Archive of Our Own ^beta

Waking up in a bed not her own had been quite the shock.

Waking up in a bed not her own, naked beneath sheets that were unrecognizable had sent her into a panic.

Waking up in a bed not her own, naked beneath sheets that were unrecognizable, next to an equally naked wizard— an equally naked snoring wizard all but gave her a heart attack.

What in Merlin’s fuzzy nipples had happened at that Christmas party?

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“Bloody hell, Herm— mm, Professor Granger,” Charlie Weasley grinned at her, trying and failing to hide a rather appreciative glance over her figure.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “The students have gone, Charlie, I don’t suppose we have to be so formal,” she said, nodding at him. “Though tell me you’re not planning on going to the bloody party looking like that. Minerva will haul you out by your ear and make you change!” she laughed.

Charlie Weasley, current professor for Care of Magical Creatures— O.W.L. through N.E.W.T. level— shrugged his shoulders, which were clad in nothing more than his teaching jerkin with a pair of dragonhide trousers to round out the ensemble. “I don’t really fancy going? I’m sort of hoping she throws me out? I’ve got Linsey, Parker, Pinky, and Petal… I’d much rather be with them tonight, if I’m honest. The holiday party seems to get a little more out of hand every year— and I do not fancy a repeat of ending up trying to find my way back from Hagrid’s at sunup still blind on Fire Whiskey, thank you.”

She just shook her head and continued on up the staircase, heading toward the Great Hall. Charlie Weasley was right. The annual staff Christmas party was becoming something of a raging nightmare. Compulsory attendance, festivities beyond compare, and everyone seemed to imbibe as if they had Hagrid’s liver. She was determined not to make an arse out of herself, or at the very least, not end up passed out in the library with a Christmas crown drooped over her face, drooling into a copy of Hobgoblin’ Christmas Carols like she had last year.

While she didn’t have four enormous dragonling pups to preoccupy her evening as Charlie did— and there was some debate over the general appropriateness, not to mention safety, of raising dragonling pups on the grounds of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry— she had a room with the squishiest armchair in the castle and a personal collection of books that could keep her occupied indefinitely. And if all else failed, she knew the current password to the Prefect’s bathroom and she’d have it blessedly to herself as the students had all been sent off home for the holidays.

She’d dressed spot on for the occasion, if Charlie’s compliment had been any indication, and was making her way to the party, which was already well underway. She hadn’t meant to spend so much time getting ready, but despite years of mastering various charms and potions, her unruly curls were still barely manageable at the best of times. And preparing for the party had not been the best of times. It was a festive, formal affair, or so the Headmistress had said when she’d reminded them all that attendance was compulsory at that morning’s staff meeting, the last one of the calendar year.

Time had gotten away from Hermione while she was getting ready but the end result was close enough to what she’d hoped to achieve. Sleek waves tucked back behind her ears with a circlet of enchanted icicles and ruby red frosty berries draped over her hair, which now tumbled gently— compliments of nearly a dozen different charms and potions— down off her shoulder tops. It matched the garnet dress she wore, with a fitted bodice and an emerald fur trim that framed and bared her shoulders and bust, swooping away to reveal great expanses of her back while the front dipped just low enough to hint at her breasts. It was nearly a floor length affair and it swooped out around her with the aid of a hoop-enchantment that she’d learned some Christmases back, though what year specifically she couldn’t recall.

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That had been the start of the night. Somewhere between passing Charlie Weasley on her way to the party and now she’d lost dress, circlet, and apparently every blessed scrap of underthings she’d been wearing. Hermione closed her eyes tightly, squinting them shut to the point of pain, forcing her brain to rattle and search for the events that would fill in the gaps of the previous night.

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There always seemed to be far more people at the staff Christmas soiree than were actually members of staff. She knew a few of her colleagues had significant others— two of them even had adult children— that were often brought along for the evening’s festivities. And depending on who was currently seated on the Board of Governors and in the seat of Minister of Education, there were a few more bodies where Hermione failed to link names to faces. Emeritus faculty often made appearances and depending on how closely the party fell to the winter solstice, there was either no centaurs anywhere to be found, or a half dozen all making merry with Firenze. Sometimes Rolanda Hooch would invite former students who’d gone on to great Quidditch successes, and occasionally there would be a colleague or two from a neighboring institution, which Hermione thought was rather an absurd way to phrase it as the closest school was on the continent in another bloody country. But all the same, it always seemed to amount to far more than the two dozen or so members of staff actually employed at Hogwarts.

There was a band. Merlin only knew who. Hermione was not up on the latest of the wizarding world music scene, though they were playing a whole host of rather bizarre wizarding Christmas carols, providing gobs of background noise to go along with the party. Far too much food, putting the castle’s traditional welcoming feast and Halloween feast to shame, and of course there was an open bar, tended meticulously by a handful of the castle’s most trusted House Elves. She purposefully did not make a beeline for the bar upon her arrival, but it did not take long before Hermione found a glass of fizzing, flaming something-or-other being pressed into her hand.

“Happy Christmas!” Neville grinned. He had pressed the stem of the curlicue-shaped glass into Hermione’s hand. “How is it— how’s it— how—” he hiccupped. “How’s it that I got the last of my grading finished for my fourth year Herbology students and still made it here before you?” his eyes were glassy and if his smile were any wider it would surely be in danger of slipping off of his face.

Hermione made a slightly exasperated little noise but smiled as she did so. “I’ve no idea, Neville, but I’m pleased to hear your marking is finished.” Because you’ll be fighting off a hangover through the New Year she thought.

“There’s some sort of game—” he grinned but was quickly cut off by a small explosion of popcorn and cranberries raining around his head as several garlands of the stuff unwound their way backwards from one of the many oversized Christmas trees.

“Peeves!” there was a cry from the tree in question and then a lumbering of footsteps as the all-but-lame and severely elderly caretaker, Argus Filch, lumbered after the shrieking Poltergeist out into the corridors, the ghost of Mrs. Norris trotting quickly behind him. The commotion it caused was enough of a distraction for Hermione to slip away from Neville. Whatever game was being played; she wanted no parts of it. Games at the holiday party were less games and more drinking challenges. She eyed the fizzling, flaming concoction still in her hand and wrinkled her nose.

“Don’t drink it!” Rolanda Hooch barked, laughing as she thumped Hermione on her back, only far lower than was necessary. The sober witch in Hermione’s mind decided that the Quidditch Referee and Flying Instructor was aiming to hit a portion of her back that was covered by dress rather than her bare skin, but that was rationalization at its finest. Hermione was fortunate to be of good balance given the force with which she’d just been smacked.

“What’s in it, Ronnie?” she asked, handing the offending glass to the silver-haired witch, who snatched it up, shot it back, and belched loudly, sending a rather impressive red and green interlacing flame-shot up into the air from her lips.

“Feck all if I know, but it makes you do that!” the woman beamed. “Wouldn’t want you to ruin your dress before Mr. Wee— hic— Mr. Weesy— hic— before Weasel-leasle-” she belched again, though this time it was a mere shadow of green and red smoke. “Weasley should see your dress before you set it on fire.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll try to remember that.” She quickly shifted through the Great Hall and away from Rolanda Hooch. Any more beverages and that slap on the back might have been a hard whack on her arse. She sighed, trying not to groan. Of course Ronald would be there. Being a rather impressive Quidditch star for none other than the Chudley Cannons was the Golden Ticket to any event where Rolanda Hooch could get away with inviting more than one plus one. And it wasn’t as if she minded seeing him; their breakup had been mutual, though not entirely amicable. It was the awkward way he was constantly trying to impress her with whatever flavor of the week witch he was on at present that made things unpleasant.

She scanned around the hall, catching sight of him rather quickly. He appeared engrossed in some sort of gruesome version of a Christmas pinata, only instead of a stick he was wielding a Beater’s bat, and the pinata appeared to be spraying bits of what she could only assume was liquor every time it was hit.

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Alcohol. Hermione rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to think back to when she’d started drinking. The naked wizard in the bed beside her had clearly been drinking if his prodigious snoring was any indication. For one brief and horrifying moment, Hermione feared that the wizard in the bed was not a wizard at all and that she’d somehow drunkenly ended up in the bed of Rolanda Hooch. But surely no witch could snore like that? The sheets obscured most of the snoring person’s figure, including face, and Hermione felt her stomach clench in panic. Her eyes darted around the room and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Rolanda Hooch’s rooms were outside the castle, down past the Quidditch pitch, with a great many windows. She knew this on account of having had to escort the witch back to her quarters after at least one holiday party some years back. This room— at least the room with the bed— did not have any windows.

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“Professor Granger,” the voice, deep and low, caught her attention so quickly she nearly lost her footing as she whirled around to greet the face attached to the greeting.

She tried not to smile too broadly. “Severus,” she said with a welcoming nod. He’d always been formal— with everyone and not just her— even at staff meetings, even when there were no students present. He never made a fuss over being addressed without the formality but he also never deviated from addressing everyone by their title. She took just a moment to take him in. It wouldn’t do to stare at him. As happy as she was to find someone who wasn’t already three sheets to the wind, she did not wish to incur his verbal lashings for staring. Formal, black attire, nothing too severe, certainly nothing festive, but nothing so uptight as to put him too far out of place. “Enjoying the evening?”

He scoffed. “I’ve another hour until the Headmistress will be too soused to notice whether I am still in attendance or not,” he said quietly and nodded in the general direction of the Head Table, which was currently hosting some absurd form of human leapfrog on its top. The Headmistress appeared to be leading some hybrid game of leapfrog and limbo, along with several of their colleagues and quite a few witches that Hermione did not recognize.

She shook her head and turned her attention away from the Head Table, lest someone catch her eyeing it and force her to join in. “Is there anything safe to drink?” she asked.

He nodded to a small table in the far corner. “That house-elf appears to be in possession of yet-untainted Elf Wine,” he offered. “It’s mulled and a bit heavy on the cinnamon, but I am to understand that all of the cloves are being used for the oranges.” He gestured to a series of garlands lofted lazily over their heads, from which hung several dozen large, ripe oranges, all studded and dotted in various patterns with cloves.

“Right,” she said. “Don’t let one fall on your head,” she smiled.

“Don’t let one come to your hand,” he countered.

“Beg pardon?” she asked, taking small, careful steps toward the table that he had indicated, noting with satisfaction that he was striding along with her.

“The Headmistress’ latest atrocity,” he muttered. “Some ancient tradition or other— no doubt some foolish Dickensian game,” he rolled his eyes. “That was a man who should have been cooked with his own goose and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”

Hermione couldn’t help but snort at the comment. Despite his demeanor, Severus Snape was rather clever. “And what wary concerns should I have about games involving clove-studded oranges?”

“A warped and frustrated perversion on the suspicious tradition of swapping a Pomander Ball for a social introduction,” he muttered and then took a careful step out from under the swaying garland, watching as one of the loaded, large oranges began to plumet from on high. “Case in point,” he nodded at the offending fruit as it squashed to the floor. “I’ve been watching them fall for a quarter of an hour now; they’re enchanted, no doubt, and the amount of tail-chasing all around the hall as a result has been absurd and obscene to put it mildly.”

She frowned, pausing in front of the tiny, lesser attended table with the house elf. “Two please,” she said to the tiny creature, and waited patiently for two goblets to be poured. “So the pinatas spout bubbly, the garlands are dropping love-laced citrus, and the usual drunken shenanigans and chicanery?” she asked, taking the goblets, and handing one to Severus.

He took the glass with a nod and sniffed it before taking a delicate sip. “The pinatas are spraying fire whiskey— and something called Rumchata,” his lips thinned over the word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth, “compliments of whatever girl your former paramour has brought with him this year,” Severus held her gaze for several moments before taking another slow sip of the Elf wine. “It’s some lurid muggle spirit; ogre bathwater tastes more pleasant.”

“Delightful,” Hermione shuddered and took a healthy sip from her glass. If it had passed Severus’ approval, she felt it unnecessary to test it herself. “Liquor-loaded pinatas, lust-laden citrus—”

“The Pomander Balls,” he gestured with his free hand to a spray of garland swinging dangerously low near Neville Longbottom. The bough was heavy with bright oranges, each dotted with a dozen or more cloves. “I suspect, are meant to be a bit of fun. But thusly they’ve proven to be little more than a wheelbarrow of lust-induced chase. Whether or not that’s mostly influenced by the alcohol… Merlin only knows,” he said.

Hermione tried not to snicker. It was a rather chaotic scene all around them. Though everyone, mostly everyone, appeared to be enjoying themselves. There was just something about being a raving banshee, out of her mind with drink that didn’t quite live up to Hermione’s definition of fun. She gave Severus a small nod and smile. “And what exactly should I do if I’m clunked by one of these Pomander Balls?” she asked.

“If you can help it, do not pick it up. The enchantment only works if you touch the blasted thing with your hands, or so says Professor Hiccup,” he grumbled and nodded his head in the general direction of what was once the Ravenclaw table. Filius Flitwick was spinning about rather like a top, waving his wand, and whipping up whirl after whirl of snowflakes, which were zipping and zooming about until they collided with someone, splattering the poor unsuspecting person with snow, much to the diminutive professor’s amusement. “You’ll be forced to exchange a series of kisses with some nearby witch or wizard until all the cloves have been plucked out or some rather unsightly jinx kicks in,” he took a deeper swallow of his elf wine. “Or so I’m told.”

Hermione stood with him for several more moments in silence, or as much silence as there could be in the boisterous hall. She was observing the chaos and presumably he was doing the same. When she’d finished her goblet of Elf wine, she smiled at him and dipped her head slightly. “Thank you for the warnings,” she said “I shall do my best to avoid the madness, particularly the Pomander Balls.”

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That made her head swim. Pomander Balls! Hermione sucked her lips into her mouth, noting the lingering warmth of clove. So she’d been a victim of the sodding hexed citrus! She groaned. But her groan was louder than she expected and she noticed something immediately. The wizard in the bed beside her was no longer snoring. Hermione’s body froze. Was he awake? Did she dare look to see who she’d inadvertently ended up naked in bed with? And why couldn’t she remember anything? Surely she hadn’t had much more than a goblet or two of Elf Wine? Perhaps it had been spiked after all.

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“Oh! Oh, no thank you!” Hermione did her best to side-step a very drunk Sybil Trelawney, who was insisting that she read Hermione’s inner eye or some other garbled gook that was slurring out of the strange woman’s mouth. Hermione had refilled her goblet of Elf wine twice more if for no other reason than to keep from having random drinks pushed into her hand. The room was warm and the thumping of music was starting to go a little fuzzy inside her head. She would need to carefully nurse the third goblet so as to not end up over-imbibing.

She glanced around the hall, looking for no one in particular. She couldn’t be sure, but as she didn’t see him, she figured Severus had successfully made his exit. While she was under no particular contract to stay for the duration of the party, she felt guilty sneaking out having arrived rather late. But the more she meandered through the room, trying to make idle holiday chatter with those too drunk to engage while trying to evade the hooligans who had imbibed a year’s worth of spirits in an hour, the less guilty she began to feel about slipping out and finding her way back to the pace and quiet of her quarters.

It was just when she’d set her sights on the exit, thinking about throwing several logs on the fireplace in her sitting room with a nice steaming kettle of tea when it happened. Several things happened and all at once too. There was a loud explosion of fireworks; it was a combination of Weasley products and Dr. Filibuster’s and perhaps some third brand all mixed up overhead, creating spectacular fizzes and whizzes and bangs in all sorts of Christmas-y colors. Ron Weasley and Rolanda Hooch, who had both produced broomsticks from Merlin only knew where, came zipping through the Great Hall at lightning speed, whooping and hollering as they started winging Beater bats are the garlands hanging overhead. And then it started raining Pomander Balls.

In the chaos and total calamity, Hermione threw her hands up to shield her face as a particularly bright Pomander Ball was thwapped free of its garland and came hurtling toward her head. She caught it. Hermione growled at the sky but Rolanda and Ron were spinning circles all around the hall, clearly drunk beyond their wildest imaginations. And then she shrieked, dropping the clove-studded orange immediately. Only a funny thing happened. The Pomander Ball fell, nearly to the floor, and then at the last second before making impact with the flagstones, it hovered and shot up like a rocket, landing back in Hermione’s hands.

Oh bollocks. she thought.

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It was the same thought she was having in the bed, unwilling to turn around and face her unwitting bed partner. “I’m— erm— I’m terribly sorry,” she started, tripping over her words as she spoke.

“As you should be. You’re a Blanket Hog, Order of Merlin First Class,” the somewhat pinched voice of Severus Snape echoed from behind her.

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How had she managed to do the one thing he’d specifically told her to avoid? Hermione groaned inwardly and had made the fastest beeline in the history of beelines directly for the door before anyone could notice that she was clutching one of the enchanted Pomander Balls. Elf wine, exploding snowballs, and all of the Christmas chaos was quickly forgotten as she hastened her steps out of the Great Hall, through the corridors, and to the first set of descending staircases she could find.

Urgent thundering on the well-hidden door at the back of his office eventually led to a rather vexed looking Severus Snape standing in the doorway of his chambers. This was only after she’d made her way down through the dank and chilly dungeons, through the wards of the Potions’ classroom, and through the wards of his office. She had been unsuccessful in disarming the wards to his quarters and had started pounding on the door once she’d uncovered it.

“Are you trying to bring the entire dungeon down with you or just the door?” he asked.

“What unsightly curse is going to befall me if I don’t follow the enchantment of this bloody thing and can you undo it?” she spat, all but shoving past him into his chambers.

Severus stood staring at her for a moment before stalking swiftly back into the sitting room of his quarters, closing the outer door behind him. “Wouldn’t that be a question more prudent for its enchanter, Professor Granger?” he asked, crossing both arms over his chest. There was the faintest hint of a smirk playing across his lips but all it was doing was causing Hermione’s ire to rise.

“Filius is beyond soused. Minerva too and I wouldn’t know which one to ask anyhow. I was trying to draw the least amount of attention to myself once the bloody thing— oh, nevermind!” she snapped and huffed with an exasperated sigh. “You said something about kissing and an unsightly curse or jinx— and you’re about the only person still sober in this bloody castle short of some of the spirits themselves,” she ranted.

Severus snorted softly. “Don’t be so sure of that, Professor Granger. I’ve had at least one glass of fire whiskey since retiring for the evening.”

Hermione’s eyes widened for a moment but the moment passed. She would find time to dwell on his personal drinking habits later. She was certain time was of the essence. “I’m running out of calm and patience, Severus,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone even. “Please explain to me what exactly you know about this blasted thing so that I can do my best to avoid whatever horrid jinx or curse awaits me should I fail.”

There was a long, drawn-out pause. Hermione’s fingers were trembling slightly. She’d gripped the enchanted fruit so tightly on her way to seek him out that her hands were starting to ache. She stared at Severus, waiting anxiously for him to say something.

“I suggest you take your chances with the jinx, Professor Granger,” he said smoothly. “As I believe you’ll be disinclined to partake in the enchantment as it stands in present company.”

Hermione shook her head. “Which is?”

If she didn’t know better she would have sworn that she saw a slight hint of color creep into Severus Snape’s cheeks. Just a hint of something that resembled a blush but in the blink of an eye it was gone and she convinced herself, for the moment, that it had been a trick of the light. She stared at him, tapping her foot nervously, uneasy all over with the whole situation. “Well?” she said after he remained silent.

There was an almost inaudible sigh that escaped Severus’ lips. “It was explained in slurred detail,” he said simply. Something in the tone of his voice had shifted though she wasn’t quite sure what. “The Pomander Ball has been enchanted— don’t ask for the origins, significance, symbolism, what have you, I stopped trying to make sense of what those two tittering hooligans were saying when they started hiccupping their way through explaining it,” he growled softly.

Hermione assumed he was referring to Filius and Minerva but nodded her head enthusiastically, wishing for all the world that he would get to the point. He stared at her. “Yes, and?” she asked, patience wearing thin in her voice.

Severus’ tone was immediately that of his lecturing voice; the one she’d heard far too frequently at her time spent in his classroom as a student what seemed like a lifetime ago. “There’s an even number of cloves jabbed into each orange; the numbers vary from fruit to fruit but they’re all even. When the unlucky recipient clutches the Pomander Ball, each clove is, in turn, exchanged for a kiss on the person in current closest proximity to the enchanted. The cloves are removed one by one, swapping spices for kisses— hence the even numbers— to be shared by the pair until there are no cloves left.”

Hermione felt her face flush bright red. Though her colleague made no mention or mockery of this. “I see,” she said, choosing to look down at the daunting piece of fruit in her hand rather than directly at his face as she had been doing.

“Hence my suggestion that you take your chances with the jinx, Professor Granger.”

There was something reserved in his voice. A bitterness or perhaps sadness? She didn’t want to think on it. Her current dilemma was keeping her brain occupied enough. Hermione frowned, her brow furrowing as she stared down at the Pomander Ball in her hands. “I think I’d rather not,” she mumbled. And then hastily added. “Take my chances,” she bit her lower lip, nervously looking up at him. “With the jinx.”

Silence filled the room. She watched as Severus stalked over toward an armchair, noting how swiftly he snatched up a bottle of Black Label Old Ogden’s. He gripped the bottle firmly around the neck, popping the cork out of its top with a sharp plonking sound.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried, rushing forward and suddenly feeling very, very foolish for having done so.

Severus arched a thin eyebrow up onto his forehead. “If you’re implying that you wish to carry on with this little enchantment, I need another drink.”

Hermione’s face was furiously scarlet. “I only— I just meant— you’re sober, at least, you’re not roaring drunk like everyone else at that bloody party— I didn’t—”

His stare quelled her words. “I assure you, Professor Granger, another drink is not going to send me roaring over the cliffs.” He produced a glass from somewhere, Hermione was too preoccupied with feeling embarrassed to notice from where, and he poured a healthy splash of the Fire whiskey into it. Severus set the bottle down and brought the glass to his lips, taking the whole of its contents back in one swallow. “You are youthful and rather easy on the eyes, two things which I am not, and if I am to engage in swapping spit with you, I would prefer to feel a bit less inhibited over doing so.”

She was so stunned at his words that she dropped the Pomander Ball out of her hands. But it only fell a short way before bounding back up into her palms. She was sure her face was as deep a shade of garnet as her dress. Had he just complimented her on her appearance? That thought made her flush even more. Perhaps he was right the first time, she should have taken her chance with the mystery jinx. “It’s only kisses,” she whispered, her voice sounding terribly foreign to her.

Severus scoffed. “You have spent several years watching your fellow colleagues get up to hijinks and no-good come Christmas, Professor Granger, surely you’re not so naïve as to believe it’s as simple as all that?”

Hermione’s stomach was filled with butterflies. “Hermione,” she said, nodding her head as if to affirm her own words.

“What?” he asked.

“My name’s—”

“You spent five years waggling your arm in the air during my lessons in Potions, another year doing so in Defense, and have spent—” he paused here but for just a moment, as if fact-checking his own brain, “—seven years here in this castle on staff, attending various and sundry functions not to mention the 104 staff meetings we all get forced into every bloody year— I am well aware of your name, Professor Granger.”

“I just thought, all things considered, perhaps you’d care to be a little less formal, Severus.” She said, noting just how sharp her tone sounded. She hadn’t meant to sound so biting but it did seem rather absurd, given that they were likely to be swapping kisses, for him to continue referring to her title.

“I’d care to be a little more inebriated,” he said, his black eyes glinting in the low light of the room. “You’ll be the scandal of the castle come the morning. If I were plastered you could at the very least say I took advantage of that cursed citrus.”

Hermione’s eyes blinked several times, making her look doe-like. “I— sorry. But— what?” she asked, trying to string his words together again in her mind. “Severus, I’m not sure what you—”

“You said yourself that I am the only sober individual in this castle—”

Hermione squeaked, breaking him off mid-sentence. “Sorry,” she said, feeling her cheeks tingle. She wasn’t quite certain but had her suspicions that the inklings of whatever curse or hex was attached to the Pomander Ball was beginning to take effect. “I mentioned you were sober because you had knowledge of this infernal thing— yes, but also— I wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’d taken advantage— I’ve no inclination to go around snogging pissed colleagues. And I’ve even less inclination of becoming the castle’s gossipy scandal,” she added and then sighed. “And you’re older, yes,” she admitted. “But not old. And as far as easy on the eyes,” she could feel her face burning this time but knew full well it had nothing to do with the curse of the fruit. “At the risk of sounding rather foolish, I’d say I find you quite easy on the eyes.”

Severus stared at her. “Perhaps you’ve imbibed too much,” he muttered and began to pace lightly about his sitting room.

“I’m serious!” she protested. “You’re not textbook pretty-boy but who is? Don’t answer that— so help me, Merlin, if you say Lockhart, I’ll bean you with this orange. Right in your nose and my aim is quite good at such close range.”

“You’d be hard pressed to miss if your target is my nose, Professor Granger,” he said, pausing to stare at her once more.

A self-depreciating Snape was something new. She knew he was clever, witty too, and often his sarcasm made her chuckle. Perhaps a lot more than she was willing to admit. But he’d just paid himself out over his rather sizeable nose. She tried to suppress a snort. Composing herself she drew in a breath and took a bold step toward him. “It’s one of your more notable features,” she offered and then winced slightly. “Ah,” she sucked in a breath. “But we can debate them at some other time, perhaps. You’re sober, and easy on the eyes— on my eyes at least— and I’m getting dreadfully worried that whatever hideous curse is attached to this thing is starting to take effect. That’s twice now I’ve had terrible twinges in my cheek, and I suspect that if I wait much longer I shall break out in horrid, holly-marked hives or something of the like. So please,” she said taking another step to close the distance between them.

Severus turned, standing just before her, not quite towering over her, but tall enough that she had to look up to meet his gaze. He gave the smallest of sighs. “I am certain you’ll regret this,” he muttered, and took the Pomander Ball from her hands. He spun it around, taking note of the intricate pattern of cloves that peppered the orange surface. “There are 24 cloves,” he said.

“24?” she gasped.

“Remember, they’re split, even numbers. 12 kisses each. I suspect that aligns with the 12 days of Christmas, Pro—” he paused here and drew his eyes to hers. “24,” he said, not using her name.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, fine. So do you start or do I?”

He shook his head slightly. “It makes little difference.” He plucked a clove out of the firm skin of the orange and handed it to her. “Tradition states, though Merlin knows who’s, that you’re meant to put the clove into your mouth before bestowing a kiss. The person you’re meant to bestow the kiss upon will touch with a finger the place on their body where they wish you to bestow the kiss.”

“Right,” she said, feeling her face flush again. It was just a dozen kisses. How awkward could it be?

“Knowing the Headmistress…” he sighed heavily. “And how very likely she would have been to consult certain former Headmaster’s portraits in this matter…I suspect it won’t be quite as simple as all that…there’s almost certainly some enchantment to prevent the same area on the same person from being kissed more than once or some nonsense of the like. Lips to skin, all that rubbish.”

This drew her eyes open as wide as she could manage. She took a moment to glance over his figure. He was still donned in the very black and very concealing dress robes he’d worn to the party. And while she had enough skin exposed with her backless dress and demurely dipped front and bare shoulders, what exactly would count as the same area? Would you be allowed to have him kiss only one shoulder or did each shoulder count as a separate place on the body? Someone was going to be doing some undressing. And she flushed a bit more as she realized that in addition to Severus, she might also be that someone. “I see.”

“Do you now?” he asked, eyes trailing over her figure. “Last offer Professor Granger. I assure you that whatever jinx or curse accompanies that orange, finding an anti-jinx for it would be your better option. I’m no— textbook pretty-boy— as you said.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Do shut up,” she said and then grinned sheepishly. “Bugger, I’m sorry.” Then she chuckled. “Actually, I’m not, I’ve been wanting to say that for ages. Felt surprisingly good to say— aah!” she winced, another sharp twinge shooting through her cheek and up inside the cavity of her sinus. “Goodness,” she spluttered, clutching at her cheek. “I want to get on with this before my face falls off,” she said.

“Your funeral, Professor Granger,” he said and turned away from her long enough to draw his wand and with a simple, silent flick, two things happened simultaneously. A low, glowing fire leaped to life in the fireplace, which she hadn’t realized they’d been standing in front of, and whatever source of light had previously been brightening the room doused itself out. “I’ve given you the first clove,” he said and took a step back from her, moving to stand in the firelight, which cast queer shadows over his face. He turned his face toward the fireplace, showing her the left side of his jaw and gingerly tapped a spot just to the left of his chin.

Hermione bit her lower lip and then pinched the clove in her fingers. She popped the spice into her mouth and made a slight face. It was bitter, but spicy and warm, tinted with the lingering remnant of the citrusy orange juice. As if it were magic rather than an actual clove, it dissolved into tingles onto her tongue. Taking one step and then another toward him, she stopped, standing just in front of him and leaned up slightly on her toes, letting her face draw close to his before she puckered her lips together and pressed them gently against the spot on his jaw that he’d indicated. She let her lips linger there for a moment, noting that his skin was smooth except for the slight bristling of stubble, nothing so harsh as to be coarse or even considered a five o’clock shadow, but just enough to be different from the otherwise soft texture of his face.

“My turn?” she asked as she drew her lips back from his jaw. He nodded. “Right,” she said and plucked a clove from the orange before handing it to him. A thrill shot through her belly and lower into her loins. That certainly wasn’t meant to happen. Perhaps she’d had too much Elf wine. She thought for a moment, letting her eyes linger over his lips. They were thin but did not appear chapped and for one fleeting moment she wondered what they would feel like pressed against her own. Was that allowed? Perhaps she should save that. Clearing her mind with a little shake, Hermione touched her collarbone, halfway between the slope of her neck and the point of her shoulder on her right side. And she noticed, as Severus popped the clove into his mouth, that she was shivering.

“Are you cold?” he asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

“N-no, I don’t think I am, actually,” she confessed, knowing that her words were making her cheeks bright red again. If that was what it was like to shiver with anticipation, she was almost sorry that he would make it stop when he kissed her skin.

She felt the tickle of his hair brush her skin first. The fine, black strands brushed against her, a harbinger to the lips that would follow. Hermione felt a spark shoot up her spine and knew it had nothing to do with the enchanted orange, at least not the curse anyway. Severus pressed his lips firmly against her collarbone, exactly where she had indicated. She felt his nose nudge gently against the dip of sinew and muscle just above the bone and shivered again noting the heat of his breath as he exhaled slowly before drawing his lips together and up away from her. It was sensual. Hermione felt her toes tingling and noted that she was shivering just a little bit more than before.

Desperate for something to do with her hands, to keep from flinging them around his neck and assaulting him with a rather overzealous snog session, Hermione squeezed the orange and plucked out a clove, handing it to him. “Here,” she said unnecessarily, noting how cracked her voice was over just that single word.

“It’s your turn to kiss,” he said, handing the clove back to her, pressing it into her palm, the Pomander Ball hovering beside her.

“Oh. Right! Sorry!” she blushed furiously.

She watched in awe, her eyes round and wide as he turned his face into the firelight once more, the other side, pressing a slightly different spot on his jaw but on the right side of his face. Hermione closed her eyes but only for a moment and swallowed. One person should not generate such tingles and chills and shivers of anticipation while wearing so much clothing and tilting their head from side to side in the firelight. This time she felt her lips trembling as she leaned forward, pressing them more fully against the spot on his jawline, leaving them slightly parted so that when she pulled back the feeling of his skin lingered a little longer against her lips.

Hermione turned to look at the Pomander Ball, about to reach for a clove to hand him but a frown creased her brow. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

She plucked the orange out of its levitating hover and spun it around in her hands twice, scrutinizing it. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “I kissed you. You kissed me. I just kissed you again— that’s three cloves gone— but there’s still 22 cloves.”

Severus took the orange from her hands, spun it around, around again, and around a third time, his eyes narrowed as if trying to find where the additional clove had come from. “So there are,” he said flatly.

“Did you— are you certain there were 24 to begin with? Maybe there were 26?”

Severus stared at her. “Even so, Professor Granger, that would not account for three kisses having been given and an even number of cloves still remaining.”

“Oh. Right,” she muttered feeling foolish for not having thought that through.

“What’s more likely,” he started and then paused, his lips sinking into a slight frown. “A perimeter of the enchantment. My jaw was used once, despite it being the opposite side, appearing not to count for a unique kiss bestowed by you upon my person,” he muttered.

Hermione’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t help but gape at him for a moment before quickly snapping her jaw shut and clearing her throat. “I see,” she said, trying not to make a further fool out of herself. She wasn’t angry that her second kiss hadn’t counted, far from it. In the back of her mind something was dancing about quite giddy with the notion that she’d gotten to give him some sort of unregistered ‘bonus’ kiss. Pity they hadn’t made that discovery after he’d done the same for her.

“This may complicate the matter,” he said sounding rather dour.

“How?” she asked, swallowing quickly, realizing the moment she’d asked the question that she already knew the answer.

“It should be quite obvious, Professor Granger, that if the enchantment is insisting upon more… specific locations…without allowing for repeats despite the opposite side of one’s face being a perfectly valid selection for ‘a different place to bestow a kiss’…the pair of us are going to run out of kissable flesh rather quickly in our current state of dress.”

He’d said it. Their current state of dress. Hermione was both horrified and thrilled at hearing these words. But she grinned, unable to keep the smile from her lips. “And what’s the matter with that?” she asked, clapping her hand over her mouth as if in shock that she’d dared to voice such a thing aloud. She’d meant to say, ‘Oh, well, we’ll figure it out as we go.’ but instead had just blurted out, not in as many words, that she didn’t mind his shedding some clothing. And moreover that she didn’t see a problem in having to shed some of her own.

“You say that now, Professor Granger,” he muttered and sighed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Really, Severus,” she shook her head. “If we’re going to be taking off clothing, please, call me Hermione. And honestly— if we’ve both got to do it— then what’s the harm? Unless you’ve not much punch to pack in the pants department?” her eyes glittered and she couldn’t believe her own ears. Had she really just said that? Out loud? Merlin’s nuts there must have been some tongue-loosening agent at work inside the enchanted Pomander Ball.

Severus’ eyebrows shot up rather high onto his forehead. Though she noted, with a bit of pleasure, that his cheeks did not flush red. This made her blush all the more. If he wasn’t embarrassed by her ballsy little comment perhaps he had nothing to be ashamed of and that thought sent several shivers of a very different kind shooting right down between her legs. Hermione fidgeted on her feet but refused to look away from him, despite the shock that was surely written on her own face. “Sorry,” she muttered after a moment. She watched in curious fascination as he drew both hands up beneath his chin and started fiddling with his collar. “What are you— oh.” She said. “Oh!” realization dawned on her as she watched the first button come undone, then a second, and a third.

“Pants department or not, Hermione,” he paused here, drawing a harsh emphasis on her name. “I am not an attractive wizard. I have scars and stretch marks and wounds that never healed properly. Suffice it to say I am no witch’s fantasy in the aesthetics department.” He lowered his hands after having successfully undone five buttons, exposing a pale expanse of neck to her eyes. She could just see the beginning of the jagged scar that the snakebite had left on him, though she did her best not to stare. He pressed a clove suddenly into her palm and tapped at the hollow of his throat, just below his Adam’s apple before his neck gave way into his breastbone.

Hermione, who was both miffed and muddled over exactly what she was meant to be feeling in that moment, popped the clove into her mouth and let the tingly, warm, and acidic dot dissolve against her tongue. She was more hurried as she leaned forward, again still leaning up slightly on her toes. She brought her lips to hover just over the spot of flesh he had indicated. “So do I, you know,” she murmured and then pressed her lips down firmly against his skin. Hermione drew her lips together against his throat, inhaling as she did, drawing the scent of him into her nostrils. It was difficult to discern what of the warmth and spices were radiating from him and what was the remnant of the clove in her mouth. She pulled her lips back just enough to look up at him. “Have scars,” she said, catching his eyes. “Stretch marks too in places that are most unflattering,” she added. “And wounds that never healed properly.” She held his gaze, watching to gauge his reaction. But he was Severus Snape and his eyes were as passive as ever. Or stubborn. She didn’t know. She tried with words again. “So we’re agreed we’re both marred up then? Good, shall we carry on?”

Hermione didn’t wait for him to reply. She plucked up the Pomander Ball, yanked out a clove bud and pressed it into his palm. And then she did something rather daring. She placed her fingers just as the center of her breastbone, where the fabric hem trimmed with fur, edged around her breasts. It was directly between them and she held her fingers there for a moment, eyeing him cautiously. Would he think it a step too far? There were other bits of exposed skin and flesh on her that she could have chosen. She’d only had him kiss her collarbone. She had two whole arms, or one if the sides of the body counted as one, with elbows, wrists, forearms, hands, fingers, and she hadn’t even bothered with her face or her back. It was daring and telling, a show of interest if nothing else. And she couldn’t help but wonder how his lips would feel being so dangerously close to a forbidden part of her anatomy.

Severus made a non-committal noise, something like a grunt and a scoff, caught quietly in the back of his throat, while his eyes swept over the bustline of her dress. Her breath caught in her throat, a soft gasp of surprise as he swooped his head forward and stopped just shy of pressing his lips to her breastbone exactly where her fingers still were. “If you think…” he whispered, his voice a low rumble, his breath heating her skin and sending shivers of gooseflesh up and down her arms. “That this is some sort of punishment for me…think again…” and he pressed his lips against her skin. A sound escaped her throat and she tilted her neck back, feeling his lips pressing up the length of her breastbone, a second time, then a third, again, and once more, before he let them linger just where the edges of her collarbone seamed together at the base of her throat. He’d kissed her; he’d kissed her five times. Her heart was galloping over beats in her chest.

“Are you cheating?” she asked, her voice breathless.

She was rewarded with a dark and heady sound, like molten chocolate drizzling down a warmed brownie. Severus was chuckling. “Testing at theory,” he said. “It made no difference to the number of cloves still in the orange.”

If that was his idea of testing theories, she hoped he had many more. “Right,” the word whooshed over her lips in a heavy breath. He’d barely touched her, five dizzying kisses up her breastbone and her head was swimming, not to mention the dampness in her knickers, which was beginning to feel more like a flood. “Your turn— erm— I mean— yes, well— my turn to kiss you— yours to—here,” she said, pushing the Pomander Ball into his hands.

Severus plucked a clove out and Hermione squeaked in surprise as he pressed the bud directly against her lips rather than placing it into her palm. He presented her with the heel of his palm and pressed two fingers at the edge of where his palm met his wrist. A rather less intimate place than she had hoped but his fingers had just been against her lips. She swallowed the clove, coughing slightly as she hadn’t meant to actually swallow it. Hermione cleared her throat and then brought her lips against the rather rough feeling skin of his palm. It made for a curious contrast from his jaw and from the hollow of his throat, but she wasn’t complaining. There was something odd and deeply intimate about kissing that part of his hand. He worked with his hands: grading papers, making potions; they were instruments that were an integral part of what defined him. She liked that. Letting her lips open and close just a little, she mouthed two kisses against his skin before pulling her face back.

Hermione caught his eye as she pulled away from the kisses at his palm. Was he smirking? Surely not! She blinked and as if her eyelids could clear the expression from his face, Severus’ features came into focus. No, he wasn’t smirking, at least not anymore. Or not in a way that she could easily tell without scrutinizing his face a good while longer. The Pomander Ball hovered between them. She plucked a clove out of it and handed it to him, not quite so daring as to place it against his lips as he had done to her. She thought for a moment. Drawing her fingers up beside her head, she slowly traced the shell of her right ear from lobe to top. “There,” she said, trying not to sound so breathy when she spoke.

He nodded, taking the clove into his mouth. Merlin, she was done for. Those lips, his lips were there, more quickly than she’d realized. And his tongue! Gods above, that tongue! Severus pressed a soft, almost chaste kiss against her earlobe but quickly remedied the innocent gesture with a deliberate and slow swipe of his tongue, tracing the path her fingers had used to outline the shell of her ear. She could feel his nose nestled against her hair, which was miraculously still restrained in the enchanted holiday circlet. Hermione whimpered, clutching outward and grasping a handful of his dress robes. “S-sorry,” she mumbled but leaned her head into him all the same. He was suckling the shell of her ear, slowly sliding his lips back down until he met the lobe, gingerly kissing it once more. She thanked all the stars above she’d forgone wearing earrings before heading off to the ball.

Hermione could no longer see straight, let alone think straight. While it was no great secret that she was outstandingly single, she had never before considered taking up anything sexual or otherwise with anyone inside the walls or grounds of Hogwarts. Neville was smitten over Luna. Charlie loved his dragons too much to share anything other than friendship with anyone. The list of eligible men inside the castle stopped there. Except for Snape, whom she had somehow managed to overlook. Until now. How she’d managed to overlook him she hadn’t the slightest clue. Because he was sex on a stick, a very tall, dark, and moody stick that she was currently learning the dimensions of by way of enchanted fruit décor. She made a mental note to send both Minerva and Filius a large fruit basket come the morning.

Severus pushed the floating Pomander Ball toward her. She plucked out a clove, popped it into her mouth, and nodded at him, deeply curious as to where he would assign this next kiss. Hermione didn’t have to wait long. His eyes were sparkling, almost glittering in the low light of his quarters and the gesture with his hand was quite deliberate. It wasn’t particularly sexy and yet somehow he managed to make it seem so as he tapped two fingers to his left temple. Hermione gave him a small smile, almost cheeky in its nature as she stepped to him, balanced up on her toes and then cleared her throat a bit. “You could make this easier if you leaned down a bit,” she muttered.

“I could,” he offered though he remained standing straight up.

Hermione huffed. “Honestly.”

There it was. That rich, spine-tingling sound. Severus chuckling just at the back of his throat. She made another mental note to get a recording of his voice sometime. For studying purposes. She narrowed her eyes at him and noted his lips. He was smirking. Most definitely smirking. Or smiling. Smiling feral. Did it matter? It was sexy as hell.

“How am I supposed to kiss you there if you won’t lean down? You are a good deal taller than me,” she said, feeling the slightest hint of her temper flaring.

“Are you a witch or aren’t you?” he asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m not bloody levitating up to you,” she muttered and then with a bit of a jump, she grabbed an arm around his shoulder, forcing him to lean down so she could bring her lips to his temple. It was a quick kiss; she didn’t have the chance to savor it. But she did note the way his hair smelled, herbal and smoky and it didn’t feel as oily as she’d expected.

Severus shrugged his shoulder, forcing her to let him go and he shook his head, again that dusky chuckle escaping his lips. “My turn,” she heard him say and that drew her back to his face, eyes swimming for a moment before she settled on his lips. Then she dropped her gaze to his hands, watching him pluck up a clove. How did the man make a menial task like plucking spices out of fruit look so undeniably sexy? She couldn’t wrap her head around that.

With eyelids fluttering, she quickly shook her head as if trying to regain control of her senses. She wanted to savor this. He’d made the comment, regarding their state of dress, but she wasn’t going to wait for him to make the move. She was a Gryffindor after all. Technically, he’d already undone five buttons on his collar, but on robes belonging to Severus Snape that was the same as puritan women showing too much ankle. With knickers so damp with need they were starting to become uncomfortable and butterflies threatening to erupt from her stomach, Hermione tried to pull her thoughts to order. They’d shared three kisses each if the bonus kisses didn’t count. And she’d just bestowed a fourth to his temple. Which meant she had eight more to give and he had nine.

Hermione pursed her lips for a moment, caught deep in a battle of thought. Should she play it safe and have him kiss her nose? Or something more risqué like her lower back just as the edge of where the dress cut away? Perhaps middle-ground— her shoulder blades? Even the back of her neck would suffice. None of it would be as innocent as all that with Severus’ lips on her body but it wasn’t so bold as starting to strip out of her dress. There was a very Gryffindorish part of her that longed to tap her hand just at the top of her bum but there was a very self-conscious part of her who was afraid he might be put off by just how wet he was making her. And his robes were far too voluminous and inky black for her to tell properly if this was arousing him or merely amusing him. What had he said about it not being a punishment?

“Change your mind?” she heard his voice and her eyes flew back into focus, catching the look of curiosity blended with concern as it flitted over his face.

“No!” she yelped a bit louder and more hurriedly than she’d intended. “No, not at all,” and then she blushed. “Sorry,” she added. “I was just…sod it,” she muttered. Hermione turned slightly, showing him her back as she reached over her shoulder and tapped the left one as best she could manage with two fingers.

Another half-scoff sound escaped his lips though she noted, with no shortage of glee, that a slight smirk was still playing over his lips. Hermione’s body stiffened, still aquiver with anticipation as he moved toward her, stopped beside her, and bent down, leaning over her shoulder. She exhaled heavily, feeling his hand brush her hair away from her skin and then those sinful lips were once more kissing her. There wasn’t supposed to be anything sexy about having one’s shoulder blade kissed but Severus Snape had her body humming as if his tongue were buried between her legs rather than tracing the sharp and angular curve of her shoulder blade.

She knew her cheeks were flushed, only this wasn’t a flush of embarrassment. This was a flush of lust, of need. Hermione snatched at the Pomander Ball, taking a clove surprisingly quickly, eyes burning at him as if she could telepathically hurry him along to pick the next place where she would get to kiss him.

Severus merely stared at her, having up-righted himself and moved back to stand in front of her. His eyes were dancing in the firelight, a glittery black that bored through her and electrified her body. Merlin she was toast. Hermione watched as he raised his hand, slower than before, and gently tapped the side of his nose. Such a strange choice and yet so very telling, or so she thought. He’d paid himself out earlier about the size of his nose and she couldn’t help but think about the old saying when it came to size ratios of noses and hands and feet and other appendages.

Stepping closer to him, once again up on tip-toe, though mercifully he seemed to bow his head forward, Hermione brought her lips against the side of his nose and pressed them there. She pressed a firm, slow kiss at the edge of his cheek where it brushed his nose, then another just at the corner of his mouth. She protested with a squeak when he turned his head to the side, sliding his cheek against her lips when she’d been aiming for his mouth. “Don’t cheat…” he murmured, sending shivers up her spine.

“Fine,” she huffed, pulling back from him. She pushed the Pomander Ball into his hands and waited as he spun it meticulously, as if it mattered which clove he selected from the pattern. Fifth round, she thought, counting each of the kisses over in her head. Not quite halfway there. And she’d nearly kissed him proper. Her body burned with the need to kiss him properly. Or to have him kiss her properly. She bit her lower lip, releasing it after just a second. Hermione fixed her gaze squarely on his eyes, calling on every ounce of Gryffindor courage she possessed. “I think I’d like a kiss…here.” She said and tapped her lips. That was dangerous, perhaps even more so than undressing.

Severus stared at her, eyes wide. He took the clove to his lips, drew it in, and then stepped toward her. If she’d been expecting slow and chaste or delicate she was quickly caught off guard as he cupped his hand hard against her cheek and pressed a firm full kiss against her lips. Hermione pressed her tongue against his lips, pushing into his mouth, feeling the heat of his clove-spiced breath, feeling his tongue now swirling against hers. She leaned into him, feeling the warmth of his body pressing against her dress. Merlin it felt exquisite. It was a proper, heated, smoldering kiss. She was panting when he pulled back and her cheeks were more than flushed.

It took her a moment to pull herself together. But her eyes were drawn to his hands, which were now turning the Pomander Ball over and over and over. Only it wasn’t a Pomander Ball any longer, it was simply an orange. Hermione’s brow furrowed. What on earth had happened to the cloves?

“You appear to have broken the enchantment,” he said, spinning the orange around again, staring suspiciously at it, as if not fully trusting it.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, her voice an airy bit of breath.

Severus scoffed. “Leave it to Hiccup and Dumbledore Jr. to do something exactly like this,” he muttered.

This only deepened Hermione’s frown. “I don’t think I follow,” she said, eyes not leaving the now rather ordinary orange.

“Given the lengths the pair went to enchanting the bloody thing…they would naturally expect their unsuspecting victims to get themselves into a rather sticky situation trying to complete the spell as anticipated, lest they face the consequences,” he nodded at her. “When all that was needed was a simple, proper kiss to disengage the entire charm.”



Hermione’s head snapped back to look at him when Severus’ hand touched her shoulder. He’d scooted down the bed and was sitting up, sheets draped over his lap, studying her face. “You appear confused,” he said, his voice soft.

She shook her head. “I just—” she felt her cheeks flush with color in that moment. “I hadn’t remembered…” she bit her lower lip. “But that silly little spell was broken just after we—”

“Yes,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“But then— oh…” she trailed off, a fresh wave of memory washing over her in that moment. Perhaps it had been the elf wine.



“Right,” she said, nodding at Severus, feeling rather foolish for having not thought of it sooner. Had she been in her right mind, perhaps she would have made a more astute assessment of the situation, but the prospect of Severus placing kisses all over her body had been too thrilling to pass up. Where had that thought come from? She wondered. “Well, then,” she sighed heavily. “Sorry, I—”

“Yes?” he quirked a brow up onto his forehead.

Hermione felt her gut quiver, her sodden knickers reminding her of just how wonderful that kiss had felt. “It’s just— I think I find myself rather disappointed, all things considered.”

Severus merely stared at her.

She took this as a bold invitation to continue and found herself taking a step closer to him. “I was rather into the notion of kissing— erm— more of you,” she said and although she knew she was blushing, she was also smiling in earnest. “And you me…kissing more of me, I mean,” she added. “So it’s just a disappointment that the enchantment’s fizzled out is all.”

Severus rolled his eyes and Hermione huffed but she wasn’t given a chance to protest fully. “There’s nothing to say that you couldn’t continue on down that path if you wished. We’re both consenting adults, Professor Granger.”

She snorted. “Well you would be the one—” she paused, catching the look on his face. And then she felt it. The full burning flush of red sweeping up through her face. “Oh,” she muttered, turning her face away from his rather quickly. “I see,” she added. She hadn’t thought that he might actually be interested in such activities. Hell, she hadn’t realized she was interested in such activities until a short while ago. There was something delicious about the thought of feeling his lips, his tongue, the heat of his breath all over her body. She shivered again.

“Cold?” he asked again. He’d asked her this when she’d shivered before.

“Definitely not cold,” she whispered, her voice rather low and breathy.

“No?” he said.

Hermione chanced a glance up at his face, noting the arched eyebrow, the way he stared at her, those glittering black eyes, so deep and so intense. She blushed again. She wasn’t sure she had any blush left in her, but that couldn’t be helped. “No,” she said, but her voice was far breathier than she’d anticipated. “Not cold,” she added.

The soft crackling of the fireplace was the only sound in the room, except for Hermione’s racing heart, which she was sure he could hear. But she wasn’t going to lose her nerve, not with such an enticing proposal dangling right there in front of her. If she’d misread him or misunderstood him, he’d stop her. She’d be embarrassed and flee and that would be that. But he had said that she could continue down that path if she wanted to. They were both consenting adults. She wanted to be certain. “And if I did?” she said after a moment. “Want to?”

“Want to what?” he asked coolly, eyes not leaving hers.

Her cheeks burned brightly but she didn’t falter. “Not be disappointed,” she said and took a cautious step closer to him, leaving just the smallest of spaces between them. “If I wanted to continue down this path as a consenting adult?”

Hermione’s legs trembled because that unholy, sensual sound was spilling out of his mouth again. That deep, back-throated chuckle was sending ripples of desire coursing all through her body. How could one man’s laugh be so gods-be-damned sexy? She had to press her lips tightly together to keep from whimpering out loud. The delicious sound had ceased and she found herself transfixed, unwilling to look away from his eyes. “You’ll hear no complaints from me,” he murmured.

It took all she had not to throw herself at him. Hermione’s heart was still thundering away in her chest. Was she seriously about to engage in rather adult behaviors with her strikingly and unexpectedly sexy colleague? Absofuckinglutely. But there was a slight bit of doubt niggling at the very back of her mind. She’d gotten very good at completely ignoring that doubt, but just in case, and perhaps in some subconscious effort to draw out the scintillating sensations for as long as possible, she decided to approach the situation with what could only be described as an abundance of caution.

Though the cloves had vanished, leaving the Pomander Ball little more than an oversized orange now on the floor of his sitting room, Hermione drew two fingers up along the side of her throat, pausing just over the left side, feeling her own thrumming pulse and she tapped her skin as she’d done when they were still working through the spell. Her eyes met his, issuing a challenge of sorts, or at the very least, giving him an opportunity to back out. He’d said rather humorously that she’d hear no complaints, but if he’d just been caught up in the moment, she didn’t want to force his hand.

That flash of an almost smirk crossed his lips and Hermione had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from gasping. Merlin he was sexy. The slow, deliberate way in which he leaned his face toward her had her quivering. And those lips, firm, full, and oh so teasing, were pressing just against her pulse point as her fingers had done. Her lips parted, a trembling mewl escaping them as she felt the slick warmth of his tongue against her neck. He’d traced his tongue over the shell of her ear but this felt so much more intimate. She tried not to wriggle her legs, desperately wanting more friction to accompany the little pulses of pleasure thrumming at her sex.

The fine strands of his hair tickled her cheek as he pulled his head back from her neck, the delicious heat from where he’d just kissed her skin still tingling. She licked her lips; she couldn’t help it. Hermione’s eyes swirled with desire and she was certain she looked wanton but she didn’t care. She watched carefully as Severus took a half step and then a fuller step back from her, studying her face for a moment before pressing two fingers at the lower right of his ribcage. How very Slytherin of him. But she was not going to shirk her house traits and turn Hufflepuff in that moment, even if it did mean one of them was about to be wearing a significantly lesser amount of clothing.

With bravado, Hermione stepped to him, letting her eyes roam down the innumerable buttons that fastened the front of the long dress robes in place. There were easily 100 of them. Even with the top five undone, it was a daunting task. And what of a dress shirt and possibly undershirt beneath that? Surely he wasn’t starkers beneath his dress robes. Or maybe he was. That thought was sinfully delicious and caused her cheeks to burn.

“If you’ve changed your mind—”

“Oh no!” she snapped, trying to force back the panic in her voice. She had definitely not changed her mind. “I was just thinking— well, nevermind, it’s not important,” she muttered, eyeing all the buttons again. He’d pressed his fingers against part of his ribcage, clearly it was his invitation to her for the shedding of clothing to begin. She licked her lips, catching herself doing so and immediately she closed her mouth. What a tarty gesture! The man was merely standing there and she was all but tearing his clothes off. She was achy between her legs, bordering on uncomfortable.

Hermione swore he snorted. And out of nowhere his comment from before came reeling back into her head. Are you a witch or aren’t you? That would certainly be one way to dispense with the buttons. And while the prospect of putting her hands on him, undoing them as she worked her way down his torso, was a tempting one, it would take her absolutely ages. While her blood was all but boiling, and he certainly seemed engaged enough in their current activities, she didn’t think they were quite at the ‘rip-each-others-clothes-off’ stage, and she didn’t actually want to damage his robes, though lost buttons were easily repaired.

“You’ve an awful lot of buttons,” she said, taking a bracing step toward him. And with a flush of courage, she brought both hands up to his throat, fingers delicately tugging at the sixth button, sliding it out of its loop, then the seventh and the eighth.

“I fail to see how that is my problem,” he said with something very akin to mischief glittering in his eyes.

How was she supposed to stay standing upright, let alone keep her hands from shaking long enough to undo all of those blasted buttons when he was melting her with his talking and his staring and his smirking? She’d be lucky not to liquify into a Hermione-shaped puddle on the floor right before his eyes. She had undone several more buttons and tried not to tut in disappointment at discovering that, as predicted, he was indeed wearing a black dress shirt beneath his robes, though the collar on said shirt was not nearly so high. She wasn’t sure what she would have done had he been bare chested beneath the dress robes, though that image was teasing her mind once more.

Some part of her, be it hands or mind, noted that the more buttons she undid, the further apart from one another they got. And then there were no more buttons to be undone on his dress robes, leaving them hanging freely from his figure. There was still the matter of the black dress shirt, which unsurprisingly was fastened with even more buttons. She forced herself not to grunt in frustration as she reached up to the collar of his dress shirt, only to have her hands clasped together in his. Hermione froze, eyes immediately on his. He’d changed his mind; he wanted her to stop.

Severus nodded his head slowly, a single affirmative bob, before pushing her hands down from his neck, keeping his own palms on her skin until he’d guided her fingers to his waist. A flush of heat and desire ran through her. “You’d do better to untuck the shirt before starting on the buttons,” he murmured, his voice low and deep.

“Right,” her reply was more breath than speech. She didn’t want her fingers to tremble, she was already blushing, which was bad enough, so she bit the inside of her cheek again and grasped the fabric, a fine linen that was crisp yet soft against her fingers, tugging it up from the waistband of his trousers. It was just a shirt, he was just a man, and it was just a kiss but Merlin was her pulse racing. Hermione caught the bottom hem where the buttons started and began to undo one after another, working her way up to the midway point. She wanted to look at him. But there was a very poorly restrained part of her that knew if she unbuttoned his shirt all the way, she might just knock him back onto the floor by the fireplace and start ripping off the rest of his clothing.

Pushing one side of the fabric up to reveal his pale skin, Hermione let her eyes linger over his abdomen, where he’d touched his ribs. Hints of scars that trailed off both up the length of his torso and down into his trousers were visible. But he’d told her he was scarred. And she was too. And there was something about that which was sexier than she thought possible. Largely because she’d somehow egregiously overlooked the fact that Severus Snape was a very sexy and desirable man. She thought briefly about getting down onto her knees, which would certainly make kissing that part of his abdomen much easier, but quickly decided against it. The sexually ravenous beast that had suddenly awakened inside of her would simply rip his trousers down and start kissing other bits.

Taking a half step back to give herself more room to bend forward, Hermione dipped her head down and pressed her cheek against his exposed skin. He was warm. She tilted her head inward and pressed her lips against his ribs, feeling the bony structures just beneath flesh and muscle. He wasn’t shredded by any state of the imagination, though not exactly flabby. Hermione lowered her jaw, mouthing an ‘o’ against his skin, her tongue darting out to taste him. She felt his muscles contract. Perhaps she’d hit a ticklish spot. Tilting her face toward his neck, she blinked and stared up at him, pressing one more open-mouthed kiss against him before taking a step back and licking her lips.

Severus followed her tongue with his eyes. “Thirsty?” he asked, his voice a shade huskier than it had been before.

Hermione bit her lower lip to keep from sounding like a complete slattern. Merlin he was a Slytherin. She drew in a slow, deep breath, trying to keep her head about her. This was too delicious to give up but her self-control and patience were wearing extremely thin. He asked another question like that and she might just tell him exactly how he might ease her thirst. And then she remembered it was her turn to select a spot for a kiss. The immediate thought, sinful as it was, needed to wait. And while what of his body was now exposed was temptation beyond compare, there wasn’t any polite way to get out of her dress without getting out of the entire garment. She quickly but carefully weighed her options.

Turning just enough to show him part of her back, Hermione reached behind her and pressed her hand at the lowest part of her back that was exposed by the drastic lowcut of the back of the dress. Her eyes met his, she stared, issuing that challenge that she was too eager to have him take. She squealed in surprise as two firm hands gripped her hips, spinning her all the way around while simultaneously yanking her back against him. Her bum was flush against him and she couldn’t help herself. She moaned, feeling exactly how this little continuation of their game was affecting him.

And then that voice of liquid sin and sex was hovering just at the back of her ear. “Make no mistake,” here he paused, letting his lips brush her earlobe as he exhaled. “Hermione” each syllable was enunciated slowly, purposefully. “When I said you would hear no complaints from me…” he gripped her hips more firmly and she cried out as he slowly gyrated his hips forward against her arse. It took every ounce of being that she possessed not to scream out for him to fuck her then and there.

One hand was gliding up the length of her spine, pressing her forward until she was bent over, at almost 90 degrees. His other hand remained on her hip and she whimpered in protest at the sudden loss of heat and of his straining erection when he stepped back from her. But she was rewarded quite quickly as she felt his warm breath against her skin, just at the spot on her spine where the cut of the back of her dress started. Severus kissed her, hot and open-mouthed as she had done against his ribs, his tongue tracing the rigids of her spine as he laid kiss after kiss up the length of her back, pulling her up a little more with each sensual kiss.

The rustle of her dress filled her ears as she was once more pulled back against his body. Hermione tilted her head back, turning it to face him. “Cheater,” her breathy voice and flushed cheeks were more than permission, they were raw desire.

Severus chuckled. “Different game, different rules,” he murmured, letting his hands slide ever so slowly around the front of her hips until they rested on the seams of the bodice of her dress where it met the skirting.

It was the crinkling sound his hands made on the fabric or the fact that she was pressed back against him once more, but it was suddenly a very arduous task to be standing. Hermione wanted nothing more than to be on her back with her legs up over his shoulders. That was a wicked thought but she could give herself a stern talking to later. “Your turn…” the words slipped over her lips and she dreaded the inevitable loss of contact when he would pull back from her to determine where next he would be kissed.

Only Severus didn’t pull back from her. And his hands didn’t leave the front of her hips. “Your turn again,” he smirked and without further warning pressed his lips against hers, kissing her with that same ardent fervor as he had when she’d boldly insisted a kiss on the lips the first time.

Hermione was grateful to be braced back against him, even if she was straining her neck around. One hand wriggled rather ungracefully up between her neck and his shoulder until she could clutch at the back of his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair. His tongue was in her mouth, she was whimpering and mewling, and then the inexplicable happened. She was truly melting, changing states of solid human witch into some sort of floating ethereal creature. At least it felt like it. She pulled back her lips, panting, realizing that with one hand still on her hip, he’d braced the other around her waist, scooping her up under her bum and lifting her up cradle-carry style. Without thinking, her lips were moving. “What are you doing?”

He scoffed. “In addition to being scarred with stretchmarks, I am old,” he said plainly. “And there’s a perfectly comfortable mattress in my bedroom that would be better suited for such…games,” his lips curled upward, his eyes glittering.

She wanted to protest, something about age or at the very least some quippy comment about her not being a spring chicken herself. She wondered for just a flash of a moment how much older than her he truly was but found very quickly that she didn’t really care. He’d lifted her up and wasn’t struggling to hold her aloft. Her eyes popped wide as it hit her that he meant to carry her to his bedroom. Her cheeks burned brightly but she smiled all the same. “New game, new setting,” she caught his eyes, which were smoldering so darkly she thought they might spark a fire.

Severus carried her further into the sitting room, through a stone archway that led after a few short steps into a sizeable bedroom. It was dominated by an enormous four-poster bed, larger than any she’d ever seen at Hogwarts, and certainly not standard issue if her own rather ordinary four-poster was any indication. She wasn’t sure whether she was envious that he had a bigger bed or thrilled to about to be on it or both. “Oh my,” she said as he eased her down from his arms, not quite dumping her on the bed, but rather setting her on its edge. “Enormous,” she muttered, staring at the heavy, dark curtains that were currently tied back against all of the posts.

“The better to demonstrate how much punch I possess in the pants department,” he smirked at her, standing casually just over her, staring down with eyes that could easily eat her.

Hermione’s cheeks exploded in raw embarrassment, hearing her own vulgar words thrown back at her. She still couldn’t believe she had said that. Out loud. To Severus Snape. But she wasn’t going to be consumed by her own embarrassment, not when being consumed by her desirable colleague was an option currently available to her. Leveling her eyes up to him, she shifted her bum back just a bit further on his mattress, noting that it was very comfortable indeed, and leaning back just slightly, she braced her weight on her wrists. “It’s your turn,” she said, fixing her eyes to his.

“So it is,” he said and then took a step back from the bed. Her eyes followed his hands as they rose slowly, hovering at first higher on his chest. Her breath hitched in her throat as Severus began to slide his hands down his body slowly, inching along even slower as they drew closer and closer to the strained placket of his trousers. He was a Slytherin and she would not put it beneath the man to be so bold. She hoped he was about to be so bold. She gasped with a pout when he tapped to fingers just at the side, and rather high up, of his left hip. Severus quirked an eyebrow at her, and she blushed again. It wasn’t exactly where she had thought, where she hoped he was going to ask for a kiss, but it did mean she’d get to undo his trousers.

Hermione sat up straight, reaching both arms forward, surprised when he stepped toward her, stopping just in front of her. She’d expected him to tease her, make her get up from the bed. Again she could feel her fingertips trembling but she did her best to keep them still, bringing both hands to the uppermost button of his trousers. There was a silver latch on the interior band, which she only had to jiggle twice before sliding it out of its catch. And then three buttons, almost seamlessly inlaid into the placket. His trousers were snug on his hips and beneath was a well-fitted black fabric, something similar to boxer briefs. She licked her lips, trying not to make it obvious that she was staring at the sizeable bulge jutting against the fabric of said boxer briefs.

As she drew her lips toward him, she stopped, realizing rather suddenly that she’d have to pull down a bit of the boxer briefs to be able to place the kiss upon his skin. A rather mischievous thought flitted through her mind and she ran with it. Placing both hands on either side of his hips, she hooked two fingers on each hand into the snug elastic band but only tugged the fabric of the left side down, just enough to expose the skin he had touched. His skin was paler here, or perhaps the light in his bedroom was brighter, but his fair skin— paler or not— looked inviting. She tugged the fabric down just a little further, slow and deliberate, and was rewarded with a growl.

“Tease,” he grunted, glaring down at her.

“New game, new rules,” she smirked and then pressed her lips against his skin, swirling her tongue around his flesh. There was something peculiar and intimate about kissing the joint of his hip, just as there had been when she’d kissed the edge of his palm. She would have been satisfied kissing any part of him; the aroma of his body was unique and pleasing. With the heady scent of him encouraging her, Hermione was flooded with boldness and began to slowly drag her lips, mouthing rounded ‘o’ shapes over his skin, down an inch and then another, moving slightly more toward the bulge in his boxer-briefs, all the while tugging fabric down as she went. She had nearly pulled the fabric down enough to expose his cock but stopped just short, mouthing one more slow, full kiss against his skin before pulling her head back. She looked absolutely wanton, trying her best to exaggerate a look of innocence as she met her eyes.

“Fuck,” he hissed, his eyes meeting hers.

“Yes please,” she said, no longer caring how breathy her voice sounded.

That wicked, sinful chuckling sound slipped his lips and met her ears. She was already on fire between her thighs, her knickers so sodden they could hardly be called knickers any longer. Hermione eased her other hand out of the elastic band of his boxer briefs, setting her fingernails delicately over the fabric before scraping her fingers down the front of his thighs.

Severus hissed. “One of us…” he brought both hands forward, placing them on her bare shoulders, which forced him to stand all but flush at the edge of the mattress. “Is still rather more dressed than the other…”

“I fail to see how that is my problem,” she said, turning his own words against him. And while she hadn’t meant to sound desperately sexy— she was hoping for more of a snarky snap— she shivered at her own words, half hoping that he might take that as an invitation to help her out of her dress. Or simply rip the thing from her body; it could be repaired after all.

Both of his arms were around her suddenly, swooping beneath her arms and lifting her up from the mattress as if she weighed nothing. For someone who bemoaned a scarred body crippled by age, he didn’t seem to struggle or mind when it came to lifting her all about. She inhaled sharply when he pulled her flush against him, both of his hands now encircling her back, tracing the hem of the dress all the way around the bodice. He slid his fingers up both sides until the met the underside of the fur trim. “Where in blazes are the buttons or the laces,” he growled, feeling about her dress for some means to undo it from her body. “Or the zipper,” he muttered.

Hermione laughed. She hadn’t meant to, not really, but she couldn’t help it. “There isn’t one,” she said. “And there aren’t any,” she added. She darted her head forward quite quickly and pecked his cheek. “Here,” she said and wriggled just slightly in his arms, until she could bring her own two hands up to the bustline of the dress. “Bit of- witchcraft- if you will,” she said with a lilting tease in her words. Tugging ever so gingerly on the fur trim that lined the bust and shoulders of the dress, she felt the fabric, which all through the bodice had clung to her body like a second skin, release and fall away. With it came the hoop enchantment of the skit and the whole dress in all of its garnet glory dropped to a puddle around her feet with a sensual, full whoosh.

Though she wasn’t naked, she suddenly felt very exposed and blushed furiously. She’d never done that before. The corset style covering, which also bore one or two lifting enchantments, kept her breasts firmly in place and was cut so low across the back that it was little more than two finger widths of fabric around the small of her back. There was a slight gap at the bottom of the corset, exposing the skin of her belly before the soft cotton fabric of her knickers took over. They were a brighter shade of red and she had utterly no idea why she’d picked those knickers above any other pair other than they felt comfortable; slender cut like thongs with more fabric and they fit her just right, though presently were all but soaked through.

“My…my…” he said, his voice thick with an indescribable lust.

Hermione shivered, feeling his eyes roaming freely over her body, even though all the important bits were still covered. A part of her wanted to shrink away from that intense, lusty gaze. But most of her wanted him to pounce on her and ravish her. Merlin she was depraved. Or maybe just deprived. She tried not to think about the last time she’d worn this little clothing with a man present. “My turn,” she said and eased herself back onto the edge of the mattress, toeing off her shoes as she slipped her feet out of the puddle of garnet fabric that was formerly her dress. She was fueled by lust and need and brazen Gryffindor courage. Though it was the not most ceremonious of movements, as she slid her body back further into his bed, she spread her legs, though not too wide, and placed two fingers on the inside of her left thigh, never taking her eyes off of his.

Severus licked his lips like a predatory snake. With two well-placed flicks of his ankle, he stepped out of his shoes. Then his hands finished what she had started with his trousers, pushing them down and stepping out of them as he approached the bed. He undid the remainder of the buttons on his dress shirt— revealing to her hungry eyes that bare and blindingly white chest beneath. There were scars, as he’d promised, and coarse dark curls smattered about, but she was too fixated on the only bit of him still clothed to take much notice. When he knelt onto the mattress, his weight dipping down into it, she held her breath.

Hermione sighed, feeling her entire body hum with need as he wrapped both hands around her left leg and lifted it up off the mattress, shifting on his knees until he knelt between her shins. Severus bent forward just enough, letting his hair tickle the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh. And then those lips, those delicious, sin-inspiring lips were pressing against the spot of her inner thigh that she had touched. “Oh gods,” she murmured, feeling his tongue against her skin. “Oooh,” she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her as he mouthed feathery kisses further up the inside of her thigh, keeping her leg pulled up and out away from her body. His nose nudged at the apex of where her leg joined her torso, his lips brushing against the elastic of her knickers.

“New game…” he murmured, one hand now sliding up over her mound, grabbing at the band of her knickers. She didn’t protest. Hermione wriggled her hips as he pulled her knickers down, exposing her dripping sex to him.

She was panting, her hips undulating with need, desperate to draw those lips down to her sex and that little swollen nub that would bring her such delirious pleasure. Hermione didn’t even notice when he murmured words, soft and low, under his breath and her knickers vanished from off her body.

“How many kisses does it take…” he purred, drawing his head lower, closer to her sex. “To make Hermione Granger scream…”



Hermione squeaked in surprise, feeling his lips just at the back of her ear. “Are you remembering now?” he asked, his voice thick with the sound of someone who had just woken up. It was rather different from the half-asleep bark he’d made just moments before.

She leaned back, letting her head fall against his shoulder. “I think so,” she said, closing her eyes. “You decided to play a new game,” she said, lips curling up into a smile. She opened her eyes and was met with his mere inches from her face. “Ooh, hello,” she said, puckering her lips into a tiny, chaste kiss against his.

“And what game was that?” he asked, his voice regaining more of that rich timbre that, as of last night, drove her wild with desire.

There was the flushing in her cheeks again. She wasn’t embarrassed but she couldn’t help it. “I think you called it— ‘How many kisses to make me scream’— or something like that.”



With nothing but the porcelain-colored corset left on her body and one leg now hooked up over his shoulder with her foot dangling halfway down his back, Hermione thought she might explode as his lips brushed against her netherlips. She’d been smooth from the moment she’d perfected a depilatory charm in her fifth year; she hated the texture and overall itchiness of her pubic hair and had simply done away with it. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her lips and she groaned. “One…” he murmured against her skin.

Hermione wanted to dig her fingernails into his back, tangle her fingers into his hair. She settled for grasping great fistfuls of the duvet, clenching her knuckles as Severus mouthed his lips more firmly right at her entrance, tracing his tongue up through her lips, tasting the wetness of her arousal. “Two…” his voice was low, his lips moving up until they circled tightly against the swollen bud of her clit. “Three…” he flicked his tongue around her clit once, twice, and then drew his lips over his teeth and pulled the tiny bud in with a sucking tug. “Four…five…” His tongue flickered and swirled, his lips pressing, sucking, mouthing over her sex, making her twitch and whimper until he began to rub her clit in earnest with his tongue. “Six…”

She cried out, arching her hips up quite violently. He was still counting, mouthing and sucking and kissing. But she was lost in the sensation, her legs trembling. It was pleasure, an orgasm, though short lived, but she’d cried out all the same. He had made her scream. While her vision swam back into focus, she heard him chuckling, her center now quivering with a desperate need for more. “13…” his voice rumbled. “13 kisses to make Hermione Granger scream…”

Her little orgasm wasn’t nearly enough. It had dizzied her for a moment and his cocky voice, the teasing way her name rolled off his lips only served to further awaken a wildly demonic and sexually-possessed being within her. “New game,” she panted, dropping her leg from his shoulder, struggling to push herself up to sitting. “Less kissing,” she snapped but captured his lips with hers. “More fucking.”

A heated embrace ensued. Arms tangling around each other, he was still on his knees and she was attempting to make quick work of dispensing with his boxer briefs. Severus cupped the side of her face, slipping his hands up into her hair, tugging at the circlet that had somehow been overlooked in the shedding of clothing. There was a moment where she fiddled with it, her fingers bumping against his as she did and then it was freed from her locks, along with the enchantment hat had kept them at bay. The frenzy of lips and arms and legs begun anew.

The two snaps holding her corset in place popped and then the kisses that she hadn’t quite dared to dream of asking for when they’d still been playing with the accursed fruit were being showered over her breasts. Severus’ lips circled and circled, drawing each nipple frantically in and out of his mouth, nipping and sucking as she found herself tipping back into the downy pile of pillows closer to the head of his bed. He wasted no time crawling over her and the boxer briefs had joined their remaining garments at the foot of the bed.

He hissed when one of her hands closed around his shaft. He broke his lips away from her breast, staring down at her with unchecked lust. One firm hand grabbed her wrist and eased it back from his throbbing cock. “Be sure,” he leaned over her letting his lips rumble against her ear. “I’m a man, not a vibrator; you get one go. It will be a good go, but you get one,” he nipped her earlobe.

“If I fall asleep after, we can make it two come the morning,” she said, but he was holding still, staring down into her eyes. “Bloody hell, Severus, yes. Go on!” she bucked her hips, trying to wriggle her wrist free to grasp his cock once more, this time to guide it to her entrance.

Whatever he’d been waiting for, her cheeky comment, her consent, just a moment to give himself a breath, it had passed and she was whimpering with need as he let her guide his cock to her entrance, shoving forth with a heady growl that made her shiver all over. It had been too long since she’d felt so full. Masturbating was one thing, even with fancy toys, but this was so much better. He wasn’t overly long but satisfyingly thick and with each thrust she could feel herself keening closer and closer to a proper orgasm.

“Plenty of punch…” she panted, popping her hips up just enough to meet his thrusts.

Severus’s lips curled into a feral smile and he pumped into her with a more reckless abandon. “New…game…” he punctuated each word with a hard, deep thrust. “I want you…to come…around me…” he growled, one hand finding its way between their bodies. He was propped up over her on one arm, thrusting into her with a faster speed.

Hermione whimpered, still trying to meet his thrusts. His words, the way his cock was delving deeply into her, the glittering black heat of his eyes, all of these things were tightening the coils of ecstasy in her loins and she could feel herself starting to trill on the edges of another orgasm. This would be a real orgasm. Then she felt his hand, his fingers rubbing blindly but with pressure, just above where his cock was pistoning in and out of her entrance. The friction against her clit, the way he was growling, she could feel herself teetering.

“Come for me… come for me….Hermione he growled her name as if it was burning through him.

She felt the coils of pleasure tighten, tighten, and with another thrust they snapped. Her body seized, quaking about beneath him, though he didn’t slow or relent as her walls quivered and clapped around his cock, sending tendrils of hot pleasure shooting up through her. She cried out, his name perhaps or an unintelligible jumble of words, or perhaps just a climactic scream. But he hadn’t stopped thrusting; she was reaching the point of pleasure so intense it was bordering on pain. And that’s when she felt it.

“Fuck,” he growled sharply, shuddering into her, his cock releasing inside of her. Panting, with trembling arms, his head hung forward, his eyes closed.

Hermione brushed her hand against his cheek. His eyes fluttered open and met hers. He was still breathing quite heavily. “New game?” she offered, gingerly tugging his face toward her. “Kiss me to sleep…” she mumbled, pressing little kisses against the corners of his mouth.



Hermione was still gazing up into his eyes, leaning against his shoulder from where she had sat up in the bed. “You’re thinking,” he said with a slight frown.

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “About how very disappointed I am.”

“Excuse me?” he narrowed his eyes at her.

“Well firstly that I didn’t remember,” she admitted sheepishly. There was still no accounting for why her mind had decided to withhold those delicious, sinful memories from her upon first waking. “And secondly…that I haven’t had my second good go.”

Severus scoffed and nudged her head off of his shoulder. This caught her by surprise and she tumbled down onto the mattress beside him. “Mean,” she said and swatted at his arm.

He quirked an eyebrow up onto his forehead before letting his gaze sweep over her. “Your breasts are showing,” he said, letting his eyes rest on her nipples, now stiff without the sheet to hide them.

“You didn’t seem to mind that last night,” she countered, but made to tug the sheet up over her.

He put his hand at the middle of her chest and then lowered his head over each one, placing a deliberate, slow, open-mouthed kiss over each nipple. Hermione sighed. “Mm, yes…more of that…”

“Severus!” the voice was like tin slicing through a chalkboard.

Hermione bolted upright, smacking her forehead into his and she hissed but quickly found his palm clamped firmly over her mouth as the voice cried out again.

It was Minerva McGonagall, crying from somewhere that sounded dangerously close. Hermione’s eyes darted all around the bedroom, only slightly relieved that there didn’t appear to be any portraits through which The Headmistress might suddenly appear. Severus rolled his eyes and pressed a single, chaste kiss against her forehead. Then without a word, he eased his hand down off of her mouth, snatched up an errant bedsheet and slung it around his waist, knotting and wadding it up around his hips before striding with great irritation out through the stone archway and back into the sitting room.

“Ah, thank goodness, Severus!” Minerva McGonagall, who had just stepped out of his floo, looked ashen faced and weary.

“What did we agree upon about that floo connection? Emergencies only!” he snapped.

“Yes, well there is an emergency, Severus,” she huffed.

“If it’s that you’ve used up the entire Hospital Wing’s supply of hangover tonic, I shall ring up the house elves and have them follow you about banging pots and pans for the remainder of the calendar year!” Severus glared at her.

“Do shut up, Severus,” Minerva quipped. “Nothing of the sort, though I’ll thank you to lower your voice!’ Her thick Scottish brogue was sharp as ever as she addressed him. “Professor Granger has gone missing!” she cried. “She disappeared at the party last night and no one has seen or heard from her since.”

Severus stared at the Headmistress; his facial expression unchanging. “I’m going back to bed,” he growled but Minerva’s cat-like reflexes caught his arm in a firm grasp. “Let me go this minute,” he snapped.

“I’m serious, Severus. I’m worried! She’s not in the library or her rooms or any other discernable place in the castle or around the grounds. What if something’s happened to her? If she imbibed like the rest of us…” Minerva tutted and clucked her tongue.

He yanked his arm free of her talon-like grip. “I can assure you that Professor Granger did not imbibe anywhere even remotely close to the rest of you. She left the party shortly after I did.” He paused for a moment. “And mentioned something about an early trip into Hogsmeade for shopping. Holiday presents or some drivel,” he added flatly. It was a boldfaced lie and he knew it.

Minerva frowned and then she heaved a great sigh of relief. “Of course,” she said her eyes twinkling behind her spectacles. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said and then turned back to his fireplace. “Thank you,” she said but then paused. “You should try to enjoy yourself more at these parties, Severus. It would do you good to—”

“Get roaring pissed and pass out after doing Merlin only knows what with who and wake up with some unimaginable female naked in my bed?” he snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, I shall add that to my list of ‘to do’s’, Headmistress.”

“Well Merry fucking Christmas to you too, Severus,” Minerva muttered, snatching up a pinch of floo powder. She stepped into the fireplace and in a blink of bright green flames, she was gone.

Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before turning slowly to trudge back through the stone archway and into his bedroom. He stopped short just inside the doorway of the bedroom, eyes wide and suddenly clouding over with lust. “What a sight,” he said.

“New game,” said Hermione, who was up on her knees, nipples standing hard at attention. “12 kisses…anywhere you’d like…” she let her lips curl up into an inviting smile. “Since you’ve woken up with some unimaginable female naked in your bed,” she added.

He smirked at her and sauntered toward his bed.

FIN