In The Restricted Section

A/N: Wotcha me again. Thanks so much to everyone who has enjoyed my story and R&R'd, if that's not you then please consider leaving me a review I really want to hear what you think! And appreciate every comment.

More of the story is revealed - and more of the challenge:

1) There must be a scene in the Library at Hogwarts.
2) Hermione must be in a relationship with Ron at the start of the fiction.
3) ------------------
4) Each chapter must be less than 10 pages.
5) Must contain the usual God-Damneries.

Review Replies:

zucca: Thanks muchly for the first review :) Hope you enjoy what's to come.

luna love: Thank you for reviewing, I'm sorry if the subject area is a sore-point as t'were, there's things like that that get me in fictions too. I hate cheating too, but Hermione being with Ron was one of the stipulations, and I had just broken up with my partner of 5 years when I wrote this = Haha I think I was typing out some bitter feelings. It was interesting thinking about the situation though, I hope it turns out to be as interesting to read as it was to write, and that you enjoy it and don't hate me too much :D

Voracious Reader: I hope you enjoy it very much! Thanks for reviewing, always love seeing you on board :D

DawnEB: Thanks for the review and Birthday wishes :) Hope you and yours are well, I must get back to LJ I am ashamed I let it slide :/ See you on there soon!

Tenar10r: Thank you very muchly for the review! Enjoy the chapter :)

Phoenix Rhapsody: Ooh no I am always struck with terror when I hear someone is going to *study* me =/ Please don't be too harsh! I hope you enjoy this next wee bit anyway, thanks so much for your great review :)

emer: Thank you for reviewing, there is indeed more - about 7 chapters more :) Enjoy!

amd2175: This tale is basically finished so I hope I will be able to upload fairly regularly, I'll try not to make you wait too long, I promise. Of course I may suddenly die and leave you all in suspense! :D But that's just the risk you take ;)

Wolfsoul: Thanks for your lovely review :) I will be continuing... watch this space! I'm so glad you liked the more mature Hermione - it's amazing what difference a few years can make.

TwistofLime: Welcome back! I'm sorry about Ron, as written above it was to do with the rules of the challenge. He's a sweetie really :D Thanks so much for your review, I love it when people say I'm brilliant *blush*

not_so_simple_love: Thanks very much for your review, I'll try not to keep you waiting too long :)

Thank you for reading my fiction, roll on chapter two. ~Love Marie

Chapter Two – Politics

He let out a sound that was almost a growl when she finally said his name, and any awkwardness she had felt in doing so vanished in the heady feeling of absolute desire he filled her with, when she kissed him again. He tasted good, much better than she had expected if she were truthful, and the taste of him was nothing compared to the feel of his mouth and hands.

How long had it been since she last felt like this? She didn’t know. She couldn’t recall a precise moment when kisses with Ron had changed from thrilling to tedious, when their lovemaking had taken on a sort of automated monotony. She should have been crippled with guilt, recklessly kissing in the Restricted Section with someone who definitely wasn’t Ron, who was actually a Professor – who was actually bloody Snape for Christ’s sake!

But God, his hands. The way they touched her, caressed her, pulled her nearer to him as he kissed her hotly. It was mind-blowing, the feeling of it all, of him. Perhaps it would have felt this way with anyone after so long, but there was no denying the sizzling electricity that flooded through her as a result of his evident desire, every part of him showed his want for her from his tensed muscles to his murmured gasps. He wanted her badly, and it was a powerful feeling. She grabbed handfuls of his hair and breathed his name again as he moaned into their kiss, thrusting up against her so that she shuddered despite being fully clothed, the hard wooden shelves behind her probably bruising but certainly not unpleasant. His groans vibrated against her lips and in her heart, and she realised that she was moaning too, but who wouldn’t? He was so damn – intoxicating.

It wasn’t just that he wanted her. There was no denying that he definitely knew what he was doing. His tongue, his fingertips, like the wizard that he was he was able to ignite long-forgotten feelings in her with every little touch. There was a certainty about him that she just couldn’t ignore. He had dark stubble on his jaw and cheeks, she could feel it rasping against her chin and beneath her hands, so unlike Ron.

She shouldn’t be thinking about Ron.

She pushed at his shoulder, making him pull back slightly and break the kiss, he looked down at her with tousled hair and heavy-lidded eyes. The silent pull she felt towards him was very compelling indeed. There might have been a small part of her that considered stopping it all – all of this, whatever it was – but she was suddenly reaching for his shirt, unbuttoning his collar, and he bent and kissed her once, twice.

Her fingers worked their way down the line of buttons, the task made harder by the way her hands shook, he continued to stare down at her with burning eyes as he slowly wound a length of her hair around his finger.

“I like your hair,” he muttered, and she almost didn’t hear him. She began to blush and shook her head in a quick and strange dismissive gesture. “I’m serious, Hermione,” he stressed, his deep voice reverberating to her soul. He let go of the strand he was holding and it sprang away, the curl in it accentuated by his warm caress. “It’s beautiful,” he told her with a whisper.

She had never understood what swooning was about before now. She had never been able to comprehend the idea of being rendered senseless by a man’s murmured nothings, but until now her only experience of such words had always been whispered either, well, by Ron, or with a Bulgarian accent. This was something else entirely. His words – his movements – so slow and deliberate and honed in every way. He was a master. Her cheeks were burning. She undid the last button and distracted herself by pulling his shirt apart and running her hands over his warm, flat chest, and it turned out to be her undoing. There was no going back after that.

She could see the deep purples and wispy whites of the scars on his body, even in the relatively dim light of the library, the most evident was the newest and largest at his shoulder. Tendrils of scarring from Nagini’s bite snaked across his collarbone and pectorals. She traced her finger over them reverendly, as she had traced the titles of the books only minutes before, swallowing when she felt her throat tense. He caught her hand in his and held it still, warm against his chest, and she looked up into his deep gaze. His eyes were so dark – they were hypnotic – but there was a humanness about his stare that made him seem very different that night. Intense still, yes, and compelling. But not intimidating at all. He pulled at her jumper and she lifted her arms so that he could whip it off over her head, and then he kissed her again, his mouth delicious against her own as he started to unbutton her blouse.

His chest was like a hot wall against her, any thoughts of Ron or anybody else were entirely erased from her mind as she ran her hands over him, the markings of his personal wars evident with every touch, every glance. She could feel them beneath her hands as she stroked him, clutched at his shoulders, ran her fingers through short black hair and across one of his nipples. He was thin and pale yet still quite supple and defined, which surprised her – a lot of things about him were surprising her – but there was no ignoring just who it was that was currently kissing and slowly undressing her.

He undid two or three of her buttons and lowered his head to her chest, nuzzling the white cotton of her shirt aside as he kissed her bared flesh, she felt the soft wetness of his tongue running along her collarbone. She fisted one hand in the hair at the back of his head, the other ran across the straining muscles of his stomach, then she played with his waistband with one toying finger. He slipped his hand beneath the hem of her shirt and dragged his open palm and spread fingers across her back, and the feeling of his hands on her bare skin made her gasp with aching sensation. He kissed her open mouth, deep and insistently, and she couldn’t kiss him back hard enough.

“Nah, it’s Tuesday. Pincer’s night off.”

The voice was male, young and arrogant, making reality come crashing back. She froze.

The sound of shuffling feet and the general hubbub of moving bodies drifted over the shelves towards them, and it was obvious that several people had just come into the library, even if only one had spoken so far. Severus pulled away from her, turning slightly to listen, and she opened her mouth to speak.

“Professor?” She whispered, but his fingers pressed against her lips before the word was even out.

“Well if the Pincer’s not here then Snape will be hovering around somewhere like the bat he is. He’s assistant librarian don’t ya know,” another boy said, and by the sounds of shuffling and chairs scraping, the group had seated themselves at one of the tables. Several people laughed.

“Snape’s all talk and no trousers, he doesn’t scare me.” the first boy said. “Let’s just see if Head Bitch wants to make us leave like she did Mel.”

“She can try!” A third, different boy said.

“I’ll tell her exactly where she can go,” the first boy said. “She’ll regret messing with Mel.”

“This won’t make Mel like you, you know, Sam.” a girl’s voice chimed in. “She’s only got eyes for Jez.”

“We’ll see,” the boy called Sam replied.

Hermione felt her blood boiling, heated in a very different way to how it had been just moments before, and she saw red. She had just about managed to forget the earlier insults of the evening, with some very distracting help from Professor Snape, admittedly. But now she felt like storming out and giving every person out there a detention just for coming into the bloody room. She made to move and felt his hands on her shoulders, pushing gently and holding her back, and she sighed with quiet resignation.

“I think Hermione Granger’s kinda hot,” one of the boys said, and she wondered if it was one who hadn’t spoken before, the voice wasn’t familiar.

“Oh, you would, Telpher, you nerd,” said Sam, who was obviously the leader of this particular operation. Despite the ridiculousness of it all, she couldn’t help but feel a little burst of pride at the knowledge that one of the younger ones had a bit of a crush on her.

“Maybe she and Snape are off somewhere together,” the girl said, and Hermione gasped quietly in surprise. He turned round to look at her again and his mouth was twisted in the wickedest of smiles, one of his eyebrows quirked in a conspiratory manner, he looked young and full of humour at the situation.

“Unlikely,” Sam said smugly, painfully unaware of his own ignorance. “You should ask old Head Bitch out next time you see her, Telpher. I doubt she’s gets any better offers.”

She glared at the bookcases that separated herself and the table of teenagers, as if she could make the dusty books see-through just by wishing, hating the lump that formed in her throat at the student’s careless words. She knew it was all subjective, that this Sam and the others didn’t know what they were saying really, and that she certainly shouldn’t let it get to her. She should find it funny and pathetic, as the Professor obviously did. But it was bullying, and it stung, even if she was over twenty now.

His hand settled lightly on her knee and squeezed gently, his fingertips brushing along the back of her knee as he ran his hand on the inside of her jean-covered leg, dragging his way up her inner thigh.

His touch was so slow, so painfully intent and unyielding, it distracted her completely. Her entire consciousness was focused on the aching warmth of his hand. Slowly he moved even further up her thigh, and then he was pressing at the hot centre of her, through her jeans. She felt a moan forming in the back of her throat, and she leant forward and bit down on the flesh of his shoulder to stop herself making any sound. She definitely did not want to alert the other students to their presence. His free hand tilted her chin up, and he looked into her eyes with undisguised lust for a moment or two before kissing her again, and she could feel the whispers of silenced moans in his breath as well.

“Well she’d have to be desperate to take Snape up on an offer, anyway,” it sounded like the second boy was speaking again. His voice had a toffish air about it. In her mind he looked a bit like Ernie MacMillan. “Can’t you just imaging him, warming her up in the dungeon?”

She could see the flash of a smile that crept across his face, stretching his cheeks and showing his teeth, and she realised it was a grin more than a smile – the first she had ever seen on him. His shoulders jerked beneath her hands as he continued to caress her through the thick cotton of her jeans, and she realised with surprise that he was laughing, his body shaking while he made not a sound. She grabbed his open shirt to pull him towards her, kissing him as deeply and erotically as he had kissed her, hoping to convey somehow the intense feelings she felt for him at that moment. She could imagine him warming her up in dungeon very clearly indeed.

“I’d rather not imagine anything like that, thank-you-very-much.” She could hear the girl talking somewhere in the back of her consciousness. “Errgh, I just shudder at the thought of his old, greasy hands on me.”

If only she knew, Hermione thought, her body quivering from head to toe with the feel of his hands rubbing her, stroking her, cupping her breasts. He kissed her continuously, sometimes hard, sometimes with a slow playfulness that was almost painful. His hands were amazing.

“I think he might actually be very good with his hands,” another girl said then, one who had not spoken before. He voice sounded downtrodden somehow and quiet. But she was obviously very observant, and Hermione couldn’t help but like the sound of her.

“Do you know who they are?” She whispered against his lips, then licked them.

“Mmm,” he sighed against her, almost silently. “I think so.”

She would find out their names later. His kisses were really very distracting.

“And what would you know about it, virgin?” Sam was heckling again.

“A lot more than you would, dick-face,” the quiet girl retorted. Hermione let out a breathy laugh. She definitely liked this girl.

“I bet you wouldn’t say no to a snog with Snape against the bookcases, would you, Vi?” Sam said, bitterly. “What with his good hands and all.”

She felt his lips break into another grin against hers and she almost laughed out loud. She couldn’t help but find the comment funny, as accurate as it happened to be. Aside from one part, anyway.

“Your hands are better than good, Professor,” she whispered, mouthing the words more than saying them.

“You don’t know the half of it, Miss Granger,” he whispered her student title mockingly in her ear. “Yet.”

He grabbed her to him and even though she could barely breathe already due the sensation he had been feeding into her, he still managed to make this kiss deeper, more compelling. It sent shivers of feeling to her toes and fingertips. His hands caressed her face and neck, stroked her back, and then went to her waistband to slowly undo the button of her jeans.

She broke away from the kiss, as hard as it was. “Professor?” She whispered uncertainly.

“I told you to call me Severus,” he reminded her quietly in her ear, his breath hot and wet against her sensitive skin. She didn’t want to upset him but it wasn’t easy, breaking the habit of a decade and calling him by his real name, it made her impossibly embarrassed at the whole situation somehow.

His fingers undid the zip of her fly, it sounded so loud in the intense silence they were trying to maintain, booming and echoing in her ears. Surely the others would hear it? Hear her? She was moaning as quietly as she could, but was it still too loud anyway?

Paranoia ripped through her as he hooked a thumb into one of her pockets and pulled her loosened waistband slightly lower, so that the black lace edge of her pants just showed, and her palms began to sweat. What was she doing? This was Professor Snape! Snape! He was about as far away from Ron as you could possibly get. Though… there were some big-headed and stubborn similarities between them, a small, evil part of her mind thought distractedly. But he wasn’t Ron, and though kissing him at all was bad enough, she couldn’t let him do – whatever it was he was planning to do to her – in the Library! With students seated just shelves away! Kissing was one thing, but –

His hand slipped down into her knickers and stroked through her damp curls to her hot wetness before she even had time to speak. Her heart was thudding like an engine, her mouth went dry, and she stared at him with eyes wide with disbelief and sensation. He was smirking down at her but his eyebrows were drawn together in what appeared to be painful arousal.

“You want me,” he mouthed to her, his long cool fingers teasing her slick folds. “Badly,” he added, a whispering wave of deep reverberating sound washing over her as he dragged two of his moist fingers over her clitoris.

“Severus…?” She whispered, and her wavering uncertainty was there to hear in her half-question.

He kissed her once, quickly and teasingly, yet still sensual in a way that made her body shake, then he spoke against her swollen lips.

“You said I could touch you,” his voice was deep and sounded dangerously low in his attempt to be quiet, and it cracked now and then as he began to rub her with speed and precision. “And I’m not going to stop ‘til you come for me, Hermione.”

The sound of his voice, his fingers – God, his fingers! – and his breathy promise, they made her knees wobble and her heart skip a beat. She captured his lips with her own to stop from crying out, all too afraid of being too loud, especially when he kept touching her that way. The collection of younger students were still in the library, she could hear their voices as they joked together, but she could no longer make out what they were saying, nor did she even care. He continued to flick his fingers back and forth quickly, his hand straining between her and the material of her jeans, giving his fingertips more pressure as they worked. She clutched at his shoulders, then grabbed at the hair at the back of his neck with one hand, clinging to him for support as she felt the start of twirling strands of ecstasy reaching out into her body from her abdomen. He had been touching her for less than a minute, but her orgasm was already building up inside her. Still he stroked her, hard and relentlessly, only pausing now and then for the briefest of dips towards her hot channel to moisten his fingertips.

She kept on kissing him, his warm lips and lapping tongue adding dizzying heights to the shuddering sensation she was shaking with, as well as occupying her mouth – he swallowed her moans before they ever reached the open air of the library.

This won’t work, a little voice in her head said distractingly, he won’t be able to make me come. Ron had never been able to do it, only ever taking her so near before she had to finish herself, and she was still keeping a part of her mind fixed on being quiet as well. She was too distracted – too on edge. She couldn’t relax into his touch.

She dragged her hand down his sleeve until she felt the hot skin of his forearm, the muscles beneath twitching as his fingers flicked furiously.

“Sev – “ she began, but he kissed her again, his free hand pulling a little in her hair as he nibbled her lips and then licked them. He kissed along her jaw, up to her ear, and left trails of cold wetness behind as he kissed and licked the sensitive skin of her ear and neck. He breathed out through his nose against her, the rush of warm air catching the back of her shirt collar and washing like a wave down her back, goosebumps following behind. His free hand disentangled from her hair and went to her breast, playing with her hard nipple though her shirt, rubbing through the lace of her bra. She moaned quietly into his mouth and tilted her hips, bracing one leg against the shelves opposite and dropping it out, opening her legs more for him. He moaned in return, hushed though it was she could feel it in his chest beneath the hand clutching at his back, and another rush of jangling ecstasy rolled through her. She was close.

His fingers still worked, his hand showing no sign of cramping despite the awkward position for him, ripple after ripple of building sensation burned along her nerves. She moved her hand from his arm to the crotch of his trousers, roughly feeling his erection through the tented fabric, then she wrapped her fingers round him and stroked him hard. He gasped, dragging cool air past their parted lips, his whole body lurched against her for a moment at her touch. His fingers wavered for just a second, then stroked at her with renewed vigour, hitching up another gear though she would have previously thought it impossible. The ripples of feeling became waves of relentless pleasure, gathering like stormclouds, and she was going to break any minute. Her` mind went fuzzy with feeling, she gasped for breath, her legs began to shake violently. He reached down and squeezed her hand in his own for a moment, she could feel the hard thick rod of him filling her fist through his black trousers, then he dragged her hand away completely and pinned it up against the bookcase. He leant against her, his hot mouth moving erotically against her own, and he threaded his fingers through hers. Sparks of electricity burned down her arm.

“God,” she breathed against his lips, “Oh, God.”

She might have called out if it weren’t for his lips pressed against hers, she grabbed his hair and pulled without knowing, his body pressing against her was the only thing keeping her upright. She held her breath, her body tensing like a statue for a second or maybe two, then her orgasm ripped through her, making her shudder violently against him.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close for a few moments, while she tried not to pant loudly as she fought to catch her breath, suddenly all too aware of the close proximity of mean and gossiping children. But their chattering continued uninterrupted, a continuous sound which hovered outside the warm bubble of wonderful feeling that surrounded her just then. She reached up and put her arms around his neck, breathing his smell as she hugged him in the dim, pressing silence of the Restricted Section.

His hands ran slowly up and down her back a few times, then he pulled away slightly and took her hand in his again, his fingers lacing with hers as he led her a little further down the corridor of books. When he stopped she could see the table where the students were sitting, the gaps above the rows of books giving them the perfect view, while still hiding them completely from the ignorant teens. She blushed slightly when she paused to hoist up her jeans, pulling her hand away from his to do them up quickly, then she peered through the bookshelves. She could tell he was buttoning up his shirt beside her.

“The one in the blue Tornados t-shirt is Sam McNabb,” Severus whispered in her ear, stooping a little to look through the same gap that she was. “An obnoxious Ravenclaw with absolutely no talent and, most definitely, a dick-face.” She smiled at his words as she looked out at the young man. Sam McNabb was rather scrawny with sandy, long and foppish hair, but though he still looked young it was hard to ignore the obvious handsomeness in his face. It was easy to see why he was popular.

“The rotund boy next to him is Martin Lefenn,” Severus continued, “and though he does have a modest amount of wit about him, I think it’s his father’s money that mostly works in his favour.” And he did look a little like Ernie Macmillan, she thought, when she recognising his toffish accent.

“The one in the glasses over there is Merlin Telpher.” She strained to see a gangly looking young man, hunched over a book, his short brown hair messy as he rested his head in one hand. “He fancies the Head Girl, did you know?” Severus whispered against the skin behind her ear, moving a bit nearer to her. Her heartbeat began to thump again. He kissed her neck, once, then spoke quietly. “He has very good taste.”

Then he suddenly pulled away again, pointing towards Sam through the gap that was letting them spy on the group. “McNabb went out with Melanie Jennings last year, but she left him for the infamous Jeremy Pike, and for the sake of his egotistical reputation he has been trying to win her back ever since.” His voice was a low, deep whisper as he informed her of the complex politics of the fifth year students, his finger pointing to the relevant parties if they were in the library. “Skye Lefenn, there, follows him around like a dog to no avail. Telpher follows Skye around like a dog, also to no avail. But…!” He pointed his finger upwards, flashing her a knowing grin as he paused in his whispering for effect. “McNabb,” a point. “Always loses his cool whenever Martin,” another point, “and his girlfriend Emma Auldhawn,” he pointed to a freckly redhead, “bring her half-sister, Vilette, along with them.”

A last gesture, this time towards a petite, dark haired girl who looked a year or two younger than the others. She sat at the opposite end of the table to Sam, bent over a scroll of parchment on which she was scribbling furiously with a short quill, her forehead furrowed in concentration. As they watched, Sam tore a scrap of parchment from the roll in front of him and screwed it up into a small ball, flicking it at Vilette. It caught in her hair, but she didn’t seem to notice. She kept writing.

“He acts that way because – “

“He fancies her,” Hermione whispered, still looking across towards the library table as she cut him off. She didn’t see his smile.

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” he said with quiet mocking, and they both would have been embarrassed had they known that ten rubies had indeed dropped down into the Gryffindor hourglass at his words, corridors below them.

Sam McNabb tore more from the roll of paper, making a larger ball this time, and he tossed it so that it bounced off the table and towards her face, making her jump.

“God damn it, Sam!” Vi called out angrily, looking up at him. “You’re such a weak, pathetic, bottom-dwelling, slime-eating, stinky, vomitus worm-head!”

“She’s Slytherin,” Severus whispered smugly, a proud sort of smirking smile on his lips. Hermione laughed at him, her shoulders shaking, the air coming through her nose with little sound.

“She fancies him, too,” she said in hushed tones as she looked back towards the youngest girl, fervently writing again.

“Yes, but she doesn’t know it’s reciprocated,” he reminded her. “And McNabb would never act on it. She is still Emma’s annoying younger sister in the eyes of most of his friends, and he would certainly lose some credibility if he were seen with a Slytherin, as well. It’s impressive how complicated they manage to make it all,” he added. His whispers had a pondering tone.

She glanced up at him, but he was looking through the gap in the shelf above hers, his eyes narrowed as he watched the chattering fifth-years. She swallowed, apprehension settling in her stomach as she turned her head back to the gap between the shelves, and her palms began to sweat again. What had she got herself into? She had a boyfriend, for God’s sake, and had moments ago received the best orgasm of her life from a very, very different person. Things were suddenly very complicated. It wasn’t any easier for her to make things simple than it was for the teens they were watching. And if… And if she were to pay him back in the way she felt like doing, well then things would only get more complicated. Wouldn’t they?

She glanced up at him for a moment or two more. Or would it just make things more simple?

She settled a hand on his lower back, and ran it slowly up to his neck, the cotton of his shirt rough against her palm. He let out a long exhale, a silent moan, and turned to her. She looked into his eyes and saw them to be shuttered somehow, he had a look of apprehension about him as well, and it threw her for a moment. Perhaps he didn’t want anything more than what he had already taken. Though it didn’t seem particularly fair, since she had achieved satisfaction and he had not, a fact that was very evident due to his still jutting erection. She reached a hand out, pressing it flat against his stomach for a moment or two, then moving it lower.

“We weren’t finished yet,” she whispered falteringly. She looked into his eyes again. “Were we?”

He grabbed her roughly, his hands bruising the skin of her arms as he crushed her to him and kissed her again, his tongue lapping and tangling with her own. When he eventually pulled away from her his breathing was ragged, his black eyes on fire, burning into hers as his hot breath blew into her face. Then he stood up straight, one hand sweeping over his hair while the other adjusted himself below the waistline, and he spoke in an authoritative tone that was so loud in comparison to his intimate whispers that it made her jump back slightly in alarm.

“There may be more books on this subject in the office, if you wish to follow me there.” Then he turned and vanished round the end of the bookcase.

She took a second to smooth her own mass of hair and her clothes before following him, but was still quick enough to see the shocked looks on the faces of the younger pupils, who all appeared horrified to find they were not as alone in the Library as they had obviously assumed. It was their lucky night, however, since Hermione was pretty sure that Severus had other things on his mind than detentions and she herself was surprisingly reticent to do anything other than follow him into the office. And perhaps cast a silencing charm.

As she followed him across the room, though, she found her eyes flicking towards the face of Sam McNabb. He saw her looking and stared at her with narrow-eyed hostility, then he raised his wand, obviously wanting to pick a fight once he recognised her. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It all seemed so petty all of a sudden. He glared at her a moment longer, then muttered a spell, casting a ball of glowing green light which bumped into Vilette’s arm and made her quill scratch a line of splattered ink right across her parchment. She shrieked in surprise and leapt to her feet, almost knocking her inkwell over but just managing to grab at it in time, and then she pointed at Sam and stamped her foot in anger.

“You!” She shrieked again, then spoke with more clarity. “Why do you do it to me, McNabb?”

Hermione erased the misplaced line of ink from the girl’s essay as she passed, and ignored the desire to give Sam a detention, favouring a sweeter and stealthier method of revenge instead.

“He does it because he fancies you,” she said, loudly enough to ensure that everyone in the room had heard. Severus opened the door to the office and stepped inside, holding it open as he gestured with the other hand for her to follow, his face a careful mask of bored impatience.

She glanced behind her only quickly before she went in, but it was long enough to see the crimson hue of Sam McNabb’s face, too beetroot for him to ever try to deny the truth of her statement. And it was long enough too to see the matching blush on Vi’s cheeks, and the way their eyes were met in a searing stare across the table, while the hubbub of their friends’ laughter and jeers rang out around them.

She ginned as the office door closed behind her.

––––––––––––––––––--
A/N: Thank you so much for reading :)