To Save A Serpent

Her hands were still trembling, but the room looked better. She had not scourgified the blood from the floor, but had managed to clean it from his body and where it had soaked through his robes. There were tracks of saline that had embedded thickly against her cheeks, her eyes so red and puffy that it was difficult to see through them without forcing them wide open. Hermione had managed to levitate his still warm body to the bed, but not before casting several cleansing charms over the linens and guarding the door as well as the hidden trap with several precautionary spells.

Lashes fluttered closed as she sat on the bed beside him, wearing nothing but a dressing robe which she had transfigured from her robes. Her lips pressed against his, waiting there, resting as if waiting for his lips to suddenly spring to life and claims hers in a soul searing kiss. But they remained lifeless and still. She sobbed again, brushing her nose against his. “I’m so sorry.”

~*~

It had been a week since her Occlumency lesson with Snape in the classroom, though the site of her naked behind, begging him to come to her bed had not left her mind. She found it a bit disturbing, but intriguing none the less that her much older Potions and now Defense teacher had been having fantasies about her. And it was not easy to put her mind off the subject. It would do her no good to continue to dwell on the matter as it was solving neither of her problems, how to get those thoughts from her mind and how to continue to train in Occlumency.

There was no going to Dumbledore to explain that Snape had dismissed her, for she would not be able to speak on what grounds she had been dismissed. And she was certain that the Headmaster would pester him and it would only serve to ignite the fury in him. She sighed, flopping back on her bed, gazing up at the canopy. For the hell of it, she’d transfigured her bed linens into rather satiny pink and white coverings, rather a change from her standard gold and scarlet.

With her eyes closed she tried hard to envision the flash of the image where she had been sprawled on the bed, head leaning over her back calling to the man. It flashed behind her lids for a moment and Hermione giggled. How absurd was it to think that he actually wanted her other than to torment and torture her, and this made her give out a loud snort as she tossed herself onto her stomach in a fit of laughter.

Was he so lonely that perhaps her feminine presence had caused him to fantasize then and there that night? Or had it been something he’d been dwelling on for sometime? That thought in itself was a bit disturbing as she’d only just come of age that previous September and only technically so, thanks to the time she had gained using the time turner. It had made her the only seventeen-year-old fifth year at the time, but she could still mostly say she was sixteen which was natural for her late birthday.

Turning the thoughts over in her head, again she laughed thinking of all the muggle sayings about big hands and noses and what other anatomical parts they correlated to. With another snort she found herself trying to revisit that scene behind her eyes once more. Those words, the way her voice had sounded so lusty, it made her giggle even harder, and she found herself saying them, chuckling them aloud, “Oh, come to my bed, Severus!”

“Perhaps I shall,” the smooth icy voice floated to her ear, silencing any further giggling.

Hermione jumped up from her stomach, nearly toppling herself off the bed and gaped at her doorway. “Professor Snape!” she shouted. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“I did try sending an owl to the main door of your front chamber and to the window of the front chamber and seeing as your bedroom has no window and you did not answer either owl, I felt perhaps I needed to come myself to see if you were being disrespectful or were simply in danger,” he said rather snidely.

Hermione suddenly felt very naked, though she was wearing proper pajamas, the whole encounter was making her shiver. “What? Why?” she asked, sounding rather unsure.

“Am I to join you on your bed, Miss Granger?” he sneered, crossing his arms over his chest. With a casual glance of his eyes, he smirked, “I thought you said your sheets weren’t white and pink?”

Her face flushed crimson, and she would have made to transfigure the sheets back at once had her wand not been on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. “They’re not.” And realizing how stupid that sounded, she sighed. “Not normally.”

“Indeed.”

A wave of frustration overtook Hermione and her face was once again red. “What are you doing here?”

“I believe I’ve already—”

“Yes, yes, the owl, I understood that bit. What I meant was, why did you send the owl in the first place, surely not to come up here and further torment the hell out of me?” It was the first time that Hermione had ever really dared to be forward and almost vulgar with a professor, aside from calling him a right bastard in the dungeon a week ago. Had her face not already been flushed with anger, she would have turned bright crimson on embarrassment alone.

“Tongue in cheek, Miss Granger? Five points from Gryffindor.” There was a pause as he kept his arms crossed closely over his chest, and she noticed, for the first time possibly ever that he was not standing to his full towering and intimidating height, but rather leaning quite casually against the doorframe, simply eyeing her. Her lips parted as if to speak, only the wave of his hand kept her quiet. “I sent the owl to inform you that Occlumency lessons have not stopped, and to inquire as to why you deemed it necessary to skip tonight’s lesson.”

“But—”

“Belongs in a chair,” he said. “Whatever your reason, do not let it happen again. I have precious little time to be wasting on dunderheads such as yourself and Mr. Potter in these frivolous lessons and I do not wish to—”

“You mean you’ve let Harry start his lessons again?”

He was silent, eyes narrowed at her, and then he did straighten up, towering his full six feet and three inches. “You would do well to learn how to control that tongue of yours and not let it incessantly flop about in your mouth every time a thought comes to your mind.” Her withdraw into silence made him smirk. “What I am or am not allowing Mr. Potter to do is none of your business,” he said firmly.

“You act like Harry won’t tell me any- oh!” she cried as he pulled out his wand and pointed it at her.

“Legillimens!” he said and she felt herself being flung back against the bed, her mind racing. It was as if he was there, standing inside her mind, looking around as if it were a highly interesting art exhibit. “Dear me, Miss Granger…” he said, seeing an image of her and Viktor Krum kissing against a wall fly by.

“Stop it!” she shouted, trying to force her thoughts out of her mind, trying to close him out of her head.

“Then close your mind! Concentrate!” Images raced past him and he sneered, mostly those of Potter and Weasley and her adventures with dumb and dumber, but as the pink bed sheets came into view, and that image of her sprawled naked on the bed came to him, only this time it was altered just slightly in the sense that Hermione was on her back, touching her breasts before his eyes, Severus dropped his wand and pulled back.

She laid on the bed, panting, an angry scowl coming to her lips. But Severus stood there, looking rather amused and confused all at once. “Just— urgh— get out!” she bellowed, though her scream did not seem to rouse him from his almost dazed trance. “Did you hear me? I said get out!”

Severus tilted his head to the side for a moment and then slowly placed his wand back into his pocket. “No need to shout, Miss Granger, I heard you perfectly well the first time. Ten points for your rude behavior. I surely would have expected better from one of Hogwarts finer students.”

Hermione felt almost sick. She’d never really yelled a professor before, Delores Jane Umbridge and Gilderoy Lockhart not withstanding. It wasn’t even the loss of house points that made her nearly jump up, coming to the edge of her bed that was nearest the door, making sure to grab her wand first. In a fit of frustration, she shouted “Legil—”

"Impedio!" He turned, wand drawn, blocking her attempt. “If you think that you are going to attempt to gain my sympathies by humiliating me as you did a week ago, you are sorely mistaken, Miss Granger.” He spat, eyeing the wand in her hand. He was careful to seal off his mind before she could attempt anything further, and before she could utter another word, he turned on his heel, stalked back through her front chamber room, and slammed the door behind him.

~*~

Her tears had returned as she’d laid there in the bed beside him, stroking his hair, still feeling the slight residue of blood mingle with its natural oily texture. “Gods I never meant to humiliate you,” she whispered against his ear. The room had grown almost cold but she’d cast another series of spells, keeping both it and his body warm. It was as if she figured she could fool her mind into thinking that if his body was still warm that he might just be sleeping and would wake up at any moment.

Slowly, she pulled herself up to sitting, and then kneeling beside his body on the bed, her eyes blurred with tears. The warmth flooded her body but suddenly there was a chill, almost sole searing and she felt an icy hand, colder than death against her shoulder. Her eyes fell closed, tears still streaming forth and her lips trembled. “I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Hermione,” his ghost like ectoplasm whispered, his voice soft and velvety as before, as if nothing had happened.