Sanguinem Maledicta

11

Hermione paused for a moment after she'd pulled the door shut and stood staring across the kitchen. She drew a deep breath and let it out, gripping her bandaged arm tightly.

She was tired all the way into her soul.

She felt drained as she journeyed across the hall to her room. Her head was light and achingly hollow when she went to the bathroom to clean up, change her clothes and dutifully brush her teeth. She was exhausted to the point of nausea as she sat on the edge of her bed, changing the stained bandages wrapped around her arm and measuring out doses of all the potions that had accumulated on her bedside table. Then she finally collapsed into her bed.

But she was too tired to sleep. She lay in the darkness, replaying the evening again and again as she tried to listen to the clutter of cauldrons and the tapping of the knife blade in Snape's lab. But no sound came.

She couldn't decide- no matter how many times she replayed it- she couldn't decide whether she should regret what she was doing.

***********************

There was a skittish sense of anticipation in her stomach when she woke the next morning. What if it ended horribly? What if it didn't? What would happen then, either way?

She stayed in her room revising, until she heard Snape- Severus- leave for breakfast. She went out and found more potions she was supposed to take after the treatment, neatly set on the worktop.

She carefully avoided looking at the Head Table during breakfast. It might be her imagination but she felt a set of eyes boring into her, but she refused to look up.

She always felt better the day after treatment. It was the closest to normal she ever managed. A little less each time since the frequency had been adjusted but still better than any other time.

The day seemed to pass with painful torpor.

The anticipation had fully transformed into acute anxiety by dinner time. She avoided the Great Hall and went to her room for a shower and spent a long time rebandaging her arm with layers and layers of extra gauze.

When she heard the door of their quarters, her stomach flipped and plummeted as though she'd jumped off a cliff. She considered staying hidden in her bathroom. It was still early evening; she didn't want to seem like some desperate tart who was going to throw herself at Snape every time he walked through the door.

They hadn't discussed a time; he might have work to do, essays to grade, or potions to attend to before he was available. She stood hesitating for several minutes, before abruptly there was a knock on her door. She opened it and found Snape standing outside. He was staring at her intently, his dark eyes famished.

"Severus," she gasped his name out, as she hadn't expected him to come to her. Before she could say more, he was kissing her greedily. His hand gripped her waist as he pulled her towards him and devoured her.

"Now?" she smirked, beside herself.

"Yes," he said against her lips, before he tugged her along to his room.

He toppled her backwards onto his bed and knelt over her, hungrily. His fingers curved along the underside of her jaw, his lips were burning and bruising as he plundered her mouth. It was as though he were laying a claim on her.

He moved down her body, skipping her breasts and stomach as he pushed her skirt up past her hips. His hands pressed her legs apart.

She had let him sweep her off her feet but she had a sudden realization. The lack of ceremony and matter-of-factness was overt and startling.