A Maid in the Devil's Manor

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 35 ~ The Conspiracy

A group of about forty of the Manor’s seventy house elves gathered in the kitchen, waiting for Eli’s return from the lower levels, so he could give the daily update on their Master’s progress with the Miss. They all held high hopes for the last subtle hint they dropped.

The door opened, and Eli walked into the kitchen. The waiting elves all ran up to him, crowding him and looking expectantly at the small green elf. Eli flattened his ears.

“No in-outie,” he said sadly. “The Master did not bathe with her.”

A chorus of disappointed high pitch groans rose from the group of elves.

“The Miss is not yet ready,” Eli said to his fellow elves, spreading his claws in exasperation. “She wants the in-outie, but is still unsure our Master is who she wants.”

At this all the house elves murmured and debated among themselves, before finally coming to the consensus that Hermione needed more specialized help.

Eli nodded. This next attempt would require powerful elf magic. He looked at an elf with a green head and brown ears who was standing by the kitchen door.

“TwoTone, go watch.” Eli said to the elf, “They is at breakfast now. Eli will send her help,” Eli said.

The elf winked out and reappeared by the door leading to the veranda, where Severus and Hermione dined. He peered out at them from the lower corner of the door.

In the kitchen, the elves formed a circle around Eli, who closed his eyes and stretched forth one closed hand, throwing his consciousness outward and touching Hermione’s mind. He looked deep and found one of her favorite fantasies to manipulate.

“I sees it,” he said to the other elves. They murmured excitedly.

Eli lowered his head and concentrated.

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Hermione and Severus were having a quiet breakfast on the rose-covered veranda. Hermione secretly suspected that this was Severus’ favorite outdoor dining area, despite the roses, simply because the roses were planted by his mother. It might have brought him comfort. There were a lot of roses in the gardens surrounding the Manor as well. For a wizard that hated roses, he certainly allowed a lot of them to remain.

Hermione couldn’t look at Severus without thinking of his naked body only a few feet from her in the loo. Using the bathroom in her room would never be the same again. His black eyes met hers as he buttered a biscuit.

Suddenly Hermione had a visual of Severus’ lean, naked body curled over her back, his lips locked to the nape of her neck, one muscled arm curled around her waist, thrusting into her deeply, and she was crying out his name over and over…

“Merlin! What the hell was that!” Hermione said as she tried to pull back from the vision.

She felt strange.

“What the hell was what?” Severus asked, pausing in spreading his biscuit and looking at Hermione with concern.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed, even as the world began to pulsate around her.

“You’re sending me images,” she accused.

“Images of what?” he asked, not having any idea what she was talking about

The sense of strangeness was increasing. She felt oddly detached. Severus’ voice was taking on an attractive, haunting quality that went straight to her belly.

“Images of us…of you…of…me,” she said rather weakly. Her mouth was speaking things she didn’t want to reveal.

“Us?’ the Potions Master asked. “Hermione, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t send you images. I can read images from your mind, and I can block my images from being seen, but I can’t send images. What did you see?”

Hermione felt as if someone had given her veritasserum. She was being compelled to tell him what she saw.

“I was just sitting here, and you looked at me, and then I saw…I saw…” she faltered. It was delicious what she saw. She felt herself getting wet. A pulse of longing shot through her body.

Severus saw the sudden heat in her eyes, and he wanted very badly to know what she saw them doing that made her look that way.

“What did you see, Hermione?” he said in his most persuasive voice.

She told him. She couldn’t help herself.

“You were fucking me,” she said almost in a whisper, her amber eyes unfocused. “It was so clear. So real. Like I was in the room watching us. You were in my bed, in the lower rooms, behind me…no…over me…spooned over my back, holding my waist, kissing the back of my neck and fucking me. I was … crying out your name…

Severus felt himself beginning to harden. She was crying out his name. His name. That was what he wanted. Her eyes were glazing in a very sensual way as she looked at him.

“Did you like what you saw, Hermione?” he asked her in a low voice. “Do you want what you saw? With me?”

She looked up at him, her amber eyes going liquid.

“Yes,” she whispered, biting her lip as warmth flooded her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. She felt as if she were going to pass out if Severus didn’t touch her.

Severus couldn’t remember the last time a woman looked at him like Hermione was looking at him now. His cock was hard as a rock.

“I need you, Severus,” she said in a small voice. “Now.”

Shit.

Severus started to rise to go to her, but then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slight movement at the lower part of the door that led into the corridor. He looked closer.

A house elf was peeking around the corner of the door, watching them closely.

He swung his black eyes back to Hermione, who seemed…lost in passion. Almost as if she were under some kind of lust spell…

He looked back at the elf.

The conspiracy.

“Eli!” the Potions Master bellowed.

The elves had gone too far this time.

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”But she is ready, Master,” Eli squeaked at Severus, pointing at the sloe-eyed Hermione

“No, she’s not, Eli,” you have her under some kind of spell,” Severus said, looking at Hermione sitting at the table, looking at him as if he were a piece of meat, and she was a starving woman. He had to turn away from the desire on her face. It was something he wanted to see, but he wanted the real thing, not this travesty.

“No. It is from inside her, Master. I only brings it up to the top,” the elf explained. “Now she is ready for the in-outie with my Master.”

“Eli, you and the other house elves have to stop meddling in my affairs,” he said, frowning at the elf. “You cannot force Hermione to be attracted to me. If it is in her, she has to realize it herself, and come to me herself. Now I want your word that you will cease all your efforts at bringing us together. You and all the other elves. Otherwise, there will be clothes, Eli. Clothes.”

Eli’s ears drooped. His Master was very displeased. The Potion’s Master had never threatened him with clothes before, not even in the evil times. He looked up at Severus with wet eyes.

“I gives my word, sir. No more trying to help Master get the in-outie he needs, sir,” the elf said.

“Good,” Severus said, looking down on the small, broken-hearted creature. He slid his eyes back to the lust-stricken Hermione.

“Now fix her, Eli,” he said to the elf.

Eli nodded, and stretched his hand toward Hermione, flinging his consciousness out and drawing her away from her enhanced erotic thoughts about the Professor. Hermione’s eyes regained focus, and she blinked several times. She looked at Severus and Eli.

“What just happened?” she asked, a small frown on her face.

Severus explained about the house elves trying to play matchmaker, and the latest incarnation of that attempted goal, enhancing her lust for him. Hermione stared at Eli for a moment before swiftly drawing her wand from her lab coat pocket and aiming it at him. But the elf was too fast and winked away before she could say one syllable.

Severus looked at her.

“Hermione, you are going to have to stop hexing Eli. It borders on mistreatment. I don’t mistreat my house elves,” he said coldly.

“Eli needs a good hexing. I’ve never seen a house elf act like him. Actually, he acts a lot like you do,” Hermione said, her eyes hard with anger.

Severus raised his eyebrows at her. This attitude from the woman that started S.P.E.W?

“And that’s a bad thing?” he asked.

“Only if you’re on the receiving end! He was a monster while you were at Hogwarts. When I wouldn’t eat my breakfast, he bodily lifted me with magic, and dropped me on the sofa and forced me to eat. He was lucky my wand was in my other robe. Then I come upstairs and find he actually had Harry and Ron dangling over ten feet in the air, shaking them like rats, then he drops them on the floor! And I suspect he was the cause of poor Neville falling over so many things while he was here. Every time he’d fall, Eli stood there smirking like you do. And now this,” she said, fuming, “he turns me into a sex-crazed little wanton over biscuits and jelly.”

Severus smirked.

“I admit, Hermione, that the first three incidents sound like something I would do and enjoy. But I have not yet evidenced the power to cause that final affront…yet,” he purred at her.

Hermione let out a little scream of indignation and threw her napkin at him. She stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to work,” she announced, storming off for the lower rooms.

Severus picked up the napkin she had thrown at him and deposited it on the plate, as he watched her go with amusement in his eyes. He enjoyed her temper sometimes. He rose to follow her.

He’d tell her about his plan about to use the house elves later, when she calmed down.

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A/N: Tsk, tsk. Eli threatened with clothes. Poor baby. He meant well. It almost worked too. Well looks like they’re on their own now. Please review.