#8 ~ A Rather Catty Situation

Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKR (except Odessa Divine and Marcus Delaluci). All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 16 ~ Severus Gets a Clue…Marcus Unfortunately Doesn’t


Severus wondered what was taking his wife so long. Odessa arrived ten minutes ago. He looked down the table at the witch, talking sullenly with Marcus. Severus scowled. The blonde wizard would probably listen to her woes just long enough to get under her robes. The Potions Master took a bite of his pancakes. When the staff door opened, he looked up expectantly, but it was just Professor Flitwick, hurrying along on his little legs to get to his seat. He nodded at Severus as he passed. Severus frowned down at his food. This wasn’t like Hermione. He pushed his plate away and headed back to their rooms.

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Hermione had fallen into a light doze before the fireplace and was just reaching the dream state. She was walking through a fog. She could see shadows moving through it. She was looking for Severus.

“Severus!” she called, her voice echoing back at her. “Severus!”

A woman’s giggle rolled out of the fog, low, throaty and malicious. She turned toward the direction of the sound, her hands extended in front of her. The laughter sounded again, closer this time. Now she could hear a man, groaning. It didn’t sound as if he were in pain.

“Severus?” she called, moving toward the groaning.

A woman’s voice answered her. “He’s here. With me. Come get him”

Hermione ran forward towards the voice. All was suddenly silent. Then something large and black leaped out of the mist, snarling, bearing down on her…

Hermione woke with a scream.

“Hermione! Are you all right?” Severus was bent over her, one hand resting gently on her shoulder, looking at his wife with concern.

“Severus!” she gasped, standing up and throwing herself into his arms.

Severus held her. She was trembling. He smoothed her hair.

“You were dreaming,” he said, “You’re all right, Hermione.”

She calmed, her breathing returning to normal as her head rested against his chest. She could hear his heart beat. He held her a bit longer, then pulled her back a bit so he could look at her.

“What happened? Why didn’t you come to breakfast?” he asked her.

“Odessa and I had a disagreement. Then I felt sick and came back to the rooms. I guess I just got too upset,” she said, “then I fell asleep and had a strange dream.”

Severus guided her back to the chair, and sat in the other one, gazing at his wife. She did look pale. He was furious at Odessa. He glanced at the time. He had twenty minutes before class started.

“What happened between you and Odessa?” he asked his wife gently.

“We had words, about you,” she said. Then she leaned forward, staring at her husband.

“Severus, does Odessa look familiar to you?” she asked him.

“She reminds me of Bellatrix,” he responded, “Why?”

“Remember the vision of my worst fear in the astral plane?” she asked him, “the one with you and the strange woman?”

Severus really didn’t like to think about that vision. It had almost cost him his wife. Actually, he never brought it back to memory after that first time.

“Yes,” he replied softly, “ I do, I’m sorry to say.”

“The woman you were fucking was the spitting image of Odessa,” Hermione said, waiting for his reaction.

Severus looked at her, blinking several times as he digested this. Now the image came back to him. It was true. The woman in her scenario did look exactly like Odessa. This was not good. Hermione could latch on to this and it could affect them both very badly. He took her hand and kissed it.

“That was only a dream, Hermione. A falsehood. Even if the woman does look like Miss Divine, that would never, ever happen. I only have eyes for you. My heart, soul and body belong to you. That woman means nothing to me,” he said gently.

“She wants you, Severus,” Hermione said, “and she’s sexy, beautiful, has a body that goes on for days…”

“But she’s not you. And no one is more beautiful than you to me, Hermione. A lot of people exist in this world, wanting what they can never have. Odessa is just one of them, if what you say is true,” he said, kissing her hand again.

“It is true,” Hermione replied, an angry glow beginning to burn in her eyes, “and if she comes anywhere near you, I swear she’ll be sorry. Very, very sorry.”

Hermione said this with such vehemence, that Severus was taken aback by her ferocity. He had never seen his wife jealous before. He thought that was a luxury reserved for himself. He was quite flattered.

“Did you tell her that?” he asked, curious to find out how far her jealousy went.

“Yes, but not in those exact words. It was more like, ‘stay away from my husband,’ or something like that,” Hermione replied.

Severus almost chuckled. He wished he could have been there to see Hermione standing up for her man. She was probably magnificent in her rage.

“I didn’t know you were so…territorial about me,” he said with a hint of a smirk.

“You belong to me,” she stated flatly.

Severus felt a little throb. Her possessiveness was very arousing. He wondered what it would be like making love to a jealous Hermione. He already knew what he was like, a.k.a. ‘reassurance sex’. Would she be as demanding? He looked at the time again. He only had five minutes until class started. He wouldn’t be able to find out now. His students were probably already filling the classroom. He stood up and pulled her up with him. He embraced her, giving her a warm, tender kiss.

“We’ll talk about this later,” he said, “I have to go to class. In the meantime, I want you to summon a house elf to bring you something to eat. Then you just rest, ok?”

Hermione nodded, looking up at him as he released her. He took both her hands in his.

“I love you, Hermione. There is no woman in this world who can replace you in my heart or my bed. No woman,” he said firmly, planting one more kiss on her lips and then departing with a small billow of robes, intent on catching students misbehaving in his absence. Hermione watched him go, and sank back down in the armchair.

“I’ll drag that bitch into the Forbidden Forest and beat her within an inch of her life if she tries to put one hand on him. One manicured fingertip,” she muttered to herself. Hermione was going to keep a close eye on Miss Odessa Divine.

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Odessa returned to the dungeon area, walking quickly past Severus’ and Hermione’s rooms to her own residence. She unwarded the door and entered. She changed into the clothing she wore the night before, gathered together some parchment and quills and headed for the entrance to the lower levels. She knew Dumbledore gave her a week to familiarize herself with the castle, but her secret tour with Severus had adequately done the job. Plus, she was feeling antsy and didn’t want to stay in her rooms or risk running into Hermione in the halls, so she decided she might as well get to work. She came up with some of her best plans while working. She already sent word to the house elves. They would be waiting for her in the lower levels. She pressed the stones in the proper sequence, and headed down the stairwell.

At the bottom of the stairs, she opened the wall that slid up, and stepped into the hallway. She was greeted by three properly subservient elves, all bobbing and bowing, anxious to be of service. They followed her in a little group into the first room. She turned to them and gave them their instructions.

“I need you to pick up all the loose parchments and place them in boxes. Leave the boxes in the same room the papers were in. Start new boxes for each room. I need to sort through them later. Do you have any questions?” she asked, looking at the little creatures. They certainly were ugly things. It looked like they were wearing Hogwarts towels with little crests on them. The elves all stood very close together, peering up at her and shaking their heads.

“Ok, you can get started,” she said. Immediately, they disappeared.

“Now, where the hell did they go?” Odessa said to herself, frowning.

Immediately, the elves reappeared, each holding a few folded boxes. One had a roll of spell-o-tape. Ah, okay.

“Oh, you needed boxes,” Odessa said, realizing she overlooked that part. They stood there, looking at her with their wide eyes.

“Er…carry on,” Odessa said, flinging her hand toward the parchments. They got down to work. Odessa watched them a few minutes. They might be ugly creatures, but they were efficient, putting together four boxes quickly, and then placing the files neatly inside them, picking each page up carefully so as not to tear them. Odessa walked over to the stack of undisturbed boxes and levitated one with her wand, guiding it out the door, down the hall to the office. She lowered it to the desk, then walked behind it and carefully removed a section of parchments. She put them on the desk, sat down and began to sort through them. They seemed to be in order.

She thought about Hermione, and remembered reading someplace that she was a lethal fighter. She might be, but she was a human fighter. If they had to come to blows, Odessa had no doubt who would emerge victorious. But she didn’t want to fight Hermione. She wanted to get Severus to want her. She thought about the coveted contents of her carry on bag. If she had to resort to using them, she would. There was more than one way to snare a man in the wizarding world.

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In the first room, the house elves whispered to each other, their wide eyes darting to the door from time to time, making sure Odessa was not returning.

“She’s an animagi,” said one elf.

“She is more than that,” said another, his ears laying flat against his head as he trembled.

“She hasn’t been properly trained,” said the third, “Such a power. It can be bad business.”

“Not our place,” said the first elf. “Not our place to judge our masters. We is here to work, and work only. Nosey elves gets clothes.”

That comment was enough to end the house elves’ conversation for good. They went about their work without another word between them.

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Marcus was in excellent spirits as he taught class, awarding a great number of points to all the houses, for small successes. He had the students reading text at the moment, which they were to summarize and hand in at the end of class. This gave him free time to think about just how he was going to fuck Odessa. Probably in the bitch position. It suited her so well. Not in a bed, either…maybe bent against the wall or over her sofa. He planned to humiliate her. All those fucking rules. No kissing. Man. She better not try the old “just lift my robes” line. He wanted her buck-the-fuck naked. Those tits were a primary source of lust, and he wanted to see them swinging free.

He looked down at himself, again grateful for his robes. He didn’t plan to use his dragon gift tonight. He was quite nicely hung naturally, if he thought so himself. He’d never gotten any complaints. If Odessa pissed him off though, he’d be sure to make himself uncomfortably huge. And he had a feeling she was going to piss him off somehow. It was bad enough she always looked at him as if he had just crawled out from under a pile of dragon dung. He hated that look. He used to get it all the time when he was a kid on the streets. Snooty rich wizards and witches looking down their noses at him, shooing him away when he tried to do some honest work to get food, just because his robes were a little ragged, or his shoes were a bit run over, or he could do with a good bath. The wizarding world had failed Marcus when he was a child. Passing him from foster homes to group homes to orphanages, and finally forgetting him altogether, leaving him to survive on his own at the age of twelve. No one forgot him when he became an Eradicator, however. He finally got his chance to show the world he had a place. A bloody, cold and heartless place.

Marcus was pulled out of his dark thoughts by a pupil placing her finished summary on his desk. He smiled at her, gave her five points for being the first one finished, and let her go early. He sure hoped the day flew by. He couldn’t wait until tonight.

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A/N: Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. You are a dirty, dirty boy. Odessa might be your downfall. Please review.