto her, tightening and nurturing the closely-knit connection between them. Though she had little to impart verbally save for a few soft whimpered curses flying free betwixt her pants of lust. However, the eagerness with which she arched into and against his hips was flagrant and inarguable.
"And whilst I have yet to experience the beauty of your," Severus ventured onward with his monologue, transferring his weight solely into his left knee to give his right the liberty and access to drop down so that it could edge its way between the already capricious stance of her legs, proceeding with his next amendment, "…tightly soaked," here he inveigled her thighs to expand further for him by perpetrating a tactful knock to the inner flank of each of her patellas with that of his own before roaring esuriently at the side of her ear, "... 'cauldron'," and with that paronomasia he hoisted his knee up until it was introduced to her scalding pelvic floor, oscillating it against her core in geographical advertence, then going on to hiss, "with its shimmering folds," he adjourned his oration to imbibe her inevitable feedback.
If any sane aspect of her psyche had been favouring subtlety or vying to avoid explicitness, it had decidedly made itself scarce with the whispering wind the moment his knee made contact with her throbbing epicentre. Whatever precarious grip she had on his person tensed and doubled down, and the vociferous moan that flew from her lips nearly echoed through the trees. Though it quickly evolved into a sharp intake of oxygen; the girthy pressure jarred her, and was almost too much, and yet, was nowhere near enough. She needed him more.
Within the narrow latitude in which he'd set aside to observe her immediate reactivity, the young woman failed to articulate anything of coherence, simultaneously driven onto her toes and further back against his crouched frame.
The devious wizard forfeited his left hand's proprietorship of her hip, skipping the ends of his herculean fingers up the centre of her torso, between the valley of her breasts before laying his hand flat against her clavicle as he had done earlier. This time, however, he moored his palm with ample favour toward the left side, thereby, foxily granting his fingers temporal access to the precious organ that was thumping steadily, and speedily below the surface of her skin, sinew, and bone. He then drummed their tips to the rhythm of her heart's beat, his pinky every so often scarpering south to 'phantom' against her adamantine peaks as his tongue traced her larboard jawline, murmuring suggestively against it as he did so.
"I have assuredly …engendered the…delicate power of… fluids …that pulse through…the human… body …"
"Y-yes, Professor. Oh gods, yes.…" Hermione accomplished in concurrence, her tone more in line with a mewl than a proper affirmation of fact, though he surely did not need its full, verbal confirmation, though he might as well have received it just then. No aspect of her physicality was spared from the sonorous surge that his fingers and voice, his person, was producing within her.
Her back arched acutely, the force pressing her chest outward in selfish encouragement for further favour, and permitted her groin to slither across the protrusion of his kneecap in one, staggered motion. All the while her head fought to turn into his mouth's attention, her throat bared to the looming darkness encroaching upon them.
But no amount of compression or drop of her weight was sufficient. The stiff denim of her jeans was a barrier of which she was far beyond the level of patience necessary to tolerate, nor would she entertain the notion of taking the arduous time to discard them in the insipid, 'muggle fashion' they usually required. Thus, the next, obvious step in her relentless desire for his incremented touch, was to subscribe to rapidity and ease by spellworking the hindrance from existence.
And so, with neither a stray word, nor a single motion to indicate that she was, indeed, performing magic, Hermione nonverbally willed the structured garment to transmogrify into something far more free-flowing, open, and utterly unobtrusive – a black skirt, much like the one her waking self had worn at present day, was now being echoed within the enchanted forest of her mind.
His fingers clutched her chest in avid appreciation at the conversion of her southern hemisphere's apparel, reprised in phonated 'thanks' as well, a raffish snarl thundered forth from the back of his 'oral grotto' before traversing his lips down the length of her shoulder to the planar point of her pulse where her elbow met her forearm. Pausing only for a breadth of time that was long enough to nip at the palpably raging flow of blood beneath her skin, Severus then, with expedition, embarked on his return journey to her left profile once more.
As his pursed lips crafted their new campaign upon the lobe of her left ear, his right hand transversely snaked its way from her waist to the apex of her legs after having dropped his knee out from under her pelvic base without warning nor procrastination. Indeed, both the decamping of his leg between her own and the adroit 'swathing' of her pubis mound with his palm and digits all occurred in a matter of seconds. Seconds, which were accompanied by the illustrative words of his subsequent bit of text, guaranteeing his hand's planting of itself along her sex's length, over the thin fabric of her knickers, as he uttered its very title, itself, "...bewitching your cunt …"
Within the space of a ragged breath, the solid heat vacated from between Hermione's thighs, leaving her with only a shock of crisp, cool air against the damp fervour of her sex. It was a brief reprieve, for her eyes flung wider, her freshly chilled nerves immediately blazing to life anew upon the addition of his hand. Her late professor's fingers, which she had just made a point of pining over, with all lewd implications intended, were encasing her cunt, proper, their taunting presence alone sending a shudder of intensity down her spine, and a renewed rush of her juices drenched the sparse cloth that laid between his hand and her folds.
'Bewitching' was not entirely off-base, and he could undeniably feel it.
A moan of such an evolution of cadence that it likely resonated as if having cratered to the very centre of the earth's core and back up again, fomented from the rear of Severus' throat at the sudden gushing of her womanhood's essences. His hand rhapsodically received her juices, upon swiftly pulling aside her knickers to bestow himself ample access to her cunt before tepidly rubbing her nectars along the length of her lower folds, and then, with excruciating deferment, ascended up her slit until he arrived at the foot of her clit. He halted his progress with a ludic chuckle to her ear as he felt her quiver, heard her whimper, only to perpetuate his torment of her further with the ginger circling of her nub, as he purred in her ear, "Ensnaring your… bundle …of nerve endings… I can teach you how to," he here, finally, advanced to grant the blessing of her coveted lust, calculating his timing with perfect implementation as the pads of his digits baptised the centre of her sensorium precisely as he articulated the verb, "... gasp… " and rested a time to survey if his companion would effectuate the physiological sentiment, "...in pleasure…"
' Gasp', she certainly did, exigently and rapidly inhaling, practically upon his verbal command that ever so temperately housed the syllables of his Latin epithet, the sudden onset of frisson provoked her body to jerk as though she'd been struck by a stray bolt at Zeus' hand. Yet her inaugural, winded startlement evolved into a sigh of transparent relish, the blockade between the nexus of her nerves and his digits having been at long last eradicated.
The gripping tips of her own fingers, which still had dominion over the nape of his neck, flexed as her head retired upon his opposing shoulder. All the while, her unencumbered palm fisted with trembling force into the newly transfigured, and immediately-bunched, length of her skirt; all in the efforts of encouraging whatever sorcery he was using against her.
More than smitten with her reflex to the conferral of his touch onto her most intimate and sacred of places, Severus praised her with a messy, though chaste, kiss on the only available portion of her petite mouth that his lips could readily dominate. He enlisted, however, no slippage of his tongue, nor anything that would be considered overtly 'deep' or too passionate, for those exercises would be premature here. Indeed, they were to be abstained from until a time when far lewder and more obscene acts of carnal delights had already transpired. For now, however, on with the show.
Upon embrocating her clit with the soles of his fingers in a barrage of directions, pressurisations, and precisions, the facile wizard then ferried the rest of his monologue to fruition, humming, "...and sustain endless… 'edging'," at that he lifted his fore and ring finger from her pearl entirely, eliciting a waggish, low chortle that was birthed from his diaphragm before appropriately persisting with, "and even how to climax copious times in a row..."
Just as the thrumming ache between her thighs was about to give way to a promising crescendo of amassed delirium, his teasing lapsed. A thoughtless and unbidden groan of complaint ripped from her throat, her fingertips turning to claws against his skin.
"Fuck … Not endless, then…" she corrected, or perhaps pleaded, her obdurate inflexion usurped by an insolent whimper as her hips thrust forward in sour rebellion.
Standing to his full height again, as he regretfully confiscated his right hand from under her skirt, the ex-schoolteacher pulled a dour face of severity at her malapert outburst and scolded her with an inured 'tsk, tsk' before he dispatched the finishing 'verse' of his renovated speech, imparting, "If, Miss Granger, you have the fortitude to follow tantalisingly specific instructions indisputably designed to elicit both, sighs, and pleas. Following your ebullient consent, of course…"
Hermione's weight slumped without the bracing of his encasement, fighting for air whilst still perusing every one of his words that trespassed her auricles with diligent care. Her reception, however, to even the barest hint of his disapproval was not what she would have prophesied for herself. The seductive tendrils of defiance crept near her, true, but her intransigence placed itself into a far more familiar, and until that point, presumably, forsaken place. Gradually, she authorised her hand to abdicate from its devoted throne at his neck's nape and its efforts to control his attentions, before beginning to pivot within his slackening grasp. Once revolved so that their chests were, now, in union, she rose her eyes to his, a yielding reverence shining within them. Once again, she was adamant in her allegiance to meet whatever standards of abidance and resolve he could possibly require.
"Fortitude, consent… You have them both. You have them all," she agreed with a single, pure nod of her head, unblinking.
"Please, Professor. Teach me. "
The tincture of a contented simper tugged at the junctions of Severus Snape's lips, and if one studied the man with unhindered eyes at the time, they might have been able to validate the breviloquent bobbing of his Adam's apple. Whether the rather pedestrian, biological habit was out of parched necessity, assiduous impatience, or, dare one suggest it, timid vulnerability, was anyone's guess. The man in question, however, needed no hazarding posits.
"Well then, Miss Granger," her dream-husband husked softly, offering his palm for her to take as his other, still glistening with her 'ambrosia' in the phantasmal moonlight, gestured towards the xanthous billet made of dandelions in suggestion.
"Shall. We. To. Bed?"