CHAPTER 39
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 39 ~ A Necessary Conversation
Hermione informed Severus that she had calculated and reduced the ratio of ingredients to create a potion suitable for nifflers. She would have to have enough of the heart and blood to experiment with, but Damius’ formula used very minute amounts of the precious component, which was extremely powerful. About a quarter cup of heart and blood would do her.
Severus was quite pleased, although he was prepared to turn the entire heart over to the witch if necessary. He was quite pleased with Hermione’s decision not to visit Draco as well and was feeling quite magnanimous toward the witch.
They spent the rest of the evening discussing the next leg of her project, which was brewing. The elixir would take three weeks, but Hermione planned to use the Sequentius spell and start a new elixir each day with altered amounts of agistani flower to basilisk heart and blood, so when it came time to test the reversed kiss, she would have several versions. This could cut the time she estimated in half if she managed to create the Dementor nifflers without too much trouble.
“How do you plan to store them?” Severus asked her curiously.
“I will keep them in a covered cage. Dementors are solid and can’t pass through objects, so they will be fine if I keep them out of the light,” she replied.
Severus thought it would be quite interesting to see niffler-dementors. Only Hermione could come up with something like this. He eyed the witch, then drew in a deep breath.
“Hermione, you realize that it is my duty to look after your well-being as well as provide for your needs, don’t you?” he asked the witch.
“Yes, I know that, Severus,” the witch replied.
“Good,” he said to her, “Then you will not protest when I inform you that you are not to work on this project for the next two days. You have been working yourself ragged, not eating properly, not looking after your hygiene and are well on your way to becoming a pepper-up potion addict. This is entirely unacceptable. I will be remaining here this weekend to insure that you follow my instructions,” the wizard said evenly.
“But Severus…the time frame,” Hermione began desperately.
Severus held up a pale hand to stop her.
“Hermione, two days off is not going to make that much of a difference. Besides, you have just explained to me how you plan to shave weeks, if not months off of the timeline…so no need to try to use that excuse to persuade me to let you work. The lab will be locked and warded with my signature AND alarms…Miss Spells Mistress, just in case you try to sneak and use your skills to gain entrance. As of right now, you are on vacation,” the Potions Master said silkily.
Hermione folded her arms and looked absolutely mutinous.
“Fine,” she pouted, her lips puckered.
Before he knew what he was doing, Severus leaned in and kissed that petulant mouth softly, surprising both himself and Hermione.
She blinked at him as he pulled back. The wizard was blinking a bit too. What on earth made him kiss the witch?
“What was that for?” Hermione asked him, still rather shocked.
Severus scowled.
“To teach you not to pucker up your lips in obstinance,” he said gruffly. “You should accept my directives with grace.”
“So you were ‘teaching me a lesson?”” she asked the wizard, the annoying smile back on her lips now.
“Of course,” Severus replied, “Why else would I kiss you?”
The Potions Master scowled at that smile. He hated it. It always made him feel Hermione knew something he didn’t.
“And stop smiling at me like that,” he growled.
Hermione looked at him rather wickedly.
“Any other lessons you feel the urge to ‘teach’ me?” she asked the wizard suggestively.
Severus looked at her and felt a little throb. But no…she really wasn’t in the condition for sex, though she physically looked better. A nice shower would do that though.
“No. You are to rest tonight and tomorrow night. No strenuous activity,” the wizard replied.
One thing was for certain. If Hermione was to engage in sex…she’d want it very strenuous. Now if she could accept a gentle tryst, she would get what she was asking for. But she wasn’t thinking along those lines.
Severus stood up.
“I am going downstairs to ward both labs, then I will retire and see you in the morning, hopefully well-rested,” he said to the witch.
“See me in the morning?” Hermione repeated. Severus had been absent over a month and she had been sleeping alone. Sleeping with the Potions Master was quite nice really. Even before they began to be more intimate with each other, he would keep her nestled against him as they slept. She felt safe and protected in his bed. Also wanted. “You don’t want me to sleep with you?”
Severus looked at the witch, remembering what happened last time she was in his bed.
“I fear for my virtue. You ravished me the last time I ‘slept’ with you,” the wizard said, hardening a bit at the memory.
“You deserved ravishing for what you did to me,” Hermione said, her eyes glittering as she remembered how shocked and overcome the wizard was by her ardor. He shouldn’t have left her so randy. “But it isn’t like that tonight. We can sleep together without having sex. We’ve done it before.”
Hermione was referring to the night she stayed up late talking to Harry at his beach house. She had come to Severus’ bed at about three in the morning, very tired and he let her sleep. He hadn’t expected her to come at all and had been quite surprised and a bit moved because she didn’t focus on Harry completely as he expected her to. He had wanted to take her…just because of that…but restrained himself.
“We had Harry Potter to act as a damper that night. We don’t have that tonight,” the wizard replied, arching an eyebrow at her.
“But I want to sleep with you. I’ve missed it. We don’t have to do anything,” the witch said persuasively.
“’We don’t have to do anything.’ Isn’t that a sixth-year line used to disarm witches for sex?” Severus inquired, smirking a bit.
“We don’t,” Hermione insisted. She really did mean it…lame as she sounded. She just wanted to be near the wizard. But if the opportunity presented itself…
Severus stared at the witch for several moments. He would like to feel her next to him in the night. He believed he could restrain himself. The Potions Master truly was concerned about her state.
“Very well. You may sleep with me, Hermione. But you are to be covered up…and I mean by more than a bra and knickers. No temptation, witch…or I promise I will give you the boot and ward my door with something quite nasty,” the wizard said warningly.
“Fine,” Hermione said popping up and heading for her bedroom.
Severus watched her go, then started for his own bedroom, unbuttoning his robes on the way.
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Severus lay in his bed under the sheets in his boxers, his cock only slightly erect. He hoped it remained that way when Hermione entered.
He needn’t have worried.
Hermione appeared in the doorway and leaned back against the sill, striking a sexy pose, her head slung back, breasts jutting out and knee bent provocatively.
“I’m here,” she announced in a sing-song voice.
Severus looked at her and shook his head.
She was dress in a white flannel granny gown with tiny pink roses on it (a real turn-off for the Professor, who hated roses). It was long-sleeved, and buttoned up to her chin. Not an inch of skin was showing except for her face.
She walked into the room and spun for him.
“And if this isn’t enough,” she said raising the gown and pulling it above her waist, revealing a very large pair of granny knickers, “These should top it off nicely.”
Hermione dropped the gown grinning, walked over to the bed and climbed over Severus, slipping under the sheets and snuggling up to him.
It felt as if she were wrapped up in a heavy overcoat.
“You certainly know how to cover up,” the wizard said, wrapping his long arms around her and adjusting the witch until her back was resting against his chest. Severus had an unconscious preference for spooning and bent his knee, forcing Hermione to bend hers, his loins resting against her well-protected buttocks.
“Well, you said no temptation,” she chuckled, relaxing against him and enjoying the feel of him holding her so possessively.
The wizard fell silent but he didn’t go to sleep. He was thinking about Hermione’s masochism. He wondered if now would be a good time to address it.
“Hermione,” Severus said softly.
Hermione was awake.
“Yes Severus?” she answered.
“Why do you always want me to fuck you so hard, witch?” he asked her. The wizard knew she was a masochist, but often wondered if she knew what drove her to be the way she was.
Hermione went silent for a moment, then said, “Because if feels good, Severus.”
“It hurts you, Hermione,” he responded, not willing to accept such a generic answer.
“Yes. But it is a good ache, Severus. It makes me feel…feel as if I no longer belong to myself. That someone else has control. That you have total control,” she said softly.
“But Hermione, does that control have to be so…punishing? If you indeed give me total control witch, shouldn’t I be able to fuck you the way I want? You always insist I be brutal, ram my cock into you until you are broken and in tears. It truly is pain, Hermione. You can’t tell me it isn’t,” he said quietly, tightening his hold on the witch. “Why do you want to be hurt all the time?”
“I like it, Severus. I don’t know why. I like to be pinned down, restrained and just taken. You’re perfect. You’re such a dark wizard…and have a dominating nature, and you just look and feel so delicious when you’re fucking me that way…all your coldness disappears, and you just take and take…” the witch’s voice faltered. She was getting very randy talking about this. “Don’t you like fucking me as hard as you like?”
“Hermione, yes I enjoy you immensely, but just because I am a dark wizard doesn’t mean I want or need to be brutal to you. You may be a masochist witch, but I am no sadist. I’ve seen too much sexual violence against women in my lifetime. I admit, it does turn me on to be able to let go on you, but…there are times when I would like you to respond to me as…how can I put this…as an ordinary man…” Severus said, trying to find the right words to express himself.
“I guess what I am saying, Hermione…is that I have needs too,” the wizard said, “And they don’t involve me always fucking you into conniptions. There are times…”
The Potions Master swallowed and fell silent. This was too difficult…too close.
Hermione listened to him breathe, her brow furrowed. Severus wasn’t satisfied with her? What was he going to say?
“There are times…?” she urged, “Tell me Severus. I won’t know what you want if you don’t tell me.”
“There are times, Hermione when I want to be gentler, enjoy you, savor you. Times when I want to hear you whisper my name, not shriek it as I lose myself in you. I want you to orgasm because I’ve reached you another way, not because I’ve forced it out of you through pain,” the wizard said quietly, a far-away look in his eyes. “I want to show you there is more to my sex than fucking you like an animal.”
“But Severus…I can’t really peak that way,” Hermione said softly. “There’s…there’s something wrong with me.”
Hermione’s eyes filled with tears. That is what she had always thought about herself once she discovered what she wanted out of sex. She always believed it was abnormal that she wanted men to brutalize her until she was in tears. Now Severus was calling her on it. Gods.
Severus felt Hermione begin to tremble. He decided to give her both wandblasts. She needed to hear this.
“There’s nothing wrong with you Hermione except you have a skewed view of yourself. I imagine you have met wizards of low self-worth who felt you too challenging, intelligent and aggressive. Unwitchlike, in their opinion and you subconsciously bought into that nonsense. I seem to remember that idiot Ronald Weasley telling you in Potions class once that you needed to show “more leg and less brain if you wanted a boyfriend.” In fact Mr. Weasley was the only young wizard I saw that had an ‘interest’ in you outside of getting you to help him with his assignments.”
“Ron was my first,” Hermione whispered. “He was the only one who wanted me that way.”
Severus frowned slightly.
”It seems he got to you in more ways than one. Now you are the consummate female doormat sexually, Hermione. Not fully, but much of the time. It’s as if you want to be punished for being competition for wizards, for being brilliant, for being ‘less than a woman.’ When you are brutalized with a cock, you think yourself more of a woman…you feel vindicated…that you’ve proven you can be submissive, that you’ve proven you’re desirable and not just a big, pulsing brain.
Hermione let out a small sob. She did feel like that. So many wizards had told her she didn’t know how to act the ‘proper witch’ and let the wizard be the man when she dated them a few times. She wasn’t ‘fast’ and didn’t engage in casual sex, wanting conversation and courtship first. That was the way it was supposed to work, after all. But most wizards couldn’t keep up with her intellect and felt overshadowed and, let’s face it…stupid. By the second date, most were gone…and the few she did get involved with, didn’t meet her physical needs…so she let them go as well.
“You’ve always been more than a brain, Hermione. You just never came to terms with yourself, with your own formidable gifts. You use harsh sex as an escape and a buffer. I understand that, witch. I don’t think there is anything ‘wrong’ with you. What I would like is to show you that you don’t have to be taken that way to satisfy a wizard, or to be satisfied. You only have to be willing to share yourself, and not enter into the act believing there can be no satisfaction because you aren’t being ripped from end to end like a ‘proper’ witch. If you truly want to surrender, Hermione and be whole…this is the way to do it.”
Hermione sighed.
“I’ve had sex that way, Severus. It doesn’t work for me,” she said softly.
“You’ve had sex that way, but not with me. We have had our moments of respite between the wildness, but you haven’t opened up to me that way witch. I want you to do that. I want you to let me be the man I am. Actually relinquish control and trust me. You’ve told me you want access to me…now I want access to you…to the true Hermione Granger,” the wizard said, feeling freer than he ever felt before. He was opening up and it felt good to tell the witch what was on his mind.
“Tonight?” Hermione asked.
Her belly was tight with apprehension. She didn’t think Severus would satisfy her the way he wanted to fuck her, and she didn’t want to tell him afterwards that it did nothing for her. He might hate her for it. No man wanted to be told they were lousy in bed. The Potions Master was a proud man. Of course he’d be angry.
“No,” he replied, not tonight…but sometime in the near future. When I think you are ready.”
Hermione thought it might be in the far distance future if Severus was going to wait for her to be ready. She’d never be ready.
“Now sleep,” the wizard said, his voice thick. “Get some rest, witch.”
The Potions Master adjusted his spoon around her body and drifted off.
But it took Hermione a long, long time to fall asleep.
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A/N: I think it was time for Severus and Hermione to have an intimate talk, and the wizard express his thoughts to her about her sexuality as well as his own desire to get closer to her. I hope it was believable and affecting without being overly fluffy. Please review.