A Duet Well-Played

Author\'s note: In my world, no one dies in Harry Potter. That\'s all I\'ve got to say about that.


CHAPTER NINETEEN

There is nothing quite like the feeling of the first time one makes love with someone. There is that unfamiliarity, that learning, fumbling touch. It is a truly asshinshing experience, and represents the absolute beginning of a long period of lovemaking.

For Hermione, the sight of her lover bending over her, his soft moans and shudders, all of this was entirely new, and it almost undid her.

Upon their clumsy entrance into his bedchamber, she had attempted, while trying hide her urgent curiosity, to divest him of his trousers entirely. His body finally bare, he twisted to sit beside her, returning his face to the crook of her neck and fingering the hem of her camisole. His fingers were warm on the skin of her stomach, and she wondered if he could feel her insides fluttering.

Her eyes remained fixed on his erection, which curved towards his stomach gracefully. With a grin, she realized that this was, perhaps, the last lover she may ever have, and no time like the present to begin to satisfy her curiosity.

Severus was slightly miffed as her warm, sweet neck pulled away from his mouth as she bent at the waist, but all thought vanished when he felt her mouth below his ribcage. Her graceful, long-fingered hands smed oed over his shoulders, and then, without warning, she dipped her head and placed a delicate kiss at the juncture of his penis, where the head and shaft met.

He felt suddenly dizzy and couldn\'t control the shaking of his arms. He fell back into a half reclg pog pose on the bed, as she beamed up at him from where she hovered over his midsection. \"Good?\" she asked, with that smug, knowing look she always got when she knew the answer in class.

He winced to hear his voice crack, \"v-very...\"

\"I think...\" she said, running a fingertip up the length of his erection and watching his eyes roll to the back of his head, \"...that this if going to be just my cup of tea,\" She licked her lips while watching his erection, and he thought that he would orgasm there and then. \"...though I do appear to be enjoying this position of power a little too much, wouldn\'t you say, Severus?\" And on his name, she gripped him, tight in her palm, and he couldn\'t control his hips jerking up off of the bed.

A low, feral groan eminated from the depths of his chest, and he met her eyes as they darkened. \"I love the way you sound... I love that this is really you, and I\'m really making you sound like that,\" she whispered, before her head dipped down and then there was just her mouth, hot and sweet, and he found himself gritting his teeth in order not to simply scream from the pleasure and the agony of denial.

She hummed contentedly against his stomach, having backed up at just the right moment to hold off his imminent release. She smiled, kissing his navel, to hear the whining pants from above. Well, turnabout if fair play, it was about time he was eating out of the palm of her hand.

She kissed her way up to his neck, and arranged her body so that she could fully relax on top of him as he got his breathing back under control.Her legs straddled his narrow hips with ease, and she felt as though she could spend a lifetime where she was.

He smelled amazing. There is nothing to describe the smell of your lover\'s skin. Not their cologne, nor their sweat, but the simple and distinctive smell of their skin when your nose was pressed against it.

She moved her hips experimentally against him, and felt the answering nudge of his erection between her legs against her still cotton-clad bottom. His hands wandered over her curves, and she lifted her head to meet his smiling, amused eyes. \"Miss Granger, correct me if I\'m wrong, but I do believe that you were just smelling my shoulder...\"

His lips parted to reveal his glorious crooked smile. \"Very astute, Proffessor Snape. Mind you, I don\'t sniff just anyone\'s shoulder.\"

\"I should hope so...\" He said, and slipped his hands into the sides of her underwear, lowering them inch by inch. She raised up on her knees slightly to assist him, and then kicked them off her foot and across the room. Then his large hands wandered up the expanse of skin at her sides, and she raised her arms over her head to rid her of the camisole. They both released shuddering moans at being so intimately attired and so very close together after such a long wait.

They were still shaking, trembling very slightly against one another. Her skin was searingly hot above him, and so soft. His large, pale hands smoothed over her body soothingly, beginning at her shoulders and arriving, finally, at the tops of the back of her thighs, just skimming her lower buttocks.

He heard her take a shuddering breath as his fingers moved slowly up the inside of her thighs and painstakingly brushed against the wetness he found there. It was amazing to feel her this way; unclad and completely open to him. He had never thought to feel this way. Suddenly she was sitting up, straddling him above his hips while she braced herself with her hands on his chest. The exact pressure and weight of her was heavenly.

Smiling slightly at him, she leaned back slowly, gliding her hand around smoothly to grasp his erection where it was located directly behind her. His hips raised her off the bed entirely, her knees leaving the mattress breifly, and he heard her laugh thicklhe lhe leaned down to kiss him, then opened her eyes to his, suddenly serious.

He was silent in his awe as she scooted backwards, rising up, and his eyes followed her hands to where she held him, there at her entrance. They remained like that for an eternity, her eyes on his face, his eyes on their near-joining. And then, with a sigh, she lowered herself onto him with the ease and practice of a yoga instructor.

Her upright frame fell, then, crumpling onto his chest, and he brought his now-violently shaking hands up to smoothe over her in that same reassuring way. He could feel her thighs tensing and releasing against his sides, and he could feel her insides pulsing and gripping him. His breath came very fast through his nose, smelling her, smelling them together, and his hearing picked up the sound of her labored breathing.

After a spell, she rose up again, bracing herself on his chest, and began to move. His hands gripped the sheets so hard that the elastic came out from the mattress. Her hips moved rhythmically, occasionally breaking to make tantilizing circles against his pelvis, and her head fell backwards as she moaned. She was a vision, her hair askew and partially in her eyes, her rosy mouth open to reveal a hint of her teeth, and her entire body flushed with arousal.

She surveyed him from slitted eyes, and marvelled at the burst of pride she felt at his labored breathing and harsh groans of pleasure. His eyes snapped open, meeting her\'s as she felt herself building towards a sudden and astonishing climax. His hips thrust up against her urgently and he watched her eyes roll to the back of her head before he finally cried out, spasming though his own release.

Their breathing returning to normal, they collapsed, her arm flung across her face and his fingers still half-way clutching the sheet. He looked over at her through hooded eyes, and answered her smile with his own. Finally they had come this far...
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\"It\'s not as if this wasn\'t something we anticipated, so I\'m not going to bother being wishy washy when it comes to this body of work. I must say, Minerva, it\'s something to be prised! The ministry will be tickled pink.\" Albus held volume three of the thick folio of the Granger thesis at arm\'s length. The folio was bound with wax sting, and titled professionally across the cover.

\"I will admit to being unsurprised at it\'s relative greatness, Albus, but that doesn\'t change my concern. You know they both have difficulty eating and sleeping when occupied with something. I\'m more than a little worried that they\'ll starve to death! The house elves have reported that no food has been requested, and I very much doubt that they\'re getting any sleep at all-\"

\"Do you realize, Minerva,\" Dumbledore continued as if she hadn\'t spoken, \"that this thesis could change the face of modern potions-making for nearly all involved? I do mean to say, her research has resulted in somewhat of a phenomenon! Music! So simple! But it took her brilliance to imagine it-\"

\"Albus, I don\'t think you\'re listening to my concerns at all.\"

\"Minerva! Your cancer has receded entirely! And all thanks to this marvelous new technique. Imagine the possibilities!\" McGonagall shook her head, smiling indulgently at the exhuberant old man.

The potions master and the young post-graduate had dissapeared into Snape\'s quarters over four days ago, and the castle was beginning to thrum with questions and wagers as to when, exactly, they were intending to come out again.

Of course, Albus was ecstatic. Minerva could practically watch the parade of handfasting ceremonies and godchildren marching through the headmaster\'s mind. She smiled, reassuring herself that the couple would be alright, and joined Albus in a cup of hot chocolate to celebrate.
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The steam in the washroom was thick enough to obscure almost the entire room from view, but the mirror remained clear and within sight, a trick that Severus had managed to pull off while demonstrating some of his superior use of wandless magic.

The bathtub had been enlarged, for their purposes, and she ejoyed the feeling of stretching out her body fully against his own beneath the surface of the water. His rumbled groan resonated in the echoing tile room, and she watched his expression in the mirror as his eyes slipped shut at the feeling of her stretching against him.

Other than the occasional water-break, their cycle of lovemaking and sleeping had continued on for some indeterminate time. By his hazy calculations, it had been at least three days since he had returned to his rooms and they had collided like charged atoms to ignite. He had some inkling that they had eaten little, save the danishes he had brought home, and drunk the champagne she had congured from a bottle of iced tea that she had found in the recesses of his cabinet. Hardly sustaining, especially considering the exertion of a long denied passion being requited over a period of more than a few days.

Now, in the bathtub, his feelings warred with hunger for food and hunger of an entirely different sort. The mirror had been her idea, though, as usual, her idea was brilliant. It faced the foot of the bathtub, in which she was stretched out on her back over him. His hands, large and pale, cupped her breasts, and their image in the mirror was enough to cause him to inadvertantly gasp.

He had never considered himself a handsome man. In many ways, his physical features were somewhat of an embaressment to him. Her suspicion of this truth was enough to spur her to conjure a large mirror and order him into the tub with her. In their reflected image, he could glimpse the beauty of their union, and how they fit together so esthetically, as well as physically.

Slowly, while caressing his face and neck as she rubbed her body against his, creating a delightful friction, she described his features carefully, expounding on her own tastes for his esthetic appeal, and he began to delight in the image they created in the mirror. They made love slowly, carefully, soothing their hurts in the warm water, and admiring their union in the mirror. They had made love multiple times on his bed, once on the floor, once against the wall and twice in his desk chair, but this time was slow and langorous.

Later that afternoon, while she moaned continually as he feasted on the flesh between her legs, another sound joined her groans of pleasure. Her stomach rumbled loudly and suddenly, casuing him to pause his minstrations and grin up at her, where she flushed with arousal and embaressment. He then returned swiftly to the task at hand, sucking smoothly at the swollen flesh, and causing a gasp and then a groan of completion from his Hermia.

She lay panting, then, as he brought his head up to place his ear against her stomach to listen to the growling gurgles of hunger there. He sighed with contented resignation. It was time to return to the land of the living, he supposed, or they would both starve to death.

He crawled up her body to bury his head in her hair. \"You know, I don\'t think we\'ve left these quarters for days. I don\'t suppose a few danishes is enough to abate malnutrition, and I couldn\'t allow that. I think it\'s time I take you to a meal and show you off a bit. What do you say, lovely?\"

She smiled, \"I don\'t imagine that our absence has gone unmarked. The looks on their faces....\" she broke into laughter at the thought of the faculty\'s astonished faces at their re-emergence. \"You know, Severus. A few months ago, Sirius and Remus were teasing me about becoming a shut-in. According to them, all I ever did was play my cello and work on my thesis.\"

\"hmm...\" his low voice rumbled against the side of her neck, and she shivered against his nose. \"Obviously they know you very little....Come. Time to eat.\"