Title: Gods In Love
Chapter 4: In which Hermione remains the eternal optimist and identities are revealed
Disclaimer: I do not own J.K Rowling's magical world of witches and wizards, or any of the characters in it. If you know the series, you will be able to pick out which characters are mine.
Description: In their seventh year, a wizarding sex shop opens for business in Hogsmeade, causing tension among the students and leading to unusual events and pairings (Ron x Hermione x Draco, Snape x ??).
O0O0O0O
As Hermione was changing into her pyjamas for bed, she reached into her pocked to take out the SMF, which was unusually warm to the touch.
'A message!' A strange feeling filled her chest. 'What dreadful timing... I've just made a date with Ron for the dance next week... Well, it won't hurt to look...'
The message, from a user named 'Loki', read:
From god to goddess; we have a 94 percent compatibility rating. I certainly think that's worth exploring. I want to meet you. When can I see you?
'Oh my.' thought Hermione, 'I'd really like to see him before I agree to get involved...'
Then an idea came to her. 'Well, since the Halloween dance is a masquerade dance... we could see each other there without giving away our identities!'
She wrote a reply: 'I'll go to the dance next Friday as Athene. I'll be on the lookout for Loki. If what I see pleases me, I'd love to meet.'
She could hardly believe her own audaciousness! Was this really what she wanted to say?
She whispered a single word to the device in her hand:
"Send."
O0O0O0O
Snape awoke with a start. He was in bed; but not his own.
'Where am I?'
Something stirred to his right. It was soft and warm, and rolled towards him, snuggling into the crook of his arm and wrapping a leg around one of his. Relief and something resembling joy flooded him. He remembered it all, and it had been real.
They'd gone up to her apartments. They'd taken to the shower... together. She'd even washed his hair. If he closed his eyes he could almost feel her fingers massaging his scalp and the warm, soapy water running down his back; her breasts pressed against his back; her fingers walking around his hips and between his legs to stroke him from behind...
Snape hated water. It was not that he hated feeling wet, but the unbearable feeling of dampness and coldness that water left him with. Tumbling straight into bed with a beautiful woman after showering had certainly solved that problem. Snape grinned, glancing over at Deia. He had to fight back a groan of pleasure at the memories her sensual features, now peaceful with sleep, sparked in his mind... Deia moaning above him, beneath him.
'But why me? She's- she's gorgeous! She could have any man she wants!'
Snape rolled slowly onto his side to face her, careful not to wake her. He ran a hand over her long, thick hair and traced her full lower lip with his thumb. After a moment of hesitation, he kissed her, gently nipping at her lower lip. She moaned, half asleep, and returned his kiss, her eyes fluttering open; fairytale princess style.
"Mm, Severus, good morning." She reached a hand around his back and grabbed his backside.
Snape yelped. 'Well, she knows it's me, that's a good sign...'
They began kissing again, her hands wandering... but all the while Snape couldn't shake the thought from his head. 'Why me? Why me? Is she toying with me? Is this some kind of joke? Is-?'
She stopped abruptly and sat up in bed, her hair not quite covering her perfect breasts...
'Sweet mother of Merlin...'
"Severus."
"Hm, yes, I'm listening."
She frowned, and then laughed. "You seem preoccupied. Is anything the matter?"
'Tell her! Now's your chance!'
"Well, I..." Snape rolled over in bed to face the wall as he felt a flush rising to his cheeks. "Why on Earth would you ever want me?"
Deia rolled him back over forcefully, and swung a leg over him, straddling him. She placed both hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the bed.
"So you're questioning my judgement? My taste?"
Snape stammered desperately for a moment, his mind caught between finding an answer to her questions and feeling her... so soft, warm, God he just wanted to grab her hips and-
"Severus!" she cried, semi-frustrated.
"N-no! Of course not!" he managed.
"You're who I want." she stated simply and then smiled playfully, "Do you want me?" she asked, grinding into him.
"Well of course!" he spluttered.
"Then take me!"
"I WILL!" He flipped her over onto the mattress and obliged her.
When an offer that good came along, Severus Snape didn't have to be told twice...
O0O0O0O
Saturday morning, Draco was checking his SMF messages over breakfast. He had received a reply from Athene. He smiled. 'Hm, a little pushy... I like it...'. After breakfast he slipped back to his dorm roomto create his response: 'I'll be there, and trust me, you won't be able to miss me.'
Draco's mind was whirling. He only had one week to put together his costume. He needed robes, and he needed to commission a mask. If he'd been anyone else, it might of been impossible. Luckily for him, the Malfoy name carried a lot of weight, and the Malfoy wallet, even more.
O0O0O0O
Saturday afternoon there was an excursion into Hogsmeade. Students crowded into specialty shops searching for costumes for the dance. Hermione and Ginny poked around in one little store, elbowing through the crowds of students who'd also left their costumes until the last minute.
"So what're you going to be, Hermione? Any ideas?"
"I'm going as Athene."
"... that's kinda lame."
Hermione stuck her tongue out at Ginny. The two laughed. Hermione looked around, making sure neither Harry nor Ron were nearby, and spoke in a whisper. "It's my SMF username... someone wants to meet me..."
Ginny giggled, and covered her mouth. "Hermione! What's gotten into you lately! Aren't you going with my brother?"
Hermione looked pained. "That's the thing, I am. But I got the message after I set up the date with Ron. Besides, I just want to see the person as a back-up incase the Ron thing doesn't work out or something..."
Ginny eyed her friend suspiciously, and began pawing through a bin of costume pieces like cat ears, devil horns and bunny tails. "So how good is this match? I mean, it must be pretty high in order for you to consider seeing someone while being Ron's date... I wouldn't care, but I know stuff like that is important to you."
"It's, um, ninety-four percent."
Opening her eyes wide, Ginny dropped the cat ears she was holding back into the bin. "Are you kidding me?! Matches that good hardly EVER come along! The highest I've heard of so far is some Ravenclaw couple at like, eighty-seven percent. That's ridiculous Hermione. Go for it."
Hermione poked at a pair of devil horns that lit up when you touched them. "Do really think so?"
Ginny looked incredulously at her friend. "Yeah! I really do! Even you should let loose every now and then."
Hermione poked Ginny in the side, who squeaked. "So what are you going to as then? And do you have any idea what Harry and Ron as going as? Every time I ask they just laugh hysterically..."
Looking exasperated, Ginny shook her head. "I have no idea, but it can't be good though, I'm sure of that much... whenever they start scheming..." She rolled her eyes, "God..." She looked a little sad, "I don't know what I'm going as yet."
The girls moved on to a different part of the store, looking through racks of costumes. Hermione pulled out a long Grecian-style dress just as Ginny grabbed a short french maid dress; the girls had matching ecstatic looks up their faces. Seeing each other's extremely different costumes and matching facial expressions, they burst into laughter again.
"It's a wonder," Hermione managed to gasp, "that we even get along."
"Well..." pronounced Ginny deliberately, "there's just no accounting for taste, is there?"
And to the complete confusion of Harry and Ron, they dissolved into laughter once more.
O0O0O0O
Tucking a loose ringlet back into the golden ribbon entwined into her up-do, Hermione smiled, and picked up her mask. Uncharmed, the mask was just a gold coloured piece of cloth in the shape of a mask, but after using the spell 'figerefacias' it conformed itself to the shape of her face and clung there, much more practical than plastic muggle masks that slipped all over the place and didn't breathe at all. Around the eyes of the mask Hermione had affixed white owl feathers (the owl being a symbol of Athene's wisdom, of course) that swept away from the eye around the side of her face in the shape of wings. She stepped back from the mirror in her dorm room to view herself in full length and sighed. Perfect. The white pleated Grecian dress had been carefully altered by Ginny and herself to show a little more cleavage and was cinched at the waist with more crisscrossed golden ribbon. At her neck dangled a necklace with a small golden dagger, symbolizing Athene's prowess in battle. Ginny had done her make-up for her; dark smoky eyes that contrasted the brightness of the mask and relatively pale glossy lips that begged to be kissed. She was to meet Ron, Harry and Ginny at the dance, so she headed for the Great Hall.
O0O0O0O
She felt the dance before she saw or heard it, with two hands on one of the large double doors of the Great Hall. The heavy bass of a rock tune was beating through the door like a living thing. The music flowed over her like a wave as she pushed the door open and was simultanous momentarily blinded by the flashing lights on the dance floor. Piano chords floated over the electric mess of the guitars. As her eyes adjusted to the multicolored lights she could see hundreds of costumed students, faces all covered by various styles of masks; demons, ghosts, princesses, muggle police officers, cats, dragons, mummies- every character and creature imaginable seemed to be somewhere in the room; either sitting at one of the many round tables around the periphery of the room, that took the place of the usual long rectangular ones, or on the dance floor.
Suddenly, across the room, someone caught her eye:
He wore traditional black wizard's robes of a material that seemed to hover just a little too long behind him as he moved. His mask was black, but seemed to be made of some strangely luminous metal, and had a thin Norse-style band of silver running from the top of the middle of the mask down to the end of the nose, and was rivetted with round bronze pins. The mask covered the entire face except for an open-ended square of space running along the bottom of the nose and just beside the mouth on either side. This made the mask end in two points at the jawline, giving it an aspect reminiscent of having two great fangs, and also highlighting the smirk of the wearer. Besides his mask, the most remarkable thing about him was that his pale blonde hair had been put into spikes; but they were obviously spikes not held up by any muggle hair product, as they swayed softly on their own, a little like flames. The overall effect was quite breath-taking.
'The Norse-style mask, the fangs- this is... this is Loki...'
As if knowing her thoughts were of it, his pale eyes, fair burning in contrast to his black mask, stared straight into hers. A grin unfurled upon his lips.
'He recognizes me.'
And as quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared back into the crowd.
'I have to meet him.'
Hermione walked deeper into the room to look for him, but was soon pounced upon by Ginny in her french maid dress and black rhinestoned domino accompanied by two of the oddest-looking individuals at the dance.
'Oh my God- It's Harry and Ron.'
Harry and Ron were dressed as Father Christmas and Rudolf the reindeer, respectively. Hermione burst into laughter. Ron was wearing a simple brown domino, and Harry had no mask at all because his face as covered in a full, white snowy beard. She pulled on Harry's beard, and met resistence.
"Don't tell me..." she began, through giggles.
"It's real." muttered Ginny, obviously not impressed. Hermione snorted and began laughing all over again when she realized that they had managed to charm Ron's nose so that it actually lit up.
"This is pretty funny, guys."
Harry and Ron beamed. They had approval from Hermione; it was ok. Harry gave a whoop as he and Ron headed for the other side of the room to show off their costumes. Ron gave Hermione an apologetic look as he was dragged by his friend.
"Save me a dance, OK?"
"Sure!" called Hermione, who rolled her eyes as soon as Ron was out of sight. "So much for being my date..."
Ginny shrugged. "My brother's an idiot, we both know that." She grinned, "Besides, aren't you going to meet that guy? Now's the perfect chance..."
Hermione pulled her SMF out of her purse to find it warm; she had a message:
Meet me outside in the small garden near the quad with the fountain.
She showed Ginny, biting her lip nervously.
"Good luck, Athene."
O0O0O0O
He watched her enter the garden. She wasn't wearing a coat; in white and gold she looked like a shivering dove. He split from the shadow of the wall and approached her from behind, curling his fingers gently around her waist. She started under his hands.
"Hello there, goddess."
He'd used vox non recognoscere to disguise his voice, which was an ingenious spell that prevented people from recognizing the original aspects of the caster's voice without affecting its inflection and tone. Even if she'd heard him speak before, she'd never know him by his voice.
She turned around. Her dark eyes glittered with excitement and a touch of fear.
"I wanted to meet you, but I'm here with someone else... they asked me just before I received your message. I'm sorry."
He didn't even vaguely recognize her voice, and wondered whether she was using the same spell he was. She was turning to walk away.
'My dove is flying so soon? ...no good, no good at all.' An idea came to him.
"Wait." He grasped one of her pale wrists. "Let me give you a kiss to remember me by- just in case it doesn't work out with this person." He could see tension rising in her shoulders as she thought it through.
'A kiss is all he wants. It couldn't possibly hurt...'
She faced him, his pale eyes burning with cold light through the eyeholes in his black mask holding her frozen.
"Alright." she announced, businesslike, "One kiss, and then I have to go."
He grinned, his perfect white teeth contrasting with the rest of his darkness.
"It's a deal.
Placing one hand on her lower back he pulled her toward him until they were pressed up against each other. With his other hand he cradled her face, his thumb gently caressing her cheek. His warmth after the cold night air shocked her, making her gasp; all at once his lips were upon hers. He began slowly, sucking gently on her lower lip and running his tongue along it. He bit her lip, just a little harder than was comfortable, sending a strong current of desire from her lips to her toes. As she moved into him to deepen the kiss, he withdrew to lay a path of light kisses along her jaw, his kisses becoming less and less chaste on the way back to her lips. He traced her lips lazily with his tongue, withdrawing whenever she tried to engage him. His kiss was already making her weak in the knees; this boy knew what he was doing- but then he did something that made her shamelessly grasp the front of his robes, overcome with want. He grasped her face more tightly, the pressure of his thumb becoming painful as he kissed her roughly, finally invading her mouth with his tongue. The combination of his warmth versus the cold of the night and the previous tenderness of the kiss versus its present fury was driving her insane.
He broke the kiss.
There he stood, his cool eyes blazing from the mask, his demeanour controlled, his hair swaying gently like white flames in the half-light. He really did seem a god.
He examined the effect the kiss had wrought upon his goddess: the abrupt end of the kiss had surprised her; she was gasping for air and standing unsteadily. She wobbled slightly in his arms, releasing the front of his robes. She shook her head gently, as if trying to shake the kiss from her memory, and then backed up a step and stood straight.
"Thank-you, Loki. I won't forget you." was all she could think to say. She paused, and then turned and walked from the garden and out of sight.
As soon as she was gone, he collapsed onto the wall behind him, leaning on it for support.
"Thank you Athene... I won't be forgetting you soon either..."
O0O0O0O
Ginny found Hermione somewhat later sitting at a table by herself.
"So Hermione, what was he like?"
Hermione gazed helplessly at Ginny, her mouth opening and then closing, having found no words to accurately describe her encounter.
"... Hermione, what did you do?"
Her friend answered hoarsely: "I let him kiss me..." She sighed.
Ginny sighed in return. "Wow, you've got it bad." She smiled. "Don't worry, the dance is almost over, and we can change out of our costumes into street clothes and head down to Hogsmeade. You won't have worry about bumping into him then."
"The dance must be almost over." commented Hermione blandly, her mind still far away.
"Well, it's over at midnight when the announce the winners of the costume contest."
"Oh..."
The two sat in silence as the noise and revelry continued around them.
A light appeared at the front of the room, and Dumbledore, dressed in a muggle three-piece suit, walked onto the small stage that had been set up. The students cheered wildly, Ginny included. Hermione continued to stare about, half-hoping to see Loki, half-hoping not to. A few other teachers filed onto the stage; Professor McGonagall, dressed in black and orange robes and Professor Sevenstone, in a slinky black dress and pale skin, presumably a vampire. Dumbledore, his voice magically amplified, spoke:
"It is midnight, and am I here to announce the winners of the costume contest. Would those students dressed as the Greek goddess Athene and Norse god Loki please come up to the stage?"
Terror struck Hermione. She couldn't go onstage! But everyone around her was pulling her, pushing her; a thousand hands conspiring to move her to the front of the room. There way no way to fight the mass of laughing, screaming students and soon she was at the front of the hall being led up on to the stage by Professor McGonagall. Loki stood on stage next to her, having been led up by Professor Sevenstone. He did not look anywhere near as composed as he had earlier.
"Students," Dumbledore continued, smiling, "please remove your masks."
Hermione's eyes met Loki's, their expressions of fear matching perfectly.
"I- I'm not sure I want to remove my mask..." stuttered Loki, haltingly.
'That voice... it sounds familiar... he must have also had vox non recognoscere cast on himself earlier.'
"I don't think I want to either..." she agreed quietly.
"Now enough of this nonsense!" announced Professor McGonagall. "Accio masks!"
Both Hermione and Loki grasped for their masks and then curled like they had been struck, turning away from each other. The teachers on stage exchanged puzzled looks. The students below just laughed, assuming they didn't want to be put on the spot in front of the student body. The only student in the crowd who knew otherwise was Ginny, who looked on in trepidation.
"There!" said Professor McGonagall, satisfied. "Now that wasn't so bad wasn't it?"
Hermione, anxiety vibrating through her entire body, turned slowly to face the student on her left.
'It can't be that bad... Whoever it is, it can't be that bad...'
He faced away, his hair now hanging flat presumably because the mask had inbuilt charms that had held it up. He was hunched over and trembling slightly, whether from fear or anger she knew not. He swung about suddenly to meet her eyes, his expression immediately changing into one of utmost horror.
Loki was Draco Malfoy.
O0O0O0O
OMG!! THEY KNOW!! lol
The shit's gonna hit the fan NOW my friends :)
Stay tuned for a sexy encounter next chapter...
Just for fun, to let you know, I was listening to the band 'Arcade Fire' while writing this chapter. The song that inspired the first scene of the dance is 'Rebellion (Lies)' although that's not the song I imagine is playing :) I don't know what's playing... but I can be 'Rebellion (Lies)' if you like, lol.
The song I was listening to while writing the Athene and Loki meeting scene is 'Black Mirror' also by Arcade Fire. I think the scene is even more awesome with that song in the background... so if you want to 'enhance your reading experience' and you can get your hands on it, lol, it sets the mood quite nicely. Actually, if you want the songs I'll e-mail them to your... Just send me an e-mail and I'll mail you back!
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!!
Leave me a review and let me know what you think:3
Lurves,
Planeswalker