Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 131977 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 30
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from writing these stories.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
A/N: Oh, readers! I do so love your commentary. It’s hilarious to see what you’ve dissected from my musings. Lemonade, you in particular are just chock full of discoveries and I love that you’ve picked up on some of the nuance I was going for. That makes me happy. That said, there will eventually be more about why those Milk Duds were such a fuss for our dear Severus, but not just yet. I do hope you all won’t be too cross with Severus, he is wild and unpredictable at the best of times, and to be honest I just don’t think he knows what to do with dear Hermione. This chapter gives those of you seeking desperate glances into the domesticity line of this story what you’re looking for. At least, I hope it does. Happy reading! (Kudos to Laurenlemon for catching the Seminar reference.)
                Hermione woke alone. At first when she stretched her arms over her head, she thought that he’d merely rolled over, but when she opened her eyes she realized he was gone. She frowned and then hugged herself, pulling her knees up to her chest. She had drifted off shortly after she’d felt his fingers thread into her hair. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but there was something deeply comforting about his body beside her that had lulled her into a warm sense of security, letting her mind ease into slumber. The light was streaming through her window and she glanced at her time piece. It was nearly noon. Sighing, she pulled herself upright, still naked, and contemplated whether or not to have a shower. She had taken a bath before crawling into bed with him, although she hadn’t washed her hair. Debating kept her occupied for only a few moments before she picked up a bathrobe, slung it over her figure, and slipped out into the hallway.
                His bedroom door was ajar and she paused, thinking it over. With as silent of a footfall as she could manage, Hermione crept toward his room. She held her breath and peered into the crack in his door. “You’d never pass stealth training to be an Auror,” he muttered and she jumped but clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. “Don’t lurk in the hallway, Ms. Granger, either enter and state your purpose or go about your business.”
                She sighed through her nostrils but then composed herself before pushing the door to his bedroom in. The room was smaller than her own, or perhaps it was that his bed was smaller, either way she felt cramped stepping inside. He was lying in his bed, sheets drawn up over his waist, exposing his naked chest to her view. His eyes were closed. Had he been sleeping? She eased the door shut and then leaned back on it. “What do you want, Ms. Granger?” he asked, without opening his eyes.
                For a long moment she stood there, leaning against his bedroom door, staring at him. His chest rose and fell and slow even breaths, the rays of sunlight that trickled in through his window streaming down on his torso with delight. They made his skin look warm and inviting. He was pale but in the morning’s light he looked aglow and it made her want to shed her robe, slip into his bed and snog him until he was begging her to suck him off or hop astride his lap.
                Her silence prompted him to open his eyes, though he did so slowly, not moving from his position on his back. “Out with it,” he said.
                Hermione leaned up and walked slowly to his bed. It only took a few steps from his door to the edge of his mattress, his eyes never leaving hers as he watched her sit on the edge just beside his chest. She kept her legs off the side. His mattress at low to the floor and her feet touched the ground easily, making the tops of her thighs a level surface upon which to rest her fidgeting fingers. She gazed at him, letting her eyes linger over his chest. He held her gaze when she met his eyes and they sat, staring at one another in the morning’s silence.
                She leaned over, but he leaned up, putting both hands on her shoulders. “What do you want, Miss Granger?” he asked again. He was sitting up now, the sheets still draped over his lap. She leaned in closer and pressed her lips against his cheek. He did not flinch or turn away as she moved her lips slowly down the line of his jaw, letting her tongue swirl over his Adam’s apple. His hand stopped her when she mouthed a wet kiss against his collarbone. “Do you think of nothing else?” he asked.
                “You asked me what I wanted,” she said, eyes glancing down his body to where the sheets hid him from view. Though they were not drawn taut over his figure, she could see his bulge in their outline.
                “And what makes you think after engaging in such behavior at work all night that I want to do it now that I am away from work?” he asked, brushing her hair back from her face.
                “You didn’t seem to mind engaging in it last night,” she retorted.
                “Is that so?” He quirked an eyebrow up on his forehead. “I recall you drifting off to sleep before any such behavior occurred,” he added with a sneer.
                “That’s not what I meant,” she said, bringing her face close to his once more.
                Severus brought his lips against her ear. “Are you certain of that, Ms. Granger?” he growled. “What exactly did you mean, hmm?” His voice was a dangerous purr in her ears. It was a sinful sound that heated her core but also warned her mind. Things could get ugly, but she didn’t care.
                “You and your…business,” she muttered, pulling her head back to gaze hard into his eyes. “Didn’t bother you then, why should it bother you now?”
                Severus met her gaze and didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch nor look away, his eyes a swirling black storm as he stared at her. “My business indeed, Ms. Granger, which means it is none of yours.”
                Hermione felt the heat of his gaze and could stand it no longer. She looked away and doing so made him chuckle. It infuriated her how easily he toyed with her, riling her up to a boiling point only to dangle her about as a cat would a mouse before swallowing it whole. She wasn’t as practiced, but she was determined not to quit. With trembling fingers, she brought her hand over his lap and gave the bulge of his erection a squeeze through the sheets. He hissed and curled his fingers around her wrist, making to pull her back, but she resisted. “I want you,” she repeated.
                “Take a shower, Ms. Granger,” he muttered, his eyes closed. “Cool off,” he suggested, hand still firmly latched around her wrist. But she did not uncurl her fingers from his cock. The sheet separated her skin from him, and although he held her wrist he did not pull her away. “Ms. Granger—” Hermione was bold and placed a finger against his lips. She was surprised when he fell silent. Her eyes searched his, waiting to see if he would pull her back. When he remained still and silent, she gave his cock another squeeze. He drew in a sharp breath, his fingers tightening against her wrist. “Did you ever think that perhaps on my day off I wish to have the day off from sexual activity?” He asked. His voice was strained, a sound she was all too familiar with from the way he conducted himself in the workshop.
                “Your body seems to think differently,” she countered and again stroked him through the sheet.
                Severus grunted softly in the back of his throat. “It’s called morning wood, Ms. Granger. It goes away on its own,” he rasped. She noted that he’d closed his eyes. She was breaking him. And it delighted her to do so.
                “That’s a waste…” she murmured and leaned toward him.
                “You’re trying my patience, witch,” he growled as her hand squeezed him again.
                “Go on, Severus,” she dared, her voice trembling as she spoke. “You could push me away, you’re strong enough. But I think you want this…even if you insist on driving me mad first.”
                “You think an awful lot of yourself,” he said, opening his eyes to gaze at her.
                “You must think something of me too,” she countered, though she was quickly losing her confidence. It was dangerous territory she was treading. He was a complex man at the best of times. She’d been fussed over waking alone in her bed without him, not to mention all of the thoughts from his business the night before. She supposed that he was right, that it was his business, and although he hadn’t explicitly mentioned that he was going to see Nigel, she was certain that was where he had gone. She couldn’t prove it and wouldn’t ask him outright, but she had a feeling deep in her gut that that was where he had been.
                “I think you’re too bold for your own good,” he said and then pulled her hand back from his cock.
                Hermione’s eyes were wide and she quickly pulled her hand back as if his rebuke had burned her. She stared at him, her whole body trembling, but before she could scramble to her feet or make to leave, he’d stood up and pulled her from his bed. His hands were rough as he gripped her shoulder, pushing her toward the bedroom door. She whimpered as he pushed her body against the door, pinning her there with his hips grinding against her backside. “You want to play games, Ms. Granger?” he growled against her ear. “You won’t win them, and they’ll leave you dissatisfied.”
                Hermione let her cheek rest against the door, her heart racing. She was panting, frightened and aroused by the way he’d manhandled her. He hadn’t hurt her, but he’d been rough and it had caught her off-guard. She could feel his cock twitching against her backside, his body pressed firmly against hers. His lips were against the back of her ear. He’d stopped his words and only the sound of their breathing filled the room. She closed her eyes, feeling him and then she whispered. “Why didn’t you stay in my bed last night?” His hands braced her thighs, sweeping slowly up her legs, bunching up her bathrobe has he did. “Severus, answer me…” she panted, feeling his cock pressing more fully against her sex from behind now that her robe had been lifted.
                “Do you want me to fuck you or not?” he growled against her ear.
                She was wet. Of that there was no question. And she did want him to fuck her. She wanted him to fuck her so hard that she would forget being foolish over him. She wanted him to fuck her brains out until she couldn’t remember her own name, or the stupid popinjay’s name. She wanted him to fuck her until she split apart and begged him to stop because she’d come too hard. Hermione didn’t trust herself to speak, fearful that her mind would get the better of her and start demanding answers to her questions. She nodded her head.
                “I can’t hear the rocks in your head, Ms. Granger,” he arched his hips hard against her for emphasis.
                “Yes,” she panted. “Yes! I want you to fuck me,” she pleaded. “I wanted you to fuck me last night. I want you to fuck me now,” she cried, turning her head back over her shoulder.
                One hand slid from her hip up to her stomach, pulling her backward until her legs came away from the door. The other slipped between her thighs and parted her folds with a single but firm stroke of his fingers. Hermione whimpered, wiggling as she felt the head of his cock at her entrance. She cried out when he slammed into her, a full firm thrust that filled her deeply. He grunted and she moaned. Severus drew back and began to slam himself into her hard and fast and deep, his balls slapping against her ass as he fucked her from behind. Had he not held her hip, she would have lost her balance, his thrusts shook her body so hard.
                Hermione had never felt sex so rough. This was a different sort of passion than what they had shared in his shower. It was brutal and unyielding and her core was gushing. There was anger and frustration and she felt it all being pounded into her from behind, her core clenching and seizing on him as he fucked her. She had begged to be fucked and he was fucking her with reckless abandon; the wild motions of his hips would leave bruises when he was finished. She clawed at the door, desperate for something to steady herself with. The sensations of pleasure tore through her like wildfire, burning her veins and every inch of her insides with the heat of ecstasy. “Fuck,” she cried out, her throat sore. “Oh gods, fuck, Severus, fuck,” she panted. Each thrust slammed harder and harder into her and she was certain he was going to split her in two.
                She sobbed when he pulled out entirely but could hardly catch her breath before she found herself flung around and forced down onto the mattress on her back. His bed was small but in that moment she couldn’t care for the size of it. He wrenched her legs up, hooking them against his shoulders and thrust himself back into her core, which caused her to cry out again. “Oh gods!” she cried. The new angle from which he was now slamming drew him deeper into her. “Fuck!” she cried feeling as if her head would explode.
                Severus grunted and growled, slamming himself into her harder and faster, pistoning his cock into her slickness with a passion that could only be described as animalistic. A carnal lust was surging between them and she was keening, crying outright as he filled her again and again and again. It was dizzying. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her walls shuddering hard against his cock which showed no mercy or signs of relenting. A gush of her arousal slid down her legs, slipping between her crack as it ran down her backside, which was hoisted up in the air. She saw little white spots dancing behind her eyes. “Fuck, fuck!” she cried, her legs trembling so violently that she thought they would fall away from his shoulders.
                His cries mingled madly with hers; the sound pierced through her like a shot. Her whole body seized and she was sobbing in hysterical ecstasy, as she felt him slam her again and then once more, growling a feral note as he spilled his seed into her. They were panting, sweating profusely as he leaned against the backs of her legs. Her heart thundered in her chest, tattooing a bruise above her ribs that would serve as a permanent reminder of just how hard and wild he could take her. When finally he pulled back, her legs collapsed in a trembling heap on either side of her still throbbing core and she couldn’t move. The air was stifling, sex and sweat and emotions charging against her nose like the bulls let loose to run in Pamplona.
                Hermione blinked, her chest still heaving. He had stepped back and was leaning against his bedroom door, his chest heaving as hard as hers. With his seed spilling down the inside of her thigh she knew she looked a wanton fright, splayed out on his tiny bed, naked and covered in sweat. Her hair was asunder; her curls were thrown out behind her as if they’d been electrified. Her thighs ached, her core was still throbbing and she wasn’t certain it would ever stop. But settling her gaze on his figure helped calm her breath. He was glowing, his skin warm and radiant with the slickness of sweet, his cock shining in the morning light with their combined coupling. “Fuck,” she whispered.
                The little utterance was enough to draw his attention, though he was still gasping for breath, and when their eyes met she felt a chill run over her spine. “Get up,” he panted.
                She was too frightened not to comply, but her limbs had gone to jelly and she struggled to pull herself from his bed. Hermione braced herself against the mattress but still almost tumbled forward when she stood, her body still shocked from the encounter. She teetered on her toes for a moment but then stood upright only to have him grab her firmly by the wrists and thrust her toward the door. Hermione made to struggle but the door was flung inward and he marched her out into the hallway, his chest at her back as he pushed her into the bathroom. It happened so fast and her feet were dragging on the tile that she didn’t take a moment’s notice of what he held in his hand.
                She was all but shoved up into the shower, the hot spray stinging suddenly down upon her. Weak on her feet with her knees knocking together, Hermione tried to spin out of the spray but he was behind her, the curtain nearly torn from its bar as he yanked it shut and wrapped one sturdy arm around her waist, holding her upright. Their bodies were pressed together, his chest leaning heavy into her back. Her heart had hardly calmed from the way he’d fucked her, only to be charged once more by the way he’d forced her into the shower and now stood behind her. “Severus!” she cried as he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head to the side.
                His lips assailed her neck. Rough kisses, his teeth nipping and dragging along her skin. Adrenaline was thrumming hard through her blood, pulsing ferociously against her temples as she felt his hand grasp her breast, fingers twisting at her nipple. Hermione whimpered, the strangled sound caught halfway between a cry and a moan. A monstrous animal had possessed her lover and was now staking his claim to her in the most carnal way possible. She was helpless in his arms, but could not deny that this terrifyingly savage lover was arousing. There was a brutality to the force with which he touched her, gripping and squeezing her flesh all the while his teeth and lips claiming their purchase at the side of her throat. It was terrifying in a way that dizzied her senses, but there was no true danger to it.
                Severus trailed one hand down over her stomach, easing the grip of his arm around her waist until his fingers slipped between her legs. There was a pop and a buzzing sound mingled with the harsh spray of the shower. Hermione whimpered, her body jerking as she felt vibrations between her folds. Her eyes blinked back the water and she tilted her head down to watch his hand. Looped around his finger was some sort of ring and the strong vibrations that were teasing her swollen sex were coming from it. She felt herself slip as his finger grazed her swollen nub, but his arm tightened around her once more, keeping her upright. Her breath had caught in her throat when she’d started to lose her footing, her chest heaving with need as she felt him prod his finger and the vibrating ring against her folds.
                “Uhn…” she whimpered. Her nipple was caught between his forefinger and thumb, pinched and twisted and she drew in a sharp breath. Her skin crawled with bursts of pained pleasure that were impossible to describe. The shower was sweltering, steam encircling her as the water poured down over her front. His body was pressed firmly to hers, his lips once again starting their work on her sensitive flesh. Hermione trembled, earning her a tight squeeze of his arm around the middle. “Oh..gods…” she murmured. The sound of her own voice meeting her ear was foreign. She sounded lusty. It was a desperate sound, a sound filled with need, a voice not her own, cracked and riddled with desire.
                Severus swiped his finger through her folds once more, lingering at her swollen nub. The vibrations were strong but not quite pressing as she needed them to against her nerve bundle. Hermione arched her hips trying in vain to feel the little pulses of the ring, but this earned her another tight squeeze of his arm and a sharp nip at her collarbone. “Oh!” she cried, her head falling back on his shoulder. His hand was in her hair, fingers having abandoned her breast for the moment to push her sodden tresses aside. His tongue planed over the curve of her collarbone, sweeping along its length to her shoulder until his lips drew back over the curve of her joint and he pressed his teeth into her.
                Hermione cried out. It wasn’t a bite the way one bit someone, she’d been bitten when fighting in the war. His teeth sank into her flesh as if he could suck the essence of her being through her skin and she moaned, a jolt of pleasure surging through her belly and down between her legs. She felt her legs wobble and she cried feeling the vibrations of the little ring rubbing against her clit, but only for a moment. “Please…” she pleaded, grinding her hips around, pressing her thighs together as if trapping his hand might force him to keep his fingers pleasuring her.
                How she’d been worked over into such an intense frenzy so quickly she couldn’t grasp. Her body was strung on edge, every ghost of a caress, even those harsh in their execution had her jumping in his arms. Hermione trembled, her frame falling forward over his arm when two of his spindly digits pressed hard and firm up inside of her. “Oh…oh…gods…” she cried. Again the foreign sound of her own voice met her ear and shivered, bracing both hands hard against his forearm which gripped her light a seatbelt around her middle. “Please, Severus, please!” she whimpered. Two fingers curled slowly inside of her, the little vibrating ring buzzing dangerously close to her clit without touching her where she so desperately needed it.
                “Please what,” he rasped against the back of her ear. His teeth nipped her earlobe and she squealed, her head pitching back against his shoulder. Severus pressed his elbow hard against her hip, pinning her to him as he unwound his arm from around her waist and pushed her hair over the side of her shoulder, grunting as her curls clung to the back of her neck. He pushed her head forward and then recoiled his arm around her, holding her in place as he licked his tongue up the column of her neck and around to the back of her ear, nipping her earlobe once more. “Please. What?” he growled.
                “Aaah…” she whimpered, rocking her hips. His fingers stilled within her and she cried out. He was driving her mad. She tried to arch her hips, desperate for the friction of movement in her core, but he squeezed her frame, holding her still. “Please…please…please…” she murmured, sounding incoherent at best. Water rushed down on her and she could feel the heat of the shower against the heat of his body and she longed to spin around in his arms, crush her lips to his, throw her leg up on his hip and be fucked until she melted into him. Her core throbbed and clenched at his fingers, desperately willing them to move within her. Her thighs pressed tighter together, urging the vibrating ring to touch her clit, but he held perfectly still. Only his chest rose and fell against her back, and his tongue flicked at the back of her earlobe.
                “Please, what?” he repeated. “Hermione?”
                As he spoke her name he jammed the vibrating ring against her clit and rapidly curled his fingers inside of her, pumping them with his hand as he growled and suckled the flesh of her neck just below her ear. She screamed, the shock of her hearing her name combined with the sudden motion and attention to her clit and core becoming her undoing. Hermione shook in his arms, her body convulsing with pleasure as an orgasm ripped through her. She pitched forward, throwing her hands out, catching them on the wall of the shower and nearly collapsed, but his arm held her steady.
                His fingers were ripped suddenly from her core and she sobbed at the loss of contact mid climax but cried out as she felt his cock slam hard into her. The slap of his balls against her ass was fierce as he pumped himself into her, never releasing her waist. Hermione’s body bounced with the force, sobbing her ecstasy as he rutting himself fully inside of her. Her walls were clenching, her juices drenching his cock with their scalding heat and when she was certain she could stand it no more, she felt him pull out of her, three fingers replaced his cock, with the vibrations of the ring now penetrating her.
                Severus groaned, his cock spraying his release across her back as his fingers continued to work the spasms of her quim. Hermione would have fallen to her knees and banged her head on the spigot had it not been for his arm. She was shaking uncontrollably and gasping for breath when she was spun suddenly and pulled into his arms. They were sinking and there was a plinking sound, something had fallen to the floor of the shower, and then she was clutched against his frame, her head on his chest, her body against his and they were at the bottom of the shower, the spray pelting down on them both as she gasped and panted, unable to do anything but suck in air.
                Her heart pounded in her chest and she ached all over. Her eyes were still spinning in her head. Her cheek was pressed against his chest, both of his arms around her still shaking figure, and together they sat on the floor of the shower, the water spraying down to wash his essence from her back. For a long while there was only the sound of the running water and their panting breaths. Hermione’s trembling body turned to shivers when the water began to run cold and with an erratic wave of his hand, the water ceased to fall from the showerhead. Her neck was sore as she lifted her head from his chest, daring for the first time since the bedroom to look into his eyes.
                He held her gaze and for the first time she had nothing to say. It was not like the times before when she had been too nervous or embarrassed or uncertain to speak. Her mind could not find nor formulate words. There was a bit of grunting and struggling as he eased them both up to their feet, Hermione clinging to him as if her life depended on it. When he stepped out of the shower, he lifted her up as well, before planting her upright just at the bathroom door. The towel was draped around her frame and another dropped unceremoniously over her head. And then his touch was gone.
                When she tipped her head down and wrapped her hair up, she blinked at him, staring as if the last hour had been a fantastical dream. He was wrapped in a towel, his damp locks clinging to the tops of his shoulders. Her body roared with post-coital pain and she shuddered to think what she looked like. She gave a moment’s thought to the way he’d bitten her and suckled her and all but shredded her flesh with his mouth and she wondered if he’d drawn blood. There would be bruises of that she was certain, but she found in thinking about it, she didn’t mind so much.
                When he turned to her and put his hand on her shoulder she whimpered, his palm landing on a tender patch of skin that he had marked with his teeth. Severus opened the bathroom door, a gasp of steam escaping into the hallway as he slipped out as well. Hermione stood there dumbstruck for a moment but then scampered out after him as quickly as her unsteady legs would allow. “Where are you going?” she asked, her voice still hoarse.
                Severus turned and looked back at her. “You cannot expect more than what I’ve just given you, even I need rest,” he said, his own voice sounding raspy.
                Hermione hung her head. “A nap might be nice,” she said thoughtfully.
                He shook his head. “I do not cuddle,” he said promptly as if preempting her request to do so. Hermione blushed, looking as if she might melt into the floor. She parted her lips to speak but his stare withered her into silence. “No. No questions,” he said. Two steps closed the distance between them and she drew in a sharp breath as he leaned over letting his lips hover just at her ear. “Go and rest,” he whispered.
                “Severus—”
                His slender finger pressed against her lips. She had so many questions. So many thoughts that needed articulating and so many things that she was desperate to know, all of which seemed to flood to the forefront of her mind in that very instant. But he drew his finger back, caressed her cheek and then stepped back, giving her a stern nod before disappearing into his bedroom and closing the door. Hermione stood in the hallway for several long minutes after, staring at the place where he had stood as if he had been a ghost, or as if the whole encounter had somehow been a dream.
                Hermione eased her way back into her bedroom. “Merlin’s beard!” she heard the image in the mirror shriek as she closed the door. Hermione rolled her eyes. She did not have the tolerance for a cheeky reflection commenting on what she knew were bruises all over the back of her right shoulder. It was impossible to deny her curiosity, however, and so a quick pause in front of the vanity had her inspecting his work. Marks covered the edge of her shoulder and her neck. Hermione had never received a hickey in her life, but her reflection looked as if she were the poster child for them. Before her mirror could chastise her, she threw the towel up over it and moved to sit on the edge of her bed.
                Aches and pains began to flood her body as she eased back onto the mattress. The rushes of adrenaline and pleasure and lust had subsided, replaced with the throbbing and stinging of where he had nipped her, bitten her, pressed his limbs hard into her figure. Her mind was racing and despite her aches, she knew she would not be able to rest. It was an inconvenience to dress, her thighs still throbbing as she slipped into a pair of cotton knickers, but she was not going to lounge about in her bedroom naked in the event that he decided to enter her room unannounced as he did from time to time. Though she doubted very much that there would be a repeat performance any time soon, she did not wish to tempt fate by exposing herself.
                The memories that were burning into her mind flashed behind her eyes. He had been a savage beast, claiming her as if she were little more than an errant strumpet rutting in heat. She blushed, her body had been desperate for him. Hadn’t she slipped into his bedroom with the intention of fucking him anyhow? She had been a wanton harlot and deserved every mark that she bore and it embarrassed her all the more to realize just how turned on the encounter had made her feel. She trusted him, given all they’d been through since the ordeal had begun, and she’d longed for it in the worst way possible. Him having his way with her had been something of a fantasy come to life and she could scarcely believe that it had happened, and she wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the damning evidence littered all over her skin.
                Something else struck her mind hard. For the first time in her life of knowing the man, he had called her by her given name. Her body convulsed with a harsh shudder as she replayed the way it had sounded whispered so heavily into her ear. It had been deliberate. Everything he did was deliberate, but that especially. And he’d waited until the perfect moment, her senses torn asunder, her body strung high on ecstasy into oblivion; and she had all but climaxed just from hearing him say it. Other thoughts danced in and out of her head as she debated on what to do with her afternoon. The little vibrating ring had been a strange surprise, but one that she was certainly pleased with. Where it had come from she hadn’t the slightest idea, she hadn’t seen him grab it, but she hadn’t been able to focus on much other than being shoved out of his bedroom.
                Hermione sighed aloud, shaking her head. She could not sit and stew in her bedroom with the memories of that encounter lest she go mad. The hallway was silent, his bedroom door shut. She didn’t give it a second thought as she slipped back into the bathroom and hung up both towels to dry. She spent an hour killing time by creating shelves in the shower wall. When she had moved into the residence at Spinner’s End, there had been a loan dish carved into the wall and it had held a single bar of soap. All of her toiletries had been kept in an elongated mesh cage and she had toted them back and forth to the shower every time she’d used it. It took her a bit longer to unload everything into the four shelves, lining up her bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body moisturizer, exfoliating scrub, bath salts, bubbles, facial cleanser, and various other things. She smiled when she finished, the wall of the shower looking more like home than anything she’d remembered in quite some time.
                But it hadn’t been enough to preoccupy her mind. With the shelves created and her belongings shelved it was only moments before images of him plowing her with her legs upright came creeping back into her mind. Hermione took to busying herself in the kitchen. His house, though not immaculate, was not dirty enough to warrant proper scrubbing. But she set about polishing and brightening the kitchen with both elbow grease and a bit of magic, intent on distracting herself from thoughts of him. An hour into mucking about in the kitchen, her stomach had given out a loud rumble and she realized with a frown that she was starving. Cooking would take her mind off of their sexual romp.
                Three pots and a kettle later had the kitchen looking lived in. Hermione had twisted her curls up off her neck and stabbed them into a sloppy bun with a fork from the cutlery drawer. It had been an old habit when she’d lived with her parents, one that had carried— albeit surreptitiously— through her days at Hogwarts, and was a small comfort to her as she stood tending a pot of steaming scallops. She’d popped off to the market to ensure herself a proper meal. Not once had the door to his bedroom opened, but she tried not to think on it.
                Hermione enjoyed cooking, though she’d scarcely been given the chance to do so between her life on the run during the war and her life in shambles thereafter. When she’d had her flat after she and Ron had split, there had never been time to cook as she’d spent so many long hours working at the ministry. For all the good it had done her she would have preferred to stay in and cook hearty meals that would please her pallet. There had not been any real cooking at Spinner’s End, a great deal of their dinners had been purchased by George from neighboring pubs and late night shops. Her breakfasts were often yogurt or muesli with the occasional egg thrown in for good measure, but mostly culinary endeavors had been absent from her life as Severus Snape’s housemate.
                She was wearing a singlet with one of Ginny’s checkered button downs thrown over it, though she hadn’t bothered with the buttons. Her hair had dried whilst pinned up in the fork and was now a lopsided pile of frizz teetering precariously on the left side of her head. She’d sautéed Bok Choy in garlic and oil and it was resting on a plate with a napkin beneath it to absorb the excess oil. Tea was steeping in the strainer and her pot of thrown-together stew was bubbling. It wasn’t bouillabaisse, owing to the enormous deficit of spices in Severus’ cabinet, that and the lack of fish and seafood outside of the scallops as they had been the only thing that looked fresh at the market. But it seemed wrong to call her little concoction a seafood stew. Coconut milk, lemon grass, tomatoes and scallops thickened with flour and liberally dosed with pepper, a delectable lunch if ever she could recall one.
                The dishes were set to soaking and scrubbing themselves as she filled a deep bowl with a liberal portion of the scallops in broth she had made. The rest was spooned into a container and sent to the icebox. If her housemate chose to show his face, she would offer it to him, otherwise she’d enjoy the remains for dinner that evening. Hermione settled into the kitchen table with a steaming bowl of soup, a plate of Bok Choy and a piping mug of tea. She’d fetched a crossword puzzle from her trunk in her bedroom with a pencil and looked the picture of domesticity enjoying her lunch in silence. With the puzzle to keep her mind from wandering too far, she quickly lost herself in its words and clues, scratching away at the little boxes on the page.
                “Imagine my surprise when I stepped into my bathroom to use my shower just now only to discover that it had been destroyed by an overzealous witch who had taken it upon herself to line the shower wall with shelves and clutter said shelves with every blessed bathing product known to man.” Severus stood in the archway of the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest.
                Hermione looked up from her crossword puzzle. He was a sight to take in, even when just standing as he was with his arms crossed over his chest, brooding away about the adjustment she’d made in the bathroom. He looked less pale than he had the previous two days and she couldn’t help but wonder if all of the additional sex was assisting with his complexion or if it were relieving the sexual tension that had been building between them since the night they’d started working together in George’s workshop. She refused to acknowledge the coincidence of Severus’ glow aligning with the night they’d gone to the sex shop and encountered the irksome slip of a boy from his past.
                She held his gaze, unable to tell if his eyes were annoyed or merely appraising her. He was a difficult man at the best of times, though she didn’t wish to cause a domestic dispute over something as banal as the space in the shower. With a small smile she turned her head back down to her crossword puzzle and began tapping her pencil down the page, counting letters to No. 37 down— a seven-lettered word for foolish. While asinine came to mind, with a ‘v’ in the middle of it she knew it would be ‘trivial.’ Hermione traced the letters in before speaking. “This isn’t a sorority house at a university, Severus,” she said calmly, not raising her eyes from her puzzle. “It was a simple and necessary adjustment. I grew tired of carrying my things to and from the bathroom every time I wished to shower or bathe.”
                She heard him scoff, but still refused to look up to meet his gaze. “Your bedroom is across the hallway not on a separate floor, Ms. Granger.”
                It irked her. Her head snapped up to meet his gaze at once. He was back to being ridiculous with her name and it set her blood to boil. “You keep your things in there,” she snapped.
                “I keep a bar of soap,” his voice was clipped and his eyes narrowed at her.
                Their eyes were set in a deadlock with one another, neither blinking nor moving. If he wanted to be a prat, so be it, she would be just as ornery in return. No one broke the stare. When it was obvious he was not going to look away, Hermione rolled her eyes and then muttered. “You keep a lot things.” She picked up her pencil and started counting letters in her next clue. Hermione refused to raise her head to look at him, though she peaked her eyes up slightly to see him stride over to the table and sit down in the chair across from her. Deafening silence echoed through the kitchen as she glared at the clue, unable to concentrate with him now seated before her.
                When she finally did raise her head and dare to glance upon him she was not surprised by the stern scowl planted on his lips. She sighed and again rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to do better than to scowl at me, Severus.” She said, pointedly letting her tongue slip over every ‘s’ in his name.
                “You are—”
                “Too bold for my own good, too familiar, and going to be the death of you. Yes, I know, thank you,” she said with a bitter grimace. “Please pick a new mantra to chant at me, I’m afraid I’ve grown weary of hearing the same thing over and over.”
                Severus glared at her. Hermione allowed her lips to tug into a slight smirk. A dose of his own verbal barbs looked lovely in shades of fury and frustration colored across his cheeks. She watched him carefully as he rose from his chair, eyes never leaving his as he stalked over to where she sat. She refused to flinch when both hands rested on her shoulders. His hand snatched at the fork in her hair so quickly that she couldn’t help herself. The shriek had been not only in surprise but because in his haste he’d tugged a few of her curls free from her head. “Forks are for eating with, Ms. Granger, not pinning up that nest you call hair.”
                Hermione surged to her feet and spun around finding herself chest to chest with him. “And I suppose you’d prefer it if I bleached it blonde, chopped it off and stacked it up on my crown under a kilo of gel and product like that silly little nancyboy from the shop?” she snapped.
                Severus drew in a breath and she was certain she’d done it. The verbal tirade was coming like a maelstrom. She shivered when his hand slowly swept up the side of her neck, catching a good handful of her hair in his palm. His fingers tangled in her tresses, stroking her head back and for a moment she felt her heart skip a beat. The moment was dashed to smithereens as he tugged her hair hard before pulling his hand back. “I could care less if you suddenly went bald,” he spat. “Then at least I’d stop finding your curls everywhere.” He held her gaze and then added “Including the basin of the tub.”
                Hermione gave out a furious groan. He would be the death of her. He was driving her up a wall, and she was convinced he was doing it merely to get a rise out of her. Her patience had waned and initially she had convinced herself that she could play his game and perhaps even best him at it, but it would sooner drive her out of her head than gain her any ground with him. Hermione stood her ground, however, and narrowed her eyes at him. “You are impossible.”
                “And you are annoying,” he countered.
                “You’re obnoxious!” she shrieked, throwing her hands up into the air. He merely stood there staring at her. Severus crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her as if to signal that she should continue her verbal barrage. “Oh!” she huffed. Hermione stomped across the tiles of the kitchen over to the cutlery drawer and whipped out a second fork. Stabbing it brutally into her hair, she bit her tongue to keep from yelping when she poked herself too hard in the head. He had noticed and his lips had tugged into a smirk but this only infuriated her. She stalked back to the kitchen table, picked up her crossword and pencil and then stormed out of the room.
                He had nerve. He had gall. And it was driving her round the twist. She hadn’t gone to her room but rather straight through the sliding glass door and out to the little patio of the backyard. No better a time to start creating with magic than when she was seething with rage. An angry flourish of her wand sent sparks flying in all directions and for a moment she worried that the neighbors would see. But after a moment’s consideration she decided that she didn’t care if the neighbors could see or if he even had neighbors. Several snapped branches and tricky transfigurations later and Hermione had her makeshift hammock strung between the two trees in the far corner of his backyard.
                With her crossword puzzle and pencil forgotten on the grass she flopped down into the hammock. But in her haste to transfigure and assemble the thing, she’d forgotten to seal it and the force of her body flopping against it sent the makeshift strings wobbling back into sticks and the whole thing collapsed beneath her. Hermione thumped to the dirt on her arse. She collapsed back into the dirt, balled up her fists and began to thrash her arms and legs like a tot mid-tantrum at the shops when denied a bucket of sweeties. She didn’t give a flying fig for the swing or her poorly executed transfiguration.
                When Hermione had all but exhausted herself with her thrashing fit, she sprawled out like a starfish and looked up into the trees. They were not handsome trees or even very large compared to the ones she’d lived among during her year spent in the Forest of Dean, but they provided great coverage from the sun. Their leaves were a bit too convenient to create such a shadow and she scowled, forcing herself up on her elbows. Severus stood a foot back from her, the day’s fading sun casting his long shadow over her. “If you’re done with your infantile behavior, Ms. Granger, come into the kitchen and use your words and not your temper.” He paused only a moment before turning around and sweeping back across the yard.
                She was tempted to hex him. His saving grace was that her wand was stowed away in her bedroom and that by the time she’d summoned it he would safely tucked away in the kitchen. For a good while she sat there brooding in the dirt, half tempted to ignore his command and stay there until dark. It hadn’t gotten chilly yet she had slept outside before. A part of her was tempted to apparate to The Potters and spend the evening there, or even stop in and pay Molly a visit. But after a lengthy debate in her head, she conceded that she couldn’t avoid him forever, not while she was living there and tangled in the strange lover and co-worker affair with him. There was nothing that stopped her from making him wait a bit longer, however.
                Hermione brushed herself off a while later and returned to the kitchen. He was seated opposite of the chair she’d left unattended, hands on a steaming mug of tea. She eyed him cautiously before coming to take her seat. The remains of her meal had been cleared away and she felt the slightest twinge of guilt for having left a mess. Hermione was not a messy person and always cleaned up after herself, even when she was in the most furious of states. Seating herself in the chair, she held her tongue and waited to see what, if anything, he would say.
                “Get it out, Ms. Granger,” he said and turned his hand out to her, gesturing a sort of permission.
                She was stunned that he had not waited in silence or proceeded to lecture her on her misconduct. So stunned that she had no idea where to begin. “You drive me crazy,” she started. He didn’t seem in the least perturbed by her comment. “I mean, honestly!” she cried. “Having a row over the shelves in the shower?”
                “This is not about the shelves in the shower, Ms. Granger,” he said calmly.
                “Bloody hell, Severus, you stormed in here and started fussing about the shelves and they aren’t that bad—”
                He raised his hand to silencer her but she hadn’t been looking directly at him so it took her a moment before she halted her ranting. He nodded when she paused and lowered his hand. “I did not storm into anywhere, Ms. Granger. If you recall I was standing in the archway just there and made a statement. You responded flippantly and I retorted. You’re the one that jumped out of your chair and started shouting.”
                “After you snatched the fork out of my hair!” she fussed.
                “Cutlery pieces are not hair accessories.”
                “Well it hurt,” she snipped. “And you were right insulting!”
                “It is hardly my fault if you find yourself insulted by my opinion,” he said. Hermione’s nostrils flared but again he held his hand up. “Now are you going to tell me what has you all wound up or are you going to keep shouting about forks and shower shelves and your hair?”
                “You! Severus, you are what has me all worked up! I can’t make heads or tails of you! One minute you’re one way the next you’re another and heaven help me when we’re at work together! And if George thinks that I’m going to be performing in front of hundreds of people with like some circus monkey with you as my ringmaster he’s got another thing coming! How on earth can he expect such a thing?” she cried.
                There was a long silence. Severus sat staring at her and Hermione could feel her heart racing. “Ah,” he said after another few moments. “Now you’re getting to the root of it,” he said and rose from his seat. Severus poured himself another cup of tea before sitting back down and assessing her. “Why are you so worked up over this presentation business?”
                “Why aren’t you worked up over this presentation business?” she cried. “Hundreds of people, Severus! Watching us! Naked and having sex and utilizing products that are meant to be shared intimately between lovers— it’s horrifying!”
                Severus sighed and took a sip of his coffee. “Surely you don’t think Mr. Weasley would not offer us some way to conceal our identities? A heavy glamour, a splash of Polyjuice, at the very least a mask? Certainly he would not want to invite the world of trouble that comes with such public displays of lewd conduct into our lives willingly, and I trust he’s already planned accordingly.”
                His words stunned her into abject silence. Her mind skidded to a halt. She hadn’t thought of such a thing. Her nerves had been on edge since he’d mentioned it and all she could think of was the hundreds of eyes who would see her face; the witches and wizards that would see her and know who she was, know who he was and watch them have sex. Never once had it crossed her mind that there would be ways to keep people from knowing who they were. The knot that had been weighing heavily in her stomach seemed to dissolve upon hearing these alternatives that Severus had clearly been thinking over or perhaps even aware of all along. She hung her head. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she mumbled.
                “Indeed not,” he said and sipped his tea. “What else is troubling you?” he asked after a moment. “Best to get you sorted fully lest you bring the trees down with you next time.”
                Hermione glared at him, her cheeks stinging with embarrassment. The cardinal rule of any complicated spell, transfiguration or otherwise was to do it with a clear mind and cooled focus. When attempting her hammock she had had neither. “What are you, my therapist now?” she asked, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
                “Therapist, teacher, sexual plaything…all at your service,” he said with mocking bow of his head.
                Hermione scoffed. “Sexual plaything my arse,” she muttered.
                “You think not?” he asked. His eyes were hard as he gazed at her.
                Hermione’s features twisted slightly and she shook her head. “Don’t act as if you aren’t engaged, Severus.”
                She watched his face soften for a moment, the way the lines around his eyes creased, the way his lips eased into something that almost looked natural. “You are quite impossible to deny,” he said and rested his hands around his teacup once more. “Insatiable…and unwilling to take no for an answer…”
                Her eyes grew wide, first with indignation then with genuine confusion. “You— but you—”
                Severus sighed. “I spend my working hours restraining myself so as not to appear a wanton wayward in the eyes of our employer, by the time you start in with your advances I’ve no energy left to deny you,” he paused. “Do not mistake me, Miss Granger, if I didn’t want it to some degree I would not have it, but you are persistent and insistent and too bold for your own good.” Her lips smacked several times as if she were stuttering to say something only no sound came from her lips. He continued before she could find her words. “Did you ever stop to think that after tangling myself with you all evening in the workshop that the very last thing I want to do when I return to my home is the work I’ve done all evening long? Did you ever stop to think that you pursuing me the way you have, regardless of the fact that there is a mutual attraction, was little more than your own gratification asserting itself while simultaneously objectifying me?”
                Again she was dumbstruck by his words. Her eyes grew wider, though she had managed to close her mouth. He’d blindsided her with this confession. But it appeared he was not finished with his outpouring. “I crossed a line, of that I am well aware, but since that line was crossed you have done nothing but pursue me for sex and it is tiresome,” he confessed. “Enjoyable, yes, but Merlin— do you think of nothing else?”
                Hermione could take no more of it. But she refused to storm out as she had before. Nodding her head dumbly, she stood slowly and then looked at him. “I think I’ll turn in for the evening,” she said. “Sorry,” she added, brushing quickly by him and all but running down the hall to her room. She did not slam the door, but did lock it tight once inside. With a heavy choking sob she collapsed onto her bed and began to cry into her pillow, refusing to be heard as she fell to pieces in her blankets.
                He thought she was pursuing him relentlessly for sex. That she viewed him as a sexual plaything and nothing more. How could he be so thick? She wasn’t sure whether or not to be hurt or angry and the confusion only made her cry harder. Her mind was imploding upon itself as the last few days blurred together and all she could think about was the way he’d fucked her. Hadn’t he told her off for trying to express her feelings? Was this his way of putting up a barrier between them because he couldn’t deal with the fact that she did have feelings for him?
                Hermione’s eyes stung as she continued to cry. It made her question not only what he thought of her but what she thought of herself. Her life had been unraveling at the seams since her breakup with Ron, since the end of the war, even; there hadn’t been consistency even when she’d had the steady boy, the steady job, the steady flat. She’d fallen into desperation and despair and taken a position that opened her world to a dark and devious side of her persona that she had not even known existed. She found herself housed with him and desperately craving his touch and his body. Was there more to it? She had always respected him but did that mean she loved him as she thought she did or had she been overcompensating for the fact that their compatibility under the same roof had been doomed from the start?
                There were so many questions and each one only made her cry harder. Hermione had sobbed her eyes dry in confusion and frustration until both nostrils were clogged and her temples were throbbing. She didn’t dare lift her head from her pillow, but if she laid there any longer with her thoughts consuming her she was certain she’d draw her wand just to knock herself unconscious. She needed to clear her head. She needed to take a walk. Slipping out into the hallway once she’d put on her trainers, she ducked out the front door and into the evening air. Hermione had never been a runner or even much of an exerciser so she had no idea where to go to get a good walk to clear her head Spinner’s End was terribly attractive, and it was too close to him for her to get her mind off of him.
                With a pop she apparated herself to a crowded thoroughfare on Carnaby Street. She needed the hustle and bustle of the London crowd dallying about and dashing through as the shops set to close up for the evening to distract her mind. But after only a few moments of rude tourists and skeevy looks from the snobs near the boutiques, she gave up, ducked down an alley and disapparated. Finding herself back at Spinner’s End, and more frustrated than when she’d set out, she sighed and stalked down the street, headed toward what looked like a park.
                As the sun started to set she wished she’d brought a jumper. She was too exhausted to bother with a warming charm. Simple magic came easily enough to her but with her mind asunder she was likely to set her shirt on fire rather than warm the air around her. Hermione meandered along the edge of the park, trying to let her mind drift away with the evening’s breeze. But it was no use, all she could think of was Severus. How living with him and working with him had somehow created a catastrophe that had blown up in her face. She tried to tackle him rationally. He was a man, she was a woman; they shared a dwelling and a job. Why did it have to be more complicated than that?
                She sighed, pausing at the edge of a creek, gazing down into her reflection. She had made it complicated by wanting him, by needing him. Always touching him and trying to get him to break his restraint while they worked in George’s workshop. She’d found herself thrust into a most unusual situation with the job itself but had insisted on exacerbating it by moving in with the man. Hermione had never been able to leave well enough alone. But the more she thought about it the more she realized it had been his idea for her to move into Spinner’s End. He had made it sound as if he were merely preventing her from asking, and she had argued all the points he had presented, but in the end it was him that had said she was moving in. She didn’t know whether to be flustered, relieved, or more confounded with that revelation.
                Hermione looked away from her reflection. Unlike the one in her bedroom mirror it did not chastise her. The sun was gone and the air was more than sufficiently chilled. Her wound up mind could no more think straight out away from the house than she could inside it. At least inside it she was warm. She had wandered a few good hours and felt just as flustered, though with slightly clearer nostrils, as she had when she’d fell into her bed crying. Resigned to a ruined evening she turned to walk back to the house at Spinner’s End.
                Her head was full, no questions answered, but she realized one thing. If he felt he was being objectified, even if that wasn’t at all what was happening, she could at the very least offer him an apology. Maybe an evening out where their bodies wouldn’t be an open temptation on the table. Hermione thought it over and with a newfound plan in her mind she set back towards the house with a purposeful stride. She would ask him to a coffee shop to grab a drink and film at a cinema. They could apparate to one nearby Kings Cross and make a proper night of it. Talk to one another, walk together without the pressures of giving into carnal desires. She wasn’t sure that he would oblige her request, but at the very least it would show she was trying to see him as something other than a sexual object.
                Hermione came back to Spinner’s End and dipped into her room, determined not look a mess before going to ask him to join her out of the house for coffee. Her hair had come loose from the fork, most likely from all the thrashing about she’d done on the dirt after she’d fallen through her failed attempt at making a hammock. Plucking the offending cutlery from her hair she fussed with a brush and a few smoothing charms for several minutes before finally relenting and pinning it up with an elastic, and a spell for good measure. Her eyes were still slightly red but not as puffy and swollen as they’d been when she’d had her cry on the bed.
                Ever a woman she changed her blouse three times, finally settling on a nice jumper that would stave off the evening chill and looked demure without looking frumpy. Giving herself a smile in the mirror, to which her reflection snorted and rolled its eyes, she stepped into the hallway and marched with confidence over to Severus’ bedroom door. The handle was an easy twist in her hand and she pushed it in. “You know I think maybe we could—” Her words failed her and she stood staring with her mouth agape in the doorframe.
                Bound in leather straps, completely naked, and gagged with a garish red ball was the blonde boy from the sex shop. He stood upright, but only just so, with Severus standing beside him wearing only a pair of black trousers. In his hand he held a riding crop. Hermione could not tear her eyes away from what she was seeing. Severus turned his head to look at her and stayed very still for a moment. Her eyes flicked from the boy, bound and gagged, to Severus and back several times.
                “I’m in the middle of a lesson, either come in and make yourself useful or kindly close the door,” he snapped. Hermione was so shocked that she couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth remained open, her eyes wide, unable to think or speak. Severus strode toward her, narrowed his eyes at her and then pushed the door shut.
                Her stomach roiled with knots and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. Her immediate reaction, once she’d regained control of her mind and body and kept her stomach from revolting on her, was to storm back into his room and ask just how he intended to have her make herself useful. But the thought of being in the same room with Severus and the little blonde whelp as he was instructing the child on whatever it was he was instructing was too much for Hermione. She shuddered at the thought, at his words, I’m in the middle of a lesson. The same sort of lessons he’d worked through with her, teaching her how to perform fellatio, and what anal sex was like. She very much doubted the young blonde needed instruction in either of those arenas.
                She sulked her way back into her room. She should have gone out, gone to the coffee shop where she had intended to take him and talk. A frothy latte alone at a table in a corner was better than the solitude of her bedroom knowing what was happening just across the hall behind his bedroom door. Hermione shuddered once more and then slipped out of her jumper and skirt. She changed into a long-sleeved nightgown, an old favorite from her childhood days that she’d worked a few spells on to properly fit her adult body. She snapped the elastic trying to take it out of her hair but shrugged it off as she ran her fingers through the mass of curly frizz. Curling herself into her duvet, she snatched up a book from her shelf and settled into bed.
                The knocking on her bedroom door alerted her to the fact that it was still dark outside and that she had fallen asleep drooling on her book. When the knocking did not desist she sighed, closed her book and pulled her duvet up over her head. “Go away,” she called to the door. But he knocked again. “Ugh. Go away, Severus, I’m naked.” She huffed. The door to her bedroom opened and he stepped inside, closing it and leaning against it. “That was meant to be a deterrent not an invitation,” she quipped from beneath her duvet.
                “You’re a piss poor liar, Ms. Granger,” he said, eyeing the lump of sheets and blankets that was her body. “And I have seen, touched, sucked, and fucked every inch of your nakedness, do you really think it matters to me what state of dress you’re in?”
                Hermione heaved a tremendous sigh and poked her head out from under the duvet. “What?”
                “Crabby, aren’t we?” he asked and then stepped toward her bed. He sat himself down on the edge of it as he had done several times before.
                “Don’t you have a lesson to teach?” she snarled.
                “You need a lesson in manners,” he said with a bit of bite to his voice.
                “If you’ve come in here to insult me some more, you can turn around and get out— which is actually what I want you to do regardless of what you came in here for.” Hermione pulled the duvet around her tighter so that only a portion of her face was visible. She looked like an angry Jedi.
                “I was being serious. Hasn’t anyone ever taught you to knock on a door before entering it?” he asked, though his tone had changed slightly.
                “And I’m being serious, go back to your little blonde bugger,” she muttered and then drew her face completely into her blankets.
                Severus snorted. “Pouting will get you nowhere, Ms. Granger.”
                “Hermione!” she shrieked from under the sheets. “My name is Hermione!”
                “I know what your bloody name is, witch,” he said tersely. “There is no need to shout.”
                She squealed her frustration rather loudly from beneath her sheets. “Would you please just go away?” The room was quiet. But she could still feel his body on her mattress, the depression of his weight signaling that he had not left the room despite his silence. Hermione sighed a tiny and silent sigh of relief when she felt him stand from the bed. But it was short lived as the duvet was pulled up off of her and deposited onto the floor. “Severus, really!” she huffed.
                “I was right about you lying,” he said with a shrug and moved to once more sit on the bed, bringing his body closer to her this time.
                Hermione tugged on her hair. “You’re like bloody Jekyll and Hyde!” she cried. “What in Merlin’s beard do you want from me?” Severus held his tongue. She couldn’t make heads or tails out of him. But the only thing she wanted in that moment was for him to go away. Or at the very least get out of her bedroom and leave her to the night and her book and her thoughts. “What is it going to take to get you to get out of my room?” she glared at him. “Do you need me to come onto you?” she asked, pulling herself upright until their faces were an inch apart. “Objectify you some more so that you’ll go?”
                She leaned her head toward him and pressed her chest forward though she wasn’t sitting close enough to brush her breasts against his chest. His hand under her chin caused her to shiver slightly and she stilled her gesture. “You had come in with the intent of saying something or doing something,” he said and gazed hard into her eyes.
                Hermione shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You were teaching,” her voice drew bitter at the end of her reply.
                “And what of it?” he said looking just the slightest bit off put.
                “Do you have to do it here?” she asked, her voice filling with exasperation.
                Severus quirked both of his eyebrows high on his forehead. “And just where would you propose I do it other than my own home?” When she did not reply he tilted her chin up higher. “Did you not receive your lessons here?”
                Hermione faltered. “I—”
                “Yes, Miss Granger?” Severus leaned his face close to hers.
                She closed her eyes drawing in a shaky breath. “You meant what you said? That you don’t cuddle?”
                “Why would I lie?” he asked.
                “You were in my bed last night.”
                “You asked me to lie down with you, insisted, actually.” He replied.
                “You could have said no,” she opened her eyes, uncertain as to the path the conversation was heading down.
                “I could have,” he mused and then shook his head. “But you would have put up a fight and I would have ended up struggling, which would have worn me down, and I would have given in after a while of being worn down.” He paused and then eased his fingers out from under her chin. “It was easier just to give in to you straight away.”
                Hermione leaned back. “Please go away now,” she muttered.
                “I’m only being honest with you,” he paused and then placed his hand on her knee. “Hermione.”
                She stiffened. Twice he had used her name and twice it had disarmed her completely. She was helpless in that moment, unable to think beyond the way her name rolled like liquid velvet off his tongue. She could no more brush his hand from her knee than she could force him out of her bedroom. For a moment the rest of the evening dissolved; there was no argument, no tantrum, and certainly no Nigel. For a moment she had serenity in his delicate almost non-existent touch and his proximity. But it was only a moment and like his fleeting emotions, it was gone before she could actualize it. “I just— you— Severus, please…” she shook her head. “Just go, won’t you?” she asked.
                “Is that what you really want?” he asked, though he had not lifted his hand from her knee.
                “Yes. No! Ugh! I don’t know!” she cried and then leaned over the edge of the bed, grabbing up all of her sheets and blankets. “I just— I don’t know, Severus.” She said. “I’m going to curl up under these blankets and try to forget this whole day even happened,” she confessed. “And you can either curl up with me, which you won’t do because you don’t cuddle. Or you can go. I can’t fathom myself being touched like that by you after I saw you with— that— ugh, what I saw…” she forced the words out of her mouth. “But you’re driving me mad at present and I really think I just wish to sleep!”
                Hermione turned onto her side and held the blankets tight to her chest, closing her eyes. “Nox!” she cried, forgetting that the house was wired with electric. She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut tight as if that would somehow remove the light from the room. When he stood from the bed it was both disappointing and relieving. She could feel the hint of tears forming in the back of her eyes but also a great sigh welling up in her chest. The blankets were pulled from her arms and draped over her, hiding her away beneath them. She sighed a slow and heavy sigh and the light in her room was switched off. But then his hand pressed against her shoulder and for a moment she felt the weight of him bracing on her. Severus climbed over her and eased down behind her on the mattress.
                The shift of the blankets was strange as she felt him slip beneath them, his body moving closer to hers without touching her. They laid there silently, close but not touching for several moments. She blinked back her tears and after a moment wriggled her body back until her back was pressed against his chest. He draped his arm over her waist and let his hand rest on her ribs just under her breasts. It should have been revolting, being spooned back against his body. Although he’d been wearing his trousers when she’d barged into his lesson, she was convinced that he’d been intimate with the blonde. But she couldn’t help herself. Despite the fact that he was the cause of her madness, he also seemed to be her only source of umbrage and refuge. The cure was somehow worse than the sickness and she was caught in a maddening circle that she could not comprehend.
                His breathing was shallow, steady and even, but she knew he was not asleep. Hermione could not bring herself to drift off though she’d closed her eyes a good dozen times or more, trying to convince herself that she could nod off with his arm draped casually over her, his chest rising and falling against her back. “You don’t cuddle,” she whispered after a time.
                “I do not,” his voice was equally soft in response.
                “What the hell do you call this?” Hermione did not move not even to twist her head back over her shoulder.
                “Attempting to quell the anxieties and neurosis of my housemate,” he said.
                Hermione was quiet. The rhythm of his chest moving slowly up and down against her back was hypnotic. Even if he was a right git and had buggered the blonde boy after he’d closed her out of his bedroom. There was something disarming about his presence that she couldn’t shake, and so she didn’t. “Is that all I am to you? A housemate?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even. It would not do to burst out into a fit of hysterics, even if the question did make her eyelids tremble with the weight of restrained tears.
                “What else would you have yourself be?” he asked. Again she held her tongue. As she chewed over the answers in her mind, none immediately came to the surface. She felt his hand shift ever so slightly down her ribs, resting his palm flat on her stomach. “It’s a tall and rather selfish order to expect me to see you as something that you yourself cannot name.” His fingers began to sweep slow circular motions around her stomach, drifting up and down the soft cotton of her nightgown. She flinched as he grazed a ticklish spot.
                “Stop that,” she swatted at his hand. She should have pulled away from him, turned into his arms and pushed him. She was torn. A part of her longed to lay there with his arm draped over her, even if he had nearly tickled her, and pretend as if there had been no rows, no Nigel, none of the unpleasant things that had surfaced in the last 48 hours. But another part of her wanted to push him from the bed while calling him every name in the book until he was so thoroughly chastised that he apologized. She knew the later was unlikely to occur, even if she did manage to verbally chase him from her room. She resigned her fate to feeling comforted, however minutely, by his embrace.
                Severus had stilled his hand at first when she’d swatted him but his fingers were once again moving in slow sweeping circles over the fabric of her nightgown. When his fingertips grazed the sensitive ticklish spot that they had before, he chuckled when she squirmed in his arms. “That isn’t funny,” she huffed and made to push his arm off of her but he held his hand firmly against her stomach, keeping his arm in place and effectively pinning her in their spooned embrace. Hermione growled and with a great deal of effort enlisted against his heavy arm, flipped herself onto her other side and faced him in the darkness. “Do you delight in tormenting me?” she snapped.
                “Clearly,” he said. She couldn’t see the features of his face but knew that he was smirking. She slapped her hand against his chest and squeaked as he curled his fingers tightly around hers. “None of that,” he said. “You can huff and puff all you wish, but you will not strike.”
                Hermione seethed. He was frustrating. She had never been prone to violence, but he had upended her sanity. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, though it did nothing for the darkness, and when she opened them she searched for traces of his face. His warm breath, slow and gentle, caressed her cheek and she laid perfectly still just feeling the little puffs against her skin. Heaving a great sigh she wriggled her fingers free of his grasp and placed her palm flat on the fabric of his shirt, pressing her hand against his chest. “I want—”
                “What you want is irrational,” he said, not allowing her to finish.
                “Severus, how can you say that? You don’t know what I want!” she snapped.
                “You don’t even know what you want, Ms. Granger,” he said. “You think you want me, you think you want sex, you think all of these things without knowing anything about them,” he paused for a moment, fingers threading into her hair and she stiffened at his touch. “You’ve found yourself sexually awakened at an early age with little to compare it to and you find yourself enticed by these head games that you insist we play because it fulfills some latent saphiosexual urge that underscores your thinking, and you have all the restraint and consideration of a randy fifth year going boy-crazy—”
                Hermione cupped her full hand against his mouth, effectively silencing him. She let her hand rest there for several moments. She counted his breaths against her palm, marking them one at a time until he’d breathed more than twenty before she pulled her hand back. “I am not boy crazy,” she said finally.
                “How many men have you slept with?” he asked.
                She gasped at the question, offended and embarrassed, but quickly countered. “How many men have you slept with?”
                For a moment she believed that her quick retaliation had earned her an advantage as there was silence between them. But his answer shocked her further still. “Several dozen, I have never found keeping an exact count to be useful.” Hermione shuddered, unable to help herself. “Do you see?” he whispered in the darkness. “Not so attractive when put into perspective, is it?” he asked, fingers still threaded in her hair. “And I assure you that I do not know how many women either, though it is of a lower number.” She could feel her heart racing but his words did not abate. “You know nothing of my past save for the misinterpreted representations you garnered during your days at Hogwarts leading up to the war, and what little bit of composite detail I have shared with you since we started Mr. Weasley’s job together, but so quick and eager are you to ascribe feelings to this situation. Do you see why I think it irrational?”
                “I know what I feel when I’m with you,” she insisted.
                “Sexually, of course,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “But even that would change if you had any standard of comparison.” There was a pause and Hermione listened with rapt attention as he theorized over her sexual life. “Outside of that ginger fraternal of our current employer, to which I have been led to understand there was little outside of basic intercourse, I would wager you’ve had one or two other men if that at all, not including the traumatic experience which you’ve expunged from your mind regarding the muggles who gave you this…” his hand slipped down over her hip and clutched for a moment at her backside just over where her little rose tattoo existed.
                She felt herself inexplicably repulsed and simultaneously drawn to him in that moment. “I don’t remember—”
                “You choose not to remember, it is common in those instances,” he said. “Suppressed or repressed or discarded completely, it is there inside your mind.”
                Hermione nodded her head slowly and then after a moment she jerked back from him. “You— you look inside my mind?” she asked incredulously. Her cheeks filled with anger and she was very grateful that she could not see his features in the darkness lest she take a swing at his face. “How dare you!” she cried.
                “If you learned nothing from your days at Hogwarts during those dark and difficult times you should at the very least have learned to constantly be on your guard,” he muttered, though he not moved his hand from her hair or her backside.
                “You are supposed to be someone I trust!” she cried and wriggled back completely from him, dislodging both of his hands from her body.
                “Why?” he asked. “Because we’ve fucked? Because you live here? What do you really know about me, Ms. Granger?”
                Hermione could take it no more. She forced herself out of the bed and tore through the room and out into the hallway. She stood there huffing her breaths in and out through her nose, the force straining at her nostrils. Then she growled, balled her fists up at her side and marched back into her bedroom. “This is my bedroom. Get out!” she cried. Her hand slammed hard on the wall and she flicked the light switch up.
                Severus was sitting up on her bed, head twisted back over his shoulder to stare at her. “Angry now, are you?” he asked rather casually. “Because you made assumptions? Because you let your guard down having no good reason to do so?”
                She had lost a handle on her temper the night she’d agreed to move in with him. And the little game he’d played with her had left her so beside herself that she didn’t recognize the woman who was storming across the short distance from the bedroom door to her bed. Hermione grabbed him by both shoulders and struggled to pull him to his feet, to no avail. Both of his hands grabbed her hips and held her firmly in place. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” she cried, jumping and shifting trying to break free of his hold on her.
                “You need to calm yourself, Ms. Granger,” he said sternly.
                “No. I will not calm myself. You are not my professor, you are not my— my— anything! Except the torturous man who is ridding me of my sanity one shag at a time! You think I objectify you and am irrationally obsessed with you but you creep into my bed and spoon me— and for what? To revile and ridicule me?” she shrieked. “You’re— you’re—”
                “Stop. Shouting.” He commanded, his tone most severe. Hermione closed her eyes and drew a terribly shaky breath. When she opened her eyes to meet his gaze he was boring holes into her eyes. His grip on her hips had not relinquished and she felt a plethora of things that seemed out of place. Excitement, fear, frustration, and the slightest hint of being trapped were all flooding through her as she stood rooted to the bedroom floor glaring at Severus Snape. “I want you to go,” he said. “Stay somewhere else for the night.” He said and when her eyes grew wide with fear he shook his head. “I’m not throwing you out. But you will find an alternative for tonight.” Hermione searched his eyes, desperately trying to read them. “Find a man,” he paused and shrugged his shoulders. “Find a woman, I don’t really care. But go and when you’ve gone and done so…come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it.”
                Hermione could not protest as she was all but lifted off her feet, carried out into the main room of the house and nudged toward the front door. “Go, Ms. Granger,” he said and pushed her lightly on the back of her shoulder blades. Dumbfounded, she stumbled forward and out the front door as it was opened in front of her. She turned back to him, wide-eyed and disbelieving but he only nodded before closing the door in her face.


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