"How long would you like to stay, sister?"

Narcissa calmly put her coffee cup back on the breakfast table. The weekend was almost over, but she felt little desire to return to her house. Although she was uncomfortable with much of what was obviously going on here, she enjoyed the attention Bellatrix and her husband were giving her. At home, she had often felt invisible and excluded recently. Here she was a guest, but she was made to feel welcome and recognized.

"I think I'll go home for tea. It will give me a chance to speak to Severus directly and see if he was able to get anything done."

Carelessly, Bella scratched her redheaded slave's head before saying, "Yes, I'm very curious about that too."

She caught her sister's disgusted look and grinned, "You deserve a man for a slave too, sis. Men the age of our husbands are useless in bed. But young guys like this one," she explained as she rose briefly to pull Ron onto her armchair and then sat down on him again, "they last forever and are incredibly flexible."

A cold shiver ran down Narcissa's spine: "Thank you, but no. There was never any love between you and Rodolphus, so perhaps you can be more carefree about it. It's different with me and Lucius."

"If you say so!" came the emotionless reply. Silence spread, disturbed only by the soft moans of the young redhead, who was becoming increasingly aroused under the stroking of his owner. With a sideways glance at her sister, Bellatrix stood up again, grabbed her slave's hand and pulled him behind her: "Excuse us for a moment, darling."

The blonde woman looked after her sister in disbelief: although she had always seen Bella with the young Weasley throughout the weekend, she had assumed that her sister would refrain from confronting her directly about her sexual debauchery for her own sake. Now that the door leading out of the breakfast room had slammed shut, she could clearly hear the man's loud moans and groans from outside, mixed with her sister's soft giggles. Grimly, Narcissa clenched her hands into fists. If Bellatrix had the decency not to do it right in front of her, she could at least have made sure she didn't hear anything. She remained in her tense posture for a few minutes, but when she realized that whatever exactly was going on out there would not be over so quickly, she stood up, put her napkin next to her plate, and left the breakfast room through the door that led to the corridor with guest rooms.

Apparently, she was the only one in her family for whom marital fidelity meant anything. Maybe all the other Death Eaters really did think that sex with slaves was no big deal, maybe that was really all that was going on between her husband and the Mudblood. Perhaps she had only imagined the feelings with which her husband regarded the slave girl. When she returned, she would give Lucius the chance to show himself to be a faithful husband who was merely looking for fun with a young woman, forgive him and come to terms with the fact that she was no longer a sexual attraction for him.

If, in fact, there was nothing more between them. Otherwise ...

oOoOoOo

With a contented sigh, Hermione stretched out her arms - and froze. She suddenly remembered that she wasn't lying on the mattress in her little cubbyhole, but in the soft bed she shared with Severus Snape. Snape was lying next to her on his stomach, one hand resting carelessly on her hip, the other buried under her head. She remained motionless for a few moments before she dared to carefully complete the stretching movement. How could she have forgotten that she had been forced to sleep in Snape's bed again that evening?

A quick glance at the clock above the door told her that she should have been in the kitchen preparing breakfast by now. Cursing inwardly, she turned away from Snape, only to be held by the hand on her hip the next moment. As if that hand had only now registered where she was lying, the other one came along and pulled Hermione tightly against the large, male body behind her.

"Are you awake?" Hermione whispered in horror, but the deep, regular breathing told her that Snape was obviously still in dreamland. She tried to move again, but the grip on her waist was ironclad. Panic crept up inside Hermione. Not only would she be late for breakfast - hopefully Lucius Malfoy would forgive her for that - but she was in the arms of Severus Snape. She had suspected that it would be a mistake to trust in this man's decency for a second night, and apparently she was to be proved right. Although he was obviously still asleep, she could clearly feel his arousal on her bottom. She had to get out of here, as quickly as possible, before he woke up. The thought of what an aroused, awake Snape could do to her made her stomach freeze.

As if he had sensed his bedmate's restlessness, Snape awoke. It only took him a brief moment to survey the situation before he realized that he was holding a wriggling Hermione Granger in his arms, her backside rubbing against his stiff member in an unpleasantly pleasurable way.

"Miss Granger," he whispered and immediately Hermione paused in her movement. Involuntarily, Snape squeezed her even tighter, burying his nose in her hair, inhaling her feminine scent and enjoying the feeling of a warm, soft body in his arms. Before she could protest, he released her from his grip.

"Am I making you nervous?" he asked as he watched her flee from his bed and reach for her clothes.

"Nervous!" hissed Hermione back in disbelief, "That's hardly the right word for what you're awakening in me!"

Once she was dressed, she felt better. Facing this man completely naked made her feel incredibly weak and vulnerable. She never again wanted to give him anything that could arouse his interest in her body. When she turned back to the bed, she noticed that Snape had also stood up in the meantime and pulled on a pair of trousers. His bare back almost seemed to glow in the dawn light, so pale was his skin, scattered scars bearing witness to the life he had led.

"I hope you are able to trace the condition of my body back to its natural cause," Snape said calmly as he pulled on a white shirt, "and not fall into adolescent hysteria over a thing that occurs regularly in men."

Hermione stared darkly at his back, "I am well aware that men tend to have stiff limbs in the morning. But the fact that they snuggle up to strange women and hold them close has nothing to do with it at all."

She could feel herself blushing at her own words, but no matter how ashamed she was, she wasn't willing to let the matter rest. If Snape really intended to gain her trust - it couldn't be anything else, she had decided by now - then he first had to make her believe that the traumatic incident of a few weeks ago would never happen again.

With a sigh, Snape finished dressing and sank back onto the bed: "Come, Miss Granger, sit with me."

"I should have been in the kitchen long ago!" she returned stubbornly, but obeyed his order enough to stand in front of him.

"It's too late for that by now anyway," came the impassive reply before the black-haired man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her onto the bed next to him. She struggled against him for a moment, but when she realized that he only wanted to put her next to him and then move away from her again, she calmed down.

"I couldn't help but notice that you asked about the absent Ginevra Weasley yesterday," he finally began, "and after some thought, I've decided to tell you at least two of the reasons why I sent her away."

Hermione studied his face with interest, but it was as emotionless as ever. When he didn't continue immediately, she asked: "Why do you want to tell me this?"

"For the same reason I showed you my Patronus," he explained curtly, "I didn't like the way Lucius was looking at your girlfriend and the way he was obviously trying to get close to her."

"Mr. Malfoy isn't interested in unwilling women, he would never have made a serious pass at her."

This statement earned Hermione a raised eyebrow, "You're defending your slave master?"

"I would defend anyone who is falsely accused of something. Even a murderer has the right to be charged only with murder if that was his only crime. To additionally charge him with, say, rape, even though he never did such a thing, just because he's evil anyway, is wrong."

Snape stared into Hermione's eyes for a long time, and it took even longer for her to realize what he was up to. Her gaze flickered to the wand in his hand just as she felt his presence in her mind. A whirlwind of images flew through her head, from which he picked out the one that showed her with Lucius Malfoy in the library. As soon as he had found it, he disappeared again.

Angry and frightened, Hermione jumped up: "How dare you!"

Snape stood up as well and stood in front of her, "So you were willing?"

"How dare you pry into my mind?" hissed Hermione, still completely shocked and frightened. She had to remember to strengthen her mental block in Snape's presence in future, otherwise not only her private thoughts and memories, but even worse, the conversation with Draco Malfoy could fall into the wrong hands. Angrily, she added: "You knew I was in bed with Malfoy beforehand!"

"I couldn't have known for sure that he had actually slept with you," her former teacher replied simply, "after all, you had chosen your words carefully and merely confirmed - as you do now - that you had shared a bed with both men. Although that's a common euphemism for sex, I assumed you meant it literally."

Before Hermione could respond, Snape had already taken another step towards her, pushing her against the wall next to his bed. She looked up at him, still angry, but now more unsettled. His arms were propped up against the wall to the left and right of her head, his hair hung low in his face and his whole body radiated disapproval.

"So, once again, were you willing?"

"You...!" Hermione began, but she didn't even know what she wanted to say. Here was the man with whom she had had an extremely violent first time, the man she had blamed for perhaps never being able to enjoy sex or even intimacy with a man again, demanding to know if she had willingly given herself to another man, one who could be tender and attentive and loving. Of course, he had seen in her memory that she had not resisted, that she had even been the one to make the final move. That he demanded to hear it from her mouth was nothing more than mental torture.

"Yes!" she finally shouted, torn between anger, fear and shame, "Yes, I slept with him willingly! And you know what? I'm glad I did! It did me good! It was nice to see that there are men who can appreciate a woman who..."

She didn't get any further. The words were cut off by his lips, which were suddenly pressed firmly, but not violently, against hers. She shook her head in horror, but immediately one of his hands was there, gently grasping her face, holding it firmly so that he could continue kissing her. She was surprised at the tenderness with which he kissed her lips, almost caressing them, but instead of calming her, it only made her feel nauseous.

"You are an extraordinary woman, Miss Granger," Snape finally whispered and Hermione could clearly hear that his breathing had quickened. Fear of what he might do next made her remain silent on the spot, but contrary to her expectations, he only straightened up and took a step away from her, "You are processing our shared experience better than I thought. That's good."

With these words, he nodded to her, turned and disappeared from his bedchamber.