A/N: Hey folks, glad to see you back for Chapter Thirty-Two! This chapter I'll be fixing a plot hole that was pointed out to me by C, who was so kind to contact me via my Facebook page to discuss a few questions concerning this story. If you have any questions, feel free to approach me anytime; I'm always willing to answer any questions you might have! And please do point out plot holes to me. It's awesome to have readers pay so close attention that they can find holes in my plot line, so I honestly welcome you helping me with fixing these things.

I wish to extend a warm Thank You to all of you who reviewed the latest chapter. I know that without any Severus/Hermione interaction, resonance is slow to set in, so hopefully this chapter will fix that. ;)

On a personal note (and yes, you may skip this if you want), I'm in the middle of changing my life right now. Writing time might be sparse in the weeks to come as I'm trying to settle into this new path I'm choosing for myself, but the next two chapters are already written, so no need for you to worry about regular updates just yet. Just letting you know, and hoping for some kind thoughts sent my way to help me in this difficult time. :)

But for now, enjoy, and if you like, I'd very much appreciate it if you let me know your thoughts!

Marcella xxx

DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling created and owns the rights to Harry Potter. For the first scene of this chapter, I used some dialogue from Chapter Twenty-Four: Occlumency of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Anything you recognize stems from her hands. I do not profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.

Monday, January 13th, 1996

The sky outside was darkening to a black that felt almost as oppressive as the constant, feverish scratching of quills all around them. Hermione was sitting with Ron in the library, surrounded by plenty of other fifth years. Most of them were working on their most recent bout of excessive homework, heaped upon them by the Ministry toad herself.

"How did it go?" Hermione asked in a whisper when out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry fall into the chair opposite them.

Looking up, she felt her features contort into an expression of the severest concern as she mustered her raven-haired best friend's face. His skin was so pale, the whiteness of it appeared almost luminescent in the light of the candles, and his scar was more prominent than usual. He appeared in pain, as well; the mean kind that seemed to spear one's nerve endings one by one. Harry looked as if he was about to collapse in his chair at any moment now. The sight of him scared Hermione in a way she had rarely been scared before – not even when watching his most reckless Quidditch moves.

"Are you all right, Harry?" she queried.

"Yeah…" came the little satisfying reply, "fine… I dunno."

The boys only cared about their own wellbeing when it would get them out of homework, Hermione knew, at which point they would moan and whine so excessively that she had pondered at times to offer them a way out of their misery by just offing them, so irritating would they be. That at other times they would completely disregard their health, Hermione knew from watching Quidditch. With Harry banned from Quidditch for the year, though, and with heaps of homework waiting for him, the fact that he was impatient enough not to care about his frightful state had her worried to no end.

"Listen…" Harry began, "I've just realized something…"

Hermione blanched slightly, though not as excessively as Harry looked, when he told her and Ron about what he'd come to realize during his Occlumency lesson with the Potions Master.

"So…" Ron began, "so, are you saying… that the weapon – the thing You-Know-Who's after – is in the Ministry of Magic?"

"In the Department of Mysteries," Harry whispered back, "it's got to be. I saw that door when your dad took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing and it's definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him."

Understanding suddenly gripped Hermione as all the pieces fell into place, forming the perfect picture that had been hidden beneath the puzzle.

"Of course," she exclaimed breathily, allowing herself a relieved sigh at her revelation.

"Of course what?" Ron shot back, his impatience clearly showing.

"Ron," Hermione began, hoping that Harry would follow her thought process as well, "think about it… Sturgis Podmore was trying to get through a door at the Ministry of Magic… It must have been that one, it's too much of a coincidence!"

"How come Sturgis was trying to break in when he's on our side?" Ron countered.

"Well," Hermione stalled, then admitted, "I don't know. That is a bit odd…"

"So," Harry said, turning to Ron, "what's in the Department of Mysteries? Has your dad ever mentioned anything about it?"

"I know they call the people who work in there 'Unspeakables'," Ron offered, his face in a frown. "Because no one really seems to know what they do in there… Weird place to have a weapon…"

Hermione struggled not to let her impatience with the two of them show. They were just too slow at times.

"It's not weird at all," she exclaimed, "it makes perfect sense. It will be something top secret that the Ministry has been developing, I expect…"

Shooting a glance at her friend sitting opposite her, who was rubbing his forehead with an intensity that, had the skin there been fabric, might have ironed it, she asked, "Harry, are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah…" he shrugged her off, lowering his hands, "fine… I just feel a bit… I don't like Occlumency much…"

Hermione fought back a sigh. She would have given anything to be able to learn under the Potions Master tonight. Her Occlumency was progressing at a nice pace for a beginner, she assumed, but there was still so much to learn, it was difficult for her to not resent Harry for stealing 'her' time slot with the professor. Still, there was little use in telling him that.

"I expect anyone would feel shaky if they'd had their mind attacked over and over again," she offered.

Silently, she was thinking back to how the professor had worked her to so intense a nose bleed that she'd needed a Blood Replenishing Potion afterwards, how he'd tested her walls while under intense pain from his whipping, how he'd taught her how to Occlude under the threat of exsanguination. Harry seemed physically fine, other than the paleness, and yet he seemed to be taking this single, first Occlumency lesson much harder than she ever had any of her many lessons. Was this to do with the fact that in this instance, he liked to complain more than she ever would? After all, he never had anything good to say about Professor Snape anyway, so perhaps this was one more way of displaying that habit?

"Look," Hermione suggested, "let's get back to the common room, we'll be a bit more comfortable there…"

It wasn't. Hermione couldn't have known that, of course, but the Weasley twins were showing off their newest bit of merchandise. While she was still pondering the magnitude and manner of the magic behind their Headless Hats, Harry begged off his homework and turned in for the night. Hermione soon sent Ron to look after him. Neither of the boys returned to the common room that night.

Severus sat for hours in his dark office, staring at the watch the girl had forced onto him. Gifted him for his birthday, he scoffed. As if that day deserved any recognition.

He was pondering whether to contact her. After all, she had provided him with a discreet and supposedly safe means of communication, so why wasn't he using it to call her to his bed?

The only reason he was even thinking about contacting her, he knew, was the disturbing first Occlumency lesson with the Potter boy. The brat had given him insolence at every turn, had disobeyed him as he'd seen fit, had been lack in his attempts at Occlumency, and had turned the whole lesson into a Q&A for his thirst for information that he had no business knowing.

At first, of course, Severus had taken some sick kind of enjoyment from watching the boy fail, again and again. As bleak as his own childhood had been, he had somewhat taken comfort in the knowledge that Potter hadn't had it as easy as the father who he was imitating by strutting about the Castle in the exact same way James look-at-me Potter had.

Yes, watching the boy being chased up a tree by a dog, and being jealous at a red bicycle, had soothed Severus's hurt sense of pride at being constantly interrupted by the brat. Twisted as that was, Severus didn't bother to deny that to himself. Even watching Granger, her face fluffy with soft, thick, black fur as she had turned herself halfway into a cat, had given him some enjoyment out of the otherwise miserable evening.

What had disturbed him so, however, had been Potters expression of triumph when he'd discovered that the Dark Lord was trying to get into the Department of Mysteries. This fact was no news to the inner Order members, but that Potter now knew as well, and that he felt so victorious over that knowledge, was very dangerous indeed. If Dumbledore didn't watch the boy well, Merlin knew what the brat might get into his head to do. Or worse – what the Dark Lord might get into the boy's head for him to do.

No, Severus decided with regretful finality, he wouldn't be calling the girl to him via the device she had fashioned, not anytime soon. Perhaps he wouldn't be calling her to him at all, for a while. Perhaps he would force her to take the first step, would wait for her to be so starved – sexually – that she would seek him out, offer herself up to him as she had done before, and only then would he take her.

Thinking about how things had ended between them before, Severus felt the physical urge to blush, but cooled the skin of his cheeks right back down, not allowing a hint of colour to creep into his face. Yes, he had finished early, but it wasn't as if the girl hadn't had any orgasm at all. After all, she'd partaken in some very pleasurable foreplay, judging from her outside reactions and her wonder at the climax that had ripped through her. All in all, his embarrassment didn't count severely enough to discount the whole experience as a failure – or did it?

Either way, he thought, the girl would need to come to him. And if she didn't… There were always ways to help things along. She had given him some taste of that medicine when she had teased him with images of her eggplant-coloured knickers during their lesson earlier in the day. But she would soon need to see that two could play that game – not in the exact same way, of course, as he wouldn't be taunting her with memories of his own transfigured underwear – but there were many options open to him in which ways to make the girl more… pliable to him. After all, she couldn't escape him in their lessons.

Friday, January 17th, 1996

Hermione was breathing. Warm, soapy liquid surrounded her whole body as she forced her body to remain floating near the bottom of the prefects' bath. Watching the green swirls of bubble bath painting patterns into the water around her, she felt her mind enveloping itself in blackness.

Putting all conscious thought away for a while to reach that pleasant state of Pure Black had been harder than usual. This week's events bore heavily on her soul, those ten escaped Death Eaters never far from her mind. Of course, she was safe at Hogwarts, she supposed, but it wasn't really herself that she was worrying about. Aside from Harry or Sirius possibly doing something stupid, and Neville emotionally turning in on himself, and the whole populace of Britain, both wizarding and muggle, in danger of those ten lunatics, Hermione especially worried about Professor Snape. Those nine wizards and the mad witch in their midst escaping Azkaban would keep his company in the future, she knew, and she didn't like it in the least.

Perhaps that was why he had put off setting her to more difficult tasks during Potions this week? While by no means an easy feat for a beginner such as her, brewing while Occluding wasn't exactly too demanding, either. There had been no pain, no mental puzzles, no other kinds of disturbances for her. If he'd had her sit next to Harry and Ron and Neville again, now, that would have proven difficult, but he hadn't. He just – hadn't.

And so Hermione had taken it upon herself to accomplish harder tasks. That was why she was Occluding, under water, with her eyes wide open, while magically having her body float near the tiled bottom of the pool. Four aspects to concentrate on at the same time should be a nice training exercise.

In fact, one of those aspects became harder and harder to do. Her breathing stocking, Hermione found that she had unexpected difficulty in drawing oxygen from the water around her. Her floating became wobbly, and she closed her eyes against the water around her, so as to better concentrate on her Occlumency shields.

There was nothing she could do, though. Something was wrong, she knew, when it became clear that there was no more oxygen to be gained from the liquid surrounding her. Forcing her panic down, Hermione decided to hold what was left of her breath for as long as she could, her mental walls strong and steady around her mind, and slowly allowed herself to float to the surface. Determined not to let herself be shocked by whatever she was certain to find above the surface, she further steeled her resolve and emerged.

Standing opposite from her at the edge of the pool stood Professor Snape, his wand directed at the pool's surface. Seeing her emerge, his wand hand dropped to his side, and Hermione was almost sure that she felt the barrier he had erected above the water disappear.

"Attempting to drown me now, professor?" she asked. After all, with Professor Snape not being one much for greetings, why would she need to go to such niceties?

"Seeing as I am hardly able to drown you out in class, Miss Granger," he replied, "it seemed sensible to attempt a new approach."

He was being unfair, and they both knew it. Hermione had long stopped to constantly raise her hand in class, giving answers and hints nobody had asked for. He was simply trying to rattle her, and even though he was definitely succeeding at that, Hermione was determined not to let it show.

"And again, you are unsuccessful, sir," she countered, her smile sweet, but her voice biting. "How utterly frustrating that must be for you. Will you need a hand in alleviating your frustration?"

Severus smirked, and openly. He had to grant it to the girl, she was good. He felt a strange surge of pride at knowing that his teaching had played a great part in her development. Just a few months ago, she would never have dared that amount of cheek, especially not combined with that sexual innuendo, and she certainly wouldn't have managed either with a straight face and firm mental walls.

What she had obviously forgotten, however, was the fact that two could play this game.

"Hardly," he replied, putting explicit emphasis on the first syllable, and his smirk grew even wider as the girl's eyes flicked to his middle for the fraction of a second. "Besides, considering that your hand can barely manage to alleviate your own tension, Miss Granger, I certainly wouldn't call for your expertise in such things. Tell me," and here he paused for a moment, "how frustrated are you getting yourself these days, now that your little playmate can't be allowed to play with you anymore? Your bath times must get lonely, surely."

"Surely," the girl echoed his last word, but began a completely different sentence with it, "my 'little playmate' can be allowed to play with me. It is simply that I haven't asked your permission, so far, and you haven't denied it yet."

Swimming to the edge of the pool, the girl lifted herself out of the water. There was little grace in the motion, as she had some difficulty heaving herself upon the tiled edge of the pool, and when she made to stand she wobbled dangerously on the brink for a few precarious seconds. When she was fully standing, straight and proud and so utterly shameless, Severus failed to call something more graceful to mind than the girl's naked, soapy, dripping wet body in that exact moment.

"Besides," the girl continued, although the words seemed to force themselves through thick cotton in order to reach his ears, "why would I need Angelina for that, now? Why would I need to call on my playmate when I can have a… mentor?"

She was walking closer to him, and Severus had to admire her composure. Nudging at her mental barriers, they were firm, but thin, and he could catch glimpses of her insecurities behind that splendid façade she upheld so determinedly.

When she came to stand in front of him, she was so close that her nipples were brushing his robes, he could see. Those little buds were pebbled from the relatively cold air in the bathroom, and from her nerves, as well, Severus suspected. When he had decided to fire up the sexual tension around the girl, he had never, never expected for her to do the same. Was she already desperate enough to come to him? Or was she simply playing with him? And, either way, could Severus allow himself to give in to her advances at this point in time?

"A mentor, you say, Miss Granger?" Severus asked, buying himself some time. "And what would it be that you wished to learn about?"

Her confidence faltered at that, he could see.

"I thought –," she began, paused for a second, and began anew. "I thought that you would be teaching me more about Occlumency in… special situations, sir."

"Special," Severus echoed her, teasing the girl. "And you would like for me to make you feel special, Miss Granger, wouldn't you, now?"

Lounging in the warm water, Hermione had been unable to help being reminded of a similar scenario, where she had been forced from Occluding in the soapy liquid by a professor. Of course, the tub at Grimmauld Place had been far smaller than the giant pool in the prefects' bathroom, and Professor Snape hadn't laid a finger on her (as opposed to Professor Lupin physically yanking her from the water), but still Hermione had been forced to wonder whether she might be offered to call the professor by his first name.

Then again, back at headquarters, that question concerning Professor Lupin had only come to her mind because the man had been stark naked, his powerful wand bobbing happily away, well in her line of sight. This night, she was the only one naked, not the Potions Master. Besides, would she even feel comfortable if she were allowed, even supposed, to call him by his given name?

Severus.

Her mind had been quick to supply the name that made her shudder. No, Hermione had decided, they had agreed on last names and proper titles – except that she wasn't to call him 'professor' when they were engaging in amorous activities –, and that was good and right. It lent her some sense of security, the polite form of address forming a safety net between them to keep unnecessary emotions from interfering.

Still pondering that evading the Potions Master's first name kept her safely in her comfort zone, her next action had made her step right out of that zone.

Hermione honestly had no clue why she had acted the way she had, rising naked out of the water and coming to stand before the professor in nothing but water and suds. The only reason that she could think about was that maybe her actions with Sirius and her conversations with Kingsley had made her bold and somewhat confident.

While she was still wondering how she had manoeuvred herself into this particular position, her position changed.

Or rather, her position was changed, to be exact.

In a fluid movement, the professor had both her hands gripped in one of his, turning them both around until she was pressed against the cold tiles of the bathroom wall, her wrists held as far above her head as they would comfortably go. The professor's other hand, she noticed, was tracing the chain of the medallion that was hanging around her neck.

"A formidable piece of charm work, Miss Granger, I must admit," the Potions Master said as his finger lingered in the valley between her breasts next to the pendant. Hermione was certain that he actually meant the encrypted Protean charm, but then again, the professor was one more ambiguity at every turn, when he was feeling like it. With how hard he usually tried not to compliment anyone, this might have been a rare occasion where he was offering her a kind word. "I would just love to know how you came to think about it. Won't you let me know?"

As he breathed the last sentence into her ear, Hermione felt a strong nudging at her mental barriers. Understanding dawned upon her as she realized that he was about to explore her mind. Shutting away her memories of charming the coins for the DA, and her recollection of Professor Dumbledore disguising her books in the library so long ago now, she reinforced her Occlumency shields and braced herself for everything the Potions Master might use to attack her mind.

When his single digit that had before been tracing the medallion between her breasts trailed a path down her naked belly, however, Hermione came to realize that this particular move of his was not one she had thought to anticipate.

The girl's whole body blushed a deep crimson colour under his attentions, and Severus hadn't even begun to really focus them on her. When his index finger slipped between her legs and subsequently her nether lips, his other hand still fixing both of her wrists above her head, he found her wet. It was a wetness that went beyond the lingering water from her bath. It was one that proved her readiness to receive him.

My, Severus thought, how easy the girl was to turn on. For some reason, though, he assumed that she wasn't simply wanton for anyone's attention. No, he suspected that this particular effect was one only he had on her.

If Severus hadn't been the superb Legilimens that he was, it would have been difficult for him to focus his mental attention on bringing down the girl's shields while his fingers were attempting to bring an orgasm down on her. How he managed to free the mental capacity for admiring the girl's resolve and her strong walls, he could not think to understand.

With her pleasure rising, the girl's shields were falling, falling, falling. Even though she managed to maintain a slim, yet steady barrier around her mind, it was no hindrance for Severus as he simply forced his way through. Her resulting wince at the pain that the intrusion must certainly have caused her head, Severus alleviated by renewed efforts against the little nub between her legs. Searching through her mind, all he found were memories of her sexual experiences.

First came images of her own fingers between her legs, helped along by her toes digging into Severus's thighs. They were followed by the contrast of ebony against ivory skin, something that apparently held endless fascination for the girl. Next he was faced with full dark lips on a beautiful face, the Quidditch captain smiling beguilingly at her. Those lips came closer to utter stumbled half-sentences into the girl's ear, asking to both cause and experience her pleasure. In her recollections, the girl's eyes closed for a while, and all Severus saw was the colourful darkness that played behind her lids. A pair of lips pressed against her forehead, warm and comforting, and lingered in a familiar kiss. The girl sighed. When her mental eyes opened again, they looked into the smiling face of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

A climax hit the girl in the very same instant in which realization hit Severus. Extracting his hands from her body and his mind from hers, he felt some twisted pleasure in watching the girl wince at the pain that came with forcefully extricating one's presence from behind another person's Occlumency walls.

"Is that how things are now, Miss Granger?" Severus snarled at the girl. "Breaking your contracts before even beginning to fulfil your own end of them?"

"And what about you, professor?" the girl had the audacity to shoot back. "Will you forever be accusing me of sleeping with men other than you, only to be proven wrong?"

Severus had to physically swallow, so surprised was he at the girl's statement.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, scoffing at her accusation.

"You never even looked at me!" the girl cried.

"And why would I do that, Miss Granger?" Severus questioned, somewhat relieved at the ridiculousness of that last assertion. "Why would I look at you any more than I would at any other student?"

"You wouldn't," the girl replied forcefully, "but then again, why would you make unfounded accusations against me, assuming I'd been giving my body away, any more than you would against any other student?"

Taken aback by her logic, Severus needed half a second to gather his thoughts. Before he could reply, however, the girl pressed on.

"I never knew," she continued. "I never knew that there was such a thing as a magical aura broadcasting my virginal status. But you, sir," – dear Nimue, now the girl was pointing her finger at him in her glorious, self-righteous anger – "you should have known. You should have seen, seen me for what I was – innocent of all that you attempted to incriminate me with."

Severus hated the girl in this moment, probably more than he had ever hated her before, for the simple reason that she was right. He should have seen, should have noticed how bright and pure her aura was, had remained, untainted, until –

"I saw," he admitted. "I saw your aura. Had been seeing it for years. All children's auras are bright when they come to Hogwarts, but their light diminishes over the years as they grow up and become knowledgeable, experienced, spoilt. All auras grow dimmer over time. Only…"

Taking the girl in, her whole body still wet from a mixture of water and sweat, bubbles from her bath still clinging to her skin in patches here and there, her breasts rising and falling, whether from her climactic exertions or from her rage, Severus did not know – taking her in, he realized that the light from the burning sconces could not illuminate her as brightly as she seemed in this moment. She was shining from the inside, the burnished copper of her aura being coloured a warm golden by the fires lighting the room, and Severus failed to call anything to mind that had ever been so beautiful to him, so entrancing, so unique, nor did he find himself able to name any substance that was more precious or even remotely priceless as the gold that the girl emanated.

"Only yours, Miss Granger, didn't. You outshone them all. Blinding, that's what you were. Wizarding folk learn to look for auras, but also to overlook them, because it's too tiring to stare at shiny people all the time. But yours – yours I could not overlook. It… you… wouldn't be overlooked."

The girl had fallen silent at his speech, her expression curious, almost consoling, her eyes searching for the truth Severus was so freely giving her. Why he was opening up to her, and why now of all times, Severus could not say. And still, he found himself continuing.

"With how bright you'd always remained over the years that passed, I had assumed that even something as radical, as incisive as losing your virginity would not taint your innocence, and that your aura would continue to shine as brightly as it had before. I – I didn't want to look anymore, and I never thought I'd gain any knowledge from looking anyway."

A few slow seconds – or were they decades? – passed in heavy silence.

"But even afterwards," the girl countered, far more softly than before, "you never looked, not even afterwards."

"And what would I have seen?" Severus lashed out. "What would I have seen, Miss Granger, other than the defiled school girl under my care? Your light that had always shone so brightly, diminished by my actions?"

"It was my choice," the girl insisted. "My choice, and I chose you, sir. You. And now, I'm –"

The girl didn't continue, maybe because she didn't know how to, but it was no matter. Severus filled the void left by her unfinished sentence.

"Golden."

Their eyes had been trained on one another this whole time, but at this moment, their gazes seemed to truly connect. Had her eyes always sparkled this much, Severus wondered, and chided himself at the sappiness of that thought. Eyes did not sparkle in the dimness of the bathroom.

His gaze fixed onto the patterns that were drawn onto the girl's skin by the reflections of moonlight and burning sconces on the surface of the pool.

"It makes no difference, though, Miss Granger," Severus asserted, speaking to the mirthful play of light on her chest. "Morgana knows how many men you've already slept with this year, cooped up at headquarters as you were. If Shacklebolt was one of them, I do not care. You broke your end of the contract, so why would I uphold mine?"

"I didn't –" the girl exclaimed, then broke off with a frustrated groan. "You know what?" she began anew, "it doesn't really matter, I suppose. Go ahead and be spiteful and jealous, I don't even care to care anymore. I'd beg for your assistance in preparing me for this war if I thought there was any use in doing so, but I know that I might as well speak to the door knob and find it less stubborn than you, sir. I'll do my best teaching myself, if I have to, and that will need to be enough. It probably won't, but if I can't persuade you to see reason, then there's nothing I can do.

"Remember just one thing before you cast me out, professor: You didn't even want me," the girl exclaimed, emphasising every word very carefully, her expression one of hurt. "You didn't want to touch me, and after you had lowered yourself to bedding me, you left as soon as you could. You can't blame me for wanting more than that."

"More?" Severus almost shouted. "Go ahead, Miss Granger. Leave the Castle, and you will get more. Nine more strapping wizards out there to give you more. Is that what you want?"

"What?" the girl asked, aghast. "No, of course not. You are twisting everything I say. There is no use in talking to you right now, sir."

"Talking," Severus scoffed, and the girl looked as if he had slapped her. "Talking isn't what you seemed to have in mind just now."

The girl paled to an extent that Severus might have worried about her possibly fainting, if he had cared even an iota about her wellbeing. Right now, he didn't.

"Your contract demands my consent," she said, her voice shaky. "You can't just –"

"Can't I, Miss Granger?" Severus interrupted her. The silk of his voice was threatening. "Do you honestly want to test me?"

"Just –" the girl stuttered, "just – let me go, sir, please, just let me –"

"Go, then," Severus snarled.

Without a backwards glance, the girl had wordlessly Summoned her wand, Disillusioned herself, and left the room.

Severus let her go.

Coming up: Chapter thirty-three, wherein a pain is being tended to.