This is Part B of Chapter 28
Hermione clung to Severus in the back seat of the limousine as they travelled north, out of town; he held her to his side with a grip of iron, using his free hand to stroke up and down her back restfully.
Severus had smoothly gained her father’s permission to take her out, solicitously inquiring as to her curfew, which drew from her a huff of annoyance and from her father a chuckle of enjoyment. Once in the limousine, he had shrugged out of the suit coat and removed the necktie, placing them neatly on the facing bench seat. Now they were heading for a destination which he declined to disclose to her, and Hermione felt as if she had been through a skirmish nearly as exhausting as the battle at the Estuary; it was a relief to her to sag against Severus and allow him to soothe her fragile nerves.
Soon, the limousine came to a halt on the side of the road and Mr. Swift communicated to them with the console speaker. “I will wait here for you, sir.”
Before Hermione could inquire, Severus said, “Put both of your arms around me; we are going to Disapparate.”
Hermione held tightly to him, experiencing the familiar sensations of Side-Along Apparition, until she felt another seat beneath them and opened her eyes to see their location.
They were in a room that seemed vaguely familiar, though it was largely bare and derelict-looking. They were seated upon a sofa, pulled up close to a brightly burning fire. The only other light in the room came from candles burning upon the mantelpiece. Between the sofa and the hearth there was a small, beautifully crafted cherry wood table, upon which rested a silver tray which held an iced wine bucket and two crystal flutes. On the floor before the sofa, a thick rug of dark green wool rested upon the otherwise bare floorboards.
Severus looked around at the few furnishings and saw that all he had requested had been done; looking over Hermione’s head, to the corner of the room, he nodded once to Nanny, who nodded back to him before snapping her fingers and disappearing with a barely-audible popping sound.
“Where are we?” Hermione asked, looking about curiously.
Severus released his hold upon her, leaning back a bit in his seat and allowing himself to inwardly gloat over his prize. She had dressed for their interview with her parents, wearing a very feminine white blouse tucked into a flaring crimson skirt; her corkscrew curls fell loose about her face and down her back. She was very beautiful to him, limned by the firelight; his relief over the resolution of the issue with her parents permitted his desire for her to return to the forefront, and he viewed her as a feast to be relished.
“Why don’t you explore and see if you can work it out?” he suggested, his voice a silky purr.
Hermione stood and turned around to view the room; she noted the positions of the windows and the doorways, then turned back to Severus, her face alight with wonder.
“It’s the cabin,” she said
“It is, indeed,” he agreed with her.
Hermione sat again on the sofa, her eyes trained on his face. “But why have you brought us here?”
Severus allowed his gaze to travel from her face down her body, not attempting to hide from her his appreciation of what he saw; by the time his eyes reached her face again, they were burning with an intensity which fairly took her breath away.
“I have some things to say to you, Hermione, and I wanted to say them here, where it all began.”
Hermione’s brain began to spin, wondering what he could possibly have to say to her, after all they had shared together in the last two days; how they had held one another and kissed so passionately, how they had stood together before her parents and gained consent for their marriage “ what more needed to be said?
“When we spent that night in this room, I came here as an angry, put-upon teacher, called upon to rescue and safeguard a student.” He sat forward then, drawing closer to her. “Sometime in the night watches, as you wrapped yourself around me in complete trust and confidence that I would bring us both safely away from our adventure, I became just a lonely man, confronted with a bounty the likes of which I would never deserve or possess.”
At the pain in his voice, Hermione murmured and moved against him, reaching a hand to caress his hair soothingly. Severus’ mouth quirked slightly and he paused to press a gentle kiss to her forehead before he continued to speak.
“The totality of who you are, in your intelligence and courage and stubbornness, slew me where I sat, holding you in my arms and immersed in your scent. I desired you “ desired all of you “ and I hated myself for having such feelings for you. The next morning, when you smiled at me, and called me by my given name, I was all but undone. I moved away from you, sought to keep myself at a distance from you, but you would not let me go. I foolishly agreed to see you socially once you left school, and I was a total failure at ignoring you once we returned to Hogwarts. I was constantly aware of you, watching you, thinking of you, and completely unsure of your regard for me. Every time I saw you speaking or laughing or dancing with one of your classmates, I was consumed with jealousy and further convinced that you could never want me.”
Hermione protested wordlessly, leaning up to press a kiss his lips; he responded to her tenderly, kissing her with a gentle adoration she had not before encountered from him. Ending the kiss, he looked into her eyes and spoke again.
“It took a near-death experience for me to finally know what your feelings were, and had been, all along. I knew I had been a fool, and I worked to do everything in my power to correct my wrongs, to give myself the right to speak to you.”
Hermione was shifted slightly to one side as Severus moved; before she was aware of his actions, he had slipped down to kneel upon the rug at her feet. He took her left hand between both of his own and looked her squarely in the eye.
“I love you, Hermione. I began to love you in this room, and I have never ceased to love you or to aspire one day to have the right to call you my own. Will you make me the happiest of men by becoming my wife?”
Hermione was frozen in her position on the sofa, looking down into his beloved, fierce gaze, amazed to hear such words of love from him. She knew his feelings, but had never expected him to put them so succinctly into words, and she felt a momentary flash of shame for having underestimated him.
“Yes,” she said simply, feeling the lump rising in her throat. “It is the only thing I have thought of since I began to love you in this room, Severus.”
He reached into an inner pocket and brought out a small black velvet box, which he had brought home at the same time he had obtained the pearl bracelet. With a surprisingly steady hand, he opened the box, which he presented to Hermione. “This is what I have chosen for you, Hermione. Does it meet with your approval?”
Hermione stared at the large rectangular ruby, flanked by two smaller, rectangular diamonds, all of the jewels flashing in the firelight. Overcome with emotion, tears flooded her eyes as she mutely nodded her head. Severus pulled the ring from its box and took her left hand, slipping the ring onto her third finger with solemn reverence. He then removed his wand from his sleeve and held it to the ring, bending his head and pressing a kiss to the ring as it rested on her finger, murmuring a spell as he did so; the ring glowed golden for a moment, then adjusted itself to fit her finger perfectly.
“There,” he said, thrusting the wand back into its sheath. “My betrothed.” He plucked her from the sofa and with one twist, seated himself on the rug, coming to rest with Hermione in his lap. “Say it again,” he commanded, taking a firm grasp of her chin.
“Say what?” she responded, her voice simultaneously full of tears and laughter. She rested her hands on his shoulders, drinking in the sight of his ferocious expression, feeling her heart begin to pound as she wondered what he would do next.
“Tell me you love me,” he adjured her. “Tell me.”
Feeling a thrill of power, Hermione looked into his eyes, which seemed to demand and plead at the same time. “Dear God, Severus, can you doubt it?” she asked, sliding her hands from his shoulders up into the hair at his nape and twining them there. “I love you past reason.” She watched how his pupils seemed to dilate at her pronouncement, and for an instant, she felt his helplessness in the snare of her love. With more assurance than she had felt before, she lowered her lips to his, moving his head back to rest against the cushion of the sofa as she kissed him. He acquiesced to her, his hands contenting themselves with stroking up and down her back as he permitted her to do with him as she chose. Hermione placed tiny butterfly kisses at the corner of his mouth, refusing to kiss him fully, dipping down to gently bite his throat, then raising her head to tantalise the other corner of his mouth.
“Tease,” he accused her, enjoying her inexpert attentions and deviously beginning to untuck her blouse from the waistband of her skirt.
Ignoring him, she leant up to feather kisses across his eyelids, gasping with surprise when he tumbled her off his lap and onto her back on the rug, moving to pin her wrists at the sides of her head. “Seduction lesson number one,” he intoned smugly, kissing one side of her neck. “Never taunt a man who hasn’t been properly kissed in a full day. It’s like tempting a tiger.” He kissed the other side of her neck, then released her wrists, resting on his side beside her, his ebony hair tousled, the open buttons of the dress shirt showing her the beginnings of his dark chest hair below the jut of his Adam’s apple.
He watched her face as the playfulness faded, only to be replaced by yearning. Ignoring his cautioning better nature, he fell upon her with a growl, covering her completely, his teeth lightly scraping her lips in his urge to taste her. In an instant, the glowing embers had erupted again into the inferno which devoured them both. Here, alone in the cabin where first they had pressed their bodies together for warmth, they kissed voraciously as their questing hands and desperate bodies sought to come closer, ever closer to one another “ and warmth be damned. For an eternity they kissed, tongues tangling; hands stroking, fondling, seeking; breathing becoming ever more ragged as they attempted to assuage their need for another by the expedient of lips, tongues, and hands.
Shamelessly, Hermione shifted beneath him, feeling the great burning need for his touch. She was immediately drunk on the throbbing ache low in her belly; daringly she allowed her rigidly held legs to relax under him, even as she gently thrust her hips upward, seeking contact where she most longed to feel it.
Severus’ much-abused self-discipline stirred when Hermione sought to bring herself into contact with his tented trouser-front; his groan of frustration vibrated through her chest, vocalized as it was with his lips pressed to the flesh just above her heart, his nose buried in her fragrant cleavage. He had just sought and gained a father’s permission to marry his daughter “ would his first act then be to take that daughter to an isolated location and ravish her?
“Hermione,” he moaned, before wrenching himself from her, struggling into a sitting position and clasping her hands to raise her as well.
“Severus?” she said in confusion, her unfocussed gaze resting on his face. Why did he keep stopping them?
With loving hands, he smoothed her skirt back over her legs and fastened the buttons he had hurriedly unfastened just moments before. Once he had restored as much order as he dared attempt, Severus managed to stand and offered a hand to pull her to her feet.
“Come “ we have wine here, to toast our engagement “ and then I must deliver you back to your home.”
Hermione permitted him to seat her on the sofa and watched with mild interest as he uncorked the sparkling wine with a wave of his wand.
“Foolish wand waving,” she murmured provocatively, and he gave her a blatantly appraising stare.
“Do not imagine that because I decline to partake of your loveliness now that I will not exact full and complete payment for every tease and taunt with which you torment me between now and our wedding night,” he promised, pouring out the bubbling wine into the fluted crystal goblets.
“My goodness “ you do intend to be a very busy man on our wedding night,” she purred wickedly.
“Don’t be absurd, Hermione,” he answered, seating himself beside her and placing a goblet in her hand. “It will take me years to pay you out for all the vexation you have caused me in the last year “ but I faithfully promise to settle up in full.”
The heat of his glance upheld the sincerity of his pledge. Hermione’s mouth ran dry as she considered the methods which he might employ to extract his vengeance. When he followed up this threat with a tender, loving smile, she realised the full extent of his unprincipled perfidy “ she was so completely entranced by him that she had no desire to escape.
Severus picked up her left hand and admired his ring upon her finger, before turning the hand and placing a kiss in her palm, allowing her to feel, for just an instant, the tip of his tongue trailing over her flesh. “You have bewitched me, Hermione,” he murmured, raising his head to look at her. “I will never let you go.”
He raised the goblet of sparkling wine to her, waiting until she raised hers as well.
“To us,” he said.
“To us,” she echoed, and they drank from the glasses until they were empty.
“Ready?” he asked her.
Hermione nodded, and moving as one, they threw the crystal goblets into the fireplace, where they shattered and the shards settled amongst the ashes. As the fragments were embedded in the dying embers of the fire, Severus pulled Hermione into his arms for a last wrenching kiss before escorting her back to her father’s home.
Friday afternoon, Mr. Swift arrived promptly at three o’clock to pick up the Grangers to transport them to Hampshire for their weekend stay at the Estuary. Hermione and her mother discussed the guest list for the wedding as her father perused the journal he had brought along; the trip passed comfortably and before long they were pulling up in the Estuary drive.
The door opened and Lorry stood in the doorway bowing and smiling; Mike cast an alarmed look at his wife, who hissed, “House-elves, Mike! Do try to keep up!”
Severus emerged from the house then, wearing the black trousers and forest green shirt Hermione had suggested for him. His warm eyes rested first upon her face, promising a proper greeting later, before he graciously greeted her parents and escorted them into the foyer, keeping up a running commentary on the history of the house as he went.
Sophronia and Sirius met them in the entrance hall, and introductions were made. The Blacks smoothly took the hand-off of the in-laws and led them up the stairwell, explaining that their rooms would be on the family corridor.
Severus waited for the Grangers to disappear from the first floor landing before dragging Hermione into the blue salon, closing the door in the face of any helpful house-elves and pulling her roughly into his arms.
“Thirty-six hours!” he groaned, kissing her repeatedly; he had not seen her since breakfast the day before.
“It seemed like ninety,” she replied, returning his embraces. “Three weeks is an eternity, too,” she murmured, referring to their wedding day.
“Eighteen days,” he corrected her, pulling away and directing her to the mirror over the mantel. “Sophronia is bringing your parents in here for drinks before dinner; they’ll be here any minute.”
Sighing with resignation, Hermione pulled a lipstick from her pocket and began to repair the damage inflicted by her impatient “ and infuriating “ fiancé.
The party from the Burrow Portkeyed in at midday on Saturday, and the reunion was loud and enthusiastic. The Snape girls had to exclaim over their new stepfather, while Harry claimed the right to kiss his new godmother on the cheek.
“…because if you married my godfather, you’re my godmother, right?”
Snape stood with a possessive arm about Hermione’s waist, watching the Potter brat cozen up to his stepmother. “You’d better watch yourself, Potter. With that kind of reasoning, you could end up related to me.”
Harry turned then to Severus, mindful of all Ron had told him about Snape over the last week. “Congratulations, sir,” he said, offering his hand to his former Potions master.
Severus would probably have shaken Potter’s hand even if Hermione had not seen fit to pinch him at that moment. “Thank you, Mr. Potter,” Severus said solemnly, gripping the boy’s hand firmly. “Allow me to congratulate you on your engagement, as well.”
Arthur and Molly came up then to shake their hands and congratulate them, and to comment on the odd behaviour of Percy.
“Gone off to France!” Molly exclaimed, agitated. “He says he’s visiting friends, but I never knew of Percy having friends in France! I told him he needs to be at home, looking for a wife, but he says he can look in France as well as he can at home. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him!”
Severus had no trouble maintaining his impassive expression, but meeting Bill Weasley’s eyes from across the room nearly did him in. They both knew very well what had drawn Percy across the channel.
Hermione was huddled with Skye, Shadow and Ginny, whispering. “The broken engagement was in the papers on Wednesday, but Mum says Percy left for France on Tuesday,” Ginny told them. “Do you think he’s stupid enough to marry her on the rebound?”
Hermione smiled. “I actually think they would be happy together, Gin “ with Fleur’s looks and Percy’s ambition, he will probably go far in the Ministry, and being successful is as important as being in love, to some people.”
Her eyes wandered across the room to light upon the tall, dark, grim-faced man, who looked up as if he could feel her eyes upon him, and his expression lightened to a near-smile as he looked at her.
The guests were thronging the rooms on the ground floor of the Estuary and Sophronia had the satisfaction of knowing that even though her invitations had not gone out until Wednesday, she still managed to lure most of wizarding society to her party by Saturday, in lieu of yet another Ministry function. They were gathered to celebrate the marriage of Sophronia to Sirius Black, as well as the engagements of the Snape siblings: Severus, Skye, and Shadow.
The guests arrived by Portkey, by Floo, and those who came from outside of London were able to Apparate. Hermione stood with Severus in the entrance hall, next to Sophronia and Sirius, greeting the guests as they arrived. She was introduced as Severus’ fiancée and her hand was shaken again and again as dozens of people, including friends, acquaintances and strangers, streamed into the Estuary.
She had been quite surprised to have Severus knock at her door as Nanny was helping her put the finishing touches upon her toilette for that night. Nanny had let him in, and refused to be shooed out, maintaining that it was not proper for him to be there unless Nanny stayed.
“All right,” Severus had said, handing Nanny a flat black case, “make yourself useful.”
Severus had taken Hermione by the hand and led her to stand before the full length mirror, and then stood behind her, his hands upon her shoulders.
“The gown suits you,” he observed, appreciating how the simple gown of metallic gold cloth hugged her breasts before falling from the high waistline to the tips of her matching shoes.
Hermione smiled at his mirror image. “You have good taste “ it was sweet of you to have the gown made for me.”
He gave her a smirk. “I needed a canvas.” Motioning Nanny closer, he buried his nose in the hair at Hermione’s temple. “I have an engagement gift for you,” he murmured in her ear, sending goose bumps racing over her flesh.
“But, Severus,” she objected, “you’ve given me so many gifts already! My engagement ring and this dress …”
Paying her no heed, he turned to Nanny, who snapped the case open and held it up for him. Removing an item from the case, Severus turned back to Hermione, laying a necklace of blazing rubies and diamonds about her throat and fastening them at her nape.
Hermione gasped. “Severus! These must have cost a fortune!”
“Take it up with my grandfather’s grandfather,” he suggested snidely. He turned back to Nanny, then returned to Hermione with the matching earrings in his hand. “Can you manage these?” he asked, the dark, silken texture of his voice sending a shaft of pure desire through her body. “Or shall I put them in for you?”
Hermione put the earrings on and surveyed herself in her shimmering gold gown, bedecked like a queen in rubies and diamonds. Severus remained behind her, clad in his customary formal black, with his Order of Merlin pinned to his chest; his face showed enormous satisfaction as he watched her with narrowed eyes.
“My glorious Gryffindor lioness, all in crimson and gold,” he purred.
Now she stood with him at the head of the room, which had been Transfigured by the combined efforts of Severus and Bill from the four separate main salons into a grand ballroom, prepared to open the dancing. Sophronia and Sirius stood at the opposite side of the room, with Skye and Bill to their right, and Shadow and Ron to their left. The music began to play and all four couples swept into the dance.
From the first floor landing, an extremely excited Stormy watched the people she most loved as they danced with their partners, each couple lost in one another’s eyes. Stormy sat with her face pressed to the newels, breathless with wonder, while Nanny stood to one side, keeping a sharp eye upon her charge. The little girl was permitted to watch the first dance, then she was to have a plate of all the finest treats from the refreshment tables, and be off to her bed.
Harry stood with the other guests, watching the four couples dance, and he could not tear his eyes from Hermione. Her long, dark hair was pinned up, with corkscrew tendrils framing her face. Her eyes were fastened to Snape’s face, and he returned her regard with no less avidity. They moved together as if they shared one body. Harry had never seen Hermione so luminous with happiness. She held herself with an elegance Harry could not reconcile with his image of a slightly podgy, bushy-haired girl with large front teeth who bossed him around in every facet of his life.
It left him speechless.
Ginny watched him, a tiny smile on her lips. “She looks happy,” she said mildly.
Harry glanced down into Ginny’s face. “Did you know about them?”
Ginny shook her head. “Tonks said that Dumbledore and McGonagall seemed to know all about it, but no one else had a clue. Do you really mind?”
Other couples began to take the floor and Harry took Ginny into his arms, leading her into the dance. “It’s the last worry from my mind, love.” His green eyes smiled down at her. “I can just be happy now “ all of my friends are matched up with someone they love.”
Ginny moved closer to him and held him more tightly, loving him so much she thought her heart would break.
Some time later, Shadow and Skye sat at the side of the room with Carol Granger between them, sipping from cut-glass crystal punch cups and watching those on the dance floor.
“Severus is dancing again,” Shadow said. “Have you ever seen him dance this much at a party?”
Skye shook her head. “Never. And look at him.”
All eyes turned to study Severus’ face as he slow-danced with Hermione. She had both arms around him, her cheek pressed to his chest, her eyes closed, the picture of contentment. He looked at her face as they danced, his eyes filled with immeasurable tenderness. They might have been alone in the room, rather than in the midst of wizarding society.
“He never looked at Fleur that way,” Shadow said.
Sophronia sat down on Shadow’s other side. “But he never claimed that his relationship with Fleur was a love-match, either,” she pointed out. “What is between Severus and Hermione cannot be compared to what he had with Fleur.”
Carol listened to them with great interest. “Hermione told us that Severus’ first engagement was a matter of convenience.”
The Snape girls nodded; Shadow took her eyes from her brother and looked at her mother. “Did you know that Severus and Hermione loved one another?”
Sophronia shook her head, smiling at Sirius as he came up to her, bearing two cups of punch. She took hers from him with a word of thanks and turned back to the girls.
“No,” Sophronia said. “He could not let his feelings be known when he was engaged to another woman; it would have been wrong.”
The song came to an end and Severus and Hermione strolled from the dance floor arm-in-arm, pausing to speak with Draco and Luna Malfoy. Severus kept one hand upon Hermione at all times; even when he appeared to be entirely immersed in conversation with Draco, he held Hermione to him with a possessive arm.
Skye spoke with amazement. “He can’t keep his hands off of her. He only ever touched Fleur if he couldn’t avoid it.”
Shadow giggled. “He’s only now getting to the point where he doesn’t jump if one of us touches him.”
Sophronia spoke very softly, her expression thoughtful. “Severus has not had a happy life. I never thought I would see him as he is with Hermione. It pleases me more than I can say.”
Sirius placed a supportive hand on her shoulder, responsive to the pathos in her voice, and Sophronia gave him a shining look.
Carol said, “I’m so glad you invited us here, this weekend. It has meant more to me than you know to see Severus amongst his family in his own home; it is so much easier to feel that I know something about him, now.”
Sophronia reached a hand to Hermione’s mother. “I am so glad that you could come, Carol,” she said with her gentle warmth. “Hermione has given more of herself to this family than we had any right to expect. For her to fall in love with Severus and to become a true member of our family just makes things perfect, to us.”
Carol returned the pressure of Sophronia’s hand and each of them had to dry their eyes upon their handkerchiefs.
Severus came up to Hermione as she stood alone on the terrace, looking out into the darkened grounds. “Are you enjoying the party?” he asked, slipping his hands about her waist and nuzzling the back of her neck.
Hermione leant back into his hard body. “I am enjoying every moment of every hour, Severus “ even when I’m sleeping.”
He chuckled darkly. “Get plenty of sleep now; I do not intend to allow you to sleep once you belong to me.”
Hermione turned in his arms, pressing herself against him and tilting her head to look into his boundless black eyes, faintly illuminated by the moonlight.
“I wish tonight was our wedding night,” she said wistfully.
Severus raised a long-fingered hand to cup her cheek. “When I take you for my own, Hermione, I do not wish to be obliged to rise from our bed to make conversation with other people for a long, long time. I want day after day of nothing, and no one, but you, until I have learnt every curve of your body by sight, and touch, and taste. I will have no thought nor energy for anyone but my bride.”
“Severus,” she breathed, aroused by the very words he spoke to her.
“Soon,” he promised, turning to take her back into the house.
A/N: Check my LJ for links to see the jewels described in this chapter. MollysSister is the world’s finest Internet jewellery shopper!
http://subvers.livejournal.com/
I think one more chapter will bring us to the end.
His Draught of Delicate Poison by Subversa
Chapter Notes: See Part A