Prologue

This was a very bad joke.

This was a very, very bad joke.

But there it was, leaping elegantly through the air like a mist on the breeze. A phantom. Reformed into something Hermione could not fathom.

" Expecto patronum!" Panic made the spit in her mouth turn sour. A line had divided her forehead in worry and if possible her far-too-curly hair to get frizzier.

Tan to pale, wide to wider- Her reaction was like lightning across her nerves.

Hermione felt weak. Tainted and faint.

The Room of Requirement offered no answers and no comfort. Not a thing as a chill crawled down the slope of her back.

She had come here, alone and beside herself, to practice . Practice, read, repeat. Go over all possible angles from published work and do it all again. It had been called regurgitation, she had been mocked for her tendencies-

But-

Did she deserve this?

Upon her quivering lips, her tongue tagged the edge of her teeth as she struggled with the command again as it whispered from her lips. " Expecto patronum."

It was not as strong as the other two, but it worked.

Dancing in front of her like a flame in the breeze was the unmistakable shape of a doe.

It faded. Misty and cruel, it faded.

Her patronus had changed. For what…what reason? She knew the reason.

Like a stream overcoming a dam, Hermione's thoughts tumbled around her head in a vicious way. Unhelpful and muddy, crumbling her consciousness and bleeding her logic-

Reasons. Reasons, reasons, reasons- Of course, she knew the bloody reason. Read, practice, read, practice- but all that reading had called something awful into question, some realization that would have been better buried.

The insinuation was there- for her, Hermione Granger was certainly no doe . It had to mean what she thought it meant. It had to mean-

Who?

She knew who.

Her stomach turned again and tears sprung forth. A whimper clogged her throat and she was left shaking like a leaf, alone in the Room of Requirement.

It had taken her a great deal of…something…to get past the nausea. The Room had changed for her, offering a cold shoulder to her emotional needs as it tended to the mental and physical.

But the books, the texts, the scrolls- they said the same thing. They told her the same thing. Repeated it. Retold it. Chanted it like a mantra. But that stuff she had already known.

And she was left wondering if she had gone mad.

But Hermione knew she was not a doe. The change of one's patronus could be two- maybe three things. The evolution of one's person could relate to self-discovery or horrible trauma.

She had neither of those. She had naught a reason - not even with-

Something rolled in her gut once more. The third reason rolled around like a boulder, crushing her from the inside out. Unrequited love. Unrequited love?

Hermione was… unsure she loved anyone. Not in that way, at least! Surely she loved her parents, her friends, Hogwarts but- She was wrong.

Not love in the way it was implying. She knew better.

She thought about Harry's patronus, but the clarity in which she cared for him was distinctly sibling-like. Dis-tinct-ly. But it wasn't off the table- if patronuses were connected, somehow, to the user's need to protect. But why not Ron, then, if it stood for protection?

Because it has nothing to do with them.

It would need further investigation. Everything would need further investigation and everyone would not escape her prying eyes.

She already knew what it meant.

Coarsely, Hermione pulled at her hair. Frustrated and anxious all at once, her arms and chest felt as if lightning were razoring down each nerve.

A special case. She was- A special case. She was in early primary school when she excelled above everyone and she was now. That's all there would be.

Nothing would come from it and, for as long as she could, she would not allow it to become known. Hermione wouldn't allow it to be known until she knew why. And the person…that she was sure it was mimicking would not ever know.

But it pulled at her, shredded her insides.

He'd know.

And now she was, distraught and unwilling, headed toward the dining hall to meet both Ron and Harry about… god knows what. Would they notice her queasiness? The result of her own selfish ideology of a man that didn't even like her .

They didn't know. They would not know.

It could- it would ruin both of them. It would destroy both of them. Hadn't they been through enough?

The thought, the action, made her heart sore. When had she fallen in love with Professor Severus Snape?

Chapter 1: Drown

TW: Student-Teacher Sex

Hermione Granger had only ever been with one man.

The first time they had…coupled, it had been extremely ritualistic. A harvest, something she had read up on and procured to Professor Snape in a detailed, extensive paper that sufficiently argued each and every point to her academic and moral desire.

Virgin's Blood.

There were so many elaborate, rare potions that could be made- life-changing cures!- with just a bit of her.

Of course, the first time she had laid out her desire to the man he had been repulsed by it. Outwardly, at her. Berated and took points from Gryffindor, as if it mattered, and had expelled her from his office hours as if she had brought something to the table that had been meaningless.

But Hermione was patient. And brave, despite the vitriol. And when she brought it up again, she could visually see him come together on her points. Rational, cold: just what a Slytherin would want. Just what his mind would latch onto.

They had made a deal . His expertise, her body. His penis, her hymen.

If you had asked her, before that summer she'd studied…rather taboo potions, about the notion of virginity and the purity and delicacy that came with it: Hermione would have argued. But that was… Muggle of her. Because the Wizarding World was different, far too different, for her to compare the monotone intricacies of religion to the absolute spectrum defined by the magical world.

That blood, held in four white-crystal vials, had been harvested. Four months ago, to be precise.

And now?

Now. Hermione knew that Severus Snape liked soft things, like his bed sheets. That his eyes were actually black- not just deep brown. That he would moan in his sleep if she ran her fingers through his hair, a sign of his… touch-starved lifestyle.

And that he loved Lily Evans-Potter. He had muttered it in his sleep more than once.

And Hermione also knew that there was something deeply, deeply wrong with her. That she would continue to hurt herself and endanger herself and Severus-

But his hands were so gentle. And the hard panes of his body, thin and wiry, felt stable to her soft one. And he was brilliant, his brain hard-wired for research whereas hers had been for data gathering. They worked so well with one another when they were alone.

When he wasn't muttering Lily in his sleep.

And now?

She was in his bed, her leg hiked over his shoulder as his mouth swallowed her moans, thick in her throat as he was thick in her. The curved bone of his narrow hips cradled within her own as he moved elegant and wild, a passion that was striking next to his common surly disposition.

He was everything in these moments. Or maybe she was delusional.

But he felt real. Tactile and warm as her lips found his neck, her teeth trailing over a light scar often hidden by his heavy, draping clothing. It made him jerk, and groan into her hair. The hand on her calf tightened and pushed, moving her body in a way that only he was capable of.

His other hand made it to her hair, delving between the layers until his calloused fingertips crested her scalp, pushing her deeper into the cleft of muscle at his jugular. It was a tease- he had done it before when Severus had wanted her to bite him.

Hermione pretended it was so he could feel her, connected in an electric loop.

Something in the back of her brain, contemptuous and angry, said that it was to punish him. Remind him that they shouldn't be doing…this. Maybe as a way of snapping himself out of it. That this magic, the push and pull of their very essence, was just a fluke.

…she had only ever been with him. That was all now. To her, in these moments-

Her face was at his neck when she felt a tear fatten at her lashes. Hidden, because even when she was under him or when they shared quiet moments of intellectual indulgences, she would very clearly remember that he was a cruel man.

That he could not love her in the way that she loved him. But he was so gentle. And his tongue was too vicious. And the curve of his pelvis fit her perfectly.

Churning, moving, in such a way that made her stomach roll in delirium, Severus's movement made her spine curve up as her very skin longing for him. Needing him.

She needed him. Didn't want him. Hermione would be content living an arm's length away if only he would enjoy her presence. This wasn't sin, but some sickness that lived uncured…

"Severus-s-ah!" In these moments, every time this had happened, she found it hard to breathe. Not like she was drowning, but that she just…didn't need to inhale. Not when the light blinked out behind her eyes and she died her little death.

And he died his. Wordlessly.

Hours later, Hermione would crawl from Severus's bed, having learned just how to move so he wouldn't notice. So he wouldn't wake up, even in the state he had wound himself into.

Naked, her thighs wet and bruised, Hermione stared as his writhing form. This wasn't the first time she had witnessed his unhealthy nightmares, the way he was vulnerable and sad, deep within the memories that held him.

"L-" He was face down, his hands clawing at the mattress as he audibly ground his teeth. "-ily."

He stretched her name out like a hiss. Like he was begging.

Yearning. Yearning.

It made Hermione feel cold. So cold. And the memory of a misty doe springing from her wand made that ice hit the base of her spine.

She needed to stop.

A crystalline tear hit the floor, then another. And her quiet sobs were drowned out by the noises, like someone who was dying, coming from her…from Professor Snape.

She needed to stop.

It was settled in her. Like when she had written the paper on Virgin's Blood. When she had first bridged the space between 9 and ¾.

It eclipsed within her, like a tear, and she felt such immense pressure on her heart that she was sure her ribs were cracking. Were they cracking?

No. No, that was the bed. One of the posters shuddered, then began to shake wildly as Severus's hand curled around it mid-nightmare. Like his sensitive temper, it would explode. And her chest would explode too, she was sure, if he turned in bed and didn't recognize her. Again.

To be mistaken was the worse kind of poison. And Hermione would not survive another dose.

So, when the bedposts shattered, she was gone. Gone so she wouldn't hear Severus as he screamed, and screamed, and tore at the bed. His lips choking on 'Hermione'.