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Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Complaint
 
‘No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.’ –Euripides

Dying, I found, is akin to drowning in Veritaserum. Oh, there is pain, of course, and perhaps regret, but for me, I could not stop myself from speaking truths best left unsaid. To set the scene, the Dark Lord’s snake Nagini had bitten me—to put it simply without getting too specific about the extent of the gore. I lay on the dusty, disgusting floor of the Shrieking Shack, trying in vain to staunch the blood gushing between my fingers from my throat. I had given up my memories as a last ditch effort to somehow keep Potter from letting the world go straight to hell, and I was content to die alone, my duty done. However… However, I was not alone, in my most vulnerable moment. I wanted my last moments to be quiet, with no fuss. I had idealized that when I did die, it would be quick, and hopefully painless. A Killing Curse, so that the last thing I would see was a flash of green and then blissful nothingness. Instead, all I could see were large golden brown eyes peering down at my face, hands, and a wand moving over me in an intricate motion. I was quite aware of what had taken place after Potter collected the memories that would save him, and perhaps myself, after I was worm food. I never really wanted to be known as a villain, even after my consciousness had slipped into the great beyond. I knew that Potter and Weasley had witnessed my demise, and that they had run away to the impending battle. However, one of the three stayed behind, perhaps thinking that I would need company before I died. The sentiment was wasted. Hermione Granger, Potter and Weasley’s brain, felt some twisted sense of duty to stay with me, though I would never know why for a long time. She pitied me, just as everyone pitied me. She laid my head on her lap, so that I stared up at her face over the womanly swell of her breasts. The rats nest that she had for hair framed her young face as those large eyes watched me passively. At least, she was not crying. Then, as she tried to heal me, I started speaking. It was as if I had to vent my spleen at the very last moment, to say something suiting to her, to urge her to let me go. I wanted to go, I wanted to die, and no one, not even the insufferable little know-it-all was going to stop me. I spoke, my words coming out weak, wet with blood, but very true. “Leave me,” I had said first. The girl did not seem to hear, or pay attention, her lips moving in silent incantation, her eyes hard but glowing with determination. It was as if she were praying over me. “Miss Granger…” She blinked, but kept moving her wand over my body, a body that was beginning to numb and grow cold. I knew very well that the venom in Nagini’s bite was killing me just as quickly as the blood that was oozing from my throat to stain the girl’s trousers and the floor beneath her. “You were…” I wheezed, feeling my lungs begin to constrict, my tongue begin to stiffen. “…the best student…” Merlin, what was I saying? I wanted to scream at the girl to run, to catch up to her silly, heroic friends, and play her part in history. Why was she wasting her time with an old, bitter bastard like me? “…I ever had…” I barely realized what I had said; I did not know that I had lifted a hand up to touch her cheek, smearing black blood onto her perfect golden skin. It was some strange gesture that part of my mind realized was a farewell of sorts. It was very unlike me. “Professor? Severus?” My hand dropped dramatically to the floorboards, and my eyes began to slide shut. Ah, this was it, I thought, this was death. But it was not. My eyes were fixed, as venom-induced paralysis set in. I was surprised how slow the venom seemed to act upon my nervous system, but considering I never learned what sort of snake Nagini was or how much venom was injected into my bloodstream, I could not anticipate the exact moment of paralysis. “Oh no…” I heard Granger whisper, and through my eye lashes, I could just see her chin, dripping sweat down onto my lips. I could still feel a bit, and taste her sweat as it trickled into my mouth. “Oh no, you don’t!” she shouted suddenly. If I could move in reaction to the shout, I would have, as it was, the only thing of me that moved was my chest. Involuntary responses were still functioning, and I wondered for how long. “Shit. Shit !” I wanted to smirk at the blatant profanity that streamed from those lips. Hermione Granger, a thorn in my side for the past seven years, could be interesting after all, especially with her varied use of the words ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’. Of course, I had hoped to die before I thought much about the girl, especially that she might be interesting. I wanted to die before I found out how interesting. “Please, Professor, just hold on…” I heard her say, no tears straining her voice, but anger, palpable anger directed at something, but not at me. I felt her hands upon my body, and if I had the ability to speak, I would have scolded her, as it was… Even so close to death, I knew Side-Along Apparition was taking me. The compression and decompression of space was not painful, and I knew that I was edging closer to the state of quiet I had been wishing for since being bitten by the Dark Lord’s pale, hideous serpent. However, the sounds around me alerted me to the fact that the girl had taken me somewhere busy, crowded, and exposed. “Help here! I need some help here !” the girl shouted, her voice booming over the din of other voices, a conspicuous wave of unintentional magic laced in her words. From what I could see through my lashes, I knew I was in the lobby of St. Mungo’s. If I could, I wanted to be sick. The sound of footsteps running toward me stopped just short. “Is that…?” one voice hissed, disgusted. “Yes, now, can you please get a cot or help me Levitate him?” the girl asked, gruffly. “But he’s… There’s a battle at Hogwarts and he’s…” I did not know the soft male voice, and I could not see the face. I could only assume it was a Healer by the lower half of the man’s robes as it was all I could see. “He’s Severus Snape, damn you, and he’s not what you might think. Now, are you going to treat this man or not? Or am I going to have to hex your poncy arse, because if you don’t start helping now, I will!” The power in the girl’s voice could have frightened the Dark Lord, and I had to admit I was impressed. She frightened me. “You’ll need to fill out some forms,” the Healer blathered quietly as my body was lifted from the floor amidst gasps of other people waiting to be seen in the various wards. “You said yourself that there is a battle at Hogwarts, and that is where I need to be. Bugger the forms. He has been bitten by a very large snake, magically enlarged…vipera ammodytes, a horned viper, perhaps or some constrictor hybrid. If he is not treated soon…” the girl shouted as I felt my body being moved away from her. “Yes, yes, miss-knickers-in-a-twist,” I heard the Healer mutter next to my head. Already, my limited vision was failing, and just as my dangling fingers were shut into the jamb of a ward door, crushing the digits, I had hoped I died. Instead, I lost consciousness. I did not die, but I suffered. I was hovering in a realm between life and death and I was convinced it was hell. In this hell, I could hear the voices of Healers, then of Aurors. Besides those voices, I could hear my own heartbeat, sluggish and still beating. I counted the hours by my heartbeat, trying to compensate for the slow rhythm by adding ten heartbeats to my one. I counted days. When I did sleep, it was to dream of sock puppets at the foot of my hospital bed playing out the ‘Battle of Hogwarts’, as I heard it called. A dingy gray sock with a comical white face for the Dark Lord was hissing threats to the huddling sock puppets of the people in the castle. Then a brown sock with Longbottom’s face stepped forward with a butter knife and cut off the end of a shoestring that I supposed was the blasted snake that put me in this hell. In my dream, I would always laugh as a red sock with Molly Weasley’s face Avada Kedavra’d a black sock that represented Bellatrix Lestrange. In the end, the Potter sock puppet and the Dark Lord sock puppet fought, the dream hands inside the socks wrestling together until the Dark Lord cast the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand, a piece of drinking straw, and comically fell over on the foot of the bed, dead. The puppets rejoiced, and on a string, dangling over the group was Albus’ sock puppet with a purple pointed hat made of a rubber glove and cotton ball beard. ‘Very good, very good,’ the somewhat angelic Albus sock puppet would say in a contrived voice. And that was how the dreams ended…with Albus sock puppet’s blue button eyes twinkling. A black tunnel closed in over the scene with ‘The End’ in big block letters flashing behind my eyelids. I was in hell. What decrepit part of my brain made such a stupid dream every night? I still have yet to understand. In my waking hours, I still could only see the backs of my eyelids as Healers came and went. Aurors hovered about, asking when I would wake. Dying should have been so easy. Damn girl.

“He cannot speak, Mr. Potter,” the poncy Healer said at my bedside even though I was staring at his fat face, glaring. Edgar Wiscombe, he was a First Year while I was in Seventh. I barely knew him, but I knew I hated him. He had been the one who let my fingers be crushed in one of the swinging doors to the Creature-Induced Injuries Ward. The pouf. Harry Potter stood at the foot of my bed, not a sock puppet, but a young man. He seemed larger than I remembered, older. I had been in a medically induced coma for two months, and upon waking, I could not speak. The damage to my throat had been healed, the venom eradicated from my body though it actually was not what had nearly killed me. It had been the violence of the bite, the blood loss, the tearing of muscle and sinew, the crushing of my vocal cords, etc. “I’ll leave you now,” Wiscombe sighed, and I knew that the man was in awe of the boy, as was everyone else in the ward, thankfully blocked out by screens. There was a chair provided at the foot of the bed, but Potter did not sit. I hoped it meant that he was not planning to linger long at my bedside. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news…” I nodded. Though I could not speak, I did have the ability to move. In fact, besides the weakness of two months of atrophy, I felt well enough to attempt an escape from St. Mungo’s very soon. “I just wanted to…erm…thank you, sir.” I supposed my face twisted in some unnatural way because Potter blushed and then scratched the back of his head for lack of something to do with his hands. “The memories…they helped.” I tried to sigh, but it ended up just being a loud exhale. The Healers had somehow managed to inhibit the compulsion for my vocal cords to move, allowing them to heal. I could communicate by writing on a tablet with a Muggle biro someone had thought to give me, but I left the implements on the bedside table. I really had only one thing to say to Potter. 
Go away.
 However, if there was a chance that Potter might grovel at my feet, I was not about to prevent it from happening. “I just wanted to ask you a few things…about my mum.” I crossed my arms before my chest. Granted, my hospital gown was a sickly shade of pastel green and not black, I brooded as I always did when Potter asked a stupid question in the classroom. Potter was waiting, expectantly, his green eyes softening as he looked at me as if I were someone friendly. Those eyes irritated me. I snatched the writing tablet and biro and began writing. Several times the tip of the pen tore into the paper, but it did not matter. Ripping the page, I tossed it toward the boy, watching him deftly catch the floating sheaf in his hand. “’No thanks necessary, after you read this, bugger off’?” Potter read aloud. He raised his eyes from the page and frowned. I turned my eyes to the ceiling, dropping the tablet and biro onto my lap, crossing my arms again. “’You have the best memories, everything else is a blur. Whatever you might think of your mother, she was no saint…’ Professor, surely...?” Potter protested, but I did not look at him. He continued, however, mumbling the rest of the words. “’My debts are paid as I gave you everything you needed to kill the Dark Lord. If it had not been for your meddling friend, I would have died in peace. Tell her not to ever show her face to me again, and for that matter, you either. Go off and live, I am done being pitied by you and your kind…’” Potter crumpled the paper in his hand when he finished and stuffed it into the pocket of his cloak. He straightened and stared at me for a long moment. I still was staring at the water stain above my bed, a pattern that had become very familiar after several nights staring at it. I thought it looked like the outline of a troll with a club up its bum. “Very well, Snape, if that is what you want. I also wanted to tell you that the Wizengamot has been over the memories you gave, and Dumbledore’s portrait was interviewed…” At this, I let my eyes move from the perverse water stain to Potter again, my arms falling to my sides. “When you’re well, you can walk out of here knowing that you’re not going to get the Kiss.” I narrowed my eyes on the boy. Where there should have been an edge of hatred, there was none. I had been so used to the boy hating me. He did not pity me, he did not hate me, but he did not care for me much either. “You’re a free man, an exonerated man. You should look happier, Snape,” Harry sighed. I was not happy. Potter nodded to me, and that, thankfully, was the last time I would see the boy again for a very long time.

When I could speak again, five months after the Battle of Hogwarts, the first thing I asked was: when I could leave this lower ring of hell? “Leave?” Wiscombe echoed and then began twittering with laughter. “Oh, Mr. Snape… You still have quite a bit of healing to do. Therapy for your voice and your limbs…” I was astounded. Of course, Wiscombe was right. My voice was a shadow of what it once was, and trying to raise my voice resulted in tooth aching pain. My body was almost wasted, my muscles nonexistent. I wondered if somehow I was being neglected by the Healers, surely they wanted me gone. I was not a model patient by any means. I tried to get up from my bed many times without the aid of a Muggle Zimmer frame and twice I fell, too weak to hold my own slight weight upon the frame of my bones. I had to acquiesce to the fact that my body was not healing fast enough as I would like and for the meantime I would stay where I was. “I want something to read,” I said, knowing that my voice was gravelly, a whisper. I was presented with a newspaper. I had hoped for a medical journal, anything except a newspaper. I should have been more specific. Everyday a newspaper would be waiting for me on the bedside table, and everyday between potions treatments—which were of a low quality, a point I mentioned constantly to Wiscombe—and grueling physical therapy conducted in the Ward, I would read the Daily Prophet front page to back. The front page usually sported news about Potter or his dull friend Weasley. Worst of all, at least once a week, I had to stare at Longbottom’s stupid face, smiling and waving back at me. It seemed that he had become somewhat of a celebrity due to his courage facing the Dark Lord…and killing the fucking snake. I usually avoided the front page and went straight to the second. I read about myself on occasion, usually a mention in Ministry news. That was how I learned about my absente reo trial and eventual acquittal. It seemed that the process had taken several weeks of closed court proceedings. The transcripts were made public, and many letters to the editor came in, either calling for my blood, or praising me. The names at the end of the letters varied. Some were former students; others were people I had gone to school with decades before. Those that called me a hero were mostly from my House, those who called me a murderer, oddly, were from Hufflepuff. I read about the rebuilding of the Ministry and of Hogwarts. I read about the memorials erected and the ceremonies to bestow Orders of Merlin. I even saw my name on the list of those to receive the Order of Merlin First Class, but I did not expect an invitation to the event. Overall, the matter of my existence was debated as if I had actually died. Everything written about me was in past tense. Then, on the day that marked six months of my confinement to St. Mungo’s and the death of the Dark Lord, my world was suddenly in present tense. In the very middle of the Prophet was a full-page advertisement that had my hands shaking the newsprint as if I were having a fit. In large block letters that flashed black to green were the words: Rita’s Done It Again! Presenting… Snape: Scoundrel or Saint? I have always avoided cameras ever since I could remember, but somehow, at some time, someone managed to snap a photo of me in my teaching robes, my wand drawn, my face set into an angry scowl. It was this picture that stood on one side of the page, as in the middle of the page, Rita Skeeter’s publicity photo smiled and winked from some generic book cover. My eyes scanned the smaller text, describing the book, resulting in me gaping at the promotional testimonial blurbs, and gagging at the price listed in the smallest lettering at the very bottom of the printed page. I tried not to vomit as I read Skeeter’s synopsis. ‘From his birth to his downfall, Severus Snape’s life is now revealed to the public. Born into a dysfunctional household, abused by his father, Severus Snape fell in love with a Muggle-born witch, the mother of the Boy-Who-Lived. My book takes an in-depth look into the mind of Severus Snape, Death Eater, Potions Master, Spy, Headmaster, and unlikely hero. Read my book and answer for yourself, was Severus Snape a Scoundrel or a Saint?’ I balled the newspaper in my hands with a growl, tossing it over the screens around my bed, hitting someone across the ward. I did not care that the person began barking at me, I did not care if some lycanthropic patient attacked me. All I wanted was to tear my eyes out of my skull and wish I did not see the quotes from various people I had encountered in my life. Longbottom had said: ‘Scary, but worthy of respect.’ Lucius Malfoy had said: ‘A dear friend…haunted and disturbed…’ Kingsley Shacklebolt, the current Minister for Magic, had said: ‘A powerful wizard…not to be dismissed as a mere villain…’ Even Potter, whom I wished had been stillborn: ‘I owe much to Professor Snape. We never saw eye to eye, but the Professor is as much the reason we are free of Voldemort as I am…’ I stared into the screen at the foot of my bed, at a loss of what I should do. Should I find a solicitor? From the impression I got from the advertisement, I was being written about as if I had died. Merlin, I wish I had . Mortification, anger, sickness, I cycled through those things over and over again. I had read Skeeter’s biography of Albus and the sickening style of prose she used. I knew she had manufactured some information and misquoted those she interviewed. The woman did not know what professionalism meant, and now my life was about to be splashed on the pages of literary journals, in the Prophet, and in every media outlet of the press. I eyed my biro on the bedside table. I could stab myself in the neck and try to die by blood loss again. I could swipe something from Wiscombe to stab myself in the heart. Better yet, I could hoard my pain medications, but the small phials of mild analgesics would never be enough for overdose, unless I wanted to spend another six months in the hospital. St. Mungo’s had been my prison and my sanctuary. Eventually, I would have to leave, and then be at the mercy of the big, bad world, post-Dark Lord. I doubted that I would be welcomed back with open arms. At the very least, I began penning a letter in a ballpoint pen to inquire about a solicitor. I had not given authorization that a biography be written about me, and surely I could cause a bit of misery bringing Skeeter down. That was the only satisfaction I could find.

Seven months and eighteen days after Hermione Granger saved my life, I was released. The morning of my release, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, slipping into a pair of boots, ready to run if I had to from the ward. It had been a makeshift home, and only the day before I was informed by a Ministry letter that my residence at Spinner’s End had been confiscated and demolished by the city of Cokeworth. In fact, everything I owned was now property of the Ministry of Magic. Though I was no criminal, my legal absente reo representation had cost money, as did the paperwork my activities as a spy incurred within the Ministry. When all was said and done, I was destitute, homeless, and in debt. I owed St. Mungo’s approximately ten thousand galleons for my hospital stay, treatment, and rehabilitation. No socialized healthcare in the Wizarding world… To add the icing to the cake, I was also unemployed. To my credit, I had my wand, which mysteriously appeared one morning atop a new edition of the Prophet. My suit against Skeeter was going forward, and though I had nothing to pay my solicitor, I was assured that I would receive a modest settlement. I also had my health, which I was not sure whether to consider a credit or not. It was as I was adjusting the buttons of my left cuff that the screens parted and for the first time since Potter’s visit, a new person stood before me. I blinked at the figure, a wild array of crimson tartan assaulting my eyes. “Minerva,” I said. Minerva McGonagall was the same as in my dreams, at least the tartan bit, and not the fact she was a wrinkled sock puppet. “Have you finally come to castigate me and…” “You’re coming with me, Severus,” she announced in her sternest Scottish bristle. I think I gaped. “Why?” I asked with a hint of surprise. Minerva, in her hideous tartan traveling cloak, was quaking with repressed anger. I felt as if I had been caught after curfew. “I have been made aware of your situation, your debts, the slanderous book, and your need for a place to live. I will provide a room, board, salary, and my help…” I stared at her, my eyes narrowing. There was always a catch with this woman, and I had a very good idea what it was. “We take care of our own, Severus. Did you think I would let you simply walk out of this place without somewhere to go?” I was not sure what ‘our own’ meant, but it somehow sounded nice. All the same, I knew… “You’ll get your post as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, you will get your regular salary, and you will have the protection of Hogwarts. It is the least we can do for you, my boy.” Who was ‘we’? “Now get up, get your cloak. It’s snowing in London, a truly rare thing…” Imperius, I thought, as I walked with Minerva stiffly out of the ward to the front desk. She tutted at me as if I were a petulant child when I stopped to fill out my discharge papers—Minerva did it for me, peering through her spectacles and muttering angrily about something in the fine print. Soon, we were out in the open. My chest hurt breathing in the cold London winter air, my head spun. After seven months and eighteen days, I was free. I had a second chance at life at thirty-nine years old, but whether I decided to squander this chance was totally at my discretion. I still wished I had died. I was in no way suicidal, but I was bitter. I was going back to the one place that held the best and worst memories of my life, but it was the only home I knew. Even as Minerva held to my arm, her small, aged body so fragile against mine, I wondered if the hard part of living was over.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Girl

‘A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.’ -Chauncey Depew

Life, oh terrible life, dragged on and on.
 
I was idle from February to June when term ended at Hogwarts. The interim DADA professor, one Bertram Phelps from America, was an abysmal waste of magic. He was as dull in person as he was in the classroom.
 
I contented myself with becoming something like a bogeyman to the students. They knew who I was, what Skeeter had written, but they only ever saw me in the corridors after dark, gliding about in black teaching robes like a shadowy phantom. As I was not technically a teacher, I could not dock House points from those I found out of bed after hours. I was content to scare them until they wet themselves, First Years mostly.
 
Several older students, I noticed, when I did come out during the day, would actually smile at me. The little buggers would

smile

at me! I damned Skeeter to a painful death, ripped apart by wild hippogriffs, or on my worst days, defiled and beheaded by Fenrir Greyback—the worst sort of death I could imagine for anyone.
 
I was given the official DADA professor’s quarters at the end of term. I rarely came out even after the students had gone for the summer. When I did come out, it was to go to the Library or down to the Kitchens. If someone needed me, I let them come to me. As it was, Minerva and Horace were my most frequent visitors.
 
I never entered the Headmaster’s office.
 
What few belongings I did have at Hogwarts were placed in the back portion of the DADA office where the elves had placed my old bed from my old quaters, and the few bits of worn furniture. My books, my clothes, everything was ragged and worn, just the way I felt most days. Some items were missing; others damaged when Minerva told me the Ministry had gone through my meager belongings. The thing that angered me the most was the torn photograph of my mother where it had been jerked out of the frame and hastily stuffed back in. My books were relatively untouched, but the photograph was the last thing I had of her.
 
My poor mother, I hated to think what Skeeter must have written about her.
 
By the end of July, I had my classroom in order and was about to begin finishing my lesson plans for the upcoming term. Admittedly, I was nervous about teaching again. I was nervous because so much had happened outside my notice that I doubted my own reputation. In some ways, I had to empathize with Lupin. I had always been a type of outcast; I had

chosen

to live that way. However, as the sweltering days of late July and unusually hot summer penetrated the DADA classroom so I had to unbutton the front of my robes and pop a button from my collar, I knew that I had to somehow maintain my reputation no matter what had happened to it without my notice.
 
It was just after two o’clock on a weekend as I leaned over my desk before the empty classroom, quill scratching into my planner that Minerva came through the open classroom door, a bright smile on her face.
 
She muttered a greeting and promptly passed me a sheaf of parchment, waiting for me to read. Read I did, and then rolled my eyes.
 
“You mean to tell me that she has not taken the exam yet?”
 
“She’s been abroad with her family, trying to let things calm down before coming back to Britain. And don’t you

dare

roll your eyes, Severus. You know as well as I do that if it were not for Ministry regulations, Miss Granger could easily pass her N.E.W.T.s and be done with it!”
 
I dropped the parchment into the rubbish bin next to the desk.
 
“Well?” Minerva asked expectantly.
 
“Well, what, Minerva? If the Wizarding Examinations Authority requires Miss Granger to have a week of tutorials, then we must comply,

mustn’t

we?” I murmured, turning my attention back to my planner.
 
“Then you’ll do it?”
 
I sighed. “If I must, I must.”
 
“Good. She’s arriving Monday.”
 
I nodded, causing Minerva to sniff disdainfully, turn on her heel, and march out of the classroom. When I could no longer hear her footsteps, I paused, quill poised in my fingers, ink staining my hand.
 
I did not want to see ‘the girl.’ I had come to call her ‘the girl’ in my head over the months, and I did

not

want to see her.
 
She had to pass her N.E.W.T.s if she wanted to advance in the Magical world, I knew. I just wished that I did not have to be part of her advancement. It was not that I wished the girl ill; I did not wish her

anything

. I had given up blaming her for my life; it was a waste of time. I simply tried not to think of her; if I did, I ended up feeling sore, confused, and lost.
 
The girl confused me.
 
In my dreams, she was not there, not as a sock puppet. When I did dream about her, it was only the memory of her golden brown eyes peering down at me intently. Those eyes made me feel strange, almost sick to my stomach. I wondered if I were associating it with the memory of the pain I felt that day, and the strong desire to die. I wondered what someone like Freud or Jung would say.
 
The girl would arrive in two days.

When the girl came, I had her schedule memorized. For the next five days, she was to go through the courses as if she were still in school. First was Arithmancy, then Ancient Runes, and Charms before a lunch break. Then it was Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, Transfigurations, and then Potions before dinner. After dinner was DADA and lastly, Astronomy. I was astounded by the amount of classes the girl had elected to take for her N.E.W.T.s, then again, the girl was not like many I knew. I became curious to know what she planned to do with herself after the exams.
 
Monday, my most hated day, or so it had been during my years sub rosa, crept by. I kept myself busy with arranging a refresher course for one who should be on a Seventh Year level in Defense, keeping in mind that the gir’ was surely beyond that level. By lunch, I had already outlined Wednesday’s lecture.
 
For the time she would be in my classroom, the girl would start with practical application, spell work, and then it would go to book and theoretical work. Since returning to Hogwarts, I had begun working on my casting and defense. Seven months confined to a bed had softened me, physically and mentally. By the end of July, I had my weight and strength back. I looked as I had come to know for nearly twenty years—pale, stringy, and long limbed, but strong, and as usual, ugly.
 
I hid the scar on my neck by Charming the collars of my shirt slightly higher, or wearing a neck cloth that suited the cut of my doublet. I looked as though I had fashioned myself after one of the paintings in the Portrait Hall, as if I were trying to bring back a fashion trend. I did not care, as long as Minerva and Horace’s eyes did not linger long on the hideous scar. As if I were not misshapen and ugly enough.
 
I took dinner in my room, the elves bringing me my favorite foods and bread pudding for after. I ate quickly, anticipation forcing me to have everything digested well before the girl came.
 
Nervous, I could not help but be nervous. It was not just because it was the girl, but because it was a student,

my

student.
 
When she did come, I was sitting behind my desk, trying to look busy. It was pathetic, but I was doodling in the margins of my outlines I had prepared for her. I did not look up as she walked down the aisle of the classroom, coming to stand just before me, her chin level with the slanted edge of the lectern desk.
 
She waited, patiently, and I made her wait, partly to irritate her, and partly to think of how to speak to her.
 
The girl finally cleared her throat, and I felt a sudden delight. Even

she

had a limit to patience.
 
I raised my face to her, and was confronted with a book. She had lifted a thinly bound book with my face on the front. ‘Snape: Scoundrel or Saint?’ I wanted to vomit.
 
“Do you want an autograph, Miss Granger? Hoping to curry some favor?”
 
There, it had come out seamlessly, the snark, the scathing remark. I still had it.
 
However, the girl opened the book to a page near the back cover, and I was forced to read, the book obscuring her face.
 
‘Chapter Thirty, how did Snape survive? A schoolmaster’s seduction?’
 
I read, and read; all the while I could feel my face burn. When the book was snapped shut and placed on the edge of the desk, I saw those golden brown eyes for the first time in months and they were just as I remembered from my dreams.
 
“I thought you should know, Professor, that I intend to owl a solicitor on the grounds of defamation of character. If you have not done so yourself, you should consider it, you have more reason than I to file a claim…”
 
I sighed. “It is in the process, Miss Granger.”
 
She blinked. “Then you’ve

read

this piece of garbage?”
 
“No.”
 
She blinked again. I watched as her face shifted and her chin lifted.
 
“I am here for the tutorial, sir. Will I need my quill or my wand first?”
 
I stared at her for a moment, surprised at how quickly she could think away the malicious shit that Skeeter had written.
 
‘Possible romantic involvement… Unusual display of affection…’
 
The girl was truly one of a kind.
 
“Wand first,” I said, clearing my throat, a familiar ache returning to my neck.
 
And so, the first lesson began with Skeeter’s words branded into the backs of my eyes.

I had to start thinking of her as something other than ‘the girl’ after the first day. I supposed I should think of her as ‘Hermione’ since she was, not exactly, my student. Instead, I thought of her as ‘Granger’ as Hermione was too familiar. I was her tutor, not her professor, or her friend.
 
After seven months, I realized that she was a legal adult. Hermione Granger had always been quite mature, but to watch her deflect a Body Bind Curse without a word or even a flick of her wand, I had to think of her as a powerful witch that should be respected.
 
Physically, she had grown taller, her body not as gangling and awkward as it was in my memories. She held herself confidently, her eyes peering down her slightly freckled, straight nose as if considering whether to kill or eviscerate me for sport. The customary school robes had been packed in mothballs, and she wore Muggle denim jeans and tasteful blouse with short sleeves, made out of some thin, gauzy material that I had seen girls her age wear outside of classes under their robes. I noted that the color of the blouse was green.
 
Granger wore a holster on her belt, and on her feet, she wore dragonhide boots. With her considerably smoother hair and toned body, I was forced to see her as a woman.
 
It made me uncomfortable.
 
Even when I moved the desks back into place after assessing her skill at defense, she did not sit eagerly waiting to shoot her hand in the air to smartly answer a question. She was not that little girl anymore. Instead, she listened to my explanation on what could be on the written portion of the N.E.W.T.s, and then answered my questions when I quizzed her on seven years’ worth of DADA lectures. From defensive spells to dark creatures, she answered quickly and thoroughly. For six years, Hermione Granger recited answers from the textbooks, but as she spoke to me, in an antebellum July evening, her words were conversational.
 
By the time she had to leave for her Astronomy tutorial, I was exhausted and out of sorts. I retreated to my rooms and brooded over my writing desk for a few minutes.
 
I rose again and began pacing. I was having some strange reaction to the girl, no, Hermione Granger. I hated her, but I had enjoyed quizzing her, trying to find something that she did not know.
 
I stalked back into the classroom, grabbing the outlines I had prepared for the coming days, balling up the parchment in my hands. I had to think of something better. And then, I noticed it. My face, hooked nose, greasy hair, and all, peering up at me from the cover of Skeeter’s book. Granger had left it, most likely having forgotten about it when I began casting Stunners, Body Bind Curses, Blasting Hexes, and other projectile spells without speaking a word. I had to admit that Granger was expert with Shield Charms and hexes.
 
I lifted the book into my hands, finding it surprisingly lighter than it seemed. With a sigh, I sat on the stool behind the desk and opened the cover. Written in acid green ink was a personal dedication.
 
‘To Hermione Granger, my biggest critic. Do enjoy this, my best work to date. Regards, R. Skeeter.’
 
Strangely, beneath Skeeter’s flourished name was another handwritten word, in pencil.
 
‘Twat.’
 
I coughed, and suddenly was laughing. It hurt my throat, but otherwise felt wonderful to be able to laugh aloud. I

always

did enjoy laughing, and rarely had the occasion in nearly twenty years to do so. Killing, spying, and brooding did not give one the occasion to even chuckle much.
 
I started reading, despite my better judgment, beginning with the first chapter, aptly entitled: ‘Chapter One, the beginning.’

The second evening, my throat pained me especially and I had to make a trip out of the haven of my rooms to go to the Hospital Wing. Poppy did not question me when I croaked out that I needed something for pain and something to soothe my throat. The potions she gave me, I identified by the scent, knowing immediately that they were much better brewed than the watered down rubbish they gave me at St. Mungo’s. I only trusted Horace’s skill second to my own.
 
Using a passage only known to the staff, I managed to return just before Granger entered the classroom, dressed much the same as the day before except for the dark blue Muggle tank top she wore. I found the shirt almost indecent, but as it was, the cooling Charms in the castle did not seem to be enough to keep the heat from making even I sweat under my robes. I dared not unbutton my collar or open my robes before her; I did

not

want her to see the scar.
 
She strode down the aisle as she had the evening before, and in the lamplight, I could see the browner tan on her toned arms, the protuberance of her collar bones, and the dip between them, damp with sweat.
 
I suddenly felt ill, as if I had been kicked in the gut by a hippogriff.
 
“We will have a duel first, Miss Granger,” I said, my voice still a bit rougher than usual.
 
She nodded, her loose curls falling over one shoulder. I blinked, and quickly drew my wand to move the desks out of the way.
 
Apparently, Granger remembered the mockery that was the Duelling Club in her second year, for she bowed as I did, and poised her body like a Muggle fencer. I counted aloud, giving her a bit of warning, and then I was on the flat of my back, staring up, incredulous, to the ceiling. The chit had bested my speed with some sort of silently incanted Banishing Charm.
 
I almost thought she would run to my side, spewing apologies. She did not.
 
I climbed to my feet, scowl firmly in place. I found, however, that she was poised to cast again.
 
“And that was….?”
 
“A combination Banishing Charm and Blasting Hex,” she said tightly, her eyes on my wand and not my face. “Ready, sir?”
 
I snarled, and cast.
 
I was sure that from an outside perspective, one might think I was trying to kill the girl. Curses flew back and forth, and not once did either one of us fall. As the darkness fell complete outside the windows, the light of the spells were becoming blinding.
 
Finally, I had her.
 
“Levicorpus, disarming spell, with a modified Stunner, Miss Granger. You cannot Summon your wand even with sub vocalization or sheer will…” I purred as her eyes angrily stared back at me. “Finite…” I sighed, turning away from her dangling body and striding to my desk.
 
I heard her fall, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her body twist so that she landed on her feet, Summoning her wand from near the door and slipping it back into the holster on her belt.
 
Impressive, I conceded, but not enough to best me. Ah, my arrogance…I was entitled to it.
 
The rest of the session was quick, as the duel lasted longer than I would have liked. I skipped a lecture I had prepared the day before, one that was wadded up in the bin, and started quizzing the golden brown eyed girl on the laws governing the existence of various creatures in early Magical culture, vampires, banshees, werewolves, and other dark things.
 
Again, she spoke as if conversing with me, her eyes meeting my own. There was nothing incorrect about any of the information provided. If anything, it was

too

much information.
 
I was struck again by her eyes, and began to fidget. To save myself, I moved behind my desk and sat down. Her eyes followed me.
 
“And manticores, what possible magical means can one use to subdue the creature?”
 
Her voice was soft as she leaned forward on the desk, resting her chin on her fist. I frowned as I looked at her. I could see down the front of her scanty shirt.
 
I wanted to punch myself in the face. There, before me, were two golden globes of pert feminine flesh, breasts, they were called. My eyes moved over the inner slope of her breasts, up to her face again.
 
At some point, she had stopped talking, and was grinning at me.
 
Grinning!
 
Merlin, I knew what this was. It was a

ploy

.
 
I straightened, and said, as best I could. “You are late for your Astronomy tutorial, Miss Granger.”
 
She apologized, leaned back, and straightened her shirt, rose.
 
“Tomorrow, then, Professor,” she said softly, “Good evening.”
 
Then she was gone, and I could breathe.
 
I jumped up from my seat behind the desk and half ran to my rooms, barely making it to the lavatory before I vomited. Dinner, lunch, breakfast, it streamed from my mouth and nose in torrents of sick. I retched and spat several times before I felt it was safe to move to the sink to rinse my face and mouth.
 
I tore at my robes, too hot, and was standing in only my trousers before the Charm-less mirror. I was sweating profusely, salty perspiration running down my face, along my scarred throat to my chest, getting lost in the dark hair running down my midline. I looked paler than normal, my chest moving a bit too rapidly. I looked like I was dying.
 
Gods, I wish I

would

die. Maybe I was, and this really was hell.
 
The

worst

part? I could not get Granger’s breasts out of my head. I could see the bulge in my trousers in the mirror. I was a sick, sick man.
 
I refused to wank thinking of Granger’s child-like breasts…oh, but they weren’t, they were full, large…
 
I slapped myself, bringing a renewed bout of pain to my neck and nausea in my empty stomach. I groaned, falling back to sit on the toilet, my head between my knees.
 
What the

hell

was wrong with her? She knew, she

had

to know, she had grinned at me.
 
It came to me like a lightning strike to the bollocks, the bulge quickly becoming something manageable in my trousers. I rose, a bit too quickly, and swayed on my feet. When I had full purchase of my faculties, I stalked; more like ran, into my room, grabbing the horrid book with my face on the cover, tearing it open to ‘Chapter Thirty, how did Snape survive? A schoolmaster’s seduction?’
 
All through the book, Granger had made notes in pencil in the margins. I had only managed to make it to ‘Chapter Ten, Tobias Snape’s Penchant for Petty Pick Pocketing’. I could only stomach so much bile before throwing the book across the room.
 
However, as I turned to the dog-eared first page of Chapter Thirty, I turned to the next page, one that I had not read when Granger had shown it to me. And there, in the margin next to Skeeter’s speculation of my moment of near death were the penciled in words: ‘Had to save him, said the one thing that made all the difference—almost sweet, but too sad. Almost kissed him then…’
 
I dropped the book on the bed, falling face first into the mattress beside it.
 
There

it

was, in a tiny, penciled scrawl, the possible motive of future suicide attempts.
 
I remembered very well what I had said, and

why

I had said it. Granger had been the best student I ever taught, but only at the moment where I believed I would die would I ever admit it aloud.
 
The one thing that made all the difference.
 
Gods, it was why she saved me, why she believed I was

worthy

of being saved. It turned all my sickness to burning anger. When did Hermione Granger become the one who decided whether I lived or died? I thought I had rid myself of this anger months ago, but it was back, like an incurable venereal disease blighting my dick to raise every millisecond that I recalled the sight of her breasts.
 
The chit fancied herself smitten—with

me

.
 
There was a straight edged razor in the nook behind the mirror, there were old potion ingredients far past tossing under the sink, I could easily Conjure a rope and tie it to the bedpost.
 
I had endured many things in my pathetic little life. I had killed and nearly been killed, but I did

not

want to be loved, or even be the object of a girlish crush.
 
I took care of myself when I wanted to get off. I had perfected the art of masturbation possibly a decade before Granger was born. I had had my share of one-night stands with Muggle women. I had even had a tryst early in my teaching career with a certain married Astronomy Professor. I did not need a girl of eighteen or nineteen hounding my steps, sleeping in my dingy button down shirts, or sucking me off under the desk in the classroom while I played the part of mean, nasty DADA professor!
 
Jesus H. particular Christ, I wanted to die!

I did

not

, however, and the week dragged on. The third tutorial consisted of me mostly trying to hex Granger into a coma. There was no oral quizzing. She wore a pair of tight jeans and an even tighter green tank top that squeezed those large breasts against her body, large erect nipples poking outward toward me.
 
“Sectumsempra!” I vocalized, so aggravated that I did not care that her eyes widened in shock.
 
The handmade Curse was knocked aside, the stream of magic shattering one of the classroom windows. As if to scold me, Granger cast silently, her body moving like a ballet dancer, gracefully. I was thrown back into my desk, knocking it over with a deafening cracking of wood and falling books. Before I could move, I was propelled upward into the ceiling, my body slamming into stone and wood, my limbs splayed and magically pinned. My hand was stiff and my wand fell…into her hand as she gazed passively up at me.
 
“What

is

the meaning of this!” a voice shouted from the door.
 
I could not move my head to see who had spoken, but from the voice, I knew it was Minerva.
 
“Miss Granger? What on earth do you

think

you are doing to Severus?”
 
I could see Granger turn as Minerva strode across the room, stepping over glass to Hermione. Minerva glanced up at me, her face pink and flushed.
 
“Dueling?” Granger said, her voice carrying a tone like that of a child feigning innocence. It made my groin tighten.
 
Minerva’s face drained of blood and instantly, I was released from the ceiling, floating gently to the floor. Granger passed me my wand and moved to stand by my side, enduring Minerva’s scathing eyes.
 
“I don’t know whether you were trying to court or

kill

each other! Honestly, as a Professor, Severus, you should

know

better than to use such a dangerous spell!” Minerva grumbled, her mouth trying not to curl into a smile.
 
“As for you, Hermione, you are no longer a student… Injuring Severus in some manner could be construed as a personal assault!”
 
Granger smirked just as Minerva stifled a chuckle.
 
I tried not to gape at the both of them. I could see that there was something more to this ploy than Granger flashing her breasts. Minerva, she…
 
“Clean this up, Severus. Hermione, Aurora has been waiting on the tower for half an hour now…”
 
Within a span of two minutes, I had repaired the window and desk. Granger had started to the door.
 
“Miss Granger,” I said, stopping her before she disappeared into the dark corridor beyond. She turned her head, but not her body. I studied her face, her pink, full lips, her golden brown eyes, even the column of her throat. Granger seemed to glow.
 
“Yes?”
 
Ah, I felt sick again.
 
“Nothing.”
 
She nodded and continued to the door. When she was gone, I leaned against the repaired desk, gasping.
 
Courting or killing,

indeed

. I did not want to imagine why Minerva thought of our duel as courtship. However, the fact was, I wanted to somehow humiliate the girl.
 
I supposed I was getting old, too slow. She had the advantage of nearly twenty years on me. I was old enough to be her father, and yet, she had stared up at me, as I was pinned to the ceiling as if she wanted to eat me alive.

The fourth day, I settled to have Granger write me an essay detailing the stages, symptoms, and effects of vampirism. It was busy work. I knew very well that Granger would have no trouble correctly noting the stages and symptoms; vampirism was something I had covered during one of the days I substituted for Lupin. All the same, I knew it would occupy her. She would not be able to look at me long with those liquid gold eyes.
 
I, meanwhile, was reading the rest of Skeeter’s crap behind my desk where Granger could not see. I was surprised she had not asked if she had left the book in the classroom. Everyone at Hogwarts knew of Granger’s unnatural fondness for books, no matter how terribly written they were.
 
The time allotted for the DADA tutorial went by quickly, and when I glanced at the small desk clock, I realized that there were only ten minutes left. Granger was only on her fifth foot of parchment.
 
I was near the end of the book, skipping over Chapter Thirty, finding that there was only one chapter afterwards. ‘Chapter Thirty-One, Scoundrel or Saint? Snape Speculations,’ was short, but many penciled in notes marked the margins and were at times written over the printed text.
 
The last marginal note made me snort. Granger glanced up and sighed, and turned to her essay again.
 
‘The Byronic hero? Heathcliffe, dead. Rochester, maimed and blinded. ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ disfigured and pathetic. No, no, no. The scoundrel-saint=anti-hero=Severus? What are the characteristics?’
 
I licked my lips and turned to the very last page, which was mostly white space. The marginal note continued.
 
‘Intelligence, education, brooding, anti-social, troubled past, disrespected, denigrated, arrogant, cynical, snarky, terrible with children, detached, sexual, flirting with love and not in love, obsessive… Mr. Headstone, John Constantine…’
 
I was amused, not just because I was very much those things Granger wrote, but because I knew who John Constantine was.
 
‘What a sick world we are forced to live in…’
 
And lastly, Granger wrote a quote: ‘We are not children of celestial fuckin' light, walkin' arm-in-arm into the Age of Aquarius. We are wankers who wreck the planet an' piss on each other, 'til half the world's starvin' an' the other half's busy findin' new ways to keep from noticin' it. That's the fuckin' limit've our potential, believe me. –J. Constantine, 9/1998.’
 
The sound of her rising had me closing the book with a snap and tucking it into a drawer. Granger had rolled up the parchment after casting a drying Charm on the ink and passed it to me over the edge of the high desk. She did not say anything as she turned and started down the aisle to the door. I watched her go.
 
Constantine, part fiction, part fact. I wondered how she knew of him.

I could not sleep that night, lying on my back while a hot breeze blew through the casement windows. I had stripped down in my y-fronts, occasionally casting a cooling Charm over my damp skin. I hate summer for just this very reason. I hate lying in my y-fronts, the most unattractive item of clothing designed for men.
 
Besides the heat, I kept thinking of the words Granger wrote. Most of the notes were in my defense when Skeeter had her speculations wrong, or someone was misquoted. Oddly, there were no quotes from Granger. Then again, Granger was no fool.
 
I threw my left arm over my eyes, feeling the rough scar of the Dark Mark against the bridge of my nose.
 
The basics, Skeeter got that right. I was born. My father was a criminal who beat my mother. My mother was a meek, plain witch, and I was more or less neglected. The only touch I knew was a hit, and the only kisses I had were those pressed on my cheeks by strangers who pitied me when my mother took me to the church jumble sales to find me clothes. I loved Lily Evans. I hated Lily Evans. And as I lay in my own sweat, the memory of the girl was still blurry. Perhaps it was best that way.
 
Then there was the current state of my life.
 
I groaned and pulled my sweaty arm from my sweaty face.
 
Tomorrow would be the last day I had to see Granger, I hoped. I would scare her away, as I did

so

many people who had an inkling for a warm feeling toward me. I would scare her away and be done with it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Fear of Living

‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.’ –Marcus Aurelius

Granger’s eyes were like knives, pure gold and deadly sharp. Those eyes followed every motion I made as I opened an ancient and obscure text on the desk before me. This was to be my last quiz.
 
“The golem,” I started.
 
Granger stood before my desk, her hands clasped behind her back. She wore another tank top, this time black, with thin straps over her bare brown shoulders. Her hair was pulled back from her throat and I had to keep my eyes from lingering long on the soft flesh just below her small ears.
 
“Creation, activation, and deactivation—how does one create a golem, Miss Granger?”
 
I knew there was a basic textbook response to the question, but that was not what I was looking for. I was looking for an answer found in only books written about one of the ten tractates of the Nezikin, the Sanhedrin, as well as references to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel’s treatises on how to raise a golem. It was

very

specific information, obscure. Besides, the consensus was that in the Magical world that golem of such creation were myth.
 
I listened to her speak, again, conversationally. The first thing she mentioned was the consensus of the creation of golem and then went onto speak of the Sanhedrin in which the earliest mention of golem was created by Raba using the Sefer Yetzirah.
 
I had to keep my face passive as my eyes bored into the ancient parchment on the desk before me. The book was not in the Library at Hogwarts, nor was it something easily obtained. The only reason I had it was that I had borrowed it years ago from a colleague in Prague. Unfortunately, the colleague was killed trying to obtain a rare herb in Russia, too near the edge of a clan of territorial giants. I have kept the book since.
 
“…from ‘Emet’ to ‘met’ or ‘aemaeth’ to ‘maeth’ can deactivate the golem…”
 
She had finished, and I was still trying to process the information.
 
“That is incorrect, Miss Granger,” I heard myself say, chancing a look at her face.
 
Predictably, she frowned.
 
“That cannot be, sir… You

are

consulting Koeris’ treatise, are you not?”
 
I glared, even as she moved around the desk to stand next to me, her fingers moving over the page I had open. The book was large, illuminated, and priceless, yet Granger seemed to know the text as her fingers brushed over the Hebrew from right to left.
 
She was murmuring under her breath, her bare shoulder brushing against my chest. I still had my hand on the page, a finger marking the passage describing the exact Hebrew letters that were rubbed from the forehead of the golem to activate and deactivate the being.
 
Her fingers brushed mine aside, but lingered against my knuckles.
 
“Here, Professor. Koeris states that in modern forms of Hebrew the word can be spelled either way.”
 
I made a noise of acknowledgement in my throat, trying my best to keep my face passive at the sensation of her fingers on the back of my hand and her shoulder against my chest. At such a close proximity, Granger seemed small. The top of her head barely came to the top of my shoulder, and her hand was like a child’s compared to mine. I could crush her easily against my body; squeeze the life out of her. I was sure that I could snap her neck in my hands.
 
“Do you think I am sweet, Miss Granger?”
 
My voice sounded strange, my mouth moving as if hinged and controlled by someone else. I had vocalized a sub thought.
 
Granger stiffened, I could feel her small, tight, and toned body react to my words. Slowly, she turned her eyes to my face and I had to peer down the length of my nose to her eyes.
 
“No… No, sir,” she said quietly, and I could see clearly that she was startled.
 
She pulled her hand away and took a step back then, but I, compelled, took a step forward.
 
“Yet,

you

wrote it in the margin of Skeeter’s book?”
 
Another step backward, toward the wall behind the desk. I followed.
 
“A private sentiment. I thought I had rubbed it out…”
 
All the confidence was leaking away, and she seemed even smaller.
 
“You wanted to kiss me…”
 
Merlin, I could not remember ever sounding so dangerous, or so predatory in my life. The sound of my own voice gave me a thrill, going straight down to my cock. I was cornering her, mentally and actually, as she stepped back again and I followed.
 
She did not answer.
 
“I was vulnerable, clearly out of my mind with pain…”
 
Another hounded step.
 
“Did it

thrill

you? My death?”
 
Another step. Granger licked her lips and I felt my cock twitch.
 
I really was sick, but…I was

enjoying

the sickness.
 
“You wouldn’t underst—“
 
My right hand lashed out on its own accord, fingers curling about a slender throat. Her back was only a breath away from the wall, and I pushed her back into it. If I squeezed tighter, she would eventually die.
 
Ah, but her eyes were wide—with delicious fear. It attracted me, fascinated me. There was power in me, something dark and terrible that I had denied for so long. I leaned toward her, bending so that we were face to face.
 
Those golden brown eyes were like shiny new galleons, large, fixed.
 
“You disgust me, Granger.”
 
My voice was like a dagger, slipping into her flesh, through those perfect, pert breasts that heaved as she gasped. I wanted to touch them, squeeze them as I squeezed her beautiful throat.
 
“I would have liked to have died, but no… A selfish little know-it-all

had

to interfere.”
 
Those golden eyes looked through me, the color shifting, and it made me angry.
 
“Kissing me would have sealed my path to true damnation. I almost wish you

had

done it.”
 
My grip tightened and already I could see bruises welling up on her throat. I licked my lips at the sight of it. My gaze flicked back to her face, turning from red to blue before my eyes. She could not breathe, I could not breathe. I was coming in my pants, like some psychopath, and then, perhaps thankfully, a wand tip bore into my gut.
 
The spell was over, and I released her. The only sound she made was a deep inhale through her mouth, she did not gasp, did not cough, but prodded her wand into my gut making me take a step back on wobbly legs.
 
“Now get

out

,” I ground out between my clenched teeth.
 
She fled, without looking at me. She did not run, but I wished she would.
 
I fell back into the chair behind my desk, dizzy and disgusted. I cannot remember how I ended up standing under the showerhead in my lavatory, still in my clothes. The water was scalding my face and head as I began stripping away articles of clothing, tossing the dripping material to the bathroom floor outside the shower door. I let the near boiling stream rinse away sweat and ejaculate, I let the cleansing power of the water rinse away my self-doubt and self-loathing.
 
I had frightened her, and she would stay away. I had established myself as a bastard extraordinaire, and I would have privacy and peace. I had clarity of mind, and I accepted that I would live a while longer in this castle, at my post. I had resigned that I would eventually harden all the way through and die unremarkably, only to be laid out like a crystallized mummy so hardened by hate.
 
I swallowed my fear, a fear induced by the mere existence of one person, and I hoped that

one

person would realize that I did not want to overcome the fear of living.

Nothing was ever said about my behavior toward Granger, and the only thing I heard later about the girl was that she passed her N.E.W.T.s with a near perfect score, only coming up short in History of Magic.
 
The new term began, and the nervousness I had felt about teaching again was wiped away within the first ten minutes of my first class. I was feared, I was respected, and most of all, I was left

alone

.
 
Of course, Skeeter’s book had produced a type of fanaticism with Fifth and Sixth Year girls, mostly in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. By the end of the first term, I had given out so many detentions administered by Mr. Filch that the fanaticism died out by Christmas.
 
It was also by Christmas that I was awarded a large settlement due to my suit against Rita Skeeter. I was suddenly a rich man, rich, by my standards. The book had pulled in revenue of hundreds of millions of galleons after distribution was extended to Canada and the States. It galled me that the whole world, English speaking for the most part, knew my name and face. No letters came my way, and for that I was grateful. All the same, I was awarded a lump sum of five million galleons, enough to pay my debts and keep me in a comfortable way of living for years to come.
 
I did not consider leaving Hogwarts. Minerva had asked me after the settlement came through over a compulsory Christmas function for the staff, if I decided to retire.
 
“Not yet,” was my only answer.
 
I thanked her for helping me, I even donated money to the school, anonymously, but I kept my post, my rooms, and my privacy. I would not know what to do with myself if I retired. I had expected to be rotting in some shallow grave for over a year by then.
 
Over the holiday, I did consider what I could do with my money. By the beginning of the next term, I invested some, saved the majority, and spent enough on new robes, new furniture, and new books.
 
The start of the new term had me taking an active interest in my well-being. I found a private Healer and physical therapist to get me into better health. I started exercising again, a routine I had kept during my years as a student up until the year Dolores Umbridge came to Hogwarts. I started writing again, for pleasure. Inspired by Skeeter’s petty attempt at literature, I began penning memoirs of my years sub rosa. I also started to read for pleasure, Muggle literature. The idea of the Byronic hero and anti-hero had begun to fascinate me.
 
By the second anniversary of the fall of the Dark Lord, I had worked my way through many classics, the Brontës, Hugo, and Joyce, as well as more modern books by Anthony Burgess and Thomas Harris.
 
Life had become routine, comprehensible. In the mornings, I rose, did some stretches before dawn. I then slipped out of the castle to jog in the near darkness along the shore of the Black Lake. I showered and dressed, taking breakfast standing up in the kitchens or my rooms. The rest of the day was spent lecturing or preparing lesson plans. I had a series of exercises I did in my rooms before and after dinner, push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, and pull-ups on a bar I positioned over the door to the lavatory. At night, I did my rounds to cool down, read or write for a few hours before showering again and going to bed.
 
Even when summer holidays came again, I kept my routine, varying some of my exercises, adding additional steps to each run, or push-ups to each set. I did not leave the realm and surrounding environs of Hogwarts. Anything I wanted or needed from the outside world, I requested by owl post.
 
Thus was my life, for the next four years. I was content to keep my entire world just in the realm of Hogwarts. The only real exception to my life’s routine was the nights Horace would sometimes drag me from the castle to Hogsmeade, usually to the Hog’s Head for a pint of bitters. I had always thought bitters would be plebian to Horace, but on those evenings, Horace was like so many who came to the Hog’s Head—in the mood to get smashed.
 
Second term had ended, and Horace had pulled me to the Hog’s Head for a celebratory pint. The pub was just as dank, dusty, and disgusting as ever. Aberforth Dumbledore was also just as odd as ever. When the man spoke, it was almost crude, but most of the time, he kept silent. In recent months, the Hog’s Head had seen the best business in known history, due in part to Skeeter’s newest book, ‘Harry Potter: Saviour or Psychopath?’ I had to laugh; Skeeter’s book titles were never very original, and I wondered what slander the new book contained.
 
“You are looking very fit, Severus,” Horace said, passing me a pint, one that I would stare at for the next few hours while Horace tried to drown himself in foul smelling bitters.
 
We sat at the bar, the pub nearly empty except for two hags sitting next to the door drinking elf-made wine out of grimy wine glasses.
 
“I

had

been meaning to ask you if you were taking some new concoction to keep you looking so young.”
 
I blinked at Horace whose silvery mustache was stained darker by bitters. “What do you mean?” I asked, still holding my pint glass.
 
Horace chuckled, his chins jiggling. “Why, my boy, you look like you have not aged one bit since the day the Dark Lord fell. Granted, the scar is the only reminder that you nearly died, but other than that, five years have passed! What

are

you? Thirty-eight, thirty-nine?”
 
I set my glass on the sticky bar, sighing. “Forty-four.”
 
Horace chuckled, and began drinking at a higher pace and frequency. I watched him, surprised that the old fat man had not somehow managed to have a heart attack by now. I could not hate the man, he

had

been my mentor in school, and I had been his apprentice for two years to obtain my Master’s level. In fact, besides Albus, Horace was perhaps the only real father figure in my life. Of course, Albus had been one of my masters, and I could not think of the man kindly as I did Horace.
 
“Have you heard the rumor?” Horace finally said after draining three pints while I still had to sip on my one.
 
“Which? There are plenty to go around,” I muttered as Aberforth grunted, coming up to the bar with a new glass for Horace.
 
“Minnie is retiring…”
 
I blinked as Horace started on his fourth pint.
 
“…as Transfigurations Professor. She’s going to put the rest of her tenure and energy into being a true Headmistress.”
 
“Oh.”
 
Oh. That was all I could think to say.
 
“I hear that she already has a few candidates for the post.”
 
I said nothing, quickly disinterested. The shuffling of appointments was a typical thing at Hogwarts, even before the War. Already, I had to avoid Longbottom when I jogged around the loch. He had tried to stop me twice as he spotted me outside the greenhouses. Of course, it did not surprise me that Longbottom would take Pomona’s post after she retired. I could not begrudge Longbottom his one, true talent—digging around in mud and muck, though I had heard from some channel he had been an adept Auror.
 
As long as he did not decide to try to be my friend, and kept playing with his plants, I did not have a problem.
 
“I will be interested to see who will be sitting at the Head’s table at the Sorting feast, won’t you?” Horace chuckled; his nose and cheeks already pink.
 
“No,” I sighed, finally lifting the grimy pint to my lips and taking my first sip.
 
I honestly could care less.

The summer’s news annoyed me. Potter married the Weasley girl. Potter was officially an Auror, looking to become head of the department. The Weasley boy had also become an Auror, apprehending Rodolphus Lestrange after the bastard fled to some deserted isle in the Hebrides, garnering a few weeks of renewed fame. The Malfoy family finally cleared their name and was now traveling abroad. Many of my old students had children that I would eventually begin to teach in about a decade. And, to my surprise, I read the first mention of the girl in almost four years.
 
It had been in a copy of the Prophet I found in the Kitchens, left most likely by Longbottom, who had started coming to the Kitchens in an attempt to speak to me. I had Winky warn me when Longbottom was in the Kitchens when I came down for a glass of milk before bed.
 
I had found her name in a gossip cum society column, written by none other than Rita Skeeter. After so many years and so many lawsuits against her, I was surprised she was still under the employ of the Prophet. Then again, I supposed that the general population liked to read her shit for reporting.
 
‘Hermione J. Granger was spotted on the arm of International Quidditch Star, Viktor Krum at an opening of Verdi’s ‘Aida’ in Verona this past week. Have the two reconnected after so many years apart? Ms. Granger and Mr. Krum would not comment as to why they were attending an outdoor Muggle performance of the opera, or why they were together. Both looked well, and stunning in dress robes. Ms. Granger, whose role in the Battle of Hogwarts earned her an Order of Merlin, First Class, a commendation that she refused, would not comment on why she was in the company of Mr. Krum. This reporter has been trying, unsuccessfully, to learn where Ms. Granger has been keeping herself since the War…’
 
I remembered the Yule Ball, Krum, and Granger. I remembered the two being together in the Library often that year. I remembered Krum kissing her hand.
 
I set the newspaper on fire and stomped out of the Kitchens, though I could not say why, and forgot about my usual glass of milk.

Horace’s rumor proved true by the start of the new term. I took my customary place at the Head’s table, glancing at the empty seat next to Minerva. The Sorting was over, the students were stuffing their faces with rich foods, and soon Minerva would make her welcoming speech.
 
When Minerva stood, she made introductions of the professors, as she had for the past four years. Longbottom smiled brightly at his name, while I contented myself with staring at the enchanted ceiling when my name was called.
 
“We have a few faculty changes this year. First, since Professor Trelawney’s health prevents her from seeing clearly…” Minerva bristled, sarcastically; only the older students seemed to laugh. “…Professor Lavender Brown will be taking care of Divination this year.”
 
I thought I had recognised the slender blonde witch at the far end of the table sitting next to Longbottom. The girl was wholly unremarkable when I taught her.
 
“And we also have a new Transfigurations Professor, who will be replacing me in the classroom. Do note that I will still act as Head of Gryffindor House…” There were cheers from the Gryffindor table and from Longbottom. “Unfortunately, the new Professor has not arrived yet, thus the first day of Transfigurations will be canceled. However, be prepared to read in your textbooks ahead of time when the new Professor arrives. She will make her own introductions in your classes…”
 
Another ‘she’, I mentally grumbled.
 
The feast continued until the Prefects announced that the Houses should depart. I sat still, not having touched my food. My stomach was always a bit touchy at Sorting Feasts. I was not used to the richness of the food. Winky would bring something suitable to my rooms later.
 
I was mentally arranging the next day as I walked back to my rooms. I had Second Years first thing in the morning. I was still arranging my thoughts as I undressed from my robes and began stretching in the space I used in my rooms at the foot of my bed to exercise.
 
I had already memorized the names of the First Years from a prepared list Minerva gave to all the staff, remembering what names were Sorted where. I was mumbling names beginning with P between my vocalized count of sit-ups when a knock came on my office door beyond my private rooms.
 
With a grunt, I jumped to my feet, wandlessly Summoning a towel from the lavatory to wipe my face and chest. Draping the towel around my neck to hide my scar, I padded to the door. As I touched the knob, the wards I set alerted me to who was waiting on the other side.
 
“Is something the matter, Minerva?” I asked, opening the door to the current Headmistress, decked in impressive blue tartan robes, a ceremonial costume for the Sorting.
 
Minerva smiled blandly, her eyes moving over my bare chest. It made my insides squirm unpleasantly.
 
“I wanted to tell you, Severus, as a type of warning…”
 
I frowned, feeling sweat drip from the tips of my hair to splatter on the tops of my feet.
 
“Warning?
 
She nodded. “The new Professor…”
 
“Ah, the mystery professor. Don’t tell me it is

another

one of your precious Gryffindors.”
 
Minerva smirked, tartly. “As a matter of fact, yes. Hermione Granger is on her way from a conference in Tibet. I expect you to behave like an adult.”
 
Something twitched deep in my chest and I ground my teeth. “And what

do

you mean by that, Minerva?”
 
She did not hedge and her smirk tightened. “I know very well you might have objections to her appointment, let alone her presence in the castle…”
 
I snorted, lifting the edge of my towel to wipe my mouth and chin.
 
“…not to mention your

abominable

treatment of her when she was here for the N.E.W.T.s tutorial.”
 
I narrowed my eyes. What did Minerva

know

, exactly? Had Granger whined and cried about my frightening behavior to Minerva after all?
 
“I do not know exactly what was said or done by you, but you will treat her with respect. She

has

earned it.”
 
Minerva’s words were powerful; I could feel the magic in each syllable, coercing obedience and compliance.
 
“Very well, Minerva. I

have

been warned,” I muttered, my hand reaching for the door to slam it shut.
 
“Good night, Severus…”
 
I grumbled, and quickly shut the door. I returned to my sit-ups, finishing mumbling the names on the list, alphabetically. It was not until I started my push-ups, reciting back from zed that the pain in my gut caused me to fall face first into the rug.
 
I rolled onto my side and curled my body inward.
 
The girl was coming to Hogwarts, again.
 
Oh, fickle fates,

how

I hated you.

I managed to control myself for the first week of the new term. I made two Third Year Ravenclaws cry. I gave detention to a Hufflepuff. I docked fifty points from Gryffindor in one hour. I made a Slytherin boy vomit.
 
By the end of the weekend, I was pacing my rooms like a wild animal.
 
I had not seen her yet, although I was hearing plenty from the students.
 
Apparently, Professor Granger was vying for my position as most hated Professor at Hogwarts. Even the Gryffindors complained at how strict she was, and how cruel. I overheard a group of Slytherin girls calling Professor Granger every possible derogatory name they could imagine after she had called them ‘inbred, little mentally challenged knob-ends’.
 
I found that amusing.
 
On the first Monday of the fourth week of term, I managed to leave my classroom during a free period. My curiosity was getting the better of me, and I felt like a lecherous old bat sneaking down the corridor to the Transfigurations classroom. The door was open, and peeking around the edge, I knew that Granger had a classroom full of Fifth Years, already preparing for their O.W.L.s.
 
“Danvers! Has your brain been replaced by a bog roll over the weekend?”
 
Someone inside sniggered.
 
“And you, Blake, what are

you

laughing at? Your technique is sloppy. Why does that pair of opera glasses have owl’s eyes? If you were paying attention instead of sexually harassing Miss Harper, you would know that your wand movement is about as graceful as Cannon’s Seeker attempting a Wronski Feint.”
 
The classroom was silent, like a tomb.
 
I finally caught sight of Granger as she strode in her dark red teaching robes to the front of the classroom. Her voice was terrifying, deep, and smooth, with a dangerous edge. It was no wonder that the students were growing to hate her. It sounded as if she would Curse a person with the ice in her voice.
 
“Now, Danvers, try again. Owl to opera glasses. No feathers, no owl’s eyes, and for Merlin’s sake, do

not

kill the poor animal.”
 
Granger stood with her hands on her hips, her robes open in the front to reveal a gray smock dress with a low, square collar. Under the smock was a pair of tights, black and taut about her legs. I had thought

I

had no fashion sense as my eyes spotted a pair of scuffed black dragonhide boots, the tops falling about her ankles. I supposed I was not so bad, after all.
 
“Blake! I swear to the gods, I should take your wand and shove it up your nose, as you seem to have

no

better use for it!”
 
Her eyes were evil. Even I shivered at the sight of them, as the students did. Her hair was cut shorter than I remembered, but still curly and thick. She had somehow managed to pin it back from her face so her head did not resemble the dirty brown end of a cotton swab. She even wore something on her lips so they glittered in the lamplight of the classroom. Other than that, her face was older, more feminine, and more mature.
 
Granger was

truly

a woman.
 
More castigation spewed from her mouth, her wicked tongue moving to create the cleverest of insults. However, I noticed that there was an equal amount of praise.
 
“Very good, Miss Harper. Ten points to Slytherin.”
 
I had to stifle a cough. Granger did not discriminate with scold or praise. I wondered if she was color blind to the patches and ties the students wore. I wondered if she knew that she was universally disliked.
 
It did not matter, however, as I watched for a few moments longer. I felt exposed in the empty corridor and I knew the period would end soon.
 
Granger walked among the desks, hands still on her matured, rounded hips. I listened as she gave advice to some and strict instructions to others. She was a good teacher; I had to admit, despite some impatience and an obvious low tolerance for idiocy.
 
She was fashioning herself after

me

.
 
I felt sick again.
 
However, as I started to turn away, run back to my rooms before the period was over, she met my eye. I was suddenly frozen to the spot just outside the classroom door.
 
Granger’s eyes moved from my face down and back up again. There was a visible distance in her eyes, as if her mind had retreated from the moment. It did not last long, however, as those orbs glimmered for a moment and a smooth, predatory smirk curled her lips.
 
Like the coward Potter thought I was, I fled.

Halloween came, and once again, I was called to leave my rooms for the feast. I had to consider myself lucky that Granger sat next to Minerva and I two places beyond. The feast, as usual, was rowdy, loud, and generally unpleasant. I was looking forward to having some time between the feast and round to read a bit more of Chandler’s ‘The High Window’.
 
I ate a bit of potatoes and ham, and sipped water. I abhorred pumpkin juice. I watched the youngsters below gorge themselves on sweets and cakes. I almost pitied Pomfrey for the sheer amount of students that would be coming in on the morning with their annual stomachaches.
 
Flitwick sat to my right and Vector to my left; both did not try to engage me in conversation and seemed right at home talking to each other over and past me. I sat back in my chair and pretended not to exist. It was hard, however, as I caught golden brown eyes settling upon me over Flitwick’s head. The little old codger was not a sufficient buffer.
 
Several times, I blatantly met her gaze, defiant, and in those times, I was the first to look away. It was infuriating, humiliating even. How could she look at me so openly when I had acted so horribly toward her? How could she stand me so close?
 
Every glance was like a slap, and then the longer she looked, like a soothing caress.
 
It was as the students began to depart that I realized how nice she looked with her dress robes hanging over her toned arm. She wore a black dress, falling to her calf. I supposed it was a cocktail dress with a black gauzy shawl overtop with tiny black crystals embroidered into the knit. Even her hair was lovely, pinned up with black ribbons.
 
As she departed from the table, she smiled at me.
 
I did not move.
 
The smile was lovely, not predatory, not condescending, just lovely. It put me into a

very

foul mood.
 
I did not read my book when I returned to my rooms. Instead, I stripped off my robes and paced, rolling up my shirtsleeves, I then unbuttoned the top buttons of the shirt and doublet over top. I felt as if I were burning from the inside out with anger.
 
By the time I was stalking the dark corridors with my wand in hand, I was seething. Every step I took echoed in the darkness, and I did not bother to light my way. I took the first and second floors in a matter of minutes. I checked the dormitory entrances, nodded to Filch as I passed him on the fifth floor and made my way back down again.
 
It was past midnight, and I had already docked three hundred House points total from several Sixth and Seventh Years, hoping for a tryst in a dark niche in the corridors. I sent them on their way, trying to remember their names. My physical exertion had helped me to cool my anger, and I was going down to the Kitchens for my glass of milk before heading back to my rooms.
 
I leapt from the second step into the Entry Hall, glancing into the Great Hall and the darkness inside. Turning to go down the steps to the Kitchens in the direction of the Hufflepuff dormitories, I sighed.
 
Sleep, I wanted to sleep.
 
I trotted down the stairs toward the entrance from the Kitchens, when at the bottom of the dark passage; I collided hard with a solid figure. I had not felt the presence of another person, a fact that startled me more than the collision.
 
I stumbled back as I heard the hard tap of shoes on the stone floor trying to keep upright.
 
“One hundred points from…” I hissed, lighting my wand, ready to say a House name.
 
The face that floated out of the dark made me physically recoil.
 
“Gryffindor?” she supplied, her hand pressed against the painted fruit bowl entrance to the Kitchens to hold herself upright.
 
In my wand light, I noticed that she was still in the black dress, but the shawl was gone. Her hair was slightly mussed from the collision and her eyes like hard pieces of amber in her face. When she lit her own wand, I could see that a plate of what looked to be bread pudding was on the floor, mixed in with broken porcelain.
 
I lowered my wand from my face, the light blinding me. In the eerie glow, she looked like a statue.
 
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said softly, swishing her wand in the air to Vanish the dessert and the plate.
 
I inhaled deeply, unsure if I should apologize or push past her into the Kitchens.
 
“What are you doing here?”
 
I immediately winced, my words coming out wrong and strange. Granger blinked at me.
 
“Indulging in a guilty pleasure before bed.”
 
“Oh?”
 
Gods, kill me now, I thought. I felt like I was fifteen again, trying to be cool in front of a girl.
 
“And you? Finished with rounds?”
 
The conversational tone of her voice was a departure from her classroom voice. It was unsettlingly familiar to the tutorial sessions years ago.
 
I nodded.
 
She took a step from the portrait, around me, to the stairs. “Well then, good evening,” she said softly, her eyes glimmering in my wand light.
 
There was a tearing sensation in my chest, something that hurt me. I felt like the biggest fool. I blamed it on her. Hermione Granger had rankled me by merely existing. Saving my life had been the least of what I felt. Then, I was not sure what I was actually feeling, other than pain.
 
Why pain? I supposed it had to do with fear, a fear that had grown into a canker on my black soul. Its name?

Granger

.
 
The sound of my wand clattering to the floor made a terrible echoing noise in the narrow corridor. My hand moved, flying through the sudden darkness, and grasped her small wrist. My fingers dug into her skin, and I pulled.
 
The sound of taffeta rippling in the air was as if a voice was whispering and soon, I felt something small, warm, and soft in my arms. She smelled like bread pudding, and as I kissed her, she tasted like it as well.
 
We scrambled in the dark, feet slipping on the stone beneath us until I grunted into her mouth as my back and the wall collided. I held her tight, having to nearly stoop over to keep my lips moving over her face. I could not see her eyes, and this detail empowered me.
 
Her hands were grasping my hair and my neck, nails digging in, not to fight, but to secure a hold upon me. I could hear her breathing through her nose, her lips and tongue were attacking my mouth. I started to fight her, not because I was frightened or angry, but because I could not stand the fact that it was my back pressed into the wall.
 
Fabric ripped, skin was exposed, and soon I had her pressed back into the stairs leading up to the Entry Hall. She made a sound of protest, but I did not care if she was uncomfortable. I did not care if my hands squeezed her too hard, pinching her right nipple, and I did not care that she was pulling my hair roughly, as if to tear it out.
 
I was not sure what I was trying to accomplish by stoppering her mouth with my own. I was not even sure if I could hold down my dinner.
 
I pulled at the front of her lovely black dress again and listened to the taffeta rip further. My hand followed, fully cupping the large mound of flesh in my palm. She moaned into my mouth and slowly a smooth leg ran along the inside of my right thigh. The contact of her thigh against my crotch made me jerk my mouth away.
 
Then I realized how tight my trousers were, how hard my cock was, and how badly my stomach ached. I could not see her face; I could only hear her gasping below me.
 
Then, it came, something my subconscious had been harboring since the day I slammed her into the wall of the DADA classroom, muttering like a homicidal maniac.
 
“Fuck you…” I whispered breathlessly. “I want to fuck you.”
 
It was lucky that it was dark for I was sure that her face was staring up at me in horror, not to mention that I could feel my own face twisting, aghast.
 
I wondered if I had some sort of multiple personality disorder. Did my subconscious, my libido, have a voice of its own? And why did it sound like my own voice, but rougher, like it did not long after the Healers let me speak again at St. Mungo’s?
 
It kept speaking through me, and I could not stop it. My hands were full, one hand clutching her breast, pinching her nipple between my knuckles, the other on her throat, holding her down upon the stone steps.
 
“I want to fuck your arse, your mouth, all of you… I

hate

you. I

want

you… Fuck you until you know what it is like to experience the joy of dying…so I can take it back and let you live this life like I have been since

you

saved me…in fear.”
 
What

was

I saying?
 
She twisted against me, and then, as my other self bent down to find her mouth again, fingernails rent my cheeks, tearing skin. I hissed and pushed away, my hands automatically going to my face.
 
“Accio!” she hissed.
 
Blinding light exploded before my eyes and for an instant, I caught sight of her face as she stood, the front of her dress hanging open obscenely. She was livid.
 
I closed my eyes, a natural reaction to the light, and I heard her shoes tap on the steps, away from me. I was in the dark again, bleeding, shirt torn, the head of my cock trying to work its way past my belt.
 
I found my wand near my boot, and snatched it up in my bloody hand. My vision was red with rage, at her, and myself, as I stalked with difficulty, unnoticed, back to my rooms. In the lavatory mirror, I looked at my face and the four scratches on either cheek, dripping blood off my jaw.
 
I ignored the sting and the pain, a bloody hand slapping against the mirror as I tore open the front of my trousers. I pumped my cock roughly, my spine curving, my head dropping so that I looked through my hair at the blood on my face.
 
The dress had been torn all the way down, her breasts heaving as she gasped in anger and shock. All the way down to the dark curls of her cunt…and the glimmer of moisture there. I could smell her; I could still taste her sweet mouth.
 
I came; hot, sticky ejaculate coating my hand, arching up toward my face, sticking to my lips. More landed in my hair, some in the sink and on the mirror, and all the while I growled a terrible sound between crooked teeth. My head grew light, my face stung, and suddenly I was on the lavatory floor, cock jerking, still hard, face dripping blood into the tile.
 
There was something deep inside me that was beginning to take over. It scared me.
 
I was insane. The fear of life, of death, of

her

, was transforming into some horrible, black thing devouring my soul.
 
I

had

to have her. I

had

to end this insanity.

Christmas holidays came, and I was sitting up in bed, staring at the packages at the foot with a suspicious eye.
 
I hate Christmas and all major holidays.
 
I crawled to the foot of the bed, noticing that Minerva had sent me another book, usually something along the lines of Scottish history, Bonnie Prince Charlie or something about early Pictish myths. I tossed the package in the direction of my writing desk, disinterested.
 
Lucius sent a gift, and as I opened it, I could not help but smile. It was a large box with a new silver cauldron. I wondered if my old friend realized I no longer taught Potions, then again, I still dabbled when I had Horace’s laboratory to myself.
 
The elves had sent me a box of chocolate covered bing cherries, as they had every year I had been employed at Hogwarts. There was even a gift from Longbottom, a pot of dirt. I supposed it was the boy’s way of trying to be friendly. I had to read the card attached to know what was planted inside.
 
‘Valerian, sweet smelling, lovely pink flowers.’
 
I set the small pot on the bedside table. There was a meaning, symbolic to valerian. It had to do with a relationship’s end, or the realization that a relationship is not possible. I wondered if Longbottom knew what valerian meant.
 
I sighed, sitting under the blankets, reaching for the one card that was under the gifts.
 
‘Christmas party’, it said. I scanned the handwritten words, knowing it to be in Minerva’s hand. Then I read the word, addressed to me. ‘Mandatory’.
 
All hopes I had to spend Christmas eating goose before the fire, ready to begin reading ‘Our Mutual Friend’, were dashed. ‘Mandatory’ meant that if I did not show up to the seven o’clock soiree at Horace’s lush quarters, Minerva would come after me.
 
I went back to sleep.
 
Christmas Eve and Christmas day were the only times I allowed myself to sleep in to whatever hour I wanted. I was never into the ‘holiday spirit’, but I did allow myself a few small pleasures. By three o’clock, however, I was up, body exercised, lunch consumed and dressed in my best robes. I started reading Dickens, but kept stopping to glance at the small clock on the mantle above the fireplace.
 
By six, I could no longer contain my anxiety, and left my rooms for the drafty corridors. For the first time since I could remember, there were only two students in the castle over the holidays. There were two Ravenclaw girls, who could amuse themselves in their House Dormitory without bothering the staff.
 
I moved to go outside, perhaps to take in some cold, fresh air, but I had left my cloak behind. I instead started for the dungeons, thinking that maybe Horace had already started drinking beforehand. I could always count on Horace attempting to get me drunk, and I had half a mind to let him.
 
However, as I neared the open door to Horace’s rooms, two voices speaking softly stopped me. I stood just outside the spill of light streaming into the dungeon passage, pressing my back into the wall.
 
“…you mean he

tore

it?”
 
It was Minerva speaking; her accented voice a thin whisper of disbelief.
 
“I did not mend it.”
 
Granger.
 
“Why are you telling me this

now

, Hermione? That was almost two months ago!” Minerva admonished.
 
I could not see the two women, and I did not move to see Granger’s reaction.
 
“He’s been avoiding me since. Of course, had he confronted me or tried to apologize, I probably would have hexed him. Then… I just stopped being shocked or angry,” Granger said softly.
 
There was a clink of glasses and the distant sound of a cork being popped from a bottle.
 
“His behavior has been atrocious, you should have said something straight away…”
 
“And what? You would have

sacked

him? Please, Minerva, just do not say anything. It is not as if he hurt me…”
 
“But he

did

! He has! Oh my dear, I warned you years ago that trying to rouse any sort of tenderness from Severus would result in pain!”
 
I frowned into the dark. Minerva had been in on this ploy I realized years ago.
 
Granger made a noise that sounded like a sigh. Minerva continued on, her voice taking a motherly tone.
 
“I know you mean well, dear, and I know that by saving him you feel responsible…”
 
“No,” Granger said suddenly. “It

isn’t

that. You might think I pity him somehow—I do not. That day, I was frightened that he would die. I kept thinking that if we lost him, the War, our world… We would have lost everything, Minerva. Severus Snape was the hinge, and his death would have turned so much of this world to shit…”
 
I heard Minerva sigh a laugh. “Romantic ideals are not going to help either. You romanticize him, and he is, as much as I hate to admit, not some anti-hero that will inspire some lasting passion. He

fully

intended to die that day, and to him, you are an object worthy of hate.”
 
I wanted to protest. Minerva’s words were not so far from the truth, but not entirely accurate either.
 
“You

sting

me,” Granger laughed airily.
 
I heard the smack of lips, and I supposed Granger had embraced the Headmistress, placing a kiss on her cheek.
 
“All of this because of what he said that day. Do you honestly think,

now

, that he meant it?”
 
“I do.
 
I am not out to reform Severus Snape into some romantic fool. And I know how you feel about my tastes, Minerva, so don’t start. It is odd enough that I confide

so

much to you already, it makes me feel a little dirty sometimes…”
 
Minerva twittered a laugh.
 
“I care for him,” Granger continued. “No matter if he is an anti-hero or a psychopath. I just want to know what it is like to have him, even if it were for a few minutes.”
 
Again, I heard Minerva sigh. I could imagine her face, her deep-set frown. “You are setting yourself up for a

delightful

hurt, my girl. Loving Severus Snape has only ever caused pain.”
 
I pushed off the wall, and closed my eyes. I hated the old bitch.
 
I quietly wended my way back up to the Entry Hall, and moved to the doors of the castle. As I approached, they opened just wide enough for me to pass. The wall of cold that slammed into my body knocked any thought I had from my skull. When I could breathe normally, the doors closing behind me, I drew my wand to cast a Warming Charm on my robes, and Transfigured my boots to have better tread.
 
I took off in the snow, walking at first, and then running toward the loch. Although a good six inches of snow covered my usual path, I knew it well enough to end up along the worn circuit about the icy shoreline of the loch. It was snowing, it was nearly full dark, but I ran.
 
My breath came out in white streams from my nostrils and mouth as I ran. The icy air penetrated every bit of my lungs, numbing my face and fingers. I ran past the Quidditch Pitch, past the Whomping Willow, through the trees, and then turned and ran back toward the castle, past Hagrid’s hut toward the greenhouses. Part of the reason I liked to run was because it did not allow me to think.
 
I supposed I looked like some great black phantom running over the white perfection of the snow, but I felt like a Dementor, a soulless thing.

The Christmas party was in full swing when I finally made my entrance, my cheeks, and nose red from the cold. Only Horace came to greet me, pressing a glass of elf-made wine in my hand. I did not look at him or admire his opulent robes or listen to his flowery words. Instead, my eyes found Granger, talking to Lavender Brown near the fire.
 
Somewhere near Greenhouse Five, I had come to a decision.
 
Music was playing from a gramophone somewhere, jazzy Christmas tunes, and as I pulled away from Horace to down my wine in two large gulps, I heard Longbottom at my back wishing me a ‘Happy Christmas, sir.’ I did not turn, but set my empty glass of wine on a tray as it bounced past, a red tinsel decked elf running to retrieve more glasses. I Summoned two more from the table near the door and in quick succession, drank.
 
Horace was patting me on the back, saying something about me ‘being in a hurry to get into the spirit of things’. I all but ignored my mentor, passing the empty glasses in his direction. All the while, I stared at Granger, dressed in a beautiful red silk kimono dress, her hair up in red ribbons, red lipstick on her lips. She even wore ruby studded clip-ons upon her small earlobes.
 
The strong elf-made wine worked through me quickly, unlike the venom that should have taken my life. I pulled at my neck cloth, finding it too tight and succeeded in loosening it too much, a button popping off my white shirt. I narrowed my eyes as Granger began laughing at something Brown had said.
 
I was drunk. Perhaps only a few minutes passed, maybe more, but after three large glasses of wine, I was flushed, no longer from the cold, but the alcohol. In this drunken state, I shrugged out of my robes, Horace saying something about my sudden stumble, grasping my shoulder.
 
“Perhaps Mr. Longbottom should escort you to your rooms, Severus?” I heard Horace say, his large, meaty hand moving to grasp my arm.
 
I pulled away quickly, and suddenly I was moving forward. The darkness that had overtaken my soul was howling for me to do something. I had come to a decision and with a bit of liquid courage, I

was

going to act.
 
Brown made a noise that sounded like a cross between a scream and a cry when I pushed her roughly aside to get to Granger. Immediately, the room seemed to erupt into a loud chaos as I grabbed the woman by the hair, and kissed her soundly.
 
She dropped her glass and the shattering sound only compelled me to drink more wine from her sweet mouth.
 
“What the

devil

is going on?” I heard Longbottom shout.
 
My arms were unmovable, one hand in her hair, the arm curling about her shoulder, the other hand grasping her full bottom, pressing her pelvis into mine. I was not sure where her hands were going, but they moved all over my body, from my hair, down my back, to finally grasp my face. There was no scoring of fingernails into my skin. Instead, her tongue delved into my mouth, dueling for dominance over mine.
 
I had decided not to be afraid any longer.
 
If I had to fuck her before the fireplace with all the staff watching, I would. I had to prove to myself that I was no longer afraid of living.
 
Words, words, words, it

all

had to do with words. The words I said to Granger in the Shrieking Shack, the words Granger wrote in Skeeter’s book, words I had said in reaction to them, and Minerva’s words that ‘loving me only ever caused pain’.
 
It was all wrong, all lies…

all

true.
 
I held Granger against me as if to force her body into mine. I did not breathe. I only felt and tasted. Even when I opened my eyes, peering down at her closed lids, I only knew her. All around me were sock puppets. Horace sock puppet was jumping about wildly, his Christmas soiree in an uproar. Longbottom’s brown sock puppet was running around in frenetic circles. Brown’s purple sock was gaping from the floor.
 
Then, I could breathe. Hermione Granger, the only real person in the room, grew taller, her red dress filling my eyes like shimmering silk blood. I realized then, I was falling to the floor.
 
“Someone get a Sobering Draught, now!” I heard Minerva shout over the din.
 
No…
 
Hands grasped my arms and I was hauled upward. I did not bother to see who had lifted me, but I felt two bodies on either side. Before me, however, was Granger, her ruby red lipstick smeared on her face obscenely.
 
“Let’s get you to your room, Professor,” a male voice grumbled, irritated.
 
Longbottom.
 
“Miss Granger, if you’d kindly lead the way,” said another, agitated male voice.
 
Horace.
 
I was half carried from the room, Granger walking before me, her round bottom swaying under red silk. She glanced back occasionally, her face unreadable, beautiful.
 
In my foggy mind, the trip back to the DADA classroom and to my rooms beyond took no time at all. Even when my face hit the black velvet duvet of my bed, I was still in a haze. Longbottom and Horace were speaking in rushed, quiet voices, and I rolled onto my back to look up at the underside of the canopy over the bed.
 
“I’ll

deal

with him,” I heard her say firmly.
 
“But Hermione… He’s

totally

pissed!” Longbottom protested.
 
“Yes, Miss Granger. Three glasses of elf-made wine, in a row, never has a good effect on a person…” Horace whinged.
 
“I’ll Stun him, if I have to. Besides, this is

personal

, gentlemen. Please make my excuses,” she said quietly.
 
The bump of the door against the jamb made me sit up too quickly. Granger was still in the room, her back against the door.
 
“What the

hell

is wrong with you?” she hissed, her eyes flashing.
 
I did not answer; too busy searching for my wand. It would not be until later that I realized it was in my abandoned robes in Horace’s rooms. I finally gave up the search, and sat on the bed, my head spinning.
 
“Do you

hate

me so much as to humiliate me in front of the staff?”
 
I licked my lips, my mouth dry, but tasting of wine. I could feel lipstick on my mouth, smelled it.
 
“I came…” I began, quickly swallowing down vomit. “I came to a decision.”
 
Granger blinked and pushed off from the door. She had her wand in her hand and she stood steadily on a pair of red, strappy heels. She had lovely ankles, tiny toes. I was quickly fascinated, and distracted.
 “And what was that, pray tell,” she muttered, sarcastically. 
Liquid courage was like dying. Truth came spilling out of me, unbidden.
 
“I decided I was not going to be afraid of you anymore.”
 
I was rewarded by laughter, and my fascination with the high arch of her left foot was gone. She was

laughing

at me, and in my drunken state, it angered me. I stood, swaying on my feet, and I supposed I looked very comical for her laughter only grew louder, like a feral howl.
 
“Severus Snape…

afraid

of me?” she laughed, her perfect white teeth flashing in the candlelight of the room.
 
I swallowed thickly, considering whether to move to stop her from laughing or to pass out.
 
“You, of

all

people, have no reason to fear anything now.”
 
Granger had stopped laughing, I had barely noticed, the sound echoing in my head. She took a step forward and I ended up sitting on the bed again, startled by her movement. I could only watch her come closer, within arm’s reach, setting her wand on the bedside table next to Longbottom’s little pot of valerian. When her eyes turned to me again, it was to gaze down her nose at me.
 
She stood so near that I could feel her body heat. Stepping out of her heels, she kicked them aside, closing the height difference between us. My eyes were level with her red silk clad breasts.
 
I could only stare at her as a hand lifted to touch my face, fingertips brushing of my left eyebrow around my eye and then down the bridge of my nose. When her fingers stopped moving, it was to cradle my sallow cheek in her palm.
 
Then…she slapped me,

hard

.
 
I was knocked over on the bed, catching myself before I was completely on my side. Somehow, the strike sobered me a bit, and before I could think of the consequences, I struck back. It was a weak attempt, my hand-eye coordination impaired. I only managed to turn her head to her right.
 
I was speaking, quickly, angrily. I was on my feet, circling around her, almost screaming.
 “You, you, you! It had to be you, wouldn’t it? It had to be you who saved me!” 
She did not move, her shoulders hunched, her chin resting on her bare shoulder. Her eyes followed me as I moved around her, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. An ugly, drunk fool in rumpled clothes with a hideous scar to match his hideous face, I supposed.
 
“In my head

all

the time,” I continued. “Making me insane. Not a sock puppet, not an angel, but you…you…

you

!”
 
I was yelling as loud as I could by this point, my entire body trembling. My fists were clenched and I knew that if she moved, I would strike her with those fists.
 
“Confusing me, distracting me, invading my dreams, my fantasies… You just

never

go away! I

cannot

be free of you!”
 
I had stopped just behind her, seeing that several ribbons in her hair were coming undone. Still, she did not move, did not look at me.
 
I was puffing out my breath, but my mind was calming itself. It was the sight of the unraveling ribbons, I supposed. I wanted to fix them, make them right.
 
“You come before me with no wide-eyed infatuation, yet you reveal yourself to me. Some people

might

call you a tease.”
 
My voice sounded sober, as did the weight of my words, but I knew I was

far

from it.
 
“You tease me with that terrible book and all the little things you wrote in the margins. Did you

ever

stop to think that I am

not

a good man, Granger?”
 
She did not answer, and it infuriated me as I waited. I stalked around her again, so that I could look at her face. She had her eyes closed, her lips parted to breathe. I almost wished she was crying, but she was not. Granger was not someone who wasted tears.
 
I lifted my chin. “I am old, I

am

bad, and I do

not

want to be in love,” I spat.
 
It was then she moved, opening her eyes and turning her gaze to me.
 
Her voice, when she spoke, was as cold as the voice she used in the classroom.
 
“You

are

those things.”
 
Pain, it nearly made me bend over in agony, but I stayed still. I knew this pain. It was the pain of rejection and the pain of crushed dreams. I knew it

all

too well.
 
“I

never

said I loved you.”
 
Of course not, I had almost deluded myself into thinking it, though.
 
“I care for you, as one human being would for another when faced with the possibility of death. I saved you because you, of all people,

deserved

to be saved…”
 
“I never asked…!”
 
“You are so determined to make people think you are pitiable. Maybe you are. But I would rather eat dung than allow you to revel in a pity I might have for you, sir. It would empower you

too

much!” she snarled in my face.
 
Gods, I wanted her. So strong, so beautiful with lipstick smeared on her face, I wanted to shove my cock in her mouth.
 
“I

want

you,” she said, eyes penetrating my skull as she looked up into my eyes. “For one night, for a week, a year, a lifetime.”
 
I shivered.
 
“

Why

?” I asked, my voice incredibly small.
 
The golden eyes blinked and the china doll lips quivered. She was reconsidering. She took a step back from me, as if realizing that she could feel my stinking wine saturated breath on her face, disgusted.
 
Granger Summoned her wand, and as it flew from the bedside table, I swatted it away like an irritated cat, listening as the twig clattered on the floor somewhere under the bed. She took another step back, again, as if realizing that she was standing in the middle of a tiger’s cage.
 
“No!” I breathed as she turned away to run to the door.
 
Her frightened shriek delighted me as I grasped the back of her dress, pushing her forward, across the room. Her hands caught her before she slammed into the back of the door, her cheek pressed into the wood grain.
 
I

had

made my decision, and she was not going to stop me from carrying that decision out. I rent silk from the collar down to her bum. I could hear her whimpering, but she did not say a word to stop me, did not scream to save herself.
 
“You want

me

?” I muttered, pressing my palm into the soft skin between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the door. “I will give you myself for one night…and then we’ll see if your romantic notion of me survives to see another day!”
 
Ripping, rending fabric, scraps of red dress and white shirt were falling away. I pulled my belt from my trouser and she started to fight. Pressing my hip into her bottom, I captured her hands and looped the leather belt about them, trapping them behind her back.
 
I found myself grinning malevolently into the back of her head as I held the long end of the belt in one hand, pushing my trousers and underwear down my legs to my ankles, slipping out of my boots to step free of the remainder of my clothing.
 
She tried to look at me out of the corner of her left eye, to me who stood nude so close behind her. I would not give her the satisfaction of scrutiny, although I almost wanted her to see my cock, straining upward toward her arse, the tip already glistening with pre-cum.
 
I hesitated to move, to either tear the rest of her dress off or throw her toward my bed and fuck her. It was the last opportunity I would have to toss her out of the room and keep myself from being a rapist.
 
“Do it,” she whispered. “Finish what

you’ve

started, Severus Snape.”
 
She was scolding me.
 
“Don’t tell me what to do, Granger.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chapter Forty: True Suffering

‘What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.’ –Seneca

I threw her to the bed, watching her small, perfect feet scramble across the floor to keep her from falling to the floor. When she landed upon the bed on her back, her hands bound behind her, I moaned softly.
 
I was upon her in a moment, tearing the front of her pretty dress down the front. Her cropped hair was a riot of brown tendrils and red ribbons, her mouth open to gasp for air, to beg something of me that I wanted for myself.
 
Granger was laid bare below me, her breasts heaving, her back arching. She did not speak; she had no need for useless words. In her eyes, I could tell that she understood what I was about to do to her body and eventually her mind.
 
Crouching over her, knees on either side of her thighs, I leaned down to inhale the scent of her skin, starting at her throat. The tip of my nose brushed along her skin, following an invisible path down her body. Her throat smelled faintly of perfume, flowery and cheap. The valley between her breasts smelled sweet with perspiration, like the bread pudding I had tasted in her mouth at Halloween. Her navel smelled of lavender soap, fresh and clean. The dark thatch of curls smelled faintly of blood, but more of her intrinsic essence, female, aroused, angry.
 
I moved, my body feeling taut and lithe though I was certain that I did not move as gracefully as I felt. I parted her legs, long, toned, smooth. I spread her open as if I were opening a thick rind fruit, searching for the sweet pulp inside. The scent of her cunt overpowered my senses, a fragrance that made me salivate, licking my lips impatiently.
 
The dark pink flesh between her thighs was wet, juicy, and I indulged myself by draping the backs of her knees over my shoulders, lifting her hips upward as I sat on the bed grasping the globes of her bottom. She whimpered softly, trying to remove some of her weight from her bound hands under her. I did not care, my mouth opening, my tongue lashing out to taste Granger’s wet pussy.
 
I could taste a slight trace of blood, just as I smelled it. She was about to begin her menses, and the thought made my cock twitch and my sac tighten. I let my tongue slip between the walls of her hole, probing, tasting.
 
I was either more drunk than I originally thought, or Granger’s cunt really did taste good even with the coppery flavor of blood. Wriggling her hips against my mouth, she whispered something indistinct. I paid no mind, slipping my tongue from her, to nip at the swollen bundle of nerves I had kept nudging with my nose.
 
She finally grunted, her eyes slamming shut, her head thrown back into the bed.

I

was doing this to her,

I

alone. I was the one sucking on her swollen clit, I was the one that was making her body clench and unclench against my stubbly chin. I had the power to decide what I wanted from the woman.
 
Granger wailed her climax aloud, the sound thrilling me. She tried in vain to pull herself away, to end the brutal suction I had on her clit. I would not release her. I had her where I wanted her, vulnerable, just as I had felt far too many times in her presence.
 
My jaw ached, my cock ached. I finally let her legs slip from my shoulders, her hips resting on the velvet duvet. I licked at my lips and chin, tasting, relishing. And I wanted more.
 
“What would your friends say, Miss Granger,” I purred as I grasped her shoulders, leaning over her body, my cock brushing her belly. She opened her eyes slowly, the golden orbs glazed and distant. “What would Mr. Potter say to me eating you out? What about Mr. Weasley who was

oh

-so-fond of you? Would they scorn you? Shun you? All because a greasy git like me made you come with his mouth?”
 
Granger said nothing, still trying to get a measure of control over her pounding heart, her fast breathing, and her blown mind.
 
“Did you

even

think of those two when you came back to Hogwarts? Did you consider them when you came into this room to

deal

with me?”
 
Again, nothing. I suspected that she did not care about Potter or Weasley as much as most believed.
 
I stared into her eyes for a long moment, my hands on either side of her face. She blinked slowly, dazed.
 
For a moment, I felt a type of tenderness for the woman below me. It was fleeting, however, as she moved, shifting her shoulders to move the weight off her bound hands again. I smirked, and with a hiss, grasped her shoulders. Granger made a strange sound as I turned her onto her face, eyeing her bound hands. The small, feminine fingers were not blue, the belt not too tight about her wrists. In fact, she had laced her fingers together, clasping her palms tightly.
 
I admired the smooth expanse of her back for a few moments as she turned her head to the side to breathe properly. I let my eyes trace down her spine to the crack of her bum, to the swell of her hips. Much like her eyes, her skin was golden, glowing. I wanted to lick a path from the sweaty nape of her neck down to her pucker.
 
The possibilities forced me to bite my tongue. I grasped my cock instead, stroking it slowly while Granger tried to look at me again. When I

did

move, it was to take the length of the belt in my hands and pull. She cried out again, the strain on her arms forcing her to push her upper body up with her forehead against the duvet.
 
On her knees, face into the bed, I had my wish. I kept stroking myself with one hand as I released the belt to pull apart her buttocks.
 
“Gods!” she exclaimed into the duvet when I pushed two fingers inside.
 
I smirked, scissoring my fingers, eliciting a sharp whimper.
 
I withdrew and licked my fingers slowly, properly. I made her wait, knowing that she was anticipating me. I took in the sight of her skin, the position of her body. In dreams, I had bent her over classroom desks, fucking her brutally before a room full of Seventh Years. In dreams, I had taken her against the wall of the Entry Hall, pushing her face into the stone.
 
I sank into her body slowly, grasping the belt about her wrists to keep control of the angle and speed. Tight, constricting, I ran out of words after two to describe how her cunt felt. Besides ‘wet’ and ‘hot’, ‘tight’ was the only other mundane word I could come up with, and I figured it would have to be good enough.
 
As much as I wanted to simply ram my cock into her, I tortured myself

and

her. I did not have some monstrous erect sexual organ, but it was thick, and I supposed little over average in length. The girth was more important, as was the subtle arc of the shaft upward. I could see the pink flesh around her cunt stretch to take me, as I held her buttocks apart to engrain the sight into my memory.
 
We hissed in unison, I deep inside, she felt the rending of her muscles at my penetration.
 
“You wanted this,” I whispered, my hooded eyes moving to her face and the wide golden eye peering back at me from the duvet.
 
I fucked her. I did not hold back, I did not spare her. I jerked my hips forward, the flesh of her buttocks slapping into the fronts of my thighs. The slapping sound was loud, wonderful, as were her throaty whimpers. She tried to stop the sound issuing from her mouth by forcing her lips shut, but it only made the sound louder, an erotic hum.
 
I ground my teeth together roughly. The compulsion to curse aloud, let loose a stream of foul profanities was almost unbearable. I wanted to curse the woman as well as give an impromptu ode to her tight, small body. Instead, I grunted, in animalistic, feral exhales between my teeth.
 
Hermione Granger was the rock on which my soul broke.
 
I pounded into her body, lifting a knee from the bed to place my foot on the mattress near her breasts. I had to be deeper; I had to squeeze myself inside, disappear in her cunt, and drive her as insane as I felt.
 
I wanted

so

much to hurt her somehow, wound her as she had wounded me.
 
I wanted so much for her to feel the pain of the obsession I felt for her. My obsession called for the taste of her blood, her sweat, and her tears.
 
“Severus…”
 
I faltered mid stroke at the sound of my name, uttered so softly and so wrought with something I could not identify. I jerked on the belt that clasped her wrists, and with a trembling hand, I shifted out bodies.
 
She knelt over my cock, and began to move as I wound my left arm about her body, pressing her breasts in the lingering scar of the Dark Mark. I sat on the bed, biting into her shoulder, the back of her neck. Her hair tickled my nose as she moved up and down at a slower pace than what I had established.
 
My right arm wrapped over her hip, fingers pulling on her pubic hair, slipping to her clit to pinch the slippery button. She grunted, and began to move faster. It was

not

enough. My fingers slipped further down and I felt the shaft of my soaked cock moving past her inner labia. I curled my forefinger upward as she lifted her hips. When she came down again, I stretched her further with my finger.
 
A profanity drifted from her lips, a sugar coated curse that made my eyes roll up into my skull for a moment. With my palm crushing into her clit, I slid another finger inside pressed against my cock. I could feel her body clenching around me, her hips jerking violently. With a quick motion, I pulled my hand away.
 
My fingers were sticky with pink essence. Every prod of the head of my cock against her womb brought a small amount of blood. I licked and sucked on my own fingers, slurping loudly as the tip of my tongue traced every minute wrinkle, sucking at the essence under my manicured nails.
 
Ambrosia, nectar, it was the flavor of her soul, and I wanted to taste it forever.
 
As it was, I wanted more than her flavor. I wanted

all

of her.
 
I shoved her back down to the bed again, hearing a soft grunt as her cheek rasped against the velvet of the damp counterpane. With a twist of my wrist, the belt was Vanished and Granger’s shoulders popped audibly as she drew her hands before her.
 
“No…” I heard myself whisper as she began to curl in on herself.
 
I moved, more like pounced, grabbing her up into my arms, twisting her onto her back, drawing her weak legs apart again. I sank into her again, causing her to whimper pathetically.
 
I kissed her, finally.
 
She tasted like wine and blood, a new divine flavor. I did not spare her sore body, thrusting harder, deeper and faster than before. I was growing desperate. I was suffering terribly. I had to come; I had to end this torture.
 
My mind raced with all the other things I wanted to do to her. There were so many ways to break Granger, so many ways to show her that I was not afraid of her, and so many ways to prove that I was no romantic Byronic hero, but a villain through and through. I would take her in

every

position, in

every

situation; I would violate her body in ways that would make her wish she had not saved my life.
 
Her arms were too weak to hold me, but I could feel her hands grasping my pectoral muscles, tugging at the dark hair on my chest. I could feel her trying to kiss me in return. It angered me.
 
I grasped her throat, pulling back slightly, my hips beating against hers, sure to leave bruises. The slick squelch of my cock pressing into her cunt was the only sound beyond my gasps and her rasps for air. Her eyes burned into mine for only a few moments before they rolled up into her head, her mouth opening in a silent scream.
 
I was grunting with every thrust, loud, bestial grunts, trying my best to keep my cock inside her resistant body as she came. Hot juices literally poured from her body, wetting my own pubic hair, soaking my sac in fragrant female perfume.
 
I emptied myself inside her with a soul jarring roar, my hand slipping away from her throat to grasp my own as my head fell back and my eyes closed. My cock had seemed to swell inside her before releasing an orgasmic pressure of ejaculate. I was dying a death I

should

have had years before, bliss and warm darkness.
 
I fell away to land on the bed, my cock popping from her cunt. My whole body hummed, everything that touched my body kept my balls tight into my pelvis, my cock twitching and leaking. Everything felt wonderful, everything felt like heaven.
 
Masturbation would never be enough after this.
 
Silence fell all around me. I suppose I either passed out or fell into a contented, yet short sleep, for when I opened my eyes it was to see Granger sitting on the opposite side of the bed, wand in hand repairing the remnants of her pretty red dress on her lap.
 
I reached toward her and hesitated. I dropped my hand to the bed and stared at her bare back. There were red scratches on her skin, and the ribbon that had held her hair was hanging limply, just like my limp cock on the black velvet of the bed. The cum was drying in the nap of the velvet, and in one place near my knee, I could tell where Granger had been kneeling from the drips of feminine arousal on the bed.
 
It took a great effort to sit up on the bed, one foot on the mattress, knee bent, the other tucked under me. Granger turned slowly at the sound of my movement and for the first time she studied my body. I could not discern her thoughts, but her eyes lingered on the scar upon my throat and then to the scar of my Dark Mark.
 
We stared at each other for a long while. I did not know what to say, all capacity to create a witty retort gone along with my energy. She said nothing as she turned her back to me and rose on shaky legs. I watched her put the dress back on and with a whispered Charm to her hair; the ribbons slithered through the caramel tresses like tiny red snakes. As she turned back to face me, sitting on the edge of the bed again, even the smudged lipstick was gone from her face. She almost looked as pristine and pretty as she had when I laid eyes upon her in Horace’s rooms. The only exception was the finger marks on her throat and the bruises about her wrists.
 
“No romantic notions,” she said, her eyelids heavy, her golden brown eyes hooded. “I had no

real

romantic notions about you, Severus.”
 
I rested my left arm on my kneecap and blinked at her, a sour expression on my face.
 
“You are what you want everyone to believe you are. You have perfectly constructed yourself as an unlovable git.”
 
For a split-second, I nearly told her that she was wrong. She was not, of course. She was rarely ever wrong. I was an unlovable git, amongst other things.
 
“I wanted you, I got you. Now I leave it up to you.”
 
Again, I blinked. “Leave

what

up to me?” I asked with a scratchy and sore throat.
 
Granger sighed softly, her eyes moving over me again. I had half a mind to hide myself, but it was too late, she knew what I looked like—long limbed, pale, a little hairy, scarred, a man with a little bit of muscle tone, and an unattractive, uncircumcised flaccid cock.
 
“Whether or not you are going to treat me with something other than disrespect and derision. You

should

also think about sorting out your own feelings, Severus. Perhaps, if you did, you might realize you do not hate me so much as you would like to claim. You hate yourself, not me…”
 
I gritted my teeth. I said nothing in retort as Granger rose from the bed, walking around the foot to stop to grab her shoes. I watched her move slowly; obvious that she was walking carefully, sore. She paused again at the door, and turned slightly.
 
“Oh… Next time, make it last longer,” she said with a slight twist of her mouth.
 
It was not until she had gone and my brain processed her words that I realized she had insulted me.

I slept through Boxing Day. I stayed in my rooms the day after that. By New Year’s Eve, I felt well enough to leave my rooms to run around the loch.
 
I was sore, bruised, and not just because I had used my body in a manner that it was not accustomed to. My ego was bruised as well.
 
I had gotten what I wanted from Granger, and when the physical soreness went away, I wanted more. I supposed I had played right into her hands, but I did not care. I had made my decision, I had acted upon it, and now I had to live with my decision.
 
Refusing to be afraid any longer, I showed up for the staff party in the Great Hall one hour before New Year’s. I did not drink, as it had proved a near fatal mistake before, and I actually talked to Longbottom while we waited for midnight. However, I had yet to lay eyes on Granger. I did not ask after her as the minutes ticked by to a new year.
 
Ten minutes before midnight, I had to empty my bladder, and slipped from the Great Hall to a little known small lavatory off the Entrance Hall. I was quick; having swiped off some confetti from the shoulders of my robes and made sure my fly was closed. In the darkness of the Entrance Hall, I moved to the doors of the Great Hall and the sound of voices.
 
“Severus?”
 
It was Granger’s voice, and it took me a moment to locate the source. I found her standing near the front door in a snow-covered cloak, only her face visible in the darkness. I stood still as she seemed to glide to me, her face very pale.
 
Standing on the tips of her toes, her gloved hands grasped my face, pulling me down to meet her lips. I did not close my eyes, but I did, eventually. Her cold arms wound about my neck, and I found myself holding her by the waist. The kiss was gentle, though her lips were icy. It was almost an innocent kiss until her tongue traced the roof of my mouth.
 
I let a moan slip past, and as quickly as the kiss began, it was over.
 
“Happy New Year…” she whispered.
 
I was stunned, and for some stupid reason muttered: “…kiss me again.”
 
We stared at each other, her face expressing puzzlement, mine most likely expressing a mixture of embarrassment and confusion.
 
She kissed me again, on the cheek, and whirled away toward the Great Hall.
 
I ended up sitting on the steps leading up to the Portrait Hall while the staff in the Great Hall began counting down. I knew Granger was among them. When they started singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, I began my journey back to my rooms.

The new term started, and once again, I was preoccupied with my classes. I marked my birthday by allowing Winky to sing to me in my classroom that morning before students arrived, the only living creature that seemed to remember the cursed day. I kept to my routines, adding in some time to tend to my little pot of valerian on my writing desk. I started writing more on my memoir, detailing my formative years in greater detail than Rita Skeeter could only wish to do.
 
I had little opportunity to see Granger. I was not avoiding her, but I was not

actively

seeking her out either.
 
January melted into February then into March. I had to satisfy myself with wanks in the shower. By May, my hand could no longer do anything than frustrate me and cause me to be even more irritable than my students thought possible.
 
The Leaving Feast was the first time since New Years that I could get a proper look at Granger. Again, Flitwick acted as an unsuitable buffer between us, and I realized that I was not feeling her eyes upon me.

I

was the one staring. In fact, Minerva confronted my stare at least three times before I forced myself to study Filius’ unused salad fork.
 
The students were gone less than two hours before I could not take it any longer, and stalked to the Transfigurations classroom. Enough was enough. I had convinced myself that I truly had shattered Granger’s perspective of me. It turned out to be a disappointment.
 
I found her Charming the desks of the classroom, erasing any graffiti the students had carved into the wood, mostly disparaging remarks about her teaching ability, I imagined. She was Vanishing chewing gum from under the seats when I stepped fully into the room, hands on my hips, eyes boring into the back of her head.
 
Again, she was wearing her hair up in ribbons, gray ribbons that matched her hideous smock dress. Faintly, I could hear her muttering about chewing gum, dunderheads, and the inadequacies of a ‘tough love’ approach to teaching ‘mentally deficient toe rags’. I almost smiled. My first year teaching had embittered me, and every year after, it seemed the students were progressively getting stupider. There was no better way to put it.
 
Then again, there were few who shined out from the dung heap, one of which was slowly feeling my eyes upon the back of her head.
 
Granger turned, a cobweb on her nose, and scowled. She wiped the cobweb away with a distasteful expression and slipped her wand into the front pocket of her smock dress. Standing half way between the door and the lectern at the front of the room, she seemed out of place in the space.
 
“Is there something I can help you with, Professor?”
 
She sounded annoyed, and the tone of her voice put me off for a moment, though I had been trying to expect it. It took me a few seconds to remember why I had come to her classroom, and what I had wanted to say.
 
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
 
No, that was

not

what I had wanted to say, but it came out anyway.
 
Her eyes narrowed. “I do not know what you mean, Professor.”
 
My lips twitched as my hands slipped from my hips to dangle at my sides. I turned, grasping the door, and pushed it to shut behind me. There was no need for the entire castle to be privy to what I was about to say or do. I had learned my lesson at Christmas. For the month following the holiday, Longbottom, when I saw him, could only glare. As for Minerva, she only spoke to me when it was important. And Horace…he tried to pretend I had not ruined his Christmas party by hedging around the subject of Hermione Granger for months.
 
I was a man whose sanity was questioned.
 
“If you intend to keep your post here, as I will remain here to my dying day, it is silly to pretend I do not exist, Miss Granger,” I drawled, feeling my fingers curl into fists.
 
Ah, the anger, it was coming back. I was not afraid of her, or my wanton need to ruin her. I knew I was obsessing, much as I had over another certain headstrong girl years ago. Although that particular person was a blur of memory, I had retained certain feelings. Lily Evans was dead, I was not, I had a new woman to resent, and all my old feelings were stale after giving Potter my memories.
 
Besides, Granger was much more brilliant, much more dangerous, and much more mature than Lily Evans had ever been, or at least from my memory of her.
 
“I concede, you exist, but this

is

a big castle” she muttered, disinterested, turning away from me to walk up to her lectern desk and the piles of parchment and books on top. I watched her begin sorting the materials, Vanishing parchments, Levitating books to go back to Irma in the Library.
 
This was

not

going as I had planned.
 
I planned to confront Granger, force her to look at me and then start cowering. I planned to bend her over the desks and take her in the empty classroom, still warm from the many student bodies that had been inside only hours before. Instead, I was standing in front of the closed door like a hideous statue symbolizing the piteousness of self-loathing.
 
“You

kill

me.”
 
I had whispered it, tumbling down into one of my famous depressions. I still could not understand how a silly little girl could reduce me either to a slightly psychopathic rage or into a self-deprecating mass of old sinew and bone. She made me question everything about myself, things I had known to be true even before she was born.
 
“It is like giving a little boy the best toy at Christmas and then jerking it away and Blasting it into a million pieces…”
 
She did not look at me, but continued to clean off her desk.
 
“Look at

me

, damn you!”
 
I had moved, strode to stand just before her desk like some scolded First Year. She was in the position of power, while I…I was pathetic.
 
Her eyes flicked up to my face, narrowed, aggravated. Letting one last book drop to the top of the stack, she crossed her arms before her breasts, shifting her weight to one hip.
 
“You never told me,” I started. “You never told me if I had changed your mind.”
 
Granger blinked. “About what?”
 
I sighed, raised my hand to wipe at my mouth. Our eyes were locked in a battle of dominance, I pushed, and she pushed back. She was the rock on which my soul broke.
 
“I wanted you, I had you. There were

no

romantic expectations, Severus. There was no desire to drive you mad. You proved to me everything I assumed of you…”
 
I could not breathe, her words like shards of glass ripping my lungs to tatters.
 
“You are a terrible person, but not as evil as you might think. I let you stew in your own juices, waiting for you to come to me, to demand answers that you

already

know but won’t admit.”
 
Air, oxygen, filled my lungs and it still hurt.
 
“I don’t love you, although I still care. I will

not

take back what I said to you at Christmas. You made your decision. I am about to make mine.”
 
I did not understand her; it was as if she were speaking Mermish or Gobbledegook. What decision? What conclusion?
 
“I am considering taking a post at Durmstrang,” she said. “To be close to Viktor…”
 
I think my mouth dropped open.
 
Krum… Merlin, the gossip column I read at St. Mungo’s and in the Kitchens—was there really something more to their relationship?
 
No. I could see it in her eyes, in the way she held herself. She was baiting me. She wanted me to be jealous. And by the gods, I was.
 
Then I understood…

everything

.
 
Jealousy, a symptom of insanity, I had been so jealous for so long. From the first time I met Lily Evans to the day I believed I was going to die—I had been so jealous of everything and everybody.
 
Granger made me jealous of what I did not have in my own life. She had love, she had friends, and she had everything I had ever wanted. She had saved my life, and I, once again, was bound by a life debt. Oh gods.
 
It was not just my perverse sense of attraction, it was old magic, powerful magic that needed me to obsess and possess her. The debt was different from that I had owed James Potter. Granger had willingly used magic to save me, had willingly taken me to where I could be healed. She had wound me about her little finger, and I wondered if she realized how much power she

did

have.
 
I hated her, and I needed her.
 
“I told you that I wanted you. For an hour, a day, a week…a lifetime. I’ve

changed

my mind.”
 
There was bile and vitriol in her voice. All my defiance was draining.
 
“How could I want something that only delights in trying to destroy me?”
 
I tore my eyes away to gaze at the stack of books on the desk.
 
“What do you want, Severus? What do you

really

want from me?”
 
So many replies came to mind. I wanted her suffering, I wanted her apology, I wanted her humiliation, I wanted her adoration, I wanted her obedience, I wanted her body and soul, and I wanted her love.
 
Love. It was a silly emotion that was closer to insanity than jealousy. Love makes people do stupid things, risk their lives, and throw everything good and right away. Love was a weakness.
 
No, that was what the Dark Lord thought and he, as far as I knew, was stoking the fires of the Inferno. Even I, as much as the thought of ‘love’ made me want to gag, was not so daft to try to dismiss its power.
 
I knew my perception of what ‘love’ consisted of was skewed. I automatically thought of sunny days lying on a picnic blanket sucking a chocolate covered strawberry from Granger’s fingers. I thought of running across a flowery field, laughing as the sun lit my face handsomely.
 
Fluff. I had had the chance to glance over the shoulders of Hufflepuff girls reading romance novels. I knew what most women thought love should be. I would

not

have it, at least, not that version of it.
 
My love was something dark and terrible. It was rough and brutal, all consuming, madness, and I wanted it from the woman across the desk.
 
“I want you out of my head.”
 
She snickered. “I would say the same to

you

, sir. As it is, there is magic at work, not to mention that I am not like you—denying my feelings even to myself.”
 
Granger was deriding me.
 
“What else?” she sighed, shifting her weight to lean forward against the edge of the desk.
 
I licked my lips, as the smock was pulled tighter over her breasts. She

did

know about the life debt, after all. Then again, she was no fool.
 
“I want…”
 
She moved slowly, a hand tracing over the edge of the lectern desk, walking to the side, edging closer to me.
 
“I want to be free of this suffering. I… I am

no

submissive…”
 
She was standing just before me, wedging her body between the desk and me.
 
“I

am

sorry, Severus,” she whispered, staring up into my face, warm sunlight catching her eyes from the high windows of the classroom. “Only you can end this suffering you feel. You might think I am the cause, but I am only one woman.”
 
That she was. One woman that was staring into my eyes with a molten heat, desire, pain, need, and dreams floating in the back of her mind. Granger did not idealize me; there was nothing about Severus Snape that could be romanticized. She had seen me at my most vulnerable and my most powerful moments. She had seen every scar, every hair and vein in my body, yet she stared at me with an intensity that told me many things.
 
First, I had been

very

wrong to hate her. Second, if I had ever had an ally, she was

it

. And lastly, she had never had any illusions as to who I was or could be.
 
I was still puzzled by the woman. Who, in their right mind, would want to deal with someone like me? I was difficult, I was damaged, and I had the ability to be very volatile and even lethal. Yet, there was nothing but daring in her eyes. She

dared

me to hurt her somehow, to tear her apart piece by piece. It was what she had wanted.
 
Granger did not want sunlit, romantic interludes. She did not want flowers and fuzzy warm moments. She did not want sugary words of praise.
 
‘I want you to brand your name onto my soul…’
 
She had not said it aloud; she had said it into my mind.
 
I grasped her shoulders, bending my neck to kiss her, our teeth clashing, our lips not quite meeting. It was awkward, passionate, and soon all that mattered was that I inhaled her every exhale.
 
If she wanted a master, I would

gladly

take the role. If she wanted pain, I would give her agony. If she wanted pleasure, she would have to

beg

me for it. If she wanted some semblance of love, she would have to

fight

me for it.
 
I was still angry, I was still bitter, and when I pulled away from her mouth, I vented all the darkness onto her body.
 
I ripped at the ugly smock dress while I pressed her into the front of the desk, her hands searching to hold onto the wood. I ripped her tights from her hips, jerked the boots from her petite feet. Her wand fell to the floor when I jerked her white knickers from her hips, the fabric burning into her skin.
 
I could smell her.
 
The sight of her, the smell of her, it was a sin.
 
I stepped back from her, turning to kick aside the nearest desk so that it flew away from me to clatter violently to the stone floor. I was snarling, catching one of her wrists and flinging her body around me. And when I sat on the bench left from where I had kicked the desk, I had her body draped over my lap.
 
“I want

this

,” I rasped through my teeth, my libido making my lips loose and my entire body hum with need. “Punishment…”
 
The first strike elicited a shout. I held her wrists in my left hand, my fingers curling about the delicate bones and soft skin. My right hand had slapped a perfect red handprint into her smooth right buttock.
 
“Retribution…”
 
My hand stung at the next slap on the unmarked cheek.
 
“Humiliation…”
 
I slapped the visible juicy lips of her cunt. She struggled at the first slap and by the third, she was fighting me, her audible curses a fuel to my internal fire. Bucking her hips against my thigh, I grinned malevolently.
 
“Degradation…”
 
I raised my hand to slap again, her wide eyes stung with half formed tears. Her sobs were like music to my ears. However, I did not slap her round bottom; I instead slipped my fingers between her slick flesh, burrowing the digits deep inside. Her back arched and a cry was ripped from her throat. Two fingers, then three, my hand was wet with clear juices as I worked her hole.
 
I wanted to violate her, find something to bind her wrists to keep her from fighting me while I could manipulate her body into depraved acts of passion and sexual degradation. I supposed my innate magical ability responded to my wish, from my hand cords were Conjured like tiny snakes, binding her wrists firmly.
 
She whimpered at the rasp of cord against skin, and glared over her shoulder as I added another finger, pumping, creating an obscene sound that filled the classroom.
 
“Pleasure, pain…” I murmured as my now free left hand moved her across my lap so that her head dipped toward the floor. Her bound hands slapped against the stone to keep her from toppling onto her head. I grinned, eyes narrowing as I had better access to her weakest, most unprotected point.
 
“No!” she gasped as I spread her buttocks to run the tip of my finger around the puckered edges of her arse, teasingly.
 
“Please…”
 
Her words were full of fear and need, and I wondered if she knew which she wanted.
 
“Clean, wholesome, loving…it

is not

…”
 
I did not know why I said these things, but it thrilled me to feel her reaction to my voice, her cunt clamping down on my fingers, her pucker tightening.
 
Magic, purely lust induced magic made my hands tingle, and as I slipped the tip of my finger into her pucker, she sighed a whinge. I jerked my fingers from her hole, causing her to grunt, but it turned immediately into a throat-tearing cry as I slapped my wet hand against her red cheeks.
 
“Debasement…”
 
I slathered her juices around her pucker, along the fingers of my left hand. Whatever magic that had passed lubricated and cleansed her body, preparations for what my stiffening cock wanted and sought to do in order to release the pressure in my sac. I wanted to fuck her in the one place that would make her face flush an eternal shade of pretty pink.
 
“Severus,

please

…”
 
I grunted, sliding a second finger into her ass, scissoring my fingers slowly, stretching, preparing. It was not enough. It was not enough that her hip bone moved against my crotch, it was not enough to slap her bottom with unforgiving blows. I wanted more.
 
I pulled my fingers away, and with both hands, grasped her waist, lifting her upward. Her bare feet found purchase on the floor, but before she could begin to move on her own volition, I stood stiffly, my trousers far too tight.
 
I half tossed, half guided her to a student’s desk, draping her body over the angled surface, her breasts pressed into the wood, the tips of her toes barely touching the floor.
 
“Do

not

move,” I hissed as she tried to glance back at me.
 
There were more tears in her eyes, but not wrought of fear or hate. It had been from the pain and the pleasure. She obeyed as I drew my wand from my robes, casting a locking, and Imperturbable Charm on the classroom door. I set my wand on the desk in the row behind me, and doffed my robes onto the bench behind my knees. My shirt came next, unbuttoning the doublet over top then the shirt. The high collar fell away when I dropped the clothing to the floor.
 
Her eyes were glowing gold, like orbs full of Felix Felicis. The tiny, constricted pupils scanned my chest, the hair running over my chest down in a thin line to my navel. Those eyes caressed the scarred and pale skin stretched over muscle and bone, even kissing the purplish scar on my throat. The tenderness of her eyes did not deter me, however, as I opened my trousers, letting the warm air in the classroom hit my stiff cock. I did not push my trousers down; it would wait, as would the ache in my balls.
 
I sat down on the bench, Granger’s swollen bottom just before my face. Oh, it was a dream, surely, one that I had had often. Even when my hands parted her buttocks, I was still thinking that a dream sock puppet would suddenly appear from behind a desk, speaking to me in a faux voice of one of the other staff.
 
It did not happen, I was not dreaming. The taste of her cunt was real.
 
I licked her from one clean smelling hole to the other. She did not taste the same as before, no traces of blood of impending menses, no heady scent, no slight coppery flavor. If anything, she tasted better than I dared imagine. Slightly bitter, slightly sweet, it was the taste of a fertile woman.
 
Tracing the wrinkled ring of muscle, Granger swore in torrents. The breadth of her knowledge of swears was truly impressive. I ate and tasted, sniffed and prodded with the tip of my ugly beak for a nose. I

was

going to have her, and I

was

going to have her hard.
 
She tried to relax, gritting her teeth as the fingers of my left hand probed and moved into her arse, intermittently laving more saliva into the hole. I was not so cruel to take her without a bit of preparation. I was not so cruel to make her pain last so long.
 
With my right hand, I cupped my palm under her, finding her clit and rubbing circles around the nubbin with my thumb. My other sticky fingers caressed the slick lips inside, teasing a route to her contracting hole.
 
I was amazed, my cheeks hot, my cock bobbing against my belly. I had two fingers in her cunt, and three in her arse. It was so profane, and so beautiful. I wanted to put my entire hand inside her, but that would be a desire left unfulfilled for the moment. I had to put something more sensitized first.
 
I rose, jerked my right hand from her oozing orifice, grasping my cock instead. At the sensation of my own hand, I audibly grunted, causing Granger to moan. With a few twists of my hips, unable to remove my fingers from her arse or my hand from my cock, my trousers slipped from my hips to mid-thigh.
 
I leaned into the backs of her legs, the purple head of my cock edging toward her arse. And when I pulled my fingers back to press inside, Granger squealed and grunted. I ground my teeth together, knowing I was wearing away the sharper cusps of my molars. It did not matter; however, as I pressed forward, muscle resisting, muscle yielding.
 
“

Fuck…

”
 
It was ground out between my teeth in a high hiss, a reaction to the near pinching sensation of her muscles around my cock. So tight, expectedly so, but I could have never anticipated how wonderful it felt.
 
I was only over half way inside her, leaning forward so my nose was perhaps only an inch from her shoulder blades. I arched my lower back, pulling out only a bit, Granger panting out hot breaths toward the front of the classroom. I pushed back in again, slowly, just a bit more until the root of my cock was all I could see when I looked between our bodies.
 
I was forced to stay still, trying not to whimper, but gasping. My hands moved to grasp her shoulders, so I could lower my forehead against the back of her damp neck. At such a closeness, I could feel her sobs, feel her trembling.
 
I was satisfied.
 
With a firm stroke, the desk under her rocked. I made no noise, establishing a slow slide and rhythm in and out of her tight bottom. The only sound was her sobs and the crack of wooden desk legs against the stone floor.
 
Heaven is a place of warm light, and in appearance, the Transfigurations classroom with Granger sprawled over a student’s desk in the front row, my cock in her arse, it was heaven. It was the smell of dust and magic, sweat and feminine juices. It was the sound of her begging sobs, pleading with me to move faster or to stop. Heaven was Granger bucking against me, her head arching back to let a tremulous cry fill my ears with erotic melody.
 
Heaven should last forever, but like everything in my life, it was fleeting.
 
I came too quickly. Weeks and months of wanking had upped my stamina, but nothing could compare to the real thing.
 
I said something in the form of a sigh, something that would have only been ripped from my soul under duress or perfect bliss. It was something foreign on my tongue, something that made my lips fumble.
 
“Love you.”
 
Falling over her body, pressing my cheek to her left shoulder, I was wholly undone. Orgasm, the little death, it would be closest to a real after life I would experience for a while yet.
 
When I pulled away, my cock spent and shrinking, I stumbled but did not fall back on the bench behind me. Instead, by the sheer will of my mind, I grasped my wand and cast Cleansing Charms over my skin. Then, with another Charm, my clothes wrapped about my body as the implication of my words sank in.
 
Granger lay limply over the desk, her shoulders rising and falling trying to breathe. Her limp neck did not allow me to see her face as she hung over the edge of the desk. I was struck however by the trickle of semen from her body, dripping down her thighs to puddle in the floor.
 
I did not want to see her eyes, and I did not want to touch her on the off chance that she might do or say something that would shatter what bit of ego I had left. I knew she had heard my words.
 
The only thing I

did

do was dispel the cords about her wrists. I allowed her to stretch her arms back to grasp the desk and push herself upward, the peeling sound of perspiration against the desk’s surface interrupting the wheeze of her breath through her mouth. I moved away, toward the door, as she stood upright on the flats of her bare feet.
 
Her hair was loose about her face, the ends obscuring her eyes, the damp tendrils sticking to her cheeks. I could see the tracks of tears on her jaw and the flush of her skin. As she stood in the late afternoon sunlight, her shoulders moving back, her spine straightening, Granger was a goddess. No matter how many red handprints she had on her bottom or how more thick ejaculate dripped from her body, she was beautiful.
 
I could not look at her long; else, I would do or say, something I knew I would regret more than what I had already said. I turned away and strode with the best of my ability to the closed door. I needed to sit down, stop my head from spinning, maybe lie down because my lower back ached from the rough thrusting and twisting of my hips against her.
 
With a quick snap of my wand, the Charms I placed on the door fell, and I grasped the knob with a trembling hand. I glanced back one last time. Granger’s head was turned as if to peer over her shoulder, but her hair was still in her eyes.
 
I tugged on the door and it opened. I sighed softly as I passed through.
 
“...love you too…”
 
The door thudded shut behind me, and I only took two steps before stopping in the corridor. I

had

heard her voice, but the words…
 
I slipped my wand back into my robes and began walking again, in a daze.
 
I could not hate her

so

much anymore.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chapter Forty-Two: Scoundrel or Saint?

‘We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.’ –C.G. Jung

Granger had a quick right jab that was worthy of Jem Mace or Jack Broughton, artful, powerful, and lethal. As I fell back into the snow outside of the Hog’s Head, I could not help but admire the fact that she could defend herself without the use of a wand.
 
“Git!”
 
I knew my nose was broken, and I could taste copious amounts of blood streaming from my face. The shock of her jab had me staring wide-eyed up at her, the lamp hanging over the door to the pub backlighting her short hair like a halo. She was a saint of the right jab, saint of fast draw hexes, saint of sex and gold, saint of…
 
“Are you sober enough to apologize

now

, or must I demonstrate my out-fighter brand of bare knuckle boxing again?”
 
“I apologize,” I said quickly, but it sounded more like: Ah asplolojizz.
 
I knew I was pissed, and I knew that I had been far too daring for my own good groping her in front of the patrons of the pub—Horace, Aberforth, hags, some goblins, and one disgruntled wizard visiting Hogsmeade from Albania. I think a hag enchanted my knees to knock at my wanton display, muttering about ‘manners’.
 
The snow under me was melting at my heightened body temperature, and I could feel wetness seeping into the back of my trousers.
 
“Sometimes I wonder if I should have taken the post at Durmstrang,” she muttered, her fist near her lips.
 
When she began licking at the bloody skin broken from the punch, I groaned.
 
“Never, I repeat,

never

decide to drink in public, Severus Snape… At least, not in

my

presence!”
 
She stomped back into the pub, slamming the door behind her. I could hear laughter inside at her entrance.
 
“Bitch!” I yelled after her, but again, it came out wrong, more like: blistch!
 
There was no retort, as I was alone, in the snow and cold of a December night, the first night of the Christmas holidays. I rolled to my feet, feeling the blood on my face beginning to dry. Slipping and stumbling, I made my way through the dark back to the castle. It had been a mistake to allow Horace to drag me to Hogsmeade. I had been set up.
 
Upon my arrival, Granger was already at the pub, speaking to Aberforth over a pint of pale ale. It seemed Horace had covertly arranged a meeting.
 
After the summer of agony and the first term of trying to ignore Granger’s advances, the girl had given up by Halloween. She had seemingly given up and tried to move on. Ron Weasley was suddenly in my sphere of existence again, but by Christmas holiday, it seemed Granger had decided with finality that Weasley was not worth the time of day. She had been corresponding heavily with Krum. I knew because I had Stunned one of her owls and read the letter.
 
‘Dearest Viktor’, this, ‘my dear’ that… I burned the letter after I read that she was looking forward to celebrating New Years with him at his house in Varna.
 
I managed to go to Poppy when I was safely in the castle. The matron ‘tutted’ at me, fixing my nose with a simple spell, and then forced a Sobering potion down my throat. I promptly returned to my room to resume drinking from a bottle of a ten year old Calvados Lucius had sent two years ago at New Years.
 
I sat in the middle of my bed; half dressed, legs tucked ‘Indian style’ before me, the bottle resting on my knee. I glared at the riotous pot of valerian on my writing desk, the greenery half obscuring my inkwell, and part of my manuscript. I wished I had the power to send Blasting Curses from my eyes.
 
I drank and drank until there was only a finger of Calvados left in the bottle and my face was drawn and numb. I rose to empty my bladder, only managing to trip off the bed and fall to the floor, the bottle in my hand breaking. The dark glass cut into the palm of my hand and my inner arm, tearing into the scar of my Dark Mark.
 
Snickering at the bright red blood, I began crawling on hands and knees to the lavatory. I was still holding onto the neck of the broken bottle when I managed to stand before the toilet. Dropping the neck of the bottle into the bowl, I opened my trousers, spraying urine in the general direction of the head. I was still chuckling as I smeared blood into the front placard of my trousers trying to do them up again.
 
Alcohol was what compelled me to grab my robes and drape them sloppily on my bare shoulders. With some still functioning part of my brain, I remembered to check that my wand was in one of the pockets. The rest of me, however, stumbled, intoxicated and bloody, and barefoot into the dark and empty corridors of the castle. Years ago, when my life was marked by allegiance to two masters, I would sometimes wander the corridors, half dying from alcohol poisoning until Albus would find me and put me to bed. Albus had been dead for over six years, and there would not be anyone to make sure I did not tumble down a staircase and break my neck, or better yet, fall into a coma when my brain was sufficiently pickled with alcohol.
 
I staggered and stumbled in the dark and cold, half mumbling, half singing. I had three songs I sang when I was this pissed. One, Warren and Dubin’s 1934 ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, two, Harris’ 1891 ‘After the Ball’, or three, a bad rendition of Wire’s 1979 ‘Map Ref 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees W’. All were terrible songs to sing while intoxicated.
 
I should mention, at this point, something I had mentioned in earlier chapters, that I love music. This is not a well-known fact, but I adore Muggle music. Everything from Bach to David Bowie, ethnic Japanese shamisen to punk rock, I find music for every memory, and every situation of my life. As it was, stumbling in the corridors, I had songs I preferred in my brooding, drunken moods.
 
I was singing pick number three while I moved in a chaotic pattern in the dark, stopping to laugh at the sound of my deep voice saying: ‘Chorus…’ when the chorus to the song would come.
 
I would tonelessly hum parts my drunken mind could not remember, and I was sure the sound was eerie echoing down the corridors.
 
Tripping over my own feet, my right shoulder slammed into the wall, and I rolled against it, sliding toward a door. I stumbled, and suddenly, I was lying on my back before a darkened door.
 
“Crystal palaces for floral kings/A widespread waving span of wings/Witness the sinking of the sun/A deep breath of submission has begun…” I mumbled in a disjointed melody sang between numb lips.
 
I suppose I fell asleep for a few moments, warm from the drink, the distant sting in my left hand and arm a non-concern.
 
“Oh gods…” a voice sounded over me in exasperation, and slowly I opened my eyes.
 
A lit wand blinded me, but behind it, I could see her face.
 
“You…” I mumbled. “Come to watch me suffer?”
 
She lowered her wand, but kept it lit, reaching over me to the door, pushing it open with her hand. Stepping over me, she entered the room, muttering for the candles inside to light. I half expected her to shut me out in the dark again, but instead she turned unsteadily and knelt in the doorway by my left side, slipping her wand into the depth of her snow-laden cloak.
 
“No, you fool,” she answered. “You’re lying in front of my room.”
 
I had not known, but somehow I was not surprised.
 
“Can you stand, or am I going to have to Levitate you to the Hospital Wing?”
 
“Why?” I asked, quite content to lie in front of the door to her room.
 
She sighed, reaching to grab my bloody left hand, raising it up to the light. “A botched suicide attempt?”
 
I barked with laughter. Granger’s golden eyes narrowed, and soon she was helping me to my feet, draping my bloody arm over her neck and tugging my heavy body into the room, kicking the door shut behind her.
 
When I was deposited on a bed with a dark blue duvet, I laid back, throwing my right arm over my eyes. Granger knelt by me on the bed, and I could feel magic running over my injured hand and arm.
 
“I simply

cannot

understand you sometimes,” she grumbled, and on her breath, I could smell ale. “You are wickedly brilliant, and then you get drunk and try to kill yourself…after I’ve given you a second chance at life, which you have

squandered

thus far.”
 
I snorted, letting my arm slide over my forehead and into my hair.
 
How had I squandered my life? The answer was slow in coming as my eyes moved to her face. She was quietly laughing at me.
 
I snarled, and sat up quickly, my robes slipping from my bare shoulders. The movement I attempted made her laugh grow louder.
 
Hermione Granger was pissed. In my own state of inebriation, I had barely noticed. Her face was flushed, her hair a mess, and she reeked of cheap ale. She rose from the bed, doffing her cloak and throwing it toward a couch by the fire I had not noticed. She was still wearing the thick red jumper I remembered trying to pull off at the Hog’s Head and the low-rise jeans that hugged her hips tightly.
 
Mirth made her eyes glitter in the candlelight. I watched her move to pull her feet from her boots, tossing them toward the door. She laid her wand on top of the chest of drawers near the bed, glancing at her face in the rectangular gilt mirror over top the plain piece of furniture.
 
“Does alcohol

always

inspire amorous advances from you?” she asked, moving to smooth her hair down as she gazed into the mirror.
 
“No,” I grumbled, letting my cold feet rest upon the floor as I studied my left hand and arm. Even intoxicated, Granger could weave intricate healing Charms. I wanted to be impressed again.
 
I had come to accept the fact that what I had said in the heat of passion the day of the Leaving Feast was said in sincerity. In my own, perverse, semi-psychopathic way, I

did

love her.
 
I was certain of what she had said to my retreating back, that she, in some sickly obsessive way, loved me too. Of course, how to act upon these utterances was a problem. We had continually baited each other, publicly humiliated each other, and were not getting to a point of resolution any time soon.
 
“And what about suicide attempts? Does that happen often?”
 
I growled. “Not a suicide attempt you

daft

bint… I fell, bottle broke, cuts resulted…”
 
I was out of my mind. I should not have come into her room, but I was not exactly sure if I could leave in my state. If I could leave, I might just save myself from some disgrace, but my body was a separate entity from my mind.
 
Devil alcohol.
 
Granger sat next to me on the bed again, her legs tucked under her, her hands resting on her knees. She leaned forward and sniffed at my face, an action that made me react violently and scramble toward the foot of the bed to flee a possible hostile movement. She started laughing again.
 
I could only roll my eyes and try to keep myself from falling over and sleeping on her large bed, drooling into the soft dark blue duvet. I sighed and aped her posture, sitting back against the footboard of the bed.
 
“We need to call some sort of truce, an armistice,” she said, her laughter fading into seriousness. “I’m getting

very

tired of chasing after you, Severus.”
 
I swallowed thickly.
 
She leaned forward, shifting to set her legs off to one side of her body. Running her fingers through her unruly hair, she sighed.
 
“As much as it thrills me when you snap and take me, I…” she began, but trailed her eyes moving over my bare chest. “I

cannot

keep doing this. Waiting around for you to realize and accept…”
 
Granger was nervous, but under the nervousness, there was a spark of a hope, something she was protecting lest the hope be dashed.
 
“What do you want from me?” I asked in a slurred whisper.
 
Granger had asked the same question of me.
 
“You told me that day that I was the best student you ever had, Severus. It made me want to form a life debt with you, no matter the consequences. It made me fall in love with you…
 
And that is my

only

adolescent, ridiculously romantic moment I ever allowed myself. I knew what you were, what was in that quagmire of a mind you have. I knew it was not going to be easy to convince you of anything about myself. But… I wanted you.”
 
Her voice was tender, but in some loving fashion. It was tender because she was drunk, and her golden eyes were distant, glazed over.
 
“I wanted, at first, to be a respected friend. It was a mistake to want that, so I was content in being a respected rival. And as much as I like riling you, I wanted something more. I wanted a companion.”
 
She fidgeted with her right hand on her bare feet. I was distracted for a moment by those small feet, one thing about her that could always make my cock swell.
 
“Companion,” I drawled.
 
That was what she wanted? A companion? Did she not have money to buy a familiar? Didn’t she have one at some point? Wasn’t it some ginger monstrosity that would always find me when I went to Grimmauld Place and shed on me?
 
“Then I realized, it could never be that way, even after Christmas last year… I had a vain hope that there would be some movement from you. No admissions, but perhaps a tolerance.”
 
That term, she had waited for me to speak to her? I felt sick very suddenly.
 
“I gave you space, I gave you time, and then you reacted in a way that made me realize something…something I had considered but dismissed.”
 
I swallowed bile. “Oh?
 
She smirked, raising her eyes to my face. “You want me as a possession, a toy, a thing to vent your inner demons upon.”
 
It was not

that

simple, I wanted to say, but did not.
 
“And then you said it, the one thing that shocked me to the core of my soul…”
 
I glanced away. Yes, I had said it because I felt it. Love…
 
She did not say any more, and continued to fidget with her tiny, perfect toes. I was numb in more ways than one, and when I could form my words the way I liked, several minutes had passed in silence.
 
“You said you loved me,” I grumbled, my throat burning with swallowed bile and digestive juices. “You said it as I was leaving you, after violating you in your own classroom…”
 
“I

wanted

it,” she whispered. “I wanted you to take me the way you did…”
 
Anger spiked inside me. “

No

,” I snarled, the volume of my voice startling her. “It was not supposed to be that way!”
 
I had wanted to destroy her, but it did not happen that way. She made me want her; she made me say that I loved her. It was unfair.
 
“But it was…” she whispered again, shifting her legs. “You…”
 
I shook my head violently, my lank, long hair falling into my face like a black curtain. I did

not

want to hear it; I did

not

want to think it!
 
“You love me.”
 
I bit my lower lip roughly, my head bowed. Any attempt of denial would be useless. I had already accepted it, though I was still fighting with myself to admit it to her.
 
I had to redefine my preconceived notion of love.
 
“You

want

me to love you, don’t you?” I snapped, my face rising from the curtain of my hair. I supposed I did look very much like a beast when faced with her. “You want even

more

power over me!”
 
Her mouth opened to protest, but already, I was surging toward her, grasping her throat between my hands, pushing her down into the pillows of the bed. I did not squeeze her throat, but held her down, pressing my body against her, staring into the golden depths of her eyes.
 
“Who wants to possess whom, Granger?”
 
The feel of her hands upon my face startled me and I nearly jerked my hands from her throat. I did not stop, I penetrated her mind via Legilimency—she

let

me. She trusted me implicitly, and I was in.
 
I saw many things, I saw her watching me before a Potions class, teaching them how to make Polyjuice Potion, she knew it already and smiled at my younger self giving a brand of praise in the form of an insult. I saw how she watched my hands grasp my goblet at the Head’s table at a Leaving Feast. I saw how she defended me to her friends even after I had killed Albus. I saw how she was so close to exhaustion trying to staunch the blood from my wounded neck in the Shrieking Shack. I saw how she held me on the lobby floor of St. Mungo's, her face pale, but her eyes flashing preternaturally as she screamed at Edgar Wiscombe to help me. I saw how she touched herself at night in her bed in some Muggle bedroom, muttering obscenities along with my name.
 
More and more, I was transfixed by what she showed me. It was not just memories, but fantasies. My body reacted to her fantasies of being tied down and dominated. I groaned when she showed me how she wanted to please me by taking my cock into her mouth, forcing herself not to gag as her mouth sank down to the root.
 
I had to break the connection, I could not breathe.
 
“I would give you

so

much, Severus,” she whispered, her ale scented breath hot against my face. “I would give you everything if it meant my torment would end…”
 
I closed my eyes, my hands moving to hold her shoulders. I laid my head on her breast, sobered.
 
I had accepted it, hadn’t I? I had accepted that I

loved

this woman.
 
“No flowery words, no romance. I want you; I

have

wanted you, since you said those words.
 
I want to be your student again…”
 
Gods, the woman was delirious, she

had

to be. She could not know what she was saying. To have her meant that I would continually try to break her. The more she would resist, the more insane I would become.
 
I wanted to be insane. It would justify so much of my behavior toward her. It was mad love, more than obsession. Slip inside and outside, through her, consume and devour her, stitch her body to mine so I no longer had to suffer without it.
 
I loved Hermione Granger, passionately, jealously, illogically… And she… She would submit to my demons and whims, she would allow herself to be taught. Oh, and I would teach her.
 
Love making, it was not. It was a clumsy meeting of minds and bodies, and several times things did not happen the way I wanted.
 
I did not tie her down or bind her hands. I let her touch me for the first time, and those hands were not tender. Her fingernails left marks on my scarred back, drawing blood.
 
I did not rip her clothing off, but allowed her to move from the bed to undress. I allowed her to pull on the legs of my trousers until I sat on the edge of the bed, cock pointing up toward my face. I allowed her to kneel on the cold floor and swallow my cock whole. I corrected her movement with a hand wound into her hair. I growled instructions, harder, faster, go down… The apt pupil learned quickly, but needed much

more

schooling.
 
I held to her hair still when I pulled her up from the floor to kiss her mouth sloppily, saliva trailing from our mouths when we parted.
 
I straddled her hips, my hands grasping her breasts when I pushed her back down to the bed, my eyes burning into her face. I contorted her body, her knees on either side of her head with her lovely round arse in the air. I ate her.
 
The noises she made were soft rumbles and sighs. It was not sufficient.
 
My fingers slipped into her sweet tasting cunt and with two digits and I curled upward in a beckoning motion. She finally gasped and cried out. I shifted closer, rubbing myself against her back as I pumped and curled my fingers, deeper, faster.
 
When she came, it was to an obscene flow of juices. I pulled my fingers away and tasted. It was hot ambrosia, running from the cradle of her hips down her belly to her breasts. I followed the trail with my cock brushing against her core. She hummed a sigh as my tongue moved to trace around her erect nipples. When I nipped and bit at them, her hand was in my hair, her voice ringing out in pain and protest.
 
I growled into her left breast at the sound and the manner in which her legs wrapped about my waist. I pulled on her nipple with my teeth and released letting the globe of flesh jiggle beautifully.
 
I wanted more time, more stamina. Just looking into Granger’s eyes made my sac tighten uncomfortably. There were many things I wanted to do, wanted to try, just to see and gauge her reaction. I wanted to make her cry; I wanted to make her say my name, I wanted her to scream her devotion.
 
It was too much. There would be time for lessons and experiments later, all that mattered was that I was inside, trying to touch her soul and mark my existence in her body.
 
My thrust made her wail. I was dizzy from the ten-year-old Calvados and her taste. This woman was something made for just me, a thought that would have not seemed possible to me before.
 
She was muttering, whinging nastiness. Every foul word, every descriptor made me fuck her harder. Even when the top of her head banged into the headboard, I did not relent, grasping the wood with both hands as her body arched and curled beneath me. Her hands pinched and scratched into my chest, urging my body to move with a brutal forcefulness that I knew that in a few hours would make me feel incredibly sore. I would have to start brewing my own potions again to keep the ache out of my bones.
 
“Severus…

Severus…

”
 
My name was a prayer and a curse on her lips. Her hands found the scar on my neck, and scratched. I snarled, grasping her hair and pulling her body upward. I pressed her upper back into the headboard, her arse perched on soiled pillows. She licked and kissed my throat, her arms wrapping about me to press her heavy breasts into my chest. She was like Devil’s Snare, latched to me as I pumped up into her body, my cock a piston of blood hardened flesh, sinew, and veins.
 
Our mouths met, teeth nipping into juicy lips and tongue. It was becoming too much, like a drug induced hallucinogenic high beginning to peak. We fell to the bed, her on top, and where my rhythm broke, she took over. Her hips slammed downward as she lifted her body up, hair flying, eyes flashing.
 
“Merlin…” was my first coherent word in perhaps hours. She was a Valkyrie riding my cock, the organ becoming sore, ready to burst inside her, the pressure becoming painful. My hands lifted like an orant in some ecstasy.
 
“Hermione…” I whimpered and then I was gone on a near mystical climax, seeing colors and strange shapes before my eyes.
 
She was singing a low-key melody, her body falling to mine. Wet heat, it was coating her body, it was spreading between us. I held her to keep some hold on reality, to reassure myself that she was truly the one who had sworn herself to my possession.
 
Life was suddenly worth living if she loved me.

There was a shaky truce. Granger, as I continued to call her, did

not

go to Varna for New Years. She was far too consumed with learning how to make me come in her mouth. Krum would never have the pleasure.
 
The new term started, and work took up most of my free time besides my usual routines. On my birthday, Granger appeared in my rooms early in the morning, and for the first time, we actually had a civilized conversation.
 
Civilized conversation was awkward at first, but I grew to enjoy it. No one could keep me entertained by merely speaking for as long as she did. And when conversation turned to the matter of our shaky relationship, it usually ended by me being enchanted by her lurid words of seduction. Where she learned to talk such filth, albeit

arousing

filth, I would never know.
 
We fought constantly, but it was not fights that resulted in bruised egos or slapped faces—not unless I

allowed

her. It was the type of fight that substituted foreplay.
 
She would resist my advances, sometimes resorting to physical restraint, but I knew…I knew she got off on fighting me, me lording over her body, bending it to my will. I would violate her sensibilities from time to time, my cock was a weapon, and my fingers, and my tongue.
 
By April, Granger was a wanton woman, and I? I was

in love

.
 
There were no picnics by the lake, no flowers, no chocolates, no rings, no proposals. No poetry, no love letters, no great admissions of love, no interfering third parties. There were no pregnancies and there were no plans.
 
What

did

exist was only ever an amusement that never ended. Experimentation with technique, toys, potions, and with each other. There was tenderness at times, usually in the aftermath of a soiled bed, destroyed classroom, or silent acre of the Forbidden Forest. I would hold her against me, mumbling silly, sleepy things. I grew comfortable enough to repeat the words I had said in the Shack years ago. I would sometimes even allude to the depth of my love for her, but never say it directly. I would sometimes sing to her, just to make her laugh.
 
I

did

like her laugh, when it was not meant to hurt me.
 
Granger

did

hurt me, from time to time. It was an evitable side effect of this thing called ‘love’. Sometimes she ignored me, sometimes she did laugh at me, sometimes she derided me out of anger, and sometimes she purposely made me jealous.
 
I loved her, in my own way, and in her own way, she loved me. Although she belonged to me, she was her own woman. Hermione Granger was not ‘kept’.
 
And so it was for us, doing our jobs and being hated by our students. We did not sleep in the same bed; we did not share a life. We had a passion, and an agreement.
 
She was my personal love, and I was her scoundrel-saint.

The End

In the hand of H.J.G
 
~miserabile viu, Severus…to be ‘Index Librorum Prohibitum!’

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Caveat Lector
 
‘He who has put a good finish to his undertaking is said to have placed a golden crown to the whole.’ –Eustathius from a commentary on Homer’s ‘Iliad’

“Where’s Chapter Forty-One?” I glared at her from my place hunched over my writing desk. She sat in a Conjured chaise lounge underneath one of the casement windows near my desk. From my vantage point, all I could see was the top of her head. When she shifted, I could see her skin glowing in the summer sunlight, her smooth brown legs stretching over the velvety nap of the couch, pages of handwritten text stacked on her thighs. “I’m rewriting it,” I grumbled, my eyes lingering on the swell of her bare breasts. I was nearly finished, bar revisions, and I knew Chapter Forty-One would be the most difficult to rewrite. I did not want distractions, but it seemed inevitable with her sitting so near and in an extreme state of undress. “And Chapter Thirty-Nine was considerably longer than the others…” Dropping my quill onto the parchment pages, splattering ink over my words, I snarled. “Does it matter? Is there a rule that they must be uniform, Granger?” She stretched, her head tipping back on the couch to look at me upside down. “No, I don’t think so…” “Then be quiet!” She smiled to herself and let her head and eyes move down to the pages on her lap. I had given her a red pencil to proofread, and so far, after forty chapters, she had done a moderate amount of grammatical marking. However, on the very last page, she wrote something. I took my quill up again and continued. Pausing occasionally to swipe the eagle feather over my thin lips or pulling my dressing robe closed again, I started reworking ‘Chapter Forty-One: Introspections’. I knew I needed a better chapter title, but I also knew it would come with time. She sighed, shuffling the hundreds of pages. I watched out of the corner of my eye, my head in my hand as I leaned over the desk. She sat up, folding her bare legs to stack the pages of my autobiography at the end of the couch. “Well?” I ventured, half afraid of what she might say, but this fear did not come through my voice. I sounded irritated, as per usual. I could not admit to her that I was anxious to hear her opinion on what I had so far. She had taken her time reading, which translated into two weeks worth of reading and correcting. Those two weeks had been as stressful as my time trying to decide whom to serve in my youth. She turned on the couch, pressing her breasts into her arm, her eyes narrowed, a smirk on her lips. “It is shit, and I am not saying that because you wrote me to be so pathetic, Severus,” she said calmly. I turned my eyes away and scribbled another word, the nib of the quill tearing into the parchment. “To your credit, you are a much better writer than Skeeter. You will make readers identify with you, no matter how insane you paint yourself in your own work.” I grumbled an indistinct curse and she smiled wider. I had almost considered not showing it to her, but Hermione Granger, being the creature she was, demanded to be my editor when she found the manuscript on my writing desk. I had been debating for some time whether to erase her memory of the discovery or take my manuscript somewhere secure to finish. I knew I could trust in her editorial revisions of the mechanics at the very least. All the same, I was afraid of what remarks she made in the margins about overall style. I could still remember her penciled words in the margins of Skeeter’s still best selling travesty of a book. It seemed that the content was ‘shit’. That alone stung me more than I would ever let her know. However, I counted on her no-nonsense opinion. “The first half is fantastic. You might make someone actually believe you are a pitiable man,” she sighed. “You have a comic wit, especially in your analysis of the ‘Dark Lord’ and Albus. That alone could constitute another book. However… The descriptions of the ‘love scenes’ were compelling, but a bit… oh , how should I put it? I really don’t care for the word ‘cunt’.” I grumbled again. “What was that ?” I lifted my head from my hand and met her eyes again. “Are you truly a feminist, or does the word repulse you for its harshness on the tongue?” I snapped, but calmed myself instantly. I truly hate becoming so irritable when I need to concentrate on writing. Continuing, I drawled silkily: “Did you want me to describe it differently? Your ‘sex’, your ‘honey pot’, your ‘vulva’ if you want to get technical, your ‘tender trap’? I could go on and on, my dear.” She only laughed, delightedly. I was half tempted to join in, but was still slightly irritated. I still had to rewrite Chapter Forty-One, and I had to do it before the succinct recollections grew stale. When her hands slipped down the front of my robe, I paused in writing the word ‘aberration’. She leaned into my back, her fingers sliding down my chest to my belly, under the belt that held the robe closed to the thatch of black, wiry hair at the top of my hips. “Do. Do go on and on ,” she whispered into my hair. I dropped the quill, splattering ink onto my right hand and the parchment again. Her fingertips brushed against my semi-erect cock and I inhaled slowly. The combination of her proximity, her undress, and my irritation made me rigid in more ways than one. “I want you to show me…” Her voice was seductive, bewitching to me, but I frowned. If she wanted to play, I would indulge her for the time being. Chapter Forty-One be damned. “Show you what , Granger?” Her lips found my left ear lobe through my long black hair. She bit gently, soothing the bite with the tip of her tongue. “Show me how brutal you can be, like you were in your pages.” I turned slowly in the chair, allowing her hands to slip out of my robe as she stood up straight behind me. Her lean, golden skin attracted my eyes, as did the scent of recent activities. Earlier that morning, just before she took up the pages to edit again, I had had her in my bed, renting cries of faithfulness and loyalty from her throat. “As compared to how it really is?” I asked, standing, my robe falling open. She nodded, taking a step back toward the bed. “And you think I am gentle with you, my dear ?” She smirked. “You never mentioned that you call me ‘my dear’ in your memoirs.” I shrugged, a mere trifle, and began stalking her slowly back toward the bed. “Obviously there are some minor details omitted for the sake of style.” “Or details that are blatant lies?” I grinned predatorily as her back knocked into the foot post of my bed. “Such as?” I purred. “We do share a bed, we do have tenderness, and we do get along much better than how it seemed on the page…” I was against her, chest to chest, my arms moving to grasp the post above her head. I stared down into her eyes, my crooked and yellowed teeth bared in my slowly shifting leer. “Perhaps…an addendum?” She shook her head, her messy curls of chestnut hair falling about her face. “As you said…for the sake of style.” I bucked my hips against hers, my weeping cock smearing the sticky pearl of pre-cum into her belly. “And my work is ‘shit’, you say?” She smirked. “It needs work, ‘my dear’.” My hands slid down the bedpost along her arms to her hips. “A caveat?” She sighed, her hands moving under my robe to pull my hips toward her, impossibly closer, pressing my cock between us. “Perhaps…” We kissed, mouths battling, tongues dueling. My hands moved to her hair, holding her face to mine. I relished the taste of her, even the faint trace of my cum still on her tongue from the morning. She was mine , my personal addiction. The bed was forgotten as I lifted her up, legs wrapping about my waist. I lowered her to the warm floor, in a patch of sunlight. No brutality. Brutality took planning and forethought, and though I was a master at both, simply indulging myself in uncomplicated sex was enough. There was nothing mundane or boring about slipping my cock into Hermione Granger. Every union was bliss to me. As I had written, there was no romance to the way we moved. And as I had written, Hermione Granger was my possession. We slid across the floor with every thrust, bodies, and flesh slapping together in hard, poignant kisses of skin against skin. The sunlight warmed us, yet the hard floor made everything uncomfortable, her sharp hips bruising me, and my bony knees stinging. It would not matter; of course, it was a small price to pay for something far greater. Sometimes I thought of the small discomforts as something that would solidify the moments with her more permanently in my memory—a reality that would make me believe in something other than the darkness that had filled so much of my life. Love, lust, amusement, that was the truth of the matter, of our relationship. Of course, I did not write about the more tender moments as it had not always been tender. I did not write about the mornings waking up with her curled in my arms. I did not write about the games we played when we were inspired. Her favorite was ‘detention in the dungeons with the lecherous Potions Master’. I did not write about the time we swam under a full moon in the loch, and I did not write about the time Longbottom caught us in a niche behind a tapestry when we were supposed to be doing nightly rounds. I also did not write about the last time I had gotten drunk and went to one knee to serenade her in the Hog’s Head on a dare from Horace. In fact, I wish I could Obliviate that memory from our minds. It was too silly, too adolescent, too fluffy, and almost too sweet. However, most of my written words were true. I was the master. She was the student. That did not mean she was not impertinent. There were times when she shocked me into momentary submission, but not often. “Severus…” she whispered. I grunted, feeling her pulse around me, and then groaned as she came. I held the backs of her knees, pressing them toward her head to penetrate her deeper, smoother. She was gone, her eyes closed, her mouth open to gasp at every thrust. Her body shook, shivering in the warm sunlight. Hermione Granger was mine ; there was no caveat for that fact. She was mine and mine alone. If I could use my quill to write my name on every inch of her skin, I would. I would take her to the edge of reality with every touch, every stroke, and every breath. She was mine to mold to every whim. She was my slave, my toy, my savior, my darkest desire. I was no saint. I was a bitter old man who had somehow been lucky to live on. I was very much a scoundrel, by the very evil I incurred on the woman under me. I had been mentally debating, however, if it was evil when I flogged her and sweet juices flowed from her. Was I evil when I bound her arms behind her back and forced my cock into her mouth? Her hands found my face, and she lifted her body to kiss me. No, I was not a scoundrel. Her desires matched my own, and I did not pour evil into her body. When I came, it was sudden and unexpected. Her name was on my lips. She cleaved to me in the sunlight as I gasped against her shoulder. Perhaps I was a Byronic-hero after all. Outside of Hermione Granger, the world saw me as such. To her, I was a chore, albeit an amusing one. She was such a hero, or heroine, in her own right. She was Hippolyta and Boudica. Her passion for battle, whether physical or mental, was unnatural. I finally pulled away with a final kiss to her swollen lips, leaving her laying on the floor, in the sunlight. She looked as if she could sleep, and I closed my robe, knotting the belt about my waist. Moving back to the writing desk, I sat down, staring at the bloom of valerian from the pot on the back of the desk. Quill began scratching into parchment again. In climax, I had found inspiration. I heard her rise slowly, finding her wand on the fainting couch and casting Cleansing Charms over her skin. When the tip of her wand tapped into the top of my head, I scowled. I knew I could do without her compulsion to keep me clean. I rather liked the sensation of her juices drying in my pubic hair and belly. I preferred to be able to see my semen oozing down the insides of her thighs. She sat again, taking up the manuscript and marking pencil, flipping through pages to a later chapter. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, my head in my hand again, my elbow resting on the desktop as I bent over the surface to write. She seemed to write an editorial note, a long one. It was not until she had gone from the room moments later, dressing hastily, muttering that Minerva wanted to meet her for tea, that I Summoned the manuscript and began searching for her note. I found it toward the beginning of Chapter Forty. Tiny words were written next to one sentence. ‘Hermione Granger was the rock on which my soul broke.’ It started with a Latin inscription: ‘amor et melle et felle est fecundissmismus’ or ‘love is rich with both honey and venom’. The words sunk deep into my brain, the symbolism poignant. Then: ‘There is no such thing as a true romance or a ‘happy ending’, Severus. But for these elegant words, do, at least, try for a better ending.’ I snorted, and then began barking with laughter. She was the rock on which my soul broke in millions of pieces, and she ate those pieces every time our bodies met. I did not mind. In dying, my words to her had saved my life, or perhaps it was not my words at all but something she had kept hidden so deep that I would never find it, and I suppose I might never truly know. Perhaps it is better that way. All the same, I no longer have any regrets about speaking what, to me, was a simple truth about Hermione Granger. She was the best student I ever had, she is my best student. My soul belongs to her by right.

~Fin.