Needfire

Chapter 03 – White


\"You from New-York you are so relevant
you reduce me to cosmic tears
luminous more so than most anyone
unapologetically alive knot in my stomach
and lump in my throat.\"

-- So Pure. Alanis Morisette.


The cold pre-dawn air slashed Hermione\'s lungs in one clear stroke, reminding her once again to inhale through her nose. She rebuked herself, concentrating, and sprang onward. Each jolting step sent a reviving impact through her body, ascending from the soles of her feet. In contrast with the beat of her heart, the beat of the jogging strummed on joints and muscles reawoken to life.

Around her, morning creatures were slowly crawling out of their burrows, while the night was carefully and thoroughly shutting down. Night\'s animals were retreating back into their hiding places as golden slivers were creeping unto the sky like octopus arms and sucking away the purplish darkness. Sweet dew was crusting the grass, spraying on Hermione\'s Nike-clad feet as she trampled the lush, green stems. A curious bee watched her over the top of a daisy, and then moved along lazily to the next flower.

She was about a mile from Hogwarts. The castle kept twinkling in the distance like a faraway star that refused to sink into the sea together with the moon. Its protective wards were still sizzling around her: a stable, firm wall of white magic. Two years earlier, she had asked for Dumbledore\'s permission to use the castle grounds for training. The Headmaster agreed, as long as she remained within sight of the castle, making sure Hermione knew how to produce alert sparks in case she needed someone to come to her aid. Hermione, who, in the end, was much less adventurous and far more calculated and accustomed to certain luxuries than she liked to admit, found herself discovering large parts of Hogwarts and its grounds which she never knew before. The Standing Stones, which she was heading for now – about a mile and a half from the castle – was one of those locations.

Their long, uneven shadows were floating on the grass, and could be seen long before the Stones themselves were discerned against the hazy mixture of colours that was the pre-dawn sky. Above her, Iris was pedantically mopping the darkness out of the blackish heavens. The Stones in the distance were gathering the sun\'s first rays. They were drinking them in; glowing with strange, mysterious light. Breathing.

Dawn, Hermione discovered after visiting the site several times in alternating hours, was the only time of day when the Stones almost appeared white in colour. But not completely. Dusk, as well, was a strange time to visit the Stones, when once again the sun cast incredibly long shadows onto the ground, drawing the light away. At dusk, the Stones were almost fearsome – a scattered array of ancient monuments incarnated out of the shadows; poisoned arrowheads shot toward blank, ominous sky.

She remembered that evening all too well. The Stones had been panting around her, launching ropes of sizzling magic as if to trap the foolish fly of a girl who got caught amongst them. A thin film of sweat had misted on her limbs, gluing her clothes to her body, and she cried: a sharp, loud cry of fear. Someone, she was sure, had been watching her from the shadows. No answer had come. She must have been paranoid. Crazy to be afraid of the Stones this way. She’d read about them after all- they held no Dark Magic, no danger for her, as powerful as they were, and powerful they were indeed.

It was all this damn pressure, Hermione attempted to assure herself, just the damn pressure that made her breath shorten, the pressure of studying for the NEWTs, while knowing the final battle was probably to be expected at the end of the year, that plagued her with all those disgusting dreams about Professor Snape… Oh God, oh God, she must think… Reaching for her index finger, Hermione stretched the digit until she heard the silent, sickening sound of unbuckling. She then repeated the process with the rest of her fingers, until she felt calm enough to move forward. Taking a calming breath, she planted one leg in front of the other, and began to move, away from the Stones- and back to the castle. Where she would have the large, luxurious prefects\' bathroom all to herself.

In Hogwarts, just the way she did upon waking from the dream in which she’d seen her mother sucking off Professor Snape, Hermione scraped herself back to sanity. It’d been years since she’d felt the urge to do so, and the teen sobbed as she literally scratched the soap into her skin. She felt dirty: sweaty, unclean and impure, betrayed by her own mind. Hermione knew she was probably causing herself damage, but she couldn\'t help but force herself under the scalding water; hissing as the nearly sizzling liquid burnt her skin back to cleanness.

As a young child, she had entertained several symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder – Hermione would never have stepped on the lines notching the walkway; she always placed her slippers with their noses even and turned to the opposite direction of the bed. There were certain drawers she had to open and close two or four times before she could reach for their contents and her hands would always be impeccably clean. None of it would have ever occurred to her mother until, while trimming her daughter\'s nails, she\'d suddenly noticed how red and sore her eight-year-old girl\'s hands seemed to be.

With that began an endless cycle of experts, most of them family friends of her professional parents. Donna and Lester Granger had been relatively late to marry and their daughter, Hermione, was treated with the care and reverence reserved for only children.

Natalie, who had been a children\'s expert highly recommended to her parents, had insisted she was causing herself damage. She had often wondered, though, whether thing about her hands had actually been Donna\'s way of showing Hermione her place. Being cleverer than Donna ever thought her to be, Hermione had never shared this observation with her therapist, sensing that first and foremost, Natalie sided with Mummy. She therefore had done her best to keep her hands clean without scratching them every hour and a half, and was apparently partly successful in hiding most of her compulsive-obsessive behaviors. Natalie, the traitor, had been of course rewarded for curing the Granger\'s treasure of her ailments. Hermione Jane Granger, for her part, had learned a lesson about the importance of being discreet. She\'d also learned that Donna could hardly be trusted to have her daughter\'s welfare in mind.

Ever since what she referred to as the \'Natalie incident\', Hermione was careful to maintain a detailed diary of her different OC symptoms, keeping every aspect of the disorder under close inspection. She had several breakdowns over the years: incidents when she’d nearly hurt herself before she managed to get the problem under control. The diary, however, was kept in order to enable her to track down patterns and frequency of certain behaviours. What she saw when she checked the entries from the last three weeks was disturbing. She then lifted her palms, inspecting them, and screwed up her face at the sore, red skin. She hadn\'t even noticed washing them so frequently.

She\'d have to figure out a way to get the situation under control, Hermione decided, sinking back to the present. The Yoga and the jogging did wonders to relieve her stress, but the sport wasn\'t enough. Perhaps a potion was the solution she needed – though it would force her into some serious research concerning psychiatric potions. A branch of magic Hermione wasn\'t even sure existed – and research she definitely didn\'t have time to do. She could approach Madam Pomfrey of course, but then, Hermione had very little faith in medical personnel when it concerned her mental health. Perhaps she could have asked Professor Snape, she mused- presented the issue as her recent project for the DA… No, no, Hermione shook her head. It was a bad idea. Over the last few weeks, Professor Snape had become almost a taboo for her. She would leap out her seat and out of the Potions classroom the moment the lesson was over, fighting the urge to scratch every trace of the man off her body. His dirtiness –once arousing; still arousing, in fact – began to haunt her. Ever since the dream, she felt as if wanting him alone made her impure.

Watching the Stones forming long, protruding creases in the sky\'s canvas, Hermione wondered whether the Professor was some kind of negative mirror she used to look at herself. She didn\'t fool herself into thinking the man was anything to her but a random number, a variable, that she used to verify certain parts of the complex theorem that was her own psyche. And still, she wondered what his cock tasted like.

She was a nitwit. Supercilious, pretentious, hormonal teenager; driven by her sexual urge rather than by her common sense.

Hogwarts seemed to be suffocating her lately: the stonewalls closing around in a sense that was almost empirical; pumping the air out of her lungs and sending her into an asthmatic heave. And just think how anxious she had been to break free from Donna\'s clutches this summer! There’d been this guy, Jonah, \"you\'d love him, darling,\" who was the \"son of our friends, Adelaide and Alfred: she\'s an oncologist and he\'s a lawyer,\" that her mother tried to set her up with.

When Hermione had explained to her that she already had a boyfriend, Donna only gave her another burgundy-coloured smile. \"You\'re so young, love,\" she chattered. \"It\'s time for you to have some fun before you settle.\"

\"For Christ\'s sake, Mum!\" Hermione had huffed. \"Ron and I aren’t getting married next Tuesday!\"

Donna had smiled, exposing a set of perfectly straightened, china white teeth. \"That\'s exactly what I\'m saying, darling. So what are you wearing for dinner? The Huntingtons are coming and I want you to look your best.\"

Hermione had contemplated coming down to dinner in a tricot shirt and faded jeans, knowing Donna would most probably suffer an apoplexy. At last, not wishing to upset her father, she’d taken a quick shower and put on an Armani dress Lester had brought her from her parents\' last vacation in Italy.

It was a beautiful garment, Hermione remembered as she neared the Standing Stones. All clingy silk, the colour of liquid chocolate: skillfully cut, bracing her figure as if it was stitched around her body. Les was a fine shopper, unlike Donna who had an eye for phosphorescent, grating colours, closely fitted; and overall a keen fondness for whatever item that screamed of exaggerated feminization. Fifties style vinyl bags; Hermes\' scarves with flowered patterns; sickeningly sweet perfumes and pearl strings – like prayer-beads – gracing her aging neck.

Creamy, unblemished skin, notched by time, kissed by the wind, heated by the sun, bitten by the cold of the rains and the snow. Looking at the ancient Stones, now arising from the grass in front of her, Hermione was reminded of Donna. The stones were ancient, hunched Goddesses wandering in the dewy grass, while Donna was a modern Goddess, of vinyl and kerosene, and would be buried in a coffin: to protect her body – mummified by cosmetic preparations – from the raw earth, and the raw earth, from Donna Granger\'s sweet, poisonous perfume.

Hermione began to slow her steps, panting, until she stopped completely, at the foot of the center piece. It was a delicate, graceful Stone, thinner and higher than her sisters. Sometimes it reminded Hermione of a heron. Other times it reminded her of an elder, willowy lady – a former ballerina perhaps – with age slowing her movements and inflammation pouring into the once flexible joints. Nonetheless beautiful.

Hermione inhaled deeply, supporting her hands on her knees. Frosty wind was congealing the flimsy coat of sweat that shone on her forehead, sneaking under her clothes to cool off her body. The sun, hardly a quarter of a coin peeking above the hills in the east, was breathing ethereal light on the Stones. Straightening, Hermione unloaded the small satchel on her back, reaching for a small bottle of mineral water. She drank languidly, allowing ribbons of clear liquid to trickle down her chin and into the collar of her jogging fleece, until she slaked her thirst. At that, Hermione glanced at her Muggle wristwatch. Five thirty. Time to turn around and begin the three miles run back to Hogwarts: around the cliff from which the castle towered, across the Quidditch Pitch, around the Great Lake and along the Forbidden Forest\'s skirts, where she would head back to the castle.

Her muscles now warm and responsive, Hermione quickly set into a moderated, comfortable rhythm. Around her, the air was beginning to warm as well. The high-pitched hooting of bats – circling the high foliage – had been fully replaced with the morning birds\' recalcitrant chirping. The sky, Hermione noticed as she neared the Forbidden Forest, was still dark, though ribbons of hazy orange tinted its lucid aqua-marine. The bluish mists drifting from amongst the trees carried the heavy scent of rich, fertile earth the colour of menstrual blood clots.

She jogged lightly, inhaling the smells of the forest. The dewy, envy-green grass that flexed and broke under her feet; the rotting foliage that covered the forest\'s ground, and the heady, mind blowing perfume of black roses, which grew way back in the depths of the forest. Here, in the open air, it was finally clean; with the chilly autumn wind drying the sweat off her body, slowly untying the tangled knot of anxiety and distress that had been building at the back of her throat for several days. When, at first, she noticed the white-clad figure, Hermione tended to dismiss it as another fog molded vision of the forest. Then the figure moved, disconnecting from the bluish mists, and Hermione was forced to realise it was indeed a human being that she was watching. She had to maintain her pace and be back to the castle within the next twenty minutes or so if she wanted to keep her schedule: there was no time for stalking strangers in the fog, as intriguing as they might be. But then, she was always known for her curiosity; Lester\'s little puppy, always snooping around his office, concaving into the curves of his large, masculine palm, seeking for warmth and attention.

Decisively, she slowed down, nearing the place where she saw the androgynous figure, all shrouded in white, walk deeper into the forest. As silently as she possibly could, Hermione stepped into the whirling fog and into the forest, moving along the shadows as she discreetly followed the white-clad person. Its attire, she noted, was that of a Druid: a beautiful, lush feather cape that reminded her of an exiled baroness, adorned with luxuries of her once glamorous past, above a plain, white robe. Tall and lean, the person wore the ancient clothes with incredible grace, moving silently through the forest as if it were one of its creatures.

Then she knew who she was looking at.

Well. Well. That was rich. Professor Snape in a druid Drag Queen\'s costume. Out of his coffin to scare history into undoing itself. Damn, she thought, but he looked sexy, no matter what he wore. Wonder if he’d bothered to wash his hair before wrapping himself with all this illuminating, clean whiteness. It was, perhaps, the moment when Hermione\'s heart metaphorically stopped beating and for the longest second, her desire for the man was not only a series of chemical reactions controlled by her pituitary gland; more than the gaping, libidinal astonishment of a hormonal teenager. It was a fist in the guts, a reaction she could store, following Aristotle\'s friendly advice, along with her sacred ideals, side by side with the phallic, shiny black Berretta, and her copy of the Bible.

Worrying her lower lip, she considered the best way of following her Professor into the maze he seemed about to enter, her mouth drying when he suddenly halted.

Bloody hell, Granger. He\'s going to turn around and catch you staring at him, but there will be no X-rated detention in his office with you wearing fishnet pantyhose underneath your school uniform and Snape wielding the cane- and fuck fuck fuck, couldn\'t she just stop thinking with her clit for a moment and be rational? Swallowing, Hermione glued herself to her temporary hideout behind a roughed tree trunk, praying to the Lord this sanitation-white angel of a Snape wouldn\'t display his usual alertness and detect her presence.

Luckily, although having scanned his surroundings with a mien Hermione could not decipher, Professor Snape was apparently too involved in his own rituals to notice something as insignificant as her. Slowly, ceremonially, he unfolded the thick, black cloth he was carrying, and spread it on the ground. His teaching robe, Hermione noted. Once the garment was lying on the Forbidden Forest\'s floor, Snape had carefully shed his feathered cape; long, beautiful fingers trailing along the luxurious mesh. His were fingers made to be adorned with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, she found herself musing longingly; fingers to be painted with henna and kissed by bowing gentlemen. Baroness Snape. Who reached those lovely, lovely hands of his to the rope that hung loosely around his waist, and, with one sure pull, untied it. The ripples of white, rough fabric embracing Snape\'s willowy figure were then removed.

She wasn\'t sure there was a word to describe what she saw, as somewhere, some part of her kept screaming that Professor Snape in a loincloth was ridiculous and pathetic. Another part urged her to stroke herself through the fabric of her trousers until she came, biting her lips so she would not scream her orgasm out loud. Looking at him – just looking at him without touching herself or hearing Harry or Ron make some nasty comment in her head – was unnerving. Not because the mere sight was unnerving: technically, he was almost everything Hermione had always expected him to be. Too thin; beautifully pale – like fine, superb cream; delicately built, but manly so; ugly- which was nothing new. New was seeing him with the heady perfume of the forest clouding her brain; against the green darkness of the foliage; dressed like the ancients: it was the image, not only the man, which made her knees suddenly weak – again – and made her suddenly thirsty.

Think, think, she had to think…! But instead, she watched Professor Snape. The Potions Master lifted his face, searching the tree\'s foliage, eyes moving along the thick mess of leaves until his gaze rested on a darker lump that was, unmistakably, mistletoe.

Ten points to Gryffindor, she thought angrily. You really are pathetic Granger, now aren\'t you? Too foggy brained to notice Professor Snape was standing in front of an oak. Of course he\'s after mistletoe, dressed like that, she preached to herself. I really wonder how much more there is to it…In front of her, Snape was approaching the tree. With an elegant move indicating of practice, he closed his right hand around a bulky ridge in the wood, and clinging to the trunk, began pulling himself upward. A muscle up his back shrunk, making Hermione moisten her lips. I could skip meditation and go to the library after I\'m showered, she thought frantically, if only classes didn\'t start at eight…Good gracious! Looking at her wristwatch, she realized it was already 5:30. High time for her to be back in the castle, showered and meditating. She shouldn\'t have let herself be carried away. About time she should be going anyway- as long Snape was busy gathering the damn plant. Why didn\'t the pompous prick just use his wand to retrieve it anyway?

She made herself scarce, her patience somewhat frail. As much as she tried to be discreet, Hermione could still hear the dry leaves crackling under her feet. Frustrated, she swore under her breath.

Once in the castle, alone in the prefects\' huge bathroom, she tore off her clothes, disgusted to note the signs of arousal staining her pants. Unclean. He made her unclean and disgusting. Unreasonably exhausted, feeling childish and stupid and immature, Hermione burst into tears. She told herself it wasn\'t rational: there was no reason she should suddenly find her body fluids dirty. It had been years since she held a mirror in front of her spread legs and stared at herself with revulsion. Years since her genitalia was \"it\" and was an area she touched with curiosity mixed with repugnance.

And yet, she was angrily soaping her vagina and vulva, washing it with vengeance again and again. Only when she closed her legs – the numbing kiss of pain compelling her to tighten her lips – did Hermione know she was finally clean.

* * *

More than an hour later, after having awkwardly attempted to cover the puffiness of her eyes with makeup, Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table, stuffing food to her belly and for once, glad that her boyfriend was so thick. Ron, whose hand was draped over her shoulder, was having an animated discussion with Harry about some new curse his best friend wanted to teach the DA on the next meeting. The last one, Hermione had fleetingly remembered, Harry was late to by almost half an hour.

Every once in a while, Ron would turn to heap some more food onto her plate, ask her to back his current argument in whatever debate he and Harry were having, then return to Harry, telling him Hermione was saying that he, Ron, was right, while Harry was wrong. Well, he did ask her if everything was all right when she stepped into the hall, all jumpy and nervous, but was all too happy to beat a retreat when she pushed him off.

Sour-faced, she sipped from her pumpkin juice, and then removed some of the oily food Ron piled onto her plate. No matter how much time she spent on explanations, Ronald Weasley was still sure \'nutritional\' equaled \'a calorie bomb\'. Sometimes, Hermione thought, remembering the last dental floss she\'d given Ron, which had become a fishing string, she really wondered why she was even bothering. She knew Ron was trying to stick to the diet she had drawn out in her training program, but sometimes he still made her feel as if for him, it all was some sort of intricate war game.

\"You know,\" she\'d told him once, lying in his arms, \"on the day the war is over, I\'d like to walk in Hogsmeade\'s main street with my breasts bared, just like young woman who greeted the allies\' troops who marched into the conquered Paris.\"

At first, Ron hadn’t said a thing. It’d had been a lovely summer night, meant to be spent outdoors: they’d spent it making love on a blanket Ron spread on the bank of the small lake, about half a mile from the Burrow. Afterwards, they’d lain curled in each other\'s arms, the water\'s sweet, insipid smell carried upon the warmth wind. For a moment, she’d thought he understood; that her deep craving for peace, to finally have this madness behind her was something that lived in him as well and that he could identify with – even if not fully rationalize her wish to walk bare-breasted in the wizarding town\'s main street. But then Ron had shifted uncomfortably underneath her, faintly clearing his throat. \"Well, don\'t you think it would be a little, err… daring? Oh, I get it!\" he said, then burst into laughter. \"It\'s a joke! You made a joke Mio- sorry, Hermione! Why, that was cool! Harry will laugh his arse off when I tell him about it. Sure, you go do it gal! It would be brilliant!\"

\"Oh, just shut up!\" she’d groaned. \"You can be such a dolt sometimes!\"

\"What?\" Ron had teased her. \"You aren\'t trying to tell me you meant it, right? Hermione? Sweetheart?\" He’d poked her shoulder with the tip of his finger in this manner that always made her want to slap him. \"Hermione, love, please answer me…\"

\"Don\'t sweetheart me and don\'t poke me like that, Ronald Weasley.\"

\"Look, Hermione, if you want to go naked into the Ministry once You-Know-Who is defeated; it\'s fine with me, okay? I\'m sorry that I laughed. I love you and don\'t care what you do as long as you\'re happy about it.\"

Hermione had breathed deeply, suddenly feeling very petty and immature. So he hadn\'t understood her wish to act in a certain fashion. So what? He still loved her and supported her. There was only so much she could have; no way she could eat the cake and yet keep it whole. \"Okay,\" she’d mumbled. \"But don\'t do it again. I wouldn\'t have told you such thing unless I was serious.\"

\"All right. I suppose I should\'ve known. Do you forgive me?\"

\"I do. Ron- I\'m sorry for being angry.\"

\"It\'s okay. I know my woman.\"

\"I\'m not your woman,\" she’d mumbled sleepily, curling her fingers in the fine, reddish hair that covered his chest.

\"Sure you are. Now sleep.\"

And she’d slept, snug in his arms, where dreams about her sarcastic Professor could not reach her. Nevertheless, there was nothing to prevent the memory of those dreams to reach her now. Nothing that prevented her from replaying the scene in the forest again and again in her mind. Prelude, of a sort, Hermione decided only seconds later, to the Potions Master\'s sweeping into the hall and taking his seat at the high table. Snape, as was to be expected, was embalmed in his usual, forbidding exoskeleton, and was glaring meaningfully at his plate. Strands of raven-coloured hair fell to contrast with the sallow whiteness of his skin, reminding Hermione of the creature she’d seen in the forest. Baroness Snape. The robes, she reflected now, were a bulb of wafer-thin, silken black threads meant as shelter, enfolding Baroness Snape\'s white, delicate wings and protecting them from the frost and the rain.

For once, he didn\'t seem to care about the noisy student body, but precisely and thoroughly fed himself. It was, she thought, as if he hardly minded taste and texture, and was merely eating to keep his body functioning. Not that she’d ever remembered Snape doing otherwise. Not that she’d ever inspected Snape\'s eating habits.

\"Are you looking at the greasy git, Hermione?\" Ron asked her, shaking her from her short reverie.

\"It\'s Professor Snape, Ron,\" she told him tiredly. \"You better remember that, seeing we have advanced Potions today.\"

\"Yeah, as if he\'d call Snape a \'greasy git\' to his face,\" Harry sniggered. \"He\'d be too busy scrubbing caldrons till the end of the year to beat me in squats!\"

\"We took measures after a Quidditch practice! All you had to do was to fly around doing nothing for three hours!\" Ron protested. \"Try it when we\'re both fresh, then we\'ll see!\"

Harry, never one to refuse a dare, stuck out his chin. \"Want to make it a bet?\"

Hermione rolled her eyes. \"I really have no idea how you two made it into advanced Potions. You behave like two baboons fighting for the Alpha male position.\"

\"For the Alpha male- what?\" Ron echoed.

\"Never mind, Ron. Harry Potter, please eat with your mouth shut. Boys, we\'ll be late for class if you don\'t begin to chew on your bacon sometime soon.\"

\"Yes Mum!\" Harry and Ron called together.

And with that, Hermione sipped the remnants of her pumpkin juice and turned to check the contents of her schoolbag for the last time.