He was distracted at best that last week before term. He needed to focus on the Defense curriculum, the new lessons plans. There was a giant filing cabinet in the office at the back of the Defense classroom, his new office, filled with the planning from the past eight years' worth of teachers. They'd been trash. He'd spent the summer rewriting them, folding in the useful bits and discarding the rest. He'd made Wormtail do the tedious bits, sorting the files by year level and labeling each old lesson plan by teacher.

This week, he was supposed to be organizing his own new plans, setting his new classroom up the way he wanted it to be. But all he could think about was her.

Hermione had eased into his mind, bracing herself against the wall of his Occlumency and emanating comfort and familiarity, and he'd wanted her inside his shields. He'd wanted her to see his soul.

Usually, a thought like that would be riddled with insecurity. After a lifetime mostly friendless, listening to students whisper about the greasy bat of the dungeons, he was always looking for the ulterior motives. He'd brushed her mind, too, though. It was impossible to feel unwanted, or even to want to push her away by showing her his own darkness, when he'd seen her just as she'd seen him.

At first, it had been a kaleidoscope of a happy, if sugar-deprived, childhood. She hadn't had friends when she was young, but she hadn't noticed it until Hogwarts. And then she'd had Potter and Weasley, and it was almost painful to watch their youthful adventures, to watch her sitting on the floor in the girls' toilet checking and double-checking the steps for Polyjuice, almost making so many mistakes.

He'd watched her bullied by his godson. Watched her ostracized by her friends, sitting in Hagrid's hut drinking his foul tea and sniffling. He'd watched her exhaust herself with the first Time Turner. She'd been the one to thump the Summoning Charm into Harry Potter's head before the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, staying up to all hours of the night in empty classrooms. She'd seen the triumphant look on Dolohov's twisted face when his Sectumspempra had hit her in the chest and he'd thought he'd killed her.

He saw his own first lesson with the sixth years in Defense. The classroom was exactly as he had it, and she'd been both fascinated and disgusted by the posters he'd mounted on the walls.

The worst of her memories had been her time Turning for Dumbledore. He'd watched her comfortably tucked into a strange sitting room with McGonagall, going over Charms theorems. He'd watched her walking hand in hand with a dark-haired Frenchman, smiling at him with closed-off eyes. Facing Dumbledore, blushing wildly, having Occlumency drilled into her.

He'd felt her thrill attending a summer seminar in Salem, studying higher level Arithmancy, applying it to Potions. Her crushing realization that, while she was making great contributions to the study through a paper she was collaborating on, it wouldn't have her own name on it.

Then had come her time in Alexandria, which he'd thought had been quite pleasant. Compared to what he knew of Spain, it had been, but that wasn't saying much. She'd been there twice, the first time ending shortly after she'd been locked in a pyramid for days, pacing and drinking water from her wand. The second had been when she'd been whipped by the book. Her lover had been in the room with her, reading a different book, and though he'd been the one to burn her book and end the spell, he hadn't looked at her the same again after they'd healed her back. She hadn't resented him.

He'd watched her memories of Remy Bird. She'd been attacked multiple times in his house before she'd ever been thrown in a cage for the Muggle Fights. There had been a lethifold in her wardrobe and it had nearly killed her on her first night. The bearskin rug on her bedroom floor had tried to bite her feet off. She'd taken the attacks as challenges, training. She'd been vigilant and wary, and he'd dragged her out of the shower one morning by her hair anyway.

She'd been terrified in the Muggle Fights. She'd punched Draco Malfoy once, and that had been the extent of her physical fighting. He'd felt her desperation. Panic. Disgust. She'd used Occlumency to separate what she was doing from who she was. She'd begun each fight blank, and ended each fight on her knees beside another naked, dead body, mourning for the life she'd snuffed out to continue her own. He'd felt her anger burning hot as Remy stomped on her hand until the emotion faded away in the face of the pain.

He'd felt her emptiness the night she'd finally escaped. She'd had to kill a twelve year old boy in the afternoon fight, and it had hardened her resolve; she would escape or she would die. Her soul had been Occluded away to a back corner of her brain, pacing like a caged tiger, and the rest of her had been ruthless.

It was the same ruthlessness she practiced when Dumbledore sent her out to play the dragon. The same mindset she put herself into. She had protested when he gave her the first name, but he hadn't heard any of it, and she'd done what she was told. She'd cried and screamed after, releasing her soul back into herself. Severus could sympathize.

And then he'd felt what she felt when she was with him. The early memories, meeting him in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place when she'd brewed the Wolfsbane, were neutral. But the more recent ones, even when he was just standing behind her chair at meetings, were… more.

When Severus was seven or so, when the factory that employed most of the slum he'd been born into was beginning to go under, his father had changed. While he'd never been a happy man, he hadn't been bitter until he'd realized his job would be gone soon. It had been a miserable time, but not as miserable as the time to come.

"All the important men have jobs waiting at other factories," his father had said, sneering on 'important men' like they were a plague.

Up until then, Severus had thought his father was important. He was his father, after all. Fathers were the most important men in the world, especially to their sons. Even if they weren't very nice to their wives, they were still important. Most men weren't nice to women, in young Severus's experience, anyway.

Then the factory had gone under and everybody in the neighborhood had been out of a job. His father had found work here or there, sometimes being gone for weeks at a stretch working in a different town. Those weeks where he was gone had come to be treasured, since the time when he was home had quickly become miserable. Where Tobias Snape had been surly and mean—verbally abusive, the adult Severus knew to label it—he had become worse, drinking whenever he had money for it and often when he didn't, taking out real and imagined frustrations on his wife and son with his fists and belt—physically abusive.

Severus had a few cherished memories of visiting a festival with his father every summer when he was very small. His father's cousin was a musician at the festival, and the man, Hamish Freely, was their only living relative. His son, Fergus, was Severus's age. They called each other cousin and spent wonderful days running around the festival while their fathers did whatever they did.

They didn't stop going to the festival after the factory closed; it was still free. And Uncle Hamish bought the beer. Those summer afternoons with Fergus had been wonderful, almost as wonderful as the weeks where Tobias had been gone and Severus had been free to spend as much time at the park with Lily as he'd wanted.

The festival had remained with Severus and so had his father's comment about important men. He supposed it was one of many reasons he'd been Sorted into Slytherin, that drive to be important.

But "important" meant something different to him than it did to Lucius Malfoy. Lucius saw importance in politics and position; Severus, while he had ambitions, saw importance as he had as that boy in the slum. A father was an important man.

And that was what it boiled down to.

If he'd sat down to talk through his feelings with Dumbledore, the only one who knew enough of his history to give him decent feedback, Lily would have come up. But, to be perfectly frank, his loyalty to Lily and Lily's son had stopped being about love a long time ago. Now it was guilt. Guilt over the prophecy, guilt over his inability to save her, even guilt about not being able to see past Harry Potter's resemblance to James.

He would take love over guilt any day. It would be wonderful to have something other than lingering guilt to fight for. Something more.

\\

Two days before students would return, Severus gave up on getting any furthing planning done for the school year and Apparated to her flat in Edinburgh. He had his key in the lock before he thought to wonder if he should bring flowers or something. But that was a ludicrous idea.

"Oh, hello," she said when he entered, setting her breakfast dishes to cleaning themselves and kissing him hello. It was a novel experience; he grinned at her, which made her smirk.

"I've run away from the castle for the day," he said. "I refuse to think about the abysmal Defense teachers who have come before me for one more second."

"They were quite terrible. You'll have your work cut out for you with those poor first years."

"Second years now, and at least they won't have any bad habits to break them out of. They've never cast a defensive spell in their lives."

She made a somewhat amused noise and sat down at her piano in the living room. The sofa had been miniaturized to make room. She distractedly tapped out a few chords.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong," he asked, "or do I have to guess?"

"I'm just being stupid," she said. Her smile was more of a twitch of the lips before she went back to frowning at the keys of the piano.

"That must be quite the effort," he said, and she shot him a confused look. "You being stupid. It would take effort on your part."

Her smile was slightly more genuine. "Funny."

"What's wrong, Hermione?" He wanted to touch her face, and after a moment's hesitation he did. She leaned into the hand he put on her cheek, closing her eyes.

"I was being sad because I hadn't seen you in a few days."

"That is quite flattering," he said, smirking when she swatted at him. He'd made her smile.

They'd almost had an argument before they'd parted ways the other day. He'd been stupid enough to suggest that they should keep their distance.

"Severus, I want to fight about the stupid articles in Potioneers Monthly, and I want to hold your hand a Flourish and Blott's. I want morning kisses despite horrible breath, and I want you to get mad at me when I jinx the Daily Porphet before you get to read it. I want you with me always so that I know that you aren't out there bleeding somewhere, and so that I can hear your little comments about the things that annoy you. I want your children, Severus. And I want your gray hair. And I way your jealousy, because I guarantee I will be jealous, too."

He'd held her hands—they were small, dainty, calloused from the way she held her wand and quill, and scarred too—and tried to put her off (because he was an idiot). "I can't have any of that. If I held your hand in public, we would both die sooner rather than later. If I put a child in you, I wouldn't live to see its face. I won't survive to have gray hair."

"But you want it."

"More than anything in the world."

And that had been that. They'd kissed. He'd conceded the point. She'd Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron to apparate to her flat so that she could change her clothes before she went to work. He'd pulled out a fresh set of teaching robes and headed to the Great Hall for the brunch meeting with the Board of Governors.

"I was afraid you might be thinking about avoiding me."

He brushed her mind with his own, and put a stray curl behind her ear. She closed her eyes again.

"You're right, then," he said. "You were being stupid." Her eyes shot open, and he smirked at her.

"Severus—"

He kissed her. He couldn't help it. It was like at the castle, their magic brushing together, their minds folded along all the same creases. He wanted her desperately, even more desperately than he wanted to save her from the pain that would come. He was selfish. Horribly, horribly selfish.

"We'll find a way," she said, and it was her use of 'we' that did it. He didn't want to be alone anymore. Not if he could be with her instead.

We.

She was so light. So small. He was an odd-looking man, all mismatched parts. He had a normal-sized head paired with a large nose, too-pale skin paired with the darkest hair and eyes; a tall and broad frame that should have had heavy muscles to go with it instead paired with wiry slimness from a troubled adulthood and not enough food as a child. She was perfection compared to him. She was slender and compact and round, delicate features, brown and honey hair, coffee with cream eyes.

Her kiss was Heaven. It was a haven.

He pulled her into his lap, or maybe she climbed there. He couldn't tell. He couldn't keep his own thoughts separate from hers, the sensations from his own body separate from the ones he felt through her. He knew that she was straddling him, though, grinding her hips down against his as he fucked her mouth with his tongue. Or maybe she was fucking his mouth with her tongue. Maybe it was both.

And where the hell had his coat gone? Was she even wearing a bra underneath that t-shirt?

You're a horrible, selfish person, he thought, but he said, "I love you."

The spot on her neck that had tasted so wonderful the other day was still red from his ministrations. That made him smile. He shifted to the other side and kissed her neck at the base, just above the collarbone. He sucked, lavved it with his tongue. Her skin, all of her, tasted so good.

He peeled her shirt off of her, dragging his hands across her back, up her sides, down her arms. Her back was textured from the scars, and the sensation of it under his hands was amazing. He wanted to map the scars; he wanted to kiss along the line of each one of them.

She was gasping. She finished unbuttoning his shirt—when had she removed his waistcoat?—and pushed it off him, running her hands along his chest and arms as he had done to her. He could feel the tingle of her touch glide across his skin, shooting down from the contact straight to his groin.

Hermione bent forward and licked one of his nipples, sucking the tiny, useless thing into her mouth hard. He gasped, biting the shoulder he'd been kissing. She jerked in his arms, her hips slamming down against his.

He scooped her up, not sure if he enjoyed the feel of her ass in his hands or the way she wrapped her legs around him better. He kissed her, and she bit at his lip. He'd been heading for the bedroom, for a proper bed, but he wasn't sure he would make it.

Then they slammed against the door. It didn't give, and his erection was squashed painfully between them. He hissed. She giggled, her hand leaving his shoulder to grope around behind her until she found the doorknob.

They stumbled through, and he kicked the door shut behind them.

He'd look around later, examine the room and think on the way the stuff in it reflected on the personality of the witch. What he was concerned about was the bed, and it was right there. Just a bed, not big or small. No four-poster with hangings like at Hogwarts, just a bed. The comforter was lightish blue, the sheets beneath plain white cotton.

Severus dropped her on the bed and furiously attacked the fastenings on his trousers. She flopped around on the bed for a split second, putting her limbs in order, and then she was helping him. His trousers slid down his legs, catching on his boots, and she made an annoyed noise.

He was strangely reminded that she'd killed men with her bare hands a moment later when she leveraged her weight—which was odd because she really didn't have any weight; he'd know, he'd just carried her in from the other room—and sat him on the edge of the bed with her between his knees. She shoved at his trousers, uncovering his boots, then made quick work of the buckles and laces.

Very quickly, he was sitting on the bed in his boxers, very obviously tented, with her between his legs. He couldn't breathe again. She teased her hands slowly up his thighs, kissed the soft flesh just below the line of his boxers, and then rubbed her hand along his cloth-covered length.

He moaned without dignity, filling his hands with fistfuls of the comforter to keep from grabbing her.

She pulled his underwear off him, ignoring his cock for the moment in favor of torture. She touched every inch of his legs as the boxers slid down, lifting one foot and then the other before tossing the boxers aside. And then he was naked on the bed, and she was on her knees again, and she was—

"Hermione!"

She dragged her tongue down the length of him, taking him in hand. She slid her hand roughly down and up, using the fingertips of her other hand to tease his balls. His hips bucked, and she smiled up at him. She kissed the base, a funny little chaste kiss, but then it wasn't so chaste. She smeared open-mouthed kisses up and down his length, her fingers finding his tip, fondling the weeping head.

His hips bucked. He might have called her name again, but he couldn't be sure. Their thoughts were pooling together again, and he could feel his own desire amplified by hers. He was sent spiraling into his own oblivious sensation when she took him in her mouth. Her mouth was warm and wet, her tongue flicking around his head and then he was in too deep for it. How could she even take it? He jerked when his cock hit the back of her throat, his hands tangling in her hair. She was smiling around his cock, her lips wrapped around the base.

Did the woman completely lack a gag reflex?

He didn't dwell on it. She was moving, sucking, sliding back only to take him in again. He guided her with his hands in her hair, pulling her head this way, changing the angle, thrusting his hips up to meet her face. She had her hands on his thighs, keeping him from pushing into her too hard.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He was going to come. He was going to spill it all down her throat. Fuck.

She pulled away, releasing him with a satisfying popping sound. His hips jerked again, but he distracted himself from the sudden loss by yanking her up to him and kissing her hard. He could taste his own sweat in her mouth, on her tongue.

Hermione used the momentum from rising to kiss him to lay him back on the bed, and he gladly let her. She sat on his abdomen, rolling her hips back so that his erection pressed along the crack of her ass through her knickers.

They kissed. He rid her of her t-shirt, tossing it off the side of the bed and out of the way. She had beautiful, heavy, round breasts. She pressed them to his chest, and they both shivered. He wanted to taste them, wanted to pinch her nipples and then sooth them with his tongue.

He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tight for a moment, and then spun them on the bed so that she was lying on the mattress below him. She grinned up at him, tangling her hands in his hair again and pulling him down for a kiss.

Pleasure rippled through him. Her fingers on his scalp. Her tongue in his mouth. Kissing her was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Her knickers were the only thing between them. The fabric was soft as he rubbed himself against it, his thrusts blocked. She arched, moaning in to his mouth, and he tore himself away to get rid of them. She'd teased him, taken such time to slide his boxers down his legs, but he didn't have the patience for it anymore.

Next time. Next time, he'd make her wait. He would tease her, bring her to the brink only to pull away and do it again. This time…

He dropped the knickers off the side of the bed and crushed her beneath him. He bent one of her knees up and pushed it out gently, opening her to him. She was slick and pink, glistening with wetness. He could smell her.

He groaned, dipping two fingers in, bringing his thumb down on her clitoris. She inhaled, not quite a gasp, then keened high and needy when he rubbed more forcefully. His hips twitched of their own accord. He brought the wet fingers to the tip of his cock, spreading her wetness around, then brought himself to her opening and used his fingers to spread her wide.

Severus's eyes locked with hers as he entered her. He tried to slide in gently, but he had very little control. He impaled her. He sunk in to the hilt, and her hips jerked. Her eyes rolled closed, and her other knee bent, rising to wrap around his hips.

He forgot to breathe. He pulled out and rammed in again, and again. He buried himself entirely each time, slamming into her. Sliding home.

She was wet and tight, letting out the most perfect mewing keens with each thrust. They were breathing in ragged time.

Harder. The thought was not his own, but he agreed whole-heartedly.

His balls were beginning to tighten, but he couldn't release yet. Not yet. It became his litany—push in, not, pull out, yet. In, not, out, yet, in, not, out, yet.

He shifted forward to taste her breast as he moved, and she screamed. He could feel her climax beginning around him. She was pushing back, matching his rhythm thrust for thrust, her quim beginning to convulse.

"Fuck," he moaned, releasing the nipple and biting down on the flesh beside it to muffle his own shout.

She came, her hands clenching his shoulders, dragging along his back. "Severus!" And then he came, too, and the world vanished completely for awhile. It was just Hermione, warm, welcoming Hermione. The wet cavern of her squeezing around him, pulsing, and he gave it to her. He gave her everything. He shuddered, releasing his seed deep and hot into the exact place it was supposed to go. Where it would go whenever she asked it of him, whenever she let him put it there.

"Oh, god," she cried. She was holding him to her, and it was the only thing that kept him from flying apart into a million pieces that nobody would ever be able to find.

He collapsed on her. She didn't seem to mind, though some vague part of his brain was telling him that he was going to squish her if he didn't move.

"I am a selfish man," he told her breasts. They were lovely breasts. Perfect. Just the right size for his hands, with nipples that were just the right size for his mouth. And the undersides of them were so soft. He rubbed his nose against the underside of one, feeling her stomach muscles tighten at the touch. It made him smile.

"What did you say?" Her hands were in his hair again, not clinging and tangling as before but stroking through it, fingertips tracing the lines of his skull against his scalp. It was nirvana.

"You are mine," he said, rising up, putting his knees on either side of her thighs and leaning on his elbows next to her head so that his face was directly above hers. Her eyes were dark with desire. She was flushed from their love-making. "I said I am a selfish man, and you are mine. I will have you, Hermione Granger. Until I am dead." She shuddered beneath him, and he could feel her warring with herself. He'd turned her on. She liked that he was claiming her as his, though some part of her was surely railing against it. She wasn't a submissive person; she wouldn't like the thought of belonging to him. Tough shit. "Every inch of you."

He set about exploring her with hands and lips and tongue. He kissed the lines of her face, across brows and cheekbones and jaw. Then down her neck, along her collarbones. He kissed the rounding of each shoulder, and the bend of each elbow. He sucked her fingers into his mouth and teased them with his tongue. He rolled her over and traced her scars as he'd wanted to, licking the valleys between the biggest of them, kissing along the line of the rest.

He discovered five scars from the Cruciatus, the little white whorls where the tip of the wand that cursed her had touched. He kissed each of them, even the one on the ball of her foot that was, in fact, two such scars layered on top of each other.

He traced her legs with his fingers, kissing and sucking on the inside of one knee until he realized he was leaving a love bite.

And then he found her quim. She was dripping for him.

He slid his fingers in, spreading her folds. Her clit was engorged, red and throbbing, just waiting to be licked. He did. She jerked beneath him, calling out to him, but he was going slowly. He would take his time. Even she would not rush him.

He buried his face in her, breathed her in, finally tasted her. He licked along her slit, ending at her clitoris, nuzzling his nose past it before brushing his tongue along it oh-so slowly. She was writhing. He pulled her legs up over his shoulders and settled in. This was his now; she was his. And it was wonderful.

He sucked, and she screamed her release. Fluid rushed to him, and he licked it up, swallowed it down, looked for more. He worked her clitoris with his mouth, and slid his fingers inside her. In, out. He had long fingers. He curled them, and there was that spongy spot, the goal. She gasped, beginning to keen again, beginning to moan. She didn't seem to have words, and that was all the better.

"Please," she finally gasped. "Please."

He twitched his fingers, sucked hard, and she exploded again. His witch.

When she was relaxed again, he crawled up to lie beside her. He was throbbing, so hard he might just explode without even touching her.

Hermione sighed. It was a deep, content sigh that soothed his heart.

"I love you," she said, rolling onto her side to look at him better, stroking his face with her hand. He wanted to turn his head, to catch her fingers in his lips again, but he was too tired. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

"I love you, too."

The hand on his face trailed feather-light down his chest, then settled on his cock. Her touch was gentle, almost as possessive as his had been. Luckily, she didn't make him wait the way he'd done to her. She ran her fingertips over him, just once down the length but he thought he might make a mess all over her hand. Then she shifted, rising over him, straddling his hips, her hand firm against him, guiding him back home.

He didn't even have to thrust, he simply slid in and came. She smirked, twitching her hips, rolling, grinding her pelvis into his as he released his load.

"Severus," she said, almost a question. He looked up at her. He was so tired, so happily exhausted. Utterly spent. "You're mine, too, you know."

"Mind, body and soul," he said, running his hands up her sides, pulling her down to him and tucking her against his chest.