Breeding Lilacs out of Dead Land.

Chapter 20 - Uncloud the Borealis of Your Eye.


Hermione was bent over a low stool; her tongue stuck in her cheek in utter concentration, holding the edge of the linen – which covered her wax coated shin – between the tips of her fingers. Once again, she was mentally cursing the Wizarding World\'s anachronism, for inventing mirrors which told you you should lose weight while you were perfectly happy with your appearance, but not a practical charm to remove excess body-hair.

\"Mum!\" Aubrey\'s voice, loud and cheerful, had broken Hermione\'s concentration as the child entered the room. \"Are you going on a date?\" she asked while removing her scarf and gloves, taking off her cloak, and seeing her mother\'s rebuking glare; hanging it on the clothes-hanger.

Hermione considered her answer. \"Well,\" she said, \"you could say so. Sort of.\"

\"Oh.\" Aubrey shrugged, tossing her schoolbag onto the sofa and sitting down. \"You haven\'t had a date since we left New York,\" she noted, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Furball, drawn by the commotion in the living room, was now poking his nose out of Aubrey\'s room, where he spent the morning and afternoon sleeping. Yawning, the Kneazle attempted to sharpen his claws on the back of the stripped sofa.

\"Furball!\" Hermione cried, brandishing a wax-dripping knife. \"You useless excuses for a magical animal! Aubrey, do something!\"

The child, rolling her eyes at her mother\'s helpless yowls of despair, moved lazily, and bending over the backrest of the sofa, shooed off the destructive feline. She chose to remain leaning over the backrest, scanning the tiring process of hair-removal like a scientist watching his extremely stupid lab rats. Aubrey\'s dark eyes bore a critical, severe expression. \"That\'s masochistic,\" she said at last, after long minutes of prolonged, melodramatic silence.

Hermione gave her an annoyed look. \"That\'s exactly what you told me the last time. Waite until you\'ll grow up, and start looking like a female ape. Then you\'ll come begging me to wax your legs.\"

\"I would never do such thing,\" Aubrey said solemnly.

\"You will – wait and see.\"

The girl pursed her lips as Hermione tore off another strap of wax-covered linen, this time coated with all the tiny hairs that had been brutally detached from the skin of her front thigh. Satisfied with the result, Hermione dumped the cloth in the bin.

\"I don\'t think Severus will be happy that you\'re dating some other guy.\"

\"Well, I\'m not dating some other guy.\"

Aubrey appeared to be surprised. \"So you\'re dating Severus?\"

Hermione was currently attempting to scan the surfaces of the back of her thighs, contemplating a logical way to wax them without help. \"Mmm? What did you ask, darling? If I\'m dating Severus?\"

\"Yeah.\"

She shrugged. \"Perhaps. Anyway, I wouldn\'t call it a date. It\'s not going to be anything official.\"

\"So are you going to leave me with Anne?\"

\"Yes. I talked to her earlier and she agreed to take care of you. You\'ll spend the night at her place.\"

Aubrey smiled deviously. \"So it\'s that kind of date.\"

\"You\'re too young to know what you are hinting by saying those kind of things,\" Hermione informed her. \"So, what did you mean by saying Snape won\'t be happy seeing me dating anyone else?\"

\"Just what I said,\" the girl repeated, apparently in despair at her mother\'s childish eagerness. \"That he likes you, so he wouldn\'t like you to date other guys. By the way- does he actually know you two have a date? \'Cause he got this letter at breakfast and hurried to see Albus…\"

Hermione frowned. \"He was busy teaching all day. I saw him at lunch, and met him several times in the Potions Classroom, in between lessons.\"

\"Well, alright, then.\"

\"Did anything unusual occur?\" she asked.

\"Dunno. There was this letter,\" Aubrey explained, \"a big, beautiful one; in a narrow envelope- he wouldn\'t let me break the seal. The seal was purple, with a picture of an orchid stamped on it. From someone called Lestrange. Said something about his… oh, well. It had a long name that sounded like Latin. He asked for Severus\'s help-\"

\"You know you are not supposed to peek at other people\'s letters, don\'t you?\" Hermione inquired.

Aubrey glared at her. \"It was important! It\'s not like you could\'ve find things out from him if you were to ask nicely, you know!\"

\"Okay, I can see your point. So that was it?\"

\"Yes. That fellow long-name-Lestrange just asked Severus to come quickly and help him.\"

\"And what did Severus do?\"

\"Told me he ought to take care of it at once, put me in Anne\'s care and said he was going to see Albus about it.\"

Hermione nodded. \"And was definitely back here at Hogwarts to teach the ten o\'clock Ravenclaw-Hufflpuff fourth-year class. I should ask him about that. Perhaps I might even get an answer. Which brings us to the more important question: how exactly am I going to wax the back of my thigh?\"

\"Maybe we can call Miss Spinelly,\" suggested Aubrey, referring to the Grangers\' young, talkative neighbour back in New York, who always helped Hermione in waxing her legs before important dates. \"We could connect her stove to the Floo or something and bring her here.\"

Hermione sighed. \"Anti-Muggle legislation, darling. The last time I checked, Nadine was a Muggle.\"

\"Then how \'bout Anne? Can\'t Mrs Rivers help you with the waxing?\"

Hermione\'s face brightened at the idea. \"You’re a genius, Aubrey! How come I didn\'t think of this before! Anne would be the perfect solution! Throw in a pinch of Floo and we\'ll see if Anne is capable of pulling off some sticky piece of cloth!\"

* * *

Several hours later, Hermione was sitting at the dressing table in her bedroom, staring at her naked figure after silencing the mirror. Her hair, still dripping from the shower, had fallen almost to her waist when wet. Some water was dripping on the floor, splotching the soft, burgundy coloured rug that carpeted the bedroom. Misty creatures of vapour kept descending from the shower, sneaking through the half-opened door and breathing on the glassy surface of the mirror in front of her. Hermione trembled when the vapour touched the water glazed skin of her back.

The rooms were almost hollow with silence- Aubrey had even insisted on taking Furball with her to the Rivers\' place and as Anne didn\'t seem to mind, Hermione had given her permission. Back in New York, she might have played a CD to make the stillness easier. Back in New York, this kind of silence would have been impossible. Hermione found the quietness unnerving, while at the same time, reassuring. She felt the heat of the fire at her back; a soft, tickling caress, like eyelashes of warmth, brushing her skin. A fire was never just a fire the way silence was never just a silence. They were always the story they told us, or the story we told ourselves through them. Hermione bit her lower lip, knowing her nervousness had probably more to do with her plans than with anything else.

Snape was not an easy person. The man she had once easily categorised as a cynical misanthrope had now appeared to be something much more complicated and enigmatic than merely that. Wanting to solve him was one thing, and Hermione recognized the trap and was clever enough to wait until she was sure there was more to Snape\'s appeal than his mysterious demeanor and her own wish to be needed. He had the same quality as a prism – holding the light\'s rays, breaking and channeling them – not a mystery, but an eloquent physical mechanism. Beautiful; which was not to indicate he was harmless. Another appealing quality- not to be sneered at, only carefully weighted.

He was her intellectually equal, and therefore, able of following her wherever her mind took her. More then that, he was able to recognize her as an intellectual being, to grasp the many possibilities and notions that were Hermione Granger and consolidate them in his mind into one, vivid concept. There had been other people with whom she could talk, other people who equaled her intellectually, and that Hermione had enjoyed their company –but they had not possessed the same dryness to ignite her so easily, the same cool, cynical manner that seemed to provide such a perfect contra to her own emotional warm-heartedness.

She was physically attracted to him – if someone would have told her nine years ago she would find herself attracted to the man her friends called a greasy git when he was their Potions Professor at school, Hermione would have laughed in their face. She knew he was attracted to her as well, although Severus hardly did anything to indicate he was interested in anything more than friendship. Perhaps he wasn\'t. Hermione was relatively sure Snape wouldn\'t mind a quick, emotionless fling. If that were the case, she would simply have to swallow her pride and move on. If he could become interested in something more- well, she hoped he would, and was willing to take the risk.

Above all, there were two things: first of all, a feeling of a wrapping, enveloping sensation of rightness. As if the universe was moving to bring them together. Hermione might call herself a sentimental fool and that was definitely not a notion she was ever going to share with Snape, but when he held her, when she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his back, there was a sense of belonging, which Hermione couldn\'t relate to anything she had ever experienced before.

Secondly, and the most important of all, was knowing that her child adored him. Aubrey\'s approval was the last, and the only thing she needed to be assured of her decision.

Hermione looked at the mirror once again, scanning the woman in front of her, so different from the girl who ran away nine years ago. The woman he raped. She frowned, wondering if it should matter now. The memories of that horrible night had never completely gone. She would still wake up at night dripping cold sweat and cry herself to sleep. Hermione guessed they would always be part of her. Part of what she had with him, through Aubrey. But not part of what they might have. She shook her head. Some wounds, she decided, were better left untouched. It would heal with time, or never heal at all, but sometimes even the most carefully sterilized fingers could cause infection.

The image at the mirror was not the one she would have liked too see. Too plump. Too short. A face too round and too plain. The honey coloured hair now darkened by dampness; her complexion fair, if not a little pinkish. Average sized breasts, their sides disfigured by stretch marks; a swollen belly covered by stretch marks as well. Rounded thighs, but small, delicate ankles. Not pretty. Not ugly. Not anything out of the ordinary. She reached her hand for a bottle of body-lotion, absentmindedly applying the cream to her upper arms and torso.

Her mother, Hermione remembered, used to pay such importance to those feminine prettying rituals. She would spend hours and hours in the bedroom before going out, applying all sorts of mysterious preparation to her skin and face in order to look beautiful and glamorous. \"You must be ready to pay the price if you want to be beautiful,\" she would tell her daughter, on those occasions when Hermione would go out with her parents, forced into some sort of smart dress that would turn her insides upside down. Mother, a modern Cleopatra, so extremely disappointed when showed not a sign of interest in her magical kingdom of fragrant bottles and tubes.

Yes, it had taken Hermione quite some time to develop an interest in such things, and then, Victoria Granger haven\'t been there to teach her daughter how to apply mascara or lipstick properly.

Putting on a matching bra and pants, she turned to pick up her clothes. Usually, Severus saw her moving around the castle in her old, worn out jumpers and jeans, or in one of the practical, rather ugly robes she purchased on Madam Malkins\'. Hermione wanted tonight to be different –what was probably the only, and probably still a very weak excuse for wearing her favourite forest-green, skimpy dress. She sighed, and hanged back the dress. Her mother, claiming dresses were feminine and appealing, used to have a dress for every day of the week hanged in her wardrobe. Hermione, claiming dresses were impractical, used to have some evening dresses, and even so, only few of them. Well, Hermione thought. No man was even worth giving up the opportunity of defying one\'s mother for him. Never even mind the fact that you and your mother haven\'t even been spoken for nine years in row…

Finally giving up, she had settled for jeans and a soft angora sweater, debating whether she should put on some scent. That, Hermione remembered, had been the reason she had ridiculed her mother, then her roommates, all those years ago. Going through all this trouble, and what for? She did it once, when she was going to the Yule Ball during her fourth year- probably only because she had been so very surprised to actually be invited by someone, and to have Viktor Krum of all people, take her to the Yule Ball! Well, that was something. And the reactions were indeed flattering. But Victor had liked her for what she was. So did Ron, after him. She still thought it was foolish to try and make people like you for some kind of pretense that wasn\'t going to last anyhow. And it didn\'t prevent her from wanting to be prettier, if only for one night, this night, for Severus.

The person saying women were only prettying up for other women was a complete fool, Hermione decided, sprinkling some perfume on her pulse points. Other women could indeed appreciate the effort, but they had also knew it was all artifice, which was, all in all, beside the point- she was not trying to bed another woman here, or was she?

Ready at last, or at least, as ready as she ever could be, Hermione wrapped herself in her cloak, and warding the door behind her, existed her chambers.

The way to Snape\'s rooms had always seemed to provide her with many metaphors: a likely result of such an imposing choice of living. It could be a compared to a pilgrimage; it could have been a scientist\'s journey to the centre of the earth, or Orpheus\'s search for Eurydice; a quest, or vagrancy. The torch light drifting along the walls and the great lake, storming restlessly above, kept providing the perfect setting to whatever scene the random passengers might have played in their minds.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Hermione knocked on Severus\'s door. They had sat next to each other on dinner, with Aubrey, chattering idly, seated between them. When she told him she might drop in later, he didn\'t seem to mind. Well, he probably assumed she wanted to certify this detail or that, which concerned her about lessons plans for tomorrow. Or perhaps discuss some interesting research she had come across, the way she usually did. She wondered whether he was upset- Lestrange was a Death Eater, and meeting him, even on a personal basis, especially considering Severus had seen fit to consult with Dumbledore before going, might have upset him. It was as good time as any to try and ask him.

\"I know you\'re out there, Granger. Stop dawdling in front of my door and get in.\"

Although she was nervous, Hermione found herself smiling, and pushed the door open. Snape\'s rooms, she was surprised to note, were free of the smell of alcohol. As if to mock this observation, her eyes fell on a bottle of Jameson\'s, and an untouched shot-glass full of amber liquid. Snape himself, was sitting in front of the low fire, his wand\'s arm hanging from the armrest and his wand held in a loose grip. She couldn\'t see his face as he was sitting with his back to her, but Hermione could discern the feral intensity undermining the calm surface.

\"Severus.\" Tentatively, she moved to stand behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. He stiffened, but relaxed slowly, as she began kneading the painfully taut muscles of his nape and upper back.

\"Is that good?\" Hermione asked quietly, not whishing to fracture the sweet, mellow silence that stretched between them.

Snape nodded. \"You smell of sap… some green leaves, freesia…\" His sensitive nose twitched. \"Moss. Peony. Orris.\"

Hermione shrugged; her thumbs working into the flesh of his back, summoning fresh blood liven up the aching areas, releasing bulbs of lactic-amino induced tension. \"Do you like it?\"

\"It\'s pleasant,\" he said, low, beautiful baritone rumbling in the over heated room, turning the skin of her arms into goose flesh. \"Sweet, but none too offensive.\" He quieted as she pressed a sensitive spot, letting his head fall forward, in an abundance that was somewhat childish and almost stupidly endearing in her eyes.

\"Stronger?\"

\"Yes.\"

Hermione had to move to the soles of her feet in order to reach his back now. \"I\'m afraid this isn\'t working too well,\" she let him know. \"We\'ll have to move to a more comfortable territory if you wish to continue.\"

\"Very well.\" Silent and graceful as a jungle cat Snape moved to his feet. He was surprisingly quiet, but not wanting to disturb the easy balance in which things had been conducted so far, Hermione avoided any further inquiry. Following him, they moved into his bedroom, where Snape sat on the large bed, knees drawn close to his body, the way Aubrey used to do, and stared into the unlit fire. Lighting up the fire with a flick of her wand, Hermione sat behind him. \"I think you might like to dispose of some of your exoskeleton, in the cause of making it easier for me.\"

Snorting, Snape took of his robe, then, with a hasty shrug, he removed his shirt too, and lay down, his face turned away from hers. His back, Hermione noted, was even paler than his face. White, slightly olive-tinged skin stretched over protruding shoulder blades and a very prominent back-bone. He was well-built, but his thinness was the most noticeable thing about Severus\'s appearance – that, and the long, ugly scars that crisscrossed his back.

\"I didn\'t know,\" Hermione whispered.

\"Don\'t be foolish,\" he hissed. \"You weren\'t supposed to know. You had no way of knowing.\"

Her brow furrowed, and she was holding back the tears. \"I\'m sorry. I know you hate to hear that, but I\'m sorry anyway.\"

\"Here is something I can never quite understand,\" he said in a dry, detached manner. \"You were never beaten or whipped. You don\'t bear scars, which disfigure you. What the fuck are you so damn sorry about- you and Albus, especially you, of all people. Hermione, you have your own tragedy to wallow in, why is it that you cannot resist this overwhelming desire to say sorry.\"

She moistened her lips, picking the right words: a woman picking blood-red tulips in the meadow. \"My own tragedy, as you put it- has nothing to do with it. Probably because the kind of sorrow I express and the kind of \'sorry\' you hear from me are altogether different. I am not sorry for what happened to me – sorry is too small a word to describe what I feel. It\'s probably too small a word to describe what I feel toward the monster that left those signs in your back. What I meant… When I told you I was sorry, wasn\'t that I was capable of experiencing what you felt back then, when those scars were inflicted – it must have been –I don\'t know what it must have been.\" She breathed deeply. \"I meant that it pains me to see those scars, that it pains me to see you scarred like that. That I\'m sorry that anyone ever did such a despicable thing to you.\"

Severus seemed to be frowning. \"What about your scars, Hermione?\"

She sighed. \"It\'s there, too. Sometimes I think I\'m empty and disfigured from inside, like the ancient olive tree. Then something reminds me how much I have. And if it is the monster you\'re talking about – it does no longer exist. Not if you\'re asking me. It died, Severus, together with the girl I once was.\"

Biting on her lower lip, she reached her index finger to touch the edge of a nasty looking scar, where the ripped skin had been joined together unevenly. It began just bellow the rib-cage, trailing up across Severus\'s back, above the left shoulder-blade and ending just over the sharpened ridge of his collarbone. Snape froze at once.

\"Is that all right?\"

He blinked. \"I don\'t know.\"

Hermione touched another scar. This time, an ugly swell of reddened flesh, stretching from nape to tailbone. The scar tissue, she discovered, had an extremely soft texture, as if the skin never finished to form a scab, and the scars- those of the body, as those of the heart, would never actually heal. It made her think of all of her un-christened babies, forever waiting for redemption, baby skin growing on Snape\'s back, as if saving this man would save some of her own ghosts, too.

Severus, underneath her fingers, shuddered.

\"Are you okay?\"

She saw his Adam\'s apple bobbing; eyes veiled behind a curtain of lanky, black hair. \"I\'m fine.\"

Leaning forward, Hermione placed her lips between his shoulder blades. He smelled of resin, sweat, and the storm outside. The damaged skin of his back was soft and warm under her lips. She tasted it gently, rubbing the faint saltiness between her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Sweet, salty, heady. Human. Following the prominent line of Severus\'s spinal column with soft, airy kisses, she felt him stiffen, then force himself to relax under the gentle touch. His hand, she saw, was clenched around a fist of linen, long, aristocratic fingers digging into the sheets.

Getting a little closer, Hermione outstretched her arm to cover Severus\'s hand in her own. Unmoving, she set there for a while, her thigh against his side and her hand covering Snape\'s larger, paler hand; both breathing silently. Very slowly, Severus\'s fingers finally loosened their deadly grip, releasing bulbs of crushed cloth. The lump of struggling emotions in her abdomen fisted and clenched. Hermione wanted to say something but found herself gaping. Gently, she caressed the valleys and ridges of the back of his hand, letting her index finger sink into the low depressions between the prominent edges of two metaal bal bones.

They sat together this way for some time. Long enough for the silence to take on an uncomfortable edge.

Hermione swallowed. \"Severus… please turn around. I am beginning to feel rather silly.\"

\"Well, I always told you you were a silly girl,\" he answered. It wasn\'t said with humour, but he said it without any venom either, as if he simply felt it necessary to cover for the silence.

She frowned. \"I hoped you would change your mind. Now please turn around,\" Hermione repeated. \"I\'d like to be able to look you in the face.\"

Snape obeyed with a feral growl, quickly turning over and sinking back to the mattress. His hair, sprawled over the white sheets, was framing his gaunt face and shoulders in a dark halo, accenting the pristine whiteness of his skin. There were no scars to disfigure his arms and torso, only a light dust of fine dark hair that disappeared behind the button of his trousers. Outstretching her hand, Hermione brushed a lock of ink-black hair out of his face. For a single second, Snape\'s lips closed to kiss the outer curve of her palm. She trembled at the touch.

Wide-eyed, she watched Snape moving to sitting position, withdrawing a little, so they wouldn’t collide as he rose up. His eyes were dark and expressive and intense. She might not be able to decipher his gaze, but her body responded to the way he looked at her. Bending forward, Hermioeanteant one palm against his shoulder for support, and bringing their faces close, let her mouth brush Snape\'s lips. Soft. Hot. Heartbreakingly sweet. She could feel his breath on her lips, coming hard and shallow out of his chest. Drawing closer, Hermione opened her mouth tentatively, reaching her tongue to moisten the contour of Snape\'s lips.

A muscle in his jaw flinched. \"Hermione…\"

She blinked, unsure. \"Am I doing something wrong?\"

Snape shook his head. \"No, fuck. It\'s just-\" Then his hands were in her hair, bending her head backward, his mouth wounding and possessing, fingers pressed unto the gentle skin of her neck, staining it with ugly red marks. She wanted, was able, to meet his hunger with equal need – this lump of lust and despair raging inside her was shuttered when he was finally kissing her fully, tongue battling with her own, lips moving over her mouth with the skill and accuracy she had been craving, for God knew how long.

But that wasn\'t the thing she came for. Not now. Not like that. Not from this and with this man. With a cry of frustration, Hermione detached herself from Severus, uncoiling the arms she had thrown around his neck and withdrawing back a little. She was breathing hard now, her cheeks flushed and her hair falling around her face in an unruly mass.

\"I\'m sorry,\" Hermione murmured, removing some stray locked out of her eyes. She moved her hands though her hair. In front of her, Snape was swiftly withdrawing back into cold, introspective demeanor, all traces of former emotions hastily erased from his face. She would have to say something quickly if she wanted to repair things between them. \"Look,\" Hermione began awkwardly, biting on her lower lip. \"That was brilliant, really. But it\'s not what I want.\" She cried out in frustration as Severus said nothing at all, only bent to pick up his shirt.

\"I don\'t want to be just another, meaningless fling to you. I don\'t want to be someone you fuck then throw aside in the morning. I\'m not looking for just sex. If sex was what I wanted, there are other places I could get it. What we did just now- I\'d love to go on from there, now or some other time. But,\" Hermione moistened her lips. \"I won\'t simply be fucked. Not with you. You should know that before we move any further. That is, if you are still interested.\"

Snape stopped in mid-movement, dropping down the shirt and turning to face her. Outstretching his hand, he cupped her face, his thumb softly caressing her cheek. \"Have I already told you you\'re a silly girl?\"

Hermione nodded. \"Yes you did,\" she whispered. \"Please make love to me.\"

\"I don\'t think I know how it\'s done.\"

\"I\'m not sure I know either.\"

Snape grunted. \"We sound like two blabbering fools.\"

\"I don\'t care.\"

\"I should have seen that coming. How very Gryffindor of you\"

Hermione glared at him. \"That was a perfect love scene until the moment you opened your big mouth.\"

\"My sincere apologies for being so emotionally fucked up. Exaggerated melodrama disturbs my ulcer. This is probably why I can\'t make love,\" his voice was dripping sarcasm. \"The term nauseates me.\"

The corner of Hermione\'s mouth turned up with a crooked smile. \"Very well. Following that logic, I could make love to you, while you, on the other hand, could simply shag me.\"

Snape frowned, the harsh lines of his face deepening with the severe expression. \"Words are used… very easily nowadays. And Merlin knows I have used them in abundance- but never directly, always as a tool, always as a means to saying something else all along. I have been twisting words for ages. Now you, you seem to be so free with your words-\" he raised his hand to stroke her cheek, \"so very openhearted and honest. Like a small child- nobody has ever beaten the sincerity out of you. When I think of how many people of my sort there are in this world – I fear for you. You should not be allowed to wander freely in a world where monsters like me might hurt you.\"

She shut her eyes tightly. \"Don\'t talk like that. That is not true.\"

He arched an eyebrow. \"Is it?\" Outstretching his left arm, he had shown her his forearm, where the Dark Mark clashed angrily against the pale skin.

Without uttering a single word, Hermione leaned forward, and closing her eyes, pressed her lips to the ugly tattoo.

\"Thank you.\"

\"You idiot,\" she murmured. \"Do not speak of it.\"

Snape nodded, then placed his index finger under her chin, leaning forward to kiss her mouth. This kiss was slow and gentle, even with the sense of urgency that was underlining their actions. Moaning, Hermione opened her lips to allow his tongue to enter her mouth; sweet, hot dampness flexing and melting against wet, slippery flesh. Coiling her arms around Severus\'s neck, she took the kiss a step further, exploring this lush, skilled mouth.

In the meanwhile, she felt herself being lowered to the bed, Snape\'s fingers winding under the soft wool of her sweater and gently releasing cloth from skin. Hermione arched her back, helping Severus to pull the jumper from her torso, and then breaking their kiss as he tugged it over her head. There was not much time left for her to draw breath, as his mouth was back on hers within a split second, crushing and devouring with feverish urgency. Hermione had imagined their first encounter being calm and prolonged, and almost attempted to slow him down, claiming she wanted sweet, claiming she wanted slow, claiming she wanted something else. She didn\'t.

Her desire was enough to equal his. She moaned as Severus moved down her body, unceremoniously unclasping her bra. He was gentle at first, wetting an erect nipple with his tongue; then cruder, when she gaped in response as he bit on her nipples. Her breasts – never very sensitive, apart from her nipples – were kneaded and crushed. He wasn\'t gentle as he closed his long, beautiful fingers around the soft flesh, and she didn\'t want him to be gentle – not anymore – knowing that tomorrow her breasts would be covered with red and blue marks.

Leaving her breast after he had momentarily satisfied himself, Snape lowered himself to remove Hermione\'s shoes and socks, and then roamed up her body again, to unbutton her jeans and pull them off her legs. Removing her knickers, Severus spread her legs open, watching Hermione\'s moistened, highly sensitive center. Lying like that in front of him, with those dark, unfathomable eyes slipping into the most hidden, intimate places of her body, she felt exposed like she had never felt before. She felt naked. And extremely aroused.

\"You\'re shivering,\" he noted.

Her mouth was dry. \"I might be. I thought this was going to be frantic.\"

Reaching his hand, he touched her swollen clitoris. Nothing but a gentle caress of the engorged nub. Electric flows of pleasure ran through Hermione\'s body. Crying, she arched her back into the touch that was already gone.

Snape seemed amused. \"Perhaps it is.\"

Hermione shook her head. \"I want to come with you inside me.\"

He chuckled. \"Impatient, are we?\"

\"No, no,\" she denied. \"Just hopelessly romantic. We\'ll have plenty of time for other things later- but the first time, I want to come with you inside of me.\"

\"Very well.\" Turning his back to her, Snape removed his socks, and then stood up, quickly disposing of his trousers and underwear. He was aware of her intense observation as he turned around, and stood silent for long minutes, allowing her to look at his naked body. Very tall, very pale, well built, but almost impossibly thin. She loved his cock, and the almost Schielen way the reddened organ contrasted with the whiteness of his body.

\"Is that satisfactory?\" he drawled.

Hermione sat up on her knees, reaching to take that thick, beautiful cock, in her hand. \"Lovely,\" she murmured, and then leaned forward, licking a drop of salty, lucent pre-cum with the tip of her tongue. \"Beautiful.\" Closing her eyes, she brushed her cheek against the pulsing erection, caressing it affectionately, admiringly, in a gesture that was almost childish. Severus, above her, shut his eyes in reverie. Hermione could feel his fingers digging into her scalp, allowing him to guide her back unto the bed,re hre he bent over her, kissing her full, pale lips.

\"Now,\" she whispered, reaching her hand to guide him.

He nodded, and with one, smooth stroke, plunged into her body. Hermione cried, being so deliciously filled and stretched, wrapping her legs around his body and arching to meet his thrusts as he drove into her. She could hear herself mumbling, urging him to fuck her, telling him how much he pleased her or simply giving her delight a vocal expression. She could see the sounds she made reflected in Severus\'s dark eyes that glinted with amusement- rapidly replaced by glazed, exposed pleasure.

It was wet and sweaty and sticky – sharp, accurate thrusts; shallow panting, humid moans; quivering flesh. Breathing heavily, Hermione reached her hand to stroke Snape\'s cheek, fingers trailing down the angular curve of his cheekbone, caressing the stern, sensuous lips and the strong, sculpted chin. A thin film of sweat covered his face, and she brought her moistened finger to her lips. Leaning, Severus captured her mouth with a deep, breathtaking kiss. Panting, Hermione stared at him with glassy, wide-eyed eyes, feeling her climax build inside her body, clenching her internal organs and slowly roaming down her body to close like a fist around his pounding cock. \"Dear God, dear God… that is so sweet,\" she cried, \"so good, Severus, just keep fucking me, so sweet, oh, God….!\"

Her orgasm swept over her, in wave after wave of compelling pleasure. Every muscle in her body tensed, and she arched forcibly, throwing back her head and shutting her eyes in complete abundance, aware of nothing but the man who was rocking in and out of her body – a complete stranger; an integral part of her being; the core and the reason of her pleasure. When he came, too, several seconds after her, Hermione seemed to wait for him on the other side. Relatively relaxed in the ethereal glow of aftermath, her vagina still clenching around his cock, Hermione was focused enough to appreciate the expression of sheer heaven and sheer hell on those remarkabace ace of his. Once again, Hermione thought Severus Snape was indeed beautiful.

And when he dropped motionless onto her body, she wrapped her arms around him, and together, they drifted into sleep.

* The chapter\'s title is taken from Gorge Barker\'s poem \"Turn on your side and bear the day to me\".

* Schielen = Egon Schiele like. Schiele is one of my favourite artists, and since I am quite the didactical type, I let myself copy-paste the following note from Art-Beat (http://www.art-beat.net):

\"EGON SCHIELE. Throughout his short career (1890-1918), Egon Schiele\'s oil paintings captured his bravely defiant, provocative and rebellious nature, causing some critics to refer to him as the James Dean of Austrian artists!
When imprisoned for his immoral paintings and drawings, Egon Schiele was totally unrepentant. Hindering the artist is a crime, he shouteom hom his cell! Egon Schiele\'s favorite subjects were female nudes and self portraits.
Schiele worked at his art with furious commitment, seeming to know he had but a short time to paint. Unfortunately, it wasn\'t until just before Egon Schiele died of flu in 1918 that his oil painting began to get the recognition so richly deserved.
Today Egon Schiele is justifiably ranked with painters such as Oskar Kokoschka and Gustav Klimt as one of the most important artists to come out of Europe.\"

Some examples of Schiele\'s art can be found here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/egonschiele
or here:
http://www.ilnudo.it/Schiele/Egon.htm


A/N

I just want to say how enormously grateful I am to all of you, who keep reading and reviewing \"Breeding Lilacs\". I never expected the story to evolve this kind of commotion, nor did I expect it to touch people they way it seem to have touched. I\'m happy I could make it enjoyable, and hopefully, even little more than that to some of you.

Thank you for sharing your reading experience with me.