A/N: Wow! Another 4000+ word chapter - nearly 10,000 words this weekend! The Muse is singing with the music of your reviews. Please be sure to let me know what you think of this turn of events ...
For the Potions Master's Amusement
Chapter 21: Reality Check
'Hermione.'
She stirred, hearing his voice, as she always did in her dreams.
'Hermione, wake up. You must return to your room.'
She opened her eyes, immediately squinting against the bright candlelight; it appeared that every candle in the room was lit.
'What time is it?' she said, struggling to sit up in the empty bed.
'It's half-past eleven,' Professor Snape replied.
Hermione squinted up at him. He stood beside the bed, fully clad in his classroom attire.
'Is it night-time?' she asked, feeling wholly disoriented.
'Yes,' he answered tersely.
She studied his face, noting that though he was still pale, the ashen quality was gone from his skin. Otherwise, he seemed totally as he had been before his illness.
'Make haste,' he snapped, thrusting her pile of clothes at her. 'The Headmaster is on his way down to debrief me.'
Interrupted mid-yawn by this terrifying intelligence, Hermione all but fell out of bed to scramble into her clothing. 'But why is he coming down here?' she cried as she wriggled into her skirt.
'He is aware of my presence in the castle; he knows I was interrogated and … tortured by the Dark Lord. He is insistent.'
Hermione stuffed her tights into her bag and pulled on her cloak over her haphazardly buttoned blouse. 'How could he have possibly known that?' she asked, cramming her feet into her shoes.
'I am not his only informant from within the Dark Lord's circle,' he said colourlessly, handing her both her book bag and the house-elves' bag with their dirty dishes.
Hermione looked up into his strained face, wildly seeking some tiny thread of the intimacy they had shared for the last twenty-four hours. 'When will I see you again?' she asked, concerned. 'Will you need me …'
He took her arm and propelled her out of his bedroom and through his sitting room to the door to his study. 'Go out this way; the Headmaster will come through the Floo.'
Hermione allowed him to push her past the portrait of Salazar Slytherin, then dug in her heels. 'Wait!' she cried, reaching for him with one hand. 'When will I see—'
'In class,' he snapped and closed the portrait in her face.
Hermione stood in the professor's study, her hair sticking out in every direction, wearing wrinkled, dishevelled clothing beneath her cloak, and felt as if she had been shoved out of a warm cocoon into the icy world beyond.
'Well, fuck all,' she muttered.
'Language, Mudblood,' the portrait admonished.
Hermione slung her book bag over her shoulder and glared at the Slytherin Founder. 'You were not an ignorant wizard,' she said severely. 'How can you be so foolish as to judge a witch or wizard based on something as random as blood status?'
The silver-bearded old man sputtered with rage, but Hermione did not remain behind to hear his rejoinder. She turned on her heel and flounced away from him, back out into the cold dungeon corridor, leaving behind the idyllic time with her professor and entering back into real life.
Hermione entered her room and dropped the bags on the floor, apparently disturbing the rest of Crookshanks, who rose from her bed with a complaining mew and sprang onto the floor to twine about her ankles.
'Hullo, old thing,' she said, bending to stroke his fur before turning to fill his food dish.
She shrugged out of her cloak and looked at her reflection, rather taken aback by the dreadfulness of her appearance. She hadn't even managed to button her blouse up properly! She unfastened the buttons and let the shirt fall to the floor, noting how her nipples crinkled immediately in the cold air of her room. She must have left the delicate pink bra behind in her professor's bed. She bit her lip, remembering how he had ordered her to pinch her nipples until they hurt, then had her lick them—and all the while, he stroked himself, aroused by watching her. Tentatively, she cupped her breasts, lightly touching her nipples. Yes, they were a bit sore from her rough handling—but what would she not do if he asked her?
She unfastened her skirt and let it fall to the floor, standing now in nothing save her satiny pink knickers, now crotchless. Where the missing piece of fabric had been, she could see her pubic hair, and she could smell the odour of the dried secretions from masturbating for her Potions master's amusement.
She stepped out of the ravaged underpants and pulled a warm nightdress from her wardrobe. Crawling beneath the covers of her bed, she took up her green leather journal and dutifully recorded the meal she had shared with Professor Snape, as well as the naps they had taken. Putting aside her quill, she ran her fingertips over the ragged edges of the torn pages. There would be a day of reckoning for that moment of impetuous anger. Replacing the journal in its drawer, she extinguished her candles and lay back on her pillow, staring up at the bed canopy. How did she feel about the prospect of being punished for it? Was it fair for him to punish her for having feelings when she thought about him with another witch?
She rolled onto her side, feeling the fabric brushing over her nipples, reminding her of her professor—of how he had effortlessly enslaved her by means of her need of what he had to offer. He hadn't meant to do it—he had only meant to provide training, to prepare her for service to a dominant wizard whom she could call her own, some day. But this dominant wizard was the only one she wanted, and she craved every bit of attention she could glean from him, up to and including his displeasure and punishment. How was she to learn if not through instruction? And besides, she relished the spankings she received from him. Yes, she was fully willing to accept whatever he deemed to be appropriated discipline for her moment of uncontrolled temper. She would even confess why she had done it, if he required it of her.
For even though she had been away from him for less than an hour, already she longed to see him again.
She did see him again, at breakfast the next morning. He appeared wan but otherwise well, and under her close watch, he consumed a good sized meal. Although she watched him surreptitiously for the entire time she sat at in the Great Hall, he never once looked her way. Rising to go to her first class, she tossed her hair, resolving not to dwell on his actions.
Just because he didn't look at her didn't mean he wasn't thinking of her, did it?
At lunch, she managed to spend more time reading a book than watching him, which she counted as a victory. By the time Potions class rolled around in the afternoon, only the wild pounding of her heart signified that entering Professor Snape's dungeon was different from any other class of any other day.
He was at his desk marking scrolls when they entered, and when class began, he scarcely looked up.
'Carefully read the instructions and brew the potion whose formula is on the chalkboard,' he said sourly, a wave of his wand causing the chalkboard to fill with his handwriting. 'You have one hour. Begin.'
Hermione set out her ingredients and chopped and ground efficiently, casting frequent glances to the desk near the front, but her professor did not look up from his marking. Ten minutes before the end of class, he rose from his desk and began to sweep amongst the students, glancing into cauldrons, but he did not come near their table.
'Thank Merlin for small favours,' Ron said at the end of the lesson, gouging lumps of potion from the bottom of his cauldron and cramming them into a phial to turn in. 'I wouldn't want to hear what the git has to say about this mess.'
Harry scrawled his name on his phial, his potion as least in liquid form, if not the colour of raspberries, as it was supposed to be—as Hermione's was. 'Don't worry, Ron, we'll still have time for him to insult us when we drop these off.'
Hermione thrust out her hand, her heart beating rather loudly in her ears. 'Give them here—I'll turn them in with mine,' she said, managing an offhand tone.
'Thanks, Hermione,' Harry said, slapping his phial into her palm. 'I owe you one.'
'Me, too,' Ron agreed, adding his phial to Harry's. 'We'll see you in the common room.'
Hermione nodded absently to them, dawdling over the disposition of her potions kit until all the other students were gone.
'You may leave your offering on the desk, Miss Granger,' her professor's icy voice informed her.
Hermione jerked her head up, seeing him on his way out the door. 'Wait!' she called, hurrying down the aisle, but by the time she reached the doorway, the corridor was empty; he was gone. She stomped to his desk and added her and the boys' class assignments to the rows of phial holders. Why hadn't he stayed behind? Didn't he want to speak to her?
Obviously not, the ever-helpful voice in her mind taunted.
Disconsolate, she shouldered her book bag and walked down the corridor towards his office. Should she knock? Perhaps he was ill and needed her assistance …
She hesitated in the corridor for a moment, then turned and trudged up to Gryffindor Tower. If there was one thing she had learned about her professor, it was that he would deal with her if and when he was prepared to do so, and not one moment before.
By Saturday evening, Hermione was sick with anxiety. Her professor had managed to go through three full class days without once glancing her way, much less speaking to her. Morning, noon, and night Hermione clawed her journal open with shaking hands, hoping desperately to find his spiky writing therein, but it did not appear. Why? Why was he doing this? How could he, after the time they had spent together in his rooms—in his bed—kissing and sleeping and making love? He had told her personal things about himself, treated her as if she were his girlfriend—how could he just stop, with no word of explanation?
Maybe he's doing it because of those things, the voice in her mind whispered.
It was certainly a possibility to consider.
After dinner on Saturday night, she bathed carefully, washing her hair and shaving her legs silky smooth. She dried herself and spent a long time drying her hair before twisting it into a utilitarian knot on top of her head. She slathered on delicately scented lotion and pulled on a very soft jumper, matching it with a plain black skirt. She pushed her naked feet into shoes and covered herself with a cloak before making her way to the dungeons, keeping to the least used corridors and stairwells, not wanting to explain to anyone what she was doing in the dungeons on a Saturday night.
As she reached for his office door, it swung forward, and her heart did a little flip-flop. He had expected her—she was welcome. It was so easy, when he went for days ignoring her, to begin to believe that it had all been her imagination …
She hid her cloak beneath the office desk and turned to the study door. Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open and entered the professor's study, taking the hem of her skirt and tucking it in her waistband as she waited by the door with her cunt exposed.
He was seated at the table, his head bent over a pile of parchment, his quill scratching steadily. He wore a loden green jumper, and his curtain of hair obscured his face from her. She was content to watch him from the corner of her eye, delighted to be with him in this room, where she usually commanded his undivided attention.
Time ticked by on the clock on the mantel; Hermione heard it chime the quarter-hour, then the half-hour, and it was not until the clock had chimed again that her professor laid his quill aside and turned in his chair to face her.
'You waited very well,' he said, the intimacy of his tone to her ears like water to a parched man. 'I am pleased, Hermione.' He stood from his chair and crossed to sit on the cobalt blue sofa, placing a cushion upon the floor near his feet. 'Come,' he invited her, indicating the cushion. 'Sit.'
She went forward eagerly, longing to put her arms around him and kiss the sharp angle of his jaw, to smell the spice of his aftershave. She took the place he indicated and sat down, averting her eyes. 'Thank you, sir,' she said softly.
They sat together in companionable silence, her shoulder near his knee, until the clock chimed the hour. She had been with him for nearly an hour, and he had yet to speak to her about anything personal or to touch her. Hermione took a deep, steadying breath. As a submissive, it was not her place to demand things of him. If he wished simply for her quiet companionship, it was her place to provide that for him. And it wasn't as if he were ignoring her; she could feel his eyes upon her.
'Are you prepared to discuss the pages you ripped from the journal I gave you?' he asked, his tone grave.
'Yes, sir,' she responded, feeling her heart skip a beat. Where had her composure gone? After skipping, her pulse rate doubled, her palms becoming slick with sweat.
'Perhaps you could enlighten me, Hermione,' he said conversationally. 'I gave you explicit instructions which you followed to the letter, just as a good submissive ought—and then you committed a series of erroneous actions: you destroyed the writing assignment you had been given, you defaced the journal I provided for you, and you failed to enter your required daily information for Monday and a large part of Tuesday.'
Knowing it was a mistake even as she did it, Hermione whirled around to face him. 'But I was with you!' she cried indignantly. 'You called me to come to you, and I took care of you when you were too ill to take care of yourself!'
The benign expression he had worn when he had invited her to sit at his feet was gone, replaced by narrowed eyes, flared nostrils, and thin lips pressed into an angry white line. 'I fail to see what any of this has to do with the subject under discussion,' he stated icily.
'But I wasn't thinking about the journal, was I?' she pointed out heatedly. 'I was thinking about looking after you.'
He stared at her stonily. 'Do you regret your actions?' he demanded.
She gasped. 'Of course not!'
'Is it your contention that extraneous duties take precedence over the assignments you agreed to complete as part of your training?'
'I—' Hermione began, but the expression on his face, stern and unyielding, coupled with the implacable tone of his voice finally penetrated her righteous indignation, and she scrambled onto her knees before him, careful not to touch him. 'No, sir,' she said, suddenly penitent. 'I'm sorry.'
Ticking seconds became minutes as she waited before him, on her knees with her eyes averted, apprehension singing in her body. She hadn't meant to disobey him—she had been filled with nothing but concern for him!—and hadn't meant to speak disrespectfully, either, but in her defensive reaction, she hadn't been thinking about him as her Dominant …
When the clock chimed the half-hour, he spoke in quiet, measured tones. 'Tell me the things for which you will be punished,' he said.
Hermione bit her lip and raised her face to his. He watched her with merciless eyes, his entire attention focussed on her and her alone. 'I tore the pages from the journal you gave to me,' she said, her voice shaking with threatening tears. 'When I did that, I defaced your gift to me and failed to complete the assignment you had given me.' She swallowed, trying hard to push past the painful lump in her throat. How had everything gone pear-shaped so quickly? When would she learn to control her impulsiveness? 'I failed to make note on Monday and on much of Tuesday of what I ate and when I slept and what I studied.' She lifted her chin a bit looked straight into his eyes before adding, 'And I touched my breasts after I left your room Tuesday night, but I didn't orgasm.'
Taking the opportunity she afforded him by looking into his eyes, he slipped into her mind, and she felt him viewing her memories. When he disengaged from her a moment later, she whimpered at the loss of his presence within her.
'You have detailed the reasons for your punishment, Hermione, save for one. Would you like one more opportunity to tell me what it is?'
Hermione squirmed under his steady gaze. Hadn't she confessed to enough? What more did he want from her?
'I—I can't think of what it is,' she whispered.
He nodded once and stood, beginning to unfasten his belt. 'Remove your clothing,' he said dispassionately. 'Go to the table and bend over the edge.'
Hermione stood on trembling legs, shedding her skirt and jumper and going to lean over the table. How she wished the ordeal were over! The separation from him imposed by his displeasure was worse than any spanking he could deliver. She was desperate to recover the connection with him she so longed for. She could endure anything to reach that place again.
As she bent over the table, the familiar sensation of the soft bindings wrapped about her forearms, pulling her forward until her toes barely touched the floor. She was aware of how the wooden table grabbed at her skin, preventing the easy slide of her torso over its surface, and of the cold of the tabletop against her bare flesh. Turning her face to the side, she sought and found the ghostly reflection of her professor in the glass wall. He stopped behind her, the doubled belt hanging at his side.
'Do you wish to continue your training under my direction, Hermione?' he asked. 'If you do not choose to do so, I will release you now and permit you to return to your room.'
'No!' she cried, twisting her head to see him over her shoulder. 'Please, sir, no! I want to continue.'
She couldn't maintain the pretzel contortion of looking over her shoulder, so she could only see his head nod in the dim glass reflection.
'Do you accept your discipline as justly meted out, Hermione?'
And rather than answering, she began to weep tears of contrition.
'The last thing for which you are being punished is your disrespect to me in this room, Hermione,' he said sternly, turning his body to begin her spanking. 'You will address me as "sir" in this room, or you will not speak at all.'
'Yes, sir,' she said, her words distorted by weeping, and her spanking began.
'Count, Hermione,' he ordered her, and the blows began to fall, stinging with the force of his arm, true in his aim, side to side, top to bottom, back and forth, never hitting the same spot twice in succession.
Hermione twisted beneath the lashing blows, choking out the numbers, wondering dimly at her own perversion, that receiving a naked lashing from her grim Potions professor—never mind that his stark, angular body had become to her all that was beautiful in the world—thrilled her as no furtive Astronomy Tower trysts had ever done, leaving her quim wet and aching with need.
When they reached twenty blows he stopped, his breathing somewhat laboured. After a moment, he said, 'You need not count for the remaining spanks, Hermione. Devote your energy to understanding how you have displeased me and how you mean to go on in the future.'
The blows began again, but she was scarcely aware of them; she was terrified by his last words, which sounded very much as if she were in serious danger of losing his favour permanently. Relenting at last, she let go of her resistance and accepted the correction he provided for her, crying in earnest as she felt her defiance dissolve beneath the administration of his discipline, until she felt cleansed within, a limp and empty bowl to be filled as he deemed best.
When he set aside his leather belt, the invisible bonds released her, and she slid to her feet, where she swayed. He wrapped her wordlessly in her emerald green blanket and carried her to the sofa, holding her in his lap as the sobbing slowed and stopped. She curled against him, revelling in the smell of his aftershave and the feel of his arms about her—but he hadn't got her off. No finger-fucking, no quim-licking—she was an aching, sopping mess between her legs.
After a few moments more, he opened the blanket and looked down at her body, his hand slipping between her legs to cup and squeeze her mound. Hermione sighed and spread her legs, and he slipped two fingers inside her body as his thumb circled her clitoris.
'Does it feel good?' he asked quietly.
'Yes, sir,' she responded, slowly humping against his hand.
'You're not to climax without permission,' he said in the same quiet tone, and Hermione nodded.
'I won't come without permission,' she agreed, feeling the fire he created in her body burning through her blood.
'Are you close to coming?' he asked, and she opened her eyes to gaze at him eagerly, nodding her head.
He stopped.
Hermione's hips moved, but he withdrew his hand.
'Some Dominants,' he said, his tone even and emotionless, 'use orgasm denial as a form of training, Hermione.'
Oh, God, no! No! He couldn't mean to leave her this way!
'Sir?' she said piteously, her hands clutching at his jumper.
'You will have a full week of orgasm denial, Hermione,' he said, his tone seeming almost robotic.
She took a deep breath. Well, orgasm denial wasn't so bad, was it? He only let her come when he said so, anyway—that wasn't anything new.
He surprised her by dipping his fingers again into her quim, plucking at her clitoris until she moaned, thrusting her hips at him. Before, when he had sat down with her after her spanking, there had been no bulge beneath her bum, but there was definitely one present now; that glorious cock she had seen him fist was stirring beneath her arse—how could he talk about orgasm denial when his own cock wanted him to fuck her?
'Does it feel good?' he murmured into her ear, sliding one hand up to fondle a nipple, as well.
'Oh, please, sir,' she moaned as his hand roamed between her breasts while the other rubbed her clitoris in mind-numbing circles. 'Please …'
He withdrew his hand from her quim again, wringing a sob from her. 'Each night, beginning tomorrow, you will masturbate until you are about to orgasm—and you will stop. You will write full reports of your activities in your journal. You are not to skip a night of rubbing that luscious cunt of yours with your hand or with one of your toys—you are to do it every single night, do you understand me?'
'Yes, sir,' Hermione whimpered. It was barbaric! What was the point of masturbating if you weren't allowed to orgasm?
'At the end of the week, you will return to this room—one week from tonight—and I will perform Legilimency upon you to see if you've told me the truth. Don't even think of trying to lie to me, Hermione.'
She looked up at him, feeling like a child who's been shown the sweet shop and told she's not to have even one piece of toffee.
'If you "accidentally" orgasm even once, it will earn you another week of no climaxing,' he cautioned her. 'If, however, I peruse your memories and find out that you've successfully completed your assignment, then you will be permitted to orgasm here, with me, as many times as you can manage in our time together.'
His wicked fingers stole into her slit and rubbed her clitoris. 'Do you understand me? Do you understand all of the instructions I've given you? Do you have any questions at all?'
Hermione spread her legs wide and writhed under his fingers, telling herself that as long as he would permit her to have this again, she could endure anything.
'Yes, sir!' she gasped. 'I understand, and I have no questions.'
He removed his hand, from her quim, slowly sucking her flavour from his fingers before securely wrapping her again in her blanket, leaving only her arms free.
'Do you want to read from Master Maximus' book until curfew, or would you rather return to your room?' he asked, rising to his feet.
'I'd like to read, please, sir,' she answered, already missing the bulk and heat of him beside her. It was almost certain that reading about Master Maximus and his submissive, t, would make her want to come more than ever, but she refused to give up her evening in his company, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
And as he returned to the marking he had been doing when she arrived, Hermione curled up and read more about the art of submission.
