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Fuck, thought Severus as he dragged
himself out of bed. He’d have to see her today, there was
no avoiding it. He’d done an excellent job of avoiding her
for the week since the … incident in the staff room,
returning several letters to her unopened and taking his
meals in his quarters. She had tried to intercept him
outside his office one morning, so he’d been taking the back
(and as of yet secret) exit since then. But today Minerva
would return and expect his presence at her first pre-term
staff meeting. And she would be there too.
He’d been unable to purge her
expression from his mind, the look of discomfort and almost
illness at the realization of what she had done. She had
seduced him, called it a ‘treatment’, and then she could not
bear the thought of it all afterwards. He should have known
that would happen if he gave in to his arousal, but he had
allowed himself to become caught up in the fulfillment of
his fantasy. How was he supposed to have resisted her?
Aside from the fact that he’d never been touched so
intimately by a woman in his life, he’d spent the past few
weeks relishing the fantasy of fucking her. She’d sent him
the pornography, she’d paraded around in revealing clothing,
and then she’d climbed on top of him that day in the staff
room. He’d “relaxed” for as long as he could stand it until
his cock had been rock hard and his arms practically
straining to pull her against him. He was only human, for
fuck’s sake! Of course he couldn’t resist her.
That knowledge was little comfort to
him now, as he recalled the feel of her hands on his body,
then her breasts pressed wantonly against his back. She’d
seemed eager enough at the time, nearly tearing his trousers
off to impale herself on him. Severus snorted. She is
obviously of much better deception than any other Gryffindor
of his acquaintance, to have simulated such desire. She was
probably just trying to get it over and done with before she
lost her nerve. And he’d been such a pathetic lay, barely
lasting two minutes before release. Small wonder she’d had
to pleasure herself afterwards.
No wonder she’d been disgusted. He was
still ugly, wholly unattractive, and no amount of “emotional
healing” would ever be capable of changing that. He
understood that clearly.
But academic comprehension aside, he
still did not want to face her today. At least the other
faculty would be present, so he would not be forced to
listen to any awkward apologies or trite explanations for
her behavior.
Sure enough, Hermione was in the staff
room when Severus breezed in at the last possible moment.
He took the farthest seat from her that he could, then soon
realized he’d made a tactical error; he was almost directly
facing her now. The other faculty had already arrived;
Sprout and Sinistra were hugging their greetings, while
Trelawney was regaling a bored Vector with tales of her
various travels. Hooch acknowledged Severus’ arrival with
a small wave, but did not interrupt her conversation with
Poppy. This didn’t surprise him. Nobody spoke to him if
they didn’t have to. This used to suit him just fine, but
now it seemed to highlight his isolation and overall lack of
desirability. He pretended to examine his fingernails until
Minerva called the meeting to order.
The meeting went much the same as it
would have when Albus was alive, except that his absence
lent it a more somber tone than usual. Sprout and Minerva
seemed particularly hard hit by his absence, though Minerva
tried to disguise her grief, Pomona had to borrow Sinistra’s
handkerchief twice during the course of the meeting to wipe
her eyes.
Severus’ plan had been to exit quickly
when Minerva ended the meeting. Unfortunately, she’d
unknowingly ruined these plans by asking him to stay behind.
She wanted to discuss some ideas about undoing the
disenfranchisement of Slytherin house that had been caused
by the war and many of the students’ parents’ affiliation
with Voldemort. Since this was an issue he’d been concerned
with (and since he did not feel like getting Minerva into a
snit) he’d had no choice but to remain behind to listen to
her patronize him and his House for a quarter of an hour.
By the time he’d extricated himself, he’d nearly forgotten
why it was imperative that he leave first.
“Severus,” he heard Hermione call from
behind him. She must have been waiting outside the door.
He quickened his pace, ignoring her. “Please, Severus,
you’ve got to let me explain!”
I have to do no such thing, he
thought, clenching his jaw as he continued forward,
resisting the urge to turn and yell horrible things at her.
It was simpler to ignore her.
“Damn it, Severus! If you’re going to
be difficult… Petrificus Totalus!”
Severus felt his entire body seize up
as the spell hit him from behind. Only his mind was
unaffected, and it was very, very angry. How dare she?
he thought. And why did I not expect she might do
something like this.
“I’m sorry, Severus, but you’ve left me
no choice,” Hermione explained after raising his immobilized
form with Mobilicorpus and starting to guide him
carefully down the hall.
‘Little bitch’ was the least profane
thought running through Severus’ mind as he fervently hoped
that none of the other faculty would stumble upon him being
led down the hall by a former student. He vowed to himself
that he would make the witch pay for treating him this way,
doubly so if they were spotted.
The paintings on the wall indicated to
Severus that she was leading him through the staff wing
towards her own quarters. That’s just splendid, he
thought. Even if no one sees me in this position, I’ll
likely be seen coming out of the little know-it-all’s room.
Either way, I’ll never hear the end of it.
He heard her softly open the wards that
guarded her rooms and then he was moving inside. She guided
him towards the settee and lowered his body to lay on its
surface. After easing him down, Hermione lowered her wand
and set it on the coffee table before moving to stand above
him.
“Severus, I know you’re probably
furious with me right now, but as you’ve been avoiding me
all week I saw no alternative. I’m sorry but drastic
measures were necessary to ensure your attention. You have
obviously gotten the completely wrong idea about what
happened last week and I’m not letting you leave here until
you understand the truth.”
I see I’ll be here awhile, then,
he thought sarcastically.
“Severus, you have to believe me when I
tell you that I honestly only ever intended the treatment to
consist of a back massage. Everything I told you beforehand
was true. I’m not sure exactly why, but while I was giving
you the massage I … “ She broke off for a moment, finding
her words. “I found myself wanting to touch more than just
your back. To put it plainly, touching you was turning me
on.”
Bullshite. Severus couldn’t
imagine his scarred back turning anyone on. Does she
actually expect me to believe this rubbish?
Hermione began to pace, popping in and
out of Severus’ line of vision. “I hadn’t intended for it
to become sexual, but when it did, I wanted it so
much. When you kissed me, I thought I’d melt, Severus.
Yes, it was my first time being with a man but I wanted it
to happen so badly I thought I’d die if it didn’t. All my
grandiose ideas about waiting for some impossibly ‘perfect
time’ went flying right out the window. I didn’t care, I
just had to be with you.”
She took his hand, and try as he might
he couldn’t pull away, thanks to the spell that still bound
him. The words she spoke sounded so good, so plausible,
until he remembered who he was and who she was and that
there was nothing even remotely attractive about him to
inspire such need.
“But then afterwards,” she continued,
“I wondered what it meant. The reason I had never … done
that … before was that I thought I needed some vital
combination of true love, commitment, and Merlin knows what
else. I had loved before, but something had been holding me
back. But now, things seemed totally different. Though
I’ve come to like and respect you immensely, Severus, and
obviously am very attracted to you, we haven’t exactly had
enough of a relationship to call what we have ‘love’. But
despite that, I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone
else. The whole concept was new to me, and I needed to
figure out what it meant.”
Hermione sighed. “I hadn’t even
considered the idea of being in a relationship with you.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because it just hadn’t
occurred to me. And I didn’t know what you would want. I
knew you couldn’t possibly be in love with me, and I didn’t
know if you ever could be. I needed to think all this
through, and it was impossible to do while lying on top of
you naked.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry
you thought I was rejecting you. I know how that hurts, it
has happened to me more times than you know. But you
have to believe that wasn’t what I meant.”
The spell was starting to wear off,
Severus realized, because he was able to move his lips
enough to vocalize the words that were forming in his head.
“Why should I believe you?”
Hermione leaned in close, her face only
inches from his. “If I’d only done it as a treatment,
there’d be no need for me to do this, would there
be?” She touched her lips to his, releasing his hand to cup
the sides of his face.
Severus kept his mouth closed, still
furious at her treatment of him but fearful of his bodies
response. He tried to pull away, but found he still lacked
sufficient motor control. She sucked gently on his lower
lip, flicking her tongue lightly along its length as if
trying to coax his mouth open. It felt too good. He tried
to remove his mind from the situation using a trick he’d
discovered to make the Cruciatus curse marginally more
bearable. But for some curious reason, the pleasurable
stimuli were harder to ignore than the pain had been;
perhaps because the body welcomes pleasure and rejects
pain? Severus did not know for sure, but he felt his body
respond against his will nonetheless.
“I wanted you then,” she whispered
against his lips,” and I still want you now.”
Severus noted with alarm that her
fingers had moved to the buttons of his coat. How far would
she go? She wouldn’t…
“The spell should be wearing off soon,”
said Hermione as she began working the buttons on his coat
and the shirt beneath. “Then you can stop me. If you
really want to. I won’t force you.”
By then Severus was able to wriggle his
fingers and toes, so he knew she spoke the truth.
Unfortunately, his will to stop her was quickly draining
from him, as Hermione had begun kissing his chest as it
became exposed. The garments were about half-way unbuttoned
when she took his nipple into her mouth, much the same way
he had done to her the week before. Merlin, if it had felt
that good, he might be able to believe that she
had lost control. He could move his arms now, but they
were not pushing her away; they were reaching up to thread
his fingers through her hair.
“I want you,” she repeated. “I want
this.”
Severus nearly jumped as her mouth
lowered to kiss his stomach; he hadn’t realized he was
ticklish there. Her hands had reached his trousers now, his
coat and shirt fully unbuttoned and spread apart.
“Do you want me to continue?” asked
Hermione, her breath blowing on his groin even as her
fingers paused at the fastenings of his trousers. "I
will stop if you say no."
No, he thought. “Don’t you dare
stop,” he said as he pulled her head closer to the bulge in
his pants.
“All right, then,” she replied,
unbuttoning his slacks to gently release his erection from
his pants. “I’ll show you just how much I wanted you the
other day.” And she slid her warm mouth over him, sucking
him gently inside.
Severus’ eyes shut of their own accord
as he would have sworn he saw a flash of bright color shoot
in front of them, accompanied by the white hot pleasure her
mouth was bringing him. The intensity was unimaginable.
He felt her slide back and forth along his length with a
tentative enthusiasm, as if she had never done this before.
That in itself increased his pleasure.
By lifting his head to watch her, he
saw that her eyes were on his face, as if trying to gauge
his reaction. He felt himself tighten at the incredibly
erotic sight of Hermione leaning over him with his cock in
her mouth. She was clasping the base of his penis with one
hand, the other resting on his thigh as if for balance.
He whimpered, a mixture of pleasure and
defeat. He didn’t care anymore why she wanted to be with
him, he just did not want her to stop. His fingers
tightened their grasp of her hair when she flicked her
tongue along the head of his cock. She paused a moment,
uncertain, before responding by sucking just a little harder
and gliding a little faster, her movements more confident.
She sure figured this out quickly, the little know-it-all,
he thought, still watching her mouth ride up and down him.
And then all rational thought left him as he came with a
long, guttural moan.
He lay still, spent. Hermione climbed
on top of him to rest her head on his collar bone, her hand
cupping his cheek. She lay still for a few moments before
asking, “Do you believe me now?”
“It appears I must,” Severus sighed,
half-resignedly. He still had many questions for her, but
right now he was too sleepy to voice them. He nodded off
with Hermione still lying on top of him.
When he awoke to nature’s call,
Hermione was still above him. He tried to crawl out from
under her without waking her, but she pulled him closer,
burying her face in his neck. He lay a couple minutes,
hoping she’d wake up, but she seemed to be fast asleep.
Unfortunately, his need to relieve himself was rather
urgent, especially with the dead weight of a woman pressing
down on him, and as the wizarding world had not as of yet
devised a spell to assist with that condition, he had
to get up.
He shook her gently. “Hermione… wake
up.”
“What? What’s wrong?” she asked,
groggy.
“I have to get up,” he informed her.
“Now.”
Her eyes flew open. “What do you
mean? I thought you believed me?” Her eyes filled with
tears, as if he were rejecting her rather than merely asking
her to let him up to relieve himself.
“I do,” he laughed, realizing the
parallels between this conversation and the one they had
after the previous week’s coitus. He touched her cheek.
“But if I don’t get to the lavatory straight away, neither
one of us will be very happy about it.”
“Oh,” Hermione grinned in relief,
climbing off him quickly. “I was afraid you meant…
something else.”
Severus just shook his head, standing
up and taking a few steps before realizing he had no idea
where her bathroom was. She must have figured out his
confusion because she informed him, “It’s just through the
door by the armoire.”
Alone, Severus took a few minutes to
ponder what had just happened. He did believe her now, as
he’d said. It still made no sense to him why she would find
him so desirable, but he could not believe that she would go
to such lengths to convince him were it not the truth. But
now he found himself thinking about the other things she’d
said. About love. About sex. About not having thought
about having a relationship with him.
Severus himself had no such qualms
about having sex without love. He was not even certain he
believed in love. He’d thought he was in love as a
teenager, but that had been unrequited, and ended horribly.
He’d seen more relationships end badly than well.
Additionally, he’d had no muggle religious upbringing to
force a coupling between sex and love or even the benefit of
a familial example. So sex and love were unrelated in his
mind. For him, the big question was: could he see himself
in a relationship at all? Did he want to?
Severus considered his current feelings
for her. Attraction, most definitely. He’d known that for
several weeks at least. Respect as well; she was
intelligent, dedicated, hardworking, and, as she’d proven
this afternoon, even capable of very Slytherin tactics when
necessary. He made a side note to repay her for the body
bind later before returning to his previous thoughts. Could
his feelings be love?
He honestly did not know. He did not
think it was. Hermione could be annoying, she nagged, the
way she became quiet when she knew she was right drove him
to distraction such that she might as well have shouted it
from the rooftops. She still sounded rather like an
annoying schoolgirl when she recited things she’d read from
memory. But the other things she could do with her mouth…
Severus groaned inwardly in memory.
No one was perfect, he acknowledged, of
course Hermione would have her faults. But he did not know
if he loved her or ever would, because he did not really
believe in love. The idea of a ‘relationship’ also made him
wary; it reminded him of all the falsities that most
people’s lives entailed. He thought back to the sickeningly
sweet portrait of the ‘happy family’ that she’d showed him
near the beginning of the summer. If that was what
‘love’ was, he did not want love.
But did they have to call it love?
Hermione never said what conclusion she’d come to. Did she
require a relationship from him, with all the obligations it
required? Meeting her parents, going on holiday, and Merlin
forbid, announcing their coupling to their colleagues?
Severus shuddered. The thought did not
appeal at all. He sought to replace the thought with a more
pleasant one, such as the feel of her lying above him. That
was much better. Couldn’t they just have that?
Realizing he’d been in the loo for
several minutes now, he washed his hands and returned to
Hermione’s sitting room. She had poured herself a drink and
was sitting prettily on the settee. “Would you like
anything?” she asked as he seated himself in the chair
perpendicular to the sofa.
“No, thank you,” he replied. They sat
quietly for a few minutes before Hermione broke the silence.
“So what happens now?” she asked
nervously.
Severus tried to formulate a reply, but
found himself for once concerned that his words would come
out wrong. If he openly told her he did not want a
‘relationship’, Hermione might become upset and withhold any
future favors from him. This he did not want. Feeling a
little craven, he decided to prevaricate. “What would
you like to happen now?”
Hermione bit her lip. “Well, I know I
want to be with you, but … I just think… I’m only eighteen
years old. I’ve got so many things I need to do before I
can commit to any sort of serious relationship. I know I’ve
kind of put my career on hold to help Professor Mc… Minerva
out this year but I will be going on to uni next year and
I’m afraid of letting anything distract me from that goal.
So I guess what I’m saying is, I want to be with you, but
I’m not ready to be in a committed relationship.”
Severus listened with a straight face,
trying not to grin at his marvelous luck. She seemed to
want much the same as he, albeit for different reasons.
“Are you going to say anything?” asked
Hermione. She looked rather concerned that he might be
offended by her words.
He nodded slightly, to give the
impression of being deep in thought and waited a few moments
more before answering. “Am I to understand that this would
be a non-exclusive arrangement? That you, or I, would be
free to see other people?”
Hermione nodded tentatively, not
looking particularly pleased with the question. “If we
wanted to, yes, I suppose so. I personally don’t have
anyone else I’d be interested in dating at present, but if
I’m not ready to commit I suppose it would be unfair of me
to ask you to do so.”
“I see.” Visions of having his cake
and eating it too popped into Severus’ mind. “Very well, I
would be comfortable continuing our interaction on those
terms.”
Hermione let out a large grin, coming
to stand behind his chair. He felt her arms come around him
from behind and her chin rest on his shoulder. “I can’t
promise you though that I won’t keep you too busy to even
think about other women.” Her hands began stroking up
and down his chest in a most provocative manner.
Severus turned to face her. “As long
as you do not interfere with my teaching. I’ll have you
know that class preparation for Potions takes a great deal
of my time.” He said this with just the hint of a grin to
soften the words, though he meant them quite seriously.
“You know, I might be able to help you
with that. Library duties won’t take all of my time.”
Hermione suggested, kissing him quickly between sentences.
Brilliant mind or no, Severus did not
relish the thought of setting her loose in his Potions
dungeon. However, in the interest of continuing their
arrangement, he decided against a confrontational response.
“We’ll see. Maybe I’ll keep you too busy.”
He reached around to pull her across
his lap. She wriggled around until she was looking up,
facing him and put her arms around his neck.
“However,” he kissed her.
“I will warn you now…” Kiss.
“that I have not forgotten…” Kiss.
“about the hex you placed on me after
the staff meeting.”
Hermione looked sheepishly at him then
smiled, batting her eyes. “But turned out all right in the
end, didn’t it?”
“Be that as it may, I feel obliged to
inform you that turnabout is fair play.” Severus lowered
his head to kiss her again, and again, and again, until they
both forgot about turnabout. For the time being.
Epilogue
Hermione discovered just how fair
turnabout was on several occasions over the next year as the
two of them explored a mutual enjoyment of light bondage.
Both Hermione and Severus enjoyed the terms of their
arrangement, which allowed them the free time to follow
their own pursuits as well as to enjoy the time they shared
together. They never shared the details of their
arrangement with anyone, preferring to keep a professional
demeanor in public. Nonetheless, certain more observant
members of the faculty couldn’t help but notice changes in
the dynamics of their interactions, as they had unknowingly
adopted the habits of finishing each other’s sentences and
pre-emptively passing each other their preferred condiments
at meals.
When Hermione’s year as librarian was
up, she left for the Wizarding University of London as
planned. Aside from her required coursework in Arithmancy,
she worked with a Professor in the Mediwizardry department
on research into combined magical/muggle treatments of
emotional disorders. While at the university, she made new
friends and on occasion, took a lover. Severus too pursued
outside interests and even renewed his acquaintance with
Joanna, the woman he’d met at the nightclub for a short
time. Hermione and Severus periodically met for a night or
a weekend of passion and conversation, and, for the most
part, found that this suited them. Their relationship,
though neither called it that, provided an occasional piece
of nostalgia while still allowing them both to move forward
with their lives. They each wanted different things out of
life, they’d discovered, at least for now, so they preferred
to eschew commitment and to allow the spark between them to
remain alive because of the infrequency of their encounters
and the lack of real-life induced conflict.
And if one or the other of them
secretly hoped that someday their transitions would bring
them and their lives closer together, they kept that desire
to themselves for safekeeping.
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