Solace - Chapter 29

[northangel27]

Author’s Note: Well, I knew the day was coming, and finally it is here.  I’m going to have to bump the rating of this story to Mature from this chapter forward.  I’m sorry if that means that some of you won’t be able to access or enjoy the story from here on out, but I feel it is necessary, do to the progression of the relationship and intimacy between Severus and Hermione.

 

That being said, I won’t be putting warnings ahead of any of the chapters after this.  If you are a mature individual, I am going to assume that you can handle some consensual sexual intimacy between two adults. 

 

However, for this chapter I will place a warning for some pretty deep kissing, a brief description of frottage, and a description of feeling the evidence of a man’s desire, shall we say ;-).

---

Chapter 29

 

Molly Weasley had at least had the foresight to knit a subdued jumper for Severus.  It was a solid dark green and actually looked rather nice.  Hermione doubted that he would have worn it at all if she hadn’t begged, but now that it was on, she had to admit that he looked quite nice. 

 

Harry and Ginny had sent mince pies and books for her and a rather nicely appointed portable potions kit for Severus.  She could tell that he was uncomfortable accepting a gift from Harry, but she had argued that, if it was something he liked and could use, what could possibly be wrong with accepting it, especially since it was obviously given with good intentions.  He’d grumbled something under his breath and set it aside.

Severus was quiet and subdued.  Hermione had the feeling that he didn’t quite know how to act around her after the display of emotion he had showed earlier.  She’d never seen him like this—almost shy. 

 

There were only a few gifts beneath the tree now, and when she saw one for both of them from Luna and Neville, she thought that perhaps it might be just the thing to shake him out of his doldrums.  If she could count on Luna for anything, it was to be completely unpredictable and infinitely wise.  Sometimes, she almost wondered if the girl was a bit of a seer.  “Look,” she said, holding up the brightly wrapped package.  “It’s from Luna and Neville.  For us.”

 

“Lovegood and Longbottom?”

 

“Oh, yes, didn’t I tell you?  I was so certain I did.  They’re a bit of a couple, now.”

 

“Heaven help Hogwarts if they ever procreate,” he muttered, and she smiled.  That was more like it.

 

Walking over to the sofa, she laid the package on his lap.  The paper was sky blue with large daisies all over it.  Hardly appropriate for Christmas, but completely Luna—and Neville, too, she realized, with the addition of the plants.  If she recalled correctly, last year’s paper had been bespeckled with rainbow-hued Pygmy Puffs.  “It’s for both of us,” she said when he just stared at it.  “Open it.  I want to see what it is.”

 

“Why—why is it for both of us?” he grumbled.

 

“Why?  Are you upset that they’ve not sent one over for you to have all to yourself?” she teased.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.  It—it only struck me as odd.”

 

“Well, you know Luna.  She gets things into her head, and it’s hard to get them out again.  When I saw her in London back in November, she seemed to think I was in love with you…”

 

His eyes jumped to hers for only the briefest of moments before returning to the package.

 

“Will you stop staring at it and just open it?” she urged.

 

“You need to learn patience, Granger.”

 

“I have been patient.  If I was being impatient, I would have snatched it out of your hands and torn it open already.”

 

He sighed and peeled back the paper.  Inside was a book.  It was obviously handmade.  The cover was dark green with little smiling silver serpents charmed to slither in a constant loop around the edge.  In silver writing across the front, it read:

 

To: Severus

 

He just stared at it.  “What in the name of Merlin’s…?”

 

Hermione picked it up and flipped it over.  On the other side, the cover was red with gold lions prancing around the edge, and in the center, in gold writing, was her name:

 

To: Hermione

 

She opened the cover.  The pages inside were blank.  She shook her head.  “Is there a note or a card with it?”

 

“Just this,” he said, holding up a small piece of parchment inscribed in hot pink ink. 

 

Sometimes, it’s easier to write it down.

 

Love,

Luna and Neville

 

“Dear God, that girl is peculiar,” Severus muttered.

 

“I think it’s a journal of sorts,” Hermione said, looking down at it again.  “I think that, maybe, she means that if something is too difficult to talk about, then you write it down in here so the other person can read it, and then, it is easier to talk about it later, because the subject has already been broached in writing.”

 

He was staring at her incredulously.  “You got all that from this?”  He held up Luna’s short note.

 

She smiled.  “If you spend time with Luna, you sort of start to understand her.  It’s a little frightening sometimes, but it’s always interesting.”

 

He just shook his head and stared down at the lions prancing about on the book in her lap.

 

Hermione leaned back on the sofa, popped open the tin of mince pies that Ginny had sent, and fished one out.  She held out the tin to Severus, and he took one, too.  “Just gifts left from Mum and Dad,” she said, nodding toward the tree.  They always send me books, and of course, a new toothbrush.  That’s inevitable.”  She laughed.  “One can’t help but be forced into proper oral hygiene when your parents are dentists, I suppose.  I think my father thought it a cardinal sin to not floss.”

 

“Yes,” he was staring into the fire now and twisting a lose thread at the hem of the Weasley jumper around his finger.  “You have very straight teeth.”

 

“Well, it took magic to make that happen.  You remember my teeth when I was younger, and then that fiasco in my fourth year with Malfoy, and…”  She let her voice trail off, remembering the event quite vividly; how Severus had actually been quite indifferent to her plight—actually, more like downright mean—making her cry in front of everyone.  It was that which had actually made her angrier than the insult itself. 

 

She shook her head.  “Well, you probably don’t remember, but I do.  When Madam Pomfrey went to put things back to normal, I just sort of let her carry on for a while.  My parents were none too pleased.  I think that they would have preferred if I just carried on with my brace.  Anyway, that fixed everything.”

 

“I remember,” he said.  He was twisting the green thread from his jumper more and more tightly around his finger, causing the tip to turn purple.  “I suppose it’s far too late for apologies.”

 

“No…” she said, a little surprised.  “I don’t think it’s ever too late for apologies.”

 

“Then—I—I apologize, Granger.  I was under a great deal of stress.  It isn’t an excuse, only—I thought that maybe—an understanding of that might help lessen the sting a little.”

 

She nodded.  “It does.  That’s just a hard age, you know.  Just starting to notice—well, the male contingent, as it were, and all the girls from Beauxbatons were there that year.  I was already more than aware of where I was lacking.  I suppose I didn’t need reminding.”

 

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Potter and Weasley wasted no time in valiantly leaping to your defense.  It earned them both detentions, if I recall correctly.  It had been quite some time since I had that many pejoratives hurled at me in such swift succession.”

 

She brought up a hand to cover the smile that came to her lips.  “I’m sorry.  I’m not laughing at you, but—you must have been so furious.”

 

“Not really.  Despite what you all might have thought when you were students, I was aware when I had crossed the line.  Just, usually—after the fact, and—well, how does one apologize to a child without running the risk of undermining the reputation of evil and foreboding that you have worked so hard to foster?  Gryffindor lost fifty points, and they each had a detention, rather than the week’s worth and fifty points a piece I would have given normally.  I—I likely deserved what they’d called me, and I knew it.”

 

She raised an eyebrow at that, and then, glancing down and seeing that he now had his finger so bound up in string from the jumper that it looked ready to drop off, she batted his other hand away and picked up the bound one, untwisting the string with a single pull.  “You’ll unravel the whole jumper.  Stop that.”

“What a loss that would be,” he grumbled, but she was still holding onto his hand, and he hadn’t pulled it away as she had expected.  It sent a little shiver of pleasure through her.  She turned it over palm up in hers, and then brought her other hand up to trace over the lines she found there.

 

“Trying to determine my future, Granger?” he asked, but she could hear a slightly breathless sound in his voice.

 

She shook her head.  “No.  I just like your hands.  I wanted to get a better look at them.”  She turned his hand over and admired, up close at last, the long fingers, the veins trailing just below the pale, thin flesh on the backs of them.  There was a white scar across the top of one finger.  She traced it with her finger.  “What’s this from?”

 

“I cut myself in Potions fourth year.”

 

“Didn’t you go to see Madam Pomfrey?”

 

“No.”

 

“Hmm…”

 

Turning his hand over again, she ran her fingers from the tips of his, down his palm, until she reached his wrist and the edge of the sleeve to his jumper.  She pushed it back a little so that she could see the blue veins just beneath the surface of his wrist.  There was a small hollow between the tendons there, and she was suddenly overcome with the most overwhelming desire to press her lips to it.

 

She wondered what might happen if she did.  It seemed almost cruel, given how upset he seemed to be over the very thought of desiring her.  A sort of humming was building in her fingers, though, a kind of warmth.  She knew it was a result of her desire, of the very thought of what his skin might smell and taste like.  She remembered pressing her lips against his palm in the snow, the way his eyes had slid shut.  She wondered if he had pleasured himself afterward, thinking of her.

 

She definitely should not have let her mind go there.  The humming in her fingers started to prickle, now, and she felt a throbbing heaviness building between her thighs.  She remembered it only too well, from the night of the wedding, how it had built and built until she thought she would die if she couldn’t relieve it.  She knew she should put his hand down and get up, go get a drink of water, anything to stop this thing which seemed to be derailing her brain faster than she could counter it.

 

She didn’t dare look up at him.  All she could do was continue to stare down at his hand.  Her brain was betraying her more by the minute, conjuring all sorts of images that she knew she wouldn’t be able to shake.  The image of that hand tangled in her hair, sliding over her skin, cupping her breast, slipping beneath her knickers.  She took a deep and quivering breath, and then, with every ounce of strength she could muster, set his hand gently back down on his lap, slipped off the couch, and went to the kitchen.

 

Her hands were trembling, she realized, as she reached up into the cupboard to pull down a glass.  That should have been warning; that, and the almost painful tingling in her fingers.  The moment she reached out to touch the glass, it cracked in half with a loud pop.  “Shit,” she spat in a whisper and leaned down to rest her elbows on the counter, burying her head in her hands.  This transferred the magic building to her skull, and she pulled away.  What was wrong with her?

 

She had been aroused before, but it had never affected her magic.  This was getting a little ridiculous.  She hadn’t done unconscious magic since she was a child.  With a sigh, she turned around and started a little at the sight of Severus standing in the doorway, looking at her.

 

“Are you all right?” he asked.  He didn’t look particularly all right himself.  He looked a little pale and tense, too, like a spring wound too tight.

 

She nodded.  “I’m sorry.  I—I thought it best if I leave for a moment.”

 

“Why?” 

 

The bastard!  He knew exactly why.

 

“Because I wanted you,” she stated plainly.  There—let him deal with that if he was going to be difficult.

 

She saw him swallow hard.  His eyes were burning into hers, and she felt the tingling building in her hands again, like they were itching to touch—to touch every inch of him.  This was madness.  She had been much more disciplined before their conversation of earlier.  Had it just been the revelation of his desire for her that had made the difference? She wouldn’t have thought it would make such a difference to her.

 

There was another loud pop behind her, and she jumped with a little cry, spinning to see another glass on the shelf lying in pieces.  She hadn’t been anywhere near it that time.  She turned back around, shaking her head.  “I—I’m sorry.  I don’t know what’s…”  But her voice trailed off.  He was looking horribly guilty—guilty and completely surprised. 

 

She looked back over her shoulder at the glass and then back at him.  Perhaps his revelation had not made so much of a difference to her, but perhaps it had made a very great difference to him.  Perhaps it, and the fact that she had not rejected him out of hand for it, as he had so expected, had knit up something that had been broken.

 

“Did—did you do that?” she stammered, nodding back toward the cupboard behind her.

 

“I don’t know.”  He sounded a tad frightened.

 

She could still feel it in the room, the humming, buzzing feeling of magic building.  In the beginning, it had only felt like it was in her hands—perhaps that had been because she had been touching him—but now, she could feel it all around, electric, energizing, exhilarating.  But he seemed wholly unable to control it, and that was what worried her.

 

Another glass behind her shattered, and she let out a tiny shriek and hopped away from the counter with a nervous giggle.  Glass had showered out onto the counter with that one, and she figured she had best get out of harm’s way.  “It is you,” she said with more than a little awe. 

 

He was staring down at his hands as though terrified that they might wrest control from his mind at any moment and start to act of their own volition.  Maybe that was his problem.  Maybe he should let them.  She hurried across the room toward him, reached out and grabbed his hand, yanking him into the sitting room as another pop sounded behind them.

 

His hand was trembling in hers, and the energy emanating from it was sending almost painful surges up her arm.  She stopped and turned to face him.  “Do you want me?” she asked bluntly.  “Right now, I mean, and when we were sitting there on the sofa, a moment ago?”

 

His face grew paler still, and he had an odd look on his face, almost like he was going to cry.  He swallowed hard again, and then nodded.  “Yes.”  His voice was husky with need.

 

She nodded.  “Well, then, I’m going to snog you, now, before you blow up the whole house.  Any objections?”

 

He opened his mouth, but at that moment, the face of the clock over the door cracked clear across.  She didn’t let him answer.  Instead, she just stood on her tiptoes and pulled him down against her lips.  The back of his neck was incredibly warm, and when his lips touched hers, a wave of renewed desire crashed over her.  It was hard to describe it.  It felt like longing, but also like relief. It was like it felt when you had been walking kilometers in the hot summer sun, and suddenly, it began to rain.

 

She was thirsty for him. 

 

He was frozen, perhaps in shock, she wasn’t sure.  His lips were warm, and dry, and still against hers.  He was still fighting it, that was the problem.  Ridiculous!  She pulled away a little.  “Severus, for Merlin’s sake!”

 

The light bulb in the lamp beside them suddenly exploded.  Fortunately, the shade kept them from being showered with glass, but it was enough to startle ‘Wen, who had been curled up on the arm of the sofa.  She let out a hiss and a yowl and streaked up the stairs, every hair on end.  Hermione watched her go and then turned to look up at Severus.  “Now you’re terrorizing the cat.  Stop being so…”

 

But she never got the chance to finish.  He crashed into her, then, with such force, it took her breath away.  Something in the back of her mind told her that he was very much going to regret this, but that was the last thing it registered before his tongue plunged inside her mouth, and her knees went weak. 

 

The sound that followed, a deep and almost primal moan from deep in his chest, caused every nerve ending in her body to suddenly spring to life.  She felt desperate, frenzied.  She was vaguely aware that she should be a little frightened.  She’d never had anyone plunder her mouth like this before, his tongue was everywhere, and his hands were tangled in her hair, pulling her head in closer to his.  She felt so dizzy that she wondered how she was still standing.  She thought she tasted salt on her lips.  Was she crying?  Was he?

 

Her arms were hanging limp and useless at her sides—out of shock, she supposed.  But suddenly, she wanted, needed him closer.  Lifting them, she wrapped them around his waist and pulled him in close.  His body was radiating heat like pavement in summer, and it was taut and hard—all angles and lines, bones and sinew.  She truly felt how thin he was, then.  She had seen it in the bathroom the night she had walked in on him, but it was another thing to feel it beneath her arms.

 

She could even feel his hipbones pressing into her and, between them and just a little lower down, something else hard, too, but hot and pulsing with life.  It sent a jolt of shock through her.  Why did it shock her so, she wondered?  It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen a boy hard before, felt him so, even.  There had been many fumblings between she and Ron when she had held him close and ground against him until he came in his trousers, panting and whimpering in her ear.  But perhaps that was it.  It had been Ron, a boy, and that wasn’t the same thing—not the same thing at all.  Something rose up in her, something that felt a wee bit like panic.

 

She shouldn’t be feeling panic, should she?  She wanted this.  She wanted him, but…

 

Suddenly, he broke away, pulling back from her, like she had burnt him.  His cheeks were damp, she saw, and there were tears clinging like drops of dew to the bottom of his long, dark lashes.  He looked horrified.

 

“What?” she managed, still breathless.

 

He looked at her almost helplessly, as though she were some sort of horrible train wreck that he couldn’t stop, and then, he strode past her without a word, snatched his coat off the hook by the door, and left, slamming the door behind him.  She raced over and peered out the window, only to see him disappearing down the street, moving swiftly, with long strides.  He was going the way they had gone the day they went to get the tree.

 

She felt suddenly hollowed out by his absence, and she turned away from the door, lifting a hand to her flushed cheek, feeling hot tears of her own streaming over her fingers.  She caught sight of herself in the mirror hanging just the other side of the door, and she moved forward, staring at the stranger looking back at her. 

 

The young woman there was flushed, her lips swollen, the hair she worked so hard to tame teased into an impossible bird’s nest of curls that hung down in her face, making her look a little wild.  She looked utterly debauched.  Was that what had brought those tears to his eyes?  Seeing her like this, warm and ripe with desire, her body stirred into a frenzy of hunger and need by his kisses.  There was a reckless sort of abandon to her look that normally never would have shown. 

 

Hermione was a very studied and careful person.  She knew this about herself.  She took pride in it.  The wild thing staring back at her frightened her a little.  She remembered the panic when she had felt the pulsing, throbbing length of him pressing against her stomach.  Why?  Was it because something deep down inside of her suspected that with him she would have to give up any illusion of retaining control.  Was it that she knew she wanted to drown in him, to completely lose herself?

 

He made her feel things she had hitherto never known one could feel.  It frightened her, but it also exhilarated and thrilled her.  And now, he hated himself again.  He was walking away from her, and she couldn’t let him.

 

Grabbing her coat and slipping into her boots, she raced out into the cold after him..