A Rock and a Hard Place

On the way into Hogwarts, they passed Harry Potter. The boy looked up, recognized Snape, and instantly wiped his face blank of expression.

“Potter!” Snape barked. Trudy nearly jumped. Her body trembled with need, and she knew the Professor must feel it. Why did he sound so antagonistic toward this boy?

“Professor?” the boy said, the words polite, but the tone faintly mocking. Trudy found herself glaring at him, this obstacle between her and relief. The boy only gave her a curious look with surprisingly bright green eyes.

“I haven’t forgotten our little detentions,” Snape said silkily. “As it happens, I have been detained by other matters lately. We will resume our detentions next Thursday in my office. I trust you have no objections to cleaning bedpans in the hospital wing?”

Trudy jerked her head around to stare at the Professor. What kind of sadist was he? The boy, she noticed, only looked grimly determined. “No,” he said.

“No, what?” Snape said, giving the boy a truly evil smile. Trudy tugged his elbow, but he ignored her.

“No, Professor,” the Potter boy replied, his voice steady and scornful.

Snape opened his mouth, probably to remark on the boy’s tone, but Trudy couldn’t bear the strain any more. “Professor,” she broke in breathlessly, “If I don’t get back to the castle soon, I think I’m going to be sick.” Oops. “Sick” meant vomit in Britain. She hadn’t meant to be so graphic. Oh, well. Maybe it was a lucky choice of words. Snape abruptly shifted his focus to her.

“We’ll discuss your tone later, Potter,” he said, “perhaps during all of the next Quidditch games of the season. Good day.” To Trudy he muttered, “Walk quickly.”

They managed to get to the dungeons and Snape’s rooms with no other impediments. Trudy was close to whimpering with pent-up frustration. As soon as the doors closed behind them, she turned, rose on tiptoe, and took two fistfuls of Snape’s robes.

“Please...” she whispered, “if you have any mercy at all…” She raised her trembling mouth to his, but could not bring herself to complete the contact. “If he rejects me now,” she thought, “oh, if he rejects me now, that’s the end. I don’t know what I’ll do, but that’s the end...”

Firm, warm pressure covered her lips. She could just feel the faint rasp of his stubble. “He’s kissing me!” she thought, and melted beneath his touch, her fingers jerkily plucking at his robes.

His hands circled her waist and lifted her into his embrace. A wave of emotion cut across the physical need. Trudy ran her fingers over his thin face.

“Stop it,” she heard him say, but with little heat. She continued to stroke his face and jaw, taking in each detail. How could someone kissing her so passionately have been so cruel just a moment before? “I’ll think about it later,” she promised herself. Then the thought spiraled away on an eddy of desire.

“Stop,” he said again, but gruffly and more softly. She was set back on her feet, one of his hands holding her steady, while his other unfastened his robes. “The bedroom,” he ordered.

He propelled her backward toward the small bed chamber. She stumbled when her legs hit the bed, and he came down on top of her. The bed felt both hard and soft at the same time, a comfortable firmness. And the Professor was gazing at her with an expression difficult to read. He combed his fingers through her hair. Need rose within her. “Please...!” she heard herself say, tugging at his collar. He shifted at once, unfastening his robes and yanking up the hem of hers. When he sank back down, she felt the heat and slide of their bare skin together. She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips, almost beyond thought, and he reached between her legs to pull her knickers over her hips. And then...his thickness slid over her most sensitive flesh before he crammed it up her engorged sex. All inhibition fled from her. She spread her thighs wide and gasped.

“More...!”

He obliged grimly, taking himself in to the hilt. The thickness, the pressure, the slide over her hottest points, sent Trudy plummeting into a quick orgasm, but hungry for more. She lay gasping and pulsing beneath him, gathering strength for the next pleasure peak. When she opened her eyes, he hung over her, his eyes darting over her face, watchful.

“Let me on top,” she said, scrambling to roll over him. He refused to give ground, keeping her pinned with his greater size and strength.

Just as she was going to protest, he moved inexorably inside her, slow at first, but gathering speed, cramming his thickening tool along every screaming nerve. Trudy found herself, legs wide open, grunting with each movement. Her hands fluttered helplessly on his shoulders and back until he took firm hold of her buttocks, opening and exposing them to every one of his strokes. And she arched her back to come twice more for him…

She could not seem to get enough. When she began to claw at his back, he only flipped her over, tore off her knickers, spread her open from behind, and rammed inside her until at last she lay panting on the bed, sated for the moment. To her vast disappointment, he pulled out, still hard.

Her breath caught. So he still didn’t want to come inside her. Shame and a spreading sense of failure began to spread inside her. “You...you didn’t...”

“I haven’t made the contraceptive potion yet,” he said in a gravelly voice. He was turned away from her, sitting on the bed.

Relief flooded her. “Oh,” she said, trying to conceal her thoughts.

She crawled over to the edge of the bed where he sat, and put her head just over his lap. His cock twitched. She looked at it, then up at him. He was watching her with that strange expression, so difficult to read. Keeping her mouth even with his cock, she batted her eyes down, then back up. His eyes glittered, and his cock twitched. She flicked the very tip of her tongue out, letting him see it, pink and glistening at the corner of her mouth. He twitched again.

Time hovered, very heavy, very silent.

At last, Trudy moved her mouth to just an inch over his heavily veined cock. When she spoke, she made her breath feather over it. “You could be doing other things instead of seeing to me. You could be,” she dipped her head, almost, but not quite, touching him, “teaching those kids. I know you don’t like me. Or you didn’t.” Her tongue touched him just barely. She heard him suck in his breath and saw him close his eyes. “But you’ve done everything for me even so. So—" She ran the tip of her tongue up his shaft.

"Enough,” he said in a strange voice.

She chanced a peek up at him. His eyes were open, black, flashing. She stopped, now hovering over his cock again, and waited. For a long time, nothing happened. Then Trudy gave a small smile. He was afraid to let himself have this. He thought it was…wrong. She was touched. A rush of renewed wetness dampened her sex.

She insinuated one hand between his thighs. He let her, even opening his legs a little. When she cupped him—oh, yes, just there—he closed his eyes again, and she knew that gallantry was giving way to pleasure.

She jammed as much of his cock as she could into her mouth and began to work over him in earnest.

Snape couldn’t believe what was transpiring. The Muggle had his…his bits...in her mouth, which he had sworn he’d never let her do. It was wrong, it was taking too much advantage, and besides, as she’d pointed out so succinctly, he didn’t like her. At least…he hadn’t. She was bright, he gave her that. And not much of a trial to have about. She wasn’t a big talker, at any rate, and he always appreciated that. Ahhh. How did she know how to do that? Ohhh. Where did she learn...? Oh, yes, there, there... Oh, so good. Yes, down. Oh, not there, surely. Yes, there. Oh, God. Oh, God. The head now. Oh, God. And the fingers.

He knew he was on the brink. He felt a moment’s panic. Surely she wouldn’t keep her mouth on him while he... On the other hand, would he spurt in the air? Well, he’d done it before with her. But before, he hadn’t cared so much what she saw or what she felt. Now, seeing her face right over his most private parts, her long red hair trailing over his thighs, her mouth working up and down him... With a groan, he came, and she stilled over him, stilled and took everything he had.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Snape felt himself incapable of movement anyway. He saw Trudy swallow and felt, rather than guilty, faintly proprietary.

At last, he shifted. “Get up. Go to my potions chest.”

The Muggle stood, pulling down her robes.

For the next few minutes, they worked silently, the only communication between them his instructions and her acknowledgements. He boiled the concoction over the flames and noted the Muggle’s growing restiveness.

When the potion turned purple, he decanted some of it into a goblet and offered it to her.

She took it normally enough, but hesitated when she brought it to her lips. “I suppose,” she said, looking at the strange brew, “it might be good for you to get rid of me.”

His jaw tightened. “Yes, a dead Muggle in my rooms would certainly further my credit.”

Her blue, anxious eyes flew up to his. Then she drank every drop. When she lowered the goblet, he said, “You must be in need again.” Her fingers gripped the goblet, and she reddened. “I can’t believe you’re blushing after what just happened a few minutes ago.”

“This isn’t me,” she whispered. “You’ll think I’m like this all the time...needy, helpless, never satisfied.”

“You’re a woman.”

“I’m—oh, you’re joking. You are joking, aren’t you? You’re joking. Aren’t you?”

Snape gave her one of his unreadable looks. “Yes.”

She laughed, and the sound wasn’t too high. It was warm. And not for the first time, Snape felt himself start to smile.

“Why don’t we take a shower?” the Muggle said.

Snape calmly raised his wand. “Evan—"

“No, a real shower,” she broke in. “You can’t just say magic spells every time you need to clean up. I mean—" She seemed to swallow what she was about to say. “Let me wash you. You look a little as if nobody’s ever cared for you. No offense.”

Snape didn’t know what to say. No one had ever been so bold with him before.

They stepped into the bathroom, and the Muggle started the shower. When it was warm enough, she ducked her head, dropped her robe, and stepped in as quickly as possible. No doubt she was still self-conscious about her body. Snape got a glimpse of it, even so. There is something tragic, he thought, about seeing someone young and vibrant and seeing where Life has gripped them too tightly. Then he dropped his robes and slipped under the warm spray.

“Where’s your shampoo?” she said.

Snape tried to keep his gaze on level with her face, determinedly ignoring whatever glories might lie below. He shrugged and pointed to the soap.

“You wash your hair with soap?” she said disbelievingly. Then, flatly, “No. I need shampoo.”

“House elf!”

There was a deafening crack. Trudy screamed and retreated to a corner of the shower as a male house elf croaked just outside, “Master called?”

“Yes,” Snape said. “Go to Gryffindor Tower and fetch Ms. Mills’ toiletries, including shampoo, immediately.”

“Yes, Master.” There was another crack, and the house elf was gone.

“Warn me next time you—" she began angrily.

There was another crack. “Here is toiletries,” said the house elf, and a small, gnarled hand thrust them inside the shower curtain. Trudy screamed again.

“Thank you, Hobby. That will be all.”

Crack. And the house elf was gone.

“Shampoo,” Snape said, holding it up.

With a grunt of banked anger, she snatched the bottle from his hand. “You could warn me—"

“And miss that reaction? Never.”

“Turn around.”

He did, which spared him having to avert his gaze and her having to try to cover herself. She poured something on his head and began working it into his scalp.

“OK. Rinse.”

He put his head under the spray. While he was under, eyes closed, he heard her washing hurriedly. When he opened his eyes and stepped back, she nipped under the water, putting her back to him. It was, he reflected, a nice view, nicer for being rosy and shiny with running water. He began to harden. He was about to step out and get dry, but then reconsidered. Why bother? The Muggle gave a startled squeal as he pressed himself behind her, but the Curse was strong. Her legs parted, and they were longer in the shower than they planned.

*

“So you’re certain you’re a Muggle?” Snape said some time later in the living room. The fire was lit, and they were eating a meal of stew and scones brought up by the house elves. The Muggle, he noted, was eating with gusto. Outside, the wind howled and battered at the mullioned windows.

“Mm,” she finished chewing. “A Muggle? You mean, not a witch? Yeah, I’m sure.”

“How are you sure?”

“Well, I’ve never done anything magical. Unless you count having Elizabeth.” At that, she put down her scone and looked down.

Ignoring her comment, Snape imagined a future with a powerful, red-haired witch. The vision was so gratifying, he didn’t want to let it go. On the other hand, common sense told him she would have known if she were a witch.

“We will go to Diagon Alley, and you will go to Ollivander’s Wand Shop, and you will pick a wand and try it,” he stated.

She half-smiled. “Well, you’ve got a wand. If you really think I’m magical, let me try it.”

His wand? At first, he reflexively refused to give his weapon to anyone else. Then he reconsidered. She was a Muggle. Really, he had nothing to fear. He pulled his wand out of his robes, looked at its dark cherry surface for a moment, then handed it over. The Muggle turned it over a couple times in her hands.

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Anything.” He was watching her intently now, in spite of himself.

She waved a few exaggerated figure eights in the air. Then she got to her feet slowly. Now he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She turned toward the fire, went up on tiptoe, and suddenly, like an actress in a silent movie, raised her arms high. “Abracadabra!”

Snape leaped to his feet, sending the stew every which way.

She turned back around, smiling. Then her smile wavered. “What’s wrong?”

He held out his hand, so furious he couldn’t speak. Once he felt the wand back in his hand, he said tightly, “Why the bloody hell did you say that?”

“That’s what magicians say!”

He made a show of putting the wand away, trying to master his fury. “Then you will have learned something today.”

“What?”

“That is not what magicians say. It is what wizards say—to kill.”

She covered her mouth with her hands.

“And I have learned two other things,” he continued.

“What?” she whispered.

“I have learned what magicians say,” he loaded his words with contempt, “and...that you are definitely a Muggle.”