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This is what happens when an SS/HG shipper listens to too much Wham!. Yes, really…
Oh, and everyone’s alive. Except Dumbledore.
Hermione Granger was being watched.
There was that old Horcrux-hunting itch under her right shoulder that screamed someone had fixed their eyes on her. More than a casual glance. Something…determined.
She sipped at her drink —wrinkling her nose at the soured punch— and glanced away from her chattering knot of friends. The long sitting room of Grimmauld Place was packed for the Order and Army Blow Out. Fred’s term for the celebration of Voldemort being whipped into so much ash by the Saviour of the Wizarding World.
Hermione pressed her lips together to deny a breaking laugh. The Saviour was currently trying to snog his girlfriend behind the curtains. And said Saviour’s future mother-in-law was on the warpath.
A little stinging hex from Hermione’s wand and a yelp forced Harry to break cover. He was flushed, his hair spiked and Ginny looked thoroughly rumpled. With half an eye on Mrs Weasley, they escaped through the crush to a safer hideaway.
Lucky sods. Their relationship had bloomed in the scant weeks since the fall of the Dark Lord. Whilst hers…
The itch broke her thoughts. Someone was looking at her. Hard. But who?
Oh, there was who she wanted to be staring at her, but that—
Hermione shoved down that thought.
In the crowd of laughing half-drunk people, she couldn’t trace the culprit. And it wasn’t Ron. She took another sip of her foul punch to blame it for the sudden twist to her face. Because Ron was surging through the throng towards her.
“Mione!”
A hot and heavy arm landed across her shoulders. The cloud of firewhiskey fumes seared her sinuses and Hermione gritted her teeth against the sudden bloom of pain.
“Let’s get out of here. You know to…”
Ron waggled his eyebrows and leaned into her, his faux-whisper cutting through the bustle of conversation around her. Gods, had only been an hour. How was he this drunk?
Luna, picking out the fried noodles from her bowl of Bombay mix, looked up and tilted her head. Her eyes were a luminous blue in the candlelight. A faint line formed along her brow.
“Hermione isn’t your girlfriend, Ron.” She popped a noodle into her mouth. “Why would she want to leave to have sex with you?”
Hermione held down a groan. Bless Luna and her need to never disguise the truth. No, they weren’t a couple. Hadn’t been from the next time they tried to kiss after the madness of that first, furious lip-lock. It was simply…wrong. And odd. It was too much a disturbing kiss with a close, male relative. Especially if that male relative was also vaguely slug-like.
She held back a twitch. That had been a month ago and Ron was not taking her rejection…well.
Ron sneered. “Mione’s never had a boyfriend before, have you, Mione? So she’s a bit, you know…” He flapped his hand against her shoulder. “That.” He grinned like a clabbert. “I’m an expert. She can learn from me, for a change.”
Hermione’s mouth pinched together and Luna lifted her pale eyebrows. Was that what his bloody persistence was about? He knew something that she didn’t? And she had had a boyfriend, thank you very much, Ronald Weasley! What was Victor Krum? Tripe soup? It was true nothing much happened…physically —she was fifteen!— but she had been more than a deflection for his adorning fans.
She shrugged off his drunk-heavy arm and dipped away to stand beside Luna. Ron gave her a slow frown, looked back at his arm, then at her. “Mione?”
Hermione lifted her chin. It was useless trying to stop him using that hated shortening of her name. “I am not your girlfriend, Ron. We’re best as…friends, don’t you think?”
“No actually, I don’t think.”
It would make everything worse if she laughed. It really would. And therefore the ache to do it bubbled in her chest. “We’ll…we’ll talk when you’re sober.” She twitched a constrained smile at Luna, waved her almost full glass of hideous punch and slid past her friend. “I need a top up.”
“Mione!”
But she was gone —dumping her glass onto a littered sideboard— and weaving away from him.
Shit, everyone was drunk but her.
But drinking enough to let beer goggles fall over her eyes was dangerous with Ron still so intent to chase her. And she didn’t want her first time to be in the cupboard under the stairs amongst the stink of boots and wet cloaks with an inept and drunken boy who thought he was Merlin’s gift to witchkind…
She snorted.
“Something amusing, Miss Granger?”
The low dark velvet of Professor Snape’s voice rippled an unexpected shiver over her skin. In that moment, she thanked magic for saving that beauty.
Hermione looked up at him and willed a smile. Thank Merlin she wasn’t drunk around this wizard. They were tucked away between the last window —and its heavy mass of curtaining— and the fireplace. Summer and the crush of bodies in the house left the fire unlit…so it was a shadowy corner.
The hint of candlelight caught him. He looked healthier, a miracle worked on his body by magic after Nagini had all but torn out his throat. He stood as straight as ever, a slim, black silhouette, but even in the low light, the unhealthy pallor was gone and his black hair shone.
Her heart skittered and her mouth dried. That little niggling push at the back of her brain. The push to know this wizard…better.
Better. Yes, that word. Not…
Another thought to shove down.
Who was he now? And did he feel more at ease here? Tucked back, tucked away from the shrieks and laughter…and whatever the hell Mundungus Fletcher was doing to that troll’s foot.
“Dear Merlin, is that his…?”
Gods, it was a distinctly…sexual act the foul little wizard performed with Mrs Black’s battered umbrella stand. Hermione’s face grew hot and her stomach twisted. What had he been drinking? She prayed she hadn’t touched a drop of it.
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Something that, if the aurors in the room were less drunk, would get him twelve months in Azkaban.”
Hermione huffed a quick laugh, happy to look away. “How was he ever admitted to the Order?”
“Mundungus cares not a shred for others or their possessions, but he was fanatically loyal to Albus.” His lip curled. “Mainly through fear.”
“Fred and George Weasley!” Mundungus’ gritty voice, thick with anger and outrage, burst over the noise of the room.
Two heads of red hair streaked for the door and a loud crash of apparition echoed from the narrow hallway. The tattered little wizard surged after them with a clap of thunder.
Hermione groaned. The night was just getting better and better, wasn’t it? Was Mundungus the twins’ only victim, or had they set traps for others? Shit. Every minute of this night was a hook in her flesh. She simply wanted to find a quiet spot and a drink that didn’t taste as if someone had scooped it up from the drains.
She blinked as Professor Snape’s shadow slid across her. He paused.
“I bid you a good evening, Miss Granger.”
“You’re leaving?”
A tick jumped in his cheek. “I am beholden to Minerva to stay till after midnight, but I will not stand in this room awaiting…that.”
“Can I come with you?”
Snape simply stared at her.
Hermione’s face warmed under his heavy silence. “I have the same obligation. I promise, I’ll be silent. I just want to sit out my time. There is a chance that the twins left something in this room.” She couldn’t hold back her wince. “And I want to avoid Ron at all costs.”
Snape let out a long breath, and the hard line of his shoulders dropped. Hermione was relieved that he had no scorn for her avoiding the ginger menace. “A mutual escape?”
Her heart gave a strange little skip and she grinned up to his deepening scowl. “Yes, yes please.”
“I believe you will not wish to be seen leaving with me. Go to the library. It’s warded to my signature. I will be there shortly.”
Hermione opened her mouth to deny his words. She admired him. He was a war hero. Yes, he was still a cantankerous and miserable old bat. And she rather liked that about him… But fuck, with all that he’d been through, he could act how he pleased. She would offer no complaint.
But before she could speak, he glided off into the crowd, a shadow in form-fitting black skirting past the windows.
Hermione frowned. Form-fitting?
She put that from her mind and ploughed again into the mess of rowdy people, managing to duck out of the room as a certain gangly redhead swept past her, thankfully oblivious.
The warm scent of orange oil lingered in the hallway, the thing of a moment. There and gone again. A sticky splat of punch stained the dark tiles leading out to the front door. Kreacher glanced up from cleaning it away, his great eyes luminous in the shadows.
“Miss,” he croaked.
“Good evening, Kreacher.” Hermione gave him a smile and a nod. He seemed in better spirits since the final death of Voldemort and the fact that he’d led the charge in support of his fallen master. Though often it was hard to tell. He was still a fairly grumpy elf.
And speaking of grumpy…
Hermione made her way to the library, past the murmur of quieter voices behind various closed doors.
Her heart jumped to her throat as Snape slid out of the shadows. A twitch of a smile quirked his mouth upwards. A deliberate move, then. He intended to scare her. Mad bat that he was.
“Miss Granger.”
That rumble of velvet smoothness pricked against her skin, and she shivered. What was it about his voice that night? She admitted she’d always found it…lush. And Great Merlin, she’d always had the guilty pleasure of wondering what it would feel like for him to murmur her first name…
She blinked, confused by the twist and turn of thoughts she normally suppressed as Snape swept aside the wards to the library and opened the door. A flick of his wand lit the fire and the sconces above the mantle. They spread a soft and golden light that eased something in her.
Silence. Heavy and warm. Gods, she wanted to curl up in it…
She blinked. But not with a book. No. She wanted to curl herself around the dark wizard who strode ahead of her, all loose-limbed strength and that aura of intense power—
Gods, could she not? Yes, she’d often admired him. His brilliance. His strength of character…but this sudden physical awareness was overwhelming. Though not new, exactly. Because gods, a certain stride across a duelling strip…
He was sitting and…and looking at her as she hovered in the doorway. She twitched a smile. His dark eyes narrowed and the fact that he was a leglimens hit her hard.
Fuck.
Was this a bad idea?
“Sit, Miss Granger.”
“Hermione.”
Her name was out of her mouth before she gave it another thought. She pressed her lips together. “I…sat my NEWTs in July, so I’m free of Hogwarts.”
She willed herself across the threadbare Persian carpet and sat beside him in the matching wingback chair. She thought about crossing her legs. Twitched. Tucked them to the side…then kicked off her hated heels and curled herself into the chair.
“That makes two of us then.” His mouth moved upwards in a slow smile, softening his harsh features. Hermione’s breath caught in her throat. “And it’s Severus. Hermione.”
She mouthed his name before she found the courage to say it out loud. Because…because her name spoken in that voice. It was sin. Utter sin. Her skin pricked, and a dangerous warmth chased low into her belly.
“What…what are your plans? For the future. Your future.” She clacked her teeth together. Could she be more gauche?
Severus appeared unmoved. “An apothecary. Specialising in more…esoteric brews.” He huffed a soft chuckle, and it warmed her. “May I never see a vial of boil cure ever again.”
“So mote it be,” Hermione murmured and blushed.
His smile deepened. “Thank you. And what’s in your future, Hermione?”
You.
The word burned in her mind. On her tongue.
What…?
Fuck. Fuck.
“Arithmancy. A…department I cannot name made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“That department tends to do that.”
Ah, so his specialist brews were underwritten by the Department of Mysteries. It made sense. Grabbing the chance to whip Severus Snape away from dunderheaded children. He should’ve been there for most of his adult life…but then, Voldemort would not be so much ash without the infamous Bat of the Dungeons.
A pale bottle of elf-made wine and two glasses appeared on the low table that sat between their chairs. Severus frowned at it. His pale hand shone in the firelight as he flicked diagnostics over it. The runes gleamed gold. It was safe.
Severus arched an eyebrow, and Hermione’s face grew hot. It had nothing to do with the fire in the grate. “Shall I be mother?”
Hermione laughed. “Please.”
He poured, and she took her first sip. “Gods, so much better than whatever was in that punch.”
“That is not difficult.”
Severus crossed his legs and air trapped itself in her lungs. There… The stretch and pull of dark material over a surprisingly firm thigh. She couldn’t not stare and…and salivate. She downed a solid mouthful of her wine and willed herself to focus. On anything else.
Buttons. The solid line of buttons on his frock coat that fell in straight down to—
Oh gods, she was staring at his crotch.
Her gaze jerked up to his, panicked, panicking, because, yes, yes, there’d always been something about him that had drawn her. Something dark and warm and powerful, but this…
Severus arched an eyebrow. “I believe I should…”
Spells danced through the air in a golden swirl, the chase of runes weaving between them. He frowned.
Hermione blinked, fighting to think. Was she reading them right…?
“Mundungus was cursed.”
“But a…mirror curse?” Hermione frowned. No, that didn’t make any sense. For Dung, or…or for them.
“Not quite.”
Severus’ voice was smooth and dark and the ripple of it through her flesh was…distracting. She rolled her neck, needing to dispel it, even as it ignited that need inside of her. One she should ignore. Gods, she should, because…because it was forced. It was coercion. And she never wanted that. Not…not with him.
And dear Circe, that thought didn’t startle her.
“Like to like.” His black eyes shone, drops of firelight a bewitching spark. “Which would explain Mundungus’…need for that foul umbrella stand.” His lip curled up at the corner. “He likes to keep it hidden that a quite recent ancestor was a Troll Lord.”
Hermione blinked. And shuddered. To sleep with… “Gods, no.” And she shuddered again. “Was it…”
“Consensual?”
Her belly performed an unexpected dip at the low, smooth word. She jerked a nod.
“His great grandmother has an honoured place in the Troll Kingdoms.” He picked up his glass of wine, long fingers distractingly precise, and sipped. Black eyes fixed on her. “I suppose that says much about her personality. And her willingness.”
Hermione huffed a laugh and found her own glass. The cool liquid was sweet on her tongue. She drew courage from it. “Like to like, then?”
He met that question with a dark, lifted eyebrow. “And what does that say about you, Hermione?”
“Brilliant. Loyal. Powerful.” She tilted her head and a smile cut her mouth. Something edged. “And we mirror on vindictiveness and a nest of uncontrollable hair.”
He raised his glass, and she met it with a quiet clink.
She swallowed down her nerves and asked the question burning on her tongue. “What now? I mean…”
“I doubt the Weasley twins meant to cause so much embarrassment. Their mother will have both their hides for Fletcher.”
Something sank in her belly. Something cold and heavy. He recognised their similarities, but felt no need to chase it. To chase her. She closed her eyes and wanted nothing more than to escape back to her room and hide. Lie on her bed and stare up at the hated, stained ceiling and let her imagination fill in what she could not grab in reality.
What could never be hers. Foolish witch.
“Hermione…”
Her name, soft and heated, spoken in the most beautiful voice she’d ever heard.
“Hermione.”
She looked up.
Firelight glided him, his pale skin a wash of gold. His black hair shone and his eyes… Gods. Shining and..and hot.
“A kiss,” he murmured in a delicious rumble that caught her heart and squeezed it. “If you would? I’m certain that would…disperse any ties of the curse.”
Her mouth opened and closed. She stared at the hand he offered to her; the steadiness of strong, pale fingers…
Hermione watched her own trembling hand slip over his and she bit her lip as his hold tightened. He drew her towards him. She slipped out of her seat on wobbly legs and half-landed in his lap.
Soft laughter broke from him and mortification bound her. Gods. Gauche didn’t cover it. She closed her eyes. Yes, there was something she had to admit. The reason why Ron chased her so hard.
“I…Two kisses. That’s it for me. Just two. And they weren’t—”
“This isn’t a test, Hermione.”
He tilted her chin up. So close, he was so close. His wine-sweetened breath, the hints of cologne that warmed her senses. Had he always smelt so good? Her brain flicked back to a dark night and a rabid werewolf, pressed hard to her Professor’s back. Yes… Gods, yes. His scent was perfection.
“I…”
“A simple kiss.”
His lips caught hers, a tease of a touch. Warmth and promise and so much more to her than Viktor’s fierceness or Ron’s mauling. She felt…everything. The strong line of his thigh, her hand pressed to his chest—buttons biting into her palm—his breath, his heat, her own thudding heart. And—dear gods—the need for him. The ache that twisted her flesh and dragged a desperate mewl from her.
“Sweet witch.” A whisper across her parted mouth and her chest fluttered. “Should I admit I’ve wanted to kiss you all night?”
Him. It was him who’d watched her. Her trembling hand pressed to his cheek, a sharp plane roughened and warm. Real. Wanted. “I felt you…looking.” She pressed her lips together. “Did you try the punch?”
He was a potions master, possibly the best in Europe, if not beyond. He would’ve known that it was spiked.
“A curious dab against the tip of my tongue.”
Low words and—gods—they should not slip under her skin and prick new heat. But that voice. He could say anything, anything and she was little more than a drooling puddle of want. And that wasn’t the twins’ curse. It was older. Had sat with her for too long…
A flick of his wand and the same diagnostic runes wove around them. Clear and free of any coercion. Humour shone in his dark eyes. “No excuse, Miss Granger. No curse to blame for your…ache.”
“I’m not looking for an excuse.”
Hermione straddled him, huffing at the tightness of her dress, until she remembered she was a bloody Gryffindor…and vanished it. The fire warmed her bared back, contrasting with the chill of the room, which pricked her skin and pebbled her nipples.
Her face boiled. Of course, now was the time to remember that she hadn’t needed a bra that night. Still… She lifted her chin and met Severus’ dark gaze. “See?”
Severus fell back into the deep cushions of the chair. His chest lifted and fell with heavy breaths. “Yes, I can see?” A warm hand cupped her cheek and she pressed into his palm, needy and feeling decidedly…wanton.
“Here and now?”
Hermione drew in a long breath, a sudden skitter taking her heart. More than a simple kiss. All of it. All of him. Merlin. She swallowed. “Yes.” She wet her dried lips and her belly hollowed at his tracking of it. He wanted her. “I…” She closed her eyes. “It’s all theoretical for me.”
“Look at me, Hermione.”
She willed her eyes open.
“I will take care of you here and now…and after. I need,” his thumb teased her bottom lip, “I would like so much more for us.”
Her eyes burned. Her throat tightened and she hiccuped a sob. “Us?”
“I…intended to court you, but this,” his fingers slipped down her throat, a teasing burn until his finger drew a slow, slow line around her nipple. She dragged in a startled breath, “this is working too.”
She huffed. “Git.”
His grin was sly. “Oh, I shall still court you, Hermione. Gifts of rare first editions. A day in the hidden, magical Chelsea Physics Garden. The Ministry Undercroft…and naturally, I shall fuck you. Lick and bite you. Drown you in pleasure.”
Hermione grew dizzy. Her breathing had shallowed. Gods, was…was she as turned on by his offers as his promise of physical pleasure?
“Is this agreeable?”
So innocuous a question. Oh, he was a bastard of the first water. But he would be her bastard. And she was more than happy about that. “Yes…”
His shoulders dropped and his head tilted. He cast a practically armoured ward at the library door with a bare flick of his wand. “I should ask if you are happy to remain here?” At her nod, his long fingers loosed his cravat and pushed free the first buttons on his frock coat.
She pressed her hand over his, stilling him. “I want…the coat. Merlin, I want the buttons.”
Her face boiled at the admission, but Severus’ lifted her hand pressed his lips to her palm. “You have a…special interest?”
“It…they are you.”
Hermione wanted—in that moment—to have the Severus Snape she knew. Later…after, there would be fresh and new discoveries…but in the moment? She wanted the dark, austere wizard who’d always been a delicious burn at the back of her thoughts.
His dark eyes were endless. “Indeed they are.” His smile was wickedness itself. “Shall we begin?”
Hermione dug her teeth into her bottom lip, nerves and want rioting in her flesh. She jerked a nod. “Yes, yes please. I…”
She was about to—again—state that she didn’t know what—
The play of his fingers over her skin broke her thoughts. The chase of his sure, light touch over her arms, the inner crease of her elbow, up to her shoulders to slip over her collar bones… It dizzied her. Air and the soft dark pulse of his magic flowing over her skin.
Her breaths grew tight, the low hum to her flesh growing deeper, warmer with every hard heartbeat. And the ache. Gods, the ache, because he skimmed around were she needed him. Barely the edge of her breasts. Just the tops of her thigh, not the crease, and—Nimue preserve her—not lower.
“Severus…”
No, she was not above begging.
“What do you need of me, witch?”
“Biting, licking. You promised.”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “This?”
His mouth closed over her nipple, grazing it with his teeth as his fingers—
Hermione shuddered and a strong hand clamped onto her hip. He looked up, his eyes wicked.
“Do you pleasure yourself, Hermione?”
“I…” Her mouth was dry, lost to him and his hot breath over licked skin, and clever, clever fingers. “I try. My brain is too full, I…
His fingers stretched her and all thought simply…fled. Gone. Her mind was empty of everything but the quickness of her breaths, the thud of her heart and the rising heat in her flesh. The fire he stoked and flicked and the heat of his mouth at her throat.
She rose, turning her hips, chasing the slide of his fingers. She grabbed his shoulders, nails digging into soft wool. Into that infamous coat. Gods. She wanted more. She wanted everything. Him. She wanted—
“More?”
It was a growl, wickedly feral. The brief fall as his fingers vanished and something broader, something hotter…
“Yes,” she hissed. “Gods, yes.”
She slammed her hips down. The wild mix of pleasure and pain arched her spine. A half-sob caught with a wild cry. Severus’ low groan washed over her.
“I have you, witch.”
Strong hands urged her, her thighs straining, working against him. Wanting more. The exquisite feel of him filling him. Of having this wizard—
The release shattered over her in a wave of bright, bright gold, Severus’ own hoarse cry chasing another smash of pleasure through her flesh. She slumped forward, burying her face against his chest, hot and sweaty and simply…boneless.
Magic slipped his buttons free and Severus wrapped the skirt of his frock coat around her hot, bare skin and in that moment, she ached for those old voluminous robes. For the smooth silk of his academic grown to sweep around her and hide her from the world.
She almost huffed. Another…special interest?
Instead, she curled against the heat of his chest, the smoothness of soft cotton against her cheek. His scent. She breathed him in, and the drum of her heart eased. Warm male, mixed with the heady scent of great sex and something else, something that had always been there. Under everything. Old books and green herbs. Hermione’s eyes closed. Her Amortentia. He was her scent.
Severus’ long fingers stroked a path down her spine, slow and…and affectionate. Hermione hummed and absently kissed the underside of his jaw.
“Are you quite comfortable there, Miss Granger?”
His beautiful voice —and she’d been wrong, it wasn’t his only beauty, far from it— thrummed through his chest and sank into her bones. She sighed. “Yes, yes I am.”
She willed herself to look up fully, resting her chin on his chest. Firelight flickered over his hawk-like face, pale skin made gold, and his inky hair and eyes deep with shadow. No, Severus Snape was not handsome. And he would be the first to admit, but…he was striking. Unignorable.
“Why? Do you wish to register a complaint?”
His lips twitched at the corners and the urge to kiss him burned across her own mouth. “No, not at all. Though perhaps…” He drew a rune against her backside and a shiver chased under her skin, followed by a roll of heat. “We should…reconvene somewhere less likely to have someone burst in on us?”
“Who could break your wards?”
“True. However, they will draw interest. Why is the notorious Severus Snape barricaded in the library…and oh, have you seen a bushy haired know-it-all, by any chance…?”
Hermione snorted. “And it would be my first walk of not-ashamed-at-all.”
“Addled witch.”
It was a soft, an affectionate endearment and came with a brush of his lips over her forehead. His endless eyes were warm and lit with gold and she wanted more time —she stretched, and muscles cramped by the wing-backed chair strained— and Merlin, more space to explore the very notorious and completely delicious Severus Snape.
She eased back. He was right in that someone would likely be looking for them. Especially if others had succumbed to the curse. Her thighs ached and Severus offered a steadying hand as she wobbled.
“Of course, the Weasley twins —as much as I appreciate what their…practical joke has given me— will have to pay.”
“Oh yes.” A flick of her wand replaced her dress, her cheeks hot as Severus’ gaze fixed on the slide of her fingers as she smoothed down the material over her hips. “But later. When they aren’t expecting it.”
“Very good…”
His dark eyes were hot and wicked and Hermione had to fight the very real need to throw herself at him. Again. His approval was…delicious. Who knew? And it was something that would allow herself to wallow in.
She drew in a long breath, tilted her head and smirked at him. “So…about these first editions…?”
The Daily Prophet — 17 September 1998
Page 23, under an ad for Figg’s Luxuriant Hair Tonic for Kneazles
From reports last night, Fred and George Weasley, owners of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, were admitted to St Mungos.
The Prophet, as yet, cannot confirm the reason for their admittance.
Tales of their bodies glowing purple with green hair, of them sporting extra limbs, of either or both wizards being pregnant are rampant. Some say it’s all of the above!
Have the infamous practical jokers fallen foul of their own products? Or is this revenge by person or persons unknown?
After all, not everyone can see the funny side.
Investigations are ongoing.
End
And back to House of Riddle. I needed the break!