“beyond wandpoint” 037 by gingerbred
Mar. 20th, 2019 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beyondwandpoint“11 09-10 Sun - Mon - The Wedding Night”
Severus and Hermione
Originally Published: 2017-12-12 on AO3
Chapter: 037
Pairing: Hermione Granger / Severus Snape
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Hermione has another exhausting night. The Calming Draught Madam Pomfrey had given her for tonight and tomorrow before she left the Infirmary had no doubt helped, but there's only so much it can do. Miracles don't come in liquid form, conveniently available by the phial. Left alone with her thoughts... Well, that's expecting rather a lot of the potion. For the third night in a row, she doesn't get much sleep. It takes its toll.
This time, however, she has only her obsessive nature to blame. Or so she thinks. She's not always right.
Much as she'd found fault with her meal in the context of a wedding dinner, she can't help thinking this is effectively her wedding night. That does not help her thoughts become anything like restful. On the contrary, she finds herself wide awake into the wee hours of the morning.
She's still resolutely not thinking about... a whole number of things. Any of the traditional wedding night activities, say. Definitely not. Particularly not as she's now more than a little concerned about what the bond might relay. Holy cricket. That could be mortifying. So, no, none of those thoughts occur to her whatsoever.
It's proves a lot like trying not to think of a pink elephant on command.
Severus tosses and turns miserably in the bed next door, idly thinking as he pulls his duvet peevishly over his now exposed shoulder that this is his wedding night. Marvellous. He's hardly an optimist, but he had dared to envision that his wedding night, were he one day to marry, wouldn't involve sleeping alone, and that the activities he and his thoroughly improbable partner were likely to engage in, whatever form they took, might at least be vaguely erotic in nature... And at the very least not the beginning of what is presumably to become the longest dry spell he's ever had. Always presupposing he lives long enough, that is.
If he dies tomorrow, then that obviously won't have been the case. Small mercies.
And now he wonders if he needs to count the years of his adolescence. There's no chance he'll live that long. Albus had virtually promised him that. Fine. Second longest dry spell. It lacks the pithiness 'longest' had, and now he's grumpier yet. Perfect.
He punches his pillow in a largely fruitless effort to fluff it up.
Albus, thinking of the treacherous rat bastard, hadn't even required the celibacy, which somehow makes things worse, that it's all his own fault in some way. He'd feel better if it had been part of their Vows, but no... No, Albus prefers leaving people the illusion of choice, well aware they're the architects of their own misery. Severus would bet, if he looked, not that he has the least desire to see any of the related recollections or associated emotions, he'd find a similar conversation in Miss Granger's memories, making her aware this was all her choice.
He puts an immediate halt to that line of complaint, he has no issues with celibacy, none whatsoever, because he has no intention of ever laying a finger, or any other body part for that matter, on the witch next door.
It's very late before she gets any sleep at all, and as the night progresses she becomes... sillier. Sleep deprivation and a bad case of nerves won't be helping.
At some point she sits up, snags her wand from the top of Crook's carrier next to her bed, and begins to Transfigure the t-shirt she wears to sleep. Or not sleep, as the case may be. Transfiguration proves sufficiently diverting, and she doesn't think as much about all those things she steadfastly isn't thinking about. It's more successful than she expected. But the longer she works, the more she's forced to recognise she's good at a wide range of spells, but she may lack finesse.
That's worrisome.
And oddly, that doesn't help her fall asleep any faster.
She manages a passable negligée, for example. Sensible wedding night garb. Well, perhaps not sensible... But she can't seem to significantly change the fabric, generating lace and adornments without a launching point like Madam Pomfrey's handkerchiefs had offered proves completely beyond her capabilities.
She Transfigures her sleepwear again. Now it's something floaty. Again, and it looks like something from the cover of one of her Gran's old bodice rippers. Again and it's barely decent. She keeps at it. Bar the Muggle-born badge, every single result is white, not that she particularly notices however, but that seems to be something she subconsciously associates with the... non-occasion. Her detail gets better the longer she works at it, but she realises she'll need a few books, and probably a couple of conversations with Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall before she makes any great strides.
He hasn't a clue when he last thought about sex this much. The minute he can't have something, it seems to become the centre of his focus. It's irksome and unworthy of him. It's not like he's some hormonal teenager any more.
No. No, that would be his wife.
Bloody hell.
She considers the work Madam Pomfrey had done on her tops, quickly, off the cuff... The work the Professor had done on all the ornate wooden trim, on her bath, her entire room, for that matter. It really was incredibly pretty. They both are capable of Transfigurations with so much more detail than she usually renders, and it's not either of their specialties.
Professor Dumbledore's flowers had been less of a surprise, from a one time Transfigurations Professor, but were another example. She suspects she's been measuring herself against people who aren't particularly ambitious, and it's given her a distorted sense of accomplishment. That she fails to recognise a large number of their achievements never occurs to her.
She's quite evidently still not sleeping. They, he had ended their conversation abruptly before, and he hadn't had time to give her the Dreamless Sleep before he left. Well, he'd had time. Merlin knows she manage to squeeze in a discussion about floral arrangements... It was hardly a discussion, but he's not exactly being fair. Regardless, there hadn't been adequate time for explanations, and he didn't want to just press an addictive substance into her hands and dash off.
But her apparent... unease makes him feel a good deal better about what he's just... arranged. Sometimes he wonders if he still has a moral compass after everything he's seen and done. He worries occasionally that he may be becoming every bit as much a predator as Albus. He consoles himself that he probably won't live long enough for it to come to that, but some days he has a hard time recognising himself in the mirror. Meeting his own eyes is a whole different story.
The longer she doesn't sleep, the more guilty he feels that he hadn't sorted the Dreamless Sleep right off. There had been no good excuse to wait. Except for not wishing to talk about... it, he supposes. She had retired for the night when he returned, and...
The last thing he wanted to do was go to her closed door and knock. On tonight of all nights. What would she have thought? Worse, the bond would have told him exactly what she was feeling all too clearly.
Is he a coward?
He honestly doesn't care. If that's cowardice, so be it. But he did not need to feel his bondmate's fear and loathing, and he didn't need to put her in that situation when she's clearly still struggling with her experience from Friday.
He makes a note to repeat his offer to Obliviate her should she wish.
She considers her bed. She's sitting on the softest sheet she's ever felt. It's frustratingly far more so than her nightgown, so much so that she wants to feel it against her skin. She rubs her fingers back and forth over the equally silky duvet cover as she considers it, until they go a bit numb and tingly. It's a lovely sensation.
And she noticed the bed warmed itself when she crawled into it, almost like her Gran's electric blanket used to. And to think, just few hours ago, the bed and everything in it was a bookshelf. It's simply stunning. The duvet is light and warm and incredibly soft. It's like lying in a cloud. If clouds were warm and amazing and not cold and wet, that is. That's always been a bit of a disappointment, she thinks, remembering driving through clouds on a trip to the French Pyrenees with her parents.
It's not that she needs the ability to Transfigure clothes so badly, she honestly has never cared much about them, although she'll admit to a competitive streak, and she doesn't like being... overlooked. Under appreciated. But this hints at things she really hasn't begun to tap in to, and she finds that... worrisome. There's apparently a lot she has no idea how to do, and it includes things others find... easy.
Albus is an arse. Severus is finding the idea of Avadaing him increasingly easier to stomach, but then that's probably half of the point. As though there could be any justification for the lengths he goes to... Hell, if Severus had demanded consummation, sexual congress as his terms, he's quite certain it would have been met with 'I wouldn't dream of asking you not to, my boy'. No, Albus would have happily served up the young woman next door to him on a... well appointed bed, probably.
Well at least he'd given her that. A well appointed bed. He'd put a good deal of effort into it, too. Not that it mattered. He'd tried to provide. Crafted her a nice home. He's not a rotter like his worthless father was. He hasn't a clue why he bothered. He's an idiot and she'll never notice.
And if she did it would probably be even worse.
When he dreams of her that night, it seems like he simply can't stop that anymore, he spends a lot of time Transfiguring her clothes into things less... tailored. Shapeless is good. And lace just needs to be outlawed. There's no two ways about it. That top had been frankly... disturbing.
It's past four before she drops off out of sheer exhaustion.
As she falls asleep, her bare legs thoroughly tangled in the soft blanket, she thinks it's a little like being wrapped in his magic.
No one but Crooks sees the smile on her face.