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hp_het_taboo Tuesday prompts, but I waited too late and it's only half done. But again, since it's a New Year's Eve party fic, I at least wanted to get that part posted. It's just a little PWP (well, this part isn't. Think of it as an amuse bouche for the smut to follow), full of tropes and silly dialogue.
The Party, Pt 1
The New Year’s Eve party was in full swing, loud and boisterous and blissfully crowded; the perfect get-away situation, Hermione thought. It was one thing to have a few drinks with old friends, but this level of holiday festivity she could do without.
She walked out of the Great Hall, her mood dark and cheerless. Wizarding Britain might be celebrating its seventh Voldemort-free year, but Hermione considered his loss the last thing to celebrate. All she could think of was the scores of friends they were welcoming in the New Year without.
The door closed, and the frantic sound reserved people think they are supposed to make when they are having a good time was silenced, like switching off a Muggle radio. The quiet corridor was blissful, like a church on Christmas Eve, sombre and breathing on tiptoe.
Hermione stilled, waiting for the ringing in her ears to lessen. The almost dense quiet, after the Bacchanalian din in the Great Hall, felt accusatory, almost reproachful. Hermione’s thoughts depressed her; at least she was in the blissful silence, instead of moping around while everyone else was drinking everything in sight and trying to convince their spouses to resuscitate the old ‘wand in the fishbowl’ game.
It had been too long, she thought, since she had just let her hair down. There probably wasn’t all that much hair left to let down, to be honest. Hermione prided herself on making each moment count, on facing a problem head on and solving it with intelligence and creativity. But she was honest with herself; yes, she filled her days with industry and activity, because the alternative was a bit too hard to stomach.
If she stopped working, she would start thinking, and that was a slippery slope. Too many things to think about, too many lost chances, too many disappointments. Too many lonely nights, when you added them up. Too many wayward thoughts about…
The problem with New Years Eve is that it made her too aware of all the missed opportunities she’d avoided in the passing year.
It didn’t help that she wasn’t the only one who had observed Ron doing the Rooster dance around the spiked punchbowl with Lavender Brown. Still, she supposed she only had herself to blame. Here they were, seven years on, spending the occasional, tepid weekend together, avoiding the increasingly bald hints from Molly to get married and start a family, disregarding the increasingly frequent snipes and gripes with one another. Ignoring the increasing lack of interest in one another.
Hermione moaned loud enough to hear it echo in the silent hall. Gods, I’m turning into one of those people looking for an excuse.
She walked toward her quarters, digging up a hasty excuse should she be questioned. An almost imperceptible noise alerted her, and she stilled. A few yards ahead, she spotted the familiar dark robes. Severus Snape was also ducking out of the party, it seemed. He strolled down the corridor, hands behind his back, his gait measured and slow but purposeful. He looked like a man making his way through an art gallery perusing the paintings, not with an eye to execution, but presentation. Hermione smiled at the thought of Snape regarding fine art with his gimlet eye; a man more interested in the colour of the frame or the position of the spotlight overhead.
In other words, he looked both disgruntled and bored.
She made no pretense of sneaking up on him, but he suddenly whirled around, wand at the ready. He relaxed when he recognised her, but still managed to look aggravated with her. “Prowling around in the solitude, Professor Granger? I thought that was my reserve,” he said, stowing his wand in his voluminous robes.
“I didn’t realise I had to wait my turn,” she replied ruefully. “Is prowling for tenured instructors only?”
He snorted through his monstrous nose, but didn’t dignify her bad joke with a reply. Instead he looked at her with that same perusing glower, as if she was a crooked picture that needed to be straightened. “Why aren’t you in the thick of it with the rest of the heroes, schmoozing with Ministry toffs and lapping up the free watered-down drinks?”
His spot-on description made her smile, mostly because it was very close to what she had been thinking. “Because my feet hurt, and if I have to watch my boyfriend slobbering over his ex’s neck one more minute I’ll scream and start discriminately hexing everyone in the room?”
“Fair enough.” He considered her with blank scrutiny. He moved on, and she fell into step with him. “I hate parties,” he continued, as if she’d asked him why he was there. He sighed. “I doubt it’s escaped your notice, but I’m not the most socially adept wizard.”
She shrugged amicably. “I doubt it’s escaped your notice that I’m not exactly a social butterfly myself.”
Their stroll brought them to a long stone bench, and Severus silently invited her to sit. He joined her, and they sat side by side, not looking at one another.
“Idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
He sighed. “I started to say that Weasley is an idiot for being stupid enough to risk your wrath again,” he replied. “I seem to remember you setting a flock of birds on him in your sixth year for a similar infraction.”
Hermione looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know anyone knew about that.”
Snape scoffed. “That’s one of your most powerful weapons as a teacher, Granger. Always let them think you don’t know anything. Students think teachers are the dunderheads, not the other way around.”
Hermione smiled. “I concede your point─”
“But it occurs to me that you might be the dunderhead in this case.”
Hermione laughed, a mirthless sound. “Why thank you, Professor Snape. I know I can always count on your support and encouragement to make me feel better.”
Another snort. “I’m hardly known for that, either.” He turned toward her, and Hermione faced him out of politeness. “I meant that, for a witch of your reputed intelligence, you’ve shown a remarkable lack of sanity when it comes to choosing a suitable bedfellow.”
She stared at him, shocked speechless, then slumped. “I ought to tell you off good and proper, but I happen to think you’re right,” she replied glumly. “I’m supposed to spend the New Year with Ron and the rest of the Weasley clan, and I don’t think I can face it. It’s not them,” she added, with a resigned sigh, “it’s me. I just don’t belong there.”
Hermione sat up straight. “I don’t. I really don’t belong with Ron.” It was the first time she had admitted this to herself, and she was stunned at how liberating it was to say it out loud.
“Feel better?”
She glanced up into Snape’s bemused eyes. With something like incredulity, she replied, “Actually, yes. I do.” A smile danced on her lips. “I feel heaps better, to be honest.”
He nodded regally. “I live to serve.”
For another long moment they sat in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable. “Would you like a drink?” Hermione asked impulsively.
Snape smoothed the front of his robes. “I’d love one, but I don’t have the energy to face the maddening crowd to retrieve one, nor do I wish to foist my wishes upon you.”
Foist away, Hermione thought, then bit her lip to prevent the sudden nervous giggle from escaping. “We don’t have to. Ron brought along a bottle of champagne to toast in the New Year, but now─”
“But now you’ve decided his company isn’t as palatable, and you’ve transferred your loyalties to me? I’m touched, Granger.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him what he could do with the bottle, but Hermione stopped herself. She had worked with Snape long enough to realise that his defensive posturing was his own special brand of self-preservation, and she could appreciate that. She’d been known to throw a few verbal hexes in her time as well. The best thing, she had discovered, was to ignore his jibes, and reward his thorny attempts at meeting her halfway.
“Oh, cheese it, Snape,” she retorted dryly. “You want the bubbly or not?”
“Well, since you asked so nicely.” He rose. “Lead on.”
As they skulked passed the revelers in the Great Hall, both increased their gait as if by some unspoken agreement, and Hermione suppressed a giggle as they nearly tiptoed down the hall. “This is rather fun, isn’t it?”
“Fun,” he replied sourly, “is not in my remit.”
Hermione glanced upward at his tightly drawn mouth; he was fighting the urge to laugh. Well, let him have his little self-delusions, she thought; champers was imminent.
Once inside the haven of her quarters, Hermione kicked off her shoes with a sigh of pleasure. “Champagne’s in the bucket,” she said, massaging her put-upon toes, and nodded toward her desk. “Corskscrew’s in there.”
“Oh, I think we can dispense with that,” Severus replied. With a dry little smirk, he grabbed the bottle with one hand, and with a clever bit of foolish wand-waving, popped the cork.
“Impressive,” she said, with a round of applause. “What’s your encore?”
“You might be surprised, Granger,” he purred, with a rakish look that would have made her socks roll up and down were she wearing any.
As he poured the bubbly into two transfigured glasses. Hermione felt a little thrill of heat in her face. He was flirting with her! And he was good at it, too. Then again, it had been so long since anyone had flirted with her, she wasn’t sure she’d know how to grade it anyway.
“To what should we toast?” she asked.
He pretended to consider, then gave her a marvelously Slytherin look, full of ambiguity and a wry sort of charm she found rather pleasing. “How about: to better parties than the one we left?”
She touched the rim of her glass to his. “I’ll drink to that.”
Their eyes met as the wine touched their tongues, and his dark eyes crinkled in appreciation. He lowered his glass, and licked his lips. “Not bad, Granger. I was expecting a much inferior form of plonk, I will admit. I usually try to…”
She didn’t hear a word he said. She was too busy watching his tongue dart out and lick the wine from his lips. They were rather nibble-able, those lips, she thought. Mobile, expressive, kissa─
“Granger, are you there?” Long fingers, clicking inches away from her nose, snapped out of her strange lip-centric reverie.
She blinked, and. “Sorry…what?” She managed a pathetic, warble of a laugh. “Miles away. What were you saying?”
Snape rolled his eyes. “Merlin, you haven’t gone and had one of those pinpoint strokes on me, have you?” He gave her a suspicious look, raised his glass to his lips, renewed his suspicious look, then took another sip. His fingers curled around the glass, those sensitive, slender fingers... Hermione felt her face grow warm. What in the name of Circe’s shitting sisters was wrong with her?
“I was just saying,” he drawled slowly, punctuating the pause with another lick of the lips, “that I usually try to avoid asking personal questions, but I am strangely curious as to how you plan to let Weasley know you’ve metaphorically kicked him out of your life.” He studied the bubbles with narrowed eyes, as if counting them. “Perhaps that’s a question better asked in more sober circumstances.”
“I’m not drunk,” she replied, then took a large glug of the excellent bubbly. She gave him a measured, considering look. “I was trying to come up with an excuse to get you to kiss me.”
Snape stared at her as if she’d just jumped up on the table and starting removing her clothes. Hermione quickly replayed her last sentence and hiccoughed in alarm . “I’m ever so sorry, Professor Snape,” she bleated, looking at her wine glass. Suddenly she understood. “That rat! He must have done it!”
“What rat?” Snape demanded. He too was looking at his wine glass in growing alarm. “Are you saying Weasley slipped you a mickey?” He looked at her accusingly, as if she had done it herself, then looked away. “That must be it. I’ll bet that lunatic brother of his helped.”
“George?”
He shot her a withering look. “No. Demetritus. Of course George Weasley’s involved! That lunatic asylum he calls a joke shop is full of knock-off veritaserums and dodgy love potions…”
Hermione put down her glass, then thought better of it and filled both hers and Snape’s to the top. If she was going to say something stupid, she might as well slake her thirst while she was at it.
She and Snape hastily raised their glasses in salute, then drained them in one draught. He swallowed with a gasp, then turned to her, his eyes full of fire. “I confess, Granger, I am compelled to admit I could shag you for Britain.”
Hermione heard a wimpy, strange noise escape her own lips. “Fine with me. Admit away.”
He continued almost as if he hadn’t heard her. “I want you so badly I’m ready to tie you to the bed and ravish you,” he growled, and threw the glass into the fireplace. It made a smashing sound that made Hermione’s head tingle.
“I can live with that,” she answered, throwing her own glass toward its mate.
They fell on one another, mouths fused together. Hermione’s knees buckled, and she held onto Severus for dear life, sucking his tart, sharp tongue into her mouth. He moaned deliriously, pulling her into his arms in a suffocating embrace.
It was a small, drunken eternity before they parted, and Hermione nearly swooned at the sight of Severus Snape, disheveled hair, swollen lips, blazing eyes, looming over her. “Take me to the bed,” she gasped, and as he lifted her off her feet and carried her in that direction, she cried, “Wait!”
He stopped, frowning. “Don’t even think about telling me to stop, Granger─”
“I’m not, I’m not! I just want to know something.”
He stilled, then shook his head. “Not a virgin, completely heterosexual, two years ago, eight and a half inches.”
“Actually, I wanted to know─eight and a half? Really?” She looked him up and down. He smirked, and that was all the answer she needed. She shook her head. “What happened two years ago?”
He resumed his trip to the bed, panting, “I got laid for the last time. One night stand. Meaningless.” He stopped, and gave her a another burning, swoon-worthy look. “You are anything but meaningless, Hermione Granger.” He closed his eyes. “I’ve wanted you since the moment you came back to teach.”
“The why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered, and stroked his face. He quieted, then lowered her to the floor.
“Because you were promised to Weasley.” He sounded as if his wild passion had nearly burned away. “Because I couldn’t face your rejection.”
Hermione’s heart cramped queerly, and it was then she knew why she could never set a date with Ron, why their lovemaking held no passion for her, and why she wasn’t nearly as upset watching him cavorting with Lavender as she was supposed to be.
She rose on tiptoe, and kissed him. She had been right; his lip were imminently nibble-able. “A witch would be crazy to reject you, Severus.”
He laughed, a dark, rueful chuckle. “According to that logic, Britain is full of barking mad witches, Granger.”
“Good. More for me, then,” she replied, and he gave her a genuine smile, a crooked, delighted smile that made those proverbial socks start yoyo-ing up and down her shins again. She pressed her body against his, and he purred a long sigh of pleasure. “Now, where were we?”
He placed a long, slow kiss on her forehead. “You were posing a question which apparently didn’t involve my sexual experience, preference, history or anatomy. So what is it you wish to know?”
Hermione bit her lip. In for a sickle…“Can you talk dirty?”
He looked startled, then rewarded her by lifting her off her feet and pressing her against a very impressive package. In the deepest, silkiest, most sensuous voice in Britain, he chuckled, “What do you think, little girl?”
If he hadn’t felt her thighs go up in flames, the wizard was numb from the waist down. “I think I’m a dead woman,” Hermione moaned.
hp_het_taboo Tuesday prompts, but I waited too late and it's only half done. But again, since it's a New Year's Eve party fic, I at least wanted to get that part posted. It's just a little PWP (well, this part isn't. Think of it as an amuse bouche for the smut to follow), full of tropes and silly dialogue.The Party, Pt 1
The New Year’s Eve party was in full swing, loud and boisterous and blissfully crowded; the perfect get-away situation, Hermione thought. It was one thing to have a few drinks with old friends, but this level of holiday festivity she could do without.
She walked out of the Great Hall, her mood dark and cheerless. Wizarding Britain might be celebrating its seventh Voldemort-free year, but Hermione considered his loss the last thing to celebrate. All she could think of was the scores of friends they were welcoming in the New Year without.
The door closed, and the frantic sound reserved people think they are supposed to make when they are having a good time was silenced, like switching off a Muggle radio. The quiet corridor was blissful, like a church on Christmas Eve, sombre and breathing on tiptoe.
Hermione stilled, waiting for the ringing in her ears to lessen. The almost dense quiet, after the Bacchanalian din in the Great Hall, felt accusatory, almost reproachful. Hermione’s thoughts depressed her; at least she was in the blissful silence, instead of moping around while everyone else was drinking everything in sight and trying to convince their spouses to resuscitate the old ‘wand in the fishbowl’ game.
It had been too long, she thought, since she had just let her hair down. There probably wasn’t all that much hair left to let down, to be honest. Hermione prided herself on making each moment count, on facing a problem head on and solving it with intelligence and creativity. But she was honest with herself; yes, she filled her days with industry and activity, because the alternative was a bit too hard to stomach.
If she stopped working, she would start thinking, and that was a slippery slope. Too many things to think about, too many lost chances, too many disappointments. Too many lonely nights, when you added them up. Too many wayward thoughts about…
The problem with New Years Eve is that it made her too aware of all the missed opportunities she’d avoided in the passing year.
It didn’t help that she wasn’t the only one who had observed Ron doing the Rooster dance around the spiked punchbowl with Lavender Brown. Still, she supposed she only had herself to blame. Here they were, seven years on, spending the occasional, tepid weekend together, avoiding the increasingly bald hints from Molly to get married and start a family, disregarding the increasingly frequent snipes and gripes with one another. Ignoring the increasing lack of interest in one another.
Hermione moaned loud enough to hear it echo in the silent hall. Gods, I’m turning into one of those people looking for an excuse.
She walked toward her quarters, digging up a hasty excuse should she be questioned. An almost imperceptible noise alerted her, and she stilled. A few yards ahead, she spotted the familiar dark robes. Severus Snape was also ducking out of the party, it seemed. He strolled down the corridor, hands behind his back, his gait measured and slow but purposeful. He looked like a man making his way through an art gallery perusing the paintings, not with an eye to execution, but presentation. Hermione smiled at the thought of Snape regarding fine art with his gimlet eye; a man more interested in the colour of the frame or the position of the spotlight overhead.
In other words, he looked both disgruntled and bored.
She made no pretense of sneaking up on him, but he suddenly whirled around, wand at the ready. He relaxed when he recognised her, but still managed to look aggravated with her. “Prowling around in the solitude, Professor Granger? I thought that was my reserve,” he said, stowing his wand in his voluminous robes.
“I didn’t realise I had to wait my turn,” she replied ruefully. “Is prowling for tenured instructors only?”
He snorted through his monstrous nose, but didn’t dignify her bad joke with a reply. Instead he looked at her with that same perusing glower, as if she was a crooked picture that needed to be straightened. “Why aren’t you in the thick of it with the rest of the heroes, schmoozing with Ministry toffs and lapping up the free watered-down drinks?”
His spot-on description made her smile, mostly because it was very close to what she had been thinking. “Because my feet hurt, and if I have to watch my boyfriend slobbering over his ex’s neck one more minute I’ll scream and start discriminately hexing everyone in the room?”
“Fair enough.” He considered her with blank scrutiny. He moved on, and she fell into step with him. “I hate parties,” he continued, as if she’d asked him why he was there. He sighed. “I doubt it’s escaped your notice, but I’m not the most socially adept wizard.”
She shrugged amicably. “I doubt it’s escaped your notice that I’m not exactly a social butterfly myself.”
Their stroll brought them to a long stone bench, and Severus silently invited her to sit. He joined her, and they sat side by side, not looking at one another.
“Idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
He sighed. “I started to say that Weasley is an idiot for being stupid enough to risk your wrath again,” he replied. “I seem to remember you setting a flock of birds on him in your sixth year for a similar infraction.”
Hermione looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know anyone knew about that.”
Snape scoffed. “That’s one of your most powerful weapons as a teacher, Granger. Always let them think you don’t know anything. Students think teachers are the dunderheads, not the other way around.”
Hermione smiled. “I concede your point─”
“But it occurs to me that you might be the dunderhead in this case.”
Hermione laughed, a mirthless sound. “Why thank you, Professor Snape. I know I can always count on your support and encouragement to make me feel better.”
Another snort. “I’m hardly known for that, either.” He turned toward her, and Hermione faced him out of politeness. “I meant that, for a witch of your reputed intelligence, you’ve shown a remarkable lack of sanity when it comes to choosing a suitable bedfellow.”
She stared at him, shocked speechless, then slumped. “I ought to tell you off good and proper, but I happen to think you’re right,” she replied glumly. “I’m supposed to spend the New Year with Ron and the rest of the Weasley clan, and I don’t think I can face it. It’s not them,” she added, with a resigned sigh, “it’s me. I just don’t belong there.”
Hermione sat up straight. “I don’t. I really don’t belong with Ron.” It was the first time she had admitted this to herself, and she was stunned at how liberating it was to say it out loud.
“Feel better?”
She glanced up into Snape’s bemused eyes. With something like incredulity, she replied, “Actually, yes. I do.” A smile danced on her lips. “I feel heaps better, to be honest.”
He nodded regally. “I live to serve.”
For another long moment they sat in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable. “Would you like a drink?” Hermione asked impulsively.
Snape smoothed the front of his robes. “I’d love one, but I don’t have the energy to face the maddening crowd to retrieve one, nor do I wish to foist my wishes upon you.”
Foist away, Hermione thought, then bit her lip to prevent the sudden nervous giggle from escaping. “We don’t have to. Ron brought along a bottle of champagne to toast in the New Year, but now─”
“But now you’ve decided his company isn’t as palatable, and you’ve transferred your loyalties to me? I’m touched, Granger.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him what he could do with the bottle, but Hermione stopped herself. She had worked with Snape long enough to realise that his defensive posturing was his own special brand of self-preservation, and she could appreciate that. She’d been known to throw a few verbal hexes in her time as well. The best thing, she had discovered, was to ignore his jibes, and reward his thorny attempts at meeting her halfway.
“Oh, cheese it, Snape,” she retorted dryly. “You want the bubbly or not?”
“Well, since you asked so nicely.” He rose. “Lead on.”
As they skulked passed the revelers in the Great Hall, both increased their gait as if by some unspoken agreement, and Hermione suppressed a giggle as they nearly tiptoed down the hall. “This is rather fun, isn’t it?”
“Fun,” he replied sourly, “is not in my remit.”
Hermione glanced upward at his tightly drawn mouth; he was fighting the urge to laugh. Well, let him have his little self-delusions, she thought; champers was imminent.
Once inside the haven of her quarters, Hermione kicked off her shoes with a sigh of pleasure. “Champagne’s in the bucket,” she said, massaging her put-upon toes, and nodded toward her desk. “Corskscrew’s in there.”
“Oh, I think we can dispense with that,” Severus replied. With a dry little smirk, he grabbed the bottle with one hand, and with a clever bit of foolish wand-waving, popped the cork.
“Impressive,” she said, with a round of applause. “What’s your encore?”
“You might be surprised, Granger,” he purred, with a rakish look that would have made her socks roll up and down were she wearing any.
As he poured the bubbly into two transfigured glasses. Hermione felt a little thrill of heat in her face. He was flirting with her! And he was good at it, too. Then again, it had been so long since anyone had flirted with her, she wasn’t sure she’d know how to grade it anyway.
“To what should we toast?” she asked.
He pretended to consider, then gave her a marvelously Slytherin look, full of ambiguity and a wry sort of charm she found rather pleasing. “How about: to better parties than the one we left?”
She touched the rim of her glass to his. “I’ll drink to that.”
Their eyes met as the wine touched their tongues, and his dark eyes crinkled in appreciation. He lowered his glass, and licked his lips. “Not bad, Granger. I was expecting a much inferior form of plonk, I will admit. I usually try to…”
She didn’t hear a word he said. She was too busy watching his tongue dart out and lick the wine from his lips. They were rather nibble-able, those lips, she thought. Mobile, expressive, kissa─
“Granger, are you there?” Long fingers, clicking inches away from her nose, snapped out of her strange lip-centric reverie.
She blinked, and. “Sorry…what?” She managed a pathetic, warble of a laugh. “Miles away. What were you saying?”
Snape rolled his eyes. “Merlin, you haven’t gone and had one of those pinpoint strokes on me, have you?” He gave her a suspicious look, raised his glass to his lips, renewed his suspicious look, then took another sip. His fingers curled around the glass, those sensitive, slender fingers... Hermione felt her face grow warm. What in the name of Circe’s shitting sisters was wrong with her?
“I was just saying,” he drawled slowly, punctuating the pause with another lick of the lips, “that I usually try to avoid asking personal questions, but I am strangely curious as to how you plan to let Weasley know you’ve metaphorically kicked him out of your life.” He studied the bubbles with narrowed eyes, as if counting them. “Perhaps that’s a question better asked in more sober circumstances.”
“I’m not drunk,” she replied, then took a large glug of the excellent bubbly. She gave him a measured, considering look. “I was trying to come up with an excuse to get you to kiss me.”
Snape stared at her as if she’d just jumped up on the table and starting removing her clothes. Hermione quickly replayed her last sentence and hiccoughed in alarm . “I’m ever so sorry, Professor Snape,” she bleated, looking at her wine glass. Suddenly she understood. “That rat! He must have done it!”
“What rat?” Snape demanded. He too was looking at his wine glass in growing alarm. “Are you saying Weasley slipped you a mickey?” He looked at her accusingly, as if she had done it herself, then looked away. “That must be it. I’ll bet that lunatic brother of his helped.”
“George?”
He shot her a withering look. “No. Demetritus. Of course George Weasley’s involved! That lunatic asylum he calls a joke shop is full of knock-off veritaserums and dodgy love potions…”
Hermione put down her glass, then thought better of it and filled both hers and Snape’s to the top. If she was going to say something stupid, she might as well slake her thirst while she was at it.
She and Snape hastily raised their glasses in salute, then drained them in one draught. He swallowed with a gasp, then turned to her, his eyes full of fire. “I confess, Granger, I am compelled to admit I could shag you for Britain.”
Hermione heard a wimpy, strange noise escape her own lips. “Fine with me. Admit away.”
He continued almost as if he hadn’t heard her. “I want you so badly I’m ready to tie you to the bed and ravish you,” he growled, and threw the glass into the fireplace. It made a smashing sound that made Hermione’s head tingle.
“I can live with that,” she answered, throwing her own glass toward its mate.
They fell on one another, mouths fused together. Hermione’s knees buckled, and she held onto Severus for dear life, sucking his tart, sharp tongue into her mouth. He moaned deliriously, pulling her into his arms in a suffocating embrace.
It was a small, drunken eternity before they parted, and Hermione nearly swooned at the sight of Severus Snape, disheveled hair, swollen lips, blazing eyes, looming over her. “Take me to the bed,” she gasped, and as he lifted her off her feet and carried her in that direction, she cried, “Wait!”
He stopped, frowning. “Don’t even think about telling me to stop, Granger─”
“I’m not, I’m not! I just want to know something.”
He stilled, then shook his head. “Not a virgin, completely heterosexual, two years ago, eight and a half inches.”
“Actually, I wanted to know─eight and a half? Really?” She looked him up and down. He smirked, and that was all the answer she needed. She shook her head. “What happened two years ago?”
He resumed his trip to the bed, panting, “I got laid for the last time. One night stand. Meaningless.” He stopped, and gave her a another burning, swoon-worthy look. “You are anything but meaningless, Hermione Granger.” He closed his eyes. “I’ve wanted you since the moment you came back to teach.”
“The why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered, and stroked his face. He quieted, then lowered her to the floor.
“Because you were promised to Weasley.” He sounded as if his wild passion had nearly burned away. “Because I couldn’t face your rejection.”
Hermione’s heart cramped queerly, and it was then she knew why she could never set a date with Ron, why their lovemaking held no passion for her, and why she wasn’t nearly as upset watching him cavorting with Lavender as she was supposed to be.
She rose on tiptoe, and kissed him. She had been right; his lip were imminently nibble-able. “A witch would be crazy to reject you, Severus.”
He laughed, a dark, rueful chuckle. “According to that logic, Britain is full of barking mad witches, Granger.”
“Good. More for me, then,” she replied, and he gave her a genuine smile, a crooked, delighted smile that made those proverbial socks start yoyo-ing up and down her shins again. She pressed her body against his, and he purred a long sigh of pleasure. “Now, where were we?”
He placed a long, slow kiss on her forehead. “You were posing a question which apparently didn’t involve my sexual experience, preference, history or anatomy. So what is it you wish to know?”
Hermione bit her lip. In for a sickle…“Can you talk dirty?”
He looked startled, then rewarded her by lifting her off her feet and pressing her against a very impressive package. In the deepest, silkiest, most sensuous voice in Britain, he chuckled, “What do you think, little girl?”
If he hadn’t felt her thighs go up in flames, the wizard was numb from the waist down. “I think I’m a dead woman,” Hermione moaned.
