FIC: A Slytherin Gathers His Rosebuds (NC-17)
Title: A Slytherin Gathers His Rosebuds
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: Four
Pairing: Severus Snape/Minerva McGonagall
Author: kellychambliss
Beta(s): The best beta of all time - thank you!
Rating: NC-17
Click to View [Warning(s)]Mild bdsm.
Note(s): Several lines of this story are taken directly from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Thank you, iulia_linnea, for giving us snapecase once again.
Summary: When Harry and Ron crash their flying car into the Whomping Willow, Snape is out in the Hogwarts grounds instead of attending the Opening Feast. Here's why - and what may have happened after.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;**
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying."
-Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time" (1648)
**Or maybe it's a Ford Anglia
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Fuck me," said Severus Snape.
He'd just Apparated from the Hog's Head tavern to the gates of Hogwarts, and he was late for the Opening Feast. The damned thing would have started already.
Hurrying along the path, Severus knew he couldn't even offer a good excuse. He'd gone to the Hog's Head for one last afternoon of freedom before the start of his prison sentence the academic term, but between his firewhisky (the only way to get through the Feast) and the Evening Prophet (a ridiculous story about Muggles seeing a flying Ford Anglia), he'd lost track of time.
For some reason, the flying car story had reminded him (as if he ever really needed reminding) of the sickening fact that Voldemort appeared poised to return. The Dark Lord's previous tenure had been marked by similar inexplicable events - things that seemed foolish on the surface but that that portended horrors beneath, and Severus could only imagine how bad things would become once Voldemort was actually back.
He'd sat at the Hog's Head downing firewhisky and indulging himself in his two favourite fantasies: alternately wishing that he had the power to assert himself for once and just say "no" to Albus and Voldemort and all their machinations - or wishing that he could simply give his problems to someone else and let them deal with all the shit.
In the short term, he'd even settle for just a quiet evening to himself, but instead, he had. . .the fucking Opening Feast.
And now he was late. No doubt Minerva was at this very moment smirking an annoyingly-smug smirk at his empty chair.
Well, if she thought she'd have the upper hand now, she had another think coming. He was not going to let her win again. She'd claimed victory last spring, after Dumbledore unconscionably stole the House Cup from Slytherin in favor of - big surprise - Gryffindor, and he still needed to pay her back for that one.
Starting tonight.
Severus clenched his teeth and lengthened his stride. He hadn't spent all these blasted years at Voldemort's and Dumbledore's beck and call without becoming an accomplished liar. He'd just tell Minerva -
But before he could even start shaping his story, a godawful racket filled the air. The Whomping Willow was twisting and flailing, pounding something that gave metallic shrieks as it was hit. Severus could hear faint voices shouting.
He took off at a run toward the tree, but he wasn't even halfway there when with a roar, the very Ford Anglia he'd seen in the Prophet was backing out from under the tree's limbs. As soon as it was clear, it slammed to a halt and seemed to be flinging things - people, trunks, owls - out of its doors and boot. Then with a final rev of its engine, it drove off into the forest, leaving its former passengers staggering in the grass.
Severus slowed to a stop as he saw who those passengers were.
Harry Fucking Potter. And Weasley the Gormless. Of course.
The fools, the fools! Muggles had seen their absurd car.
And they could have been killed. Severus considered them two of the most useless wankers in the school, but he didn't want them dead.
Usually.
Amazingly, they seemed unhurt as they dragged their trunks behind them and slowly headed towards Hogwarts. Severus followed noiselessly. What the hell were they up to?
"Where's Snape?" he heard Potter say as he and Weasley peered through the windows into the Great Hall.
"Maybe he's ill!" Weasley sounded pleased.
"Maybe he's left because he missed out on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again," Potter offered viciously.
"Or he might have been sacked! I mean, everyone hates him - "
This was enough. More than enough. Severus stepped forward.
"Or maybe," he said in his deadliest voice, grateful to whatever gods or demons were offering him this priceless opportunity, "he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train."
The shock on their faces was the sort of sight that people called on to help cast their patronuses - the happiest of memories.
"Follow me," he ordered and stalked ahead of them so that they couldn't see the jubilation spreading across his face.
"Got you, Minerva," he mouthed silently.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Severus stashed the boys in his dungeon office. He didn't light a fire; it wouldn't hurt the cretins to be a little cold and hungry for a while.
Then he set off for the Great Hall, where the Opening Feast was still raging. With luck, he'd missed the speeches and the song.
He paused in the staff doorway near the high table, relishing the moment. It was always deeply satisfying to beat Minerva at their little game. And to do it because of the bad behaviour of her favourite golden boy. . .
Well. Even a life as miserable as Severus Snape's could sometimes be sweet.
Minerva watched as he approached; her expression reminded him of nothing so much as a triumphant cat about to eviscerate her prey. Poor thing, she still thought that his absence from the Feast made her tonight's victor.
How Severus looked forward to disabusing her of this pitiful notion.
When he reached the table, he saw that a copy of the Evening Prophet was folded next to Minerva's plate. Perfect. It was exactly the opening he needed.
"I see you've read about the flying car," he said, indicating the paper.
"Of course," she replied. "But it didn't keep me from attending the Opening Feast as per my contractual obligation." She smirked. Smugly. "Unlike some I might name."
"Harry Potter, for instance?" Severus said, as coolly as he could, given the hot sense of mastery surging through his chest. And other places. "Or perhaps Ronald Weasley?"
She looked away to scan the Gryffindor table. The smirk slid from her face as she realised the boys weren't there; when she turned back, she was frowning, her eyes full of questions and suspicions.
Severus let her wonder for a beat, then said, "That car may have been enchanted, but it didn't fly itself. It had pilots. Two of them."
He watched with mordant glee as her face slowly changed, her questions replaced by a dawning understanding of what must have happened. . .and what it meant to their game.
Severus had won.
The thought of this moment would keep him warm on many a cold night to come.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Minerva was silent as they walked to the dungeon. After being assured that her little darlings were unharmed, she said not another word, merely stalked beside Severus, easily keeping up with his swift pace.
He, however, found himself feeling positively chatty, and he regaled her with the tale of the illegal car, the damage to the Whomping Willow, and the insufferable rudeness of her precious Gryffindors.
Still Minerva said nothing, though her mouth grew thinner with the rage that radiated like from her body like heat. . .or maybe the heat was not rage alone.
They reached the door of his office, but before Minerva could enter, Severus reached out to grab her wrist, holding it tightly.
"Ten o'clock," he said. "Green and silver."
Tightening her already-furious lips, she pulled sharply away and marched into the office. Her first act was to light the fire (as Severus had known she would; she was so predictable in her softness toward her students). Yet he was glad to see that Potter and Weasley flinched as she raised her wand; it was always a relief to realise that Minerva understood the value of instilling healthy student fear.
"Sit," she barked at her charges. "Explain."
Severus stood at the door, glowering as menacingly as he could, while all the while, inside, he was grinning.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
By ten minutes to ten, everything was ready, and Severus sat down in front of his fireplace, a glass of Ogden's in his hand.
A double dram sat waiting for Minerva as well. It was part of their ritual to begin their game with some alcoholic lubrication. Severus would admit - though only to himself - that when they'd first started to play, he'd required the Ogden's for his nerves.
No longer. Now it was just part of the pleasure, one of the few he had in his pathetic life. That this already-sad life was about to get much worse, Severus did not doubt. Voldemort was coming back; Potter's experiences last year in the forest were proof of that. It was only a matter of time now.
So as the poet said, Severus had to gather his rosebuds - or rather, his victories - while he might. For tomorrow he would no doubt be dying.
He and Minerva had been playing their game since not long after her husband had died in a freak accident with a venomous tentacula. Callow and self-absorbed though he had been then, even Severus had noticed the change in Minerva after that death. She'd always been waspish (often wittily so) and outspoken, but after she lost Elphinstone, she became bolder, more reckless.
As if she had little left to lose.
It was a feeling that Severus well understood. Ridiculously young as he'd been, he was laid low by grief, too, and what the hell mattered after that?
Their game had grown slowly. A suggestive comment here, an innuendo there, usually after a drink or two at staff gatherings - they were always subtly upping the sexual ante, until one time, as the Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch match approached, Severus had only half-jokingly said to Minerva that the loser should show up at the winner's quarters prepared offer "bodily expiation at the winner's discretion."
He was not really surprised when, after Slytherin had wiped the floor with Gryffindor, Minerva had knocked on his door.
The rest, as they say, was history.
Over the years, they'd expanded the stakes from Quidditch to the House Cup and then to any House-related event that gave one of them an edge over the other.
Such as two Gryffindor morons flying a stolen car to Hogwarts.
Severus savoured his final sip of firewhisky and poured another finger. One minute till ten o'clock. Thirty seconds. . .
Minerva's knock, as always, was firm and crisp. Soon she was standing in front of him, her eyes lowered, her arms held behind her back, waiting for his commands. He obliged.
"Robes off," he said. "Hair down."
She wore ordinary teaching robes. No one - except maybe Mad-Eye Moody, if that arse-wipe had been around - who'd seen her in the corridor would have guessed that underneath, she was dressed in a green-and-silver striped corset, her legs encased in sheer black stockings, her feet in high-heeled black pumps. The sight of her tightly-laced cleavage sent Severus's cock soaring, even before she Summoned her hairpins to release her swirl of black hair. The long ends of it curved over her chest to brush the Slytherin-coloured silk.
Struggling to maintain what he hoped was an expression of sardonic cool, Severus sent her glass of whisky floating over to her.
"Sit," he said, knowing she would hear the echo of the order she'd given to Potter and Weasley just a few hours before.
She sat, her back ramrod-straight, her calves sharply defined by the high shoes. Severus's cock twitched.
"Drink," he added, for such were their rules that the evening's sub would do nothing without permission. She swallowed and closed her eyes briefly.
Severus intended to say something witty and cutting about Gryffindors who were too ignorant know what happened to people who flew too close to the sun - or in this case, too close to a Whomping Willow - but the thought of Voldemort's return came back to him like a Dementor's shadow, and he no longer felt like joking.
Instead, he asked, "What's the news about the Dark Lord's reappearance?"
Minerva took a deep breath, her breasts rising invitingly. "Albus has been sounding out his contacts," she said, "but they all swear they know nothing. He thinks they're lying."
"Hmmm. It probably means You-Know-Who is planning something," Severus said. He waved at her drink, and she took another, rather large, sip.
"We always knew it would happen," he went on, trying futilely to convince himself that they were prepared. "Well, the Order did, anyway."
She moved her hand, and Severus nodded. "You may speak," he said.
"Last year. He came here - back to the school. You-Know-Who did, that is. He endangered the children. That's what keeps me awake at night, Severus."
He raised his eyebrow, and she hastily amended, "I mean, Professor Snape, sir."
But he had heard the fear in her voice, the same fear he'd felt earlier in the Hog's Head.
Suddenly he was angry at himself. He should never have introduced this topic, however much it was on his mind. Fear was not what their game was supposed to be about.
Though they'd never spoken of it, he knew that Minerva played for many of the same reasons he did (aside from some pretty damned good sex): to have a safe place to set aside their stresses and anxieties, to be able to forget about their responsibilities (and in his case, his guilt) and worry about nothing other than pleasing their temporary master or mistress. Or sometimes to have the chance finally to be the one in control, instead of at the mercy of the Albuses and Voldemorts of the world.
Their game was supposed to free them, however briefly, and here he was, trapping them both in the very things they so needed to leave behind.
Some of the gratification he'd felt in winning tonight drained away.
Time to move on. Setting down his glass, Severus moved to Minerva and gestured to her to stand. He let his hands rove through her hair and over her silk-clad body; he pressed his erection against her and watched as her respiration increased.
Then, so suddenly that she would not have been expecting it, he pushed her to her knees, intending to sheathe his cock in her warm mouth.
But it felt wrong somehow.
"This isn't what I want," he said flatly, drawing Minerva to her feet again.
"Then tell me what you do want," she said, unable to keep an edge of exasperation from her voice. She paused just a bit too long before adding, "Professor Snape, sir."
Even an instant earlier, he himself hadn't quite known what he wanted.
But he knew now.
He wanted - he needed - both the fantasies he'd had earlier in the Hog's Head. Control and not-control.
With a wave of his wand, Severus muttered quickly, "Incarcerous, nudus," so that before she knew it, Minerva was lying naked on his bed, her wrists attached to the posts with green and silver cords.
Severus smirked. Smugly.
This wasn't quite the same as being able to tell Albus or Voldemort to fuck off, but it was a power vastly satisfying in its own right.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded. So ready was Severus himself that he didn't take her to task for leaving off the "sir" but merely climbed onto the bed and lowered himself atop her.
He moved slowly at first and then faster; she arched eagerly to meet him, breathing with soft, ragged moans.
It felt sublime, and Severus had to discipline himself strongly to be able to pull out before either of them was finished.
But he managed, for this was all part of his new plan. Minerva gave a small shiver of disappointment as he withdrew.
He couldn't resist smirking again. "Want it, do you? Well, it's what I want that counts tonight, isn't it?"
Flicking his wand to reverse his previous spells, Severus reclothed Minerva in her Slytherin corset and stockings and released her from the cords.
"Stand up," he ordered.
She obeyed without comment, and when she was on her feet, Severus took her in his arms and kissed her. He could feel her stiffen with surprise; such tenderness was not usually part of the game for either of them.
But this night was not "usual": he'd upset the balance of things when he'd stupidly brought reality in, and now the only way he could push it out again was by changing the rules. . .and then by letting go and putting the decisions into someone else's hands.
He was not displeased when Minerva kissed him back, but now he was ready for his second fantasy. He'd had control; now he would give it up.
Stepping away, he removed his robes and boots to stand naked before her.
"Incarcerous," he said again, but this time, it was he who was flat on his back, his wrists tied to the bed.
The tight cords felt, not like bonds, but like a lifeline.
Minerva stood before him, her hair tumbled, her breasts still hugged by silver and green, and Severus felt his cock return to full life.
Screwing up his concentration, he used wandless magic to open the drawer of the bedside table.
When Minerva looked at him questioningly, he stared at her, then closed his eyes and deliberately turned his head.
There was a silence as he waited for her to work out his meaning - that he was no longer giving orders; he was ceding that position to her.
He heard her step over to the drawer. When he caught the thwack of a solid object hitting her palm, he nearly smiled. She'd got the message.
She had taken charge.
But - and this was the important point - he was still the winner.
"So, Severus," she said, all trace of "Professor Snape, sir" erased from her tone.
He opened his eyes to see that she'd changed her corset colours to red and gold and was tapping her hand with the item he'd wanted her to find: a dildo, one they'd used effectively before.
She leant forward to draw the tip of it down his stomach.
"Tell me," she said. "Tell me what I am about to do."
He shivered in anticipation, and let the real world fall away.
"Fuck me," said Severus Snape.