Title: The Sounds of Time
Author: pre_raphaelite1
Characters/Pairings: Tom/Minerva
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: Birching
Other Warnings: Bondage
Word Count: 1325
Summary/Description: Her mother had once told her that can whisper by if she wasn't careful; a quiet breath and decades could slip away. But for Minerva, time had screeched banshee-loud, so she reckoned that meant her time had been truly lived, even if some of the cries that still echoed in her ears were better off forgotten.
Author's Notes: This is actually dedicated to the ever lovely kelly_chambliss for always leaving wonderful comments that honor and humble me (and make me squee!). This really was meant to be stupidly hot, angsty Minerva/Severus, but the fic had its own ideas in the wake of seeing DH. (No spoilers for the film itself.) So it's now Tom/Minerva with a side of Severus, drizzled with angst and hopefully still hot. :P



It had been a good few years, she reflected. It had been long, often lonely, occasionally heartbreaking, but those moments only gave her a better scope of the time that had passed. Her mother had once told her that can whisper by if she wasn't careful; a quiet breath and decades could slip away. But for Minerva, time had screeched banshee-loud, so she reckoned that meant her time had been truly lived, even if some of the cries that still echoed in her ears were better off forgotten.

***

She arched her back, feeling the already strained muscles pull tighter, burn hotter, before doing her best to relax again. It was a nearly impossible task, which was, of course, the point. He was just waiting for her to grow impatient. To squirm, to demand, to beg. But she was far too much the lioness to given him easy satisfaction, and she knew him far too well to think he had any interest in speed or brevity. So she began silently reciting Carpenter's Laws of Spacial Dynamics, expecting that the eighty-three of them should suitably distract her from the aching stretch of her shoulders and hips.

And perhaps it would have worked if all Tom Riddle did was passively wait to get what he wanted. But Minerva had only reached number seventeen when he struck her. Crying out, she jerked in the restraints, ankles and wrists nearly bruising from the enchanted ropes that wrapped tightly around them. Her arse throbbed, but in a way that was unfamiliar. Not a long line of fire that would indicate a cane, nor a wide swath of deeper ache from a paddle, nor the curling sting of a flogger. This was an uneven, irregular fan of welts and scratches.

When it didn't fall again, her brows knit together then she realised he was giving her time to think, to work out what it was. Once again, she was doing precisely what he wanted without meaning to. She huffed into the rumbled sea of green in front of her face.

“Problem, Minerva?” His voice was steady; he may has well been speaking to her over a china cup at tea.

She shook her head and asked just as calmly, “No, Tom. Do you have one?”

He laughed, a low chuckle that made her shiver. “I have the most beautiful witch in school tied naked and spread-eagle to my bed. I fail to see how I could possibly have any problem.”

“Only the most beautiful in the school?”she queried tartly.

“I've hardly had occasion to make more extensive surveys and have no interest in doing so. I should hope you don't wish me to embark upon such a futile journey?”

“Of course not. I would, however, appreciate--” she broke off with a silent curse at herself. Damn her bloody impatience.

“Yes?”

“Nothing,” she sighed with resignation. And damn him for knowing her so well.

Tom chuckled again then without warning or further pause he hit her arse again, and her cry of pain mixed with the soft rolling of his laugh. He caressed the curve of her hip then raked his nails down her skin, scoring over the burning flesh. Minerva's back bowed sharply, head lifting up as tears welled up along her lashes. She didn't have a chance to relax before he struck her harder. But the precision of his strike demonstrated he was as controlled as he ever was; whatever the implement was landed in the same place, biting once more into her skin. She couldn't tell if the skin was broken or merely welted; though it made little matter to how it felt, to the scorching tightness that seemed to radiate out from her arsecheeks, licking flames up her spine, down her cunt, along the backs of her thighs. Her toes and fingers curled against the pain, tensing for the next.

But instead, he caressed her. Nimble fingers sweeping like feathers over the most fragile of porcelain. She shuddered as his hand drifted almost idly into the cleft of her arse, over the sensitive pucker of flesh there, then lower. She lifted her hips to him with a loud moan, earning another languid chuckle.

“Always the impatient one.”

“Tom.” She told herself it was a word of objection, of warning, and definitely not a means of pleading for his fingers to press into her cunt, slide into the empty wetness there.

“Not yet, my love. Not yet. You have so much skin yet untouched. I would be remiss if I didn't pay attention to all of it.”

She muffled a groan in the mattress and shifted once more, shoulders rising this time, fingers spreading.

“It's barely even ten and there are no classes tomorrow. I intend to make very good use of our time... and you.”

Minerva didn't bother stifling that moan, but the sound rose and twisted into an irregular series of high cries as Tom set about striking her once more. Tears fell unfettered, unheeded, from half-lidded green eyes as pain flashed over her back, along her tight shoulders and spread arms, down her thighs and calves, the bottoms of her feet, the exposed flesh of her cunt, her arse, cunt again, back, and back again, over and over, unhurried, too fast, long pauses, no rest, rest, strike, strike, burn. Until Minerva drifted in and out of consciousness and climax like smoke curling from a guttered candle.

Somewhere between those first strikes and the slow dawning of the day, Tom had fucked her, though how many times, she couldn't say. She did know her throat was raw, her thighs were slick, and her belly stained with his release. He wrapped his arms around her, gently drawing her closer to his side; she nuzzled contentedly to him, rubbing her cheek against the smooth skin of his chest, before letting the quiet of sleep wash over her once more.

***

Minerva shook her head and turned from the window that overlooked the quidditch pitch and the forest beyond it. Too long, she had stood there. Too long lost in thought. It was time to face them, face him once more. She straightened her back and smoothed down her robes. She'd be damned if she'd give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her agitated. This was her school and her home, regardless of what orders were issued by the snarl of a misshapen man who had once turned rabbits into tea cozies in her classroom with all the ready eagerness of youth.

As she stepped into the hall from her chambers, it wasn't Amycus waiting for her. No, this figure is far leaner, darker, and far more familiar.

“Professor.”

“Headmaster,” she responded tightly.

A tiny muscle in Severus' jaw clenched, and he cupped her elbow in his sallow hand. “Our Lord awaits. I hope you've head time to prepare for the honor of being called to his presence.”

“Is it an honor? I hadn't been informed. Do tell Carrow to actually convey such important messages in the future; he's increasing lax in his duties as rabid owl.”

But Severus said nothing, just led her down the empty hallway and beyond, gray stones occasionally catching at her sleeve, until she was left standing in a room that dripped with moisture. A strip of fraying green fluttered in the corner of her field of vision, but her gaze stayed on the dark figure who stood at the shadow's edge.

When he turned to her, his face bone-pale, Minerva's breath caught, her heart clenched cold. As she exhaled the breath, careful, so carefully measured to not be too fast or too forceful, and met the piercing eyes of the creature that was once Tom Riddle; Minerva could hear the barest of whispers moving past her ear and time crumbled like graveyard dust.