Seven Preposterous Things

The game," he said, "is never lost till won." -- Gretna Green by George Crabbe

Hermione did not turn toward Severus; rather she addressed him staring out the window.

"You might possibly be the first person in my life who's taken the trouble to notice anything about me beyond my brain," she said, feeling slightly pathetic.

Severus blinked several times, but his expression remained flat as he fished a half-smoked cigarette out of the ashtray.

"You're welcome," he said, squeezing her knee a bit harder than she expected.

She would have kissed him if Mr. Shakeleg hadn't been watching. Speaking of Mr. Shakeleg, he was out of the car and waving them towards the trailer.

To be honest, his appearance took her aback somewhat. Hermione Granger liked to pride herself on preparation, proper behaviour, and knowledge. The problem was that the world was fairly huge once one moved outside the insular world of magical England. At times, the sheer size of her life made it difficult to be prepared for all eventualities. And in this instance, she knew next to nothing. She wondered, for a flickering instant, why they were referred to as "Red Indians" when Mr. Shakeleg's skin was less than a shade off true black. That aside, she supposed he looked more Asian than anything else, but an odd sort of Asian she hadn't seen before. Everything about his face was pronounced: large, round cheeks, prominent brow ridge, a large, round nose that seemed to be as dissimilar from Severus' as a nose could be and yet remained miraculously large, and peculiarly delicate feminine lips. To top it off, he habitually wore long dangly silver earrings and kept his hair in two plaits, not unlike Millie's.

Mr Shakeleg was large, as tall as Severus and more than half again as wide. Despite the weight Severus had gained over the last few years, he looked weedy beside Mr. Shakeleg. But Mr. Shakeleg was oddly proportioned, his broad shoulders and expansive gut sat over decidedly short, thin, bowed legs.

She simply hadn't met anyone like him before and looks were only the beginning. The times she had seen him working alongside Severus at the Gypsy Ballroom, they hardly seemed to say more than six words at a stretch to one another. And yet he had a knack for making Severus laugh that, well, frankly she envied. Two words, sometimes just a knowing look, and her husband was chuckling.

Mr. Shakeleg was also singularly taciturn but not in a way that she was accustomed to. It seemed to her he was more aggressive in his silence than other people were when they spoke. She had only once made the apparent mistake of mentioning she had read up on his tribe. The look he gave her was disdain so pure one drop of it could have turned the entire Atlantic Ocean to concrete in embarrassment.

Not that he ever spoke an impolite word to her. Actually, his interactions were quite a bit more politely formal than any other American she'd met since she set foot in the country in July. She called him "Mr. Shakeleg"; he called her "Ma'am."

Had he been a touch icier, she'd have sworn he was French. But somehow he and Severus were like old chums.

And he was waving her into the second trailer of her life. In a field that looked like the automobile equivalent of an elephant graveyard. To her less-than-experienced eye, only one vehicle parked about the field appeared to be in what one might call working order: a sports car of some sort. Two of the others had unnervingly low tires. One had a plastic bag taped in the place of a missing window. Several were dented in ways that Hermione assumed would preclude drivability. Perhaps Shakeleg's grandmother operated a junkyard. A fairly thin junkyard with no sign.

She noted, as she and Severus followed Mr. Shakeleg, that rather than bringing them inside, he seemed to be leading them round to the other side of the trailer.

There, under a great green and white striped awning and laid out on a long collapsible table, was the meal, and there, also under the awning, were a hundred or so people. It reminded her that the wizarding convention of the insides of things often being bigger than the outside wasn't the case for Muggles. There was no way Hermione could imagine more than three people eating comfortably inside the trailer, so sensibly the Shakeleg family were all eating outside.

"Grandma," Shakeleg called out and took the hands of an elderly lady who looked to be about to kiss him but instead blew loudly "brrraap" on his cheek.

Oh yes, Hermione knew about that. Kissing was one of those things, like honeybees and earthworms, that Europeans brought to North America. And while the Shakeleg family were as modern as she and Severus, or perhaps it might be argued more so, and most certainly had adopted the relatively new, at least in the historical sense, practice, some older customs remained.

Shakeleg looked slightly embarrassed.

"Grandma, this is my friend, Stephen Liston," Shakeleg said, still holding her hands. The "grandma" in question was small and somewhat humped over, and wearing an improbable purple tracksuit.

The Grandma then frowned and skilfully avoided Severus' extended hand, taking Hermione's instead. "Not him, you first."

Hermione shook her hand; it was small and wrinkled and unbelievably soft. "Thank you for inviting us. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Shakeleg; I'm Jane Liston."

"Thank you, dear, but my name is Rhodes, Norma Rhodes," she said, then turned her eye to Severus. "And now you."

Severus shook her hand in silence, his head bowed.

Albert seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that, and he and Mrs. Rhodes led them around and introduced them, one by one, to every adult present. There was a great deal of hand shaking, and she always preceded Severus.

During the introductions Hermione noted several things, first they seemed to have a short supply of first names. The names Norma and Norman, Albert and Alberta, as well as Robert and Roberta, were repeated more than once, as were Louis, Harry, Jerry, Terry (for either gender) and, for some reason, Geneva. There was also one Bonnie and one Meech, although she had no idea whether that was an Indian name or some strange derivative. There were also three women of various ages called "Bootsie". Several men were introduced as "June" short for "Junior" as well, although Junior what was never specified.

Second of all, while complexions ran the gamut from very dark to as pale and sallow as Severus, some family features were universal. Namely earlobes. They all had huge dangly earlobes the likes of which she'd only before seen on Buddhas in Chinese restaurants. Also, while some family members were thin and some notably unthin, they all possessed a similar delicacy of limb. Shakeleg's family was, as a group, fairly squinty of eye as well.

In due course they were issued their own folding chairs, constructed of a woven seat over metal tubing, and enamelled metal plates.

The food was mostly unremarkable, but it was plentiful. Boiled greens. Haricot Vert boiled until they were the colour of an old mac. Boiled meat. A brisket of mammoth proportions. Reconstituted corn of some type topped with nuts? Fried dough of some variety. Bowls of tinned fruit. A very dry turkey. A ham covered with cloves, pineapple, and cherries, which looked strangely out of place beside the other more greyish looking food. The food filled every available surface on the table.

After that was picked clean, women seemed to mill about for a minute, then quick as a wink the entire surface was covered with pies. An old electric samovar sat on the ground, its long cord reaching into the trailer.

The pie was much better. So much better than the tough but over plentiful meat that Hermione ate five pieces. Somehow in the midst of pie, a television was carried outside. There was sport by way of an American football game, which bored her as much as the regular sort of football, and Severus seemed to find mildly interesting.

Hermione was bewildered and slightly embarrassed to realise she had fallen asleep in her chair when she was awakened by a dull roar from the telly; someone had won the match.

Then an odd thing happened.

She didn't know if it was coincidence or if the fact that Severus was staring so hard at the telly affected it somehow, but as Albert's teenaged cousin/nephew/something or other stood to change the channel, there, on the screen, appeared a commercial for a cricket match.

"You know I tried to watch one of those one time, but I could never figure out the rules for that shit," Albert said, turning to Severus, along with every other person there, it seemed.

Severus leaned back, something about his posture recalling the first day of class when he slouched against his lectern and spoke of the art of potions as though it were a mirage they would never quite reach.

"I suppose I could show you. Have you got a bat?" Severus said slowly, silkily.

Albert's nephew, June, ran into the house and came out with a long polished steel cylinder.

"That," Severus said with a grimace, "is all wrong. What is necessary is something flatter, more like..."

"There's the paddle I use when I wash hides," Norma Rhodes said.

"Show it to me," Severus said, Severus-like, and one or two people hmmphed at his tone.

June jumped up, but Norma held up her hand. "Bootsie, you know where my hide tanning stuff is. Go get my washing paddle."

Bootsie, a heavyset girl in her twenties, set aside her coffee and got the paddle, presenting it to Severus.

Severus peered at the paddle so intently Hermione had to check twice to make certain he didn't have a jeweller's loupe.

"It will suffice," he pronounced. "Now for a ball."

The Shakelegs seemed to be growing more interested by the minute.

"We shall need something roughly this big," Severus said, indicating with his cupped hand. "It's a hard ball, not the sort of thing that bounces easily."

"Can we make one?" Bootsie asked, straightening her glasses. "I can sew pretty fast."

The adolescent June meanwhile raced out to one of the cars and back.

"Will this work?" June said, extending a smallish white ball to Severus.

Severus took it in his hand. The look as he held it in his hand seemed to reveal an unknotting in Severus' soul.

Hermione unconsciously wrinkled her brow as she studied him, a bit befuddled; perhaps it was all that pie, but he seemed so Muggle at the moment. Her father loved cricket. Personally, Hermione didn't feel any differently about cricket or football than she did about Quidditch. It all made her sleepy.

"It would be better were it red; however, it is not ridiculously unsuitable for demonstration purposes," Severus said.

Severus stepped out of his chair and spoke in what Hermione could only adequately describe as his professorial voice. "The next step is to construct wickets and a pitch, as well as demarcate the boundaries of the cricket field, for which I shall require some assistance."

"All right," Bootsie said, with a sharp short nod.

The adolescent June, two Alberts and three Terrys stepped forward to volunteer along with Mr. Shakeleg or rather the third Albert. Hermione was surprised at how quickly it was constructed and that Severus wasn't particularly rude. It was fairly remarkable.

It wasn't long before Severus stood, as judicious as the sorting hat, dividing the Shakelegs into two teams.

"Are you with me or in the opposition?" he said, looking at her squarely.

"Consider me a conscientious objector," she said and was surprised to meet with something she never imagined existed: a beseeching look on Severus' face.

He said nothing.

"No, really," she said struggling to keep the whine out of her voice, "I've had too much pie, and I am positively awful at sport. Can't I simply admire your manly form from here?"

Apparently, if there were a correct way to bow out of a game that was it, because Severus flashed her the briefest of curling smiles in the corner of his mouth and went on divvying up the Shakelegs into teams. It was to be noted that Mrs. Rhodes enlisted. She was being shown up by an octogenarian.

"Albert, where are you going?" Severus asked.

Mr. Shakeleg waved a cassette tape in the air, not bothering to turn around. "Tunes, bro."

It was most certainly an alternate universe, or at least a different country, in which anyone dared refer to Severus Snape as "bro".

In less than a minute, Mr. Shakeleg was flinging the doors of his Imperial wide, and Severus' beloved Black Sabbath was blasting across the field.

On the improvised pitch, Severus, cigarette dangling from his lip, demonstrated batting with a washing paddle. She was surprised at Severus' bowling. He was good. She wished her father was there to see him.

She hadn't thought of her parents much until now. She'd grown used to seeing them in June and December when she was at school and, once set, the precedent had gone unbroken.

She wondered if they even knew she was missing. She hoped not. She settled her mind on the notion of sending her parents a letter suggesting on a meeting in one of the nicer vacation spots where she would tell them about the whole Voldemort business she'd left vague since she'd entered the magical world. Somehow she had trouble shaking the thought that Severus would be the most difficult thing to explain to her parents.

It wasn't the fact that he had been her teacher at Hogwarts; she long understood her father was more than a bit older than her mother. And it wasn't that he was bordering on being a Dark Wizard. Her parents tended to turn a bit patronising whenever the topic of good and evil in the magical world came up, as if they'd caught her telling fairy stories. No, her parents would be disturbed, she realised, watching Severus bowl with more pleasure than she'd ever imagined she could gain from sport, because Severus Snape was markedly working class.

Half Blood Prince her arse.

Then having had the thought, she revised it. Now that she considered it, working class boys did not learn auto theft at their father's knee. Most likely even the faux Burberry set shunned the Snapes as trouble.

She would carefully arrange to meet her parents at some ski resort in Vermont or Colorado, and they would look at Severus as if she had eloped with some lesser-known Kray cousin.

Severus smelled disdain even where none existed, so that would be perfect. Especially since he was particularly at ease in awkward social situations, she thought sarcastically.

She felt a strange wave of sadness whose root she couldn't quite identify, as Severus bowled a fairly difficult looking ball that, amazingly, one of the Shakelegs -- Robert, she was able to identify after a moment by his sparse but long moustache like the faux Chinese villain in an old Dr. Who episode -- hit the ball, sending it flying.

The physical grace she'd taken for granted when he'd glided across the stone floors of Hogwarts like an academic spectre took on a new, markedly sexual aspect, as she watched him preparing for the next ball. He stretched his long arms, rolling his shoulders, then took her aback by sprinting toward her.

"Will you hold my jacket?" he asked, peering seductively through his lashes. "I can't bowl properly... My range of motion is impeded... The leather is somewhat stiff."

"Absolutely," she said making a point of smiling at him. She'd given it a good deal of thought and decided the thing he needed more than any other was encouragement when he behaved well and to have a firm hand when he didn't.

Despite a current diet swimming in cream and butter, the cutting, chopping, grinding muscles that were the result of twenty years of potions work were still apparent. He glanced over his shoulder at her an instant before he started his run up. Good god. There was something piquantly divine about his brand of masculine charms. Especially when he had that ghost of a grin in the corner of his mouth; it was as though he was saving a kiss just for her.

Want radiated off of him in waves, in a way that made simple sexual desire seem weak and pallid in comparison. Yes, he did have lust in his heart. She knew that for certain. But more than that, he wanted her time, her attention.

It was an unnerving day when she realised he'd adjusted all the mirrors in their bedroom so that every one reflected her as she sat at her desk studying.

When she'd been involved with Ron, he'd seemed to forget she existed on a regular basis. There were likely laws against some aspects of Severus' husbandly devotion. Was it necessarily an obsession if he waited all these years for her? Could it be anything else under the circumstances? Was it unhealthy of her to enjoy it?

Hermione Granger's skin prickled with arousal as she continued watching him and he continued to work hard at pretending he didn't notice. She caught him glancing her way, mock careless.

There were objective reasons to find him appealing; namely she was attracted to him and she genuinely liked him. He was intelligent. He was also reliable in a way that only a man nursing an obsessive interest could be. Somehow the fact that he found her worth making such effort intensified her natural reaction to his smouldering looks.

The moonlight tracing his crooked profile against the night did not grant his looks any favours. Still, her heart beat a bit faster simply seeing him illuminated so. Severus Snape as he was.

She wasn't sure why it seemed so asinine when Ron tried to show off on her account on the Quidditch field, and yet Severus Snape flirting with her like a schoolboy over a makeshift Cricket pitch with Ozzy Osborne ringing out across the field was almost unbearably... Well, the word her University classmates would use was "hot".

Her fists clenched on his leather jacket, and she found herself raising it to her face. It smelt of cigarettes, and while she still disapproved of smoking and thought it was a disgusting habit, she now associated the smell with Severus, specifically affection from Severus, which did not disgust her. The most intensely emotional sex of her life now was accompanied by the lingering smell of cigarette smoke, so her reaction to the odour was getting a bit muddled. The jacket also smelt of leather and, she inhaled deeply, Severus' sweat. She wanted to laugh because her first reaction to the aroma was just short of swooning. How silly. She managed to hold in her laughter, but she did smile.

She looked up only to see Severus staring, staring at her sniffing his jacket with a silly grin on her face. She blushed, hoping he couldn't tell from where he stood.

His next ball was a thing of beauty, but it paled beside the way the muscles in his shoulders flexed with the motion.

It was past 2 a.m. when they burned the stumps. Hermione could safely say she'd never watched a game of cricket so intently in her life. For his part, Severus... Well, Hermione had never seen him so happy. The Shakelegs seemed to like him, which was notable in itself. Her husband was generally an acquired taste.


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Severus Snape was having such a good time that his mood did not disappear even as he wound his way through the roads connecting Midlothian with the greater metropolis. He could not speak for all Red Indians, or even the majority, but the Shakelegs, at least those he'd acquainted himself with today, were fairly tolerable; a pronouncement he hadn't made upon any group since Avery et. al. said they were willing to overlook his paternity in light of his more sterling qualities.

Hermione was smiling sweetly at him from the passenger seat, he could feel it even in the dark, but he wondered what she would have to say on the topic of his friends. She had met them in battle, obviously, but that was hardly the same as an evening at the pub. She and Millie were thick as thieves these days so perhaps, unlike Evans, she would have got on with his crowd, had circumstances been other than what they were.

It was her similarity to Evans as a child that had initially attracted him, more than her intelligence and beauty; it was the way she took pity on the impoverished in both body and spirit, from mangy cross-eyed cats to boys who couldn't make it through potions class without having their hand held. Even as a grown witch, she shared that special indefinable quality with Evans, whatever it was that made every wizard want her, every witch want to be her, and as far as he knew every dog want to hump her leg. Somehow, though, Granger had changed direction after he left the school, diverting sharply from Evans' path. Instead of settling down with a Quidditch trophy of a wizard and popping out brats, post-haste, Granger had done her best to get a sample of all the available wizards in England while sharpening her skills as an Auror.

It was almost as though she waited for him. Waiting to become the Lady Bountiful to his HMS Bounty, he added the sour thought.

She was different in other ways as well, more decisive, more focused. More something else he hesitated to lay a name on. The quality that delighted him most also unnerved him to a degree.

It was Evans' modus operandi to come and go like a will-o-the-wisp. She appeared when it pleased her, whether it was twenty minutes before the agreed upon meeting or three hours after. She extended her friendship exactly as her mood dictated and not a drop more.

Granger was different from Evans. For one thing, Granger seemed to like him more.

His stomach turned vigorously to admit it. It was a strange, traitorous thought. He had always imagined that Evans' place of primacy would remain inviolate, but he lately surprised himself by finding fault when he compared her memory to Granger.

Granger treated him with equity. She asked nothing that she was not prepared to return in kind. She even went so far as to give some indication she thought of him when he was not directly in front of her face.

Because she would not take things from Muggle shops, a silly attitude if you asked him, though no one did, he did his best to keep her supplied with money enough that she could at least have a sodding soda between classes. He might not be a Malfoy, but he could manage that much.

He wasn't sure what to say when she spent her week's crisps and soda allowance buying him a book.

It may have been that moment when she'd forever toppled Evans from her place in his heart. As if sensing his warm thoughts, Granger laced her fingers with those of his free hand. Only his Granny Liz, Eileen, and Lucius had ever given him gifts before. He had not had a present of any sort in years. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

At that moment his heart felt full, like a bird ready to take flight.

A goosefleshed shiver ran through her; he could feel the shift as the fine hairs on her arm stood on end and her very skin seemed to tighten, and the sensation passed through him until he had to shake his shoulders in an attempt to rid himself of it. More money and oral sex were all that was lacking to make his happiness complete. The world at large seemed bent on denying him more than what was necessary to keep body and soul together, but Granger had it in her power to supply the other.

Perhaps it was the disorientation of the moment that loosened his armour and subliminally encouraged Granger to ask her question.

"Severus, have you ever wondered what you might have done with your life if you hadn't been born a wizard?" she asked curiously.

The lights of the city were becoming thicker as they drove closer to home and heart of Fort Worth. He'd recently discovered that while he worked in Dallas, at least technically they resided in Fort Worth. He felt vaguely embarrassed that it had taken him months to realise it.

"I am not in the habit of idle speculation. It is not something I do," he said, "historically speaking." This was, of course, a bald faced lie. He could not turn left without agonising over what would have occurred had he turned right, but he felt no need to share this with Granger. She was a bright girl; she'd come to realise it on her own sooner or later. Let it be later.

"Have I offended you?" she asked; she tried to let go his hand, but he was not willing to release her.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I was merely startled."

It was true. He had not given that particular question thought in some years. That did not mean he did not have an answer for her; it simply meant he was unsure whether he cared to share it.

"Then answer the question," she said.

"In all likelihood I would be on the dole," he said finally, "that, or the nick. Dependent of the state, in any case."

"Severus Snape, that's not what I meant and you know it. Besides, you didn't answer my question. What would you have liked to do?" she pried, or he felt she was prying and fought it off as awkward.

"It's a rather intimate question, isn't it?" he said.

"We are intimate, at least in my estimation. Most of my past relations were what one might accurately describe as impersonal. But you and I are intimate," she said, gesturing to her ring.

"And?" he went on; the landmarks all suddenly familiar. He would not say their relations were impersonal, but there was a certain amount of rejection in the way she didn't ever seem to consider putting his cock in her mouth.

He vacillated between wonder at what she gave him and consternation at what she didn't.

"And I would like to know what your hopes and dreams were before it all turned into dressing like the boogie man on weeknights and committing acts of vandalism," she said in that way of hers that made him feel as though Minerva McGonagall had just caught him having a fag behind the greenhouses.

She had also summed up nine tenths of his time as a Death eater rather succinctly.

"Swear you will not laugh," he said.

"You have my solemn word," she said.

The zoo passed. He wished to fuck he had some idea what he was supposed to say. The truth was the most likely appropriate.

Odd that. It was such an insignificant piece of information, it was silly to guard it so, and yet sheer terror gripped him as the topic wore on. He had the irrational urge to leap from the car.

"According to my father avoiding embarrassment in front of the female of the species is of paramount importance."

"Oh really?" Granger said sceptically.

"It is also his sage opinion that the only thing worse than breaking wind in the presence of a romantic interest is declaring one's love. Were I to ask him, he would most assuredly rank admitting one's infantile interests somewhere in the vicinity of intestinal gas on the spectrum of poor judgement," he said, watching their home approach.

"He sounds very romantic, your father."

"He was and is a complete waste of skin. The man poisons everything he touches. Had the circumstances of my life been sufficiently different..." he said then stopped. He could not bring himself to continue.

He searched the radio for music that was not an abomination to his ears, trying to convince himself he was not simply filling the awkward silence with radio static.

"I'll go first," she said, seeming to think for a moment. "The only time I fellated Ron, Ron Weasley, I gagged... to the point of vomit," she said. It was a non sequitor, but after moment's thought it occurred to him she'd said it in an attempt to even things up between them. Granger was the queen of quid pro quo. He wondered why she hadn't told him what she'd aspired to as a child. Still, the topic of oral sex was, necessarily, intriguing.

"Is this some devious form of psychological torture you've learned at university?" he said feigning irritability in lieu of revealing his confusion. Couldn't the witch understand he didn't want to be bloody embarrassed? Wasn't what grew between them enough without inane questions? "Ply me with embarrassing questions then attempt to induce feelings of inadequacy?"

"No, that wasn't it. He was overexcited, and he thrust down my throat rather vigorously," she said carefully.

"Still," Severus said tightening his fingers round the wheel as he turned onto their street. "I am no Ronald Weasley, is that it?"

Granger turned to him. "No, you're not; your penis is bigger than his."

"Thank you," he said suddenly feeling better, but not that much better, such was the patent unfairness of his life that the Weasley boy had got a blow job, and he hadn't. Did that mean she liked Weasley better?

"It wasn't a compliment," she said, but he knew it was.

"It's hardly an insult," he answered, thinking of how he might induce her to fellate him. He had manners; he could lie still as the dead if there was a blowjob in it for him.

"It was a statement of fact. You have an enormous penis," she said.

"Do you have to call it that?" he said.

"What?" she said.

"Penis," he said, not bothering the mask his dislike of the word. "It makes me feel as though I am trapped in a medical text."

"What do you want me to call it?" she said.

"Cock is acceptable," he said, turning down the street toward home.

"Fine. Your cock is so abnormally large I am concerned that I might choke," she said sounding exasperated. "Does that make you happy?"

Severus Snape considered repeating his comment about the medical texts, but instead he decided to focus on more important matters. He knew Granger; fairness was her calling card, so logically, instead of trying to convince her to give him what he desired, it made more sense to give her something similar in hopes she would feel inclined to respond in kind. Create a sense of obligation as it were.

As he pulled up in front of the house, he decided would lick her pretty little cunt. It would be two for one, really.

Turning the key and shutting off the ignition, it occurred to him he hadn't answered her question. "When I was a small..." he paused and restated that bit for emphasis "...very small child, I would at times amuse myself with the notion of becoming an astronaut."

"That is possibly the dearest thing I have ever heard."

"On second thought, I'd rather you laughed."


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Hermione knew something was up, or as Severus would say "afoot".

He was exponentially more hygienic now than he had been during their Hogwarts days, but the Severus Snape she knew did not shower at 3 a.m. without ulterior motive.

He came to her with a towel wrapped around his waist, which very nearly did her in on account of the aggressive erection, which rendered the towel little better than window dressing.

"Do you mind?" he said, motioning for her to move towards the head of the bed; she did.

"Open your legs please," he said. "Move up a bit more; the bed is rather short."

"Can't I go to sleep? I'd like to go to sleep."

"I intended to lick your cunt. If you'd prefer to sleep, suit yourself."

"I'll sleep after."

"Good girl," he said, patting her leg awkwardly. He had no idea how to approve or encourage much of anything, so it sometimes came out peculiar when it came at all.

"Your skin is soft," he said, stroking the insides of her thighs with his fingertips.

"Severus," she said, reaching out to touch his head. Good god, it was wet. He'd washed his hair. He was very serious about this.

He attempted to lie down between her legs; there was a thump and an...

"Ow, fuck!" Severus said, clutching his knee. "This sodding bed is too short. I would have been fine had it not been for the unnecessarily ornate footboard. Once again the Malfoy aesthetic has proven to be a pain in my arse."

"I believe the bed came with the house. How badly are you hurt?" she asked.

"I doubt an amputation is in order if that is what you mean."

"You don't have to do this, you know."

"I wish to do it," he said. lying down beside her.

She stared at the ceiling feeling a bit guilty, partly that he'd injured himself in the course of trying to pleasure her, and partly because she wished he'd stop whinging about his bloody knee and get licking.

It didn't take long. Only a minute or so and Severus turned his long, still mostly thin body, smelling sharply of soap, round. Deft fingers stroked her belly, leading deliciously downward. But when she tried to return his touch, she was rebuffed.

"Cease and desist immediately."

"I was only...."

"I know what you were only, and I said stop. You're breaking my concentration."

"Yes, dear," she said sarcastically.

His long bitter tongue glancing between the cleft of her labia curbed any further sarcasm she might have been planning.

He had not licked her before, and knowing what she knew of him, had likely not licked any other woman, either. Still he had enough experience with Hermione's sexual response to take the skills he'd gathered from manual stimulation and intercourse and apply them orally.

One, two, three, four slow strokes that barely grazed her clitoris, and she was already wiggling uncontrollably.

Severus withdrew his lips and cupped one hand gently over her mons. He was such a bloody tease. At times she suspected he loved nothing more than hearing her beg for more. It made him feel wanted, she supposed.

The thing about his teasing, it felt so good when it was over.

He gave her another furtive lick and then another before withdrawing once again.

His fingers traced divine mandalas on the insides of her thighs.

A groan came to her throat quite on its own.

The sex she'd had with Ron was best compared to a ride around the block on a shiny red fire engine, sirens blaring. It was definitely fun and absolutely exhilarating, but she would be the first to admit the experience lacked a certain complexity.

Severus sucked her clitoris into his mouth, and her entire brain went muddled.

Although Severus' ability to resist orgasm was unpredictable at best, ranging from impressive to abysmal, her sex life with him these short few weeks was always something of a production. Pleasure was the stage on which their emotions played out; everything from doubt to bliss to pain like an endless black well cast its shadow in their bed. Even with his penis inside her and her tongue in his mouth, his desire for her seemed insatiable.

She had the distinct feeling whatever restlessness Severus had was catching. She found herself longing for him, even as she held him in her arms at night, sometimes across the breakfast table, and heaven knew Severus was not endearing in any way, shape, or form upon waking.

She adored him. The funny part was that she felt just as strongly about him when his trousers were on. Though at that moment, whatever he was doing between her legs was very effectively shutting down the higher centres of her brain, and it only added to his appeal. As though a building was being demolished somewhere in her brain, there was no thought, only the feeling of exquisite bursting open, which seemed to be occurring simultaneously in her head and her genitals. She herself was cracking.

She did not realise until she regained her senses that she had wound a handful of Severus' damp hair round her fist.

Severus pulled himself away slightly and cleared his throat.

"You appeared to have enjoyed that," he said woodenly.

Hermione knew what was coming next; he was going to expect fair recompense. She could either refuse and hurt his feelings -- something like that would bring on a sulk of which North America had never seen -- or she could acquiesce and risk vomiting on his penis. It was not a scene she would like to replay with Severus. Ron had been traumatised enough. Severus, who was already the single most neurotic person she knew, would be likely to go into a major depression.

While she was in the midst of her quandary, Severus muttered something that sounded strangely like a mumbled, "I like to wank."

"Excuse me?" she said, sitting up a bit.

"I should like something; it is fair, is it not, that I should have my turn now," Severus said, somewhere in the borderlands that lie between anxiety and defiance.

"Absolutely, as long as it's within reason," she said, setting her hand on his leg. "I would give you fellatio, I would, Severus; I don't want to sick up all over your cock."

"That's not it."

"It isn't?"

"I should like to... to pleasure myself, and I should like you to look at me while I do it," he said closing his eyes; his voice was barely a whisper.

"Is that all?" she asked, surprised at such a simple request.

"I should also like, like to..." He paused and cleared his throat. "I would also be gratified if, I might touch my cock to your cheek. A kiss would be agreeable."

"You would like me to kiss your cock? Press my lips against it?"

"Yes, I believe I should enjoy that a great deal."

Hermione was not entirely certain she had heard him correctly; it seemed an almost banal request from a man who kept magazines of women in nearly every sexual position imaginable, like some mangy suspenders and bra version of the kama sutra. It was one of the peculiarities of Severus Snape that he was, in strange ways, almost childlike in his simplicity.

"Certainly, I can do that much," she said as he sat beside her on the bed, his white fingers tight around his blushing red penis.

He reached out and brushed a stray curl out of her face. It was a thoughtlessly intimate gesture that simultaneously meant nothing and a great deal indeed.

It was altogether odd being looked at like that. Hermione had always imagined that objectification would be unpleasant. The tableau certainly had the earmarks of objectification, but somehow it didn't fit properly.

Severus gaze seemed more worshipful than anything. Was that it? Had he made her into a heathen idol?

He leaned toward her, pressing the head of his penis to her cheek.

"Would it be permissible to request a smile?"

She grinned broadly at him and laid a chaste kiss near the weeping head of his cock. Cock. It wasn't strictly accurate, but it wasn't an altogether bad word.

Severus breathed in deeply, his chest shuddering.

Hermione rolled over onto her stomach and laid a row of similar closed mouthed kisses up the length of his shaft, smiling all the while. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Severus' fist grasp a handful of bed sheet.

She laid her fingertips in light caresses over his testicles, and he made an odd noise, almost a whimper.

Remembering his request, she brushed his cock against her cheek again, this time blowing him a kiss as she did.

He squeaked. She didn't know such a thing was even possible.

Slowly, with the barest, gentlest caress she was capable of, she brushed her lips across the head of his cock.

Restrained tremors passed through his hips, and he shamelessly gripped the headboard.

She'd hardly done anything, but there he was, Severus Snape, by most people's estimation Dark Wizard extraordinaire and scary bastard, and he was unabashedly weak and at her mercy. It was a strange conflicted feeling that held her in its grasp. As gratifying as it was to see the soft underbelly that lay under all his sneering and snarling, she was consumed by the desire to grant him some sort of succour and protection.

Hermione's own nipples were hard, and her cunt was pounding with the beat of her heart. She had never been so aroused; she felt like a lioness devouring her prey. She had no conscious thought when she slid his cock into her open lips.

Severus' fingers dug into the bed frame so hard his short nails splintered.

This was divinity, this power. Hermione heard a growl rising around her, and it took a moment for her to realise it had come from her own throat.

"Ssssstop," Severus said with a shudder.

Hermione obliged, difficult though it was.

"I want you to fuck me," Severus said, trembling, still holding onto the headboard. "The condoms are in the bureau drawer."

"Are you certain?"

"Quite," he hissed, his jaw clenched.

Quickly and with steady hand, she ripped open the foil package and unrolled the condom onto his penis, mindful to avoid trapping air bubbles. Just as mindfully, she climbed astride him.

She was aroused enough that there was not even a passing discomfort as she slipped him inside her. His penis was so hard she could barely believe there was living flesh sheathed inside the latex.

He inhaled sharply through clenched crooked teeth.

She rocked back slowly, allowing his large hands to slide up her torso, grasping her breasts. He grasped her nipples between his callused thumb and forefinger. His grip was harder than she would have imagined she'd like, but under the circumstances it was perfect.

She rocked forward, sending another shot of lightning through her body as her breasts, brains, and vagina began to battle for sensory primacy.

Her eyelids closed of their own accord and behind them she saw scenes that were wholly unfamiliar to her. Even as her body shook and her heart raced behind her eyes, a peculiar blue light filtered through the leaves of countless trees, the scene flashed as if seen from the vantage point of a person running through a forest. Or THE forest; it seemed rather archetypal. Then she recognised her surroundings.

The forbidden forest.

She sat up, and her eyes shot open. She had been running through the forbidden forest.

It made no sense whatsoever.

The thought was lost as Severus pulled her to him, rough hands tangled in her hair.

His black eyes stared wide, no emotion evident in them but imploring. All trace of keen intellect and sarcasm discarded on the floor beside his trousers. His mouth opened and closed, fishlike, as if he were groping for language.

His starving want opened before her like a precipice.

And yet....

And yet his magic crackled so thick the air felt like flannel. She thought for a moment it was the after image from her orgasm, but no, a faint indigo corona was circling his blue black head, creeping toward his white muscled shoulders.

The dichotomy of his power and his need wrenched something loose in her she had only peripherally acknowledged.

"I..." she said, pausing as she met his hard thrusts with her own. "...love... you".

Severus' hips went dead still as he gripped her face with both hands and held her fast as he stared hard into her eyes, his breath coming in canine pants.

Hermione had been in life threatening situations. She had been frightened before but never in precisely this way.

Sometimes it seemed the involvement of Severus Snape practically guaranteed drastic emotional stakes. Melodramatic sod. Any normal person would respond in kind. Still, her heart beat wild.

"Did you mean that? You love me?" he whispered harshly as they stared, each refusing to allow the other to look away.

She reached down and grasped his face in reply.

His cheeks were grey and rough with beard stubble, but his black eyes shone bright. All that was doubtful subsided in her as a wave of fierce love rose from her belly. She bucked her hips hard.

He answered her with a thrust of such singular purpose another orgasm came on her unawares.

She did not let go his face, simply did her quaking there, inches from his face.

"Yes," she said, suddenly angry amidst her intertwined ardour and pleasure. "Yes, I meant it; I love you."

Then something not easily foreseen happened. He pulled her mouth to his, initiating a riot of hands, lips, fingers, tongues and teeth so frenzied Hermione gave up trying to sort it out. He made a noise that half grunted into her mouth, and she quite clearly felt Severus ejaculate, each drop of semen articulated.

Fearful again, she threw herself beside still and silent Severus on the narrow bed. Her suspicion was confirmed. The condom was in tatters around his penis.

This was not good.

"Fuck," Severus said, throwing his arm over his eyes.


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Draco, meanwhile, was in his own room drawing up plans for Christmas.


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Author's Note: The Author Would Like to Extend her Special Thanks to Shiv for Insightful Beta