Hidden Within

Hidden Within

Chapter Six - Confusion

"Severus..." This was it. "Do you want to go and sit on the sofa?" Then again, maybe not.

"Yes." Way to go, Severus, you're getting more eloquent by the second. What was it about her that could so easily turn him into an inarticulate fool?

He sat down next to her, racking his brain for something to say. It was hard to find a non-academic topic of conversation given how they spent every moment of the day together. Unless he suddenly began asking her questions about her parents and childhood, which he most definitely did not want to; that would open up a pathway that he didn't want to follow, for he was utterly unprepared to answer questions of that nature himself. His train of thought was interrupted by her lips on his. Severus was beginning to feel deeply intoxicated by her smell, tonight combined with a tasteful perfume. Hermione shifted slightly, providing him with unprecedented access to her neck; both her hairdo and her dress were, in fact, doing a fine job in helping such access. Almost without thinking he trailed a path of kisses from her earlobe to her shoulder, tasting, feeling. With a skill he didn't know he had he removed her satin ribbon and then kissed the hollow of her throat, moving upwards, back to her lips. Hermione, meanwhile, had pulled his hair free of its constraints and was running her hands through it. His lips went back to her neck, cherishing it, and then ventured to her collar bones. As he made to move up again she directed almost imperceptibly down. He might have said something if his mind hadn't stopped functioning a while back. Before he knew it, his left hand was on her back, unzipping her dress, and his right one was helping his mouth in its exploration of her bare left breast. He could feel her nipple hardening beneath his tongue, sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. His mouth left her nipple only long enough to kiss each of her forearms and the inside of her wrists as he helped her out of her sleeves. The dress was fully unzipped now, half lying, nearly forgotten on her waist, and he proceeded to her other breast with delicately planted kisses in between, noticing absently how goose bumps were forming on her skin. His desire was so intense as to be painful, making him feel like he was made of liquid fire, burning almost too hot to bear. Her skin was perfect, an attractive tan that had only been made more beautiful by the colour of her dress; it was delicate, perfumed, exquisite. He trailed some more kisses through the middle of her stomach, flat and beautiful, his hands still on her breasts, her nipples niched on his palms one second, being caressed by his thumbs the next.

"Oh, Severus..."

Her moans by themselves could have brought him to the edge. Instead, they helped him snap out of his lust-induced trance and finally realise what was happening. He broke away even as his every nerve screamed in protest.

"Hermione." His face was flushed, his breathing ragged.

Hermione, for her part, could have cried out in agony. He had been making her feel a range of sensations the likes of which she had never experienced. If she had ever thought she had felt aroused before, she was discovering a whole new definition of the term. Everything had just been feeling so deliciously right, and then he had turned away and now her body felt cold everywhere he had touched it, yearning for the warmth of his hands and lips. What was wrong? Why didn't he want her? Surely she had made her wanting of him clear enough! He got up to a standing position and she put the dress back on, suddenly self-conscious. Severus was running his hands through his hair, eyes closed, exhaling deeply.

"Hermione, don't do this to me. I can only fight so much, please. Don't do this to me." His voice was thick and yet hoarse, hardly recognisable, and his body was quivering with ill-suppressed desire. Understanding for the first time why it was he backed off, Hermione felt a jolt of triumph. He wanted her. Fully. As a woman. She walked up to him, pulling his resisting hands from his head and capturing them in hers and said, in a voice that did nothing to hide her own arousal, "I don't want you to fight it."

His eyes snapped open, identical black coals burning with desire, beautifully reflecting the flames from the fireplace. He clutched her hands tighter."

"You... Hermione, are you trying to tell me what I believe you are? Am I misreading this in any way?"

She smiled once more, strangely rewarded that her once so surely professor now seemed so nervous. All for her.

"Yes and no. In that order."

He picked her up wordlessly and carried her into the bedroom, settling her on the bed with a lover's will. As he once again helped her out of her dress, Hermione felt grateful that she had left this fireplace lit as well. The room was warm and inviting, an unwitting accomplice in their lovemaking. She would tell him the rest afterwards. She wanted to have him first.

Severus had only just returned to kissing her, her hands wrestling with his dressing robes, when he decided he wasn't being honest with her. First she had to see it, to understand what he had been, and only then could she make this decision consciently. Of course, she might have caught a glimpse of it in her fourth year, but it certainly hadn't been enough for her to see it properly. He sat on the bed, afraid.

"No." It was her turn to be afraid. 'No'? Why not, what now?

"There is something... you have to see first. You cannot decide to do this without seeing it." Her fear turned to worry for him. He had been utterly unable to keep the raw pain from bleeding into his voice. She sat up next to him and watched as his beautiful, slender hand uncuffed his left wrist and rolled the sleeve upward, exposing his forearm and... something else. The Dark Mark. Voldemort's mark. Her eyes searched his face, but his refused to meet them. She stared back at the mark, silent for a long time, looking for the right words to say. Finally it was he who spoke, for once showing his vulnerability with his every sentence.

"I will... understand completely if you change your mind. Whether just about tonight or as to what we have, you have every right. I should have shown it to you before, Hermione. This is... what I am. His mark of ownership upon me. It will never go away. I cannot erase it. And he killed all of those people, Hermione, people you called friends. And this proves I don't belong to myself. I am his, in much the same way as livestock. Nothing but cattle." He had been lowering his contempt-filled voice with every ashamed word, and now she could barely hear it. She wished she could ascribe his description of himself to the thing lurking in Hogwarts but she knew better. This self-loathing was all his own. And it would be her strenuous task to make it all go away. She clamped her hand on the black skull resolutely.

"You are not cattle. You are not his. And that is not you. It changes nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing." She enfolded him within her arms, holding him as tight as she could. The searing pain in his chest began to ease a bit at her words, turning to a dull ache as she pulled him into her embrace. He had been so sure she'd reconsider, so sure that her hearing him say he'd been a Death Eater couldn't possibly carry the same weight as actually seeing the Dark Mark branded on his arm... hearing her words was like absolution. If this wonderful, immaculate creature could see it and forgive him... want him still... For the first time since Albus' death, and for a far different reason, he allowed himself to cry, this time releasing, cleansing tears of relief. He had shown her his ugliest and been accepted nevertheless. He pulled her mouth to his with trembling hands, crushing, demanding, trying to find a way to release himself from the constricting mixture of despair and relief, pain and joy. He whispered her name with a vengeance, punctuating it with kisses. "Hermione. My darling. My sweetheart. Hermione." And she knew. She knew she couldn't tell him later, she had to say it now. He needed to know now. She waited until his intensity decreased slightly, wanting him to be fully aware of her words.

"Severus. Now there is something I need to tell you. I've been afraid to tell you, afraid I would scare you away." She was staring at her hands.

He kissed her again, gentler this time. "In all honesty, short of telling me you were responsible for the massacre, I don't see what would possibly make me want to be away from you."

The sincerity in his voice lent her courage. "I was going to tell you tonight, anyway, I was just trying to find the right way of saying it. In the end I guess there is no 'right way of saying it', and no wrong way. Just one way." She met his eyes. "I love you."

And she saw him close his eyes and show her the first luminous smile she had ever seen from him, opening his arms to her. And she opened hers in turn but, when she closed them, it was around nothing but air. And she found herself alone in the bedroom, too stunned as of the moment to truly feel the pain of her loss, burdened with the knowledge that she was not only alone in the bedroom, but alone in the whole of Hogwarts as well.