Fortress

All thoughts of Severus were pushed to the back of her mind by the fatigue that overtook her by the end of the day. The older students had been rowdy on their first day of school, eagerly showing off whatever skills they remembered from years past and generally making a mess of things. Hermione had forgotten how chaotic the first day could be, especially in years where the first of September fell on a Sunday"”school started the very next day after their arrival, without a weekend to buffer the exuberance of the students.

She leaned back in her desk chair and lazily levitated the collection of things she had confiscated from the students. They ranged from the merely annoying (screaming sea-sick yo-yos, invisible Frisbees, Muggle Pop-Rocks) to the truly dangerous"”most of that last category being collected from the Slytherins and a few precocious Ravenclaws. She sighed as she thought of the onus of bringing them down to Gauthier, Filtch's replacement. He was a quiet man, not overly gregarious but not unpleasant either. He did his job well enough, but Hermione missed the downright terror that Filtch could inspin thn the students. She gathered up the piles, carefully holding the yo-yo in an upright position, and wondered if it was just her age, or if a lot of the color had gone out of life since she had grown up.

There was one item she wasn't familiar with, though, and she paused before adding it to a pile. It was a plain enough looking bag, but when she opened it her eye was caught by the handful of sparkling dust inside. She had confiscated the bag from a couple of Hufflepuffs, after they had set a pinch of the stuff alight on another student's desk. Curious despite herself to see the colorful flames again she removed a pinch carefully and threw it down on her own desk. It didn't need any prompting from her wand, but rather burst into small colorful flames of its own accord, leaving behind neither smoke nor charred spots on the desk, only a tiny area of lingering warmth. With a smile she gathered the verboten objects once more and set off for an entirely different part of the castle from the one where Gauthier could be found. She was looking for George.

"This isn't one of our products, Hermione," Fred said, leaning over his brother's shoulder. "It almost looks Muggle."

George experimentally threw down a handful of the powder as Hermione had done, and watched in admiration as it burned briefly, leaving nothing but warmth behind. "Muggle, but with a magical adaptation," he conferred, adding, "we try to avoid gimmicks like that. Tricks that are all magical tend to work a lot better."

"So what is it?" she asked. Fred swept the rest of the forbidden objects into a trunk next to his brother's desk, winking at her as he did. Oh well, she thought, it would save her the trouble of turning them over to the proper authority.

"It's flash powder," George said, tying up the bag again, "but exceptionally good flash powder, with a spell that allows it to light itself when it is tossed from the bag."

Fred ran his fingers over the surface of the desk. "Funny how there isn't any burning smell, or any marks," he said, standing up again.

"It must be the spell," George said, "even the best flash powder leaves something like a dust behind, but this is entirely clean."

"Can't be," Fred said as he leaned over his brother's shoulder, "nothing can burn entirely clean. That would be like destroying matter."


"But matter is destroyed when it burns," Hermione said, "that's why a phoenix comes out of the ashes so much smaller than it went into them. Some of the matter is lost, transformed into heat energy."

George nodded as he threw down another pinch of the stuff, holding his hand what seemed dangerously close to the flames while it burned. "Heat. The most useless kind of energy."

"Hardly energy at all," Fred agreed, "you can hardly ever get it to do any work."

"Mmmm." George had an abstract look on his face as he gathered up a handful of the powder. "Better stand back." Hermione and Fred inched away as he flung the powder at the floor"”where it hit there was a plume of flame, then nothing save for a column of heat so strong Hermione could feel it radiating like a hot stove. "It doesn't do anything but flow, and then in any direction where there's less heat. So it's a devil of a time getting it to do anything constructive." He watched as Fred dug his fingers into the bag, then gently closed the tie, forcing his fingers away. "Better give this to Hermione," he said, quiet but firm. "I have a feeling she might find a use for it." He smiled at her as he passed it over, pressing it into her palm.

"Thanks," she said, feeling absurd. What would she want with a child's forbidden plaything? Still she took it, and went back to her quarters feeling oddly hopeful.


Jason made good on his promise to see her in the evening, and, as she had expected he would, treated her with the gentle care one woulve ave a weak-minded person. He did not mention his father until it was nearly time for him to go.

"Mother," he said, sitting before the fireplace again. "What did he say to you, exactly?"

"He said I would be killed by Death Eaters, on Halloween of this year," she said. "He did not give me the details. They did not seem to be his to give."

A strained look crossed over Jason's normally composed features. "How can you be sure that this is truly the ghost of my father, and not an instrument being used by some other force? Perhaps the Death Eaters wish you to become complacent about your own death." She winced internally as a shrewd expression took over his features. "Perhaps they wish you to come seeking it."

"Jason, no," she said, then silenced his counter-protest with a raised hand. "Listen," she said softly, "magic isn't all done with wands and potions. A great deal of it is inside you, and it only grows as you become older. Even Harry didn't gain an ounce of intuition until we were long out of Hogwarts." She shivered slightly, mentioning her friend so long passed, but continued before Jason could comfort her on that count. "You're a great wizard, Jason, and I really mean that. It is not only that you are my son that I see all that you have to offer the world, as a thinker and a wizard. Yet you cannot understand how I know that this being I've talked to is Severus. You can't know, and I don't expect you to try to know. I only want you to trust me." Trust. That was the word that everything hinged on, she realized. It was only the trust she had in herself and her own resources that allowed her to even contemplate her death sentence and its bizarre means.

"You want me to trust you as much as you trust yourself," he said, a note of disbelief in his voice. "You're not going to seek them, are you?" he asked. She could not clear her face in time. "This is nothing but suicide, if what you say is true," Jason said. "You're not really going to go out looking for them?"

"Not to look for them, Jason, to defeat them."

"Has history taught you nothing?" he practically raged at her. All thoughts that this woman was his mother left his mind. "Have the myths taught you nothing? Attempt to beat your fate, and you will only shape it into being."

She sat forward, her mind unwittingly enjoying the fight even while her heart sorrowed at her son's turning on her. "And had Oedipus not left his foster parents, would his fate not have come to pass? That is the nature of fate, Jason, and I can either meet it fighting or sit in my room with the door shut, harming who knows how many other people in the process."

Jason stood, as if to leave, then halted, a thoughtful look on his face. "Have you told the headmistress about this?" he asked.

She smiled at him, a biaklyakly. He was no doubt remembering the countless tales of how she and her friends had always found safety in the council of Dumbledore. Headmistress Chang, while a capable headmistress in all respects, was a different story entirely. "No, Jason, and I beg you to keep my confidences private." She stood and walked to the door. As much as he might want to rave at her it remained her quarters, and she would see him out when she chose. Dutifully he stood and followed her.

"I love you, and I will do as you ask," he said. He took her hand tentatively, and she used it to pull him to her. He seemed relieved to be able to hug her.

"Thank you, Jason." She kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry this year is so hard for you." He stepped back and took her hand again, nodding before he left.

She waited for him that night, even knowing that to wait was to expect, and to expect was usuall be be disappointed. Outside the small window the cicadas trilled in what always seemed to her a sharp echo of the sounds of spring, half a year before. Yet in the cicadas' case, the song was one of death, the last ditch effort to attract a mate before giving in to the cold that the Scottish autumn brought.

Her mind became full of their sound, soothed into a kind of numbness that invited meditation instead of impatience. She felt the edges of an old French poem she had once memorized pressing at her mind, and she let herself whisper the words, a diversion. Les sanglots longs, des violons, de l'automne, blessent mon coeur, d'une languor monotone. Tout suffocant et blemme, quand sonne l'heure. The long sobs of the violins of autumn bless my heart with a monotonous weariness. Everything is suffocating and bland when the hour sounds"”her mind, so gifted in many other things, usually supplied the literal translation and not much else. Still, it seemed an appropriate thing for that evening. The air was not overwarm but it was stifling in the little chamber, especially with the heavy duvet she had thrown over herself for comfort. She began to move under it, restless, and suddenly she was hit with the same seion ion that had overcome her a week earlier"”need. It was crueler, now, with the ringing of the little crickets in her ears, bringing back the memories of other early autumn nights when she and Severus had left the windows of their home open, letting in that high song that masked their own, the cool air sending shivers down their backs as they tried to keep their activities a secret from their young son. The cicadas were, then, their allies. Now they mocked her, making her ears ring as the heat of the duvet became too much, its weight oppressive, but needed"”to cast it away would be to give up even the poor illusion. Still, no matter how heavy, the blanket could not ever approximate the feeling of his hands, and no matter how deep her fever its weight would never be mistaken for his.

She turned back and forth, arching herself so that the curve of her belly could rasp along the heavy cloth along with her breasts, the moment of relief or illusion brought quickly dashed by the hot frustruation that followed.

She ran her own hands up her body, cupping her breasts, desperate for some sensation that would be satisfying, even for a moment, but the heat that seemed ready to consume her was the worst over her throat and chest, and she drew her hands, already covered in sweat, away, laying them over her face.

Conceding defeat to her own body she prepared to throw off the blanket when the most delicious sensation flowed through her. She was cool.

It was as if a breeze had located itself between the duvet and her body, and was, at this moment, swirling around her body, over her flushed skin, giving her a relief she never had thought to feel.

The shivers of cold quickly turned into pleasurable tremors as she rubbed herself firmly into that heavy blanket, now so mysteriously cool.

There was a sound, then, so quiet it might have been inside her mind, as if someone had chuckled, softly, a sound hardly louder than a sigh.

"Severus?" She opened her eyes, taking a moment to focus before she saw his iridescent face above hers, shimmering oddly in the dim light that seemed to come only from himself. He was looking more like a ghost now than she had yet seen him, as ethereal and transparent as any of the House ghosts.

"You looked hot," he said, a note of sadness in his voice. "Have you been like this often since I've been gone?" He shifted himself, appareninsiinside the blanket as he spoke, sending another shiver down her spine.

"Only once," she said, truthfully, closing her eyes as he concentrated the cold along the length of her torso, "once before this." She smiled as she felt his face brush the side of hers, unseen. There was something she had to talk to him about, she knew, something important, but the surprise and relief at seeing him had not taken away any of the need she'd been suffering before he came.

"Throw off this blanket," he said, his words as soft and clear as if they'd been whispered in life, and she did as he said, not worrying that it would affect him in the least. Indeed, he seemed to stay in the same place, the cold he imparted to her all the stronger for the blanket being gone.

Immediately she missed its weight, its pressure, even as she delighted in the cold that seeped into her overheated body. Barely realizing what she was doing, she reached for the hem of her gown, then stopped as she felt her own fingers lifting it.

"Yes. Please." His voice in her ear sounded rasping, breathy, as it had in life though now, clearly, he had no breath to give his voice. As she pulled the hem up over her waist he floated back a bit, hovering over her knees as she paused, uncertain. "Hermione, please," he said again, softly, his voice nearly inside her head as the cicadas had been.

The cold he had laid on her dissipated, but the sickly hot feeling did not return. Instead, there was a hyperawareness of her own flesh and body, a feeling she had not truly had since the last time she'd seen him in life. No longer even really knowing what she had to hide from him, she threaded her fingers through the dense, slightly damp curls between her legs.

She closed her eyes, secure in the notion that he would stay there, just above her knees even if she was not watching. As she began the first long, slow strokes along the top of the hood, it did not occur to her that there might be something more urgent than this, the gentle and familiar preparation of her own body for something she had shared with her husband so many times before. She'd often thought it was strange that this part of her, which was part of her own body, could surprise her with its likes and dislikes even as she touched it with her own fingers, but tonight she moved in a familiar pattern, smoothing the protective flesh down over the hard core with her fingertips, then touching the pad of just one finger to the glossily smooth tip, the skin there so thin that touching it was almost like touching a finger to the blood and nerves that were just beneath the surface"”almost painful, but still addictive.

Her dry finger almost stuck to that skin, drawing it out by fractions of a millimeter as she gave in again and again to the desire to test her own limits, touching that hot glassy tip faster and faster until she was almost plucking at herself.

She barely heard Severus' hissing breath, that sign of his barely contained pleasure and desire, so concentrated was she on the heat that was building beneath the curve of her belly. It grew with each touch, spreading, yet threatening to burn out at any moment. It might easily desert her, she knew, without giving her any of the satisfaction she so desperately needed. She drew her finger away, resting her hand on top of her mound of curls, even that light touch a reminder and a promise.

Opening her eyes, it was almost a surprise to see Severus fairly floating above her, seeming to perch on the bed between her splayed knees.

"Alright, my dear?" he asked. His presence doubtlessly held a chill, the insides of her knees far cooler than they should have been, and yet the husk in his voice imparted so much of the heat she remembered from his life.

"Quite." She smiled at him, ready to continue, aware now that there were other things of importance, surely, that would have brought him to her, but unable to think what they might have been on her own. Her finger was half-way to her mouth before she realized it, and it was only the hungry, pleased glare on Severus' face that brought her to herself. She smiled as she opened her lips, enjoying the tang of her own taste, leaving it inside her mouth for longer than was strictly necessary, simply for the pleasure of watching him watch her.

She nestled her finger in the groove beside her clit, rolling the edge of her finger back and forth to catch its little ridge where it deigned to emerge from inside the deeper recesses of her body. Soon she tired of that familiar touch, and swept her finger over the top, describing its shape, pushing the loose warm folds of the hood over the hard shape inside.

Soon she could hardly tell what she was doing, only that the touch mustn't stop, her muscles all tightened to their fullest as she struggled towards something that usually came so easily.

His voice was at her ear, a note of concern buried in the deep tones. "You are so beautiful." She turned to face him, then squeezed her eyes shut again, hoping he would take the sight for more evidence of her own pleasure"”in truth, she needed to see him not with open eyes, but with closed ones, linking his deep voice with the picture of him still living in her mind.

She began to tremble in a way that was a pale imitation of the spasm she craved. A whimper escaped her mouth.

"What do you need?" he asked, near her ear again, though she did not look.

"I need something inside me," she confessed, her whisper rasping loud in the room, so startling that for a moment she stopped, frightened, wondering if she would open her eyes to find she had merely waked from a dream of him, but before she could open her eyes there was a spot of cold on her free hand; he was touching her.

She took his unspoken suggestion and broutwo two of her own fingers to her entrance. The flesh on either side of that opening was warm and wet, practically swollen, and her body did not protest as she pressed against it. Soon she was inside, the texture of her vagina familiar and soothing beneath her fingers, calming the frustrated tremors that had threatened to end her pleasure.

She was slick inside, the folds plump and yielding beneath the gentle pressure, so she pressed on, and soon she was buried up to her palm, stroking the familiar spot she had known since her teens.

It was building again, hot yet liquid inside her, promising to spread and warm, not burn her with disappointment. Still, she felt exposed under his eyes, pretzeled, ridiculously contorted.

"You look so wonderful like this." His voice was infused with such lust, she wouldn't have wondered if the sentiment alone could have made him corporeal again. She shuddered, a warning, a promise, and her muscles tensed anew at the anticipation of her orgasm.

Then the heat in her changed, seemed to be coming from the outside, and she tossed her head in despair, trying to rid herself of it. Just as she thought it would be useless, that she would have to give up in disappointment and anger, there was ot oot of coldness on the inside of the arm that was curved to accommodate her fingers inside herself. It was only one spot, and she knew without looking that he was touching her with just a fingertip.

The spot of delicious cold moved down, chilling her, getting rid of that sick hot feeling and letting her concentrate on the other kind of warmth that was flowing through her, a precursor to what she so eagerly anticipated.

When he reached her wrist he did not stop, tracing the crease of her palm, and pressing on the inside of her fingers. She had just started to be overtaken by her climax, feeling it blossom from somewhere beneath her solar plexus, when he managed to trace the entire length of the fingers that were embedded within her. With the introduction of that cold length into her body, her orgasm ceased to be the strong steady spread of warmth it usually was, and became an explosion, centered on the cold inside her and the heat without.

When she finally stopped shaking, she wasn't surpised to find him floating just above her, still imparting that delicious cold that kept her from falling into hot frustration at the end of her orgasm.

"Thank you." He spoke just over her open mouth, and the words fell, cold, on her tongue.

He rearranged himself at her side, as if he could stay beside hel nil night. "There is something I came to tell you, though," he said, with a guilty air.

"Yes?" She barely remembered the reason for his earlier visits; just to look on his face was peace enough without knowing why he was there.

"You were right, when you were speaking with Jason the other day." He registered her look of surprise. "Yes, I can hear you, sometimes, even when you can not see me. But the fact remains"”you were right. There is nothing you can do to escape the fate that awaits you. The only question is of how you choose to meet it."

Her eyes barely flickered at the news. "I think I have known that since the beginning," she said, then gave voice to the one thing that truly frightened her. "What will become of Jason when we both are gone?"

At that she had her first smile from him since he had died, the expression still looking slightly painful on his ever-serious face. "I can say, with some certainty, that he will be alright."

She felt that smile warm her, even as she wondered what it could possibly mean.