A Very Good Occlumens

Dawn broke harsh and gray for Lily.

Her eyes fluttered open at 5 the next morning. The leaden pane was back, the racing heart, the clatter of thoughts.

She glanced at Snape and saw only his back. His breath came soft and even. Good. He was asleep.

She rose quietly and began putting on her clothes, which lay scattered on the floor. Once she was dressed, she held her hands out in front of her, palms down, looking at her new ring. The slim white-gold band glinted. The little stone was oddly beautiful--a cold thing with a warm glow. But how could she keep it, under the circumstances? She took it off and extended her hand to set it on the bedside table.

"Pity. And we were just getting on so well."

Her head snapped up. Snape was sitting now, though how he had managed that without her knowing, she didn't like to think.

"I--I--"

"You're having second thoughts."

"D-don't look at me like that," she stammered. "I know what you're doing, and it doesn't work. You said it would last a day. It lasted not even 12 hours."

Too late. He had already cast the charm non-verbally. The leaden pane fell away again, and with it, its bleakness and frantic chatter of *James, James*. Lily felt as she did when she had a terrible headache and suddenly the pain killers kicked in. She seldom realized how much she was hurting until the pain stopped. Now only guilt flooded the rocky shoals of her mind.

"Oh, Sev," she said. "I don't deserve this."

"The lack of pain?" he said, as though it hardly mattered.

She thought about it. No, she didn't deserve the lack of pain. But she didn't deserve last night, either. And how could she admit that to him? "Everything," she muttered finally.

Something bloomed again in his chest.

"Lily," he said, reaching for her wrist and pulling her back onto the four-poster bed, "why trouble yourself this way? Consider it a--side benefit of our little arrangement."

"What? That I've betrayed my husband, who lies hardly cold in his grave?" she shot back.

"Why don't you just remind yourself that I forced you into it? It would be the truth."

"Yes, but..." and she said something he couldn't hear as she turned her face away.

Putting his thumb and forefinger firmly on her chin, he turned her face back toward his. "But what?"

"I--nothing," she said, twisting in his grasp, but he held her chin fast. Realization of what she must have said made him smile a narrow-eyed smile.

"You liked it."

A scarlet flush rose from her neck to her hair line, but she didn't deny it.

"You liked it," he repeated, softer but more insistently. And he leaned toward her to run his lips along her neck.

Her head fell back. "What are you--we can't! Don't we have to get H--"

"At 5 in the morning? I think not."

Still, she shied away from him until finally, he wrapped his long finger around her jaw and firmly brought her face up to his.

"Are you forgetting the particulars of our little agreement?"

"I've forgot nothing! I don't have to love you--"

"--just be willing in bed," he finished. "You call this willing? I'm feeling decidedly neglected this morning."

"You--you--" she sputtered, "you've tricked me into marrying you, you demanded--relations--without any grace period for me, you're pressuring me for more right now--"

"Please," he waved his free hand languidly, "I don't know how much more praise a Slytherin can take."

So quick that most men would have missed it, she swung her palm at his face. But Snape rolled away from the slap, bringing Lily's body with him.

"Now this is much more cozy, hm?" he said, using his weight to press her into the mattress. He pulled her other hand up, extricated the ring from its clenched fist, then using his forearm to pin that hand down, pulled her other hand within view and slid the ring back on her finger.

"Severus."

"Hm?"

"Don't make me hate you," she said quietly.

His eyes flicked up to meet hers in a steady, unwavering gaze. "Never."

"You're heavy."

"You won't notice in a moment."

"Severus." And this time, he heard the catch in her voice. He cautiously levered some of his weight off her.

"Yes?"

"Why are you doing this?"

Mentally, he sighed. What she really needed was a slow courtship, full of comforting embraces and endless patience. In short, everything he wasn't willing to give when it came to Lily. His cock, which had been fully engorged since long before he had awakened, now throbbed insistently. That he was naked wasn't helping matters.

"Lily," he said as gently as possible, "I saw that we could have a mutually beneficial arrangement. You got what you wanted--protection, your child--and I got what I wanted."

"Sex."

"Don't be daft. There's fifty Death Eaters--male and female, mind you--who'd lie down for me if I snapped my fingers. Most of them at the same time, if I said so."

But a thousand Bellatrix Lestranges for one Lily Evans, he thought, and was abruptly reminded of his last encounter with with Bellatrix.