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Hermione tried not to blush as she
composed the letter that would accompany Professor Snape’s …
homework assignment. He hadn’t seemed particularly happy
about any of the previous treatments, although she knew that
he’d been following her instructions, however reluctantly.
She was pleased to hear music coming from the dungeon the
last time she’d ventured down there, even though the Potions
Master had quickly shut it off when she arrived. He’d
obviously responded well to the musical exercise, otherwise
he would not be listening to music on his own time.
But this treatment was different.
She’d debated whether or not to introduce this rather
unusual course of treatment to his regimen, but decided that
the Potion Master’s recovery was far more important than her
own sensibilities. Though the technique was controversial
in nature, most of her research suggested it was likely to
have favorable results. If Professor Snape actually did it,
that is.
Hermione remembered with more than a
little embarrassment how she’d felt wandering into the shop
that carried such materials as she needed to provide to the
Professor for this treatment. She’d suffered the knowing
winks of the proprietor and the disturbing leers of several
of the other customers with poor grace. Once returning to
the castle she had rushed back to her quarters immediately
in hopes that she would encounter no one to ask her what she
was carrying. Hermione found it ironic that she, a woman of
relatively little experience in such matters, would be the
one to try reintroducing Professor Snape to a very …
personal … part of his emotions. She hadn’t been able to
help a quick peek at her purchases, but they only reminded
her of Ron and the opportunities she’d given up.
She rolled up the scroll and retrieved
several plain-wrapped boxes from her desk. She’d visit the
owlry on her way to breakfast. Gryffindor she may be, but
she was in no way brave enough to deliver these
particular packages personally!
Summer was a peaceful time for Severus,
now that the war was over. His clandestine activities at an
end, and the students gone and out of his way, Severus had
little else that required his attention besides the
preparation of lesson plans and the brewing of Poppy’s
infirmary staples. The former changed little from year to
year and the latter had become so routine as to be nearly
mindless. As a result, Severus had plenty of mental
capacity remaining for his own thoughts to run rampant.
Lately, these thoughts often rested on the quasi-suicidal
Miss Granger and her most unusual “therapy.”
He’d only agreed to subject himself to
her ridiculous ministrations to distract her from her own
self-destructive behavior. He hadn’t for a moment
entertained the notion that her muggle psychologic nonsense
would have any positive effect on him whatsoever. Let it
not be said that Severus Snape could not admit to being
wrong. He could, and did, albeit only to himself. After
the first few sessions, Severus began to find himself
feeling … feelings. A glimmer here or an impression there,
but to his surprise he was sure he actually felt something
besides the gnawing unease that had plagued him for
decades. The insufferable know-it-all had once again
managed to accomplish the incredible; she’d begun to break
down in less than a month a wall that he’d been completely
incapable of penetrating with all his knowledge of the Dark
Arts and expertise in potions. It annoyed him to no end.
But it also gave him a new hope, that he might someday
rejoin humanity instead of watching it from afar.
Severus was bottling the Pepper-Up
potion he’d just finished brewing when he heard a fluttering
outside the door to his lab. He investigated only to find
his owl, Brutus, was hovering right outside, carrying an
unwieldy sack with the help of one of the school owls.
Severus relieved the birds of their burden; the school owl
departed immediately without even waiting for a treat, but
Brutus stayed long enough to glare at him, presumably in
annoyance at having to work on off hours.
Curious as to why this delivery hadn’t
arrived with the rest of the mail at breakfast, as well as
who dared use his personal owl, Severus opened the sack. It
contained several boxes, wrapped in unmarked brown paper,
and a scroll. He read the scroll first.
Dear Professor Snape,
The enclosed packages contain the
materials needed for the next part of your therapy. You
will conduct this exercise independently; in the meantime I
will continue developing subsequent courses of treatment.
The materials in these packages are
designed to help stimulate the strongest of physical and
emotional reactions. Years of study indicate that these
particular emotions are capable of piercing even the
toughest emotional barriers.
Unlike previous exercises, I will
not expect a report back from you on the results. Doing
so would likely hinder the effectiveness of the exercise.
--
What?
--
I will never know whether or not you
completed your assignment, but I will assume that you did
regardless. Thus, you have nothing to gain by refusing.
I trust you will have no difficulty
determining how to use the enclosed material. I have
provided instructions where necessary.
I shall want to meet Thursday
afternoon at the normal time and place to resume our regular
sessions.
Yours,
Hermione Granger
Severus wondered if the sinking feeling
he noticed as he gingerly opened the first package
constituted an emotion. What kind of ‘treatment’ would Miss
“Analyze Everything to Death” Granger refuse to dissect in
detail afterwards?
It was a box of books, Severus
determined as he reached inside. He glanced at the cover of
the first book and dropped it in shock on the counter. The
front of the book contained a muggle photo of a man and a
woman. They were completely nude and engaging in what could
only be described as an ‘intimate act’. He peered in the
box at the next book and cringed at the sight of one man on
his knees, orally pleasuring another.
Miss Granger had sent him pornography.
Not sure whether to be offended or
entertained, but leaning highly toward the former, Severus
sorted through the rest of the ‘materials’ in the box.
She’d provided a wide variety of prurient subjects, no doubt
wanting to cover all of his potential sexual tastes. There
were heterosexual couples, homosexual couples, orgiastic
images with way too many people involved, and even some
images he couldn’t rightly identify.
She must be insane if she thinks I’m
going to read these, he huffed to himself as he opened the
next box. This one was larger and contained several plastic
boxes along with a muggle machine of some sort, no doubt
specially charmed to work on the Hogwarts grounds like the
music machine he currently had playing something called
‘Chopin’ in the background. This machine was accompanied by
instructions; and Severus was pleased that no one was nearby
to see him reading the instructions to such a simple looking
device! Severus finished sorting through Miss Granger’s
donations to the cause and, shaking his head in disbelief,
returned to his work.
What nonsense! Severus fully intended
to return all these “materials” to Miss Granger after he
finished decanting the Pepper-Up, along with no small piece
of his mind!
After the potions were brewed, Severus
returned to the counter to repack the sack. As he was doing
so, the cover of one of the thin books caught his eye. A
very comely woman with wavy, red hair sat nude on an
armchair, legs spread wide over its arms. The woman sucked
on the tip of one long finger, while her other hand rested
gently on the mound between her legs. Although like all
muggle portraits it did not move, her eyes were definitely
inviting him to take a closer look.
Severus considered. There was no
reason he couldn’t send these back to Miss Granger after
taking a quick look, was there?
He turned to the first page. A
different, though no less attractive girl looked back at
him. She had long, straight, black hair that almost, but
not quite, covered her breasts. Her mouth formed a silent
‘o’ and her eyes were barely open at all. Severus’ eyes
traveled down from her face to see that her fingers were
threaded through a presumably male head of thick, curly hair
that was positioned between her thighs.
He turned the page. Lots of words, no
pictures.
He turned the page again. It was the
redhead from the cover, head thrown back, kneeling on all
fours facing him as a muscular man not much older than a
recent Hogwarts graduate impaled her from behind.
Severus began to notice some…
discomfort… in his nether regions. The kind of discomfort
he occasionally awoke with but hadn’t felt in the presence
of another human being in over twenty years. Standing was
becoming inconvenient. He took the book back to his desk
and sat down, turning the page once more.
This one featured a brunette, a blonde,
and yet another brawny man. The man and the blonde were
sharing a tongue-filled kiss, while the brunette knelt
between them. One slender hand gripped the man’s erect
penis, the other cupping her own breast, and … Merlin’s
beard… her tongue licking at the other woman’s clitoris.
Severus didn’t hear the groan that
escaped him, nor did he notice that his own hand had
traveled south as he continued to turn the pages,
discovering a unique erotic pose on each one. It wasn’t
long before he was gasping for air from the force of his own
orgasm to the sight of twin Asian women riding a presumably
happy man; one straddling his lap and the other, his face.
Severus collapsed, head on his desk,
exhausted. Wow. What a world of difference it made –
seeing a female figure, imagining he could actually touch
her. A vast improvement upon his usual, perfunctory acts of
purely physical release; an experience, nay, a feeling,
he’d not known since his old life. After he’d taken the
potion, his sexual senses had become as numb as his
emotions; he’d seen hundreds of nubile young seventh years
pass through Hogwarts with nothing but a sense of objective,
detached awareness, and the whores that were in abundance in
Knockturn Alley were unable to tempt him. At the time he
didn’t mind, and over time he’d forgotten that it had once
been very different. But now as the barriers crumbled
within him, he rediscovered the pleasures of the flesh. And
he wanted more.
He looked down at the telltale stain
his emissions had left on his trousers, waving them away
with a flick of the wand and a snort. Next time he’d dress
properly for the occasion. Unashamed, he made his way
through the rest of Miss Granger’s “materials” over the next
several days as a reward for completing his normal duties.
With each exploration he felt more alive, more human, and
more insatiable.
He saw Miss Granger at meals, or at
least those meals for which he chose to venture from his
quarters. As promised, she made no mention of his
assignment, and neither did he. But curiously, Miss Granger
looked somewhat different to him now. He noticed the curve
of her breasts, the fullness of her hips, the way her tongue
licked her lips after eating something sweet. He’d noticed
that she was a woman.
The realization shocked him. He’d
never before seen one of his students as a sexual being.
Then again, Miss Granger was no longer a student, but even
so these thoughts were still highly inappropriate.
But she’d never know, would she?
His thoughts were his own, now that he didn’t have the Dark
Lord tearing through his mind on a regular basis. And Albus,
who always seemed to know what he was thinking even without
legilimency – he was gone now, too. In reality, Severus
could entertain whatever inappropriate thoughts he wished
about whoever he so desired and no one need ever know.
What a liberating thought!
Severus discovered that evening that
the pleasure was even greater when his fantasy involved a
real live woman with a known personality rather than the
one-dimensional caricatures featured in the pornographic
materials. In his mind, he had Miss Granger a half-dozen
different ways and each one left him spent, breathless, and
more at ease with his own ‘inappropriate’ thoughts. He did
experiment a little, allowing his mind to wander through the
other women of his acquaintance… Poppy Pomfrey, Anna
Vector, Minerva – eh, no. He gauged his body’s reaction as
he thought of each in a way he never had considered before.
Hester Sinistra, with the dark, flowing robes that couldn’t
completely obscure her ample bosom was at least partially
useful as a catalyst for his imagination, but the tired,
somewhat worn look that he couldn’t quite remove from her
eyes couldn’t compare to the shiny, excitement that was all
to easy to picture in Miss Granger’s.
Severus was enjoying a delightfully
unbalanced breakfast of coffee and bangers when Miss Granger
bounded in the next morning.
“Good Morning, Professor! Are you
ready for your next treatment this afternoon?”
Severus met her questioning gaze with a
straight face. “That depends, Miss Granger, on just what
exactly the treatment consists of this time.” His
words were the first hint of acknowledgement he’d given to
her last assignment.
He saw Miss Granger’s cheeks flush.
“Nothing too… invasive…Professor. But there is a slight
change in plans. We’ll need to make a trip into town
again.”
“Really. Whatever would I do without
you to break up the monotony of my days,” he replied
sardonically, and somewhat surprised that the very
Gryffindor Miss Granger would pick up on his subtle
innuendo. He doubted however that Miss Granger would
realize, that in a small way, he meant this last statement
truthfully.
“Oh, don’t complain! This outing will
be all fun. You’ll see,” insisted Miss Granger.
“I can hardly wait,” he responded
straight-faced.
Miss Granger ignored him. “We can
leave after lunch if that is all right with you. The place
we’re going opens at noon.”
Severus nodded his agreement, then
returned his focus to his breakfast. They finished their
respective meals in comfortable silence, while he pondered
the question that had been forming in his mind. Should he
inform Miss Granger of the success of her therapy?
After much thought and several cups of
coffee, Severus returned to his office. Taking out a quill,
ink and a sheet of parchment, the Potions Master tabulated
several arguments against telling Miss Granger and very few
for.
Arguments Against:
1)
Miss Granger is already enough of an insufferable
know-it-all, why on Earth should I give her the satisfaction
of another easy success?
2)
Insufficient evidence that Miss Granger’s mental
state has improved sufficiently since June for it to be wise
to remove myself as a distraction from her own sorrows. She
could potentially return to her former self-destructive
tendencies, which would be problematic and inconvenient.
3)
Miss Granger’s treatments, though unorthodox, have
proved mildly amusing thus far as well as effective, and it
might prove entertaining to see what she would come up with
next. That the pornography would be difficult to beat is
acknowledged.
Arguments For:
1)
Honesty. But I am not a Gryffindor and thus not
obligated to immediate revelation.
2)
… I am at a loss to formulate any other benefits.
Well, that settled the issue in Severus’
mind. It was too risky to inform Miss Granger that he’d
been cured; he’d just have to continue playing along for
awhile. For her own good, of course.
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