Into The Light

Author\'s Notes: This chapter is a little bit of comedic relief, which I felt I needed to write after the last chap. I thinkI\'ve gotten the amount of hilarity correct, but I\'m not the best with judging the funny.

I\'m on holiday to Egypt next week, for a fortnight, sans computer, so this is officially going on hiatus for a month, giving me time to pack, go , then come back and type up anything I\'ve written, provided it hasn\'t been smeared too much by the ridiculous amount of sun cream I\'ve got to wear to ensure I don\'t imitate a lobster.

And don\'t forget, three cheers for Brilliant! Beta Jocelyn!

Severus was in the grip of the most satisfactory and realistic erotic dream he’d ever experienced.

It featured the cute brunette that Rosmerta had hired recently. She wore an abreviated version of her usual serving garb that failed to contain her sizable cleavage. The overflow presenting him with a most pleasant view

He couldn’t restrain a groan as she took him into her smiling red mouth, tongue working around him. His hips began to arch, and he hissed in pleasure when her teeth grazed him in just the right way. He reached down, fully intending to bury his hands in that length of flowing chocolate hair, when his palms brushed against soft stubble instead.

His eyes flew open.

Hermione looked back at him, her mouth around his cock.

He gave a yell and catapulted himself off the bed, hitting the floor hard, his pyjama bottoms tangled around his ankles. Her head appeared over the side of the bed, her face confused.

“Severus?” she said. He spluttered his outrage, pulling up his trousers and trying to get to his feet at the same time.

“How dare-” he started, but stumbled, his feet caught in the material. Regaining his balance, he tucked himself back in. “What were you-” he was gasping, trying to think coherently, which was proving to be difficult when his erection was demanding to know why the sensations had stopped.

He glared at her, but couldn’t help noticing that she was trembling now, and her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. His fury decreasing slightly – not very much, but slightly – and he stomped to the door.

“Don’t move,” he snarled, grabbing his dressing gown. “Go back to sleep for at least the next three hours!” He opened the bedroom door, and noticed one tear had escaped and was trickling down her cheek. “And don’t cry!” he shrieked, exiting the room, slamming the door behind him.

The last thing he noticed before it shut was that his beside clock read 5:30am exactly.

He had been pacing in his office. Then his delivery had been flooed in and taken up most of the floor space, so his circuit had been expanded to include his classroom. Still in his pyjamas and dressing gown – he had forgotten his wand in his bedroom and could not change his garments without either it, or fresh clothes – he put one foot in front of the other, trying not to stub his toes on a desk, while attempting to fathom her actions. To complicate matters, he was still trying to burn the humiliation of what had happened from his veins.

It did not help that he was still tenting the front of his trousers every time his mind skipped over the memory of the most perfect blow job he’d ever received. He couldn’t even retreat to his own bathroom to take care of the problem. He wanted to go back to the day he’d first heard the words ‘open plan’ and obliviate not only himself, but everyone else in the vicinity so he’d never have to be stuck in his current position – he’d be damned if he was going to take care of it in a communal toilet like some over-stimulated teenager.

He was only thankful that the students weren’t due back for nearly two months.

Potter walked in a little after eight a.m. laden with shrunken packages and found him like that, bristling with outrage and mildly aroused while still in his pyjamas. They stared at each other, Severus in impotent fury, Potter in open-mouthed shock.

“What happened?” Potter finally managed, steadfastly not staring at Severus’ crotch. Severus snarled, but the temptation to explain what had happened to another male and receive some kind of sympathy for his position was too much to resist, even if Potter’s concern was only for the girl.

“She had a nightmare yesterday,” he growled, staring at his blackboard upon which his instructions for the last lesson of the year were still scrawled. “She said that she had them when she was in an empty bed, so we achieved a compromise and put her in a camp-bed next to my own.” He paused, unsure now if he really wanted to tell this to Potter of all people.

“Then…” said the boy, who was now perched on the edge of a desk and listening with rapt attention.

Severus growled. “When she got into bed, I mentioned I had a delivery early this morning, and she asked what time I needed to be up. I told her. And then when I woke up this morning, she-” he gestured to his crotch.

Potter looked confused.

Severus made a slightly cruder hand gesture.

The boy was still nonplussed.

Finally, Severus made an extremely explicit gesture involving a cupped hand and his tongue in his cheek, and Potter’s eyes finally widened in horrified comprehension.

“She did that??” Potter gasped, staring at Severus’ crotch with an expression that is generally expressed around a mutilated corpse.

“It’s not exactly the first time I’ve experienced it, I’ll thank you to know.” Severus couldn’t help but snap.

Potter turned slightly green. “Well, yeah, I’d guessed, but Hermione?”

Severus rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I have to say, it wasn’t what I was expecting of her either. Maybe waking up to find half my books gone, or that she’d fingered some of my ingredients, but not…” He trailed off, not wanting to express it in words.

Potter had slumped more heavily onto the desk, and was nodding in dazed agreement. “So what did you do?”

Severus snorted. “What would you have done? I gave a shout that wouldn’t have embarrassed an eleven year-old girl, leapt out of bed, and told her to go back to sleep.” He paused, considering her reaction. “I may have upset her slightly.”

Potter fixed him with a look. “How much is slightly?”

“She was sniffling when I left.”

Potter glared. “Then you need to fix it.”

Severus was torn between sneering and giving the indignant yelp that was dying to come out. “I fail to see why, I didn’t cause the problem.”

“Well, she certainly didn’t!”

“Oh yes, and I suppose I just forced her to leap onto my dick while I’m unconscious at the arse-crack of dawn!” Severus hissed.

“Well, you didn’t tell her not to!”

“Certainly Potter, I can see that instruction being added to my first year introduction speech; ‘No speaking when I’m talking, homework in on Fridays and try not to give me any unwanted blow jobs while you’re at it!’”

There was silence for several seconds while they glared at each other with undisguised venom. The tension was broken when Potter snickered. Severus was nonplussed.

“What exactly do you find so amusing, Potter?”

He leant back against the desk, “Yeah, I can see that,” his snickering turned into chuckles, “bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses, but stay off my dick!” He started laughing full out then, while Severus stared at him, trying not to surrender to the absurdity of it all. Potter, however, seemed to be set on taking things too far, as usual.

“No wonder you were so fond of Draco; ‘Nice work on my first two pieces of criteria, Mr. Malfoy, but you seem to keep slipping up on the last.’”

Potter was clutching his sides now, but suddenly found himself on the business end of his own wand. “Take that back,” snarled Severus, wishing for the power to avada kedavra with one’s eyeballs.

Potter’s laughter came to a gasping halt. “Okay, okay, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”

“I would never, ever think of a student in that manner, how dare you imply such a thing!” Severus was aware that he had reached the edge where his anger was overwhelming his common sense and conscience. One wrong move from Potter, and he would go over. Thankfully, Potter seemed to have sensed this.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry Snape, I shouldn’t have said it, I know you wouldn’t.” Potter had gone quite pale, and sounded utterly sincere, which brought Severus back from the brink slightly.

“That’s Professor Snape to you,” he snarled, flinging the wand at Potter’s head, and stomping in the direction of the stairs.


She was under the covers when he poked his head around the door. Her breathing told him she wasn’t asleep, but he was content to continue the illusion while he dressed; he’d feel more secure having this conversation while wearing more than one layer.

She remained motionless while he gathered his clothes and his wand. Having dressed behind his bed curtains, he then drew them again, and perched on the edge of his bed, looking over her.

“Hermione?” he asked, quietly.

She appeared from beneath the duvet, not exactly looking her best. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, and her cheeks were blotchy. He surveyed her seriously, and before he could say anything, she spoke.

“I’m sorry, I promise I’ll do better, please don’t send me back Severus!”

He was shocked. “What?”

She bit her lip hard, and two tears escaped from her eyes to run down her already-damp cheeks. “I know it wasn’t very good, but I’ll do it better, I promise! Please, I’ll be good, ple-” He cut her off with a hand gesture.

“Hermione,” he paused, unsure what to address first, “I am not sending you back. You will never be going back to your previous owners, I thought you understood that.”

She shook her head slowly, and the tears started flowing more freely. She was sitting up on her knees now; arms wrapped around her waist, and was starting to shake. He began to worry that if she continued to bite her lip like that she’d chew through it. Hesitantly he moved to sit on her bed next to her, and carefully draped one arm around her shoulders.

She slumped into him, burying her face in his shoulder, crying softly, while he made shushing noises. He thought he could make out the words ‘never going back’ somewhere between her sobs, but didn’t want to interrupt any emotion she was expressing. Emotion, he was sure, meant that she was at least pointed in the right direction.

They stayed like that for about ten minutes before she became still and he pulled back to look at her.

“All right?” He searched her face, which was a strange mix of elation and embarrassment.

“I’ll do it better next time, Severus,” she said, staring, once again, anywhere but his eyes.

“Do what better, Hermione?”

She looked startled. “Your wake-up, Severus.” He groaned, and sat back.

“Hermione,” it was not yet nine in the morning, and he was getting a migraine, “your, ahem, wake-up for me this morning was, would have been, exceptional if I wanted that. But I don’t.”

She looked confused. “But-” she started, before stopping herself.

Inwardly, Severus gave a whoop. If she was already nearly to the stage of contradicting him, it must mean there was far more of her personality present then they had originally assumed.

“But what?”

She looked ashamed. “You did want it, and you asked for it!”

“How did I want it? And when, pray tell, did I ask for it?” He was genuinely intrigued now – what had he said that she could misinterpret so badly?

“You . . . you said you needed to be up early, and you didn’t say not to when I asked you what time.”

‘Well, you didn’t tell her not to!’ Damn Potter.

“And, this morning, when I went to you, you were very ready.” She gestured towards his crotch.

‘Note to self,’ he thought while he sighed his exasperation, ‘take impotency potion before bed for the next year.’

“Hermione, that is the natural state of the average man when he first wakes up, whether he is desperate for sex or not. Men are programmed to have erotic dreams, which often means they get erections while they sleep, and hence they wake up with them.” Technically, it was slightly more complicated than that, but he didn’t want to confuse her.

She nodded reluctantly. He went on, “and I didn’t mean for you to infer that I needed a wake up from my comment. I was simply trying to be courteous by keeping you informed of my movements – we are currently sharing this room, and I didn’t want to wake you unnecessarily.”

She was nodding continuously in reluctant agreement now, seeming very downcast. “I’m sorry Severus.”

He tried to look reassuring. “It’s not your fault Hermione, we simply had a miscommunication, that’s all.”

He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “That being said, I do need to apologise for my actions this morning. You took me by surprise, and as a result I said some things in a manner that was unnecessarily harsh. You didn’t deserve it.”

She was looking horrified. “But Master-”

“Severus,” he corrected.

“Severus, it was my fault, I got it wrong, I made you act like that!”

He shook his head. “Hermione, I have never done this before, and I am supposed to be in charge – I shall probably have to apologise to you far more than the other way around before we are done. And in this instance, I was definitely in the wrong. No debate on the point.”

She closed her mouth, looking as if she were a ship that had suddenly become unmoored in a storm. ‘I don’t suppose she’s ever had a ‘Master’ apologise before,’ he thought.

Unwilling to allow her to remain on a topic with which she was obviously so uncomfortable, he changed the subject. “Now if you don’t mind my saying so, my dear, you are in need of a wash slightly more thorough than one of Poppy’s sponge baths.”

She nodded and smiled weakly in concurrence. He went to get a towel.