Chapter Text
"I want to watch you cast," Severus said when she arrived in his office on Saturday afternoon.
He hadn't exactly welcomed her, but he had been expecting her. He wore his accustomed suit, and Hermione had worn a skirt and blouse, unsure of his plans.
"What?" she asked.
"Spellcasting. Magic. The thing you ostensibly studied whilst in the care of this institution."
Hermione tossed him a glare, placing her bag on his desk. "I've heard of it."
"I wasn't sure," he said.
"Wh - "
"Because if you do, then I will tie you up again, the way you liked it before," he suggested. "Or not, as you prefer. I never leave you unsatisfied."
Severus was coming around the desk to her, and he was looking at her in that intense way that made her forget what she was about.
"No, I meant, 'why do you want me to?' Not 'why should I.' Obviously, I'd do it because I like playing with you. Er, however you'd say it. Not just the sex, which I love, but the part before and after the sex, I like role-playing, and teasing you, listening to you, and all of that." Hermione reached for his hand, but found that they were both held formally behind his back. "I was wondering why you…" she trailed off.
Then, she shook her head rapidly. "No, wait, don't tell me! I'm going to think it out myself. You… power! You want to see me cast because you find my magical strength attractive. Yes?" she smiled at him.
Severus's face had darkened. "Aren't you clever?"
Hermione looped her hand through his elbow. "Yes, I am, rather. And you can't make me feel badly by glaring."
"It used to work," he muttered.
"And my impertinence used to irritate you," Hermione said sweetly.
"God knows it still does," he grumbled. But his hand had come out from behind his back to rest over hers on his arm. It felt rough and warm, a contrast to her smooth skin.
"So where would you like to do it?" Hermione asked him.
He glanced at her, and she put her face into his shoulder. "The casting! Shall we go outside? Or the Room of Requirement," she muttered to his coat.
"You have no reason for being here, much less outside where everyone can see you."
"Room, then." Hermione dropped his arm so they could exit the office, and he held the door for her. "Where has everyone gone, anyway?" she asked. "I didn't see anyone last week-end, either."
"Most of the staff go home to visit family and friends at the end of term. They'll return when they remember that there was a reason they decided to move house and live away from their relations."
Hermione thought about this, and wondered where Snape might go. Did he have anywhere to go?
They proceeded without meeting anyone, and then performed the necessary steps to open the Room. Inside, they found only a blank room with stone walls and a cupboard in the corner. This was rather a surprise, since Hermione had thought the idea was eventual sex, and there seemed to be nowhere to … but then, she was to demonstrate her magic, wasn't she?
Severus stepped back, his arms spread expansively, as if to give her the room and all the possibilities it held.
"What should I... What kind of spell?" Hermione drew her wand and turned her back to her lover. He would want something combative, probably. But she had no opponent, and she didn't want to attack him (thus risking his ability to perform later). She felt a little silly.
But then a pair of hands came to rest on her shoulders, and a voice sneaked into her ear: "Show off for me, Hermione."
And the magic rose strong inside her core muscles, her viscera pulsing. Hermione raised her wand and pointed to the stone floor. "Pierliquesco." The flagstone first shivered, then began to soften under her magic.
Hermione began a chant, alternating the Stone Liquefying spell and a Freezing Charm to keep the material in place once raised, and she used her wand to draw the liquid stone out of the floor.
Under the sketching of her wand, the stone rose into tracery, a delicate pergola dome woven of the very rock of Hogwarts. She had to add more liquefied stone from other flagstones, adding a pleasing colour variation as the pillars grew taller, and she circled wider around the structure. Hermione hadn't noticed when his hands left her shoulders; the casting was complicated enough.
She changed to a Hardening Charm, once the stone tracery was as she wished it. The arbour was several feet across, and rose above her head now, and it was a complex and sustained bit of magic that required her intense focus on the exact form she wanted the stone to take, and it had consumed her for the better part of a half-hour.
Transfiguration complete, she wanted to show mastery of another field. She approached the base of one of the pillars and cast Orchideous Bougainvillea, conjuring a bougainvillea plant. Herbivicus made it grow quickly, and she repeated the procedure at two more points around the base of the pergola, coaxing her plants to rise around the structure. She added jasmine, then a layer of dirt and grass inside the pavilion. Then, she took down the ambient light in the room to cause the jasmine to bloom.
Transfiguration, Conjuration (a sub-specialty, but always impressive), Herbology, Charms… Hermione stepped carefully around her creation and cast wards against inimical visitors: Protego Inimicum and Salvio Hexia would demonstrate her ability in Defence.
Nothing much to be done about Runes or Arithmancy, but she used several balls of her favourite bluebell flames, Levitated above the pergola, to simulate the major stars and planets that would be visible that night. A blue-tinted map of the sky could check off Astronomy, at least. She sighed, tired and pleased with her work.
When she turned around, Hermione was surprised to find Snape watching absently. She waited for him to acknowledge her work.
After a few seconds, he said, "Oh, are you finished?"
Hermione's mouth opened involuntarily. "I - excuse me? Look what I've made! I demonstrated - "
"Exactly what I would expect from a successful Hogwarts education. It's quite adequate."
She stared at him. "The stars! Look, the stars are accurate!"
And then she heard herself. The best she could say about it was that the stars were accurate.
"I've no doubt they are," he replied. "You've ticked all the boxes. Your arbour is even a fair approximation of the Beauxbatons Revival style, which covers History of Magic."
At least he'd noticed that, she thought.
Hermione looked at her pergola. It was lovely, and she was still proud of it, but Snape had a point: it wasn't a challenge for her. She had chosen spells she knew she could complete successfully, and magic she (and many of her peers) had learned at school.
"I wanted to … I didn't want to disappoint you by failing, I suppose."
The fear that had kept her from opening her exam results, held her back from starting her life.
Severus looked down his proud nose at her. "This is not an exam, and you are no student. Surely there is something you want to try?"
He was giving her the chance to play with her magic, with no consequences for failure. No one to accuse her of being a know-it-all, a show-off.
No reason to pretend to be average.
Hermione brought to mind the many experiments she often pondered when she was alone. Then, she sent about two litres of water spouting from her wand onto the floor, capturing some in a divot on the stone. She Levitated the water and held it in the air, and then moved into the unknown.
There was no charm for shaping liquids in midair, or if there was, she didn't know about it. But she had been practicing wandless magic. Using her free hand, she began to magically shape the floating puddle.
At first, she put her hand through the water, or around it. Then, she was on the verge of feeling where the water was with her magic, but she lost focus on the Leviosa, and the puddle splashed to the floor.
She raised it again, and divided her concentration: some to keep the water floating, using her wand, and the majority on her wandless shaping of the liquid.
"But it won't stay … even if I… " she heard herself whispering. The puddle was slowly taking the shape of a sphere, and Hermione was able to manipulate it using her left hand to sketch the circle in midair. It formed a ball, then began to subside again. She reformed it. Sphere, then slipping back to puddle. But it kept floating, Hermione's concentration able to hold both ideas simultaneously.
Wandless magic would be impressive, but he would know that she'd practised it. This needed to be new, something he didn't know that she could do. That maybe she didn't know she could do.
As she watched the water slump out of its globe, Hermione remembered videos of liquid in space, aboard the International Space Station. The ISS had liquid in little -
The water hit the stone floor again. She'd lost her focus.
Now, she was angry. This was possible, and she knew it. She flexed her hand around her wand, gathered the water into the air again, and used a wandless Leviosa this time, which took more attention, but less executive function.
"Yes, now let yourself soar," he murmured from somewhere behind her.
Once it was floating, she shaped it roughly with a weak directed Ventus from her wand. But before it could subside, Hermione extended her wand and cast the Rotating Charm, pushing more power into it as the need to shape the water-ball receded. More, faster, and then she focussed on moving the axis of rotation at random.
The ball of water was floating, and she was using centripetal force to keep it in a sphere. From second to second, the water would begin to flatten, but by moving her wand, she could reorient the axis of rotation to counteract this, and the water gathered into a ball again.
She'd mastered two spells at once, wandless and wanded magic. The possibilities opened in front of her like a field of flowers.
Hermione was so focussed on this, and it took so much energy, that she completely forgot about where she was. So when a second puddle of water floated up from the floor, her attention failed and the water began to slow its rotation.
Severus was standing with her now, his brow tense in concentration, and she saw him muttering the same Rotating Charm. She trained her eyes on her own sphere and set it spinning again, then was splashed by Snape's puddle hitting the stone floor. She felt a bit of pride that he couldn't master it on the first try, either.
There was really only enough attentional energy for her own ball of water, but after a few bobs and dips of Snape's sphere, there were two orbs of water, side by side, spinning in the air. Hermione felt her heart flutter with pride.
She sent her sphere to float over the pergola, and then caused it to burst into a gentle rain over the grass and flowers. Behind her, she heard "Glacius" and then "Whittelum", and she looked up to see flakes of ice shaving off of the sphere over their heads, and a flurry of snow falling on them.
Hermione turned to look at the Potions master with surprise. "Who knew that you had such a romantic soul?" she asked in teasing wonder.
He glared. "Women like that sort of thing, don't they?" he accused.
"Yes," she said. "I do."
Uncertain, she stepped to meet him, toe to toe, then asked, "Well?"
Snape slowly moved to hold her hips, as though afraid that she might vanish. He pressed his palms hard against them, then continued to compress her body with his hands as he moved up her torso. He pulled her to him and pressed, as though he were trying to push her into his chest. Her ribs flexed with the force.
"The source of that power, and you come to me?" he asked.
"Yes," Hermione confirmed, understanding. "For something only you can give me."
His hands writhed over her back, one of them grasping the knot of hair at the back of her head and directing her mouth to his. He kissed her like he wanted to suck her magic out of her and into himself, and she relaxed into the fevered motion. After several seconds, and several opportunities to stop, Hermione realised that her man had settled in for some serious snogging.
And, contrary to her prior feelings on the matter, she was quite enjoying it.
When he took a breath, she met his eyes and asked, "Shall I show off a bit more?"
Severus pulled back from her and squinted suspiciously. "Somehow, I find myself apprehensive."
Hermione felt his hand leave her hair and trail down her waist. Bait, then patience. "Oh, I wouldn't want that," she said. "Never mind." And she reached up to kiss him again.
He returned the kiss, then paused and said, "What is it that you had in mind?"
Hermione gave him an arched brow, as if to say, 'Really?' She watched the thoughts go through Snape's mind, then he gripped his wand tightly and gave her a small nod.
She raised her wand, but so did he. Before his trust could vanish, she hit him with "Mobilicorpus!" Upright, his shoes dragging on the floor, he skated to one of the pillars of her pergola, his hands extending behind him to brace himself.
He was grimacing at her, but he hadn't stopped her yet, and that was what gave her the confidence to point her wand at his wrists and incant, "Incarcerous Bombyxa."
Silk ropes twined his wrists and the pillars, leaving his arms spread and wrists pinned to the two pillars on either side.
"Mmm, where to begin?" Hermione asked. "A buffet of Snape." Her eyes travelled his body eagerly, until she reached his face.
If she hadn't known him, Hermione thought she might not have seen anything amiss. A tensing of the jaw, she thought, causing the muscles to stand out. A very slight set of the brow, barely deepening the furrow there. His shoulders had risen, perhaps only by a half-centimetre.
But Hermione knew him now, and in his body, these responses were symptomatic of significant distress. The "Finite Incantatem" was out of her mouth without conscious thought, and the silk ropes vanished. Severus's arms snapped to his sides, and his shoulders dropped.
"I'm sorry. I should have asked," she said. "This is exactly like what you did with the portrait, and I went mental over it, and then I did it to you."
He nodded and stepped away from the pergola. He looked down at his wrists, then said simply, "I would prefer not."
"Then so would I," she said. If he wanted to tell her, he would. But this was one thing that she did not need to know. "Were you going to - let me? Without saying anything?"
"It would hardly have been attractive for me to begin begging for release," he remarked snidely.
"But - I mightn't have known - " and Hermione felt a moment of awareness of how harsh his world had been. "Well, I'm impressed by your fortitude, but I think I would prefer to be impressed by your anatomy. If you're still interested?"
Snape gave her another suspicious look, but his hands went to his collar.
"Deshabille," Hermione said, pointing her wand to her torso. Her clothing slid off of her and piled itself to one side.
"Show-off," Severus remarked. Hermione darted into the pavilion she had created and cast the Spongify on the stone-and-grass floor. She stood behind one of the plant-covered pillars, blocking her lover's view.
He craned his neck to see her, but then began circling the pavilion, still undressing. Hermione laughed, trying to hide each time his position changed, and her playfulness seemed to relax him. Peek, dart, crouch, tease. Soon, he was bare to the waist and struggling with his boots, balancing on one leg and still trying to catch a glimpse of his naked witch.
Snape lost patience and cast the same Undressing Charm (but wordlessly, of course, just to show her up). The next thing Hermione knew, a nude Hogwarts professor was in the pavilion with her, and just as she shrieked in happiness and tried to run out the other side, his well-muscled arms were around her waist and she was kicking at thin air.
"Taunt me all you like, little nymph, but Pan will extract his due," he growled into her neck.
Hermione writhed against him, enjoying the texture of hair against her back and a hot rigidity under her bottom. She fluttered her legs, simply to relish the feeling of being weightless in his arms. His thin hair brushed her shoulders, and Hermione found herself reaching behind her to pull his head into place for a kiss.
He placed her back on her feet and kissed her, and Hermione took his distraction as a chance to dart through the pergola supports and away, laughing. But before she could get more than a few steps away, Severus grabbed her wrist and hauled her back to him, wrapping his arms around his prize.
"All of that strength, wrapped in this body. Give it to me," he asked.
Collarbone to toes with him, Hermione lost herself in sensory pleasure. "Give me what only you can give," she said, echoing her earlier words.
Severus applied himself earnestly to familiarising himself with her curves, rubbing hard over her waist and hips. Hermione took hold of his shoulders and jumped, wrapping legs around his waist and trying to resume the previously-introduced snogging.
Hands reached under her bum, and Hermione could feel herself slowly sinking. She opened her eyes to find that her partner was braced against the pillar of the pergola and squatting. Impressive quads.
There was a bit of adjustment once they reached the soft grassy floor, and Hermione found herself sitting, legs still wrapped around him, on Severus's tailor-fashion lap. One hand around his neck, she leaned back to look at the shape their bodies made - a double lotus.
"You're beautiful," she said. "Look." With that, she manoeuvered his erection from under her bum to between her labia, and rocked forward.
She could watch him as she moved, and he stared at her, uncomfortable with meeting her gaze at first. But it was pleasing enough to see him examine her body, and the sensation of friction against the top of her inner labia was fascinating, the arousal coming from deep under her skin.
Soon, Severus slipped a hand from her back to her vulva and began to stimulate the tip of her clitoris, and he watched her for clues. Her breathing shortened, and her movements became faster, and soon the combination of emotion and friction sent her into orgasm, followed by his.
Sweaty, she crawled off his lap and lay down in the grass, looking up through the dome at her stars. He came to lie next to her, and their breathing synchronised and slowed.
"I haven't opened my N.E.W.T.s yet," she said eventually.
Snape's head rolled to the side to look at her, but he didn't respond.
"No one understands why I don't want to. It's easy for them; they assume I'll be perfect. But I won't, I wouldn't expect to be - I took eight!"
For a moment he didn't say anything. Then, the deep, sensuous voice next to her rumbled, "If you get an O, no one will notice, and if you don't, they'll wonder why."
"Exactly!" she yelped, relieved that he understood. "God, I'm such a twit." Hermione lay still, one hand over her face in embarrassment. But then, she felt a gentle tickling on the side of her finger.
He was touching her. On purpose.
"Don't open them, then," Severus said.
Hermione dropped the hand from her face. "What?"
"You can toss them in the fire if you like. If you change your mind, the records are at the Ministry."
All that work, and nothing to show for it? "No! I - " but she realised what he'd done, and then she Summoned her bag. Pulling the envelope out, she brushed a finger over the seal. For a moment, she considered asking him to look. Of course, he'd refuse.
Before she could think about it further, she cracked the wax and opened the envelope.
"E in Defence and Herbology. That's disappointing, but I suppose I'm not shocked," she said. "E in History of Magic, too. More E's than I'd hoped, but no A's, at least." She sighed in relief.
Hermione turned her head to look at the man lying next to her. "You'll do your eyes an injury, straining them like that," she said wryly.
"Hm? Are you reading something, Miss Granger? I hadn't noticed," he said, turning his eyes piously back to the flowers over their heads.
"Oh, were you interested in my scores?" Hermione asked, in the same mock-casual tone.
"What scores would those be? I cannot imagine how they would be of the slightest interest, but I can see I won't have a moment's peace until you've crowed them from the heights. Let's have it," he sighed.
This moment of playfulness was sweet and rare, and Hermione thought that she might be able to get away with it: she scooted over to her ex-professor and snuggled her body to his, draping her hand and her letter over his chest. He inhaled and tensed, but didn't shoo her.
Hermione held the parchment up.
"One, two, three, four, five O's. Yes, well, one can certainly understand your disappointment, Miss Granger. I'd be ashamed to show my face in public ever again."
Hermione turned her head and bit his shoulder, just hard enough to leave an indentation.
"And in Potions, too. I hear the teacher is a right villain."
"He rides me hard," Hermione quipped.
Snape huffed a laugh, then sobered. He grabbed the parchment from her hand and tossed it to the side. "You should be pleased, Hermione. Anyone would be proud of these marks."
They lay in silence for several minutes.
"Do you know, this really is quite an impressive bit of Transfiguration, this pavilion," he said.
Hermione's eyes widened in rage. After what he'd said, that it was 'adequate'? Her mouth fell open and she turned to glare at him. When she saw the spark of humour in his eyes, she growled and lunged for his wrists, pinning them to the grass and climbing on top of him.
"You - are - horrible!" she shouted. "You are a horrible man, and a surly git, and a brilliant lover! And you make my stomach hurt and my toes curl and my hair stand on end!"
He was smiling at her, though.
"Well, I certainly couldn't make your hair curl and your toes stand on end," he replied.
Hermione held one wrist down, and with the other hand, she slipped his re-hardening dick between her labia.
"Now, Granger, be reasonable. I am older than you, and I cannot be expected to - " Severus began.
"Then lie there and take it!" Hermione snapped, sinking down over him and drawing out a sigh of pleasure from both of them.
"Oh, very well, if it pleases you," he tried to grumble. It sounded more like an entreaty, to Hermione.
When evening came, Hermione was at rather a loss. If she were at home, she'd either be cooking dinner or trying to get the boys to think about doing it (Hermione thought they should share the work with Kreacher, and also that he might poison her). That wasn't a problem here, with the elves to do the cooking and washing up.
With no preparation to do, and yet having been invited to stay over, she began to get nervous. What if he hadn't meant her to stay, and she'd misunderstood? But then, when they returned to his home, he went straight for the bathroom, closing the door and leaving her to fend for herself.
Which she certainly could.
Hermione thought about a visit to Hagrid, but she wasn't sure she wanted anyone else to know she was there. Same problem with visiting Dobby. In the end, she remembered some of the rare books from the library that she'd not been able to look at before she left, and she found that the door was open with a log ready for the staff to mark down anything they borrowed.
She went for the Charms Theory section to investigate the multiple spellcasting she had tried this afternoon. Without Severus's permission, she didn't want to sign his name for anything she borrowed, so she grabbed a few of the books and took them to her accustomed table.
Hermione lost herself in studying the phenomenon and its implications, so much so that she only noticed the passage of time when she had to light a candle to read. Searching her memory, she found that the clock had chimed recently, but what time? She reshelved the books and left the library, hoping her host wouldn't be angry.
She raced around the corner to his office and into his lounge. "Sorry, I was - I lost track of time."
Severus sat on the sofa with a book and quill, and Hermione was horrified to see him writing in the margins. In ink.
"Before I am subjected to your imitation of a Fwooper, allow me the chance to save myself from death by either casting a Silencing Charm or explaining my activities," he droned.
Hermione sat on the edge of the sofa, where she could grab the book if needed. A Siphoning Charm might still be able to -
"It is a Roman à Clef."
"A novel? You read French?" Hermione wasn't surprised to find that this detail made the man even more attractive to her.
"Yes, and no," he said, closing the book. Hermione winced at the thought of the wet ink blotting the facing page. He continued. "In the British Wizarding world, a Roman à Clef is a series of riddles or puzzles, and the correct answer to each must be filled in before the next part of the story appears."
Hermione's brain fizzed. "How - I never heard of these, let me see!" She scooted towards him and looked at the blank cover.
"I doubt they are popular in Gryffindor Tower," he said. Hermione looked at his face, and found a tentative expression, as though he expected to be excoriated for such an innocuous pastime.
"I think it sounds brilliant! I love riddles. Can I help? Or - I suppose you're too far on," she said.
"There'll be no living with you if I say 'no,' I can already tell," he grumbled. "You'll need some spare parchment for the maths."
But before they could get properly stuck in, Hermione's stomach performed a creditable troll impression, and she winced. "My - I don't usually - I'm just hungry a lot."
"You are young, your metabolism is high. And it is past dinnertime, anyway. What do you fancy?"
She fancied pizza, but thought she should ask for something less juvenile. Something French, maybe, or …
"Tagine? Do they do tagine?"
Snape let his lips lift as though he knew exactly what she'd been thinking. "I imagine they will do. Chicken?"
"Er, yes. Thanks." Hermione wondered if it was obvious.
"Go into the kitchen, I think there's a Rioja." Severus made the Floo call to the kitchens, and Hermione found the wine and glasses.
When she returned, the wizard performed the Uncorking Charm and poured some wine for each of them, then handed her a glass. The fire blazed green, and then a tray floated from it, and Hermione grabbed it and placed it on the coffee table.
The painted pottery vessel was lovely, and the most delicious scent was coming from it. Cinnamon, chicken, tomato maybe… and a bowl of yellow rice, maybe basmati. Hermione sipped the wine and looked at the food. She was only now becoming aware that they'd not had a real meal together before.
The woman looked to Severus and found him watching her, his expression unreadable (as usual). She handed him a plate and held the fragrant rice for him.
"You've never had it before, have you?" he asked, amusement colouring his voice.
"Oh. Er, no. But I've always wanted to try it," she said. "I didn't want to - everything I thought of sounded - I thought it would make me seem more sophisticated," she settled on.
Her lover was helping himself to some rice. "As long as you don't ask for your potatoes in the shape of smiling faces, I think you'll be safe enough."
"I prefer a nice normal chip, thanks."
Hermione followed Severus's actions, putting the rice to one side of her plate and the rich stew next to it, letting the juices flow into the rice.
The man drew his wand and pointed it at the table, raising the height so that it would be comfortable for eating. "Shall I make a vague and slightly foreboding speech before we eat? To make you feel as if you're back in the Great Hall?"
"Only if you include a benevolently dotty bit of nonsense at the end," Hermione grinned.
"Alas, I find that I am fresh out of nonsense," he answered, picking up his fork.
"Hm. First time for everything," Hermione jibed, garnering a mock-glare.
The tagine turned out to be flavourful and filling, with unexpected bits of sweetness contributed by dried apricots. Hermione thought she might have found a new favourite food.
And then, after a first bite, Severus picked up a book and began to read. While eating. Ignoring her completely.
Was this payback for her leaving while he was in the bath? Probably not, as he hadn't seemed unhappy. She could try to start a conversation, but had a fair idea of how it would go. So instead, she picked up the Roman à Clef and began reading the part that he'd already finished.
He seemed to simply have no idea how to have a conversation with her. Or even worse, no desire to do so.
After they had finished eating, Hermione had read up to the part Severus had been working on, and she grabbed her quill and parchment again. They pushed the dishes away and worked contentedly away on the series of riddles, exposing a story of a shipwreck and a diver. Hermione found the puzzles to be engaging, and before she knew it, the fire had burned down and the light through the lake had dimmed.
"I think I'll have a bath, if that's okay," Hermione asked.
"Come to my bed warm," he answered, and she did.
'Roman à Clef' literally means 'novel with a key', and I've always been fond of this French term for a novel that thinly disguises real people as fictional ones. It's pronounced sort of like, 'roh-MAHN ah CLEH'.