He hung his head for a moment, unable to look at her.
"Come." When he looked up, she had her hand extended to him. He approached her warily and took it.
She led him to the bed and gestured for him to lie down.
He felt devoid of will. The conversation had sapped his energy almost as efficiently as a round of the Cruciatus from the Dark Lord. He did as he was told, taking off the dressing gown, thinking it would be impossible for him to complete the ritual without aid of one of his charms now.
But Minerva only sat on the edge of the bed and made no move to touch him. She seemed to have difficulty formulating what she wanted to say.
"I should like ... I should like, Severus ... I should like for this to be pleasurable for you."
"Minerva, that isn't—" he began, but she interrupted.
"No. Call me a sentimental old fool, but I do think your first time lying with a witch should be something more than just a 'proper fuck'."
"You shouldn't ... I don't want you to ..." he said.
"What?"
"I don't want you to ... do anything that disgusts you."
He saw her stifle a laugh. "I assure you that I shall not do anything that disgusts me. I simply want you to enjoy this, if you can. Do you think you can?"
He had no answer, but his eyes grew wide as she stood and dropped the sheet from her body. He forced himself to keep his gaze on her.
"I am an old woman, Severus. And even in my youth, I was no man's fantasy. But perhaps you could imagine ... if we put out the candles, you could imagine I was someone else. Someone you wanted ..."
He was about to remonstrate when she waved her wrist, extinguishing the candles. He saw her shadowy form walk around to the other side of the bed and felt it sag as she sat down.
Then her body was pressing against his back, and her arms snaked around him, her hands rubbing warm circles on his chest, and for a moment, he felt like weeping.
No one had ever touched him with such tenderness, not even his mother when he was a child.
I don't deserve this, he thought.
But the movement of her hands was hypnotic, and then he felt her breath at his ear, and the feel of it gave him a shiver that began in his neck and ended in his groin.
She pulled at his shoulders to get him to lie down, moving down to hover over him, a shadow framed against the window, and he felt himself grow hard as her lips touched the shell of his ear then travelled the short distance to land at his neck, with soft kisses that made him moan despite himself.
Her hair smelt of hyssop and lemon verbena, readily identifiable by his Potions master's nose. It was a pleasant, unaggressive smell, and the scent, combined with the soothing motion of her hands on his skin, made him sigh.
His undeniable arousal was at war with his exhaustion. She moved to lie beside him, still rubbing his chest, and he slipped into a calm sleep.
When he woke, the room was dark again, and he had no idea how long he had slept. He sat up in a panic, wondering how much longer they had left to fulfil the demands of the spell.
Minerva put a calming hand on his shoulder, saying, "It's all right, Severus. You're in the Room of Requirement. We—"
"I know that, woman," he said, angry at having allowed himself to be lulled to sleep. "But how much more time do we have?"
"Don't worry," she said. "You only slept for about two hours. If you think you could sleep some more, you should. You could use it. I'll set a Tempus charm."
"I never sleep for more than a few hours."
"I know," she said, reminding him of the times they had met during their separate late-night wanderings. "But if you lie down, maybe you'll be able to."
He allowed himself to settle back against the pillow. She still sat upright, and his eyes were drawn to her breasts, silhouetted in the moonlight that shone in from the window. He was suddenly and acutely aware of his own nakedness as he felt his cock begin to stiffen again under the sheet.
"Lie down with me," he said, and she complied.
It was like a dream, lying in the dark, naked, with a woman. It was certainly a fantasy he'd had in his youth, when his doomed love for Lily had led him to foolish daydreams that led to shamefaced fumblings with his cock behind the bed curtains in his dormitory. Except Lily had not always been the focus of those first tentative wank sessions. Many of the prettier girls had made an appearance or two, as had most of the female staff of Hogwarts, and Minerva McGonagall had figured more prominently than most. The nature of Transfiguration meant that she'd had to correct the students' wand work more often than any teacher except Flitwick, and more than once, teenaged Severus had become aware of the sensation of her breasts brushing against him as she guided his wand, and more than once, his cock had taken embarrassing notice.
Perhaps it was the combination of the dream-state he felt and the memory of his long-ago fantasies that led him to ask, almost without thinking, "May I touch you?"
"Yes, Severus. Please do."
He propped himself up on one elbow and gingerly placed his other hand on her shoulder. Her skin was cool and dry, and he ran his palm down her arm. When he reached her hand, her fingers closed briefly over his.
He next moved his hand to her neck, stroking the soft flesh there carefully with two fingers as she tilted her sharp chin upwards to give him more access.
When he moved his hand over the coverlet to rest on her belly for a moment, she pulled it down to allow him to touch her bare skin, and he kept his hand still, feeling it move up and down with her breath.
He wanted to explore all of her then, so he pulled the coverlet down farther to expose her fully, and although he could only see her in shadow, he took her in greedily. From the neck up, she was all angles: nose, chin, cheekbones ... but below she was surprisingly soft, with enticing curves and intriguing planes, and his next destination was one of these—the long slope of her shin, along which he ran his palm, scooting down the bed to reach it.
The order in which he touched her was random; he had no master plan, no intention to increase the intimacy of his touches; he only moved his hands as whim directed—hard knees to soft breasts, smooth thighs to furrowed forehead—but by the time he reached up to stroke her hair, she was breathing heavily, and he realised with some shock that she was aroused.
He was aroused too, although he had been too preoccupied with his explorations to notice. He was pressed loosely against her, his cock against her hip, and he felt it surge as he moved his hand downward toward her centre.
"May I, Minerva?" he asked as his hand came to rest over the thatch of hair that concealed her sex, and instead of answering him aloud, she moved her legs apart.
His index finger parted her cleft and found her opening, and she gave a low cry of pleasure when the finger made a tentative foray inside. Emboldened, he allowed his fingers and thumb to explore her then, inside and out, mentally mapping this unfamiliar terrain, with its crevices and prominences, its slick smoothness and its hot, spongy cavern.
So secret and complicated compared to the brash simplicity of a cock!
A moment later, she surprised him, putting her hand over his and guiding a finger up to move against the firm button of flesh that he knew must be her clitoris. Wordlessly, she showed him how to stroke it, her hand guiding his, moving his finger against her nub, softly, then more firmly and faster, and her breath matched the rhythm, eventually coming in great gasps, until he saw her back arch, and she gripped his hand tightly. She did not cry out, but collapsed back against the mattress with a breathy sigh, holding his hand still against her.
He wished now that the candles had been lit; he would have liked to watch her face as she climaxed. When she removed her hand from his, he began to stroke her again, but she pushed him away, saying, "No more for now, all right?"
"Yes."
She shifted onto her side, and he felt her hand on his chest. She said, "That was very nice, Severus. Thank you."
He didn't respond, as he didn't know what to say. For him, it had been ... instructive. Not only that, of course, but as a man of scholarly bent, he had methodically filed away in his mental repository each minute twitch of his finger, the response it had generated, and the way her flesh had felt as he touched it—how her clitoris had swollen and hardened just as a penis would—and the surprising heat he had felt against his hand as her excitement had grown, and the way her thighs had trembled at the end, just before she came.
Yes, he would have liked to have the candles lit.
The hand on his chest moved downward until her fingers met the tuft of hair just above his pubis. He was still granite-hard, and he jerked his hips a tiny bit—whether voluntarily or not, he didn't precisely know—to bring her fingers into contact with his rigid flesh. She ran two of them up his length and closed her fist around it, and his breath became audible. He could feel his pulse beating in his cock.
She said softly, "Now, Severus?" and he could only gasp his assent.
She stroked him a few times and brought her other hand down to cradle his balls, perhaps testing to see how close to orgasm he might be. He was sure she didn't want a repeat of the evening's earlier performance. He was about to roll over onto her when she rose up and swung a leg over his hips, straddling him.
She leant down, placing one hand next to his shoulder, and kissed his mouth, her tongue fluttering softly against the insides of his lips.
"Yes?" she whispered.
"Yes," he managed to say. Unsure of where to put his hands, he settled for resting them at her hips. He felt her other hand on his cock once again, as she guided him to her entrance. He felt the heat of her, then came indescribable sensation as she sank down slowly on him. When she had taken him fully inside her, she stopped moving for a moment. It was like being immersed in warm oil, he thought. Then, when she began to move up and down on him, the term that came to mind was "velvet vise."
How had he done without this for so long?
Merlin knew he'd masturbated enough in his youth, although seldom in the past few months—mere survival had taken all of his energies—but the touch of someone else's fingers, the weight of someone else's body, knowing that she had taken him inside of herself—was fucking herself on him!—pushed his arousal into a completely new plane.
He was dimly aware that he was moaning as she moved on top of him, sliding up and down on him ... his cock moving in and out of her tight, wet heat, her thighs pressing him into the mattress ... in, out ... in, out ... so good ... so tight ... yes ... yes ...
The pleasure flowed from his dick straight into his belly and up his spine and took control of his mouth until he didn't know what it was saying ... he didn't know anything except that his cock felt so good ... so good ... more ... more ... . His cock needed more of that incredible friction ... more of her squeezing him ... engulfing him ... consuming him ... more, faster, harder ... in, in, in ... more, harder, yes ... yes ... it's coming ... I'm in you ... in you ... yes ... oh ... oh ... oh ...
He wasn't sure how long he had held her, his fingers clutching her hips so hard his hands ached, but when he recovered the power of conscious thought, he released her immediately, terribly afraid he had hurt her in his ardour.
She didn't move off him right away, and he shivered when he felt her squeeze his spent cock inside her.
After a moment, she carefully climbed off him but kept a warm hand on his chest.
Her voice broke the silence. "Are you all right?"
He snorted a laugh. "Quite. But I should be asking you that. I'm afraid I rather lost control of myself at the end."
"Well, that's the point. And you didn't hurt me, if that's what you're concerned about. I'm glad if you enjoyed it."
"I did. Very much." He hesitated a moment before asking, "Did I say anything offensive? If I did, I—"
"No, Severus. Nothing offensive. Not at all."
He relaxed slightly. He didn't know how much of what had gone through his head had come out his mouth, and it should have been an extremely disquieting thought. He couldn't have imagined saying any of those things to anyone, much less to Minerva McGonagall. Yet somehow, he felt that it was all right, whatever he had said. Much like Albus, Minerva had an uncanny way of making him feel both more uncomfortable and more at ease than anyone else.
Ugh. Why the fuck would he think about Albus now?
Because the last time she did this was with him.
The thought made him shudder. He was fairly certain it was true. It had been at least a few years since he'd been aware of Minerva's having a ... whatever she called the men that would appear beside her from time to time during school holidays, when only she, Albus, Severus, and the occasional other staff straggler would take the odd meal together in the staff room. Of course, who knew what she did when away from the school? Not that that happened often. Albus had kept her toiling away at his cause, locked up as efficiently as Rapunzel in her tower. And once a year, he had fucked her in this very room.
Stop it.
Minerva broke though his thoughts.
"Severus?"
"Mmm?"
"We need to complete the ritual."
"Oh. Right. How do you want to proceed?"
"Well, I could just use my finger to get what we need, if you're amenable?"
"Yes. Fine."
He felt her shift and tried not to look as she reached down between her legs.
She brought her fingers to his lips and he forced himself to take it in his mouth without thinking about it.
It smelled musky but tasted sweet and slightly tangy as he sucked her finger clean, and he wasn't sure which flavour was his, which hers. He'd never tasted either before.
She withdrew her finger and said, "That ought to take care of it, then. Would you like some water?"
"No, thank you." As he said it, he felt a wave of power surging through him, starting with his groin and radiating outward until he felt like a bow stretched by an archer at the point of releasing an arrow. He knew he must look ridiculous—his mouth open as if to cry out, his eyes wide—but he couldn't move. He didn't know how long it lasted, but when it finally waned, and he came back to himself, the candles were lit and Minerva was looking at him.
"It worked then, I take it?" she asked.
"I believe so, yes." He looked down and was embarrassed to see that his cock was standing at rigid attention, as if it hadn't spent itself in her less than five minutes ago.
Minerva followed his eyes down and said, "That used to happen to Albus too."
"Is that supposed to reassure me?" he asked. After a moment, he added, "May I assume it's a normal erec— that it will subside on its own?"
"I imagine so."
"You imagine?"
"Well, without wanting to offend your sensibilities by referring to your predecessor again, I will tell you that we never tested the theory."
He frowned for a moment. "Oh."
"Yes."