#2 ~ What Was I Thinking ~ Part 2 (Small Edit)

Disclaimer: All Characters belong to JKR. The situations are my own.
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Chapter 16 ~ What Happened Behind the Study Door

Severus escorted Hermione into his office, then opened the bookcase entrance to his private rooms and politely motioned to Hermione to enter before him. He closed the door. Hermione noticed he didn’t lock or ward the entrance. Suddenly she felt fear catch in her chest. This might well be her last chance to get Severus to see what she needed him to see about her feelings for him

Severus took out his wand and lit the fireplace. A warm glow filled his study. He turned to Hermione, his face hidden in shadow as the blaze burned behind him. He motioned to two comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace, slightly angled to face each other.

“Please, sit down Hermione.”

Swallowing down her fear, Hermione wordlessly took a seat. Severus looked at her a long moment.

“Can I get you something to drink? Pumpkin juice? Wine? Firewhiskey?” he asked.

Hermione seriously considered asking for a large firewhiskey on the rocks, but drinking didn’t agree with her, plus she needed her head clear to present her case.

“No. Nothing, thank you,” she replied quietly.

“Do you mind if I…” Severus began.

“No. Please, go ahead,” she gave him a small tentative smile.

Severus walked over to his well-stocked liquor cabinet and chose an decanter of brandy. He retrieved a glass, and carried both back to the chairs and placed them on the table between them. He poured himself a healthy shot, threw his head back and gulped it straight down. He then placed the glass on the table, sat down and looked at Hermione expectantly.

She didn’t know exactly where to begin, so she said the second thing her heart told her to say, “I miss you, Severus.”

“You see me each and every day, “ he responded dryly.

Hermione flushed a bit angrily.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Stop dancing around the issue,” she snapped.

Severus’ eyes darkened. If she wanted this talk, then she was going to have to go someplace uncomfortable. He knew it was playing with fire…she looked beautiful in the firelight. He knew he could have her right now…if not for the gaping truth that it was not right. He hated having developed a conscience when it came to her.

He lowered his voice to a deep purr, knowing how it would affect her…it would make her remember. “What exactly do you miss, Hermione? Me or my cock?” There, he had done it…he had opened it up.

Hermione froze at the directness of his question. She hadn’t expect this. He had been so retiecent to discuss the slightest intimacy. Now he dropped sex in her lap like a bomb.

“I miss…I miss all of it…all of you,” she whispered.

Hmm. She danced around that quite smoothly. He stood up and towered over her. He scowled darkly, looking at her as if she were a foolish first year again. Then he turned toward the fireplace, and clasped his hands behind his back. Time for some harsh reality.

“Hermione, I am not the only man in the world who can fuck you…” he began.

“Yes you are,” she breathed.

He jerked around, a look of shock on his face. Hermione jumped to her feet and approached him.

“Use legilimency on me,” she said softly.

“No. I’ve already seen how you feel about me. You care for me, I know.” he said looking down into those beautiful amber eyes, staring at him so intently.

“No, this is something different, something new. Please, just look,” she said and closed her eyes, offering her mind, her self to him.

Severus hesitated. He was almost afraid of what he’d see. Him. Severus Snape. Deatheater. Afraid of what was hidden in the mind of a young witch. He drew a deep breath.

Taking hold of Hermione’s shoulders, and ignoring the heat rising from beneath his hands, he said, “If you insist. Legilimens!”

Instantly he was pulled into the landscape of her mind. He saw her in the Great Hall, looking at his empty seat and becoming afraid. He saw her searching his rooms and talking to Dumbledore. He then saw her applying Crucio to rats with tears in her eyes, not eating, not sleeping, working tirelessly. Then he saw her nightmare of killing him over and over.

Then Pompfrey was there, and a solution was found. Then she was in his private rooms, pacing, reading, walking from room to room searching for him her mind full of fear, grieving, longing, praying, and then she was on her knees next to his tortured body, applying the spell, screaming for help, realizing…

He pulled away, breathing hard. He looked at her with a stunned expression.

“You love me,” he said quietly, his demeanor hiding the storm of emotion rushing over him, as the force and purity of her emotion tried to dig its feet into his heart.

“Yes, I do Severus. I love you and I want to be yours. Only yours,” Hermione replied, moving to close the gap between them.

Severus swiftly walked back to the table and poured himself a very large brandy, and drank as if he had been lost in the Sahara for several weeks. Then he dropped heavily in the chair, leaning his face in his hand. Gods…she loved him now. What a mess this was turning out to be…he thought he could convince her to walk away from him, since he believed the attraction to be only physical, as much as he enjoyed having her. And now…

Hermione walked over to him and kneeled by his knee, at so she could look up at his hidden face.

“Severus, the main part of your argument was that you were a danger to me. That your association with me could cause my death. But Severus, I am one of the best friends of The-Boy-Who=Lived, I have been targeted since my first year. Voldemort does not need you to want to kill me. You can’t blame yourself for his attention on me. It has been this way since I discovered I belonged to the magical world and helped stop him from getting the Sorceror’s Stone.”

Severus let his hand slip down, and uncovered his eyes. He looked at the beautiful woman kneeling before him, and for a moment an odd feeling washed over him. Then it was gone.

“Hermione…” he began, trying to articulate why, why they couldn’t continue…one of his best reasons now shot to hell.

“Severus, everyone deserves happiness in their life. It is a rare gift that we should accept when offered. Even if the offerings are given under cover of darkness, in secret places, beyond the eyes of the world. Serverus…you suffer constantly for a world that offers you no happiness or solace…but when you are with me, there is no suffering anymore, for those moments there is only solace, passion, connection, tender pain coupled with pleasure…”

Here she paused, pulling his hand from his face.

“…and now, now there is Love.”

Severus leapt up from the chair, bolting from her words, accidentally knocking her over. He paced like a caged tiger in front of the fire, as Hermione rose to her feet shakily. She approached him cautiously, alarmed by his response. She was reminded of her dream as a lioness, when faced by the serpent and didn’t know whether to take flight or fight.

“Severus, let me give you love,” she pleaded, “you can lose yourself in me. It is already here, I can’t stop what is inside of me…and you, you can slide inside of me, and taste it for yourself. Whenever you want. Whenever you need.”

Severus fought back a groan at her words. Damn, she was so persuasive. He had been in her mind, he knew she was sincere in what she was offering him. But still, the danger…she may be the friend of Harry Potter, but the Dark Lord had not yet targeted her. There had been no attempt to harm her…he suspected Voldemort was waiting for some unknown reason…maybe to use her in some way. He didn’t want to be the one to lead the Dark Lord to her…

“Damn it, Severus!” Hermione shouted at him. “Why won’t you live? You eat, sleep, walk about, let yourself be beaten and tortured, hated and reviled, but you won’t live! It is always about yesterday…the horrible things you’ve done…or always about what may be coming tomorrow, your death! But what about the NOW, Severus…the now that you control, that you can make into anything you want it to be. What about the now of me? You’ve awakened me, Severus. You’ve shown me such power, such pleasure. You’ve swallowed me whole and brought me back up, and swallowed me again until I found what I longed for, and now, now you want to take that all away from me beside you are afraid of everything but what matters most…what is here in front of you! Severus, I am asking you to live, even if it’s just for a few, precious stolen moments…to live, and know what love is.”

Severus stood still and looked at the woman pouring out her heart to him, his brow furrowed, still unable to speak what he needed to tell her, that it is better this way…that she could live a more fulfilling life, a happy, healthy life…of sunshine and blue skies, not be locked away in some dank, dark dungeon with a man old enough to be her father for the rest of his days.

He walked back to the bottle. He felt Hermione’s hand on his arm, stopping him.

“All right,” she said evenly, “I’ve appealed to your emotional nature, and still you fight me on this. Let’s try appealing to your physical nature instead. Let me show you what I wanted to show you in here, then you tell me what I am supposed to do…”

Hermione stalked off to the bookcase, and ran her fingers along the spines of the books until she found the one she wanted. She pulled it out, and walked back toward him, flipping through the pages until she found what she was looking for. She thrust the book out in front of his face, opened to the page. She pointed her finger at a passage.

“Read this,” she said, her eyes glowing like coals in the firelight.

He took the book from her wordlessly. He stared at her without seeming comprehension.

“Read it, Severus!” she shouted, pushing his shoulder violently.

He let his eyes drop to the book and scanned the passage, then looked up at her slowly.

“That is what I am, Severus. That is what I need. To be fucked hard and long and longer. To be battered, just like you told me when you were the one battering me. That’s how I am satisfied. And you like doing that to me, you can’t say you don’t. It’s how you treated me from the very first time you showed me what it was to get pleasure from pain. Now, I don’t know if I was always like this, always had these tendencies, or if it is something I developed as a result of being fucked so viciously by you…but it remains that I know it gives you pleasure to make me scream and cry and ask for more. I loved when you did it, and now I love you for doing it. What am I supposed to do, Severus? Spend the rest of my life looking for someone to satisfy my needs when I have the perfect man here in front of me? Do you really want me to have to live like that? Experimenting with this cock, and that cock, this tongue and that tongue, picking up guys at bars, or trying to establish meaningful relationships only to discover when I’ve invested my time and hope, that the man I’m with can’t get me off! Do you want me spending my life trying to rediscover the part of me that you found and made your own? It’s not fair, Severus. It’s not fair that you want to take yourself away from me, take me away from you, because you are afraid. I don’t care if you don’t love me. I know you will be good to me. You have already done so much, you’ve been a dark angel watching over me since I first arrived at Hogwarts, teaching me strength, determination, and more. Then you taught me what being a woman was, what orgasm was. What letting go was. You were rough, cruel and insatiable, and I didn’t run…because of what is in me. And I want you in me, fucking me years and years from now, if they are granted to us…if not, I would be happy with tonight. And tomorrow. With each individual moment we can steal. I don’t need to shout you from the rooftops. I don’t care if people think I am a cold bookworm with no passion. If I have you, I have all I need. Please, Severus, don’t turn away from me. Don’t turn away from us. We need each other. I feel so empty without you.”

Tears were streaming down Hermione’s face as she finished pouringout all her soul to him. Severus looked at her with a torn expression, his eyes oddly wet

“Hermione,” he croaked, “I’m sorry.”

And with that, he disapparated.


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A/N: What the hell just happened??? (evil grin) Did Severus just turn bitch and run? Damn. Never fear all, he is still not a wuss. Just a bit too much for him. And Hermione is not finished. She’s got his number and is dialing it up as you read. I promise, he won’t make it through the night.