It\'s All Done With Mirrors

A/N: Blimey, isn\'t writing hot work? And it\'s not even cooked yet! Hope you like - this chapter has citrus splashes, so if you prefer it blander, warm milk is available in one of the antechambers. Blessings, K xxxxxxxx
GEmory - Thank you for your kind review. But...muauahauahaaa!!! I\'m afraid the reunion goes slantwise and here we are back in angstville. Mea maxima culpa...but I\'m just not ready for the end yet!
Rilla: My beloved Muse is driving me into my office chair! Can\'t stop now! Rilla, how lovely to get another review from you...I\'ve been devouring your latest fics and I think you ROCK.
Aoibheann: You and me both, sister! Tea rules on this gusty rainy night...


Chapter Sixteen
The Kiss and the Breakdown


Headmistress\'s Office, Hogwarts, August 2010


I was dimly aware of my treacherous hands sneaking into his hair, and my lips opening as if bewitched, allowing us to deepen the kiss.

Meanwhile, his hands were moving downwards, skimming over my upper arms, round over my elbows, to rest firmly on the swell of my hips, effectively pulling me closer against his body.

His deliciously sinewy, supple, lean, gorgeous-smelling body. Oh, gods...

I felt him groan against my lips as I slid my tongue over his and caressed the ridge behind his teeth. Gods, his mouth tasted just as good...and his hair felt so wonderful, the smooth strands falling silkily through my fingers as I stroked the back of his neck.

I stood, completely magnetised by the contact between our bodies. Warmth spilled from his hard, flat muscles into my softer, more yielding frame. His stubble scraped my raw cheek occasionally, but I was much too distracted by the ecstasy of this moment, the sheer glory of our tongues duelling together, that I could not give it more than a spare corner in my mind...the one which I\'ve labelled \"Deal With Much Later\".

His hands began to move again, stroking down the small of my back, and over my rear, gently caressing that tantalising place where my buttocks meet the backs of my thighs. I began to feel moisture pooling around my centre...I was highly aware that I had not put on any knickers, and, from the moaning sounds he was making, I knew he had realised this, too. I pressed myself hard against him, my hips bucking with longing. It had been far, far too long...I could feel the telltale signs of his own excitement, pressing into my belly. Oh...oh, gods...one of his hands had slipped between my legs from behind, I could feel his fingers through the soft wool of my gown, strg meg me...my body was aching with desire.

I\'d forgotten how good -

I let out a squeal against his mouth as his other hand snaked up between our locked bodies to cup my left breast. My nipple hardened immediately under his palm and my centre was pulsating hotly between my thighs as his thumb proceeded to skim deliciously over the taut flesh. His hardness throbbed against the soft flesh of my abdomen, making me purr deep in my throat. I found myself leaning into him more, mindlessly, fitting myself to him, pressing against his throbbing erection, moving against it -

- and abruptly I was sitting in a wing chair, shivering from the sudden absence of warmth.

\"Mrs. Weasley! Such wanton behaviour from a married woman,\" his voice sneered, and I experienced a sharp pain running along my gut, as if slashed by a Hippogryff\'s claw.

I touched my swollen lips with a hand still warm from his skin. He had thrust me away from him. Rejecting me, again.

\'Some things never change,\' I thought miserably. Horrified, I wiped at the tear that welled from my eye before it could trickle down my cheek and make me look even more ridiculous. I took a deep breath, realising I had to say something.

\"N-not married any more,\" was, rather pathetically, about all I could manage, and I could not look up because I could not bear to see the disdain in his eyes. His opinion of me was obvious enough by his snide tone.

\"Oh? Got sick of you, did he? Had enough of domestic bliss? Did little Ronald miss his mummy?\"

My hands couldn\'t keep up with the tears now, and my face was drenched with the evidence of my misery, and not just from the tone of his voice. Memories of Ron flooded into my mind - the scruffy, affectionate boy I\'d known here at Hogwarts. The proud husband finally winning the woman he loved. His dissolution after the trial into the moody alcoholic who felt emasculated both by my intellect and my wand...to the bitter man who out of resentment, took my body by force and from whose voice I shrank with loathing.

\'Is this all life is?\' I thought, numbly. \'The same vitriolic potion to be swallowed, time and time again? Until being thrust from one bitter disappointment to another makes us close our hearts and slink away into the entreating, skeletal arms of Death?\'

\"Or perhaps you left him because he couldn\'t keep you in the style to which you\'d become accustomed?\" His derisive voice slashed the perfect moment we\'d just shared into ribbons. \"Did the Weasel\'s little wand get broken? Did he stop sending you flowers? Tell me, Mrs. Weasley, how many lovers did it take to forget his little freckled appendage?\"

That did it! Pure anger lifted me from my chair, and I reached up and grabbed Snape\'s lapels before he could utter another offensive word.

\"HE\'S DEAD, ALL RIGHT?\" I screamed into his sneering face, tears flying from my cheeks. \"He\'s dead! I\'m surprised you haven\'t heard...I\'m surprised you haven\'t awarded points to Slytherin in honour of its murderous alumnus! Yes, Professor,\" I hissed, eyes narrow with pain and fury. \"I\'m sure you must be quite delighted that someone from your own house made the silly little Know-It-All Gryffindor into a widow!\"

And with that, I shoved him so hard he stumbled backwards, stalked across the carpet and stepped through the open doorway. Then I began to run, and I didn\'t stop until I was outside the Hogwarts gates, blinking tears from my eyes and clutching at the stitch in my side.


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Hogsmeade, outside the Three Broomsticks, August 2010

The village of Hogsmeade never really closes, I realised, as combined lights from the streets and from open doorways and windows made it almost as bright as day.

I was hoarse from shouting and crying, and decided a Butterbeer would go down a treat, so I stroked the nose of the gargoyle-shaped handle on the door of the Three Broomsticks.

\"I do wish people would stop doing that,\" it whined in a petulant way, sniffing. \"I\'ve got a perfectly good tongue to pull. Yurgh, thughs bether,\" it managed, pleased, when I did as I was bid. Some creatures, I decided, are just too weird by half.

\'However\', I thought to myself as I pushed the door open and the warm, beery smell of the nicest little pub in Hogsmeade hit me like a cheerful hug, \'mine is not to reason why other living things have such odd foibles. I mean, look at house-elves...\'

Quite. Look at the house-elves!

And indeed, there seemed to be quite a little party of them in the Three Broomsticks tonight. Anger welling inside me, I stalked over to their tiny table.

\"Evening, Dobby. Night off?\" I trilled, my tone more sickly-sweet than a bar of nougat from Honeydukes. \"And you two...aren\'t you a little far away from Diagon Alley on this pleasant evening?\"

Honky and Noggy turned pale, and Dobby stood up in alarm, spilling his beaker of milk onto the floor as he did so.

\"Mistress Weasley is right to be cross with Dobby. Dobby is a bad, bad house elf! Dobby must be punished!\" He picked up his tiny stool in one hand and started to ding himself over the head with it. Oh, gods...I put out my hand and grabbed it off him.

\"Stop that, Dobby, for Merlin\'s sake! You\'ve done nothing wrong...it\'s these two who I have a bone to pick with.\"

\"Pardon Dobby, Mistress Weasley, but Dobs bas bad. Dobby asked Honky and Noggy to help Dobby with Master\'s work. Dobby is bad, Mistress Weasley. Bad, bad, bad!\"

There is nothing quite as loud and penetrating as the racking sobs of a house-elf in distress. The whole pub went quiet, and I shook with embarrassment and frustration as Honky and Noggy both joined in the hullabaloo.

\"Dobby! Stop it at once. Now! I mean it! Honky, Noggy, you quit it too, or I\'ll - I\'ll have you clothed!\" I conjured a pair of knitting needles, and bent down, brandishing them threateningly.

The cacophony stopped at once, thankfully. But I was aware of a large and slightly pungent presence behind me, as I stood upright again.

\"Evenin\', young \'Mione,\" boomed a familiar voice, and I winced as a huge hand clapped me on the shoulder.

I didn\'t turn round. \"Hello, Hagrid,\" I muttered. Hagrid was another one I was inclined to be a little moody with this evening.

\"I think yeh need some kind of a drink, eh? And some kind of an explanation, I reckon. Am I right?\"

I nodded curtly, and was relieved to notice that the general hubbub has risen almost to its original level. I turned around, features perfectly schooled in a neutral expression. \"I\'d love a Butterbeer, Hagrid.\"


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Headmistress\'s Office, Hogwarts, August 2010


He\'d hurt her. Again. \'Of all the insensitive, brainless, cruel things to do, you godsned ned bastard!\' He railed at himself, pulling himself up from where she\'d shoved him, not bothering to brush the dust from his robes.

But what else had he been supposed to do? He hadn\'t been thinking straight - of all the people who could have been standing in the Head\'s office, Hermi - Miss Gra - Mrs. Weasley was the last person he\'d expected to see. Ever.

When he\'d hurled the lock-breaking spell unwittingly at her, he\'d been too mortified to realise who she was, too busy cursing himself silently for being so incensed he hadn\'t even noticed the door had just been opened. For having lost his temper in front of such a distinguished-looking Witch...and then he\'d noticed the damage his spell had done to her beautiful gown.

Her skin was creamy, smooth, her breasts full and rounded...his gaze travelled down to her slightly rounded belly, upon which the faint puckef prf pregnancy were etched like silvery snakes...to her creamy thighs, and the nest of brown curls between...

And then he\'d realised how obscene he was being, perving like a dirty old man, and quickly repaired the torn fabric with a flick of his wand and the reparo charm.

She\'d tried to run out of the room, but for some reason Fawkes had prevented her by grabbing the hem of that gown in his powerful beak.

She\'d tried to run...she must have known then who he was. And she\'d tried to run away.

And that had been the thought that had stabbed, unbidden, through his mind, ripping apart the bliss of tasting the heaven of her lips, worshipping the glory of her beautiful breasts, her body responding undeniably to the press of his hardening member...

She had recognised him and had tried to run away from him. And so he, Snape, had sprung away, guilt and self-loathing making him flee into his own self-defence system: spiteful sarcastic comments to deflect the blows to his heart.

But he\'d gone over the top, as usual. He\'d hurt her. The only person who had ever loved him...the only person whom he had ever wanted to cherish and to love.

\"Severus Snape, you deserve to go straight to Hades for your evil cruelty,\" a portrait of a venerable Witch in a blue and gold crinoline remarked, acidly.

He knew that. But he was already deep in Hell already. He had found her, and then had shoved her away. She would never want him now.


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The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade, August 2010


Hagrid\'s bulk shielded me from the rest of the room, so I was forced to sip my Butterbeer and listen to the tiresome explanations of three penitent house-elves.

Dobby spoke first. \"Mistress Weasley...\"

\"Oh, for the love of Merlin please just call me Hermione,\" I groaned.

\"Dobby will try to remember, Mistress Hermione,\" he replied, contrite.

I let it pass, or we would have been there all night. What was left of it, anyway.

\"Dobby was asked by Mr. Hagrid, who was asked by Master Dumbledore, to get an advertising card put in the scroll shop window in Diagon Alley. Dobby was going to put it there, but Dobby saw you, Mistress Hermione, and so Dobby had to hide, and ask Honky to put it up while Mistress Hermione wasn\'t looking.\"

He paused for breath, and Honky chimed in:

\"Honky was so pleased when Mistress asked Honky to write out Mistress\'s parchments for her. Honky used her best handwriting, because Honky was sorrowful that she couldn\'t do exactly what Mistress asked. Dobby told Honky to make sure to only write down the Hogwarts advert, and although Honky does not like to be naughty to good Wizards and Witches, Honky was told that Mr Hagrid\'s orders came from the goodest Wizard in the Whole of the World!\"

Honky trailed off, from the look of her she was in ecstasy at having carried out the orders of \"the goodest Wizard\", and Noggy finished off the story:

\"Noggy\'s job was to hide all the other adverts by washing the windows. Noggy was bad too - Noggy told Mistress a lie, Noggy said he was deaf, because he didn\'t want to answer Mistress\'s questions, Noggy is a bad elf, Mistress. Noggy must be punished.\"

I felt another self-harming session warming up, and I hurriedly patted Noggy\'s gnarled head.

\"Noggy was following orders, I know that. Don\'t worry, it\'s quite all right. All of you. Oh, no, please...\"

My Butterbeer was nearly knocked out of my hand as the three grateful house-elves fawned all over me, and I shook them all off firmly before they could cause another disturbance. They all bowed comically in gratitude, and scurried out of the pub, leaving me, open mouthed, and Hagrid, who was shaking with suppressed laughter.

\"I fail to see what is so screamingly funny, Rubeus Hagrid,\" I snapped, causing him to boom \"Sorry, young \'Mione - it\'s just that I haven\'t seen you at a loss for words before...shouldn\'t have said that,\" he added, obviously realising the extent of my bad temper.

\"Well, that explains a couple of things, Hagrid. It explains how I ended up sitting in the Leaky Cauldron talking to you, while behind my back, a trio of house-elves conspired against my desire to lead a quiet life in the - \"

\"Oh really? And tell me, pray, how long would you have enjoyed your \'quiet life\'? \'Til you went mad from living with that philandering shit, or merely \'til your conscience became so burdened with your truly stupid stubbornness that you sank straight into Hades?\"

I looked up into the silver eyes of Draco Malfoy.