The Seaside Retreat

Chapter 18... It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

The beginning of December brought chaos to the faculty and head students of Hogwarts. The air was cold and crisp and seemed to infuse the student population with a new found energy that was nice to see at first, but quickly grew tiresome to anyone trying to keep a semblance of discipline at the school. Hermione and Draco were spending enormous amounts of time decorating the halls and working with the masters in their fields. Draco loved working with Professor Flitwick and thoroughly enjoyed visiting his godfather in the dungeons and showing off his skills in “silly wand waving”. Severus of course grumbled good naturedly about his impertinence and Hermione enjoyed hearing them tell stories from both points of view.

Severus and Hermione continued to grow closer all the time and it was becoming increasingly difficult for Hermione to part with him after the sensual nights and wonderful mornings. It had come to the point in her apprenticeship where they actually had to spend most days working. Hermione of course spent most of her free time studying the art so that when they were together she was ahead of the game and they could spend it enjoying each others company. Severus was extremely grateful for her studious nature because now that he had sex regularly, it was a lot more difficult to go more then two or three days without it. Ever since the Halloween threesome he had a bounce in his step that everyone seemed to notice but attributed to the end of the war.

He was madly in love with Hermione and was toying with the idea of proposing. He certainly didn’t want to rush things, but he was thinking of leaving the school after she graduated anyway and opening his own apothecary. Though he wasn’t as rich as a lot of old families were, he had amassed enough to live on comfortably while the apothecary started getting on well. She could continue to apprentice under him and he knew she would have no trouble doing whatever she chose when she was a Potions Mistress.

He decided to hold off on the proposal until later, but he would bring up his idea of the shop soon and see how she reacted. He wanted her to know that no matter what she chose to do, he would be there beside her the entire time.

Hermione had never before considered herself a girly girl who would spend hours humming the wedding march in her head and dreaming of her gown, but she found herself thinking more then once in terms of “when I get my mastership and Severus and I can travel…” or “after Severus and I are married”. She certainly hoped she wasn’t making undue assumptions about their future together, but she knew in her heart she would be around as long as he wanted her.

She had decided to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays with her friends after McGonagall said that the leak at the ministry had been found and the person was arrested. This of course meant that her parents could come out of hiding, but they would need to stay at Hogwarts for about a week while they secured the house with strong protection wards. Hermione had begged her to bring them back over the holidays so she could spend Christmas with her parents and Severus. McGonagall readily agreed and Hermione had shot out of her office and into Severus’ quarters to tell him the good news. He was of course thrilled to finally have a reason to be happy during Christmas, but was more then a little nervous about spending time with Hermione’s parents. Her parents didn’t know they were together, and they decided they wouldn’t tell them until after graduation, but he still wanted to make a good impression.

Harry could attest to the fact that when you were looking forward to something time crawled by, but when you were dreading something time seemed to work in warp speed, and Severus learned this lesson well this month. Though he wasn’t actually dreading Hermione’s parents stay, he certainly wasn’t looking forward to trying to undo whatever negative impression he may have made on them over the summer. They were arriving on the Hogwarts Express that was coming to pick up the students for the break, and he escorted Hermione to Hogsmeade to greet them. They enjoyed the time they had alone while they were walking towards the station, and Hermione took the opportunity to tell Severus stories of her childhood and her parents.

They had arrived at the station about twenty minutes early and sat upon a bench to await the train. They had to be careful about the way they interacted with each other in places where they would be recognized, but still snuck a few innocent kisses beneath the protection of a privacy charm. It wasn’t long before they noticed the steam in the sky and heard the tell tale whistle of the train, so they stood and got ready to greet her parents.

When the door to the train was opened and Hermione’s parents stepped onto the platform it only took a split second before mother and daughter were hugging and crying and her father had lifted her into his arms swung her around. When her parents noticed the professor they quickly composed themselves and greeted Severus a bit more shyly then he expected.

For his part, Severus had turned into the consummate gentleman and immediately bowed to them with a “Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Granger, I am pleased to see you safe and reunited with your daughter” before he took the liberty of shrinking their bags and placing them in his pocket to carry. They were curious as to why they had to hide for so long when Minerva mentioned the remaining death eaters had been captured over the summer and Hermione cringed as she realized she would be forced to tell them of the attack at the cottage and the leak at the ministry. She was lucky Severus was there to diffuse the situation when her parents became upset and started to blame the incompetence of the school to keep their daughter safe as promised.

“I can assure you both” Severus began sternly, but not unkindly “that it was not due to anyone’s incompetence that the incident occurred. It was unfortunate that there was a leak in the ministry that led the death eaters to us, but that has been rectified and the slime is in prison. I will tell you though that it was your daughter that managed to apprehend three fully qualified death eaters single handedly. She is truly an extraordinary witch to manage what hundreds of people spent months trying to accomplish. I have no doubt that she can take care of herself and come to think of it I owe her a life debt. Surely if she hadn’t acted so quickly in apprehending them, I would of walked into a situation where I would most likely have been killed.”

Her parents looked to Hermione, impressed at hearing someone else praise her abilities so highly, and it wasn’t long before they were relaxed and conversing freely with Severus. On the carriage ride to the school, Severus spoke of Hermione’s accomplishments since her first year, and proudly told of her and Draco managing to mend so many broken hearts after the war. They were told of her Order of Merlin, her portrait in the Ministry of Magic, and the many books that were in the process of being written about the Golden Trio and their adventures. Though they knew their daughter was brilliant, for the first time Hermione’s parents looked at her and saw an adult who deserved to be treated as an equal and the amazing woman she had grown up to be.

The carriage arrived at the school and Severus climbed out first so he could help the ladies step down. He led them up to the school and ushered them to the headmistress’s office before they were trampled by students in a rush to get to the train home. They had a wonderful meeting with Minerva, who walked them to the guest quarters they would be staying in and told them once again how proud she was of Hermione. Minerva and Severus unshrunk their luggage and left the family to get reacquainted with each other, trusting Hermione to let her parents know how things worked around the school. Hermione told her parents of the house elves and summoned Dobby to meet them.

Dobby was, of course, near tears at being treated so well as to be introduced to Miss Hermy’s parents, and with tears in his eyes told them what a wonderful witch she was. By this point, Hermione was more then sick of hearing about herself and her parents had begun teasing her about the price of joining the Hermione Granger fan club. She left her parents to rest for a few hours and promised to fetch them for dinner in the Great Hall.

When she left her parents, she decided to head to her rooms and see where everyone was so she could spend some time with the friends she had been neglecting recently. They were thrilled to be able to hang out for awhile and whiled away the time until dinner playing games of exploding snap and wizards chess and talking of how weird it would be to have Hermione’s parents at the castle with them.

The day dissolved quickly amongst her friends and soon the group had started towards Hermione’s parents’ room to pick them up for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were very pleased to see Harry and Ron again and were even more excited to meet Draco, Blaise, and Millicent for the first time. They looked at Hermione with surprised expressions when Ron hurried forward to grab Millicent’s hand in his own, the last they had heard he and Hermione were going to give it a go. Hermione smiled at them and told them that they were too good of friends to ruin with a relationship and she thought that Ron and Millicent made a wonderful couple; much better then it could have ever been between Ron and herself.

Pacified that their daughter’s heart wasn’t broken, they chatted with Harry and Ginny for awhile until they reached the great hall. As was the custom when the majority of students were gone, the long tables had been disbanded with and a large circular table had been set up to accommodate everyone. Hermione had sat next to a small first year that looked a bit intimidated by all the upperclassman and professors and was currently coaxing him into a conversation about herbology and suggesting he speak to Neville who could help him out with the class. Severus had come in a few minutes later and sat on the other side of Hermione’s parents talking with them and Minerva.

The week passed with Hermione spending ample amounts of time catching up with her parents. She was thrilled to see the effort that Severus made with them, and was pleased to note how well it had paid off. Hermione’s mother spoke often of “that wonderful Professor Snape” and her father spent a good amount of time in the dungeons with Hermione and Severus watching them brew together. Hermione’s mother was happy to whittle away the hours in the greenhouses with Professor Sprout and one day the three of them even had tea with Hagrid.

Christmas was in only two more days and Hermione dragged her parents and friends to the village for some last minute shopping. Severus put up a good show of reluctance in joining them as a chaperone, but winked stealthily at Hermione while he grumbled. The village was beautiful with the holiday decorations set up and the snow blanketing the ground. It made for some wonderful memories of her final Christmas at Hogwarts.

For Severus’ part, he was breathing a sigh of relief and thanking Merlin every chance he got that Hermione’s parents were good people and he actually got on with them quite well. The week with her parent had cemented the idea in his head that he would truly love to spend the rest of his days with her.

Christmas day was wonderful for everyone at the castle. The students, including the shy first year, had all had a large sleepover in Draco and Hermione’s common room and woken up to share their first Christmas with their new family. Hermione had woken earlier and fetched her parents to her room so they could enjoy the morning with her friends as well. They all spent the morning laughing and ripping the paper off of their gifts and generally enjoying Christmas. New pictures were taken for each person’s photo album, and after breakfast everyone left in the school headed down to the lake for ice skating, which Hermione admitted she was dreadful at. The group laughed and teased each other and Professor Flitwick sneakily cast a cushioning charm on Hermione’s backside so she wouldn’t break her tailbone when she fell so often.

The day was perfect in everyone’s eyes, and it didn‘t seem to escape Hermione‘s parents how close she seemed to be with the potions master. To them it was to be expected when they spent as much time together working on her apprenticeship as they did, but they still smiled knowingly at the pair when ever they watched them interact.

Severus had flooed to Hermione’s rooms that evening and they exchanged gifts in the flickering glow of candlelight. Hermione had bought him a silver cauldron she had seen him looking at in a potions magazine, a new cloak, and his favorite by far, a shiny black owl that had what looked to be a white cauldron shaped mark on his chest. Severus was thrilled with the owl, because he had never bothered to get one of his own even though her really wanted one. He decided to name him Pepé which made Hermione laugh hysterically.

She received from Severus another beautiful set of jewelry, this time in onyx and several potions books that you had to be a Master to buy. They were happy to finally have some time alone and Hermione decided to make good on her birthday promise of giving him head every day until graduation. He wasn’t sure how she managed to do it but she had perfected the art of fellatio and after one lick he was putty in her hands. She ran her fingers up and down his shaft and caressed his balls as she applied the perfect amount of suction to him.

He stopped her before he could cum and laid her on her back to return the favor. He spread her wide ran his sharp tongue along her slit, causing her to suck in a breath of air and shiver. He loved the taste of her and savored every minute he could spend with his head buried between her legs. It wasn’t long before he had her whimpering and bucking into his mouth and when she came with a stream expletives, he greedily lapped up her juices, licking his lips as not to waste a drop.

Before she could come to her senses completely, he had stood and entered her, not bothering to tease her slowly as he usually did. He rammed into her with everything he had, and when she looked up at him with her big eyes and uttered the words “I want you to cum on my face Severus”, he had to withdraw from her body completely or he knew he would lose it right then. She arched her back and moaned pitifully at losing him from inside of her, but when he placed his huge cock between he breasts and pushed the globes together against himself, she felt herself tightening. She loved the feel of his silken shaft moving against her and she began to lick the head of his cock on his forward thrusts.

Severus’ face contorted and turned red a split second before he came and with a shout worthy of a giant he came in hard spurts on her chin. He took a second to recover and then leaned back to insert a finger inside of Hermione which immediately sent her over the edge herself. Hermione licked all of the cum she could reach off her face, and after scourgifying them both, she curled into his arms.
They spent the next couple of hours speaking of the future and Severus took the opportunity to tell her of his plans after the end of the school year. Hermione was disappointed that he wouldn’t always be at Hogwarts to shape young minds, but was thrilled he had found something to be passionate about. He asked her to join him at the shop and his heart swelled when she agreed. After dreamily making plans for their future, they drifted off to sleep and dreamed of their life together.

A/N: Sorry that took so long to post. It is a rather boring chapter, but I felt it was a needed lead. The next chappy will be their New Years celebration and there should be some surprises! I love all of you so much and your reviews just crack me up! Happy reading and Happy writing to all you authors out there!