A Looping of the Scales ~ COMPLETED

Chapter 68 ~ Unplugging the Hole

Snape paused, his fingers stopping, a button and the parted fabric between his fingers as he looked at Hermione, how heated her eyes were. He smiled at her.

“You couldn’t really believe I was unaffected, Hermione,” he said to her, “that your words had no affect on me.”

”I—I didn’t know what to believe, Severus,” she replied softly, her body reacting to his closeness. Snape began unbuttoning her robes.

”I could have crowed,” he said. “I could have changed into a Gryffin and took a few turns around the infirmary when you told me you loved me, but—such a display would have been undignified. Besides, I wanted to see you sweat a little.”

”Sweat? What do you mean, sweat?” she asked, catching both his hands and scowling at him.

”You did abandon me for almost an entire week,” he said softly.

”Four days. I needed to work,” she said.

”You needed to hide,” Snape corrected. “You ran away. Some Gryffindor. Godric would have tossed in his grave at your cowardice.”

”Don’t call me a coward,” Hermione hissed at him furiously.

Snape arched an eyebrow at her words.

“I said you showed cowardice, not that you were a coward. There’s a difference,” he told her. Suddenly, Hermione pushed away from him, sliding past him back into the center of his quarters, Snape turning after her with a billow.

“I wasn’t showing cowardice. I just—just wasn’t ready,” she declared, clasping her hands together as she looked at her lover.

“And what made you ready?” Snape asked, slowly walking toward her. “What happened to make you realize that you loved me?”

”Nothing. Nothing really. I already knew it, even before you said what you did in the infirmary. I just—just didn’t want it to get in the way. To complicate things. You know what I’m trying to accomplish. Love—love takes up time, Severus. It might be beautiful, but for now, it’s a liability. I don’t want to be in love,” Hermione said tremulously, waiting for a bad reaction to this truth.

Snape didn’t have a bad reaction. In fact, he laughed, which made Hermione quite angry.

”Don’t laugh at me!” she hissed, tempted to pull out her wand on him.

“I’m laughing because you can control almost everything around you, Hermione, except your own heart. You know it functions independently of conscious thought. I laughed because it must be odd and unfamiliar to have to give up and give in. You must think being in love with me is the most terrible thing in the world right now. And that appeals to me on a number of levels.”

”You are so—so perverse! How can you be enjoying my—my discomfort?” Hermione cried. “I can’t believe you! I’m not—not staying here! I’m going!”

Hermione stalked over to the desk and began stuffing parchments and books into her knapsack haphazardly, a sure sign she was upset. Snape watched her for a moment then walked over to her, catching hold of the knapsack.

”It appeals to me because I know you honestly feel love for me, Hermione. It’s not something you’ve considered and come to an informed decision about. You haven’t ‘decided’ to love me. You don’t even want to love me—but you do. Every little part of you is for me. How could I not take pleasure in that knowledge, in knowing that you feel for me exactly what I feel for you? Don’t leave me because I’m being honest with you, Hermione. You must get used to it. I’m always going to be this way. Please—stay.”

Hermione looked down at his pale hands clasping her knapsack.

”You just—annoy me so much,” she said softly.

Snape gently took the knapsack out of her hands and set it back on the desk. He moved a bit closer.

”Hermione, everyone annoys you to some extent, because they’re always encroaching on your space either physically or emotionally. You know who—your friends, your imagined competition—“

”Imagined? Severus—you know full well there are students at this school who could—“

Snape pressed his finger to her lips gently, quieting her.

”Who couldn’t hold a torch to you, Hermione,” he finished for her. “All of this work to the exclusion of all else is—unnecessary. It’s a way to hide, to avoid entanglements, to push people away. At first I thought, I thought you felt inadequate, that somehow you felt you had to be better than everyone else because you are Muggle-born and feel the need to prove yourself.”

Hermione blinked at him, her eyes becoming wet.

”It’s not that,” he said softly. “I know what it is now, Hermione. I know what drives you, what’s kept you keeping everyone at arm’s length—“

”What?” she whispered as he drew her into his arms.

”You told me I wasn’t the only one,” he said, “that I wasn’t the only one to lose someone I cared about, and that I had to deal with it. And I wasn’t. Everyone lost people they cared about—including you.”

“Yes, I did,” Hermione said, feeling the loss and pain she’d been fighting down beginning to rise again. “But I wasn’t the only one either—Ron lost his brother, Harry lost his godfather—so many others lost family members--it was horrible.“

”Hermione, you lost people you loved, too, and it was just as painful. You’ve been filling in the holes,” Snape said softly. “You’ve been using your studies to fill up every moment of every day since the end of the war, so you didn’t have to feel those holes. It doesn’t matter if those people who died were relatives, Hermione. Your grief isn’t less than anyone else’s. That sting is there and you can’t block it out. You can’t block them out. You can’t pad the rest of your life.”

Tears began to flow down Hermione’s cheeks as Snape told her what had been inside her heart for all these months since the death of Cedric Diggory, Albus Dumbledore and so many others until the culmination of Voldemort’s death. All the pain she tried to shut out. All the people she never let go of, but left unburied inside her.

“I know about holes, Hermione. My entire life is one great hole. Nearly everyone I knew is gone, whether I loved or hated them. There was a void inside me, and I’m realizing that opening up and letting people in is the only way I can continue on and be happy. Harry has helped, even Ron a little and then, there’s you. It takes people, Hermione, not lessons and marks to heal and to grow. You have to care for the people in your life, take them in and let them fill that void. And let them know they fill that void. I have a feeling that the first time around, I didn’t realize that, but I do now.”

Hermione blinked up at him for a moment, then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely as she sobbed.

”But, you let me in, Hermione,” he said against her ear as he embraced her. “You’ve discovered your heart again. It’s all right to feel. In fact, it’s wonderful to feel.”

Hermione and Snape embraced in silence for about five minutes, before Hermione pulled away from him, her face red and eyes wet.

”Severus,” she said softly.

”Yes?”

”You were a lot less talkative when you were an adult.”

”What? Are you calling me a chatterbox?”

”Not exactly. You just didn’t talk so much when you were going to do something. You kept it to yourself and just did it.”

”I wasn’t in love then.”

”Oh.”

Severus loosened his hold on her.

”Besides, you can be rather thick, Hermione. Sometimes it’s necessary to take time to explain things to you, rather than wait for you to catch on. Although you call the thickness ‘preoccupation.’ Same animal, really.”

“Thick?” she said pulling back. Snape smiled at her.

”We do very interesting foreplay, Hermione,” he said. “Bouts of arguments, punctuated by kisses and embraces, then topped off with a rousing round of rather vengeful, selfish sex.”

”What? We don’t do that?” she said to him, frowning, but his last comment slipping away.

”We do now,” he said, tossing her over his shoulder and running for his bedroom, Hermione beating him on the back while she laughed.

Snape fell into the bed with her and they wrestled a bit, Snape finally letting Hermione pin him to the bed, her hands holding his down by the wrists as they both panted.

”I do love you, Hermione Granger,” he said quietly as soon as he caught his breath.

Hermione gave him a soft smile.

”And I love you just as much, Severus Snape,” she replied, freeing his wrists and lowering her lips to his.

Snape was wrong about their foreplay, and the sex that followed. This round wasn’t as nearly as creative and torturous as their last encounter and there was nothing vengeful or selfish about it. In fact, it was quite the opposite, the couple face to face most of the time, the only position changes being who was on top at any given time. There was a lot of deep kissing, caresses and tender words, mostly on the part of Snape, who dominated the act, Hermione content to receive his passion, and tenderness, to in fact, let him in.

She did have her moments too, however, riding him to near-ecstasy before the wizard flipped her back over desperately, not wanting their encounter to end too soon.

”Say you love me,” he breathed down at Hermione, his body undulating as he drove into her over and over, his movements sensual, his hips twisting slightly as he claimed and caressed her body, her arms entwined around his neck.

”I love you,” Hermione breathed back at him, then arched as he filled her as deeply as he could, trying to get as close, as deep, as all encompassing as was humanly possible.

”I love you, too,” he hissed, covering her mouth with his own and never letting up on his possession. Severus Snape lasted a long, long time that night, and made sure that Hermione Granger knew that her love was treasured and returned seven-fold. When they both collapsed, their entire bodies feeling as flaccid as Snape’s ample tool, they lay against each other, sated and sleepy, their bodies slick with perspiration and release.

Hermione kissed Snape softly, and the wizard opened his eyes, his wet hair plastered against his skull. Hermione’s hair was a riot of wild ringlets.

”That was—intense,” she said to him softly.

Snape smirked at her.

”And lengthy,” he added a bit proudly. “In more ways than one. It feels like I get bigger every time we do it.”

“I’m sure it’s all in your head,” Hermione said, then paused and they both burst out laughing.

”I didn’t mean it that way,” she said as Snape hugged her to him and kissed her forehead.

”I never believed I’d ever be this happy with anyone,” he said to her softly.

”I certainly never dreamed I’d be this happy with you,” Hermione replied, her warm breath tickling his ear. “This is going to sound incredibly selfish, Severus, but—I’m glad you had that accident.”

This statement was met with silence for several moments, then Snape said, “So am I.”

This was followed by another long silence, then Hermione turned in his arms, looking toward the clock. It read twenty to one. Snape sighed mentally.

Curfew.

Hermione turned back in his arms and snuggled in comfortably, falling still. Snape didn’t know what to make of this.

”It’s almost curfew,” he said to her softly.

Without opening her eyes, Hermione replied, “Bother curfew.”

She snuggled in closer and after a minute or two, began to breathe rhythmically. She was asleep. Snape lay there, looking at her and smiling.

”Yes, bother curfew,” he said softly, closing his own eyes and following her into dreamland.

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A/N: Finally! Another chapter. I am sooo sorry for the long hiatus, but real life got in the way. Not too smooth a sailing lately. I’d like to give a big “big-ups” to Snapealicious, who bought me a pack of smokes. I’ve been out for days, completely broke since I’ve had to divert my funds to helping pay my daughter’s car note. Well, paying it actually. This is the first time I’ve had a zero balance in all of my accounts. Usually, there’d be at least a dollar in each. Lol. But we have to do what we have to do. I’d like to let my readers know that I’m posting my original novel “At Shimmer’s End” on the Burning Pen website and making it available for a donation of choice. I’m using the money to help keep Chi’s car from being repo’d. It’s the only family car we have and we live in the boondocks. It costs $20 to take a cab to the store one-way, so you know we have to keep that car. It’s a work in progress but is over 86,000 words and will be completed in a few chapters. Visit the burningpen . com if you’re interested and would like to be supportive. And Happy Birthday, Paula. I did it! And thanks for reading, everybody.