Chapter 4 became Chapter 5...and now needs Chapter 6 too. Confused? Try being me... ;-)

Hermione knotted her fingers, her belly a riot of wild pixies. Severus opened the first door on a long, bright hallway to a drawing room, all pale silks and golden sunlight and a large ornate fireplace. A pot of floo powder sat high on the broad mantle. So he was still connected to the wizarding world…

Snape —Severus, surely? Since they'd be, well, getting naked very, very soon— closed the door, the click of the catch skittering across her nerves. Hermione willed herself to breathe. Her pulse drummed. Would he simply...pounce? Take her on the rug before the fireplace? And why —why?— did her heart give a hard and delicious squeeze at that thought?

Severus' lip curled up at the corner and the long, golden light cutting in through the tall window lit his dark eyes. A wicked gleam that did little to loosen the tightness of her flesh. "Eager…?"

Her face burned. Was...was he pressing into her thoughts?

"I am simply...observant."

How…?

The twist of this lip deepened into a smirk. Git. He was a git. But then she knew that...and some insane part of her liked him that way.

Hermione closed her eyes and wrapped her courage around herself. She would not be a grey witch, a ministry slave, dried up and mediocre. Fuck, she wanted to run the Ministry! He would give her that. She opened his eyes and held Severus' black gaze. "How...how do we go about this?"

"In the usual way." He waved for her to sit on the deep cushions of a couch as he sat opposite to her in a wingback chair —all suave elegance with his steepled fingers pressed to the line of his lips. "There is no arcane ritual. No magical blades, potions or spells. No blood letting. Well…" His eyebrow lifted. "That does rather depend on how...intact you are, doesn't it?"

Hermione's face was boiling. Could she possibly be as red as she felt? From Severus' continued smirk? Very probably. He was enjoying her embarrassment. Utter git. But it was a question that needed an answer. She hadn't...explored herself. Not with the thoroughness required to be certain. It hadn't helped that this wizard had pushed into her thoughts whenever her fingers had slipped into her knickers… And, well, the belief that she should fantasise about nice boys made her reluctant to experiment at all.

But… "I have ridden thestrals. A hippogriff. Oh, and a dragon. I imagine that's the equivalent of horses for a muggle girl."

"And you derived the same...pleasure?"

"What? No!" Hermione slapped her hand to her mouth and breathed against her palm. Another fair question...but… They'd been mad moments. Filled with adrenaline and fear and spells and...and in the case of the dragon, chunks of Gringotts' falling masonry.

"Nothing ever for yourself, Hermione."

It was a statement. Low and strangely soft and it pricked tears against her eyes. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her emotions were running riot, caught in the panic and nerves of knowing that Severus Snape would be her first lover. But it was a transaction. Nothing more. For the pleasure of her virginity, his own immense powers would shine brighter.

She pulled her mind back, wanting to focus on the academic. Her safe place. "How did this book find me? You? Anyone? A measure of power? Or of potential power?"

Something glinted in his eyes, something that said he was well aware that her pushing questions at him was her way of coping. Yes, he was an observant wizard.

"Lord Slytherin, an Earl of Bernicia and Salazar's grandfather, brought the codex back from the Library of Constantinople in 812. Whether it taken with the consent of the Magi, I can't say. I very much doubt it. The Earl was notoriously...light fingered."

Severus tilted his head and that smirk was back. Yes, her jaw had almost dropped that a Slytherin uncovered the codex. But should she have been at all surprised? Power was catnip to his House.

"He chose to...shine his magic and lived till almost two hundred. An impossible age in Saxon England. Salazar inherited the codex. And set it on its current course. To seek out the powerful."

A single thought pinched at her brain and she winced. Of who else could've been gifted with the book's insight. "Dumbledore? Tom Riddle?"

Severus shrugged, but there was a reluctant twist to his features. "Perhaps? I don't know."

"Who…?"

Her question tailed off. It hardly felt right to ask who had first opened Severus to his power.

"Perenelle Flamel." His laughter was soft and dark over her gasp. "Shocked again, Hermione?"

She stared at him. Perenelle had been over six hundred years old when she slept with him. Six hundred. Gods… "Yes." The word was almost strangled. "Yes. Very."

"If it eases the images in your mind, she appeared to me as a witch in her prime. Quite beautiful. Her own…mentor was Roger Bacon. He was over a hundred and not very strict to his vows." His eyes shone with devilment. "See, how fortunate you are that I am only nineteen years older than you?"

Hermione simply stared at him. "Who…who was his…?"

"Perenelle said he was favoured by Gervase of Canterbury. Their vows…" His gaze darkened, grew distant and his lips thinned. "Perenelle was a very wise woman. With advice I should have heeded." He drew in a long breath and his gaze found her again. The dark light was back, the sour memory seemingly banished. The corner of his lip quirked upwards. "But that is...ancient history.

"This moment…" He rose, smooth and elegant and —gods help her— more apex predator than man. Powerful. Deadly. And with her in his sights. "This sunlit afternoon will be our focus."

He took one of her hands, forcing her to unknot her fingers, and drew her to her feet. He really was impossibly tall. His thumb carressed the peaks and valleys of her knuckles, the touch light, but slow and...and tormenting. A shiver chased across her skin and the swell of magic was a hot, fresh pulse through her flesh. Damn the man. Yet...this was what she was in his house for. For this first pleasure.

"Tell me, have these," he drew his own fingers under the length of hers in a deliberate tease, "brought you to...orgasm?"

His rich, dark voice curled around that word, igniting the forbidden hints that had plagued her for years. Of wanting him, of pulling the illicit idea of him to drive her fantasies. Mute, she shook her head.

"You surprise me again, Hermione. You were always such a...diligent student. How have you neglected a thorough pursuit of your own body's pleasure?"

He knew the power of his voice. He had to. And the roll of it, soft and wickedly decadent as he asked her that? He was the very devil. The devil she wanted. But...she couldn't admit that thoughts of him had stopped her hand. Quite literally. She couldn't expose that need. Not now. Not when it was a simple exchange. This was not the start of a relationship. She almost huffed a laugh at the very idea of it.

"It...was never a priority. There was always something else, some impending disaster that dragged at my brain. Had me scouring books and scrolls, till I slumped over them." A partial truth. "And the only spark of interest for me was Ron."

"I can see how that would cool anyone's ardour."

She frowned at him and he gave her his patented smirk. Severus drew his thumb under the tightened line of her mouth and it shocked a gasp from her. The sweet rush of awakening magic caught her again and his smile deepened.

"Our reward," he murmured, the words a velvet rumble over her scattering senses. "The power of our magic seeking one considered...worthy of our own talent and strength. It pleases me that you have not wasted yourself on a Weasley."

"Could you be more condescending?"

"Sweet girl, you know I could."

A splutter of laughter broke from her and the twist of affection tightened around her heart. Warm, but pained.

He tilted her chin and his lips ghosted over hers, a brush of sweet air that drummed her heart and snapped a jelly-legs hex on her. Breathing. Breathing was overrated. Even as her eyes fluttered shut and she ached for the first touch of his lips against hers. Magic chased and swirled through her veins, bright and hot, and fierce, so fierce… Gods was this who she would be? This wildly powerful witch? Opened to her powers by a wizard who had his own magic awakened by a centuries' old witch—

"Pleasure, Hermione." His delicious voice broke her thoughts. Decadent. Hot. Wanted… "Only pleasure, no other thought." His lips brushed hers and her chest bloomed, the fire of her need thick and wild. Her fingers curled tight into his hand and she fought to stay upright. Impossible. So impossible to...to ache from so light a touch. Impossible…

A butterfly kiss to her jaw. And another. Till his smooth lips brushed the shell of her ear, his breath hot and chasing fresh shivers over her skin. "I will taste you. Every sweet inch."

His large hand slid over her shoulder to slip down over her waist, drawing her to the hard length of his body. She squeaked, her free hand grasping at his shirt and finding it warmed by his flesh. The scent of him overwhelmed her. Cedar and sandalwood and under it something more, something elusive that pricked at her dissolving thoughts. Something she should know…

"Did you imagine it, Hermione? Your wicked professor...debauching you? Licking and sucking and biting. Of him spreading you out across his bed, parting your lovely thighs to lick and bite his way over your flesh. And oh…"

His sigh, dark and wicked, chased after the tightening low in her belly. The push of magic and want. She couldn't...she couldn't come just from his voice. She couldn't…

"What's this? A pretty and untouched pussy. Sweet and wet. Is it for me, Hermione? Just me?"

She clutched at his shirt, her chest tight, her open mouth pressed to him, panting, trying to breathe through the rise of pleasure, her thoughts scattering. Gods, she was lost to the image of her spread and naked under the golden light of the afternoon sun and simply a feast for him. Only him. "Yes...yes, sir."

He hummed, his long fingers tightening on her backside, rocking her and pressing her hard to his body. To the thick line of his...his erection. Fuck...fuck. He was big. And she would, she would… Gods. Just—

"My good girl."

Hermione's brain stuttered. Broke. That was… That… Gods...yes.

A shock of wild pleasure and fierce, fierce magic smashed over her. She gasped, caught by it, the flare of it in her flesh, the sudden rush over her thoughts in a golden fire. She shook. Her hands twitched. And only Severus' strong hands held her up, held her to him as he hummed against the shell of ear, wickedly thickening the little aftershocks of her release.

She slumped, letting him hold her, trusting him not to allow her to drop to the floor. "I can't believe that only...only your words…" She swallowed, her mouth dry from the gasps and pants he had wrung from her with such mortifying ease. "Your…"

"I am very aware of the effect of my voice, Hermione. I am not handsome-"

Her head snapped back to stare up at him. "Yes, yes you are." Her face grew hot. Her thoughts were still scattered and wild after her unexpected orgasm. She couldn't...she couldn't reveal her need, her ache for more than this wizard could or would give her.

His smile was unexpectedly soft and it warmed her. "I am a realist. I'm not handsome, but," his black eyes shone, "I am clever and observant, meticulous and dedicated and quite, quite wicked."

Her addled thoughts caromed through her brain. This wasn't the end was it? They would…wouldn't they? But...but she had found her first pleasure with a powerful wizard.

"Witch, my bed still awaits you."

"Oh, yes, please."

His quiet laughter surrounded her and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The affection of it caught her breath and her heart. Damn him. She couldn't fall for this wizard. She couldn't. An exchange of powers. It was only that.

And she had to remember that as Severus drew back, pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles and led her to up his bedroom.