Updates
So... I've been writing. :)
I think it's actually a reaction to NOT writing for Drawn & Quartered, which is a play series that ITP does for which I usually write. Instead, I'm training a new director on the process. So, I have all these pent up plot bunnies (and you know how they get when you don't let them run around enough).
So, here is a drabble that I just wrote for grangersnape100 One Last Challenge.
Title: Runed
Team Name: D to the E
Word Count: 100x24
Rating: NC-17
Challenge: One Last
Characters: Hermione/Severus, Hermione/Ron mentioned
Summary: Hermione indulges in an unhealthy hobby with both amazing and awful results, thanks to Severus.
Authors Notes: Thanks to septentrion1970 for the beta work and advice!
Small warning: This Hermione is a little unstable.
Other warnings: DH Spoilers, SEX
All the information on runes came from http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html. You can look there for more information on the effects that aren’t completely explained here.
Thanks for reading!
Runed
She cannot pinpoint the moment when it started, but she appreciates the layman irony of her favorite pastime.
If you had asked Hermione Granger where she would be twenty years after the much-anticipated Final Battle, she would have placed this particular possibility somewhere in the realm of a Sybil Trelawney prediction.
That is to say, not bloody likely.
But as Trelawney predictions are wont to do too often, this highly unlikely occurrence has become a bit of a constant in Hermione’s life.
She has vowed this will be the last time. One last time.
She had better make it good.
*****
She surveys the room over her tequila gimlet. You may notice she is not drinking any of the usual beverages: butterbeer, red current rum, or even that old standby, Firewhisky. This - unlike a Trelawney prediction - is not coincidence.
Hermione is drinking this gimlet for two reasons:
1) She is in a Muggle bar.
2) She needs the kind of courage only tequila can provide.
You would think that after twenty years of subterfuge, she would not need liquid courage. But as Hermione Granger would delight in telling you - were she to admit her actions, of course - you would be wrong.
*****
This bar was not at the top of her list twenty years ago - not that you would ever be able to locate said list, which has long been an Incendio victim. But back then, she had swung her hips at strangely lit clubs with the best of them. She rather thought she could have pursued a career in Transfiguration - not just anyone could transform cotton into charmeuse - but she had not wanted to raise suspicion. Partying was for girls like Lavender Brown.
A flick and swish adds a touch of ruche. She smiles in the bathroom mirror. It doesn’t respond.
*****
She notices his cloak first.
It’s wool, of course, and black. She has the feeling it isn’t new; yet, the color hasn’t faded a bit. She is attracted to its smooth lines, the dramatic way it moves with him, and how it makes her think of dark nights and darker deeds.
She shifts in her seat, wondering if it’s the pheromones or the tequila making her want to strip the cloak from his person and drape it around her naked body.
Adrenaline pumps through her veins, like it does every time she meets a man in one of these places.
*****
This will be the last time.
She’s said that before. Said it the first time, in fact.
It was the night they had announced their engagement. Drinks with the girls to celebrate, followed by a drunken Hermione sneaking back out her window just to see if that studious boy in the corner was still there.
He was.
He hadn’t minded her wearing her tattered, temporary veil. She couldn’t quite explain to him how it was fastened to her head - Ginny had done the work, and back then, Hermione didn’t really care about clothes or hair.
He had smelled so good.
*****
Yes, the first time it was his smell.
Ron always smells like freshly mown grass, probably due to all his time on the Quidditch field.
This boy smelled like ink. She could see it staining the callus on his index finger from long hours spent writing. She had sucked on that finger as she came.
The other times, it was always something:
He had blond hair or green eyes; He was very short or completely solid; His skin was tanned or he spoke with an accent.
He - whoever he was - was different from her husband in some completely obvious way.
*****
This one is actually built rather similar to Ron. He is tall and thin, but his version borders on wiry, whereas Ron is more muscular. But his hair is long and silky and dark, dark, dark.
Hermione aches to run her fingers through it.
His skin is fair like Ron’s, only sallow. He doesn’t spend much time in the sun; that much she knows.
But his hands are things of beauty. Long, exquisite fingers circle the rim of his glass. She shifts in her seat, thinking of those fingers delving inside her. She remembers how Ron’s nails are never clean.
*****
She doesn’t care that he’s alive.
She’ll roll her eyes if you say that sounds callous, because this isn’t about him, after all; it’s about her.
You could argue that she’s done this so many times that she must have some feelings about it. Tenderness, perhaps, toward a lover. Guilt when she thinks of Ron?
She would wave you off with a motion of her hand, and you would notice how graceful she can be. Her husband has never commented on her grace.
She’ll tell you that the only thing that matters is how alive she’s going to feel soon.
*****
“Hello, Severus,” she says from behind him. The words feel seductive on her tongue, and she longs to hear his voice spinning sweet seduction.
“Miss Granger,” he responds, as though she were still his student.
Miss Granger. She is not sure whether she feels young or liberated. Either way, she finds she likes it.
She bites her lip, a nervous habit that hasn’t stopped despite twenty years and growing up. He watches the movement.
He doesn’t waste time. He says not another word as he downs his drink, the motion exposing his milky throat. She takes an infinitesimal step closer.
*****
He kneels in front of her, spreading her legs as though bisecting a unicorn: swift and sure but wrong all the same. She feels the clinical precision of it, the plans building in his mind for what he will do with her. She aches to be studied like an antidote, desires his adherence to detail, the attention of his hawk eye that catches all mistakes. She expects he will watch her as she comes. She images herself as a complicated potion where the effectiveness depends on a clockwise or counterclockwise motion.
She wants to be ravished as methodically as possible.
*****
He traces his tongue across her folds making figures of runes.
He begins with Uruz. She nearly laughs at the obviousness of it. That is until the sexual desire hits her like an Avada Kedavra. Little death, indeed.
He follows with Pertho, building up her femininity. She purrs like a cat.
Berkano and she is reborn. With Laguz, his mysterious eyes catch hers. Hagalaz to unleash and guide her toward the end. Raidho for rhythm. Yes, yes, yes. Gebo makes her want to give back to him, but then it’s Kenaz, and she is inspired, seeing stars. Wunjo.
Wunjo. Ecstasy.
*****
These encounters have taught Hermione why people who have affairs are always shown smoking in the movies.
It’s the nerves.
Her body is on fire, and she just wants to release a bit of it. She imagines the anxiety and energy leaking from her in smoky spirals that float away. She can’t speak to him. Or she doesn’t want to. Best not to examine that. But it’s in moments like this when she’s more jittery than before. When she feels this way, she could run a marathon, scale a mountain, Apparate to South America, brew Wolfsbane without any respite…
Or…
*****
His wiry body covers hers once more, and his lips clamp to her left nipple. His tongue circles, and she realizes he’s making Thurisaz. All her nerves explode in perfect catharsis, a violent cleansing, and she wants him more than she’s ever wanted anything her entire life.
She grabs his hips with both hands, encouraging or demanding his entrance into her body. He smiles with smug satisfaction and pumps inside her. All the runes stretch between them, and there is rhythm and exchange and fire. She’s building into something else and coming apart like the rosebushes he used to blast.
*****
When she recovers, time has passed. He is still inside her, limp, his sweaty body covering hers in a way that would otherwise be possessive. But she knows he doesn’t want to own her; he wants to remake her. She wraps her legs around his bony hips and clenches tightly. Bracing herself, she begins to move beneath him, bringing his cock back to life and fucking his slumbering body within the limited confines of her current mobility. She revels in the weight on top of her and orgasms under the entrapment.
It is the best sex she has ever had.
*****
When she is done, he gives her a minute before raising his head to look at her through shiny black hair. Or perhaps it only seems shiny in light of her new appreciation for the once greasy man.
He kisses her.
Despite their intimacy, there had been no mingling of tongues.
He remains buried inside her, motionless as he explores her mouth. In fact, his strength is greater than hers and he keeps her pinned. Still.
The kissing goes on and on and on until she can’t breathe, can’t think, wants to move, can’t, can’t, can’t, until she’s coming again.
*****
Hermione is certain there will be no more orgasms like this.
How can there be when she has waited years to achieve this release?
It’s not that her prior relations have been bad. Ron has always been attentive to her needs. And at least half her other lovers have brought her to ecstasy merely by existing.
It’s the thrill that does it for her, not the friction.
She blames Harry - and Ron, for that matter - for teaching her that danger provides an ethereal buzz, that the unknown is the greatest turn on.
She looks into fathomless black eyes and understands.
*****
He asks if he can see her again.
She is so stunned by the question that she misses the third hook on her bra. She never “sees them again.” Hermione is offended by the audacity, the implication. She is a married woman who keeps her dalliances strictly One-Night Stands. Who is he to ask for more?
But just as she opens her mouth to tell him in her most prim and proper way that he presumes too much, she falters.
She should have known better than to sleep with someone she knows, someone real, someone who knows her back. Him.
*****
She stands mute in the room, only wearing her bra and panties. Her arms drop from their awkward position of reaching behind her to the fastenings.
He takes up where she left off, sliding his fingers along her sides in a way that tickles, though she refuses to twitch. Without peeking, his fingers deftly hook her bra.
As he works her undergarments, she can feel his heat pressed against her. He is inexplicably hard. She wonders if perhaps he took a potion, as she cannot understand why he stills seems to want her.
“The magic goes both ways,” he explains.
*****
She is giving back. Licking his sternum as he bucks and groans. Her bra is still on. Her hands are covered in her own juices, which she uses to smear the runes on him, as well.
Uruz and Thurisaz, of course, as she wants the night to continue, wants to explore his masculinity. She adds one of hers: Dagaz.
You may be wondering what Ron is doing during this time. Hermione has been here for a while, and her husband must be curious as to her whereabouts. You might question if she is worried about him finding out.
She isn’t.
*****
It is much later. She needs to leave. She doesn’t.
She remains pinned to the bed, but at least she’s sitting now. That’s something, she reasons. Or so she tells herself. One wrong move and she’ll be horizontal again.
His black eyes study her as though she is a Crumple-Horned Snorkack’s horn, discovered at long last, or else an Erumpent’s, masquerading, radiating danger.
She quirks an eyebrow at him. Is it a challenge?
Reaching whatever conclusion it is that a man like Severus Snape reaches, he deliberately invades her personal space, lowering his mouth to hers in one decisive moment.
*****
Too late she realizes that the brilliant, beautiful thing he is doing with his tongue is Nathuiz.
Nathuiz, which symbolizes need.
She breaks the kiss and looks at him with eyes wide and trembling with fire.
“Why?” she asks.
You may not know about runes the way she does, the way he does. You may not know Nathuiz. It’s the rune Hermione avoids.
Because Gryffindor days are long behind her and not all lions are brave.
Nathuiz: for reconciling with fate, for facing fears.
Snape avoided it, too. Once.
Nathuiz means it’s all up to her. And she knows it.
*****
“One last token of my affection,” he explains with a wave of his hand, flexing long, cruel fingers.
“Bastard,” she curses. If her hands weren’t trembling so damn hard, she would curse him the right way.
His back stiffens, but he reaches the door in three fluid motions. He is the epitome of economic grace. He is lovely, even if she hates him now.
Hates him for making her come to terms, for making this time the last. All those nights she swore she would never do it again, there had always been a tingle that predicted more.
Like magic.
*****
He is gone now, and she can’t even control herself long enough to cast a simple Lumos. She sits in the dark and shivers. Is it cold?
Tears are frozen in her lashes, stuck there, aching to make the journey down, to write sorrow in her cheeks, but she has had enough release. She doesn’t deserve to cry.
She thinks of Ron. Thinks of their first kiss, the battle raging all around them, kissing for house-elves and freedom and friendship. Thinks of the abandoned basilisk fangs, the sound as they crashed to the floor, dropped for the sake of holding.
*****
It ends.
She doesn’t Apparate away, not due to distress, but because she is missing one of the key elements: Destination.
You may think her life has fallen apart. She will agree it certainly appears that way. If you ask her if she is happier, she will honestly tell you she isn’t. But she seems serene.
She thinks of Ron, of course, and a strange smile appears on her face when she imagines telling him that Snape lives. She can picture his splutter.
And if some day she encounters the man that ruined her life, she just might thank him.
*****
I also updated Marked. Here's the info.:
Rating: R (Wanton on Ashwinder)
Characters: Hermione, Severus, Stubby Boardman, Ginny, Luna, Neville, Draco, and Fleur
Pairings: Hermione/Severus eventually and others
Summary: A story on the dark side with each chapter following a specific character's point of view. Everyone is marked - by Voldemort, by the war, by the choices they have made, and by each other.
http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=16180
The two most recent chapters belong to Neville and Draco. I actually have another six or so chapters written, but I've been slow on the posting because there hasn't been much of a response. Granted, frequent updates tend to encourage readers. (I know that I will sometimes start reading a story whenever I see it's being updated often.) Also granted, I tend to update quickly for a while and then fall into month-long or so slumps, which is not very nice. But anyway, that's the reason updating has been slow there. And if you think this is a shameless plug for reviews... you're probably right. :)
I'd like to know if I should focus on it, get rid of it completely, or keep slowly adding stuff as the mood strikes. I'm just not sure how much attention I want to pay to it right now. Oh well.
I would like to say there's another chapter of Time to Trust, but there... isn't. I'm almost finished writing it. Really.
Oh! I do have a small drabble collection that I don't think I mentioned here:
The Way It Might Have Been
Pairing: Hermione/Severus
Summary: Twisting the nine lives expression, this is a collection of drabbles presenting nine possible deaths of Severus Snape.
http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=17202
OR
A/N: This collection of drabbles includes nine possible deaths (using the term loosely) of Severus Snape. I have posted or used some of them before. Also, some of these are DH-compliant, some are AU, and others could be put in either category.
I’m sending vibes of gratefulness to septentrion1970 for the beta eyes and helpful advice.
*****
The Way It Might Have Been
A Spoonful of Sugar
He awoke. It was white. Bright.
Heaven?
Alas, St. Mungo’s.
“Good, you’re awake.”
Severus scowled at the Healer.
“Time to take your potion.”
Severus glared, and then a wonderful thing happened. He realized he could simply not ingest the potion. Ah, glorious control.
Days passed. Soon it would be over. Soon.
“I demand to see him,” said a familiar, annoying voice from the hallway.
Her bushy hair blocked the light, and then he felt a sharp jab.
“It’s a Muggle method. I’ve injected the potion directly into your vein. Feel better, professor.”
She left him lying there - swollen, medicated, alive.
*****
The Lonely Grave of Hermione Granger
He tossed the flower on her grave.
Angry, bitter.
Lonely.
Yes, lonely most of all.
Of course, there were others at the site. Potter. Weasley. The entire world.
He did not see them.
Instead, he saw himself leaping into her resting place, disturbing her slumber, following her once more.
Perhaps they would study the dirt together, research death for a time. That was their way.
What would his way be without her?
A long, slow stroll to death’s waiting arms.
Hurry, she called to him. As though they were on their way to a party.
I’m coming, he promised. Soon.
*****
The Lonely Grave of Severus Snape
It was unnatural.
Severus Snape was smiling. Severus Snape was dead.
She wasn’t sure which was worse.
He had wanted a Muggle burial. So they can spit on my grave, he had said, making her laugh.
The Great Bat of the Dungeons confined to a coffin at last. How the Hogwarts students would smirk.
If only the undertaker had given him a smirk. That, at least, would have been a natural expression on her husband’s face.
Would he lie there uncomfortable for the rest of eternity, his face twisted in a parody of mirth? When had he ever been happy?
*****
Resurrected
He hadn’t known he was dead until this… resurrection.
His face - or some facsimile of it - twisted in a grimace. Resurrected. Who would have been so foolish?
“Severus,” a voice whispered.
It was Granger who had taken such liberties, speaking his name and bringing him back to this miserable plane of existence.
“It’s not really you. Harry told me. Or he told me it wasn’t really them… that Dumbledore said… It’s the only reason why I have the courage…”
She kissed him.
His heart - not dead, not alive - was resurrected but for a brief flare of an instant.
“Goodbye.”
*****
Just Another Day
Professor Severus Snape stepped into his classroom in a dramatic flurry of black robes.
“Turn to page 394,” he said threateningly.
None of the students complied.
“100 points from each House. Turn to page 394.”
They looked around nervously.
He picked up a jar of lacewings that he would need to distribute for the day’s assignment, but it slipped from his hand. He tried again. It never left the table.
“Severus Snape, get out of my classroom this instant!”
“Miss Granger?”
“That’s Professor Granger to you. Out.”
“This is my classroom.”
“Not since you died.”
Oh, well, that explained things.
*****
Dropping By
He crumpled at her doorstep. He hadn’t the strength to Apparate. His head was spinning like Mad Eye’s infamous Eye.
She opened the door, her brood standing at her ankles. One smelled of lemon drops.
Albus.
“No, I’m Hugo,” the impertinent child told him.
“Go to bed, children.” Her voice was calm even though a dead man - per Ministry records - was dying on her porch.
“You’re alive.”
Not for long. Good, he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“I see you haven’t lost your sarcasm.”
You say potato…*
“What? You want potatoes?”
You.
“You’re not making any sense… Professor?… Professor?”
*****
Nonverbal
The first time she had cast a nonverbal spell, she had felt a rush of power and pride.
This was not like that.
Staring at the dark, limp body of her former professor, she wondered ruefully whether he would finally acknowledge her abilities, now that she had cast the worst of all spells without uttering so much as a sigh.
Was it ironic that she had used her learning against him?
Hermione cried, her silent sobs echoing painfully in her head. She willed him to open his eyes.
He had not acknowledged her in life; she saw no difference now.
*****
So This Is Death
So this is death.
This aching in his chest, the part he thought had hardened.
Hand clutching, reaching, but for what? To whom?
Muggle medicine on a shelf, gathering dust.
For your heart, she had told him.
What heart?
She had married Weasley. He could have stopped her, made some grand gesture. He was not dramatic when it mattered.
The Healers had told him his heart was too weak; the venom had sunk in too deep. His heart would never heal.
As though that were news.
He understood aching: longing, loss. But this was something else…
So this is death.
*****
What Remains
Hermione’s hands were covered in dirt. There may have been blood. She wasn’t sure.
Carefully, she wrapped the bone she had stolen in a silk scarf of Gryffindor colors. It was from his forearm - the other one, not the left. She laid it in the hole she had made.
“For your bravery,” she whispered.
Her tears fell freely, joining his remains.
“For your suffering,” she cried.
She covered the hole, working quickly so as not to be caught, sometimes glancing at the White Tomb nearby.
When she finished, she marked the spot with a brick from the castle.
“For everything.”
*****
A/N: *This is a reference to a song that goes:
“You say potato, I say potato.
You say tomato, I say tomato.
Potato, potato. Tomato, tomato.
Let’s call the whole thing off.”
The first time it’s said, potato is pronounced: poh-tay-toh.
The second time: poh-tah-toh.
Same goes for: toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh.
Basically, Severus is commenting that what he calls “humor,” Hermione calls “sarcasm,” but it all means the same thing. That, and he’s really loopy at this point.
I apologize for any confusion, but if it helps, Hermione is just as Confunded by the whole thing.
*****
THANK YOU! And I hope you enjoy these.
I think it's actually a reaction to NOT writing for Drawn & Quartered, which is a play series that ITP does for which I usually write. Instead, I'm training a new director on the process. So, I have all these pent up plot bunnies (and you know how they get when you don't let them run around enough).
So, here is a drabble that I just wrote for grangersnape100 One Last Challenge.
Title: Runed
Team Name: D to the E
Word Count: 100x24
Rating: NC-17
Challenge: One Last
Characters: Hermione/Severus, Hermione/Ron mentioned
Summary: Hermione indulges in an unhealthy hobby with both amazing and awful results, thanks to Severus.
Authors Notes: Thanks to septentrion1970 for the beta work and advice!
Small warning: This Hermione is a little unstable.
Other warnings: DH Spoilers, SEX
All the information on runes came from http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html. You can look there for more information on the effects that aren’t completely explained here.
Thanks for reading!
Runed
She cannot pinpoint the moment when it started, but she appreciates the layman irony of her favorite pastime.
If you had asked Hermione Granger where she would be twenty years after the much-anticipated Final Battle, she would have placed this particular possibility somewhere in the realm of a Sybil Trelawney prediction.
That is to say, not bloody likely.
But as Trelawney predictions are wont to do too often, this highly unlikely occurrence has become a bit of a constant in Hermione’s life.
She has vowed this will be the last time. One last time.
She had better make it good.
*****
She surveys the room over her tequila gimlet. You may notice she is not drinking any of the usual beverages: butterbeer, red current rum, or even that old standby, Firewhisky. This - unlike a Trelawney prediction - is not coincidence.
Hermione is drinking this gimlet for two reasons:
1) She is in a Muggle bar.
2) She needs the kind of courage only tequila can provide.
You would think that after twenty years of subterfuge, she would not need liquid courage. But as Hermione Granger would delight in telling you - were she to admit her actions, of course - you would be wrong.
*****
This bar was not at the top of her list twenty years ago - not that you would ever be able to locate said list, which has long been an Incendio victim. But back then, she had swung her hips at strangely lit clubs with the best of them. She rather thought she could have pursued a career in Transfiguration - not just anyone could transform cotton into charmeuse - but she had not wanted to raise suspicion. Partying was for girls like Lavender Brown.
A flick and swish adds a touch of ruche. She smiles in the bathroom mirror. It doesn’t respond.
*****
She notices his cloak first.
It’s wool, of course, and black. She has the feeling it isn’t new; yet, the color hasn’t faded a bit. She is attracted to its smooth lines, the dramatic way it moves with him, and how it makes her think of dark nights and darker deeds.
She shifts in her seat, wondering if it’s the pheromones or the tequila making her want to strip the cloak from his person and drape it around her naked body.
Adrenaline pumps through her veins, like it does every time she meets a man in one of these places.
*****
This will be the last time.
She’s said that before. Said it the first time, in fact.
It was the night they had announced their engagement. Drinks with the girls to celebrate, followed by a drunken Hermione sneaking back out her window just to see if that studious boy in the corner was still there.
He was.
He hadn’t minded her wearing her tattered, temporary veil. She couldn’t quite explain to him how it was fastened to her head - Ginny had done the work, and back then, Hermione didn’t really care about clothes or hair.
He had smelled so good.
*****
Yes, the first time it was his smell.
Ron always smells like freshly mown grass, probably due to all his time on the Quidditch field.
This boy smelled like ink. She could see it staining the callus on his index finger from long hours spent writing. She had sucked on that finger as she came.
The other times, it was always something:
He had blond hair or green eyes; He was very short or completely solid; His skin was tanned or he spoke with an accent.
He - whoever he was - was different from her husband in some completely obvious way.
*****
This one is actually built rather similar to Ron. He is tall and thin, but his version borders on wiry, whereas Ron is more muscular. But his hair is long and silky and dark, dark, dark.
Hermione aches to run her fingers through it.
His skin is fair like Ron’s, only sallow. He doesn’t spend much time in the sun; that much she knows.
But his hands are things of beauty. Long, exquisite fingers circle the rim of his glass. She shifts in her seat, thinking of those fingers delving inside her. She remembers how Ron’s nails are never clean.
*****
She doesn’t care that he’s alive.
She’ll roll her eyes if you say that sounds callous, because this isn’t about him, after all; it’s about her.
You could argue that she’s done this so many times that she must have some feelings about it. Tenderness, perhaps, toward a lover. Guilt when she thinks of Ron?
She would wave you off with a motion of her hand, and you would notice how graceful she can be. Her husband has never commented on her grace.
She’ll tell you that the only thing that matters is how alive she’s going to feel soon.
*****
“Hello, Severus,” she says from behind him. The words feel seductive on her tongue, and she longs to hear his voice spinning sweet seduction.
“Miss Granger,” he responds, as though she were still his student.
Miss Granger. She is not sure whether she feels young or liberated. Either way, she finds she likes it.
She bites her lip, a nervous habit that hasn’t stopped despite twenty years and growing up. He watches the movement.
He doesn’t waste time. He says not another word as he downs his drink, the motion exposing his milky throat. She takes an infinitesimal step closer.
*****
He kneels in front of her, spreading her legs as though bisecting a unicorn: swift and sure but wrong all the same. She feels the clinical precision of it, the plans building in his mind for what he will do with her. She aches to be studied like an antidote, desires his adherence to detail, the attention of his hawk eye that catches all mistakes. She expects he will watch her as she comes. She images herself as a complicated potion where the effectiveness depends on a clockwise or counterclockwise motion.
She wants to be ravished as methodically as possible.
*****
He traces his tongue across her folds making figures of runes.
He begins with Uruz. She nearly laughs at the obviousness of it. That is until the sexual desire hits her like an Avada Kedavra. Little death, indeed.
He follows with Pertho, building up her femininity. She purrs like a cat.
Berkano and she is reborn. With Laguz, his mysterious eyes catch hers. Hagalaz to unleash and guide her toward the end. Raidho for rhythm. Yes, yes, yes. Gebo makes her want to give back to him, but then it’s Kenaz, and she is inspired, seeing stars. Wunjo.
Wunjo. Ecstasy.
*****
These encounters have taught Hermione why people who have affairs are always shown smoking in the movies.
It’s the nerves.
Her body is on fire, and she just wants to release a bit of it. She imagines the anxiety and energy leaking from her in smoky spirals that float away. She can’t speak to him. Or she doesn’t want to. Best not to examine that. But it’s in moments like this when she’s more jittery than before. When she feels this way, she could run a marathon, scale a mountain, Apparate to South America, brew Wolfsbane without any respite…
Or…
*****
His wiry body covers hers once more, and his lips clamp to her left nipple. His tongue circles, and she realizes he’s making Thurisaz. All her nerves explode in perfect catharsis, a violent cleansing, and she wants him more than she’s ever wanted anything her entire life.
She grabs his hips with both hands, encouraging or demanding his entrance into her body. He smiles with smug satisfaction and pumps inside her. All the runes stretch between them, and there is rhythm and exchange and fire. She’s building into something else and coming apart like the rosebushes he used to blast.
*****
When she recovers, time has passed. He is still inside her, limp, his sweaty body covering hers in a way that would otherwise be possessive. But she knows he doesn’t want to own her; he wants to remake her. She wraps her legs around his bony hips and clenches tightly. Bracing herself, she begins to move beneath him, bringing his cock back to life and fucking his slumbering body within the limited confines of her current mobility. She revels in the weight on top of her and orgasms under the entrapment.
It is the best sex she has ever had.
*****
When she is done, he gives her a minute before raising his head to look at her through shiny black hair. Or perhaps it only seems shiny in light of her new appreciation for the once greasy man.
He kisses her.
Despite their intimacy, there had been no mingling of tongues.
He remains buried inside her, motionless as he explores her mouth. In fact, his strength is greater than hers and he keeps her pinned. Still.
The kissing goes on and on and on until she can’t breathe, can’t think, wants to move, can’t, can’t, can’t, until she’s coming again.
*****
Hermione is certain there will be no more orgasms like this.
How can there be when she has waited years to achieve this release?
It’s not that her prior relations have been bad. Ron has always been attentive to her needs. And at least half her other lovers have brought her to ecstasy merely by existing.
It’s the thrill that does it for her, not the friction.
She blames Harry - and Ron, for that matter - for teaching her that danger provides an ethereal buzz, that the unknown is the greatest turn on.
She looks into fathomless black eyes and understands.
*****
He asks if he can see her again.
She is so stunned by the question that she misses the third hook on her bra. She never “sees them again.” Hermione is offended by the audacity, the implication. She is a married woman who keeps her dalliances strictly One-Night Stands. Who is he to ask for more?
But just as she opens her mouth to tell him in her most prim and proper way that he presumes too much, she falters.
She should have known better than to sleep with someone she knows, someone real, someone who knows her back. Him.
*****
She stands mute in the room, only wearing her bra and panties. Her arms drop from their awkward position of reaching behind her to the fastenings.
He takes up where she left off, sliding his fingers along her sides in a way that tickles, though she refuses to twitch. Without peeking, his fingers deftly hook her bra.
As he works her undergarments, she can feel his heat pressed against her. He is inexplicably hard. She wonders if perhaps he took a potion, as she cannot understand why he stills seems to want her.
“The magic goes both ways,” he explains.
*****
She is giving back. Licking his sternum as he bucks and groans. Her bra is still on. Her hands are covered in her own juices, which she uses to smear the runes on him, as well.
Uruz and Thurisaz, of course, as she wants the night to continue, wants to explore his masculinity. She adds one of hers: Dagaz.
You may be wondering what Ron is doing during this time. Hermione has been here for a while, and her husband must be curious as to her whereabouts. You might question if she is worried about him finding out.
She isn’t.
*****
It is much later. She needs to leave. She doesn’t.
She remains pinned to the bed, but at least she’s sitting now. That’s something, she reasons. Or so she tells herself. One wrong move and she’ll be horizontal again.
His black eyes study her as though she is a Crumple-Horned Snorkack’s horn, discovered at long last, or else an Erumpent’s, masquerading, radiating danger.
She quirks an eyebrow at him. Is it a challenge?
Reaching whatever conclusion it is that a man like Severus Snape reaches, he deliberately invades her personal space, lowering his mouth to hers in one decisive moment.
*****
Too late she realizes that the brilliant, beautiful thing he is doing with his tongue is Nathuiz.
Nathuiz, which symbolizes need.
She breaks the kiss and looks at him with eyes wide and trembling with fire.
“Why?” she asks.
You may not know about runes the way she does, the way he does. You may not know Nathuiz. It’s the rune Hermione avoids.
Because Gryffindor days are long behind her and not all lions are brave.
Nathuiz: for reconciling with fate, for facing fears.
Snape avoided it, too. Once.
Nathuiz means it’s all up to her. And she knows it.
*****
“One last token of my affection,” he explains with a wave of his hand, flexing long, cruel fingers.
“Bastard,” she curses. If her hands weren’t trembling so damn hard, she would curse him the right way.
His back stiffens, but he reaches the door in three fluid motions. He is the epitome of economic grace. He is lovely, even if she hates him now.
Hates him for making her come to terms, for making this time the last. All those nights she swore she would never do it again, there had always been a tingle that predicted more.
Like magic.
*****
He is gone now, and she can’t even control herself long enough to cast a simple Lumos. She sits in the dark and shivers. Is it cold?
Tears are frozen in her lashes, stuck there, aching to make the journey down, to write sorrow in her cheeks, but she has had enough release. She doesn’t deserve to cry.
She thinks of Ron. Thinks of their first kiss, the battle raging all around them, kissing for house-elves and freedom and friendship. Thinks of the abandoned basilisk fangs, the sound as they crashed to the floor, dropped for the sake of holding.
*****
It ends.
She doesn’t Apparate away, not due to distress, but because she is missing one of the key elements: Destination.
You may think her life has fallen apart. She will agree it certainly appears that way. If you ask her if she is happier, she will honestly tell you she isn’t. But she seems serene.
She thinks of Ron, of course, and a strange smile appears on her face when she imagines telling him that Snape lives. She can picture his splutter.
And if some day she encounters the man that ruined her life, she just might thank him.
*****
I also updated Marked. Here's the info.:
Rating: R (Wanton on Ashwinder)
Characters: Hermione, Severus, Stubby Boardman, Ginny, Luna, Neville, Draco, and Fleur
Pairings: Hermione/Severus eventually and others
Summary: A story on the dark side with each chapter following a specific character's point of view. Everyone is marked - by Voldemort, by the war, by the choices they have made, and by each other.
http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=16180
The two most recent chapters belong to Neville and Draco. I actually have another six or so chapters written, but I've been slow on the posting because there hasn't been much of a response. Granted, frequent updates tend to encourage readers. (I know that I will sometimes start reading a story whenever I see it's being updated often.) Also granted, I tend to update quickly for a while and then fall into month-long or so slumps, which is not very nice. But anyway, that's the reason updating has been slow there. And if you think this is a shameless plug for reviews... you're probably right. :)
I'd like to know if I should focus on it, get rid of it completely, or keep slowly adding stuff as the mood strikes. I'm just not sure how much attention I want to pay to it right now. Oh well.
I would like to say there's another chapter of Time to Trust, but there... isn't. I'm almost finished writing it. Really.
Oh! I do have a small drabble collection that I don't think I mentioned here:
The Way It Might Have Been
Pairing: Hermione/Severus
Summary: Twisting the nine lives expression, this is a collection of drabbles presenting nine possible deaths of Severus Snape.
http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=17202
OR
A/N: This collection of drabbles includes nine possible deaths (using the term loosely) of Severus Snape. I have posted or used some of them before. Also, some of these are DH-compliant, some are AU, and others could be put in either category.
I’m sending vibes of gratefulness to septentrion1970 for the beta eyes and helpful advice.
*****
The Way It Might Have Been
A Spoonful of Sugar
He awoke. It was white. Bright.
Heaven?
Alas, St. Mungo’s.
“Good, you’re awake.”
Severus scowled at the Healer.
“Time to take your potion.”
Severus glared, and then a wonderful thing happened. He realized he could simply not ingest the potion. Ah, glorious control.
Days passed. Soon it would be over. Soon.
“I demand to see him,” said a familiar, annoying voice from the hallway.
Her bushy hair blocked the light, and then he felt a sharp jab.
“It’s a Muggle method. I’ve injected the potion directly into your vein. Feel better, professor.”
She left him lying there - swollen, medicated, alive.
*****
The Lonely Grave of Hermione Granger
He tossed the flower on her grave.
Angry, bitter.
Lonely.
Yes, lonely most of all.
Of course, there were others at the site. Potter. Weasley. The entire world.
He did not see them.
Instead, he saw himself leaping into her resting place, disturbing her slumber, following her once more.
Perhaps they would study the dirt together, research death for a time. That was their way.
What would his way be without her?
A long, slow stroll to death’s waiting arms.
Hurry, she called to him. As though they were on their way to a party.
I’m coming, he promised. Soon.
*****
The Lonely Grave of Severus Snape
It was unnatural.
Severus Snape was smiling. Severus Snape was dead.
She wasn’t sure which was worse.
He had wanted a Muggle burial. So they can spit on my grave, he had said, making her laugh.
The Great Bat of the Dungeons confined to a coffin at last. How the Hogwarts students would smirk.
If only the undertaker had given him a smirk. That, at least, would have been a natural expression on her husband’s face.
Would he lie there uncomfortable for the rest of eternity, his face twisted in a parody of mirth? When had he ever been happy?
*****
Resurrected
He hadn’t known he was dead until this… resurrection.
His face - or some facsimile of it - twisted in a grimace. Resurrected. Who would have been so foolish?
“Severus,” a voice whispered.
It was Granger who had taken such liberties, speaking his name and bringing him back to this miserable plane of existence.
“It’s not really you. Harry told me. Or he told me it wasn’t really them… that Dumbledore said… It’s the only reason why I have the courage…”
She kissed him.
His heart - not dead, not alive - was resurrected but for a brief flare of an instant.
“Goodbye.”
*****
Just Another Day
Professor Severus Snape stepped into his classroom in a dramatic flurry of black robes.
“Turn to page 394,” he said threateningly.
None of the students complied.
“100 points from each House. Turn to page 394.”
They looked around nervously.
He picked up a jar of lacewings that he would need to distribute for the day’s assignment, but it slipped from his hand. He tried again. It never left the table.
“Severus Snape, get out of my classroom this instant!”
“Miss Granger?”
“That’s Professor Granger to you. Out.”
“This is my classroom.”
“Not since you died.”
Oh, well, that explained things.
*****
Dropping By
He crumpled at her doorstep. He hadn’t the strength to Apparate. His head was spinning like Mad Eye’s infamous Eye.
She opened the door, her brood standing at her ankles. One smelled of lemon drops.
Albus.
“No, I’m Hugo,” the impertinent child told him.
“Go to bed, children.” Her voice was calm even though a dead man - per Ministry records - was dying on her porch.
“You’re alive.”
Not for long. Good, he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“I see you haven’t lost your sarcasm.”
You say potato…*
“What? You want potatoes?”
You.
“You’re not making any sense… Professor?… Professor?”
*****
Nonverbal
The first time she had cast a nonverbal spell, she had felt a rush of power and pride.
This was not like that.
Staring at the dark, limp body of her former professor, she wondered ruefully whether he would finally acknowledge her abilities, now that she had cast the worst of all spells without uttering so much as a sigh.
Was it ironic that she had used her learning against him?
Hermione cried, her silent sobs echoing painfully in her head. She willed him to open his eyes.
He had not acknowledged her in life; she saw no difference now.
*****
So This Is Death
So this is death.
This aching in his chest, the part he thought had hardened.
Hand clutching, reaching, but for what? To whom?
Muggle medicine on a shelf, gathering dust.
For your heart, she had told him.
What heart?
She had married Weasley. He could have stopped her, made some grand gesture. He was not dramatic when it mattered.
The Healers had told him his heart was too weak; the venom had sunk in too deep. His heart would never heal.
As though that were news.
He understood aching: longing, loss. But this was something else…
So this is death.
*****
What Remains
Hermione’s hands were covered in dirt. There may have been blood. She wasn’t sure.
Carefully, she wrapped the bone she had stolen in a silk scarf of Gryffindor colors. It was from his forearm - the other one, not the left. She laid it in the hole she had made.
“For your bravery,” she whispered.
Her tears fell freely, joining his remains.
“For your suffering,” she cried.
She covered the hole, working quickly so as not to be caught, sometimes glancing at the White Tomb nearby.
When she finished, she marked the spot with a brick from the castle.
“For everything.”
*****
A/N: *This is a reference to a song that goes:
“You say potato, I say potato.
You say tomato, I say tomato.
Potato, potato. Tomato, tomato.
Let’s call the whole thing off.”
The first time it’s said, potato is pronounced: poh-tay-toh.
The second time: poh-tah-toh.
Same goes for: toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh.
Basically, Severus is commenting that what he calls “humor,” Hermione calls “sarcasm,” but it all means the same thing. That, and he’s really loopy at this point.
I apologize for any confusion, but if it helps, Hermione is just as Confunded by the whole thing.
*****
THANK YOU! And I hope you enjoy these.