Chapter Three: Hermione's Deal


Peaches, apples, pomegranates, strawberries.

Clothes turned to mist before she was submerged in the babbling brook.

Fragrant oils of winter herbs rubbed into her skin, relaxing her exhausted muscles.

A single sip of ambrosia that stole her mortality.

Shadow kissed as she fell asleep despite the blinding light that engulfed her.

Sated and safe were the first feelings to register with Hermione as wakefulness crept back to her, one sense at a time.

Her taste buds still danced under the sweet spell of the fruits she had gorged herself on while kneeling at Hades's altar. Lavender, rosemary, and mint fluttered through her nose, invigorating and soothing her in equal measure. Her body came alive under the gentle caress of cool silk. Warm silence greeted her ears; a blissful change from the constant awareness of snapping twigs, crunching snow, and rustling leaves.

Her eyes were the last to adjust as she started to sit up in the bed where she had landed, the sheets rippling down to reveal her nudity like a running stream as she gently called, "Professor?" her reason based mind still reeling under the deal she had unquestioningly accepted.

"Not quite; I don't start until September."

The lack of smooth, self assured polish she had come to know as Professor Snape's voice caught her attention and with her nakedness forgotten, she rose to her knees and crawled to the edge of his bed to examine him closer. A mere foot or two away, his intake of breath was not to be missed. Nor was the tight clench of his jaw as his eyes hastily looked away from the transfixing sight of her pert breasts gently swaying from her movement.

"Please cover yourself. I'm in a bit of a compromised mental state and do not need you tempting me."

Tilting her head as she took in the rivulets of sweat that dotted his hairline, the flush that was creeping up his neck, and the rapid flexing and curling of his fingers along the armrests of the chair, she surmised, "You're unwell."

"Your powers of observation are truly astonishing."

"Ah, so you've always been a condescending arsehole."

"What do I have to do to get rid of you?" he snarled, standing up with such force the chair rocked back and fell over as he began to pace. "I already told my father that I don't want or need some nymph to see me through ascension. So go back to whatever forest he stole you from."

Grabbing the loose sheet, she wrapped it around her body like a toga and crossed the room to stand in his path. "No can do Professor, or rather Severus since all of eternity is a bit of a long time to not be on a first name basis with each other. I already made a deal with Hades—your father—to make sure his son—that'd be you—followed through on unbinding his god powers. Something he said never happened in the timeline I came from and as a result has been slowly killing you ever since."

"Why would you make such a deal?"

"Because my best friend was dying in my arms and I was helpless to save him. I was screaming into the night for help and your father showed up with a deal that only a fool would pass up."

"A deal only a fool would take. This isn't just for a night or a weekend, little nymph. This is for a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes.

"My father no doubt learned his lesson with Persephone, which means you'll never be able to escape my side. Not even with a conveniently digested pomegranate seed. So do me, and yourself, a favor and follow suit of all the rest and leave me to what will no doubt be a well deserved slow and painful death. Or did you think I was alone due to a lack of options in your time?"

Stopping him with a gentle hand upon his chest, she asked, "You're so young; who hurt you so irreparably?"

"You have a phone book?" he replied, the muggle comeback making her first sound of laughter in months escape.

With clammy, trembling fingers, he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his shining eyes staring deep into her own in search of answers as he spoke with the same accented and gravelly quality that revealed his lack of mask.

"Why do you look surprised to hear such a sound? You have a beautiful laugh."

"A story for after we complete your ascension. Hades said you didn't have much time left in order to entwine our souls in order for you to unbind yourself."

Reaching up to cup his face and thread her fingers through damp ends of his hair, she implored, "Please don't take my one chance at not only saving my best friend's life, but making sure he lives one as something other than a child savior. And if not for me, for yourself. Don't take away your chance at living an actual life; one without Dumbledore or You-Know-Who pulling your strings.

"This may be a match made by a father desperate to save his only child but that doesn't mean it has to be cold and distant. I may not be much to look at and stubborn as hell with a tendency to be irrationally jealous and possessive, but I am intelligent and can carry on a conversation about a vast many topics. I'm warm, kind, forgiving, and unfailingly faithful and loyal. My eyes would never wander. Nor would my heart ever carry an ounce of regret. I would be yours, only yours. And with time and your willingness to give this a chance, I'm certain you would have not only my fondness and body, but my heart and soul.

"So would it really be such a hardship to spend an eternity with someone like me? Someone who will never force you or ask you to change who you are?" she asked, her thumb stretching over to brush across his pillowy bottom lip before stepping back and lowering her hand to pull at the knot she had placed in the sheet free. "The choice is yours, Severus."

Watching the silk slip down her body, his eyes a frenzied fire as they tried to take in and appreciate everything all at once, he rasped, "You asked who hurt me so irreparably. The better question is, what dunderhead in your future has led you to believe you would be a consolation prize?

"You would never stray or turn away from me?"

"Never."

"And you'll give yourself as freely as you request of me?" he confirmed, his brow pinching with something akin to pained disbelief, causing fissures in her heart over his clear desperation to be wanted by someone.

"Every single day."

"For all eternity," he added, beginning to close the distance between them. "This isn't an exaggeration, little nymph. If we do this, it will be until the end of time and long after. You'll be no one else's. Only ever mine."

"And whose will you be?" she whispered, her heart racing as he reached behind himself to pull off the shirt he wore, her attention taking its turn to be commanded as she watched his corded muscles flex and stretch with the action.

Swooping down to lift her thighs and hook them around his tapered waist, he murmured into her hair as his lips left echoes of kisses along her neck, "Only ever yours, little nymph," carrying her back to the bed.

Laying her in the center, Severus's eyes drank in each curve and dip of her body as her own gaze waited on bated breath as he flicked open the button on his jeans and released the teeth of his zipper.

"Imbeciles, all of them," he hummed, stepping out of his jeans and beginning to caress his hands up her legs and thighs to her stomach as he came to hold his weight above her. Completely covered by his body, Hermione stretched her neck, reaching for his lips with her own as he tsked, "Truly moronic," before sealing his oath with a gentle press of his lips against hers, the contact sending a rush of magic throughout the room, igniting each of the extinguished candles, bathing the dark, moody room in a warm glow.

"No going back now," he whispered, slowly kissing the underside of her jaw and up her neck to suck on the responsive skin behind her ear. "You're mine, little nymph."