BREATHING – JASON DERULO
I only miss you when I'm breathing
I only need you when my heart is beating
You are the colour that I'm bleeding
I only miss you when I'm breathing
The castle was silent, and still. No ghosts or teachers made an appearance as she made her way to the seventh floor. Not even Mrs. Norris watched her from the shadows. Hermione was completely alone, treading quietly up the moving staircases and past the sleeping paintings. Her bare feet made no noise on the stone floor; the rustle of her jeans and soft breathing the only sounds to give her away.
Finally she found it. The tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. She looked at it for barely a second before turning to face the opposite wall, completely bare and unassuming. But she had lived in the castle too long, and seen too much, to ever think that the stones in the walls didn't have motives. Casting a glance at the wall, she walked to the end of the hallway, thinking hard. Pacing back and forth along the corridor, she waited impatiently for the door to appear. When it did, she could barely keep herself from sprinting to it and yanking it open. She stepped into the room in an almost frenzied state, only to find that there was someone already in the room.
He stood facing her, dressed in his customary black robes and disdainful sneer. She didn't blame him for it – a lifetime of agony had made him dark, and decades of useless students had made him cruel. In his position, she wondered if she might have turned out any differently. She closed the door quietly behind her, not taking her eyes from the sight of him.
Severus Snape was a perfect contrast of black and white, alluring and at the same time inspiring in her the desire to run. Hermione had felt it the moment she stepped into his classroom seven years ago, when she had been captivated by his silken voice only to fear his dark, cold eyes. Her younger self had been intimidated by him to say the least. But she was much older now, and she finally saw what so many students had failed to see.
"You're late," he said, raising his eyebrows in a show of disapproval. But she knew he wasn't mad, just disappointed.
"Ginny was hovering," she explained, moving over to him slowly. The room as usual held no interest for her, though it featured a large king bed and a shelf of assorted instruments she couldn't identify. "She's hard to shake once she gets a grip on you. Like a pitbull."
Snape didn't smile, only watched her as she drew ever closer to him. In his dark eyes she saw the same hesitation he always felt, even though they had done this so many times before. He never talked about it, but she had to wonder if he was still afraid of this level of intimacy, which for them went so far beyond mere touching. Other times she thought that maybe he wasn't comfortable doing this with a student, even though she had been an adult of the wizarding world for more than a year. She preferred to think it was the former, even though it was the worst of the two possibilities. She could distract him from being uncomfortable, but it was incredibly difficult to get him to trust her.
"I'm here now," she said softly, stopping only a foot from where he stood. "And I don't have to leave for hours."
He only hesitated for a moment, but then raised a hand to touch her cheek with gentle fingers.
"You're here," he whispered.
"And we have hours," she reminded him, smiling softly.
His dark eyes lost some of their heaviness, and he gave her a smile of his own. "It won't be enough."
Before she could say another word, he lowered his head down to let his lips hover over hers. The contact was brief and light as a feather, but enough to make her shudder deliciously. His breath warmly mingled with her own as she waited for him to make the final move. Over time, she had learned not to rush him during the initial moments of intimacy, in case he got cold feet in the face of her unbridled passion. But sometimes he just didn't move fast enough, kiss her hard enough, or touch her long enough, and she had to force him to act. Depending on his mood, he either complied or pulled away, and the night would end with the two of them exhausted and naked on the floor, or Snape stalking back to his rooms as Hermione stared after him, dumbfounded. Tonight wasn't a night she was prepared to risk the latter, and so she waited as patiently as she could, feeling her body tingle with anticipation.
Finally, and with excruciating slowness, he brushed his lips against hers.
Hermione threw herself wholeheartedly into the kiss, winding her arms around his neck and pressing herself against his body. Snape smiled against her mouth, wrapping his arms around her waist so that she couldn't escape him. Not that she would ever have tried. She would go to the ends of the earth and back for him, even to the brink of death if it meant he could escape the nightmares that were his own memories. There was nothing she wouldn't do for him, this man that she loved.
Nibbling delicately at her lower lip, Snape moved a hand to rest on her waist, tugging at her shirt with his longer fingers. She moaned into his mouth, and moved to help him undress her as quickly as possible. But he grabbed her wrist in his hand, and placed it back around his neck before she even had a chance to touch her shirt. In her head, she could almost hear him chuckling and reprimanding her for her impatience. He didn't make a sound, however, as he continued to thoroughly take her mouth with his. After what felt like hours of slow caresses, his kiss finally took on the hard edge she'd been waiting for, when his carefully restricted desires took control of him, and he crossed the point of no return.
Now, she knew, he would have absolutely no reservations with her.
With a small groan, he sucked and nipped at her lips, tongue tracing the shape of her mouth as a way of asking for entrance. She let him in with a sigh, and met his tongue with her own, tasting him and playing with him until he groaned again. Against her lower belly, she could feel the hardness of his erection. Knowing how much he wanted her made her panties wetter, since they had been nearly soaking since she first came in the room.
The hand at her waist finally found her flesh, and stroked lazily up her side until it rested just beneath the band of her bra. Hermione shivered and pulled away from his kiss, breathing hard. She leaned her head against his chest while his hands roamed the soft skin of her belly and back, drawing soft moans of pleasure from her. Every time he ventured near her breasts she stiffened, hoping that he would dip his fingers into her bra as he sometimes did. But tonight he seemed determined to take things slowly, and so he only lingered on her torso, driving her at a snail's pace to insanity.
"Severus," she whispered, her voice coming dangerously close to begging.
"I know," he murmured into her ear. "Just let me do this, Hermione."
Her mind was cloudy with the need to have him touch her, but she thought she understood what he was saying. He needed to take his time with her, to feel and memorise every inch of her skin, every swell and every dip of her body. Thinking that maybe he had the right idea, she pulled back to look at him.
"Let me, as well."
He regarded her for a moment, apparently deciding whether or not to allow her access to his body. After a moment, he stepped back and out of her reach. Keeping his eyes on hers, he reached up to his chin and slowly began unbuttoning the clasps of his robe.
Hermione watched him undress with wide eyes, her breath coming in soft pants. God, her heart was nearly ready to burst just looking at him. She felt something akin to ecstasy and misery whenever he was around, as though she were homesick in her own home. She missed him horribly, even though he was right in front of her, perfect in his darkness. When he dropped his robe to the floor, he nodded slightly at her, raising his eyebrows in request.
She frowned at him. That wasn't fair. He was still wearing a black shirt and dress pants. There wasn't nearly enough skin for her liking. But she did as she was asked, and pulled the hem of her shirt over her head, leaving her topless except for the plain tee-shirt bra she was wearing. Snape had no preferences either way when it came to her lingerie. It always just ended up on the floor, anyway.
Snape looked over her bare skin with an appreciative eye that made her warm all over. She crossed the space between them and laid her hands on his chest, feeling the subtle muscle beneath the dark fabric. No one would believe her, but she knew his body was something to be admired. Not many men his age could still boast the strength and beauty he could. Years of playing the double agent had kept him fit and healthy, even if his mind had suffered some, his body was well-cared for. Only a mirage of scars across his back hinted at physical abuse, but she had never asked how he got them. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they didn't discuss the war, or the years leading up to it. He didn't want to know what she had suffered in the Malfoy Manor any more than she wanted to know who was responsible for his scars, which were quite obviously made by a whip. Thinking of him in any more pain than he lived with now would be enough to send her crying hysterically to St Mungo's. No, it wasn't something either of them wanted, and so they kept quiet on their experiences.
While he resumed his exploration of her body, she began to undo the buttons of his shirt, revealing inch by inch the pale skin of his chest. As each button popped open, she planted a kiss on the exposed flesh, drawing a string of gasps and hisses from him. She knew what her touch did to him, and she loved that she could drive him crazy just with her mouth. It was much the same as the way he made her feel, though he was better able to control himself.
When the last button gave way, she pushed the shirt from his shoulders roughly, becoming impatient with the slow pace. Snape chuckled and let her undress him, knowing she had to feel all of him as soon as possible. He kissed her with sure, determined strokes as she reached for the buckle of his belt. But he didn't let her finish her task. Not until he'd finished his.
The clasp of her bra came undone under his expert fingers, now well accustomed to removing Hermione's various layers. When the garment fell to the floor to join her shirt, it was with almost painful deliberateness that he took his time to look at her breasts. Though he knew she still had reservations about her body, he thought her nothing short of exquisite, and liked to take the opportunity to tell her. But in this instance, he thought it more prudent to show her. Given how hard he was, he didn't know that he could take much longer of this elongated foreplay, which he himself had asked for. And he did want to go slow, and engrave in his mind the feel of her skin beneath his work-roughened fingers, and commit to memory the sound of her quiet gasps when he touched her in her most sensitive spots. But it was becoming harder to control himself, especially now that she was bared before him like this.
Hermione sucked in a breath when he put his hands on her, his palms cupping her breasts like they were a perfect fit. She moaned when his thumbs rubbed back and forth over the soft skin at the sides of her breasts. And she all but screamed when he finally lowered his head, and took a hardened nipple between his lips.
She wrapped her arms around him, scratching his back with her chewed-down nails as she gasped and moaned. His tongue made small circles around the tip of her breast. His lips sucked and pulled at her nipple, and it was all too much. God, but he knew exactly what she liked. Hermione whimpered his name again, this time, it sounded like a prayer.
"My Hermione," he whispered against her breast, relinquishing the wet nipple to his fingers while his mouth explored the next. "Always so impatient."
"It's your fault," she gasped.
"Don't blame others for your shortcomings."
She swatted her hand against his back, earning a chuckle from him. The more he sucked and nipped at her skin, the more her bones turned to jelly and her body trembled. She had to shift her hips several times to stop the burning feeling that was assaulting her cunt. If he kept this up much longer, this ridiculous fucking teasing…
"Severus, let me touch you." It might have sounded much more demanding had her voice not broken. But that was his fault again, when one of his hands travelled down the crotch of her jeans.
"By all means, my love," he said, raising his head to look at her. "Touch me."
She didn't waste another second. Batting his hands away from her body, she reached out to let her fingers slide softly down the centre of his chest, coming to a stop at his belly button. Snape shuddered, and with that she felt the power shift. He wouldn't stop her now. And hopefully, he wouldn't try to keep up the stupidly slow pace he had set.
Leaning against him, Hermione let her hands wander across his abdomen and back, occasionally lingering whenever he groaned, and taking particular care to avoid his sensitive pink nipples. She knew he wanted her to taste him there, but she was content to let him suffer a while so she could have her fill of feeling him. Only when it became obvious that she was deliberately avoiding the area did he say anything.
"Hermione," he growled. "Don't fucking tease me."
"Severus," she sighed, looking up at him with an impish grin. "Always so impatient."
Something snapped in him then, and all of his control flew out the window. He buried a hand in her wild curls and roughly pulled her toward him, claiming her mouth in a hard kiss. She pressed herself into him, knowing he'd enjoy the feel of her breasts on his skin. Her intuition was rewarded with a moan against her lips. His tongue flew into her mouth with demanding rage, and she had to be surprised by his tenacity. Wanting to prove she could play just as dirty, she pinched one of his small nipples between her thumb and forefinger. Hard.
Snape threw his head back and groaned loudly, the sound ripping from his throat like a wounded animal. If possible, it made her even wetter. He bent his head back to hers, trying to catch his breath long enough to kiss her, but she grinned wickedly and lowered a hand to his erection. Before he could stop her, she ran her fingers along his hard length and squeezed him gently.
"Fuck," he moaned into her shoulder.
Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but found that the words were lost in her throat when he dipped his fingers into the waistband of her jeans. Through the soaked fabric of her knickers, he stroked across her clit possessively.
A cry of surprise and need burst out of her, and she suddenly found that she needed to grab his shoulders for support.
"Two can play that game," he murmured.
She gasped his name again, barely able to catch her breath. Uncontrollable shivers pleasure ran along her body, and heat pooled in the bottom of her stomach. His fingers didn't stop their assault on her clit, and it wasn't long until Hermione couldn't stand on her own.
He caught her before she collapsed, sweeping and arm under her knees and the other across her back. Looking down at the flushed cheeks and bright eyes of his love, he lowered her gently to the bed, eyeing her breasts as he did. Even if he lived a thousand years, he doubted he would ever tire of looking at her. Or touching her. Or tasting her…
Snape reached for the top of her jeans and hooked his fingers under the band. Hermione watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, knowing what he was about to. She planted her feet on the edge of the bed and lifted her hips so he could drag her jeans down. He pulled each leg off individually, and then stopped to regard her lying before him on the bed, now wearing only her knickers, which were so wet they were basically see-through. The smell of her arousal was thick in the air, and he groaned through clenched teeth.
Soon enough her underwear landed on the floor beside her jeans, and she was completely bare on the bed. Panting heavily, he looked at her, simply looked, and thanked whatever god there was that she was his. That she had given herself over to him, and continued to do. It was a sheer miracle that she had somehow seen past his cruel exterior to find the man beneath. Most of the time, he was terrified she would run at the slightest hint of just how dark his soul really was. But she kept surprising him by only asking for more. In return she gave him all of herself, from her obsessive pursuit for knowledge to her perfectly perky nipples and sweet-smelling cunt. She was all his, to do with as he wanted.
From her position beneath him on the bed, Hermione lifted her arms in silent invitation and spread her legs wide. Her folds were slick with her arousal, and made his erection twitch. God, he needed her. But the sight of her wet cunt gave him other ideas, needs that came before satisfying himself.
She watched as his gaze flickered from her face to her cunt, and it dawned on her that he was going to deprive her of the feeling of having him inside her. When he dropped to the floor, one knee at a time, she growled at him.
"Don't you dare, Severus Snape. Don't you dare-"
But he only grinned at her, and the last of her words were drowned out in the scream that followed. Stars swam behind her eyes and her back arched off the mattress, fists clenching the blanket under her. She tried desperately to catch her breath, but found that she couldn't do anything except be lost in the waves of pleasure that rolled through her.
Snape lapped at her wetness, drinking in the taste of her like a starved man, barely giving a second thought to whether or not she was enjoying it, though he knew she must be. All that mattered was that he was tasting her very essence, and that nothing could be more beautiful than the feeling of her on his tongue. He nipped playfully at her clit, drawing a short cry from her before running his tongue up the length of her exposed flesh.
Hermione was lost in a daze, unable to control the sounds that ripped out of her chest, or stop the writhing of her limbs as Snape devoured her. She was conscious that she was making a lot of noise, and to anyone listening it must have sounded as though she were being tortured. In a sense, it was torture. A never-ending torrent of pleasure so Goddamned sweet that it took her breath away and left her gasping. And she couldn't touch him in return, which was the cruellest thing he ever could do. Just as she thought she would go mad with need, she felt him push two fingers into her cunt.
She screamed again, bucking her hips wildly off the bed. Snape reached up with one hand to hold her hips down, while his tongue continued to tease and stroke her clit, and his fingers wiggled and dipped expertly into her. It was too much. It was far, far too much, and she couldn't stand it.
"Severus," she begged, her voice breaking out in a sob. In the back of her mind, she realised tears were slowly leaking from her eyes. She was so desperate with need that the asshole had made her cry. "Please… don't…"
"Don't what, my love?" He asked, keeping his lips against her most sensitive spot. His fingers worked in and out of her with rhythmic determination.
"Don't… Jesus… don't…" Another cry erupted from her, and she felt herself getting dangerously close to coming. The tension in her belly had grown to preposterous proportions.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. "Please, Severus … don't let me come … without you."
"I'm right here, love," he said. "Just let it go."
She found it hard to ignore him, because just as she was about to protest, he pushed a third finger inside her. Hermione closed her eyes and arched off the bed, finally surrendering to the flood of pleasure.
Snape felt her contract around his fingers, and began to frantically lap at her clit, helping her come as hard as possible. When she screamed for the last time, it was with an air of longing and desperation, and he knew that she still wanted him. Hermione only ever wanted him inside her, but this first part had been for him. He loved to watch her writhe and beg, hear her scream and whimper. Knowing that someone like him could make someone like her feel so gloriously, wonderfully good was a point of pride.
He caught the warm flow of juices seeping from her cunt on his tongue, and drank it all as best he could, coating the inside of his mouth with the taste of Hermione. Only when she fell limp against the bed, panting and shaking, did he stop. And then he raised himself off the ground and finished undoing his trousers. He kept his eyes trained on her face throughout, but she didn't look back at him until she heard the ominous slide of his belt coming off.
Her eyes were wide, tear streaks gleaming down her temples. "No, Severus."
The pants hit the floor along with his underwear, and she was treated to the sight of his gloriously erect cock. Any other time she would have begged for it, but now… she was spent.
"Please, no… I can't…"
"You can," he assured her softly, bending down to take a nipple in his mouth. She rewarded him with a broken cry that only served to make him harder. "Just relax, love."
He rubbed the head of his cock against her clit for a moment, causing her to tremble madly, before pushing himself into her entirely. Hermione clenched her eyes shut and bit down on her lip, but the sound of his deep moan brought her attention back to his face.
Snape's dark hair had fallen forward over his shoulders, slightly obscuring her view of him, but she could see how his jaw tightened, and his arms shook as he held himself over her. Her heart beat wildly in her chest at the sight, and a feeling of love so strong that it hurt washed over her. This was his time for pleasure, and she had to do what she could to help.
Tentatively, though it was incredibly hard to do, she tightened herself around him. He threw back his head and moaned loudly, looking down at her with an expression of almost fearful need. She gave him a small smile.
"Come on. Move, baby."
"Jesus," he croaked.
But he began to move anyway, and before long the two of them were locked in a frantic rhythm of need. Hermione whimpered quietly as he filled her, touching all the right spots as he thrust in and out. Each time she tightened on him, he would let out a cry of ecstasy, and pump himself harder and faster into her. Like a man possessed, he forced himself deeper and deeper into her until he couldn't take it anymore.
Finally, with a throaty groan, his body tensed and he found release inside her. Hermione came again, clenching around him and crying out his name. Snape fell on top of her, with no regard as to whether or not he was crushing her, but she didn't complain. Neither of them moved until he became too soft to stay inside her, and their breathing had calmed to soft panting.
Snape rolled onto his side, looking down at his beautiful woman with a soft expression she rarely sure except when they made love. Even though her limbs were still shaking and she thought she'd never be able to move again, Hermione tried her best to snuggle against him, wishing for the warm contact of his skin.
"I love you, Hermione."
She closed her eyes, smiling. "I adore you, Severus Snape. And I miss you more than I can say."
They lay like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other and thinking of nothing but their own happiness.
But by the time Hermione opened her eyes, she saw only the top of her four-poster bed, and felt nothing but the sock she'd stuffed into her mouth to quiet her screams. She took her hand away from her cunt, where the last of her juices were still slowly seeping out. Her fingers were coated with her own cum, her breasts sore and red from where she had viciously tugged and pinched them, desperate to feel something akin to pleasure as she remembered her potions master as he might have been, if only he had lived.
Hermione had returned to Hogwarts for her seventh year, but Severus Snape had not.
And nothing in the world could fill the hole he left behind.
This ain't no ordinary feeling
You are the only thing that I believe in
I know you're coming back to me, and
I will be waiting here for you till the end
A/N: This song is a great one for me. It's emotional and beautiful, yet also funky. If possible, try to read this chapter listening to a piano cover of the song. There's only one on YouTube at the moment, but the song is still relatively new, and so more are bound to pop up. Also, the one that's on YouTube right now, called "Breathing Jason Derulo Piano and Vocal Cover", by DBUDDEN94 is a beautiful piano piece, but I don't particularly agree with the vocals and general echo-ey-ness. When someone finds a suitable piano cover, please tell me so I can update this author's note and tell everyone to find it! The chapter itself is self-explanatory. Hermione is still reeling from Snape's death, in an AU where she was in love with him, but they never got a chance to explore what could have been. As the song says, she only misses him when she's breathing. Poor Hermione.