Chapter Text
The next morning, Hermione was astonished to find that she'd slept. She awoke to find sunlight already streaming in the window and knew that she'd missed breakfast. For a moment, it seemed odd that Harry and Ron had not come and dragged her out of bed, then it occurred to her that Harry might have talked Ron out of that course of action, having his own suspicions about with whom she'd spent the previous evening. She smiled a bit. Dear, considerate Harry.
She pushed herself out of bed and trotted to the bathroom, where she examined her body in the mirror before cleaning it. Her newly deflowered self looked no different than her virginal self had, and yet, she felt different. She eyed her body critically and knew that it was the body of a woman. It was a good body, she thought. Snape had seemed to enjoy it. Not very ready to think about that, yet, are we? she asked herself snidely. Better think about it; there's more to come, she answered herself with an edge.
She'd enjoyed it. She'd not counted on that part at all. Snape had made her feel hot, adult, sexual. She'd been aroused by his hands, his mouth, his body. She tried reconciling that thought with years of the sardonic, untouchable, unknowable Potions Master. There was a knot in her gut again. Untouchable? She'd touched him. Aloof? She'd seen him with the most basic, primal human pleasure scrawled across his usually shuttered face. Reserved? He'd not been too reserved to moan as he plunged into her body over and over...
She felt an odd surge of triumph, of desire. Academically, she knew that he'd displayed his pleasure in her only because he chose to; she knew that if he'd chosen otherwise, she'd never have known that she could elicit the faintest spark of actual desire in him.
But that made her wonder... she was a woman. She was desirable; he'd allowed her to see that. She was inexperienced now, but could she make herself so desirable, could she develop the skill to elicit heat from Severus Snape whether he wanted to or not?
It was a strangely giddy thought. She imagined sitting in class, slowly crossing her legs. She imagined his iron control tested, his voice catching for just a split second as he was distracted by thoughts of Hermione's lush sexuality. She imagined him resolving to stay focused, to ignore her enticing suggestiveness, and unable. The thought of compelling his desire so strongly that even his formidable willpower could not overcome it seemed suddenly intoxicating. She didn't just want him to want her... he'd allowed her to see that, on his own terms of course. Suddenly she wanted him to want her so badly that he couldn't resist her, couldn't just smirk and pretend to be unaffected.
The way that she wanted him now. Her knees were weak. Hermione gazed into the mirror at her flushed face, breathing heavily.
Snape straightened his collar fastidiously, then checked to make sure that his cuffs were fully buttoned and laying as he liked. Dressing was an elaborate and cherished daily ritual for him, and as he settled his robes on his shoulders he ensured that each pleat fell where it belonged.
He was trying to distract himself from considering the night ahead. He wished he could go to the girl's friends and ask them to be ready for her when he was done with her, to be waiting with tissues and chocolate and whatever else it was that teenaged girls wanted when they'd been terrorized at the hands of monsters. Snape regarded his hands briefly. The night before they'd pleasured her.
Tonight would be enjoyable for him, at least. But still, he felt concern. He disliked the idea of tapping his darkest, most unruly desires; though he now knew himself to be capable of reigning them in, the experience was difficult and nauseating. He remembered a time when he'd felt like a slave to his bloody urges, and the damage he'd caused in his weakness. That would never happen again, clearly, and tonight he would use his own sadistic impulses in carefully measured and considered ways to achieve a certain ends. It twisted his gut to know how much he would enjoy that, and how unpleasant it would be to tap that dark well without just throwing himself in as he once had; to taste its heady waters without drowning in them; to control himself. But he had no doubts that he would control himself.
He suspected Miss Granger to be a resilient, perceptive girl, or he'd never have agreed to this. But tonight he would put her to the test.
Harry slipped silently up the stairs to the girl's dormitory, knowing that Hermione was up there alone. He tapped on the door lightly, and was relieved to see his best friend's curious face peering out at him through the crack of the door a few seconds later. "`Mione... what are you doing?"
She opened the door for him, and he slipped inside. She was wearing her robes, and her bushy hair and lack of makeup were her typical presentation, and yet... she was smiling just a little bit, secretly. And flushed, he thought. His suspicions were confirmed. "Hi Harry," she said, bouncing onto her bed, and Harry sat down beside her and looked at her intently.
"I wanted to check up on you. How was last night?" he asked, spying his cloak draped over her chair.
Her flush increased, her eyes bright. "Um, good," she answered nonchalantly.
"Hermione," Harry began, then grinned at her. She smiled back, a bit shyly. He couldn't stand it. "Merlin's teeth, `Mione, you did it, didn't you?"
It looked like she was trying to put on an innocent face, but she was having a hard time with it. "Don't lie," he warned her. "C'mon, tell me, you did, didn't you?"
Hermione stared at him, clearly torn between apprehension and excitement. Finally she nodded, looking to him nervously for his reaction. Harry leaned forward and threw his arms around her, and she laughed a bit as she hugged him back. "We did it," she proclaimed in a funny voice. "We really, really did."
Harry sat back and regarded her seriously. "You look happy. Are you happy?"
She bit her lower lip and nodded. Harry did think that she looked happy... but nervous, too. He hoped she wasn't worried that he would disapprove. He was curious, though. "Tell me, you've got to tell me about it," he insisted with excitement.
"Well... I dunno, Harry. It wasn't exactly what I expected, you know. But it was... 'nice' doesn't seem like the right word. It was really something. Just to be that close to someone. In that way."
Harry nodded, taking it all in. Many of the sixth years were starting to have sex, and he was mad with curiosity, as were all the boys who'd not yet had the experience. He felt funny knowing that Hermione had gotten there first, but glad for his first chance to pick the brain of someone who wouldn't make fun of him for not knowing.
"Did it hurt much?" he asked with concern.
She nodded again, but didn't seem upset. "Oh, it did. But it was okay. It felt, um, good that it hurt. I know that sounds weird. But it made it, um, important."
Harry wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but filed it away for future reference.
"Well, okay. I can't believe you did it! I'm so happy for you. Thomas must be ecstatic... he better have treated you right," Harry added, his voice suddenly a bit dark.
Hermione nodded guiltily. "Oh, yeah, he did."
Harry, who was still excitedly hanging at Hermione's side by lunch, managed to keep his mouth shut and act nonchalant when Ron showed up. He kept glancing over at the Ravenclaw table, eager for a glance of Thomas, wondering if the boy would look like the night's activities had aged him as much as Hermione did. He was surprised to note that Thomas didn't look excited at all, and indeed, hardly cast a glance at the Gryffindor table through all of lunch.
For that matter, Hermione hardly glanced at the Ravenclaw one either. And yet that glow persisted...
Harry frowned thoughtfully.
"I can't imagine why you're still dressed," Snape drawled in a mocking voice.
Hermione had paused just inside the door to his chambers uncertainly, noting that he wasn't in the outer chamber and wondering if she was expected to wander back into his bedroom looking for him. He saved her the decision by appearing in the doorway, but his first words were hardly of welcome.
She'd tried to steel herself today. She wasn't exactly sure what "nothing but unpleasantness" meant, but was sure it wouldn't be... pleasant. She grimaced and, determined to make a decent showing of herself, shrugged out of her dress and sandals without a word. She felt tremendously self-conscious standing in the middle of Snape's receiving room, wearing not a stitch, under his critical surveillance, but she found the courage to look up and meet his eyes. He was leaning on the doorframe staring at her with disdain, thoughtlessly swirling a tumbler of some dark fluid in one of his elegant hands. He wasn't wearing his robes, just well-tailored black trousers, leather boots, and an untucked, partially unbuttoned satiny white shirt.
No one would have believed her had she tried to describe Snape like this. Languid, casual... suggestive. His expression was not particularly one of arousal, but it belied his intent nonetheless. He looked at her like she was a mere animal, but one that he intended to enjoy kicking.
Hermione shuddered and dropped her eyes. That was when he assaulted her.
She didn't remember him crossing the room, but suddenly his hand was tangled painfully in her hair and he thrust her toward the couch. She stumbled and landed gracelessly, but didn't get the time to recoup before he was atop her. He manhandled her onto her knees on the couch, bent awkwardly over its velvet arm, seemingly without a single thought for how his grip or force might discomfort her. Hermione was still gasping with shock when she felt him probing at her still-dry sex.
His fingers worked into her from behind, heedless of the fact that her body was unreceptive, while his other hand wrapped into her hair again and held her bent forward on the couch. By now she was repeating a mantra to herself: Not going to cry... not going to cry... but it was awful to feel him invading her very body without a thought to her feelings on the matter. Snape managed to work his fingers into her and was pumping them in and out forcefully, spreading her little bit of natural moisture around.
She sighed in relief as he withdrew the unwanted penetration, then stiffened and try to jerk from his grasp when she felt him position himself between her spread knees.
"No," she wailed, but he wasn't interested in her thoughts as he pressed into her through sheer force. His sex felt huge and swollen as it forced its way past the dry, resistant walls of her passage. The feeling was completely unlike the intercourse he'd had with her last night, when she was wet for it. He grunted as he slammed the rest of the way into her with a single, violent thrust, and Hermione shrieked.
"Shut up," he growled, pressing her face into the velvet upholstery as he raped her. He drew most of the way out before burying himself in her again. "Accio bourbon," he murmured, drawing his drink back to his hand and taking a sip as he pressed slowly into the third time, relishing the feel of her resistant vagina. "Your pussy feels good like this," he purred at her in a low voice. "I know it hurts. You. A lot." He dragged the last four words out in time with his terrible thrusts, trying to get himself into her deeper each time.
Hermione tried to swallow her sobs, thinking desperately that this couldn't last too long. He slammed himself into her as he finished his drink and dropped the glass. Leaning forward, she smelled the alcohol on his breath as he whispered in a mock-soothing voice, "Go ahead and cry, you worthless cunt. You'll feel better if you do." The cutting edge of his voice was too much, and indeed, her sobs began to escape her unstifled as Snape continued his possession.
His free hand snaked around her side and found her budding breasts. Snape wasted no time finding a tender nipple and tugging at it fiercely. Her cries changed pitch as he began to brutalize first one tiny nub, then the other. He mauled the gentle swells with his strong hands, twisting and pinching her nipples mercilessly, continuing to press her face into the couch.
"Had enough yet?" he asked cruelly. His only answer was more sobs. "I think you have," he volunteered for her, and she gulped in loud lungfuls of air as he withdrew from her sex and released her nipple, but kept the grip in her hair. His fingers probed at her folds once more, and she was vaguely relieved to realize that her body had managed to start lubricating now. She struggled to control herself as he alternately stroked her slickness and played with himself, feeling burning hatred and terror, wondering wildly how she could have thought she'd enjoyed the night before.
"Enough of that, anyway," he continued, and then started to insistently press the head of his member against the tiny aperture of her ass.
Hermione wondered what shock felt like. He simply couldn’t mean...
She screamed, a full-voiced, ear-piercing shriek, and flailed wildly beneath him, causing him to slide out of the ring of her anus, which he'd begun to penetrate. She writhed uncontrollably and almost turned fully under him, her instincts kicking in as she tried desperately to strike him. She vaguely felt the pain of the handful of hair that she lost, but Snape simply sat back out of her reach, sighed, and palmed his wand.
She didn't even hear him say it, but she suddenly couldn't move. He pushed her off the coach and flipped her over with his booted foot, so that she lay frozen on her face on the lush carpet. She heard him chuckling as he knelt and spread her legs again, then grabbed her hips and jerked her up onto her knees. "Then we'll do it this way," he commented idly, again pressing his erect member into her resistant ass. It took several long minutes for him to work himself inside her - he withdrew several times to wipe himself through her wet slit to gather more lubrication, then finally cursed and used Accio lubricant and spread some thick, cold jelly into the cleft of her anus. With a sigh of tremendous pleasure, he pressed slowly forward into her tight passage. "Muggle rapists must have such a difficult time of things," he observed calmly, holding himself deep inside her as she inwardly shrieked her discomfort and horror. "I've always thought the full-body bind particularly useful. Though, of course, I'll want to hear your screams here in a moment. Once I've got a good grip."
With that he thrust forward, pressing her back onto her stomach with his sex still buried in her. Pinning her down and getting a good grip on her hips, he murmured the words to release the bind, and Hermione began to writhe and sob in incredible fear. Snape barely moved, letting her do all the work as her struggles caressed his sex. Somehow, though an effort that she'd not have guessed she was capable of, Hermione willed herself to subside on the carpet and try to relax her body. The awful penetration became slightly more tolerable, and she lay there panting, disbelieving what was happening to her.
I really was a stupid girl, she thought bitterly, tasting the salt of her tears, if I didn't see this coming. I asked him for it.
But that knowledge didn't make it any easier to accept, or make her despair and terror any less horrible. How could he do this to her? Even if she had asked, how could he actually do it?
One hand on her back, he began to stroke in and out of her again, and Hermione lay as still as possible. She didn't know how long it took him to come, but she knew it took awhile. He was speaking to her as he continued raping her, but she hardly registered his words.
Finally he withdrew and left her there, and Hermione shuddered violently without trying to get up. She remained exactly as she was while he puttered around the room, and she heard him settle on the couch above her. Minutes passed, maybe an hour, she wasn't sure, before she was roused from her semi-shocked stupor by his toe digging into her side.
"Get up," he snarled.
Hermione ignored him, and was rewarded with a sharp kick in the ribs. She gasped as the pain blossomed and clutched her side, curling inward. Snape reached down and grabbed her by the throat and pulled her half-upright into a sloppy kneeling position.
"It's time to learn to suck. Come on, now, I don't care if it hurts. Get up."
He wrapped his hand in her hair - again - and her major complaint shifted from the ache in her side to the burning of her scalp where he'd already pulled out a chunk of hair. Her consciousness came back into some sort of focus as she realized what was going on. Snape was lounging on the couch, had pulled his erection from his slacks, and was maneuvering her face toward it. He smirked down at her look of terror. "That's right. I've had your cunt and your ass, now all I need is your mouth, and then you really will be worthless to me."
He shoved her face into his crotch, and his stiff member pressed into her cheek. He shifted her head and it poked her in the mouth, but Hermione refused to part her lips.
Snape jerked her head back and stunned her with a sharp blow across the face. Then he thrust his thumb into her mouth and wrenched her jaw open, and with some well-coordinated pressure he maneuvered his sex into her mouth. Hermione tried desperately not to gag, a proposition made difficult by his refusal to accommodate her inexperience. Instead, he pushed her head down hard, forcing his way into the back of her throat.
She felt the head of his cock slide into the spasming muscles of her throat, and her body involuntarily tried to swallow him. With a new wave of revulsion, she felt the wave of bile that preceded getting sick, and knew she was going to throw up with him still buried in her mouth. Her whole body convulsed as she tried to get free, and he jerked her off of him and held her head to the side of the couch just in time for her to begin vomiting.
When she was done, Snape shoved a glass in her face. "Don't drink this, just wash out your mouth," he instructed sharply, and Hermione groggily parted her lips and tilted back her head. She was shocked to find that the liquid that he poured into her mouth burned, and she almost spit it out immediately. Instead, her head filled with the acrid aromas and invasive sensations of strong alcohol, she swished it around her mouth, then spit it back into the glass that he still held before her face.
"Now this'll be easier," he purred, and leveraged her back into place. She had hoped that her illness might earn her some reprieve, but Snape seemed to think it was splendid that he could violate her mouth without worrying about her puking anything else up. He shoved her down into her previous position, and Hermione's feverish mind worked to try to figure out what she should do to get this over with as fast as possible.
"How stupid are you, Miss Granger? Surely you can figure this out." He punctuated his taunt by shoving hard on the back of her head again, making her gag and start to dry heave. "Keep your fucking teeth off my cock. Use your tongue and your lips. Must I spell everything out for you?"
Hermione responded sluggishly, but tried to do whatever seemed right. She moved her head back and forth, sliding her lips back to the head of his member, then trying to press forward deeply enough that he wouldn't augment her efforts by forcing his way down her throat. She felt him settle back slightly, and hoped that was a good sign. She shifted her position between her knees to one of slightly more comfort and found some sort of tortured rhythm to her efforts to please him. Her cheek throbbed from his blow and his hand was still tangled in her hair, though less tightly now.
Sweating and worried and afraid and in pain, Hermione thought that this was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life. He gave no indication that he was getting more excited, and she was afraid that she wasn't doing it right and he would never let her stop. She risked a glance upward to see his head tilted back, a peaceful, content expression on his usually stony features. Her hatred peaked, but she didn't dare to stop her efforts.
Perhaps it did take forever, but she finally felt a subtle shift in the muscles of his upper thighs, where her hands had come to rest to brace her balance. She tried to relax, uncertain if he meant to come in her mouth, completely certain that she would puke again if he did. Though she suspected it was coming, she was still shocked when his hand suddenly tightened in her hair and forced her head down - hard - as the first wave of his orgasm shot hot semen into the back of her throat. She began gagging as he jerked free and pumped the rest of his come onto her face. Then he pushed her away, and the battered girl again fell to the floor and lay still, full of nothing but a desperate, tired longing for morning to come.
She noted his footsteps as he went to the bathroom. He returned moments later - she glanced up to see he was fully dressed, his shirt even fully fastened and tucked in now, and he carried a flask. Snape sat down on the couch above her again, but this time he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees thoughtfully.
"Sit up," he directed quietly.
Hermione lay unresponsive for a moment, then struggled to sit up. She was scared to look up into his face, but risked a glance, and saw that he was closed and impassive, not sneering and disdainful as he had been throughout the evening.
He caught her timid gaze and looked her full in her bruised, swollen face. She saw the concern in his hooded black eyes and she suddenly wanted to cry again. In fact, she did, not sobbing this time, but the tears rolling down her cheeks and blurring her vision.
"Sweetheart..." he said gently, voice full of grave concern and resonating with warmth, and Hermione lost it. She was consumed by a desperate, needful longing like nothing she'd ever felt; she needed to be held tenderly, to be comforted, to have her bruises kissed. She didn't even care that the man offering a grain of comfort was the same one who had brutalized her; she found herself craving the succor of his embrace with the hunger of starvation.
But he wasn't coming and holding her. He was sitting there, watching her cry hysterically. His face was impassive again, not warm and concerned. Bitterly she wondered if she'd imagined that moment of compassion... but he'd used a term of endearment for her; she'd not invented that part of it, she was sure.
She tried to swallow her tears again, but she'd done that one too many times tonight. This time there was nothing for it but to sit and cry it out, humiliated by her longing for comfort from her victimizer, and under his inscrutable watch.
Eventually she ground to a snotty, hiccuping halt. Snape was still watching her, the bastard.
"Listen to me, and listen to me well," he said flatly. "I've just raped you, terrorized you, and beaten you. You're in great physical and psychic pain. And then I offered you the very faintest hint that I would give you warmth or comfort, and what was your reaction? Don't answer me, Miss Granger; think about it. After what I put you through, all I had to do was look at you with the faintest concern and call you 'sweetheart,' and you would have spent the rest of the night in my arms, desperately dependent on me to make you feel better."
Hermione stared at him in horror. He looked back without condemnation or praise. "What if I actually gave you that comfort right now? I would be expertly, cunningly laying the foundation to build your very sick, very desperate dependence on me. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Slowly, appalled, Hermione nodded.
Snape nodded back curtly and flicked his long fingers toward the door. "Good. You'll need to find your comforts for this horror elsewhere tonight. When you come back tomorrow, there'll be no... direct... instruction. We'll discuss the events of this evening. Now drink this, then go." Snape held out the flask to her, and Hermione downed its contents as if in a daze, then found her dress and slipped it over her head. She walked out barefoot, leaving her sandals.
She didn't know that Snape followed her back to her dormitory, ensuring that she found her bed safely.
She couldn't get out of bed.
She didn't bother to look in the mirror, although a tentative exploration with her fingers suggested that Snape's potion had taken care of the bruising of her face and the bloody patch of scalp. Her body throbbed... down there... but it was nothing compared to the pain in her chest and stomach. The pain of what had happened.
He was right. He could have made her his last night. Not totally, but enough. Enough to build on.
Instead she was still her own, but alone and in pain. At the moment she wasn't sure which would have been worse.
***
Midnight. Why was she here? She should have just stayed in bed, never to leave, never to face him, certainly never to resume this insane, suicidal plan of hers.
"Scholarly inquiry," she said clearly, and the door swung open. The chamber beyond was well-lit, and Snape sat in one of the two chairs arranged before the fire. He still wore his robes, and he gazed pensively into the flames, not looking up at her entrance. She noted a steaming cup of tea sitting on the small table by the empty chair.
She herself wore jeans and a sweater. Nothing seductive tonight. Her hair fell untamed around her shoulders; her skin was pale and her face drawn. She sat down and picked up the tea, holding it more for warmth and comfort than because she intended to drink it.
Snape turned his gaze on her. He did look concerned now, but not that awful, compassionate, embracing promise that she'd seen briefly in his eyes last night... just a concerned teacher, looking at his pupil.
"If there is anything that you need from me tonight, you shall have it. If you want my comfort regarding last night's events, I will offer it."
She stared at him. Was this a trick? No, he was sincere. But she knew that only one answer would serve her cause.
"I want you discuss it with me and help me understand it. I don't want your comfort," she replied, trying not to sound bitter, just matter-of-fact.
Snape nodded, looking at her speculatively. "Then tell me what you've deduced."
Staring into her tea, the tired girl took a deep breath. "You hurt me like that just to set me up for wanting your comfort. Had I felt like there was anywhere else to go, anyone else to turn to, or any way to end it, I would have just hated you. But you set me up so that you were the only one who could offer comfort, and the only one who could put an end to my pain. Then you hurt me for so bad, and so long, that I would have forgiven you and come to your arms as long as it meant an end to the ordeal. Oh, I would have been conflicted... parts of me would have still hated you. For a while."
"For a while?" he echoed softly.
"Of course, Professor. For, if you were really clever, you would have done it again. And again. And each time that I abandoned my pride, my sense of self, to accept comfort and relief from my abuser, I would have given up a little bit more of myself. And been a little more yours. It's like the dog that unquestioningly loves the owner who kicks him."
"Hmm," he agreed thoughtfully. "Yes, an apt description." He went back to staring into the fire.
"Did you use magic on me?"
A tiny smile tugged tiredly at the corners of his harsh mouth. "Less than one might think. A nudge here, a nudge there." He looked at her again. "You're concerned about how easy it seemed for me to manipulate you like that."
"I want to think... I don't know," she stumbled. "I want to think that I would just hate someone for doing what you did. I do hate you... now. But last night I wanted your consolation and tenderness."
She'd wondered if he would react to her statement about hating him, but he didn't even blink. "You were a very easy mark, Miss Granger. You have practically no experience, and your head was still spinning from the little bit of experience you did have. As you say, I set you up. Better I than Malfoy."
She nodded thoughtfully, considering all the implications. "Do you think that this is how he'll try to handle me?"
"It's his very favorite trick, so I thought I'd best insulate you against it first. So what will you need to do?"
Hermione studied the mug in her hands. It was dark green, with a rim of silver, but she barely noted the Slytherin colors. "I'll need to seem terrorized, and yet not actually be terrorized. Afterwards, to seem clingy and needy, but not to actually be clingy or needy."
"Do you actually think that you can experience what you did last night without being traumatized?" he asked, an edge of a challenge to his velvety tones.
Hermione lifted her chin and stared at him. "I just did," she stated flatly.
Snape stared back, then raised an eyebrow. "Bravo, Miss Granger, bravo," he said, very, very softly, real admiration in his voice.
She didn't look pleased or disgruntled at his praise. "Tell me more of what I need to know."
Severus Snape sat staring into the flames long after Hermione Granger left his chambers.
He'd thought that she would master his harshest lesson, but it was still a terrible thing to watch. He remembered how she'd looked yesterday at lunch as she sat between Potter and Weasley... slightly flushed, eyes flashing, energized. A newly-awakening woman, excited by the sexual possibilities of her own body. She'd been quite beautiful, he reflected sadly. And tonight... tonight she'd looked weary, hurt, betrayed. Yet defiantly unbroken. He'd done that to her. Both changes, lightning fast, girl to woman, woman to wounded, in two days time.
Her inner strength was formidable. Yet he would have to make her stronger still if she were to survive Lucius Malfoy.
The lessons continued. They only had two weeks. Snape was casting Alertness charms each night, and both spent most of Saturday and Sunday sleeping. Hermione was doing the bare minimum on her schoolwork, but didn't have the energy to lament that fact.
Harry was worried... it'd gotten to the point where even Ron noticed her distracted state. The former confronted her with his suspicions that something was going on other than nightly liaisons with Thomas, and Hermione had thrown her arms around his neck and asked him to give her until after the vacation to explain. Her voice had been so desperate, so determined that he had agreed without even knowing why. But afterwards he'd asked if he could just sit with her a while... he couldn't explain it, but he felt like she needed it. To his surprise, she nodded gravely, then lay down and rested her head in his lap. A bit taken aback and unnerved, Harry had stroked her hair soothingly, and she'd closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
Snape's lessons varied between nightmares and fantasies. Sometimes he abused and manipulated her horribly, other times he taught her skills of seduction. They tailored such skills carefully... she would need to always seem the guileless virgin. The strangest night were those, like the first, that he lay her down and pleasured her. It was clear that she needed to be in control of her body's own capacity for ecstasy, so he took her to its heights and then taught her both how to abandon herself and to resist its delights.
Who would have believed her, had she tried to explain the enthralling reaches of the Potions Masters erotic skills and knowledge, or the depth of his capacity for cruelty?
She couldn't believe that the holiday had come so fast. Her nerves were strung tight, but her self-control was improving every day. Harry stayed nearby as if concerned that she might need him, but always took care not to hover and annoy her.
Their last midnight. Tonight they would need to cast the Restoration spell.
She let herself into his chambers; for the first night since they'd begun she was relatively certain of what to expect. No lesson tonight, just some final preparations. From this point forward, for the next three weeks, she would swim... or she would sink and drown. She was adequately prepared or she was not.
Snape emerged from the bedchamber fully dressed, but without robes. She'd endured the most intimate violations at his hands; she'd taken his cock on her knees, on her back, and swallowed it deep into her throat; she'd bared her body and soul at his direction and accepted both torture and delight; but she'd never seen him less than fully dressed. She'd tried to ask about it once, but it was clear that she'd get no answer.
Hermione, for her part, wore her school robes, but when she dropped them there was nothing beneath but her shoes. These she also discarded. There was no self-consciousness now; he'd trained that out of her. She stood nude in front of her Potions Professor without concern.
Without a word he gestured her into the bedroom, where he'd laid out a pentacle on the floor. A low, broad altar stood in its center. Hermione looked to him for confirmation, then walked over to the far side of the alter. He joined her on its opposite side, and with a gesture of his wand, he lit the candles at the star's points. Had she not known better, she would have thought that his face betrayed a flicker of apprehension.
She looked back at him expectantly. She knew it would hurt. She was afraid. But she was determined. With both of them ensconced in the protective circle, she seated herself on the altar, then lay back, her knees raised and spread, her hands over her head.
The white rose. The purified water. The untilled earth. Then the bloodied blade; he made the sacrifice himself, gripping the edge tightly in his fist and dragging it through without even a grimace, though the tightness around his eyes belied some effort. Snape was sure in his motions as he eased the blade into the tight slit between Hermione's legs; she cried out but held herself still. She felt the sizzle of both of their magics as he cast the charm; then he removed the dagger buried in her womb and showed her its gleaming, blood-free edge.
She was a virgin again. Her body tingled.
She dressed and seated herself by the fire, smiling slightly while Snape fetched another of his mysterious potions. She never asked what each one specifically did, but always drank them without knowing as a sign of her trust. She imagined she'd imbibed a fair number of contraception and bruise-healing potions in the last two weeks.
He looked serious tonight; none of his usual snide commentary or sneering insults. It was a powerful spell they'd just cast, and she thought he must be tired.
"Professor Snape?"
He settled into his chair before the fire, not looking at her. "Yes, Miss Granger?"
"I only want to ask you one question tonight."
She cocked her head at him when he didn't answer immediately. Finally he responded. "Very well."
Hermione took a bit of a breath. "You asked me last night if I believed that I'm ready, and I said I did. But I want to know... do you believe I'm ready?
The silence stretched out, and Hermione became concerned that perhaps the answer was no. When his answer finally came, it surprised her.
"When I was your age, Miss Granger, I was very clever. And yet you, now, are more clever than even I was." Though there was some pride in his voice, there was also melancholy... as if he were sad at the necessity to train her to be so.
But she nodded, content. "Do we need to do anything else before I go? I'd like to get some sleep tonight."
Another pause... Snape was becoming downright taciturn. She waited. "There is... one more thing. I have a gift for you."
Hermione would have gaped, but had learned well the lesson of hiding it when she wasn't expecting something. "Really?" she said dryly, instead.
"Give me the pendant that I loaned you."
Hermione fished it out of her robes, its tiny silver charm glinting on the long, fine chain. Snape took it from her outstretched hand, then produced something similarly small and reflective from his own pockets. He manipulated the two somehow in his hands, then produced his wand and whispered a Conjunction charm over his hand.
He passed it back to her. Now, on the end of the long silver chain, a glinting red chip that looked like a ruby swung encased in the delicate silver filigree of a tiny ovoid cage.
She looked up to find Snape watching her intently. His eyes were hooded, his face impossible to read, but his tones were soft and filled with significance.
"Inside that cage is your virginal blood - your true virginal blood, from that first night," he amended. "The bars of the cage are protective, not restrictive. When you go to Malfoy, leave that pendant in a very safe place, a place that you trust in your heart is inviolate, and remember that it's there. It will afford you some measure of protection against any harm he might try to do you."
Hermione gazed at the tiny ruby, then at her professor. He had shifted his regard from her back to the flames, which cast the angular planes of his gaunt cheeks and deep-set eyes in an even more forbidding light than usual. He looked sorrowful and extremely unapproachable. His white cuffs laid precisely against his bony wrists; his elegant pale fingers were flexing absently on the arms of his chair, but other than that he did not stir.
Hermione unwrapped the long chain from around her hand and unfolded her legs from beneath her as she stood. She closed the distance between her and Snape, and he looked up at her wearily, opening his mouth to ask what she was doing.
She couldn't have lifted it over his head if they were both standing, but with him seated it was easy to slide the silver chain over Snape's head. He jerked as he realized what she was doing, then held perfectly still as she settled the chain around his neck. With steady fingers she slipped the charm itself past the collar of his shirt and let it fall inside the garment to rest on his bare chest. Then, slowly, she placed one hand over the small lump beneath his shirt.
She was looking him in the eye. His features were utterly neutral.
"A place that I trust in my heart is inviolate," she repeated softly.
Then she left, and Snape didn't move from the time that she turned until she was long out the door.
Severus Snape remembered the long days and restless, excited nights he had endured between receiving his letter from Hogwarts and boarding the train at Platform 9¾.
He remembered an endless week between the time that he had found the courage to ask Lily Evans to accompany him to the Yule Ball, and that fateful night itself.
He remembered nearly a month of nauseating, breathless fear and anticipation between finding out that Voldemort would accept him as an acolyte and feeling the indescribable, intolerable, burning ecstasy of the Mark being branded into his flesh.
He remembered several hours of sitting, straight-backed and silent, in Albus Dumbledore's office, his story already told, and only self-loathing to keep him company as he waited to find out what punishment, what particular death was in store for him.
He remembered a particularly heart-pounding few minutes after Voldemort had accused him of betrayal and before the manipulative bastard relented and pronounced Snape among his most trusted of supporters. That had been a tricky game to play.
Severus Snape was not a stranger to biding his time in wait. But the fact that he was good at it didn't make a single moment of those three weeks any less excruciating.
"Mr. Malfoy..." breathlessly.
"Vast knowledge that can only be entrusted to those that have demonstrated their commitment to scholarship and greatness above petty material concerns..."
"...anything to know the things they won't teach us, there..."
"...and after all, isn't flesh just material? But you must prove your devotion..."
"That hurts!"
"Don't ask questions to which you're not prepared to hear the answers!"
"That was..." a gasp, a twitch. "I didn't know it would be like that."
The heat of sweat and cum. The torment of orgasm at murderous hands. The snap of bone. Taste of her own marrow.
She'd underestimated. Snape hadn't prepared her enough. She wasn't going to survive this.
...but she knew that he cradled her intact innocence next to his body, away from this bloody nightmare...
"Down, mudblood, down on the floor!"
She cried. The tears fell freely. She told herself that it was only because she meant them to.
She hadn't known a body could take such damage and still be healed. No spell made her throat feel less raw though. She was screaming too much.
She had known a body could endure such ecstasy. Snape had fully prepared her for that, at least.
"...darling girl, come here, come to me..."
"...please don't hurt me anymore. Please." Silence, soothing. "No, please, not that either..."
"I'm doing this to help you. You mind must be stronger than the petty demands of your flesh!"
"Merlin, I think... Lucius, are you telling me that I--that I love you?"
"You learn so fast, my precious mudblood. Here's a new lesson..."
"...I want to go home. I don't want to ever leave you..."
Albus Dumbledore himself met Hermione Granger at the front gates of Hogwarts. He led her inside, up to his office. She had no words, so he escorted her in silence. She settled into one of his chairs, and for once, he didn't bother to offer a distressed student something hot to drink. Chocolate certainly couldn't change the things she'd seen and endured.
"What do you need, Hermione?"
She stared at him with flat eyes. "Just to tell. Just to tell you what I've learned. So that it wasn't in vain..."
The days when Dumbledore actually hated his job were few and far between. The benevolent power that he wielded to protect and guide the children of the wizarding community suited him as well as his half-moon spectacles. But today, looking at the child that he'd sent out to rape and torture at the hands of the most powerful Death Eater in exchange for breadcrumbs of information... today, he hated his job.
"Severus should hear this too."
Snape had come quickly, and when he entered the room his eyes did not fly to Hermione, full of concern. No, he looked calm, centered, implacable. But a fine silver chain glinted beneath the collar of his robes.
Her voice was as expressionless as her eyes as she began.
"He said that Voldemort would be ready to move soon. But I overhead..."
He hadn't told her to come. But at midnight, he heard the door of his receiving room close gently.
He exhaled in relief.
"Miss Granger," he said in acknowledgment, looking up from the stack of parchments that he was grading and setting down his quill carefully. She looked wan but undefeated as she stared at him.
"I did it," she told him plainly.
Snape folded his hands before him and raised one eyebrow. "Indeed you did, Miss Granger." He considered a few elaborations with which he might follow that up, and then decided to let her set the tone.
"It was worth it," she continued, sitting down. "I never dreamed that it would be so terrible, and yet, it was still worth it."
The Potions Master closed his eyes very briefly in relief. No, Lucius Malfoy had not found a way to break her, whatever he thought. She was battered and bruised - as she had been in the weeks before, under Snape's own tutelage - but she was certainly not broken. "Do you want to discuss it?"
Hermione chewed on her lower lip, studying the nails of one hand as if examining her manicure for flaws, except that her nails were not manicured. "I don't think so," she said finally. "Not now."
As an afterthought, Snape gestured a fire to life in the previously-cold hearth. It sprang up noisily in the still chamber, logs snapping and tinder popping, its sudden cheeriness at odds with the somber mood in the room. Hermione started a bit, then gave Snape a half-smile. "Thanks."
He nodded infinitesimally in acknowledgment, considered asking what she was looking for, and decided instead to again wait.
She looked up, suddenly, directly at him. "I need the stink of him off my body," she told her Potions professor.
This was certainly not the stammering bookworm who'd come to him, tripping over her own implications, less than two months ago. "If I understand you correctly, Miss Granger--"
"You understand me," she interrupted flatly.
Snape's expression was softened by the ghost of a smile. "Miss Granger, all that has passed between us was in an academic context. This would... this would not be. I'm sorry, but I cannot do what you want simply because you want it."
"Then do it because you want it," she challenged hoarsely.
Snape caught his breath. She was insinuating... "Although I have no wish to be less than gentle with you in the aftermath of your recent trials," he began, quite softly, "I feel that I must point out to you that you don't know what I want." The last six words were delivered slowly, precisely.
Hermione had suddenly flushed, and her eyes were flashing. "After all the time you spent teaching me what men wanted, you expect me to believe that Severus Snape is completely unlike other men?" she demanded hotly.
He gentled his tones again. "I also taught you that it's more complicated than that, Miss Granger."
"Yes, it is," she agreed. "And your desire for me is more complicated than that, too, I know."
Snape leaned back, studying his student in a new light. He only briefly considered the idea of refuting her accusation before deciding to let it stand. "And your desire for me?" he countered. "How complicated is that?"
He noticed how haggard she looked, but she was clearly determined to press on through this conversation. "Very complicated, Professor," she replied.
Stillness descended, and the tension took advantage of the moment to seep into both of them more deeply. They studied each other, now. Snape tilted his head. "Explain," he directed, shortly.
The corner of her mouth quirked upward, but bitterly. "How much of this attraction that I feel toward you is born merely of these unique and charged circumstances? I've been through so much lately; my entire world is in a sexually intense turmoil. It's impossible for me to sort out of this to what degree my feelings are elicited by you, and to what degree by the overwhelming transitions and awakenings that I've experienced. For, if this attraction is born more of circumstances than of its object, then it will fade away as these circumstances pass."
"And where would that leave me, Miss Granger?"
She stared at him, hating the answer to his question, but compelled to be honest. "Alone. Again."
He nodded at if that thought weren't very unpleasant at all. "Of course, I could always anticipate that scenario - that yours will be a fleeting attraction, born of illusion and circumstance - and simply reap its rewards while it lasts, letting it fade away without guilt or failed expectations when it passes."
"I don't care for that scenario," she whispered.
"Of course you don't... now," he said dismissively. "You'd be glad to remember that thus were my expectations when they came to pass."
Hermione shuddered. "You'd scoff at me if I tried to make you a promise that I'll continue to feel this way."
Snape gave her a small smile. "Yes, I certainly would."
She looked at him for a long moment, watching his alert but weary eyes watching her. Her mind was churning, but coming to no conclusions that she liked. Finally, she gave a helpless half-shrug. "What do I do?" she asked in a small voice.
At that, Snape came out of his chair, rounded his desk to her side, and pulled her up. "Let's start by getting you a long bath," he said. "And then..." his lips again curved subtly, "...and then I will keep you here with me tonight. No tests, Miss Granger, no lessons, and no second-guessing needed on your part. You've accomplished your mission, and for tonight, I'm just going to take care of you. No sex, though. That's not really what you need."
Snape began leading her to his bathroom, and she followed compliantly. "What about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, you get to go back to being Hermione Granger, smartest girl in her class. A different Hermione Granger than before, perhaps, but still, Hermione Granger."
"And you?"
"Your Potions Master," he said simply. "There's no need for further instruction."
Hermione felt something hard and bruised twist in her chest. "But--"
"But," he interrupted. "But. Don't worry about it, Miss Granger. If time passes and you find that your feelings don't fade, then perhaps it will be time for us to negotiate a new... ah, arrangement. Certainly not now, though, girl. Certainly not now."
Some small part of her was hurt that Snape refused to acknowledge her feelings were as immutable and eternal as her heart currently insisted, but she had to admit that he might be right about tonight not being the time to talk about it. He was drawing her a bath, and she made no further objection as he turned and divested her of her comfortable clothes with swift, practiced motions. She almost giggled as he unexpectedly swept her into his arms and deposited her in the tub, but suddenly found that she was too weary for even that.
Their eyes met through the steam, and Hermione wondered if she currently looked as worn, battered, and bruised as he did to her. But there was a wary, well-defended tenderness there as well, she was sure. It was too fragile to bring out for examination, but she thought it was there. After these last three weeks, Hermione thought that she understood the ghostly expressions of pain on Snape's face in his rare unguarded moment more than she had ever wished for.
He gravely handed her the soap, which she held onto but did not use, as he obtained for himself a palmful of shampoo and gently began to work it into her mass of curls.
Hermione closed her eyes.
"Okay," she finally agreed. "Not now."
He had escorted her to the door. "And this," he said, reaching beneath his shirt, "belongs to you."
Hermione smiled softly and placed her hand over the small lump on his chest beneath his shirt, wrapped her fingers around it through the fine fabric and resisted his tug.
"Oh, no," she said. "Perhaps I'll want it back, someday. Maybe soon. But..." and again she met her professor's hooded eyes, let the significance of her words slide home. She would leave without lingering, but first she told him: "Not now."