Snape still kept researching Hermione's curse, but he no longer dosed her with anything or asked her to be present while he worked.
Hermione stayed in her room, studying for NEWTs or sleeping.
Being in public places in the castle was misery. At that point, most students gave her a wide berth. The other professors fussed over her and watched her carefully. 'Friends' indulged her as though every conversation were her last, or tried aggressively to cheer her up, as though optimism had healing properties. Everyone kept reminding her about what a fighter she was.
She would survive because she was a fighter, she'd been told more times than she could keep track of. The 'encouraging' sentiment was worked into almost every single letter she received from Harry, Ron, and Molly.
Which implied by extension that, when she died, it would be her fault, because she just hadn't tried hard enough.
She didn't think most people bothered to think through any of the little platitudes they kept relentlessly trying to foist onto her.
She despised all of it. It felt as though it were all performance. Everyone was just waiting for her to snap or die, or need "help" so that they could swagger over with self-congratulatory generosity, and then gossip about her condition once she was safely on her way.
Snape didn't look at her when she came into their quarters. She assumed he was offended, but she didn't think there was any point in having a conversation and confirming it.
She went straight to her room each evening after dinner and didn't re-emerge until she was headed to breakfast the next morning. He never approached her or her room, and she was careful not to disturb him or cross paths if she could help it.
She took a long nap on the day she was due for her next firecrab treatment. The door of her room was open, and the sound of bubbling potions was audible, punctured by the tap of a chopping knife and the soft clatter of stir rods.
She stared up at the ceiling for several minutes before getting up. She was starting to come to terms with the fact that she was going to die. Her shock and sense of denial had worn off, and she felt strangely placid and borderline saintly about it sometimes. She'd felt much better since she'd stopped testing potions in the hopes they'd cure her.
She hadn't considered how exhausting hope was; it was like trying to turn back a river's current.
Now that she'd stopped fighting, the current of Nyx was surprisingly endurable.
She got up and went to sit at her spot along the worktop without a word.
"Do you plan to return as Potion Master next year?" asked Hermione after several minutes of silence.
Snape's black eyes were fastened intently on a potion. "I haven't decided."
She nodded and forced a tight-lipped smile. "Just think of how much free time you'll have next year."
His eyes flashed briefly, but he didn't give any response.
"Thank you, Professor," she said after several more minutes of silence. "I know you never particularly liked me, but I do appreciate the effort you've given—and inconvenience you've endured—trying to find a cure."
He merely peered down into the potion before him without responding.
He slid the sedative across the worktop more slowly than usual with his gaze fastened probingly upon her.
She didn't avoid his intrusive eyes. There was no longer anything to hide.
She took the sedative and put the gag between her teeth before he had stepped around the worktop.
Afterwards when she was crying, he rebandaged her arm and then stood behind her, unmoving, for several minutes, apparently waiting for her to remove herself.
The realisation was accompanied by a rather chilling sense disbelief.
She could have waited longer, but she didn't want to sit there crying while he stood waiting for her to get out of the way so he could continue with his curse-breaking project in peace. Now that he couldn't use her as a test subject, she was functionally useless to him.
She only paused a moment before drawing a deep breath and pushing herself unsteadily up without a word. Her muscles and nerves were still spasming in pained objections to the treatment. It was like the entirety of her body had gone numb. The sharp, pin-pricking pain throughout her body was so overpowering she couldn't properly get a sense of her feet or legs. Her ankle rolled as she tried to put weight on it. She half-caught herself with her hands before her elbows gave out too.
She could feel herself falling but couldn't seem to make her arms react to catch herself.
She was snatched up off her feet.
"What are you doing?" Snape had caught her and dragged her up into his arms.
Hermione stared at him. She felt certain she'd missed something, but she was too tired of his spite to even begin trying to sort through any new aspects of his behavior.
He was the one who'd forced them to live together. He could live with the inconvenience of helping her get to her room once every two weeks.
She looked away and didn't say anything.
She hadn't known it was possible to already be so sick of dying and just want to be dead.
He stood in the centre of the room for several seconds, still holding her, as though undecided about what to do. He was probably trying to decide the meanest thing he could get away with.
As if being an unmitigated arse was the only line of defense to keep her from jumping him.
The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck Hermione, and her shoulders shook as she tried not to laugh aloud.
As though his niceness had been the reason she'd wanted to sleep with him in the first place.
Hermione's chest spasmed as she choked back another laugh.
Snape glanced down at her with an expression that could have been mistaken for concern, probably over her mental stability, and finally walked over to the sofa, sitting down, his arms still wrapped tightly around her as though he were endeavouring to restrain her from running off somewhere.
She could feel his fingers in her hair, near the base of her skull. The burning, tingling pain through her body kept shivering through her nerves like aftershocks. She usually passed out or fell asleep within a few minutes, before her nerves stopped twinging and burning.
She curled up tightly against his chest, waiting for everything to fade away.
Instead she stayed conscious, her head resting against Snape's shoulder.
As the minutes slipped by, she grew increasingly uncertain about what was going to happen next.
She refused to ask.
It seemed as though he was waiting for her to fall asleep.
He sat, holding her without a word. After ten minutes, his fingers began running absent-mindedly through her hair.
Her skin prickled, and her heart raced, but she stayed carefully still.
There were a little more than six weeks before the term ended. She didn't have the energy to handle re-inciting his viciousness all over again. She squeezed her eyes more determinedly closed.
Still, there was a pathetic part of her that continued to long wistfully for the brief window when he'd almost seemed interested in her—and snogged her.
Unfortunately, whatever unexpected sexual interest he'd taken in her clearly did not extend to Hermione as a person. Which in other circumstances she'd mind, but given that she was dying and suffering from an apparently irrepressible sexual attraction towards him, it seemed ideal. If he simply could refrain from despising her, they could have sex, and it would be fine.
Apparently that was too much to ask. He actively detested her, and it superseded whatever sexual attraction she was capable of inducing.
She'd never seduced anyone before. She didn't know how. If she were going to try something like that, she'd start with an easier target, like a teenage boy rather than a professor. Obviously that was operating under the supposition that she wanted to be the kind of girl who seduced people occasionally, which she wasn't sure about. Now it didn't matter; she'd never get a chance.
She sighed and glanced up.
He was staring down at her as though he were calculating something. She met his gaze, waiting for him to look away the way he generally did or to intrusively slide his mind into hers.
Instead he just kept studying her. His expression flickered briefly, and his expression became visibly resolved.
Hermione tensed instantly. Snape looking resolved never boded well for her.
His fingers slid from the base of her skull to her jaw, and his palm pressed against her cheek, turning her face up. Hermione flinched minutely but kept meeting his eyes, waiting; half-daring him to do something spiteful without any prompting.
She hadn't done anything recently for him to fault her with.
Not that it had ever stopped him before.
His face moved closer to hers, his expression intent. Her heart rate shot up and she stopped breathing, bracing herself.
Their noses bumped as his head dipped down until their foreheads touched.
He tilted his head until she felt his lips brush against hers. He kissed her slowly.
She froze, warring with herself.
He really was the most unbelievable arse. After everything he'd done lately, now he wanted to kiss her again? And he expected her to want him to? She should shove him back and slap him across the face.
She should. He really was just the worst.
Instead she found her hands tangled in his hair, kissing him so desperately it was as though she were breathing him in. She shifted, straddling him, her knees bracketing his hips as she pressed herself close. Her teeth clicked against his.
His hands were trailing along her spine. His teeth grazed her lips, and the kiss deepened, his tongue caressing hers, insinuating itself inside her mouth until her lungs began to burn.
Her fingers were on his robes, unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt until his hands suddenly closed over hers, and he drew back.
They studied each other in silence.
A mistake. Again.
Hermione gave a short, bitter laugh and pulled her hands free with a sharp jerk, straightening her shirt as she started to stand. His hand shot out and closed around her wrist, staying her, drawing her back as he leaned forward.
"This—" he said slowly, the word strained but carefully pronounced, "stays in these rooms."
She froze, studying him, before she finally nodded without moving.
His hand rose up and ghosted along her cheek, a fingertip curling and capturing the curve of her jaw, while his index finger slid along the shell of her ear and he drew her face towards his until they were only a breath away.
"I want to call you Severus," she whispered.
He nodded as his lips sealed against hers.
She pulled at the buttons of his waistcoat and pushed his robes open as she found herself on her back beneath him on the sofa. His bare skin was smooth and warm beneath her hands. She could feel her shirt parting, and his fingers trailing along the exposed skin.
He touched her as though he intended to savour her in stages. As though she were a meal in courses.
Her clothes slipped away under his fingers as his hands explored her. She ran her hands along his pale skin, over his shoulder and down along his chest. He hissed between his teeth, and his head dropped for a moment as though he were trying to control his reaction to her.
It emboldened her.
She pulled him closer, wrapping her legs around his hips so that she could feel him as her hands captured his face and she kissed him.
His dexterous fingers peeled away the cup of her bra and curled around her breast, cupping it, and his thumb circled her areola lazily as she arched against him with a whimpering moan.
There were little electric sparks of sensation shooting through her body with every brush of his fingertips and swipe of his tongue. He pressed kisses along the length of her neck, and then drew his teeth along the juncture of her neck and shoulder so pleasurably she keened under him.
She ground her hips against his, feeling him through his trousers.
"Please, Severus," she forced herself to say rather than merely moaning incoherently under him. There was something wickedly thrilling about using his first name.
She tried to find the buttons of his trousers, but he caught her hand and pinned it over her head, staring down at her. He inhaled slowly.
"It has been sometime since I've done this. Be patient," he said. His voice almost sounded the way it used to, a smooth drawling baritone.
Hermione nodded after a moment. Instead of kissing her again, he sat up and glanced around the room. "We should do this in a bed."
Hermione started to open her mouth to offer her room, but he preempted her.
"My room," he said, standing up. He started extending his hand to help her sit up, but then withdrew it abruptly, bringing it back to his chest. His expression was suddenly contemplative again.
"Perhaps,"—his voice wavered, sounding thin and tired—"it would be better to wait. You underwent treatment tonight. Tomorrow would be more ideal—"
"No," Hermione said flatly, sitting up on her own and feeling unapologetically brazen. "We can do it again tomorrow. I want to have sex with you now."
He stared at her with an expression she couldn't interpret and finally nodded. "Fine."
He walked over to the kitchen and spent several minutes checking his potions and casting stasis spells on them.
Hermione went and stood waiting by his bedroom door.
It was one thing to kiss him and have things progress in the direction of sex. It was an entirely different matter to have mutually and verbally agreed to have sex but then decide to migrate into another room and have to stand around waiting for him to check his potions first.
Her heart was beginning to pound nervously in her chest. She'd never been in his room. She was about to go there and take her clothes off, probably be the one to take his clothes off, and proceed to have sex with him. It might be very good or just awful; with Snape those seems to be the only two options.
Perhaps wanting to do it tonight was a bad idea. She would feel considerably better tomorrow. Her nerves were still twinging, and her mind had a sort of squishy cushioning fog around it from the remaining traces of sedative that the firecrab hadn't burned away.
No. It needed to be tonight. Packing on an additional day of anxious anticipation was unlikely to improve things.
They'd have sex tonight, in his room of all places. She couldn't understand why they couldn't have sex in her room where they'd both be more comfortable. He'd never even left his door open for longer than it took for him slide his shoulders through the doorway. She'd never seen more than a few inches inside it. Maybe he had a sex dungeon in there.
She snorted to herself, she was certain that she and her perverted imagination would have noticed if there any signs whatsoever that Snape was secretly a sexual libertine.
She sighed and shifted as he continued stirring things and poking his nose into cauldrons, apparently in no rush whatsoever to pick up where they'd left off.
It was rather offensive really.
She looked down and studied her stockinged feet. He'd probably volunteered his room so that she would be the one to do the nightly walk of shame through the kitchen rather than him.
It sounded just like something he'd do.
If she wanted to have an affair with him, he'd expect her to accommodate all the inconvenience of it.
It wasn't as though he was the type who'd let someone stay overnight in his bed.
Not that she'd want to.
It wouldn't do any good to lie around developing feelings for one another. She already more feelings than she wanted to think about.
Snape—Severus, she mentally amended—didn't exactly strike her as the type who'd maintain physical contact with anyone for longer than the situation required.
She watched as he walked to the far side of the kitchen and pulled open a cabinet, taking out several potions and bringing them over to where Hermione stood waiting. He watched her take them. Blood-replenishing potion, as usual. A potion to counter the sedative. She hadn't even known he had it.
Contraceptive.
She paused briefly before taking it. Had he been planning for this after all? Or did he just habitually keep contraceptive on hand?
She decided she didn't want to know.
She restoppered the vial. Severus plucked it from her fingers, and it vanished into a pocket in his robes. He peered down at her for a moment longer before opening the door leading to his room.
Hermione stepped in first. No sex dungeon.
It was similar to her own room. More books. A large table covered with more potion supplies. The same desk, bed frame, and armchair. And a fireplace, she noted enviously. It was unlit, and the room was cool.
He closed the door behind them. She turned, looking at him. His robes were still unbuttoned, revealing a narrow strip of pale skin down the center of his chest.
He was staring at her with a predatory expression diluted with uncertainty. His mouth opened and closed several times before he spoke.
"Is the temperature comfortable for you?"
Hermione blinked. "It's fine," she said automatically without bothering to consider whether or not it actually was.
The last thing she wanted was to wait another five minutes while he fussed over the fireplace.
He stepped towards her, his fingers unfurling as his hand extended but, once again, he stopped before he touched her and drew his hand back.
"Bed," he said softly.
Hermione's heart was pounding in her chest. Now that the sedative and its pain relief were gone, she could feel her arm throbbing in the same nervous tempo as her heartbeat. She stepped towards his bed.
The sheets and bedding were white. She would have thought black or Slytherin green for some reason. Her bedding was in Gryffindor colours by default.
She looked up at him. His eyes were fastened on her, and as the back of her thighs touched the foot of his bed, he finally reached out and touched her arm, his fingers splaying and then curling around her shoulders as he guided her to sit on the edge.
He sat beside her, and his hands shifted so that her shirt slid off and down her arms.
Everything was happening so slowly it made her more intensely aware of it.
A meal.
In courses.
It also gave her mind abundant space to run away with itself. Everything she didn't want to think about but couldn't seem to ever stop thinking about...
His mouth pressed softly against her bare shoulder as he pulled her shirt off and let it fall to the floor. His fingers ran lightly along her left arm, but stopped at her elbow. His hand slipped back up to her shoulder, and his mouth journeyed slowly towards her neck.
She closed her eyes.
She could feel his tongue flicking lightly across her skin as though he were intent on tasting every inch of her. His other hand ran along her back until he found the clasp of her bra.
The band tightened around her ribs, and then it came loose, and he pulled it off of her.
Hermione's eyes opened, and she glanced down at her chest, wondering if Lily Potter had been curvier, or more fit than she was. Hermione had been curvier, before.
She forcefully banished the entire line of thought. Men did not become double-agents and work to protect a child for eighteen years because of how fantastic a witch's tits were.
Then she stopped thinking at all, because Severus had pressed her back onto his mattress and she could feel his breath across her bare skin. She shivered, and her nipples grew hard before he even touched her again.
She felt his palm press lightly against the underside of one breast as his lips nipped a meandering path across her sternum.
Her hand reached out to pull him closer, but he pushed it firmly away, back onto the mattress.
He paused. Hermione bit her lip and moaned when she felt his fingers brush closer to her nipples, but then they moved away, trailing a winding, circuitous path along her stomach.
"Please, please touch me," she said in a thick voice after the third time that his mouth brushed close but not where she wanted him.
She couldn't see his expression; his hair had fallen around him like curtain, brushing softly against her skin as his hand ran along her side.
There was a part of her that was worried he intended to draw out the foreplay with her so long she would literally die before they reached the sex part of the equation.
"I don't want to go this slowly," she finally blurted out.
He lifted his head and stared piercingly at her. She felt heat rise across her face up to her ears. She swallowed hard.
"I don't just want to lie here and have you do things to me," she said, meeting his gaze. "I want to touch you and have this be something we're—doing together."
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