A/N: Welcome to Chapter Twenty, my lovely readers. TWENTY! Can you believe it? I've never written a story even remotely that long, and I wish to thank you for your constant support, be it silent or in reviews, that has guided me to this point, and for your faithfulness in coming back again and again to read my work. You are awesome!
Special thanks go to McGonagal'sCat, as always, for being the perfect friend and overall magnificent human being that she is.
Also, I now have a Facebook page, called MarcellaDix (big surprise there, huh?) where you can find chapter individual aesthetics, sneak peaks, song recs and the like. It's still in its baby shoes, of course, but I hope to make good use of it.
Anyway, I hope all of you have had a lovely New Year's Eve and are prepared to accompany me on the further paths that 'Accommodations' will be taking this year. :) Enjoy!
Monday, November 11th, 1995
Severus had to give credit to the girl where it was due – at least in the security of his own mind, where the girl would never hear about it – for despite all her flinching during her assignment with the blood quill, her mental shields had not slipped even once. Of course, the Blackness surrounding her mind had not been Pure, and he had not attempted to penetrate her mind exactly. He had elected to rather probe at her barriers, testing her shields for weak points, and, finding none, pushing at the mental wall protecting her thoughts in order to heighten the effort it took her to sustain it.
And now he had to give it to the girl that her shields were – for her level, of course, which was still very low – rather flawless.
The same could not be said for the skin of her left upper leg anymore.
Perhaps he should have expected as much, but Severus had not been able to keep himself from flinching – inwardly only, of course – at how long the scroll of parchment was that the girl had handed in at the end of the lesson. Several feet of parchment were filled with her meticulous, tiny handwriting. Part of him was glad that the girl was that motivated to stand some pain if only it meant carrying out the task that had been set to her; another part wanted to mourn and rage at the fact that Dumbledore had managed to draw in yet another innocent teenager into his schemes so completely.
A knock at his door startled Severus from his musings. A swish of his wand had the door to his classroom swing open, allowing the girl to enter, and falling shut once more the moment she had passed over the door step.
"Miss Granger," he greeted her, feeling strangely cordial for once, "take a seat."
Gesturing to her usual work station, he found the girl looking at his chest – as he himself had recommended to her a few months ago, but why would she return to doing so now when she had stopped heeding that advice several weeks back? – as if scared of posing her next question, for what else could one expect to come from her mouth in the presence of a teacher.
"With your permission, professor," the girl began hesitantly, "I'd rather work standing up today."
It took Severus a moment until the girl's words registered with him.
"Come here, Miss Granger," he demanded, and even though she had fought him when he had commanded her to do the same under the Imperius curse, she now followed his order almost without hesitation.
When she came to stand next to his chair, he said, "Turn around and bend over."
Though obviously hesitant to do so, the girl did as she was told without question. Severus was glad, for his next act would have been much harder to accomplish had she fought him before now.
He raised her skirt.
Mind you, Severus raised the garment only until it was folded over itself and rested on top of the girl's bum, her knickers still safely hidden from his view, but the gasp that the girl emitted clearly demonstrated that she was reminded of their chance meeting atop the Astronomy tower as much as he was.
Before she could open her mouth to protest, Severus spoke.
"You know, Miss Granger, any other student would have begun to scrawl larger letters, widen the margins, or write more slowly before long, had they been set the same task as you."
Although no particular words could be made out anymore, the enflamed red skin of the girl's left thigh showed seemingly random, almost ornamental lines and curves that he knew to be letters.
"I beg to differ, sir," the girl had the guts to say. "Any other student would have done the same as I did, but of a completely different motivation."
"Would they?" Severus asked, rather taken aback by her assessment, but not allowing his surprise to become audible in his voice. "And why is that, Miss Granger?"
"Any other student would have written as meticulously as they could out of fear," she elaborated. "Fear that they would have to repeat the assignment if they failed in your eyes."
"And pray tell, Miss Granger," Severus whispered, his tone soft, and saw the girl shudder under the silky caress of his voice, "how are you different in that aspect?"
"Me, sir," she answered, "I know that there will be more pain for me to come, and I am eager to learn how to withstand it. Holding back is not something that I can expect possible captors to do, so I have no motivation to hold back on hurting me myself. I'd much rather push my boundaries now, where I have some control over the pain that is inflicted upon me, than spare myself some pain only to have a lower pain tolerance than I should have when the time comes that it matters."
If anyone was to accuse him of being impressed at the girl's words, Severus would have denied any such notion, but he could not help that insistent feeling of awe at the girl's maturity. Once more she had proven to him that she had grown far beyond her classmates' level in pretty much everything, showing that she was working hard to be worthy of his efforts in their private lessons.
"Why did you not treat your leg?" Severus asked.
The girl had the audacity to scoff, albeit so quietly that anyone who was not him might have missed the sound.
"I could hardly go to Madam Pomphrey," she explained, "and I had no Essence of Dittany on hand, and no time to brew any. I was sitting in lessons until right before dinner, and came here straight afterwards. Umbridge doesn't care to tell us about Healing Charms, and Professor Flitwick will be teaching those only in his NEWT class, and as much as I've read about them, I know that when done wrong they can do more harm than good, so I dared not cast any on myself."
"What about intention, Miss Granger?" Severus queried softly. "Have I failed to teach you anything about that?"
The girl physically flinched under his accusation, for as soft as his voice had been, the threat was clearly implied. Obviously afraid that he might stop teaching her if she failed to learn, she replied, "Pain and fear of more pain have the unwanted ability to override reason, sir, and I'm afraid they overrode my confidence to channel my intention sufficiently."
Severus allowed himself an audible sigh, choosing to ponder later why the girl's presence brought him to such actions as showing any emotion, audibly or otherwise.
"Very well, Miss Granger," he said, wandlessly and silently Summoning a vial from his first aid stores, "this is best applied by hand."
And with no other warning, he had spread the Dittany over his right hand and put the appendage to her thigh.
The girl jumped at his touch, then sighed in relief, and Severus found himself glad that the reddened skin returned to its natural creamy white under his ministrations. To have her sigh at the mere touch of his hand, as innocent as any touch from a professor to a student's thigh could be, did unspeakable things to him and called forth a physical reaction that he gladly hid beneath his billowing robes.
"Why, sir?" the girl asked into the silence of the dungeon classroom. "Why is it best to apply Essence of Dittany by hand?"
Severus gave a dark chuckle at the girl's inquisitiveness, and felt her shudder at the sound. He liked to think that her reaction came from pleasure, rather than terror.
"Heating the Essence to body temperature accelerates the healing process," he explained. "Spreading it equally and thoroughly to all areas that need to be healed, including any and all creases that might have developed due to the original infliction of harm, prevents scarring. Both could be accomplished using a fire or drenching the wounded area respectively, but in the interest of saving resources, using one's hand serves best. Furthermore, healing is very much a magic sprung from attention, and the willingness to touch one's patient increases the effectiveness manifold."
They were both silent for a while as Severus repeatedly covered his hand in Dittany, only to spread it over the girl's left thigh.
"Is that why you healed me by touch of hand that night?"
The question came so quietly, even Severus might have missed it had the room not been so silent and had he not been waiting for any sign from her that he should stop attending to her leg. His hand stilled for a heartbeat's moment. He did not need to ask which night she was referring to.
"Yes," he replied, and continued his ministrations. Only when his hand brushed the softest of fabrics did he realize how far up he had wandered.
The girl gasped.
Analysing the sound in his mind, his brain kicking into overdrive, combined with the realization that the fingers that had accidentally brushed against her knickers had come back moist, Severus came to the startling result that her gasp had been one of… Dare he say, pleasure?
"Turn around now, Miss Granger," Severus demanded, his voice somewhat hoarse as he struggled to come to terms with what he had just discovered.
The girl followed his demand without a word of defiance, raising herself from where she'd been braced on his desk (her skirt fell back down into place), turning one hundred and eighty degrees, and not looking at him even once. She did not need to look at him, though, for Severus to see, even in the dimly lit dungeon classroom, that her face was beet red.
Severus, intent on not scaring the girl any further lest she stop him from carrying on with healing her leg – for there was nothing right now that he wanted to do less than continue to touch her silken skin – covered his hand in Dittany once more and repeated the process of covering her thigh in it with the front of her leg.
He was almost finished when he asked, "Lace, Miss Granger?"
The girl jumped once more, and for a moment her eyes (that had turned to watch his hand work on her thigh in what Severus presumed to be helpless curiosity) flicked to his. Her mind that had been so dutifully and meticulously closed to him during their Potions period only hours earlier was now an open book.
"Silver," he stated, reading the colour from her eyes, but what had been meant to be an assertion escaped as a whisper.
"Only silver, sir?" the girl asked, and at the shocked look on her face Severus knew that the teasing note to her voice had taken her as much by surprise as it had him.
"Why don't you let me find out, Miss Granger," Severus suggested, and inwardly revelled at how the girl's eyes became hooded at the rumbling quality of his voice.
His hand travelled ever further up. Where Severus had been dying to see her lace-topped silken hold-ups before, he was now glad that her skin was bare of any fabric.
"Isn't the point of these lessons that I don't, sir?" the girl asked. "Let you find out, that is?"
Still, her eyes did not stray from his, holding his gaze with a desperate curiosity, and Severus felt a sense of mere longing come over him and found that the emotion did not originate from himself. It rolled over him like waves from the tide of feelings that stemmed from the girl's eyes.
"Don't, then," he said, and, after a moment to let his words sink in, lifted her skirt above her hips.
The girl made no move to stop him.
Severus felt all breath escape his lungs, and only when they screamed for air did he remember to inhale.
"These aren't resembling snow-covered pines anymore, Miss Granger, are they?" he breathed.
"No," came her answer, her voice equally breathy and breathless at the same time, "they don't. But you didn't like my own House colours, so I thought…"
She trailed off, but Severus did not need her to say any more. What he needed to do right now was lose himself in the emerald green that was the silken bow at the top centre of the girl's knickers.
Sunday, December 1st, 1995
Hermione did not know why Angelina had invited her to have another bath together this morning, when the two girls had happened upon one another much in the same manner as they had a few weeks back, though both in a much better mood. Hermione simply decided that she did not need to know why Angelina had invited her to bathe together, so she did not question the Quidditch captain and just said yes.
An hour later – breakfast would be starting at eight, so they still had another hour till then – they were still lounging in the pool-sized tub, each lost in their own thoughts. Hermione had already watched the elder girl get her three orgasms out, each more beautiful to witness than the last, and now they were both resting from the experience.
"How are things with Katie?" Hermione eventually broke the silence.
A smile spread over Angelina's face without her opening her eyes.
"Good," she said. "Great, really. Thanks for letting me practice with you. Katie was quite… satisfied with my skills."
"Glad I could be of service as your personal guinea pig," Hermione countered, and Angelina joined her in laughing.
"How are things yourself?" the elder girl asked after a moment.
Hermione thought back to her Remedial Potions lesson almost three weeks ago to the day. Remembering how hot she'd been for the Potions Master's touch, how turned on by the velvet quality of his voice, how primed by the heat that his healing touch had infused into her thigh, travelling higher right to where her centre had been throbbing with need for more, whatever more was – it still sent her cheeks into a burning blush that lit her whole face like a Christmas tree. Thinking back to that night also reminded her of how his fingers had accidentally (for it had been in accident – hadn't it?) brushed against her knickers, how the faintest of touches at her centre had almost sent her tumbling over the cliff that she had been dangling on, and how embarrassed she was to know that he must certainly have felt the wetness pooling at her core.
Hermione was glad that Angelina had her eyes closed, for she would definitely have questioned why her face was now the colour of a nice Burgundy.
In the nights that had passed since that evening, Hermione had found her hand wandering time and again, when she had warded herself into the safety of her four poster bed, curtains spelled shut. Yet, no matter how intently she tried to call Professor Snape's treatment to the forefront of her mind, she could never quite achieve what feelings Angelina had managed to draw forth from her innermost depths.
"Still practicing," Hermione admitted in answer to the captain's question.
"Don't you worry, Granger," Angelina replied, "you'll get there, and once you've reached that point of no return, you'll find it again and again. It's like riding a broomstick."
Where the blush had been receding from Hermione's cheeks, it now returned in full force.
"I'm not particularly good at riding a broomstick."
Angelina laughed, though the sound was free of ridicule. It was honest amusement over Hermione's confession, not at the girl herself.
"As I said," she repeated, opening her eyes and looking Hermione in the eye, "you'll get there. And once you've gotten the hang of that, you'll probably have to learn how to ride a broomstick pretty soon. Boys love it when you ride their broomstick."
A wink accompanied the elder girl's cheeky words, and another pearly laughter erupted from her full, dark lips when Hermione appeared unable to banish the shocked expression from her features.
Angelina soon began to swim rounds along the edge of the pool, effectively ending the conversation (for now) that had caused so much amusement and embarrassment, and Hermione reclined back into her relaxed position. Simply listening for a while to her Housemate's long, smooth strokes through the water, she made a decision.
"I'm going to have sex soon," she spoke into the room when she felt Angelina brush by, the waves from her swimming motions pushing the water against her own sitting form.
The sounds of her treading water did not stop for a few seconds, until they did. Opening her eyes, Hermione found Angelina's dark orbs watching her intently, sat back in her usual position. A minute of silence followed, interspersed only with the soft waves of water lapping at the tiles, until the elder girl seemed to come to a decision.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?" Hermione repeated, rather stupidly as she would have found had she not been so astonished by the captain's answer. "Okay?"
"Didn't your mum have The Talk with you?" Angelina asked, one eyebrow raised in a fashion that reminded Hermione uncomfortably of Professor Snape. Uncomfortably, because it merged the attraction towards the Potions Master that had undeniably built inside her with the memory of how the Quidditch captain had stroked her to her first climax, and in combination with his accidental (or was it?) touch during their private lesson, that raised eyebrow sent Hermione almost straight to paradise.
Luckily, Hermione managed to remember where she was, and what question had been posed to her, and thinking about her mum calmed the fire rising inside her right down.
"Of course she did," Hermione said. "I know very well what goes where and how to keep from getting what; both kids and STDs."
"STDs?" Angelina queried.
"Sexually transmittable diseases," Hermione said.
"Muggles get those?" the elder girl asked, obviously shocked and appalled. "I thought those had been eradicated centuries ago!"
It was Hermione's term to be confused.
"Err – what?"
A lively twenty minutes' discussion had both girls sorted out about what muggles could contract and how to cast the charm that would keep witches from getting pregnant or sick, though sexual diseases as muggles knew them had apparently been eradicated quite a while back in the wizarding world.
Glad to have learned something, Hermione returned to the original question.
"How come you're so calm about this?"
"About you having sex soon?" Angelina asked to clarify. At Hermione's nod, she said, "Well, since you've had The Talk with your mum, and now once more with me," she winked, "there's nothing that can go wrong in that way. You're mature enough to catch yourself a boy who will treat you well, so I don't see you needing help in that area either. And what more is there to say? You are old enough to have sex, and mature enough to – well – be mature about it.
"Listen, Granger, you are further along than any of your yearmates, and not just in your studies, so what is there to worry about? I know you're not girly like the other chits in your year, but if you say it's time for you, then I trust your judgement."
"Okay," Hermione said, mulling over the older girl's words in her mind. "Okay, I guess."
Angelina smiled.
"Now, tell me, Granger," she demanded, leaning forwards a little, "who is the lucky guy?"
Hermione sighed, her heart suddenly heavy.
"That," she replied, "is what I have yet to decide."
Coming up: Chapter twenty-one, wherein the gifting of a diamond is pondered.