#4 ~ The \"Up Against the Wall\" Wars

Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKR. All situations are my own.
****************************

Chapter 14 ~ The Lioness vs. The Serpent


Severus decided the dungeon corridor would be just as good a place as any to confront Hermione. He wouldn’t have to lure her here. The location of her rooms would insure she would come on her own. Plus, he risked interruption if he chose another location in the castle, anyone could stumble in. He could manipulate this familiar area to suit his needs.

He jogged swiftly to the dungeon hall entrance and placed a self-activating sealing charm on it. It would invoke once Hermione passed through, creating a wall and effectively blocking off the exit. She would be forced to proceed forward. He doubted she would attempt to unblock the entrance. Her willfulness and pride wouldn’t allow her to run from him.

He had given up on any idea of ambushing her. He was sure she had figured out that Albus and he conspired to arrange a confrontation tonight. She expected an attack. He would simply meet her directly, issue his challenge and overcome her.

He walked to the other end of the corridor and sealed the Slytherin entrance to the dungeons as well. It was an added precaution, so that no wayward students out after curfew would inadvertently walk in during the battle, or the inevitable aftermath of it, if he won. It wouldn’t do for them to see him brutally raping a fellow staff member, even if she was a Gryffindor. He didn’t feel anything remotely personal when this thought came to mind. It was as if removing his emotional attachments to the pensieve had removed his sense of conscience as well, replacing it with a twisted sense of justification.

Severus placed his wand in his pocket, and leaned against the corridor wall. The smooth, cool stone against his back was the perfect counterpoint to his stony demeanor. He crossed his arms, and relaxed, waiting for his prey to appear.

****************************.

As Hermione approached the dungeon entrance, she felt a sudden sense of danger. She stopped and peered down the dim corridor. She could see nothing odd or out of place. There were no niches in the first half of the hall, so she knew Severus was not hiding there. But still…there was something. Cautiously she stepped into the hall. Immediately she was aware of a tingling sensation behind her and rolled away, coming to a stand a few feet down the corridor. The entrance had seal itself. A wall of cold stone now faced her. She walked up to it, and ran her hand across its face experimentally. It was not an illusion. It was solid. Severus had blocked her in. He wasn’t taking any chances.

Fighting the urge to draw her wand, Hermione proceeded slowing up the hallway, her eyes adjusting to the dim light as she walked. She could make someone out up ahead, leaning against the wall, looking at her.

It was Severus. And he was dressed almost like he was in the Room of Requirement, except his hair swung free. He had his arms crossed, and was looking at her with a calm, almost bored expression, his eyes lazy. She looked him over as she approached, her stomach clenching with expectation. She stopped about thirty feet away.

He pushed away from the wall with an easy grace, and walked smoothly to the center of the corridor, blocking her path. He stood there, silent, his eyes raking over her body then fixing upon her face. He smirked, rather sexily. Hermione let her eyes run over him. He wore a tight t-shirt that showed the definition of his muscles, and loose-fitting pants, with a drawstring. It wasn’t hard to tell he wore nothing under them.

“Drawstring pants, “ she thought, “for easy access.”

Severus laughed, and she realized he had been reading her thoughts. That wasn’t good. She had to block him from doing that. Luckily, her fighting responses were pretty much reactionary, and he wouldn’t see her move until it actually happened.

“You can try,” Severus purred, “but you know you are like an open book to me, Hermione. I can see inside your soul if I wanted to.”

“You said this was to be hand to hand, “ Hermione said, evenly, “why are you in my head?”

Severus began to move sideways. Hermione instinctively moved too, matching his steps in the opposite direction, moving away but toward him, since the hallway was rectangular and space was restricted. Her hands clenched and unclenched.

“I’m in your head, because I can be…do you think a deatheater would hesitate to invade your mind if he were able?” Severus sneered as he worked his way closer to her, “and soon, your head won’t be the only thing I invade.” He said this with a coldness that chilled Hermione all over. Then she remember the Severus golem, how it had used her passion to overcome her, and she was filled with rage.

Severus paused and cocked his head at her.

“Effective, Hermione. I can’t see through strong emotion. I guess my golem did a job on you. How do you expect to deal with the real thing if a caricature managed to overcome you?”

He started to move toward her again. He began to feint as if to charge her, trying to gauge what her response would be by her body language. She remained steady. She wouldn’t allow him to make her give herself away.

Hermione felt the wall coming up against her back. She didn’t want to be there if he flew at her. She moved in the other direction.

Severus continued closing in. His eyes were predatory, looking for any sign of weakness as he continued to make false darts. He was within ten feet of her now, but she was clear of the wall with the corridor open behind her.

Severus charged. Hermione darted to the side and extended her leg to trip him, but he was expecting this, and leaped over her leg, catching her shoulder and spinning her toward him. She spun with him and caught him with a powerful left-handed blow to the face that staggered him backward, throwing him off-balance for a moment. Hermione landed in a crouch then straightened, drawing her wand at the same time he recovered and drew his. They stood at a stalemate, barely five feet apart, wands pointing at each others’ heart, both breathing heavily. Severus wiped at his mouth, never taking his eyes off her. He raised his hand to eye-level and his black eyes flicked toward it quickly, then back to Hermione. A little blood colored his pale fingers. His top lip was slightly split.

“Not bad,” he said, spitting, his eyes glittering with malice.

Hermione didn’t reply though inwardly she was cheering that she was the first to draw blood. Now he knew she was formidable. She kept her wand firmly pointed at him.

They stood there several minutes, then Severus redeposited his wand back into his pocket. Hermione slowly did the same, and they began to circle each other. Severus suddenly dropped and swept Hermione’s legs out from under her. She fell on her side, and he was on her in a moment. Hermione tried desperately to trap his long legs with her own, as he struggled to lock her arms, and succeeded in getting one leg locked behind his knee, restricting his movements, keeping him from adjusting himself to pin her body down. He managed to wrap his arms around her shoulders, and began to squeeze her painfully. She managed to roll a bit, but couldn’t get the leverage she needed to throw an elbow. She did give him a front head butt, but it was weak and didn’t dislodge him. Desperate, she touched her flame charm.

Severus yelled and released her, crawling back swiftly. She leaped to her feet and pulled her wand before he could regain his footing, effectively holding him at bay.

“That’s one,” she said, panting, holding her wand on the Potions Master. “One escape. You’re at my mercy. I stopped you.”

His eyes were hard. “What did you just do?” he asked through clenched teeth.

Invoked a deterrent. A modified heating spell. It heats my body up a hundred degrees or more without directly affecting me. But whoever is holding me, gets a mean burn. You said my main mission was to escape. It helped me escape.”

“But you didn’t draw your wand,” he said.

“I didn’t need to,” she responded. Evidently, she wasn’t going to offer more.

“Fine,” Severus spat, “you have your one escape. But you can’t invoke that spell again.”

Hermione nodded and backed away, replacing her wand in her pocket. Severus rose slowly from the ground, checking himself for any scorch marks. There were none. He looked up at Hermione with a hooded look. He had his lip split, and was nearly set ablaze. She wasn’t doing badly at all.

He bent and put his hands on his knees, his head down, breathing deeper than he actually needed to, to seem to be tired. He was secretly gauging the distance between himself and Hermione. He saw her visibly relax when she saw his bent stance. And then he flung himself at her, catching her by surprise.

He clasped his arms around her in a bear hug, drawing her flush to his body, her arms pinned in front of her, unable to reach her wand. She struggled against him for a moment, then stilled. He had her. With victory comes the spoils.

Suddenly he felt her step back and drop, pushing at his hips so they buckled away from her. Then he saw stars and everything went black.

When he woke, he was on the floor, curled up like a fetus, his hands between his legs. She had hit him with a groin punch. She was standing over him, her wand pointed at his head, a grim little smile on her face. She held his wand in her other hand.

“That’s two,” she said shortly, then added, “Lucky for me you offer such a large target.”

He groaned. “Two.” He conceded. After a couple of tries he rolled to a sitting position. Hermione backed up and leaned against the wall, swinging his wand and looking at him disdainfully.

“Think you’ll still be able to use that on me now?” she asked coldly.

He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t take the smugness in her voice. He wanted to strangle her.

“I think we should stop,” he said, wishing she would at least cast a healing spell on his throbbing nuts. “You’ve proven you can escape me twice. That’s enough for one night.”

Hermione considered this.

“No…I don’t think so,” she said in a musing voice, “I’m not going to spend weeks worrying about you overpowering me, nullifying my victories and painfully raping me when I’ve got the upper hand right now. I’d rather play this through…unless…”

She looked at him.

“Unless what?” he growled, still massaging his aching balls.

“Unless you are willing to concede I am a match for you and anyone else, and stop this now,” she said, “otherwise, let’s go.”

Severus looked at her, appraisingly. She had him by the balls in more ways than one. If he tried to overcome her in his condition, she would have the advantage…but to give in after only three confrontations…the first ending in a draw? But a draw wasn’t a clear win on his part…he had only just managed to get his wand out in time. Not only had she dropped him, but incapacitated him and disarmed him. Technically she had scored on him two more times. Severus was not a bad fighter. He was considered one of the best fighters in the Order. The fact that she had managed to do any damage to him at all was pretty incredible. If she could hurt him, then she could hurt anyone, and he didn’t doubt that she would hurt him more if they continued fighting. A man couldn’t fight properly if his balls were aching. She could take care of herself. He was sure of it now. He looked at her.

“If I concede, will you allow me to maintain the illusion of my dignity by not bringing my defeat up over and over again?”

Hmm. Not be able to gloat about kicking his ass?

“I won’t bring it up, if you don’t continue to rail on about me protecting myself. It should be very clear to you now, that I can. I have more ways than you suspect of doing so. If you agree to stay off of my back about it, I won’t speak of this night again, but if you start in again…” Hermione said, frowning.

Severus swallowed hard. It was difficult getting all that pride down.

“Fine. I concede. You win,” he said, dropping his head. But somehow, it didn’t feel so bad to say. He felt like a great weight had been lifted off of him…except between his legs. The darkness was receding.

Hermione let out a little scream, and did a dance reminiscent of a football player who just made a spectacular “in-your-face” touchdown in the end zone. Severus watched her from between his curtain of hair until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Hermione, do you think you could do something for the pain?” he asked, pointing at his groin.

“Nope,” she replied, “you weren’t going to let me use anything for pain, so what’s good for the witch is good for the wizard. But I will help you to your rooms.”

She tossed him his wand, which accidentally hit his groin. She winced as he hissed, then came over and helped him to his feet. He draped his arm around her shoulder, while she held him firmly by his waist. They walked very, very slowly toward his office.

“You know, you have to unward the dungeon entrance,” she said matter-of-factly. She helped him turn to look at the entrance, which now, because of his pain, seemed five miles away.

“You do it,” he said grumpily as they turned back, “and the Slytherin entrance too, if you please. Has to be done tonight.”

“Sure,” she said, trying to match his tortured steps. She knew he’d drink a healing draught the moment he could get at his stores. Slytherin through and through.

They walked in thoughtful silence for a few moments.

“I’m glad this is over,” Hermione said softly, hefting him up off her shoulder a little.

He looked down at her.

“Me too,” he said shortly, “me too.”

***************************
A/N: Well, that was a shorter war than expected…but she showed him, and saved him too. Nothing like a punch in the groin to make a man see reason, I always say ;)