Snape's Redemption

Disclaimer: If I was JK Rowling, my computer would have been fixed a lot quicker than it was. Ergo, I’m not her and I own nothing except a lot of Tori Amos CDs.

Chapter Eighteen – Lily is dancing on the table

“No, Miss Granger, I am not going to tell you where the Horcrux is or even what it is! When you are ready, we will get it.”

“I am ready,” Hermione protested. “I’m pregnant, aren’t I?”

“Not pregnant enough,” Severus replied, carefully measuring some pulverised aconite into his bubbling cauldron. “Stand back! The fumes are not pleasant.”

Hermione stepped back as Snape was enveloped in a sickly green cloud. He swirled his wand around, reminding Hermione of the candy man on Brighton Beach collecting up a stick of fairy floss. The cloud formed itself into a mini-twister and, with a soft command from the Potions Master, sunk itself into the mixture below. Suddenly, the potion was clear and still. Snape smiled in quiet satisfaction before picking a mouse out of the cage next to him.

“You might not want to see this, Miss Granger,” he warned her. “It might upset your pregnant sensibilities.”

Stubbornly, Hermione crossed her arms and glared at him.

Looking up, Severus caught her angry, defiant gaze. Smirking, he dropped the mouse into the potion.

The mouse squealed once on the way down before sinking beneath the surface. However, when its head broke up through the potion, it was still and silent. With a slotted spoon, Snape lifted the mouse out and placed it on the table.

The mouse did not move.

“Congratulations, Professor,” Hermione mocked. “You’ve boiled a mouse.”

“Your ignorance and lack of observation are astounding, Miss Granger. Does it look dead to you?”

Hermione studied the mouse and shrieked when it moved its head to look at her.

“Its eyes,” she breathed. She gazed up at the saturnine wizard. “What have you done?”

“I have removed its soul,” Snape informed her blandly.

He lifted the mouse and placed it in its own separate cage. Then he turned back to Hermione, raising one eyebrow in question.

“Well, obviously the potion’s for the Horcruxes,” she huffed. “To extract the bit of … his soul that’s in them. I’m not stupid.”

“Some days, Miss Granger, that is debatable.”

She gave a wordless squeal of frustration and stamped her foot.

“And that little display, of course, completely changes my mind,” he muttered as he carefully decanted the potion into various small, round containers.

Hermione stood there, glaring at him, with her arms crossed over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently.

Snape finally turned to the glowering young witch after ensuring the whole lab was in order.

“Miss Granger,” he said, tiredly, rubbing his hand across his forehead. “The two weeks are not yet up …”

“They will be tomorrow,” she interrupted.

“It will still be dangerous!”

Abruptly he turned from her and started pacing up and down the room.

“Professor,” Hermione said slowly. “I only need to be pregnant to get the Horcrux. If I lose the baby, well, there are always casualties. I’m young and there’ll be other opportunities for me to have a child if …”

“NOT FOR ME!”

Severus swooped over to Hermione, grasping her by the upper arms and gave her a harsh shake.

“You really are a stupid, little girl,” he hissed, spittle flying into her face. “Do you think I give a FUCK about Voldemort! I only want to protect what is mine.”

Hermione began to struggle.

“Well, I care,” she replied. “I don’t want to live in a world controlled by that psychopath! Also, I’m not yours – EVER!”

They stared at each other, breathing heavily. It slipped briefly across Hermione’s mind that the professor had, for the first time in her memory, called Voldemort by his name rather then one of his many ‘titles’.

“Why are we getting this Horcrux anyway?” she finally asked him.

“A tool, Miss Granger, just like you. However, this will ensure our survival whatever happens.”

“But you have other Horcruxes,” she protested. “You’ve got the wand and the locket!” She gazed up at his shuttered eyes. “You have got them, haven’t you?” she asked quietly.

“At the moment,” he replied. “However, I need something to ensure that I am accepted back.”

“Back where?” she whispered in horror.

“Do not be obtuse,” he snapped, releasing her and continuing his pacing.

He began speaking again, but Hermione was too shocked to listen. She was, she realised, exactly what he called her: a silly, little girl. He did not care about anything or anyone but himself and what he perceived was his. The knowledge bowled her over.

“If I disobey you, I die,” the words escaped from her lips.

Snape stopped pacing and looked over at her, satisfaction evident in his face.

“Yes, Miss Granger,” he smirked.

“If I die,” she continued with her reasoning, “then so does your child.”

His eyes widened in shock as she lifted her resolute face to him.

“I think, Severus, that if you want this child that badly, you’d better decide that the best way for me to help you is to get the Horcrux and give it to the Order of the Phoenix, together with your potion.”

The impact of her statement was shown only through Snape’s wand hand twitching and a vein that suddenly began throbbing violently at his temple. They stared at each other, silently, neither giving way. Snape took one step towards her, but she held her ground. He stopped and gave her a curt bow before turning and stalking out of the room, his robes flapping behind him.

Hermione collapsed weakly onto one of the work stools and took five deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. Sitting up straight, a small smile graced her lips.

She began to see why Snape liked control so much. It was rather exhilarating.

*~*~*~*~*

Snape paced around the library, clenching and unclenching his wand hand and muttering evilly under his breath. Crookshanks, watching with a lazy amusement, jumped off the sofa and curled himself through the irate wizard’s striding legs, tripping him over.

Snape, regaining his footing, glared at the smug cat but refrained from kicking the damned thing. He still had the scars on his left ankle from the first (and last) time he had tried that. Instead, he stormed over to a small cupboard and extracted Dumbledore’s Pensieve. Throwing himself down on the cat hair infested sofa, he withdrew his wand and swirled the contents around.

An image rose up from the liquid. It was Lily Evans, hands on hips, hair flowing around her face, berating the skinny, ugly boy before her. He was looking down, his greasy hair swinging forward, hiding his face except, of course, for his nose. The Lily of the Pensieve suddenly looked at the hunched figure in front of her and, extending her hands from her hips, gathered up the young Severus in her arms, giving him a fierce hug.

The image disappeared back into the bowl, but the memory remained. It had been their second year at Hogwarts and both of them had been twelve years old.

It was the first hug that Severus Snape had received since his mother died.

The older wizard sighed and closed his eyes, moving the Pensieve off to the side and idly petting Crookshanks when he jumped back up onto his sofa. A small smile curled his lips.

Hermione and Lily really were frighteningly similar, he reflected.

Not for the first time.

*~*~*~*~*

Hermione and Severus lay in bed that night, both on their backs with their hands linked behind their own heads, staring at the canopy. They were very carefully not touching each other. They were also both naked.

Finally, Hermione sighed and turned onto her side, studying the brooding wizard next to her. Reaching out, she traced a finger down the bridge of his nose.

“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.

“Making the first move,” she replied. “We have to do this – you told me so.”

“Maybe I was lying,” he replied flatly.

“Were you?”

“No.”

Silence filled the room.

Hermione rolled onto her back again and took up her previous contemplation of the canopy.

“I don’t know where it is,” Snape’s seductive voice slithered out of the darkness.

“The Horcrux?”

“No, Miss Granger, your clitoris. Of course, the damned Horcrux!”

Silence.

“What about my G-spot?” Hermione finally asked.

A muffled burst of laughter escaped from her bed partner. She felt the mattress dip as he turned onto his side and looked at her.

“Are you flirting?” he asked, almost coquettishly. It was not a term she normally would have applied to her former professor.

“I’m sure I’m not,” she stated. “I’ve been told I’m not very good at it.”

“You do know that Ron Weasley is an idiot,” Severus replied conversationally as he reached over and casually stroked her breast.

“Oh, yes,” she replied fervently.

As a reward for agreeing with him, his hand drifted down to the springy thatch of hair between her legs and began to caress, showing emphatically that he knew exactly where her clitoris was.

When Hermione was panting loudly and clawing desperately at his arm, he pulled away from her, lying on his back. Moaning at the loss, Hermione rolled towards him, and straddled him, her hands moving over his body. The last two weeks, together with further explorations on her part, had given her a familiarity and understanding of his body. She bit him at the juncture of his neck and shoulder just as she plucked his nipples, pulling them out and twisting them slightly.

He hummed in pleasure and she rubbed her wet centre up and down his erect penis, covering him in her musky warmth. Raising his hands, he fisted up her hair and drew her down for a deep kiss. Hermione froze for a moment, before responding heatedly. Dimly, he realised that this was their first passionate kiss when she had not been under the influence of an aphrodisiac. His cock leapt at her response and she moaned into his mouth, grinding herself against him. He broke away, watching as a line of saliva stretched between him. It was possibly the most erotic thing he’d ever seen.

“Kiss me,” he hoarsely commanded.

“I was,” she replied, dazed. If she’d known he could have kissed like that before, she probably would have attacked him on her first day of school.

“No,” he responded. “Kiss me.”

His hands, still fisted in her hand, nudged downwards slightly. Hermione’s eyes widened.

“I haven’t …” she began.

“I know,” he replied. “Please.”

Hermione decided it was the ‘please’ that did it. She had never heard him plea for anything. Or it could be her own inherent curiosity. Or possibly even the hormones that were racing through her pregnant body.

Following his urging, she slithered down his body, moving and straddling his leg, using it to stimulate herself. She grasped him in his hand and, using the lubrication from her own body that was still there, tentatively moved her hand up and down.

“Firmer,” he gasped, “and faster.”

She complied until his hands in her hair tugged.

“Stop, too much,” he panted.

Hermione sat up, her moist cleft rubbing against his slightly bent knee. He was breathing heavily through his nose and his face was scrunched up in an effort to stave off orgasm. She looked down at her hand and studied what she was clasping. A small smile flittered across her lips and she bent back down, her tongue darting out and sweeping across his leaking head.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered.

She rolled her eyes to look up at him. His face was slack and his eyes were wide with wonderment. With an evil smile, Hermione opened her mouth and swallowed him whole.

Severus Snape whimpered.

Following the memories of whispered conversations she had overheard from her dorm mates, Hermione began to swipe her tongue from side to side, keeping as much of him as possible encased in her mouth.

Suddenly, she was pulled away, thrown onto her back and roughly penetrated. Her legs rose up and wound around the bony hips that were now slamming into her. She arched her back and his thrusting cock hit that spot, causing her legs and womb to spasm. Nothing else but a small gasp signalled that a world of pleasure had exploded inside her.

Severus continued to thrust, holding off his own orgasm so to fully experience her body convulsing around his. When she peaked a second time, he finally let go, releasing himself with a shout before collapsing on her. He felt her hands gently run down his back and pat his bottom.

“Off,” she muttered sleepily.

He rolled off and, keeping her in his arms, curled himself around her, burying his nose in her frizzy mane of hair.

“’sokay,” he heard her mutter sleepily. “I know where cup is…”

Suddenly, Severus Snape was snapped out of his post-coital bliss and wide awake.

*~*~*~*~*~

A/n –Title is from a Tori Amos song – Taxi Ride.

Aconite is also known as wolfsbane and monkshood. The folk name for Wolf’s Bane is Dumbledore’s Delight. That’s all from HP Lexicon, in case you think I’m really smart (including the different spellings, by the way).

I’m sooooooooo sorry about the long wait. My computer died and I lost a lot of stuff, not just my fanfic. So life has been a bit of a catch up!! This chapter had been written (completely differently) but I lost it, so I had to go over everything. However, things are all coming together. I estimate about another eight chapters (but considering how carried away I get – who knows).

Also, as I’m not posting on WIKTT anymore, I’ll be sending out updates for those on AFFnet. Just leave your email in a review and I’ll add you to the list (yes, I’ve figured out how to do it).

Once again, to my patient betas – I don’t know what else to say? Thanks. Extra big thanks to JuneW who makes me laugh. A lot.