Who Do You Want?

Who Do You Want


Chapter Two
\"Just The Two Of Us\"


Disclaimer: Ah yes, mustn\'t forget to mention that our darling Miss Jo (Rowling) owns it all, including characters, places, book rights, movie rights, a big fat house, lots of money. You get the gist.
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\"Loneliness,\" Hermione said.


With that one word, Severus felt the world shatter about him, falling away in a thousand shards. His face became momentarily unguarded as thoughts long suppressed came welling up inside of him. He remembered feelings of aching despair and deep regret that he was so young when he had chosen the Dark Mark. It was the brand on his left forearm that would forever keep him segregated from any woman he deemed worthy, any woman who was not a supporter of Voldemort.


Loneliness was something Severus had dealt with before. For many years he battled it, as a schoolboy, and as a young Death Eater. When he became a spy for the Light, he knew he could not risk loving another for fear that that person would be used against him. After the Dark Lord fell the first time, he was branded as a former follower, and no woman who he could respect would look at him twice. And since the Dark Lord\'s second rise, he had learned to live in isolation for so long, he didn\'t know how to exist otherwise.


This slip of a girl had managed in a moment of his own self-pity to hit at the core of his being. He wanted to lash out at her, to verbally tear her apart so that she would never speak to him again, but the fatigue that had crept into his body at the moment of her question won out.


Instead, he responded, \"You confuse loneliness with being alone.\" It was a hollow answer.


Severus was lonely; he had been so for years, but he accepted this as his fate in life. He had learned to bury his emotions and stop them from clouding his mind. The ache inside of him never really went away; being constantly in pain, he had just learned to ignore it, gaining a tolerance for it.


\"You must have been lonely once?\" Hermione spoke with only a slight slur. \"Does the ache ever go away? Or does it eat you from the inside out, slowly gnawing at you until you\'re bitter and cynical?\"


He thought she was referring to him. Well, if she thought of him as bitter and cynical, then he thought she just might be right. He was the Potions Master, a man no woman wanted; students had contemplated cutting off their own wand arm than do detention with him — the ugly, greasy git who swoops down on his students like some terrifying bat.


\"You\'re not lonely; you\'re drunk.\" He supposed it was the alcohol making her maudlin. \"Weasley and Potter are downstairs. I\'m sure they\'ll be more than willing to give you company. They are seventeen-year-old boys, after all. A few minutes with them in a closet, and you won’t be lonely anymore.\"


It was a low stab, but he wasn\'t feeling charitable towards anyone at the moment.


She snorted. \"You\'re right. You\'re not a mind reader.\"


Severus turned his head to glare at her. She didn\'t meet his gaze, but continued to stare at the fire.


\"You think that a bit of groping is enough to satisfy me? You\'re as bad as the rest of them,\" she sneered at him. It wasn\'t like Hermione to sneer at anyone, especially a former professor, but the caustic emotions inside of her had removed her gentler side for the moment. \"Groping — that\'s all boys want. A pretty face with big tits and an empty mind, who is willing to listen with bated breath as they prattle on about Quidditch.\"


Her voice was now dripping with seething anger as she made sugary mock conversations. “ ‘Oh yes, Ron, that\'s soooo interesting about the Wronski Feint.’ ‘Oh, please tell me more about your Firebolt, Harry.’ ”


She slammed down her drink. “It\'s a curse. No one wants a witch with a brain who can think for herself. They want kowtowing bits of arm candy who\'ll spread their legs as the slightest request, listen endlessly about Quidditch, and never tax their minds with something so simple as a real conversation.\"


Angry-and-bitter Miss Granger was far more interesting than know-it-all Miss Granger. It almost amused him to see her like this.


In her drunken state, Hermione continued to spew forth her darkest emotions, not viewing Severus as the callous ex-Death Eater and sneering former professor, but some random warm body at which to rant.


\"It\'s not like if my tits were bigger or my brain emptier that Harry or Ron would look at me anyway. I\'m certainly not pretty at all,\" she bemoaned. \"They\'ll only ever think of me as their personal walking, talking library. I\'m a living encyclopaedia to them and everyone else who knows me; nothing else.\"


Severus had never assessed her looks as a man, but in the light of the situation, he studied her for a moment and found that she was not pretty in the sense of most women. Instead, she had a natural beauty about her. She was neither glamorous nor striking, but she was indeed very pleasant to look at, pretty in an unconventional way. It was the really attractive ones that intimidated Severus, as he knew he was no beauty himself. He always figured if he ever did find a woman, she would probably only be with him because she herself was so ugly, that no other man would be interested in her.


\"Besides, I don\'t want Harry or Ron,\" Hermione added bitterly. This surprised Severus. He had always figured she would probably date or marry one of them, and have a brood of children to further torture him when it came time for the next generation to attend Hogwarts.


\"Then who do you want?\" he found himself asking, not really caring about her answer. She would most probably tell him about some handsome boy who did well on his N.E.W.T.s.


Hermione finally met his eyes and was unnerved by her sudden realization of one person who she did want. Had she been sober, her body would have jumped from the shock that ran through her mind at the discovery of her ideal man.


Changing the subject quickly, she said, \"I still can’t believe Ron figured it out. The answer was there all along. I was there when it first happened, but I never put it together. I really am a fucking dunce. Wormtail and his wizard\'s debt to Harry, from our third year. Had you been awake when it happened instead of unconscious on the floor in the Shrieking Shack, you would have pieced it together, too. All we needed was Harry to call on his debt to Wormtail years ago, and there would be a lot more people alive today. I\'m an idiot.\"


She closed her eyes. A silent stream of tears began to escape the corners of her eyes, as she thought of the friends who had died because she failed them. Hermione did nothing to wipe away her tears, ignoring them as they streaked down her cheeks, their wet trails glistening in the glow of the firelight.


Severus empathized with the girl. He had known about Pettigrew\'s debt to Harry, but like Hermione, figured the Animagus rat was too unscrupulous to honor it despite the magical ties that bound him to Harry. It was part of the reason why he was upstairs like Hermione, seeking to run away from his own shortcoming of helping the Order to bring about the end of Voldemort sooner.


\"Then I\'m an idiot, too.\" He wasn\'t sure what possessed him to say that, but it was now out there.


Perhaps it was the spark of compassion for her, or maybe it was the fact that earlier that evening he had said the same thing to himself over and over again in his head. The youngest and dimmest Weasley boy, whose temper always dictated his actions, had figured it all out. Pettigrew took away Voldemort\'s wand so Harry could finish him off. Even children\'s fairytales were more complicated in their climaxes, with some ancient curse being lifted, or some trial or test completed, before the handsome hero could receive the weapon to defeat the evil one. Even that namby-pamby Prince Charming had a harder time finding his Cinderella. No; in reality, the key to Voldemort’s defeat came down to just a simple wizard\'s debt. Ron’s embarrassingly simplistic plan did not require heroics or brilliance, from Severus or Hermione.


Still, while Severus knew Hermione was no more an idiot than he was, they both felt compelled to admit it to the other.


\"You\'re not an idiot. You\'re brilliant and cunning,\" Hermione shouted at him, the fire in her eyes burning through her drunken haze. \"You have a mind that few could even grasp half of what you say. You…\" she trailed off.


Taken aback, he was intrigued by the sudden fierceness of her convictions about him. He wanted to know just what fueled that little outburst. It was his curious nature that had led him to become a Potions Master, unlocking the secrets of the universe with a simple mixing of ingredients. Now that same curiosity was going to help him unlock the mystery behind Miss Granger\'s statement.


Remembering how she changed the subject earlier, he brought the topic back up, hoping there might be a root to her line of thinking.


In a silky voice he used when questioning students about simple matters, he asked, \"You never did answer my question before. If you don’t want Weasley or Potter, who do you want?\"


Hermione stared at the glass in her hands as if she could find the answer to his question through divination of the dissolved sugar cube at the bottom of the glass. Instead of reading tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup, perhaps the slice of lemon in the champagne glass would foretell her just who she was looking for, although she knew her ideal man was sitting across from her this very instant.


He had a mind to match her own. He wasn\'t given to sentimental trivialities, and he could converse on a wide variety of subjects without ever once bringing up Quidditch. Coddling her was not in his nature, nor would he think she wasn\'t able to take care of herself. Unlike Harry and Ron, Severus would never bend to her demands through sheer force of her will and reason. But the reality of it all brought her back from her reverie. He had been her professor until a few months ago. He was old enough to be her father, and he would never think of her in any way other than Potter\'s friend and a young girl full of silly questions. Most of all, he would never think of her in the capacity of a mind willing to grow and learn with him, or think of her as a woman capable of intense desires.


\"I want…I want someone I can respect. Someone I can hold a conversation with, whose eyes won\'t glaze over when I mention Arithmancy, who won\'t chide me for enjoying the sheer pleasure of gaining knowledge and wisdom.\" Someone like you. \"Someone who can see me beyond the books, who sees me not as some asexual creature but as someone who needs passion. Passion for life, for learning, for…,\" flesh. \"I need a man who can… It\'s no point in wishing, since I\'ll never have anyone like that.\"


She wanted to look at him, but she knew one glance would betray her thoughts to him. Her Gryffindor courage had left her. Hermione couldn\'t bear the brunt of a sarcastic remark or scathing insult from him, so she continued to stare down at her empty glass, wishing it held more alcohol in which to drown herself. He would call her idea a silly schoolgirl crush, but she knew it wasn\'t. It was the revelation of a woman who knew what she needed in life from a companion.


Severus studied her and wondered why the fates had been so cruel to him. Here was a young woman who sought everything he had to offer, yet he knew that it could never be. He was too old and too ugly, and an ex-Death Eater. As a professor, he had heard the students’ comments about him when they didn\'t think he could hear them, all the very same nasty remarks that haunted him from his own days as a Hogwarts\' student. The tauntings from Black and Potter still echoed in his ears.


On a lark, the alcohol surging through her system finally giving her bravery beyond what any Gryffindor could muster, Hermione ventured out into uncharted territory. \"If I could find a man with a mind half as sharp as yours, I would snatch him up in an instant.\"


It was the most dangerous statement Hermione had ever made. She had laid herself out bare and ready for Severus Snape’s verbal whip to come bearing down on her, so she braced herself for the worst, ready to take whatever he could dish out to her in cold contempt.


Instead, he continued to stare at her, flummoxed by her comment. Was this a thinly veiled admission that she wanted him, or — more probable — a drunken statement that she found the company of her contemporary males to be sorely lacking in substance.


Severus decided to wait it out and see. Being a Slytherin meant never showing your hand until you were certain of a favorable outcome.


\"And what would you do if you found such a man?\" he asked, keeping his question vague.


\"I\'d spend my days with him talking, debating everything. We would discuss Ancient Runes, the paradox of Time Turners, the beauty of Potions.\" Hermione made sure to have a fall of hair cover her face as she talked. \"I would make love to him until he wept.\"


Severus swallowed hard at that last comment, although Hermione did not notice it.


\"I don\'t know what Ginny sees in Draco,\" Hermione went on, following a different tangent, trying to draw Snape to the conclusion she wanted him to finally reach. \"Sure, he may be physically beautiful, but I don\'t see that. I still see the sneering, arrogant git, and in my eyes that makes him ugly.\"


\"So, your ideal man has to be handsome, then. You\'re just as shallow as the men you deign to sneer at,\" Severus said scathingly. If she found Malfoy to be less than appealing, no doubt she would think him the most hideous creature for all his cruel remarks over the years. He inwardly snarled at her attempts to follow her heart where knowledge was concerned.


\"I never said that,\" she shot back. He had misinterpreted her opinion, and she needed to be a little more forward and daring in her comments. \"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Never was there a more truer statement.\" Her voice was faint and wistful, as if she had lost something long ago and was remembering it with bitter sweetness.


Just what beauty was there to behold in Severus Snape? Nothing, he had told himself many times before. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. He was a burnt-out shell of a man who would become even more bitter and sour as the years passed by; he was a freak of nature left to roam the dungeons of Hogwarts, growing more sinister as time passed.


Lost in his own misery of the empty future that lay ahead, he didn\'t notice Hermione get up and stand next to him.


It wasn\'t until she spoke that he noticed she had moved. In a voice of reverence, she looked down at him and said, \"You\'re beautiful.\"


He couldn\'t fathom her declaration. In an effort to avoid feeling anything that might rip a new hole in his soul, he said with a sardonic sneer, \"You\'re drunker than I thought, and you\'re a liar.\"


She dropped to her knees next to him and looked at him longingly. She had gone too far, but was beyond caring. Hermione had stepped off the cliff and was determined to fly. If that meant a messy death for her heart when it hit the earth, then so be it. She now knew that he was all she ever looked for in a man; and if she couldn\'t have him, she was willing to let her heart go up in flames from his rejection. There would never be another who could test the limits of her mind, not another wizard out there who could appreciate her love of knowledge; and she was willing to gamble it all in this one attempt.


\"I may be drunk, but I am not a liar. It just took me five champagne cocktails to see through the haze of my preconceived notions of you. Now I see you for the man you are — intelligent, brave, witty, strong and noble.\" Her voice was steady.


\"It\'s a wonder that you\'re even standing at all after drinking that much. Now I know you\'re really drunk. You\'ll wake up in the morning with the worst hangover and regret ever saying these words to me. You\'ll go back to hating me as the \'greasy git\',\" he spat at her.


\"No, I won’t. Even sober, I wouldn\'t regret saying these things,\" she insisted. Hermione pulled out her wand and said, \"Sobrietus!\"


She felt the world come crashing back to its non-spinning plane and saw Severus Snape looking at her, his face as impassive as stone.


\"I\'m sober now, and I still meant every word that I said.\" The slight slur had disappeared from her speech, and the clear glint was back in her eye. \"I still think you’re beautiful.\" She reached out one hand, letting her hand caress his cheek as she pulled back a lock of his hair that covered one of his beautiful obsidian eyes.


That one statement and simple gesture stripped Severus of many layers of armor he had covered himself with over the years. Someone as attractive as this young woman was showing him gentle affection, declaring her tender feelings for him. His heart was raw and unstable after being ignored for all these years, and Hermione\'s affectionate act had reawakened the ache in him as it tore through his soul.


Trying to recover before she had a chance to reject him in the light of day and after the celebrating had subsided, he shot back, \"How could you ever find someone as ugly as me beautiful.\" He could have come back with a better remark, but he was off-balance by this young woman next to him.


\"But you are,\" she whispered. Hermione brought her head close to the arm of the chair where Severus\' hand lay, and she brushed her cheek tenderly against the back of his hand.


His breath hitched at the sensation of her soft skin rubbing his hand. It was an intimate act of gentleness that left his mind in a tailspin. This wasn\'t happening. No woman ever wanted him; no one ever looked at him like Miss Granger was looking at him now, with her upturned eyes searching for some reply.


\"I\'m snide and sarcastic,\" he stated.


\"Not many people can appreciate your dry wit,\" Hermione murmured as she kissed the knuckle of his index finger.


An electric shock ran up his arm and straight to his brain. The sensation almost made his eyes flutter, but he could not look away from the sight of her placing her lips against his skin, as if she was breathing life into a butterfly.


\"I was a Death Eater.\"


\"We all have made choices we regret later in life. All we can do is move on and learn from our mistakes.\"


With her lips slightly parted, she kissed the knuckle on his middle finger. He felt her warm breath trickle over his skin, sending the hairs on his arm to stand upright.


He was losing ammunition to fight her as his brain began to slowly dissolve under her simple touch.


\"My nose is big.\" It was all he could come up, with considering it had been the first time in almost two decades a woman had willingly touched him, besides Madam Pomfrey — and that was for medical purposes only.


She gave him a small smile. \"Compared to my uncle’s nose, yours is positively petite. Besides, you know what they say about men with big noses.\"


Hermione kissed the knuckle on his ring finger, letting a tiny amount of moisture from her mouth baptize his skin. She withdrew her mouth and gently blew on his finger, letting him feel the cool sensation of air chill the skin where her mouth had just been.


His breaths were starting to become short and labored. The idea she implied with that last statement destroyed the notion that she didn\'t want to have sex with him. The blood in his brain began draining from his head and to his groin, where a long forgotten feeling in him stirred. Arousal, desire, lust — base emotions he deemed long dead in him sprang forth like Fawkes from the ashes; and began a searing path from his mind, past his heart, and to the now growing erection in his trousers.


\"I\'m too old for you.\" He couldn\'t find much to contradict her attraction to him, but he persisted, knowing his heart was treading with weak knees, trying to walk for the first time in years. How his heart wanted to run, but he restrained it out of the fear she would ultimately reject him.


She kissed the knuckle of his little finger and let her lips rest there for a moment.


The warmth of her skin radiated off her, warming his hand as its muscles twitched with anxiety of her persistence.


\"Nonsense,\" she replied with a murmur, \"I wouldn\'t care if you were forty years older than me. It\'s your mind that turns me on. Besides, girls my age in the Muggle world have married men far older than you.\"


He knew their age difference was a weak argument. Even in the wizarding world, men much older than him had arranged marriages to girls as young as her.


She turned his hand over so his palm was facing up. With a single finger, she traced an invisible line from the pad of his middle finger through the palm, and stopped at his wrist.


Severus felt his breath shudder and his eyes momentarily close. A simple touch had never seemed so erotic to him until now. She was caressing him, and pulling him closer to the shore with her song based on touch and words. He would crash upon her cliffs he if did not shut her out.


\"My hair is greasy,\" he muttered weakly. Now he was clutching at straws.


\"Nothing that some Muggle shampoo couldn\'t fix,\" she purred, knowing he was melting to her touch, judging from the rasping sounds escaping from his mouth.


She lifted his arm so his elbow rested on the arm of the chair. She held his hand in hers and brought his palm to her face, then nuzzled her cheek into his palm, letting him feel her skin as she gazed into his eyes.


Gone was the sneer and contempt; the visage before her now was filled with wonder and awe. She saw his shock that she could find him attractive, disbelief that she could want him, apprehension that he would fall under her spell.


\"Yellow teeth,\" he croaked out, barely able to speak.


\"There are teeth whitening charms, if you\'re that concerned.\"


She moved her face from his hand and brought one long slender finger of his to her lips and kissed the pad gently. She marveled at his pale hand that could move with undeniable grace, able to brew potions that could heal or kill. Hermione opened her mouth slightly and took the tip of his finger into her mouth and suckled it gently, running her tongue around the digit, noting the smoothness of the flesh and neatly trimmed nail. His finger had a clean taste, slightly tinged with salt. She let her eyes close, concentrated on giving this tiny bit of him in her mouth all her attention, and gave the faintest whimper.


The suction created from her mouth went straight from his fingertip to his cock, and it felt like she was pulling on him there as well. He shut his eyes tightly from the overwhelming pleasure of it. The blatant idea of her mouth doing this to his now raging erection made him almost grimace from the intensity of it. He was almost undone by visions of her curly brown hair wrapped around his fingers, and her head bobbing up and down between his legs.


\"Why?\" was his last protest.


Hermione stopped sucking on his finger, but let it continue to rest against her lower lip as she spoke. \"You of all people should know that the mind is the most powerful sexual organ there is. I didn\'t know it until tonight, but you are what I\'ve been looking for. You’re a man who will not bend over backwards just because I ask him to. You have a backbone, a brilliant mind, sharp wit. You don’t know how sexy that all is. I\'ve seen most men become spineless and weak when they become involved with a woman, never standing up to her slightest whims. It disgusts me. I don’t want a man to cater to me; I want him to be my equal. You would never be spineless; you\'re too strong for that, and that makes you all the more desirable to me.\"


She was right, and he couldn\'t deny it. He would never bend to her will. He would debate and make a counterpoint to her every point, but she was the sort of person who was willing to embrace that in a man instead of becoming infuriated by it.


He still had no answer for her. Every idea he would hope to bring up to drive her away, she countered with her own.


Bringing her hand up to his face, she cupped his cheek and brushed his cheekbone with her thumb.


Looking at him with an intensity that could melt tungsten, she said in a lust-choked whisper, \"You never mentioned your eyes.\"


He was slipping down the mountainside into her valley. His hands and feet could find no purchase against the crumbling hillside, and he found himself tumbling faster and faster towards the bottom.


His head was spinning. Each touch she gave sent another jolt through his system that was as intense as the Cruciatus Curse, but where the curse only gave pain, the pleasure she gave him ripped through his body, setting it afire.


\"What about my eyes?\" He could barely keep them open.


\"I\'m lost in them,\" she replied as she leaned forward over the arm of the chair.


He was still so uncertain, but he could no longer resist. The siren had played her sweet tune, and he now was willingly led to a certain fate. His heart would be dashed upon the rocks when she would spurn him, but he no longer cared. He had yearned for a woman\'s touch for so long, that he had forgotten how sweet it could feel.


Still reluctant and afraid to meet her lips, he felt her hand slip around the back of his neck and draw him towards her. He did not resist. She was the initiator, and he could not be blamed for trying to seduce her.


Their mouths were but millimeters apart. They let the space between them fill and mingle with the scent of each other — the hint of warm leather about him, and the delicate scent of peach mixed with sweet yeast from her champagne.


Extending her neck, she let her lips brush against his and then let out a long sigh. It took every last ounce of Severus\' strength not to pull her into his arms and bruise her lips with his. No, this was far too erotic for him to stop her.


The anticipation building between them almost drove Hermione to drag him out of his chair and on top of her.


Sensing his hesitance, she pressed her lips against him and found them warm and soft, like living velvet. Wanting to taste him, she opened her mouth slowly and ran her lips along his lower lip, eliciting a low rumble in the back of his throat. It was a sensual sound that went from her ears straight to the growing white heat building between her legs. Wanting to hear that sound again, she gave a small whimper and again ran her tongue over his lower lip, then traced his upper lip with her mouth. She was not disappointed when the same growl came forth and made her whimper again from its sensual delight.


Opening her mouth wider, she let her tongue trace the edge of his teeth. Hermione could hear the ragged breaths coming from him and could no longer wait.


\"Kiss me,\" she sweetly begged, her mouth pressed lightly against his.


In one swift movement, he pulled her onto his lap. His mouth crashed down upon hers, demanding her mouth as his tongue drove into her and tasted her ambrosial sweetness.


In that moment, both of them were lost in a sensation of flying and spinning. She felt drunker now than in the deepest pit of her inebriated stupor earlier. The heat that their bodies gave off could have instantly burned the wood still crackling in the fireplace. Every nerve was alive with the want and need for their bodies to be together, touching each other.


He wrapped one arm around her back to support her, crushing her chest against his, feeling her breasts pressed against his chest; his other hand wound its way up the side of her smooth neck to bury itself in the soft tangle of her hair. Her legs dangled over the arm of the chair. Her mouth was willing to accept him, and he never thought that two mouths in such a simple act could elicit such delight in a body, his body. Never had such desire been reciprocated to him, and now he felt himself consumed by her desire for him. It was paradise, and the gates of Elysium could promise no greater pleasures that what was in his arms at that moment.


Hermione felt herself lifted by his great hands onto his lap; she fell into him, willingly waiting to be devoured. She opened her mouth to allow his tongue to delve into her; she was lost in the rapture of it, her own tongue working of its own volition to lap at his tongue, drinking in his taste of berries and warm honey.


She felt the hardness of his chest against her own and pressed herself against him to feel him even more. The feeling of his hand sliding up her neck and into her hair above the nape of her neck sent a river of chills through her body, and she gave a lingering groan to express her desire that he keep doing this with her.


Her hands had found their way to his hair. She raked her fingernails through his scalp, noting that his hair was not greasy so much as it was very thick and straight. It was soft despite its weight, like heavy threads of silk, pulling through her fingers as her nails ran across his scalp. She felt the shuddering of his body and wondered if it was because of the kiss or her fingers in his hair, so she ran her nails from the nape of his neck up though to the crown of his head and felt him buck underneath her.


Hermione was unable to continue her ministrations, as she found herself breathless in a soul-devouring kiss that made time cease to exist. Her entire universe had been reduced to a single chair containing two bodies, urgently pressed against each other in the desperate bid to fuse as one.


As he eased back from the kiss, Hermione was sure she never felt dizzier or drunker in her life. As desperate as his kiss began, it ended softly with his lips following the contours of her lips, as if memorizing them by touch alone.


Panting, trying to get some oxygen into her lungs and into her drowning mind, she trailed her mouth from his lips and started nipping the flesh along his jaw line, savoring the taste and smell of the musk that came from his skin.


He threw his head back against the chair to allow her better access. He had never been kissed like this before, and had never kissed any woman like he was right now. All preconceived notions of passion had been obliterated; a new definition was forming in his mind as she dragged her mouth along his jaw and down the length of his neck.


His breath was coming in short rasps as he felt her arse on his lap press against his erection. Her mouth sucked at the flesh along his jugular vein, eliciting more low growls that spurred her on. She brought her mouth back up his neck and found that spot behind his ear he never knew held such control over a person\'s body, turning him boneless with the soft grazing of her warm breath. When her mouth met that same spot, his world turned inside out and he felt himself at her mercy, not minding that he was not in control for once.


Hermione felt him submit to her kisses and wanted to please him more than anything in the world. She could feel his hardness pressing against her arse, and it frightened and excited her at the same time. She was still a virgin, but something in her desperately wanted him inside of her, filling her with that warm rigid flesh pressing against her bottom. Some base instinct told her to grind herself into him. It let him know that she wanted him in a way she never understood until that moment.


When Hermione ground her arse into him, he practically leapt off the chair with her still wrapped in his arms.


He pulled his face away from hers and looked at her. His face was filled with confusion, desire, reservation, and hope. In his arms, Severus saw a woman who wanted him completely. Her pupils dilated with lust and wanting, looking preternaturally large in the dim light of the room. She shone with desire for him; there was no mistaking it.


\"We can\'t,\" he breathed, unable to look away from her, their eyes locked.


\"Why not?\" she asked with disappointment brimming at the edge.


\"I\'d be taking advantage of you. You don’t know what you\'re doing,\" he began to ramble every excuse he could think of to help restrain himself against what his body was telling him to do. \"You\'ll regret this in the morning. It\'s too soon.\"


Her look softened, and he thought that he would weep from just the sight of her alone. It was too late; he was utterly vulnerable to her now, and he couldn’t stop the avalanche that was willingly dragging him down the mountainside towards her waiting warmth below.


\"You\'re not taking advantage of me,\" she told him, while placing a chaste kiss at his temple. \"I want you,\" as she kissed the lobe of his ear. \"I know exactly what I\'m doing. I have never been so certain of anything in my life,\" brushing her lips the length of his neck. \"I will never regret this as long as I live,\" her nose nuzzling the underside of his chin, as she noted the light stubble that had grown there since the morning. \"I can’t wait; it\'s not too soon. I\'m a consenting adult. Have you forgotten I have added enough months to my life with the Time-Turner that I\'m technically eighteen?\" She nibbled at his Adam\'s apple, making his eyes shutter against his will.


All valid points. He could brook no argument against her, as he wanted this as much as she did, but he had to be sure.


She sensed his reluctance once more and pulled her head back to gaze deeply into those eyes she had long found entrancing. \"I want this, but the question is, do you want this as well.\"


What did he want?


He wanted someone to share a life of books, research, companionship, and wild endless sex that would go on for days. She had voiced, with no prompting from him, that that\'s what she was looking for too. Could they really get past the age difference? He wasn\'t sure, but she seemed to not mind it a bit, so the Slytherin in him figured it shouldn\'t bother him either. It was common for men his age to bed or marry girls as young as her, so he chucked that concern aside and looked once more at the woman in his arms.


Already too exposed to the elements to go crawl back into his now too-small shell, he braved the new world ahead of him and replied, \"Yes, I want this, and I want you.\"


The floodgates opened, and their mouths were sealed together in a kiss that spoke pages from their hearts.


Hermione\'s moans became more urgent, as if she could not get enough of him to satisfy her from his kiss alone. Her hands became more frantic as they roamed his body and found it to be hard under the layers of fine wool and cotton.


She was no longer satisfied sitting in her current position. Without breaking their kiss, she shifted so she straddled him in his chair, bringing her body to face his. Once her knees were placed on either side of his thighs, she pressed her chest against his and slid her body down, letting his hardness press against the area between her legs.


When she finally settled onto his lap, she found the pressure of his erection against her even more arousing. She whimpered wantonly as she ground herself into him; the cloth of her jeans and knickers rubbed against her skin, creating delicious friction that urged her to continue.


His eyes rolled up into his head even though his eyelids were closed in this glorious kiss. She was rubbing him through their many layers of clothes and still Severus nearly lost control, because it had been years since there was any stimulation for him, besides by his own hand. The sensation of her hips grinding into him went from his erection, through his balls, up his spine, to the white haze of his mind and back down again. A low moan escaped his mouth through their kiss, which spurred her to go even slower, twisting her hips in circular motions before riding him some more.


His hands trailed from her thick mane and along her back, memorizing the sensuous curve of her sides and back before resting on her hips, where he splayed his large hands. She was soft and firm; the heat of her skin radiated through her clothes.


Unsure if he should, he plunged ahead and grabbed her hips, guiding her as she continued to rub against him.


When she felt his firm hands on her body, encouraging her movements to continue as he guided her, Hermione felt a flood of dampness between her legs, soaking her knickers. This made her groan even louder.


There was no doubt. Hermione wanted him inside of her tonight.


Panting in between kisses that had become frenzied, Hermione slowly pulled away and looked him in the eye. She saw that his face was filled with confusion and growing hurt, as though she had finally come to her senses and would run away from him.


\"Severus,\" she whispered tenderly. She was calling to him.


He was sure she would try to let him down gently before escaping from him into the night.


\"Severus, I need you. Please, my sweet Severus, please make love to me,\" Hermione asked slowly, as if this was the most important request she would ever make in her life.


He looked as if he would cry from the pain in him. She would never want him. She had to be told about his past, and then she would recant her request and look at him with disgust and revulsion once more.


\"Hermione,\" he choked out, looking away from her. He wanted her, and he was willing to make love to her and call her his own for all eternity, but not until she knew the truth. \"You really don\'t want me. Not once you know.\" He swallowed and took a steadying breath. \"As a Death Eater, I did…things. Things you\'ll hate me for. Things you have to know about me. If you never want to speak to me again once I tell you, I understand… completely.\"


When she saw that his face was shrouded in remorse and pain, she brought her hand up to his face and gently stroked it, letting him know that she was willing to listen, and would try to understand.


\"Many years ago, I did things beyond killing,\" he hoarsely confessed. \"I raped women, both Muggles and Muggleborns.\" He turned his face away from her, further waiting for her to strike him in disgust. Instead, she continued to gently stroke his cheek.


Hermione began silently crying for this man. It must have been unbearable for him at times, to look back and live with the knowledge of things he did when he was a very different young man. Instead of taking her to bed, he confessed his most grievous sins against women like her. It was violation in its most humiliating and brutal way, and yet he was willing to lose her to confess this. He didn’t have to tell her about his past, but he clearly wanted any future relationship with her to be built on honesty.


As the tears flowed down her cheeks, she leaned forward and kissed the top of his head. \"I know you must have done these things. I was already aware of that.\"


He looked up at her startled. That she knew of his past and still wanted him was beyond his comprehension.


She stroked his hair and pressed her lips against his hair. \"Do you think that Minerva didn\'t warn me about these things? Being Muggle-born, Harry\'s best friend, and a woman certainly put me at risk of being captured by Death Eaters. I know what they would have done if they had ever caught me. Minerva told me to prepare me for the worst, if it ever should happen.\"


He clung more tightly to her at the thought of some Death Eater torturing and raping her. Severus had witnessed enough through the years to fill thousands of Pensieves with the worst visions that no one should ever witness. It troubled him to remember his own acts of rape, committed before he realized that he no longer wanted to serve Voldemort or be ruled by prejudices.


\"Yes, I do know that at one time you did these things, but you are no longer that man,\" she continued. \"You no longer believe in the things that caused you to take the Dark Mark. You no longer want to do those things and haven’t for years. We all change, and you have as well. I want you for the person you are now, not twenty years ago.\"


Hermione sat back and looked at him. He hung his head in shame.


Tucking a hand under his chin, she lifted up his face and found it streaked with a few tears that flowed against his will. So much pain had been revisited tonight, with many new and long forgotten emotions surfacing.


Smiling at him with the grace of an angel, she said, \"And I still want you. I want you inside of me.\"


He grabbed her around her midsection and buried his face in her chest, sobbing violently. Pent-up emotions from years of frustration and anger, loneliness and desolation, self-loathing and desperation — all those came forth like a spring and spilled themselves on Hermione\'s shirt. Great sobs of grief came from his mouth as she whispered absolution in his ear.


When his tears ceased and he felt some of the great weight on his chest had been lifted, he looked at her through tear-pregnant eyes.


With the pad of her thumb, she wiped away the new tears, following the trail of her finger with kisses. As she reached his mouth, she dragged her thumb across it and gave him a tender kiss that was sweeter than a mother cooing to her sleeping babe. Her lips healed his heart like a soothing salve, as much as he would let himself be healed tonight.


The kiss seemed to linger for ages. When she pulled away from him, she smiled at him again.


\"Do you want me?\" she asked. \"Will you make love to me…tonight?\"


His breath hitched, and his eyes went wide. Despite what he had told her and regardless of his silly emotional outburst, she still wanted him. She wanted him now.


He answered her with a kiss that became emblazoned with passion and want.


Severus breathed, \"Are you sure?\" He hoped she would say “yes,” but he felt he should do the honorable thing for once and still ask her. So little of his life had been conducted with honor.


\"Yes.\" Her smile melted the last of the ice in his heart. Leaning forward, she kissed the tip of his nose.


He looked up at her, surprised that anyone would bestow such affection on his great beak.


Still straddling him, she rose up on her knees, placed her hands on his head, and brought his head to her chest, so she could stroke his hair.


He let her bury his face between her breasts, and noted the soft warmth that emanated from them. Nuzzling them for comfort, he let his face graze against them with longing. The lust that waned after his confession to Hermione now returned as he started to kiss the cloth-covered mounds. Severus inhaled deeply and caught the faint scent of gardenia, his favorite flower.


Too soon, he found Hermione pulling away from him to sit back on her heels as she continued straddling him in the chair.


She swallowed hard and pulled off the robe that hung open and loose about her shoulders, tossing it to the side. She gently guided his hands, placing them on the top button of her shirt; then, with her hands shaking slightly, she began pulling the bottom of her shirt out from her jeans.


Severus looked up into her face and saw that she was blushing. He had to ask; he had to know.


\"You\'ve never done this before, have you?\"


Hermione closed her eyes, her breaths coming a little shallower, and answered, \"No.\"


\"You\'re still a virgin.\" It wasn\'t a question; it was a statement.


\"Yes.\" She opened her eyes, and all fear in her fled at that moment, as she knew he would be careful, gentle, and patient. None of the boys her age showed these qualities, judging from the gossip she had heard in the Gryffindor common room and Hogwarts bathrooms, as other girls retold their own first encounters.


Severus was floored. Hermione was willing to give him the most precious and intimate gift between two lovers: her own virginity. How many had he taken against a woman\'s will before, and here she was giving it to him freely. Now he had reservations.


\"I don\'t deserve what you are willing to give to me,\" he said.


\"You deserve a woman who is willing to love you, and that is enough.\"


\"No one loves me.\" He looked like he would break.


\"I love you as a friend.\"


He looked at her with vexation. Was that all he was to her — a friend? Merlin knew he had only one person he could call friend, and even that person was more of a mentor and his Headmaster than a friend.


Hermione went on, \"But if you would let me, I want to love you more than that.\"


He felt his heart ache from the turmoil inside of him. Could he ever let someone love him? Was he himself capable of loving another?


\"I don\'t know how to love,\" he choked out.


\"And I don\'t know how to be in love. We can learn together, if you want.\"


He had wanted to be loved for so long, and now he was finally being given the chance. It frightened and exhilarated him at the same time. Ignoring the part of his mind that questioned everything, he leapt forward with his heart and kissed Hermione, giving her an answer. Yes, he was willing to learn.


Their kisses lingered for days, or so it seemed. She guided his hands back up to her shirt, and he found his own hands lacking in their usual grace as he tried to undo the buttons along her front. When the last button came undone, he pushed her back to view her.


The shirt parted down the front, and he saw a glimpse of skin that went from her neck to the waist of her jeans. The only fabric breaking the long line of flesh was the satin of her bra. Reaching his hands inside the folds of her shirt, he touched the skin around her ribs and noted the extraordinary softness under his hands.


Hermione sucked in her breath and let her head fall back from the sensation of his hands on her flesh. She let out a long sigh as his hands began to travel around to her back and up its length. Finally opening her eyes, she looked at Severus\' face, fixed in concentration as he caressed her body. He had the same intent look on his face when he was brewing the Wolfsbane Potion.


With her own hands, she pulled her shirt off one shoulder, then the other, letting the fabric slip down along her back before shaking her hands free of the sleeves.


His eyes swept over her breasts covered in pink satin, and at the expanse of skin before him. He reached up and let his hands graze her shoulders, down her arms to her fingertips, up the insides of her arms to the curve of her breasts, then back down to her stomach. Finally, his hands swept to her back and drew her to him so he could kiss the valley between her breasts.


Each stroke of his hands against her back elicited a soft whimper from her, urging him to continue, directing him unconsciously.


She wanted to feel his hands on her bare breasts, and wondered how it would feel, as no boy or man had ever touched them that way. Hermione needed to know how his mouth would feel on them.


As he continued to stroke and kiss her skin, she reached up behind her and unclasped her bra.


He noticed a shift in her breasts and looked up to see her pulling one strap down off from her shoulder, then the other. He sat back and let her remove her bra unhindered.


When she cast the piece of satin aside, he couldn\'t keep his mouth from hanging open slightly. Her breasts were perfect — creamy with dusky pink rosebuds in the center of each breast.


Hermione leaned forward, wrapped her hands through his hair, and brought his face to her chest.


An audible sigh escaped his lips just before he took one hardened nipple into his mouth.


The sensation of his mouth suckling at one breast while one of his hands played gently with the other breast made her moan loudly. The attentions from his mouth and hands went straight from her breasts into the pit of her being, as a fresh wave of her juices came forth making her feel even more aroused that she already was.


He continued to kiss and caress each breast lovingly for the longest while until Hermione could stand it no longer. She rose off his lap and pulled him up with her.


They were now standing in front of the chair, and Hermione looked up into his eyes before she reached for the top button of his long form-fitting jacket. Her fingers moved much quicker and truer than his hands did with her shirt. When his jacket was finally unbuttoned, she slowly slipped it off of him, feeling his frame. She started unbuttoning his fine white linen shirt much more slowly, kissing each little bit of newly exposed flesh. The kisses along his chest made Severus close his eyes and bury his hands in her hair.


Before she could reach his navel, a noise in the hallway outside startled them both. Reaching down with quicksilver speed, Severus retrieved his wand and cast a triple locking charm on the door and a silencing spell.


Hermione just finished fetching her own wand out by the time he finished his casting. She rose with her wand still clutched in her hand and clung to Severus, both looking at the door as the footsteps continued to approach, Hermione retreating behind him in case the spells were broken.


===================


A/N: Well, it was a quick leap from drunken loneliness to in each other\'s arms, but I just had to get them in the sack as soon as possible. Give me a break, I wrote this story on a ten-day writing bender. I just had to get the smut out before I burst.