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MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

Part 9 - Leave It To Physiology To Ruin Your Day

Friday had finally reached an end, as implausible as that outcome had seemed to Hermione at the beginning of the day. Closing the door behind her, still clutching her homework, she shut her eyes and leant back, resting her head against the dark wood. What, she asked herself sincerely, exactly had she done to deserve being placed in this situation. Because, she fervently assured any deities that might be listening, if she ever found out, she would spend her life atoning. She really promised. Anything if she could just have her body and her life back.

A combination of fear and adrenaline and simple need to cope had carried her through the previous two days. Now, she needed to escape and process the sequence of events. Opening her eyes again, she murmured Lumos and was no more than three steps into the rooms before it hit her that she was, once again, alone in Professor Snape's private rooms.

No, she corrected herself, her private rooms. Her living space for, potentially, the next six months. The previous evening, and indeed that very morning, she had moved through them as quickly as possible, trying to take as little notice as she could without actually falling over things. She had simply registered the briefest of first impressions, hoping against hope that she wouldn't actually need to acquire more familiarity than that.

So much for that idea.

She felt the same sense of Snape's presence in the room as she had the night before; even if the man himself - or at least his spirit - was absent. She could almost hear that acid voice telling her not to touch or break anything. Unconsciously, she squared her shoulders in determination.

If I'm supposed to be living here I need to know what's here.

She began to take a more careful look around.

It was, indeed, as large as her first impression had suggested. At one end, two deep leather armchairs, and a matching sofa long enough for her to lay full length on - even as Snape - surrounded the large hearth. Instead of an open fire it had a closed stove -an ingenious way of discouraging unwanted guests, she thought distractedly. One long wall was broken with two floor-to-ceiling windows. She pushed aside the incongruity of a dungeon possessing picture windows for the moment. Between the windows was a long, low dresser. In one corner was an enormous table, with several dining chairs pushed around it at random. The rest of the walls were lined with glass fronted cases packed with books and scrolls. Even a cursory glance made Hermione feel like a child let loose in a sweet shop. Texts on alchemy, potions and healing crowded with those on philosophy, psychology, physiology, physics, chemistry, herbalism.... It seemed endless. Scattered in between were Muggle classics she recognised - Dickens, Shakespeare - together with biographies, histories, anthropology.... It seemed that she was not the only one who would read anything that was written down.

Tearing herself away from the shelves reluctantly, she continued her exploration. What walls were still visible were painted in a pale shade, which seemed to hold a surprisingly soft trace of apricot. In fact the whole room held an unexpected warmth, she realised; the combination of polished chestnut furniture, deep pile rugs in shades of dark copper and bronze, and dark brown leather giving it an undeniably masculine, but strangely appealing, atmosphere.

But the revelation was not so much the comfort, but the disorganisation. Everything about Snape's professional attitude, from the order of his stores to the exactitude of his methods, suggested an almost pathological neatness. Only his personal appearance might belie that impression, and Hermione was beginning, even at this early stage, to appreciate the lengths he went to in order to discourage speculation on that topic.

No, his living space was - if not actually untidy, definitely lived in, in a good way. Most, if not all of the available surfaces had books or papers of some sort on them. And that included all but one on the dining chairs. There was a pile of books by the hearth - another good reason for a stove, rather than an open fire, she thought - evidently things he had been leafing through. Some of the cabinets were not properly shut, suggesting that the books in them were used, rather than kept there for effect or decoration. And, in the rare spots that were as yet untouched by Creeping Library Blight, there were odd... well, ornaments would be the word, she supposed, although that did conjure up nasty images of china shepherdesses and decorative plates. As with the books, the objects were an intriguing mixture; glass phials of varying sizes, odd copper instruments, brass devices that looked not unlike old Muggle scientific apparatus....

In amazement it dawned on her that his rooms reminded her, in a bizarre way, of Dumbledore's office.

How extraordinary.

To distract herself from the thought, she wandered over to one of the windows. They were framed by thick curtains, currently still pulled open; no doubt where he had left them two days ago. Idly she gazed outwards. The sun had set some time ago and the distant hills were now faintly outlined in the silver wash of the risen moon. Looking down she could just make out the sweep of the grounds sloping away, and realised that it was that very descent of land that enabled this side of the castle to house the dungeons and yet still let in the light. The combination of interior brightness and exterior darkness turned the uncurtained window into a mirror. The tall, sour figure of Professor Snape stood in front of her. With a sudden snatch she released the curtains and the glass was covered. The reflection was temporarily banished.

Seeking anything that would stop her lapsing into introspection, Hermione found a rare empty space to put the indecipherable squiggles that apparently constituted her Transfiguration class notes. She thought that she should clear somewhere to keep her things where they wouldn't get mixed up with Snape's work, but after a moment's consideration, decided that she had better leave that question for when she next spoke to him. She didn't like to think of his reaction if she managed to lose something important.

One more thing to have to sort out. Taking over someone else's life was a hell of a lot more complicated that it looked.

Finally, unable to resist temptation any further, she settled herself by the closest bookcase and carefully began to inspect the contents.

If you could judge someone by the contents of their bookshelves, she thought that a Muggle psychiatrist would have a meltdown analysing Snape. There didn't seem to be anything that the man didn't read. Actually, she corrected herself, it didn't appear that he read romantic fiction. Which was probably a good thing. Her nerves weren't really up to the vision of Snape curling up with Gone With The Wind, or a nice Barbara Cartland.

She saw that he had a couple of professional looking books on the rules and tactics of Quidditch but noted, with a rather snide satisfaction, that he didn't seem to collect any of the gushing fan-centered eulogies on the Chudley Cannons or any of the other teams.

Leaving the Romance and Sports shaped gaps aside, his library was impressively comprehensive. She opened the glass door and began to run her fingers lightly along the spines of some of the texts. For Hermione books were almost sensual things. She valued them as objects in the their own right, not just for the information they contained. Muggle archaeology sat next to Wizarding history. Chinese Alchemy sat next to Immunology and Virology. Stendhal sat next to Camus. Sartre balanced on top of Schroedinger and Kierkegaard.

The stove was warm, the chairs were comfortable - on the whole, she reflected, if she had to spend six months here, it could be a lot worse.

Some little while later she realised that the cumulative effect of stress and exhaustion meant that she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Reluctantly she dragged herself away from the treasure trove of his books and off to bed. The bedroom was actually as welcoming as the other room. Warm rugs on the floor, another stove in the hearth, a wide, comfortable bed and simple, wooden furniture. Utiliarian, but not stark - more like unfussy.

An unexpected side to the unapproachable sarcastic man. Only the bathroom seemed to display the austerity that might have been predicted of him.

Too tired to pursue the implications of this, she stripped down to her underwear again, without really thinking about it and collapsed under the covers, this time falling into deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Hermione gradually came to blurry wakefulness in that drugged haze that comes with the knowledge that it is Saturday morning and nothing immediately needs to be done. Lazily, she turned over in bed, and encountered an uncomfortable hardness under the front of her thigh.

Drat, she thought sleepily, I must have fallen asleep with a book in the bed again. Absently she stuck her hand down to pull out the offending text. Her hand closed on something warm, and a sharp and extremely pleasurable tingling shot through to the pit of her stomach.

Instantly, Hermione was more awake than she could ever remember being in her life to date; sitting bolt upright and staring appalled at her hand as a thing completely unconnected from her body.

Gods. Oh Gods. Oh dear Gods.

The hand wasn't hers. The... that... it... certainly wasn't hers....

She tried desperately to calm her breathing, as the world reasserted itself, and her brain caught up with her. Recollection set in and she closed her eyes and groaned aloud. This hadn't happened the previous morning. Then again she hadn't exactly slept the night before either.

This really wasn't fair.

The pressure in her groin was making its presence felt again, which meant that she would have to find some way of dealing with it. Forcing herself to face the problem, she thought. Only two solutions presented themselves. A cold shower, or... direct action. Her mind skittered away from solution number two like a magnetic pole meeting its identical twin.

Cold shower it is, then. Oh joy.

She gingerly got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The tight stiffness at the top of her legs made it a little uncomfortable to walk. Not to mention the... ambiguous... sensation of cloth against highly sensitive skin. Gritting her teeth, she activated the shower, running it until the water was as cool as she could decently bear. Right, she told herself firmly, this was it. Time for the shower. You have to wash. Even Snape doesn't actually smell. Which meant....

Her fingers very cautiously moved to the elastic of the shorts and eased them down over her hips. She concentrated on the wall of the shower like someone standing on one foot and trying to keep their balance. Letting go, the garment hit the floor, and, taking a deep breath, she stepped under the spray. She gasped as it hit her body. She turned so that the water ran down the front of her torso, and concentrated on thinking about not-sexy things - Divination class, Trevor the Toad, Argus Filch.... Eventually the unfamiliar feeling in her groin receded and she could breathe normally again. The immediate problem solved, her thoughts turned to cleanliness. A brief survey of the shower revealed absolutely nothing. It was not that she was expecting Gilderoy Lockhart's signature brand Gentle Exfoliating Bodywash for Wizards with Extract of Roman Camomile and Vetivert - but he must surely wash with something. She knew, from the razor incident, that there was nothing anywhere else in the bathroom. She looked again, a little desperately. There was austerity and then there was frank deprivation.

In the corner of the shower, she finally spotted something. It was a block about four inches long and two inches wide and an inch and a half high. And it was green. She picked it up and smelt it suspiciously. To all appearances it looked like the all purpose household soap that her mother used to remove just about any kind of stain from any kind of material.

He washes himself with this? Including his hair? No wonder he looks like he does. Well, he'd better discover the shampoo in my bathroom.

The part of her that would forever be an eighteen year old girl was profoundly appalled.

Still, there didn't look like there was another option just at the moment. Reluctantly, she began to lather her chest, still outraged at his concept of personal grooming. She had run her hands over herself several times before it occurred to her that she was washing Snape. Discomfort warred with curiosity within her. Not that she'd ever speculated about Snape's physique before of course, but it seemed that she was stuck with it for the next little while. And seeing that this was her first chance to examine an adult male body up close and personal, as it were.... And she was after all, a Gryffindor, and not one to back away from a challenge. She turned up the heat of the water and began to pay more attention to what she was doing.

The body under her hands did not actually feel unpleasant, she decided. The chest felt muscular, with only a small amount of hair. The abdomen was flat and toned, despite the amount of food that she seemed compelled to eat. Obviously his metabolism would allow him to eat heartily without putting on weight. She was willing to bet that he didn't appreciate how lucky he was. Moving down, her hand began to encounter more wiry hair and she stopped abruptly, not quite ready to go that far. Skipping that section for the time being, she began to wash her legs. They were long and the thigh muscles were well defined. Below the knees his calves were equally well defined, and there was a light dusting of black hair on his shins, extending to just above his ankles. His feet were narrow and surprisingly elegant.

She let the water sluice off her body, and washed her hair, with serious reservations about the effectiveness of the soap as a shampoo.

Finishing she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Reaching for the large towel she dried herself off, feeling a little better, and looked around for a bathrobe.

She sighed at its inevitable absence. She supposed she would get used to the lack of things that she regarded as essential items. Obviously Snape was completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. Not, she thought maliciously, that there was exactly anyone for him to be selfconscious for. Resigning herself to making do, she wrapped a small hand towel around her torso and moved to the toilet. The pressure in her lower body had now resolved into an issue that she did, in fact, recognise, and moreover knew how to deal with. Staring at the porcelain, she wondered about trying it standing up.

Hmmm. One step at a time, I think.

She sat down, discreetly holding the towel out of the way. Then she made her way to the sink. Washing her face had reminded her that she needed to shave again.

It didn't take her quite as long this time, and the consequential injuries were less. No doubt she would get the hang of it after a while. She was just about to head for the bedroom to retrieve Snape's wand and heal herself, when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror. Her step hesitated. She really did need to get used to the body. And she hadn't exactly been able to get a back view in the shower.

She stopped and faced herself squarely in the glass.

The face and hair were familiar, if a little damp and, in the case of the face, bleeding in a couple of places. He was pale. Very pale. But the body was as lean and defined as it had felt under her hands. Slowly she reached up a hand and ran her fingers across the edge of the pectoral muscles, noting the width of the shoulders, more apparent to her now than it had been in the shower. She flexed and extended her arms, watching the biceps contract and stretch. They were strong arms, with only a downy covering of hair. Slowly she turned them over, exposing the vulnerable skin of her inner forearms. And stark and ugly on her left arm, bereft now of the softening effect of soapy lather, was the outline of the Dark Mark, snake and skull obvious even when quiescent. Transfixed by the sight, her right hand moved impulsively towards it. Gently, so gently, she touched it. To her surprise the skin felt no different under her fingers; as soft and warm as the rest of him. She had been expecting it to feel... she didn't know. Maybe cold. Or hard. Or like scar tissue. But it was seamlessly part of him. She traced out the design. It had little more effect on her than a distasteful tattoo. Did it feel like that to him? Or was it more deeply embedded into his psyche than his flesh?

Somehow, she couldn't quite see herself asking him the question.

She lifted her hand back to her chest and ran it down and across her stomach, stopping at the top of the towel. She half turned so that she could see her back. It was a smooth light expanse of skin, which gently rose and fell and she flexed her shoulder blades, riding over the muscles - again not prominent, but unmistakeably present. The towel prevented her from seeing his buttocks.

Not bad, she was astonished to find herself thinking. Not bad at all.

"Professor, you are quite a surprise," she murmured absently. A moment later she registered that there had been no response. With sudden relief she realised that he must have a Muggle mirror; she wasn't currently up to dealing with backchat from a looking glass.

Her hand hovered over the edge of the towel. She couldn't keep shutting her eyes every time she went to the toilet or needed a shower. Apart from anything else she had a vague recollection from her parents' old textbooks on human physiology that there were certain hygiene considerations relating to the foreskin that needed to be addressed. She didn't entirely fancy any future that entailed explaining to Madam Pomfrey and Snape himself how she'd allowed him to become infected in a sensitive area. Unless, of course, he were circumcised. Which, of course, she wouldn't know until she looked.

That was it. Considerations of health and safety justified her looking. Nothing to do with her slightly aroused curiosity. Definitely, definitely not. Definitely.

She hooked her fingers under the edge of the towel and pulled it away from her body.

His buttocks were as pale as the rest of his body, sculpted in taut, convex planes over his pelvic bones. She shifted her position nervously, watching the skin move over the angular structures. Her mouth went a little dry, and she was uncomfortably aware of a new tension in her groin.

Was she getting turned on by looking at Professor Snape? Or herself? It was distinctly not normal either way.

Very carefully she turned so that she was face on to the mirror. The hair at the top of her legs was not excessive, just enough to set off the pale organ. Hermione was not exactly an expert on male endowments, but it didn't look unpleasant to her, hanging down with the darker scrotal sac behind. She stretched one hand towards her penis, and touched it tentatively as if it might burn her. The skin beneath her fingers was velvet soft, and the featherlight brush sent a spark of pleasure into her groin. She touched herself again, more confidently and another shaft of sensation hit her lower body. The flesh beneath her hand began to twitch. She felt the pressure intensify, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.

She should stop this now, she knew. But it did feel good. And she had always wondered what it felt like for a man. And... and....

Her hand stroked itself gently along the soft flesh, exploring, aware as she did so that it was hardening. Looking down she could see the flesh darkening as the blood flow increased. She wrapped her hand around herself and began to rub up and down, awkwardly at first, and then with increasing confidence as the feelings within told her what was good, and what was better. The skin of her hand dragged on the skin of her cock, and in the absence of any other lubrication, she spat on her palm, using her own saliva to diminish the friction.

Shutting her eyes, she let sensation guide her. Her awareness began to pool into a hot tight urge to thrust forward against herself and instinctively she ran her thumb over the tip, unable to stifle a grunt at the white hot pulse that knifed through her. Somewhere along the line her legs began to weaken and she ended on her knees, still stroking away, her other hand moving to cup her balls. As she massaged herself she felt fluid leaking from the tip of her. She smeared it around, hand now sliding even more easily over the hard member. She quickened the pace, moving hard and insistently now.

This felt good. This felt very good. Really, really, extremely, incredibly good. Oh yes. Yes. Yesyesyesyes.

GODS!

A moment later Hermione realised that she was kneeling on the floor of Snape's bathroom, naked, flushed and panting, and subsiding from the quick, intense release. In front of her were splatters of a creamy substance. She touched it with a nervous finger. It was warm and slightly sticky.

Well, that was different, she thought. And at least she now knew that he wasn't circumcised.