Chapter Text
“I swear on Godric’s grave, Harry Potter, if you don’t hurry up I will remove your ability to father any more children,” Hermione barked angrily at the bespectacled wizard, who stumbled into the waiting lift.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ron and Kirk unconsciously move their hands downward to protect their privates like a pair of Muggle footballers. She let out a groan of frustration at the trio of wizards, as she jabbed angrily at the lift button willing it to take them down faster to the basement.
She heard Kirk whisper to Ron, “If I’d known she was this scary I’d never have agreed to be her bodyguard.”
“I heard that!” She snapped, though she turned around quickly before they saw her pleased grin.
She and the blonde had grown closer while she’d been hiding away in France. Even after Severus had been taken to Azkaban, the Ministry had forced her to stay in the safehouse for another three months until the last of the Malfoy crime family had been rounded up and convicted–with the exception of Draco who was given community service on recommendation from Hermione and her best friends.
While she waited to be allowed to go back home, Kirk visited her daily, where they played chess, gossiped about the Ministry, and practiced their French. Hermione genuinely missed the fellow, sarcastic Muggleborn when she’d finally received permission to return to London. It had been a welcome surprise, then, when Ron had showed up to the Weasley Christmas party a few months later hand-in-hand with the handsome blonde muttering something about “happy reunions.”
“Level ten,” the disembodied voice of the lift announced, pulling her out of these happy memories. Hermione didn’t wait around for her assigned escorts. She raced toward Courtroom Fourteen like a niffler running toward a pile of gold.
“Mione!” she heard Ron shout behind her as she skidded to a halt just outside the correct door. Straightening her hair and her robes, she tried to calm her breath. Harry, Kirk, and Ron caught up to her panting like a bunch of overgrown dogs. With a nod toward her friends, she nervously pushed open the doors.
There in the middle of the courtroom leisurely reading the Daily Prophet sat Severus Snape, looking as relaxed as he did sitting by the fire in the Malfoy library.
Gods, he looked sexy as hell in his all black button-down and trousers. Hermione tried not to ogle him like a horny school girl.
“You’re late, witch.” The surly Potions Master remarked, not bothering to peer up from the paper. “I expected an arithmancer to get the time right.”
She let out a shaky laugh at his familiar teasing. “Get up you arsehole and give me a kiss.”
The two guards standing watch near Snape exchanged nervous grins.
The dark-haired wizard let out a deep sigh, dramatically folding the newspaper into a perfect rectangle. He then made a proper show of slowly standing up, as if unrolling each vertebrae in his spine. To her utter annoyance, he took just as long bending down to place his folded paper on to the seat–as if he had all the time in the world.
Hermione gritted her teeth and clenched her fist around her wand, finally catching on to his antics. Her three friends wisely backed away from her as sparks practically flew from her hair.
“Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure,” Snape said jovially, shaking hands with the two guards. Then he turned and walked past the infuriated witch as if she were a meddlesome poltergeist. “Mr. Weasley. Mr. Potter. Mr. Goodwin. Thank you so much for serving as my escorts out of the Ministry today.”
The three younger wizards shook Snape's hand, though their eyes darted nervously between him and Hermione.
“Severus,” Hermione said in a warning undertone, having lost her patience with his twisted little game.
“Will you kind sirs give me a moment alone with Ms. Granger?” he asked in a falsely light, polite tone, as if inquiring about the weather from strangers.
Harry gave a reassuring nod to the two prison guards who left from another exit. Then he and her two other friends eagerly departed from the door they’d entered moments earlier. Their relief at being allowed to leave the tension-filled room all too obvious.
Once the door had closed shut, Snape whipped around with the speed and agility of a jungle cat. Before she had time to react, he was lifting her and shoving her up roughly against the nearest wall, squeezing her arse almost painfully as he pressed his firm body against hers.
“Do you have any idea, witch,” he growled menacingly, “how long I’ve been waiting to taste you again…” He put his mouth on her neck and began to kiss and suck on her sensitive flesh, shooting bolts of pleasure down her body.
She squeezed her legs around his waist in welcome to this most primal of attacks.
“Severus,” she panted. “It wasn’t my fault…Harry was late…” She moaned as he bit into her neck in anger–the pleasure and pain of it washing over her. He was acting like an unchained beast. And every part of her was enjoying it.
“Excuses, witch!” He hissed as he licked over the place on her neck where he'd broken the skin. “These have been the longest eighteen months of my life. Being able to see you and speak to you once a month but unable to touch you. To taste you...” He was practically weeping from want as he rubbed his covered cock between her thighs. “Do you know what hellish torment it has been for me?”
Of course Hermione knew. Because she had felt it too.
*****
In order to keep the Malfoys in the dark about the identity of the true spy, Severus had been thrown into Azkaban with the rest of the crime family. In the meantime, Harry and Ron had planted enough evidence on Yaxley to finally free Hermione of suspicion. Her disappearance was explained away as having to unexpectedly care for an elderly Muggle relative in Wales. A flimsy excuse at best. But it was one that Draco eagerly confirmed in his broader social circles along with the news of their long-awaited break up.
Meanwhile, Yaxley had lasted a total of three months in solitary confinement in the wizarding prison before the guards found his dead body with the word "snitch" carved into his skin. Hermione hadn't slept the night she’d heard the news. She felt guilty for framing the wrong wizard. But after Harry reminded her of all the horrible things Yaxley had done in the service of the Malfoys–including rape, Muggle trafficking, and murder–her feelings of guilt were slightly mollified.
All the while Severus had to continue to endure the horrors and humiliations of Azkaban–including the terrifying Dementors--who made him replay every horrible act of violence he'd ever committed or been subjected to.
Once a month, Harry and Ron had arranged for Hermione to secretly meet with the Potions Master in one of the few visitor rooms. The warden allowed these visits, but the lovers were still unable to touch given the magical barrier that physically separated prisoners from everyone else. Another one of the prison’s long list of inhumane cruelties, most of which Hermione was actively working to overturn.
Using Muggle and wizarding statistics on prisons, she was undertaking a massive study as a Ministry arithmancer showing how the treatment of prisoners correlated to their rates of recidivism. So far it wasn't looking good for those in favor of keeping the medieval prison. Ever since Severus had been taken into custody, Hermione had become quite the radical against the wizarding prisoning system. Severus made little secret that he found her moral crusade endearing if not a bit naive. But he wisely never said so aloud.
Still the past eighteen months had been long and lonely for both of them. Worse, of course, for Severus. But Hermione had faced her own trials and tribulations. For months, until Yaxley had been fully framed as the spy, she had been trapped in hiding in Marseille afraid of Malfoy's remaining hitwizards finding her and torturing her to death.
Then when she finally returned to London, she struggled to find a place to live after her previous flat had been burned from the inside-out. With help from Harry and Ron, she’d been able to scrounge enough money to lease another small flat after a few more months as a vagrant moving from one guest bedroom to another among her friends. All her belongings locked in her suitcase.
After she finally settled into her new life, she had to contend with the uncertainty and loneliness of being apart from Severus. Before the Aurors had taken the Potions Master away in Marseille, she’d promised to wait for him. But he had begged her not to throw her life away for a damaged man. For a long time, neither knew how long his prison sentence would actually be as the Wizengemot debated his case. Would he really have to serve the full fifteen years he was first handed down? After nine months of living in this frustrating limbo, Hermione began to lose hope. Unsure if she should follow Severus’s advice and begin seeing other people, she went on a few ill-advised dates. Every time, her stomach would coil into terrible knots and she’d cut the date short, racing back to her flat wracked with guilt and self-loathing.
Finally, after a year, they received the news that given his good behavior and the added testimonies of Arthur Weasley and Albus Dumbledore (who had always had a soft spot for the brilliant halfblood), the leadership of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Hermione, his original fifteen year sentence was reduced to eighteen months.
Knowing their nightmare would end in six months had given the pair of them renewed hope. After that, whenever Hermione visited Severus in Azkaban, he spoke of their future together instead of begging her to let him go. And with each visit, their feelings (and desire) for one another grew. In some ways, the absence of any physical contact only intensified their emotional connection. It felt like a strange extension of their time spent in the Malfoy library. But unlike those stolen moments by the fireplace, they could openly express their feelings–with words at least.
And now, the day had come. He was going to be free. He was truly going to be free.
******
She felt Severus's powerful hands moving up her thighs toward her knickers. Thankful she had opted for traditional robes rather than her usual Muggle trousers, she let out a slight moan as he circled her inner thigh teasingly with his thumb.
"Severus as much as I want to shag you raw right now, we're still inside a Ministry courtroom. And the boys are just outside." She panted as his fingers finally swept over her wet knickers.
"And what if I don't give a flying Hippogriff if your three friends hear us fucking like wild animals." He pressed the tip of his finger tantalizingly into her still-covered core. "Will they get off on your indecent moans as I pound my cock inside that tight pussy… Salazar knows, I've waited far too long to do this, witch." His voice sensually dropped an octave at these last few words.
Hermione's defenses were far too weak to resist the magic of his words combined with the movements of his talented fingers, which were still teasing her. "Okay but we have to be quick. You're supposed to be meeting with your parole Auror in 15 minutes." She could barely manage that rational thought in her sex-fogged mind.
"Trust me this won't take long," he promised, as he began to unbutton his trousers.
With her free hand she swept her wand out from her robes, locked the door, and put up a powerful silencing charm in three fluid movements.
"You're incredible, witch," Severus said appreciatively before he pushed his cock into her already primed body.
They both moaned in unison at the feeling of being connected again. It had been far too long. And even then, they'd only spent a frenzied 24 hours together shagging all over the French safehouse before Severus had been taken away from her. Left with nothing but her memories of that day, she tried to pathetically recreate the feel of him every night in her bed alone. But Hermione's dildos and magical toys felt inadequate compared to the actual stretch offered by her well-endowed lover.
Another thrust brought her fully back to the present. Severus was still holding her up by the arse, so his thrusts were intentionally slow. Deliberate. He was parting her tight channel with care and love, even as she could see the unhinged passion behind his dark eyes.
She bit her lip in an effort to stop herself from screaming out again when she felt his cock hit her cervix. "Severus don't hold back," she begged.
"As you command, witch," he whispered in her ear before picking up his pace, thrusting in and out of her more forcefully. Her memories of their last shagging paled in comparison to the ecstasy she felt as he pistoned her up and down his thick cock. She couldn't help at marvel at his strength. It was no easy feat to make love standing up, least of all for a man twenty years her senior.
"Witch, I'm not going to last long," the wizard gasped, as if ashamed by his lack of stamina.
She snaked her hand down to begin rubbing her own clit. Her own pent up excitement over their reunion and the illicitness of their shagging in a Ministry courtroom was moving her rapidly toward the edge as well. "Come for me, Severus… I'll be right there with you…" she reassured him between pants.
The look of relief and love on his face tore through her final walls. She felt the familiar tingle of magic as her orgasm swept through her taught body. A few thrusts later, her lover screamed out her name with his own release.
Gently, he placed her back down on the floor, sliding out of her body as she blindly found the ground with her feet. But instead of pull away, Severus bent down and pressed his forehead against hers, as they both tried to regain their breath. It was a relatively tame form of touch, compared to what they'd just done, but it somehow felt even more intimate to Hermione. Severus appeared so open and vulnerable in this position.
"For a horrible moment, I thought you weren't going to come today to the courtroom," Severus whispered so softly she wouldn't have heard it if she weren't so closely connected to him.
Hermione's lower lip trembled at his honest confession. "I'm so sorry, Severus. I'm sorry you doubted me…."
He leaned in and lovingly kissed her lips just as a tear escaped her eyes. "After everything, I didn't think I was worthy of you. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't come." He let out a deep sigh. "But now that I am free and you are here with me, I want to do better for you. Be better for you. I love you, witch."
Her breath hitched at his words. He'd never expressed himself so freely. "I love you too, Severus. I have for a very long time. You're the reason I have my freedom. The reason I'm not dead. Or a prisoner of the Malfoys any longer. It is I who needs to do more to show the depths of my love and appreciation for you. For you deserve nothing less."
He took a step back from her, and for a fraction of a second, she thought he was pulling away from her. But then he grabbed her hand, interlacing their fingers and bringing her knuckles up to his lips for a tender kiss. After a moment, though, his face broke out into a wicked smile. "Let's get out of here before your friends start knocking on the door. Then I want to lock ourselves away for a week straight without a stitch of clothing on either of us as we fuck on every surface of this small flat you've told me so much about…"
Hermione leaned appreciatively into his body wrapping her body around his arm. "This might be your most brilliant plan to date."