Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Welkin in the Wizarding World (COMPLETED)	By : welkin_cooper Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 14600 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters in it. I don't benefit financially from the production or display of this work of fanfiction in any way.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Chapter 4
The Yule Ball

Professor Snape is full of surprises on the eve of the Yule Ball, and Lucius Malfoy takes notice of Snape's new pet.

Author's Note: This is 1994 and I've taken liberties with both the date and location of the Yule Ball, to accomodate developments in future chapters.

Several more days passed. It stopped raining and the weather abruptly changed to a more seasonal cold snap. Welkin spent her time either confined to her room, reading in front of the fireplace from books he provided her, while Snape was teaching class, or being escorted to the Great Hall by him for meals. She managed to meet more of the teachers during these brief forays, and a few of the students.
At night, Snape would visit her room and they would have sex, then sit on her balcony, drink wine, and talk for a while before he always chose to return to his own room. Each night he extended his postcoital visit longer, as he apparently grew more comfortable with it. On the third night, he mentioned that he had arranged for her to attend the annual Yule Ball with him the next evening. It sounded more like a command than an invitation.

Welkin was just finishing her makeup the next evening when Snape arrived to escort her to the Ball. He was dressed in a new suit he’d chosen for the event, the first Hogwarts Yule Ball to which he would actually be escorting someone. Truthfully, it looked rather a lot like all of his other suits to Welkin, just a bit more elegantly fitted, and of a finer material, she could tell. Severus Snape was definitely not a man prone to fads in fashion.

"You look very handsome. How do I look?" she asked, twirling for him in the long, green gown she’d chosen. The gown, with a more modest neckline in front, was scooped daringly low in back. It was so low, in fact, that it revealed the dimples at the small of her back, just above her buttocks. The effect was quite startling when she turned.

Glittering silver shoes and above-the-elbow silver satin gloves completed the ensemble. Her auburn hair was pinned loosely up for the evening, and adorned with judiciously placed dragonfly jewels with black, silver and green stones. Unwittingly, or perhaps not, she had chosen the House of Slytherin colors, Snape noticed.

"Well?"
"You look quite...exquisite," Snape offered, not quite rendered speechless, but close to it.

"From you, often unkind sir, that’s high praise indeed. Ready to go?"

"I have something for you," Snape demurred, drawing a small black lacquered box from the recesses of his pocket.

"A gift for me? That’s so unexpected." She accepted the box from him with genuine surprise. "I didn’t really know if you celebrated Christmas, but I have something for you too. I’ll give it to you after the Ball."
"I know," Snape said with a smirk.

"That’s not what I mean and you know it. I have a real Christmas gift for you later. Charity Burbage helped me get it after I mentioned that I wanted to get you something. In appreciation of all the hot Wizard sex, of course," Welkin added quickly, not wanting it to seem like she had gone off the deep end about him, or anything so unseemly. They were just having great sex together, and she had grown rather fond of him, despite her initial irritation. She didn't want to pretend to either one of them that it was anything more than that.

"Open it," Snape indicated the box she was still holding. As she opened the lid, she smiled in spite of herself.

"Perhaps you’ll consider wearing it tonight," Snape requested, somehow making a mild suggestion sound like a requirement.

"It’s beautiful." She lifted the bracelet to the light to admire it. The sinuously winding snake, meant to entwine the wrist on the cuff style bangle, was set copiously with what appeared to be golden citrines and black diamonds, with glittering black diamonds for the eyes. The citrines were a concession on Snape’s part to his observation of Welkin’s predilection for wearing citrine jewelry. He would have preferred emeralds.

"Would you do the honors?" She handed him the bracelet and extended her right wrist.

"I think the left wrist would be more appropriate," Snape said, slipping the bracelet on over her gloved left wrist.

"It’s really gorgeous," she said, fingering the stones with her right hand. Despite her broad smile, she made no move to kiss him. "Thank you,” she said simply. “I think I’m going to wear it every day. It’ll be my new signature piece."

That would be advisable, Snape thought to himself. He would have something more to discuss with her about the bracelet after the Ball. For now, it was merely his intention that it be on display on her wrist this evening.

"Now let’s go make everyone else jealous of how good we look," Welkin said.

Snape obligingly offered the crook of his arm and she enfolded hers in it as they headed out the door.

Student eyes were widening and mouths were dropping open at the sight of Snape and Welkin arm-in-arm entering the Great Hall, now transformed into a glittering ballroom. Mouths dropped even more at the retreating view of the back of, or rather the lack of the back of, Welkin’s dress.

Welkin was waving to the people she had met, as Snape gave more restrained nods of recognition to others. Did he seem to be standing a little taller to them, with Welkin on his arm? Or was that an optical illusion, brought on by the somewhat astonishing sight of Snape with anyone at all on his arm?
Quite a few of the adults in the room, both faculty and visiting parents, looked equally as astonished as the students. It was exactly the effect that Welkin had hoped to create. From what she had surmised from their nightly conversations, she suspected that Snape, in his years at Hogwarts as student and professor, had rarely, if ever, been able to walk into a party and do more than hover on the periphery; a benignly ignored or merely tolerated spectator, but always tacitly excluded from the activities.
That's why she wanted this small spectacle to play out for him. She wanted him to feel the palpable envy which was being directed towards him that she was sensing from the looks in the eyes of some of the other men in the room, and she was willing to sacrifice a little of her dignity, and half her dress, to provide that feeling for him tonight.

"Good evening, Miss Granger...Mr. Weasley...Mr. Potter." Snape drew out the last name with seeming reluctance and distaste.

"Hi, guys," Welkin greeted more warmly, as they paused at her insistence. "I love your dress, Hermione. The color is very becoming. Isn’t it, Ron?" Welkin teased, making the young man blush almost as bright a shade as his red hair.

"Thank you, Miss Cooper." Hermione also blushed a little. She was glad someone had noticed, and complimented her extra effort on her appearance tonight, even if it was only Miss Cooper.

"You can call me Welkin. Better stick to Professor Snape for this one though or it’s..." She drew a finger across her throat and made an exaggerated slashing motion, with an appropriately dramatic sound effect, as Snape quickly led her away from them.

"I can’t believe it," Ron said, after they were out of earshot. "Maybe she is snogging ole Snape."

"How could she get away with acting like that with him otherwise?" Harry agreed.

"Well, she is being kept a prisoner in the North Tower, I've heard. Maybe he has her under an enchantment. Maybe she's forced to. I can't imagine her snogging him otherwise!" Ron asserted firmly.
"Oh shut up! The both of you! Maybe she just fancies him! Did you ever think of that? And what would either of you two know about kissing anyone anyway?" Hermione stormed off in a huff, leaving the two young men looking at each other in puzzlement.

As the evening progressed, Welkin noticed the curious phenomenon of a number of people reacting strangely at the first glimpse of her new bracelet. It wasn’t until she became involved in a conversation with Minerva McGonagall at the makeshift bar that she found out why.

"That’s a lovely bracelet," Minerva said. "From Severus, I presume?"

"Yes, it’s a Christmas gift," Welkin replied, innocently sipping from her second glass of champagne.

"And did Severus tell you what it meant when he gave it to you?" Minerva asked, obviously privy to something that Welkin was not.

"Just that it was a gift and he wanted me to wear it tonight. Is there something else?"

"Perhaps it’s not my place to say."

"Don’t clam up on me now. You started this. You obviously know something about my bracelet, and I’d like to know what."

"Well, Miss Cooper, a bracelet such as this has a very particular ancient Slytherin tradition attached to it," Minerva began.

"Slytherin tradition? What tradition?" Welkin nonchalantly took another sip of champagne.

"When a Slytherin male presents a female with a bracelet such as this, worn on the left wrist, it serves as a mark of his intentions, and particularly a sign to other males that you are not available. It’s a public notice that he has taken you as his lady. Surely he told you this?" Minerva insisted.

Welkin was momentarily speechless, until irritation loosened her tongue.

"No, he didn’t tell me anything like that." Welkin downed the rest of her champagne in one agitated gulp, motioning to the bartender frantically for a refill.

"Taken me?" She bristled at the possessive connotation of the phrase. "You mean that everyone thinks we’re engaged or something? Is that why they’ve been whispering and practically patting him on the back all evening?"

"They don’t think, they know that the second you accepted that bracelet, it bound you to him, at least from his perspective. It’s more of a form of bonding than an engagement. In their eyes you’ve accepted his claim on you by wearing it, and any other man who might think of encroaching on that claim does so at his own peril."

"But I didn’t accept! I wasn’t given a chance to," Welkin protested.

"Forgive me for asking so personal a question, Miss Cooper, but are you saying you have not been intimate with Severus?"

"Well...yes I have...rather repeatedly in the past several days. What does that have to do with anything?"

"That is the reason why, in his eyes, as well as everyone else’s, I’m afraid, you have accepted his claim."

"Holy shit!" Welkin downed her third glass of champagne. What kind of an idiotic moral code was this? Without her knowledge, she’d been branded. Only instead of a ‘Scarlet Letter’ affixed to the front of her dress, with a citrine snake wrapped around her wrist.

Albus Dumbledore ambled up to the bar to get a drink and, seeing Welkin’s agitated face, asked what was wrong.

"Severus didn’t tell her about the bracelet when he presented it to her," Minerva told him.

"Oh dear, is that true, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, as the man of the evening strolled up.

"Is what true?"

"That you didn’t tell this poor girl about the bracelet?"

"No, he certainly didn’t." Welkin glared at Snape. "Everybody’s apparently gossiping about it, and I’ve been sitting here like a moron all evening, totally clueless. When exactly were you planning to let me in on this?"
"Tonight," Snape drawled, showing scant concern with her obvious agitation.

"Then why couldn’t you have waited to give it to me tonight? If you think you own me just because we had sex, I’ve got a news flash for you, nobody owns me,” Welkin informed him angrily.

Snape stood looking at her much too calmly as she went off on a tirade.

“For your information, Professor Snape, I’ll talk to whomever I want to tonight. I’ll drink with whomever I want to. I’ll dance with whomever I want to…oh right, wait…you fixed that, didn’t you?"

Welkin shook the bracelet in his face. "All the men here have seen this already and they probably won’t ask me to dance. I can’t imagine why. Oh, let’s see, could it possibly be because they’re afraid you might…kill them?" she asked him sarcastically. "Don’t dance with Welkin, she’s a friggin’ death trap!" she fussed.
As if on cue, the band struck up a fast tango.

"I think I can remedy that, if you wish to dance." Snape took her hand and started leading her to the dance floor.

"You’re kidding...to this?" Welkin sounded incredulous.

Snape didn’t seem the tango type to her, and particularly not the type who would be inclined to dance such a dramatically exhibitionist dance in public. Everyone else who knew the solitary and taciturn Potions Master apparently thought so too. Every head seemed to turn in unison to stare as she and Snape reached the center of the floor and started to dance, beginning as Snape twirled her out to arm’s length and jerked her back forcefully against the length of his body.

Albus Dumbledore smiled to himself as he watched. Apparently Severus was wasting no time in sealing the deal on this one.

Executing the passionate steps perfectly, Snape leaned her upper body back while keeping his hips pressed to hers. He guided her into a sensual and sinewy snakelike figure eight, one of the signature moves that have caused the dance to be described as ‘like having sex on a hardwood floor’ or ‘the vertical expression of a horizontal desire’.

Welkin lifted one leg, the side slit in her gown parting, and placed it against the side of his hip, letting it slide sensually down the length of his thigh. Severus did another perfect sweep with one foot, Welkin’s arm pinioned behind his back, and then whipped her back and forth, changing direction in quick succession. The expanse of skin revealed by Welkin’s low-cut gown emphasized each erotic movement.

"Where did you ever learn to dance like this?" she whispered a little breathlessly in his ear. Her back was now pressed against his torso as he slid his hands up her body. Welkin leaned against him and he drew her left arm up over her head, caressing it and placing it behind his neck.

"Just because I rarely get the opportunity to use them, does not mean I am without skills, Welkin," Snape whispered back to her. "I would think that I have made you well aware of that in the past several evenings I have been with you in your room."

"I think he’s been doing more than snogging her," Ron Weasley whispered to Harry, trying not to let Hermione, who had rejoined them and was now mesmerized by the dance, hear him.

Thanks to Draco and other house members of Slytherin, most of the older Hogwarts students now knew the significance of the bracelet Welkin was wearing, and were clearly fascinated by this side of Professor Snape they had never suspected existed, particularly some of the female students who might have already tended towards having a slight crush on the mysterious, inaccessible Potions Master.

When the dance ended, to much applause, someone shouted "Mistletoe!" Standing directly in the center of the dance floor, where they had started, Welkin was the first to look up and spy the traditional holiday plant overhead. By this time the chant of "Mistletoe" had been replaced with the demand "Kiss her...Kiss her...Kiss her...Kiss her..."

"Shall we?" Snape asked. He was just full of surprises this evening, Welkin thought, her anger at him now somewhat abated by the romantic gesture of the dance, and now this proffered public kiss.

"I’m still angry with you. I should just walk away, you know, and leave you standing here like a fool."

"But you won’t," Snape replied, much too sure of himself to suit her.

In this instance, he was right. Snape jerked her back into his arms as if they were still dancing, and gave her a long, deep kiss that drew more applause and some sophomoric hooting from some of the less mature members of the student body. Snape made a mental note on which ones had hooted, as reference for their next school term in his class, when he would amply exact his punishment for such insolence.

"You know," Welkin told him, as they walked arm-in-arm back to the group at the bar, "the way some of these girls are looking at you right now, Professor Snape, maybe I should be slapping a bracelet on you too, before they start acting on their fantasies. I’d hate to have to kick their nubile little asses during this festive holiday season."

Interesting bit of Muggle fluff Severus had acquired for himself, Lucius Malfoy thought, leering at Welkin from the other end of the bar. He supposed that Snape wouldn’t be willing to loan her to him for a fortnight. He pictured the things he could do to her in a fortnight, and smiled to himself. They were things she would never be able to forget. But no, Severus wasn’t the sharing type. The bracelet protecting her, offered so quickly after bedding her, was proof of that. Snape choosing a Muggle, he thought with distaste. Who would have dreamed it?

Welkin was questioning Dumbledore concerning progress on their ‘mutual problem’ but there seemed to be surprisingly little of it, as far as she could tell.

"Interestingly enough, we’ve discovered through our sources at the Ministry of Magic that an ancestor of yours was hanged as a witch in the American colonies in the 1600's. Were you aware of this?"
"No," Welkin said. "It doesn’t necessarily mean she was a real witch," she added rather pragmatically. "Just means she was hanged for one. Some people were, you know."

"But if she were a real witch, perhaps this would explain why you were able to resist the Obliviate Charm. Think back...since you were a child, have you exhibited any unusual abilities before this?" Dumbledore asked.

"No...not that I recall," Welkin hedged on the truth a little. "Nothing that wouldn’t have been a coincidence, I think."

Dumbledore looked at her thoughtfully. "You are very good at explaining away the magic in life, Welkin. That isn’t necessarily a good thing," he advised her.

"At any rate," he continued, "It appears that your visit with us might be extended beyond the holidays, while we pursue more information. The difficulty will be to explain your absence from the Muggle world."

"Well, actually, probably not," Welkin said. "I was between jobs when this happened, because I’d just moved to a new city. And I was on a holiday to Scotland. I actually don’t think I’ll be missed immediately as long as my rent is paid on time. I’ll need access to my bank account for that."

"Excellent. It shall be arranged. I see no need to keep you as restricted as you have been," Dumbledore added. "You shall have leave to explore the school and grounds as you wish, with a few exceptions. I assume you are still satisfied with your room arrangement?" Dumbledore looked pointedly at the bracelet on her wrist.

"Very satisfied, thank you."

"Excellent. Then one more thing before I bid you good night, my dear." He held her hand between his and looked into her green eyes. "As unorthodox as it might be, you have your own brand of magic, Welkin Cooper, and I think Severus is a very fortunate man." He kissed her hand and strolled away.

When Dumbledore left, Welkin was quickly collared by Arthur Weasley for nearly an hour, answering his questions about the Muggle world, as Snape stood by, mostly silently, nursing a glass of scotch.

After Arthur’s wife Molly finally pulled him away, Welkin noticed that the crowd was considerably thinner. Apparently parties in the Wizarding World didn’t last until the wee hours of the morning like they did back home.

"I’m going back to my room for something," she told Severus, who seemed distracted. "Will you meet me down here by the tallest Christmas tree?" She hurried away without waiting to hear his reply.

Snape sat on the couch that had been placed closest to the Christmas tree, thinking morose, black thoughts. It hadn’t occurred to him that Welkin could still be planning to return to the Muggle world.

You fool. Of course she will leave you. Lily left you, and she will too. What woman would want to be bonded to the likes of you? He could almost hear his father’s disgusted voice in his head, the painful ghost of so many Christmases past.

"You don’t exactly look like you’re filled with Christmas cheer," Welkin observed, as she joined him. She had changed out of her party dress, and into the long silver-grey robe she wore when she arrived here, her shoulder-length hair now loose and unadorned.

"Is anything wrong?"

She sat beside him on the couch and laid aside the festively wrapped package she was carrying. Very few people lingered in the Great Hall and it felt very intimate in the shadows, with just the twinkling lights from the tree.

"Nothing." He wouldn’t look at her.

Welkin placed her two hands against his cheeks and he allowed her to turn his head so that his dark eyes faced hers.

"I know that there is," she said quite gently. "Tell me."

"You are not wearing the bracelet," he noticed.

"Is that all? I took it off because it’s almost time for bed. I didn’t think I had to wear it 24/7. I can’t wear it in the bath, or when we’re having sex, although that would be rather decadent, wouldn't it?"

She laughed softly at the thought and released him. "Something else bothering you?"

"What happens to us when you leave?" he asked bluntly.

"I wasn’t aware that my trunk was packed and I was on my way out the door."

And I wasn’t aware there was an ‘us’, Welkin thought to herself, surprised by him for the fourth time this evening.

"But you obviously want to leave," Snape asserted bitterly, remembering how avidly Welkin had questioned Dumbledore about her options.

Why was he doing this when he knew very well that she would have to leave his world at some point? It wasn't a question of whether she wanted to or not. It wasn't up to her, was it? She didn't belong here. It was as simple as that.

"Don’t put words in my mouth, Severus. I never said that. If you don’t know that isn’t true, there isn’t a thing I can say that will convince you otherwise."

"You want to stay then?" he pressed.

"What I want is for you to not try to force the issue. Please, for both our sakes. I don’t respond very well to being pressured,” she admitted. “Right now, I just want to be with you, and not worry about what's in the future. Please don’t make an issue of it tonight. It’s a lovely evening, and it’s not over yet. It could be even more lovely if you'll just let it be."

Welkin gently pushed back a straying lock of dark hair from his face. "I am very fond of you, you know, you pompous asshole," she added affectionately. "Now open your gift like a good boy, or I might have to spank you," she teased to lighten the mood. "And we both know how much I’d really enjoy that."
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Welkin in the Wizarding World (COMPLETED)