*
Teenager
*

The beginning of summer hols was painful all around. Kids whose parents had worked hard to have them returned left friends and the comfort of an insulated community to go back to the "real world." While they were happy to see their families, it wasn't without quite a bit of nightmares and some waking emotional outbursts that this was accomplished.

Meanwhile, the kids who were left behind dealt with the trauma of being unwanted in their own ways, and fights broke out everywhere. Not for the first time, Hermione was aware of being insanely grateful that wands were a limited commodity at wereworld. She remembered the consequences of mixing pubescent angst and magic all too well.

Faculty and staff rushed around trying to limit damage and soothe emotional distress. Hermione and Remus were managing three hours of sleep a night -- four if they were lucky -- and from the looks of it, nobody else was doing much better.

Things calmed down a bit once the kids who were leaving had flooed out. Although it was necessary to check up on each child's welfare throughout the summer, the time those kids consumed was severely lessened, and the attention previously concentrated on them could be spread out among those remaining at the school.

In the absence of classes, Steven and Remus put together a Quidditch Camp to keep those who enjoyed playing the sport occupied and out from underfoot. Redda drafted a few of the kids who had shown interest into helping her plant new vegetation for summer and rework the landscape of the school's garden a bit. Acacia Lewan decided to make use of one of her off-time hobbies and set up a crafts corner in the Main Hall. Each week she started a new project, and whoever wanted to join in just had to approach her corner and ask for something to do. Hermione picked a few of the older kids to help her raise the litter of baby mooncalves Faelle had sent her by way of a solstice present. They were finicky little things, but Hermione discovered just how right Faelle was about their presence during the full moon in mid-July. The day after the final full, she had seven more volunteers to help with their care, the kids had liked them so much.

Professional Quidditch was in season and Millicent would show up regularly to pull Hermione away from whatever she was doing, with a, "Zach's waiting for us, Oliver and Katie got us box seats." Hermione sensed Millicent had collaborators, as there was always someone waiting to take over for her if she was with the children. Also, when she would return there would inevitably be a "staff meeting" in the lounge that evening, the whole faculty waiting to hear a blow-by-blow version of the game. After awhile, Hermione began thinking that if she was ever hard up for a job, she could probably try her hand at Quidditch announcing.

Despite all the activities, summer was far less hectic than the school year. There were less students to watch over and no papers to grade, and this gave Hermione the time to disappear to Hogwarts quite often and scold Snape, "There are other purposes for a break in the school year than research."

"Name one good one, Miss Granger," Snape challenged.

"Getting out a bit, providing your body with some much-needed Vitamin D."

"Vitamin D can be found in many of the foods regularly served on the tables in the Great Hall," Snape responded logically.

"Cheering on your local Quidditch team."

"I will assume that was in jest, and carry on about my research."

"Visiting friends who hardly get to see you during the school year because you're too busy and one of them can't exactly just up and come see you." Hermione hadn't meant for the last part to sound as raw as it had in her ears.

"It's hardly my fault the Ministry likes to keep a tight lock on the cage of everyone's favorite Dark Creatures." Snape stirred his potion incrementally faster.

"Turn around and say that to my face, Snape."

He didn't.

"Every time I think I might have the tiniest light of insight into you, I'm wrong. You're not afraid of werewolves, you acted as though Faelle and the others in New Mexico were unquestionably human. You treat Zev as though he's the closest thing you'll ever have to offspring. Yet you use that excuse without fail whenever I try being a friend. I'm good at reading your verbal mechanisms of defense. I know when I can laugh at something you say and when I'm supposed to positively bristle at it and for the most part, I do my best to be contrary to the last and not let it phase me. But I'm tired of sometimes pretending like you don’t like me and Remus because you're…having an off day? Reminded that something about us scares you? I don't know, I don't care, get the fuck over it."

He had stopped stirring somewhere in the midst of her tirade. The smell in the room had changed and Hermione instinctively knew that the potion was ruined.

"You wouldn't want me to get over it," Snape finally said. His voice was eerie, toneless.

"You don't know what I would or wouldn't want. You're too busy paying attention to who you think I am. Who you think Remus is. Who you think we are together."

There was a catch in his breath, but he stayed silent.

Hermione took it as a sign of mental saturation. "I'm sorry about your potion."

"You're not the one who stopped stirring."

"Not everything is always your fault," Hermione stressed.

"The potion can be made again," Snape pointed out.

"That's why you have them. Because they're yours to control, to create. Not everything can be like that. Come visit when you understand that." Hermione hoped she wouldn't be waiting as long as she suspected.

*

September showed up one day, bringing with it a new school year. There had been no graduates from the previous year, since even the kids who were of age to be seventh years had been kept out of school for so long that they were seriously retarded in their studies. While not exactly a happy circumstance, it meant that places on staff didn't have to be found, as they probably would in a few short years. Hermione vowed not to worry about it until it actually became a problem.

Her birthday came with less fanfare than the beginning of the school year, which was perfectly fine with her. Ginny and Nymph invaded wereworld's kitchens that day, Ginny whipping up the quiche dish which had been the only thing that could convince Hermione to eat for nearly a year after the final battle and Nymph decorating Ginny's cooling sugar biscuits. Hermione knew Zev had either asked to help or gotten drafted, as she could see the tell tale signs of an icing battle in his hair.

Hermione arrived at the Great Hall at the time Ginny had appointed "Party Time," an hour slightly after the kids had been separated out and placed in their dorms for safekeeping, to find not only all her friends on the staff, Zev, Remus, Ginny and Nymph waiting for her, but Minerva, her parents, Millicent and Zach, Katie and Oliver, Charlie and Nora, Luna and Terry, Dean and Kingsley. "Oh," was all she managed before being pulled in a million different directions for hugs and birthday wishes.

Ginny had worked a way to Charm the hall so that music was playing. When they finished eating, Kingsley was the first to ask, "May I have this dance?" but was followed shortly by Charlie's slightly more roguish, "Lemme take you out for a spin."

Not to be outdone, Nymph just stole Hermione out her seat (and her conversation with Terry) and whirled her 'round and 'round until she was giggling and unable to stand up straight. At which point, Terry took her back, and waited for her to regain equilibrium.

On top of the biscuits, her mum had brought a triple-berry trifle, the kind she only used to make for holidays and special occasions. Hermione ate way too much of it and kissed Genie, "You shouldn't've."

"You never come around for the times when I do make it, anymore," Genie scolded, although not without understanding.

"I can't…Remus and Zev, they wouldn't be able to come with me," Hermione explained, even though her mum knew.

"I know, but if that's to be the case, your Dad and I will just have to come to you more often. We're going to spend this year's holidays here, and you have no say in the matter, miss."

Hermione swallowed tears and hugged Genie to herself. "Thanks, mum."

"You could've asked, luv."

Hermione just nodded. It was hard to remember that her parents didn't really understand what she was doing here. How other people looked when they got invited or needed to visit. Besides, one was supposed to go to one's parents for the hols, not the other way around. It wasn't that Hermione was used to doing anything the traditional way, but there were some lines even she couldn't cross.

Remus finally managed to get a dance in for himself and when she murmured, "Oh, hey, you're good at this," his answer of, "Among the many talents Sirius passed on to me," didn't sound broken. Sad, but not broken.

She pressed her lips to the skin right before his ear. "Too bad he never got time to teach his godson."

"Two left feet?"

"Forget two," Hermione laughed, "try three."

She was pretty sure Remus was just showing off when he dipped her at the end of the dance. She had chosen to make this one of the rare times when she wore her hair down and it was streaming over her back, sweeping the floor at the lowest point of the dip. He pulled her back up, into his arms, into a kiss, and Hermione decided he could do whatever he wanted with her so long as that was the end result.

Eventually, despite her complete and utter determination not to ask, Hermione found her way to Minerva and opened her mouth, "Severus?"

She blinked at her own question. The word felt odd on her tongue being the first time she had ever said it in eleven years of knowing the man. It had been said, though, and Hermione knew there was no going back from that. "He was invited, correct?"

Minerva, for all her calm façade, had the air of one very pissed off woman. "Stubborn git." She pursed her lips as though more wanted to come out of them and it was only her dignity that was stopping it.

"No…it's fine. I told him," Hermione smiled sheepishly, "last time I saw him I told him that he could only come see us when he figured something out. I think he took me at my word."

"He would, the literal-minded moron," Minerva was quite obviously not mollified.

Hermione took Minerva's hand, "It's part of his charm."

"Oh, definitely," Minerva snorted.

More softly Hermione told Minerva, "He'll make it up to me."

"You sound so sure," but Minerva didn't sound as if she doubted.

"The way he knows potions," Hermione explained, "that's the way I know the people who are a part of me." Inside her head, Ron grinned and ruffled her hair and Harry rested his head on her lap, eyes closing. Across the room, Zev caught her eye and waved at her, Remus watching the whole thing and sharing her look of contentment. None of them disagreed.

*

Granted, Severus's definition of "making things up" wasn't always exactly what Hermione would have it be. Him arriving at the break of dawn the morning after her birthday party -- topped by some truly adventurous and brilliantly effective sexual measures on Remus's part -- fell into this category. Nonetheless, she answered his timid knock on the door while pulling her robe over herself.

He very studiously did not look at her as she padded past him, closing the door softly behind her. "Coffee," she mumbled, and kept walking.

He must have followed, because when Lyla handed her a mug prepared just the way she preferred, Veronica turned to pour another one for him. Veronica told her, "Kick the boys from the table, they can read the paper over here."

"It's really fine," Hermione insisted. Instead, she lead Severus through the school, almost pleased by his less-than-obvious skittishness over her near-nakedness. It served him right for missing her birthday party, morning-after-make-up trip or no.

She worked her way across the lawns, into the greenhouse, where she located two patio chairs and settled herself into one. Severus took the hint and folded himself into the second chair. "I'm not good at parties."

"Yes well, given your magnificent interpersonal skills, I can't say as I'm completely shocked." Hermione took a sip of her coffee. The greenhouse was slightly cool, especially given her state of undress, but it smelled good and looked cheerful and was one of her very favorite places to spend a waking up hour.

"Keep it up and I shan't give you your birthday gift," Severus threatened.

Hermione waved a careless hand. "If it's anything I'd actually want, you won't want to keep it."

"Our tastes aren't all that different."

Hermione took another sip of coffee laced with a shot of cream and a dash of sugar. She stared thoughtfully into the black surface of his still full cup. He frowned and swallowed some of the coffee hastily, taking away her object of contemplation. He drained the cup expertly and placed it on the ground.

Letting the warmth of her last sip curl in her chest and stomach, Hermione waited.

"I despised that he could speak Parseltongue," was what greeted her at the end of the wait.

Hermione went with it. "More or less than you hated the fact that he was James Potter's son?"

"More. However much I hated James, I hated Voldemort more."

"Yes, well, the latter had considerably more control over you."

"Me and snakes. As much as the Gryffindors insist we are one and the same."

Hermione's fingers tightened against the ceramic of her cup. "Harry communicated with snakes, he didn't control them. Just because two people are linked doesn't mean they operate in the same fashion."

"But to someone who can't understand what's being said, it all looks the same, doesn't it?"

"Did you think he was controlling me and Ron? Was that what it looked like from the outside, where you couldn't hear what was said?"

"Not him." Severus' words were short, brutal.

Hermione forgot to breathe.

Severus reminded her. "That was what changed everything. He gave up control. Voldemort would never have done that."

"My what you must have thought of me," Hermione tried for breezy. "Using my control ever so cleverly."

"I hated you more than I had ever hated anyone." Severus met her eyes. "More than Black or either of the Potter men or even the Dark Lord himself. You, who took it upon yourself to succeed where I had time and again failed, you who in succeeding cemented all of my other failures. I couldn't kill Voldemort and I couldn’t save Harry and as I saw it, you were at the center of all these negative outcomes."

"Something changed." Hermione straightened cautiously, determined not to display any of her crumbling pieces.

"The world changed, Miss Granger, I should think you would have noticed."

"Severus."

His eyes cut into her, shock overlaying the sardonic tint. "The world."

Unsure that it would help anything, Hermione demanded, "My gift. Give me my gift."

"Very well." Severus fished a small object from his pocket and laid it carefully on the floor. Touching his hand to the wand Hermione suspected was hiding in his pocket, he muttered an enlargement spell.

At Hermione's feet, a four foot cobra undulated.

She froze. "I don’t understand. I'm not Harry, I can’t speak to it."

"Not in its language, no. I have found that you have a way of communicating with…things. A way of loving things that others are afraid of or ashamed of or merely don’t want."

Earlier words of his caressed the edge of her throat. "Poisons aren't the evil, rather our uses for them."

"For him, it is merely a defense mechanism."

The cobra climbed Hermione's leg slowly, as though testing to see how far she could get. "Where'd you get her?"

"Snake dealer Faelle knows. She thought I wanted it for its poison. How did you know it was a she?"

"Faelle wasn't entirely wrong, was she? I'm a Muggle-born Magical Creatures expert who was near married to a Parselmouth for two years, I know a bit about snakes."

"It pleases you, then." The statement was too uncertain to be left alone.

The cobra twisted around Hermione's torso in an odd parody of the stained skin beneath. "I'll have to find a way to keep her away from the children, but yes, more than I can say. Truly, you're forgiven for missing my party."

"There was something to forgive?"

"The snake belongs to me, now, Severus. Choose your words carefully."

"Around you?" Severus breathed once, quick and sharp. "Always."

*

It took all of a week for Hermione to note that Fey, her newly christened pet, got into considerably less trouble when in close proximity to Hermione. Abandoning her original plan to allow Fey the run of her and Remus' rooms (now side by side, and linked by a door) during the day time, Hermione requested that Hydrea brew up a large batch of anti-venoms and give them over to the school's medical wing in case of emergencies.

She warned the children, "She'll leave you alone for as long as you pay her the same respect."

Overwhelmingly, they got the message. There were only two incidents of poisoning within the first month of Fey's appearance at every meal and Magical Creature lesson. Both children were healed up, given a stern talking to, three detentions, and a hug. After that, Fey's power seemed to be understood and respected.

Remus for his part, kicked back and waited for Fey to get to know him. Fey caught on pretty quick, seeing that half the time Hermione and Remus' scents were so intermingled as to be nearly indistinguishable, as Verona had ever so tactfully pointed out one morning.

Remus commented, "Leave it to Snape to buy you a pet that poses such danger and yet represents such protection and to not even formally recognize the apparent symbolism."

Hermione ran a finger lightly over Fey's scales. "He recognizes it, he just thinks it's you."

"I doubt he gives me that much credit." The joke was tainted with an undercurrent of hopelessness so strong that Fey coiled tightly under Hermione's hand, receiving the emotion through a second-hand conduit.

"Babe, the only reason he came this last time was to apologize in his rather non-apologetic way for being a complete arse and skipping my party. Note my use of the purposeful 'skip' rather than the accidental 'miss.'"

"Give me leave to be selfish here. You can go see him any time you wish, if he doesn't pop a hello my way when he's here, well then, I'm at his mercy as to when we'll see each other next."

Fey slithered up Hermione's arm and hissed something indecipherable in her ear. "Perhaps you ought to make it clear to him, in the way of plain English, that you wish to see him whenever he visits. Despite his vaunted intelligence, the man has the emotional IQ of a tree, and I'm not speaking of the Whomping Willow. He probably thinks he's doing you a favor with his studious avoidance."

Remus lifted the center of his eyebrows and let his head wobble from side to side. "True enough."

"I won’t do this without both of us involved," Hermione warned. "Stop with this interminable will to self-sacrifice or it will be Severus who suffers. We broke our vows not to share each other together, but I won't have the vow be broken any other way."

"I would let you out of the-"

Hermione snapped, "That's hardly the fucking point. Of course you would. If circumstances proved it necessary, I would let you out of the vow as well. But circumstances have proven anything but necessary, especially providing that Severus wants us both, he's just a bit more unsure of his footing around you. More history will do that to a person."

Remus drooped. "He makes me… You know how you thought that I felt like I wasn't good enough for you because of the lycanthropy?"

Hermione swallowed. "Yes."

"While I logically know that of course I'm good enough for him, there's that part of me that knows that I almost killed him, on purpose or no, and that, despite that, regardless of the fact that he brewed the Wolfsbane more as a favor to Albus than ever to me, he did. He gave me the thing that mattered more than anything else in my existence until Sirius reappeared. I feel like that's a secret we both know and somewhere along the way, he stopped making a verbal point of it, but that doesn't mean it up and disappeared."

Hermione crossed the room to Remus, two feet of Fey swinging from her shoulders. "No, see, that's the thing. The secret was never there. Severus created it with his words and his bitterness, and the moment the latter healed and the former dried up the 'secret' was gone, no more tangible than the words upon which it was built. For every mistake you have made at Severus's expense, he has made one at yours, and he, well, he knows it as much as he knows anything in this whole situation. Leaves something to be desired, but he's several kilometers ahead of you. We're just waiting for you to catch up now. My patience is wearing, love."

Remus leaned forward in his sitting position, resting his head against Hermione's stomach. "I'll see if I can pick up the pace."

Hermione held his head to her and let him know without further conversation that patience or no, she would wait until eternity had long since come and gone.

*

Hermione wondered if delivering the Wolfsbane personally had become a habit for Severus, since he brought it the next month despite there being absolutely no changes to it, nor any reason for him to go out of his way. Somewhat sheepishly, he offered Zev and Remus a bag of ice mice. "If you can deal with the rather inane chattering resultant of eating one, it will most likely clear the taste."

Remus took three, and let Zev take the rest of the bag back to his dormmates. He downed the first one, taking the second two a bit more slowly. When his teeth had calmed he leaned his head back, kissing Hermione, who bent over to meet his mouth at a somewhat odd angle. "How's my breath?"

"Icy, why?"

As it was Remus's habit to show, not tell, it didn't surprise her when he got up and walked away. It did surprise her when he went to his tiptoes and kissed Severus, mouth-to-mouth, lip-to-lip, and when Severus gasped in shock, just a bit of tongue-to-tongue. Remus pulled back just soon enough for Severus to still be standing perfectly still, as though trying to ward off attack by not calling attention to himself.

Remus sat back down where he had been the moment before, in between the v that Hermione's legs created by dangling from the bed. "Quick enough for you?"

"Sh, we'll talk when he's done killing us." Hermione kept eye contact with Severus religiously, as though by that alone she could halt whatever reaction would eventually melt through his limbs and change everything.

When the subtle altering of his position came, the words that accompanied it were not what Hermione had been expecting. "Your breath is quite nice, actually. I take it the mice worked?"

"The perfect antidote," Remus opined.

"A bad taste is hardly equivalent to poison," Severus scoffed.

"I'm letting you play the role of hero Severus, for once, just fucking go along." There was no scorn or anger in Remus's request, only intimate knowledge of what being a hero meant and why someone would run from it and the fact that Remus wasn't allowing Severus the option of flight.

"And what, be your once a month trick? The person you show a good time for a bit of lobalug venom and cactus leaves?"

"But then what would I be getting out of it?" Hermione controlled words that wanted to burn out of her mouth as spite.

"You're quite the clever girl, I'd imagine any two male bodies will do quite well as substitutes in your nighttime fantasies of lovers lost."

In between her legs, Remus' muscles hardened to the consistency of steel. Hermione swallowed at bile that continuously threatened to purge its way out. Severus whispered, "That was cruel, and not for me to say."

Hermione wasn't precisely a believer in the adage that one cruel turn deserves another but the time for turning the other cheek had long passed. "If I wanted two people to stand in for what you think are my fantasies, you, Severus Snape, would hardly be one of them. You who railed against the unfairness of Harry's and my mere existence for seven years, you who saw fit to insult my chosen world and community out of petty fear, you who even now cannot just look at me and the man I love and accept what we want.

"Harry and Ron are irreplaceable. For over two years I lived my life believing that I was as good as dead. But I wasn't, I was just healing, waiting for Remus and Zev and the things that would make me remember how to live, and to my complete and utter horror at the time, your antagonism, your pain, your buried humanity was part of what called me back.

"Don't fucking speak to me about substitution when you never once saw Harry as anything other than Potter, a derivative object of the original article. And don't even think to throw your fear in our faces and presume that it will get you somewhere, because it won’t. Be as Slytherin as you choose, Gryffindor rashness is a thing of necessity sometimes. Happiness cannot always be planned. I'm sorry if we weren't what you were hoping for, a once broken mudblood girl and a werewolf, but this is all we are and we're happy with it. We were thinking that maybe you could be too. We might've been wrong."

If he had spit back at her, railed on, pivoted about and stomped out, she would have stoked her own fire and danced with his flames. He looked away from her. "At the very least, a once broken mudblood girl and a werewolf are better than a still-broken ex-Death Eater with greasy hair and a disagreeable temperment."

Remus laughed into Hermione's leg. "What gives you the right to throw aside our epitaphs as unimportant and then disallow us to do the same with your own? Arrogant prick."

"Flea infested mongrel."

"Overgrown bat."

"Psychotic hose beast."

"Vampire wannabe."

"As amusing as this is," Hermione interjected, and actually, it kind of was, "can we assume that the sticks and stones marathon is the equivalent of the two of you acknowledging each others' points?"

Severus made an elegant gesture of agreement with his hand and Remus mumbled a bit before nodding his head. Hermione didn't push her luck. "Give us a try, Severus. If we disappoint you, then at least we'll have been no different from everyone and everything else in your past." She winced inside at the thought, but kept her eyes bargain-hard.

"And you can probably seek your revenge by getting the school shut down and re-condemning over a hundred people to hell-on-earth," Remus put in, possibly as incentive. "I've heard werewolves aren’t very popular."

Severus snapped, "I hadn't actually planned on telling people about you. That was a mistake."

"Apology accepted." Remus held up a hand to stop a retort. "Leave it, Severus."

Amazingly, Severus did. "I don’t want you to be like everyone and everything else."

Gryffindor courage swam insistently around the edges of Hermione's heart. "I'm not. He's not. But you won’t know that until you let us prove it."

What followed the statement was the longest silence Hermione had ever waited out in her life. Severus ended it by decompressing his lips. "I suppose the gauntlet has been thrown down then."

He turned and left, thankfully without smacking either of them in the face with kid gloves.

*

Severus walked out of the fireplace again two days later on the eve of the first full. Nobody in the place was looking their best, the werewolves all pale and tired and ready for the whole thing to be over. He arrived at dinner time, when everyone was trying their best to get something down, knowing that privation never helped matters.

He headed up to the faculty table, stopping by Zev to say something that made the boy smile cautiously. He reached his destination and conjured a chair, sitting back a ways, in between Hermione and Remus. Remus snarked, "If you came for a quickie, you're cutting it kinda close."

Hermione swallowed her laughter. "Not to point out the obvious, but this is a phenomenally bad time."

"Lockhart's effort even combined with mine must have been more dismal than I remember." Severus stole some of her water, refilling the glass when he was through.

"Whatever are you going on about?" Hermione put a hand protectively around the water glass, as though to guard it from wandering maniacs.

"A duel, Miss Granger, generally involves more than one participant."

Hermione wondered if he'd slipped her a Muting Hex, since nothing seemed to want to work its way past her lips. Except, "Would you stop calling me that? It makes me feel like I'm in some kind of dirty role play. Not that I'm opposed to that, or anything, but with boundaries."

"Calling you… Oh, Miss Granger. Well, I was instructing you," Severus defended himself.

"And I have no doubt that once I get you where I want you I'll be instructing you from sunset to sunrise, but I have no intention of ever calling you Mr. Snape." I'll take your Muting Hex and up you an Asphyxiation Hex, Hermione thought, watching the way his breath literally went in once and didn't come back out.

When it did manage to rush back out it was in the form of a word. "Right." Pausing to breathe in once, "Hermione it is."

"Oo, oo, can I be Remus?" Remus bounced a little for effect.

"Don't push your luck, Lupin."

Hermione distracted them from their not-yet-begun bickering, "This is your part of the duel then?"

"It's important, wouldn't you say, that I'm able to handle the transformation?"

Remus' eyes skimmed the Great Hall. "Maybe this isn’t the best way for this. There are over a hundred of us, Severus."

"Minerva informs me that a cadre of non-werewolf humans come every month to help out, that nothing has yet gone wrong and that it is her opinion that something would have to go wrong with every single batch of Wolfsbane, or at least a majority of those taken for someone to get hurt, as the wolves who are on the Bane would protect the humans from those who desired to kill them." The whole monologue would have been more convincing had Severus's voice been just a smidge less controlled. The next part rang true, however, "You'll forgive me if I find it hard to believe I could incorrectly prepare so many potions at one time."

Hermione figured she could forgive him a lot of things, his rather validated arrogance not being the least among them. "I'll stay in my human form tonight. I can probably talk Hydrea into doing so as well." Coming to face one of his greatest fears for their sake was one thing, being left basically alone to do so was another.

"Your being in present form will suffice, you needn't bother Miss Jigger."

"But we have so much fun bothering her," Remus lamented.

"Cretin of a defective Gryffindor."

"Sweetheart of a Slytherin."

Severus shuddered. Remus snickered. Hermione cut her meat into very tiny pieces and ate them, one at a time.

*

Severus' eyes were blank. Hermione ventured, "All right?"

"I suppose you're used to it," Severus' words were so clipped as to be nearly indecipherable.

"Used to-" Hermione remembered her first time watching the change, looking on as bones snapped apart, melting and molding and twisting in new directions. "Oh, well, yes. This is better, though, it was worse when they screamed and fought. Now it's just a bit of crackling and all's well."

"Mm."

Hermione sensed that he didn't exactly agree. "It's just part of him, Severus."

The him in question was eyeing the two still-human forms as though asking for permission. Hermione bent down and he trotted to her, Zev's smaller, pup-like figure nearly treading on Remus's tail as he scrambled along. Severus stood still, obviously working not to move back from the two wolves. Hermione could sympathize. On a logical level she knew the werewolves were ugly. Too large to be natural wolves, too many sharp teeth, eerie yellow eyes and wads of coarse, woolen fur -- combined, the features did not make for an attractive animal.

She hadn’t noticed in a while.

No sooner had he gotten an obligatory pet 'n rub from Hermione, Zev was off, bounding over to his friends, ready to play. Remus stayed where he was. Hermione sat all the way down, bringing her legs out in front of her. He laid his head down on one and stared balefully at Severus, who took it as an invitation to sit, but didn't move to touch Remus.

"You saw him, didn't you, that night in your third year?"

Remus' ears perked ever so slightly. Hermione brushed a calming hand over them. "Remus in this form? Yes, I did."

"Yet you remained unafraid." There was shame in the declaration, an awareness of his own failings.

"The wolf wasn't what scared you," Hermione guessed.

"Do tell."

"If someone I had wanted to be friends with…still wanted to be friends with? Had done that to me- Fears are oft times more ephemeral than their triggers show them to be."

"Insightful, Miss-" Severus stuttered, "Hermione."

Hermione smirked. "I'm called that, on occasion."

Severus leaned into kiss her, pulling back nearly the second their lips met. "That can hardly be what you were looking for this evening."

Hermione's lips tasted unfamiliar. "I very rarely go into relationships looking for something."

Remus licked her hand in consolation.

She scratched behind his ear. Her "thanks, babe," was dry and she kept her eyes on Severus as she said it.

Severus reached out, tentatively placing his hand atop Remus's head. "Not very soft, are they?"

"Not particularly." Hermione scratched a path down Remus's back. He made slight growling sounds and Severus pulled his hand away. Hermione was confused for a second before she realized, "Oh, those are just his contented sounds."

He made a sound that from a dog would have been whimpering but from a werewolf was just screeching. "He's sorry," she translated.

Severus replaced his hand. Hermione took it in her own and brought it down the length of Remus. "He's staying still for you. Normally he rolls around so that I can pet everywhere."

Experimentally, Severus scratched behind the ear that Hermione hadn't taken care of earlier. Remus's eyes rolled up and he let his head droop into Severus's palm. Severus didn't drop it.

Hermione wrapped a hand around Remus's tail to keep it from whipping her upper body.

*

The daytime half of WAC -- Katie, Oliver, Zach, Millicent and Luna -- showed up in the early morning, just as the second transformation was occurring. Luna walked across a room littered with bodies half-way to human and greeted the two waiting for Remus. "Hello, Professor."

She hugged Hermione.

Severus considered her. He always came off as a bit taken aback by her total lack of concern at his presence. She had never been much bothered by him as a student either. "Miss Lovegood."

Remus had completed the transformation and was reaching a hand up to Hermione, who hauled him upward. Mid-haul she twisted her head, "Luna, have you spotted Zev?"

Luna swiveled around. "Corner, already asleep. I'll make sure he gets to a bed."

"Thanks, luv." Hermione wrapped one of Remus' arms around her shoulder. To her surprise, she felt him get lighter, not heavier, and looked over to see Severus appropriating Remus's other arm and shifting the weight onto himself.

"To bed," Luna ordered and it would have been maternal and caring if not for the gleam of licentiousness shining from her every pore.

Hermione let it go. It was no good refuting Luna anyhow. Unless Hermione could come up with an explanation for what was happening that was one hundred times more outrageous than the truth, Luna could never be convinced. The truth in Hermione's world was usually pretty hard to beat.

The two of them dragged Remus up the stairs and into bed. Hermione covered him up before reaching into her shirt and dragging her bra through her sleeve. "You're staying, right?"

It was cruel, she knew, to act like she expected it when in fact, she expected no such thing. It was even more cruel, she supposed, to drop the bra from her fingers with calculated timing, so that it fell as she was asking.

Severus snapped his eyes away from the spot where the bra had fallen. "I wasn't planning-"

"You've been up all night," Hermione reminded him, slipping out of her trousers. "And you won't rest if you go back to the school, I know you."

"I have classes," he objected, now staring determinedly at the wall.

"You flooed Minerva when you left, yes?"

Severus gave her a look that clearly said, "I cannot believe you just asked me that question."

"Right. Then she knows where you are and she'll figure it out when you don't show back up. Smarter than she acts, that one." Hermione stepped out of her panties and left them where they lay, crawling into the bed. "You're no good to the students this way."

When he didn't move she reworded, "You’re no good to Minerva this way."

"I could go for nearly a week at a time without sleeping when you were in your school years."

"Was that the problem? Sleep deprivation? Dean'll be so disappointed, his money was on you needing a worthwhile shag."

"I'll thank Mr. Thomas to keep his speculations about my sex life to himself next time I see him."

"You'll do no such thing. You'd rather be beaten to death with a Quidditch broom by your most incompetent student in front of a room full of Lucius Malfoy clones."

"You're hardly making a case for why I would actually want to climb into bed with you and a man whose skin is looking to be more of flimsy disguise than ever before."

"You were right," Hermione gave him, "it was sleep deprivation."

"Come to your senses and admitted this isn't actually what you want, then?" He took a step toward the door.

"Sod off, git. Not literally," she amended, as he began to take her at her word. "Severus."

"Hermione."

"You made it nearly a week at a time with the help of magically amplified barbiturates and Charm abuse. There were signs all over you if someone just knew where to look."

Softly, he corrected her, "Cared enough to look."

"You give me too much credit. I was still a love stupid teenager at the time."

"A teenager in love, perhaps." He took a deep breath. "Never stupid."

"Sleep with us. We're all tired. Trust me, if he wasn't ten times past gone he'd have lambasted you for the skin comment."

"I was a bit surprised to have gotten by with that one." He had the grace to let her see that he was ashamed.

"There were bigger issues at hand than your well-honed ability for distraction."

"I didn't mean it."

"I wouldn't still be waiting for you to climb bloody well in if you had."

He let the words sink into the wooden walls before bringing a hand to his neck, popping buttons from their place, one, two, three at a time, not hurriedly but in the way of someone who has long done the exact same thing time and again and again. Quickly enough he was in his trousers and short sleeves.

Hermione held onto consciousness long enough to feel him climb in next to her, lay close enough as to be touching, but not actually take the initiative to touch, wrap around her, pull her to him. Hermione, who couldn't go for a week without sleep, determined that she could fight that battle when she had better mental ammunition.

*

Severus was gone by the time she woke up, but he had left a note, a scrap of parchment on the nightstand, pointed out by Fey, who had just molted, and obviously wanted someone to preen over her. Hermione ran a hand from Fey's head as far as she could reach down the length of her, reveling in the feel of the brand new skin. "Pretty Fey."

The note promised, "Can't return this evening or the next, would like to pass the weekend there, owl to alert me of any problems with this plan. -Severus."

Remus rolled over onto her legs and eyed the note blearily, "What'd our favorite Mr. Grumpy Pants have to say for himself?"

"Mind a weekend visitor?"

"The whole weekend?" Remus leaned back to look up at her and his head fell off her lap. "Surely you jest."

"Have I ever told you you become a bit of a nutter after changes?"

"You may have mentioned it. Once or twice." Remus stretched out, arms flung above his head, skin stretching over ribs and hips, neck thrown back. Hermione couldn't help bending for a lick at the skin right next to his adam's apple. It was prickly with unshaved hair and salty with the residue of sweat, but it tasted human with just a touch of wildness to it. She disguised her second lick as a kiss.

"Stopping so soon?" He put his hand to her cheek as she pulled away.

"It's late. We need to get you fed and potioned." Sometimes, she hated having to be the sensible one.

Reluctantly, Remus rolled off the edge of the bed. He found a robe of his hanging from the back of the door and belted it around his waist. "Did he stay this morning? Once we were up here? I fell asleep before you guys were done playing twenty wisecracks."

"He was next to me when I fell asleep." Hermione left the how long after that, who knows? unvoiced.

Remus went to brush his teeth. Hermione joined him and they scrubbed in silence for a bit. When he had spit and rinsed, Remus ventured, "What did he… Well, I mean obviously he pet me."

Hermione understood the fragmented question. "The actual change shook him up a bit. I forget, but it still looks and sounds a tad disgusting. I told him it was better without the yelling and struggling. I don’t know that he believed me."

"Well," Remus threaded his toothbrush back into its holder, "he's coming back."

The color drained out of Remus's face as he said it, and Hermione dropped her toothbrush on the counter to get hold of him before he fell to the floor. "Remus?"

His fingers clenched at her skin. "Sorry, sorry. Think it just hit me all at once."

"It’s like you said, he's coming back. It's fine." Hermione kissed his forehead.

"I know. Just, quite a bit of room for that to have been one big fuck up, eh?"

"Been holding on to this since he showed up yesterday, have you?"

Remus just leaned closer into her.

"We can’t allow him to run, luv. Not even for reasons that we might think are valid. That's part of the challenge."

"One would almost think he's doing a better job at that than we are."

Hermione swallowed down her growl of frustration. "Only because we can't go to him."

"I can't go to him," Remus corrected.

"We can't," Hermione stressed. "If you can't go with me, there's no we, am I correct?"

"Your impeccable knowledge of the British language once again does in any chance I might have at squabbling with you."

"Mm. Up to seeing what Ginny's cooked up this evening?" It was a rhetorical question and they both knew it. Transformation was exhausting enough without going into it half-starved. Remus knew this more intimately than most.

"Think we can spare five minutes? I want to do that thing where we snog like randy teenagers and then have everyone look at us jealously because we appear well shagged."

Hermione threw her eyes to the clock on the wall. "If you eat quickly, probably ten."

"I'll inhale." With a palm under her chin and fingers on the back of her neck, he drew her lips up to his.

*

Friday night, when everything was quiet, the staff lounging in the kitchen and their private rooms, the students in their common rooms and beds, Severus rounded into the kitchen, "Finally, I've been looking everywhere."

"Told you we should have left a note on our door," Hermione stuck her tongue out at Remus.

"A little challenge never hurt anyone," Remus pecked her lips and got up to greet Severus the same way. "Evening."

Severus allowed himself to be pecked. "How are you feeling?"

"Alluring," Remus teased.

Hermione shoved him lightly out of the way and claimed her own kiss, this one on Severus's cheek. "Long day?"

"There were potions to be bottled before I left." It sounded like an apology.

One for which she hadn't been asking. "More a conversation starter, luv."

There was a sliver of embarrassment in his body language. "Yes, professor."

"Kinky," Remus opined with an easy smile.

Hermione pinched him. The smile turned roguish. She gave Severus a look that very clearly read, see, this is what I have to put up with day in and day out. Severus' lips quirked, "Your definition of kink must be somewhat tamer than mine, Lupin."

"Remus," Hermione corrected. "He's no more your nemesis than I your student."

"I'll do my best," Severus negotiated.

Hermione drolly let him know that she held him to a higher standard, "That's all we can really ask of anyone, isn't it?"

She remembered a professor who asked for more than she had and threw away everything she gave without a backward glance.

He evidently did as well. "Remus, then."

Remus's hand came to rest on her hip. She felt the pull of his own off-center gravity and realized that Remus hadn't completely believed that little note of Severus's. Harry and Ron had always believed in things for her, things she knew couldn't possibly true, her mind too stuffed with facts that killed fancy. It wasn't at all an unpleasant change to find that fancy could exist in spite of the truths of the world, of evil, of reality, of pain.

Severus's hand came to rest over Remus's, his longer fingers brushing the fabric of her robe, and that wasn't an unpleasant change, either, being the center rather than the third. His hand fell away, but the communication contained in its touch remained.

"Ginny sent up banana cream pie." Hermione wasn't entirely sure how Ginny had acquired the knowledge of Severus's favorite pie, she wouldn't have even guessed at the man himself knowing such a thing. Ginny, though, as much as Nymph, had kept Hermione alive for two long years, and Hermione knew better than to put anything past either woman.

"Sounds a treat best served up with coffee." Remus pressed tightly in on her skin before taking his hand away, heading to the coffee machine.

Hermione made sure of her own balance before heading to the pantry with the permanent Cooling Charm on it to retrieve the pie. She popped the cover to make sure her note, "Severus makes the Wolfsbane, do you really want to anger him?" had been heeded. It had, the pie was still in its full and original state of being.

Severus grabbed plates and forks without having to ask where things were. He wouldn't allow Hermione use of the knife, "You always cut my pieces too small."

"Excuse me for wanting you not to die of high cholesterol with a mouth full of rotted teeth."

Remus took the piece that Severus had obviously carved out for himself, "Bossy, isn't she?"

Severus drew his wand and levitated the plate back to himself, catching Remus with a hex that caused his fingers to hang limp for several minutes as revenge. "Were you trying to intimate you wanted a piece as large as mine?"

"Rather that I wanted your piece."

In punishment for the horrid innuendo, Hermione stole the piece Severus intended for Remus, slightly larger even, than Severus's.

Severus just kept cutting a third. "I thought you were worried about rotting teeth and blocked arteries?"

"Why should I? I'm sure the two of you will kill me long before the side effects of egg-and-butter-heavy banana cream pie."

Severus stole a forkful off the edge of her slice, "Just in case." Remus waved his wrists, his fingers lopping up and down, to signal his own willingness to eat some pie for the sake of her health and well-being.

"That's so very sweet of the both of you." Hermione made sure to take a second piece when she was done.

*

Hermione awoke to an empty bed in the late hours of Saturday night. Considering that she'd gone to bed with not one, but two bedmates, this caught her as odd. Slipping a robe over the nightie she'd worn as concession to Severus's discomfort at her nudity, she made her way to the kitchens, only to find them empty. She checked Zev's dorm, the faculty lounge, the library, the Potions classroom and laboratory, the Defence classroom and the Great Hall. Finally, on a whim, she made her way out to the Quidditch pitch.

The moon was still pretty large and Hermione could see the two figures whirling around each other at a distance. She hid herself behind the bleachers, afraid that if she were spotted they would stop. Remus held himself as he always did when on a broom, loosely, as though not just in the wind but part of the wind. Severus leaned in close on his, but it didn't seem to be about fear, the way it had been those few times when Hermione had bothered to mount a broom. Rather, it seemed to be about the enormous speed he picked up. Hermione had watched Harry play Quidditch for almost seven years and was still surprised by the momentum with which Severus moved. He wasn't a fancy flier like Harry, there were no dips or twirls, not even the figure eights that Remus used to make the children giddy. Just motion, pure and elegant.

Remus, for his part, wasn't showing off either. He followed Severus, circled him, rode alongside him. There was no competition, just two blokes out for a bit of night air. Two friends.

Nearly an hour passed before they came down, and Hermione could barely feel her legs. She forced them to move, numb and frigid beneath her. Remus sensed her first, probably by smell, turning to her. "Are you crazy? It's bloody well cold out here."

She made it to him and he opened up his robe, wrapping the both of them in it. She reasoned, "Wasn't planning on finding the two of you outside."

"Did it occur to you to ask that we stop our activities?" Severus asked.

The truth was, "No."

Before Severus could comment on the sharpness of her decision making process, or whatever he wished to harp about, Remus suggested, "It feels to be about hot cocoa time. Inside all," and began moving, practically carrying her along with him.

Despite the fact that it hadn't been her most intelligent plan to stand in the early November cold with nearly no clothing on, Remus and Severus had been whizzing about at a much higher altitude for all that time and more. Appropriate attire or no, they were all cold.

Remus deposited her in a chair when they reached the kitchen and set to making the cocoa. Severus politely inquired as to whether he could help but was waved away and told to keep Hermione company. He undid the clasps on his heavy winter robe and draped it over her before sitting down. Hermione considered protesting, but the wool was soft and seemed to reach out and pull the cold from her body. She took the gesture as an unthinking moment of chivalry and mused, "I hadn't thought you could fly. I was rather expecting you to be my partner-in-crime, as it is such a crime in this place not to want to strap yourself to the back of a flimsy piece of wood and ride precariously above kilometers of nothing."

Severus' lips tightened. "Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm not disappointed, I'm poking with a measure of tact for you to tell me things about yourself."

"A measure of tact?"

"If you're unwilling to be prodded gently, I have no compunction over being harsher."

Remus joined them at the table, levitating two mugs into their spots in front of Severus and Hermione, cupping his own in his hands. "I used the dark cocoa instead of the bittersweet. I thought, with the way Severus takes his coffee, that might be better."

The dollop of whipped cream he had placed atop Hermione's as a conciliatory measure was not lost on her.

Severus took a careful sip. Instead of saying, "Ah, that's good," or, "Thank you," he began, "I believe I once intimated that my father was addicted to games of chance."

Remus' eyes darkened, but he didn't interrupt, hiding his contempt behind the rim of his cup. Hermione stretched her legs out, resting her feet atop Severus' knees. To her surprise, he did not remove them, instead placing cup-warmed hands over feet. "You told me he lost everything, even your childhood home."

"He would compound his unhappiness at his losses with a rather reckless abuse of substances only acquired in places that make Knockturn look to be respectable."

Remus took another sip. "Did he hurt you?"

The calm menace in his voice made Hermione shudder. She didn't bother to hide the convulsive movement.

"No, never me. I was the heir."

Hermione pushed the cocoa away before the smell could make her sick.

"My mother and my older sister."

Hermione didn’t want to ask, she didn't. "You have an older sister?"

"Had," Severus corrected. "My father. The substances made him violent, uncontrollable. He would ward me in my room and then play with the girls. I think he hated that he couldn't touch me, he used to put an Amplifying Charm on my room so that I could hear them screaming.

"Olleana…he put a curse on her that he couldn't control being as high as he was. The MLE let him go because Caiaphus Malfoy, Lucius's father, paid quite a bit of money to have the whole thing shushed up. We're related, of course, all the old blood families are."

"It explains Lucius's hold over you," Remus murmured.

Snape closed his eyes briefly. "He only thought he owned me."

Hermione worked her hardest to focus. "Tell us about the flying."

"This was before Hogwarts, at least, that's when it started. It continued until both my mother and sister were dead, mother from strain and exhaustion. Mother would come to my room afterward and take down the wards. I couldn't Apparate yet and the closest Healer was kilometers away in the town. I learned to fly at night, when nobody could see. To me it was always a matter of urgency, a calculated risk. I could fly better than Lucius Malfoy and James Potter combined, I just never had the desire to do so."

Remus swallowed audibly. "You should have said. I would never have suggested it."

Severus' fingers pressed gently into her feet. "You are consistently finding ways of making it clear that my childhood scars are just that, scars, ugly but harmless, when I am here."

"Still, there are other things-"

"I enjoyed it," Severus stressed. "There was nowhere to go. It wasn't about anything, not life and death, not goals scored, nothing. It was pleasant."

"All the same," Hermione sensed that Remus's point was not being made, "you have to tell us things. We can't avoid hurting you if we don't know where the dangers of doing so lie."

Severus squeezed her feet too tightly for all of a second and let go. "Of course."

"You mean it?" Remus checked.

"I don’t say things I do not mean, Lu- Remus."

Hermione rolled her eyes and finished her rapidly cooling cocoa.

*

When Severus left on Sunday evening of that first weekend, he stated in a rather unsure tone, "Friday evening, then."

To make sure he understood that the answer to his not-quite question was a stern yes, Hermione made out with him for a good few minutes before passing him, dazed and defenseless, to Remus, who took every advantage of Severus's weakened state that he rightfully could in the middle of the staff lounge. Finally, he very carefully sent Severus off by floo, Hermione calling, "Friday!" from behind him.

On Friday, Severus showed earlier than the previous week, taking dinner with Zev and participating by dint of presence alone in the hours after dinner, which Hermione had mentally termed "family time," since it was the one time of week when her, Remus and Zev always managed to spend more than a few minutes with all three of them together.

At nine Zev plodded off to his dormitory so as to be there by lights out. Severus, Remus and Hermione lingered in the staff lounge allowing Severus and Hydrea to hash out their difference of opinions on one of the latest articles in a leading potions journal. Remus played chess with Ruel, and Hermione took the down time to read one of the many books she'd received for her birthday.

Ruel won the chess game and stood up to collect Hydrea with a, "I'm to bed, girl."

She kissed Severus on the cheek. "That's my cue. We'll finish this later."

Severus had been in mid-sentence and was obviously about to refute her abrupt dismissal until Hermione slid her head underneath his chin, threading her arms about his waist. His breathing quickened ever so slightly before returning to normal. Slowly, as though any change in stance might scare her off, he let his arms fall around her, one stroking the length of her back.

Hermione felt herself being driven into Severus as Remus came up from behind her and hooked his arms around the both of them. He whispered, "You're holding him, he's letting himself be held."

"By both of us."

"Whatever you two are plotting, can it possibly wait until morning?" Severus's breath smelled of the dark coffee Hermione suspected he drank entirely too much of in the stead of sleep.

"You prefer it during daylight?" Remus purred.

Hermione laughed into Severus's chest. She felt the slight tremble beneath her chest, a tremble that suggested he was holding onto laughter of his own. His only comment was, "Incorrigible beast."

"Turns you on, does it?" Remus goaded. "Who knew you were such a hidden sex kitten?"

The thought of Severus as anything small and innocuous made Hermione's eyes water from sheer mirth. "Enough with the forechat, if we're going to do this, let's be somewhere where we can."

Remus started to ask, "What's wrong with-" but Hermione knew him too well, "Tawdry exhibitionist. The room, move."

Reluctantly, Remus pulled back and did as he was told. Hermione caught Severus's hand as she was extricating herself and held it loosely, keeping him to her at the same time as she allowed him his freedom should he choose to take it. He didn't.

When safely inside the room, Hermione reached up with her unoccupied hands and undid the clasp holding her hair atop her head. It fell in tightly wound curls, still forming to the shape of the clasp. Severus took his hand back, bringing it up to touch a curl, pull it gently down and allow it to bounce back up. His hand dropped to his side.

Remus approached him from behind, robe and shirt having been thrown off, and wrapped his arms around Severus's midsection. Severus stiffened a fraction.

Hermione noticed. "Severus?"

"I apologize for my…inexpertise. It has been some years since my last sexual liaison and even then, events were anything other than permanent."

Which answered the sixty-four million galleon question: was Severus as formal in a sexual situation as he was in every other kind? Hermione affected her straightest face. "That's all right, Remus and I have been practicing on each other, we'll compensate."

For a second, Severus looked at her as though perhaps now was the time to utter the words, "St. Mungo's" and "visit" all in one sentence. Then he caught on and did something so out of character Hermione was tempted to check for signs of polyjuice.

He laughed.

His laughter cued Remus's laughter, and, when she was over being shocked, Hermione's. By the time they were done, Remus had pulled away from Severus to hold at his own midsection, Severus had brought a hand to his heart, and Hermione was wiping tears from her face.

Remus tottered over to the bed. "Evidently a bit of comic relief was badly needed."

Severus walked to Hermione on legs that seemed only a bit less solid than normal. "You've been practicing, you say?"

"Regularly," Hermione responded, widening her eyes and affecting the same kind of practice-makes-perfect goody-goody expression she used to get when she knew the answer to something nobody else in the class knew.

"I don’t suppose that does you any good if you never get to show off the skills acquired." Severus swept a hand over her shoulder, to hold onto her neck.

"None at all," Hermione agreed, walking carefully backward until her calves met the bed. Severus, still cupping her neck, followed.

Remus tugged at Severus's cloak, bringing him to sit in the middle of Remus and Hermione. Hermione twisted around slightly, beginning to work at the cadre of buttons. She got far enough to expose his neck and waited as Remus dipped in, putting his lips right next to Severus's adam's apple. He withdrew rather quickly, "All right, now the rest."

Hermione obeyed, button by button. At the very last, she pushed the robe from Severus' shoulders and Sent it across the room to a chair. She repeated the process patiently with his shirt, also inundated with buttons. Remus dropped to the floor and unlaced Severus' boots, tugging them from each foot. Hermione plucked at the buttons keeping Severus's trousers up and Remus divested him of them and then, carefully, his shorts.

Not allowing him time to think about his nakedness, Hermione demanded, "Me."

Severus waited, but Remus didn't move from the floor, so he put a tentative hand at her throat and undid the clasp keeping her robe on. She shook it off and Sent it to lay with his robe. She wore a jumper beneath and he pulled it fluidly over her head. She turned so he wouldn't have to undo the clasp on her bra blindly. There was still a bit of fumbling, but he got it quickly enough. He undid the buttons on her trousers and then looked to Remus for assistance. Remus, his eyes so dark as to be nearly brown hooked his fingers under the rim of her panties and tugged them off with the trousers. He stood and unhooked his own trousers, shedding them and the shorts underneath hastily.

Hermione inched her way up the bed and waited for two bodies to follow her. She wasn't disappointed. She lay on her side, pulling Severus up against her. She kissed him, one hand twined in his hair, the other thrown over him, tracing patterns on his back. In between kisses, he inquired, "What do you desire?"

"Anything." Kiss. "This." Kiss.

Hermione felt Remus's hand, warm and steady, slide in between her thighs. Her breath caught as he found her clitoris and she knew Severus was receiving similar treatment as the hand massaging her breast suddenly tightened. "Sweetheart," she breathed.

"Sorry," he loosened his fingers.

Remus continued with his ministrations. Severus reclaimed his mouth and lowered it to the breast he had abused. Hermione forgave him with the first touch of his tongue to her nipple. Remus pushed at her hip so that she lay flat. He lifted Severus off her left breast, replacing him on the right one and taking the left for himself. Hermione arched up with a little cry. "Oh, oh. Oh."

Severus' fingers crawled down to where Remus' had so recently deserted and worked her clitoris until she would have begged him to stop, given the breath. He drove two fingers deep insider her, his thumb still circling her clitoris and she allowed the crest of orgasm to take over, spiraling through her and fleeing, leaving her weak and slightly disoriented. From somewhere she heard Remus' amused, "Leave her to recover a bit, yeah?"

There was a press of warm flesh as he leaned over her to kiss Severus. Soon enough he was sliding over her, down Severus, far enough to tongue Severus' balls before swallowing one. Severus found her hand and squeezed, hard enough to ground her. She squeezed back, "Relax, love."

Remus snuck from one ball to the other. Hermione watched Severus' toes curl. "Remus, let up."

Remus withdrew, only to swipe his tongue over the head of Severus's cock. Hermione brought his hand up her mouth and bit lightly at the knuckles, soothing over the sting with her tongue. Remus wrapped a hand around the base of Severus's cock and took the rest into his mouth, hollowing out his cheeks and sucking once, long and hard, before withdrawing.

Severus managed, "Cocktease."

Remus surged up and kissed him, "Saving some for the girl." He rolled away, over Hermione, placing her in the middle again. He took his hand away from her for a second and she glanced back to catch him flicking his wand over her, casting contraceptive spells. He lay the wand back on the nightstand and ran his hand firmly down her back, "Let's, yeah?"

Oh yeah. "Him first."

"Sure," Remus agreed.

Hermione nuzzled her face in Severus's neck, scraping her lips against the skin, up all the way to his mouth. "Just let me?" she whispered in lieu of a kiss.

Severus gave over. "Anything."

Pulling his body flush against hers, she inched up a bit, throwing her leg over his thigh and sinking onto his cock. It was a bit awkward at the angle she was at and she pushed at him, rolling him over onto his back. When she was lying with her cheek resting on his chest, his cock firmly inside her, she murmured, "Hold on, hold on."

He bit out, "To what, exactly?"

Her laugh was a bit breathless, "Just tell us if this is too much."

As if that had been his cue, Remus slid a heavily lubricated finger inside her ass. As many experiences as Hermione had tested out with Ron and Harry, the role-playing, the S&M, B&D, voyeurism, dirty talking, cross-dressing, everything, her favorite, as she had finally confided to Remus late into their sexual forays, had been the simple act of being in between the two men. They would switch sides, although she knew that secretly, Harry had preferred her from behind, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the safety of being unable to escape, the rhythm of the two meeting each other inside of her. Remus slid a second finger in and twisted and Hermione was very near to done with being patient. "Three, Remus."

He obeyed, quickening his motions. She let him work it around for a few seconds before giving in to the need to growl, "Enough."

She was glad that Remus had been with Sirius enough to hear the true need in that one sound. He sank into her with a bit of effort. She widened her legs, falling further than all the way onto Severus, hissing, "Yes."

When Remus's chest was flat against her back, his fingers spread over her hips, touching Severus', she allowed for the world to coalesce back from its sheer white state and made sure, "Severus?"

"Heavy," he gasped.

"All right, hang on," she repeated. She nudged her shoulder blades into Remus, who carefully rolled onto his side, taking her with him. She, in turn, took Severus. When they were settled, she muttered an insistent, "Move."

They listened, each in their own way. Severus with rocking, shallow thrusts, almost as if he were afraid to go too far, Remus with deep strokes that made her pant and laugh a shallow, shocked laugh. Remus brought his hands in between her and Severus, massaging at her breasts as Severus wound his arms all the way behind Remus, cupping his ass, bringing him in more forcefully with each thrust.

Remus came first, stiffening and squeezing at her breasts, whimpering a bit. The sounds were evidently too much for Severus, who followed shortly, pulling Remus in so tight Hermione would have been worried about suffocating had it not felt so damn good.

Severus withdrew when he was done, commanding Remus to, "Stay." He pushed himself down a bit and dragged his tongue over her clitoris, down, stabbing it up and inside her. Shoving herself back onto Remus, rocking forward into Severus, she keened sharply and came.

It took a while for her breathing to even out, and the shuddering to lessen to a mere tremble. Remus lifted her off of him, grabbing at his wand for a second time and Cleansing all of them. He reached down and tugged at Severus's hair gently, "Up."

Severus managed to inch back up the bed, his head barely making it to the pillow. Hermione pulled him to her before reaching down to draw the covers up over the three of them. Remus settled against her back. In her last moment of consciousness, she strung together a, "Sweet dreams."