Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery

Chapter 37 ~ For Some, it’s a Cat-astrophe

When Hermione dressed and crept out of Severus’ bedroom early the next morning intent on catching Raucous asleep, she peered up at the rafters, her wand at the ready…but Raucous was gone. He had taken an early morning flight

Severus stirred, felt about with his hand for Hermione and instantly rolled out of bed upon discovering her missing. Scowling, he strode naked into the study just in time to see her throw a small, silent tantrum, stomping her feet and flinging her arms about in frustration. He watched her, amused.

“A problem, Hermione?” he asked, smirking.

The Potions Master knew she was pissed because she didn’t ambush his familiar. No doubt Raucous had figured she’d do something like that, and left the rooms early. No doubt he’d stay away until he thought the witch was gone. But it was Saturday. Severus didn’t want her to leave just yet.

Hermione spun at the sound of his voice and flushed when she saw Severus standing there naked, a bemused expression on his face.

“That damn bird,” she seethed, “I’m going to get him for turning me into a dog.”

“Bitch,” Severus corrected her.

Hermione’s eyebrows rose and she scowled at him.

“What did you call me?” Hermione demanded, her wand starting to turn toward the Potions Master. She was already in a foul mood and ready to hex something. Severus explained rather quickly.

“Technically, Raucous turned you into a bitch. Dog is the name for male canines,” he said, thinking the term did suit her surprisingly well at certain times.

Hermione lowered her wand.

“And why are you dressed?” Severus asked her, scowling as he looked at her house robe and gown, “You’re not leaving yet.”

He looked down at his morning hard-on and then leveled his eyes at the witch lustfully.

“I’m sorry to inform you, Severus…you are no longer the ‘Professor.’ School’s out and so am I,” she said, walking toward the study wall, “I have something I need to attend to this morning. Something important.”

“Yes you do. Me,” the Potions Master said snarkily, walking toward her purposely.

He wanted his morning dose of vitamin F before the witch left his rooms. Hermione raised her wand at him, her eyes narrowed.

“You managed to wriggle your way out of being punished last night, Severus. You even managed to turn the tables on me. My ass still hurts, ” she said, rubbing at it as if it suddenly started smarting.

“You wanted the tables turned,” he said in a low voice, still walking toward her, despite the raised wand, “You wanted just what I gave you. I have more, too,” he said seductively.

If Hermione wasn’t so sore, she might have fallen for it, but she ached. He had fucked her quite thoroughly. She still felt his sting.

“I’ve had enough, Severus. Don’t make me bind you, you randy bastard,” she hissed at him.

Severus stopped, and mentally added her first couple of offenses to his new payback list. Threatening to hex him and calling him a randy bastard, which incidentally was true, but she didn’t have to say it. The witch was off to a good start.

“You know it’s not good to leave me like this,” he said in a low voice. “You know I don’t like to be denied.”

He started to move forward again.

“I’m warning you Severus,” Hermione said evenly.

Fuck this. He wanted some pussy and wanted it now. She knew it was expected of her the times she stayed overnight. He called it his “sleep tax.”

Severus lunged at her, intending to take the little minx up against the study wall. Hard.

But Hermione was ready for him.

“Levicorpus!” she cried, hexing the wizard.

Severus found himself hanging upside down in the air. How humiliating. Hermione gave him a smirk.

“You hellcat! Put me down!” he demanded.

“As you say, lover,” Hermione replied, pulling on the torch and opening the study wall. She stepped into the Potions office, then levitated the wizard over the armchair by the fireplace.

“Bye Severus,” she said, closing the study wall and breaking the connection.

Severus dropped to the soft cushion of the chair on his head and tumbled out of it, landing on his ass. Scowling, he leapt to his feet and ran to the study wall, pulling the torch, opening it and rushing into his office. He was about to pull the door open and run into the corridor when he realized he was naked.

“Damn it,” he cursed, banging his hand against the door in frustration.

Muttering, he stalked back into his rooms, closing the study wall behind him. She’d gotten away, and had the nerve to use the Levicorpus spell on him to do it. His last encounter with that spell had been when he was a student himself, and James Potter had cast it on him in front of other students, exposing his assets in the process.

Oh, this required a big, big payback. He thought about it and a rather evil grin spread across his pale features.

Hermione Granger was going to be deflowered again, and he was going to enjoy doing it.

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That afternoon, Raucous spied Hermione walking at a good clip across the school grounds, heading for the castle. Obviously she had been out. She was carrying something rather large in her arms, and seemed preoccupied. Getting her in the open was always risky, but she never managed to hex him when he was aware she was trying to. He was a good flier and could avoid her blasts. Only her sneak attacks could touch him.

Although he had been the one to draw last blood, Raucous couldn’t resist the unaware witch, and soared toward Hermione from behind, preparing to drop a large wet one on her. He swooped very low, intending on just skimming her head and getting her good when suddenly something huge and ginger-colored flashed up to her shoulder, swatting at him and hissing angrily, barely missing the raven as he checked himself mid-flight. Raucous shit all right, but it had nothing to do with Hermione. He quickly winged his way back to the owlery and Severus’ rooms.

Hermione petted the ball of ginger fur in her arms.

“Thanks Crookshanks,” she said, rubbing the squash-faced feline between his ears.

Together they headed for the castle.

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Hermione had been to neither breakfast nor lunch. Well, she had said she had some business to attend to, but Severus wanted to talk to her about the Levicorpus incident. But he wasn’t going to rant and rave. He was going to apologize for his actions. On the surface anyway. He wanted her to believe there would be no repercussions.

He exited his rooms and walked down to her quarters. He knocked on her door. After a few moments he heard, “Who is it?”

“It’s Severus. I want to talk to you,” he said through the door.

He heard some scrambling noises, then silence.

“Severus, I’m not in the mood for dueling right now,” she said evenly.

Actually she was standing in the middle of her study, holding her wand on the door.

Crookshanks stood next to her, pressed against her robes and yowling quietly, his ears flattened and tail flicking back and forth as he gazed at the door with his yellow eyes.

For all appearances, Crookshanks looked exactly like a large ginger cat with a squashed flat face, bottlebrush tail, and rather bandy legs. He was not a familiar, but he was part Kneazle which gave him unusual intelligence and an ability to identify suspicious and untrustworthy characters. Hermione had purchased him at the Magical Menagerie, under similar conditions as Raucous’. No one had wanted to buy him. He proved invaluable in identifying Peter Pettigrew when he was posing as Ron’s rat, Scabbers.

He was also quite protective of Hermione, and had been staying with her parents as she attended university. Hermione decided that the cat would be a good foil for both Raucous and Severus and went to retrieve him.

Severus knocked again.

“Hermione, I promise…I am not going to do anything but talk. I will keep my wand in my robes pocket,” he said earnestly.

Hermione wavered.

“All right, but keep your hands where I can see them,” she said, approaching the door.

Severus raised his hands as if at gunpoint while Hermione stood listening for a moment. Then she pulled the door open and stepped back quickly, her wand pointed at the Potions Master’s nose. Severus looked at her.

“As you can see, no wand,” he said, entering the room, Hermione backing up as he did so.

“All right, what did you want to say?” Hermione said, her eyes narrowed and wand still on him. Severus was very quick. She wasn’t taking any chances…she had dropped him on his head after all.

“About this morning…I realize that I…”

Suddenly Severus was cut off when a streaking ball of ginger fur attached itself to his robes and started shredding them, yowling and hissing viciously. Severus began kicking his leg out, trying to dislodge the angry cat as it ripped his robes to ribbons.

“Crookshanks! Stop it!” Hermione yelled, running forward and bending, picking up the cat, who held on to the Potions Master’s robes with his claws, giving them a final shred before Hermione pulled him free.

“What is that doing here!” Severus seethed, pointing a long finger at the cat, who hissed at him from Hermione’s arms.

He and Crookshanks never got along well. First off, the cat/kneazle made him sneeze and seemed to purposely drop fur in anyplace the Potions Master had to pass. His nose was starting to itch already.

“I decided I wanted Crookshanks to stay with me for the rest of the year,” Hermione said, petting the hissing cat lovingly, “He’s good company and I missed him.”

Severus glared at the animal.

You know he doesn’t like me, Hermione,” he said, frowning at her.

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

“And you said that to say what?” she asked him.

“You shouldn’t keep an animal that doesn’t like me when you know we are intimate,” he said.

Hermione looked at him like he was crazy.

“You should talk. Raucous has been shitting on me almost daily since you took him in. And when I complained, you said we’d have to work it out ourselves,” she retorted.

“But Raucous is a familiar. He is intelligent. He can be reasoned with,” Severus replied. “Not like that abomination.”

“Crookshanks is extremely intelligent, and he listens to me…most of the time. He’s my cat and he’s here to stay,” Hermione said, her eyes narrowing. “And as far as reasoning with that black devil you call a familiar, I’ve yet to see that proven. He is completely unreasonable when it comes to me.”

Severus scowled at her.

“Maybe that has something to do with you hexing him all the time,” he said snarkily.

“Maybe that has something to do with him shitting on me all the time. Remember, last night he turned me into a dog!” she hissed at the Potions Master.

Crookshanks recoiled in horror. A dog? His mistress had been turned into a dog. Of all the horrible things in the world to be transfigured into.

The cat’s yellow eyes narrowed. Who was this Raucous? He sounded like he needed a stinky gift left in his slipper.

“Only after you turned him into a dodo,” Severus retorted. “He stayed like that for almost two weeks.”

“It was an improvement, I assure you,” Hermione spat, not one bit remorseful, “Too bad it wasn’t permanent.”

Severus realized that arguing with Hermione about this would only make his attempt to apologize that much harder. He looked down at his shredded robes.

“Would you mind if I used my wand to repair this, or would you rather I walk about Hogwarts looking as if I’ve had an encounter with a tiger?” he asked her, arching an eyebrow.

Hermione pointed her wand at his robes and repaired them. Crookshanks howled in protest. She had ruined a perfectly good shredding.

Crookshanks looked up at the pale wizard. It wouldn’t be the last shredding. He didn’t like the vibes he was getting from the Potions Master, particularly toward his mistress. Crookshanks shifted in the witch’s arms, one paw placed on her forearm possessively. Severus didn’t miss this and scowled at the cat once more, before leveling his eyes at Hermione.

“What I wanted to say, Hermione, was I am sorry for this morning. It was very selfish of me to try and force myself on you, especially when you were so amazing last night. I should have been satisfied,” he said, all the while knowing that he could never get enough of the witch.

He wanted to fuck her right now in fact. He took the next step.

“But Hermione, you have to understand how you affect me. How much I desire you. I look at you sometimes when you are in class, or reading or doing something completely ordinary, then I see you under me, your eyes, your face, your body…and I start wanting you. I want you right now, in fact. You’re like an addiction. You were leaving me this morning when I needed my fix of you, and it made me act out of character,” he said.

Hermione looked at him. Severus had been doing fine until his last remark. He was always, always demanding when it came to sex. This morning he had acted completely in character. He had an established pattern of tackling Hermione when she tried to leave his rooms without giving him a goodbye fuck, usually a possessive quickie unless she tried to deny him. Then she got the full Monty.

Not that the witch didn’t enjoy his manhandling, because she did…and secretly wondered if she didn’t inflame him on purpose just do he would thoroughly do what she pretended she didn’t want him to do. Hermione suspected she did…and so did Severus, which was why he went for her. If she hadn’t been so put out about Raucous, he would have completed his mission.

She arched an eyebrow at him. He sighed.

“All right. I concede I was acting in character, but surely you understand why, Hermione,” he said, letting his voice drop to a caress. He knew it affected her.

“And what about my hexing you?” she asked him.

“I understand why you did it,” he responded, being sure not to tell her she was forgiven. Because she wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

“I see,” Hermione said shortly.

Crookshanks had been staring at the Potions Master the entire time he was speaking to Hermione, and divined that he was not being as forthright as he should have. But the cat was not a familiar, so couldn’t warn Hermione about the wizard’s duplicity, so he hissed at the Potions Master.

“Crookshanks! Behave now,” Hermione chided the cat, who looked at her with exasperation, before leaping out of her arms and stalking off to the bedroom on his bandied legs, tail held high in disgust.

The cat stopped by the door, looked over his shoulder and gave Severus a parting hiss before disappearing into the room.

Severus sneezed, his eyes watering.

“Will I see you tonight?” he asked her in a low voice.

Hermione shook her head.

“Not tonight, Severus. My body needs a break. I’ll let you know,” she replied, implying it was time for him to go.

The Potions Master studied her for a moment, then tried another tact.

“We don’t have to do anything, Hermione,” he said, looking as trustworthy as he could.

Hermione looked at the wizard incredulously. He had just fed her a line uttered by every randy sixth year in Hogwarts history.

“You expect me to honestly believe that, Severus? I’ve yet to spend a night in your rooms untouched,” she said, almost laughing at the ludicrousness of the very idea. A night in his bed without sex? Not in a million years.

“That’s because every time you’ve come to my rooms, you expected to be touched,” he said evenly. “I think it very unfair for you to assume that I cannot control myself and spend a night with you without fucking you. Actually, I am insulted. Don’t you think me capable of just enjoying your company? I do love to fuck you, Hermione, but I can spend time with you without indulging myself or you.”

He was hoping this would make her feel bad. It didn’t.

“Be that as it may, Severus. I am going to spend the night in my own rooms, with Crookshanks. We have a lot of catching up to do. I don’t want him spending his first night here alone.”

A self-satisfied yowl came from Hermione’s room.

“You could bring him with you. He could stay in the study,” he said.

“With Raucous?” she asked him.

That didn’t seem like a very good mix. Crookshanks was a cat after all…and Raucous, a bird and…

“I’ll think about it,” Hermione said, her eyes lighting up, “As long as you understand that if I spend the night with you, it will be as a companion only. No sex. No caressing or tickling in intimate places, and especially no mounting me in the middle of the night when I’m asleep. You do Severus, and what happened this morning will pale in comparison to my next hex. You do remember Marcus, don’t you?”

Um hm. Threatening him again. Another entry for the payback list.

“You have no need to worry Hermione. I will be a perfect gentleman,” Severus said silkily, “I like my tool in working order.”

Hermione looked at him doubtfully.

“All right. I’ll let you know,” she said, walking past him and opening the door.

Severus, realizing this was his cue to go, turned and glided past her. He paused at the door.

“Might you indulge me with a kiss before I leave, to assure me peace has been made between us?” the Potions Master asked her, his dark eyes looking at her intently.

Hermione felt a little shudder at the intensity of his gaze and the challenge she saw there. Those eyes had witnessed her at her most wanton and uninhibited. They were all-knowing, always seeming to see deep inside to her most secret desires. She’d been helplessly lost in their depths and now they focused on her trying to bare even more of her soul.

Hermione gave Severus a sudden quick peck on the lips, catching him off guard. He had intended to pull her close and start the small flame he knew his kisses ignited in her. If she came to him tonight with a bit of heat in her belly…ah well. She had bested him, this round. But she still might sleep with him.

If she did, he intended to keep his word not to touch her, as difficult as it would be. If he managed to keep his hands off her as well as other parts of his body, it would give her a sense of security, of safety. But she was never safe from his desire. She wanted him, now she had him…as much of him as she could stand and then some. And next time they were intimate…

“Have a pleasant day, Hermione,” Severus said, giving her a small bow and exiting her rooms with a billow of robes. He was getting an erection at the thought of what he was going to do to her. It wouldn’t have been reassuring for Hermione to see it.

“Goodbye, Severus,” the witch replied, closing the door and leaning back on it with a sigh.

Without warning, Hermione’s mind slipped back to the night before. There were many memorable moments, signature moments in fact, but the one that held her hostage was when the Potions Master lifted her and held her close as if he never wanted to let her go. True, he was putting her body through its paces, taking his complete pleasure of her as he always did, a rough, raw possession. But this time she could feel more than his lust for her. She could feel his emotion, in the way he held her, moved her and most of all, in the way he kissed her. He had been kissing her more and more during sex. And although he did not embrace her afterwards, the look in his eyes when he looked at her felt like one.

Hermione felt a great pulse of affection for the snarky wizard wash over her, and she pushed herself off the door. If she were going to spend a sexless night with the wizard, then she couldn’t dwell on him, especially reading things into his emotions that might not really be there.

She walked into her bedroom, to find Crookshanks lounging in the middle of her bed, as if he had always belonged there. She transformed a bowl she had forgotten to send back to the kitchens into a litter box, complete with litter and put it in the bathroom, then changed two bits of parchment into bowls, one of which she filled with water. She would feed the cat in a few minutes. For now, she lay down next to the ginger feline, and caressed him lovingly. He purred like a little engine, his squashed face looking up at her with adoration and love.

Hermione looked at him and said, “Crookshanks, I know you understand me. Sirius was right when he said you are the most intelligent creature of your kind.”

Crookshanks rolled on his back at this, spreading fur everywhere. Hermione realized she’d have to put an anti-fur charm on everything, otherwise Severus wouldn’t be able to come near her. He’d be sneezing his balls off. She continued talking to the cat.

“You are just as or even more intelligent than that shitmonger Raucous.”

Crookshanks rolled back over and sat up, interested. Raucous was the one who turned his mistress into a dog. Hermione continued.

“Raucous is Severus’ familiar. He’s a raven, but sometimes I believe he is a demon who’s just passing for one. I got him the same place I got you, Crookshanks, at the Magical Menagerie. I saved him from being killed.”

She what? Saved him? And the bird rewarded her by turning her into a dog? The ungrateful black-winged bastard.

Crookshanks’ ears flattened and he made a little kitty scowl, but like Raucous’ expressions, humans couldn’t recognize the subtle change, so Hermione was unaware of the feline’s disapproval. He listened carefully as Hermione told him about her run-ins with the familiar. By the time she finished, Crookshanks was pacing back and forth on the bed like a small, caged lion.

“Tonight I might spend the night with Severus,” Hermione said quietly.

Crookshanks lifted a paw and slowly flexed his claws consideringly. It sounded to him as if there was more shredding to do, as well as some clumps of fur to place strategically.

Hermione looked at the cat, and her eyes softened.

“Don’t worry, Crookshanks, I’ll be taking you if I go, you won’t be alone,” she crooned, completely misreading the cat as she stroked him.

“The only thing is you’ll be alone with Raucous in the study. He can be a nasty piece of work, Crookshanks,” Hermione said, looking a bit worried.

Crookshanks slid his body against her several times, purring, trying to convey that she shouldn’t worry about him. The cat wasn’t the least concerned about the snarky raven.

After all, he could be a pretty nasty piece of work too.

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A/N: Lol. Crookshanks. My, my. Now Severus will find out what it’s like to be targeted by a lover’s pet. Heh heh. Now, what about this “sleeping like friends” crap? I don’t know though, Severus might pull it off simply because he has a larger goal in mind. Poor Hermione. :::tsking::: You are really on the Potions Master’s revenge list. Knowing how retaliatory his is, dropping him on his head, even in a cushy armchair wasn’t the brightest thing to do. Funny though. Lol. Or maybe she meant to piss him off…for next time. Girl, you just don’t know…. Please review.

PLEASE REVIEW “BECOMING FAMILAR” >>> NEXT CHAPTER

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The Burning Pen

Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery
by Ruth Solomon

 

The story content is adult in nature and can contain graphic sex and violence. Those under the age of 18 are asked to leave this site immediately. You are not welcome here. The author is not responsible for those under-aged who view these works.

CHAPTER 38

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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