A/N: Well, it's only one more chapter this weekend, but hopefully you'll find it satisfactory. Be sure to let me know!


For the Potions Master's Amusement

Chapter 28: Reason

His shoulders, which he had held rigidly for so long, slumped slightly, and he dragged a hand wearily over his face. 'Hermione,' he said, and it came out as a tortured groan.

She stepped close to him and fisted her hands in his shirt. 'Please, sir,' she said, terrified that he would do or say something terrible—something irreparable. 'Please consider what I have to say—hear me out.'

His hands dropped to his sides, and he stared down into her face. She prepared herself for him to enter her mind, but he didn't do so, and she dimly wondered if he lacked the magical strength to do so. She had not noticed it before, but up close, he showed all the physical signs of exhaustion. Had he not been resting well?

Gently, he disentangled her hands from his clothing. 'You had better sit down again,' he said, sounding resigned.

He wasn't saying no—he wasn't sending her away—he was going to talk to her about it! On legs suddenly quivering with excitement, she went back and resumed her seat on the sofa, watching him as he retraced his steps to the armchair. His brow was furrowed as he sat back, but Hermione detected a slight shift in his manner. He seemed less like a polite host and more like a Dominant, preparing to discuss matters of consequence with a submissive.

Still, his face was expressionless as he nodded his head to her and said, 'Say what you wish to say.'

Her mouth seemed quite suddenly very dry, and her mind was alarmingly blank. The reasoned arguments she had so carefully laid out time and time again in the privacy of her room had deserted her. Come on, Hermione! she thought frantically. Surely her logic wouldn't desert her in her time of need! Any moment now, she would be able to think again …

'Sir,' she blurted, playing for time, 'have you considered that your feelings of possessiveness might be because of a desire to have a deeper relationship with me?'

His lips contracted with displeasure, and he spoke sharply. 'I have agreed to discuss your issues, Hermione—not mine.'

Damn! She had obtained his agreement for discussion, and all she had accomplished so far was to irritate him. She would have to do better than this, and quickly, or her chance would be lost. Marshalling her thoughts, she took a calming breath and began.

'I know my own mind, sir. I know precisely what I want. I want to learn to be a submissive by your hand, and I want to belong to you. I want you for my Master.'

He did not react to her words, but his attention was fully engaged, and the twirl of his forefinger indicated that she was to get on with it. How can I prove my sincerity? she thought frantically. What can I say to convince him? Oh, please …

As if in answer to a prayer, the answer came to her in a blinding flash of brilliance—she knew exactly what she wanted to say to him. Sweet Circe, someone was looking out for her tonight!

Drawing in a deep breath, Hermione said, 'We have a three week holiday before us, sir. I propose that you keep me on as a trainee, but that you step up the training to incorporate some of the things you would expect of your own submissive—things like—' She stumbled over the next bit, but she had read about it in The Sensual Symmetry of Submission and was determined to say it. '—like w-worshipping your cock, the art of fellatio, and how you like to be f-fucked.' She scarcely got the last bit out. Although she had been writing quite frankly in her journal, she wasn't accustomed to saying things of a sexual nature out loud, and she could feel her face flaming red.

He raised one eyebrow, and her tummy flipped over. Dear Merlin, he was relenting.

'And at the end of the three week holiday?' he asked.

Hermione sat forward eagerly. 'At the end of the hols, you can decide if you will accept my offer of submission to you. We could re-evaluate things and carry on from there.' Unable to contain herself, she rose and covered the space between them, falling on her knees before him. 'Please say yes, sir,' she begged, daring to run her hands along his lean thighs. 'I promise you I will work harder than any submissive has ever worked to please her Dominant.'

He looked down his torso into her eyes, his black eyes glittering strangely. 'And how many cocks have you pleasured in your life, Hermione?' he asked softly, the intensity of his voice striking a chord within her, heavy with import.

'I … I haven't, I guess,' she admitted.

His nostrils flared. 'And what gives you the impression that cock worship is something that would appeal to you?'

She bit her lip. He asked the most difficult questions of any person she had ever known!

'Or are you, perhaps, saying what you imagine I want to hear?' he added.

'No!' she said immediately. She was just going to have to tell him, wasn't she? 'I think about your cock all the time,' she admitted, lowering her eyes in embarrassment. 'I did before you were ill, and then afterwards—when I had seen you stroke it—I knew exactly what it looked like.' His finger stroked down her cheek to her chin, raising her face again. She smiled at him, and in response, a slight smile touched his lips. She continued softly, feeling discomfited, but determined to tell him what he needed to know. 'Once I knew what it looked like, it was even easier to imagine it—to think about touching, and licking, and sucking it—to think about you fucking me.'

His eyelids lowered to half-mast, the strange glittering of his eyes only intensifying. He looked her over in a leisurely manner, but he seemed always to return his gaze to her mouth. 'Tell me about the cocks you have encountered, Hermione—all of them. Have there been many?'

'Two,' she said. He had interrogated her about whom she had kissed, but he had been fingering her when he did it, so she hadn't minded talking about it. She would probably spill state secrets under the persuasion of his fingers in her cunt—but now, he was watching her without touching her, and it was much more difficult to speak of it. 'The same two boys I kissed,' she added. 'Viktor and Ron.'

He nodded his acceptance. 'And what did you do with these cocks?'

She averted her eyes, flustered. It all sounded so impersonal, speaking of it this way—and he still hadn't told her if he accepted her proposal, had he?

Her took her chin in his hand and raised her face again. 'Answer me, and do not look away again,' he commanded, and she melted with shivery delight.

He was giving her orders, demanding obedience—that didn't seem as if he were sending her away, did it? A frisson of happiness trembled through her.

'I touched both of them,' she admitted readily, trying to keep her mind from skittering ahead to what sort of activity might follow her answering his questions. Would he touch her again? Kiss her? Fuck her? 'I had sex with both of them, but I also used my hand to bring Ron off a few times.'

Her professor's head tilted minutely to the left. 'And did he return this generosity?'

Hermione was surprised when she laughed out loud. 'He made the attempt,' she admitted.

'No success?' he asked.

'I never orgasmed with Ron,' Hermione told him. 'I did with Viktor, but only when he used his fingers.' She shifted slightly, aware of the heat slowly building between her legs.

As he quizzed her with almost professional curiosity, Professor Snape's posture loosened, until it seemed he almost sprawled in his chair. His coat was open over his white shirt, his oily hair stringy about his face, sure testament to the fact that he had not showered before the Yule Ball, as was the darkening of the five o'clock shadow on his cheek. 'So,' he said, 'you've never climaxed from being fucked, then?'

Wordlessly, she shook her head, and he actually smiled. 'Well, there's a goal to set for your three weeks' trial,' he said, his eyes darkening until she could not distinguish the iris from the pupil. 'We'll have to see if I can make you come by holding you down and thrusting slowly in and out of your cunt, brushing over your clit with every stroke of my cock in your quim.'

The impact of the carnality of his words robbed her momentarily of speech, and she sagged against him, held upright only by the vee of his thighs. He simply watched her as she clung to his leg. Her mind replayed what he had said, and at last, the first part of his statement penetrated her fog of lust. 'I can have a three weeks' trial?' she gasped. 'You'll let me?'

His beautifully shaped lips twisted into a sensual sneer the likes of which she had never seen on his face before. 'I'll let you start now,' he answered silkily. 'Take out my cock, Hermione, and show me how much you want it.'

As he spoke, he settled back in his seat, moving his hands onto the arms of his chair, his gaze never moving from her face. Hermione was elated—he had accepted her offer, he wasn't sending her away, he was going to fuck her to orgasm—but right now, he was expecting her to do something with his cock.

Well, she had read about it, she had studied the illustrations in Master Maximus' book, and she was a quick learner, wasn't she? How difficult could it be?

Leaning forward, she moved the tip of his belt out of the buckle, allowing the disengaged leather to hang down the front of his trousers, a frame for the distinct bulge behind the zip. Very aware of his eyes on her, she unfastened the button and eased down the zip, hearing his sharp intake of breath as she lightly touched the bulge. Spreading the fabric of the trousers wide, she deliberately grazed the heel of her palm up his length, feeling the spongy flesh on the front side of his cock. Her fingers now hooked in the elastic at the top of his pants, and she attempted to pull them down, only to find herself impeded by the knob of his cock.

'Perhaps you had best pull them out before you pull them down,' her professor said, sounding a bit breathless, and Hermione glanced up at his face, hoping he wasn't upset with her for making a mistake so early on in her attempt. The crease always present between his brows deepened. 'Go on—get on with it.'

Biting her lip in concentration, Hermione untangled the underpants from the top of his cock and pulled the elastic towards her, allowing his erection to spring free. As on the first occasion she'd seen it, she was fascinated—but this time, she could touch. Hurriedly, she tugged the pants down as far as she could, then closed her hand around him, amazed by the softness underlain by iron hardness.

It surprised her when he moved, thrusting up, forcing her hand down, and she glanced back up at him, delighted to see his head resting on the chair back, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open as he panted. Experimentally, she slid her hand back up again, giving him a slight squeeze; he groaned and rolled his hips, grinding himself in her inexpert grasp. She didn't know what she was doing, but it gave him pleasure for her to touch him—she could clearly see that—and oh, sweet Merlin, what would it be like to have this velvet-covered steel shaft inside of her? Her quim throbbed painfully at the very notion.

She remembered how he had pushed his foreskin back the night he masturbated for her, but he was so hard and aroused that the dark pink knob was more than half revealed through the opening already, glistening a bit. She stroked up, noting the way the skin moved with her, and when she reached the tip, she stroked down, completely exposing the glans, drawing a groan from him and a toss of his head. Tentatively, she passed the palm of her hand over the tip of his penis, feeling the slick moisture, and she rubbed it about, fascinated by his unrestrained, pleasure-seeking thrust and grind against her hand. She made a few more trips up and down, seeing how the lubricant eased her way. Just as she felt she was getting a rhythm going, he lifted his head and seared her with his eyes.

'Have you ever put your mouth on a prick, little slut?' he said, his hips moving his erection up and down in the circle of her grasp.

'No,' she said, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips, as if in anticipation.

'Merlin's bollocks, girl,' he ground out, his gaze fixed on her lips. 'Put your mouth on me.'

Remembering what she had read of t's instructions on how she orally pleasured Master Maximus, Hermione lowered her face and placed an open-mouthed kiss near the base of her professor's cock, teasing the fleshy under side with her tongue and applying a light sucking pressure as she moved her mouth up slowly, millimetre by millimetre, becoming bolder and more confident as she listened to his murmurs of encouragement. She was surprised, however, when her tongue licked lightly at the v-shape where his knob met his shaft, and his fingers came off the arms of the chair, pulling pins willy-nilly from her hair until it hung down her back, and he wrapped his fingers in it.

'Take it in your mouth now,' he commanded, his voice low and purring, like a powerful engine at idle.

Hermione froze, her tongue tracing circles just beneath the head of his cock, feeling a trace of fear. What if she couldn't do it? What if she hated it?

He pulled gently but insistently, raising her head and moving her mouth over his glistening glans. 'Wrap your lips around the head and cover your teeth—then go down as far as you can go without gagging.'

Something in the way he spoke—something in the way she was made—brought her lips obediently around the most pleasureful part of his body, her tongue licking over it lovingly, tasting the salty flavour of his body's natural lubricant, drawing, 'Sweet Nimüe!' from him before she slid her lips down his shaft. His cock was broad, stretching her lips wider as she went down on him, and she imagined the hard length sliding into her quim, spreading her, filling her, using her for his pleasure. The thought wrung a groan from her, deep in her throat, and the sound seemed to vibrate down his cock, summoning an answering groan from him, his hands tightening in her hair. She had feared he might force her down, hold her when she didn't want to be held, but he seemed content to thread his fingers through the curls.

She felt the rounded tip of his cock at the back of her throat, and she stopped, mindful of his instructions not to gag. He seemed to know she had reached her depth, for he gave her hair a gentle pull up.

'Now up and down a bit,' he said, and she complied, grateful that he had not pushed farther than she had been willing to go.

She bobbed her head slowly up and down, feeling the slick length sliding between her lips, and she delighted in the sigh of appreciation he uttered just before beginning to slowly move with her. Remembering more of what she had read, Hermione continued her movement and added periodic swirls of her tongue, which was apparently a good notion.

'Oh, fuck,' he moaned, rolling his hips again, slightly changing the angle of his cock in her mouth. 'I'm fucking your mouth, little one—aren't you a good girl?'

Hermione hummed to hear this encomium from him—how long had it been since she had earned a 'good girl'? It seemed an eternity!—and he really seemed to like the humming. His fingertips massaged her scalp, and he growled, 'Don't stop what you're doing.'

So even though her jaw was beginning to tire and her neck was protesting the movements, Hermione hummed on, concentrating on her professor's breathing and the movements of his body as he luxuriated in sensation, using her mouth and tongue. All that mattered was that she was providing for him what he had provided for her more times than she could count.

Then suddenly, he jerked her head up, disengaging her lips from his cock with an audible pop, and he cried out as a hot spurt of white fluid gushed from him, spattering onto his belly and his pants and his trousers and his shirt as Hermione watched, more proud than she had ever been. She leaned close to inspect the semen and his sated cock, which was growing slowly less firm. She glanced up at him to find him watching her with indulgence, amusement, and some other unreadable emotion on his face.

'May I taste it?' she asked.

'Of course,' he answered, and she lapped at the sticky puddle near his navel, tracing her tongue through the black hair.

It was quite salty and already cool, not unlike the secretions of lubricant she had tasted on him earlier. His hand released her hair and dipped into the viscous stuff, presenting the finger for her to suck, and as she complied, he spoke again.

'In fact, it's good that you asked to taste it, for in time, you will be required to swallow it all, Hermione, as a good submissive should.'

In response, she lowered her open mouth to his belly and sucked the residue from his skin, determined to show him how very badly she wanted to be a good submissive—how desperately she wanted to please him.

'Fucking hell, girl,' he growled, and releasing her hair completely, he grasped her upper arms and dragged her into the chair on top of him, kissing her mouth, redolent of his own come. Dragging his mouth from hers, he kissed her throat before murmuring in her ear as his hands roved her body, stroking and squeezing. 'After that wanton display, my come-hungry little one, if I were your age, I'd have you on the floor, pounding into your hot little cunt.' He pulled back from her, looking into her face. 'But I'm shattered,' he admitted. 'I haven't slept much this past week. I propose we move this soiree to the bed and sleep before I fuck you, good and proper—what do you say?'

Before she could help herself, Hermione blurted, 'But what about my detention?'

He looked momentarily stricken, as if remembering the actions which he had come to feel were inexcusable—then he tenderly cupped her cheek. 'I'm everything they say about me, Hermione—a petty prick and a greasy git—but even so, I hit a new low in treating you as I did.' He stroked his thumb over her lower lip. 'You have no zeroes in Potions class, and the newt intestines have already been sorted.'

Hermione realised she had heard the closest he would come to an apology. Content with that, she closed her eyes and parted her lips, laving the pad of his thumb before gently closing her teeth on it. 'So,' she said, releasing his thumb, 'I don't have detention, I can spend the night with you, and in the morning, we're going to make love?'

One black eyebrow arched. 'Do you find that to be an acceptable plan? Within reason?'

'Oh yes,' she sighed, 'only …'

He stroked a hand over her knee and up her thigh to where the suspenders clipped onto her stockings. 'Only …' he prompted.

'Only I got rather aroused sucking your cock,' she admitted.

His hand continued past the edge of her stockings, caressing bare skin up to the elastic of her knickers. 'Only you're hot and wet and need to come?' he suggested, slipping the tip of one finger beneath the leg elastic.

Hermione arched toward the hand just beyond the reach of her quim. 'Please,' she whispered.

'Oh,' he murmured, 'good girl. It pleases me when you beg to come, little one.'

'Please sir,' she pleaded spreading her thighs wider. 'I'll do anything you say—anything you want—just please touch me.'

He cupped her quim through the thin knickers. 'Touch you where?' he asked, his voice low and silky and utterly intoxicating.

'Finger my cunt,' she babbled, pressing against his hand and twisting her torso to kiss his throat. 'Make me come. Make me come!'

And his hand was beneath her short skirt, slipping down her underpants from the top, curling his fingers into her slick heat and rubbing her clitoris in a circular motion. 'Tell me what you need,' he demanded.

'Oh, God, I need to come,' she whimpered, reduced to a puddle of incoherence beneath his hand.

'Who owns your orgasms?' he hissed, thrusting two fingers inside of her.

'You do!' she gasped, feeling the wave rising higher and higher as if controlled by his voice.

'Then come for me, Hermione,' he commanded, and the wave crested and fell, drowning her in a flood of sensation which began at the epicentre of her quim and spread through her body in ever widening circles, bringing her nipples to aching peaks and leaving her with limbs so tingly that she was not sure she would be able to stand.

He held her to his heart, kissing her lips, twining tongues with her, and caressing her until she was drowsy. Then he put her from his lap, did up his trousers, and led her past a disapproving portrait of Salazar Slytherin to his quarters, and thence to his bed.