Fic: Joying in a Momentary Sun (1/1) *NC17* D/Hr/B
Title: Joying in a Momentary Sun
Author: Ailleann (inkpuddle)
Rating: NC17
Pairing: D/Hr/B, SS/NT
Summary: A Christmas ball reveals passions that have been hidden as well as those that have been cherished.
Disclaimers: Everything you see is JKR's, except the plot. What there is of it.
Author's Notes: For Emmy. Written as a backup, and sadly still late. I sincerely hope you like the way it turned out--after numerous creative and technical difficulties as well as this being the longest one-shot I have ever written, it is finally done. This hasn't been betaed, so all mistakes are solely mine. The title comes from "Invern" by Ezra Pound.
Damn Dumbledore, Snape thinks, swishing a fold of his black robes irritably to settle them in place. He knows I hate being social. Which is probably why the old meddler had made it mandatory that all professors attend this Christmas ball. Or maybe he thought it would “cheer us up,” Snape thinks cynically. After a battle just few weeks ago, all of Hogwarts seems to be subdued. No Hogwarts students had been lost this time, but the attack had only reopened the scars from times when students had been lost. And despite that Snape rarely likes the little buggers--especially the Gryffindors, who have a disturbing tendency to get themselves kidnapped or killed--he doesn't want them dead. It always makes him feel a little sick to find the bloody body of someone that he has stared at disapprovingly over a cauldron in his dungeons. Not that he would admit that, of course, even to Dumbledore.
He sees no point to this ball. As far as he is concerned, it is a pointless endeavor meant only to take him away from reading the new Potions text he has found in the library. He isn't even sure that Madam Pince knew that the book was there, which makes the discovery even headier. He fairly itches to try the new version of a Dreamless Sleep potion that he has found in the book. Perhaps he can feed it to one of those hapless Gryffindors. It wouldn’t wound him if one of them were to be late for his class so that he could take points away. He does have his simple pleasures. He doesn't hurry toward the Great Hall--he sees no reason to. It isn't as though he would be missed if he were late. Rather, he strolls, contemplating how deliciously intricate and difficult the potion would be and who he would test it on--
He is nearly thrown off his feet as someone barrels into him. Instinctively his hands shoot out and grab the person, steadying them both. “Thank you,” a female voice says breathlessly. “I’m so sorry, I’m so clumsy--You!”
Startled, he looks up at her face. It is completely unfamiliar to him, but something she said rang in his head. I’m so clumsy...He draws his hands back as though he has been stung. “Tonks?”
She props her hands on her hips. “Yes, Tonks,” she says indignantly. “Why aren’t you already at the ball?”
He feels his face close down into an implacable mask, mouth going hard and eyes glittering. He has seen the look in the mirror enough times to know what it looks like. “None of your business,” he says coldly, drawing himself up to his full height. “Why aren’t you there, Metamorphagus?” He flings the word out at her almost as though it where a curse, and watches in cold satisfaction as she flinches imperceptibly.
But to her credit, she straightens her spine and looks him straight in the eye. “None of your business,” she shoots back, her voice just as cold as his. “I apologize for running into you, Severus.” Then she sweeps by him and down the corridor, her hands clenched into small fists.
***
His hand is splayed and steady on the small of her back as he pushes open the door of the greenhouse. She nearly gasps at the difference in temperature--the greenhouse is humid and almost sweltering as opposed to the sharp cold outside. He shuts the door behind them, and immediately the heat is around her, crawling over her and making her skin itch. She sees his shape sitting on a bench across the room, and immediately hurries for him, leaving her dark lover behind.
She runs her gaze over the other man greedily as she moves toward him, her eyes tracing muscles toned by relentless Quidditch practice, the curve of shoulder and the pale stubble on his chin that she knows will leave welts on her fair skin later. She trembles in anticipation at the thought.
She breathes his name involuntarily as she reaches him, and he looks up as though he has just now realized she is there. She knows that he heard them enter, but she plays his game because she wants to; and because it pleases him to think that he is mysterious, when really she knows all of his secrets. She doesn’t know the way that his mind works, and she doesn’t know if he grieves for his father, or if a small part of him still thinks of her as a Mudblood. But she knows the way he makes a particular little whine in his throat when he comes, and that he likes to sink his teeth into her shoulder as he fucks her--a predator pinning his mate. She knows that he has a light dusting of freckles on his lower back, and that it arouses him unbelievably to have Blaise blow softly against the soft downy hair on his lower stomach. She knows that sometimes he somehow sneaks into her bed--she’s always resisted the urge to ask how he does it--and he whispers to her in a voice choked with tears that he needs her, and he lies submissive beneath her body as she does whatever she chooses to him. She has marked him with her teeth and nails before, and he has arched against her hands in desperate acceptance of the mixed pain and pleasure. Those times are to be kept secret, even from Blaise, because somehow she sees how vulnerable he is, how tentative is his trust. She knows that he was her first, and that although they still hated each other then, he was incredibly gentle with her. She often wonders if that was when she fell in love with him--when she realized that the monster had gentleness lurking inside him and that despite the names and bitter rivalry that he wasn’t a monster--merely a boy.
She kneels at his feet, between his legs, and he smiles down at her. His hand rises to her hair, tangling in the strands. She winces involuntarily as his fingers snag in the pins, and then Blaise’s hands are there, gently pulling the pins from her hair. It tumbles down piece by piece, until it all falls free in a wild tumble. Before she can reach up, Draco’s hands are there, massaging her scalp gently and soothing away the feeling of being confined by the pins. Her head falls forward on the stem of her neck, as if it is too heavy to hold up, and she hears two soft masculine chuckles. Hidden by her hair, her mouth curves softly in response, although she doesn’t speak. She merely lets Draco’s hand massage her scalp, and Blaise’s hands slowly and sweetly undo the buttons of her gown at her back.
***
When Snape steps into the Great Hall, he narrowly resists the urge to sneer at the whole affair. It is everything that annoys him--bright and bold colors, children chattering. The place is blazing with heat from the bodies crammed inside. Dumbledore is wearing what looks to be a wreath on his head, and Minerva is wearing some sort of gown that probably wouldn’t have gone amiss about fifty years ago. And yet the old bat manages to still convey that calm elegance that she always exudes. It would be irritating if he wasn’t so used to it, and used to her. He flicks a small, longing glance toward the window--perhaps he could hide out there--but sees that the windows are rimmed with frost. He stalks up to the professors’ table and imperiously takes his seat. From down the table, Dumbledore leans around McGonagall and offers him a pleased smile. Snape offers a thin-lipped smile in return that clearly conveys he would rather be anywhere other than here. The old bastard actually laughs, then turns to talking to McGonagall again.
Snape feels perilously close to sulking, although his gaze skims the room. He has been a spy for too long not to look for his exits, even though he has been in this room thousands of times. He sees Granger slip out a door and into the cold without a jacket to cover her bare shoulders, and snorts. It’s no less than he would expect from the foolish girl. Perhaps she’ll catch her death out there and he won’t have to listen to her prattle on in his classroom again. Idly, he scans the room, looking for the other two parts of the bane of his existence. There, Potter is talking to Lovegood, and making quite an arse of himself. Snape smiles and watches for a few moments, silently amused at watching Potter stammer and blush, caught in the throes of an awkward teenage crush. When Potter becomes boring--as he inevitably does--Snape looks for the Weasley. Ah, there he is as well. Talking animatedly to Thomas, probably about some stupid Muggle sport. He is much more boring than Potter, and Snape’s eyes drift over the room again.
It takes him several passes over the room before he realizes that two of his students are missing. His eyes narrow, and he makes a more determined sweep of the room, then sits back contemplatively when he doesn’t find them. Perhaps they’re off snogging, he thinks distastefully. He has heard enough whispers from his students to know that there’s something going on between them, and their whispers in the library. He heard one student whisper that they were a menage a trois with a girl from another House. Snape had merely sneered, and sneers again at the thought. Both boys are pretty, but they’re not that pretty. His mind recalls the image of Granger slipping furtively out the side door, but he immediately dismisses it with an audible snort. Two Slytherins with a Mudblood? That was highly improbable--especially these two Slytherins. He expected Draco Malfoy to fuck a Mudblood the day that he would. Which was to say, never.
Bored with the students, he glances down the professors’ table. Dumbledore and McGonagall are still talking excitedly about something--they really should just get married and put everyone out of their misery--Hagrid, the big oaf, is babbling to an unexpectedly calm looking Trelawney; Vector is explaining something about numbers to Flitwick, who nods unenthusiastically. And there is the stupid bint who ran into him earlier. Snape sneers at her, although her back is turned. He sees her shoulders hunch, then she turns around to look at him. He gives her a blank face--please don’t try to talk to me--but then she rises and sits down in the chair next to him. He stares at her, baffled and annoyed by her presence. Hadn’t his glare made it clear that he did not want company? Is she such an idiot that she can’t comprehend how deliberately unwelcoming he is? Everyone else does.
Then she turns to face him, and he can see that her smile is strained. Oh Merlin, she’s going to try to have a conversation, he realizes with growing dread. And then, of course, she does.
***
Hermione rotates her neck, a soft purr in her throat. Blaise’s hands are slowly unbuttoning her dress, and one of Draco’s hands is stroking her throat--first a brush of knuckles, then the scrape of callused fingertips. She can feel a trickle of sweat slide down the nape of her neck, then the velvet roughness of Blaise’s tongue as he licks it away. She gasps out loud and trembles violently, her head falling forward to invite his mouth to touch her there again. She doesn’t realize that she moans Blaise’s name, but Draco’s fingers slide sensuously up to her chin and tilt her head up to look at him. His icy blue eyes glitter in the low light, and she is transfixed by them. “Whisper my name,” he whispers savagely, and then his mouth is on hers. He is not gentle, and she feels as though her mouth is bruised. Despite it, her hands grip his knees to brace herself and she pushes back against him aggressively.
Blaise’s hands are on her dress again, and she dimly feels as he undoes the last button. He slips his hand beneath it to her bare skin, and she gasps into Draco’s mouth, arching her body, her eyelids fluttering. Blaise’s hand strokes over her skin slowly, parting her dress a little more with each touch. She feels the dress begin to slide dangerously off one shoulder, and instinctively her hand rises to catch it. But Blaise’s hands are there before hers, then the brush of his mouth over the silky skin of her shoulder. She purrs low in her throat, pushing her body back toward his. She is rewarded with the rumble of his chuckle, and the feeling of his teeth sinking into her skin--just enough to where she can feel the edge of pain waver just out of reach.
She feels utterly debauched, as though she is in one of the Muggle romances that are her mother’s guilty pleasure. She is kneeling in the dirt, her hair in a wild disarray, trapped between two fully clothed men while her dress is falling off one shoulder and baring the swell of one breast. Draco clenches the material in his fist, and she lifts her head to look at him. Behind her, Blaise continues to nibble at her throat, his hand moving slowly and teasingly along her hip. “Draco,” she whispers, then gasps as Blaise nips particularly hard in retaliation. Her hand tightens on Draco’s thigh, and she blinks rapidly, her heart hammering in her ears. “Don’t--don’t rip it,” she whispers roughly. “Parvati--oh God, Blaise--Parvati will--will kill me.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Draco says softly, but there is no gentleness in his voice. She feels her heart thrill. Perhaps she is a bit twisted for the fact that she sometimes enjoys being enveloped in their Slytherin control and measured cruelty. But then Blaise gently tests the bump of bone just above her spine with his teeth, and she whimpers. Draco tugs experimentally on the fabric, and she looks up at him. “Please don’t.” She doesn’t give a damn about the dress anymore, but seeing Draco’s eyes glitter in pleasure at her words, she repeats them, imbuing her voice with desperation.
With a quick snap of his wrist, the fabric rips.
***
Snape drums his fingers on the table impatiently, unable to contain himself. Normally he wouldn’t have even made the effort to listen to her, but she had earned his grudging respect during the war. Even as a junior Auror and the clumsiest creature he has ever seen, she had fought and fought bravely. So he lets her chatter on aimlessly, giving the appearance of paying attention even as he tunes her out. But it is a quick flash of color that draws his eye, and he watches in horrified shock as a twig of mistletoe comes to hover between he and Tonks.
Cutting herself off abruptly and frowning, she follows the line of his gaze and her mouth falls open in shock. “Severus--what--” she stammers, a blush rising to her cheek. Snape refuses to admit that it is actually a quite charming look for her, because he is Snape and he therefore does not think that anything is charming. Least of all this damnable piece of flora that is hovering over him as if patiently waiting.
“Go away,” he hisses at it, trying not to draw too much attention to its presence. Tonks does the same, making a quick shooing motion and then withdrawing her hand quickly, as if in fear that someone would have seen her and then noticed the mistletoe.
It ignores them--could a plant actually ignore someone?--and hovers above them, waiting. Snape looks toward Tonks with a feeling of dawning horror. He is going to have to kiss her. He sneers in revulsion at the thought, and blatantly ignores her look of hurt. “I know I’m not that horrid,” she says in a brittle, hard voice. He actually feels a pang of regret, which shocks him so much that he doesn’t move when she rises abruptly from the table and stalks out of the room.
The mistletoe seems drift after her for a moment, then speeds off toward another end of the room, where it hovers expectantly above a couple of fifth year Ravenclaws. Ignorant of Snape’s assessing gaze, the two glance up at the mistletoe and laugh, then fall together in a crush of lips and awkward desire. He curls his lip in disdain, and then someone speaks softly in his ear. “Severus, surely you cannot be cross during the holidays. Even this ball should cheer up a grump like you.”
“Minerva, I am impervious to balls such as these and their reputed cheering power. I would singularly like to return to my rooms and continue reading a fascinating Potions text that I have recently found in the library.”
“I’m sure that you would, Severus.” McGonagall seats herself in Tonks’ so recently vacated chair. “However, I would like you to look at that damnable piece of mistletoe that Albus has enchanted.”
“Dumbledore did that?” Severus asked suspiciously, eyeing the old man at the opposite end of the table, who was watching the mistletoe’s progress through the room in obvious delight. No doubt he did, Snape realizes in disgruntlement. It’s just the sort of thing that the old codger would enjoy.
“Yes, he did. He thought it would perhaps let some things come to light that haven’t before.”
Snape snorts in contempt. “Yes, such as which student is snogging which at the moment? Do we sanction orgies here at Hogwarts, Minerva?”
“Now, Severus.” The woman is unruffled, as she always is. Even Snape’s deliberate animosity cannot put her off. He quite likes that in her. “But I daresay that you’ve been exposed to what the mistletoe can do.”
“What is that?” Snape asks her, trying valiantly not to just get up and leave the stupid party.
“Dumbledore charmed it so that it only hovers over those who are in love. Or in a relationship. He thought it would be amusing to broaden the charm’s spectrum of selection, and I must say I agree. I didn’t know that Cho Chang was dating Roger Davies now.”
“Fascinating,” Snape says in a bored voice that makes it perfectly clear that it is anything but. “What does this have to do with me, Minerva?”
“Considering how long you have remained alive as a spy, Severus, sometimes I wonder at your intelligence. The mistletoe hovered over you and Nymphadora, didn’t it?”
He recoils from her faintly. “I do not love that empty headed twit!”
“Of course not,” she says dryly. “I expected no other response. Now let us come to the obvious conclusion, then, Severus. Why would the mistletoe hover over you and Tonks?”
“Because it is malfunctioning and Dumbledore is going senile,” he grumbles rebelliously, and hears her quickly muffled snicker.
“No, I don’t believe so. Try again.”
“The Bloody Baron and the Fat Friar were just behind us and they decided to declare their undying love.”
“Merlin, please don’t say such things. I’m an old woman, you know. I don’t think my heart could stand that kind of imagery. Once more, Severus. I know you can come to the obvious conclusion.”
He considered it, then nearly overturned his chair as he leaped to his feet. Realizing what he had done, he quickly seated himself again and hissed. “She does not love me!”
“Really, Severus. I know that you are quite skilled in Occulumency, but I didn’t know that you had taken to reading others’ minds. How do you know she doesn’t love you?”
“How do you know she does?”
She gives him a pitying look and doesn’t answer, but rises from her seat and pats Snape on the shoulder, then goes back to her chair beside Dumbledore. Snape sits for several moments, then rises swiftly and strides out of the Great Hall, determined to wring the truth from one scrawny, female neck.
***
Hermione can’t prevent the gasp as the fabric pulls against her skin and rips with a loud tearing sound. It falls away from her, leaving her bare from the waist up. Her nipples harden immediately--despite the warmth of the greenhouse, the change in temperature is shocking. She shivers as the warm air hits her body, and then Blaise is there, leaning over her shoulder toward Draco. She closes her eyes as Draco presses against her and kisses Blaise over her shoulder. She is pressed between them, and she can’t resist sliding her fingers down the line of Draco’s stomach to toy with his belt. His hand goes to hers in a flash, gripping her fingers hard as he continues to kiss Blaise.
“Cheating,” she whispers, leaning forward to suck on that place just behind Draco’s ear that always makes him moan. She smiles against his skin as she hears the sound she wanted dragged from his throat, his hand tightening around her fingers again. “You’re hurting me,” she whispers, dragging her lips up and down the column of his throat, and earns her release instantly. She feels Blaise’s whispers and strangled gasps against her back, and the way that Draco’s hand trembles every once in a while. She does her best to make him whimper--taking his earlobe gently between her teeth and tugging, pressing kisses against his jaw line and whispering obscenities into his ear.
She smiles at him when he breaks away from Blaise to glare down at her, his eyes like burning coals in his pale face. “Dammit,” he hisses. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Mmm,” she purrs, pressing a soft open-mouthed kiss to his chin. “I know. Isn’t it fun?”
“Fun,” he echoes, his voice holding an edge of frustrated desire. “I’ve waited all day for this.”
She slips one finger between his pants and his skin, running her finger back and forth and drawing a gasp from his throat. “You’ve been awfully good today, then haven’t you? I do think you should be rewarded for that.”
She watches in pleasure as his throat bobs for a moment. “Rewarded?”
“Mmm, yes. Don’t you think so, Blaise?”
“I do.” His voice rumbles at her back, and she leans against him, staring steadily at Draco. She knows what kind of picture she and Blaise make together--she is slight and dainty with wild hair of an indiscriminate brown, her eyes a warm hazel. She is normal, and Blaise is erotically exotic. He has a woman’s mouth--the bottom lip just a little fuller than the top. It always makes him seem as though he is pouting, and Hermione has often had to restrain herself in class from nipping at that full lower lip. His eyes are a golden color that is offset by his perpetually tanned skin and his mink black hair. His face is all beautiful angles and hollows, the cheekbones high and aristocratic, the eyes intense and sharp. Sometimes she wonders what they see in her--they are both beautiful pureblooded Slytherins, and she is just one of “Potter’s groupies.” And a Muggleborn, to boot. But she has never seen a hint of derision from them since they have been together, and she is pathetically grateful. She is not sure that she could give them up and the pleasure they can give her, and she is grateful that she doesn’t have to make the choice between their bodies and her self-respect.
Draco licks his lips--almost nervously, she notes. She waits, feeling Blaise’s hand warm and steady on her stomach, holding her to him. She itches to have Blaise move his hand lower or higher, but holds herself still, waiting for Draco’s request.
“I want to be between you,” he says softly, and she is surprised. She somehow senses that Blaise is as well. Neither of them quite know what to do with this Draco, who is so very concerned with asking for something that they will both give more than willingly. Hermione leans forward and presses a soft, undemanding kiss to Draco’s mouth.
“Whatever you want, love,” she whispers, and feels his quick breath of relief. Then he draws back and smiles at her cockily--the Malfoy that she’s used to.
“You’re so very acquiescent,” he says, but there is more of a tease than real venom in his voice, so she smiles back at him and licks his upper lip.
She looks over her shoulder at Blaise, her eyes heavy. “Is this all right with you?” She always asks, even though she knows that Blaise has no problem with fucking Draco. Blaise has no problem with fucking anything--the man is so damn gorgeous that he’s fucked both men and women, and probably more of them than Hermione can guess. But as a true gentleman, he has never told her anything about any of his previous lovers, either male or female. She was surprised by that courtesy from him, and relieved. It meant that when their relationship ended--if it did--she would not just be another notch on a bedpost and a raunchy story told in a locker room.
He gives her a chiding smile. “You always ask these questions, ma petite etoile, even when you know the answer.”
She smiles wryly, a small flash of humor and companionship amidst the heat of the moment. She presses her mouth to Blaise’s in a kiss more about the tender feeling in her chest than the fire that burns just beneath her skin; he caresses her mouth with his in return, whispering endearments in French that she will never ask the meaning for. He could be cursing her, but she doesn’t care. The words are beautiful, the voice honey that slides over her skin and leaves fire in its wake. So she will never ask what they mean, because it is the words and the voice that seduce her, not their meaning.
Draco gently touches his hand to her face, and she looks at him. He presses his mouth to hers in a touch as gentle as Blaise’s. But there are no whispered French endearments from him, just the touch of skin to skin and mouth to mouth. “I want you naked,” Hermione whispers, and he tugs at his clothes anxiously, stretching his neck to keep his mouth on hers.
“Let me,” Blaise says, amusement and something darker in his voice. Hermione lifts her head long enough to see that Blaise has moved to kneel behind Draco and is running his hands slowly over Draco’s body before beginning to unbutton the expensive dress robes. Hermione runs her fingers through Draco’s hair, simply because she can. She has heard other girls whisper excitedly about what it would be like to snog Draco Malfoy--despite that he can be a git, no one denies that he has grown up to be handsome. As Draco’s hands touch her stomach and then trail up to cover her breasts possessively, her eyes fall closed and she smiles. Those other girls are fools, she thinks contentedly, arching into Draco’s hands.
He rubs slow, almost soothing circles on her breasts, skimming over her nipples time and time again until she wants to scream from frustration. She doesn’t realize that she whimpers, her hands rising to clasp Draco’s wrists in protest. She moans his name, her legs trembling beneath her.
“Yes, baby,” he whispers, his eyes glittering. “Tremble for me.” Even as he speaks, provokes her desire, he is arching beneath Blaise’s hands as Blaise slips his robes off his shoulders and caresses bare, heated skin.
Hermione presses close to Draco and reaches around him to slip her fingers into the knot of Blaise’s tie. He smiles roguishly at her and leans closer, as though he is a very large, dangerous cat that is allowing her to pet him. She smiles back at him and yanks his face close to hers to crush her mouth against his.
***
To his surprise, she hasn’t gone far before he catches up with her. When he sees her hunched shoulders, he stops dead. He has a moment of panic to wonder if she’s crying and consider retreating before she whirls to face him. He is almost dizzy with relief when her eyes are dry, although her whole stance screams that she would love nothing better than to hex him. “What do you want?” she spits, and he almost has to admire her. She is nothing more than a little Hufflepuff, but her eyes flash fire and her hands are fisted.
“I want to know if you love me,” he states baldly, having already considered his options. He knows that she will perhaps respond best to blunt honesty--something he is unused to--having been trained to resist manipulation in Auror training.
When she flinches at his statement, he feels his stomach start to sink. Merlin’s balls, he thinks in horror. She does.
The horrified notion that someone loves him is enough to make him forget years of discipline as he blurts out, “Why the hell would you love me?”
She glares up at him out of eyes that are swirling different colors, as if she can’t decide what person she wants to be. “I don’t,” she spits, turning on her heel and hurrying away. Before he can process this startling chain of events, out of the corner of his eye he sees it. Oh, damn. He tries walking swiftly away, but the damned plant just follows him, looking so innocent and festive even though he knows that it’s powered by the machinations of a very old, meddling man. Snape vows that if he reaches that age he will resist the urge to meddle with others, as it is obviously a trait that anyone over sixty shares.
He doesn’t realize that he’s followed her until she drills him in the chest with one slender, graceful hand that’s at odds with the rest of her personality. “Why are you following me?” she snarls. “I don’t love you, Severus Snape! You wish.”
He can’t prevent the snort of derision at that, and barely has time to draw his own wand as she draws hers. They face each other over drawn wands, and Snape can see that she has a wild, desperate look in her eyes as she stares at him. “I don’t love you,” she says desperately, and the mistletoe that’s hovering between them gives a little wriggle as if to wag a finger at her lie.
She snarls up at it. “Why is this thing following me?” she rages, pointing her wand at it. It darts behind Severus, and he swats it away with a snarl to equal Tonks’s.
It (somehow) manages to project insult, even as it dutifully hovers between them. “I daresay that it wants you to kiss,” Dumbledore says pleasantly. Both Snape and Tonks whirl, the shocked looks on their faces making it obvious that they hadn’t heard him approach.
“Well, it’s going to disappointed,” Tonks snaps, then blushes, lowering her wand. “Sorry, sir,” she mumbles, but Dumbledore merely offers her a smile.
“As unfortunate as the thought is, I must agree with--her. I am not going to kiss anyone, let alone her.”
“What does that mean?” She looks genuinely offended as she takes a quick step forward, her wand raising again. He snaps his up again, eyeing her warily. He has never been around many women, especially not women whose attraction he has called into question. He’s not quite sure what tortures she is imagining for him, but from the light in her eyes it is obvious that she’s imagining some sort. He has to resist the urge to cross his legs.
“Now, Nymphadora, Severus. I do not think that this mistletoe is a bad thing--perhaps there are things that you have neglected to say to one another before this.”
“Not hardly,” Severus says in a baffled tone. He nearly growls when he suddenly notices that Tonks’s cheeks are flushed in a very becoming way, and that her breath is heaving from her lips.
“With all due respect, sir, there is nothing I have to say to him,” Tonks spits, trying and failing to keep her voice civil.
Dumbledore shakes his head sadly. “I am afraid that the enchantment on the mistletoe will not fade until you have kissed one another, my friends.”
“Over my dead body,” Tonks grits out. “Sir.”
Snape is almost positive that he hears Dumbledore choke back a laugh. “Yes, well. That is for you both to come to terms with. I wish you both good luck with your quandary.” Then he is striding away down the hall, and Snape sees the old bastard’s shoulders shaking with laughter as he goes.
He stares at her for a long moment, then curls his lip. “I am not going to kiss you.”
She sneers at him in an expression so reminiscent of his own that he is momentarily taken aback. “As if I’d let you, you toad.”
“Very well,” he snaps. “Then how are we going to get away from this damned plant?”
The mistletoe wiggles again, as if in affront.
“I think we should just walk away,” Tonks says coolly. “It can’t exactly follow us both.”
Snape wonders why the hell he didn’t think of it himself, and is irritated that she did. His voice comes out curt. “Very well.” He turns on his heel without another word and starts to stride toward his dungeon. He doesn’t get more than three feet before he comes up against something very solid and unmoving. He halts, his eyes narrowing and his heart slamming with something uncomfortably close to fear. Apparently the mistletoe has another enchantment on it, one that dear Dumbledore forgot to mention.
He slowly turns, and sees that Tonks has stopped as well, no more than a few feet from where she had stood. She turns to look at him, and the same dread is on her face as it is on his. They cannot move away from one another until they satisfy the mistletoe’s requirement--a kiss.
***
Even as Blaise’s tongue is in her mouth, Draco’s teeth nibble sharply at the delicate skin of her shoulder, making her shudder and whimper. Draco cups her breast in one hand and rubs his callused thumb over the nipple. Her fingers tighten on Blaise’s tie as she makes small incoherent sounds in her throat and presses against Draco desperately. The heat crawling beneath her skin makes it itch, and she is trembling wildly. Her hands go to Draco’s belt and fumble with the clasp, then rip it away. Her hands are shaking too badly to unbutton his trousers, but she nearly whimpers when Draco withdraws his hand from her breast.
“Draco--”
“Shh.” His hands fall to her hips and test the flesh there, first tightening as to leave bruises and then caressing the small wounds. Blaise leans close against Draco’s back again, his eyes on her flushed face. “I feel a little left out,” he whispers, his voice huskier than normal.
Hermione reaches for him blindly, her hand knocking against his jaw as her fingertips skim his mouth. He touches her skin with his tongue, then his hands are catching hers and leading them to his tie. Hermione peels her eyes open to look at him in a haze, and she fumbles at his tie, nearly desperate to have bare skin against hers. Although Blaise has been tortuously undressing Draco, they are both still clothed even though she is bare to the waist. Feeling Draco’s clothes slide over the delicate skin of her breasts makes her shake, but she wants to feel his skin on hers more than anything.
She tugs at Blaise’s shirt, her teeth bared and her skin hot. She pulls on it again, then takes a handful of it and rips viciously. The sound of buttons hitting the dirt floor and cloth tearing is unbelievably arousing, and seeing Blaise’s eyes dilate is enough to make her whisper something incoherent, even to herself. She doesn’t realize that Draco has slipped from between them until she feels his warmth at her back, and his fingers drawing taunting circles on her stomach. Hermione leans forward and licks a line of heat up Blaise’s throat, and his hands encircle her throat, his thumbs tilting her chin up as he presses his mouth to hers aggressively, fucking her mouth with his tongue.
She can’t breathe--the air has suddenly become heavy and hot, pressing on her chest and clinging to her body. The ruined dress still clings perilously to her hips, but she can feel it begin to slip as Draco’s hands slide to her lower belly. She tears her mouth from Blaise’s, panting.
“Blaise--I can’t breathe,” she gasps, pressing a hand against his chest to make him see that she is truly in distress. Her gaze falls on the door, and she sees the beginnings of snow outside through the foggy glass.
Then Blaise’s hands are in her hair, stroking it away from her face. Draco’s hands have fallen away from her, and part of her wishes that he would have continued and just let her smother from the heat and the pleasure; but the rest of her is much more concerned with catching her breath.
“Lie down,” Draco says softly, and then his hands are back, gently lowering her to the ground so that she can lie on her back. She gulps the air, feeling a little dizzy. It is almost unbearably hot inside, and she closes her eyes so that things do not swim quite so quickly before her vision. She feels their hands on her--soothing and comforting where they were hard and demanding just moments before.
She opens her eyes cautiously to see that they are both leaning over her. Blaise is stripped to the waist, and Draco’s shirt has slipped off one shoulder and there is a rising red mark on his throat. She doesn’t remember marking him, but there it is, a bright spot of possession on his skin. She doesn’t have to look at herself to know that they have marked her as well--they always do. She can feel those places glow with heat on her body, warming her.
As she catches her breath, Blaise looks at Draco and leans across her inert body to kiss him. She stares up at them in dreamy fascination. No matter how many times she sees them together, they are still beautiful, and they can still arouse her without even a touch. They are both so beautiful to her, although she has heard Draco sneered at for his thin face and Blaise for that mouth that she always wants. But they are such a study in contrasts, and she loves them both. She inevitably sobs the words each time that they fuck, but she has never said it when her mind is clear. But then, neither have they.
***
“This is all your fault.” Snape’s voice is more petulant and less mature than he would like, but the sentiment is completely genuine.
“My fault? Why is this my fault?”
“Because you’re--emotional.”
He never knew that a small woman could look so intimidating when she barely topped five feet in her present manifestation. “I am not emotional,” she snarls, and he warily eyes her as his fingers touch his wand. She sees the movement and snaps, “I’m not going to hex you, you bully.”
“Bully?” He can’t stop the word before it comes out, and furiously thinks that that has become a pattern tonight--all of his hard-won control has deserted him and it’s all her fault.
“Yes,” she says sulkily, flopping back into a seat. “I’ve seen you bully your students.”
“I do not bully, Miss Tonks--”
“Just Tonks, okay? We’ve both been in the Order long enough for you to drop the ‘miss,’ and although it may have escaped your notice, I’ve been a professor here for several months now.”
“Trust me, I’ve noticed,” he sneers, and watches her bristle again.
“You are the most odious man!” She nearly trips as she rises in a rush to pace the room. They have taken refuge in a classroom and locked the mistletoe out--apparently as long as they do not try to move away from each other, they are allowed to move. Snape has been cursing Dumbledore’s name for several minutes now, and intends on continuing in the hopes that some higher power will take pity on him and actually punish Dumbledore for his meddling ways.
“Yes, I have been told that.” His voice isn’t as icy as he would prefer--instead it is filled with a sharp sense of humor. He has never been called funny, and he never will be--his sense of humor is all razors and sharp angles, and rarely amusing to anyone other than himself.
“Well obviously it hasn’t sunk in!” she flings at him, still pacing the room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Snape watches her pace, noting that she has abandoned her pink hair for the night and now has long black hair that curls softly at the ends, and pale blue eyes that look faintly familiar. He wonders if this is her true face that she passes off as another one of her masks so that no one will ever realize that this is who she truly is. He has worn many masks in his lifetime, and he feels an unexpected and unsettling sympathy for her.
“Is that your real face?” he asks her abruptly, and she halts, blinking rapidly at him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” he says steadily, his small black eyes on her face.
She straightens her spine, but he sees a flicker in her eyes. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“Why do you hide what you are?”
“Why do you?” she flings back, her body trembling with real anger now. “You have no business trying to pry into my head, Snape!”
“Ah, it’s Snape now, is it?” He rises slowly, so slowly that he knows it manages to convey menace. She stands her ground, her jaw locked stubbornly. “Earlier I was Severus.” It gives him a small amount of pleasure to see the trepidation in her eyes--he is still a Slytherin, after all. Years of espionage have only sharpened his sense of cruelty.
“Earlier I thought you might be hiding a decent human being beneath your black robes, but obviously I was wrong!”
“So you’ve been thinking about what’s under my robes?”
“No!” Her horrified gasp stops him in his tracks, and he stops to scowl at her.
“Why the hell not? I thought you loved me.”
“I do not love you! Why do you keep saying that?” She backs away from him, her fists clenched and trembling.
“Because the mistletoe only hovers over those in love, you empty headed twit,” he snaps, losing his patience for the game. “Now just spit it out and maybe we can both go back to our rooms and forget this stupid evening ever happened.”
“I don’t love you,” she says stubbornly. “The mistletoe is malfunctioning or something, because I don’t.”
“Albus obviously thinks differently,” he snaps, irked by her refusal to admit that she has some sort of fluffy feelings for him. Even as the thought makes him cringe, he can’t prevent the small and rather uncomfortable glow that they cause somewhere in his stomach.
“Fine! Fine, if it will let us get out of here!” She throws up her hands and looks him dead in the eye. “I love you. I have loved you for a long time, and it has brought me nothing but misery. Are you pleased now?” Her jaw is hard as stone, and her eyes have shuttered.
He merely blinks at her, surprised. “I--”
“Just don’t say anything,” she snaps, whirling on her heel. “I just want to go back to my room and forget this happened.” She whirls on her heel and strides toward the door. He doesn’t realize that he has instinctively taken a step toward her until he stubs his toe on one of the desks. As she flings open the door, the mistletoe swoops through the door triumphantly, bobbing as if in victory.
She sneers at the room in general, then steps out the door. Snape can still see her when she stops abruptly, and his heart sinks. Oh no. She steps back through the door, her eyes glittering and flashing. “It’s still in effect,” she says through gritted teeth. “Fuck.”
“Why don’t you just kiss me?” he asks reasonably--so reasonably that he even shocks himself. “Since you love me so much--”
She slaps him.
***
Feeling content and breathing more easily, Hermione watches her two men through half-closed eyes. Blaise’s fingers are threaded through Draco’s hair, and Draco whispers soft words against Blaise’s mouth. Unable to resist, she reaches up to stroke her hand down Draco’s arm as Blaise does, and their fingers tangle together. With her other hand, she reaches to Draco’s trousers and unbuttons them, her hands steadier than before. She slips her hand inside and runs her fingertips over Draco’s cock. His hips buck forward instinctively, and she laughs softly to herself in delight.
She wraps her fingers around him loosely before sliding her hand up to his tip and then back down to the base. His groan rumbles in his chest above her, and she makes the motion again just to hear the sound. One of Blaise’s hands caresses her back as she sits up to make herself more comfortable, and she shivers at his touch. She peels Draco’s trousers down and leans forward to touch her tongue to his cock. He makes a little whimper, and she slowly slides her mouth down over him, her tongue caressing the big vein that makes him babble something that she doesn’t hear.
She feels Blaise’s hands slip the dress off her, and then his hands are thereohgodrightthere and Draco’s cock slips out of her mouth as she arches back against Blaise with a strangled sob. Her hands flutter for an instant, looking for something to cling to, until Draco is there, and she is sinking her nails into his shoulders as he presses his mouth to hers. She is sobbing out uneven breaths as Blaise’s fingers tease her, his thumb rubbing her clit and his fingers making slow motions inside her that threaten to toss her over the edge.
Draco’s mouth is at her shoulder, delicately testing the strength of her frail collarbone, his hands going to her breasts to tease. She can’t help the fact that her cries have grown louder and more desperate, or that she has drawn blood on Draco’s shoulder with her nails. She can feel the rush of heat and throbbing rushing through her, centering to where Blaise is touching her. She arches her hips toward his hand, her mouth open in a soundless cry of pleasure as the pressure rises, and then--he withdraws his hand.
She nearly collapses, her body screaming in frustration. “What are you doing?” she cries, shaking violently. “Blaise!”
His smile is a little strained. “I’m very close, Hermione.”
Her lip trembles although she tries to understand what he’s saying. Then Draco’s hands are pushing her on her back, and he is stripping off his trousers and then Blaise’s. The two men press against each other, two cocks rubbing together and making little sounds come from Blaise’s throat. Anxious, Hermione reaches up to run her fingers over Blaise’s cock, then tightens her hand around him and pumps once or twice. He tears his mouth from Draco’s with a strangled gasp and makes a whimpering sound that she has only heard from him when they are together.
“Now,” Draco whispers, his eyes lighting. Blaise grabs his wand and whispers something, and Draco gasps. Hermione’s hands reach up and touch his arse, slipping one finger into him. She can feel the wetness that is the lube on her fingers, and then Blaise is there, his hand rubbing against hers as he presses his fingers into Draco’s arse beside hers.
Draco is making that high whine that says he is close, and he whimpers, “Merlin--both of you--”
Blaise leans over to whisper in Draco’s ear, “Fuck her, Draco.”
Without another word, Draco moves forward between Hermione’s legs and slides into her to the hilt. Her hips tilt up to his, arching her body as her eyes flutter shut. She presses her feet against the warm dirt, curling her toes into it as she presses up against Draco.
“Baby--baby, you feel so good,” Draco whispers, his eyes closed and his eyelids fluttering wildly. Then he gasps as Blaise presses into him slowly. “Relax,” Blaise whispers against the skin of Draco’s shoulder. Draco trembles, but then Blaise is in him, pressing him forward into Hermione. Draco falls forward, bracing his hands on the earth on either side of her head. She is breathing in short, sharp spurts, but she presses a sloppy kiss to his mouth.
Then Blaise is moving, making Draco’s hips move in and out of Hermione. She is whimpering, her hips pressing toward his anxiously. Draco is gritting his teeth, trying to hold on and savor the feeling of being consumed by his two lovers. Hermione’s fingers grip him so hard above the elbows that he’s sure she’ll leave bruises. She arches her head back, baring her throat, and grinds her hips against his, and watching her, feeling her, he comes. He thrusts into her wildly, that low whine in his throat and his eyes squeezed shut.
Blaise seems to take it as his cue, and he picks up his pace, slamming into Draco, rubbing over just that place, and then Draco is caught in a spiral of pleasure so intense that lights flash behind his dark eyelids, and he feels as though he comes for an eternity, hammering into Hermione’s wildly twisting and flushed body. She tightens around him with her own release, and Draco slumps over her in an ungainly sprawl as Blaise thrusts into him twice more before stiffening. Draco feels the rush of Blaise’s come in his arse, and then Blaise is withdrawing and flopping to the warm earth beside Hermione.
Then they simply breathe.
***
Snape has his wand drawn on her before she realizes it. “Step away from me,” he says coldly, his cheek stinging from where she had hit him. Hit him. No one ever dared to touch him, let alone strike him. It was mortifying that such a small creature had managed to catch him off guard.
Instead she crosses her arms across her chest and glares at him with venom flashing in her eyes. “How dare you,” she spits. “How dare you make what I said into some joke--”
“It wasn’t a joke,” he snaps. “I want to get out of here. Don’t you?”
“You were making fun of me.”
“I don’t give enough of a damn about you to make fun of you,” he says coldly, and has the pleasure of watching her flinch. Serves her right, he thinks vindictively. His cheek still throbs.
She lifts her head proudly. “You,” she says succinctly, “are very cruel.”
“If you ever thought differently, you were an ever bigger fool than I took you for,” he sneers, lowering his wand.
“Yes,” she says quietly, and there is a throb of pain there that he can’t ignore. “Yes, I suppose I was.” She barks out a harsh laugh. “Imagine that, thinking that cold Severus Snape might actually have a heart.”
He feels an odd twist in the region of the heart that he supposedly doesn’t have. “I have a heart,” he says defensively. “Just because I don’t give a damn about Saint Potter or any other Gryffindor--”
“Or anyone else,” she snaps, an odd wounded look in her eyes that somehow bothers him.
“Or anyone else,” he says calmly, his eyes on hers. “That does not mean I am heartless.”
“Who do you care about?” she throws out, her eyes glittering--whether from anger or tears he can’t tell. “Who loves you, Snape?”
That wounds, as perhaps she meant it to. Because there is no one who loves him. He thought he had made his peace with that old wound long ago, but the accusation in her gaze drags it all up again. The loneliness. The helplessness. The pain.
“I don’t need anyone to love me,” he snarls savagely. “I don’t fucking need anyone, you nosy bitch.”
He sweeps toward the door and comes up short as the invisible wall from the mistletoe springs up. Furious, he slams one of his hands against it in a gesture of rage and impotence. It is an oddly vulnerable and uncontrolled gesture, but he can’t help himself. He wants out of this room. She has called up too many bad memories that he does not want to think about, and he does not want to stay here with her confession still in the air. There are too many emotions in this room that he is not comfortable with, and he feels his chest tightening with one of the panic attacks that has not afflicted him since he was a small child.
Then he feels the soft brush of lips over his cheek, and he turns in surprise. She leans forward again and brushes her mouth over his in a kiss as soft as a whisper. He’s not even sure that he isn’t dreaming, because he is looking at a more delicate and soft version of the Andromeda that he knew over twenty years ago. There is the same dark chestnut hair, the same brilliant blue eyes, and the exact same mouth. Even her solemn expression is similar. She stares at him steadily, and then before his eyes her face shifts, becomes as unfamiliar as it is the same. When her features settle, she is the same pink-haired urchin as when she first joined the Order. She offers a small, silent nod and then she slips out the door and walks away down the corridor.
Snape blinks rapidly, then lets out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. He puts his wand away and then walks back to his dungeons. His new Potions text sits unopened on the table beside him as he stares broodingly into the fire in his grate, still seeing solemn blue eyes in his mind’s eye and feeling the whisper of her kiss.
***
They dress each other now, hands gentle as they smooth over rising bruises and bite marks and smile at one another. Draco mends Hermione’s dress with a murmured spell, then fastens it for her, kissing her bare shoulder before he covers it with the pale dress. Hermione slips Draco’s belt through the loops and presses a soft kiss to his bare chest. Draco leisurely kisses Blaise as he buttons Blaise’s shirt for him. Hermione touches them both, unable to stop herself. Draco links his fingers through hers, and Blaise slides his arm around her waist. They stand in silence for a moment, then Draco tugs his two lovers gently toward the door and opens it.
The blast of cold air is shocking, and clears the lazy fog of sated pleasure from their minds in an instant. The boys huddle closer to Hermione as they all step outside. Blaise turns momentarily to murmur a spell to close and lock the door behind them, then Hermione links her fingers with his and they all dash towards Hogwarts in silence.
Once they reach the castle, they slip down to the dungeons. Hermione waits patiently as Blaise whispers the password to the Slytherin common room, and then they sneak her through and up to their dormitory. Draco gives her a little shove, and she tumbles into his bed, giggling. They both crawl in after her, and close the curtains around them. Hermione feels happiness well up in her, and she mischievously tickles Blaise. He grunts, his body jerking in response before he gives her a sharp jab. “Stop it,” he mumbles as he gives a jaw-cracking yawn. “’M sleepy, love.”
“Poor baby,” she whispers, her eyes softening. She sees that Draco is already sprawled out, his eyes falling closed. She crawls over Blaise to lie between them and curls around Draco’s back, feeling Blaise curl around hers. Now that she is cocooned between the two of them, she can feel the drag of sated weariness, and she lets her eyes flutter closed. The dress isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, and she sleepily thinks that she should get up and remove it. But before she can, she is asleep.
The dormitory remains silent except for the sounds of the other two boys as they slip into bed later, yawning and mumbling to each other. The room falls silent again after that, and in Draco’s bed behind the closed curtains Blaise’s leg is thrown over Hermione and part of Draco; Hermione has one arm curled around Draco’s chest, and Blaise’s face is buried at Hermione’s neck. When the morning comes, just before Hermione wakes, she murmurs the three small words that she has never spoken to them. I love you.
Blaise's arms tighten around her waist, and he presses a soft kiss to her hair in response.
The End
71. Name/Pen Name: Emmy
Pairing of the fic you want: Either Hermione/Draco or Draco/Hermione/Blaise
Rating(s) of the fic you want: R or NC-17, but I'm always partial to smut. ;)
3 - 5 Things you want your gift to include:
1) A Christmas Ball/Dance
2) An established relationship.
3) Enchanted Mistletoe, (where the mistletoe only hovers above people who are in love/in a relationship).
4) Professor Snape and another Professor ... a new/OC one if you must ... being hounded by the mistletoe all night.
What you don’t want your gift to include: Harry and/or Ron bashing. Hermione-Sue.
Author: Ailleann (inkpuddle)
Rating: NC17
Pairing: D/Hr/B, SS/NT
Summary: A Christmas ball reveals passions that have been hidden as well as those that have been cherished.
Disclaimers: Everything you see is JKR's, except the plot. What there is of it.
Author's Notes: For Emmy. Written as a backup, and sadly still late. I sincerely hope you like the way it turned out--after numerous creative and technical difficulties as well as this being the longest one-shot I have ever written, it is finally done. This hasn't been betaed, so all mistakes are solely mine. The title comes from "Invern" by Ezra Pound.
Damn Dumbledore, Snape thinks, swishing a fold of his black robes irritably to settle them in place. He knows I hate being social. Which is probably why the old meddler had made it mandatory that all professors attend this Christmas ball. Or maybe he thought it would “cheer us up,” Snape thinks cynically. After a battle just few weeks ago, all of Hogwarts seems to be subdued. No Hogwarts students had been lost this time, but the attack had only reopened the scars from times when students had been lost. And despite that Snape rarely likes the little buggers--especially the Gryffindors, who have a disturbing tendency to get themselves kidnapped or killed--he doesn't want them dead. It always makes him feel a little sick to find the bloody body of someone that he has stared at disapprovingly over a cauldron in his dungeons. Not that he would admit that, of course, even to Dumbledore.
He sees no point to this ball. As far as he is concerned, it is a pointless endeavor meant only to take him away from reading the new Potions text he has found in the library. He isn't even sure that Madam Pince knew that the book was there, which makes the discovery even headier. He fairly itches to try the new version of a Dreamless Sleep potion that he has found in the book. Perhaps he can feed it to one of those hapless Gryffindors. It wouldn’t wound him if one of them were to be late for his class so that he could take points away. He does have his simple pleasures. He doesn't hurry toward the Great Hall--he sees no reason to. It isn't as though he would be missed if he were late. Rather, he strolls, contemplating how deliciously intricate and difficult the potion would be and who he would test it on--
He is nearly thrown off his feet as someone barrels into him. Instinctively his hands shoot out and grab the person, steadying them both. “Thank you,” a female voice says breathlessly. “I’m so sorry, I’m so clumsy--You!”
Startled, he looks up at her face. It is completely unfamiliar to him, but something she said rang in his head. I’m so clumsy...He draws his hands back as though he has been stung. “Tonks?”
She props her hands on her hips. “Yes, Tonks,” she says indignantly. “Why aren’t you already at the ball?”
He feels his face close down into an implacable mask, mouth going hard and eyes glittering. He has seen the look in the mirror enough times to know what it looks like. “None of your business,” he says coldly, drawing himself up to his full height. “Why aren’t you there, Metamorphagus?” He flings the word out at her almost as though it where a curse, and watches in cold satisfaction as she flinches imperceptibly.
But to her credit, she straightens her spine and looks him straight in the eye. “None of your business,” she shoots back, her voice just as cold as his. “I apologize for running into you, Severus.” Then she sweeps by him and down the corridor, her hands clenched into small fists.
***
His hand is splayed and steady on the small of her back as he pushes open the door of the greenhouse. She nearly gasps at the difference in temperature--the greenhouse is humid and almost sweltering as opposed to the sharp cold outside. He shuts the door behind them, and immediately the heat is around her, crawling over her and making her skin itch. She sees his shape sitting on a bench across the room, and immediately hurries for him, leaving her dark lover behind.
She runs her gaze over the other man greedily as she moves toward him, her eyes tracing muscles toned by relentless Quidditch practice, the curve of shoulder and the pale stubble on his chin that she knows will leave welts on her fair skin later. She trembles in anticipation at the thought.
She breathes his name involuntarily as she reaches him, and he looks up as though he has just now realized she is there. She knows that he heard them enter, but she plays his game because she wants to; and because it pleases him to think that he is mysterious, when really she knows all of his secrets. She doesn’t know the way that his mind works, and she doesn’t know if he grieves for his father, or if a small part of him still thinks of her as a Mudblood. But she knows the way he makes a particular little whine in his throat when he comes, and that he likes to sink his teeth into her shoulder as he fucks her--a predator pinning his mate. She knows that he has a light dusting of freckles on his lower back, and that it arouses him unbelievably to have Blaise blow softly against the soft downy hair on his lower stomach. She knows that sometimes he somehow sneaks into her bed--she’s always resisted the urge to ask how he does it--and he whispers to her in a voice choked with tears that he needs her, and he lies submissive beneath her body as she does whatever she chooses to him. She has marked him with her teeth and nails before, and he has arched against her hands in desperate acceptance of the mixed pain and pleasure. Those times are to be kept secret, even from Blaise, because somehow she sees how vulnerable he is, how tentative is his trust. She knows that he was her first, and that although they still hated each other then, he was incredibly gentle with her. She often wonders if that was when she fell in love with him--when she realized that the monster had gentleness lurking inside him and that despite the names and bitter rivalry that he wasn’t a monster--merely a boy.
She kneels at his feet, between his legs, and he smiles down at her. His hand rises to her hair, tangling in the strands. She winces involuntarily as his fingers snag in the pins, and then Blaise’s hands are there, gently pulling the pins from her hair. It tumbles down piece by piece, until it all falls free in a wild tumble. Before she can reach up, Draco’s hands are there, massaging her scalp gently and soothing away the feeling of being confined by the pins. Her head falls forward on the stem of her neck, as if it is too heavy to hold up, and she hears two soft masculine chuckles. Hidden by her hair, her mouth curves softly in response, although she doesn’t speak. She merely lets Draco’s hand massage her scalp, and Blaise’s hands slowly and sweetly undo the buttons of her gown at her back.
***
When Snape steps into the Great Hall, he narrowly resists the urge to sneer at the whole affair. It is everything that annoys him--bright and bold colors, children chattering. The place is blazing with heat from the bodies crammed inside. Dumbledore is wearing what looks to be a wreath on his head, and Minerva is wearing some sort of gown that probably wouldn’t have gone amiss about fifty years ago. And yet the old bat manages to still convey that calm elegance that she always exudes. It would be irritating if he wasn’t so used to it, and used to her. He flicks a small, longing glance toward the window--perhaps he could hide out there--but sees that the windows are rimmed with frost. He stalks up to the professors’ table and imperiously takes his seat. From down the table, Dumbledore leans around McGonagall and offers him a pleased smile. Snape offers a thin-lipped smile in return that clearly conveys he would rather be anywhere other than here. The old bastard actually laughs, then turns to talking to McGonagall again.
Snape feels perilously close to sulking, although his gaze skims the room. He has been a spy for too long not to look for his exits, even though he has been in this room thousands of times. He sees Granger slip out a door and into the cold without a jacket to cover her bare shoulders, and snorts. It’s no less than he would expect from the foolish girl. Perhaps she’ll catch her death out there and he won’t have to listen to her prattle on in his classroom again. Idly, he scans the room, looking for the other two parts of the bane of his existence. There, Potter is talking to Lovegood, and making quite an arse of himself. Snape smiles and watches for a few moments, silently amused at watching Potter stammer and blush, caught in the throes of an awkward teenage crush. When Potter becomes boring--as he inevitably does--Snape looks for the Weasley. Ah, there he is as well. Talking animatedly to Thomas, probably about some stupid Muggle sport. He is much more boring than Potter, and Snape’s eyes drift over the room again.
It takes him several passes over the room before he realizes that two of his students are missing. His eyes narrow, and he makes a more determined sweep of the room, then sits back contemplatively when he doesn’t find them. Perhaps they’re off snogging, he thinks distastefully. He has heard enough whispers from his students to know that there’s something going on between them, and their whispers in the library. He heard one student whisper that they were a menage a trois with a girl from another House. Snape had merely sneered, and sneers again at the thought. Both boys are pretty, but they’re not that pretty. His mind recalls the image of Granger slipping furtively out the side door, but he immediately dismisses it with an audible snort. Two Slytherins with a Mudblood? That was highly improbable--especially these two Slytherins. He expected Draco Malfoy to fuck a Mudblood the day that he would. Which was to say, never.
Bored with the students, he glances down the professors’ table. Dumbledore and McGonagall are still talking excitedly about something--they really should just get married and put everyone out of their misery--Hagrid, the big oaf, is babbling to an unexpectedly calm looking Trelawney; Vector is explaining something about numbers to Flitwick, who nods unenthusiastically. And there is the stupid bint who ran into him earlier. Snape sneers at her, although her back is turned. He sees her shoulders hunch, then she turns around to look at him. He gives her a blank face--please don’t try to talk to me--but then she rises and sits down in the chair next to him. He stares at her, baffled and annoyed by her presence. Hadn’t his glare made it clear that he did not want company? Is she such an idiot that she can’t comprehend how deliberately unwelcoming he is? Everyone else does.
Then she turns to face him, and he can see that her smile is strained. Oh Merlin, she’s going to try to have a conversation, he realizes with growing dread. And then, of course, she does.
***
Hermione rotates her neck, a soft purr in her throat. Blaise’s hands are slowly unbuttoning her dress, and one of Draco’s hands is stroking her throat--first a brush of knuckles, then the scrape of callused fingertips. She can feel a trickle of sweat slide down the nape of her neck, then the velvet roughness of Blaise’s tongue as he licks it away. She gasps out loud and trembles violently, her head falling forward to invite his mouth to touch her there again. She doesn’t realize that she moans Blaise’s name, but Draco’s fingers slide sensuously up to her chin and tilt her head up to look at him. His icy blue eyes glitter in the low light, and she is transfixed by them. “Whisper my name,” he whispers savagely, and then his mouth is on hers. He is not gentle, and she feels as though her mouth is bruised. Despite it, her hands grip his knees to brace herself and she pushes back against him aggressively.
Blaise’s hands are on her dress again, and she dimly feels as he undoes the last button. He slips his hand beneath it to her bare skin, and she gasps into Draco’s mouth, arching her body, her eyelids fluttering. Blaise’s hand strokes over her skin slowly, parting her dress a little more with each touch. She feels the dress begin to slide dangerously off one shoulder, and instinctively her hand rises to catch it. But Blaise’s hands are there before hers, then the brush of his mouth over the silky skin of her shoulder. She purrs low in her throat, pushing her body back toward his. She is rewarded with the rumble of his chuckle, and the feeling of his teeth sinking into her skin--just enough to where she can feel the edge of pain waver just out of reach.
She feels utterly debauched, as though she is in one of the Muggle romances that are her mother’s guilty pleasure. She is kneeling in the dirt, her hair in a wild disarray, trapped between two fully clothed men while her dress is falling off one shoulder and baring the swell of one breast. Draco clenches the material in his fist, and she lifts her head to look at him. Behind her, Blaise continues to nibble at her throat, his hand moving slowly and teasingly along her hip. “Draco,” she whispers, then gasps as Blaise nips particularly hard in retaliation. Her hand tightens on Draco’s thigh, and she blinks rapidly, her heart hammering in her ears. “Don’t--don’t rip it,” she whispers roughly. “Parvati--oh God, Blaise--Parvati will--will kill me.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Draco says softly, but there is no gentleness in his voice. She feels her heart thrill. Perhaps she is a bit twisted for the fact that she sometimes enjoys being enveloped in their Slytherin control and measured cruelty. But then Blaise gently tests the bump of bone just above her spine with his teeth, and she whimpers. Draco tugs experimentally on the fabric, and she looks up at him. “Please don’t.” She doesn’t give a damn about the dress anymore, but seeing Draco’s eyes glitter in pleasure at her words, she repeats them, imbuing her voice with desperation.
With a quick snap of his wrist, the fabric rips.
***
Snape drums his fingers on the table impatiently, unable to contain himself. Normally he wouldn’t have even made the effort to listen to her, but she had earned his grudging respect during the war. Even as a junior Auror and the clumsiest creature he has ever seen, she had fought and fought bravely. So he lets her chatter on aimlessly, giving the appearance of paying attention even as he tunes her out. But it is a quick flash of color that draws his eye, and he watches in horrified shock as a twig of mistletoe comes to hover between he and Tonks.
Cutting herself off abruptly and frowning, she follows the line of his gaze and her mouth falls open in shock. “Severus--what--” she stammers, a blush rising to her cheek. Snape refuses to admit that it is actually a quite charming look for her, because he is Snape and he therefore does not think that anything is charming. Least of all this damnable piece of flora that is hovering over him as if patiently waiting.
“Go away,” he hisses at it, trying not to draw too much attention to its presence. Tonks does the same, making a quick shooing motion and then withdrawing her hand quickly, as if in fear that someone would have seen her and then noticed the mistletoe.
It ignores them--could a plant actually ignore someone?--and hovers above them, waiting. Snape looks toward Tonks with a feeling of dawning horror. He is going to have to kiss her. He sneers in revulsion at the thought, and blatantly ignores her look of hurt. “I know I’m not that horrid,” she says in a brittle, hard voice. He actually feels a pang of regret, which shocks him so much that he doesn’t move when she rises abruptly from the table and stalks out of the room.
The mistletoe seems drift after her for a moment, then speeds off toward another end of the room, where it hovers expectantly above a couple of fifth year Ravenclaws. Ignorant of Snape’s assessing gaze, the two glance up at the mistletoe and laugh, then fall together in a crush of lips and awkward desire. He curls his lip in disdain, and then someone speaks softly in his ear. “Severus, surely you cannot be cross during the holidays. Even this ball should cheer up a grump like you.”
“Minerva, I am impervious to balls such as these and their reputed cheering power. I would singularly like to return to my rooms and continue reading a fascinating Potions text that I have recently found in the library.”
“I’m sure that you would, Severus.” McGonagall seats herself in Tonks’ so recently vacated chair. “However, I would like you to look at that damnable piece of mistletoe that Albus has enchanted.”
“Dumbledore did that?” Severus asked suspiciously, eyeing the old man at the opposite end of the table, who was watching the mistletoe’s progress through the room in obvious delight. No doubt he did, Snape realizes in disgruntlement. It’s just the sort of thing that the old codger would enjoy.
“Yes, he did. He thought it would perhaps let some things come to light that haven’t before.”
Snape snorts in contempt. “Yes, such as which student is snogging which at the moment? Do we sanction orgies here at Hogwarts, Minerva?”
“Now, Severus.” The woman is unruffled, as she always is. Even Snape’s deliberate animosity cannot put her off. He quite likes that in her. “But I daresay that you’ve been exposed to what the mistletoe can do.”
“What is that?” Snape asks her, trying valiantly not to just get up and leave the stupid party.
“Dumbledore charmed it so that it only hovers over those who are in love. Or in a relationship. He thought it would be amusing to broaden the charm’s spectrum of selection, and I must say I agree. I didn’t know that Cho Chang was dating Roger Davies now.”
“Fascinating,” Snape says in a bored voice that makes it perfectly clear that it is anything but. “What does this have to do with me, Minerva?”
“Considering how long you have remained alive as a spy, Severus, sometimes I wonder at your intelligence. The mistletoe hovered over you and Nymphadora, didn’t it?”
He recoils from her faintly. “I do not love that empty headed twit!”
“Of course not,” she says dryly. “I expected no other response. Now let us come to the obvious conclusion, then, Severus. Why would the mistletoe hover over you and Tonks?”
“Because it is malfunctioning and Dumbledore is going senile,” he grumbles rebelliously, and hears her quickly muffled snicker.
“No, I don’t believe so. Try again.”
“The Bloody Baron and the Fat Friar were just behind us and they decided to declare their undying love.”
“Merlin, please don’t say such things. I’m an old woman, you know. I don’t think my heart could stand that kind of imagery. Once more, Severus. I know you can come to the obvious conclusion.”
He considered it, then nearly overturned his chair as he leaped to his feet. Realizing what he had done, he quickly seated himself again and hissed. “She does not love me!”
“Really, Severus. I know that you are quite skilled in Occulumency, but I didn’t know that you had taken to reading others’ minds. How do you know she doesn’t love you?”
“How do you know she does?”
She gives him a pitying look and doesn’t answer, but rises from her seat and pats Snape on the shoulder, then goes back to her chair beside Dumbledore. Snape sits for several moments, then rises swiftly and strides out of the Great Hall, determined to wring the truth from one scrawny, female neck.
***
Hermione can’t prevent the gasp as the fabric pulls against her skin and rips with a loud tearing sound. It falls away from her, leaving her bare from the waist up. Her nipples harden immediately--despite the warmth of the greenhouse, the change in temperature is shocking. She shivers as the warm air hits her body, and then Blaise is there, leaning over her shoulder toward Draco. She closes her eyes as Draco presses against her and kisses Blaise over her shoulder. She is pressed between them, and she can’t resist sliding her fingers down the line of Draco’s stomach to toy with his belt. His hand goes to hers in a flash, gripping her fingers hard as he continues to kiss Blaise.
“Cheating,” she whispers, leaning forward to suck on that place just behind Draco’s ear that always makes him moan. She smiles against his skin as she hears the sound she wanted dragged from his throat, his hand tightening around her fingers again. “You’re hurting me,” she whispers, dragging her lips up and down the column of his throat, and earns her release instantly. She feels Blaise’s whispers and strangled gasps against her back, and the way that Draco’s hand trembles every once in a while. She does her best to make him whimper--taking his earlobe gently between her teeth and tugging, pressing kisses against his jaw line and whispering obscenities into his ear.
She smiles at him when he breaks away from Blaise to glare down at her, his eyes like burning coals in his pale face. “Dammit,” he hisses. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Mmm,” she purrs, pressing a soft open-mouthed kiss to his chin. “I know. Isn’t it fun?”
“Fun,” he echoes, his voice holding an edge of frustrated desire. “I’ve waited all day for this.”
She slips one finger between his pants and his skin, running her finger back and forth and drawing a gasp from his throat. “You’ve been awfully good today, then haven’t you? I do think you should be rewarded for that.”
She watches in pleasure as his throat bobs for a moment. “Rewarded?”
“Mmm, yes. Don’t you think so, Blaise?”
“I do.” His voice rumbles at her back, and she leans against him, staring steadily at Draco. She knows what kind of picture she and Blaise make together--she is slight and dainty with wild hair of an indiscriminate brown, her eyes a warm hazel. She is normal, and Blaise is erotically exotic. He has a woman’s mouth--the bottom lip just a little fuller than the top. It always makes him seem as though he is pouting, and Hermione has often had to restrain herself in class from nipping at that full lower lip. His eyes are a golden color that is offset by his perpetually tanned skin and his mink black hair. His face is all beautiful angles and hollows, the cheekbones high and aristocratic, the eyes intense and sharp. Sometimes she wonders what they see in her--they are both beautiful pureblooded Slytherins, and she is just one of “Potter’s groupies.” And a Muggleborn, to boot. But she has never seen a hint of derision from them since they have been together, and she is pathetically grateful. She is not sure that she could give them up and the pleasure they can give her, and she is grateful that she doesn’t have to make the choice between their bodies and her self-respect.
Draco licks his lips--almost nervously, she notes. She waits, feeling Blaise’s hand warm and steady on her stomach, holding her to him. She itches to have Blaise move his hand lower or higher, but holds herself still, waiting for Draco’s request.
“I want to be between you,” he says softly, and she is surprised. She somehow senses that Blaise is as well. Neither of them quite know what to do with this Draco, who is so very concerned with asking for something that they will both give more than willingly. Hermione leans forward and presses a soft, undemanding kiss to Draco’s mouth.
“Whatever you want, love,” she whispers, and feels his quick breath of relief. Then he draws back and smiles at her cockily--the Malfoy that she’s used to.
“You’re so very acquiescent,” he says, but there is more of a tease than real venom in his voice, so she smiles back at him and licks his upper lip.
She looks over her shoulder at Blaise, her eyes heavy. “Is this all right with you?” She always asks, even though she knows that Blaise has no problem with fucking Draco. Blaise has no problem with fucking anything--the man is so damn gorgeous that he’s fucked both men and women, and probably more of them than Hermione can guess. But as a true gentleman, he has never told her anything about any of his previous lovers, either male or female. She was surprised by that courtesy from him, and relieved. It meant that when their relationship ended--if it did--she would not just be another notch on a bedpost and a raunchy story told in a locker room.
He gives her a chiding smile. “You always ask these questions, ma petite etoile, even when you know the answer.”
She smiles wryly, a small flash of humor and companionship amidst the heat of the moment. She presses her mouth to Blaise’s in a kiss more about the tender feeling in her chest than the fire that burns just beneath her skin; he caresses her mouth with his in return, whispering endearments in French that she will never ask the meaning for. He could be cursing her, but she doesn’t care. The words are beautiful, the voice honey that slides over her skin and leaves fire in its wake. So she will never ask what they mean, because it is the words and the voice that seduce her, not their meaning.
Draco gently touches his hand to her face, and she looks at him. He presses his mouth to hers in a touch as gentle as Blaise’s. But there are no whispered French endearments from him, just the touch of skin to skin and mouth to mouth. “I want you naked,” Hermione whispers, and he tugs at his clothes anxiously, stretching his neck to keep his mouth on hers.
“Let me,” Blaise says, amusement and something darker in his voice. Hermione lifts her head long enough to see that Blaise has moved to kneel behind Draco and is running his hands slowly over Draco’s body before beginning to unbutton the expensive dress robes. Hermione runs her fingers through Draco’s hair, simply because she can. She has heard other girls whisper excitedly about what it would be like to snog Draco Malfoy--despite that he can be a git, no one denies that he has grown up to be handsome. As Draco’s hands touch her stomach and then trail up to cover her breasts possessively, her eyes fall closed and she smiles. Those other girls are fools, she thinks contentedly, arching into Draco’s hands.
He rubs slow, almost soothing circles on her breasts, skimming over her nipples time and time again until she wants to scream from frustration. She doesn’t realize that she whimpers, her hands rising to clasp Draco’s wrists in protest. She moans his name, her legs trembling beneath her.
“Yes, baby,” he whispers, his eyes glittering. “Tremble for me.” Even as he speaks, provokes her desire, he is arching beneath Blaise’s hands as Blaise slips his robes off his shoulders and caresses bare, heated skin.
Hermione presses close to Draco and reaches around him to slip her fingers into the knot of Blaise’s tie. He smiles roguishly at her and leans closer, as though he is a very large, dangerous cat that is allowing her to pet him. She smiles back at him and yanks his face close to hers to crush her mouth against his.
***
To his surprise, she hasn’t gone far before he catches up with her. When he sees her hunched shoulders, he stops dead. He has a moment of panic to wonder if she’s crying and consider retreating before she whirls to face him. He is almost dizzy with relief when her eyes are dry, although her whole stance screams that she would love nothing better than to hex him. “What do you want?” she spits, and he almost has to admire her. She is nothing more than a little Hufflepuff, but her eyes flash fire and her hands are fisted.
“I want to know if you love me,” he states baldly, having already considered his options. He knows that she will perhaps respond best to blunt honesty--something he is unused to--having been trained to resist manipulation in Auror training.
When she flinches at his statement, he feels his stomach start to sink. Merlin’s balls, he thinks in horror. She does.
The horrified notion that someone loves him is enough to make him forget years of discipline as he blurts out, “Why the hell would you love me?”
She glares up at him out of eyes that are swirling different colors, as if she can’t decide what person she wants to be. “I don’t,” she spits, turning on her heel and hurrying away. Before he can process this startling chain of events, out of the corner of his eye he sees it. Oh, damn. He tries walking swiftly away, but the damned plant just follows him, looking so innocent and festive even though he knows that it’s powered by the machinations of a very old, meddling man. Snape vows that if he reaches that age he will resist the urge to meddle with others, as it is obviously a trait that anyone over sixty shares.
He doesn’t realize that he’s followed her until she drills him in the chest with one slender, graceful hand that’s at odds with the rest of her personality. “Why are you following me?” she snarls. “I don’t love you, Severus Snape! You wish.”
He can’t prevent the snort of derision at that, and barely has time to draw his own wand as she draws hers. They face each other over drawn wands, and Snape can see that she has a wild, desperate look in her eyes as she stares at him. “I don’t love you,” she says desperately, and the mistletoe that’s hovering between them gives a little wriggle as if to wag a finger at her lie.
She snarls up at it. “Why is this thing following me?” she rages, pointing her wand at it. It darts behind Severus, and he swats it away with a snarl to equal Tonks’s.
It (somehow) manages to project insult, even as it dutifully hovers between them. “I daresay that it wants you to kiss,” Dumbledore says pleasantly. Both Snape and Tonks whirl, the shocked looks on their faces making it obvious that they hadn’t heard him approach.
“Well, it’s going to disappointed,” Tonks snaps, then blushes, lowering her wand. “Sorry, sir,” she mumbles, but Dumbledore merely offers her a smile.
“As unfortunate as the thought is, I must agree with--her. I am not going to kiss anyone, let alone her.”
“What does that mean?” She looks genuinely offended as she takes a quick step forward, her wand raising again. He snaps his up again, eyeing her warily. He has never been around many women, especially not women whose attraction he has called into question. He’s not quite sure what tortures she is imagining for him, but from the light in her eyes it is obvious that she’s imagining some sort. He has to resist the urge to cross his legs.
“Now, Nymphadora, Severus. I do not think that this mistletoe is a bad thing--perhaps there are things that you have neglected to say to one another before this.”
“Not hardly,” Severus says in a baffled tone. He nearly growls when he suddenly notices that Tonks’s cheeks are flushed in a very becoming way, and that her breath is heaving from her lips.
“With all due respect, sir, there is nothing I have to say to him,” Tonks spits, trying and failing to keep her voice civil.
Dumbledore shakes his head sadly. “I am afraid that the enchantment on the mistletoe will not fade until you have kissed one another, my friends.”
“Over my dead body,” Tonks grits out. “Sir.”
Snape is almost positive that he hears Dumbledore choke back a laugh. “Yes, well. That is for you both to come to terms with. I wish you both good luck with your quandary.” Then he is striding away down the hall, and Snape sees the old bastard’s shoulders shaking with laughter as he goes.
He stares at her for a long moment, then curls his lip. “I am not going to kiss you.”
She sneers at him in an expression so reminiscent of his own that he is momentarily taken aback. “As if I’d let you, you toad.”
“Very well,” he snaps. “Then how are we going to get away from this damned plant?”
The mistletoe wiggles again, as if in affront.
“I think we should just walk away,” Tonks says coolly. “It can’t exactly follow us both.”
Snape wonders why the hell he didn’t think of it himself, and is irritated that she did. His voice comes out curt. “Very well.” He turns on his heel without another word and starts to stride toward his dungeon. He doesn’t get more than three feet before he comes up against something very solid and unmoving. He halts, his eyes narrowing and his heart slamming with something uncomfortably close to fear. Apparently the mistletoe has another enchantment on it, one that dear Dumbledore forgot to mention.
He slowly turns, and sees that Tonks has stopped as well, no more than a few feet from where she had stood. She turns to look at him, and the same dread is on her face as it is on his. They cannot move away from one another until they satisfy the mistletoe’s requirement--a kiss.
***
Even as Blaise’s tongue is in her mouth, Draco’s teeth nibble sharply at the delicate skin of her shoulder, making her shudder and whimper. Draco cups her breast in one hand and rubs his callused thumb over the nipple. Her fingers tighten on Blaise’s tie as she makes small incoherent sounds in her throat and presses against Draco desperately. The heat crawling beneath her skin makes it itch, and she is trembling wildly. Her hands go to Draco’s belt and fumble with the clasp, then rip it away. Her hands are shaking too badly to unbutton his trousers, but she nearly whimpers when Draco withdraws his hand from her breast.
“Draco--”
“Shh.” His hands fall to her hips and test the flesh there, first tightening as to leave bruises and then caressing the small wounds. Blaise leans close against Draco’s back again, his eyes on her flushed face. “I feel a little left out,” he whispers, his voice huskier than normal.
Hermione reaches for him blindly, her hand knocking against his jaw as her fingertips skim his mouth. He touches her skin with his tongue, then his hands are catching hers and leading them to his tie. Hermione peels her eyes open to look at him in a haze, and she fumbles at his tie, nearly desperate to have bare skin against hers. Although Blaise has been tortuously undressing Draco, they are both still clothed even though she is bare to the waist. Feeling Draco’s clothes slide over the delicate skin of her breasts makes her shake, but she wants to feel his skin on hers more than anything.
She tugs at Blaise’s shirt, her teeth bared and her skin hot. She pulls on it again, then takes a handful of it and rips viciously. The sound of buttons hitting the dirt floor and cloth tearing is unbelievably arousing, and seeing Blaise’s eyes dilate is enough to make her whisper something incoherent, even to herself. She doesn’t realize that Draco has slipped from between them until she feels his warmth at her back, and his fingers drawing taunting circles on her stomach. Hermione leans forward and licks a line of heat up Blaise’s throat, and his hands encircle her throat, his thumbs tilting her chin up as he presses his mouth to hers aggressively, fucking her mouth with his tongue.
She can’t breathe--the air has suddenly become heavy and hot, pressing on her chest and clinging to her body. The ruined dress still clings perilously to her hips, but she can feel it begin to slip as Draco’s hands slide to her lower belly. She tears her mouth from Blaise’s, panting.
“Blaise--I can’t breathe,” she gasps, pressing a hand against his chest to make him see that she is truly in distress. Her gaze falls on the door, and she sees the beginnings of snow outside through the foggy glass.
Then Blaise’s hands are in her hair, stroking it away from her face. Draco’s hands have fallen away from her, and part of her wishes that he would have continued and just let her smother from the heat and the pleasure; but the rest of her is much more concerned with catching her breath.
“Lie down,” Draco says softly, and then his hands are back, gently lowering her to the ground so that she can lie on her back. She gulps the air, feeling a little dizzy. It is almost unbearably hot inside, and she closes her eyes so that things do not swim quite so quickly before her vision. She feels their hands on her--soothing and comforting where they were hard and demanding just moments before.
She opens her eyes cautiously to see that they are both leaning over her. Blaise is stripped to the waist, and Draco’s shirt has slipped off one shoulder and there is a rising red mark on his throat. She doesn’t remember marking him, but there it is, a bright spot of possession on his skin. She doesn’t have to look at herself to know that they have marked her as well--they always do. She can feel those places glow with heat on her body, warming her.
As she catches her breath, Blaise looks at Draco and leans across her inert body to kiss him. She stares up at them in dreamy fascination. No matter how many times she sees them together, they are still beautiful, and they can still arouse her without even a touch. They are both so beautiful to her, although she has heard Draco sneered at for his thin face and Blaise for that mouth that she always wants. But they are such a study in contrasts, and she loves them both. She inevitably sobs the words each time that they fuck, but she has never said it when her mind is clear. But then, neither have they.
***
“This is all your fault.” Snape’s voice is more petulant and less mature than he would like, but the sentiment is completely genuine.
“My fault? Why is this my fault?”
“Because you’re--emotional.”
He never knew that a small woman could look so intimidating when she barely topped five feet in her present manifestation. “I am not emotional,” she snarls, and he warily eyes her as his fingers touch his wand. She sees the movement and snaps, “I’m not going to hex you, you bully.”
“Bully?” He can’t stop the word before it comes out, and furiously thinks that that has become a pattern tonight--all of his hard-won control has deserted him and it’s all her fault.
“Yes,” she says sulkily, flopping back into a seat. “I’ve seen you bully your students.”
“I do not bully, Miss Tonks--”
“Just Tonks, okay? We’ve both been in the Order long enough for you to drop the ‘miss,’ and although it may have escaped your notice, I’ve been a professor here for several months now.”
“Trust me, I’ve noticed,” he sneers, and watches her bristle again.
“You are the most odious man!” She nearly trips as she rises in a rush to pace the room. They have taken refuge in a classroom and locked the mistletoe out--apparently as long as they do not try to move away from each other, they are allowed to move. Snape has been cursing Dumbledore’s name for several minutes now, and intends on continuing in the hopes that some higher power will take pity on him and actually punish Dumbledore for his meddling ways.
“Yes, I have been told that.” His voice isn’t as icy as he would prefer--instead it is filled with a sharp sense of humor. He has never been called funny, and he never will be--his sense of humor is all razors and sharp angles, and rarely amusing to anyone other than himself.
“Well obviously it hasn’t sunk in!” she flings at him, still pacing the room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Snape watches her pace, noting that she has abandoned her pink hair for the night and now has long black hair that curls softly at the ends, and pale blue eyes that look faintly familiar. He wonders if this is her true face that she passes off as another one of her masks so that no one will ever realize that this is who she truly is. He has worn many masks in his lifetime, and he feels an unexpected and unsettling sympathy for her.
“Is that your real face?” he asks her abruptly, and she halts, blinking rapidly at him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” he says steadily, his small black eyes on her face.
She straightens her spine, but he sees a flicker in her eyes. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“Why do you hide what you are?”
“Why do you?” she flings back, her body trembling with real anger now. “You have no business trying to pry into my head, Snape!”
“Ah, it’s Snape now, is it?” He rises slowly, so slowly that he knows it manages to convey menace. She stands her ground, her jaw locked stubbornly. “Earlier I was Severus.” It gives him a small amount of pleasure to see the trepidation in her eyes--he is still a Slytherin, after all. Years of espionage have only sharpened his sense of cruelty.
“Earlier I thought you might be hiding a decent human being beneath your black robes, but obviously I was wrong!”
“So you’ve been thinking about what’s under my robes?”
“No!” Her horrified gasp stops him in his tracks, and he stops to scowl at her.
“Why the hell not? I thought you loved me.”
“I do not love you! Why do you keep saying that?” She backs away from him, her fists clenched and trembling.
“Because the mistletoe only hovers over those in love, you empty headed twit,” he snaps, losing his patience for the game. “Now just spit it out and maybe we can both go back to our rooms and forget this stupid evening ever happened.”
“I don’t love you,” she says stubbornly. “The mistletoe is malfunctioning or something, because I don’t.”
“Albus obviously thinks differently,” he snaps, irked by her refusal to admit that she has some sort of fluffy feelings for him. Even as the thought makes him cringe, he can’t prevent the small and rather uncomfortable glow that they cause somewhere in his stomach.
“Fine! Fine, if it will let us get out of here!” She throws up her hands and looks him dead in the eye. “I love you. I have loved you for a long time, and it has brought me nothing but misery. Are you pleased now?” Her jaw is hard as stone, and her eyes have shuttered.
He merely blinks at her, surprised. “I--”
“Just don’t say anything,” she snaps, whirling on her heel. “I just want to go back to my room and forget this happened.” She whirls on her heel and strides toward the door. He doesn’t realize that he has instinctively taken a step toward her until he stubs his toe on one of the desks. As she flings open the door, the mistletoe swoops through the door triumphantly, bobbing as if in victory.
She sneers at the room in general, then steps out the door. Snape can still see her when she stops abruptly, and his heart sinks. Oh no. She steps back through the door, her eyes glittering and flashing. “It’s still in effect,” she says through gritted teeth. “Fuck.”
“Why don’t you just kiss me?” he asks reasonably--so reasonably that he even shocks himself. “Since you love me so much--”
She slaps him.
***
Feeling content and breathing more easily, Hermione watches her two men through half-closed eyes. Blaise’s fingers are threaded through Draco’s hair, and Draco whispers soft words against Blaise’s mouth. Unable to resist, she reaches up to stroke her hand down Draco’s arm as Blaise does, and their fingers tangle together. With her other hand, she reaches to Draco’s trousers and unbuttons them, her hands steadier than before. She slips her hand inside and runs her fingertips over Draco’s cock. His hips buck forward instinctively, and she laughs softly to herself in delight.
She wraps her fingers around him loosely before sliding her hand up to his tip and then back down to the base. His groan rumbles in his chest above her, and she makes the motion again just to hear the sound. One of Blaise’s hands caresses her back as she sits up to make herself more comfortable, and she shivers at his touch. She peels Draco’s trousers down and leans forward to touch her tongue to his cock. He makes a little whimper, and she slowly slides her mouth down over him, her tongue caressing the big vein that makes him babble something that she doesn’t hear.
She feels Blaise’s hands slip the dress off her, and then his hands are thereohgodrightthere and Draco’s cock slips out of her mouth as she arches back against Blaise with a strangled sob. Her hands flutter for an instant, looking for something to cling to, until Draco is there, and she is sinking her nails into his shoulders as he presses his mouth to hers. She is sobbing out uneven breaths as Blaise’s fingers tease her, his thumb rubbing her clit and his fingers making slow motions inside her that threaten to toss her over the edge.
Draco’s mouth is at her shoulder, delicately testing the strength of her frail collarbone, his hands going to her breasts to tease. She can’t help the fact that her cries have grown louder and more desperate, or that she has drawn blood on Draco’s shoulder with her nails. She can feel the rush of heat and throbbing rushing through her, centering to where Blaise is touching her. She arches her hips toward his hand, her mouth open in a soundless cry of pleasure as the pressure rises, and then--he withdraws his hand.
She nearly collapses, her body screaming in frustration. “What are you doing?” she cries, shaking violently. “Blaise!”
His smile is a little strained. “I’m very close, Hermione.”
Her lip trembles although she tries to understand what he’s saying. Then Draco’s hands are pushing her on her back, and he is stripping off his trousers and then Blaise’s. The two men press against each other, two cocks rubbing together and making little sounds come from Blaise’s throat. Anxious, Hermione reaches up to run her fingers over Blaise’s cock, then tightens her hand around him and pumps once or twice. He tears his mouth from Draco’s with a strangled gasp and makes a whimpering sound that she has only heard from him when they are together.
“Now,” Draco whispers, his eyes lighting. Blaise grabs his wand and whispers something, and Draco gasps. Hermione’s hands reach up and touch his arse, slipping one finger into him. She can feel the wetness that is the lube on her fingers, and then Blaise is there, his hand rubbing against hers as he presses his fingers into Draco’s arse beside hers.
Draco is making that high whine that says he is close, and he whimpers, “Merlin--both of you--”
Blaise leans over to whisper in Draco’s ear, “Fuck her, Draco.”
Without another word, Draco moves forward between Hermione’s legs and slides into her to the hilt. Her hips tilt up to his, arching her body as her eyes flutter shut. She presses her feet against the warm dirt, curling her toes into it as she presses up against Draco.
“Baby--baby, you feel so good,” Draco whispers, his eyes closed and his eyelids fluttering wildly. Then he gasps as Blaise presses into him slowly. “Relax,” Blaise whispers against the skin of Draco’s shoulder. Draco trembles, but then Blaise is in him, pressing him forward into Hermione. Draco falls forward, bracing his hands on the earth on either side of her head. She is breathing in short, sharp spurts, but she presses a sloppy kiss to his mouth.
Then Blaise is moving, making Draco’s hips move in and out of Hermione. She is whimpering, her hips pressing toward his anxiously. Draco is gritting his teeth, trying to hold on and savor the feeling of being consumed by his two lovers. Hermione’s fingers grip him so hard above the elbows that he’s sure she’ll leave bruises. She arches her head back, baring her throat, and grinds her hips against his, and watching her, feeling her, he comes. He thrusts into her wildly, that low whine in his throat and his eyes squeezed shut.
Blaise seems to take it as his cue, and he picks up his pace, slamming into Draco, rubbing over just that place, and then Draco is caught in a spiral of pleasure so intense that lights flash behind his dark eyelids, and he feels as though he comes for an eternity, hammering into Hermione’s wildly twisting and flushed body. She tightens around him with her own release, and Draco slumps over her in an ungainly sprawl as Blaise thrusts into him twice more before stiffening. Draco feels the rush of Blaise’s come in his arse, and then Blaise is withdrawing and flopping to the warm earth beside Hermione.
Then they simply breathe.
***
Snape has his wand drawn on her before she realizes it. “Step away from me,” he says coldly, his cheek stinging from where she had hit him. Hit him. No one ever dared to touch him, let alone strike him. It was mortifying that such a small creature had managed to catch him off guard.
Instead she crosses her arms across her chest and glares at him with venom flashing in her eyes. “How dare you,” she spits. “How dare you make what I said into some joke--”
“It wasn’t a joke,” he snaps. “I want to get out of here. Don’t you?”
“You were making fun of me.”
“I don’t give enough of a damn about you to make fun of you,” he says coldly, and has the pleasure of watching her flinch. Serves her right, he thinks vindictively. His cheek still throbs.
She lifts her head proudly. “You,” she says succinctly, “are very cruel.”
“If you ever thought differently, you were an ever bigger fool than I took you for,” he sneers, lowering his wand.
“Yes,” she says quietly, and there is a throb of pain there that he can’t ignore. “Yes, I suppose I was.” She barks out a harsh laugh. “Imagine that, thinking that cold Severus Snape might actually have a heart.”
He feels an odd twist in the region of the heart that he supposedly doesn’t have. “I have a heart,” he says defensively. “Just because I don’t give a damn about Saint Potter or any other Gryffindor--”
“Or anyone else,” she snaps, an odd wounded look in her eyes that somehow bothers him.
“Or anyone else,” he says calmly, his eyes on hers. “That does not mean I am heartless.”
“Who do you care about?” she throws out, her eyes glittering--whether from anger or tears he can’t tell. “Who loves you, Snape?”
That wounds, as perhaps she meant it to. Because there is no one who loves him. He thought he had made his peace with that old wound long ago, but the accusation in her gaze drags it all up again. The loneliness. The helplessness. The pain.
“I don’t need anyone to love me,” he snarls savagely. “I don’t fucking need anyone, you nosy bitch.”
He sweeps toward the door and comes up short as the invisible wall from the mistletoe springs up. Furious, he slams one of his hands against it in a gesture of rage and impotence. It is an oddly vulnerable and uncontrolled gesture, but he can’t help himself. He wants out of this room. She has called up too many bad memories that he does not want to think about, and he does not want to stay here with her confession still in the air. There are too many emotions in this room that he is not comfortable with, and he feels his chest tightening with one of the panic attacks that has not afflicted him since he was a small child.
Then he feels the soft brush of lips over his cheek, and he turns in surprise. She leans forward again and brushes her mouth over his in a kiss as soft as a whisper. He’s not even sure that he isn’t dreaming, because he is looking at a more delicate and soft version of the Andromeda that he knew over twenty years ago. There is the same dark chestnut hair, the same brilliant blue eyes, and the exact same mouth. Even her solemn expression is similar. She stares at him steadily, and then before his eyes her face shifts, becomes as unfamiliar as it is the same. When her features settle, she is the same pink-haired urchin as when she first joined the Order. She offers a small, silent nod and then she slips out the door and walks away down the corridor.
Snape blinks rapidly, then lets out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. He puts his wand away and then walks back to his dungeons. His new Potions text sits unopened on the table beside him as he stares broodingly into the fire in his grate, still seeing solemn blue eyes in his mind’s eye and feeling the whisper of her kiss.
***
They dress each other now, hands gentle as they smooth over rising bruises and bite marks and smile at one another. Draco mends Hermione’s dress with a murmured spell, then fastens it for her, kissing her bare shoulder before he covers it with the pale dress. Hermione slips Draco’s belt through the loops and presses a soft kiss to his bare chest. Draco leisurely kisses Blaise as he buttons Blaise’s shirt for him. Hermione touches them both, unable to stop herself. Draco links his fingers through hers, and Blaise slides his arm around her waist. They stand in silence for a moment, then Draco tugs his two lovers gently toward the door and opens it.
The blast of cold air is shocking, and clears the lazy fog of sated pleasure from their minds in an instant. The boys huddle closer to Hermione as they all step outside. Blaise turns momentarily to murmur a spell to close and lock the door behind them, then Hermione links her fingers with his and they all dash towards Hogwarts in silence.
Once they reach the castle, they slip down to the dungeons. Hermione waits patiently as Blaise whispers the password to the Slytherin common room, and then they sneak her through and up to their dormitory. Draco gives her a little shove, and she tumbles into his bed, giggling. They both crawl in after her, and close the curtains around them. Hermione feels happiness well up in her, and she mischievously tickles Blaise. He grunts, his body jerking in response before he gives her a sharp jab. “Stop it,” he mumbles as he gives a jaw-cracking yawn. “’M sleepy, love.”
“Poor baby,” she whispers, her eyes softening. She sees that Draco is already sprawled out, his eyes falling closed. She crawls over Blaise to lie between them and curls around Draco’s back, feeling Blaise curl around hers. Now that she is cocooned between the two of them, she can feel the drag of sated weariness, and she lets her eyes flutter closed. The dress isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, and she sleepily thinks that she should get up and remove it. But before she can, she is asleep.
The dormitory remains silent except for the sounds of the other two boys as they slip into bed later, yawning and mumbling to each other. The room falls silent again after that, and in Draco’s bed behind the closed curtains Blaise’s leg is thrown over Hermione and part of Draco; Hermione has one arm curled around Draco’s chest, and Blaise’s face is buried at Hermione’s neck. When the morning comes, just before Hermione wakes, she murmurs the three small words that she has never spoken to them. I love you.
Blaise's arms tighten around her waist, and he presses a soft kiss to her hair in response.
The End
71. Name/Pen Name: Emmy
Pairing of the fic you want: Either Hermione/Draco or Draco/Hermione/Blaise
Rating(s) of the fic you want: R or NC-17, but I'm always partial to smut. ;)
3 - 5 Things you want your gift to include:
1) A Christmas Ball/Dance
2) An established relationship.
3) Enchanted Mistletoe, (where the mistletoe only hovers above people who are in love/in a relationship).
4) Professor Snape and another Professor ... a new/OC one if you must ... being hounded by the mistletoe all night.
What you don’t want your gift to include: Harry and/or Ron bashing. Hermione-Sue.