Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

At the Headmaster’s Discretion Complete	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 80085 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 10
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters/things/places created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money from my fan-fiction.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
A/N:
Mistress – Thank you! Next one delivered :)
JadedFate – Thank you so much x
Kvarta – I’m sorry that this chapter happened to hit you at the same time as PMS and that both you and your bus buddy suffered as a result. You didn’t let him comfort you? ‘You are demonising McGonagall again! Why?’ – well, a few reasons, you will have to wait and see :) ‘I know, I'm weird’ – don’t worry, I wrote it, I’m weirder ;) ‘when was he led to know that he is loved’ – I’m so glad you saw beyond her comment to the reflection on Snape’s own life. ‘the one that forces you to be better, not lulled in what you already know but to seek more, to grow and develop beyond what you know that are your limitations’ – I totally agree. ‘And puts into perspective her act of denying him more harshly than anything else. It screams betrayal (once again) like it is a constant in his life from which there is no escape :(‘ – Yessss, I loved that you picked up on all this. ‘I still do have a small problem with my brain and this story - it is so hard to even concentrate on the sex in the story like it is not happening at all or happening somewhere in the background.’ – That’s exactly how I hoped this story would read. The sex is just the means of communication, it is what each act signifies and the growth and understanding that results that is the main point. Your brain is perfect! xx
OO – I loved your review so much and was so pleased that you consider this to be one of my best. It has certainly been the most difficult to write so far. ‘I think I could come away with a new interpretation every time I read it.’ – that’s really interesting as I left many of the thoughts and statements open with the hope that people would give me their own interpretation and it’s been excellent to find out the multiple meanings, some of which I wasn’t really consciously aware of when I was writing. ‘the still-point between the illusion of duality’ – holy shit I love that. I could never claim such depth but I love where you’ve gone with it. ‘This could be applied to both main characters equally’ – yessss, excellent! ‘I particularly love how he keeps her face from being grated off by the bark. What a gentleman :P’ – Hahaha, always ;) ‘And when she emerges from that womb she'll be reborn with a new sense of freedom and power’ – *deep sigh* :) ‘Now I want Hermione to go whip the hell out of Snape. (You know, to prove her love . . . and power.)’ – nothin’ says love like a good ol’ wuppin’ :) xx

Chapter 16 – Master Mind
Hermione groaned, flailing feebly in an attempt to escape from under a mountain of bedclothes. She felt like a tin man—one whose joints hadn’t been oiled in a long time, although she’d received plenty of oil in other places. Her lips curled into a sleepy smile as she remembered, slithering one hand over her grazed cheek and gingerly fingering her throbbing hip with the other.
After the forest, she’d staggered back to her room and immediately fallen into bed, only just remembering to flick a quick contraceptive spell over her belly before succumbing to the full weight of the day’s physical and emotional strain. She couldn’t remember waking at all in the night and realised that, despite the backdrop of discomfort, it was the first time she had slept through since before the war.
Rolling onto her side with some difficulty she spotted the book, sitting patiently on her bedside table. She hadn’t even opened it, having set to work on the obstacle course immediately after speaking to Professor McGonagall. Now she stared at it—the nondescript cover, just the back of someone’s head, hair short and dark—it could have been a boy or girl, but she knew that it was the latter, a girl whom she had met only briefly but felt she knew well, one she had missed these past weeks, missed experiencing the world through her eyes and learning through her thoughts.
They had read the book in parts—only a set number of chapters at a time in order to ‘digest and process’ ready for analysis. Hermione had been surprised by her own restraint. Despite yearning to know more, she had never read ahead. Now, having missed at least two meetings and perhaps never attending again, she would read the rest.
Her hand slithered out to touch the smooth surface. She immediately thought back to where she discovered it. Not on any of the heavily laden shelves in his office, or the piles in his chambers. It had been sitting in his cupboard. Alone.
It gave her an odd feeling and she realised then that she needed a block of time to dedicate to finishing it. But that wasn’t something she could give right now. Right now there was something more pressing to attend to—her freedom.
Her morning classes mainly involved project work which she could do in the evening. And her afternoon was relatively free. It wasn’t in her nature to skip classes but the occasion felt too momentous not to celebrate. She would spend the entire day out. Even breakfast would be taken in her favourite café. Proper coffee. Eggs. A pastry for after.
Her exhalation was a fluttering purr of pleasure. Somehow . . . inexplicably . . . life felt good.
***
Hermione enjoyed the swinging weight of her satchel as it nudged against her hip with each eager stride back from the Apparition point. Shopping bounty. She wasn’t much of a shopper but she’d enjoyed it so much that day. There had been at least twenty book shops. Some new, some second hand. And even though she was well aware that they often harboured many of the same collections, she just loved the way they were arranged—some upstairs, some downstairs, some slick and minimalist, some sprawling bohemian jungles. And she’d taken the opportunity to stock up on a range of purchases—just in case she was faced with another unplanned lock down.
In one shop, she’d also discovered a beautiful set of coloured inks. They weren’t magical, but the hues were stunning. Ginny wrote to Harry most days and put a huge amount of effort into her quillwork. Hermione knew it would be the perfect gift for her, especially since they’d not had an opportunity to speak since the ball.
As she approached the castle, Hermione slipped her hand into the satchel and felt the parcel that she was most surprised to return with—new underwear, three matching sets. It wasn’t something she’d ever cared about in the past but she’d happened upon the lingerie shop between book stores and instantly felt the need to indulge. The odd realisation when she was trying them on was that more than half of what she’d ‘randomly’ selected was in Slytherin green. It didn’t require any particular introspective insight for her to understand what she was doing. The more difficult part to fathom was what she hoped to achieve from it.
He was her Headmaster. She was his student. They didn’t even have a definable relationship. And yet . . . she’d ended up paying a hell of a lot of money for underwear that she’d spent her entire mirror time visualising being torn apart by his fingers, shredded by his teeth, to the point that she’d left the shop feeling embarrassingly flushed and aroused.
There wasn’t even a good way to regularly see him—at least no valid excuse to do so. And it still wasn’t clear to her whether their interactions had moved beyond what would basically be considered transactional. Indeed, she’d somehow ‘earned’ her freedom as a result of their latest liaison. It wasn’t really a dynamic in which the excitement of ‘new underwear’ belonged and yet she had three sets . . . and she didn’t intend to waste them.
Climbing the steps, she fingered the small gift in her pocket. It was nothing really. Just a bookmark. A brass stem with the head of a snake. But out of all of her purchases, it was probably the most worrying. What did she intend it to mean? How would he perceive it? Would she even give it to him?
She wondered then how something so small could signify more than the enormity of what they’d shared to date. But that’s what sometimes happened . . . the little things . . . his palm against her cheek . . . his lips against her temple.
Hermione drew a steadying breath as she stood before the imposing front doors. And now back to this. School . . . but necessarily so much more. After losing her family, it had become everything. Yet with the magnitude of her loss, it had felt woefully inadequate, incapable of fulfilling her, of providing for her on any level.
But at some point that had changed. Even now, breathing in the damp of the ancient walls, the heady oak of the door, she felt there was something here for her. Something worthwhile. And whilst her renewed sense of purpose might rest upon questionable foundations, she knew that the absence of it was worse. She’d been there. And she couldn’t go back. Going back would end her.
Turning the handle, she was instantly struck by a wall of noisy chatter—the Great Hall in the throes of dinner. She smiled at the normality. Life was going on. Entering the clamour, she found herself a spot at the Gryffindor table, placed her bag by her seat and poured herself a bowl of pumpkin soup. Grabbing a bread roll from the basket before her, she broke off a piece and popped it into her mouth before looking about her, taking in the bustling conversations and bursts of laughter, wondering if it was how she, Ron and Harry had appeared not so long ago.
Then she noticed Ginny a few seats down, head turned away, talking to Neville. Good. She would wait until the table had cleared a bit before trying to join in. She might even use the opportunity to give Ginny her present.
Hermione’s eyes continued to roam before settling on the teacher’s table. Snape was there, sitting in the very middle seat, his eyes focused on the table as he chewed slowly. She would have considered him lost in thought except that he appeared to be the only one at the table not engaged in conversation, much like herself. And it was his hands that suggested otherwise. The heels of both rested on the table, fingers slightly raised, relaxed enough, but positioned too closely to his body, as though he was prepared at any moment to thrust up and stride away. As though only pure determination was keeping him there.
His eyes lifted then and met hers. She felt it. The connection. As though their bubbles of solitude were merging, uniting them in isolation, separate from the rest. She realised then what a feat it was for him to appear as he did each day—a symbol of strength and resilience, of survival, when clearly it tortured him to do so. He had been rejected by his colleagues. He was derided by the students—those with enough bravado to overcome their fear of him. But still he managed to remain as he had always been.
She had previously considered his stern vigilance to be unnecessary. As though he was the only one clinging to the past when everyone else simply wanted to move on, to finally relax. But she now realised that it was his harsh demeanour that gave the students permission to be exactly as they were right now. His hypervigilance meant that they could engage in the trivial without fear. Dozens had died within those walls, it had been awash with blood less than a year previous and yet he had made it safe for them. Regardless of the fact that the physical threat had gone, he had made it psychologically and emotionally safe for them to return. Everyone knew that he would protect them. They knew of his bravery. And there was no doubt about his power . . . in fact he’d reminded them of it only the day before.
The other teachers, including Professor McGonagall, had been present when the slaughter had occurred. They hadn’t been able to prevent it. Who knew if things might have been different if Snape had been there to assist, but it was his watch now. And he was the most careful man any of them knew. If he couldn’t protect them, no one could.
Even when his eyes finally dipped away, she continued to watch—taking in his precise, considered movements. They had been battle-ready because of him. He had challenged them the entire time, toughened them, made them shrewd, suspicious, careful. It occurred to her then that the very traits they had despised in him growing up, were likely the ones that had driven them to prevail. He knew people. He knew how to bring out what they needed.
Looking back down at her bowl, she noticed it swimming under her gaze and realised how deeply he affected her. Keeping her head lowered, she gulped down the rest of her soup before looking up to find the seat opposite Ginny vacant.
Blinking away any remaining sheen from her eyes, she stood and relocated to the vacant spot.
“Hey, Gin,” she said brightly.
Ginny glanced up but didn’t respond, her pale brow drawing into a frown as she continued to stir her soup, which didn’t appear to have been touched.
“How have you been?” Hermione reached out to absently twist the empty goblet in front of her.
“Why would you care?” Ginny’s response was unusually sharp.
“What do you mean?”
Ginny continued to stir before huffing and dropping the spoon with a clang.
“Did Harry come to see you before he left?”
Hermione took a moment to work out what she was talking about.
“Um . . . no . . . I don’t think so?”
“What do you mean you don’t think so?” Ginny’s brown eyes narrowed.
“I . . . I might have missed him.”
“Why? Where were you?”
Whipping Snape, naked, in his bedroom.
“I . . . was busy.”
She looked unconvinced.
Hermione suddenly wondered why she was being interrogated so closely.
“Why? Isn’t he allowed to see me?”
Ginny glared at her before leaning forward to deliver the rest in a low hiss.
“Listen. I understand that the two of you are close. And I’ve tried my best not to feel threatened by that. But when you rub it in my face . . . in front of the whole school, like you did at the ball—when you use him like you did and then just dump him back with me like some supplementary prize, it makes me wonder exactly what you think of him . . . and of me. I know I can’t compete with you—you’re better than me in every way. But if you do anything like that again, I will be asking Harry to make a choice.”
Hermione’s mouth was hovering open by the end of her speech. “Choice?”
“You or me.” Ginny’s mouth twitched with hurt and fury. “He can’t have us both.”
Hermione couldn’t believe her ears.
“And just so that we’re even . . .” Ginny continued, as she slowly got to her feet.
Then picking up her bowl of cold soup, she dumped the entire contents over Hermione’s head, tossing it, once empty, onto the table with a loud clatter before turning and storming out the door.
Hermione sat dumbfounded, thick orange runnels oozing down her face and dolloping onto her shoulders as more and more people joined in the laughter. There were even a few claps.
Rising on shaky legs, she made her way toward the door. She didn’t even bother casting a cleansing spell. The shame was already done.
***
The spray washed away her tears but more came. Sobbing against the tiles, Hermione wondered why, just when she felt she was getting on top of things, life had decided to tap her on the shoulder and remind her of yet another of her failures. Friendships needed work. She liked to think that they didn’t—that once you had someone, you had them for life. But that clearly wasn’t the case. She’d let her friends down. And without someone who cared about her, without someone she could disclose her darkest secrets to, what was the point? What was the point to any of it?
She slowly washed her hair and managed to rinse most of the soup out of her ears. By the time she’d finished she’d run out of tears, her face red and puffy as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. How had she got it so wrong?
Despondently, she opened the door that led back to her bedroom. She’d only taken a few steps when she saw it—her satchel—sitting on the floor beside her bed. Only then did she remember that she’d left it behind . . . and yet here it was.
Then she felt the sudden warmth behind her—heat radiating from the shadows . . . from some formidable presence. Face crumpling in realisation, she dropped the towel before turning and plunging into his arms.
- 15
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- 17
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At the Headmaster’s Discretion *Complete*

At the Headmaster’s Discretion Complete