All's Fair in Love and War

Excuses or Explanations?

**NOTE** There is mild sexual content in this chapter. Enjoy!

QueenRuby: YEAH, I know EXACTLY what you mean about the improper flow. I can’t quite manage to get around it, either, and it’s pissing me off badly. I don’t know what to do about it at all. Suggestions? I’d LOVE to hear some, because I know that’s one of the biggest problems with my writing style. But thanks for the clarification.

Poet_lover: I’m glad you liked it, though I wasn’t sure if I should have drawn out those descriptions too much – but really, sometimes it’s better to let people form their own pictures.

hlt: Holy balls, long review is long – and VERY much appreciated. Nothing is quite so satisfying as writing a really long chapter and getting back a paragraph-long review with specifics about what you liked (or disliked) about it. I thank you profusely for being un-lazy enough to remember your password and review my fic! What would a Harry Potter fic be without humor? That was definitely one of the best parts of the Harry Potter series as a whole – how almost every interaction included something hilarious (particularly loved the part in number six where Ron had Transfigured a moustache onto himself by accident and when he insulted Hermione for laughing, he justified it by being like, “What? She laughed at my moustache!”, to which Harry replied, “So did I, it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”) ANYWAY. I LOVE that you have rats IRL – so do I, which was definitely the main reason for having included one! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to work him into the fic ever since, but I guess I’ll have to just wing it – but I’m definitely open to suggestions, if you have any. Thank you sincerely for all of your very constructive comments and the fact that you took time out to make them in the first place – I hope you’ll enjoy future chapter as much as you did the first six.

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The next morning at breakfast, Hermione noted, Professor Snape was nowhere to be seen. She waited all through her meal and ten minutes after to speak with him, but he never came. Disappointed (and slightly suspicious), she gathered her books and headed down to the lab.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the way he was acting yesterday.

Still puzzling over that idea when she reached her own room, Hermione tucked the student evaluations from the previous day into her organizational cabinet. She paused aimlessly for a few moments, thinking. What had happened yesterday, anyway? She wasn’t quite sure, but she was certain she’d caught a whiff of Firewhiskey before he’d run off.

After gathering her work essentials, Hermione headed over to the adjacent potions lab, her usual pile of books in tow. Professor Snape had left a detailed list of potions for her to begin preparing: a healing elixir, a basic health draught and an unnamed potion that she was sure was of his own design (and massively complicated, she noted with a quirk of irritation). She began working on the healing elixir first, rationalizing that Madam Pomfrey would be needing someone by the time winter rolled around.

By lunchtime, Hermione was so immersed in her work that she forgot to eat. Hair frizzed around her face like a bird’s nest, giving her the appearance of being slightly mad. Several house-elves walked in, eager to serve her, and had walked right back out in disappointed upon seeing the look of concentration she wore on her face. She worked in this frenzied state for the rest of the day, refusing meals, mail and Daily Prophet alike until all three potions had been successfully commenced.

“Ah, Miss Granger.”

Startled, Hermione jumped, but remained silent when she saw Professor Snape leaning against the doorframe, holding a plate of food and smirking in that singularly devious way that she associated with memories of his most disingenuous acts. She put her hackles up immediately, suspecting a trick or ambush of some sort, and stared suspiciously. He was too smug. Something was going on.

“I hope that assignment isn’t giving you too much trouble.”

So, that was it. He had come to taunt her over the amount of work he was sure she was failing at. Her defenses fell, though she remained suspicious; she glared at him wickedly, knowing that he had loaded on the work purposely for one reason only: to break her spirit and force her to retreat from Hogwarts with her tail between her legs. It couldn’t have been more obvious to her that Severus Snape didn’t want her around. She had only been employed for three days, and already he had done his very best to avoid her at all costs, even to the point of walking away in the middle of a conversation. But she wasn’t going to give in to him. Hermione was the consummate Gryffindor – strong-willed, stubborn and courageous.

“I’ve got a good start on the healing draught, and the health elixir, too…” She picked up the potions list and scanned it, frowning. “But this last one is one of the most complicated I’ve ever seen. Do we even have all of the ingredients for this in the school?”

Severus stared at her intensely, watching her lips match the words resounding through the air. The words themselves were meaningless, their context completely lost on him, and it suddenly occurred to him that sobering up hadn’t taken away any of her allure. She was just as beautiful as the day before, when he had been watching her working.

Working…

Ah, so that was it. The distress that had been crushing him down since his return to Hogwarts last night lifted off his shoulders, and a deafening sense of relief took its place. So he wasn’t really attracted to her. He was just attracted to her intelligence, her incredible work ethic – yes, that was what it was, as much as he hated to admit it. It was a trait uncommonly found in women these days, not at all like it was when he’d been in school. The women Severus chose now were whores, not Hermione Grangers or Lily Evanses, but sluts, the dregs of communities, the detritus that washed up on society’s shore, women who he could pile-drive across a bed or carpet. Women who were good for sex, but little else. They weren’t intelligent enough to have a conversation with and not pure enough to pursue a relationship with. He was a possessive man, and any woman who was good enough to be his would not have the option of being shared with anyone else.

“Professor?” Hermione stared at him, her suspicion mounting every second that they spent in silence. There was an odd look about him, a language written in his eyes that she couldn’t decipher. She was sure she’d seen it before, and for some reason, a reason that she was unable to put her finger on, she associated it exclusively with young men… but she couldn’t be sure. After all, this was Severus Snape, a man who had berated and abused her for seven years of her life, culminating in the most spectacular rejection she’d ever experienced. If there was any tenderness or sensitivity in him, Hermione had certainly never witnessed it.

“Since you didn’t attend lunch today, no doubt owing to your… work predicament,” he phrased delicately, the subtlest of sneers evidence in his voice, “I thought it would be prudent to bring you some food.” He handed her the plate, stacked high with sandwiches, and placed a pewter jug of pumpkin juice on the counter beside him. “I can’t have my attendant passing out left and right when she’s supposed to be busy doing my bidding.”

That was the big trick? He’d come down here to poke fun at her servitude to him? Weak, even for Professor Snape. “How considerate,” she replied mockingly, depositing the food-laden tray beside the simmering cauldron. Perhaps it was a peace offering. A little late, though… about nine years too late.

“I believe it is my unhappy duty to inform you that the first Hogsmeade trip will be on Friday, October the sixth. And, let’s see… oh, yes.” He pulled a piece of folded parchment from his robe pocket, examining it briefly, though Hermione was confident that he was fully aware what was written on it. “Several of the staff members will be going, including yourself.”

“But Hogsmeade trips don’t usually start until late October,” Hermione said. “And the healing elixir should be done on Saturday evening, and will be needing my full atten—”

“Several of the parents were petitioning for he students to gain some additional ‘out-of-school’ experience,” he responded coolly, ignoring her. “It would seem that they believe not all knowledge can be ascertained from burying their noses in a book.”

Hermione recognized this to be a personal insult, but she let it slide. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. Not after dealing with him for all these years. Not now that it mattered.

“I guess I’ll see you there,” she said tersely, attempting to add a tone of dismissal. Without another word, she gathered her food and books, then returned to her room and warded the door.

Hmm. He was losing his edge. Severus ran his fingers through his hair. Tsk, tsk, Severus. Losing your concentration over a pussy? Unacceptable.

Ah, well, he thought as he glanced at the potions, bubbling musically in their respective cauldrons. Nothing a good fuck can’t fix. He paused, smirking inwardly. Something I’m pretty sure Miss Granger will be needing in due time.

-----x-----

Hermione’s workload lightened after her encounter with the Professor, and she even managed to make it to dinner once or twice over the next couple of weeks. But as Hermione’s tasks thinned, so did Professor Snape’s visits, which made her feel lonely and isolated down in her dungeon lab. She longed to be a part of the frantic bustle that had gripped the rest of the school in lieu of the approaching Halloween feast and Hogsmeade visit, and even considered petitioning for another position within the school. She would even prefer to be Snape’s personal slave than be working anywhere other than Hogwarts.

And so she continued to work tirelessly, counting down the days until October the sixth and her bid for freedom, the Hogsmeade trip.

Hermione lay in her bed the evening before the break, staring at the hands of the clock as they inched painfully towards midnight at a gruesomely slow pace; time seemed to have slowed in the days preceding the Hogsmeade trip as if to taunt her about her empty social life – even Ron and Harry, with whom she communicated regularly, seemed to be responding less and less. But that wasn’t the only thing bothering her; there was another reason why the slow passage of time was gnawing away at her patience.

Hermione Granger had never been so horny in her entire life.

The sexual tension had been building steadily for several weeks now, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint any changes in her surroundings that could have provoked such an extreme response. She had been horny before, of course (having narrowly escaped her hormonal adolescent years unscathed), but nothing like this. Her mind was sluggish and unfocussed, her sleep disturbed; even her work was getting sloppy, and all because Hermione seemed intent on ignoring her burgeoning problem. She was sure that, despite the lengths she had gone to ignore it, some fellow professors and even students had noticed her rapidly changing demeanor; and occasionally she thought she saw something close to comprehension dawning in Professor Snape’s eyes as he watched her shifting uncomfortably in her seat at mealtimes.

Hermione pressed her legs together urgently, hoping fervently that the fire between her legs would ebb, but this, of course, only added to her growing desire. As she shifted to lay flat on her back she could feel her own fluids moistening her inner thighs every time she moved, and the heavy, musky scent of her arousal saturated the air. Hermione groaned softly and turned towards the opposite wall, trying with all of her calculating indifference to ignore the part of her that was more woman than intellect.

“Dammit!” she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut. Well, there was no way around it…

Hermione rolled onto her back and reluctantly began to touch herself. She slid her fingers languidly over her throat, chasing the dip of her collarbone, trying to hold off on that golden moment as long as she could, intoxicated off her body’s anticipatory tension. Her fingertips fell into the well between her breasts and passed over her bellybutton, shivering at the prospect of her own feather-light touch. God, how badly she needed for it to be a man who was doing this to her…

Her hands quivered in yearning as they reached that sensitive curve where her pelvis thrust out gently, carving its way down to the area that was causing her such frustration. With increasing urgency she pushed past the elastic waistband of her panties, tracing a finger along her dripping slit with a shudder that went straight through her. For a moment she imagined Severus, biting and licking and kissing her neck as he bent her over a table roughly. She imagined his cock, swollen and thick, tearing into her brutally as he fucked her from behind.

“Oh my God…” Hermione sighed, releasing a trembling groan as she plunged her fingers into herself. They slid in with ease, ardent fingertips searching for that blissful place within. But it was wrong, it was all wrong, it wasn’t enough and there was a big yawning, empty space where a cock should be, and that emptiness extended so deep within her that the longing was nothing she’d ever felt. It wasn’t want, it was need, and the need was so expansive that she ached with lust, it was consuming her and it would swallow her whole if she didn’t do something about it, and soon. Her hips twitched and her fingers finally fell into that place with a satisfyingly wet squelch, but though she rubbed feverishly, her hair fanned wildly about her face like a mermaid’s caught in a riptide, no matter what she did, how hard or fast she rubbed, her fingers just couldn’t satiate her deep hunger. Waves of pleasure rippled through her body and Hermione cried out impatiently, praying for her heated torment to end.

Something in her broke then and evidently whatever cosmic fates had willed her affliction decided that she’d had enough. Release gripped her like hot sin and before she could censor herself, she was crying for Severus, Severus to touch her, Severus to finish her, Severus to be more deeply inside of her than any man had been before. The ghost of his rejection and the heat of her orgasm pressed the air from her lungs and coated her thighs with the fluids of her liberation as she spun back down to Earth from the stars.

Hermione heaved in air desperately as her orgasm began to subside, her limbs already beginning to ache as they relaxed from being held aloft. Basking in the afterglow, she thought of Severus, and how it had been his fingers, his voice, his body that brought her there, not Ron’s or Viktor’s or even her own. She accepted that she couldn’t stop her subconscious from fantasizing about him in dreams or moments of passion, but she sure as hell would not allow him into her waking thoughts, and certainly not her heart. Not ever again.

-----x-----

Severus growled, his head planted firmly against the cool stone wall of his private chambers. Hermione’s fleeting fantasy and amorous cries had nearly sent him over the edge more than once in the past couple of minutes. He gripped the base of his cock tightly, willing himself not to spill over, forcing himself not to think of the intelligent, attractive young woman just two rooms away, crying for him to release her in the throes of pleasure – and Merlin’s beard, the images that flitted through her mind as she touched herself, as he deciphered her thoughts through the power of Legilimency… certainly not the thoughts a twenty-year-old woman should be having about her superior.

Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades as he fought against his most primal urges. There weren’t words in any language accurate enough to describe how badly he wanted to go to her rooms, pin the witch against the wall and slam her until she passed out from pleasure. He had slipped a gradually strengthening Lust Potion into her pumpkin juice with every intention of tuning into her most private thoughts about sex, about him – he needed to know, he had to confirm that she still felt about him sexually as he was reluctantly growing to think of her. He craved the self-approval of knowing that a much younger and more attractive witch desired him, and ever since the night he had returned from the Three Broomsticks drunk and realize that he wanted her, another motive had been added to the docket: he needed to know that it wasn’t just him feeling the sexual tension between them. And he had waited on baited breath for three weeks, listening intently and performing Legilimency on her every now and then, waiting for the moment that the Lust Potion became too potent for her to put off any longer. Frankly, he was surprised that she’d lasted that long. But he definitely wasn’t expecting a show like that…

He hadn’t even needed to perform Legilimency to hear the cries of lust reverberating from her private chambers. He saw her erotic illusions as though they were his own, saw himself pummeling her from behind as she cried out, helpless, beneath him, unable to do anything but scream. Each thrust was punctuated by a cry from the other room and a grunt from Severus, who had barely managed to live out Hermione’s shameless fantasies.

Panting, Severus stumbled to his bed and lay down, a bottle of Firewhiskey at his fingers, cock throbbing uncomfortably. He’d have blue balls for days if he didn’t do anything about it. No more voyeurism for him.