For the Potions Master\'s Amusement

For the Potions Master’s Amusement

Chapter 15: The Penny Drops


By Saturday night, she felt like a Weasley Wildfire Whiz-bang looking for a place to explode. Professor Snape had denied her requests to come for the rest of the week, so when she entered his study with her quim bare, she felt as tightly-strung as a Stradivarius.

He sat at the table, quill in hand, writing in his journal … their journal. What did he write when he wasn’t writing instructions for her to follow? Did he write of his own masturbatory adventures? Did he write of her?

Don’t be an idiot, her inner voice advised.

Rather than leaving her waiting for an extended period of time, as he had done more than once, he rose directly from the table and approached her.

‘Good evening, Hermione,’ he said, his glittering eyes sweeping over her in a way that set her heart to racing. He was behaving differently yet again. Why did things seems to be constantly changing between them?

‘Hello, sir,’ she responded softly.

He wore the form-fitting, white high-necked jumper over slim black trousers; his clean hair was brushed straight back from his forehead, a blue-black sheen which fell to his shoulders. She reflected, not for the first time, that this angular man had become the one male on the planet whom she desired.

After studying her for a while, he said, ‘Did you enjoy assuming the submissive’s pose for me last week?’

Bright hope flared in her heart. Was there something he actually wanted from her? ‘Yes, I did, sir,’ she answered.

‘Then you may do so again,’ he said.

It was much easier this time than it had been the week before; she wore a skirt with no knickers. In no time she had shed every stitch of clothing, and she knelt, carefully spreading her knees as he had instructed her before.

In some ways, it was very hard for Hermione to be still and quiet as she waited for him to decide to act, but in other ways, it was terribly easy. There were no decisions for her make about what to say or what to do. Her one decision was to yield to him, and he took the onus from there.

She saw his booted feet begin to move toward her, and then he paced a circle around her, as if surveying her for a physical flaw. She shied away from that thought. She was naked, and men liked nudity; she was submissive, and Dominants liked submission. With what was there for him to find fault?

‘Hermione, I would like for you to stand,’ he said, and she obeyed him, scrambling to her feet, aware of his presence behind her. ‘I am going to look at your body,’ he told her, as if he had been doing something other than that for the last several minutes. ‘Would you be more comfortable with the blindfold?’

‘Yes, please!’ she blurted before even thinking.

She heard his chuckle and closed her eyes, then felt the silk cover them. ‘Is that comfortable?’ he asked, the minty toothpaste smell of his breath fanning over her cheek, sending a chill through her nerve-endings, covering her in gooseflesh and peaking her nipples to aching pebbles.

‘Yes, sir,’ she breathed, daring to lean lightly into his hard, supple frame.

Then he moved away from her, and she was standing naked in the chilly room. Every now and again she heard a sound—a rustle of fabric , an indrawn breath to the side—but he did not speak, and time ticked by.

When it became difficult for her to remain standing without shifting her position, she was aware of movement around her, though she could not distinguish what it was, and the air in the room changed—became closer, somehow, and warmer. He was directly at her back again, his hands resting lightly upon her shoulders.

‘You can move,’ he murmured, and she thankfully shifted her position. When she stilled, he said, ‘Hermione, do you trust me?’

She felt a thrill of danger. Why would he ask such a thing now? ‘I trust you, sir,’ she replied.

Her hair pulled a bit, then the blindfold was gone.

‘Open your eyes, little one,’ he said quietly, and she did.

She was standing before a large mirror, which reflected not only her frontal nudity but her naked arse from a mirror behind, as well. She turned her head right and left, encountering identical mirrors, and she realised he had ringed her in with them. Here she was, completely naked and standing in a circle of looking glasses.

‘You argued with me when I said you were remarkable,’ he told her, and her eyes were drawn to his in the mirror. He stood more than a head taller than she was, his hands still resting upon her shoulders as if to hold her to earth. ‘Your answer, which was entirely unrelated to my observation, alerted me to something that we must work on, Hermione—your body image.’

She felt her face flush with embarrassment, and she averted her eyes. She had suffered with her lack of prettiness for eighteen years, and having this discussion with the man she wanted was not a choice she would have made …

She sighed deeply. That was completely the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t making the decisions here—he was—and if he thought they should have this discussion, then it was going to happen, whether she liked it or not.

One of his hands touched her chin, lifting her face up, their eyes locking again in the reflective surface. ‘A submissive woman should be fully aware of her body, little one—she should know how it works and how to use it to bring pleasure to her Dominant and to herself. Do you understand?’

She nodded once to the reflection of his face, and a rare smile touched his lips.

‘Good girl,’ he murmured. His hands smoothed from her shoulders to her wrists, soothing and warming her. ‘You’re going to hear rather more compliments from me tonight than you are accustomed to,’ he warned her. ‘I want you to listen to me very carefully, for all of the information I give will be true—I do not pay false compliments—and it is highly unlikely that I will ever repeat myself. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, Professor,’ she said, leaning against him for comfort, and he permitted it.

‘You worry that you are not pretty,’ he said, stroking fingertips down her cheek. ‘First of all, I would like to point out that the standards of “pretty” change from generation to generation and from culture to culture.’

She heard disdain in his voice, but oddly enough, she did not believe for one moment that the disdain was meant for her. She recognised that this unconventional-looking man had lived his whole life under the stigma of unattractive, which would be enough to sour anyone on the societal notions of good looks.

‘Furthermore, it is important to remember that prettiness begins to fade long before our bodies grow old, and a healthy body is always capable of providing us with pleasure.’ The hand which had stroked her face now caressed her throat, drawing a purr from her, which made him smile. ‘You have large brown eyes, a perfectly acceptable nose, and a well-shaped mouth. Your skin is clear, and your hair is rather wild. I understand that females find this to be a trial, but my opinion is that your hair does not detract from your overall appeal.’

He was truly studying her in the mirror, his attention transferring from feature to feature as he spoke of her, and Hermione found herself listening to his frank evaluation with interest. It was a bit like looking at herself through someone else’s eyes, and she felt that she was seeing herself differently.

‘As a man, I am quite interested in the rest of you,’ he murmured into her ear, and Hermione felt a wash of desire warm her to the tips of her toes. ‘You have a heart-shaped bottom, perfect for spanking.’ He stepped away from her. ‘Watch, and you’ll see what I mean.’

His hand landed on her bum, and she could see the interaction from every direction. His palm impacted her flesh, which quivered with the blow, sending waves of pleasure straight to her quim. He smacked her again, then again before saying, ‘Don’t just watch my hand on your arse, little one—watch your face when I strike you.’

Oh, he was right. Her eyes were unfocussed, her lips parted as she took panting breaths. Clearly, spanking changed her.

He observed her as she looked at herself in the mirror. ‘Have you ever seen anything more lovely,’ he murmured, ‘than a naughty little submissive getting the spanking she so badly needs?’

Entranced, she murmured, ‘Lovely,’ and waited to see what he would do next.

He crouched and drew his hands from her bum cheeks down the backs of her legs to her heels. ‘Your legs are very good, Hermione, nicely shaped.’ He nuzzled at the apex of her thighs, and she held her breath, hoping he would lick her quim. ‘Your wet cunt smells divine,’ he said, and the heat of his breath made her want to push herself into his face. He leaned around her hip and smirked at her in the mirror. ‘But that’s about aroma, not about appearance,’ he said, standing up.

Gently, he turned her to face him. ‘I want to talk to your about your breasts,’ he said, now looking down into her eyes, and suddenly, it was different. It was no longer like a classroom lecture on self-respect—it had become a man looking into a woman’s eyes and conveying very personal admiration. ‘Ever since you assumed the submissive’s pose for me last week, I have been thinking about your breasts,’ he admitted, the heat in his gaze igniting her smouldering desire like leaping brushfire. ‘I am, as the saying goes, a “breast man”, and I am here to tell you that yours are exceptional.’

And he reached out and touched her breasts for the first time, his warm palms cupping them, his attention focussed on the twin globes.

‘Yours are neither too small, which gives the appearance of boyishness, nor too large, which can create a dissonance of overall disproportion. They sit upon your chest wall like dollops of cream upon a pudding, with palest pink frosting at the tips.’ His thumbs passed deliberately over her needful nipples, and his heavy-lidded onyx eyes lifted to her face as a gasp of pure desire escaped her lips. ‘In my life I have never seen breasts more lovely than yours, little one, and you should preen yourself on their perfection. Men have committed mayhem for possession of less luscious bodies than yours.’

Hermione stood before him feeling as if only his hands upon her breasts kept her on her feet. His words flowed over and around her with the authority of truth, and the certainty of his assertions filled the empty vessel of her understanding, seeming to transform her body by the power of his proclamation alone. His hands shifted, so that her nipples were pressed to the centres of his palms, and he gently, rhythmically squeezed, massaging her breasts, creating a matching ache between her legs, until the dampness there seeped onto her thighs. She was golden under his touch, her body the agent of his pleasure, and she had never been more sure of anything than she was of this fact: She aroused his deepest animal passions.

And the penny dropped.

He wanted her. He fought the desire, subsumed it to his general Dominance, but in a blinding sweep of visceral awareness, she knew that his attraction to her was very personal, uniquely particular, and slowly slipping the leash of his matchless restraint.

He had handed her a weapon of superlative strength, and she would be a fool not to use it to obtain the prize she most wished to win: This Dominant wizard, for her very own.