Twin Link

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I’m just a starving college student! Anyway JKR owns this world. I’m only borrowing it for a little bit. Making no money from writing; this is only for fun!

TWIN LINK

By Bree McGregor

CHAPTER 5

Severus threw Hermione down onto one of the chairs by the fire in his office. He then turned sharply to sit gracefully in the chair directly across from her. He stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

\"Tell me, MISS GRANGER.\" She cringed at the way he grounded out her name, as if it was like acid on his tongue. \"Are you so enthralled with my brother, that you must go sneaking around to see what he is up to with other women?\"

\"I wasn’t sneaking, Professor,\" said Hermione.

Severus only raised one eyebrow. \"Oh, really? Peeking into his room when he has company isn\'t sneaking? Hmm, I say it is. Tell me, should I go and tell the Headmaster of your night-time activities, or are you going to tell me why is it that I always see you with or around my brother?\"

\"I only wanted to ask him about something he told me earlier. But I got so mad at him that I wanted to hit him, so I left without asking what he meant.\"

\"What was so important that you had to go up there nnnoowwww?\" He half-purred, half-growled the last word.

She was starting to see red again. \"Gods, you\'re just like your brother!\" she yelled at him. \"Different techniques, but the same end! All you two want is to get one up on the other! Why don\'t you two just kill each other and get it over with?\"

\"Because, Miss Granger,\" Severus snapped back, his temper rising to match hers. \"I can\'t. Both my brother and I have a binding spell that my mother placed on us at birth. We cannot do physical harm to the other under any circumstances!\"

\"Oh, that\'s great! So you get a pawn to do your dirty work. Use a poor girl to get back at each other — great, just great. I will tell you one thing. I will NOT be THAT girl!\"

\"I will ask you one more time,\" he said in his deathly calm velvet voice. \"What did you want to know about something my brother said.\"

Hermione took a deep breath to calm herself. She really didn\'t need to go fighting with Professor Snape. \"I needed to know if what he was telling me... what he tried to tell me was that... did your father kill your mother?\"

Severus’ face grew pale. He didn\'t say a word; he just looked as if he was about to lose control — the calm before the storm. Hermione felt it was time to get out of there, because evidently Severus didn\'t take this news too well. Also, she really didn\'t want to say it to begin with, but he always knew when she lied. So she thought, \'Okay, truth.\'

Well, that hadn\'t worked either.

\"I think I\'ll just go.\" She picked up her book bag and went to the door. Just as she opened the door, it slammed shut by a very large hand. She looked over just in time to see another hand brace the wall on her other side. She knew she was trapped; she could feel his angry breath on the back of her neck.

\"Tell me,\" he whispered angrily in her ear. \"Tell me everything my brother said to you, and I warn you, I will know if the words are his.\"

Okay, she was frightened now. She knew he was a private person. What had possessed her to say that to him? The answer to that was, he forced her to tell him. She swallowed hard.

\"He called you and me boring infernal know-it-alls, for one, which I found strange, because that\'s what you always call me.\" She stumbled with her words.

\"And?\" His lips were almost touching her ear. A searing heat started in her stomach and spread throughout her body. The source, she knew, came from him. She was feeling his warm breath, his lips not quite touching her skin.

\"He said he wanted me in his bed.\" She blushed at this.

Severus tilted his head to look at her. \"And you did.\" He made the statement in disgust. \"So why were you so mad at him? What was so much, that you could have hit him? Did he throw you out afterwards?\"

\"NO, I didn\'t sleep with him!\" She was angry with Severus now. How dare he? \"I told him that would never happen.\"

\"Oh, do you find him attractive, Miss Granger?\" His voice turned seductive.

\"No,\" she replied weakly.

\"Why do I not believe you? After all, I did find you in his lap.\" His lips brushed her ear ever so slightly, sending shivers down her spine and back up again. \"You were doing something a nice girl like you shouldn\'t be doing.\"

\"I... I thought, umm,\" she was stuttering. Hell, she couldn\'t help it. She didn\'t know what to say.

Severus knew what she was trying to say, but what he didn\'t understand was why, so he decided to press on. The scent of her hair, not to mention the heat of her skin, was doing something to him, but he decided to ignore that and answer the question for her.

\"Thought it was me?\" He softly bit her ear as he whispered in it.

\"Yes,\" she replied as she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the door.

Severus knew why she moved, partly to escape him, but he wasn\'t finished with her yet. He leaned closer to her, pressing his stomach against her back. He felt her sharp intake of air.

\"Tell me, Miss Granger,\" he whispered in her hair. \"Why you would be in such a position, if you say you found my brother unattractive. He looks just like me, you know?\"

\"Looks aren\'t everything, are they, Professor Snape?\" Hermione said as she slammed one of her palms flat up against the hard cold wall. She felt the sting and hoped it would bring her back to her senses.

\"No, they\'re not,\" he spoke as his hands moved to cover hers, to stop her from hurting herself again — or that\'s what he told himself. He crossed his arms, bringing her hands with him as if to embrace her. He lifted up the hand she hurt so he could see it. It wasn\'t bad, but her willingness to hurt herself showed him more things about her than anything else she could have done.

Hermione could feel his heartbeat through her back, heard his ragged breathing in her ear, and felt his fingers moving over her palm, almost like a caress. She felt like she couldn\'t breathe, like all the air had been removed from the room.

\"How is it,\" he spoke softly. \"That you came to such a position in the first place, and please, don\'t hold anything back. I would really hate to get upset with you, Hermione. I don\'t think you would like it that much.\"

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat and started to speak. \"Well, that first day your brother was here, you had said you wanted me to start on the Veritaserum potion, so I thought I would get most of the ingredients ready before you got back. When I came in, you were virtually unclothed, with a horrible gash on your side. I...\" She never got to finish her sentence because Severus turned her around so fast, and slammed her against the door. He had both of her hands pinned with his, above her head.

He looked deep into her big brown eyes. She saw shock in them, and perhaps fear — she could feel him physically shaking. \"He was hurt?\"

\"Yes,\" she answered weakly.

\"HOW?\" he demanded.

\"It was a slash, like it was made with a sword or long knife. I got a potion and put it on his wound. He... He swore out loud. I should have known that it wasn\'t you. You never show pain.\"

\"How do you know I don\'t show pain?\" His voice was dangerously low.

\"I was the one who watched over you when you came back that summer, before our sixth year. The Order was holding a meeting at Grimmauld Place. Harry, Ron, and I were in the living room, when you busted into the house. You were bad off. Dumbledore took you to one of the rooms, and I guess you gave as much of a report as you could. He called Harry and Ron into the meeting, and told me to stay and watch over you.\"

Hermione didn\'t look at him. She felt kind of strange, having her professor holding her hands above her head like he was. As if reading her mind, he released her hands, but then ran his hands down her arms slowly before placing his own on either side of her, braced against the wall, as if to say he was still in control.

\"I sat there angry at first that I wasn\'t allowed into the meeting, but then I saw you lying there, and I started wondering why do you do it? And when you awoke, the pain was too much for you. I could see it. But you didn\'t utter a sound; I suppose a spy never gives away how much they feel. But I saw your eyes go just a degree colder as you went through it. I realized then, why you were the way you were. How much pain, both physical and emotional, have you suffered to get to the point of where you are today?\" Hermione wanted to stop, but she looked at him and saw something in his eyes that made her continue telling him.

\"Ever since my first year,\" she continued, not breaking eye contact with him. \"I wanted to show you so much that I wasn\'t stupid. And the more I tried, the worse you got. I don\'t know why I needed your approval, but it seemed so important that I got it. Then after what happened that summer, I didn\'t only need your approval and acknowledgment, but I craved it.\" She finally broke eye contact with him and looked down at their feet.

Severus thought to himself for a minute. This isn\'t what he expected, not by a long shot. Then he looked down at her face and knew he was about to do something very stupid, but for some reason he saw himself in slow motion, as if he was following a script already written, and there was nothing he could do to rewrite it. He took one hand and lifted her chin to look at him. Her eyes were glassy and fearful. She hated herself for telling him this, he could see it reflected there, but there was more as well.

Severus leaned down to brush her lips with his. He heard her breath catch, and smiled against her lips before deepening his kiss, as he slowly moved his tongue into her sweet mouth. She surrendered to him willingly; the kiss was passionate but slow. That is, until a thought in the back of his head entered. \'She is weak. Show her who is in control. Dominate!\' Severus tried to fight the thought, but it won, and he plunged his tongue deeper, kissing her harder, making her surrender totally to him.

Hermione felt his lips. As they kissed, she needed more. She had been wanting to taste him so badly for the past two years that now that she had, she couldn\'t get enough. She suddenly felt the kiss change. He became aggressive, more so than she had ever known him to be. The way he was kissing her was almost violent, as if he were trying to mark dominance. Something rose up in Hermione that had never been there before.

She brought her hands up into his hair, pulled his head back hard, and whispered, \"I don\'t think so.\" Then she kissed him hard. \'Two can play this game,\' she thought.

Severus was so shocked at her display of strength that he didn\'t fight at first. Then all at once, a single kiss became a powerful game of wills. A single kiss would decide who would control where they went from here. This was no ordinary kiss, this was a war.

They didn\'t know what time it was, neither did they care. Everything stopped, from the time their lips first met; there was nothing else in the world. They couldn\'t say when the war stopped, as they were so wrapped up in each other. But the kiss eventually wound down, and they looked at each other, both realizing that no one had won this war of wills, but neither lost as well.

Breathing hard, he looked at the clock and sighed. It was much too late to let her walk alone. He opened the door for her. \"I\'ll walk you to your dorm.\"

~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N still a few more to go!