Chapter 3
The long days of summer continued to pass just as the last. He would steal as many moments as he could justify to memorize the peaceful lines of her face before disturbing her slumber, and while Hermione sighed softly each time his fingertips traced beneath her breast, Severus would pretend that his blood hadn’t been set to flame.
He felt as if the beast of her had slowly crawled inside him, curling up contentedly before he could think to resist, and each touch of her delicate ivory skin felt as if she were sharpening her claws against the inside of his ribcage.
And so while the little creature remained in his care, while no one but the elves were around to see the quiet slip of his usual mask, Severus found it quite difficult to deny the girl of her simple requests.
“Would you… would you read to me, Professor?” She asked one late afternoon, her warm gaze looking up at him a near tangible caress. Her hesitancy soon gave way to a small grin tugging at her lips and he briefly wondered if it were from the absurdity of her question or the fact that she knew he would not refuse.
Both, of course, were true.
With a deep and utterly feigned sigh of exasperation, Severus acquiesced, thus beginning a new facet to their daily ritual. He would sit stiffly by her side and read aloud as her wild curls brushed against the side of his face, and while Hermione’s head would inevitably make its way to his shoulder, Severus would pretend that he wasn’t drowning himself in the subtle scent of lavender drifting from her hair.
And if her scent still clung to his robes hours after he had left her, well… that was of no consequence to him, surely.
Lately however, deep into the night, his little creature has taken to wandering. Severus had done well to refrain from following her at first, but tonight his curiosity was simply too much to bear.
Her trail soon leads him to an indistinct wooden door beyond which he knows to be the scarcely visited Hall of Deities. Hermione sits at the feet of Circe in the center of the grand hall, each looming marble figure seeming to gaze down at her small form as if to discern whether she might be one of them as the moonlight turns her ivory skin to porcelain.
She rises to stand as he draws near, the thin white infirmary robe cinched tight at the dip of her waist only lending to her statuesque quality. Severus fights the urge to reach out to her, to skim his fingertips along that curve to insure that she is real, to draw her attention and steal that deep gaze from the goddess before them and keep it as his own.
“Strange that wizards would depict the goddess Circe so similarly to how a muggle would the Virgin Mary,” she remarks quietly, though something simmers just beneath that neutral tone.
“Are you religious?” Severus asks just as quietly, feeling the emotion welling inside her as he stands just close enough to feel her heat.
“Not hardly, no,” she says, the slight tremble in her voice shattering the last of his resolve as he reaches out to smooth his hand down her arm. The instant his hand touches her shoulder, Hermione spins around to bury her face against his chest, nestling herself just under his chin as a suppressed sob wracks through her delicate frame.
“Severus…” He hears in her broken whisper.
“Shh, Hermione…” He soothes, wrapping a firm arm around her waist while the other caresses down her back. Her warmth spreads through his very veins as he holds her close, and his chest aches, and he wants nothing more than to hear her say his name again, than to eat every last shred of her pain, than to have every letter of his name etched across his soul by her voice alone.
“Look at me,” he finally says, tilting her chin up to meet her gaze and suddenly he is sinking deep into molten amber as he attempts to discern that which swirls in the depths.
Fear and anger and guilt… a deep, agonizing pain and… desire.
“Whatever sins you may keep…” He murmurs, her lashes fluttering as Severus sweeps a tear from her cheek with his thumb before trailing back down to brush against her parted lips, “… give them to me.”
Hermione gives a slow nod, drawing her face closer to his as she shudders before melting against him. His hand tightens around her waist, pressing her more firmly against his chest as an intoxicating heat— no, need— seeps down to his very bones. Oh, how he yearns to simply devour her, he thinks as his hand moves from caressing her face to twist into her hair. How he yearns to simply touch the bare flesh beneath her flimsy robe, to map every dip and curve, to savor every hidden place that would make her moan and writhe and beg beneath him— To lay her at Circe’s feet and worship her.
This delicate and divine and vicious creature…
“Severus?”
He draws a shuttering breath, sighing before pressing his mouth to the corner of her own with painful restraint. Before her eyes are fully open, he sweeps her up into his arms and cradles her against his chest as he carries her back to the infirmary.
Severus has never been a religious man himself, but if he had a soul to give, if she would accept it… he would lay it at her feet.
***