A few days after New Years, Hermione woke on the verge of orgasm, her husband—gods, her husband—with his face buried between her legs. It was easily her favorite way to be woken up.
She came undone, knees bending of their own accord, her hands flying to his hair, trying to still him. He continued licking, sucking, wrapping his lips around her clit. She could feel his moan as well as she heard it.
"My god, Severus," she moaned.
"My goddess, Hermione," he replied, teasing. She laughed. He kissed his way up her body, putting two fingers into her and flicking her clit with his thumb. She writhed beneath him, her laugh turning into a gasp.
She grabbed his wrist, pushing his fingers farther in, lifting her hips up to meet his hand, hissing with pleasure. Severus kissed her mouth, fingers twitching deep inside her.
"Please, Severus," she said, using her grip on his wrist to pull his hand out and away. He traced his wet fingers up the side of her waist, over her ribs, and finally palmed her breast. "Please!"
"Patience, Madam Snape."
Lightning was flickering along her nerve endings. She pushed into his mind, not brushing warmly against him like she usually would but assaulting him with the full force of her need. He gasped, his sure motion faltering, and Hermione seized the moment, rolling them in the bed so that she was on top, taking him in hand, taking him inside.
She rolled her hips, setting a slow pace. Her hands on his chest kept him from bucking underneath her, though she could tell he wanted to. She looked down on him as she moved, watching the flex of muscles beneath his skin, the emotions chasing across his face. His eyes were closed, his lips parted in pleasure.
She leaned down and kissed him, snaking her tongue between his lips. His response was immediate, arms wrapping around her and pulling her flush against him. They kissed, keeping up the little rolling, twitching rhythm of their hips.
"Balls," Hermione swore, tearing her lips away when she absolutely had to stop to breathe. Severus laughed deep in his chest and slid his hands down to her hips, holding her down to him as he thrust up sharply once, twice, on the third time he came. As he slackened inside her, he pressed her clit with his thumb, bringing her off again.
They lay together, her sprawled across his chest entirely without dignity, catching their breath.
When they'd cooled enough that lying naked on the bed without a blanket on was uncomfortable, Hermione got up. Severus stayed where he was, enjoying the view. She tried not to be too pleased with that, with his eyes on her.
"I need a shower," she announced. "Join me?"
She turned toward the bathroom and didn't have to look behind her to know that he would follow.
She turned the tap on, and he was on her. He had her in his arms even before she heard the door slamming closed behind him. It made her smile.
The warm water made her skin prickle after the cool air of the dungeon. Hermione stuck her head under the flow, wetting her hair down and pushing it back out of her face. Severus helped, smoothing it back and away, putting his lips against her neck as his hands continued the motion down her back, snaking around her and holding her close. Hermione leaned into him. The water cascaded between them, around them. As he stepped further in, the flow hit his shoulder instead of hers, flying up in a fine mist over his back.
She turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting her head up so that he could kiss her properly. He did. With gusto.
She found the shampoo and began washing her hair, but Severus stopped her. He kissed her eyelids closed, then washed her hair himself, tickling his fingertips along her scalp, as he rinsed the shampoo away. She kept her eyes closed, letting her head fall back as he washed her with a soft flannel, hands moving across her skin as if he knew it just as well as she did. Which, of course, he did.
When he'd finished, he was on his knees in the shower, just outside the flow of the water. She stood under the spray, letting the last of the soap run away. Before he could get any ideas about how close his lips were to her quim, she began on his hair. He closed his eyes, letting her lather and rinse. He had fine hair, so surprisingly soft compared to her own dry curls.
She pulled him to his feet when his hair was done, moving on to the rest of him. He watched her, dark eyes following every move. He leaned into her touch; he was seducing her even though she was the one touching him.
He had a broad back, crossed with almost as many scars as hers. She followed the lines of the scars as she rubbed the soap along, but otherwise didn't pay particular attention. She urged him to raise his arm so that she could scrub his ribs and armpit, then the arm itself. Repeated on the other side. Then his legs, one at a time, examining the scars as she came across them. She knew every single one of them by now. He had spirals from the Cruciatus, just as she did; one on his left shoulder blade, and another on the outside of his right knee.
She saved his cock for last, but she made up for the oversight by paying it more attention than the rest of him. She brought the flannel to it first, rubbing gently, feeling it stir in her hand. Severus groaned, leaning forward, dipping his head into the flow of the water and bracing his hands on the wall behind her. She stayed crouched at his feet, letting the increased flow of water wash away the suds as she put them there. She wrapped the flannel around his cock and moved it up and down the length of it a few times, then moved, attending the heavy sack hanging behind.
Hermione set the flannel aside, bringing her hand up instead, chasing away the last of the bubbles. He moaned, then cut off the noise with a sharp breath when she replaced her hand with her mouth. Slowly, she pressed forward, taking him in, willing away the feel of impending choking until he hit the back of her throat. His hips jerked and she swallowed convulsively, or tried to.
"Fuck!"
His hips jerked twice more, fucking her mouth, and she sucked hard, squeezing his balls gently, pulling slightly.
He tore himself away, reaching down and lifting her bodily to her feet with hands under her arms. He slammed her into the wall and put his tongue where his cock had been. She wrapped her legs around him, wrapped her arms around him, tried to consume him. He was jerking, humping, thrusting against her, but he wasn't inside her. She cried out, frustrated, and he growled again.
Severus stepped away, urging her legs down, and then spun her around to face the wall. She gasped; the wall was cold against her breasts. She put her hands up, using them to help her shove back against him. He grabbed her hips, spread her ass, and then he was in. Hermione keened in time with his thrusts, meeting his driving rhythm.
She came hard, shattering as he fucked her against the wall of his shower. He followed her over the edge, slamming her against the wall one last time and burying his face against her neck, his lips finding the underside of her jaw.
"How are we going to do this, Sev?" she asked twenty minutes later, when they'd finally left the shower. She wore his bathrobe, but hadn't bothered to close it. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and she enjoyed looking at his chest covered in her love bites just as surely as he'd like seeing his marks on her beneath the robe.
"I have no idea," he said, not bothering to pretend he didn't know what she was talking about.
It had almost been a honeymoon, the weeks they'd spent holed up in his rooms. It hadn't exclusively been time spent together. He'd had duties around the school, marking to do, and he'd been Summoned twice. She'd had meetings with the headmaster and minor tasks of her own to tend to. But the majority of the holiday had been spent delightfully nude.
\\
She left him a few hours later. There was no Polyjuice Potion to take so that she would look as she had at seventeen. (Or had she been eighteen already? She couldn't remember.) She'd brushed her hair out too quickly, letting it frizz up around her as it used to. She'd put on the skirt and knee socks. She'd have to wear a Glamour to hide the fine lines by her eyes and the scars on her arms and hands.
"I don't like it," Severus had said before she left. His fingers played with the edge of her student robe, his eyes on her Gryffindor tie.
"You think I do?"
"No," he said softly. His hands patted and stroaked at her hair, trying to smooth it back the way he was used to seeing it. It didn't work.
She'd gone after a protracted good-bye—he'd kept grabbing her back to him. She'd eaten lunch in the Great Hall with the handful of students who had returned, then she'd gone out to Hagrid's to practice beign a teenager on somebody before Harry and Ron arrived back.
It was only on her way back into the castle that Hermione realized she was still wearing her ring. She had half a mind to spell it—maybe a Notice-Me-Not or just Disillusion it—but… it wouldn't work. Dumbledore, not to mention most of the other teachers, would notice that she was wearing something on her hand hidden by spells. Eventually somebody would get curious and either ask or just lift the spells surreptitiously. She hid the ring in her pocket for now and continued on her way.
Hagrid had some very good advice about the teenaged angst she'd forgotten—the Ron and Lavender issue—in the interim. She left him feeding Buckbeak and took the long way back up to the school, wondering how long she'd have before she had to pretend to have a row with Ron about his girlfriend. She wondered if she could keep a straight face in sight of Lavender Brown showing off her hickie-speckled neck, or if she'd give in and strip down to put on her pajamas in full view, showing off the hickies she currently sported that were definitely not restrained to her neck.
"Hello, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore said jovially. He looked as though he might have been waiting for her in the entrance hall.
"Hello, Headmaster," she said brightly, doing her best to exude teenaged naiveté for the sake of the fourth years on their way outside for a snowball fight.
"Did you have a nice holiday?"
"It was lovely. Thank you, sir," she said. The real testament to her conversation with Hagrid was in the fact that she kept the bitterness out of her response. Lovely holiday indeed. Ten years off from being a student of Hogwarts, but at what cost?
"Wonderful, wonderful," he said. It struck her that he played the dotty grandfather because that was who he wished he was. The conniving mastermind, the one leading the fight, was who he was, who his life had made him. It made her sad, thinking of it. "I wonder if you might do me a favor, my dear."
"Of course, sir."
"Would you be so kind as to deliver this to Mr. Potter when he returns from his holiday?"
"Yes, sir. I will."
She left him, thankful all she had to do was play owl. She'd feared for a split second that he was going to send her away somewhere, to have her Turn back and complete another task.
Harry, Ron and Ginny were standing outside the portrait hole when she got there.
"Harry! Ginny!" she cried, remembering at the last second to leave Ron out. She hurried down the corridor. "I got back a couple of hours ago, I've just been down to visit Hagrid and Buck—I mean Witherwings," she said, breathless from the trot down the hallway after running up the stairs from the entrance hall. She really needed to start running in the mornings again. "Did you have a good Christmas?"
"Yeah," Ron said at once, "pretty eventful, Rufus Scrim—"
"I've got something for you, Harry," she said, cutting Ron off before he could say something stupid out where everybody could hear. "Oh, hang on—password. Abstinence."
"Precisely," said the Fat Lady in a feeble voice, and swung forward to reveal the portrait hole. Hermione hid her grin by taking off her hat and smoothing down the curls that frizzed up in its wake.
"What's up with her?" Harry asked.
"Overindulged over Christmas, apparently," Hermione said, rolling her eyes and going first into the common room. It felt like ages since she'd been there, and that was true enough. It was already packed with returned students. "She and her friend Violet drank their way through all the wine in that picture of drunk monks down by the Charms corridor." Minerva had had a good laugh when she'd retold the story and given Hermione the new password. "Anyway…" She rummaged in her pocket for a moment, then pulled out the scroll of parchment with Dumbledore's handwriting on it.
"Great," Harry said, unrolling it. "I've got loads to tell him—and you. Let's sit down—"
But they were interrupted by the arrival of Lavender. With a squeal of "Won-Won!" at an entirely inappropriate decibel for the indoors, she came hurtling out of nowhere and flung herself into Ron's arms. Several onlookers sniggered, and Hermione noted a particularly smug, teenagerly look from Parvati Patil, Lavender's partner in crime.
Hermione laughed and pointed out an empty table to Harry. "There's a table over there… Coming, Ginny?"
"No, thanks, I said I'd meet Dean," Ginny said without much enthusiasm, and headed off.
Harry led the way over to the table as Hermione extricated herself from the rest of her winter gear, shoving hat and mittens into pockets she wished she'd thought to Expand.
"So how was your Christmas?"
"Oh, fine." She shrugged. "Nothing special. How was it at Won-Won's?" She couldn't help it if it was a ridiculous pet name. She tried to imagine calling Severus Sevvy or some such rot and fought down a laugh.
"I'll tell you in a minute," said Harry. "Look, Hermione, can't you—?"
"No, I can't," she said flatly. "So don't even ask." That was what she'd say if she was in love with Ron, right?
"I thought maybe, you know, over Christmas—"
"It was the Fat Lady who drank a vat of five-hundred-year-old wine, Harry, not me. So what was this important news you wanted to tell me?" Besides, the little vertical wrestling match the two of them were engaged in out in full view of the common room was appalling.
Harry launched into the story of an overheard conversation between Draco Malfoy and Severus. She tried not to be sick to her stomach, thinking how much information he had, how close he really was. He was only missing a few key components, and then he'd be able to put it together. (Would that make things better or worse?)
"Don't you think—?"
"—he was pretending to offer help so that he could trick Malfoy into telling him what he's doing?"
"Well, yes," said Hermione. And, of course, that was exactly what Severus was doing. There had been too many botched attempts already. It was dangerous.
"Ron's dad and Lupin think so," Harry said, but only grudgingly. "But this definitely proves Malfoy's planning something, you can't deny that."
"No, I can't."
"And he's acting on Voldemort's orders, just like I said!"
"Hmmm… did either of them actually mention Voldemort's name?" Don't get ahead of yourself, Harry.
"I'm not sure… Snape definitely said 'your master,' and who else could that be?"
"I don't know." Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe his father?"
Hermione looked out at the room. Lavender was now tickling Ron. Ginny had found Dean, and they were cuddled in an armchair together talking quietly. The other students milled about, joking and talking, showing off Christmas gifts.
"How's Lupin?" The last she'd talked to him, he hadn't seemed well. He didn't like Sam Barnes much, so she hadn't gotten anything worthwhile out of him, but she would have to have been blind not to see how tired he was, and it hadn't even been nearing the full moon.
"Not great," Harry said, going on to tell her about Lupin's mission with the werewolves and the difficulties it contained. "Have you heard of this Fenrir Greyback?"
"Yes, I have," she said, surprised he hadn't recognized the name. "And so have you, Harry."
"When, History of Magic? You know full well I never listened…"
"No, now, not History of Magic—Malfoy threatened Borgin with him," she said. It seemed like a very long time ago. "Back in Knockturn Alley, don't you remember? He told Borgin that Greyback was an old family friend and that he'd be checking up on Borgin's progress."
"I forgot! But this proves Malfoy's a Death Eater, how else could he be in contact with Greyback and telling him what to do?"
"It is pretty suspicious," she agreed. And it was a miracle they hadn't been spotted and killed. Why the hell had they gone to Knockturn Alley? "Unless…"
"Oh, come on," Harry said, exasperated, "you can't get round this one!"
"Well… there is the possibility it was an empty threat." But of course it wasn't. Severus had told her about the night Draco took the Mark ages ago. It hadn't been pleasant. Draco was his godson; he'd felt like he failed.
"You're unbelievable, you are," Harry said, shaking his head. "We'll see who's right… You'll be eating your words, Hermione, just like the Ministry. Oh yeah, I had a row with Rufus Scrimgeor as well…"
Hermione relaxed as the topic of Draco Malfoy and her husband dropped in favor of abusing the Minister of Magic. What had the Minister expected? After all the Ministry had put Harry through the previous year, to go asking for help… well, it took some nerve.
\\
The next morning, Hermione woke in her narrow four-poster all alone. She almost cried. The hours with Severus the previous morning seemed like an entirely different lifetime. She wondered if she could get away with sneaking down to his quarters, or maybe just popping by his office before the first class for a good morning kiss. Not likely.
She dressed quickly, pulling on the old uniform and feeling incredibly stupid. She hadn't changed that much in the past decade. She was still shortish, smallish. She missed the weight of her casual robes, the convenient Expanded pockets. She missed her satchel, though she'd folded it down to wallet size and kept it in the pocket of her robe.
The ring Severus had given her was in its box hidden in the depths of her satchel. All the charms she could think of to hide it on her finger were too obvious—the best option was a Notice-Me-Not, but that would leave people tending to overlook the entirety of her left hand, which would get problematic at best—or not strong enough to be effective. She'd almost put it on the chain around her neck next to the Time Turner, but Dumbledore ocassionally asked her to Turn back an hour or a day, and he'd see it. So hidden it was; on her person, but not the way she'd like…
There was a queue by the notice board in the common room. Apparation lessons. She smirked. Minerva had taught her to Apparate. It had taken a week.
Hermione signed her name and moved aside for Ron, only to have Lavender pop up behind him.
"Guess who, Won-Won?"
Hermione ducked out, not sure she could stomach it so early in the morning. Had she ever been like that? Ever? She didn't remember being like that even when she really had been a sixteen year-old girl.
Harry caught up with her and then, moments later, Ron. His ears were bright red, expression disgusted. Hermione tried not to laugh at him.
"So—Apparation," Ron said, tone making it clear that they weren't to mention what had just happened. "Should be a laugh, eh?"
"I dunno," said Harry. "Maybe it's better when you do it yourself. I didn't enjoy it much when Dumbledore took me along for the ride."
"I forgot you'd already done it… I'd better pass my test first time," said Ron. "Fred and George did."
"Charlie failed, though, didn't he?"
"Yeah, but Charlie's bigger than me—" He held his arms out like a gorilla. "—so Fred and George didn't go on about it much… not to his face anyway…"
"When can we take the actual test?"
"Soon as we're seventeen. That's only March for me!"
"Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to Apparate in here, not in the castle…"
"Not the point, is it? Everyone would know I could Apparate if I wanted."
Hermione restrained herself. She'd felt a sudden urge to put an arm around each of them and hold them close. She'd missed them. Good God, she'd missed them a lot. It didn't even matter that they were a full decade younger than her now, or that she had to keep a ridiculous number of secrets from them. They were her friends. Real friends. They knew things about her, and she knew things about them, and they had inside jokes.
Apparation was the topic of conversation at the Gryffindor table. Everybody eligible was positively vibrating with prospect of it, and they talked of little else. Even in Charms that morning.
"How cool will it be when we can just—" Seamus snapped his fingers. "Me cousin Fergus does it just to annoy me. You wait till I can do it back… He'll never have another peaceful moment!"
Seamus, distracted by his own story, jabbed his wand too sharply when casting Aguamenti and sent a hoselike jet of water out of his wand instead of the fountain he was supposed to. The jet ricocheted off the ceiling and knocked Professor Flitwick flat on his face.
Hermione rolled her eyes—she'd been doing that a lot—and made a show of concentrating on her wand movement as Flitwick passed her desk.
\\
The next morning, Harry told her about his latest lesson with Dumbledore. Still working on that memory of Slughorn's—confirming the Horcruxes beyond a doubt?—and why the hell had Dumbledore told him about Horcruxes? His connection with Voldemort, uncontrollable even if he had managed to pick up any Occlumency, was reason enough to keep that one away from him.
"He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get it out of him," Hermione said quietly. It had only been a year ago that she'd dressed to the nines to be mysterious and gain Slughorn's attention; apparently the maneuver had only been partially successful. They were in a deserted courtyard during a break in classes, which meant that it could go from deserted to overcrowded any moment. "Horcruxes… Horcruxes… I've never heard of them," she lied. If she told him she knew what they were, he might wonder how, and she knew for a fact that none of the books in the Hogwarts library held any information on them, even in passing.
"You haven't?" He was disappointed, that was clear. She almost smiled at him. She'd forgotten what a walking encyclopedia she'd always been for him.
"They must be really advanced Dark Magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it's going to be difficult to get the information. Harry, you'll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy…"
"Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon…"
"Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you'd better do it," she said. With any luck, Ron's prompting and her goading would result in his simply asking Slughorn, and Slughorn would refuse to tell him if he knew what was good for him, and then she wouldn't have to worry about it for awhile. "After all, when has Won-Won's judgment ever been faulty?"
"Hermione, can't you—?"
"No!" She stormed off. She wanted to see her husband. She wouldn't have class with him until the following day, and that was probably going to be its own little circle of hell. She just wanted to hold him. To smell him. To talk to him.
He wasn't in his office and she almost hexed his chair. Instead, she left him a note and went on down to Potions.
Remembering she was supposed to be mad at both Harry and Ron, she took her things around the table by Ernie and didn't look at them. Ernie was bemused.
"Settle down, settle down, please! Quickly, now, lots of work to get through this afternoon! Golpalott's Third Law… who can tell me—? But Miss Granger can, of course!"
"Galpalott's Third Law states that the antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components," she recited almost quickly enough that she tripped over her own tongue. She and Severus had had quite the argument over the summer, shortly after Dumbledore had been cursed. He'd said that they might be able to work out a countercurse using the principles in Galpalott's Third Law. She'd pointed out that it was a spell not a potion. They'd had a semi-heated academic debate about it. It had been the first argument that Hermione had definitively won, not that it made her happy; her winning meant that they hadn't made a step closer to the headmaster no longer being cursed.
The class passed slowly. She was an apt brewer; she had lots of practice. She'd never be a Potions Mistress, she didn't have the knack for it, for experimentation or improvisation. She couldn't look at a collection of ingredients and immediately know what to do with it like Severus could. She could follow a recipe, though, and she had a steady hand.
She made herself act smug when Harry's reliance on Severus's old book came crashing around his ears. She felt a little bad, leaving him out to dry as she was, but not bad enough to step around and help him. There were unpleasant spells in that book, spells that could really hurt Harry or anybody else he tried them on.
"Time's… UP!" Slughorn finally called out. She'd been distracted watching Harry run off to the store cupboard like an idiot, and had a few things left to get in the vials before Slughorn checked her work.
"You've got nerve, boy!" Slughorn boomed, and Hermione rolled her eyes. Harry hadn't grasped the principle of the lesson in the least. He'd grabbed a bezoar, which would actually help the victim of the poison in his cauldron, but it wouldn't have helped with the poison in Ron's cauldron. Slughorn held up the bezoar to show the class, smiling widely. "Oh, you're like your mother… Well, I can't fault you… A bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!"
Hermione seethed at the sheer idiocy. Had he not looked in Ron's cauldron? Maybe the initial poison could have been treated by a bezoar, but after the heat from the fire beneath the cauldron and whatever spells Ron had been casting on it… She really hoped nobody was breathing too deeply near it.
The bell rang, and Hermione took the moment of chaos that always followed to Vanish the contents of Ron's cauldron before leaving the room. She was supposed to be mad at Ron, so she didn't wait for him. And Harry was hanging back to ask Slughorn about Horcruxes.
\\
Harry brooded for the next few days. She left him to it, telling him she'd be in the library and then making her way to Severus's quarters. He'd dropped the book he'd been holding the first time she'd shown up. She'd had a free period before dinner, so she'd made herself comfortable in his reading chair and settled in to write a dull and overly swotty essay for Ancient Runes.
"Hello, Husband," she said without looking up. "Fancy a shag?" She did look up then, through her eyelashes.
He'd taken her right there on the rug in front of the fire, smudging the ink on her essay so badly that she'd had to rewrite it. They'd held onto each other after, Hermione tucked perfectly just there against his chest with her face in the hollow his throat.
She'd spent the rest of the evening in one of Severus's old shirts, reveling in the way his eyes trailed after her whenever she moved. Of course, she was watching him a little too closely, too. Touching him whenever she could.
"I've missed you," he said. They'd ordered dinner from the kitchens and had it spread out on the low table by the fire, sitting on the sofa and eating shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh.
"I've missed you, too," she said, leaning into him. "This is awful. This is more awful than not seeing each other at all."
"I don't know," he said, leaning back and chewing. "That would be bad, too."
She sighed, leaning her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arm around her, holding on.
She left just before curfew each night, taking a random book out of her bag to stick her nose into as she entered the common room each time. None of her House-mates asked questions when she had her nose in a book.
Saturday morning, she talked with Harry about Horcruxes, or at least the lack of information in the Hogwarts library about them.
"I haven't found one single explanation of what Horcruxes do! Not a single one! I've been right through the restricted section and even in the most horrible books, where they tell you how to brew the most gruesome potions—nothing! All I could find was this, in the introduction to Magick Moste Evile—listen—'Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction…' I mean, why mention it then?" Dramatically, she slammed the old book shut and snapped at it to shut up when it let out a ghostly wail. Damned overdramatic thing.
\\
The following Tuesday was Severus's birthday. Just after midnight, she put everything she'd need for the coming day in her satchel and slipped out of the tower. She'd left her hangings open; her roommates would see the empty bed in the morning and assume she'd woken early and gone down to breakfast.
His wards were set to let her in. Walking quietly, she set her things on the chair and lay her dressing gown over the back of it before slipping into his bedroom. He stirred, but a brush of her mind set him back to sleep. The ease of that comfort to his half-waking mind touched all the soft parts on her heart. She slipped into bed beside him, slowly working her way into his sleeping embrace.
His confusion woke her six hours later. She turned in his arms and smiled at him. He blinked at her groggily.
"Hermione? What day is it?"
"It's Tuesday," she said, pecking him on the lips. He continued to look confused. "Happy Birthday, Severus."
"Birthday?"
She grinned, wrapping her arms around him and pressing herself close. She couldn't remember the last time they'd been in bed and hadn't been naked. This morning, he was in flannel pajama bottoms, and she was wearing pajama bottoms of her own and a camisole. The fabric was soft between them, but she wanted to feel his skin. They had an hour before breakfast in the Great Hall, and another hour after that before classes. She planned to miss breakfast.
"Yes."
She held onto him until he hugged her back. He still seemed confused. She decided he would catch up eventually, and went on to the next part of her plan, which was to thoroughly ravish him (or be ravished, whichever he preferred).
It turned out he wanted to do the ravishing. Once he'd gotten over the shock of waking with her in his arms, he seemed rather pleased about it. He suckled her tits and had his hands all over her before slamming her down into the pillows and rising over her like a man possessed. He held the headboard and pounded into her, grunting with each thrust. She bent her knees so she could brace her feet against the mattress and push back into him, keeping time.
She didn't bother to get dressed when they finished, just led him out into the sitting room after casting a Cleansing Charm on the both of them. They sat in his reading chair by the fire, her draped across his lap as before, and fed each other bites of fruit and crescent rolls, pausing now and again for lingering kisses, talking about whatever came to mind. When they'd eaten their fill, she shifted in his lap so that she straddled him, taking him inside her and beginning to rock her hips against his.
They dressed slowly after. She had to put her shirt on four times before she got her sweater over it; he kept peeling it off her. She didn't make it much easier for him; whenever she'd start buttoning up his frock coat she'd get distracted and find herself undoing buttons, sliding it off his shoulders.
Finally, they were dressed. She knew for a fact that they both looked well laid, but it was likely nobody would spot it. She smoothed his robes, flicking nonexistent dust off his shoulder for an excuse to keep touching him. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently.
"Happy Birthday," she said when he stepped back. He merely smiled a self-satisfied smile and watched her walk out of his room. She smirked at him over her shoulder before closing the door and made her way to the greenhouses for her first class of the day.
The walk out was miserable and snowy, but inside the greenhouse was toasty. Professor Sprout was lecturing on plant interaction today, and Hermione ended up between Neville, who was fascinated, and Pansy Parkinson, who was bored.
It occurred to her halfway through the lesson that she'd killed one of Parkinson's cousins not so very long ago.
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Harry and Ron grumbled about the cold all the way across the courtyard on the way in, but Hermione hardly heard them. She'd memorized Severus's timetable for the day, and was reviewing the schedule she'd decided on.
Charms was next. Everybody had finally more-or-less mastered Aguamenti, and they'd moved on to Sticking Charms, the most common way to hang pictures in wizarding households. Hermione spent the lesson trying not to remember the day on the ward at St. Mungo's when she'd been part of un-sticking two particularly distraught children who'd been playing with their mother's wand and accidentally cast a Sticking Charm on themselves.
After Charms was her free period before lunch. She told the boys she'd be in the library and dashed off for the Defense classroom. As she approached, she Disillusioned herself in case he wasn't alone, but she needn't have bothered; he was the only one in the classroom.
"Hello," she said quietly, slipping in and locking the door as she dropped her spell. He smiled at her, making her insides turn to liquid. She smiled back, laughing at herself, and leaned across the desk to give him a kiss when she made it to the front of the classroom.
"You must've run the whole way up here to make it from—Charms isn't it?—before my class," he said, standing and coming round the desk to hug her. He leaned back against the desk and continued to hold her.
"I have a free period and it's your birthday, so I thought I'd make the effort."
"It's appreciated," he murmured into her hair. She wrapped her arms around him and just enjoyed standing with him while it lasted. The feel of his arms around her, the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. The smell of his skin and robes. The sense of his mind, wrapping around hers as hers wrapped around his, consciousnesses twining together without sending direct thoughts (no eye contact), just the sense of love, completion.
Hermione wondered if she'd be able to stand in his arms like this for his next birthday, and her soul ached at the thought that she might not.
"I love you, Severus Snape," she said, pulling back when she heard the first student try the door.
"And I love you," he said, giving her a lingering kiss, "Hermione Snape."
She wondered if she'd ever get used to that, and hoped she didn't. She smiled at him one last time before Disillusioning herself again and flinging the door open so that it banged against the wall. The students—fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins—filed in and took their seats. She slipped out, making her way to her favorite study spot behind the gargoyle near the entrance hall. Not only did she have a translation for Ancient Runes, Severus would walk past the alcove on his way to lunch.
The period passed slowly. The translation hadn't been difficult, so Hermione had gotten her equations for Arithmancy out of the way as well. Finally, she heard students beginning to fill the hallways on their way to the Hall for lunch, and she packed up her bag.
When Severus strode past, Hermione darted out after him. He slowed his pace ever so slightly to accommodate her shorter legs. Their hands brushed for an instant, hidden in the folds of his voluminous robes, and then he swept up to the Head Table, and Hermione took her place between Harry and Neville. Neville carried a conversation about Nepalese water plants with very little encouragement, allowing her to look past him, watching Severus make polite conversation with Minerva. He darted glances her much more often than he probably should have.
She left the table when she saw Severus leave the Head Table, telling Neville she was having trouble with one of her Arithmancy problems and wanted to give it a go before Defense. She headed Severus off at her alcove, checking up and down the hall for witnesses before pushing him behind the gargoyle and flicking her wand to keep anybody from noticing them.
"Not that I mind all this attention, Mrs. Snape," he said formally, pulling himself up to his full height and looking shrewdly down at her, "but what are you playing at?"
She smiled. She couldn't help it; he'd called her 'Mrs. Snape.'
"I'm not playing at anything," she said, dropping her bag onto the stone seat at the back of the alcove. "I love you, and it's your birthday. It's as simple as that, really. While we can't do it every day, today I am making it my personal priority to remind you, every moment that I can, just how much I adore you."
He maintained his curious look and aloof posture very well while she opened his robes and unbuttoned his frock coat, but his composure shattered when she opened the front of his trousers. His hips jerked against her hand, and he groaned. Smirking, she knelt in front of him, burrowing into his robes, ducking beneath the tails of his shirt, and finding her prize.
Hermione teased him with fingers and lips, wondering what he would do if she only teased him, if she brought him to the brink and then tidied him away back into his trousers and darted off to his classroom before he could catch her. She discarded the thought. It was his birthday, after all.
He had a large cock. Putting it "politely" would be to say that he was well-hung. His balls were soft, pliable in her hands; his rod the velvet-encased steal straight out of a bad romance novel. His pubic hair was black as the hair on his head, very slightly curly. He smelled amazing; the musk of man.
She pet at the soft skin of his inner thighs and nuzzled against him, breathing him in. When she kissed the underside of his shaft, his knees gave out and he fell back against the base of the gargoyle behind him. She shifted forward to be closer again, now massaging his sack with one hand as she tugged gently on his cock with the other, planting light kisses around the base as she stroked. She kissed where her hand went, trailing her tongue up the length of him, nipping at his tip, sucking the head of his cock into her mouth only to pop it out and move again.
Wet, open-mouthed kisses along his shaft, sucking lightly, and then she took him into her mouth properly. She looked up at him as she did, and a jolt of pleasure shot straight to her quim when she saw that he was watching her. Their eyes locked, but there was no sensible thought to leak between them. His hand found her head, pulled her mouth down the length of him until there was no more to take. She worked her mouth around him, watching his face. Reveling in his expression. She sucked, and he squeezed his eyes closed, his other hand finding a place on her head.
She opened her throat to him and let him take over. One hand braced against his hip, reminding him to be gentle (or at least gentle enough so that she didn't chip a tooth, which would be painful for them both). The other cupped his balls gently, then moved back, moved up. She inserted one finger into his anus, and his hips jerked. He froze and moaned, his head falling back. She grinned around her mouthful of cock, edging her finger ever so slightly further in. He gasped, quivering under her hands, her mouth. She sucked, pulling her head back along his shaft until he popped out of her mouth, then ran her teeth along the underside, blowing cool air along the length of him before sucking him down her throat again. He came with a roar, hands clenching into her hair, cock bottoming-out against the back of her throat.
Hermione swallowed his hot come, pulling back, removing her finger from him. She stroked his thighs again, moving her head as she licked and sucked. Finally, he was still under her hands, lying back boneless against the gargoyle.
She smiled, and put him to rights. Trousers buttoned, shirt tucked in. Frock coat buttoned all the way down, robes clasped properly again and smoothed down into place. Every inch of him the same as it always was, the unapproachable professor. Or at least he would have been if he wasn't lying back against the statue breathing like he'd just run a marathon.
"Gods, Hermione," he said, finally standing up. She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. "I'm not as young as I used to be."
"What does that have to do with anything?" She smiled in a decidedly sultry manner before canceling her spells on the alcove and heading for the nearest bathroom.
She ended up arriving to his Defense class two minutes late, which hadn't been part of the plan. She'd had to spend more time than she'd counted on wrangling her hair back into its bun after he'd had his hands in it.
"You're late, Miss Granger," he growled when she walked into the classroom. Malfoy tittered at her. "See me after."
Blood rushed through her body, which was good because she'd appear to be blushing. She might have been blushing. If she was, however, it was a blush of anticipation. The things running through his mind, just what he wanted to do to her alone in his classroom … she shivered and took her seat, doing her best not to look at him.
The class dragged on. Severus spent most of it behind his desk lecturing. Even during the lesson, she couldn't have told anybody what it was about. Severus asked questions, and she was called on to answer at least one of them. Nobody looked at her strangely and Severus didn't deduct points, so at least some of her brain must have been working. Most of it was counting down to the end of class, though.
Finally it was over. The bell rang. Students filed out. Harry and Ron both gave her apologetic looks, then high-tailed it out of the room, abandoning her to her fate. When the last student left, Severus flicked his wand at the door and it slammed shut.
"You were late to my class," he said. She would've thought he was thunderously angry, except she could feel the tenor of his emotions, the thoughts running through his head. He wasn't angry. He'd spent the class hiding his erection behind a desk.
Hermione stood, casting a Silencing Charm on the room, and walked toward his desk. She hadn't planned on staying after class. She'd planned on getting to Arithmancy early and working on Runes homework so that she'd have more free time with Severus after dinner. Instead, she shimmied out of her knickers and let them fall down her legs, kicked them off as she walked up to the front of the room.
She walked around the desk, and Severus surged to his feet. His lips slammed into hers in a bruising kiss. His hands undid the buttons on his coat, opened his trousers. He pushed her back, sweeping scrolls of student work and his marking ink off the desk so that he could lay her down on the work top. She arched her back, lifting her skirt and holding her knees out so that she was open for him.
There was a frozen moment in time. Severus looked down at her dripping quim, tracing her sensitive folds with a single finger.
Then he was on her, in her. He fucked her with abandon. She was gasping for breath, hanging onto the desk for all she was worth, pushing back against his every thrust. Somebody was shouting "Harder!" and she was only half surprised to realize it was her. He complied.
"Yes!" She came screaming, and he followed her over the brink with a bellow.
Severus sat back in his desk chair when he'd recovered enough to move off her. Gently, he pulled her skirt down to cover her, his hands lingering on the backs of her thighs. She felt her skin prickle with goose bumps, her quim tighten with the beginnings of new lust. She sat on the desk, putting her feet on the seat of his chair on either side of his hips, smiling fondly. His hands rested on her knees, then moved to stroke her calves.
Hermione laughed when she saw the time. "I'm going to need a pass to Arithmancy."
"You don't need to go to Arithmancy," he said petulantly, fixing one of her knee-high socks that had begun to slip down. "You could have a mastery."
He Summoned her underwear, though. Plain white cotton knickers, nothing special. He even held them out to make it easier for her to step into them, but she took them from his hands and slid into his lap, straddling his thighs.
"You're going to be even later than you already are," he said.
She kissed him, sliding her hands beneath his robes and opening his frock coat, then pulling back so that she could see what she was doing. She balled up her knickers and put them in the inside pocket of his coat, then buttoned the coat and robes again. She kissed him one last time, a lingering, open-mouthed kiss, and rose, adjusting her skirt. She felt brazenly naked without knickers, his come beginning to leak out of her.
His eyes were dark. He was frozen for a long moment, then he closed his eyes, fighting to get himself under control.
"Shit, Hermione," he said, pressing a hand to the pocket where she'd hidden her underwear. "You really are going to kill me."
She cast a Cleansing Charm on herself and made sure her remaining clothes were in place while he wrote out her pass. When he handed it to her, she kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"I'm not going to be able to walk right tomorrow," she whispered, lips brushing his earlobe. He groaned, and she could see the tent rising in his trousers.
She hurried away before he could grab her again. She'd already missed almost ten minutes of Arithmancy.
"I love you, you ridiculous temptress," he said just before she opened the door. She flashed a smile back at him, then dashed away.
Arithmancy was awful. Professor Vector accepted the pass with a sympathetic look and directed her to the proper page in the workbook. The calculations were easy, and she couldn't bring herself to pretend otherwise. Despite her late arrival, she was the first to finish and thus the first to leave.
Potions was after Arithmancy, and that was almost as bad. Slughorn boomed and grinned. Hermione decided she really didn't like him. It wasn't just his blatant favoritism; it was a simple, genuine gut-feeling of simply not caring for him at all.
The bell rang and she fled with the rest of the students, headed for dinner. She stared at Severus throughout. At one point, Harry nudged her and suggested she stop before he noticed.
"I get you're mad at him for making you miss part of your class, but you're going to make it worse."
Little did he know that Severus had spent most of dinner staring back at her. She'd begun by suggesting dark corners they could ward themselves away in, excuses they could use. He'd quickly trumped all of her ideas.
I am going to tie you to my bed, he'd informed her. And then you're going to discover the full advantage of being married to a Potions Master.
She put in a perfunctory appearance in the common room after dinner. Severus had a staff meeting until eight, anyway. That left her with over an hour of time to kill. She read Harry's Transfigurations essay for him, but not very thoroughly. He had the theories down in a very general sort of way, at least.
Hermione claimed a headache at ten to eight and went up to her dormitory. It was, thankfully, empty. She pulled her hangings closed and put a clumsy Silencing Charm around them, a clear message to her roommates to leave her alone. Then she Disillusioned herself and went back downstairs, slipping easily out of the common room. And then it was everything she could do to keep from running to the dungeons.
Severus was waiting, back early from his meeting. He sat in his reading chair, but rose when she entered and pulled her into his arms, plundering her mouth with his tongue.
"I believe you had a plan?" Hermione asked, when they parted. His hands slid up under her skirt, probing naked flesh. She'd considered putting different knickers on while she'd been doing homework in the common room, but that had felt like cheating.
"Hm," he hummed agreement, his hands leaving her body and going to the clasps of his robes. He pulled them off with a flourish, draping them over the chair, and she did the same with her robes and sweater before following him into the bedroom.
He'd stripped the bed of blankets and pillows. All that remained was the fitted sheet. A flick of his wand and a loop of soft cloth hung from each bedpost. She was trembling with anticipation. She began to unbutton her shirt, but Severus stilled her hands, looking down at her with wary eyes.
"What is it?"
"You need to tell me if this makes you uncomfortable," he said. She tossed her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
"Don't let the uniform fool you, Husband," she said. "I'm not a blushing schoolgirl."
"That's not what I mean," he said gently, moving around her and gathering her hair into his hands. He braided it loosely with deft fingers; he was full of surprises like that.
"What do you mean?" she asked when he'd finished, turning so that she was facing him again. He was unbuttoning his frock coat, his eyes on the buttons instead of her.
"If you're only doing this because you think it's a good idea of a birthday gift to let me tie you down and have my wicked way with you—"
"Severus," she cut him off sharply, stilling his hands on his buttons with hers and waiting until he looked at her to continue. "There is very little you could do to me that would make me uncomfortable. I don't like pain—I don't really get off on being spanked, and definitely not on being whipped—and I've never tried anal—though, to be honest, you could probably talk me into it if you wanted it. I know my limits. And I trust you.
"Yes, I do think it's a good idea of a birthday gift to let you tie me down and have your wicked way," she grinned at him, pressing closer. "But I wouldn't do it at my own expense."
"I just—"
"I know," she said, going up on her toes to kiss him. She helped him off with the coat, pausing to put it on a hanger and stow it in its place in his wardrobe. He watched her quietly as she moved around his room, and she wondered what he was thinking but wasn't nosy enough to pry. Not at the moment.
"Did you know I've stopped drinking?" she asked him after the silence had built between them and she had begun to wonder if they'd ruined the mood with their serious talk. Of course, this particular topic wouldn't help the mood much.
"What?"
"Well, I shouldn't say that I've stopped drinking. But I've stopped drinking with the purpose of getting so absolutely shit-faced that I can't remember why I can't sleep."
Severus sat on the edge of the bed, taking her left hand in both of his. The ring he'd given her bisected a pair of scars along her bone. She'd put it on before she'd left her dormitory (because it was his birthday, and because she missed having it on her hand).
"I didn't even do it on purpose," she continued. "I hadn't actually realized I'd done it until a week or two before Christmas. That was when I went to the Ministry and got the marriage license."
He looked up at her, an eyebrow quirked.
"I think about you every night before bed, Severus. I wonder how your day went, and what you had for dinner. I hope that you're getting enough sleep, that you haven't been Summoned. Where I used to start drinking at suppertime and just keep going until there was enough quiet in my head to sleep without nightmares, I just filled my head with other things instead. With you."
"That's awfully romantic," he said, trying to sound disgusted. She smiled, pressing the hand that he wasn't holding against his cheek.
He pulled her hand until she stood between his knees, then wrapped his arms around her waist and turned his head sideways so that he could hold her to him. She leaned down and put her arms around his shoulders.
When they parted, she kissed him, and he turned it into a burning kiss, stoking her fire back up to a full flame. She rested her forehead against his, beginning to unbutton his shirt.
"Okay, Severus," she said, stepping away and heading for the nightstand on his side of the bed. He had a line of little potions all set up. "What do you have in store for us?"
"Ah, the spoils of my misspent youth," he said, joining her. He stripped out of his shirt and trousers, standing next to her in only his boxers. She tossed her shirt aside and picked up the first bottle, turning it in the light and watching the viscous liquid inside slowly move around.
"A throat tonic?" She raised an eyebrow at him. If he was making some jab at the regularity with which she seemed to have his cock in her mouth…
"Not quite," he said, taking the potion from her and setting it back with the others. "That one's for after, actually. It's for chafing. We've been a bit more active than usual today, and, I don't know about you, but I plan to be able to walk tomorrow without broadcasting my predicament to the world."
She laughed, sitting down on the edge of the bed and crossing her legs. "Agreed."
He pointed to the first vial at the other end of the line of potions. "This one is an aphrodisiac, plain and simple. Applied topically." He pointed to the next. "Warming lubricant, also topical. I don't think we'll need it, but it tastes fantastic when it's combined with this one—" He pointed to the next vial, which had an elaborate glass stopper in the top. He looked away from the potions and the heat in his eyes made her glad she was already sitting down. "—which I plan to drizzle all over your body and lick back up."
She launched herself at him. He'd been waiting, and he caught her. He hefted her into his arms, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist. She attacked his mouth with hers, dragging her hands over his shoulders and back. He deftly unhooked her bra, pulling it away, then crushing her to his chest.
Gasping, they parted. Hermione wondered when they'd made it back onto the bed, but it didn't really matter.
She held first one hand and then the other out as he wrapped the lengths of cloth around her wrists. When he was finished, her arms were spread just above her head, thrusting her chest up for him. Severus slowly, tenderly, moved her hair, which had come a bit loose from the braid he'd put it in, out of her face, tucking it behind her ears. His fingers kept going from that touch, trailing down her neck, tracing the round curve of the side of her breast. When he came to the top of her skirt, he lay down beside her, putting his head on her stomach, and slid his hand beneath the skirt.
He touched her, slowly, drawing it out. He circled her clit, never quite touching, never dipping further to where she wanted him. She tried to hold herself still beneath him, but her hips moved into his hand of their own accord. He smiled, kissed the skin next to her naval, and withdrew his hand.
Hermione would have protested, but his next move was to take off her skirt, sliding it down over her legs. She watched, panting, as he secured one ankle, then the other. She could think of a half a dozen spells of varying violence that could unbind her, but couldn't think of a single reason to use them.
Severus stood at the foot of the bed, his hands braced on the footboard like he'd been in the hospital wing when she'd been stabbed by her own knife. This time he wasn't hanging his head, though. This time he was looking at her with hungry eyes, raking in every inch of her body.
She wanted to say something sexy and alluring, but words failed her. "Well?" she asked. He smirked, walking around the bed and picking up the first of the potions.
He used the cap of the aphrodisiac to measure out a dose. Instead of swallowing it, he held it in his mouth and brought his lips to hers. His kiss tasted the way Amortentia smelled, and she prayed it would never end.
When he finally drew away, all her nerve endings were humming with pleasant anticipation.
It's a good thing I'm tied down.
He smirked at her thought, and turned to the next potion, the lubricant. It was a thick cream, and he scooped a small bit onto two fingers, then smeared it down his chest, stopping when his hand found the waistline of his boxers. He scooped more up, rubbing his hands together, and started at her neck. She could feel it soaking in, heating up, leaving her skin slightly slick.
His hands were everywhere, drawing hot lines across every part of her body. She writhed, pulling against her bindings to try to shift closer to him. He kept determinedly on, cupping her breasts, kneading them, getting fresh handfuls of cream just for her nipples. She was moaning, keening, begging him wordlessly to both stop and never stop.
He made his way down her chest, across her stomach, down each thigh. Then back up to her quim, and he quickly brought her to her first orgasm. He spread her labia, coating her folds in the cream, dipping inside, mixing the slick heat of the lubricant with her arousal.
When her body stopped convulsing around his fingers, he moved again, sucking in harsh breaths.
"Severus," she said, wishing she could grab him, could kiss him, could drag off his boxers and impale herself on him. "Please. This isn't just about me. You need to—"
"This is entirely about you," he interrupted, pausing to kiss her. The kiss didn't last long enough. "Besides," he said, pressing his cock to her side so that she could feel his arousal straining against his boxers, "don't think for a moment I'm not enjoying this."
She whimpered, trying to rub against him, but he moved away. He put the lubricant back on the table, unstoppering the last potion. He tipped the bottle and poured the tiniest splash onto one nipple, smearing it around with a finger. She turned into the touch, trying to move closer, trying to get more out of that single finger.
Then he replaced his finger with his lips, suckling the nipple into his mouth, and she arched against the bed. He laved at her nipple, letting it slip between his lips, licking across it, then sucking it back into his mouth. She was gasping.
His finger, the one he'd used to spread the last potion on her nipple, came up to her lips as he drew away from her breast, and she sucked the finger into her mouth. He was right; the combined lubricant and potion tasted amazing. It wasn't something she could pin down, say it tasted like warm popcorn at her favorite movie or blueberry pie. It defied definition, changing with each thought.
Severus groaned as she suckled his finger as she'd done his cock not so many hours ago, his head falling forward as he watched her. She wished she could touch him, but the waiting was delicious in its own way.
He began pouring the potion over her body. It was syrupy, slightly sticky. He drizzled it over each breast, coating each nipple. Lines of it down her stomach, in her naval, across her hips. He drizzled the potion across her mound, then spread her and poured more inside. It was cool, refreshing, against the warmth radiating from the lubricant.
"And now we begin," Severus said, and lowered his face to her throat.