Chapters 211-220

I Want to Make a Memory

Hermione stepped up to Severus and simply took the bowl with the Sempiternal Solution from his hands. For a second she hesitated, the bowl cradled in her palms, and met his gaze, so black, so sad, yet so incredibly dear. ‘Come, Severus. It’s time.’

He stood stiff and tense, his thoughts obviously running ahead to the next day and the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries. With a sigh she placed the chalice with the Solution on the worktable. She closed the distance between them and rose on tiptoe, holding onto his forbiddingly crossed arms to keep her balance. Her lips only inches away from his, she whispered: ‘I want to make a memory.’

Softly she exhaled, blowing her breath against his neck. He shivered. Satisfied, she noted how his eyes lost that bleak, distant stare, how they acquired a certain glitter.

‘Or maybe two,’ she murmured, stretching even further up to brush his lips with hers. ‘Come. The bedroom this time, I think.’

oooOooo

They sat on the bed facing each other, cross-legged and naked, their wands and the Sempiternal Solution placed between them.Neither of them could be considered especially good-looking by the standards of either the wizarding world or the Muggle one. Both too thin. Hermione with her haphazard hair and her too earnest brown eyes and the beginning of a slight crease between her brows from frowning too much. Severus with his hair tangled and oily from running his hands through it too often during the last three days, his scars—inside and out—and that beak of a nose in a bony face tense with apprehension.

Yet they were beautiful. At least to each other.

Severus gazed at Hermione’s wayward curls and was reminded of a halo. And what she did with her lips—not quite a pout, not really a smile, but rather an expression of fierce determination. He felt breathless, helpless, in awe that someone would look at him like that.

And Hermione…Unsurprisingly she found herself enraptured by his dark eyes. And the slight hint of a smile that curled his lips enticed her, made her want to crawl over to him, twine her legs around him and kiss him, kiss him until they would have to gasp for breath, until their lips would be hot and flushed from the exercise.

‘Beautiful,’ she whispered and reached out, a swift, soft caress of lips and cheekbones.

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed and caught her hand, pressing her fingers to his lips.

oooOooo

‘Per vitam ad mortem. A morte ad vitam. Coniungo! Coniungo! In sempiternum.’

oooOooo

‘In sempiternum,’ Hermione echoed. Her breathing was ragged, her voice hoarse, her eyes still blind from the brilliant burst of blue and amber magic fading in the air around them. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears.

Forever. Joined forever. In life and death. Their wands, their magic.

Her hand crept down between her thighs. Now, afterwards, she felt empty, relaxed, and pleasantly sore. Her flesh was slick with his essence, but she was not repulsed by that at all. Instead she trailed her finger along the edges of her labia, feeling the heat of her body and the stickiness of smeared semen and marvelled at the miracle of sex.

They lay in a tangle of limbs and love, their bodies sweaty and smudged with Sempiternal Solution. Severus had closed his eyes and seemed to have drifted off to sleep. But he hadn’t stirred to remove his arm from underneath her breasts or his leg from where it was hooked around hers. His breath was warm against her ear. She felt she could stay like this forever, sated, together, at peace.

But after a while, energy began to course through her once more. Her awareness of Severus changed as the sated sleepiness left her body. She realised that Severus had woken and was watching her, black eyes glittering. His lips were slightly parted, and she thought his expression was expectant rather than tired. That was all the invitation she needed.

Turning to her side, she used the moment of surprise to roll him onto his back and straddle him.

He gasped. ‘Woman! Be careful there, don’t break—’

‘Your wand?’ Hermione grinned. ‘Which one?’ Gently she shifted her position over his body, stroking him with the soft flesh between her legs.

Fiendish pleasure filled her at his dumbstruck expression, how he opened and closed his mouth with no sound emerging. Then his ‘wand’ stirred quite powerfully against her and it was her turn to catch her breath.

With a growl he caught her wrists, dislodged her from his body and reversed their positions. She knew that he preferred being the one on top.

‘Haven’t you paid attention at school, Mrs. Snape? “Never tickle a sleeping dragon”,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous.’

She felt him between her legs, hot, hard, so close to where she wanted him. It was nearly impossible to summon the presence of mind to reply at all, much less with witty repartee worthy a Slytherin husband.

She swallowed hard and stared up into his eyes. He lay over her propped on his elbows, his hands curled around her shoulders. His lips were almost close enough to kiss, just as his penis was almost close enough to enter her.

‘Maybe I like danger,’ she choked out and arched her hips against him, begging him with her body to stop talking and take pity on her need.

‘Foolish woman,’ he murmured. ‘You’re incredible, Hermione.’

Then his lips touched her mouth and he slid inside. He moved slowly, with exquisite gentleness, quite different from their previous love-making that had been fuelled and consumed by the fire of magic and the spell that joined their wands.

His rhythm inside her was as steady and inexorable as he stirred his potions. It didn’t seem to matter to him how long it took, although she could feel the sweat slick between their bellies and there was a look of intense concentration on his face. He had never looked more beautiful.

And then he shifted his position just a little and she stopped thinking completely. Her world narrowed down to feeling him move inside her. The salty taste of lust fizzed on her tongue. A shivery feeling grew from deep within her, until it enveloped her—fragile and sweet, like a shimmering soap bubble of pleasure. From far away she heard a keening noise and recognised the sound just dimly as her own voice.

She didn’t want him to stop. Ever. But she couldn’t take it any longer!

‘Sss–Ssseverussssssss!’ she cried, instinctively surging up against him.

‘Hush,’ he breathed. ‘There—’

She felt how his left hand stroked downwards between her breasts, over her belly, through the curls of her mons. Expectantly her inner muscles tightened around him and he groaned.

Then the rough, callused pad of his thumb rested on her clitoris. She moaned helplessly, but for a moment he didn’t move, simply waited.

But he didn’t need to. Just that gentle pressure was enough to add a searing, keen edge to her pleasure.

When he began to move again, gently, rubbing his thumb over her in the same rhythm as he was thrusting inside her, she found herself suddenly pushed over the edge.

That shimmering bubble of desire burst. Salty, sweet and spicy at the same time, orgasm pulsed within her. Her inner muscles clenched fiercely around him, again and again.

When she couldn’t even gasp anymore, he groaned again and thrust into her more powerfully. Once, twice—then she could feel his release inside her.

oooOooo

Breathing hard, they lay entwined. With supreme effort, Severus brought up his hand and stroked the damp curls from Hermione’s face and tucked them tenderly behind her ears.

He’d never felt so powerful, yet so helpless before.

To have a woman—no, to have his woman—yield to him like that, body, mind and soul…the rush of pleasure and power was incredible. Along with the base, carnal joy of simply fucking her and hear her scream for more, this was an incredible experience.

At the same time he’d never been more exposed, never more vulnerable.

Something he did not want to think about.

Being ensconced within her was beginning to feel uncomfortable to his slackening cock, so he withdrew from her and rolled onto his back. Almost involuntarily, he reached out and drew her against him.

A mere thought and their blankets floated up from the ground where they’d been tossed off to quite unceremoniously. Under their warm cover, their heart rates and breathing gradually returned to normal.

Hermione snuggled against him and to his surprise he didn’t mind at all having to sink his nose in the curly, sweaty, matted mass of her hair.

Hermione. His Hermione.

Without doubt the best thing that had ever happened to him in his whole damned life. And tomorrow he’d have to go and face death again. Death Himself, Death personified, no less.

Merlin, what a mess.

oooOooo

---

oooOooo

Good Ones

(Part 2 of “I Want to Make a Memory”)

‘There,’ Madame Dubois wiped Alina’s right arm. ‘An Eihwaz to go with the Elhaz. A tree’s branches and a tree’s roots. The sun above and the earth below. Life and Death. Sounds quite dramatic, n’est-ce pas?’ She winked at Alina.

‘At least you have all of your magic at your disposal again from now on,’ she added dryly.

Alina eyed the small black tattoos on her arms. ‘If there wasn’t all that stuff about life and death and that curse,’ she said, ‘then they’d be pretty cool, you know? At least in the Muggle world.’

Madame Dubois smiled and cleaned her inking tools with a flick of her wand. ‘Oh, they are pretty cool in the wizarding world, too, especially with all that stuff about life and death.’

‘Why did I get the other tattoo, and the other Muggle-born students don’t?’ Alina asked. The Seventh Year prefect of Slytherin House, Graham Pritchard, had taken her to the headmistress who had in turn taken her to a small study where Madame Dubois had been waiting for her.

‘The nature of the leeching curse,’ Madame Dubois explained calmly. ‘Its strength remains the same, no matter how many or how few victims it can feed upon. Thus, it will kill swiftly if there are few afflicted, but will be barely noticeable for a long time when there are many.’

Alina frowned and had to ball her hands to fists in order to keep herself from clutching her arms. ‘Why did you do give me that second tattoo in that case?’ she asked. ‘Doesn’t that make the curse worse for the other victims?’

Madame Dubois nodded. ‘Yes, it does. But although you are young, you are powerful. And you are a Necromancer. There may be need of your powers—unfettered by any curse. The headmistress and your mother both agree with me.’

Alina’s stomach lurched. Tomorrow they would accompany Hermione to the White Horse at Uffington once more. ‘I’m scared,’ she whispered. ‘Somehow I have a really bad feeling about tomorrow.’

She looked at the French witch, hoping to see her shake her head and offer a soothing smile to chase away silly hunches and laugh off nightmares. Instead, she met a serious expression and eyes trained on some far-off place only visible to Madame Dubois.

‘So do I, ma chére, so do I,’ Dubois said softly, her slender, elegant fingers toying with the shimmering gauze of her Demiguise-scarf. Then she turned her attention to Alina, her eyes dark and serious. ‘No matter what happens, you must not forget your weaknesses or your strengths. You’re not a fully qualified witch. You are not strong enough to survive in the River of Death for long. And to pass beyond the Veil on your own would be nothing but suicide. But you are a Necromancer. You have power in Death. Power—to a certain extent—over death.’

‘Why are you telling me all that?’ Alina asked and wished that she could keep her voice from shaking.

Madame Dubois hesitated, then she shrugged elegantly. Alina thought that whatever the witch was going to say next would be at best a part of the truth.

‘Just a feeling, maybe,’ Dubois said. ‘A wish to take all available precautions.’

‘Then I’m a precaution?’

Madame Dubois’s gaze was suddenly very bright and piercing. ‘You’re born a Necromancer, Alina. You will always be a power to be reckoned with. But it will be up to you to decide on which side of the equals sign your power will be added.’

Just a fancy way of saying I can choose between Good and Evil, Alina thought. Still itching to rub her arms, she lowered her hands to her knees and gripped them hard through the dark fabric of her skirt. My father chose the wrong side. Though…did he even know he was going to Voldemort, when he went away?

‘At least now I have power to add somewhere,’ she muttered. She met Madame Dubois’ gaze squarely. ‘I’m not my father,’ Alina stated stubbornly. ‘I’m not a coward or a weakling. If there’s anything I can do to help Professor Snape or Hermione, no matter what, I’ll do it.’

oooOooo

‘So did we make good ones tonight?’ Hermione mumbled, her mouth pressed against his chest.

He frowned. What weighed on his mind was anything but good. ‘What?’

She tilted her head back so she could watch his profile. Her fingers were drawing patterns of protective runes on his chest. He wondered if she even realised what she was doing.

‘Good memories,’ she said, as if that explanation was patently obvious. ‘After using three more memories in that potion, we’re sorely in need of some new ones.’

For a moment he felt dumbstruck. Then his cock twitched slightly, as if to remind him just how good the memories were they had created that night.

‘Some of the best,’ he managed at last, his voice rough in the aftermath of vigorous lovemaking.

‘You know,’ she murmured after a moment’s silence, ‘tonight the effects of that potion and that spell were even more mind-blowing than the first time. Do you think that this will affect the strength of the bond?’

He noticed that she was trying not to sound hopeful. Severus pondered her question as well as the hopefulness that had been audible in Hermione’s voice.

His life had given him little incentive for optimism. Quite the opposite. Yet lying here tonight, with his young wife in his arms and the scent of sex in the air, he found it difficult not to feel hopeful, too. After all, he and Harry had gone beyond the Veil once before and returned. And Harry was the damn Boy-Who-Lived-And-Lived-And-Lived.

And Hermione? He felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. And for once he did not suppress it, but allowed it to take control of his face.

Hermione was the one who’d given him the key to the door to life. In more than one way.