Disclaimer: Thank you to JKR for creating these people and their world. I have only added an OC and some AU parts.
A/N: By way of a warning, this chapter carries an M rating.
The long and difficult fall finally gave way to winter and this year there was again a Yule Ball at the school. The Snapes spent the early part of Christmas Day at Margo's house, watching their daughter get thoroughly spoiled. After an early dinner, they left Hope with Margo and went back to Hogwarts to prepare for the Ball. Emily chose to wear the same dress robes she had worn to the previous Yule Ball, five years earlier. The maroon robes fit beautifully and made her look more regal than she felt.
Severus came up behind her and presented her with a delicate pearl and diamond pendant on a silver chain. The pendant fell to where her cleavage started, just visible above the square neckline of the robe. She turned and looked at her husband and thought how distinguished he looked in the dress robes he had worn for their wedding. He was checking the time on the silver watch she had given him that day and smilingly told her it was time to go up to the party. Emily looked in the mirror to give her hair a final pat as her husband bent down to kiss her neck.
"I should have danced with you instead of Lily that night," Severus said later, as he spun Emily around the floor and enjoyed the lights in her eyes.
"I should have ditched Sirius and come to find you," she responded breathlessly. The song ended and they stood close together. "I'm not sure, though, if I had danced with you five years ago... I don't think I would have been a virgin the night we conceived Hope."
"No?" He looked into her eyes.
She smiled up at him and whispered, "I cannot be in your arms without wanting you to make love to me."
Her voice traveled through his body to where it warmed him and created a pleasing desire. "Are you saying we should leave the party?"
"I think I can last the four hours, but I would be hard pressed to wait two and a half years beyond it."
They were both asked to dance by other partners but came back to each other at every opportunity. The Great Hall seemed to shine with greater brightness this year and all of the guests seemed determined to enjoy themselves more than ever. A great danger had passed, a time of mourning had come and gone, and it was time to remember and enjoy good things.
As the last song was playing, Severus whisked Emily out to the rose garden that had been prepared for the evening. He found a quiet spot to sit down and spoke almost inaudibly. "What would it have been like, if I had stayed out here with you instead of letting Black find you?"
Her eyes were liquid pools reflecting the moonlight. "I don't know, Severus. I used to imagine your fingers caressing my body the way your voice caresses my soul, and your lips, Severus. Somehow I always knew they would set me on fire."
He proceeded to start a new fire with her, coming up for air when a new thought struck him. "We would have gotten pregnant that much sooner. It would have ruined your schooling and your career."
"It didn't happen, anyway," she said, a bit ruefully.
"The party is about over, would you like to walk through the castle?"
"Is this your way of getting company for your rounds?"
"Am I being obvious?"
Emily batted her eyelashes. "I would be honored to have you escort me through the castle, sir."
He started in the dungeon hallway where they had discussed Sirius's horrible prank. "What if I had kissed you here?" Severus asked. "I thought of it, you know."
"I would have lost my virginity here, then," Emily replied simply. "At least we were both of age by then." Her husband kissed her ardently, pressing her body into his own.
"I could never have made love to you here," he said. "It's not good enough for you. It's just as well we didn't."
They wandered up through the castle. Severus stopped every so often, sending some students on their way, docking points from others and setting detentions for a few. Seeing the way the Professor held the hand of his wife, some of the cheekier seventh years observed that they were just doing what he was doing. It didn't keep them from getting detentions and points docked along with the caustic observation that the Professor and his wife were both fully qualified, consenting adults who were legally married. If the seventh years wanted to return in a few years to make out in the hallways, they were welcome to do so.
As they passed the Ravenclaw door, Severus pulled Emily into the classroom where she used to meet Sirius and where she had boldly made her offer to Severus. "What if I had taken you up on your offer then and there that night?" Severus asked, putting his hand where it had been then, his thumb making lazy circles on the surface of her robe.
Emily took his hand and led him out of that classroom and to a near by tapestry. She opened a door behind the tapestry and pulled Severus into a smaller classroom that must have been used for advanced seminars in its day. It had a grouping of couches and easy chairs around a fireplace on one side and piles of cushions on the other side. One entire wall was a window overlooking the mountains.
Severus looked around the room as Emily said, "Not in there. I could never be with you where Sirius used to kiss me. I would have brought you in here. This would have been our space together."
"There's no bed," Severus observed, as he took out his wand and transformed the cushions into a four poster bed with rich hangings and a soft eiderdown. Taking Emily's hands, he kissed her, searching out her mouth. She put her arms around his neck and he put both hands over the front of her robe, searching out the curves to be found there.
Suddenly Emily couldn't wait. A soft moan escaped from her as she moved one of her hands to unfasten Severus's robes. He picked her up and set her on the bed gently. He groaned to find her working the fastenings of his trousers. "Emily..." he whispered.
"Now," she replied, finding what she was looking for and setting to work with nimble fingers.
Emily's petticoat was in danger of becoming horribly crumpled as Severus searched under her skirts for a specific bit of fabric. He finally found it and removed it. After ridding her of this entanglement, which bore evidence of her eagerness for him, he obeyed her whispered requests.
Emily dug her bare feet into the soft mattress of the bed and moved against her husband with great abandon. He tried to be more gentle, but she persisted and suddenly he felt the same desperate intensity and moved as fiercely as she did. Without warning she was beyond herself, waiting for the pieces to replace themselves and he was clutching her to him, whispering incoherent endearments into her ear. Then all was quiet. The petticoat was crumpled beyond redemption.
Severus rolled over onto his back and waited for speech to be possible again. "Surely some of your bones are broken."
Emily shook her head. "You say that every time we make love so passionately."
"I fear it every time we make love so passionately. Whatever came over you?"
"I had to have you, all of you, right then. You don't realize how many times I dreamed of doing this very thing with you in this very room."
"Did you think to use a silencing charm or will Argus Filch stop by to investigate your screams?"
"I didn't scream," she said, and then sat up in a flurry of taffeta and lace. "Did I?"
"Just twice." Severus took her hand and kissed the palm of it, sliding his tongue between his lips for a quick lick. Emily closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"It just comes all over me, Severus, that I need to have you desperately. You are so intense, sometimes. If we never made love that way, I would feel like I was missing a part of you."
Severus started to unfasten the back of her robe, sliding his hands under the fabric and over her bare shoulders to slide it off and then kissing the skin he exposed. He undressed first her and then himself and caressed her gently, reigniting their desires. He made love to her tenderly and thoroughly this time, and Emily felt as if he was guiding her into the starlight outside the window, where she felt the most exquisite pleasure she had ever known.
Emily fell asleep in her husband's arms, but Severus lay awake, staring at the stars through the window. Much as he enjoyed their more forceful moments, they worried him. Once or twice he had come home aroused after Death Eaters gatherings. Emily had been an enthusiastic, even eager, participant in his lovemaking on those nights, but he couldn't ever reconcile it. Did it indicate a desire for the dark arts? Was she right about it being a part of him? Would he miss such interludes if they never had them?
He recalled the first time Emily had screamed with pleasure and it was long before his experiences with the Death Eaters. It had been during that first day in her apartment. She had caressed him until all he could do was push her onto her back and take her, causing her to scream with the intensity of her passion. He had laughed with delight that anyone could enjoy him so much. When they were finished, he had been worried until she reassured him that he hadn't hurt her.
Perhaps it was just a part of marriage. Perhaps even a woman as gentle and sweet as the one he married enjoyed being rather unladylike from time to time. He knew from the look in her eyes that Emily had enjoyed the moments of sheer bliss that had followed the intense passion, too. Severus cuddled his wife closer and settled himself to sleep, pondering the many moods and facets that made up his Emily and the way that they suited the moods within himself.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Thank you very much to reviewers allycat1186, debjunk, excessivelyperky, and williammosleysgirl. A special thanks to beta reader Mark Darcy.