Chapter Text
“It’s an old ritual,” said Dumbledore evasively when Hermione tried to pin him down to specifics. “It would give you an extra element of protection should you find yourself in a situation where your Occulmency shields aren’t sufficient.”
She narrowed her eyes at him across the table in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place and crossed her arms.
“And this ritual must be performed on me why?” She did not trust the Headmaster’s refusal to give details.
“Yeah, not that I don’t want you protected, Hermione, but I thought it was my Occulmency shields we were worried about?” Harry chimed in from between George and Remus. “I mean, Voldemort isn’t doing a lot of digging around in her head.”
“My dear boy, of course I want you to learn Occulmency. But this ritual would allow Miss Granger to contact Professor Snape in an emergency and have his help keeping her mind from being invaded. We cannot perform the ritual for you because Voldemort might sense Severus’s connection.”
“You still haven’t explained what the ritual is,” Hermione pushed. Harry didn’t look particularly convinced either.
Dumbledore smiled at her. “It is an old ritual performed by pairs needing to communicate over long distances. The shared Occulmency is a happy side effect.”
“What the Headmaster is not telling you is that this ritual was usually performed by lovers who wanted to stay in contact during a journey,” Snape said suddenly. “He has also neglected to mention that I have refused to perform it unless Miss Granger is explicitly informed of all actions necessary to complete the spell.”
“A connection between lovers,” Harry said skeptically. “Hermione and…” he nodded pointedly in the direction of their professor.
“Who’d want her as a lover?” interrupted Ron sulkily. Hermione glared at the youngest male Weasley, well aware that his outburst was more likely do to her refusal to sleep with him than any real thought about their professor.
Snape merely arched a silent eyebrow.
“Well, that is the usual use,” Dumbledore hurried on as if Ron had not spoken. “But of course, Severus and Miss Granger don’t need to be…”
“What the Headmaster means,” Snape said sharply, “is that the ritual does not require an emotional connection between the participants. What it does require is for both parties to achieve orgasm.”
The kitchen went very quiet. Hermione, rather taken aback both by the professor’s candor and by his apparent willingness to conduct the ritual despite what it entailed, did not see Ron’s rising color quickly enough to kick him into silence.
“Well then there’s no way the ritual would work, not with how frigid Hermione is.”
She wanted to bristle and indeed was straightening from her spot against the wall to do so, but Snape beat her to it.
“Undoubtedly Miss Granger has lacked the proper encouragement from her previous… partners.” His velvet voice drenched the word with derision, leaving no room to doubt that he did not consider any such people her lovers.
Hermione wasn’t sure which emotion was more prominent, her irritation that her ex-boyfriend and her professor were discussing her sexual history in front of the entire Order, or the interest that sparked from Snape’s soft words. Merlin, he had a nice voice. And frankly—she appraised him with a critical eye just for the sake of considering the ritual—between that and his depthless eyes and long capable fingers she could think of worse people to sleep with. One was still running his mouth about her standoffish bedroom habits.
“Ron,” Harry interrupted sharply. “Now really isn’t the time…”
“Now is the perfect time,” Ron snapped. “If Hermione’s thinking about fucking Snape, maybe we should let her.”
They were now completely off topic which, Hermione reflected, happened irritatingly often when Ron was holding a grudge. Merlin, she’d broken up with him almost two months ago, but he still took every opportunity to spit vitriol at her. He kept speaking.
“Hermione’s a fucking prude and he,” Ron sneered nastily across the table, “he couldn’t please a witch if his life depended on it. If the ritual calls for getting a witch off, pygmy puffs will fly first.”
Snape gave Ron the coldest look Hermione had ever seen leveled at another human being, rose, crossed the kitchen in four long strides, and… oh Merlin.
She wasn’t sure what she registered first, his long fingers twisting into the hair at the back of her head, his solid thigh pressed firmly between her legs, the warm scent of his skin, or the demanding mouth that closed over hers. She might have fallen but for his body bracing hers against the kitchen wall as her head swam with the sudden onslaught of sensation. She definitely whimpered, maybe even mewled. Severus swallowed the sounds, the hand not occupied with her hair splaying flat against the small of her back and drawing her further onto his thigh.
His mouth was silk and sin, coaxing hers open with firm pressure, teasing her tongue, and biting gently at her lips. Sweet Circe the man could kiss. Warmth built where he pressed against her core. Hermione tried to reciprocate the kiss, but he bit her tongue when she tried to slide it into his mouth the way he had with hers. She tried again, tentatively, only to receive a rough growl in response. The sound reverberated in her chest and down between her legs sparking desire as fierce as she had ever known.
Mouth still firmly planted against hers, Severus pressed harder between her legs. Hermione groaned as her clit suddenly throbbed with need, and before the thought could fully form in her brain, she rolled her hips into his solid thigh, grinding with just the right amount of friction. Heat built in her core, molten need fueled by the demanding way he kissed her. She clutched his robes, desperate for more. There was no kitchen. There was no Order watching. There was only his mouth and hands and his thigh right where she could ride it. She worked herself against him frantically.
She came with a suddenness that shocked even her. Sweet golden bliss exploded from her clit expanding into her core and tingling in her breasts like an electric shock. She moaned into Severus’s talented mouth, panting, slowing her rolling hips to draw out the pleasure, realizing only then that his hand on her back had guided her movements.
When Severus released her, Hermione nearly collapsed onto the kitchen floor. She staggered gasping and flushed and too stunned and satisfied to be embarrassed that she had just had an orgasm in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place right in front of the entire fucking Order. Not just any orgasm either. It had been better by half than any orgasm she’d had outside of using a vibrator.
Ron was gaping at her in disbelief and not a little horror. Harry’s mouth had fallen open, but his eyes were dark with interest and locked on the dark potions master. Every unmarried (and not a few quite happily married) woman in the Order was gaping at Snape as if they were going to jump him right then and there. Hermione felt vaguely privileged that he had chosen her for his demonstration. Fuck if her clit wasn’t still tingling delightfully.
“You… that’s… did you curse her?” Ron spluttered.
It was George who answered. “Ronnikins if you think you need a spell to make a woman moan like that you must be one sad lay.”
Ron turned a rather alarming (and extremely unattractive) shade of puce.
Severus turned gracefully on one heel and regarded Hermione. “Whenever you are ready to proceed, Miss Granger, you know where to find me.”
He exited the kitchen with an eloquent swirl of black robes leaving Hermione breathless in his wake. Suddenly even without details she really wanted to go through with the ritual. If he had given her an orgasm like that with only his thigh, Merlin only knew what he could do with his hands or, gods, his tongue. Circe and Nimue that man certainly knew how to please a woman.