Chocolate Enchantment

Chapters 3 & 4: The Interview, and Confessions

"Over the centuries the potion was occasionally used with more or less success. Its use was widely discontinued a couple hundred years ago due to the tendency for unrequited loves driving the users insane. Why more of them didn't just dose their loves I wasn't able to figure."

The silence was deafening as Hermione waited for her professor to respond to her recitation. She glanced around the walls at the grotesque pictures of those injured by the dark arts and shuddered.

When Snape turned to face her, she knew he was not happy. "My research picked up your points plus a little more. If you look at those known to have imbibed the potion, none of them have lived more than a few years without their soul mate. None. Whether the soul mate lived a separate life or died from other circumstances, the dosed member of the couple didn't live long." He let that hang in the air, his face a blank mask as he stared at her with obsidian eyes.

After a lengthy pause, he continued slowly. "I may not have more than a few days, or months left to live, but you are young and full of potential. What the twins have done to you is inexcusable. I'll grind them into potions ingredients." His face turned savage with this last sentence.

It thrilled her that his concern seemed more for her welfare than his own. "You'll have to beat me to it." The glint of anger in his eye, far from terrifying her as it once would have, only made her longing to be in his arms strengthen. The thought that he didn't expect to live out the war angered and terrified her as well. Now that she had found him, she wanted to get to know him better, longed to be by his side always. She was terrified at the thought that her own life expectancy might be so short. Not that she hadn't acknowledged the low chance of her surviving the fight against Voldemort. Still, the twins would be paying. Highly.

He quirked an eyebrow and she got the impression he was amused by her response. He walked around the desk and took a couple steps in her direction. "Miss Granger, I find we have come to an impass. You are a student here, I a teacher. To answer the potion's mandate would certainly put the relationship in dangerous territory." He drew slowly closer, and she could see his eyes dilating, the hunger in his expression. She felt her own grow in response.

He continued, "Yet, I had to struggle to focus today, knowing you were only a few floors away, and you do have my class tomorrow. It is unlikely I—"

Unable to help herself, she reached out and let her fingers brush the back of his hand.

That seemed all the impetus he needed. "Oh, sod it all. George had the right idea." He swept her into his arms and pressed a savage kiss to her lips.

Hermione felt the rush of emotion all the way down to her toenails as she slid her hands under his teaching robes and grasped the jacket beneath, pulling him even closer as she returned his kiss with equal fervor. She'd kissed before, boys, but had never felt anything a tenth as strong as what she currently felt in Severus Snape's arms.

His arms slithered around her back, pulled her solidly against him as he plundered her mouth, tilted his head further to the side, and took some more. As she gave, her mind too thick to think, what little control she had previously possessed shattered. Nothing she'd experienced, nothing she'd read, had prepared her for this one moment of bliss. The need for more raged within her, and she wondered if she would drown completely before they were through.

"Oh my dear, Hermione," Snape said as he pulled back to place a hundred kisses across her face and neck. "I thought that was supposed to ease things but instead—"

"It's only getting worse," Hermione supplied before she found his lips and dived in again.

Several more minutes passed as they clawed their way closer, their robes nothing but a hindrance in their frenzy. To Hermione's surprise, they were both still fully clothed when Snape pried her away him. She had no clue how she had managed to rest one hand on the skin of his neck and he had pulled her blouse from her skirt to caress the bare skin of her back.