To Save A Serpent

A/N: To those of you whom the act of necrophilia offends, this is the chapter to skip, my friends. For our heroine finds herself in desperate need, and to save his life she must attempt the deed. If it makes you squeamish or fills you with hate, then I say skip this chapter and go directly to eight.


She’d closed her eyes tightly, hoping against hope that the spell had done more than its potential promise, but open opening her honey browns, she hardly noticed a difference. Her fist tightened around the scroll and she tossed it to the floor watching it roll across the room as a tiny paper ball. “Damnit!” she shouted, and then fell sobbing once more overtop his chest.

Cold flooded the room once more, dampening her heated charms and her eyes flew open but she did not lift her head. “I tried! It didn’t work! I tried!” she repeated, hoarse scratchy voice echoing from her throat. The lights even seemed to dim and she again closed her eyes, unable to bare the ghostly sight of him should he reappear. His disembodied ghostly figure not only frightened her, but it angered her and made her flood with remorse and regret. It was taunting to see something so ghostly, to know it was final if that’s how he could appear to her.

And appear he did, but only for a moment’s glance. “Be strong, my good girl…” his voice was distant as if calling to her from many miles away.

“No. No! Wait! Come back!” she cried, searching the room for his figure, but her eyes fell only on his face, how peaceful he looked. “Please don’t be at rest,” she whispered against his lips. If his spirit had found cause to be at rest, he would wander the earth no more trapped as a spirit and selfish as that was on her part, it meant she would truly never see him again.

The insistent nudging had not caught her attention until just then as the moment before she’d been so prostrated with grief that she was preoccupied. Trembling, Hermione pulled herself slowly back off his figure and gazed his body over. She closed her eyes with a sigh. He had warned her that it might happen that way. The spell, after all, was only a myth and it wasn’t actually supposed to work. Although he lay still, dead as a doorknob, his trousers had stirred to life.

She could almost hear his voice echoing in her mind. “And so help me, after your silly little bout of trying to bring my pathetic self back if this thing backfires and I’m left with a raging boner, I’ll haunt you, mark my words, witch.” It was eerie, and she shuddered. It had been a rather tense night between them, her arguing about having found it in his things, him arguing about her being a busy-body and a snoop. She insisting that he must not be certain that he would make it through if he’d went to the trouble to recover such a myth. And of course it ended in a passionate round, several passionate rounds of brutal love making.

“Always sort of thought your libido would out live you…” she whimpered, trying to make light of the situation as he’d so often done. For being the bitter man that he was, he did everything in his power to crack a smile to her face when she cried. He had actually been quite humorous.

Knowing the rigger mortis would set in quite soon, Hermione sighed when presented with her options. She could hardly leave him in such an aroused state, only to be found, laughed and jeered at. Her trembling fingers came forth to his trousers, and she could feel the organ pulsing beneath the fabric, as if he were alive all over again. More tears flooded from her eyes.

“Oh, Severus!” she began to cry in earnest His body felt warm once more and it was almost as if they were back in his bed, back at Hogwarts and she’d merely woken before him. She closed her eyes.

~*~

A soft sawing sound had woken her from her slumber. It was seldom that Severus snored, but on occasions that he did, she found herself almost instantly awake at the sound. Glancing through squinted eyes over at the time piece, she saw it to be half past six on Saturday morning, and the first big match of the year was that day though not until much later. She couldn’t remember if she’d promised the boys she’d be up to see them off to breakfast and practice or not, but at the moment she didn’t care.

Hands hovering over his shoulder to nudge her newfound bed partner to life, she paused and gazed at the sheets, a smirk coming to her lips. Severus had a morning visitor. With an almost uncontainable chuckle, Hermione slipped beneath the sheets, and began to blow feather light kisses against his erection, thankful that every time the climbed into bed together they were almost always naked.

It did not take her long to work him up to a frenzied state and she was certain if he’d been awake he would have been grunting and groaning and tossing his hips about. It did, however, take her a minute to get herself beneath the sheets while straddling him. Sliding slowly onto him she sheathed herself atop him and her eyes fluttered back into her head. No matter how many times he’d been inside her, despite having had him in every conceivable orifice, his length and girth was always a refreshing surprise.

Gyrating her hips she began to ride him, her walls milking him up and down as she pulled herself up and then pushed herself down onto him. Her knees were locked at his side and her hands had come up to her wild hair, trying to tame it back into a knot at the base of her head. A groan escaped her lips and that seemed to rouse him.

At first he looked up, quirked an eyebrow and then gazed down to where their bodies were joined. A snort left his lips and at once he was leaning forward grabbing her hips and pinning her back, dominating her, thrusting into her. She screamed, shrieking his name as he pounded into her, grinding his hips tight against hers, flesh smacking flesh. When she’d come twice he allowed himself release and kissed her hungrily. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she smirked. “Thought it would be…nice.”

“Nice indeed,” his lips once again covered hers, and he spent the better part of the morning just holding her and stroking her hair. They were physical, there was no doubt about that, and at times even brutally violent, leaving a variety of marks on each other, but there was something that had developed just beyond physical. There was a tenderness, a compassion, and a very fond like for one another, mostly because neither would admit to it being a sort of love.

At first he had flat out objected to her sleeping in his bed once the deed was done, and on their very first night after they’d fallen into a hazy sleeping state, he’d woken several hours later and escorted her back to Gryffindor Tower. But three nights later, she’d insisted that she stay until morning and that it was looking highly suspicious for him to be escorting her back to the tower at all hours of the night. His solution was to fix a floo connection between her room and his, but she said that she’d never actually want to use it, as she preferred to just stay in his room.

She did learn to use the floo connection, however, to retrieve fresh clothes to have for after their morning showers. After the first night she’d stayed until morning, he realized that to sleep alone in an empty bed drew forth a great anguish from him and he could almost no bare to do it. She’d practically moved in with him. And although he was certain that Albus knew what was going on, the older wizard never spoke a word or led on that he did.

~*~

It took Hermione several moments to draw herself from those happy memories. They were so vivid and real to her, she hardly wanted to leave them behind, considering her alternative to be the dead man lying beneath her. She’d placed her wand on the floor, nearby in case she should need it, but out of her hands.

He was not a heavy man in life, but in his frigid position she’d had great difficulty in removing his trousers and his boxers, which she refused to use magic in doing. She, like Harry in digging Dobby’s grave, needed a physical task to help expel some of the turbulent emotions whirling inside her. His trousers were neatly folded at the foot of the bed, his boxers and socks atop those, his boots on the floor. She hadn’t the strength to undo all the buttons of his frock coat and of his dress shirt, and thus left his shirt on.

The thought of seeing that marred chest, adding to it now the puncture wounds that the snake had left behind was too much for her. She’d slid down his legs easily, spreading them carefully and she nestled herself between them. “Oh,” she whimpered, learning close to his bobbing erection. He still smelled strongly of sandalwood, and that distinct musky odor that was his. She was certain if she were to sniff his fingers they would still smell of burning potions as they always did, the faint odor that often mingled with their labored love juices, it drove her wild.

Her lips fluttered over the weeping head of his erection and her tears joined his pre cum as she placed a chaste kiss to him before pulling herself up to straddle him. Hermione had cast a powerful spell to keep herself well lubricated as she found it impossible to excite herself over having one last fuck. He’d been more than just a body to fuck, even from that first kiss.

Had it been just physical, he never would have been so gentle their first night together, of that she was sure. But now none of it seemed to matter. Gazing down into his somber face, she turned away, unable to convince herself that he was just sleeping and it was just like all those mornings where she’d ridden him until he’d woken up. With a lift of her hips she poised his firm tip at her entrance and slid down onto him. He was warm and pulsating against her flesh and she sobbed.

He would not shoot up and wrap his arms around her with a feral grin on his lips, and he would not pin her back and demand she flip over so he could bugger her from behind. Those days were over. His body was still, his chest did not rise, and she sobbed as she lifted herself from him and seated herself over his erection again. She felt numb, almost cold inside. It was wrong, to be almost defiling his body, but he had insisted, and she could hardly deny the request of a now dead man; a dead man who had suffered so much to ensure that she would have a Voldemort free world to live in.

Both palms were on his chest, no doubt bruising the dead cells as she pushed herself up and down on him, riding his pulsing member. Her thighs trembled, her body heaving desperate sobs, pleading for air in her lungs as she forced herself forward, bending her head over his and placing a kiss on his blue lips. When had his lips turned blue? She sobbed again, her throat so raw she was sure it was bleeding.

Gazing at his body, she realized his entire face was tinged a shade of pale blue, as if he’d been dead for days and days, frozen somewhere. “Oh gods!” she cried, trying to keep herself atop him, trying to finish him so his penis could fall flaccid and she could lay with him. She wanted to wither up and die beside him.

Hermione worked her body faster, feeling his testicles tighten beneath her and with three solid shifts down on his member, she felt it convulse and spurt forth warm liquid straight up into her. Again she let loose a cry that filled the tiny shack, shaking her body and she collapsed, pulling herself from him. Curling onto her side against him, she tossed her head onto his chest once more and cried, pulling the sheets over her and him. She managed to move his arm up over her, and laid there, sobbing until she’d cried herself to sleep.

The room felt warm. Hermione was nestled in a sea of blankets, and she could almost faintly smell sandalwood and musk. Orange lights glimmered in front of her closed eyelids and she allowed them to flutter open. She was facing the far wall in the Shrieking Shack and at once a cold filled her chest. She was not in Severus’ bed, and her lover, the man she was certain she was growing to love, was dead. Blinking her eyes she shrugged her shoulders and found that she had little trouble sitting up.

Her panicked eyes flew wide as she gazed at the bed. She glanced down to the foot and then to the floor and her whole body trembled. “Severus?” she cried. His body was gone.