The Seduction Game

Disclaimer: All of the Harry Potter characters and the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling/Warnerbros. I am making no money.

Another chapter... :) Enjoy and so on..
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“Why, Severus, right outside the door were you? I take it you took my advice then.”

Severus glared at him. Fucking bastard.

Yes, he had indeed been just outside Lucius’s door - but only by coincidence, passing on the way to his own room. The thought that he might have been a few minutes too late or too early passing... It would have meant hell for Hermione.

“Come along,” he muttered to her, “or do you wish to hang around?”

“N - No,” she stuttered, hurrying the few steps over to him by the door, straightening the dress as she went. Her swollen lips and now slightly messed up hair was mesmerizing to Severus, yet done by the wrong hand.

“You were always the one to ruin the fun, Severus,” commented Lucius as the man turned to leave the room.

“What fun?” asked Severus, pushing Hermione in front of him as he left the room, leaving the door open behind him. He didn’t need to close it, what he needed to do was to keep his hold on Hermione before she took off.

That had undoubtedly been her idea - she was about to hurry off down the corridor when he grabbed her shoulder by force and pushed her off towards his own room.

“Professor!” she exclaimed. “You’re hurting me!”

“What a way to thank me,” he commented, pulling her inside his own room as they’ve reached it, closing the door behind him.

She immediately turned to face him, seemingly ready for a fight. Strange, the threat had been with Lucius, and she had never noticed it. She seemed more terrified and defended now than she ever had with him. Severus was likely to be the lesser of two evils in this case, but the thought didn’t seem to strike her.

He leaned against the door, observing her, folding his arms casually over his chest. “What did you learn?” he finally said knowingly.

She glared at him with fury. “I was seconds away from rape,” she finally said, her voice not too loud but steady still, “and THAT is what you chose to say to me?”

“I think I have done what is demanded of me in this case,” he replied. “If it weren’t for me, those seconds would have taken place.” He wasn’t about to show her any great amount of sympathy, his rescue had delivered more from him than was ever intended. Relations weren’t his strongest side.

“It seems the care you had when you pulled me out of there vanished within seconds, too,” said Hermione angrily. “Why did you drag me here? I want to go to my room! I want to owl Harry and Ron, I want to -”

“Calm down is what you SHOULD want to do,” said Severus. Then he left his arrogance behind and asked earnestly: “Did he harm you?”

Taken back by his sudden politeless, she replied: “No. No, he - he didn’t. Not really.”

“He would have.”

“I noticed as much.”

“I warned you.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t listen.”

Her face revealed a moment’s guilty conscience. “I thought... I didn’t believe you.” The very situation started to dawn upon her, Severus noticed. “Gods, I was an idiot! I believed him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

She suddenly sat don hin his bed, seemingly unable to keep herself stable. “I must be the most stupid, naïve girl to walk this earth.”

“You are among them, yes,” said Severus, leaving the door to get a few steps closer to her, “but the stupiest of them do not realize their mistake at all.”

She looked up at him, a slight smile now evident. “Thank you,” she finally said. “Sorry I didn’t say that before.”

“All forgiven,” said Severus. “Have you learned your lesson?”

“You are not my teacher anymore,” she said automatically, “don’t talk to me like that. But yes, I have,” she added silently.

At that, he took a seat on the bed next to her. “Lucius has, if anything, a skilled tongue.”

She laughed.

“I meant in terms of manipulative talk.”

“I know that,” she giggled, then added quietly: “And that’s all, too.”

He allowed himself a quick glance at her, only to see that she was stg bag back at him with her big, brown eyes, not at all hiding her interest.

Interest? Wait, what was he thinking? She had no interest! No, this was merely a thanks. She was curious as to why he had saved her, that was all. Surely that was the source of her stare.

“You are sure he didn’t harm you?”ed Sed Severus again, spotting a big and red, half-moon shaped mark on her shoulder. Lucius had bitten her. Of all things possible, he had bitten her already. It was just so typically him.

Hermione seemed to notice where he was looking, she stared down at the mark herself. “Yes, it’s okay.”

“You ought to stay clear of him,” said Severus quietly.

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“No,” he said, willingly catching her gaze for the first time, “I mean really, stay away. At all costs. He is used to get what he wants, even at these times. Had he been successful tonight, he would have felt like the superior part, even if you were unwilling. But the fact that you got away...” He didn’t finish his sentence. She was a smart witch, she could guess it.

Hermione looked around the room. “I could really use some fresh air,” she finally said.

“There is a porch,” offered Severus, standing from the bed, leading her through his room to a door leading out to a porch overviewing the Spanish mountains. The moonlight lit both them and the night up.

“Wow, it’s nice,” said Hermione, taking it all in. She looked to Severus. “Did you pay extra for this?”

He smiled, barely. “I constantly need fresh air, Miss Granger.”

She shook her head. “Would you please call me Hermione now? When even HE does, at least you should.”

“Why ever should I?”

“You’re my knight in shining armour,” she laughed, “that’s why.”

He scowled. Knight in shining armour? What a ridiculous thought. “Very well, then. I shall call you Hermione.”

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something more. Finally, he sighed.

“What?” he said. “You wish for me to say you can call me by my first name? Well, keep dreaming. I prefer Professor Snape.”

“It makes you feel authorized, doesn’t it?” she asked. “It gives you that power which you hold over your students, too. Do you make every student you’ve ever had call you that throughout their l?”
?”

He laughed then. How had it come to this? How had he ended up standing on his porch in the night with Hermione Granger? Had really the foul acts of Lucius Malfoy lead to such a wonder? It couldn’t be. Yet here she was, right next to him, dressed beautifully and in spite of the experience she’d just had shining with brilliance and charm and - Severus noticed - happiness. She was smiling.

“Yes, though I do not run into many of my previous students,” he finally replied. “Are you thirsty?” he asked then, using it in an attempt for her to stay on his porch longer.

“Yes, I am,” she replied truthfully.

“What would you like?”

“Oh, er - scotch, if you have it.”

He was amazed. She drank scotch? “Certainly.”

He returned two seconds later with two glasses of scotch, handing one of them to her as she stood by the railing of the porch looking out into the night.

“Did you get that from a house elf?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. He knew all too well about Hermione’s obsession for house elf rights, it had been all over the school.

“Did you tip?”

He raised his brows in amazement. “Tip?”

“Yes,” she said, starting on her drink. “I’ve decided tipping them is the closest they ever get to justice. They don’t want freedom, so at least give them something as a sign of gratitude.”

He smiled. “I shall remember that.”

She looked around the porch. “You don’t have any chairs out here?”

“Does it look like I do?”

“No, never mind then.” Without hesitation, she took a seat on the floor, leading her back up against the Manor’s outer walls. “I’m so tired,” she explained.

“Ah,” he nodded in agreement, then decided that the time for Snape the cold, heartless bastard was not now. Gently, he took a seat next to her, leaning his back against the wall and pulling his knees up to place his elbows on.

“You’ve changed,” she commented.

“How so?”

“The Professor Snape I remember would never be found sitting on the floor of a porch in the late evening with an ex student.”

“Ah, but you see, you knew Professor Snape,” said Severus, emptying his scotch, “I am Severus.”

“Yet you won’t let me call you that,” she argued.

“No,” he smirked, and then noticed his scotch refilled itself. Brilliant, that elf was, he could really use ext extra consumed alcohol.

“But you haven’t been nice to me so far,” continued Hermione. “When I bumped into you a couple of days ago, you were really rude, and your little performance in the corridor, well...”

He smirked. Ah, that. So she remembered it quite vividly, it seemed. “I decided tonight was a night in which you’d had enough rough treatment already,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

They were silent for a long time, then at last, Hermione spoke, reluctantly.

“He... he said something that disturbed me.”

He turned to look at her. “What was it?” he asked.

Hesitating, she answered, “I was obviously struggling, and then he said that it was good if I liked to fight, said it would make it all the more enjoyable for him...” She looked up and caught Severus’s eyes. “You know him - what exactly did that mean?”

“Are you certain you wish to know?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said sternly, emptying her scotch and watching it be refilled.

He sighed. “Lucius Malfoy is not the kind of man you should wish to get involved with, especially not if you are a woman. He meant, Hermione, that he wished for you to fight. He wished to use force, he wished to hurt you. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“He enjoys pain,” she finished. “Or, to cause it. It turns him on, doesn’t it,” she muttered.

Severus nodded. “Good trade for a Death Eater.”

Her eyed widened, but not with fear. She studied every inch of his face. “For every Death Eater that is, I take it?” she said in a quiet voice.

“In theory, yes,” he replied calmly, “we were all like that.”

“I can’t imagine you ever doing something like what he did,” she whispered, shivering.

“I wout hat have,” he whispered back. “I would not harm you.”

“But you have done it before then?” she said, looking down.

He didn’t reply. She could guess this, too. Apparently she did, because she didn’t ask again.

“But you turned,” she finally said, “and he didn’t. That stuff about the Imperius Curse was all nonsense, of course. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

“Like I said, his tongue works magic,” said Severus quietly.

She laughed again, and he rolled his eyes.

After a long silence in which only the sound of their drinking was heard, Hermione finally gathered her courage and spoke again, catching Severus’s gaze.

“Does yours?” she whispered.

***
Right... Guess what\'s to come...! It seems, slightly with the influence of some alcohol, that Hermione is becoming somewhat interested in her former Professor...? :) Reviews..?