Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 12

Recuperation

Having managed to reduce by a substantial degree the amount of food that had remained in the picnic basket after Ella and Severus had eaten their fill, Remus Lupin stretched noisily and rubbed his stomach in satisfaction before scratching his head and yawning.

"Well, I'd better be off, then," he said, dropping a light kiss on to Persephone's forehead before springing to his feet.

"What, so soon?" drawled Severus, not bothering to open his eyes. "At least take a little something for the walk back to the school, we wouldn't want you to go hungry!"

Lupin grinned at Ella good-naturedly, and reached into the wicker basket for an apple before loping off in the direction of the rose walk.

"I don't know how he puts up with your rudeness!" scolded Ella, stroking her husband's hair and trying to sound stern.

"Years of practice, on both our parts," Severus replied with a slight smirk. "And he got off lightly just now. When I asked him to tell you about that night I didn't mean I wanted him to give a detailed and, I might add, rather tasteless account of how Granger gave him an erection when I had only just escaped from the jaws of death!"

"Oh, I thought it was sweet!"

"Sweet? Well, you would! I myself felt quite nauseated."

"Well, he's gone now," Ella replied, idly running her finger from his forehead, down his long nose and over his lips. He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips, opening his eyes as he did so to give her a penetrating stare. Ella shivered, a warm tingle in her lower back signalling her body's reaction to his closeness and its promise.

He released her and sat up, crossing his legs so that he could lean over and watch his daughter as she kicked and gurgled contentedly beside them. His long fingers danced over her tummy, and before long her coos had become louder as her arms and legs began to flail excitedly.

His hair had fallen over his face and as she saw him in profile only his nose and mouth were visible. He was smiling gently at Persephone and Ella felt a surge of warmth for her husband, and a sudden rush of desire as her overwhelming maternal instincts confirmed to her that, their incredible sexual chemistry notwithstanding, here was a truly wonderful father for their child. She leaned forward and ran her hand across his back, and he turned to her, a smile still lighting up his usually stern features.

"I love you," she said.

"And I love you..." His eyes bored into hers once more and he reached out to draw her into his arms for a slow, delicate kiss. "I was elated to wake from that half-death and find you there..."

*****************************************************

Snape remembered little of the trek from the Shrieking Shack to the school. Supported bodily by two Marauders for whom he still harboured a festering resentment despite their consistently inadequate efforts to make amends for childhood hostility, he had found it impossible to resist the insidious spread of the creeping coldness. On several occasions he had passed out, as icy tendrils reached out to his brain stem, cutting off the supply of blood for minutes at a time. Every time he came to, he cursed under his breath at the bitter irony that found these two clowns saving his life when once they had sought to end it. Unconsciousness almost came as a relief, particularly in view of the fact that each time he came to, the castle loomed that much closer, and therefore he was so much nearer to seeing Ella again.

By the time Lupin and Black had dragged him up to the stone steps up to the main doors, he was no longer capable of rational thought, and all that he knew as he fell to his knees in the Great Hall was that at last he could smell jasmine.

Once in the Infirmary, smelling salts administered by Madam Pomfrey revived him just long enough for his mind to register that Ella was with him, leaning over him, touching him, tears spilling from her eyes on to his cheek.

"Ella, I'm sorry..." he groaned, forcing the words through lips that felt numb with cold.

"Shh, it's okay, I understand." Her voice was far away, echoing across from the far bank of an inky river, and he had to concentrate hard in order to hear her. "You're here now, you're safe, and that's all that matters."

He had to make her understand, he had to hold her and tell her it would be for the last time.

"No, not safe...dying..." was all that he could manage before he was swept backwards and carried with the current, and knew no more.

He travelled for a long time in the Stygian dark. Now and then there would be flashes of light, but it was black light and it scared him, and so he did not try to reach it. That way lay certain death, he knew, and damnation too. Always there was a distant music whose refrain he could not discern, and he did not try for the effort always failed. The music was accompanied by a fragrance he craved, though, and from time to time its subtle counterpoint would send his spirit soaring as he remembered that he had known love, however briefly. For minutes at a time the music would swell, and form itself into words whose cadences were recognisably those of his love's, and he would know that she was there, and he would ache for the loss of her. Then, too soon, he would begin to drift once more and curse the undertow whose inexorable pull took him from her, and thereafter only the distant melody and the scent of jasmine would remain.

He wished that the numbness would go away. As it spread, the agony that marked out the pathways of his body for it to follow drew closer and closer to his heart, and further into his brain. At times he could feel warmth on his right side, where he suspected she lay, but her caresses were insubstantial and her kisses as light as the breeze. His left side was encased in ice, immobile and deadened, and so he clung to the sensation he still had left even though he knew it was as no more than sand, forever slipping through his fingers.

He knew despair. He had always known despite. Of the two, the despair was the most difficult to accept, because it involved Ella and the limitless regrets that marred his life. Despite, on the other hand, was his oldest friend and he felt its grip on his soul every day when he awoke. He deserved his fate, after all.

As he felt his life force freeze in his veins he was submerged, the current taking him deeper and further out now, where there was no need for the ferryman. The black light, whose mocking secrets would show him where he deserved to go and lead him there, was drawing him closer and he waved goodbye to the Elysian fields of Ella's love. They were simply the last in a long line of missed opportunities for redemption.

Such were what passed for his thoughts as he began to descend through the rapidly decreasing circles of death's vortex, until he felt a sharp, white pain assault his benumbed nervous system, its target his Dark Mark. He screamed, his paralysed throat muscles galvanised into activity by his body's sudden requirement to protest at what it perceived as more ill use. And then, for a while, he knew no more.

He still travelled in shadow but now the scent of jasmine pervaded his nostrils, along with citrus, and coconut. Perhaps he would spend eternity on a tropical island, he mused idly, and pass the time in contemplation of his own navel, listing the many and varied failings that had brought him to such a juncture. He felt sunlight on his face, which seemed to corroborate his initial assumption, and was surprised at the absence of the black light, which he had been sure would be his constant companion. There were no coins weighing down his eyelids, but still he struggled to prise one of them open, just a fraction, to try to ascertain the nature of his surroundings.

He was further heartened when he realised that the distant music had struck up once more, meaning that he might find company in this strange and unexpected afterlife, and this time by degrees he could discern its melodic refrain. For now, though, the melody was low and rhythmical, more percussive than before.

Ella Redemte was stretched out beside him with an arm and a leg draped across him, and she was snoring.

When he awoke for the second time, she was gone. When he tried to call her name all that came out was a rasping groan, but as he turned his head he saw that it had been enough to make her hurry to his bedside with a smile so warm that he thought he would melt. She seemed to think that he should be capable of returning it, for she teased,

"What, no smile for me, Severus?"

Ah, her voice. He had known it to be her, every minute, but he was parched and could not tell her.

Licking his lips, he managed just one word,

"Thirsty."

Once she had helped him to slake his thirst he swallowed painfully and asked,

"Have you been here all the time?"

Tender fingers grazed his cheek and he leaned in to her hand, amazed, as she answered,

"Where else would I go?"

She came into his arms willingly and he drew her down to him with a sigh, feeling the weight of her head on his chest and closing his eyes in gratitude for his life as he savoured the exquisite sensation of her hair spilling across his chest and shoulders.

"I heard your voice, but I couldn't answer you," he said, his voice rasping and wheezy. "It was you, wasn't it, all the time? No-one else?"

"It was me."

"Hmm," he coughed. "You talk too much, then."

She laughed delightedly and her breath tickled his chest as it ruffled against the lapel of his silk dressing gown. He wondered idly who had undressed him, and, more to the point, who had managed to get past his wards into his private rooms for his robe. He sighed, resigning himself to the certain knowledge that not only did Albus Dumbledore have the ability to go wherever he wanted in Hogwarts, and invade whoever's privacy he chose, but that for once he, Severus Snape, did not care. He had far more pressing matters to attend to, and she was holding him more closely than anyone else ever had in all of his life.

"You are aware of my feelings for you by now, I suppose?" he asked awkwardly, unused to verbal declarations of love but suspecting - hoping - he was going to get a good deal of practice. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes.

"Very well aware, my love."

She kissed him tenderly and his arms crushed her to him with a vigour that surprised them both. As his tongue pushed at her lips they parted eagerly, and joyfully he plunged inside, tasting her and learning her and determined never to let her go.

***

Their first encounter of a more intimate nature since their reconciliation was one that he would never forget, and which served to exorcise one of the more tenacious demons of his past. He could scarcely believe what she was doing, at first. She had not left his side for a moment, and even in his weakened state her presence, and her compulsive need to touch him, thrilled and aroused him.

He had always shied from physical contact. The withdrawal of demonstrations of physical affection by his parents, when he was eight years old and expected to 'be a man', had coincided with the birth of his brother Caius, and the sensitive, solitary child had connected the two events so that all parties were resented equally from then on.

The sudden reintroduction of 'affection' into his life had been nothing like the sort he had craved. It had come only after his introduction to a charismatic leader of men, and had been twisted and depraved, a sexual power play that pained his soul and forced him far inside himself, to hide from hurt with even more determination than before.

Now, ever since he had seen her in the Mirror of Erised, he had longed for Ella's touch and it was every bit as intoxicating as he had dreamed it would be. She could not leave any part of his skin untouched, it seemed, and he marvelled at the thoroughness of her attentions. His skin was so sensitised by her gentle fingertips and - oh gods - her soft, warm lips that each spot she touched arched out to her and lamented her passing on to other, needier parts.

"What are you doing?" he asked breathlessly as she stroked his chest and planted kisses all over his ribcage.

"Oh, I'm sorry, do you want me to stop?" she asked innocently, trailing her hand lower and unfastening his dressing gown slowly. His breathing hitched in his chest and his erection grew until it tented the silk of the robe.

"No, don't stop...."

She leaned over him and ran her hands up to his shoulders and across, pushing the fabric away so that she could gaze down at his chest before lowering her head and kissing her way across the smattering of black hairs until she reached a small, flat nipple. She ran her tongue across its tip, making him shiver as she teased it into a peak before turning her attention to the other. Meanwhile, her hand had crept below the bed-sheet and now she tugged the dressing gown open so that the smooth fabric ran over the head of his straining penis. She ran her hand down over his left hip, carrying on down his thigh and moving between his legs as he spread them to accommodate her. As she ran her fingers down he moaned, heat flooding through him and pooling in his groin, and he gasped and threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling back her head so that he could look into her eyes and show her his need for her.

"What are you doing to me?" he said, hoarsely. Her calm green eyes were now stormy and black with lust and he arched his back as she whispered,

"Unfinished business."

As he cried out she moved down the bed and buried her face in his groin while her fingers danced along his turgid shaft. The sensation was incredible and he lifted his head to watch, but then threw it back and gripped each side of the mattress. His breathing grew laboured and he hissed. Abruptly she let him go, and sat up on the bed, kneeling between his legs, gazing down at him.

"Aaah, you've stopped!" he gasped, plaintively. The nearby window was open, and the cool breeze that blew across his incredible erection, still coated with her saliva, was in sharp contrast to the now absent hotness of her mouth.

"I think that's enough excitement for one day, don't you?" she mocked, raising an eyebrow.

"No! Oh Ella, you witch, don't do this to me!"

"Beg me! I want you to beg me. And be polite!"

He was not the kind of man to beg. Surely she knew that much by now. The only time he had ever begged anything of her had been to entreat her to return to Hogwarts, and that had been for her own good. But when he looked into her eyes and saw the desire there tinged with a surprisingly arousing hint of mischief, he succumbed completely. He told himself that he would cooperate with her game, but still could not control the helplessness that poured from his lips as he babbled heedlessly,

"Oh, please don't stop. Please, I can't hold it in. Please, touch me again, I'll do anything!"

She laughed, a deliciously low, throaty laugh, and her eyes sparkled as she bent over him once more.

Her delicate fingers teased and cupped his balls and her hair spilled all over his legs like satin. Every touch erased a memory of a previous encounter, every caress diminished those twisted parodies of affection until their poisoned legacy ceased to matter to him at all. He felt an insistent tingling in his lower abdomen that grew in intensity until his mind began to spin and he knew that he was coming, and it was the most incredible sensation he head ever felt. It was nothing like anything he had ever known, nothing like the other times, nothing like them, because this time it was Ella and she loved him, Ella's hair over his legs, Ella's head in his hands, she loved him and it was the first time, he had never, Ella, Ella!

He lay prone on the bed, his breathing coming only in ragged gasps. He was only vaguely aware of Ella kissing her way back up his body but as she reached his lips he gathered sufficient of his faculties to murmur

"Oh, Ella, I love you."

Ella curled up beside him and drew him to her so that he rested his head on her chest, and as he succumbed to an exhausted sleep once more he heard her murmur,

"For someone who finds it hard to share his feelings, you're doing remarkably well..."

He spent the following days in a state of near-permanent frustration. He had slept so long after Ella's bravura performance that afternoon that she had feared she had exhausted him to the extent of compromising his recovery, so she insisted that an encore was out of the question. And to make matters worse, she had taken to leaving him on his own in the Infirmary for hours at a time, so that she could help the idiot Black in the higher Potions classes. He suspected that his insistence every time they were lying together on taking her hand and moving it down under the sheets to the place he most wanted it to touch had something to do with her excuses, but he found it most tiresome.

He wanted to run his mouth all over her, possess her with a fervour he knew she returned, but she was adamant in her refusal of him. She would stretch out beside him and embrace him, nuzzle his face and plant kisses across his chest, arch her full breasts into his hand as he squeezed her soft flesh until her eyes glazed over in passion, but she would allow no more than that, and her hands refused resolutely to stray. She drove him to distraction, and he told her so. She simply smiled, told him she adored his irascibility, and kissed him until he forgot where he was, who he was, and why he was angry, and then she would pretend she heard Madam Pomfrey's approach and leap from his arms, laughing as he roared his displeasure at her diversionary tactics.

She assumed that he had ceded control, but if that was so then it had not been done willingly. He fully intended to restore the balance of power in his favour, just as soon as his physical fortitude was a match for the psychological wellbeing Ella bestowed on him. It was only right.

***

"Poppy? Poppy!"

Brisk footsteps clipped across the room signalling Madam Pomfrey's approach.

"What is it now?" she asked peremptorily, pulling back the privacy screens with a scrape.

"I need my robes. And my clothes."

"Why? It's not as if you're going anywhere, is it?"

Snape glared at her.

"Haven't I been held captive here for long enough this time?"

"You nearly died, you were very weak!"

"And I pulled through! Again!"

"You need rest," she stressed.

"I'll rest far better in the comfort of my own bed!" he growled, folding his arms.

"Somehow I doubt that," she muttered primly, tucking in the sheet at the foot of his bed and making him shake his leg irritably to loosen it again.

"You can't keep me here."

"No, I never can! But I don't see why I should make it easy for you to ignore my advice!"

She withdrew her wand from a long pocket in her starched white apron, and pointed it first at Snape's temple, then his heart, finishing off with a sweep across his torso. Then she said matter-of-factly,

"I don't see why I should send a house elf for your clothes, either. You can sort it out for yourself, since you're so much better!"

With that parting shot, she turned and stalked off back to her office. Snape scowled, then clapped his hands twice and shouted,

"Dobby!"

The lesson was nearly over by the time he reached the dungeons, and when he swept through the door and into the classroom she was at the far side of the room, tidying ingredients away for Black. His eyes locked with hers in a flash of understanding, and he was gratified that she had sufficient discretion not to acknowledge his entrance. His breathing quickened with anticipation and he wondered whether he would be able to get rid of the class, Professor Black included, before his self control completely disappeared.

He found himself thanking the Troublesome Trio for their efforts to save his life, and he was surprised to discover that his words were actually sincere. Meddling miscreants though they were, it appeared that they had been instrumental in finding a way to stop the curse, and he had been disarmed and somewhat touched by their efforts. However, he hoped they did not feel inclined to broadcast their surprise, for he had a feeling his reputation had already been dealt a severe enough blow with the news of his relationship with Ella.

Ella. At last, the classroom door swung shut behind Potter and Black, and he was alone with her.

She had been putting the last of the bottles away, lining them up on the workbench, and as he came up behind her he saw that her hands were trembling. His hands snaked around her waist, and his lips whispered into her hair,

"Ella...I want to- make love to you. Now." With a soft sigh that sent a tingle of desire directly to his already turgid manhood, she sank back against him, and he shivered as she leant her head against his chest. She tilted her head to look up into his eyes and he marvelled at the passion he saw there. His hands reached up to cup her breasts, so full and heavy, and his need for her, simmering for so many months now and bubbling over thanks to her unwitting but unbearable tantalisation over recent days, would be denied no longer. He bent his head to taste the sweetness of her lips, and then with one fluid motion he picked her up in his arms and carried her purposefully towards his office. He shut and locked the door determinedly behind them with a powerful locking and silencing charm, and, without breaking his stride, took her directly through into his bedroom.

He set her down before him, his eyes never leaving hers, and struggled to keep his ragged breathing under control. A delicate flush was spreading from her neck down, and he was drawn to follow its alluring path. With rapid, determined movements he began with nimble fingers to unfasten her robes, slipping them off her shoulders before continuing his undressing of her, unable to resist kissing every inch of newly exposed flesh. Her chest was heaving and she kept breathing his name, and the soft sibilance of it threatened to be his undoing. Her hands were still shaking and she struggled to unbutton his frock coat, forcing it from his shoulders at last with an impatience that amused and aroused him. She began to kiss and nip his shoulders but by now he had freed her full breasts from the white lace brassiere she wore and his eyes feasted on them properly for the first time in nearly a year.

His erection was painful now, and he felt a sharp tingle in his abdomen. He moaned and pushed her from him for a moment, so that he could swoop down and open his mouth wide over one of her breasts, taking into it as much of the creamy white flesh as he could, laving his tongue over her and searching for the hard pink nub that was her nipple. She cried out as his tongue flicked across it, and his hand splayed tight across her back as he teased and caressed it, but then she suddenly seemed to grow impatient of her passive role and grasped the waistband of his trousers. Oh Gods, he wanted that too, and he relinquished her exquisite nipple for just long enough to mutter a quiet unbuttoning spell, since she seemed to have trouble with his buttons and the desperate fluttering of her fingers around his crotch would be his undoing. The imperative to bury himself inside her welcoming body was undeniable, and as she released him from his underclothes he gave a deep groan, and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her so that her arms were around his neck and she was half propped against the thick carved oak post at the foot of his bed.

This was it. He did not have to wait any longer. He had spent so many years denying all bodily pleasure, so many years unable to feel anything at all, and then years more of loneliness and dissatisfaction, alienation and bitter self-loathing. And now here he was, and here she was, and all of his past simply melted away, dissolved to nothing by the fiercely overwhelming heat of their mutual passion. He did not know from whence it came, or why the Fates had allowed it, but he did not care. Here they were, and he was on the brink of knowing.

She wound her legs around his waist and he could not hold back, wanting to cry with the sensation, sweating, hearing her breathing his name. He could barely stand the bliss. She filled every one of his senses; a heady scent of musky female arousal mingled with jasmine to create the very essence of Ella; the sweet flavour of vanilla and sweat from her breasts and the taste of her mouth; the exquisite sensation of her skin as his fingers slid over its satin expanse; the lust in her voice as she panted his name, and the abandonment of her whimpers and moans as she surrendered to him; and her eyes, oh, her eyes, rampant and roiling with passion, overflowing with a raging torrent of love and it was turned on him full force and she was his, all his, and he was hers, unconditionally and incontrovertibly.

She rocked against him and her voice grew higher with each utterance of his name. Her fingers were digging into his shoulders spasmodically and he knew that she too was close to her climax, and as she began to scream out his name he felt himself coming too, crying out her name.

Once they were both spent, he realised his arms and legs were trembling uncontrollably and he suspected that the shattering orgasm was only partially responsible. As Poppy Pomfrey never tired of reminding him, he was getting no younger, and the years had not been kind to him thus far. Ever the pragmatist, even after such a mind-blowing experience, Snape decided it would be prudent to move on to the bed before he collapsed with exhaustion. If Ella discovered his still-weakened state she might try to refuse him an encore and now that he had joined with her he knew that he would never be able to get enough of her. He fastened his arms around her more tightly still, and carried her round to the side of the bed, first stepping out of the trousers that had been pooled at his feet, slipping out of her with a sigh of regret as he laid her down and then climbed on to the bed beside her. They wrapped themselves around one another then, trying to cover every inch of the other's flesh that they could with their own, unable to get close enough.

This was something completely new to Snape. As he lay there feeling the cool air play on his sweat-sheened skin he felt Ella snuggle closer in against him and he curled his body around her, wrapping her into himself. He made a conscious effort to close his mind to the bitter memories of same-sex encounters of years ago. Those couplings had had nothing to do with sex, less still love, and everything to do with power and manipulation.

He remembered the few - very few - brief liaisons he had allowed himself since those dark days. He had paid for all of them, and it had not been money alone that had been exchanged, for the encounters had bestowed on him a particular sense of sorrow and dissatisfaction that had lasted for much longer than his recollection of the women's faces. After each coupling he had dressed at once and made his exit, with never a backwards glance. He had spurned their efforts at polite conversation and been repelled by their attempts to paw him and kiss him, as if there was a relationship between them that should be nurtured. As if he had any intention of repeating the experience with them.

And now for the first time in his life he knew true intimacy. Ella's face was buried in his chest and he was glad she could not see his face, for he had no idea of how he would be able to disguise the helpless need in his eyes and he feared such an exposure, so soon. He felt his heart pounding in his breast and wondered whether or not she could feel it too, and he listened to his pulse settle as the rush of blood through his ears slowed. He wished that the lump in his throat would lessen, too, but he was too choked to speak and he feared that if he gave in to it he could quite easily be reduced to tears, and that would never do. She seemed content simply to lie there in his embrace, and he wondered whether she too was taking stock of this momentous event. Her hair tickled his chin as she shifted against him, and he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head tenderly. After a while she tilted her head to look up at him, and although he knew that helpless devotion must surely be written all over his face, still he could do nothing else but gaze deep into her eyes.

"I could drown in your eyes," she smiled. He closed his eyes, the frown line deepening between them. His heart was too full. "I know, too soppy. Mmmm. Forget I spoke." She pulled him closer and ran her foot up and down his leg. His reticence did not offend her in the least, it seemed, but he found himself replying anyway.

"It isn't that," he answered softly. "I just - I'm not accustomed to this." He sighed, and ran his fingers along the curve of her jaw. He hardly dared to ask her why she loved him, why she lay in his arms so contentedly. He feared that the last few weeks had been a dream, and that reality would find them both still seated at the ridiculously small table outside Florian Fortescue's ice cream parlour, each unaware of the other's true feelings. "I still don't know what you see in me."

"Apart from your intelligence, your strength, your wit, your undeniable physical charms? Can't imagine..."

He kissed her again then, for a very long time. He would never grow tired of kissing her. He had shifted down the bed a little, so that his head was on a level with hers, and while their legs remained entwined they each drew back just enough to allow each to caress the other's face with trembling hands. He explored every inch of her skin with his fingertips and then followed the trail with his lips, planting delicate kisses on her eyelids, her brow, her nose, her jaw, her ears, and her lips, always her lips, so full and warm and eager for him. He was as if in a dream, and when their mouths finally locked in tender eagerness once more, he knew he had come home. Body and soul, he was hers, and all of his life would be lived in her name from now on. The realisation made his heart swell and he wanted to laugh and cry, and more than that, he wanted to make love to her again. And again, and again. He wrapped his arms around her once more and shifted his hips, pressing his hardening member to her thigh. She sighed and wriggled as he caressed her back, dancing his fingers along her spine, and her eagerness for him inflamed him even more until he had to take control, had to possess her, had to show her how much she meant to him.

He moaned and moved over until he was above her, resting on his elbows looking down at her with her hair spread all over his pillows. He pushed her legs apart with his knee and kissed his way along her neck, making his determined way to the prize of her hard pink nipple. He groaned as he covered it with his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and taking it deep into him, areola too, exulting in her whimpers and the way her hands tangled in his hair, revelling in a power over her that was like no other he had ever known; a power that was pure and freely allowed, that did not seek to belittle or overwhelm, except out of a mutual accord. A power that could just as easily be turned on its head in an instant, as he discovered when she suddenly decided to tug at his hair and then push him off her firmly. She straddled him, planting one hand either side of his head and leaning over him so that her long hair brushed his chest. Rocking slightly, she teased the tip of his arousal, her damp curls stroking across it but never quite allowing him access. Her eyes never left his and he saw the spark of triumph in her eyes as she felt his hips arch upwards, straining to sheath himself. Then her eyelids hooded and she lowered herself down and he could not bear it, so he grabbed her hips and held her still, breathing raggedly, until the moment of crisis passed. She sat up, leaning back on her knees, and he groaned and began to sweat, the sensation softer than anything he had ever felt in his life.

She slapped him hard, leaving his left cheek stinging.

"Ow! What was that for?" he complained, his surprise quickly turning to a groan of pleasure as she flexed her vaginal walls around him once more. "Aaah!"

"That's for making me wait a whole year for this," she hissed, and his lips curled back in glee. She wanted to play. He had never played in bed before, had never enjoyed any relationship sufficiently intimate to make him want to drop his guard, and he was intrigued to see how far she wanted to go.

"Show me how annoyed you are!"

"You want me to hit you again?" she asked breathlessly, her chest heaving so enticingly that he had no other option than to reach for her breasts and watch their heaviness spill out over his hands.

"No, I want you to do what you do after hitting me!" he growled, rubbing his thumbs across her nipples.

"Well then, I'm annoyed. I'm very annoyed," she said huskily. His hands returned to her hips, knowing he would not last long if he ceded all control to her, noting her reactions carefully and knowing from the whimpers she began to make and the expression on her face which angles gave her the most pleasure. He was transfixed, watching her climb towards her orgasm, and he felt as if he was both an observer and a participant in their shared passion, since while his own climax was approaching at a dizzying rate, still he could not ignore his undeniable desire to witness her fulfilment at his hand and he realised that this was the first time he had ever cared about anyone's pleasure but his own. Ah, she was close now; her face was flushed and her nipples were hard peaks aching for his tongue - he obliged, and she gasped his name - and her cries were more and more desperate and all because of him, Severus Snape, greasy git and Death Eater, but not to her, not in her eyes, she saw only the man inside, and he was letting her see him, letting her in, and as she screamed out in her bliss she pulled him over the edge along with her. It was incredible. The familiar tightness in his balls, the surging rush massaged out of him and into her by the rhythmic contractions of her velvet walls. He had never felt anything comparable to this and he had to force himself to stay silent after it was over, to stop himself from babbling incoherently of his adoration.

He was overcome, when it was finished. She collapsed on to him, and he held her close and stroked her hair and her back. His heart was full, again, and he wanted to tell her all that was in it. However, he feared the sweet agony of complete surrender and at that moment his love for her blazed so fiercely that he was concerned that she would be overwhelmed by it and choose to reject it along with everything that it would imply for them. He used all of his considerable self control to rein in his emotion, and decided that a more light-hearted continuation of their game would be an appropriately loving response to the moment. He rolled her off him and underneath him so that he could look down at her, and he said in a low, mocking voice,

"Next time, I'm in charge! I'll make you pay for this," pointing to his reddened cheek, "in ways so sweet your screams will echo through the castle!"