Chapter 7
MUDBLOOD.
The image burns in his mind as if branded there, the image of those eight letters scrawled in a jagged red script across her inner forearm just over an inch above her left wrist.
Someone has marked her, attempting a most vile desecration of her delicate flesh, someone has etched into the glowing ivory of his brutal creature— Someone has hurt her.
Is that why she is here? Is that what she is missing? Revenge… Justice?
Don’t make it easy, don’t make it easy, don’t make it easy…
The words of no holy litany but a curse, one that scratches and claws at his chest and threatens to strangle him— Is this, too, the curse that now compels her?
Severus glances at the clock, absently twisting his quill between two fingers as his mind churns endlessly.
Someone… Someone—
Knock, knock, knock.
— Someone will pay.
“Enter,” Severus calls, carrying his chair to its usual place.
He watches her as they perform their ritual, as she methodically removes her robe and rolls her sleeves to just an inch above her wrists, looking up at him with an expectant gaze once she’s finished so that he can command her to begin.
“Something up your sleeve, Miss Granger?” He asks instead as he sits down across from her.
She drops her gaze to the day’s assignment lying on the desk. “Only the desire to do well, Sir,” she says, suddenly intensely interested in the parchment held before her.
“If your desire is to please me,” he drawls, not missing the rosy flush that creeps up her neck as her gaze snaps to his, “then you will roll up your sleeves.”
“I fail to see how that shows you anything of my brewing abilities,” she replies, raising her chin.
“It doesn’t,” Severus says as he leans back in his chair. “It shows me how well you take direction.”
She holds his gaze for only a moment before quickly busying herself with preparing the ingredients before her.
“Well, perhaps if you offered more ‘direction’ than a single scrap of parchment.”
“Hm… Perhaps.” Severus replies with a smirk.
The soft clink of her pestle only grows in intensity.
“I’ve allowed those who no longer feel safe in the Slytherin dorms to move to the East Wing,” He says after watching her viciously pummel a cluster of ashwinder eggs for several moments. “Patrol routes will need to be adjusted.”
“Why not simply remove those who pose the threat?”
“What you suggest would be nothing short of a witch hunt, Miss Granger,” Severus replies sternly, standing from his chair and slowly making his way around the desk between them.
“I suppose in a literal sense, yes,” she says, glancing at him as she stirs, her concentration faltering momentarily as he moves beyond her sight and comes to stand behind her. “But we both know exactly who they are… Do we not, Sir?”
A seemingly innocent inquiry, if he didn’t know what truly lurked beneath.
Charged silence thrums between them as she pretends to appear at ease. Severus steps closer, gently squeezing the crook of her neck to soothe the pace of her quickened stirring.
“Slower,” he orders.
He can hear her breath hitch through parted lips, and there is the briefest of pauses before she leans into him, closing the scarce gap between them and brushing against his chest.
“Like this, Sir?” She asks quietly, her eyelids fluttering softly at the touch of his other hand to her thigh as she slows her hand above the cauldron.
“Yes, that’s it…” Severus murmurs, dragging his fingertips with a feather-light pressure along her bare, smooth skin, his head swimming with her warmth that steadily spreads through his veins. “…Good.”
A breathy sigh escapes her as his hand drifts up the top of her thigh, grazing over her skirt to grip at her waist while his other slowly smoothes down her other side and firmly maps the shape of her hip beneath the pleated wool.
But Severus stills once he reaches what he’s been searching for, slipping his fingers into the small pocket there and retrieving what he knows to be inside.
He holds out his open hand in front of her, a single black button— his button— resting in his palm.
Not a breath, not a whisper… until Miss Granger reaches up and gingerly takes the button from his hand.
“Tread carefully, little witch,” He warns in a dark whisper. “I will not protect you again.”
Severus allows himself to linger only a moment, casting a futile search of her expression as she gazes down at her open palm before slipping his hand from her waist.
“Continue, Miss Granger.”
***