wl_mods (wl_mods) wrote in wizard_love, @ 2008-02-18 14:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | *fic, hermione, snape |
Special delivery for shiv5468 - Part 2
Title Witch's Sabbatical, pt. 2
Author leni_jess
Recipient shiv5468
Rating NC17
Pairing Snape/Hermione (and non-specific references to previous Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny)
Summary Hermione has a year off work to do research in Britain's best libraries. Heaven, yes? Not so much, after Snape comes out of the woodwork: trouble is still his business. And hers.
Word Count 16,734
Warnings Post-epilogue. Canon-compliant, epilogue-complaint (in the letter if not the spirit), with one great honking exception (see pairing).
Author's notes I have enjoyed so many of shiv5468's stories; I hope this provides her with some enjoyment too. Thanks to R1 for helping me inject some plot into this, to B, R2 and E who beta-read it, and made most helpful comments in spite of the last-minute rush, and to the wizard_love mods, especially ragdoll, who exhibited extraordinary patience and faith in my intention and ability to produce.
|Part 1|
That turned out to be an unfortunate choice of words. The lift car started vibrating at unpredictable intervals.
Hermione whimpered, and pressed herself into Snape, not caring a bit that he was standoffish and hated people and had never liked his students and was a very private person.
He said in her ear, "If there's any doubt, if you're in any danger, I'll Apparate us out of here and Obliviate those Muggles afterwards, understand me? So don't let go of me."
"Yes," she whispered, "but we should wait, if we can. I don't like Obliviating people."
"Not even Muggles?"
"They don't even know it's possible. At least a witch or a wizard might guess what's happened, if there's a gap in their memory. They might be annoyed, or frightened, but they won't be afraid they're going mad."
He said nothing to that, but he might well agree with her. Snape didn't subscribe publicly to pity, or even compassion, but she had noticed long ago that he was relatively careful with people's lives and sanity, if not their feelings or self-esteem.
The car trembled on its cables again, then dropped a short way, sharply.
Hermione shut her eyes tight and pressed closer, even as the man behind the telephone said, "It's all right! He says there's a bit of a snarl in one of the cables. He'll have it fixed soon." Rather more dubiously the man went on, "Fairly soon, anyway."
Hermione muttered feverishly, "Oh God, a snarl in one of the cables, he says. I wouldn't think that's possible. I wonder what's really wrong?"
Snape demanded, "Do you know anything about the construction and operation of these things?"
"No."
"No more do I. So stop imagining things that are probably impossible, and wait patiently."
She couldn't stop shaking, though, remembering that broken cable in the hospital lift, and the second one that had nearly broken from the sudden imposition of double the weight it was meant to carry. She managed to tell him about that, that she did know at least one kind of disaster that could strike.
"You need something else to think about. Try this."
Then he was shifting her about so that she straddled his thighs instead of sitting on them, fitting their bodies close indeed, gripping the hair at the back of her head and tilting her head up, and kissing her. His mouth was open, his tongue flicking at her lips. In spite of his firm grip and his not seeking permission, he wasn't forcing her, wasn't even rushing her. But he was warm and close and it had been too long and she needed this.
She lifted a little, so that their bodies were pressed closer, and her lips were against his, and opened her mouth to him. They kissed with silent concentration, lips moulding together, tongues entering each other's mouths, flicking together, twining, exploring, enjoying each others' taste and breath and texture.
Hermione shifted forward a little more, so that her crotch was pressed tightly against him. She rubbed herself deliberately against the rigid length of him and with satisfaction heard him hiss softly. That was good. She slipped her hand between their bodies and folded her fingers over him, then brought in her other hand and began working his trousers open. He didn't object; instead he moved back fractionally, and unfastened his belt and waistband and ran his zip down with the necessary caution. Her hand moved into his clothing and found the warm, hard flesh, easing it out, stroking it, admiring its dark colour and its dampened tip peeking from the folds of skin.
She teased her fingertips over it, and he gulped and thrust against them.
She heard, in a slightly uneven voice, "Silencio!"
Privacy was good, but being able to do this, to look at him, even if she couldn't explore him in detail, was better. Best would be mounted on that eager cock, driving for oblivion, escaping from everything.
She tried to curl forward to get her mouth to it, but he held her back.
"If you do that, I'll never last. Let me get your skirt up..."
He pushed the hem of her straight skirt up, from her knees, up her thighs, and lifted her into an upright kneeling position so he could forcefully shove it above her waist. She reached for her panties' waist hem, but he must have used his wand: suddenly they were gone. Not too far, she vaguely hoped, but couldn't care, especially as they were too damp to be worn again comfortably.
Snape gripped her hip with one long-fingered hand while the other moved between her thighs, quickly, but not roughly. One finger stroked up between her lips, confirming how moist she was already. She had been watching that hand, but a soft noise made her look up at his face. Several expressions flitted over it: pleasure that she was wet for him already, and a sort of tightly reined-in hope that made her swallow, almost as if she was going to cry. Then determination wiped everything else away from his face.
He shouldn't have to feel like that.
"Not a competition," she murmured, and moved to kiss him again, biting delicately at his lower lip, worrying the new fullness of it.
He went quite still, and she slid her hands up his body, flattening them against his chest, then tugging at his shirt buttons, impatiently pulling the shirt open. His skin was very pale, just like the skin of his face and hands, the only parts of his body ever visible. There were marks on his chest as well as the silver scars on his neck from Nagini's bite; some looked like hex marks, others knife-wounds. All healed, but all evidence of past pain. The only marks on her body were from Bellatrix's knife and from bearing her children.
She smoothed her palms over him, lingering over the tiny pink nipples, not so flat when she did move on, and fingered the scars as much as the unmarred skin. He shivered, but said nothing. Willing her to continue, perhaps. She had found a deep well of curiosity about him, and meant to satisfy it, wanting to experience his body as for some time she had experienced his mind. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, stroking down his arms that showed the lean muscles of years of cauldron-stirring (and maybe Death Eater rumbles, too), until she had him naked above the waist. Then she leaned in to kiss the pulse in his throat.
That ended his passivity. His arms tightened around her, his hands dealt quickly with her blouse, more complex though its fastenings were, and his hands came up to cup and squeeze her breasts. There was more to them that when she had been a schoolgirl; breast-feeding had given her bigger breasts, even after she stopped nursing. As if in echo of that thought Snape moved to suckle on one nipple, teasing, then harder, a strong drawing suction that sent the lightnings through her body, tickling her deep inside, making her shift impatiently and press herself in growing need against his cock, hard between their bellies.
His mouth moved to her other breast, and dealt with it as thoroughly. When his head lifted she rubbed against him, muttering, "Now! Want you now!"
"Yes," he answered fiercely. His hands supported her buttocks, lifting her so that she was high enough to seize his cock in greedy, tender hands and guide it into her. He let her lower herself onto him at her own pace, and shuddered as she did so. She tightened around him, a welcoming hold, before she lifted again, and began to move. Placed as she was, partly supported on his thighs as he knelt on the hard marble, her weight meant he couldn't make large movements, but his responses were convincing. They moved together, faster, harder, their hands gripping, her head thrown back, his bent over her, the sharp teeth nipping at her shoulders, her breasts, and her throat, until she was thrown off the cliff, over the edge, falling and soaring together, freed to take flight, crying out her triumph. She felt him follow her almost at once. Dragons might mate like that, so fierce, so free, so intertwined.
The persistent thumping of the lift ceased to be mere background noise and became communication, but it was an effort to make herself care. Hermione didn't want to come back from that warm, peaceful air where she was afraid of nothing and had everything. She let her head drift to Snape's shoulder and her hands move caressingly up and down his narrow back, searching out the ridge of the spine, and sliding down to the cleft in his arse.
He said huskily, "So small, and so ferocious, burning me alive!" Maybe he had seen dragons too. But no. "Another phoenix," he whispered, "a magical creature."
She would take that. She stretched sinuously, more like a cat than a dragon, and kissed him one last time, before she would let the Muggle world end this.
The Silencing Charm only went one way, so they heard when the speaker announced, "It's fixed! Stand by for the lift to start again, nothing to worry about. Bringing you down to the second floor – that's where you were going, weren't you?"
"Oh God," Hermione gulped, dragon and phoenix no more, but a woman fearful of embarrassment. She pulled herself out of Snape's loose hold, bolting to her feet, jerking her bra into place and fastening it, pulling down her skirt, buttoning up her blouse, wondering what he had done with her panties.
Snape stood too, and let his wand drop down into his hand and waved it at himself. His clothes immediately sorted themselves into impeccable neatness: buttons, zip, belt, tie, shirt collar and cuffs and tails. He made an impatient sound and flicked the wand at her, too, and she felt the voiceless Tergeo clean the slick fluids from her thighs. Then another charm fastened the floppy bow of her collar, slid her suit jacket back onto her body, and restored her panties. A quick Scourgify rendered them comfortable. Her clothes seemed to shimmy into tidiness, a very odd sensation. Then another charm soothed the sting of her swollen and bitten lips and the tender places on her throat and breasts. She felt rather sorry about that, but reached for her shoes and stepped into them before Snape put them back on her too.
He said critically, "You are incorrigibly Muggle when you panic. A good thing you've never had to go undercover."
She couldn't be bothered snarling at him. She was too relieved, and indeed still too relaxed, despite her desire for the Library staff not to know how they had been keeping her fears at bay.
She used her own wand to restore her hair to its customary style, the chignon at the back of her head that was her compromise between neatness and elegance. Then, smiling a little, as the lift jerked very slightly and started to move down, she waved her wand at Snape and tidied his hair. She had clawed it into more tangles than he ordinarily achieved.
Softly she said, "Thank you."
His eyes came to meet hers briefly, then flinched away. "Perhaps I shouldn't have done that."
"Ordinarily I prefer to be asked, but it was most welcome. Having great sex with you certainly beats panicking myself into exhaustion."
He looked at her again, uncertainty lingering, but worry removed.
"Most welcome," she repeated. "And not just because I haven't been getting any, either."
She moved across the foot or so that separated them and leaned up, setting one hand on his shoulder to steady herself. Then she stood on tiptoe, pulled his head down, and kissed his mouth, gently but not casually. She felt the tension flow out of him, and his hands brushed down her back for a moment.
"It was good." His voice was almost inaudible, but the pat on her bottom was evidence that he wasn't feeling shy.
Then the lift slid to a stop, the door opened, and they were out, to anxious enquiries and offers of cups of tea or coffee, or a couch to lie down on, if she felt the need. No one seemed to feel that Snape needed to lie down. They must have been listening to the sound pickup from the lift, waiting with apprehension for her anxiety to turn to full-blown hysteria. Bless silencing charms.
Hermione thanked everyone, and assured them she felt fine now she was no longer trapped.
Then Snape said, "I think I should take you home. However," turning to one of the librarians, "I had a request in for a book from the Rare Printed Books collection. In the circumstances, could it be held for a day or two?"
He was assured that there was no problem, and once his pass had been scanned was able to see the 'hold until' date extended.
Neither of them was anxious to stay in the atmosphere of concern and guilt, and the certainty that they would be closely observed.
Snape murmured, once they had a little privacy, "Are you still interested in Castor's book?"
"Yes, but thank you for not wanting me to look it over today! And S – Severus, can we find somewhere we can just quietly Apparate in without being noticed? I can't face that lift again!"
"We could probably talk Security into letting us walk up – and down, after today. Why don't we ask about that now? Shall I?"
Hermione thought she should do her own asking; Severus Snape had been propping her up long enough. Time to show she could get back to normal without having to be further coddled.
The librarian who had secured Snape's book reservation for him was quite willing to request Security to note her identity and allow her to use the stairs, both now and later.
So after a few more minutes, and more politenesses exchanged, they walked down the miles of staircase to the ground floor, where Snape pulled on his coat again and Hermione took her own charm-reinforced wool coat and pashmina from her briefcase and wrapped up well. It wasn't shock making her cold now. The wind was blowing hard, as it often did in the entrance to Senate House, in the wind tunnel the architect had managed to create. The dull late afternoon sky was full of ominous towering clouds that promised rain, as snow so seldom fell in London. She wanted a cup of tea, since Firewhisky would probably be a mistake. And perhaps she wanted to see how she and Snape got on when they had an adequate horizontal surface, preferably a well-padded one.