To Save A Serpent

“Miss Granger…” he sighed.

“I honestly think you should stop calling me that, Severus,” she narrowed her eyes at him, perched on the edge of his bed, wearing only the satiny green sheets around her body. “I mean you’ve had me twice already tonight, and how many nights before that?” A small smirk came to her lips.

“Yes, do not remind me of what a pedophile I am…” he sneered and padded his naked arse slowly back to the bed, standing before her. “You’re a fool to torture yourself so…” he closed his eyes and sat beside her, but before he could even properly settle onto the mattress, she’d leapt into his lap and was pushing him back toward the headboard. “Not so fast, minx, you’re wearing this old man out.”

“I hear no complaints…”

“Weren’t you just bloody listening?”

Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes into her head as she pulled him close to her. “I won’t say I love you. I’m not sure that I do, not to hurt your feelings or whatever, but I do like what has happened. It’s dangerous, and it’s exciting and—”

“And you’ve had too much to drink,” he narrowed his eyes at her, frowning.

“Honestly, Severus? All joking aside…” her voice was low, almost somber and more serious than she ever allowed herself to be during their bedroom trysts. “I do care, honestly. I don’t just tumble into bed with any of my professors.”

“Yes well that would explain how you received O’s in every subject, though I shudder to think I’m sharing my bed with the whore of Hogwarts…”

Hermione’s face hardened like stone and she pushed off his chest, turning away from him. Her eyes nearly streaked with tears. He could be such a git at times. There was silence for a moment, aside from her muffled whimpers and his slow, rhythmic breathing. And then she felt his arm, warm and heavy, as it snaked over her hip and pulled her back into a spooned embrace. “Don’t,” she huffed, but made no attempt to push him away.

“You’re very touchy tonight, easier to set off than one of Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Skrewts…” he whispered against her ear. Normally, Hermione was able to hold her own against his sarcastic biting tongue. “I am sorry, Hermione, you know I meant nothing by it…”

Her eyes closed and for a moment she said nothing. Rolling over to face him, she buried her face in the coarse thicket of curls that were smattered across his chest. Letting out full blast a series of trembling sobs, Hermione clung to him like a baby to its mother.

“Something tells me, little Gryffindor, that this isn’t just about my facetious comment…” His hands were gentle as they stroked her hair, pushing it back from her face before he tilted her chin up from his chest. “Hermione Jane Granger, I will not stand for such crocodile tears on my person, all that extra saline will dry out my skin…”

She chuckled slightly through red eyes, and then pressed her lips to his. “I’m sorry, but I’m just…I’m so afraid, Severus.”

“Here we go again,” he muttered. “Hermione, we’ve been over this, I’m going to be alright. I can’t tell you why, you know that, but you have to believe me, it’s going to be alright…” He had not been allowed to tell her that he had taken on an oath to help Albus Dumbledore end his life of suffering, nor that Albus had insured him nothing on the other side of it. And even if he had, he would not dump such a burden onto her chest, though he hardly felt it honorable to lie to her with false securities, he did so to keep himself from going mental.

“I-I know you keep saying that, Severus, but I just can’t shake this feeling that- that—”

“That I’m lying to you? For a woman who’s shared my bed for the better part of this last year, you certainly seem to have a lack of faith in me.” This quelled her trembling lips and she almost flushed. “Hermione, I am going to be fine. You just have to trust me, and when the time is right, you’ll know what to do, alright?”

She nodded. He knew his words were of little comfort to her, for she was no dumb witch. The brightest he’d ever encountered as a matter of fact, and he was certain that she could see right through him, but accepted his answer for the time, owing it to the fact that she wanted to spend every possible moment that she could with him, not arguing over whether or not he would return to her.

“I think I’ve had enough rest…” he smirked and pulled back the satin sheets she had wrapped around her. Disappearing under them, he covered her back up, and began to trail his lips down her naked flesh. “Hmm,” he muttered, voice muffled against the flesh of her stomach, one hand slithering down her hip until it cupped her sex, the other moving up to hold a breast in his palm. “A trip north to the stiff peaks…or the grassy plains of the south…”

Hermione could not help but laugh in earnest, his sexual bedside manner had always left her highly amused, whether it was his dirty jokes and talk in bed, the dissection of her anatomy into geographical locations, or just his plain sarcastic wit, all the same, it never ceased to amaze her. “You’re so naughty,” she chuckled and then pulled herself under the covers and began to snog him, limbs tangling around him until they were a mass of melded human and sheets.

“Hermione,” the voice of Ginny Weasley caught her attention, and she shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “Hermione, are you alright?”

“Yeah, Gin, sorry, I was thinking…”

“It’s going to be alright, Hermione. Lord Voldemort is gone. Never again will he terrorize our family, any of us. You can go and get your parents back!” she tried to smile at her friend through watery eyes.

“Yeah, I know, that’s what I was thinking about,” Hermione lied. She hadn’t even been able to tell Ginny about her rather romantic relationship with the man who was now lying cold, dead and lifeless just miles off the castle grounds in the Shrieking Shack. “I need to go and send a proper owl,” she said.

Ginny stared at her a look of confusion dawning over her face. “Want me to come with you?” But Hermione had begun to move through the crowd of mourners and before Ginny could tot off after her, Harry had come up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, spun her around and gave her a forceful kiss. “Oh, Harry!” she cried, throwing her arms around him, pressing her lips to his.

Not even Ron tried to split them apart as he watched his best mate practically suck off the face of his little sister. No one noticed Hermione slipping out the Great Hall and heading down out of the entrance with one destination in mind.

She could not push the thoughts from her mind as she trod, plain as day, through the night toward the giant Whomping Willow. His words, how falsely secure they were, but how relieved she’d been when he’d promised her, night after night, that he would be fine. She could hardly bare to think on it, the tears practically freezing to her face in the pale blues of twilight.