#6 ~ A Matter of Matrimony

Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKR (except Marcus Delaluci). All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 10 ~ Hermione\'s Decision

Severus returned to his rooms. He knew Hermione would not be there, but he had to go back to the bedroom and face himself. He entered and looked around. His bed was a mess from his attack on Hermione, and the thin silk bed sheet was gone. A cold feeling washed over him, an iciness that he had never experienced before. He shuddered involuntarily. He knew that feeling did not come from him. That was from Hermione. The connection had opened for a moment, and what it let through made his heart drop. He knew where she was. In the spells lab. He rose and headed through his study and lab. He stood at the door to her laboratory and hesitated. For the second time in his life, he was afraid of Hermione. The first time was when she declared her love for him, and demanded that he accept her as a lover. His emotional turmoil had been so overpowering that he disapparated, rather than given her an answer. But then, she had wanted him. This was different. He had raped her in his jealousy. Now he had to face the consequences of that act.

He took a deep breath. Knowing he was going to face the Cruciatus curse had been easier than this. At least he had known what to expect at the hands of Voldemort. The dark wizard could never hurt him as deeply as Hermione could. Only his body was in service to the Dark Lord, but Hermione had his heart and soul. He raised his hand…then knocked.

“Come in,” said Hermione’s cool voice.

Severus pushed open the door. Hermione was bent over her notes, dressed in her staff robes, looking for all the world as if nothing had happened to her. It was only when she went to retrieve a large tomb from her desk, that he saw she walked with some difficulty, obviously in pain. Oh gods. He had left her and not given her anything for the pain. He had fucked her on the stone floor, and fucked her hard. Plus he had mercilessly took her the night before by the forbidden forest, deeply immersed in the dark, lusty character of their role-playing game. She had said she was still sore, but he was too enraged to listen to her, or to care. She had to be badly bruised inside and out. He felt like he couldn’t breathe as she slowly returned to her notes and plopped the book down heavily. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. She still didn’t look at him., but focused on her notes, obviously waiting for him to address her.

“Wait here,” he croaked and exited her lab, going to his potions stores and gathering a number of healing draughts and potions. He lurched back to the spells lab, vials clinking as he deposited them on the counter next to Hermione. He uncorked one, and offered it to the witch.

“Here, Hermione, please drink this,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice. He hoped she wouldn’t refuse. Seeing her like this because of him, raised a feeling of self-loathing in him that he hadn’t experienced since he was a deatheater. His hand trembled slightly as he held the vial out to her.

Hermione’s amber eyes slid to his. There was nothing warm in them as she took the vial silently and drank. She drank all he offered, silently, looking up into his face as she took one after the other.

When she consumed the last vial, Severus asked, “Feel better?”

“No. No I don’t feel better. I’m not in physical pain any longer,” she responded coldly, “but I have another kind of pain that no potion of yours can heal, Severus,” she stated flatly.

“Hermione…,” Severus began, a note of desperation in his voice. Hermione cut him off.

“You raped me, Severus. Because you were jealous. You raped me and left me lying naked, alone and hurting on a cold stone floor. I didn’t deserve that.”

Severus blinked down at her, unable to take the emptiness in her eyes as she gazed up at him. “I don’t want you to think that because my body responded, and I climaxed, that it was good for me…because it wasn’t.”

“Hermione, I know…” he said weakly before she cut him off again, angry in her voice.

“You know what? You know that you have betrayed me? You know that you have done something unforgivable? Or possibly you know that I am not going to be with you any longer?”

Severus felt as if a sword had been thrust through his heart. He made to try to embrace her.

“Hermione, no…let me explain, please…”

Hermione held up her hand to stop his approach.

“Severus, when a man does something like this to a woman, and she accepts it, it is a green light to continue to abuse her. I know our relationship is sadomasochistic, but everything we’ve done, there’s been love behind it. I have never felt abused until today. Today, the pain was not because of love, Severus. The pain was from selfishness, possessiveness, cruelty and insecurity. You set out to punish me, because I was in the company of Marcus Delaluci. I think you recognized some subtle signs that I found him interesting, and assumed I wanted to fuck him. . After all these years, Severus, you don’t trust me. And not only do you not trust me, you think that I have all of the sexual restraint of a rutting hippogriff.”

“I like sex, Severus, but I don’t have to have it. I prefer to think it is my love that determines my passion for you, not my needs. I don’t love you because of the way you fuck me, Severus. Any man can fuck. I give myself to you because I love you. I’m not that horny little virgin who needed her cherry popped anymore. That was the only time my need superseded my love, and even then I respected and admired you greatly, so it was never empty for me. It was always you who had the capacity to fuck someone you found sexually appealing but didn’t care for emotionally. Most men can do that. Many women can too, but I’m not one of them.”

Severus was speechless. She was right about everything. Maybe he had been wrong to think she wouldn’t be able to handle another wizard pursuing her.

“Severus, I still believe you love me…” she said

“I do,” Severus managed to get out.

She looked at him. “Yes, but you haven’t yet learned to tell me how you feel about me, what you are thinking, what worries you. You haven’t opened your heart fully to me, Severus. That is why what happened today, happened. If you had been able to tell me that you were jealous of Marcus, I would have been able to reassure you that my love and loyalty to you hadn’t changed. And you wouldn’t have needed to hear me to scream your name to the heavens to know I love and need you. Just a few honest words shared between us, would have brought you that comfort.”

“In seven years, you haven’t learned to trust me, you’re still afraid of being hurt. It’s not just Marcus. It’s everything. I think seven years is more than enough time to wait for you to fully trust me. How can you say you love me, if you don’t trust me alone with another man for ten minutes? How can you say you love me, when you just assume I will hop on the next wizard that catches my eye for a moment. That happens all the time, Severus. People in relationships feel attraction to others all the time. Haven’t you ever seen a wizard on the arm of his witch, follow another woman with his eyes? Or a witch on the arm of her wizard, flash an interested look at another passing man? It happens, Severus.”

“Not with me, Hermione. No other witch has ever turned my head since or before you,” Severus said, his black eyes full of emotion. He wanted to hold her so badly. To smooth her hair and kiss her temple and tell her he was sorry, that he would change, that everything would be all right between them now. But that was shallow, too little, too late.

“You are different, Severus, “in your way, you were a virgin too, when we became lovers. I popped your emotional cherry when you realized you loved me. There is so much you need to learn about loving someone. It isn’t all about possession, it’s about freedom too. The freedom to open up your soul and share it with another beyond physical expression. A child attempting to communicate gesticulates, goes through motions to try to get its meaning across. An adult articulates, and makes his communication clear.”

Severus, when it comes to love, you gesticulate. I need you to articulate. As long as I am available to you, you will never take that next step. You will be satisfied with what we have now. I’m not satisfied. I don’t want what happened between us today to ever happen again. And if you don’t mature, and learn to open up to me, it will. So I am going to do something I never thought I’d ever do. I am going to break this relationship off with you. You have to feel what I am feeling, the loss and the emptiness, and the only way that will happen is if I’m not there for you.

“No. Hermione. Please,” Severus said, his heart beginning to break. He could say nothing. Nothing against the hard truths her mind had formulated.

“I’ll be lost without you,” he whispered.

“You’re just going to have to wander a while then, Severus, and try to find your way back to me, a new man. Because the old one isn’t working anymore.”

Hermione reached under the counter, and retrieve the folded bed sheet off of Severus’ bed. She held it up to him.

“This is what I had to wear when I left your rooms. I had no clothes and had to wrap myself in your bedsheet and make it to my rooms. Take it.” she said softly.

“I still love you, Severus, but I can’t risk you hurting me again. You need to go. You have a lot to think about. I’ll be here, just not the way we were,” her eyes began to fill with tears.

“If you can change, and prove to me you’ve changed, I’ll take you back, but for now, we will have to be “friends,” if you can handle that,” she said looking up into Severus’ painfilled eyes.

“I can,” he whispered, knowing he wanted to scream no no no

“And I don’t intend to lock myself away, pining over you either…I going to find other things to occupy my mind and my time. If I just brood over you, then I won’t be strong enough to deny you until you make the changes I need to feel secure with you. So I want no dramatics, Severus. And I don’t want you attacking Marcus either, if I should decide to go out with him as a friend. Attacking him won’t help us. Our problem existed long before he arrived on the scene. Promise me, Severus, you will not fight with Marcus.”

Severus looked at her blackly, “Hermione, you know me. I cannot say that I would not battle Marcus over you if the situation arose, but I will concede to this, and I hope it is enough, that as long as I see he is not taking advantage of…

Here Hermione raised a disapproving eyebrow. “That’s my call,” she said.

Severus amended his concession, “As long as he is not harming you, I will not attack him. But I will not restrain myself in causing him discomfort, stress and aggravation at every turn. I love you, Hermione…whether you are in my bed or not. If you would have me change, then you have to be available to accept me. I can’t let Marcus just be able to sweep you off your feet, I need a chance too, Hermione. Don’t lock me out completely, my love.’

Hermione looked at her Potions Master, and felt her heart give a little. She hoped this wasn’t how it would always be, her making tiny concessions until he was back in her life, having not changed at all.

“I won’t lock you out completely, Severus. We will talk, be sociable. Maybe spend a little time together. You have never taken me out on a date. Maybe you will now.”

She actually looked a little dreamy about this, then she looked at him sharply.

“But we won’t be intimate. If you make getting me under you again a priority, I will know you have no real desire to help make this work. So no attempts at seduction on your part, Severus. No opening the mind connection in the middle of the night, if you feel me feeling a little frustrated. If you do, I will not see you at all except as a colleague. I mean it. “

Severus felt he could breathe again. Maybe he could salvage this, make it right. He knew Hermione better than Marcus ever could, he had the advantage.”

“I agree to your terms,” he said, relief clearly evident on his face, “and Hermione…”

“Yes, Severus?”

“I am so, so sorry for hurting you. For leaving you that way…” he began.

“Severus, saying you are sorry is no where near enough. I would rather not talk about this again. There is only one way to make this up to me, and I have already told you what it is.”

Severus nodded.

“I’ll go now,’ he said quietly. He started to move toward her to kiss her on the cheek, but she stiffened and he drew back.

“Good-bye, Hermione,” he said, walking through the door into his Potions lab.

“Goodbye, Severus,” she replied quietly, closing the door to the Spell lab behind him.

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A/N: ah well…please review