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Living in Grimmauld Place had been strange to start off with, especially given during the war it had been rendered useless as a safe-house due to an unfortunate blunder.
Hermione wasn’t sure why she had decided to move into the old Black Family house. The entire place had been set up as a giant Muggle-Born trap, and she’d had to clear out more jinxes and spells than she could remember in order to make it inhabitable. The portraits still grumbled incoherently, save for the one of Mrs. Black that would shriek at her whenever she passed. Even with the curtain drawn on it, the witch in the portrait knew when she was nearby and would start spouting her foul garbage.
Even more surprising to Hermione was that Severus Snape, former spy and professor, had also taken up residence in the house. Harry had asked him to move in when he had been recovering in St Mungo’s from Nagini’s bite on hearing that Spinner’s End was going up for auction. Harry felt as if he owed Snape for being such a difficult student, and because the man had been friends with Lily Potter. His mother would have wanted it, was his reasoning. Neither Hermione nor Ron was about to argue with him on it.
Snape largely kept to himself in the house, staying in his room or the library, and very occasionally making use of the kitchen. Hermione would nod at him if they passed one another in the hallway or on her way in or out of the library, never really sharing the space, wary of inadvertently bothering him. She spent a good amount of her time studying, preparing to take the independent NEWT exams at the ministry with Harry and Ron. The two of them already had plans to go into Auror training, and she… well she was just floundering for the first time in her life, with no plans and no idea what she wanted to do with her time.
What Hermione did know, however, was that she could not see a future between herself and Ron, no matter how hard she squinted.
Following the Battle of Hogwarts, and her ill-considered kiss with Ron, she had been subjected to his constant propositions; to date, to have a casual fling - anything was on the table as far as he was concerned. After watching his behaviour with Lavender Brown when they had been a couple, and his abandonment of her and Harry during their year on the run, Hermione was firmly against this notion. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d told him no, but Ron was a special kind of persistent.
After the first month or so of living under the same roof, Hermione found herself encountering Snape more in the common areas, and noticed that he didn’t immediately excuse himself to leave if she happened to walk into the library when he was there. They shared quiet space, and Hermione had a feeling that so long as she remained quiet, he would tolerate her presence. The same could not be said if either Harry or Ron were to join them.
One afternoon, roughly two months after Snape had moved in, she had been working on some of her NEWT studies, reviewing a charms text, when Snape had entered the library and saw that she was there. He nodded to her wordlessly, selected a book from one of the shelves, and sat down in the armchair across from her in front of the fireplace. She nodded back to him and continued with her reading, and when she was done, she packed up quietly, and looked over at the man, taking him in briefly. He was thin, and his neck was still covered by a bandage that he wore to protect his healing throat from the rougher wool fabric of his black frock coat.
By the light of the fire, Hermione thought he looked uniquely attractive, with his sharp features softened by the warm glow. Snape’s impossibly dark eyes were focussed intently on the words sprawled over the pages before him, and his thin lips were relaxed instead of sneering or frowning. Realising she had been staring, she got up and cleared her throat quietly, turning his attention to her.
‘Goodnight, sir,’ she told him.
Snape inclined his head minutely, a strange emotion flashing in his piercing black depths. ‘Goodnight, Miss Granger,’ he replied.
Making her way up to her bedroom, Hermione couldn’t believe those had been the first words they had spoken to one another in two months.
After that, they began spending time reading and sharing tea, or debating over the latest potions or charms periodicals.
It was invigorating, having someone as sharp and knowledgeable as Snape to talk to. Hermione loved Harry and Ron, but they were not interested in intellectual pursuits, and she was often flustered by their refusal to stick to the study programmes that they had asked her to create for them. But with the change in her dynamic with Snape, she became less and less bothered by them running off to play Quidditch or spend time in Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes with George. She had a sparring partner and like mind who she found fascinating, although her growing attraction to him did alarm her somewhat.
Hermione wondered at which point she had gone from seeing Snape as her professor, and started looking at him as a man and potential sexual partner. His eyes were so dark and captivating, she thought she might get lost in them, and his voice—his voice was pure sin. Nothing would ever come of it, but it still didn’t stop her from occasionally fantasising about what it might feel like to have his long-fingered hands wander over her flesh.
That was, of course, until one day after a particularly heated discussion on Proust, she looked into his usually fathomless eyes and saw that they were as dilated as she was certain her own would be.
For all the galleons in the world, Hermione never thought that Snape would be interested in her. His lips had thinned, his eyes were dangerously alight, and there was a slight flare to his nostrils that indicated a sharper intake of breath. She had no idea what she was doing. He had been her teacher for Merlin’s sake. What was she thinking, lusting after Snape like that? Hermione briefly wondered if she might be going mad.
In spite of that, she decided to throw caution to the wind, and the next words out of her mouth surprised them both.
‘You’re very attractive when you talk about things you’re passionate about.’
The air was dense around them, becoming thicker as the seconds ticked by slowly. Hermione couldn’t breathe. Snape was staring right at her, his dark gaze unwavering even while his mouth was slack with the shock of it. She felt anxiety coil in her stomach and immediately felt the urge to back pedal; perhaps a quick obliviate to them both so they could forget she’d ever said anything at all.
‘I’m sorry, that was—I’m sorry,’ she said quickly, gathering her notes together from where they were spread out across the coffee table, hanging her head so her hair would obscure her rapidly reddening face from view.
Stuffing the books and parchment into her study satchel, she stood up and started walking towards the door to leave. As Hermione reached for the doorknob it locked. Spinning around, she came face to face with Snape who was standing in front of her with a predatory look in his eyes, hunched over slightly so that his face loomed nearer. He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. Her stomach tightened as arousal flooded her abdomen with need.
‘What sort of game are you playing, Granger?’ he asked, his voice low and a touch menacing. It sent a thrill through her.
‘I don’t play games,’ she answered, swallowing the lump in her throat and trying to appear confident.
‘You mean to tell me that Hermione Granger, brains of the Gryffindor trio, finds her least likeable former professor attractive?’ he deadpanned. ‘I. Don’t. Believe. You.’
Biting back her immediate retort, she looked him in the eye and said, ‘Then have a look in my mind and see for yourself.’
Hermione almost couldn’t believe what she was inviting him to do. It was no secret that Snape was a Legillimens. Hell, he could have dove into her brain and rattled around without her even noticing if he wanted to. The fact was, he hadn’t. And she wanted him to know she was sincere about her attraction to him. Her entire body was conflicted in that moment; caught somewhere between desire and fear of rejection.
‘Legilimens ,’ he whispered, not breaking eye contact.
Pushing forward all of her most recent memories of him, Hermione felt him sift through them all, and saw his expression turned to one of disbelief. She tried to stop him from seeing the memory of her frustratedly shoving her hand into her pyjama bottoms, bringing herself off to thoughts of him. But he saw it all. As Snape withdrew from her mind, she swallowed, both of them panting from the exertion and staring at one another.
‘Now do you believe me?’ she asked softly.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he muttered, still not moving away from her.
‘Does that really matter?’
His answer was to kiss her, almost savagely, his teeth clashing against her a little, catching on her lips as their mouths clumsily fit against one another. Hermione pulled back, placing a hand on his chin to guide his mouth back to hers, this time more gently. This second kiss was better than the first, his tongue sliding against her bottom lip, begging entrance. She granted it, sucking his tongue into her mouth and teasingly battling it with his own. Gods, the man could kiss. One of his hands was on her waist, slowly edging its way up as the other was buried in the hair at the nape of her neck.
His lips left hers and started to burn a path down her throat, stopping to nibble at the cords of her neck and the hollow where her neck and shoulder met. Well that escalated quickly , Hermione thought to herself as her hands delved into the fine black strands of his hair. When one of his wandering hands closed around her breast, his thumb moving over the stiff peak of her nipple beneath the fabric of her jumper, a moan tore from her throat. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at his face to see a pleased smirk on his lips.
‘Are you certain you want this?’ he asked, straightening out and letting his hands drop from her suddenly.
Hermione caught the small whine that was bubbling out of her at the loss of his touch, and nodded, taking an emboldened step closer to him. ‘I have never been more certain.’
Apparently it was enough, and he was on her again, kissing her hard, his hands grasping the bottom of her jumper and roughly pulling it upwards. They parted, and at his urging, Hermione lifted her arms above her head, allowing him to peel it off her. She fought the urge to cover her chest, clad in a simple white cotton bra, having not begun her day with the intention to seduce her former professor. Snape didn’t seem to mind, if his actions were anything to go by. His mouth trailed scorching kisses down her chest, and she felt her back meet the nearest bookcase as he backed her away from the door.
Snape’s hot breath washed over her before his lips closed over the turgid bud of her nipple, his saliva wetting the fabric and making it cling to her flesh.
The sounds she made as he did the same to her other nipple didn’t even sound like they came from her. He pulled away, the chilly air in the room peaking her nipples even further as it hit the now-damp fabric. The way he was staring at her shot straight to her groin and Hermione could feel her knickers become damp. How was he so sexy?
Realising she had been too passive a participant, she lifted her hands to the top of his frock coat and began to shakily undo the buttons. He helped her, starting at the bottom until their hands met in the middle and he nodded, silently inviting her to push the offending item off. Next they worked on his shirt, and soon it too joined the pile of discarded clothes. Reaching behind her back, Hermione unhooked her bra and let it drop, revelling in the way his eyes dragged over her naked torso. She’d almost managed to forget about the scar that dissected her sternum until his eyes lingered on it, and she tried to cover it.
‘Stop,’ he told her sharply. ‘I am covered in scars too. They are what they are.’
She sucked in a breath and nodded, trembling a little as he stooped to capture her lips again, her breasts brushed to his bared chest. His hands travelled to the button of her jeans moments after. She wiggled her hips and legs to help him remove them, stepping out of the jeans when he broke their kiss to slide them down. When Snape fell to his knees before her and his lips met the inside of her knee, she felt her core clench. God, what was he doing to her? Her head swam as his fingers tucked into the waistband of her plain white cotton knickers, a little embarrassed at how damp they probably were.
His nose grazed the top of her thigh as his lips pressed against her trembling leg before he slowly drew her knickers down and carelessly tossed them aside. She’d never been more grateful that she regularly kept up with trimming her pubic hair, as his black gaze was fixed squarely on the triangle of covering her sex. She fought not to squeeze her thighs together, but the moment he leaned forward and his mouth started kissing a path upwards, she clenched in anticipation.
A dark chuckle rumbled against her flesh, and he gently eased her legs apart so that he could fit his broad, pale shoulders between her knees. She fell against the bookshelf, uncaring that it was digging uncomfortably into her back, her hands bracing against it. When his mouth met her core, Hermione’s hips bucked towards him, only to be pinned against the shelf behind her by a strong hand moments later. His tongue dragged through her folds, and she bit her lip to prevent the shriek of pleasure from leaving her, coming out instead like a strangled squeak. Snape chuckled again, his lips vibrating against her before closing around her clit, his tongue swirling over the sensitive bud. If she hadn’t been holding onto the shelf and if he hadn't been pushing her hips back against it, she might have collapsed as her legs went to jelly.
His other hand slid up her thigh and soon one of his long fingers slid into her slick channel. She outright moaned at that. A second joined moments later, and between the pumping of his fingers and his mouth and tongue moving over her clit, her climax crashed over her unlike any she’d ever achieved before. Her vision went white, gradually returning as she came down from the high. Snape’s teeth gently nipped her thigh before he smoothly stood before her, his mouth claiming hers in a fierce kiss.
‘Trousers,’ she murmured into his mouth, tugging at the button of his fly.
Batting her hands away impatiently, Snape undid his trousers on his own, drawing down the zip. Hermione reached into the opening sliding her hand over his hardened cock. He was a lot bigger than the boy she’d lost her virginity to the summer before. Snape was not a boy though; he was wholly masculine. The smattering of hair dusting his arms was the same that travelled from his navel in a line down into his underwear. His hips bucked into her touch, and he grunted a little in discomfort.
‘Witch, unless you want me to come in my pants, you’ll stop that.’
Hermione smirked, feeling powerful. Reaching into his underwear, she eased his member past the waistband and into view. It was ruddy, the tip weeping, and her eyes widened. Experimentally, she twisted her hand around his girth, jerking him carefully and swiping her thumb over the tip to gather the fluid and lubricate him a little as she did so. Snape hissed and grasped her wrist, placing her hands on the bookshelf once more before he kissed her almost painfully hard. He kicked his shoes off and cast aside his trousers and pants, grasping her waist and hoisting her up against the shelf.
On instinct, Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips as he lifted her and slid into her with one solid thrust. They groaned into one another as he seated himself fully within her. He felt huge inside of her. He began to thrust, heavy and deeply, his forehead pressed against hers, their breath mingling. Each time he withdrew and his hips snapped against her, she bit back a moan. The angle and Snape’s pelvis rubbing against her mons sent pleasure through her, and as his thrust sped up when his climax was drawing nearer. Hermione was close to tipping over the edge with him.
A few more thrusts later, and her walls were trembling and squeezing around him, milking the orgasm from him as they both bit back moans.
He lowered her back onto her feet, and Hermione released his neck, still breathing hard after their activity. Snape’s hand slid over her abdomen, and with a whispered spell, his seed was whisked away with a cleansing charm and there was a warm tingle of a contraception charm being cast as well. She smiled at him, wordlessly thanking him before they redressed in silence. Hermione applied a freshening charm to the room to clear the air of the very obvious smell of sex, and Snape resumed his seat in the chair by the fire, waving his hand at the door to unlock it.
Hand on the doorknob, Hermione turned to look over her shoulder at him. ‘Thanks for the good time,’ she told him with a smile.
Snape smirked at her and nodded before lifting his book up to continue with reading. Hermione left the library with a small smile curving her lips.
After her library tryst with Snape, Hermione felt as though it must have done something she couldn’t put her finger on, because Ron had become even more persistent than ever before with asking her out.
He asked her on dates, and when she politely declined, he switched to propositioning her with ridiculous lines like ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go out, Hermione? You look like you could use a good shag.’ It wasn’t until after setting a swarm of angry canaries on him, that Ron seemed to get the message, and he finally backed off.
If after their first encounter Hermione had assumed that Snape would ignore her, well she was wrong. Not two days later, Snape caught her eye as she was on her way to bed that night at the top of the staircase. He then jerked his head for her to follow him. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Hermione continued up to the next floor. Once she was inside Snape’s room, he backed her up to his bed and had her beneath him in seconds.
She didn’t mind one bit.
One morning, after she’d spent the night shagging Snape again and had dressed in a bit of a hurry, she was in the kitchen making coffee when Ron exclaimed, ‘Blimey Hermione! Why is your shirt backwards and your hair so messy? Did you get dressed in the dark again?’
Snape smirked and she’d thrown him a sour glare as she passed him a mug of coffee. She told Ron to bugger off and mind his own business.
Following another one of their afternoon meetings, Hermione lay in bed beside Snape, lounging languidly against him when he waved his hand to crack the window and summoned a pack of cigarettes to him. Pulling one out, he lit up and took a long, slow drag from it, turning his head to expel it in such a way that it didn’t wash over her. Hermione was a little surprised to find the image of him smoking oddly sexy in spite of the knowledge of how toxic it was. She plucked the cigarette from his hand and reached up to kiss him, unable to help herself as her arousal pooled low in her belly. Smirking, Snape snuffed the fag and rolled her beneath him, his rapidly inflating interest pressing into her thigh.
‘Yes?’ he’d asked her quietly, his dark eyes imploring her.
‘Yes,’ she’d replied breathlessly, arching her hips up to meet him as he slid home.
The more often she was with him, the more Hermione began wanting to spend time with Snape, even without the incredible sex. She found herself longing for his company and thinking of him when he wasn’t around. She realised one day with surprise that she actually might have feelings for him. Only for her brain to remind her of the memories he’d bestowed on Harry as he was dying in the Shrieking Shack: Snape was in love with Lily Potter. Realising that in order to safeguard herself, she’d need to put some distance between them. Hermione began avoiding the library and kitchen most of the time unless Harry and Ron were also there.
She’d even gone as far to ignore when Snape knocked on her bedroom door late at night, burrowing her face into her pillow and trying to push the feelings away. It was ridiculous, she knew, going to such lengths to avoid him. Hermione knew that at some stage she would have to face him and answer for her sudden withdrawal. She simply needed a little more time to figure out what she was going to do and say.
Or so she continued to tell herself.
One evening at dinner George stopped by after working at his shop to have dinner. Hermione dined with them despite her usual better judgement, only for Ron to immediately start making rude comments about Snape. Hermione was irritated to no end, but held her tongue so as not to give herself away. At one point, George chimed in humorously with, ‘I bet Snape has a small cock and couldn’t find a girl's clit even if he had the Marauders Map!’
Ron immediately started guffawing loudly, while Harry sat back with an amused smile curving his mouth, with a little more restraint than their ginger haired friends.
Hermione saw red at that point, and sucked in her cheeks preparing to scold them. ‘Now see here—’ she started angrily, before she realised the boys had all fallen silent.
Turning her head, she saw Snape standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a look of mild irritation, his lips thinned into a hard line. Without another word, he turned and swept off wordlessly. Hermione couldn’t help but to feel a ball of anxiety knotting up her stomach.
A few days later, Hermione finally emerged from her bedroom and went to the library to do some studying now that their NEWTs were looming nearer. Once she was inside, the door locked behind her, and wards swept over the room. She tried the handle, but Snape’s voice interrupted her.
‘Why have you been avoiding me, Granger?’
Hermione froze, sighing shakily and resting her head on the cool wood of the door. ‘I don’t suppose you will accept that I’ve been busy as an answer?’ she replied.
‘You would be correct,’ he murmured, his breath suddenly washing over the back of her neck as he moved behind her.
His fingers slid over her shoulders and he coaxed her to turn around and face him. She lifted her chin , drawing her bottom lip between her teeth and nibbling it anxiously. One of Snape’ long fingers traced along her jaw and down her neck before he dragged it up to the clip holding her curls off her neck and releasing it. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and he tucked the clip into the pocket of his open frock coat. She’d never seen him dressed so casually in a common area of the house before. Even the bandage he normally wore around his neck was missing and she could see his pink, jagged scars.
‘Granger,’ he said, a warning in his tone. ‘I warn you not to lie to me.’
Hermione whimpered as his other hand slid down to cup and gently squeeze her breast. Snape took this as his cue to unbutton her blouse, plucking at the clasp between her breasts to release them from their silky coverings. She’d taken to wearing slightly nicer lingerie on the off-chance Snape would have his way with her, and hadn’t shaken the habit when she’d started avoiding him. His lips immediately tumbled down her neck to her chest where he took a dusky pink tip into his mouth and lavished it with attention.
Once he had done the same to the other, Snape pulled back for a moment before grasping her bottom and lifting her into his arms. Her legs and arms wrapped around him immediately as he walked them over to the desk on the other side of the room. He deposited her there, and immediately pushed her blouse over her shoulders and down her arms, gathering her bra straps along the way as he did so. She was wearing a flowy skirt that day, which he also removed along with her knickers in quick succession, not allowing her up from the desk. She felt decidedly naughty, eyeing him appreciatively as he quickly shucked his layers of clothing as well.
His cock stood out proudly, arching towards her as she reached out to touch him. He shook his head no, and grasped her hips, drawing her close to the edge of the table, the perfect height for him to enter her. Hermione sighed, throwing her head back in contentment as he thrust himself into her, sheathing himself fully in her depths. She could almost come then and there; it had been two weeks since the last time he had fucked her.
Hands reaching for her breasts, Snape began to thrust mightily into her, their flesh slapping together loudly with each of their movements. Long, sure fingers pinched and fondled her nipples, and Hermione could feel the climax coiling like a spring in her belly. When one of his hands travelled further down, and his thumb pressed against her clit as he bucked into her wildly, she was gone in an instant. Panting and shutting her eyes tight as she saw stars all the way through her orgasm, his name tumbling from her lips.
‘Fuck, gods, Hermione,’ Snape groaned, as he came moments later, spilling himself within her, his hips slowing their movements as warmth spread through her.
The afterglow faded soon after, and as the sweat cooled on their bodies, they both became chilled. Casting the usual round of charms and summoning their clothes, they both dressed in silence before Hermione finally decided enough was enough. She was exhausted from forcing herself to stay away from him, and knew that after this it would be impossible to continue to avoid him.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she finally spoke, ‘I have feelings for you, Severus.’
Snape’s eyes widened. ‘You have feelings for—for me?’ he stammered in a manner wholly unlike him.
Hermione nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t want you to feel burdened by them. I–I realised that this—the sex—is all well and good fun, but I know deep down I can’t be sustained by it. I genuinely like spending time with you, whether we are talking or just reading. I want more than just secretive rendezvous behind my oblivious friends’ backs. I figured you wouldn’t be all that keen on a relationship, so I simply—’
‘—took yourself out of the equation?’ Snape finished for her with the crook of a dark eyebrow.
Nodding, she pushed forward. ‘I didn’t tell you this to try and force something on you,’ she hastily explained. ‘But you asked for the truth, so there it is.’
Snape stared at her for a moment, before leaning in and touching his lips to hers in the most gentle and sweet kiss they had ever shared. When he pulled away, his eyes were shining with a new, optimistic outlook she’d never seen in them before.
‘I have come to feel something for you too, Hermione,’ he rumbled, stealing another swift kiss from her again.
Elation filled her, and she threw her arms around him and closed her eyes, a few tears of relief escaping them as she kissed him sweetly once more.
They spent that night together in her room, making love and dipping their toe into this new territory they were exploring now that they were both aware there were feelings involved on both sides. The next morning the two of them wandered casually into the kitchen together. She made them both coffee while he buttered some toast, and they sat beside one another and shared their morning meal, ignoring the flabbergasted looks they received from Harry and Ron.
Hermione shared a secret smile with her lover, and when he kissed her in front of her two friends right at the kitchen table, she didn’t have a single care in the world. After he withdrew, she turned to look Ron right in the eye and smirked.
‘In case you’re wondering, he didn’t need a map,’ Hermione quipped, laughing outright at the look of abject horror that crossed both their faces.
Yes, she was going to have a lot of fun messing with her friends in the future. The look in Snape’s eyes told her that he agreed.