A Rock and a Hard Place

As the students bent over their cauldrons, Trudy stared helplessly at the Professor. "Severus," she thought. "I have to remember to call him Severus."

She needed to buy a dress at the least. Did wizards exchange rings at a wedding? She didn't know. She wished she had someone to ask, but Severus was the only one, and there was no opportunity. She supposed she should go to Hogsmeade as soon as possible to make some purchases.

She glanced out the dungeon windows. Pale light filtered in, bleached, weak and cold. The sun, a lemony yolk in a powder sky, was already rising to its zenith. This was a double period, she knew. Her gaze skittered over the bent heads. There was the bushy hair of the Granger kid, the carroty head of the Weasley boy and the pleasantly mussy hair of Harry Potter. As if he felt her looking at him, Potter raised his head. For a minute the green color of his eyes stunned her. She thought fleetingly of how pretty his mother must have been if she had eyes like those. And then she thought suddenly of Lord Voldemort, and she had a strange feeling that from time to time, Lord Voldemort saw through those eyes, or perhaps, that Harry Potter saw through Lord Voldemort's. The insight was abrupt and strong, and just as quickly, passed away. Trudy jerked her eyes away.

And then someone in black was standing over her. "Ms. Mills," the Professor said.

Trudy found herself staring up at him. "Yes, Professor?" Her voice sounded breathy, even to herself.

"Please allow Potter to see to his experiment..." Trudy knew some cutting remark was to follow. She stared hard and expressionlessly up at her new fiance's face, searching for some light in those dark eyes. The Professor seemed to hesitate briefly. Then he turned to Harry Potter and added in a voice just above a whisper, "Potter?" The kid gave the Professor a look just short of a sneer. "We are not working with bezoars at the moment, so kindly take that one out of your robes. And Miss Granger? Please direct Mr. Weasley to the proper page in his text."

Trudy blinked. How had he known? She chanced a look at the three troublemakers and saw a stunned expression on their faces. "I told you we shouldn't do it," she heard the Granger kid mutter. The Professor was moving on, striding up the aisle.

Trudy had to talk to him. She glanced at the north corner. No, that would send the wrong message entirely. But...class would be long. And she could not interrupt him. She turned abruptly and went to the north corner to putter aimlessly with whatever she saw. Presently, she heard the Professor (Severus, she reminded herself severely) intone, "Ms. Mills, might you go to the potions cabinet to fetch some gilliweed?"

The class looked at her, and in that moment, Trudy knew that Severus had made use of the Time Turner. She noted that the Granger girl was not looking at her, but instead was looking at Severus, with a smug expression on her face.

"She knows," Trudy told Severus, with a nod in the Granger girl's direction.

He looked hard at the teenager. "McGonagall gave her a Time Turner some time ago--against all the rules," he said with some bitterness. "Spoiled gits." Trudy put a placating hand on his arm. He pulled her toward the potions cabinet and shut the door firmly behind them. Then he began undoing the tie of her robes. Trudy put her hands up to stop his.

"I just need to ask you some things."

His hands stilled. "You have second thoughts?" he said. His voice was toneless, but Trudy felt the invisible lash of his anger and resentment.

"N-no," she stammered, "I haven't changed my mind at all." She felt him looking hard at her. "I just need to ask--do I buy you a ring? I mean--" She subsided into silence as her blush deepened.

After a moment, he said, "You may."

"Do I get--" she couldn't finish.

After a moment, he said with faint amusement, "You get a ring, yes."

"Then," she said, her blush still flaming, "I need to go into Hogsmeade and get a dress."

"Why not use something you already own?"

She shook her head vehemently.

"Very well. I can advance you--"

"No! I have money. It shouldn't be yours. But I'll need to leave now." To get an advance from Dumbledore, she thought, but didn't say aloud.

"You don't have money," he said impatiently. "I know what you make and when the next payday is."

"I can get some." She raised her chin and stared at him defiantly.

After a moment, he said, "Very well."

Trudy turned to go.

"Ah. Ms. Mills."

She turned back around with trepidation. Snape was holding something out to her. The jar was marked "gilliweed".

"You recall I asked you for gilliweed? It would be most unusual if my assistant were to enter my potions closet and...disappear."

"Y-yes," Trudy stammered. She tried to take the jar, but he held it fast.

"I exit first. When I am at my desk and have turned the Time Turner, then you exit. Give me the gilliweed. Ask permission to depart to collect more of it. And go. Do you understand?"

Trudy nodded, fearful that she would forget. She kept looking at his long fingers, remembering what they could do to her. What if one were inside her, stroking...? She shuddered. Snape looked at her sharply. Then he pulled her close and put aside the jar.

Trudy felt those long fingers gathering up her robes from the back.

*

Sometime later, feeling sated and sore, Trudy exited the potions closet. Snape had already gone out to the class. When she emerged from the closet, he was looking over some parchments.

“Professor,” she said. Snape did not raise his head.

“Yes, Ms. Mills?” he said in bored tones.

“The gilliweed supply has become a bit low. May I have your permission to collect more?”

“Yes, Ms. Mills,” he drawled, with casual contempt.

Trudy departed.

Getting a pay advance from Dumbledore wasn't difficult. He merely extended her the galleons with paternal smile. Trudy took them, feeling grateful and sheltered, but then his smile seemed to her to become slightly stilted and his teeth seemed to be made of iron. “Y—you're not as kind as I thought,” she blurted out.

Dumbledore started to speak, but checked himself, mastering his expression. “Your powers are not to be taken lightly,” he said without particular emphasis.

Trudy was horrified with herself. “I'm so sorry, Professor,” she stammered. “I didn't mean—I'm just so sorry.” She fled the office.

All the way to Hogsmeade she berated herself for her lack of control and harsh thoughts. When she stumbled into the dress shop, she was completely flummoxed.

Madam Peregrina glanced up, her mouth full of pins. She was fitting a robe on a dressmaker's form. "Yes, Miss--Ms.--er--"

"Mills," Trudy forced out a whisper, then cleared her throat, still berating herself in her head.

"Oh, yes. Ms. Mills. Snape's--that is, Professor Snape's visitor." From the false cheeriness of the woman's tone, Trudy deduced that "visitor" could stand in for "mistress" or "lover", not to say "whore". Trudy pasted a wobbly smile on her face.

"Yes, I need a new dress--robe, I mean."

"And what kind of robe might you be wanting?"

"Something nice. Not too expensive."

"For a ball?" Madam Peregrina said, frowning.

"No."

"A party?"

Trudy bit her lip.

"Oh!" And Madam Peregrina's expression changed completely into a genuine smile. "An assignation? Something secret, then?"

"Not--not exactly," Trudy stammered. She longed to share the exact nature of the occasion with Madam Peregrina, but she knew Snape would not like it. And besides... She glanced at Madam Peregrina, who had now put her pins aside. Trudy did not really know Madam Peregrina. If she told, the news might be all over Hogwarts within minutes. She racked her frozen brain for a plausible explanation. "My father's side of the family may visit me soon. I'd like to look--nice."

Madam Peregrina was visibly disappointed. "Well, I have some nice things here." She gestured broadly toward a rack of robes in dreary colors.

"None of that," Trudy heard herself saying. "Something a little more--" Madam Peregrina cocked her head, waiting. "--bright," Trudy finished lamely.

Madam Peregrina cast her the piercing gaze of a practiced gossip. "There is this," she said, gesturing toward the robe she had been pinning. It was clearly wedding robe, white, lavishly beaded and spangled--a robe, Trudy thought, suitable for the 19-year-old, pampered, rich belle of the ball.

"Not that," she said. She glanced around the shop.

"Now," Madam Peregrina said kindly, "I've always noted your eyes, love. They're distinctive."

Trudy wasn't sure what to make of that.

"What about something that brings out their color?" Madam Peregrina persisted.

Their color? As far as Trudy knew, they were blue with an ugly brown spot in one of them, making them mismatched.

Madam Peregrina pulled from the racks a lovely thing. Soberly cut, in buff with a subtle pattern of clear blue worked into it. A few minutes later, Trudy stepped out of the dressing room wearing it. It draped beautifully and had a collar of some soft, creamy material. Against that robe, her hair looked richer, her eyes brighter. And in even fewer moments, the robe was paid for, wrapped, and under Trudy's arm as she left the shop.

She went to another shop and agonized about a man's wedding ring. They came in all descriptions--platinum with a serpent set in it in emeralds, red gold with a diamond the size of a hazelnut winking at its center, yellow gold with rubies. At last Trudy chose an unadorned white-gold one. It seemed too plain, but she could not imagine Snape wearing the others.

Sometime later, clad in the new robe, she waited in Dumbledore's office. In her hand, she clutched the ring, fearful she would lose it. At last, she slipped it onto her own finger, just for peace of mind.

Snape appeared. He looked the same as ever, wearing his black robes and black cloak, although his appearance was smarter than usual. Trudy was not sorry he looked the same. She had not wanted a fuss and hadn't expected him to look different on his wedding day. She had wanted her new robe, and she had it. She was content.

Dumbledore rose and led them through an abbreviated ceremony. She put the plain ring onto Snape's finger, and he slid a matching ring with a scattering of fiery pinpoint diamonds on it onto hers. A small ember of warmth flared in Trudy's middle. After the service, Dumbledore served some very fine firewhiskey, which burned pleasantly down Trudy's throat and then buzzed pleasantly inside her head. A great knot deep inside her unclenched. She felt easier than she had in too long. Her smile came more readily, and she could tell that her fiance--no, husband--relaxed as well.

After a few minutes of talk, she and Snape thanked Dumbledore for his service and walked silently back to Snape's rooms.

When the door thudded closed behind them, Trudy said, "What will we tell the students?"

Snape untied his cloak. "We shall tell them that we are married. You shall stop being my assistant."

"Won't it look bad to the, uh, the Dark Lord?"

Snape's fingers slowed on the fastenings of his robes.

"I mean," Trudy went on, "I don't know that he'll like me. And maybe that would affect you." Then she noticed his stillness. "Should I know more?"

"No," he said brusquely.

He turned to her and began to undo her robes.

"I like my ring," she said softly. "I didn't know it would match."

"Nor did I."

"Maybe we match more than we think," she offered tentatively.

"We may." He opened the front of her robes and fixed a glittering gaze on what was exposed. His fingertips brushed the black lace of her bra. Clever fingers cupped and gently pinched. And then one hand slid deeper into the robes, past the black lace panties, opening her, pressing just inside her and then moving.

Trudy's legs fell open. Snape pushed between them, then impatiently lifted her slightly off the ground and bore her backwards to the bedroom. The lace panties came off, and he slid in, just past the head. Trudy heard herself gasp. Those knowing fingers were opening her, pressing her most sensitive spot flush against the shaft of his cock. She felt herself tighten around him. And then her legs were open as wide as they would go, and she was climaxing around that hard pole, not caring what she looked or sounded like. When she finished, he pushed the rest of his shaft into her and began moving inside her. As his cock got heavier and thicker, Trudy felt herself building toward another climax. He made a small sound, and his cock got enormous inside her for an instant, then she knew he was coming, and she opened her thighs wide again, and let release and oblivion take her.

Sometime later, in the dark, Trudy said, "Will things change?"

"It always changes."

"Will it be good?"

He was quiet. Then he said, "I hope so."

"Are there things I need to know?"

"Not now."

"Tell me something good."

She felt his fingertips in her hair. "We won't need to use my potions closet any more."

Trudy smiled in the dark. Her hand was on her new husband's chest. The ember of hope flared in her chest again, and she began to drift toward sleep.

** END **