A Rock and a Hard Place

Very sorry for the long delay… Shez, I could use your Brit-picking. Vic, if you're willing to send your email address, I can alert you to updates. And with a nod to LBJ on Snape’s power quote, I’ll go on.

*

Trudy pressed the moonstones to her burning eyes. Outside the potions closet, she heard the Professor say, in his near-whisper, “You will all decant the contents of your cauldrons into your beakers and bring them up to me.” And then…silence.

The potions closet door opened. Trudy set the moonstones back down. She noticed her hands were trembling.

The Professor entered the tiny room. He looked around, nonplussed. But once he saw Trudy, he strode purposefully toward her. He glanced at the moonstones, and an assessing look came into his eyes.

“You know the use of moonstones?”

“I can read,” Trudy said defensively. “Your books say they relieve anxiety, ‘bring emotional peace’.”

One corner of Snape’s mouth curled up slightly. “Very good,” he said absently. As Trudy marveled at the rare words of praise, Snape lifted her onto the narrow lab table. She felt a thrill at how easily he took her in hand. She started to speak, but to her further shock and pleasure, his thin lips came down over hers.

When he lifted his mouth slightly, she whispered against it, “Aren’t you…aren’t you angry?”

“About what?”

“The curse still seems to be…working.”

“Some curses can’t be undone.”

She had barely time to register that response before he pulled up her robes. The fabric pooled around her waist, revealing her ordinary knickers. Trudy cast her eyes quickly up at the Professor’s face, then back down. He hadn’t looked disappointed. Instead, there had been a faint gleam in his eyes. He hooked his long fingers through the leg holes of her knickers and pulled them to her knees. Thinking he meant to remove them, she raised her legs in the air—and found her exposed pussy pressed against something warm and solid. In confusion, she parted her thighs slightly and the solidness slid between her lower lips, pressing gloriously against her secret opening. She spread her legs as far as the knickers would allow, her neck arching back.

But after a few moments of unfulfilling pressure, Trudy raised her head. Snape was still fully clothed, and she suddenly thirsted for more from him—some vulnerability on his part. Her hands slid through the folds of his robes, cryptically devoid of buttons or obvious fastenings. “Take them off. Please. I want to see you.” A small hourglass hung low from a golden chain around his neck.

Snape’s eyes held hers for a moment, but Trudy could not read whatever emotion might be passing behind them. He lifted the hourglass off his neck and placed it to one side where it could not be jostled. Then he ran his hands through his robes, undoing fastenings until the robes fell open and she could see what lay beneath. He was thin and wiry, surprisingly strong, with some small extra flesh around the waist—the product of too many hours indoors hovering over beakers. Trudy took in each detail—skimming the light covering of hair over his chest and lingering finally on a small blue mark above his collarbone.

“What’s that?”

Snape’s eyes flicked down. “Nothing. A reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of how the Dark Lord deals with disobedience. No more talk.”

He pressed his body forward, forcing her legs high over her head. Now his tumescent cock was in full contact with her clit, her pussy lips pressed wide open, and her whole passage delightfully dilated around the head of his cock. This time when he pressed slowly into her, Trudy felt herself opening around him, felt the ridge of his cock head stroke her needy center. He moved then, quick, slight movements that made the inside of her pussy swell, and pressed his balls against her flesh. She had no choice but to yield to him, gasping out his name with each thrust, begging for relief, clutching at his robes. At last her back arched and blessed release coursed through her. She was being carried on a long stream of pleasure, groan after groan breaking from her throat.

When her pussy stopped twitching around his cock, he rode her with more deliberation, more calculation to his own pleasure. Trudy found herself crying out brokenly as his cock probed still more sensitive areas inside her and stroked her swollen clit. His cock thickened inside her like iron, and she came again, just as he began pumping his come in her.

For a long moment he hung over her, not daring to speak. His skin was sweaty, but Trudy didn’t care. She was far from caring. How had it come to this?

At last Snape pushed away from her and flicked his wand carelessly in her direction. Trudy was only slightly surprised to find herself clean and seemingly untousled. “You like that spell.”

“It’s useful.” He slung the hourglass back around his neck, where it dangled to his sternum.

“What’s that?”

He barely glanced down. “Time-Turner.”

“What?”

“You don’t think we could have taken all this time, with all that noise, with my class of Fifth Years right outside?”

Trudy raised herself on one elbow. “When did you get it?”

“I’ve had it,” he snapped. “I don’t need permission.”

She blinked. Evidently, she had hit a nerve, but she had no idea how.

“Never mind,” he said in a lower voice. “It’s school politics, who gets them. Some here would have preferred I not have one.”

Trudy was on her feet, adjusting her hair quickly. “But you do. How?”

“I have ways.”

Trudy could only regard her savior apprehensively. “Why are you doing this?”

He looked at her. “Doing what?”

“Still, um, sleeping with me? Agreeing to help get my daughter? I thought you didn’t want to do either of those things yesterday.”

“You heard Dumbledore,” he began irritably.

“You don’t take orders from him.”

Snape looked at her a long time, the black eyes unfathomable. “We’ll talk later,” he said. “I must finish my lesson.”

*

Some hours later they sat at the High Table. Unaccountably, Trudy was not sitting by Snape but was wedged between Dumbledore and Hagrid. Hagrid was sprawled on his chair, red in the face from six goblets of firewhiskey, his legs splayed, roaring with laughter at something Flitwick was saying, and pushing Trudy practically into Dumbledore’s stew.

“Sorry, sir,” Trudy said. She felt, as usual, like a pale shadow of a person next to these vibrant magical beings. Her heart sank, and her inner voice began again to tell her that, maybe, everyone would be better off without her around.

“Enjoying the feast?” Dumbledore said to her, his eyes twinkling.

Trudy thought briefly that there was nothing more annoying when one was feeling depressed than another person with a twinkle in his eye. “Yes, sir,” she said politely.

Dumbledore leaned forward. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t hear you.”

The effort hardly seemed worth it, but Trudy said as loudly as possible, “Yes, sir!”

Dumbledore smiled at her over his half-moon spectacles, and Trudy felt herself sinking into his cerulean irises. “You know,” he said after a second, “Severus does not always say what he means.”

Trudy didn’t want to seem argumentative, but the Professor had seemed blunt to the point of bludgeoning with her. She kept her voice light. “Oh?”

“Severus is a bit taken with you,” Dumbledore said, softly enough that his voice did not carry.

“Oh, no, sir,” Trudy couldn’t help contradicting. “I think you misunderstand—"

“He doesn’t often meet someone who knows anything about potions—"

“I don’t—"

“—and a Muggle to boot!” Dumbledore chuckled. “You’re just what he needs.”

“He needs a good night’s sleep, more food, a little exercise, and a visit to the dentist,” Trudy blurted out. Then she turned beet red and looked at her plate.

Dumbledore leaned forward to get back into her line of sight. “And you’re just the one to make sure he gets them. Chin up! No blubbering in the beef! Ah, here’s Miss Granger.”

Trudy groaned inwardly. Not the teen genius! If anyone made her feel inadequate in the Professor’s presence, it was this walking encyclopedia.

“Ms. Mills!” the Granger kid said breathlessly. Trudy looked up and tried to appear secure and knowledgeable. What a liar I am! she thought. Why was the kid coming to the High Table anyway? It was unusual.

“I’ve read ahead in our potions textbook, and I see we’ll be making the Draught of Peace—" Draft of what? Trudy thought frantically—“and I wondered how hellebore works with this potion? It’s poisonous. How does it become part of a potion that soothes anxiety?”

Relief washed over Trudy. At last! A question she knew the answer to! “It purges bad things and can protect animals from evil spells. When it interacts with the moonstone, along with the proper potion-making technique, it becomes the Draught of Peace.” She said it all without thinking. She had been reading Snape’s ingredient labels and explanations for weeks now.

“Oh.” The Granger kid looked confused. “I thought—Aren’t you a Muggle?”

Trudy felt a moment of triumph. The kid had been trying to set her up! “If you thought I didn’t know the answer, why did you ask me?”

The kid muttered something about just checking and scuttled back to her table, where she, the Weasley kid, and Harry Potter fell into excited whispering.

“Well done,” a familiar voice said quietly beside her.

Trudy’s head whipped around. Hagrid was gone. She saw him weaving his way in the general direction of the men’s toilets and hoped at least one urinal was higher on the wall than the rest. In his place sat Snape, looking remote as ever.

Dumbledore rose. “Students!” his voice rang out. Trudy pretended to listen to him give a festive farewell to the student body, but she was preternaturally aware of the man beside her. When Dumbledore finished, she and Snape fell in step toward the dungeons.

On the way, Snape fielded questions from Slytherin students and promised victory on the Quidditch field in the near future. Trudy could hardly focus on their conversation. At last they were in Snape’s rooms, and he had closed the door with finality on the last student.

“How do you know about the Draught of Peace?” Snape said in an offhand voice that Trudy knew must be affected.

“I don’t. I just know what the ingredients do.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I read,” she said simply.

Now Snape turned to her, and the calculation in his eyes was unmistakable. “I’ll make an…arrangement with you.”

Trudy waited.

“I want you to read this book, cover to cover, and memorize everything in it.”

He held out a book the size of a paving stone and roughly the same weight. Trudy nearly staggered when she took it in her arms. “What for?” she managed, when she could trust herself to speak without gasping.

“I’d like to see,” he said levelly, “if you can do it. I shall quiz you on it when you are finished.”

Trudy felt her face flush with anger. “And if I pass?”

“Then I’ll tell you a few things you might like to know.”

“About what?”

“The Dark Lord. Your daughter’s condition.” He waited a beat. “Myself.”

Trudy swallowed. She hungered for knowledge about him. “And if I don’t pass?”

“Then I’ll keep my own counsel when I make my schemes to rescue your daughter, and I’ll tell you only what you need to know to be a cog in my plan.”

Fury pounded in her temples. She weighed his offer as carefully as possible. “I’m not like that Granger kid,” she said finally, “I don’t memorize things. I put them in my own words.”

“As long as you know it.”

Relief coursed through her.

“Now what was Dumbledore telling you at the feast?”

The words were like a whip crack, but Trudy strangely felt at peace and did not jump. “He was just trying to cheer me up.” She looked up and saw a strange expression in the Professor’s eye. “Sometimes,” she heard herself saying, “I have the funniest feeling that you can read minds. ...But that’s impossible.”

The Professor looked away. “Impossible,” he agreed, quellingly.

He took her to bed without removing any of their clothes, and in the dark, silently, his mouth came down on hers. They hurriedly stripped off only the necessary clothing from one another. Trudy straddled his narrow hips and felt his fingers opening her from behind. Once the iron rod of his cock was inside her, she writhed on him silently until she couldn’t stand it any more and came, still and silent, hanging over him. He rolled her beneath him. “Next time,” he said, barely above a whisper in her ear, “I want to hear you.” And then he was swelling inside her, moving, bringing her to a second climax, before surging inside her deeply and reaching his own climax.

Some time later, Trudy stared into the darkness, like black felt. “I just want to know,” she said, “why are you doing this? It’s not for me. You’ve made that clear. You hate kids. This can’t be for my daughter. And she’s all I—" she stopped as her voice caught, thickly. Her throat felt closed. She could not speak. She cleared her throat forcefully, pretending that was the reason for her sudden silence. “She’s all I really have.”

There was a long silence, and Trudy thought he would not answer. But then he said. “Whatever else may be said of me, I do understand power.”

Trudy’s mind churned in confusion. What did he mean?

She felt rather than saw him turn his face toward her. “I am capable,” he said, and to her surprise, she felt him take her hand in the dark. “When the time comes, you will know it. Study my book.”