227I'm blanking on all my other fics, as I can't put in the time to move them forward as I would want.
So…as and when—for the time being as I have to dedicate my writing time to words that can make a few pennies—I'm playing with these. Because I still need my SSHG fix… *twitch*
They'll be unconnected drabbles and shorts. Maybe longer. Maybe I'll extend them one day—unlikely, but you never know! I certainly don't.
Oh and if you want a look at my o-fic stuff, it's Kim Knox (I'm good to google ;-) )
And onto the first kiss…that isn't… ;-)
Severus Snape was doing it again. That thing with his mouth. The pursing. And then one long, pale finger would trace a slow —bloody agonising— path over first his top lip and then his bottom one, and…
Rinse. Wash. Repeat.
Frankly, it was driving Hermione Granger absolutely batty.
Of course, she should be ignoring him as they sat in the staffroom, just a witch and a wizard in the heavy shadows before a warm and flickering fire. And she hadn't simply stayed back when everyone else left. She was there, because, well, it was quiet and she had marking to do.
She did. Honestly.
Her quill feather brushed against her cheek and —oh, yes— there was her inches-thick pile of scrawled-on parchment…
Severus was her employer, the Headmaster of the school where she was the bright, shiny and very new Arithmancy professor. It was only six days into the new autumn term and her thirty third day of working at the school.
And, well, she was inexplicably smitten with the wizard.
Hermione pressed her own lips together and glared down, again, at the first of her set essays. The atrocious teenage handwriting blurred in the soft candlelight as she lost her focus.
No, her interest in Severus wasn't…inexplicable.
The fire in the great hearth popped and cracked, flames hissing as the pine sap turned to steam and she stared at it…before her gaze —once again— slid to the wizard in the deep armchair set beside her own.
The war against Voldemort had ended the year before…and freedom from his bind to that evil wizard had transformed Severus Snape.
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. Oh, he was still pale and billowy and obstreperous— All right, maybe her view of him had been transformed. The revelation of his character had made the know-it-all in her so very smug. She'd known there was something…skewed about his involvement with Dumbledore's death—
Hermione cut back those thoughts. She still could't dwell on the former Headmaster without her pulse spiking. Not simply for how he'd treated the wizard beside her…but for how he'd set his strategy for the whole bloody war—
She pulled in a breath, looked to her essays for three whole heartbeats, before she was staring at him again.
But Severus was healthy. There was a shine to his long, inky black hair, and his paleness was the soft glow of alabaster not the shriven looks from fatigue and stress.
And his mouth. His mouth —Merlin, save her— his mouth was firm and smooth and held a beauty all of its own—
"Professor Granger."
She blinked, caught for a minute by the rich smoothness of his voice. The snake had not taken that from him and she was so very thankful. Oh, he was addressing her. She was Professor Granger.
Hermione's face burned and her belly did a little twist of mortification. "Sorry, sir, I'm still not used to the title."
Severus' lip quirked upwards in one corner, the gold of the fire molten drops in his dark eyes…
Hermione wondered how loud he'd scream if she stretched across the gap between their chairs and kissed him.
"It's late." He looked to the ancient, glass-domed clock on the mantle. It was about to strike midnight. "And as you have yet to put your quill to parchment and begin to mark your essays…"
Hermione closed her eyes. Shit. Shit. He caught her. And she had been staring at him for hours. But something inside of her—maybe the short-sighted bravado that had her slated for Gryffindor—fought the hot surge of embarrassment.
She was single. One kiss and being Ron's girlfriend for five whole hours had been quite enough, thank you very much. And Severus wasn't seeing anyone. She'd made sure of it. Thoroughly.
So what was there to lose if she said…
"Can I kiss you, please, Headmaster?"
Severus stared at her. Full on stared at her. And blinked.
"I beg your pardon?"
Her contract with the school ran for five years. She sat at the far end of the table from the Headmaster's overly ornate chair. The arthimancy classroom was far from his office. Her own rooms were tucked into Gryffindor tower.
It was possible to avoid him for the next one thousand seven hundred and ninety two days, including school holidays…
Hermione gave him a quick smile. "Kiss you. I'd very much like to kiss you. Please."
He blinked again. Twice.
Then something flickered in his dark eyes. Something that looked like…satisfaction.
"As you wish."
It was her turn to stare and to blink and for her belly to tighten and her heart to squeeze so hard it broke a gasp from her.
Hermione was on her feet before she was aware of it, her quill fluttering to the floor, the thick stack parchment hitting the worn old rug with a dull thud. She stood before him, her legs like jelly. A nervous fingertip traced the line of his crossed knee, the smooth wool, the forbidden heat of his skin there, just there, for her.
She looked up to meet endlessly dark eyes, the flicker of reflected flame in them mesmerising. "You truly want…?"
Severus uncrossed his legs and rose, something smooth and elegant and he was all shadow and power looming over her. But she wasn't a schoolgirl to be cowed my him. Not anymore.
Hermione reached out to stroke her fingers over his cheek, finding it warm and with a roughness that marked how late it was. It sparked an unexpected fire in her belly. Marked the touch as deliciously…illicit.
"Is that what you wish, Miss Granger?"
His voice was velvet and sin and she drew in a breath, her nipples tightening. Fuck, this wizard got her so ridiculously hot. She wet her dried lips and…blinked.
He was a leglimens. He'd known. He'd always known… Merlin, had she been played? Had he drawn her in? Fuck…Fuck. But she didn't care. Not for a minute. That had been satisfaction in his eyes. He was willing to be kissed as much as she wanted to kiss him.
"Something…forbidden, perhaps? The idea of a dark wizard taking you in every way he knows how." His lip curled up in the most wicked of smiles. "Divesting you of the irritation that is your virginity."
"I'm not…"
He pressed a finger to her parted mouth and stopped her words. He leant in and his lips brushed her ear, the skitter of sensation a quick and hot line to her core.
"So, Hermione, where would you like me to kiss you first…?"
Let me know what you think! :)
