She Said What?

so, this nun walks into a bar with a pidgeon under one arm and a talking pigmy goat under the other and the bartender.... ~smack~ ow! what was that?.... oh, my bad. ~blushes~ right, this is where i\'m supposed to tell you that i\'m only borrowing certain individuals here. i have no intention to keep any of them. now, i don\'t know that i like that part. can\'t i just keep the... ~smack~ ow! okay, okay... i\'ll put him back, too. also, there is no editor sitting behind me, shoving rather large residual checks into my dirty little hands. nor am i getting any advances or any of that nifty stuff. i merely write because.... erm, i don\'t seem to be able to do much else.

as usual, i will enact my standing raunch warning. you know it\'s coming folks. it\'s why you\'re reading. i hope it\'s not the only reason. i mean, i work and slave and all you care about is my smut! sure, i know where i rank now.... ~smack~ oh, sorry. i was ranting, wasn\'t i? pay me no mind... that was just my evil twin. anyway, there will be smut. i want you all to be properly warned and properly prepared.

and, lastly, if you wish to leave a review, i won\'t complian. they are not necessary, but they are always welcomed. so long as you don\'t feel the need to flame me. then i will roast your ass. and that won\'t be pretty, as i\'ve taken to letting the dragon try his hand at barbeque. he seems to like everything very crispy and well done.

Chapter Seven: What A Bastard
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The entire class jumped as the door slammed open against the wall, then slapped shut from the force of it\'s collision with the stopne barrier. Nobody dared move or speak as Professor Snape stalked into the room, his robes snapping ominously behind him. He stopped before the board, pivoting on his heel so that he faced them. He wore an exceptionally nasty scowl this morning. It was enough to let his seventh year students know that he would be taking his very foul mood out on them.

The tip of his wand tapped the blackboard with a loud clacking sound, summoning up a long and complicated list of ingredients for the day\'s assignment. He watched as every quill in the class began fluttering about like mad as they copied the list down. He didn\'t move from his spot, waiting for the hand to go up. He knew it would the moment one of the little shites realized what is was they would be working on. When a hand did finally lift, he was surprised to find that it belonged to the red headed Weasley spawn. One dark brow arched up at this. \'Yes, Mister Weasley?\' he drawled slowly.

\'Excuse me, Sir. But isn\'t this a list of ingredients for a lust potion?\' the boy asked without tripping over his own tongue. The spoken question brought every pair of eyes up to look at the darkly scowling Potions Master. He noted that a certain pair of chocolate brown ones gazed at him suspiciously. It was satisfying to see the faint blush that stained her cheeks.

\'Yes, Mister Weasley,\' he stated simply. \' It is.\'

A certain pair of chocolate brown eyes went wide at this and Severus was forced to scowl harder to contain his smile. He flicked his gaze her way and saw that her suspicion had deepened to outright distrust. There was even a small amount of fear mixed in there. Good. She should bloody well be afraid. After her stunt of the previous evening, the little chit was lucky he hadn\'t wrung her bloody neck yet.

It had taken over half an hour for the magical bonds to release themselves. By then, he\'d been so angry and horny, he\'d not been able to see straight. He had thought that he would not be able to orgasm, he\'d been stuck that way for so long. When he finally had been able to bring himself release, his hand had been quite sore. And his cock had plain hurt. He was totally pissed off with his wife, and now she was going to pay.

Severus has spent half the night trying to come up with an appropiate payback for her little power play. It had come to him in a blinding flash just as he\'d been dropping off to sleep. He\'d had to admit, it was rather a brilliant idea. And so completely Slytherin of him. And it was something she would never see coming. It was bloody perfect.

\'But, Professor,\' Draco\'s voice oiled it\'s way into his brain, breaking up his lovely thoughts of revenge. Severus glanced to the boy. \'Haven\'t we already done lust potions?\'

\'This one is very different,\' he snapped, moving from his place to stand before Draco. \'This one is a very strong, very potent version. It is virtually undetectable. Unless, of course, you know what you are looking for.\'

He let this sink in for a moment while he strode back to stand in the center of the room, turning once more to glare at them. When he saw the confusion on their faces, he allowed himself a moment to visibly smile. There were several gasps scattered among the students. Good, he had them properly terrorized now. \'Which is why you will be brewing and testing your potions. So you\'d best not muck it up!\' he looked to where Neville sat, a frown on his face. The boy actually shrank back in his seat.

\'We\'re going to brew and take our own lust potions?\' Harry asked, looking at the man in a calculating manner that Snape had never seen him use before. He glared at Pain in the Arse Potter hard.

\'Having problems with our hearing, Potter? You should see Madam Pomfrey about that,\' he sneered. \'That is what I said. But, for those of you who are completely terrified of this assignment, you will note the racks of vials on my desk.\'

With a gesture of his hand, all eyes turned to the aforementioned furnishing and saw that he did indeed have enough small glass bottles set out for everyone in the class. \'This is the antidote. I will administer it after monitoring the effects of your potions on each one of you. For now, I suggest you all get started. And there will be no assistance offered to your classmates. You will pass or fail this assignment on your own merits!\'

Hermione managed to hide her scowl at his words. He was quite the insufferable ass this morning. Then again, after how she\'d left him so achingly in need of relief last night, she supposed that his nastier than normal attitude was to be expected. She ignored him as she went to the supply cupboard to gather her needed ingredients. She was halfway back to her desk when she was struck with a thought. The last time he\'d issued such an order, she\'d ended up with detention. It was likely he was up to something along the same lines here. She would have to be careful.

The fact that this was a lust potion was odd enough without even adding in the having to take it themselves part. Snape must have gone off his rocker to think that this was a smart thing to do. Surely he would know that she would be watching for some kind of retaliation. But he had been the one to start this. And she wasn\'t about to let him get the better of her if she could help it. She began her cauldron, mulling over what he could possibly be trying to accomplish.

She thought the lust potion in and of itself was too obvious. Even for a Slytherin of his stature. The House of Snake tended to be far more secretive and sneaky than this. Using the lust potion was just too noticable for someone like Snape. So he had to be pulling something else. But what, was the question. She just didn\'t know.

Perhaps he was going to try to catch her up while helping Neville again. Though, she thought he was likely to know she would suspect him of something like that. She was fairly certain that he was smart enough to have come up with something else. As she began dropping the first three ingredients into her cauldron, she let her mind turn over the possibilities open to him. The number of them was astounding. And none of them seemed to be something that Snape would use as punishment. Payback.

As Hermione worked over her cauldron, she was unaware of Snape\'s gaze pinned to her bowed head. He smirked, as he was more than certain that she was at this very moment trying to deduce what he would do to her. He had to give her credit. She had the kind of mind that would not stop working until it came up with the answer she wanted. The answer she needed. And she was most obviously stumped on this one. He could tell that by the way her hands worked at her cauldron and the items being tossed into the pewter basin.

She was not being mindful with her ingredients. Normally, she took great care and pride with the addition of a new item to the potion when it was simmering in her cauldron. Now, she seemed to be tossing items in at random. Oh, she was tossing them in in the proper order. Just not as orderly as she generally did. That was good, as it told him she wasn\'t focusing completely on what she was doing. Not that he thought she wouldn\'t brew the potion properly. In all of her seven years at Hogwarts, Hermione Granger had never not scored perfectly or higher on anything she\'d done. He had no doubts that this potion would be up to her normal, higher than high standards.

However, that didn\'t change the fact that he had her stumped. That was worth more than he could ever put into words. The girl had forever been a wrinkle in his normally very ordered life. Well, as ordered as he could get. To see her like this, so... unsure of what was going on, was like a sweet for his starved palate. He wanted to make it last, to savor it as long as he could. He didn\'t suspect she would be this confused often, and he would take advantage of the situation while he could.

She lifted her head then, bringing one arm to wipe the sweat gathered on her brow off with the sleeve of her robe. Tendrils of hair were wet with her perspiration, clinging in small half curls to her skin. A faint flush stained her cheeks, most likely from the heat of the flame beneath her cauldron. It was appealing, in a very perverse and smutty sort of way. He could just imagine her wiping the sweat from her brow after he\'d bent her over the table and pounded into her from behind. He was very glad for the voluminous robes he wore at the moment. They helped keep anyone from noticing the tent that had suddenly sprung up in his trousers.

He moved to sit and observe. He didn\'t think he should hover about their bent heads like a vampire bat on the prowl. Not with an erection the size of the Hogwart\'s Express in his trousers. He didn\'t think it was prudent to let his students know that he still had the same, normal human reactions to outside influences as everyone else did. And, he was of the opinion that they were old enough to either succeed or fail on their own merit. He certainly didn\'t need to help them along, one way or the other.

Severus lifted his quill, glancing at the parchment before him. A first year Hufflepuff\'s poor excuse for an essay on the magical properties of plain, ordinary table salt. Most students were not aware that one could use it in potions or any other part of magic. Every term he tried to teach them something that was not part of the standard lesson plans in an attempt to broaden their minds. It was generally a waste of his valuable time and knowledge. Very few of them ever truly appreciated the information he passed on to them.

Except Hermione. The girl had a mind like a sponge. She was constantly soaking up new information, gathering knowledge to her like a miser gathered his gold. She was perhaps one of the brightest students he\'d ever taught. Not that he would ever dare admit that to her. She certainly didn\'t need to know that. It would give her such a bloody big head.

Glancing to where she sat, he saw that she was once more dropping her potion ingredients in as she generally did. She always had a steady hand and used a control that few of the great minds of potion brewing had. Should she ever chose Potions as her career choice, he would have some very good competition. He stopped and firmly got hold of himself. Frankly, he didn\'t give a lump of dragon shite what she did with herself after graduation. So long as he didn\'t have to do it with her, he would be perfectly content.

He noted then the vaporous steam rising from the cauldrons in a color of pink so disgusting, the Death Eater in him wanted to hex it on principle. It was time for them to test it. He took a moment to summon a thoroughly umpleasant thought. The image he inadvertantly conjured of Minerva naked, dancing a lurid dance with a long metallic pole, was enough to deflate his insistent erection almost immediately. With one last moment taken to push the horrible vision from his brain, he stood and stalked to the front row of desks.

The class looked on in silence as he went from one table to the next, inspecting each and every cauldron as he made his way around the room. He noted the color and consistancy of each brew, then stood before them when his circuit was complete. \'Now, you will each take a small spoonful to taste and test. I have the antitdote potion here for you to take when this short experiment is at an end. Be sure to make note of the texture of this. The flavor on your tongue. The smell of it. All these are important to identifying this potion.\'

They began ladling up small amounts to test as instructed. Hermione lifted her miniscule portion up to her nose, inhaling the scent of it deeply. It smelled of a very fragrant bunch of tea roses her mother had once put on their dining room table at home. It was a rather pleasant smell. A very innocuous smell. She glanced about the room, noting that a few of the others were already swallowing down their dollop of potion. She heaved a sigh and parted her lips.

The liquid was thick, like melted ice cream. As it slid over her tongue, she could taste mint in it. As well as a good amount of chocolate. In fact, it tasted precisely like mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was odd, since nothing that had gone into the potion had either of those flavors. But it seemed as though the potion\'s ingredients joined to form this particular taste. Unless, perhaps, it tasted like whatever the victim liked most. If this were true, she could understand how one could slip a potion to someone else without detection if it tasted like a sweet. It was rather good, even though she knew what it would do.

Almost as soon as the concoction hit her belly, she felt a tingling pass along her nerve endings, sweeping into her limbs like a rush of water. It wasn\'t exactly unpleasant, but it did prove to be a touch odd. She felt her nipples peak into painfully tight buds. She was suddenly very glad of the robes she wore. They would at least hide this reaction from one and all. She didn\'t care if they all had the same reaction. She didn\'t want anyone to see her like this. Well, perhaps with one exception. Her gaze stole covetously to where Professor Snape stood. She had to admit that the man had a certain....

Hermione pinched her leg harshly with two fingers, killing the sudden need she had for the acursed individual. He was doing this on purpose. After the way she had worked him to a fevered pitch last night, she wasn\'t surprised he would stoop to something so low. But still... To make the entire class take a lust potion because he was upset with her. It was downright asinine. The feel of him, though, as he\'d slid in and out of her mouth last night had been wondrous. He\'d been thick and huge and she\'d wanted nothing more than to have him inside of her. There, on his desk. She\'d....

Best get her mind back on what she\'s doing! Shaking herself mentally, Hermione once more tried to analyze the effects of the potion. The basic make up of it. The mixture ran through her like liquid lightning, bringing every nerve ending in her frame to life in a moment. Moisture flooded her core so rapidly, it would have brought her to her knees. In front of Snape. She shook herself. She needed to maintain a clear head, needed to keep from becoming the lust crazed idiot he was hoping she would.

It took Hermione all of ten more seconds to realize that she would not be able to fight her urges, were she to ever be given this potion when not under the watchful eye of one of her professors. Even if the professor in question was not only her husband, but the seeming object of her desires at the moment. She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes, feeling her body tighten. She wanted him so badly at the moment, she was sure she wouldn\'t be able to hide it from the rest of the class.

\'Since all of you have undoubtably made your observations by now, I will go ahead and administer the antidote to each of you. Tomorrow, you will turn in a four foot parchment on this potion and why it is so dangerous,\' Snape\'s voice flooded the room, surprising everyone. Hermione felt tingles race her spine at the deep, silky sound and mentally cursed his snarky, greasy hide. He knew what he was doing to her. He had to.

The snarky, greasy bastard was at that moment moving about the classroom, handing out vials of potion to each and every student. She watched him move his way along the tables, his hands reaching out to place a vial filled with dark red fluid into each one of the student\'s outstretched hands. She couldn\'t take her eyes from the long, elegant fingers as they went about their task as easily as she went about thinking.

When he reached her, the vial he placed in her open palm held the heat of his own hand. She controlled the shudder that wanted to come forth at that. She couldn\'t stop the gasp that rose to her lips, though, when he next spoke. \' I also want you to include in your report just who the object of your desire was.\'

He was looking at her as he said it. She knew that the words were meant solely for her. He knew. The miserable son of a bitch just *knew* who the object of her desire was. She managed to somehow glare at him without drawing the attentions of the rest of the class. He merely smirked at her. She couldn\'t stop herself. She just had to ask the question burning her tongue. \'And if there was no object of desire to fuel our adolescent fantasies?\'

\'Then,\' he drawled, his tone full of silent challenge. \'Simply put, you fail, Miss Granger.\' The bastard had the nerve to smile at her. She felt the color drain from her face. Shite! She was in serious trouble now.

~*~*~*~*~

\'Um... \'Mione?\' Harry\'s voice cut into the dull haze that had slowly been enveloping Hermione\'s brain for the better part of the day. Ever since Potions, she\'d been in some sort of growing fog. More to the point, since she\'d swallowed that antidote to the lust potion that they\'d done. Oh, it had killed the effects of the potion that she\'d brewed and taken, cutting off the sudden need she\'d felt to crawl across the classroom floor and under Snape\'s desk on all fours. Something that would have undoubltably been followed up with her promptly ripping his trousers off and sucking him off to a screaming orgasm. His or hers, she couldn\'t be certain.

So, the antidote had effectively cut out her lusty intentions rather suddenly and sharply. But, as the afternoon had worn on, she\'d found herself feeling rather fuzzy. As if she were ill and her brain was all clogged up. She couldn\'t quite explain it, as she wasn\'t sure just what was happening to her. All she knew was she seemed less inclined to actually think and more inclined to..... She stifled the groan when she realized what it was she would rather be doing. \'Hermione?\' Harry\'s voice prodded her once more.

\'What?\' she glanced up at him, blinking her eyes as she tried to stem the sudden desire to look over her shoulder and see if the insufferable shitehead was gloating or not yet. She couldn\'t believe she hadn\'t seen this coming. It was so very Slytherin of him to do, and she had been looking far too much at the blatantly obvious.

\'Are you alright? You haven\'t touched your dinner and you\'re sweating? You\'ve not come down with cold, have you?\' he asked her. She smiled at him, managing to look sincere when all she wanted to do was fly across the room and slap the man senseless.

\' I\'m perfectly alright, Harry. Thank you for asking, though,\' she replied, lifting a forkful of potatoes to her mouth to eat. It did not escape her notice that her hand was shaking ever so slightly. She hid the grimace and concentrated on putting food into her mouth without dropping it on the table. If she was given the opportunity, she was going to bloody wring his neck. Then she would find something even more satisfying to do him. Perhaps castration would be a just punishment for the conniving prat.

\'You don\'t look alright, \'Mione,\' Ron piped in, motioning to her with his fork. \'You\'re cheeks are birght red.\'

\' I promise you, there\'s nothing wrong. I am perhaps a little tired from all the studying I\'ve been doing lately, but I\'m not coming down with cold or anything like that,\' she assured her two best friends, then turned her attention back to her meal. She refused to look to where her husband, snake that he was, sat.

The three of them fell silent for some time, until Ron turned to Harry and began speaking about their assignment in Potions. \'So who was your object of desire?\' he asked the green eyed Wizard, then chuckled when Harry promptly blushed.

\'Ginny,\' Harry mumbled, then pressed on before Ron could even think of going aff at the mouth. \'And yours?\'

\'Luna,\' Ron glanced at his plate, avoiding the laughing gaze Harry shot his way. \'Who was yours, \'Mione?\' he then asked, turning the focus of the conversation away from himself. She started when he spoke, choking on the slight drink of pumpkin juice she was currently swallowing. Harry reached out and pounded on her back until she was once more breathing.

\'Hermione?\' he asked her, now giving her a very concerned look. Something about this whole thing was just not right to him, though he couldn\'t put his finger on just what it was. She\'d been acting odd all week, and he hadn\'t missed the looks that had passed between her and their Potions Master when they thought the rest of the class wasn\'t paying them attention. Something very peculiar was happening under the roof of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry involving one Hermione Granger and one Severus Snape.

\' I\'m fine. You just startled me,\' she told them once she recovered enough breath to speak.

\'So who\'s the bloke?\' Ron persisted, not noticing the way Harry was studying her closely. She shrugged her shoulders, paying quite a bit of attention to her potatoes.

\' It\'s no one you know,\' she said evasively.

\'Some bloke we don\'t know? Come on, \'Mione,\' Ron nudged her with an elbow. \'We\'ve spent almost all of the last seven years together. There isn\'t any bloke that we don\'t know about.\'

\'Not all of the men in my acquiantance are here at Hogwarts,\' she snapped churlishly, looking up to pin Ron with a glacial stare. He backed away from her in his seat.

\'Sorry. I didn\'t know you were so touchy,\' he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. He certainly knew her well enough to know that he shouldn\'t even think of messing with her. She turned back to her plate, her appetite slowly slipping away to nothing. Her mind was turning to what she needed to do. First was a trip to the library. She needed to look in a few books, see what she could discover. She needed to come up with something to show him that he hadn\'t bested her yet.

She would show him who was the one in control. Standing from her place on the bench, she looked from Harry to Ron. \' I\'m going to bed,\' she announced. Both of her friends stared at her, eyes wide and mouths agape. It was rather like looking at fish out of water.

\'You\'re going to bed? Now?\' Ron asked, then glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was barely past seven. \' It\'s still early.\'

\' I\'m tired. I\'ve been studying too hard for my N.E.W.T.s. I need some rest,\' she told them, then turned and made her way up the aisle to the doors. She could feel that black gaze on her, boring into her back. She was sure he was sitting at the table, watching her go with a smug look of satisfaction on his face. He was absolutely, positively a complete shite. Oh, she would see him pay for this little bit of injustice.

Harry watched her go, noting that she walked stiffly. Something very odd was going on with Hermione, and he couldn\'t be sure what it was. He had some suspicions, of course. But nothing solid to go on. Looking out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that Snape was watching Hermione go. And the man had an evil little smile on his face.

By Merlin, Hell had just frozen over.

~*~*~*~*~

Hermione sighed as she threw herself down on the bed in frustration. She\'d gone to the library, managing to go through any and every book she could find on the subject of lust potions. It had taken her the better part of four hours to locate anything relevant and useful in their moldy pages. It had also been nearly impossible to keep her mind from straying to Snape at the most inopportune moments. She\'d gone off into a sort of daze thinking about him, only to be brought around by the feel of her fingers creeping over her thigh. She was not going to touch herself while thinking about him.

And ceratinly not in the library. Fortunately, she\'d located a small tome that was dedicated to any and every sort of lust potion the Wizarding World had ever had the utter idiocy to think up. It had been this book that had given her the information she sought. Once she\'d read the entry, seven times because of lurid, lusty images of Snape, thank you very much, she\'d been in a right state. The arrogant prick was definitely going to pay for this.

She had sat in the library for some time, merely plotting what she would like to do to him. Castration had entered into her thoughts more than once. But that would be too good for him. And he would get away without truly suffering her wrath. No, she had to come up with something far more punishing to him than simply snipping off his rather impressive erection. It was that thought that had finally driven her from the library and the solitude of her private rooms.

The simple fact of the matter was... She wanted Snape. With what seemed to be a growing need. It was threatening to consume her, to drag her to the deepest, darkest abyss of lust and perversion that existed. She was seriously under the impression that she would do anything he asked of her, if only it would bring her some measure of relief. The desire to have him touch her, to have him fill her with his fingers and tongue and cock was growing daily. It was playing such havoc with her brain that normal thinking was becoming nearly impossible.

Even at this moment, when she was trying desperately to clear her mind so she could find solace in sleep, her body was throbbing painfully with need. If she didn\'t think he would see her as the weaker one, she would go to his private chambers now and throw herself upon his mercy. And his thick erection. She wanted to feel herself stretched by him, impaled on his rigid length. She wanted to have him....

\'Stupid twit!\' she snapped at herself, breaking the silence of her chambers with her whispered words. As if to mock her, her pussy throbbed with need. She groaned at her inability to control her body\'s puerile reactions. She rolled off her bed, her hands angrily jerking at the clothes she wore. She pulled her school uniform off and tossed it to the floor. Her palms brushed over her peaked nipples and she moaned loudly into the silence of her rooms. She couldn\'t stop herself.

She lifted both hands to her breasts, palming them as she rubbed slow circles about her hard nipples. Gods, how she wanted him. A man she practically despised. She wanted him so badly. She felt muscles clench once more as she recalled the previous night\'s activities. She had wanted so desperately to plunge herself down on his cock. To ride him until her body was nothing but a pile of jelly on the floor. She had wanted to feel him pounding himself deep into her. She had wanted to...

A groan rose up out of her throat, and her hands flew to the cotton panties she wore. Her fingers pulled at them in haste, ripping the material as she worked at getting them down. When the sodden scrap lay on the floor, she spread herself on the bed. She lay opposite her normal sleeping position, so she could prop her feet against the headboard. She let her hands pull at her breasts, fingers manipulating her nipples until they ached, until they were so sore that the blood pounding in her veins made them throb achingly.

Then one hand moved, drifted down over her belly to the nest of curls between her thighs. Her lip were swollen open, moisture already sliding down the length of her slit to pool under her ass on the deep burgandy duvet beneath her. She was so aroused that she immediately slipped two fingers into her dripping pussy and pumped them in and out. Her hips began to arch up to meet them almost as soon as she started. The sounds of her wetness echoed in the silence of the chambers, only occasionally mixing with the moans and groans she emmited.

Her fingers contiinued to stroke into her body when she settled a thumb over her clit. The thick pad was abrasive, calloused from holding a quill for so many years. It brought a loud gasp to her lips as she worked back and forth over the nubbin of flesh. Almost at once, she felt the tightening of muscles. She let her mind wander, imagining that it was Snape whose fingers plunged into her aching core. That it was Snape who pulled at her nipple so harshly. That it was Snape who was bringing her to the very edge of the precipice. She wanted to tumble over. She needed to.

The moment her mind pictured his exquisite length shifting in and out of her body, she hurtled over the edge. Her orgasm exploded so fiercely that she saw bursts of colors behind her eyelids. Never had any man she\'d thought of porduced such a reaction. And she had fantasized quite a bit. Her legs went limp, her body trembling and shaking in the aftermath of her release. The hand at her breast fell to the bed, the other one between her thighs with two fingers still buried in her swollen core. She gasped for breath, her eyes closed.

She was in such trouble. She wanted the man with an ever growing passion. Shite and double shite!

end chapter seven.
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thanks to my usual group of folks, who always support me and keep me going. if you find errors in here, it is entirely me. i betaed this myself, as madam shark has too much real life for me to want to bother her. she knows i appreciate all she does for me, though, and i hope she\'s not too offended by this.

as usual, i am overwhelmed by the amount of feedback and reading this fic is generating me. i am seriously honored that you all find it so.... appealing. i apologize for the delay in getting this posted, but my bunnied went on vacation. for about two months. so writing has been slow. hopefully not as bad now. we shall see.

feedback is nice, but not required. and, while i\'m on the subject... i have thank yous to add here. bear with me.

to nesscafe: i did think it was rather smart of her to leave him bound to the chair for a while. to sort of let him stew in his own juices, as it were. ;p

to Emily: yes, he did deserve it. and here\'s the nest installment. i hope you like it. as for Dumbledore... all will be revealed. in good time. so hang in there.

to Bambu: the two of them are playing a rather nasty game, aren\'t they? they will crack.... eventually.

to ashley: yes, he is a sexy bastard. i would love to have a boyfriend like that. hell, i\'d like a boyfriend, period.

to Susan: glad i made your morning. and she knew better than to finish him off. that would have been giving in, and she\'s not about to do that.

to chibidaima: you will find out what Albus is up to in later chapters. promise.

to Kentucky Fried Frogs: i plan on continuing it for a bit. until i run out of ways for the two of them to torture one another or until i can\'t find reasons for them to still hate one another.

to ArienAstera: the real thing is coming.... eventually. and of course, so will Severus and Hermione!

to tothesnakes: i\'m glad you do. i love it, too.

to red: yes, the sex should be specatcular. when they get around to it.

to Deb: it will be very steamy and hot when they finally give in and go at each other like rabbits. and yes, Albus should be careful of Minerva. i\'m sure she\'s got a few tricks up her sleeves, should she need them.

to Amber: i\'m sorry. you cannot have a heart attack or a brain tumor. my readers cannot fall ill. i forbid it. i will keep writing, so long as you keep reading.

to Echo: thanks for the kudos and the vote of confidence. i can\'t see Snape any way other than a bastard. i hope i do him justice here.

to Caliko: yes, he did deserve it. Hermione is able to hold her own, i think.

to deblovesdragon: yes, men can be quite dense.and he did let his johnson get him into trouble here. and Albus\' involvement will be revealed in time. patience, my dear.

to Velvetina: the hottest thing? *blushes* thank you ever so much. i don\'t know about that, but i\'ll graciously accept your compliment. i\'m glad you\'ve found this fic, too.

to Alcandre: i\'m glad you like the story. and thank you for the compliment on my writing ability. i question it at times. glad someone thinks i\'m capable at it.

to sexypink20022: i\'m getting there. slowly but surely. i\'m glad you like it so much. i am really enjoying writing it, trying to find ways for one to outdo the other.

to SeverusSnape: *hands over a cough drop* here, now go read and enjoy. you really must learn to take care of yourself. yes, she did have some serious willpower. i don\'t know that i could have done what she did.

to Julie: the mention of lack of plot was made in reference to another story of mine. i laugh now, because said author has more chappies posted on her one fic than i do on my current ones, and i still have more reviews on just one of them. she just must be jealous of my talent. ; ) as for waht Albus and Minerva know that they don\'t, that\'ll come out soon enough. as will what brought it all about. no time turners in this, and no previous relationship, other than student/teacher. patience, my child. all will be revealed. in time

to laceyweasley: yes, she does. and she will eventually get what she wants.