Seven Preposterous Things

They'll look up- she with her brown
Innocent eyes as if
She'd just awakened from a kind of sleep
Him with a shaking back of his hair
(laughing soul of Satan mirroring his eyes)

-- The Lovers- Raymond Souster- intentionally misquoted


The last time Severus Snape had shared a bed with another person, it had been his fifth year winter hols, and Toby had been in the nick. Not exactly an unheard of occurrence. The only thing at all remarkable about the series of events was the dreary fact that one of his parents - he wasn't sure which, because each blamed the other - had sold his bed while he was away at Hogwarts.

Toby had been gone, not to be released until someone came up with the necessary funds. The floor had been cold.

They'd gone to his granny first. Liz Snape, not Mrs. Prince. The Princes wouldn't have pissed on Toby Snape had he been on fire, much less paid to get him out of lock up. As an adolescent, young Severus didn't have the common sense to understand that their disdain extended to the child of Toby Snape as well.

At any rate, Severus and Eileen asked Liz for bail. She swore she would have given it to them, honest, but she was getting long in the tooth, and she wasn't making ends meet as it was. In her profession, women her age just didn't see as much trade as the young ones. After they left, Eileen said she thought Liz was losing on the horses again.

He had to whinge, and call Eileen "Mummy", but she relented and let him into Toby's spot in the bed for a few nights, until she managed to squeeze a few bob out of a motley assortment of the old man's mates and scrape up the rest from fuck-knows-where to spring Toby. Then it was back to the cold floor for little Severus.

It was the story of his life really.

And now, now he was on a soft bed, with clean sheets, with his arms round a beautiful witch. Not simply a beautiful witch. The talented and lovely Hermione Granger, the sort of witch people assumed was utterly beyond his reach. Not only was she stunning and powerful, she was kind. Sometimes it surprised him that little birds didn't light on her finger while she was taking the rubbish to the curb.

He enjoyed talking to her about her schooling, so much so that, when he wasn't driven to distraction by the femaleness of her, he anticipated poring over her textbooks and seeing what sort of dialogue it would provoke between the two of them.

She was pretty. From her shapely legs to her heart shaped face. Nice to look at in a way that didn't have the telltale signs of some sort of a glamour.

Then too was the simple fact that all the people who had looked down on him in his life would be scandalised by the notion of her bestowing her favour on him. As if he were so lowly, his very touch would contaminate her. Or perhaps worse, as if he were some sort of lower form, some sort of beast, unnatural for even desiring the Gryffindor princess. Well, this particular princess seemed quite pleased to have a fuck with one Severus Snape. He almost wished Sirius Black were alive at times like this, so he could see him in bed with Granger. Stripped down to her knickers, in a single bed, asleep with her arms locked tight about him, his ring on her finger. Inwardly, Severus made a list of all the people he wished could see him now.

Oh, McGonagall would shit herself. He almost laughed aloud imagining the look on her face.

He stopped thinking and traced the curve of Hermione's breast with one finger, careful not to wake her.

Lupin.

Hermione was nearly half the reason he'd let it slip in the common room about the werewolf business. He recognised the way Lupin looked at her, because he did it himself. He'd be buggered if he let the werewolf bend her tender pity to his advantage, particularly since he wasn't at all certain whether Lupin had the same sort of scruples Severus himself had about letting a few more candles make their way on her birthday cake before he made his move. It wouldn't do. He had to be got rid of.

Lupin deserved to see Severus fuck her, just for the torment. He'd give it to her from behind, in the fashion of animals, to rub the werewolf's nose in it even more.

"Mine," he would say, "all mine and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it."

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Dumbledore.

The notion tripped him up for an instant, and he was afraid to think it.

Defiantly, he closed his eyes and pictured Dumbledore, chewing on the corner of his beard, the way he did when he was playing at being fatherly and concerned. Then he pictured Hermione, stroking his face the way she had a dozen different times since the night before, eyes wide, lips parted.

See, old man. I can be loved. I deserve it.

I deserve to be loved by someone who is beautiful and good and cares, truly sodding cares for me.

Severus drifted off with these thoughts on his mind.


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Hermione awoke to the strange sensation of having her hand held in her sleep. Honestly, she wasn't accustomed to having her hand held at all. She was surprised at the contented feelings it gave her.

Her eyes still closed, she inhaled deeply. Severus smelled, aside from cigarettes, like a thing she could only describe in terms of what it was not. It was not unpleasant, or even very strong, but it was male and definite and musky. At the moment, she had the silly thought she'd like to rub it on her wrists and dab it behind her ears. Slowly, she lifted her eyelids.

Yes, he still had the profile of a buzzard, but it seemed the profile of a very dear buzzard at present.

Unbidden, she felt herself smiling foolishly at him. It embarrassed her a bit, and her grin widened at her relief that he wasn't awake to see her. He'd probably say something rude.

She closed her eyes again and revelled in the simple fact that he was here in her bed, that the two of them were speaking again, well, considerably more than speaking. She had bearded the lion in his den and emerged victorious. Good God, he was sublime. Sublimely brilliant and sublimely stupid. Even asleep, lying beside him made her heart race.

Unexpectedly, he stretched, pulling her to him. In less than an instant, he shifted, rolled on top of her and held her hands over her head. He was smiling that crocodile smile down at her.

Never smile at a crocodile. That was the saying.

She couldn't help herself, she felt utterly young and foolish, but she giggled when he kissed the ring on her finger.

She didn't think she'd ever giggled before in her life. She stopped laughing when he brought their locked fingers down into her knickers. He was going to hurt himself if they had sex whenever the desire overtook them. Or rather she was going to hurt him.

Goodness, but it felt divine. If he'd only been with women six times before yesterday, that meant she'd already increased his experience by close to fifteen percent. People said all sorts of things about Severus Snape, but no one ever accused him of being a slow learner. He had that look, that look on his face that denoted nothing so much as academic fascination. He let her hand go and rubbed his thumb against her clitoris in a way that made the top of her head vibrate. Then a bit harder. Then altogether too hard.

"Too much, that's too much," she hissed.

"How is this?" he purred; his touch was like a hummingbird's wing beating and the singing in her head started up again.

"Good god," Hermione whimpered.

"I do have some experience with manual stimulation," he chuckled, "my own primarily." Hermione thought she was going to die. The image he'd placed in her mind of his hand around his cock made her whimper again.

"Have you any more condoms?" he asked breathily, his hair falling over his face.

She looked up at him, a bit worse for lack of sleep and drunk on sensation. He looked solemn and nearly handsome.

"You need a chance to recover," she said dumbly, trying to be noble.

"I am a grown wizard," he hissed, suddenly ugly and sneering again. "I killed Albus Dumbledore. Do you honestly think your cunt poses a threat to me?"

Hermione pulled away, pushing herself up on her elbows, now it was her turn to sneer.

"Weren't those Merlin's last words as well?"

How was it the two of them could go from giddy to snarling in a heartbeat?

A look close to fear licked across his face but then vanished. His lip curled.


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Severus, at that moment, was caught in a life and death struggle between his perceived sense of dignity and the need in his gut. Ironically, they both wanted, above all things, sex with Hermione. The conflict lay in how to achieve that aim. While the cowardly reason that powered his gut was ready to crawl on his belly in order to get his way, dignity called for something less jelly-spined.

Unfortunately, shouting at her was probably not an effective method of seduction or Severus would have had rather more luck with witches over the years. Indecision reigned.

"Fine, I'll take your word for it," she said in that stroppy way of hers, glaring daggers. "Now decide, would you rather bicker or fuck?"

Yet another reason she held him enthralled; Granger had a singular ability to cut to the heart of any matter.

"I'd prefer sex if it's all the same to you," he said with a sigh he didn't intend to add.

"As would I," she added archly, or as archly as anyone could who was wriggling out of her knickers.

"May I enquire as to the location of the condoms?" he asked.

"Bureau, top drawer, beside the socks," she said. "I prefer not to feel as though I am taking advantage."

"Then don't," he said quickly, moving to rummage through her drawers. "It's been close to twelve hours since our last union, not over strenuous for a wizard of my power. I dare speculate I've accrued enough magic in my loveless life that twice in one day will hardly kill me." As subtly as he was able, he made a quick visual assessment of the prophylactics; it reassured him to know all were accounted for, though he did not fully examine the fear behind his need to inventory.

"Good," Hermione said, an odd little sad smile on her face, "because I do rather want you."

"We are in agreement, then," he said, brandishing the condom at her as he neared the bed.

Then Severus hesitated, looking about Hermione's pristinely ordered room, the bright light; Merlin, a bed.

He'd done it in automobiles, front and back seat both, and public loos. Oh and yes, the first time against the wall of that club.

But he'd never had sex in a bed before. Or naked for that matter.

Now that the heat of the moment and the fuzzy head of first waking were past, everything around him seemed uncomfortably light and clean. He was at something of a loss as to what to do next.

It occurred to him he was painfully sober as well, which was also unique.

Hermione was looking at him with a rather curious expression on her face. He looked from her face to her tits, which were staring straight at him as well. And then it occurred to him how closely her current pose resembled that of a woman in the magazines he might or might not keep between his mattress and box springs. She was his own private pornography, lying there. That was definitely a sort of sex he had experience with, if years of wanking over pictures could be called sex.

She looked into his eyes as though she were looking into his very soul; he had the passing instinct to Occlude, but words tumbled out of his mouth before he realised he was speaking them.

"I should like to look at you," he said.

How asinine. Here she was, uncovered before him under bright light. I should like to look at you, indeed. What sort of moron said a thing like that? Severus Snape, apparently.


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Hermione Granger was a bit taken aback.

She had been penetrated in all of the pleasanter ways, and, for the sake of experience, she had also attempted a few that proved somewhat uncomfortable.

How was it then that Snape had the power to make her feel filthy, in an altogether exciting and, dare she say, fun way without laying a finger on her?

"Absolutely," she answered him, because he did seem to be awaiting some kind of reply.

Severus' black eyes were hooded, and his expression one she would have called vacant but for the fact that it wasn't. He came closer, and his eyes seemed to grow larger the closer he came. Being stared at by an open-mouthed, wide-eyed Snape sent a heady shot of adrenaline through her.

"Now touch your tits," he commanded in that classroom voice of his, the words incongruous beside the tone in which they were spoken; too bad her fingers had already gone, quite reasonably, to her clitoris.

She smirked as he made a little choking noise.

"That's acceptable as well," he said, sounding ever so slightly strangled.

"Care to have a better look?" she said as he stood at the foot of the bed staring, just staring as if there were words printed between her legs. Decisively, she spread her wet labia. It seemed the next obvious step.

Severus Snape made a noise she could only interpret as a whimper.

Hermione grinned, feeling as though she had never been appreciated, never been admired, intellectually or physically, simply for herself as when she was by Severus Snape.

"Now you touch me," she commanded him.

"Here?" he said, leaning forward to slip one long finger inside her.

"Rub my clitoris, the way you were earlier," she said.

"Good god, you're stroppy," he muttered, following her directions, albeit with less finesse than he had used earlier.

"Part of my charm," Hermione managed to squeak out as his redirected touch sent pleasure like electric jolts through her body.

It took precious little to send her over the edge to orgasm, as bright as the sun, like a kiss to every nerve in her body at once.

When she could speak again she asked him, "What do you want to do now?"

In the blink of an eye, he was on top of her, with all the weight and sensitivity of a machine press, his fingers inside her again.

"I want to put my cock in you. I want to penetrate you, here," he said pressing harder for emphasis. She was surprised when he pulled his fingers out of her vagina and pressed them to her sternum, "and here," then her temple, "and here."

Then she realised he'd been holding the condom clutched in his other fist this whole time.

"Lie back," he said imperiously. "I wish to see what I am doing."

She watched as he tore the wrapper with his teeth and unrolled the latex sheath onto his penis. He remained sitting up, watching, as he slowly brought his sex to meet with hers.

She had never been penetrated so deliberately; Snape's sensitive fingers parted her labia as if he were folding back the pages of a new book, his cock following in a way she could only describe as shy, which was for the best considering the size of him and the fact that she was still sore from earlier. She wasn't accustomed to being sore, and she didn't care for the sensation.

She listened as he breathed in sharply through his gritted teeth. His sensitive forefinger went back to her clitoris.

"Is that acceptable?" he asked stiffly.

"It's good," she said, her voice strained. "It's very good."

He nodded, slowly pulling out of her completely only to enter her again, just as slowly as before, filling and stretching her millimetre by millimetre. A third, and then a fourth time, the same thing, just as slow, just as deliberate. His eyes seemingly fixed on his cock moving in and out of her. If she had to guess, she would say he enjoyed the sight as much as the sensation, perhaps more. Or perhaps he was taking in each moment of pleasure to the fullest. At this point, she hardly cared.

Severus Snape was the world's biggest tease. She was ready for him to fall on her and fuck her hard despite his size. She couldn't bear to be tantalised any longer.

Then she became aware of a strange sound like scraping metal, repeating itself.

She blinked.

Severus slid out of her, limp, and looked around in abject confusion and horror.

"Why the fuck do I hear an infant?" he bellowed.

She barely had time to throw on her robe before he stalked out into the lounge, her pink sheet wrapped round his waist and thrown jauntily over one shoulder.

There, in the Draco's arms, was a baby. An awful looking baby at that. To say Draco looked ill at ease would be comparable to saying the Venus de Milo had a hangnail.

"Where did that come from?" Severus said as though it was a flying saucer or an elephant's foot umbrella stand.

Hermione looked the baby over from a safe distance. Its eyes were too big. It had a funny sort of a nose for a baby, very pointed on the end. And it was very, very small.

"Millie found it in a rubbish bin on the way home from work," Draco said, wrinkling his nose.

"It's got to go," Severus said, holding his arms across his chest; somehow, without the black swirling robes, the effect was more petulant than intimidating.

"She needs to alert the authorities," Hermione said. "We need to alert the authorities." That's what a person did when they found an abandoned infant or a lost dog; call the police. She made her way to the seldom-used phone. Severus followed her, unplugging the cord at the base.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"The day I make contact with law enforcement officers of my own volition is the day..." he said as Millie walked in with a tray from the kitchen.

"What are you lot on about? Did Draco show you what I found in the rubbish?" she said happily. Hermione didn't think she'd ever seen Millie look quite like that before.

"Millie," Draco whinged. "I don't see how this is going to work. I can't take care of a baby. People take care of me, not the other way round."

"You can't keep it. It already has a mother somewhere, Millicent," Hermione said, trying to be reasonable.

"It doesn't look right," Severus said, curling his lip with disgust.

Hermione watched, as Millie somehow seemed to regress into the scary girl she'd avoided during her first train ride to Hogwarts. She was stony and implacable as she raised one finger at Draco.

"You're going to have another in six months time, so you'd better get used to not being the centre of the universe now, Draco Malfoy," she said, before turning to Hermione. "You said you'd help me if I wanted a baby."

"I meant your own baby, Millie, this..." Hermione tried to find words to sum up her misgivings about the ugly, screaming red thing in Draco's hands but was interrupted.

"This? This is a Muggle-born like you, and some stupid cow tossed it in a rubbish bin," Millie said, setting down the tea and taking the baby from Draco. It quieted down almost instantly. "Because she couldn't be bothered. Well I found him; he's mine now. My little wizard."

"How do you know it... he, I mean... How do you know he is a wizard?" Hermione asked. She didn't much like it, but she had to admit that changed her feelings immediately. Turning a Muggle child over to the authorities made perfect sense to her, but magical child was something else entirely.

"I was walking down Harry Hines when I heard somethin'," Millie said, and the other three traded glances; they were familiar with Millie's freakish hearing. "When I came close, this one here threw the lid off the bin. And not a little one... the big metal bins in the alley. Once upon a time, the villagers used to leave the Muggle-born at the mouth of my Gran's cave and tell each other she ate ‘em. This isn't much different than that. I claim him. He's mine," she said fiercely.

Hermione scrutinised the horrible little thing. Something was definitely not right about it; Severus was correct. She gave Millie a good hard stare. She'd be very surprised if she needed Hermione's help with this, but under the circumstances she certainly wasn't going to oppose her.

"All things considered, you did the right thing," Hermione said.

Millie nodded sharply.

"And you, Snape!" Millie said, turning to the figure shaking his head across the room. "Something's wrong with him, and you can fix him, and don't tell me you can't. I know you've got a place, some abandoned Muggle place where you're doin' magic nobody knows about. Don't get on my wick by denyin' it."

Hermione turned to Severus, who had closed his eyes in what appeared to be embarrassment. "Each day I congratulate myself on my forethought in turning Black Alice down when she offered me your hand in marriage."

Millie rolled her eyes. "You turned her down ‘cause I was ten."

Hermione watched Severus as he scowled. "It is a personal peculiarity of mine that I have no interest in bedding anyone whose nappies I've changed," he said, with a look that straddled boredom and annoyance. "Give it here."

In Severus' hands the baby began to cry again, quite a bit louder than he had with Draco. As far as Hermione could tell, Severus was smelling the baby, which she supposed made some sense for a diagnosing Mediwizard, which Severus Snape, she noted, was not.

"Congratulations, Millicent, this infant has been exposed to large amounts of cocaine," he said. "You're the adoptive mother of a crack baby. Prunie would be so proud."

"Why would Muggles give cocaine to a baby?" Draco asked, baffled.

"He received the cocaine in utero." Hermione felt compelled to explain to Draco.

"Yes, he was whelped by a Muggle drug addict," Severus said with that nasty smile Hermione was starting to suspect he wore when he was fighting the urge to scream. "It seems to me if your wife had allowed herself a minute or two of indecision before she dug him out of the rubbish, the point would have become academic."

"But you can fix him," Millie insisted.

"Yes, I can fix him; unfortunately I don't know of any potion that will do much about his looks. He will remain a very ugly baby; after which, he will grow into an equally ugly child," Snape said, handing him back to Millie. He quieted right away.

"Look who's talking." Millie snorted. "Now that's settled, I need you two to put on your trousers."

"May I ask why?" Severus refolded his arms across his bare chest.

"Because I need you to drive me to Denton, and I imagine Granger would like to come as well," Millie said, rocking the baby in her arms.

"And you need to go to Denton because?" Hermione ventured.

"We've got to buy a goat. Draco's got the address written down," she said, as if they traded in livestock on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

"Why, pray, do we require a goat?" Severus voiced what Hermione saw as a fairly obvious question.

"To feed baby until my milk comes in," Millie said gesturing to her breasts as if Severus were an idiot for asking. "Then we either roast it in the back garden or keep it as a pet, depends on its disposition. I'd be very grateful I was born a wizard if I was you, Snape."

Then Millie seemed to truly notice the two of them for the first time. "Granger, were you two having a fuck?" she asked with a hint of wonder.

"We would have if we hadn't been interrupted," Severus said, morose as Hermione had ever heard him. "And you," he said, shaking his finger at Millie just as she'd shook hers at him, "are forbidden to walk anywhere in the vicinity Harry Hines Boulevard again. Millicent, you are to come straight home after work or I will... I will take you over my knee. You're not too old for a good thrashing."

Hermione tried to picture him making good on the threat. Laughable was rather an understatement. Hermione was torn between amusement and gratitude Millie didn't have a wand. If Severus continued to vex Millie, she wasn't sure lack of a wand would be much of an impediment.

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Author's Note: Thanks to Shiv and Scattered Logic


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