AN:

To enhance the chapter, give these songs a listen:

Flawless by The Neighbourhood Let Me by ZAYN

Hopefully an early update will soften the coming blow…

If you notice, there was a chapter title change and I'm sure you can guess what that means… I promise next week smut will be here. I just once again reached a point in writing where I felt the tone of this beginning was far too different than what was to follow. So, despite having it initially outlined as one chapter, I have split it in two.

Chapter Fourteen: Affirmations

Outside in the cold, crisp winter air with the muggle light pollution from London spilling over into the Wizarding World and obstructing the night's sky, Hermione was drenched in a fleeting moment of clarity. This was exactly the sort of thing she would never do. The sort of thing she knew she should avoid. Her intention for her time in the past was to manipulate the facts behind the history she had come to learn. Not play out her trivial fantasies and act upon her selfish desires. But as Severus picked her back up—her thighs wrapping around his hips and his hand protectively cupping the back of her head as they collided with the brick wall—and left a rush of kisses along her jaw before sealing his mouth around the pulse in her neck, sucking on the thumping vein until she let out a desperate, begging cry of, "Daddy," and clenched around him, every nagging thought vanished.

All that remained was the man, wizard, who had her pinned against the rough, unforgiving exterior of the club. His hands on her body—one threading through and tangling with her curls as he gripped and pulled to command the arch and stretch of her neck as he saw fit; the other pushing up her thigh to disappear under her dress and her knickers so his fingertips could easily dig into the soft flare of her hip with a delicious, bruising force. His voice deep and possessed with ardent lust for her as he dictated and requested with equal fervor, "Again," turning her helpless to his whims as she complied with heavy, needy, breathless, repetitive whispers and shouts of, "Daddy," and "Please." His lips imprinting themselves along her flushed flesh. His breath hot and warm along the ripples of goose flesh he sparked into eruption along her body. His hips rolling and thrusting between her legs—the friction persistent and electrifying but all together taking too long to stoke her burning arousal into a cresting peak making her frustrated and causing her small hands to scratch and claw at the soft fabric of his shirt as she whined for more.

Reverently kissing the exposed swells of her cleavage and looking up at her with shining, devilish, midnight eyes, Severus purred, "Yes, sweet girl?" his maddening hips teasing her even more as they slowed into achingly drawn out rubs, his teeth hardly even grazing her as he nipped along her skin to stake his claim on every visible inch.

Pulling at his hair and impatiently bouncing in his arms, she gave him a sad pout as she nodded.

"Remember your words, angel. Daddy needs to hear your sweet, little words."

"Please, I'm all achy and hot and wet," she whispered, around her trembling lip, reaching forward to begin licking and sucking at his neck. "Make it better, Daddy."

Letting out a near feral groan against her breasts, he started kissing his way back up to her lips, his tongue stealing its way into her mouth, massaging and caressing until she was too lost in the sensation to do anything more than remain open and pliant for his use. Breaking off with a series of kisses, each shorter than the one before, her mind moving too slow to keep up, leaving her kissing after him in the small space between them, he checked where her ankles were locked at the top of his bum and deeming her security against him satisfactory, held her face between his hands and gently coaxed, "Hermione, I need you to focus for a moment, angel. Can you do that for me?"

With her mind soft and languid, her thoughts left on the shore as she drifted out into a warm sea where they waited to be a problem for another time, she found she didn't want to come back. She wanted to surrender to the freeing feeling of being in Severus's hold. Being in his care. Knowing he would keep her safe and tend to her every need. Trusting in him to guide her and carry the burdens he didn't yet know rested upon her shoulders. However hearing her name and not the delicate endearments of angel or sweet girl slowly repeated, had her wading to the sandy bank of reality from which he beckoned her.

"Am I not being good for you?" she asked, salty tears pooling in her eyes and escaping down her cheeks without permission.

Swiping them clean off her face with his thumbs, he cooed, "No, Hermione, you are perfect. My perfect, sweet witch; my pure, little angel; my good girl. Mine. I just want to be sure."

"Sure of what?" she sniffled.

"Sure that you want this. That you want to be mine. Because the moment I put my lips on your sweet pussy; the moment you come all over me; the moment my cock is stretching and owning your cunt so you forget anyone who was there before me and can't fathom anyone but me filling you ever again; the moment I come in you, pushing my seed so deep that every careful, responsible precaution we take fails leaving you heavy and glowing with my baby so everyone will fucking know who your Daddy is; the moment this goes any further, I promise you, Hermione, you will be mine.

"No more running from me. No more hiding. No more pretending you aren't as desperate to be my baby as I am to be your Daddy. You'll be mine. Your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, mine. And just as I will collect, cherish, protect, and own every perfect, pretty, pure facet of you, you'll have every warped, scarred, and fucked up facet of me. This is it, angel. This will be for forever. I won't know, or care to learn, any other way to love you.

"So I need you to be sure. Not just the repressed parts of you that I set free. You. All of you."

Biting first on the corner of her lip and then exchanging it for the knuckle of her thumb, Hermione searched Severus's eyes as if she were in possession of his ability to use Legilimency. Moving up her finger, she started to chew on the skin around her nail until he extracted the finger from her mouth with a raised eyebrow. With the weightless moment fading, she tapped his shoulders, silently asking to be put down and the moment her heels touched the wide pavers of the cobblestone, she started pacing, her mind spiraling and leaping from thought to thought.

Following through with the night was a horrible idea. She knew it was. He had expertly pinned it when he said, he set free the repressed parts of her. She could lower her walls, forget her embarrassment–the shame that came from the snide, cutting comments of others when they caught the barest glimpse of what was beneath her surface–with him. He not only accepted her, but wanted her. Not in spite of, but because of. It was a dangerous thing allowing her heart to open to that knowing he would hold the power to build her up in one hand and irrevocably destroy her in the other.

Dangerous. A fitting word for Severus Snape at any age, but especially at nineteen–standing before her with his booted foot posted up on the wall as he leaned back and looked for all the world to be relaxed and unaffected as he tracked every step and minute twitch she made. His confident arrogance and relentless determination mixing with the rougher, hypnotic quality of his underprivileged accent. The effect jarring and drugging when paired with the dichotomy of his impeccably tailored clothes and effortless chivalry. And none of it succeeding in masking the true threat that he was.

His power unapologetically oozing off of him in thick, dark, shadowy tendrils that commanded compliance and attention from those around him. Only to ignore their acquiescence to his edicts as his magic favored lavishing its attention upon her. It yearning to creep out to touch her. To surround and consume her with its embrace. To snuff out anything that dared get too close to her, that dared dull the light of her magic, the purity of her soul. The very thing that had become the center of his beautiful and dark obsession.

All of it coalesced into creating the perfect picture of the type of man her mother had once warned her against. The sort of man who would ensnare a woman with his undivided attention and pretty promises of forever. The sort who would bring heaven to their bed for a single night, only to leave her broken, addicted, and alone come morning, forgetting her name and very existence while she was cursed to never forget him.

And that was before Hermione accounted for the fact that he was a Death Eater. A committed, loyal Death Eater, who was unknowingly pursuing a muggleborn. The very thing his alignment swore to eradicate. Facts her mind had a curious habit of forgetting, electing to instead focus on what he would become despite also being the very thing that held her frozen in indecision.

Those were the problems of her current now. The now of 1979. The issues at present. There were also the issues of her past and hopefully one day future. The now of 1997. The issues of a future both come to pass and not yet achieved.

He was, and would be again, her professor. A professor who in eighteen years would be claimed by another, called Daddy by another. A thought that had broken her heart and now made her blood pressure spike with unchecked and unearned jealousy and possession–something she recognized they shared in regards to the other in spades. The traitorous thing in her chest wishing to claim him as her own though she knew she couldn't keep him. That he wouldn't possibly want to be kept by her when the truth inevitably came out.

But behind it all, something whispered from the corner of her mind. Something she had been confused by before shoving aside in light of bigger, more pressing issues. Something Theo had expressed alarming, beseeching concern over moments before he sent her back.

You're too afraid, that's what concerns me. Too rational. You need to be bold and brash. Take what you want without regret. You can't let this pass by…

…If you could have him, would you go after him with the sort of abandon only a Gryffindor could possess and seize that singular devotion for yourself…

…Live without fear… take the selfish path and tell anyone who objects to fuck themselves on their way to hell. Remember, your love is kismet…

Hermione hadn't realized she had stopped pacing or that Severus had pushed up from the wall until his calloused hands were rubbing across her shoulders and down her arms creating a much needed warmth with their friction.

"Where'd you go, angel?" he softly asked at her ear, his arms coming to wrap around her, his breath working to warm her chilled skin. "You were here thinking and debating so loudly your thoughts were floating free and then you went silent."

Holding her tighter as she went stiff in his arms at the mention of her thoughts unintentionally invading his mind, he coaxed, "Talk to me, Hermione. Tell me what concerns you. Let me in so I can help you."

Turning around and allowing herself to be fully engulfed by him, she rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart for several beats as she gathered her thoughts. Then, toying with the hem of his shirt, her words partially muffled by the hard press of his muscles, she asked, "Why me?" startling herself at the vulnerability that slipped out, her tongue becoming loose and free as she felt her nerves, doubts, insecurities, and even her magic settle as her senses were rushed and flooded with him. His calming presence and protective embrace making her weak in a way she should have despised but instead, quietly loved for how free she felt. How at peace she felt. How knowing that despite every objection she could fathom, every warning she could give herself, every reminder about the ways this was wrong, that it felt right. That he was right. Whatever was between them, whatever was brewing and weaving until they were both left bereft in the absence of the other was unlike anything she had ever read outside of her romance novels. Unlike anything she had ever heard about or seen, let alone experienced and felt for herself.

Already she felt settled with Severus, soothed by his touch. He brought her to a place where she could be free and unencumbered by responsibility, allowing her to just exist. And more worrisome than all the logic that spoke against her falling for him, was the uncertainty of if she could fully surrender and trust in him as he requested. He said he would be there to catch her. That he was drawn in by the parts she hid away like filthy, immoral secrets. That he wanted to know and own every facet of her. Had implied he wanted to love her. And all she could think in response, was why?

It was mortifying and yet she remained against him, quietly offering proof of her faith and trust in him without hesitation. Instinctively turning to him and seeking from him the reassurance, guidance, and safety she had been lacking since she landed in the past.

He called her a beacon. Talked of her light. But his dark shadows were what kept her tethered when she felt unmoored. They were the solace that allowed her to shine.

"Why not you?"

"Because I'm childish… not womanly… not—"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Severus responded firmly, leaning back from where his head had come to rest on top of hers. "Putting yourself down is a hard limit, Hermione. I won't stand for it. Not only are you insulting me by belittling yourself in such a manner, but more importantly, you're insulting yourself. Tearing your own self down and feeding the lies others plant inside your head so they can feel superior to you. You speak like that again and I will take you over my knee so you learn your lesson. Or did you doubt me when I promised as much the other night?"

Stepping back further and cupping her face—his body hunching down to lower himself to her level and his eyes forcibly penetrating her doubts—he enunciated in a manner so reminiscent of his time as her professor, it instantly had her spine straightening as she felt a familiar tug of eagerness at needing to take in his words and implement them in order to better please him.

"Fuck the noise that is trying to tell you, you aren't enough. Fuck the belief that you have to conform to some bitch's malicious idea of what is desirable. Set that shite on fire and let the wind carry its ashes away. Anyone who tells you that you are not enough, that you need to change to be accepted, isn't anyone worth knowing. Let alone listening to and allowing them power over you.

"You, my sweet angel, are so much more than most could ever hope to be. You are intelligent, kind, thoughtful, delicate, and hopeful. It makes you shine so brightly that people will either flock to you to bask in the warm light you radiate, or seek to dim you in hopes of absorbing what they snuff out. But you're also strong, fierce, protective, and down right ruthless—all of which I have seen and experienced first hand.

"That was what caught my attention and drew me in. The exposure of your fragile underbelly is what's made me possessive. And the sum of both is what has me addicted to you.

"You are not any one thing. You are everything and that is why you, Hermione. Because you are everything. You are perfect in every way. Absolutely flawless."

Coming back in with lustful, predatory steps that had her retreating until she stumbled into the wall, caught in the cage of his arms and looming presence, Severus repeated, "Everything… Perfect… Flawless…" like a mantra between possessive kisses up her throat. Turning her cheek with the long line of his nose, his lips hovering at her ear, he purred, "Daddy's perfect little girl," slowly pressing his erection into her belly.

"Say it. 'I'm Daddy's perfect little girl.' Come on, be a good girl and say it."

Whispering an exhale as her eyes fluttered closed, her neck opening up to offer him more of her, Hermione dutifully parroted, "I'm Daddy's perfect little girl."

"Again, angel," he instructed, offering a feather-light kiss to the corner of her jaw in reward.

"I'm Daddy's perfect little girl."

"Such a good girl," he praised with another gentle reward that sent shivers down her spine. "One more time for Daddy."

"I'm Daddy's perfect little girl."

Humming a faint groan as he slotted himself between her thighs by hooking her leg around his hip, he pleaded, "Be mine. Silence everything else and let me be yours. Give me what I want. Let me be what you need. Be my baby, my good girl, my angel, my flawless little doll. Let me keep you and be your Daddy."

Rolling her head forward, then back to look up at him with unguarded desire and shy but resolute acceptance, Hermione candidly whispered, "I'm sure. Tonight, tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month, however long you let me keep you, I want you. I want us. I want this. I'm choosing you and us and this. You're it for me. You've always been it for me," the slip of her secrets not even registering in her mind as she watched his ever present darkness and brooding countenance morph into an eliminating, awe inspiring, mind blanking, beautiful smile that stretched to his eyes and reached out to touch her heart, magic, and soul, effortlessly absconding with it all.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she repeated, her own features helpless to anything but mirroring the open elation he expressed, a weightless and free peel of laughter ringing out from her as he picked her up, pressed his lips to hers in an off center kiss, and murmured, "Thank you, angel," before Disapparating them with a crack that shattered the night.

AN:

This week we got the feels and representation of healthy communication and voiced expectations. Next week for all the good lovelies... dessert *wink*