It was a good thirty seconds following her knock before the door was wrenched open; Hermione found herself confronted with a fully enraged-looking Professor Snape. Fortunately, when he saw her, this expression softened slightly; he must have assumed it was going to be one of those lovelorn children whom he had intended to eviscerate with his glare. She wondered if he was descended from Medusa in some manner and suppressed a snort; it was likely she'd find out if she had the temerity to suggest it to him.
He stood back to allow her to enter and closed the door behind her once she had stepped inside. The snick of the lock seemed unnaturally loud to her ears, but it was probably her imagination. The room was mostly in shadows, only a pool of well-lit brilliance at his desk where he had been grading, just as he had said he intended to do when she last saw him.
He was still wearing his teaching robes, and she wondered if he'd had them on all night or if he had donned them again when she knocked on the door. She supposed it would shock the students irreparably if they saw him in only a shirt and trousers. He created such a persona when wearing his teaching robes that it was hard to think of him without them.
Much easier to think of Severus without them—and the vast majority of the students didn't want to go there.
She turned back to face him now that she was inside, leaving him facing the fire, his dark eyes glinted in the light of the flames.
"What brings you?" he asked positively cordially, for him. "I don't recall a visit being on your agenda."
She smiled faintly, amused that he remembered their earlier conversation and was calling her on it. She confessed, "This is a new plan. Bit spur of the moment, actually." She gestured back towards the nearest chair. "May I sit?"
He nodded, and she did so, wondering why sitting down here made her feel a bit better immediately. Perhaps it was because, barring their plain brown colour, the chairs here were the type that Albus would conjure: large, squashy, comfortable. The chairs in Severus's office were exactly the opposite: small, hard, designed for discomfort—the chairs in the office were meant to make any student forced to sit on them squirm. Here in his quarters, though, he seemed to have anticipated guests he actually wanted, and he'd planned for their comfort. She felt at ease in this chair, like she wasn't being a nuisance and he wasn't about to kick her out. This wasn't necessarily remotely true, of course, but it was how the chairs made her feel.
Severus was still standing, probably observing the fool she had just made of herself getting all comfortable and sighing happily in his chair.
"Must I offer tea?"
Although the question hadn't been terribly gracious, the tone was mild, so she nodded gratefully. "It wouldn't hurt."
He did the necessary and offered her the steaming mug before he sat down in the chair opposite, his own mug in his hand. He always made Earl Grey when he made the tea himself, and it was a brew she'd begun to associate solely with him. He allowed silence to reign for several moments.
"Well?" he prompted when she still hadn't figured out what to say.
She forced the words out: "I'm about to become the last Pure Adult."
He regarded her impassively before saying with distaste, "That's more information than I have ever wanted concerning Mr Potter's love life."
She smiled briefly in recognition of this sally, but the smile fell away as she continued to speak: "I thought it would be useful information for you to have, from a spy perspective, I mean. It would help your position."
"It would put you in more danger," the Slytherin pointed out severely. "Focus will be redoubled on the second person. If Mr Potter shows his typical ill-sense, he'll no doubt parade around with this new girl, and—"
"Boy," she corrected.
"I beg your pardon?"
"He'll be parading around with his new boy, not girl." She didn't even try to deny the other bit because with the way Harry and Draco had been acting recently, it seemed likely that Severus was right. They'd be happier, she was sure, if they didn't have to hide; it was high time, really, that they were allowed to be truthful about it.
"Potter's gay?" Severus said, mug tilting dangerously in his hand as he apparently forgot it was there in his astonishment. He sounded utterly stunned.
"Very much so," she answered cheerfully, amused by his reaction.
He jerked the mug back upright, cursed as he spilt tea over himself and waved it away with his wand. "I had really hoped…. Please tell me the behaviour I have been witnessing recently is not an indication of whom he is with currently."
Hermione smiled in spite of herself. "I suspect you've made the correct educated guess."
"Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are having sex." It sounded as though it pained him just to speak the words.
"Currently," she confirmed. "Or at any moment, anyway. I didn't want to stick around to see it get that far."
"They were doing it in front of you?" Severus asked, a sneer of distaste crossing his features.
She wasn't even going to try to guess which part of that thought disturbed him most. "They ended up having their moment in our common room. I found them after Pansy and I finished our rounds, and I turned right round again."
"You felt it incumbent upon you to inform me immediately?" His tone was mostly indecipherable, but she thought she caught a trace of annoyance.
She shrugged. "You know what's happening. Hard to explain to most other people why this is such a big deal for me."
"Yet you were certain that I would understand and sympathise?"
She frowned. "I'm not looking for pity, Severus. I thought you wouldn't mind if I sat here for a little while, that's all." She rose to her feet, setting her tea down on the table next to the chair. "Clearly, I was mistaken."
She headed for the door.
"You haven't finished your tea."
He hadn't risen to come after her, and the words were curt, but they were much kinder than the earlier ones had been. She turned back towards him, hesitated.
"I'm not terribly thirsty," she answered, testing the waters before she committed herself.
"Sit down anyway," he admonished.
Maybe, if she squinted, that seemed like an apology. She returned to her chair.
"I do commend you for coming to me rather than to Albus."
This was clearly said to lighten the mood, as there had never been any question.
She made a face, shuddering delicately. "I'm not about to talk to Albus because Harry and Draco are having sex. He'd probably want details."
It was Severus's turn to quirk his lips in distaste. "I sincerely hope you weren't standing there long enough to have any details with which it would be possible to furnish him."
Flashes of flushed skin and roaming hands skittered through her mind. She could feel her face heating.
She defended herself at his sharply arched eyebrow. "It was rather shocking. It took me a moment to ascertain just what was going on."
"I hadn't pegged you as a voyeur, Hermione." The mockery was back.
"And you can only do so now if you wish to peg yourself as one, too," she said with an edge to her voice. "I haven't seen anything that you wouldn't have while walking the halls full of hormone-charged teens."
"You're quite certain you didn't watch longer in this case out of interest?" he needled.
Her spine stiffened, and she said with heavy sarcasm, "I would, of course, have gotten comfy and enjoyed the show, but then I realized I didn't have any popcorn. Since that ruined the whole adventure, I left after about twenty seconds." Hell, it might only have been ten. Her eyes narrowed. "Are you quite certain that you aren't extremely interested?"
His face darkened. "I have never had any interest in Mr Potter's sexual escapades."
"I find that difficult to believe," she snarled, "given how you've been acting ever since you found out Harry and I were supposedly a couple."
"You have a comment you'd like to make about my behaviour?" he asked dangerously.
"I think I've already made my comments." She glared at him. "Thus far they've resulted in getting thrown out of your lab, badly burnt in training, and attending detention for two weeks."
"You're treading on dangerous ground, Miss Granger," he warned.
"Why?" she demanded, incensed by the return to formality. "You already promised you wouldn't take any points or give detention surrounding any issues of Pure Adults, and that's what we're talking about right now."
"Is it?" he asked sharply.
"Yes!" she snapped. "What do you think we're talking about?"
"Mr Potter's sex life," he gritted out angrily.
"And he's a Pure Adult!" That was the whole bloody point, so how it could possibly have slipped his mind, she didn't know.
Rather than responding to her angry explanation, he changed tacks entirely, saying doubtfully, "You really intend to let him consummate his relationship with Draco without any protest?"
"Why would I protest?" she demanded, feeling very confused about what they were discussing and what he seemed to be so upset about. "It's what Harry wants, and that's what's important."
He was regarding her very closely. "And you still intend to remain Pure?"
"What would you have me do?" she demanded stiffly. She had, she thought, made her position on the matter quite plain.
"That, I think, should be obvious to someone of your intellect," he said with a sneer. "The longer you remain a Pure Adult without Mr Potter, the more danger you put yourself and me in. The Dark Lord has grown suspicious of the results of the blood tests as a result of the revelation about Draco's true allegiances, and that means that you are one of the students who must be retested."
She really, really, didn't want to put Severus at risk, but as far as the blood test went, there was an easy solution. Purely out of the goodness of her heart, she was going to pass that insult on her intelligence.
"My Blood Glamour will continue to protect me."
"For how long?" he demanded.
"Until I remove the Glamour," she said coldly. She wasn't a first-year, and she knew perfectly well how to correctly limit a spell. "Are you questioning my ability as a witch, Severus?"
"When you didn't even recognize that you were a Pure Adult until Kingsley brought it to your attention? Why would I have reason to doubt?" he asked with a mean edge and clear insinuation in his voice.
She stiffened. That hit home, for she agreed with him. She had been a Pure Adult for longer than any of them knew, and she had never once come across reference to the phenomenon or suspected the special status which had been granted to her.
She rose from her seat once more, realizing that this conversation had gone on more than long enough. "You're quite right." She felt very cold, anger and pain both frozen inside her, voice emerging without emotion. "I guess I have a little bit of that Mudblood showing, sir."
His gaze darkened, eyes narrowing as they bore into hers, and he rose to tower over her.
"Don't call yourself that," he snarled.
"Why not?" Pointedly, she added, "Wasn't that what you were just saying? You weren't attributing my lack of knowledge to any other cause."
His face was set into grim lines, but his voice was curiously mild in comparison. "You cured lycanthropy, Hermione. There isn't any question of your being extraordinarily intelligent."
"But that won't ever be enough, will it?" She felt suddenly very depressed about the whole damn thing, even when she knew that she shouldn't, that she had cured lycanthropy, and how many people could say that? Her lips tightened. "There will always be something I don't know and a pure-blood somewhere who can sneer at me because of it."
"There will always be someone who tries to bring you down, Hermione," Severus said, tone still lacking animosity and actually containing remarkable patience given the situation. "They will come up with any excuse that they think will affect you, and yes, some of them are likely to bring up your blood status. But I will never be one of those people. You're one of the smartest people I know, and you've gone to amazing lengths that prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt to anyone who really knows you."
She swallowed, asking pitifully, "You really think I'm smart?"
It had to be a mark of how bad he felt about his earlier comment that he chose not to lambaste the stupidity of that comment.
"It's been hard not to notice since you were twelve, Hermione, and it's become impossible to ignore since you reached adulthood. You're tipping the scale in this war with your cure, and you've protected yourself and Harry assiduously."
That sounded very much like a real compliment. Pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from impugning her wizarding knowledge.
She'd nearly started to smile when he continued with the dreaded "but", and she forced her face to blankness again before he could realize how close he'd come to making her feel better before he snatched it out of her grasp.
"But you must surely be aware of how much safer you would be if you weren't a Pure Adult."
She clenched her jaw. "So you think I'm stupid for not just having had sex by now?"
He actually rolled his eyes at her. "I didn't say that."
"You didn't really have to," she said, pissed off with how he'd been driving her back and forth between comforted and angry so many times tonight. "You started the sentence with 'you're really smart' and then you added a 'but'. I don't think I'm making much of a logical leap here."
"I could perhaps have phrased myself a little more carefully," he conceded, tone rather ungracious.
"You think I should have sex," she pursued grimly.
"I think many people would be safer if you did so," he added much more circumspectly this time.
The problem was that she thought so, too. But it was her only first time, and she didn't want it to be for the wrong reasons. That didn't seem so unreasonable to her, only there seemed to be a lot of lives hanging in the balance, and now that Severus's was probably next for the chopping block, it made it really difficult for her to stick to her principles and wait for the situation to resolve itself. It didn't look to be doing that any time soon. She could risk her own life, but she didn't think she could risk his.
"Why does it trouble you so much?" he asked.
"I've already said," she answered, trying not to sound really annoyed. "It's the same reason now as it was then."
"The person you want to have sex with doesn't want to have it with you," he repeated without emotion.
She gave a stilted nod.
"The stakes are rather larger right now."
"I know!" she said desperately, wheeling away from him to face the fire. "You think I don't know that?" Breathing hard, she stared into the fire, desperately trying to find some composure. "You said that anyone would have sex with a Pure Adult," she began again, struggling with the proper way to indicate that that wasn't what she wanted.
"I did say that, yes," he confirmed.
The silence was taut as she found no miraculous words to explain the situation. And then he spoke again.
"Is that an invitation?"
Breath left her in a rush. Now it was too late. She'd been informed explicitly of why he was interested in her. Harry and Draco got to have happy sex, and she was doing the "smart" thing to save lives. She would be having sex with someone who was offering to sleep with her because of what she was rather than who she was.
So much for a special first time. But there wasn't anyone who could make this better. Severus wasn't about to confess his undying love, she didn't want to sleep with anyone else, and this was therefore her only option. Nineteen years, one month, and twenty-seven days of unPetrified life and virginity, and this is what it came down to. The lesser of two evils.
"Yes," she answered, barely audible.
He laid a hand on her shoulder, and she had to still the urge to jerk away and scream at him that this wasn't the way she wanted this to happen. He must have felt the sudden tension in her body, for he spoke again, voice utterly emotionless.
"I'm sure you can go find someone more to your liking."
She made a face. As if there was anyone who wanted her for her and not because of her stupid status. He'd made it clear that was what this was to him, and she would simply have to do her best to treat it as such. "It's more prudent that Harry and I do this at the same time."
His voice remained flat. "Of course."
How had she ended up in this situation? She was about to have sex with the one person in the whole wide world whom she wanted to have sex with, and he had accepted a business proposition. It kept him safe from Voldemort, she reminded herself. It hurt, but it would have to be a good enough reason.
"Shall we adjourn to the bedroom?" he asked.
She nodded, and he escorted her there. Of course, it wasn't as though she didn't know where it was, as she'd half-carried him there twice, but she trailed behind him as though she had no idea where they were going or what to expect. How could it possibly feel more awkward now than it had either of the two previous times when Severus had been injured?
But despite the fact that he had been in horrible pain, everything had made more sense then. She had helped him because she was able to do so, because she had wanted to do so. She had been happy that she had been able to end his suffering a little bit sooner than would otherwise be possible. It was just yesterday night that she had been here, she realized, soothing him. It already felt like a lifetime ago.
Now they were marching into the room with the theoretical goal of pleasure for both of them, and she was more than half-wishing for the old situation over again. Part of her was aware that such a thought was ridiculous—she really didn't want him to be badly tortured and in need of assistance—but at least she hadn't felt as lost and hopeless then as she did now. She didn't remember it being nearly this bad, anyway.
Severus closed the door behind them, and she suddenly found a great deal to interest her in the floor near his feet. Trying not to hyperventilate, she told herself that staring at the dark rug and grey stones was a perfectly reasonable response under the circumstances.
"Are my shoes of particular interest, Hermione?"
Her eyes flew to his, and she felt her face heat. "No," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry, s—"
She actually had to snap her jaw closed to prevent the word from leaving her mouth because she'd actually been about to call him 'sir'. She was experiencing more than enough awkwardness for both of them; there was no need for him to feel any of it because she was treating him like he was her professor.
She needed to be engaged in some activity, she decided, anything to keep her mind occupied or her hands busy, so she shrugged off her robe and then started resolutely on the buttons of her shirt.
"Don't you know a really neat spell for buttons?"
The tone was mild again, she would almost have said teasing, and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away and sniffed masterfully and told herself that she would not embarrass herself by crying in front of him.
She nodded her head a little unsteadily.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head, managing with difficulty to get two words out of her clogged throat: "I'm fine."
There was no possible way to explain how much she appreciated that he was trying to make this easier for her—and how much she desperately wished that she wasn't a Pure Adult right now because then they'd be doing this because he cared about her.
His face lost some of its mobility. "Perhaps you'd be more comfortable if you get into bed while I make use of the facilities."
She nodded her consent to this plan and watched him stalk off into the loo and close the door with something that was perilously close to a bang.
In record time, she shed her clothing, reconsidered, and transfigured her shirt into a silk nightie so that she didn't feel completely naked. She set her shoes with her socks neatly tucked inside next to his chest of drawers. Her carefully folded clothing was piled on top of the drawers, her sheath and wand at the very top of the pile where she could easily Summon the latter if she needed it. There wasn't a cabinet next to the side of the bed that wasn't his, and she didn't want to tuck her wand under her pillow in case it got in the way at a crucial moment and she died of embarrassment. Surely displays of wandless magic were preferable.
Climbing into bed, she pulled the covers up to her neck and felt like the annoying virginal heroine in every bad romance novel she'd ever read. Well, she rationalized, they didn't have to contend with this whole stupid Pure Adult issue, now did they? Their awkwardness would be legitimate if they were facing the same set of circumstances that she was facing now.
Of course, they no doubt felt as though they were pushed into a similar type of situation where they didn't have a choice … and it was definitely a bad sign if she was starting to sympathize with Mills and Boone heroines. She needed to get a grip on herself.
Severus returned. He'd shed his outer robe and shoes and socks so that he was wearing only the shirt and trousers that she was used to seeing in this room.
He proffered a small red vial. She took it, unstoppered it, and sniffed it curiously.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Do you not trust me?" His voice was dark.
"It's not an issue of trust, Severus." She didn't suppose rolling her eyes at him would help, but his tone had really been completely unnecessary. "I simply like to know what I'm drinking before I consume it."
"This encounter will not continue without it."
He was obviously making some sort of point; she wished that she had an idea of what. But if it was that important to him that she drink it without his saying exactly what it was, then that's what she would do. If it was necessary for her first time, then maybe it was a pain-numbing potion of some sort. She'd read up enough to know what to expect.
She quaffed the potion, noticing with surprise that it tasted faintly of cherries—but proper cherries, not the sickly sweet kind that you got in many Muggle cough medications—and wasn't the slightest bit unpleasant. She held the empty bottle back out to him and thought that he looked faintly surprised.
"Much more pleasant than most of your potions, Severus," she said calmly.
He gave a faint sneer, as he always did when someone brought up the taste of his potions, and then he set the bottle aside on the bedside cabinet. He matter-of-factly undid the buttons on his white shirt and shed the piece of cloth, and she did her best not to look like a complete ninny by gaping at him. Would it be totally inappropriate, she wondered, to fling herself over to that side of the bed and sprawl all over him?
He was as pale as Draco—although she really didn't need to be thinking about Harry's mate at this particularly moment—with only a smattering of hair and flat brown nipples. He was toned from all his training, and there was a sprinkling of scars across his flesh, including a vicious-looking one that was almost an inch thick. It started on his left shoulder and disappeared out of sight, presumably to continue onto his back.
He muttered the spell to extinguish the lights. "I needed to see to get to the bed," he said gruffly.
She should not have stared so stupidly, apparently. She struggled with something to say but turned her head away so that she was facing the ceiling and couldn't see him. With only the faint glow of embers in the fire, it was quite dim in this dungeon room—but Severus didn't know about the enhanced vision that came with her being a unicorn Animagus. Since she'd made him uncomfortable, she couldn't do him the discourtesy of scoping him out when he wasn't aware she could do so. He had done her the courtesy of going into another room while she undressed, after all.
She heard the rustle of fabric that indicated that the rest of his clothing was joining his shirt on the floor. The bed creaked, a dip in the mattress indicating that he was climbing in. She turned back to face him and found that there was still several feet between them. Silence descended, and she forced words out of her mouth in an effort to fill it.
"Did you see my scar?" she asked abruptly.
"What?" he asked uncomprehendingly. "When? There wasn't a great deal for me to see with the bedclothes covering almost every inch of you."
She realized that this was probably the stupidest opening line she could have come up with once they were both in bed, but it had somehow made sense in her head, and now it was too late to take it back. "You might have left before you could really tell it was there. When I got burnt, you know, I had to take off my shirt, I'm sure you remember." She was rambling, it was awful. "The burn was across my right side, but the scar runs across my abdomen, so it was partially obscured. Harry noticed it after the burns had faded—he was confused as to why it hadn't healed."
"All the way across your abdomen?"
She nodded. "It was the Cutting Curse from Dolohov in the Department of Mysteries. It never quite healed like it was supposed to."
"Dark Curses often don't," he said, and he finally sounded less tense, probably because he was lecturing. "Especially if they aren't treated immediately and properly. I could have brewed the proper potions."
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "In that case, it's unfortunate I was unconscious and unable to ask."
His lips pinched together, his tone softening slightly in what might have been the equivalent of an apology. "I would have, if I'd known."
She smiled. "Thank you. I appreciate the thought. No one heard what he got me with because I'd Silenced him, and it was chaos. I was still unconscious when they got me to St Mungo's. The healers did their best, but I guess they didn't really know what they were up against. It healed, though, and I'm fine, and it's just a memento of what I've gone through to thwart Voldemort."
"Was that your point?" The snarl was back in his voice.
"My point?"
"When you brought your scar up. To make me feel better about all of mine?"
The entire idea was patently distasteful to him.
"I just wanted you to know that I have a scar, too." She hadn't meant for him to take it as pity, but she was certain that telling him she thought he was beautiful wouldn't go over well at all.
His voice was chilly. "I think it would be best if we didn't discuss anything … physical."
"Okay," she agreed, not particularly anxious to have his verdict on her body under the circumstances; he could no doubt find lovely beautiful women who weren't barely nineteen and transected with a big long scar.
The silence stretched, long and uncomfortable.
"This is going to be a very long night if you spend the whole time over there," Severus finally said with a huff.
She hadn't been aware that she was the one who was supposed to be doing the moving. Maybe he was more comfortable on his side of the bed. He'd chosen it, after all. And it didn't really matter to her because she was uncomfortable in the entire bed, so she might as well move over.
Which would require movement, she realized a moment later when she still hadn't managed to get any of her limbs to coordinate. She wasn't a coward, she could do this. She'd wanted to touch him the moment she saw him, hadn't she? So she could do it now, she was going to do it now, and then she could forever know that she'd lived up to the reputation of a Gryffindor even if no one else would ever know because she was never, ever going to speak about this to anyone.
She shifted to his side of the bed, stopping when she was right next to him, realizing that she had no idea what should come next.
"Am I just supposed to climb on top of you?" she asked, mortified by having to ask the question.
"Do you or do you not know what you are doing?" He sounded very put out.
"What kind of a question is that?" she demanded. "I thought we ended up here because you grasped the fact that I've never done this before. I don't know what I'm doing, Severus, not really: it's my first time."
He looked ever-so-faintly sheepish now.
"You don't have to climb on top of me," he said with what she figured was no doubt a praiseworthy effort on his part to keep his voice even and not sound completely inapproachable. "This does require a certain amount of contact, however."
Trying not to roll her eyes, she reflected that this would work better if he didn't treat her like a complete idiot. She had grasped that they would have to touch, it was just the actual bodies-smushing-together-really-touching-and-kissing bit that made her a little nervous. Once it was actually happening, she'd no doubt be all right, and since he was being such a prat, it was looking as though she'd better take charge.
She reached out a hesitant hand and touched his cheek, feeling him jolt underneath her fingertips.
"What are you doing?" he asked, voice low.
"Just want to know where I'm going," she replied in a whisper and continued her exploration.
His cheek was smooth, and she wondered if he'd shaved before returning from the bathroom. Her fingertips lightly brushed over his skin, ghosting down his cheekbone and finding and tracing his lips. The skin was silky soft, and she liked the way it felt beneath her questing fingers. He could spew such harsh and hurtful phrases out of those lips, but they seemed gentle and responsive beneath her fingers. She moved her fingers out of the way and leaned closer so that she could finally press her lips to his.
The contact was awkward; she hadn't properly anticipated his nose and how it got in the way if she tried to kiss him straight on. Once she'd worked out that she needed to tilt her head so that their noses didn't meet, the contact was more effective, and she found that she could concentrate on the sensations of her lips brushing softly against his. It was much better than any of the other kisses in her life—which amounted to friends, family, and that one brief awkward one with Viktor. That was when she had told him that she only wanted to be friends with him, and he had accepted it, and it was easy enough to be friends through letters.
Oh! Severus had deepened the kiss, nipping at her lower lip and slipping his tongue into her mouth, and she'd never felt anything like it. A long arm snaked out and yanked her up close to him, so that their bodies were flush.
Suddenly, they weren't kissing anymore, weren't even touching anymore, and she was sitting there on the bed, the sheets pooled around her, breathing heavily with no idea what had just happened.
"You're wearing a nightgown."
It was impossible not to miss the disapproval in his tone, his eyes glittering in the low light.
"A nightie, really," she corrected, feeling unaccountably nervous. "Practically a negligee. It made me more comfortable before I climbed into bed, that's all."
"I suppose you intend to wear it the entire time?" he asked acidly. "I daresay it was particularly tactless of me to have offered the bed where you might be expected to spend a certain amount of—"
"Dammit, Severus," she gritted out. "Could you please stop ruining the moment? I was nervous so I wore a nightie to bed. Yours is the first bed I've ever climbed into for the express purpose of having sex, and of course I want to have sex in a bed. Do I look like someone who wants to be taken up against a wall her first time?" She probably shouldn't have asked a question that he might decide to answer, so she rushed on, "Maybe you and Ron should take notes from one another, because you both seem to have a pretty horrible picture of—"
Her words were cut off as he pulled her back to him and brought his lips crashing down on hers. Although she'd had no notion of its being able to do so, she found that the insistent and glorious pressure of his lips against hers drained her anger away. In fact, if the nightgown annoyed him so much, she'd really better take it off, as she didn't much fancy his deciding not to kiss her again. With clumsy fingers, she reached down and started to pull the thin material up over her thighs; she made it as far as her waist when the kissing stopped once more. She bit back a curse with an effort.
His voice was low again, a growl of sound. "What are you doing?"
"Taking my nightie off," she answered, thinking the answer had been rather obvious and there was no need for him to stop kissing her to ask it.
"Why?"
"Because you seemed annoyed that I was wearing it," she answered, beginning to feel annoyed again.
"I thought you wanted to wear it." There was confusion in his voice.
She wanted to know why they were even discussing this, but she knew from experience that not giving him an answer to his question was just going to upset him.
"It made me feel more comfortable having it on and then climbing into bed," she explained with a slight sigh. "I didn't fancy a mad dash for the bed starkers. I always supposed that it would come off at some point in the evening, and that might as well be now if it annoys you."
"Perhaps I could help you with it," he suggested, voice a low burr of noise against her ears.
"Um, okay," she managed to squeak, feeling as though all the oxygen had suddenly been squeezed out of the room. But it would take a powerful spell to do that, wouldn't it, so she was probably imagining things? Severus wouldn't be able to breathe either if that were the case, and he seemed to be doing okay, able to move his limbs properly and everything, because there were his hands, sliding up her thighs, and she was pretty sure her breath hitched, but maybe that was just the oxygen coming back into the room. Or maybe it was thin in the dungeons instead of at the top of Hogwarts. One of those weird details about Hogwarts that no one thought to mention, because it only came up in bizarre situations like this, and Hogwarts: A History had edited it out….
Now Severus's hands were sliding up over her hips, ghosting over her pelvic bone and finding her waist. The silk was slithering up her body, and she decided that worrying about the oxygen content in the room was a waste of mental energy. All she needed to be concentrating on was the feeling of his hands on her skin, the trails of fire that seemed to ignite wherever he touched her.
Light fingers callused by potion work slid up her sides and ghosted around the swell of her breasts. She lifted her arms obedient to his urging and then he'd pulled the piece of silk over her head and dropped it over the side of the bed.
"There we go," he growled, his voice low and sensual, sending a shiver down her spine. "That's better, isn't it, Hermione?"
Definitely better, yes, although she was having difficulty actually vocalising that sentiment. Fortunately, he didn't wait for her to try to marshal her scrambled faculties enough to speak. He simply pulled her to him so that he could kiss her again, and before she knew it, she was lying in the bed, the sheets somewhere beneath her, and Severus was half on top of her. She wasn't wearing her nightie anymore, so there was the delicious sensation of skin-on-skin contact, and she discovered that her nipples were incredibly sensitive to the heat of his skin and the feeling of him pressed against her.
She let out something that was perilously close to a moan and felt his mouth turn up at the sides as he kissed her. He shifted so that he was completely covering her, legs tangling with her own, and she felt the hardness of his erection against her thigh. She bucked up against it and delighted in the hiss that exploded out of his mouth as a result.
It was glorious to let these new sensations overwhelm her, but she felt a surge of satisfaction when he responded to a direct action on her part; she wanted to actively bring him pleasure.
She wrapped her arms around him, bringing her hands up to delve into the strands of his hair. She'd wanted to do this for ages and ages. Well, ever since she'd been in his bed in sixth year, at least. She'd wanted to touch him then, but she'd been afraid of waking him, and she hadn't quite understood what she was feeling. Lust. Tenderness. A desire to touch him and pull him closer and never let him go. To comb her fingers through his hair and stroke his scalp with her fingertips and find pleasure in touching what everyone else thought was greasy and unpleasant.
It was greasy; her fingers could pick that up even in the heat of the moment, but she didn't care. After all, her hair could be an absolute rat's nest, but it was a part of her just like his was a part of him. He made a noise in the back of his throat, and she thought it sounded like pleasure, so hopefully she was doing something right, novice though she was.
One of his hands slid up to curl in her hair now, and she loved the way his fingers teased through the curly strands, twisting them round his fingers and letting them spring away from him and then worming his way deeper, the heat of his hand seeping into her skull, a reassuring warmth.
His other hand was ghosting lower, across her face, trailing down her neck and collar bone, and then lower still until he was brushing across the swell of her breast and his fingers swiped across one of her nipples. She arched up into him involuntarily with a whine of pleasure, and he broke their kiss long enough to huff a soft laugh.
"Like that, do you?" He sounded too pleased to be terribly mocking.
Yes, she really, really liked it. Went without saying, surely. She leaned up and did her best to kiss him senseless and show him just how much she liked it. He attempted to move his hand away, but she seized it with her own and kept it in place. He twined his fingers with hers and together they ran over her skin, stroking her sensitive flesh. He slid their fingers across the valley between her breasts and over to the other nipple which he proceeded to caress as thoroughly as the first, turning her into a big pile of mush. Aroused mush, but still.
Finally, she let him have his hand back, and he slid it across her stomach, fingers ghosting across the scar that she had mentioned earlier, feeling across the length of it. He pulled away from the kiss she had initiated, his hair brushing down her skin as his head followed to where his fingers were, and he pressed kisses along the marred skin there, making her stomach muscles clench. She wasn't objecting, definitely not; she took it that this was his way of saying that he didn't mind her scar. Far more effective than her stupid statement at the beginning of the night, apparently, and she would have to remember it as a possible plan of action for later. She arched up against him again as his hands brushed lower. A plan of action for much later when he had finished doing whatever marvellous things he had in store for her because she'd hate to interrupt him at a crucial moment right now.
His fingers delved inside her, and she found herself crying out incoherently. She certainly couldn't come up with any useful sentences or actual words—which was embarrassing for someone who was usually so articulate—but Severus didn't seem to be complaining. Plus she hadn't turned out to be like any of those students thought, the ones who had guessed what sex between her and Harry had to be like; there was no grading and no reading a manual while she was in bed. She was all for chucking the manual out the window and just letting Severus do whatever he wished because he seemed to have memorized the manual, and wasn't that lovely of him?
Instead of moving up to kiss her again, his head moved lower down her body, and she had the chance to experience what Lavender and Parvati had lamented far too few men were willing to do or could do with any sort of talent. Admittedly, Hermione couldn't really speak to the relative talent of Severus in this art, but she could most assuredly attest to the fact that it felt bloody fucking fantastic and speedily brought her with a loud cry to her first social orgasm.
Since she had read everywhere that women often didn't have an orgasm the first time, she thought that Severus was doing an absolutely spectacular job of making this pleasurable for her. Tugging at him with fingers that didn't work right, she nevertheless managed to make herself understood, and when his face was even with hers again, she kissed him deeply, tasting herself on his lips.
"Thank you," she whispered breathlessly when she drew back to allow them to breathe.
He huffed another laugh, and she worried she'd been horribly gauche.
"You're welcome." His voice was amused but not maliciously so.
She really wanted to reciprocate his generosity, but despite all the nauseating details she'd overheard from Lavender and Parvati, she didn't think that she would make a very stellar showing of herself. Maybe if she'd had some advance warning, she could have done some research. Which, she grimaced, meant she was exactly like those whispering students had said she was, looking to do research in the middle of sex.
"I could—" she blurted out hesitantly and awkwardly, sort of half gesturing, and he seemed to understand well enough what she meant.
"There is no need." His voice was gruff again. "Then we would have to wait."
It took her a moment to work out what they'd be waiting for and then another moment to understand why waiting would be bad since every action thus far had been marvellous as far as she was concerned. But she was stupid and awkward and new at this—that had been made abundantly plain—so maybe Severus just wanted to get it out of the way.
"Oh, uh, okay," she said, now fully feeling the awkwardness of the situation once more.
Severus kissed her again, settling his hard body against her softer one, letting her relish in the feeling of how well they fit together. He might not think so, but she could imagine that they fit together perfectly, could imagine that they were supposed to be together, and if that made her throat a little tight with unexpressed emotions, he would never know.
He nudged her legs apart with his own, and although she felt a little nervous about what was coming, she allowed the movement. It helped when he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth hungrily, and one of his hands came up to toy with her nipples. That was very good, really quite … suited to distracting her from what else he was doing, which, she realized a moment later, was arranging himself properly so that, if all went according to plan, she would very shortly no longer be a virgin. He was still kissing her, but he'd moved his arms to brace himself on either side of her.
And then he gentled the kiss, pulled back a bit to look at her, a question in his eyes.
Since his earlier actions had ensured that she was very aroused and she was only going to get more nervous the longer they put this off, she nodded as resolutely as she was able.
He stared for a moment, then leaned down to kiss her again, and then he was thrusting inside of her.
Her breath hitched painfully, and she felt him freeze, could feel the tension in his arms and upper body as he held himself perfectly still at her involuntary noise. She blinked back tears at the unexpected pain. Intellectually, she'd known it was coming, but it still bloody hurt.
"Wrap your legs around my waist," he rasped out, sounding as though speaking was difficult. "Keep breathing."
She did as she was told and found that the changed angle did ease the pain—or perhaps it was the fact that he had cared enough to stop and give her time to recover.
"Nowhere near as bad as Cruciatus," she managed as soon as she was certain that she had complete control of her voice.
He snorted but leaned down to kiss her again, lips surprisingly gentle, and she tilted her head up, wanting more contact. She deepened the kiss this time, exploring his mouth with her tongue and gradually relaxing her involuntarily clenched muscles. When she felt able, she experimentally tilted up her hips, and he let out a groan of pleasure. His pleasure mingled with hers, new sensations washing through her.
"Please," she whispered.
He didn't need more urging, pulling out and thrusting more deeply inside her. She felt connected to him as she had never felt before, filled with him in a way that wasn't just physical. He would probably think she was the cheesiest woman in the world if she mentioned any of this, so she wouldn't speak, but he was totally brilliant, and she wished that this was on the list of activities in which they could engage all the time.
There was silence except for the slide of flesh against flesh as he moved above her, sending pleasure coursing repeatedly through her. His face was intense as he stared down at her, and it was awe-inspiring to be the focus of so much of his attention. She reached for him and pulled him closer, desperate to touch him, latching onto his mouth as soon as it was in range. He seemed to engage in the activity whole-heartedly, and she lost herself to the feeling of the two of them joined together in all possible ways.
Pleasure was building inside of her, centering between her thighs and radiating out with each of Severus's thrusts as she surged up to meet him, fingers tangled messily in his hair, lips melding together. The cresting wave of bliss grew higher and higher and higher, bubbling out until it seemed to encompass her entire body all the way from her toes to the tips of her hair, which she logically knew were dead cells that couldn't feel anything, but right now she'd be willing to swear that every single bit of her was alive with the pleasure, pulsing with the pleasure, and about to be completely overwhelmed with—
There was a blinding flash of white light, and Hermione spiralled off into a haze of ecstasy.
Hermione awoke to the feeling of warmth, heat positively radiating off Severus's skin and soaking into hers, making the dungeon feel toasty warm. It was dark, dawn still over two hours away according to a silent Tempus, and she found that they'd managed to get under the covers at some point, and she was snuggled up against Severus much as she had been the two times she had been in his bed under drastically different circumstances. She had been sleeping with her entire right side pressed against him, her leg thrown over his, her head pillowed against his shoulder. His right arm was cradling her.
She took the opportunity to cuddle, closing her eyes again and basking in his warmth. It seemed unlikely that Severus was more warm-blooded than Harry, but lying with the Slytherin like this seemed to be fundamentally cosier than it had been with Harry. This had held true, she realized, even when she had been helping Severus with the Cruciatus and neither of them had been naked. The skin-on-skin contact made it even better; she continued to feel linked to him, as though they had joined together on some fundamental level that wasn't physical. Magical or emotional or soulful—or maybe all three—it hummed between them, creating this warmth and this sense of belonging that was so powerful it had nearly overwhelmed her last year before she even realized that she was in love with him.
Her fingers, quite without her conscious volition, had begun stroking his skin. That hand that didn't seem to be controlled by her brain anymore slipped up until it found the ropy scar on his shoulder. She catalogued the sensory differences as experienced through her fingertips. The scar tissue was slippery and smooth, but the raised ridge of flesh felt rough before it evened out into the unblemished skin. She wondered if it tasted different from the rest of his skin and then wondered how upset he would be if he were awoken by her finding out.
According to the potentially reliable source of Lavender and Parvati—at least when it came to men and sex—the vast majority of men would be very happy to be awakened by a woman who wanted more, so perhaps she could gear up the courage, and—
A steel band clamped around her wrist, and she jerked her eyes open and herself upright to discover that it was actually Severus's hand that held her wrist in a vise-like grip that actually hurt.
"Remember where you are."
This was not a happy morning voice. She thought he was also lacking in more than a little logic because she knew bloody damn well where she was, and she thought her fingers had been rather illustrative of that fact.
His eyes were chips of black ice, and she knew before he said another word that this was about to go horribly wrong. It was going to be a dreadful morning after right out of the movies and the trashy novels for her; she should evidently have slipped away when she had the chance, but it had been so pleasant and perfect, and how could he not have felt any of that?
"I think that's quite enough," he continued with the harsh voice. "You've made use of me for more than long enough."
She pulled away hard, and he let her wrist go as she scrambled away from him so that they were no longer touching.
"You think I was using you?" she repeated, stunned and horrified.
His voice was cold, bereft of so much as a hint of the emotions that had warmed it the night before. "You needed to have sex with someone."
She was breathing too fast and knew that she needed to calm down, but she felt like she was going to explode.
"I forced myself upon you, I suppose?" she demanded, struggling to keep her tone even.
He shrugged with supreme indifference. "You came to me for sex. It was necessary to protect yourself now that Potter's gone and fucked Draco, and you made an offer it was impossible for a Slytherin to refuse."
She swallowed heavily, pressing her lips into a thin line to fight back any of the words that were trying to escape because they'd come out as angry and hateful or torrents of maudlin sobs, and she couldn't let him see either. She couldn't give him the satisfaction because then he'd know how much he'd affected her.
Without thought and barely more than a half-formed intent, she dressed herself so that she was able to climb out of bed without the embarrassment of facing him naked now that he had called an end to whatever it was they had had. A mistake, apparently.
She tamped down on all her emotions ruthlessly, ensuring that Fawkes and Castina couldn't pick up on her distress and helping her to control herself in front of the Head of Slytherin.
"As I recall," she said acidly, "it was you who asked."
His eyes were hard, his voice colder. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for your tone."
She opened her mouth to protest.
"Any agreement I made pertained to the issue of Pure Adults." He sneered. "You are no longer one."
Despite her control on her emotions, she reared back slightly at such a low blow, feeling the crack in her emotional shielding almost physically. She controlled herself ruthlessly.
"A very acute observation, sir," she responded carefully. "Now that that's out of the way, I would hate to take up any more of your precious time."
She turned away from him and started towards the door.
His voice was cruel. "I haven't finished with you, Miss Granger."
For the first time in her life, she felt the massive surge of magic that had frequently plagued Harry whenever his emotions overwhelmed his control. Her fury was so all-encompassing that she whirled back to face Severus feeling something perilously close to hatred, and a wave of golden energy flashed out of her before she was even aware of what was happening.
With an instinct that she didn't know she possessed, she grounded the magic into the stones of the floors and walls before it could do more than ruffle the hair of the man on the other side of the room. The discharge of so much power made her sag slightly, and she had to put her hand out to the doorframe to steady herself.
There was stunned silence, no one moving, and then she turned and fled. Speaking to him right now was going to get one of them badly injured.
Running on automatic, she Masked herself, knowing that she couldn't deal with any of the questions that would result if one of the Slytherins saw her leaving the Potions master's quarters this early in the morning. The vindictive part of her felt that it would serve the man right, but the rational part of her knew that there would be serious repercussions if Voldemort were to hear of it, and even her badly bruised feelings didn't seem an adequate reason to see Severus sentenced to death because he'd had the temerity to take up with a Mudblood.
Of course, Severus was very clever, and he could no doubt spin a nice story to tell Voldemort about how he thought it would be amusing to take Harry Potter's best friend and use her at his whim.
It ought to be awfully easy for him to manage, as it wasn't a lie.
She blinked back tears. It was still hard for her to believe that it had gone quite so wrong. She had known when they began this last night that it wasn't love for him, but she hadn't thought he was going to be such an utter bastard. He was the one who'd asked if she was issuing an invitation. It wasn't as though she'd come in there, stripped, and demanded that he take her. He'd been the one pushing for her to have sex the whole damn evening—the last month—and now, this morning, he accused her of going there simply to use him?
Her emotions were threatening to boil over despite her effort to shore up her shields. The man was absolutely infuriating. He made her want to stamp her feet, curse everything within sight, and then break down and cry. She had the feeling that she would do all of those things if she didn't keep careful control of herself. Since not letting everyone else know what had happened was imperative to her continued mental wellness, she had to keep a lid on her temper.
The gargoyle dissolved without her even thinking about wanting to enter her quarters. She checked at the threshold, heart clenching painfully in her chest.
They hadn't managed to make it to Harry's bedroom, but at some point one of them had at least had the sense to Summon a blanket. They were cuddled up on the floor, and they both looked perfectly content in sleep. They looked the way she had felt when she woke up with Severus such a little time ago—but she was certain that when they woke up, it would continue to be a happy morning for them.
Gazing down at them with a fondness that was tinged with pain, she realized that they must have really tired one another out to still be sleeping here. She would have suspected the light-sleeping Harry to notice where they were at some point or the snobby Slytherin to notice they were on the floor rather than in a bed. But no, they were snuggled together on the floor, sleeping without a care in the world.
She wordlessly conjured pyjamas and pillows, softened the floor, and made sure that their blanket was covering them adequately for warmth before tiptoeing past them and into her bedroom. This was when she noticed that tears were trickling down her face and dripping off her chin. She scrubbed at her face angrily. She was happy for them, honestly she was, but it still hurt to seem them like that, and she couldn't seem to make that gnawing pain go away because Severus had insulted her, used his school authority against her, and accused her of using him.
He had taken her virginity and then bloody well split hairs, although she supposed that by the narrow definition, the bloody prat was right.
There were no more Pure Adults.