Illicit Nights

For bodies to clash and sweat to mingle, it takes less than a second. Mouths engage in a wet dance, fingers trace fervently over skin, body parts nestle and snuggle with the ease of every cell’s craving and the yearning of years spent apart. 

Bodies clashing is never the problem. 

Granger had married Weasley, in accordance with all of her must’s and should’s; Severus opened his apothecary and hid from the world, after throwing his First Order of Merlin on the dirty river running by Cokeworth’s industrial neighbourhood; right under the nose of his father’s spirit that medal lay, a reminder of Severus’ worth as eternal as his father’s ghost. Severus couldn’t help showing off to the bastard how high his son rose despite Tobias’ best efforts to keep his self-esteem in the mud. Severus showed off, even though to him this medal was a cold piece of half-hearted appreciation, merited only by the Saviour’s pestering insistence to acquit a hated man, rather than subject him to the Kiss.

Severus hated them all.

He hated Granger too, probably most of all. She came back to the Shrieking Sack, to that wrecked cottage that could have been the scene of his werewolf-inflicted death, back when a Potter saved him for the first time. Granger ran back during the glorious commotion of the Battle’s victory; she remembered him, and returned. And she did all that, while her heart was as indifferent to him, as were all the people he had hurt or betrayed.

Snape hated her most of all, for daring to return him to the land of the living; to him, it was filled with more ghosts than those waiting blissfully for him beyond the veil.

The nightclub is as full of lechers and strippers, as a muggle burlesque club is supposed to be. Severus basks in the simplicity of a life lived low and close to dirt; he drinks the muggle scotch that’s impure and as far from Minerva’s single malt, as a dignified teaching life in Hogwarts is from the miserly life he’s leading now. Not all nights are bad; fewer and fewer, in fact, yet Severus seems unable to retain a sense of control, to keep himself up on an ugly night, and remember all the peaceful nights that came before it, or envision all the peaceful nights that will come after.

He’s so far gone, he thinks he’s hallucinating her bushy hair, when it appears within the field of vision of his right eye. He hardly hears her self-righteous talk about choosing more fitting spots to hang around and how difficult it was to trace him here; he pays more attention to her sunken cheeks, the spark that’s missing from her honey-coloured eyes.

“Knocked. up. yet…?” He drawls over the hubbub of the cheap sound system of the muggle club, that’s spreading more static noise than the meagre melody of the songs.

Granger throws him a burning look, that would have burned far more had it been fuelled by her once fiery self; married life with Weasley has deprived her of all spark and yet she remains fuming, like a fireplace spreading more smoke than heat.

“You are alive, you have a job, you have a purpose, you have the research project with me in the awesome lab I got the ministry to provide for us…” Hermione accounts, currently in her second shot of bastardized scotch (even drunk as piss, Severus knows her buttons too well not to achieve redirecting her ferociousness toward a drink instead of at himself)... “You have all this and still you’re unable to show even a tenth of the responsible attitude you showed when you self-destructed under Dumbledore’s care.”

She takes a moment to huff her indignation, before downing the rest of her shot, cringing with a vomit-like air, but too disgusted to wipe the corner of her mouth with the hand she used to open the joint’s door half an hour ago; Hermione has grown too aware of germs in the age of 25, but that is only to be expected. Our fears grow bigger the more we grow old.

Severus has told her again and again, it is fear that keeps her married to the Weasley brat.

“Ron is a good man, far better than you could ever be.” She mutters menacingly for the umpteenth time, but that’s only because her previous excuse has run dry; it’s months now that she doesn’t even try to remind Severus how much she loves Ronald and is happy to have married him. She is having trouble convincing herself these days, let alone him.

She will be pushing Severus on his Apothecary door, before he even has the time to properly raise the wards. The door will fly open and shut, this time with Hermione’s body pinning it shut, forced there by the force of his kiss, his breathless sucking on the pulse-point of her neck.

The first round will be with her legs spread open on the main counter of the store, with Severus’ nose buried in her folds, teeth grazing on the tender skin with a care too unexpected from a drunk and desperate man. Hermione will scream her release, before he even puts a second finger to caress her inner walls. She will come undone with just the one long digit, moistened by her sleekness and hitting accurately on her sweet spot.

She will come undone, because Hermione craves to be released.

“Of course Weasley is a good man, Granger!” Grimaces Snape, seeming completely oblivious to the sight of milk-white tits jingling heavily inside their poor excuse of a bra. The stripper performs unparalleled tricks of air-borne nudity on the pole, and yet the only thing that diverts Severus’ attention from his drink is the occasional glance at Hermione’s face.

“You could never fall for a bad man, or a cruel man or a disloyal man.” He continues in his alcohol-muddled tone. “You are far too fearful you might be taken for a fool, you’ll always prefer to be surrounded by simple, boring men instead.” 

His moves are slow as he calls the bartender for a refill; Severus is always graceful, even in such a state.

“Well, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.” Hermione reminds him, half-minded to take his glass away. She’s hesitant, because the last time she did that, Severus apparated away and didn’t step foot in their lab or his Apothecary for two weeks.

(Hermione had been worried sick that time. Worried for him, as much as she worried about herself, for fretting more about a spiteful man than she did for her own husband.)

He’s leveling her an unimpressed stare, as if he knows exactly what’s happening inside her mind and heart; but he cannot! How can he know, when he’s too caught up in his own shit? Not even Ron is able to read her like this, and he’s been living with her since the age of 11; Ron can’t, even though his demons can hardly match Severus’; even though Ron has been living a pampered life since he was born. She downs the third shot in a single gulp, and she starts not to care how she will cover up this night’s tardiness to her dear husband Ron.

“Very well then.” Shouts Snape with a flippant gesture of intoxicated carelessness. He turns on his stool until he’s facing her, and Hermione’s hands automatically stretch out in preparation to catch him should he slip and fall. “Let’s talk about me, shall we?” 

He talks some more but another song pours out of the sound system, louder than before, drawing out his words so that Hermione has to lean closer to his booze-smelling face. The smell is strong and just a teensy putrid, and yet Hermione’s eyes linger across his mouth, the thin lips that always stay a little bit pinched, enough so that in his 42 years of life, frowning lines have taken over the laxing skin. Hermione navigates around his mouth, and brings her ear closer to it instead.

(That heavy smell is an omen of a life gone wrong, of a heart burdened by too many years, of complications she can do without; and yet she’s drawn into it with the promise of peace, of release, of some hours spent away from worry and fear.)

“I said…” His drawl vibrates into her neck, his hand finding purchase on Hermione’s thigh, as if informing her like this how drunk and inhibition-less he truly is. “I don’t have a master anymore, Granger.”

She draws back just enough to see the mockery of a smile stretching liberally across his face.

“I know, Severus.” His name flows out of her with ease that hasn’t come from practice, for she avoids to use it out of antagonism to keep up the last-name basis he so effortlessly maintains. 

He nods once, bending his head and bringing it back up, and it’s strangely reminiscent of the days he spent teaching; Hermione is still shocked how the time he spent as a bellboy to two narcissistic masters can really be Severus’ most dignified years. “Eager to fill this role, are we, Granger? Eager to be my master? Is that why you keep bossing me around ?”

The pressure on her thigh intensifies, as Severus’ lean-fingered hand slides closer to her hip, in his effort to turn toward the bartender and get another refill. Hermione shoots in time to catch his hand before it waves the bottle over, catching it in her fingers and pulling it back down.

“Severus.” She calls, and employs the last measure to win his attention; she cups his left cheek with one hand, and holds him tenderly fixated on her.

Severus stays; he always stays when she touches his face and he is drunk. He never asks for something, anything at all. He always stays right at the line Hermione draws. 

Hermione used to be good with lines, with boxes, with keeping herself in check. Unlike her fears, that particular trait withers with age, instead of growing bigger and more strong.

Severus will be carrying her up the winding stairs of his shop, into the attic flat he keeps above. He will be dropping her down on the bed before diving for her heels and stockings. With frantic fingers, Hermione will be reaching behind to unzip her dress, until Severus slaps her hands away, immediately pinning them over her head, because that zipper is his to open, her dress is his to tear from her body, her body is his present to unravel. Fervently, he will be devouring her mouth, fervently, he will be kicking off his shoes and clothes, until only his undergarments separate his desire from her half-dressed flesh.

Fervently, will Hermione surrender to his ministrations. Fervently, will she accept being manhandled and pinned down, and robbed of breath. Fervently, will she surrender herself to that emptiness of mind, that Imperio-like sensation, that loss of control, just for that night.

Just for everyone of their nights, because Hermione is divided between two people. One who seems to fear his own shadow and another one who has nothing left to fear anymore.

She can’t tell where all this anger came from; the anger boiling beneath the surface, always brimming in her voice, ready to snap.

“I’ve told you, Ron, I am not ready to have a child yet.”

He sat with his arms resting on the kitchen table, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows; he had dark circles beneath his eyes as well, since he’d been trying to mimic Hermione’s dedication to her work, as if that change of attitude might prove him equal to the girl he loved but feared he will never be worthy of.

“Harry and Ginny–”

“Harry and Ginny are Harry and Ginny.”

He gnaws his teeth together but does not reply.

“Ron, please understand.” Hermione insisted, too weary from a long day at work and even longer months of fighting on and off. “Me getting pregnant right now would mean giving up everything .”

“You keep saying that.” Ron uttered quietly. Hermione hated it when he was being quiet; she’s not the Lochness monster, she does not bite. If her partner has anything to say to her, she wants to hear it loud and clear.

With confidence; oh, how many fights had this long word begun. Because Ron did not appreciate being reminded he did not have confidence; Hermione had held back for so long, until one day she couldn’t last any longer and she shouted: “You have no confidence, Ron!” It took him weeks to properly look her in the eye again; months before Ron started touching her or letting her touch him again; months before they managed to do anything in the bedroom other than sleep.

“You keep saying that,” Ron repeated, attempting to up the volume a bit for her sake, “but we have Molly, we have Ginny and your parents are already recovering so they might be able to help in a few months-”

“We don’t know if they will recover, Ron.” She reminded him with patience hanging by a thread. “And if they don’t, I will be stuck with a baby, depending on your mother and sister to help me!”

“What’s so bad about accepting help?!” Ron threw his hands in the air. “When you can’t do something, you ask for help, what’s so bad about that?!”

“I DON’T NEED ANYBODY’S HELP! I AM PERFECTLY ABLE TO RAISE MY OWN CHILD, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.”

“My mother and sister aren’t just anybody– ”

“I DON’T CARE WHO YOUR MOTHER AND SISTER ARE!”

“There’s no NEED… TO SHOUT!”

“HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU, YOUR CHILD IS THE LAST THING I NEED RIGHT NOW!”

“Troubles in paradise?” Snape asked, hardly raising his face from the drops of aconite extract he was counting as they fell into the cauldron.

Granger didn't even deign to answer, only unloaded her handbag and notes onto an empty counter of their lab. That was not a good sign. Severus had learnt to always expect an answer from Mrs Granger-Weasley; he even took extreme measures so he would never need to hear her voice again, back at the time he hadn’t agreed to start this research project with her Majesty.

He had called her the M-word. The forbidden word. The never-to-be-used-again word. The word that had cost Lily’s friendship forever. But in the fit of self-destructive rage, Severus had called Mrs Granger-Weasley, a mudblood , right to her face.

She had turned up a week later at his shop, with eyes red from crying and righteous wrath giving a spring to her walk.

“How dare you.” She had slapped his chest, small fists landing hard because they were powered by the sense of wrongness and injustice. “How dare you calling me that, after everything I’ve done for you.” 

(It had been Ron who had urged her to seek resolution, since she seemed unable to get Snape out of her mind.)

“I never asked you to save me, you foolish witch.” Severus had sneered, holding her small fists at bay; he was more unfazed by her sobs and tears than he was able to admit. “I never asked you for anything, not your presence at St Mungo’s, not your help for the shop, not the medal, not your wretched presence in my wretched life.”

“But I did those things anyway!” Hermione had shouted, sobbing and kicking. “I did those things because you are my ally, and because I want us to be friends, and you did what?! You were mean at every turn, spiteful at every turn, you did your best to push me away, because you, Severus Snape, are unable to have friends! You are unable to love, unable to trust, unable to open up.”

Saliva and tears were mingling on her face, as Hermione pushed and pulled over the steely grip he had on her clenched fists. Severus had expected silence. He had prepared for the endless void of silence, as he returned to his solidary, safe existence. He had not expected to become the epicenter of Granger’s hurt and anger. He hadn’t expected to receive the pain and her feeling of rejection.

Surely she wouldn't care about his rejection, not after the M-word was spoken.

Her shoulder is naked, visible from beneath her pulled-down dress; a hot mouth leaves wetness over her cool skin, in the attic flat that’s too draughty no matter the warming spells. The sheets on his bed are surprisingly soft, the smell of soap and lavender intoxicating. It’s not like on the counter earlier, when he devoured her with haste and desperation, and when Hermione craved to be devoured before she changed her mind. Severus takes his sweet time with her now. He sucks on the swell of her breast, his tongue traces the purple scar left by Dolohov’s curse, so many years ago.

His tongue has a way of licking over many of Hermione’s scars.

He drives her insane with how slow he’s being, almost as if she was one of his potions; but he’s not being precise with her, as he usually is when he brews. His attention flies from her mouth to her breasts; he frantically turns from her navel to her neck, because Severus dreams to drink all of her in at once, swallow her down like a snake does with its prey. He pins her down on the soft sheets, on his attic flat that’s far too tidy for a man who spends at least one night a month getting wasted at dirty muggle bars. Severus is a man who has learnt to live with his self-destructive quirks. He is a man of fortitude and strength, and of peculiar dignity despite his pain.

The moans that escape Hermione’s lips escalate from breathy to high-pitched the more Severus works her swollen clit; he can still taste her juices from where she exploded into his mouth; he craves for that again, licking her clit once, twice, thrice–

“Severus… Severus… ” 

She drives him insane.

“I want you to come apart on my tongue.” He licks a line, the aforementioned piece of agile skin flat from her entrance to her clit. He drinks her in, because she’s here, and it doesn’t matter for how long. “I want you to writhe on my tongue all night, I want to steal all your words, all your clever little retorts, they are mine now, hear me?”

Mine, mine, mine

Her fingers grab fistfulls of his hair, her knees urge him closer to her heat. Her body heaves, it tenses and it flexes; she holds him tightly, but her grip relaxes when Severus pushes away from her intoxicating cunt. She complies. She doesn’t ask for anything, she doesn’t take any initiative. She’s his to do with as he pleases. His cock is straining painfully against the sheets, craving for her.

It passes through his mind that Hermione’s spirit isn’t really here; only her body might be here, because her mind is too fractured right now, to deal with everything that’s going on. Severus pushes himself up, climbing up her body to trap her on the sheets. “Tell me to stop.” he whispers, and Hermione’s eyes snap open in shock.

“I am honest with you.” She whispers in the dark, his face half-visible due to the street light outside the window. “You are probably the only person I am truly and fully honest with.”

Severus should stop, because she is too drunk and vulnerable and pure, and he should stop, because she might regret it in the morning; she might blame herself. But Hermione is currently nibbling on his lip, biting and tugging at his swollen flesh; her hips press upward, where Severus’ body betrays him most. Her wetness seeks his straining cock and Severus moans , he moans every time the two heats brush.

“But I cannot leave Ron.”

Severus watches her with bated breath. He watches her and sees something he doesn’t want to want.

“I cannot leave Ron.” Hermione insists. “I want this, but I cannot leave Ron.”

She doesn’t often get to be the selfish one; ever since school with Harry and Ron, her needs, her wishes were always treated as secondary considerations; but with him, she can. She can be selfish, because so is he, with his spiteful remarks, his showing off, his uncaring attitude. Severus does not care for her like Ron does, after all. She half-expects him to mock her, in fact, for even daring to imply he wants her to stick around for good.

“Well, well, well, Ms Granger.” Severus tuts playfully, dipping onto her neck to leave another mark; he cannot let her see his face, not at this moment of vulnerability, so he sucks at her skin until it’s purple-blue and Hermione is a writhing mess. “You worry you might break my heart?”

She lets out a last, aching moan; as if Snape would ever want her; he probably rejoices how she has a husband waiting for her at home. “Fuck you.” Hermione huffs in relief, half-smile already forming on her lips, while damning how sentimental she is being all of a sudden.

“Gladly.” Severus smiles. 

It doesn’t matter how he’s breaking up inside; he smiles. If one night is all he has with her, then he will make that night as long as he possibly can. Hermione helps him out of his boxers, lowering them for his cock to spring free and be enfolded tightly by her fist.

His heart is boiling with a pain untold; his cock is straining with the heat of lust. He tears her rumpled dress apart, ripping it off her as if the cloth is the personification of the Weasley brat. He throws the rag to the floor, followed by her lacy bra, a flimsy thing that is just waiting to be ripped in two. Her breasts are fully his to claim now, as is her stomach and her ribs, her thighs, her arse, her hips; he holds them, squeezes them, sucks them, bruises them. He keeps her down as he enters her with slow and stuttering abandon; Hermione cries his name as if there is no other person in her heart. He bites her neck to hold back the cry of limerence that keeps him in its grip.

It’s limerence; that’s the only L-concept he allows himself. His cock slides into her receptive wetness, her femininity clutches him tightly, draws him in; urges him to slap into her pelvis, getting a firm grip on her narrow waist. Severus pumps and pumps, he slots inside her like the piece of puzzle that was missing, only to withdraw and piston back inside again. His climax coils on the pit of his abdomen; the familiar numbness is starting to spread.

No.

He sets his teeth, picking Granger up and flipping her on her stomach; she lands with a moan of surprise, with the sound of arousal peaking even more. Severus holds her down from a fistfull of her hair, pushing her face -her brilliant face, with all that range of infuriating expressions- down into the pillow, out of sight, and hopefully out of mind. He must not come. When he is done, this will be done as well, and he is undone only by the million little ways her expression can crumple in lust. He fucks her into the matress, his hips keeping a faster pace than the one his heart wants him to have.

“Ah! Severus, oh….” As if her breathy sighs are not enough, Granger’s hand slithers behind her back, stretching to touch his hips, to touch him, as if she hasn’t already touched him enough . She moans his name so beautifully, her fingers curl around his waist as she urges him on, and on and on …. And Severus needs her lips, needs her like the oxygen that has been miserly filling his lungs.

“Up.” He breathlessly orders, slithering an arm around her sweaty, contorting stomach. “Up, witch, get up.” He pants, he groans when Hermione’s back slots against his chest, the movement suddenly impaling him deeper into her cunt. She pushes back, burying him deeper into her as Severus settles on a languid pace; his tongue plunders her mouth, his hand keeps her face firmly within reach of his lips. Severus’ desire coils for one more time, the blissful, ominous numbness starts to spread; his pace stutters between frantic and slow, Hermione’s fingers are buried in her folds. Severus tugs at her nipples and her breasts, just as he feels her circling her own clit; he lets her carry on, even though his pride wants to replace her fingers with his own. Hermione must come because of him, but she’s settling into her own pace, and Severus is transfixed by how her face crumbles from the orgasm threatening to spill.

“Severus..” She chokes out between broken moans, growing more high-pitched and urgent as Severus nears his completion and his hips stutter out of rhythm more and more. “Fuck!” She screams the curse she hardly ever uses; she comes apart at last, with Severus’ teeth buried on the skin of her neck, sucking the last desperate sounds out of her.

All things come to an end, but their mere memory is heat; the heat of feeling, while you ask for nothing in return. Granger didn’t, when she saved his life, when she helped him build it, when she raised him from ashes and held his hand as he was reborn. Granger didn’t kick him out of her life when he called her a mudblood. Severus will give her all the nights she wants, no questions asked, no strings attached, no harm is done.

It is with a strange feeling of catharsis that he greets his orgasm, as if a debt is now paid. It’s washing through him as Hermione’s cunt squeezes the last drops of sperm with her final spasms.

It will be after dawn when Hermione creeps out of the silent room, having spent the last hours dozing in his embrace; he has held her too tightly for a man who fucks her with no strings attached. He will pretend to sleep as she mends the tattered remains of her dress; the lines of his face will be less pronounced, as Hermione applies glamours over the purple marks his teeth have sucked into her skin; they are too many, covering her neck and shoulders, her stomach and her ribcage; the soft flesh of her inner thigh is marked as well.

Sex has relieved some of the frustration she feels with her life, the impure whiskey is slowly evaporating from her veins, and Hermione has started to feel a sting of guilt. She might be more of a Slytherin than she seems, but she cannot keep up any kind of deceit for long.

Not for long… but for long enough to live through many illicit nights like this, before the whole thing cracks open like an egg shell.