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The Quickening	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 32428 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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
- 19
- 20
- 21
A/N: OracleObscured: You are awesome. Yes you were right about the unicorn, although your guesses have also given me further ideas. I tried to make the last chapter funnier so I’m glad it came across. I have written a rambling review in GP for when you get over your NY celebrations!
FieryPhoenix – it is possible that this story is destined to keep you unfulfilled. Just letting you know that there is a call out to you at the end of this chapter. :)
LeWyKi: I am indebted to you for pointing out my glaring error. I managed to wiggle out of another one that was kindly pointed out by another reader but this one was too big. I just went through and edited it all. Let me know if you pick up on anything else. Thanks for reading!
Night_Fairy: I loved your theory! I won’t tell you if it is right or not. You will have to read on!
Bitchandmoan: Hopefully this chapter will answer some of your questions. I loved your ‘fugue state’ description and wished I’d used it earlier. Thanks again for your reviews. I’m really glad you took the time.
Chapter 20
“Severus!” Hermione wheezed breathlessly as she burst into the potions laboratory.
She was met by twenty four pairs of stunned third-year eyes and one pair of glittering obsidian ones.
“Miss Granger,” Severus drawled, wrapping his robes around his chest and crossing his arms. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, I . . . um.” She glimpsed her blood-caked hands and quickly relocated them behind her back. “I have a . . . message for you.”
“Yessss?” He raised an appraising eyebrow.
Hermione’s stomach clenched reflexively. She was back to being his student and it was agony.
“The . . . um . . . the thing you . . . um . . . wanted me to get rid of . . . well it’s not gone.” She leaned on one foot, trying to look casual, but the nervous nibbling of her lower lip affirmed she was far from it.
Gods she was sexy. Even with her hair all over the place like that. He felt himself stirring and drew the robe tighter. But what was she doing here? What was she talking about? What thing? He hadn’t asked her to get rid of anything except . . . Oh fuck!
His eyes tore away from hers as the penny dropped. He stared at the floor and she could see the cogs turning rapidly.
The students’ faces pitched nervously back and forth between them as though they were watching an extremely tense Quidditch match.
“Thank you Miss Granger,” his voice remained low and even. “I will deal with this issue at the end of class. Please return at three o’clock.”
Hermione widened her eyes at him, trying to convey the urgency of the situation. She couldn’t wait. When she didn’t make any attempt to leave, Severus returned the eye flare and nodded toward the door.
“Surely you have some study to be getting on with.”
Gods! She’d forgotten how irritating his snarkiness could be.
Turning on her heel she stormed out the door, leaving the students to stew uncomfortably in the boiling tension of her wake.
She needed to wash Harry’s blood off her hands. Harry. She’d just left him there. After going to such pains to apologise for being a bad friend, she’d shown him, again, what a bad friend she was. She couldn’t believe how quickly everything could turn to shit.
Racing up the stairs to Gryffindor tower, she tore through the common room and up the stairwell to her bedroom. Throwing off her jacket, she strode into the bathroom, filling the sink with scalding water. It hurt. But she deserved it. Practically burning off the blood, she lifted her swollen red hands from the water, only to witness several curious tendrils of electricity flickering across her skin, curling around her fingers and restoring them to a healthy pink.
What in Merlin’s name was going on?
It had to be the Galvanismus. Everything was identical. But it seemed to be expressing itself on her skin, rather than internally. Although she couldn’t really confirm that either. Palming the condensation from the foggy mirror, she peered at her reflection. Everything looked pretty much normal. Although she was struck again by how healthy she looked. Not one to ever dwell upon her appearance, the difference had to be striking for her to notice.
There was a healthy glow to her cheeks, in fact the lustre seemed to extend all of her body—she frowned down at her arms, never expecting to be able to describe them as scintillating. Her brown eyes, which had been distinctly muddy in the past months, possessed a sparkle that flashed bronze as she tilted her head from side to side, and her bushy hair had acquired a glossy shine that she couldn’t fully attribute to her superior hair products. Could all this be down to the Galvanismus?
She continued to stare at the mirror, her focus turning inward as her mind sifted through thought after thought, image after image. What did she know about the curse? It typically affected the nervous system, lying dormant in sensory neurons. When active, it commandeered the cell’s normal chemical processes to generate electrical currents. In a dying body, that enabled the nervous system to keep the vital organs alive even when the cells, themselves, had lost capacity. But in a healthy body, it caused a devastating multiplication of the electrical activity within neurons, sending everything haywire.
So the million galleon question was, how had it infected her skin? And, more to the point, how was she infected at all? The curse hadn’t entered her. It had entered her projection. She had been in a completely separate room to Severus. But she had felt it hadn’t she? A fuzzy image coalesced in her mind. There had been a burst of something before she’d passed out. Is that why she’d passed out?
Sighing, she mushed her face into her hands, peering at her reflection through the bars of her fingers. The projection. The projection. Maybe it had done something. Changed something. Clearly, it retained a link with her physical body—that’s why she could feel everything. But there was always a thin filmy barrier separating her from everything she touched.
Was it possible that, although super-fine, the layer had been sufficient to thwart the curse? Not completely—the sparking on her skin attested to that—but it might have prevented the curse from infecting her as fully and deeply as it normally would. It was in her skin but maybe it had gone no deeper than that. And if it was in her skin, what would it do to her? How would it behave?
Well, she only needed to look in the mirror to see what it was doing to her. It seemed, on a cellular level that it was repairing, restoring and, perhaps even, healing her. Superficially at least. She recalled that her injuries in the infirmary had resolved much faster than expected.
Then her thoughts returned to Harry. He’d had a decent sized hole in his leg—she was positive of that. But somehow it had healed over in the very short time that she’d held him. Usually the Galvanismus curse, when expressed, turned inward, not outward. So how could it extend beyond her, out of her, to others?
Her eyebrows shot up. Was it the projection? Could the potion’s magic have somehow combined with the curse to enable it to project extracorporeally? Potions and curses. Curses and potions. They had briefly studied complex interactions and contraindications for some of the more basic charm/potion combinations but nothing like this.
And what about Severus? Madam Pomfrey had remarked on multiple occasions how his recovery had been almost miraculous, happening far quicker than could be accounted for by the vast number of healing potions and blood cleansers that she’d administered. Hermione had been lying next to him practically the whole time, desperately wishing him well. Normally, the Galvanismus projected from the body at the time of willing death. Could this new, displaced version be projected at the time of willing life or, at least, willing health? It seemed incredible but there were possibly two examples of it now—Harry and Severus.
A final thought struck her. Not only had Severus’ health remarkably improved over the past few days, but there had been a distinct change in his appearance. Until now, she had put it down to her newfound lusty hots for him and the rose-coloured glasses that, no doubt, accompanied the feelings he had captured within her. But, upon reflection, he was definitely looking different—younger.
The web of lines on his face had receded noticeably and the sickly pallor of his skin had been replaced by a subtle luminescence that accentuated the chiselled contours of his features. Even his hair seemed to sculpt his face, rather than obscuring it behind a lank, greasy curtain. She never thought she would say it but, even to the casual observer, he might be described as handsome. To her, it was an entirely different matter, he was absolutely fuckable and she felt her whole body aching for him.
What time was it? 2.45pm. Good. She was desperate to see him. For more reasons than one.
***
They sat facing one another in the potions laboratory, panting heavily, and taking in the evidence that was strewn around them of an intense and prolonged struggle. She hadn’t even had a chance to knock on the door before she was dragged inside like someone being pulled offstage by a shepherd’s crook. From the room’s appearance, they had stopped in a number of locations to remove items of clothing and, judging by the various smears on the surfaces of desks, they had enjoyed a variety of acts and positions along the way.
The main event had taken place on his desk which was now surrounded by a moat of debris including student assignments, upended stationery and a very wet pair of knickers. He had licked her pussy until it was more liberally coated with his saliva than her own juices, before dragging her to the edge of the desk, throwing both of her legs over his shoulders and plunging into her. She had clawed at the desk, trying to gain some traction for both her body and her sanity, but both were quickly lost as she gave in to the omnipotence of his cock. Their feral moans and grunts had echoed off the stone walls as their organs had squelched together. And when they came, bucking together, the cacophony of cries and groans would have put Moaning Myrtle to shame, before they collapsed in a shuddering tangle, marinating in a soup of their own fluids.
Now she was sitting on the edge of his desk and he had collapsed into a chair, both naked and glistening in the low light of the classroom.
“Now why did you want to see me?” he asked, leaning back in his seat so that she had a delicious view from his cock, all the way up to his smug grin.
“I tried to tell you before but my mouth was too full.” She delicately licked a trail of his come off her finger.
“Don’t do that.” He creased his forehead and shook it distractedly, or you might find your mouth full again.
“Promise?”
He sighed and rubbed his hand across his chin. “This isn’t going to work is it?”
Rising reluctantly from his chair, he waved his muscular arms and wandlessly restored the room to its rightful state, scourgifying them both, returning their clothes to their arms and springing the wards and locks on the door to his room.
“Let’s drink tea and try to restore some civility to this conversation.”
Hermione was always up for tea. And sex with him as it turned out. But tea was good for now.
They dressed slowly and made their way to his rooms.
Hermione had only been in his quarters once before and that was under the influence of the projection potion. Now she saw that it was decorated in a style that was both masculine and tasteful. She suspected that he had chosen everything, as it fit with the way that he styled himself. Although, thankfully, there was a lot more colour. And books—she almost had an orgasm on the spot ogling the sea of spines that graced the walls of his lounge area.
“Later,” he placed a firm hand on her shoulder, helping her to sink into one of the comfortable armchairs by the fire.
Moments later, he had conjured a tray with tea and biscuits and placed them on a small table between them.
“I’ll pour the tea and you tell me what happened.”
Hermione was relieved that he was taking control. All the time in the infirmary she had been the one making decisions, caring for him and needing to be strong. She was more than happy to hand over the reins.
“I’m almost positive that I’ve been infected with the Galvanismus,” she said, watching him pour.
He’d suspected it was what she was going to say, but the revelation still rendered him darkly sombre. He didn’t respond until he’d handed her a cup and settled back with his own, a concerned frown furrowing his brow.
“How do you know?”
Hermione explained about the incident with Harry and included all the thoughts that had crossed her mind about the possible healing properties of the curse.
He sipped thoughtfully but didn’t speak until she'd finished.
“And so you think the Galvanismus has changed?” he said, his eyes searching hers.
“Yes and no.” She reached for a biscuit now that she had managed to divest herself of most of what she had wanted to tell him. “It still creates electrical activity within cells, but they are more superficial than normal—in the skin. And it has always been able to project but only at the time of death. Now it seems to project when I want it to. Except I didn't know that till now.”
He cradled his cup in his large hands, running an elegant fingertip down the handle as she spoke.
“And there might be another property,” she said, taking a tiny bite of her biscuit. “Have you looked at yourself lately?”
“I see almost all of myself all the time,” he said. “It’s what comes from having forward facing eyes.”
Hermione rolled hers. “In the mirror?”
“I’ve been shackled to a bed for ten days as you may recall, so I haven’t had much of an opportunity to preen,” he sniffed.
“Severus!” Hermione leapt up in annoyance and snatched his cup out of his hand, pulling him to his feet.
“Where’s the bathroom?” She started pulling him toward a closed door.
He could tell that there was no point in trying to stop her. “Straight ahead,” he said in a bored voice.
She opened the door into a large bedroom with equally stylish furniture including a long and comfortable looking bed—most likely custom made for his tall frame. Her mind instantly started imagining potential scenarios but she shook the thoughts away, determined not to be distracted. Giving his arm another tug, she continued on toward a second closed door. It opened into a generous bathroom with a shower and bath, far nicer than the one she had as head girl.
Again, she forced herself to focus. But Gods that bath looked deep. They could do all sorts of . . .
“See!” She turned Severus to face the mirror above the basin.
“Yes. That’s me,” he nodded patronisingly.
Hermione huffed, he was having a boy look, not a girl look.
“Get closer. Look properly,” she instructed, giving him a shove from behind.
He peered at himself, looking pained at having to make the effort. Then his expression changed. She knew that even he could see it. He looked far younger than he had before he had entered the infirmary. In fact, the latest bout of shagging seemed to have done him wonders. He tried to maintain his demeanour of concern but she could tell he was privately pleased, the corner of his mouth twitching upward before he could catch it.
“And so your radiant beauty is also courtesy of the curse?” He raised an inquiring eyebrow at her in the mirror.
“Yes, without it, I’m an ugly old crone,” she replied, hands on her hips.
“You’re not that old,” he replied, moving his head from side to side to admire his fresh features.
Hermione chewed her lip to stop herself from smiling.
Then he suddenly frowned. “So how long is this reverse-ageing going to continue? Am I going to wake up one day with some abominable baby-face?”
Hermione couldn’t stop herself laughing at that.
“I don’t think so. I imagine the curse just keeps the superficial cells young and healthy. Although a baby Snape might be quite cute.”
“Can you imagine yourself fucking baby Snape?”
She snorted. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“Suddenly it’s not quite so cute is it?” he smirked, turning around to face her.
He ran his fingertips down the side of her face. “So the question is. Do we need to get rid of this curse or not?”
“Not,” she said immediately.
“So one of us has the curse and is chained to a bed for weeks and poisoned almost to death. While the other is allowed to swan around looking ravishingly beautiful and healing whomever she feels is worthy?”
“Something like that,” she nuzzled into his palm. “And I make you look pretty good too.”
“You make my cock look pretty good,” he purred into her neck.
“Your cock does a pretty good job of that itself,” she breathed. “Maybe I should take a closer look.”
He pressed his palms against the tiles, hissing as he watched her take him deeply into her mouth.
She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And he would take her, cursed or not.
A/N: I’d like to acknowledge FieryPhoenix for the ‘lusty hots’ line that she included in one of her reviews and that I loved.
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The Quickening