A Terrible Temptation

A/N - I am so sorry that it has taken so long to get back to you on this. I have been sick as a dog. My roomie brought home a bug from work and we are all three down with it. :P Not only have I been ill, but I have been nursing the pregger who can\'t take any meds. double :P
Thanks to Kate for being the bestest beta e Tha Thanks also to my beloved reviewers who have so made my lifetime with all their heaping praise! I have written the epilogue and will post it tomorrow morning. So here is the last chapter for you. :)

Chapter 43 – Dreamscapes

Hermione was in the garden again and it was entirely transformed. Spring had come and the sky was a parrot blue. Flowers bloomed in all the beds and the trees swayed in a warm breeze, the branches heavy with leaves and the beginnings of fruit and flowers. The fountain bubbled merrily and the grass was soft beneath her feet.

“Hey!” A laughing youthful voice came floating from the distance and the dark haired child came running from the maze with a grin on his face. His black hair and dark eyes were lightened by the waun. un. His face was flushed from exertion and his slightly large nose was twitching with the myriad smells. He ran to her and she swung him up and around.

“Hey yourself!” She laughed and then set the smiling little boy back on his feet.

“The garden looks nice doesn’t it?” The boy slipped a hand in hers and dragged her forward.

“It looks beautiful.” She responded, laughing and looking about her happily.

A little girl in the same black robes as the boy wore, with bright rootsoots, came running from the house and stopped in front of them both, her hands on her hips and her mass of curly brown hair tumbling everywhere as she tossed her head in irritation.

“Lunch is in five minutes and you still haven’t washed.” The girl said with a mulish expression. Hermione grinned at her and nodded. She took each child by the hand and headed up to the house.

“Bossy boots.” The boy muttered, but he was still smiling. It was a beautiful day.

His soft breathing finally woke her. Hermione was clutched against him in a very possessive grip and she felt warm and happy, safe and loved. She twisted in the bed, gently disengaging herself from hisracerace, and found that his hair looked no better in the morning after a night of passionate lovemaking than hers did. It gave her a certain satisfaction. First thing she would do was introduce him to some of the obscure charms she had perfected for hair maintenance over the years.

His face was so relaxed and peaceful in sleep. After Voldemort’s death he had lost many of the lines of stress and worry and had seemed years younger, but sleeping he seemed almost a boy.

She thought about the dream; it seemed hopeful to her. Somehow she had come to equate that garden with his happiness and to see it in bloom was deeply heartening. Her mind roamed back to the conversation from the night before -- he had said something about a family estate, hadn’t he? She started her apprenticeship with Minerva in two weeks; in the meantime she wanted to see if the garden was as she had dreamed it. She thought about waking him to ask him but he looked so peaceful.

Hermione moved to get out of the bed; her bladder was informing her of certain urgent necessities. She shifted her legs and felt soreness in places she had never been sore before. Suddenly she was blushing as she hadn’t last night and the memory of what they had done and, oh my God, what she had said to him sent her fleeing into the bathroom.

She took care of her necessities and the blush didn’t leave her face. She had not been someone she recognized last night. Where had that wanton little vixen come from? Had she always been like that or was it just something Severus did to her? She had always imagined tenderness, but she had never expected the sort of animal intensity she had experienced. She had been quite fierce and passion had just swept aside her usual inhibitions.

Good God, she wanted more of it, too. She sat down hard on the edge of the claw-footed tub and felt the cool porcelain on her bare backside with a shiver. She loved him and she had known that she felt passion for him - the way he had left her wet and quivering by the end of each class had been a fairly big clue - but she had bitten him! Was that normal? Would he be upset or disgusted with her?
The bathroom was done in soothing rose-veined marble with matching towels and curtains; it was as un-Snape-like as the front room and all the other rooms were. Yet it was also curiously like him in that his outer appearance was so deceptive. She sat on the edge of the tub thinking.

On the last day of school he had handed her a well-worn volume in French. “Cyrano de Bergerac,” the bin wor worn, the pages yellowed and she had held it against herself and grinned like a loon all the way back to her rooms. She had understood everything in that moment and been deliriously happy though she had assured Severus that he looked nothing like Gerard Depardieu.

The book had received another workout at her parents’ house and the fact that he, well really that anyone, could compare her to the lovely and clever Roxanne had made her heart beat faster.

Had she ruined it all with her behavior last night?

The door opened and Severus leaned against the doorframe, gloriously naked and quite the most desirable man she had ever seen.
“Are you going to sit in the bathroom all day or would you like some breakfast?” He asked with an amused glint in his eyes. She blushed from head to toe at the question and immediately felt very silly. He wasn’t looking at her with disgust; in fact his expression was pretty much the opposite. He was looking at her as if she were far more edible than breakfast.

“Breakfast would be nice.” She squeaked out, feeling a fiv five years old. He had caught her hiding in the bathroom for goodness’ sakes. He extended a hand and when she took it he pulled her into his arms and kissed her softly.

The kiss was gentle and tender and Hermione melted back into him and was content. He still respd hed her in the morning. It really was love.

Severus watched Hermione relaxing again over breakfast. He had been expecting the maidenly retreat; she wasn’t his first virgin after all, but he was glad she was sensible enough to not flee far. He hadn’t been looking forward to chasing her into Hogsmeade or London. Getting her away from over-protective Muggle parents would have required an explanation to the Ministry as to why he had used Imperious on the poor sods.

Not to mention having to explain to Albus about how he had asked Minerva to keep the Headmaster blissfully occupied so that Severus could seduce her new apprentice. He wasn’t sure that Albus needed to learn about Minerva’s complicity from the Ministry Aurors as they dragged Severus away.

Still, after last night he could honestly say that even some time in Azkaban would have been worth it to keep her by his side. Like the cat he sometimes was, he had marked his territory and was now prepared to defend it, which reminded him…

“Where’s Crookshanks?” He asked and she grinned at him over her kippers.

“He refused to come, said you’d be insufferable now.” She retorted and Severus laughed, an honest open laugh, the first he had heard himself make in a long time. Hermione was smiling at him in way that made him feel foolish and somewhat dazed. It was such a change in his life. Two months ago he was sure that he would be dead and mourned and now he was here alive happhappy.

He missed Blaise Zabini. The boy had died protecting Pansy Parkinson of all people. She, to her credit, was genuinely mourning him and had started a foundation in his name but still it was an unfair trade in Severus’ mind. The demon of guilt awoke in his mind and he felt a little sick.

“Stop that.” Hermione broke into his thoughts with a sharp command. He looked at her in surprise and she shook her head at him. “It’s called survivor’s guilt and I know the symptoms well.” He opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. “You are here with me alive and well after all this because you were both lucky and skilled. We both deserve to be happy after everything we have gone through and that is that.”

“Bossy boots.” He retorted, but he was smiling at her. It was a beautiful day.

Hermione wandered with Severus through the house. It was beautiful, an old abbey that had been converted around the time of Henry the Eighth into the family seat of the local squire. When his grandson had married a Witch, the enchantments had begun and now it was a Wizard’s residence in full. Still, the humble Muggle beginnings were there to see and it gave Hermione an insight into the hauteur with which other Purebloods treated Severus. Even so many generations later he was still a little bit too Muggle for them.

She stood by one of the leaded glass windows, tracing the spells that kept the glass from oozing to the bottom of each pas has happened in historic Muggle homes. The tiny, slightly wavy diamond panes let in sunlight but distorted the outside world. She watched the rippled sky through the glass and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Severus here as a child.

The echo of laughter was in every nook and cranny of the place. The colors were bright, the furniture comfortable and well-worn, the house elves were bright bouncy creatures in patchwork quilt patterned towels, the ghosts, portraits and pixies were all exuberant and full of mirth. They obviously adored Severus and were ecstatic that he was finally bringing a young lady home.

A cold shiver down her spine alerted Hermione that she was not alone and she turned to see Lady Amelia drifting over to look out the window past Hermione’s shoulder. The Victorian dress of black with jet beads, tight chignon, and pince-nez should have made Lady Amelia look stern and spinsterish, especially in conjunction with the Snape nose which made Sir Sinjian look so imposing and threatening. However the transparent Lady Amelia looked pleasant and homely, with sparkling black eyes and a mischievous mouth.

“It is rather charming out today.” Lady Amelia murmured, her glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Yes, it is. I was wondering if Severus would go walking with me in the gardens.” Hermione mused aloud and Lady Amelia grinned at her.
“I can fetch him up from his smelly laboratory if you like.” The ghost returned gleefully. Hermione laughed and shook her head.

“Don’t bother him; after all he so rarely gets uninterrupted time in his lab anymore.” Hermione hadn’t seen him so relaxed and calm in all the time she had known him as he was in the lab that his father had set up for him when he was a child. It was as though his father’s love wrapped him up there and he was transported to a happier time. Hermione had watched him in utter fascination and love as he had worked. His eyes were bright and clear, his face was smoothed of its habitual scowl, and his fingers were nimble and graceful as he chopped, sliced and brewed. She had learned more about who he truly was in those moments than she had gathered in months of talking to him.

She fallen deeper in love with him as well, something she hadn’t thought possible. She smiled against the glass and Lady Amelia chuckled.
“You are more transparent than I am child.” The ghost smiled indulgently at her and Hermione smiled back at Severus’ great-grandmother with affection.

“I don’t mind. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.” Hermione frowned slightly as she thought of Harry, Ginny, Ron and Lavender. She didn’t want to lose what she had with Severus.

“You needn’t fret, Hermione.” Lady Amelia ran a chill hand across Hermione’s hair soothingly. “He adores you and I have never known Severus to let go of anything he cares for willingly.” There was a wry undertone and Hermione grinned, remembering Severus’ possessive hold on her as she slept.

“Good.” She retorted. “Because I don’t want to be let go of.” The ghost and the girl stood and gazed out at the sunlight landscapes and they had matching expressions of contentment.

Severus smiled as he caught Hermione’s words. There was still a part of him that couldn’t believe that she loved him. He kept waiting for her to laugh and tell him it was all a joke as she skipped away. Standing framed by the Tudor window, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. Perhaps she was a trifle short but she was slender and graceful. Perhaps she wasn’t classically pretty but her forthright gaze and strong features gave her a character that was lacking in most women her age. It was that last bit that scared him and gave him nightmares: her age.

She would be eighteen in September and he was still more than twenty years her senior. When he was a hundred years old the difference would be insignificant, but right now it seemed an immense gulf. The thought that he could lose her terrified him. Having only just remembered what it was like to be happy, he wasn’t sure he could go back to being lonely and alone again.

He turned that thought around in his head examining it from every angle. He had changed, and it was more than just from Voldemort’s death. Falling in love had shifted certain fundamental truths for him. His certain belief that he was unlovable had been shattered by Hermione’s adoring gaze but more than that, his own belief that he was incapable of loving had been destroyed as well.

He was in love and the feeling was still new and unfamiliar. It left him vulnerable and uncertain, two things he hated feeling, but the rewards for holding on anyway, were too great to allow his discomfort free reign.

“Care for a walk in the garden?” Severus asked her and she turned from the window with a look of utter delight at the sound of his voice. He melted inside as she looked at him. That foolish boy that lived in his heart turned cartwheels and he found his lips turning up against his will. He was amazed at how powerful the feelings were and how quickly she could shatter his façade of cold indifference.

“I would love that.” She responded and hurried to join him. He looked down into her face and kissed her lightly, amazed again that someone wanted his company, missed him when he was absent and rushed to be with him; the novelty would, he hoped, never wear off. hey hey went down to the garden together completely forgetting Lady Amelia’s existence. The ghost was grinning by the window as they departed, plans for a wedding feast and clearing out the old nursery running through her mind. She hummed to herself as she drifted off to find a house elf. She had a great deal of work to oversee.