NOTE

Sexual content.

91. Refuge

I woke under the bedcovers without clothes on, my body warm and weak with aching. I was in the Defence bedroom, but the bed had been moved across the room to sit beside the fireplace. The effect was so disorienting I was convinced I had died, and this was the afterlife.

Blinking the sleep from my eyes, my gaze fell on Severus, standing at the desk with his back to me. An inexplicable laugh bubbled up from my chest, and I felt a little hysterical.

"This isn't what I expected," I coughed out.

He turned and came to me, his black eyes staring down at me as he touched my forehead with the backs of his cool fingers.

I coughed again, wheezing slightly from the frailty of my lungs. "The mermaid. She was a Legilimens."

"Shh." He helped to prop me up against the pillows, keeping me covered with the blanket all the while. "Drink this," he said, summoning a vial and uncorking it. I parted my lips and he helped to tip the potion slowly into my mouth.

I swallowed, and instantly was able to breathe more deeply. My reason started to return, but the placement of the bed still made me laugh a little.

Severus took the empty vial and went across the room again. "You're not menstruating."

I flushed. "It just… didn't come."

"Are you pregnant?"

"No."

"Have you spoken to Poppy?"

His interrogation, though well intentioned, was what finally broke the illusion that I was in some other dimension.

"No," I admitted, as he carried two more vials to me.

"You should."

"I know."

He uncorked the potions and helped me to take them. Before swallowing them my arms felt as helpless as a rag doll's under the blankets. But once they'd raced through my system with a hot rush I felt stronger, and the ache eased in my muscles and bones and lungs.

He watched me carefully. "How are you feeling?"

My legs shifted slightly between the soft sheets. "I'm naked," I said quietly.

My dressing gown flew from the chest of drawers and settled over the bed. Severus turned around again, preparing a hot mug of tea while I pulled the fabric around my body and fastened the tie.

The magnitude of what I'd experienced came back to me in pieces. After being underwater I was eager to feel my feet on the floor again, and I eased my sore body over the edge of the bed, testing out my joints as I stood holding the bedpost.

For the first time I looked towards the window, the glass pale grey with light. The clouds were still intact and I couldn't tell how much time had passed since I'd been pulled out of the lake–let alone how long it had been since I'd taken the dive.

"Are they in the library?"

"Yes."

"Should we go?"

"They won't be solving it any time soon, and you need to rest a while longer." His tone left all avenues to arguments closed and when he turned and pointed abruptly to the bed, I obeyed and sat on the edge again.

He gave me the tea, careful as he handed it off, waiting to make sure my hands were strong enough. I clutched the mug close to my chest and shivered a little from how warm it was.

Sipping slowly, I took inventory of my body. I felt very clean. My skin was fresh and new from how long I'd been submerged in the cold water. My lungs still hurt, and my bones were sensitive. My blood felt too thin in my veins. But I was whole. I was alive.

I looked over at Severus, considering him.

"You used it," I said.

"Hm?"

"Your patronus."

His dark eyes looked into mine so softly it could only be described as a caress. Then he looked away again. "You needed light."

I stood again and set the tea down on the little table by the bed. He turned slightly and watched me as I approached, his fingertips still pressing into the surface of the desk. I snaked my arm around his back and pressed myself close to him, softly.

My heart fluttered as the tender skin of my cheek brushed against the black fabric concealing his chest. I let my hand follow its impulse to stroke along his side and rest, fingers splayed, over his heart. "Thank you," I whispered. Tears welled up at the corners of my eyes as I remembered the terror of being down in the depths of the lake, and the tender times I'd remembered in what I'd thought would be my final seconds of life.

I drew away, just enough to look up at him.

For a long moment he stared down at me. Then he leaned down just enough, and I got on my tiptoes to kiss him.

At first he was still, his lips soft but unmoving. I lifted myself a bit higher to tug gently on his hair. Only then did he finally wrap his arms around me and kiss back.

He pulled away after a little, and I drew in air through my damp lips. Even a few seconds was enough to make my belly hot.

His eyes flicked between mine, and for the first time I saw his opinion on what had happened. "I thought you were going to die."

"I thought I did."

Arousal was weaving its way steadily through my body like a charmed snake. But it was different from the arousal I'd felt before. It wasn't sudden and burning, but gentle, and more emotional. I'd never thought I would feel it like this again.

"Sev…"

My throat went dry as I remembered how he'd gripped me against him yesterday; how the shame he'd felt over it nearly prevented him from coming out onto the lake. It took some bravery to begin undoing his buttons, knowing he might reject me.

He did, but only halfheartedly, his hand tightening around my shoulder. "Wilma," he said, in a warning tone. "You're meant to be recovering."

"I'm recovered," I whispered, pushing the fifth button out of its black-threaded hole.

"Not yet."

But he didn't stop me as I knelt down to take off his shoes.

Or as I stood and finished unbuttoning his frock coat.

Not even when guided him over to the chair by the fire and undid the buttons of his trousers, pulling them down so he was only in his pants and shirtsleeves.

"Sit," I murmured, my fingertips feeling the firmness of his abdomen through the soft white fabric of his shirt.

He obeyed silently, lowering himself into the chair. I couldn't stop myself from making a little smile.

He looked up at me, his eyes softening and darkening as he held his hands out, stroking the outsides of my forearms with his fingers. "Are you sure you can…"

But he trailed off. Contrary to his expectations, I didn't lean over him or straddle him, but knelt down on the rug between his knees.

The warmth of the fire seeped into my back. His breath hitched, and the look on his face as I pulled aside the cloth hiding him made all the pain melt from my sore muscles. He was already hard.

A surge of emotion overtook me. I could be strong now. I could do this.

I looked at this soft, gentle part of him and wrapped my hand around him. Hard, yet delicate like silk. I shifted closer to him and my breath fanned over the tip.

His body seemed to tighten. "Perhaps you shouldn't."

"That was unenthusiastic," I murmured.

For all the many times he'd criticised me for my Gryffindor stubbornness, he should have realised I wasn't going to be stopped so easily.

He was watching me, his eyes blacker than I'd ever seen them.

His fingertips caressed my cheek and I turned my head a little to kiss his knuckles, holding his gaze as my other hand remained around him. He let out the quietest sigh. "Don't hurt yourself."

Giving his fingers a gentle nip, I leaned over him and tasted him with the tip of my tongue.

He gave a ragged gasp.

"Wilma–"

I rubbed him from the root up with my hand, letting a little spit bubble through my lips and licking him more firmly. A quiet open-mouthed moan spilled from my throat when he twitched against my tongue.

"Really– Oh…"

His voice lifted as I took his beginnings into my mouth. Already it was a lot, and I had to remind myself to breathe so my jaw could loosen enough to take him further. It would be impossible to go all the way comfortably, but I knew he wouldn't mind. My hand wrapped more firmly around his base and I didn't move for a moment, just feeling his heat in my mouth. The rest of my body went still in respect for the sensation.

Severus gently trailed his fingertips over my shoulder blades and heat rolled through my whole spine and to the tips of my toes.

I sank down a little more, my tongue flattening along his shaft, grazing him just slightly with my molars. He hissed and spoke nothings to me, his voice soft with moans of pleasure.

I'd never heard him moan like that before.

He'd never asked me to do this, so I never had. No more than a careful kiss, a careful taste while we prepared each other. With Fred I'd done it often, but that had been quite different.

I wasn't even thinking about any of the violence I'd survived. This was safe and beautiful. The human taste of him, and the warm pressure of his knees under my arms.

I increased the pressure of my hand and drew my head up, feeling his softness drag against the roof of my mouth. His fingers dug into my back and I startled. "Sorry–" he panted. But I only sucked in my cheeks and lowered myself again, softly milking him with my hand.

I kept going until I had to stop for breath. Then I released him and panted for a little, rubbing him with both hands while I rested. "I love you," I whispered, gazing up at him.

A dark groan dripped from his parted lips. "May I hold your head? I won't push you."

"Yes," I answered.

I bent over and started again, and he held my head with both hands as I bobbed my head up and down more quickly. I loved the feeling of it. The subtle weight of his hands. The circles he drew on my scalp with his fingertips. The way he sometimes tugged, very gently, on my hair.

"That's perfect–" he moaned.

Though my jaw was aching I didn't stop. My blood was singing with pride, and I knew from his swelling hardness that he was going to come. I sped up, my hand pumping more firmly, meeting my lips every time. I pushed my head further down, my throat tightening as I sucked on him. "Ambitious little minx…"

Just for that I took him deeper, to the limit where my throat threatened to close. It was so much, but I was determined, and I held my breath, my heart hammering hard. He gave a dark groan and I felt his thighs trembling against my ribs.

"Careful," he said, his voice a ragged demand.

Ignoring his warning, I leaned forward on my knees with a splintering sensation, and slid him even deeper. My throat contracted dangerously and I saw stars.

"Wilma— Fuck–"

His hands twisted in my hair and he came, his hips thrusting up and the tip of him hitting the back of my throat. I tried to swallow but only managed a little before I gagged, and I had to pick my head up, coughing a little. I panted and wiped my chin, looking up in time to watch his face as the height of his orgasm came to an end. I ran my fingertip softly up his shaft and he looked at me intensely, leaning forward to touch my jaw where it was sore, rubbing my fragile muscles with his thumbs. I nodded at him to tell him I was alright. I was overwhelmed, but proud. I'd done what I'd set out to. And by the look in his eyes he was very satisfied.

He spoke in a shaky breath. "You are…"

But the thought remained unvoiced, and he pulled me up to be kissed.

I loved this land we sometimes visited. This land of unfinished sentences and gentle passion.

Still panting for breath, I let him kiss me, first tenderly rubbing his lips against mine, then claiming my mouth more firmly. His tongue slid inside and mine answered back, boldly flicking against the warm wetness. His arms were wrapped around me, and it was seemingly without effort that he stood and picked me up like a bride.

I hung onto him, my elbows hooked around the back of his neck as he carried me to the bed and undid the loosened tie of the dressing gown, casting the fabric aside like it was nothing more than a cloud on a blustery day.

There was a lingering tightness in my throat and I felt waves of emotion threatening to overtake me as he looked down at my body, his hands cupping my breasts.

"Beautiful, Wilma," he murmured, as though my body were something I had sculpted myself. His lips lowered and brushed against my jaw. "You are so precious. And pure."

I hadn't associated that word with my body–or any part of myself–for a long time. But it struck something deep inside me, and I knew it was something I'd yearned to be called. Even if it wasn't true.

I looked at him, unable to cry, but feeling the coiling of tears in my throat. He looked back at me, his eyes changing as he sensed my thoughts.

"I'm not," I whispered, a sad rounding in my shoulders as I looked away.

"You are. Don't shrink. Look at me."

His deep voice did unspeakable things to my belly and I forced my eyes up to his. He cupped my face, his fingers tracing my bones. "You are perfect to me."

The tears came effortlessly, flowing down my cheeks. He held me so tenderly, like a true lover, and hushed me as I cried into his shoulder, stroking my tension away.

I'd pleasured him with no expectations, and was a little nervous as his touches made it clear he wanted to return the favour. But I had plenty of time to adjust to the realisation, and his fingers didn't roam anywhere overtly intimate until my tears had passed.

He took his time touching me, turning my body into clay in his hands. Usually I was very quick to prepare, and we didn't spend so much time just touching like this. But I had no complaints.

Severus pushed me gently down on the bed and laid with me, touching my breasts and licking them, kissing my collarbones, my underarms. His fingertips drew light, tingling circles on my belly, around my nipples, on my lower back, my inner thighs. When he did crawl lower over my quivering form he kissed my knees, which were red from kneeling for him, and pressed them slowly apart. The slightest force from his palms made me shake.

I panted, my toes already curling as I watched his lean muscles in the firelight. His eyes were fixed on mine as his fingers parted my coarse white curls and his thumb slid up between my folds.

My belly tightened as his thumb slowly circled my clit, another finger tracing around my entrance and then pushing slowly inside.

At first there wasn't much sensation, and my breath was soft as I looked down between my legs where he was touching me. But as his fingers worked steadily I became more sensitive, to the point where it was sharp and almost painful. I whimpered, and my hips jolted.

"Easy," he purred, his fingers caressing me slowly and gently.

I let my eyes slip closed, moaning with a broken voice. I couldn't speak. I couldn't fathom how I'd managed to take him before we'd left for France when his finger was burning so badly now.

My knee shifted, pressing against his arm. Severus hummed as he very gently stroked the firmly wrinkled spot inside me with the pad of his fingertip, causing a deep ache. I went tense and he hesitated.

"It's too much," I whispered.

He stopped at once, his hands stroking my hips and thighs soothingly. "It's okay."

I nodded, and my guilt eased before it could fully take hold. He lowered his head and kissed the sensitive flesh below my navel. "Roll over."

I did, letting myself rest against the soft sheets. I felt his knees on either side of my hips, his weight hovering above me protectively. His hands caressed my shoulders and I moaned into the blankets as his fingers began to massage the muscles there. My knees bent with pleasure and my feet waved through the air, my hands gripping the blankets as he kept working, moving the lovely pressure down towards my shoulder blades and along my spine.

"May I touch your sides?"

"Yes," I groaned, and I bit down on the sheets when his fingers worked the sensitive, untouched muscles between my ribs.

"We really should go help in the library," I said after another minute of this.

"Not yet," he said.

So I gave in and allowed him to care for me.

His hands moved all the way down to my lower back and my hips and bum, and then up to my shoulders again, leaving no muscle unattended. His attentions extended along my arms and all the way to my hands, deeply pinching the muscles at the base of my thumbs. He brushed my hair out of the way and kissed the back of my neck, sending a rush of stimulating warmth down my spine.

Whether it had been his intention was unclear. But I felt relaxed, and more aroused than before. "Can we try again?" I said shyly.

He offered a contented hum and kissed down my spine, making me tremble. Then he helped me to turn over again and parted my legs. His fingers caressed my thighs as he kissed the soft inside of each knee.

I panted out his name, the air cold against my wetness. He murmured something unintelligible into my thigh. Then he lowered his head and kissed my clit.

My breath huffed out of me in a tremulous sigh and he looked up at me questioningly. I nodded, breathless, keenly aware of the hotness in my cheeks.

Holding my legs open, he lowered his head again. I shuddered in anticipation, then whined as his tongue inflicted one long, deep lick between my legs. As though he were cleaning me.

Then his tongue stroked against my clit once, and he kissed it again.

He slowly licked and flicked and kissed, and I propped myself up on my trembling elbows, looking down at his soft black hair in mindless wonder, like a young girl experiencing her first pleasure.

The softness of his tongue was easier on me than his finger had been, and what had hurt to the touch felt like heaven now.

"Sev…" I moaned, as his slow repetition of tactics made my hips tremble. "Oh, Sev…"

Never lifting his head, he reached up, trailing his fingertips along my belly and gently pinching my nipples. He rubbed them briefly, very gently, before returning his hands to my inner thighs. His strong fingers pressed into the vulnerable tension where my legs met my pelvic floor, easing me wider.

I groaned.

This was entirely different from the desperate, efficient way he'd finished me at the cottage. It was slow and patient and so loving.

The whole world faded away and I gave in, my body expressing its helpless pleasure with little jolts and throaty moans. Soon he had my legs fluttering like butterfly wings as I cried out his name. My hands had found their way above my head, my head tilting from side to side, as though searching for something.

He stopped holding my legs apart and instead held my hips, rocking me gently against him while circling me with the tip of his tongue. My back arched off the bed and I did all I could to keep from crushing his head with my thighs. My hand flew down and Severus interlaced his fingers with mine, pushing one of my legs up and settling it over his shoulder to gain better access.

My torso tried to strain away but the incredible fire in my lower body kept me joined to him.

The slightest shifts of his tongue and his tempo were attuned to my sounds, and only when I was deeply delirious and very close did he press his lips around me and suck my clit.

I writhed, twisting with a weak cry of need, and the vibrations of his deep, earnest hum finally yanked me over the edge.

He kept licking and kissing me through the blinding white pleasure, prolonging it, and continued through the weak trembling afterwards, the strokes of his tongue timed to my heavy exhales.

My body was restored, everything settled in its right place, gravity carrying away every last bit of tension and pain. Severus treasured me with his tongue until he was satisfied. Then he kissed my clit one final time and climbed up over me, devouring my mouth. I pulled myself up and embraced him, halfway dangling off of him as my limp leg hooked around his hip.

He pulled me against him and eased us both down into a tangle of sweaty limbs. I held him tight, my head on his chest, hearing his heart.

The heat between my legs gradually ebbed away.

After a while Severus kissed along my jaw, his voice returning to normal. "I suppose we should return to reality."

Reluctantly we washed up and put our clothes on, climbing the stairs to the library.

It was a sacred secret from Minerva and Angelina that his seed was in my belly and my scent was on his nose and chin, beneath the smell of soap.

"Feeling better?" Minerva asked, as I sat down at the table covered in books.

"Yes," I replied. "Much warmer."

I caught Severus's eyes in a scorching hot glance, then modestly looked away.

The stone sat in the centre of the table, watching us pour over book after book. We all agreed it had an unpleasant effect on us. As bad as I imagined the Horcruxes had been for whoever bore the burden of them. I had to keep unfurrowing my eyebrows, unclenching my jaw, reminding myself to breathe and clear my mind of dark, gnarled thoughts.

Guilt festered in my mind. Each minute that ticked by felt like a knife in my gut, and in the most hopeless moments I was convinced I'd doomed Remus and everyone else by spending such a long time in bed with Severus. My head too full to focus, I looked across the table at him reluctantly, doing everything I could to beat down my irrational resentment. His face was pale and drawn, and when his eyes flickered up to mine they were full of a hatred so complete that I had to leave the table, hiding among the tall shelves to cry.

We moved the stone away from our work, but its effect was just as strong from the other end of the room.

Late into the evening we sat and figured and experimented with variations on the ancient, complicated spells that made up the countercurse. Only when the sky had long been dark, no stars peeping through, did we come to a conclusion.

It was a thing of such blackness that a whole forest of terrors reared up in my heart at the sight of it, its parts and steps written on a scroll of parchment by Minerva's precise hand like a long, dreadful equation finally solved.

Not only would it require black magic, but also a dangerous ritual. An inverted echo of the one Malfoy and the others had performed to bring the creatures into existence.

We checked it over again and again, but soon there was no more room for doubt.

The inevitability of it was a shock.

Skin of a rat.

Incisor of a virgin boy.

None of the ingredients were pleasant, but most of them would be easy enough to find, without doing direct harm to anyone. Only one of them inspired a sense of despair.

It was Angelina who finally spoke. "Where on earth are we going to find the horn of a… Netherlandic Unicorn?"

But Severus and I were already looking at each other, a blue streak of comprehension passing between us.

Hieronymus. The Apothecary.

We had both assumed, after I'd had my vision about the events leading up to the ritual, that Baddock had gone to Hieronymus on Malfoy's behalf to ask about Unicorn blood, which Hieronymus had refused to import.

Clearly, we'd been wrong.

When Pansy and Astoria had found the dead Unicorn in the Forbidden Forest, they'd taken its blood but left its horn intact. Because the horn of a British Unicorn was of no use.

It must have been the horn of this rarer Unicorn that Hieronymus had so firmly refused to tarnish his hands by procuring from his foreign contacts. But he must have been convinced in the end. The horn must have been added to the cauldron before the blood.

The bright light of understanding shone in my brain, vanquishing the ugliness that the stone had fertilised over the past hours, like sunlight torturing devil's snare.

The horn was what had been in the dark stranger's case when Hieronymus had shooed me out of his shop in October.

Baddock must have dissected Slytherin's notes himself after Lucius had left them in his care, and figured out that the same horn was needed to destroy the creatures.

After the stone was sunk in the lake by Brodie Baddock, the creatures were left with no-one to control them, explaining why the attacks had increased. As he watched the creatures wreak havoc, Baddock must have doubted his decision to cast away the stone, and considered trying to retrieve it from the lake.

He'd been thinking about destroying it.

He must have used the fact that Hieronymus had already yielded once to blackmail him into doing it again. He'd gotten the horn, and had only been biding his time until he could get the stone. But then lightning struck Azkaban prison, and it was too late. It was fear of Lucius's retaliation for his abandonment of the stone that sent Baddock into hiding.

But what of the unused horn?

"Gringotts," Severus said, his thoughts running parallel to mine. "He would have secured it there."

"Who?" Minerva said, her eyebrows pinched together in incomprehension.

"Baddock," Severus answered. "He had one. Where else would he have kept it than in a vault?"

Already there was an energy between us, a readiness for travel, for a mission. There was an angry buzz in the air. The stone had heard everything, and seemed aware that its demise was imminent.

But it could not stop us from going.

Angelina and Minerva set out to find the other needed ingredients, and Severus and I went through the bitter cold to the edge of the Hogwarts bounds, where we took hands to apparate.

NOTE

I was not expecting that sex scene, and hope no-one was impatient with it as it did dominate this chapter and disrupt the action a bit.

I specifically chose a 'Netherlandic Unicorn' because the famous 'Hunt of the Unicorn' tapestries were embroidered in the south Netherlands… and I'm truly obsessed.

I always appreciate reviews!