Needfire

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. All credit goes to JKR.


my love is building a building
around you, a frail slippery
house, a strong fragile house

...

my love is building a magic, a discrete
tower of magic

-- e.e.cummings


Chapter 26 - Coming and Going


\"Begone,\" muttered Snape to Hermione\'s familiar. The half-kneazle twined itself around his legs where Snape sat on the raised hearth, tending to an experimental potion intended to be used to encourage summery weather around five or six plants he had found dormant in Angharad\'s garden; plants he had need of for other potions. \"Unlike your foolish mistress, I cannot be persuaded by your cattish blandishments.\" He moved his foot suddenly towards the cat, intending to startle it. The cat humped its back at him and hissed, but did not depart. \"I will not pet you, you will bite me. Foul beast.\"

\"What? Why do you say that?\" Hermione taunted him from where she sat at the kitchen table, writing on a piece of notepaper.

Snape growled. \"Your damned pet will get hairs in my potion, and ruin it.\"

Hermione got up from her chair and came towards him, moving to sit on his knee and wind her arms around his neck. \"Just look at you two. You\'re practically twins separated at birth; both ugly as sin, both growling and hissing and spitting and arching your back when angry, and both purring when pleased. I think you\'re going to become best friends.\" To show him the truth of her words, she twined the fingers of one hand through his hair and massaged his scalp. It did feel good, but still Snape scowled at her, for with her other hand she was scratching the cat\'s head as well. The cat looked at Snape smugly.

\"I can hear his damned thoughts,\" Snape muttered.

Hermione laughed. \"I\'ve often thought that myself. Did you hear him calling you \'git\' just now, Snape?\"

He shoved her off his knee, and she landed rather painfully on the stone floor, laughing up at him. \"You don\'t really mind Crook and his bad language, now do you?\" she said to him winsomely. She held her arms up to him, but instead of following her down he used them to pull her back up to kneel between his knees, where he could look into her eyes and think about kissing her rosy mouth.

\"I suppose that now that I am reintroduced to a lost family member, I have no choice but to tolerate his presence. And at least his language is better than yours,\" he said with a sigh.

\"That\'s better.\" She allowed him a kiss or two before she nodded to his cauldron. \"Stir?\" She got up and went back to her list at the table, then took it into the small kitchen area and began opening cabinets. \"We need several things. Let\'s go into the village this afternoon.\"

\"There\'s canned fish, and canned green beans,\" he pointed out.

Hermione curled her lips. \"We had that yesterday, and the day before. You need fresh vegetables. Fresh meat. Whole grains, bread. Fruit.\"

\"I need those things?\" He frowned at the cauldron and added a pinch of mugwort harvested from Angharad\'s neglected garden, which they were slowly setting to rights, weeding, clearing the flagstone paths, and transplanting a few plants that tolerated being moved during the cold and rainy season. The potion smoked a bit and he drew back from it, shielding his eyes.

\"I know you read the nutrition book I gave you. I\'ve seen the pages with your smudgy thumb marks on them. Yes, you need them. You looked better after you stayed with the Malfoys, a bit more flesh under your skin. But you\'re getting that...transparent look again.\"

Snape sat back on his heels at the fireplace and studied her, almost smiling at her seriousness. \"I do not smudge my books.\"

\"You smudge the ones you use frequently.\" She was pleased that he liked her gift, and pleased that it was one of the few things he had brought with him from Hogwarts.

Snape had relished these three weeks alone in Angharad\'s cottage with Hermione. It seemed that they both had blossomed. His mask of a face had cracked; he was free to smile at her jokes and petty grievances over the troublesome, sooty fireplace and rickety chairs; free to take hold of her at any time, sure of his welcome within her arms; free to wander what survived of Angharad\'s garden after so many years and see how the snow rimed the brown seeds and stems, or how rain beat down the plants. Simply: free.

For her part, Hermione\'s hands and arms were as clear as he had seen them, almost since the school year began. She delighted in the frequent use of her magic, and demanded continually that he teach her more, and more, and more. She was the most apt of pupils, as always. And she, as well, slid into his arms often, or into his lap as he sat reading one of the few books they had between them -- for he didn\'t quite dare to send for his Hogwarts library, not yet. And every night she wound her arms around him. It was still awkward for him to sleep with another body in his bed, but he was learning. He could be taught to love.

And love -- glorious, ravishing love. Idyllic, splendid, and rarified. Playful, in a way it had never been at Hogwarts, where always there was the lurking knowledge that if they were to be caught, it would result in serious repercussions. But here, the worst had already happened, and now they could be together without reservation.

Snape had begun brewing them both contraceptive potions, though they\'d had to go to the village for most of the ingredients, and find a few others in the snowy woods. Hermione had thought to pack her school cauldron; compulsive planner that she was, she had foreseen a potential need to be able to brew potions herself. There had been an awkward few days of waiting before they were sure she could not be pregnant -- in the first joyous rush of togetherness, they had forgotten neither of them had recently drunk the potions, but Hermione also felt sure she was far enough along in her lunar cycle to be safe, once she gave it thought and consulted her journal. For Snape\'s part, the thought of Hermione, pregnant with his child, was not entirely repellent; not in the way that discovering Lily, big with James\' get, had been all those years ago. The knowledge was a bit frightening to him. Still, they were better off without that complication.

Blissfully together.

\"You go,\" he said, stirring the potion gently. \"I should watch this.\"

\"I went the last two times. And we need more than I can carry alone, Snape.\"

\"Just shrink it and apparate home.\" Home.

\"Put that potion in stasis and come with me. You know it\'s not smart for me to be seen doing magic in the village.\"

Snape sighed. \"It\'s just...\"

\"...you don\'t understand the Muggle world, do you?\" She strolled to him and he watched her sashay, his mouth quirking to the side. She would coax him with hints of sex, he thought, and he would allow her. Even encourage her. \"You must learn. You used to live in it; have you forgotten everything?\"

\"It was different when Angharad was here. People brought her things. She was the local wise woman; she hardly had to go to town.\"

\"We can\'t risk that, though. Word might get back to the wizarding world, and then we\'d be caught.\" She bent down to stare into his eyes, and he was able to look down the neck of her button-down shirt, to where her small breasts were cupped in her bra and left that mesmerizing, shadowy hollow between them, that fragrant place. He loved to look at her, and she knew it. His mouth twisted up quickly to catch her lips, but she knew what he\'d planned and was faster, pulling away. \"None of that,\" she insisted. \"Come on.\"

\"All right.\" He waved his wand and suspended the potion for the time being. The fire beneath it banked itself, barely glowing eyes of coals among the ash.

He felt like a teenager, walking beside her down the frosty lane to the village, wrapped in a winter coat transfigured from his cloak, his left arm about her, her right arm about him, under the coat. From time to time he looked down at her and always found her attention sharply focused on the plants she could see from the lane.

On their last walk she had noted one of Angharad\'s sacred oaks, and returned later with her flask to harvest its rainwater while he climbed its slick branches for mistletoe. They had resumed their moon rituals at Angharad\'s Circle. Snape was glad she was shielded by the force they created, and had explained to her how it worked, and how it seemed to block Voldemort\'s summoning, as well as how it had protected Potter for a time at Hogwarts. At those words, she had squirmed anxiously, torn between wanting to return to school to protect Potter and Weasley and the need to stay where she was safe. There was not a good way to contact Potter unless he first contacted her, but she had a letter already written, detailing what he was to do for a ritual, and hoping that Draco or Ron could perform it with him sufficient to raise the Needfire and protect them all.

As they neared the village, he released her to walk on her own. They found the greengrocer\'s and Hermione pushed open the door. Snape followed her. She immediately picked up a basket and handed it back to him. \"I\'m to be a pack mule, am I?\" he muttered. She ignored this rudeness, and started choosing among the lettuces for one that seemed fresh. Rejecting them all, she moved on to spinach, and finally chose three bunches to tuck in his basket.

\"I don\'t like spinach,\" he told her.

\"I don\'t recall asking you. Spinach has iron.\" She was looking at radishes now.

\"I don\'t like those, either.\"

\"You have to eat more than porridge and fruit.\" One of the radish bunches suited her, and into the basket it went. When her back was turned, Snape put it back. She found a vegetable marrow she liked, and put it in the basket. Her eyes lifted. \"Go and fetch the radishes you put back,\" she said to him now. \"You thought perhaps I wouldn\'t notice?\"

With bad grace, Snape stretched back for the bunch of red roots, and plopped them in. \"I\'d rather we not eat those.\"

\"I like them. It\'s not always about you, Snape.\"

A cheery voice greeted them from the back of the shop. \"Hullo, young miss! I see you\'ve brought your dad with you today.\"

Snape bridled, looking askance at Hermione. She froze, and Snape was suddenly sure what she was thinking. \"I am her guardian,\" he said now, swiftly, and his words appeared to release her. He put his hand on her shoulder, finding her tense.

\"Ah. An uncle of sorts, then.\" The man came from behind his counter, a long vegetable knife in one hand and a trimmed head of cauliflower in the other. He set the white vegetable down in the pile with the rest.

\"Guardian,\" corrected Snape, starting to glare. \"Do you, perhaps, have fresh pumpkin juice?\"

Hermione turned from where she was examining some broccoli. She spoke to the grocer. \"He\'s my lover,\" she said. \"Not my uncle, and not my father.\" She glared at Snape, daring him to contradict her now.

The grocer looked at her oddly, his brows drawing together, then shifted his gaze to Snape, who was staring at Hermione as though she had slapped him. What was she playing at? Blabbing their relationship to anyone who might be interested, or worse, confused enough by it to pursue it. She shook her head at him, hard. He frowned at her and dragged his attention away from her. \"Pumpkin juice,\" he said again, to the grocer.

The grocer looked at Snape for a long, considering moment. There was a strained silence. Snape knew he was assessing Snape\'s age against Hermione\'s age, and finding a tremendous discrepancy. Robbing the cradle, eh, old man. \"Pumpkin juice?\" said the grocer finally, slowly. \"Never heard of it. Pumpkins now...season for them was in the autumn. None left.\"

\"Pumpkin juice. The juice from pumpkins. One drinks it.\" Snape tried to be clear.

\"Never. Heard. Of. It.\" The proprietor was equally clear.

\"Drop it,\" muttered Hermione, for Snape\'s ears alone. \"Muggles don\'t drink it. Only our kind.\"

\"What else am I likely to be surprised by?\" he growled. \"What other stupid thing will you come up with? Should I Obliviate the poor man after this?\"

\"Just...let me do the shopping, please. You can carry, and pay.\"

\"As long as you stop drawing attention to our...relationship,\" he muttered, \"and we will talk more about this when we get home, little girl.\" He followed her once more. She had almost bypassed the pears when he put his hand on her arm. \"We need pears,\" he said.

\"You need pears,\" she smiled. \"I don\'t like them.\" Nevertheless she chose a few and put them in his basket. For herself, she chose three slightly green bananas. Snape\'s lip curled.

\"Those aren\'t ripe.\"

\"I like them when they\'re astringent,\" she said.

\"They\'re sour?\" he queried, perking up a bit. He liked sour things. \"Maybe you should choose more than three, if they\'re sour. And lemon, lemon for the tea. Where are the lemons?\"

Eventually the basket was overflowing, and the proprietor was smiling again, patently pleased by the size of their purchase. Snape was not fooled. He fished out money -- Muggle money, shamelessly transfigured from knuts and galleons -- and paid for the goods, which the proprietor bagged for them.

Outside the regular market, she reminded him that she was the shopper, and he was the keeper of the funds, and that he could push the cart. Snape glared at her, and she glanced around them before pulling his head down for an open-mouthed kiss that quickly swamped his objections.

\"There, guardian of mine, your payment in advance for good behavior.\"

The last of the shopping was quickly accomplished. Snape\'s only objection came at the meat counter, where he would not allow her to put red meat or pork into the cart -- only fish and chicken. After Snape paid, the two of them walked to the edge of the village laden with bags, to a sheltering copse of trees, and then apparated home to the cottage.

Together, they put away the groceries. Snape charmed one shelf of a cupboard to be cold storage, for things requiring that. Together, they cooked a light supper in the fireplace, in a pan left by Angharad. Hermione forced him to try a radish or two, and he ate them, but he didn\'t like them. For dessert she sliced a pear and sat on his lap, feeding it to him a wedge at a time, sharing bites herself.

\"You said you didn\'t like them.\"

\"I don\'t, but neither do you like radishes,\" she said. \"Fair is fair.\"

Together, blissfully together.

Blissful, until that first Malfoy falcon arrived from Lucius, late one afternoon as the sunlight slanted down through the larches outside Angharad\'s low stone wall, that separated her garden from the road leading to the village. They were having tea at the scarred wooden kitchen table, and both of them watched it swoop into the room, circling, to settle on the table in front of them.

\"Don\'t take it,\" Hermione said suddenly, voice shaky. \"Just send it back.\"

Snape was tempted, unbelievably tempted. His eyes met hers. I could walk away. I could stay here forever, here with my love, and my Circle, and never be found. Never worry again. Never slave beneath the yokes of my two masters, Voldemort and Dumbledore.

\"Don\'t,\" she said again.

\"It\'s not only the two of us at stake, here,\" he said at last.

Hermione\'s eyes closed. She breathed deeply, and said, \"I know. I know.\" Her hands clenched into fists and she put them in her lap, out of his view.

He removed the note from the falcon\'s leg. The bird departed immediately; no reply was expected.

The note from Lucius was simple in the extreme. It said only, \"Summoned.\" Snape\'s hand rasped over his slightly roughened chin. \"I\'m summoned,\" he told her.

\"When?\"

\"I will go soon.\"

Hermione rose and came around the table to him. \"Now?\"

\"Not now, but soon. Tonight.\" He blinked up at her as she stood next to him. She stared down at him, searching the depths of his eyes; for what, he was unsure. As she continued to stand there, studying, his brows drew together. \"What? What are you thinking now?\"

She pressed her lips together tightly, drawing in a long, harsh breath, which seemed to steady her. \"Make love to me before you go, Snape.\"

The response of his body to this demand was instantaneous. He swallowed hard. His hands flew to her hips and snatched her close, so that he could press his face between her breasts. \"Yes. Yes. I will make love to you, Hermione.\"

She took his hand and led him to the bed, where she undressed him herself, slowly, carefully, with the most intense concentration as though she were marking each part of him indelibly on her memory, as if it would be the last time she ever saw him. She would not allow him to undress her, quickly shedding her own clothing.

\"I love you,\" he heard himself choking out, reaching for her nakedness. Still so hard to say, no matter how true it is. The words are awkward, like stones in my mouth.

\"Make me believe it, Snape,\" she whispered, as his mouth came down. \"I need to believe it.\"

A moment in time, weeks ago: \"Cleansed.\" Her voice trembled and Severus saw her bite her lip to gain control.

Severus was moved, despite himself. \"Make me believe it, Hermione,\" he said huskily. \"Say it again. I don\'t believe you, not yet.\"

The love was long, and slow, and deep. There was none of the playful frenzy of recent days; none of the laughter and clutching and gasping directions given from one or the other. Instead, when she opened her thighs and he slid between, there was a scalding moment of joining and he was afraid he would come in that instant, the sensation was so intense; but her eyes held his and he mastered his body, before moving on her, in her, through her, so deeply and carefully that after a time he was unsure where he ended and she began. He lay heavily atop her, but she did not seem to mind; in fact, if anything, she seemed to need him closer. He felt as though he were fucking her with his entire body, all of it, moving slowly within and without. It was devastatingly intimate, more intimate, even, than when he fell asleep beside her. Her small breasts were crushed between them, yet he could feel her nipples, like hard, hot pebbles, rubbing against his own. Her gaze would not release his, and he could feel a spell of some sort rising from her, wreathing his body like smoke, covering him from head to foot. He found himself digging his toes into the mattress in order to brace and press himself deeper still, until he could feel himself touching bottom, reaching the small plum of her cervix.

\"What are you doing,\" he breathed, never ceasing the slow drag of his body against hers. \"What magic is this?\" Whatever it was, he could feel it sinking into his skin, glowing there for a moment before dissipating.

\"Warding you,\" she whispered back. \"Someone must watch your arse, if you won\'t do it.\"

It was spoken so seriously that he could not laugh, could not even smile. No one had ever cared enough for him before to want to ward him against evil, against hurt.

\"Where did you learn to do that?\" He slowed his movements even more, taking himself down that one notch that would allow him to bring her to a climax before him. They were too close together for him to slip a hand between, no matter how slender and long his fingers were.

\"Ahhhh...Snape...\" she spoke the sounds on an exhaled breath. The slow stroking was beginning to have an effect. He could feel the tension in her spiraling upwards, manifesting itself in the clenching of her fingers on his buttocks. \"It\'s in an old book of spells,\" she told him now, her head falling back, her body trembling hard, then harder, until she disintegrated beneath him, pulling him with her into ecstasy.

\"Of course, a book,\" he sighed against her mouth, shuddering. \"Yes, ward me.\"

Not long after, she watched him from the bed, her knees drawn up beneath the blankets, her arms around her knees, her head resting on them. He dressed carefully, slowly, digging his silver mask and black robes out of the back of the armoire where he had hidden them. Hermione\'s eyes grew wide as she looked at the mask in his hand, and the Dark Mark, visible on the inside of his left arm.

\"You\'ve never seen me like this,\" he said.

\"Professor, druid, Muggle man in bluejeans -- yes, those. But...but never...not this.\" She shivered and drew the blankets over her. \"I don\'t like it.\"

\"Neither do I,\" he said. \"But it must be done, there are others who matter more than I.\"

\"No, there aren\'t!\" she cried, coming to her knees, naked on the bed, to clutch at the black robes and pull him close. \"Don\'t go, Snape. He doesn\'t know where you are.\"

Snape looked at her sternly. \"Granger. Potter. Weasley. And now young Malfoy. Don\'t these matter?\"

She sat back on her heels and rubbed hard at her eyes. \"I don\'t love them, not the way I love you.\"

He drew his index finger beneath her eyes and gathered tears there, which he brought to his mouth, tasting this new part of her, the way he had wanted to taste her perspiration all those weeks ago, the first time in the Circle. The taste was bitter and salty. \"I\'ll be back,\" he promised. \"Just wait here. It will be several hours, but I\'ll be back.\" And he apparated, headed for the usual meeting place, a large and dark cellar somewhere in London.


~*~

The meeting was excruciatingly boring, as always. Snape sat next to Lucius, even though the blond said not a word to him and glared through him with eyes of sharpest crystal. Voldemort paced in front of the group, shrieking out his plans and goals and hatred for two hours or more. He required that all the Death Eaters swear fealty to him anew, and caused them all pain by disrupting their Dark Marks with his knotted black wand as they knelt in front of him. Snape could see Lucius\' jaw set in aggravation when Voldemort called special attention to him, by announcing that Draco would shortly be among their ranks, the first in a second generation of Death Eaters loyal to their Dark Lord. Lucius\' eyes met his as Snape waited in line to pay his respects to Voldemort. There was no smile in them, still.

When it was his turn, Snape knelt in front of Voldemort, who put his hand on Snape\'s head and shoved his forehead back, so that Snape\'s face was turned up. \"What is this,\" he muttered. \"I feel warding on you. Who has dared to ward you from me?\"

\"It is only an experiment, my Lord,\" lied Snape. \"I have been pondering how best for the Death Eaters to defend you and themselves in this coming battle.\"

\"Pondering, for all those weeks you ignored my summons, Snape?\" The voice was chill and soft.

\"I was unavoidably out of reach,\" said Snape now. That much was truth. He doubted that even Voldemort could reach through the wards of a properly alive Circle. \"I regret that very much, my Lord.\"

Voldemort touched his wand to the Dark Mark on Snape\'s arm. Snape pretended it hurt, bending over it, rubbing it with his right hand. But actually, Hermione\'s warding was holding up well, and the touch of the black wand had little effect other than to burn slightly. \"Away with you,\" muttered Voldemort. Snape filed back to his seat next to Lucius, who leaned to speak quietly.

\"I have held up my end of the bargain -- not divulging your trysts with your mudblood. Do your part -- help me keep my son from those hands and that black wand.\"

When the meeting was over, and Snape had learned nothing new with regard to the battle plans for sometime in late spring, the Death Eaters began to Apparate away from the meeting site. Snape himself was ready to depart when Voldemort called his name. Snape turned, dreading what was next.

\"Snape. Potions Master Snape. Oh, no -- forgive me, I should say, ex-Potions Master Snape.\"

Snape sighed. \"I\'ll always be a Potions Master, my lord. Just not a Hogwarts teacher.\"

Voldemort folded his arms. \"I need you to explain to me why you are no longer at Hogwarts, Snape. I needed you there. I\'m having to make do with the eyes of an irresponsible youth -- Potter -- and young Malfoy.\"

\"I...made an error in judgment,\" said Snape. \"I was caught for it, and sacked.\"

\"What kind of error.\"

There was no point in lying. Voldemort already knew; he was simply toying with Snape. \"I slept with one of my students. More than once. And was caught.\"

\"Did the wench turn you in?\"

\"No. She was willing. We were caught, as I said.\"

\"It is most unlike you to surrender to your baser desires, Snape.\"

\"I regret it,\" he replied.

\"There is also something...new. A barrier between us. Something I have never seen before.\"

\"Sir? A barrier?\" Snape knew what Voldemort was talking about -- Lucius had prepared him, thankfully, but pretended to misunderstand. \"I explained about the warding, my Lord.\"

\"Not your foolish warding, idiot. As you can see, it had little effect. No. I mean something else. I have summoned you many times these past months, yet you have not come at my calling. There is a noise, a whiteness, an energy I cannot push past.\"

\"I never heard your call, my lord, or I would surely have come.\"

\"That is what Lucius Malfoy says, as well. Snape, I need you to find and dissolve this barrier. And I need you to return to Hogwarts and continue in your critical role.\"

Snape bowed. \"I will do my best.\"

\"Don\'t fail. I am not pleased with the current arrangement.\"

\"I understand, my lord.\" Snape turned to leave, since the conversation appeared to be over.

\"And Snape...next time, your reward will be Cruciatus, if you are disobedient again.\"

\"I understand, my lord,\" he said again. Cruciatus. Always, and only. Any third year student could be more original than that, yet...it\'s still the most effective punishment we know. Lazy and uncreative of you, Voldemort.

When he was released, Snape Apparated home, arriving in the dark bedroom. He stripped down to his boxers, tossing his Death Eater garb over an armchair. He slid into the bed, his hands groping for Hermione. She was not asleep in the bed.

\"Lumos,\" he said, and looked around him. Hermione was not in the room at all. \"Shit,\" he said, startled. \"Hermione?\" He flung back the blankets and went into the parlor. Not there, either. He turned the corner into the kitchen, and there she was, finally, kneeling on the hearth, her head and upper body well into the fireplace, fluffy piles of soot all around her as she scrubbed at the stone walls and chimney. She had bespelled her wand to float behind her, giving her light: a trick of Flitwick\'s.

Snape stared, his heart rising into his throat. Hermione seemed almost manic in her movements as she awkwardly yet swiftly scrubbed at the inside of the fireplace. Whenever a clump of soot fell and struck her arm, she would give a gasp and try to brush it away; but each time it left a dark streak, which she would attempt to wipe away, then scrape at with her fingernails, making a gasping noise of panic and revulsion. Is this how it starts? Is it beginning again? Tell me it\'s not, it cannot still be happening, she\'s been so happy here, she\'s been so much better, she\'s been well, hasn\'t she?

\"Merlin, Hermione -- what are you doing?\"

With a gasp, she sat upright and nearly struck her head on the stone at the front of the fireplace. \"You\'re home!\" she cried. \"Are you hurt? Did he hurt you, after all those meetings you missed?\"

Snape shook his head, wearily. \"It was not that sort of meeting. It was...boring. Hermione, why didn\'t you just use a charm to clean out the soot?\"

She looked a bit sheepish. \"This nasty fireplace!\" she cried out. \"I...I...didn\'t think of using a charm.\" She wrapped her arms around her body, realized she was getting soot on her clothing, and held her arms away from herself awkwardly. \"I guess...it...I really just...I need to know that it\'s clean. Arrrg!\" She came out of the fireplace and moved to the sink, where she ran the hot water tap and pushed her arms beneath the steaming stream. Working angrily, she soaped herself well and rinsed. Snape, moving closer to brush soot from her hair, saw that she had scraped and nicked her hands and arms on the inside of the rough stone fireplace as well as scratching at the soot that dirtied them.

\"You\'re bleeding a little,\" he said, dabbing at the cuts with a towel.

\"The walls of the fireplace are very rough,\" she said, huskily. \"Could you do a cleansing spell?\" she asked him. \"I think I probably have a lot of soot in my hair.\"

Snape obliged. \"Why aren\'t you in bed, Hermione? Why are you still awake?\"

\"I couldn\'t sleep. You didn\'t really expect me to, did you?\" Clean again, she flung herself against him and wrapped her arms around his neck. \"You\'re home, you\'re safe. How did my warding do?\"

\"Just...fine,\" he told her now, looking deep into her eyes. She\'s panicking, he thought. Almost desperate. \"Just fine, Hermione. It saved me from considerable pain when Voldemort touched my Dark Mark with his wand. Come back to bed now, where it\'s warm.\"

Hermione was still draping herself bonelessly over him. \"You\'re always telling me that, it seems,\" she said, drawing out each syllable and laughing faintly.

Snape didn\'t like the eerie, scattered sound of her laugh, but told himself to ignore it. \"Well will you listen -- and perhaps obey me -- for once?\" he demanded softly, bending his head, finding her mouth, and then lifting her in his arms. He wanted her in bed; he would just take her there himself, instead of debating it endlessly.