Seduction by Design

Seduction By Design



Chapter Two

When he opened his eyes to the morning light only one word crossed his mind. DAMN!

He untangled himself from the musky and torn…how on earth…sheets and groaned at the movement. His body was stiff and aching from the previous night’s calisthenics, and despite the overall sated and satisfied feeling pulsating through his being, a horrible realization gnawed at his very core.

He had spent the majority of the past eight hours shagging Hermione Granger. Gryffindor Know-it-all! Harry Bloody Potter’s best mate! His former student! His apprentice! This was a nightmare of epic proportions. He was her senior by twenty years. This was so unbelievably inappropriate and utterly fucked up. He felt like an old lecher, a cradle robber, pedophile! He would have to tell Dumbledore that it was an inopportune blunder to waste her energies on assisting him when she should move onto bigger and better endeavors. He would push up her acceptance into a respectable Wizarding University where she could pursue Potions with a more…professional…Potion Master. He would tell her it was a mistake.

Merlin, hopefully he could manage to mask the massive smirk on his face when he did tell her. He had to give himself credit in spite of the circumstances; even he never anticipated that his stamina was quite at that level anymore. Granger may have been the seductress, but he highly doubted she would have expected him to hold on so long. He had the energy of his youth every time he took her, but the experience of a man his age when it came to a woman’s pleasure. He would have easily chastised another for such over-confidence, but he knew his strengths and his weaknesses well, and he knew how to pleasure women.

He watched her sigh in her sleep. She sprawled on her stomach, the sheet twisted around her middle leaving her upper back and arms free and the majority of those beautiful legs free. She looked too appealing in his bed; she looked too enticing in between his sheets. Granger had been a fierce lover, easily the most spirited and responsive he had ever been with. The same vitality she carried in the everyday was not overlooked in the bedroom. She wasn’t hesitant either – awaking him several times herself during the night, enticing him to hardness with her lips, her hands, her slick femininity. He could feel his lower body stir at the erotic memories and steeled himself to move away from the siren before he did something immature and regrettable.

It was all a mistake! A horribly unbelievably erotic mistake that he would probably regret forever and obliviate as soon as possible. Well, maybe not too soon. Maybe he would just obliviate her face.

He quietly slid off the bed and grabbed his clothing from the floor, hading straight for the bathroom to change. He did not think it wise to dismiss her without clothing on; Granger had too much talent at charms.

After he had straightened himself out somewhat, he opened the bathroom door and stepped forward to her sleeping body. He was about to clear his throat when she spoke. “It wasn’t a mistake, Severus.”

Bloody witch! “Don’t be stubborn.”

She rose up onto her elbows, turning her tired but sated face etched in disbelief towards him. “I’m being stubborn?! Why isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black.” She rolled her eyes. “You either need to grow up or lighten up Severus, because a mistake would have been one time, and if my memory serves me correctly, we made love eight times last night.” She held up eight perfect fingers and each finger was in and of itself a sinful recollection. The 1st time, against his chair, the 2nd time, him on top, the 3rd, her, the 4th against the headboard…

“The entire night was a grievous error on both parties, Miss Granger.” He informed her in a tone as cold as he could manage. “I am your master, you are my apprentice. Any intimacy you and I share shall be derived on the work we do together in the lab, and not from anything else. Aside from the moral issues involved, you and I are as unprofessional-”

“Severus,” She rose from the bed, loosely carrying the sheet around her body. She held out her other hand, pressed her hand against his chest. He wanted to back away, he really did, but the warmth from her fingers seemed to permeate the cloth of his shirt and vest. She tilted her face up to his, her lips swollen from his kisses, her hair tangled around her face and down her back, and he swore she looked like a goddess not fit for his plane of existence. She moved her mouth inches from his own, so close he could feel her breath upon his chin. “You are a very, very foolish man who seems to think he deserves misery and pain.” She was so close he could barely breathe, but she didn’t kiss him, she spoke again. “I am going to take a shower and get dressed and we will talk more later. You are welcome to join me, although we both know you won’t.” She moved back with an almost comical expression over her pretty features and picked up her jeans and tank top before starting for the bathroom leaving him speechless.

Just as she was about close the door when she spoke again. “Oh and I believe we were a little too preoccupied to recall informing Remus about his cure. Could you be so kind ?”

His eyes closed as he silently cursed her existence. In his hormonally charged state he had completely forgotten about the bloody potion. He stalked towards his desk, penned a quick note to Lupin and placed it in the beak of his owl, Osiris. The bird gave him a disparaging look of disapproval.

“Sod off. I don’t need cheek from you either.” He grumbled, sending the bird off.

He stormed down the hall to his lab and the potion in question, abandoned frivolously from the night before. This was why he chose to be so involved in his work and avoid emotional entanglements. His life’s ambition had been to be focused entirely on projects above people. Focus above dalliances. A potion was merely the answer to a riddle. It didn’t need love, it didn’t talk back, and it never asked questions. It was just a potion, a combination of ingredients chopped then stewed for any given period of time. Perhaps that is why so many people failed his class or dropped it by sixth year – it was all logic without sensation. There was black and white and little gray to cloud judgments.

She was going to be difficult, he already knew it.

He was examining the cure when she entered the lab. She had twisted her hair back and while she still wore those impossibly traitorous jeans, she had attempted propriety and transfigured her tank top into a modest long sleeve shirt. Her face was still flushed and she was smiling. Still. As if there was something comical about the entire situation. She looked like the cat that had eaten the mouse. He didn’t like it.

“It’s retained its color.” She replied, taking note in his apothecary’s journal.

“And texture. You were quite correct in your assumption.” He replied. “Now it’s time to test it. Pass me the hair sample.”

She leaned over to place it in his hand, her fingertips deliberately tracing his palm. “You’re welcome.”

He said nothing as he used tweezers to remove a sample hair he had the misfortune of cutting off Lupin’s head during his transformation. It had not been an easy task to track the werewolf down and stun it long enough to get the sample and escape unscathed. He removed one long, thick and wiry hair from the vital with silver tweezers and using an eyedropper, coated it with one single droplet of the purple potion. As the liquid was absorbed into the cuticle, it shortened, thinned and smoothed out almost instantaneously. He exhaled sharply, up until that point he had not realized he hadn’t breathed.

“Oh my God.” Hermione gasped. “It…actually worked.” She moved her lips but so sound came out. She was rendered speechless, for the first time in their affiliation. Well, if a miracle cure was all it took, he had better get to making more then.

“Stabilization was the first step. Once we could confirm the potion was past the volatile stage, a test is the next process. We will leave the test dormant for an hour to see if the effects will reverse.” He said, returning the vile to its holder. “Now as we wait for Lupin-”

“We shall talk about last night.” She interrupted.

He groaned. “Not in the lab.”

“Why not?” She asked. “I’ve fantasized about us in this lab.”

He felt a surge of lust rip through him at her blatant admission; he ignored it. It was not an easy task. “Please, refrain from inappropriate comments in my laboratory Miss. Granger.” He began to start a second batch of the potion, gathering ingredients. As he headed for his private stores, she was on his heels the entire time.

“Have you every thought about us, in here?” She asked, her tone low and deliciously inviting.

“No.” He retorted. Why was she pressing so incessantly? Had he lost his edge? Most people were usually to intimidated by him to even tell him what they ate for breakfast, let alone admit lurid fantasies in his workspace. He must have lost it. He made a mental note to made at least three students cry on Monday. That would help improve his spirits.

But Granger didn’t know when to shut her mouth. Naturally. “I thought of you, taking me in here.” She replied, leaning against the doorframe of his now tiny storeroom, her hands in her back pockets. “Hard and fast, shaking the shelves so that ingredients were everywhere. I’d come and scream so loud that bottles would break.” She sighed. “And you would be furious at me, for ruining your inventory. And afterwards, I’d clean it up only because I wanted to do it again.”

“That is ridiculous.” He retorted, gathering the last of his ingredients.

“Why?” She asked, taking several bottles from his hands.

“Because the mood would obviously be ruined if any ingredient spilled. For example Madonna’s Pinion. It would sear our skin. How very appealing.” He retorted, pushing past her as he left the tight confines of the horrible storeroom.

“It was just a fantasy.” She said.

“School girls have fantasies, Miss Granger. And they have them in the schoolyard and giggle with their school chums. This is a laboratory, not the schoolyard. If you wish to conduct yourself like a school girl, there are other places you could be right now.” His voice was chill. “Now shut up or go play in the Great Hall.”

“Have you ever slept with a student?” She inquired and he almost choked on his own breath.

“Of course not.” He answered immediately. “I do not favor teenage girls.”

“What about me? Did you want me when I was a student?” She asked, setting up her cauldron and lighting the burner underneath it.

“Have I not warned you-”

“I’m just asking questions.”

“As usual. There is one thing to be said about people who ask so many questions. Along the lines of ‘where they not listening in the first place?’ Lower the temperature of your flame; you’ll burn the potion. ”

She nodded. “My inquisitive nature is much like your irritable one.” She cast him a wayward glance. “We both infuriate.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” A voice came from behind them. They both turned to see Remus Lupin, still worse for the wear, leaning against the doorframe. “I’m just surprised that you let her say it, Severus.”

“You’d be surprised by a great many things he’s let me do.” Hermione remarked, the overtures so blatant, even Ronald Weasel would have blushed.

Fuck. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” He growled, determined not to let either of them best him of his resolve.

tbc