The Seduction Game

Disclaimer: All of the Harry Potter characters and the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling/Warnerbros. I am making no money.

Sorry it\'s been so long - my computer just wasn\'t cooperating! Won\'t happen again! :) Lets get on with it...
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CHAPTER TEN: AND ONCE AGAIN

“Look at this!” she said before he even got a chance to greet her, handing a piece of parchment to him.

He had only just finished his breakfast - which he ate in his own room - when he’d heard her knocking on his door.

“What is it?” he asked, taking the parchment and stepping aside. She hurried inside and he closed the door behind them, not taking his eyes off the parchment.

It was from Lucius.

He looked up at Hermione with a serious frown. “When did you get this?” he asked.

“I found it on my nightstand,” she replied. “This morning, when I was about to go to breakfast. He’s been in my room, Professor!”

Severus nodded. He’d been right, Lucius wasn’t prepared to give up so easily, this letter alone proved that. It was a direct threat, a warning that he wasn’t going to leave her alone. And, knowing Lucius, Severus had a pretty good idea what Hermione now was facing.

“Have you been to breakfast yet?” he asked her.

“No, I - I went straight here,” she said, sitting down on his bed, calming herself. “I didn’t know what to do, who to go to...” She laughed a short, cynical laugh. “Who would’ve believed I would be this helpless without Harry or Ron around.”

“You should definitely not go to breakfast,” said Severus. “I don’t think you should risk facing him at all. You can floo the kitchen from here and have something sent up,” he said, indicating to the fire.

“I -” she began to argue, then thought the better of it. Stepping over to the fire, she threw in some floo powder and made an order. Seconds later, a house elf jumped out from the fire and handed her a tray of food. “Here y’are, miss,” he said, and vanished again.

“I didn’t get a chance to tip,” she laughed to herself.

He rolled his eyes dramatically, and she smirked. “I honestly think they would be much better off without your nagging,” said Severus, handing her back the letter from Lucius.

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “What - what should I do? About Lucius?”

Severus rubbed his temple. “I think there is very little you can do, except of course stay out of the man’s way. Notifying the Ministry would not do any good, I can assure you.”

“Why not?” asked Hermione. “He’s threatened me! I think that qualifies for a bit of investigation? Maybe it could even convince people he wasn’t under the Imperius - that he really is a bastard.”

Severus smirked at her choice of words. Yes, he really was a bastard. “Nevertheless,” he said, “the Ministry wouldn’t get around to this today. Notifying about a threat like this will take them months of paper work and investigation, they would not really be able to do anything.”

“He tried to rape me!” she argued angrily.

“I know that!” barked Severus. Then he pulled himself together. The anger he held was resevered for Lucius, not Hermione. “I know that,” he repeated, his voice calmed. “But you have got to understand, Imperius or not, this man still holds significant power over the Ministry. His money alone could free him from a charge based on what he has done so far.”

“All right, I agree the letter isn’t a particularly big thing,” said Hermione, “but what about last night? He abused me! I’ve got the bruises, I can prove that. You’re a witness.”

“I did not see the entire episode,” argued Severus. “What I saw wasn’t a pretty sight, but it does not qualify. People could argue that I misunderstood the situation, and that you were actually willing. In the end, it would be your word against his. And when it comes down to that, he has several great advantages.”

Hermione sighed, her gaze fixed upon the carpet in his room. “So that’s it then?” she said quietly. “We haven’t a chance.”

Reluctantly, Severus took a seat next to her on the bHer Her head turned to look up at him, gazing deep into his black eyes. Memories from the night before rushed back to both of them.

Severus hadn’t even thought about their kiss when she stormed to his room, he had been much too concerned with Lucius’s threat. Now, with her sitting so close, staring at him, it all came back. He’d kissed her. He, Severus, had kissed Hermione Granger, and she’d wanted it.

“Be thankful we haven’t,” he said. “If we did have a chance in this, then that would mean you‘d be in a much worse state than you are now. He would have raped you.”

“Somehow it feels so unreal,” she said. “Who would’ve believed that I, the bookworm know-it-all, would be assaulted by Lucius Malfoy. Who’d think he would even cast a second glance at me?”

Severus remained silent. He knew all too well why Lucius had tried to have his way with her, and he found himself feeling partly to blame for it. Had he provoked Lucius? After all, the man had done it to prove a point to Severus. Didn’t that make him partially to blame?

In Lucius’s eyes, it had all been a bet. A bet to prove he could still have any women he wanted - even the bookworm know-it-all, who just happened to be one of Severus’s ex students and a woman he’d desired for over two years now.

Thinking of it all, Severus found three reasons for why Lucius had wanted to bed Hermione. The first - of course, that he wanted to prove he could have any woman he layed his eyes on. The second - if anything, then just to provoke Severus, and the third: Hermione was, when all came down to it, one of Harry Potter’s best friends. Harry Potter, the boy who’d single-handed taken down Lucius’s master and Lord. In the end, this was also an act of revenge.

“Don’t judge yourself too harshly,” said Severus quietly. “And you should wish he wouldn’t have cast a second glance - look where it has brought you.”

“You’re right, I guess,” sighed Hermione. “But all the same I think it was the very attention he gave me that made me so unbelievably stupid and naïve. Of course I should have known better.”

“You know it now,” said Severus. “No good dwelling on what has happened, what’s ahead of you requires much more concern.”

“Yes, I understand I have something to fear,” said Hermione and pulled a hand through her messy hair. “You know, I really didn’t ask for this.” She caught Severus’s eye. “You know Lucius better than most people - please tell me, what will he try to do?”

Severus sighed. He wished he didn’t have to do this. This was like recalling everything he and Lucius had done back in the 70s.

“He will no doubt try to corner you, to catch you unaware, on your own. I really do NOT wish to say what happens if he does catch you, so I will settle on insisting that you never wander about all on your own. All right?”

“Sure, I’ll just stay away from him and make sure I’m not alone,” said Hermione. “For how long?”

“For the rest of the conference, at least,” replied Severus. “And maybe you should be a bit careful when you get back home as well, but seeing as how that’s little over a week away I’d say he would have calmed down by then.”

Hopefully he will have, he added silently. Knowing Lucius, though, this probably wasn’t the case.

“Listen, I -” began Hermione, but then she stopped, looking nervously around the room.

“Yes?” said Severus.

“Well, I just thought...” She pulled a deep breath. “Okay, we were both, uhm, not completely sober last night, right?”

“I guess you could put it like that, yes.”

“But we weren’t completely drunk, neither.”

“No.”

“So we kind of knew what we were doing, after all - at least I know I did - and we weren’t so drunk we can’t remember a thing... Am I right?” She looked uncertainly up at him, obviously very nervous about his reaction to this.

She was trying to bring up the subject of last night’s kiss without actually speaking the words, Severus had no doubt. Yet he wouldn’t be the first to mention it - he enjoyed her nervousness, it was a change from the old know-it-all.

“Well, I know my memory serves me right,” said Severus calmly, “and I had full control of my body and my actions last night as well, yes. Does that answer your question?”

“Well - yes. In theory it does,” smiled Hermione shyly. “I mean, that is what I asked, but...”

“But?”

“But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“Like what?”

She stood from the bed. “Honestly, Professor! Either you’re not remembering anything, or you’re just toying with me! You know something happened last night that we should discuss!”

He had to smirk, she knew how to handle herself. “Very well, Hermione,” he said. “Lets discuss it.”

“Good,” said Hermione firmly. Then she remailed quiet.

“Well?” said Severus at last.

“Well what?”

“You were so eager to discuss it, I would think you had something to say.”

She rolled her eyes. “Stop being so calm and reasonable all the time! It annoys me. All right, well - we should discuss the fact that we kissed last night, shouldn’t we?”

“Ah, yes,” said Severus with a twinkle of satisfaction, he couldn’t help enjoying the memory. “I believe it did have something to do with the alcohol, but - as you pointed out - we weren’t completely at a lack of control.”

“Yes, I know I wasn’t,” muttered Hermione. “But it’s, well... It was just a momentary, impulsive thing, wasn’t it? Because we were both drunk, and I know I needed some comfort after what happened with Lucius, and you were so kind to me...”

Severus froze. That’s what she hoped this was? Just a momentary thing? Just a drunken makeout? She didn’t feel the little extra he’d felt, that which he’d dreamed of for over two years? This was not good, not good at all.

“Well, yes,” said Severus, maintaining his calm. “I can understand how you feel it was all just a mistake, merely something that happened because you needed comfort.”

“Wasn’t it to you?” she asked nervously.

“I was in no momentary desperate need of comfort, Hermione,” he answered earnestly. “But I know you were.”

“So to you it was - giving comfort?” she asked uncertainly.

“No, to me it was - good,” he said simply. “I rather enjoyed it.”

“It was weird.”

“Agreed. How, would you say?”

“Well, you used to be my Professor.”

“True.”

“And you still make me call you Professor.”

“Also true.”

“And you’re twice my age.”

At that, Severus hesitated for a moment. She didn’t look like she cared, it was just a statement. But still - she was right, there was a big age difference.

No, honestly. Who thought about stuff like that? To Hermione it had just been a momentary thing anyway.

“That I am,” said Severus.

Hermione sat back down on the bed, her eyes wandering again. “So,” she said at last. “So what you’re saying is that - that you enjoyed it. Even though it was weird.”

“I suppose I didn’t think of it as weird in the sense that you do,” said Severus.

“How’s that?”

“I no longer think of you as a student. To me, you are a witch I happened to know when you were a child. Which you are not anymore, I might add.”

Hermione smiled. “Right,” she said. Then, hesitating, she asked: “Are you saying you would have done it even if you were sober?”

“Yes, I am saying I would.”

He looked down at her. She was smiling, non none of them spoke for a short while. At last though, Hermione did.

“You know, I would, too.”

At that, he leaned in and kissed her again.

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