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Occultus (M)

Title: Occultus

Rating: Mature (18+)

Pairing: Hermione Multi, main pairing: Hermione/Snape

Summary: Hermione is seventeen and back at Hogwarts after the fall of the Dark Lord. Struggling to go back to 'everything as normal', she uses the Time Turner and travels back to the Marauders era. Lost in both time and her own past, Hermione must fight through the lures of Dark Magic, self-indulgence and lust before she and the future she comes from are lost forever.

Occultus

By Lilah Montgomery

Chapter 1

31st October 1977

The dormitory bed creaked as he finally climbed on top of her.

More than half an hour of bringing her higher and higher with his mouth and clever fingers had preceded this intimate act, an hour of kissing and grasping at clothes as they made their way here before that. Hermione was filled with an almost feral desperation, legs wrapping around him, fingernails scratching lines into his flesh.

How was it he was doing this to her?

Dark magic?

His brilliant mind?

Did it matter anymore?

Hips crashing together, moans and gasps from both participants. A declaration of love from him, a cry of ecstasy in return from her.

He felt so good, she could not deny it. She broke from kissing his collarbone to stare longingly into his obsidian eyes. They held in them a million swirling thoughts and feelings, all intermingling with pleasure and power.

She adjusted their angle with a slight tilt of her pelvis and was overwhelmed as he hit the perfect spot inside her. Frantic gasping followed as he drove into her, right to the edge, then right over into blistering heat and technicolour.

The force of it silenced her. Her breath was trapped in her lungs and her mind swam with bliss.

He was so perfect. How could she have not seen it before?

Her dark haired lover slowed his pace and moaned into her shoulder before stopping with a sharp gasp. His body became as relaxed as hers and for a few minutes, ragged breathing was the only sound.

Hermione pulled her head up and embraced him against her. She tightened her legs around his hips and kissed his dark head. He returned the affection with kisses wherever he could reach.

We're seventeen, we could do this all night! Hermione reminded herself,

Her lover pulled his head up, breaking their embrace. He stared into her eyes, the hint of a smile playing on his lips.

"You are beautiful, Rose," he told her gently. "What are you going to do to me?"

Hermione felt him slip out of her and watched, almost sadly, as he stood up and stretched.

She pulled his sheets over herself and considered her answer very carefully.

"Severus Snape," she replied, "I'm going to save you."

~0o0~

A mirror can serve perfectly as a window to a person's future. Big bags under the eyes in the reflection: today will be a struggle for you. A winning smile and a 'good hair day' in the reflection almost promises a pleasant time of it for that person. This may go some way to explaining why they are used so frequently in the wizarding and muggle worlds alike for uses beyond fixing smudged lipstick. Be it "Mirror mirror on the wall…" fairy tales, communication via magic portals, revealing one's darkest desires or used in Divination- a wholly, often misunderstood branch of magic practised only by those gifted.

Hermione Granger, at the age of seventeen, should perhaps have been more cautious of the power of mirrors as hers smashed in front of her one summer morning.

1st September 1998

"Bollocks."

"What was that?" Ron called up the stairs.

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh and started collecting the pieces of glass now scattering the floor.

"Just some glass, I'll sort it!" She called back. She retrieved her wand from her dresser drawer and wordlessly charmed the glass to form a soft, reflective putty which slithered itself into the wastepaper bin. She grinned triumphantly and threw the plastic frame in with it.

Hermione tugged her wild curls into a neat-ish bun and grabbed her bag as she made her way down the stairs.

Mrs Weasley was waiting for her in the kitchen, pretending to be hand washing a jug in the sink. The jug was quickly forgotten in the soap suds as Hermione walked through the door.

"You're up, dear!" The older witch fussed, pulling her by the arm to the table. "Did you sleep well? Are you excited to go back to Hogwarts today? I can write to Professor McGonagall if you're not quite ready? Ron said you broke a glass?"

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"It was just a makeup mirror, Mrs Weasley. I've been meaning to make a better one anyway." She explained.

Mrs Weasley nodded, unconvinced, and waved her wand over the table. Toast, jam and a variety of fresh fruit appeared before Hermione's eyes. Dropping into a chair, she tucked in greedily.

Hermione had been staying at the Burrow for the last few weeks of summer. She had gone initially saying she would help with the repairs but in actual fact had wanted to spend time with the youngest Weasley brother-her friend turned lover, Ron.

"If you need more time, dear, I do think they'd understand. After what you went through…"

The matriarch's voice broke slightly and she stopped talking for a moment. Hermione stopped eating, knowing the woman was silently reliving the battle which claimed one of her sons.

"Well, if you want me to come and get you at any point, you know how to reach me." Mrs Weasley added. She started charming some of the pots to clean themselves and stopped speaking while a grateful Hermione finished eating.

The younger witch magically cleared away, enjoying the fact she could use her wand outside of school, grabbed her bag again and went to join Ron and Ginny on the bench outside the front door.

The pair stopped talking when they saw her and each greeted her warmly, Ron even standing up to hug her. She sat down with them and stared out at the meadow behind the rickety house.

"How's mum?" Ginny asked. Hermione shook her head slightly and continued to stare ahead.

"She's still fussing a lot and clearly doesn't want me to go back." She replied.

Ginny made a noise and shook her head in a matching gesture.

"Nor me," she said, "I think she wants everyone around her at the moment."

"I'm staying." Ron piped up. "Harry says he'll come and stay for a while too while we work out what we're going to do with ourselves now."

Hermione was awash with pure exasperation but held her tongue. Ron and Harry's decision not to return to Hogwarts to complete their schooling had been the source of many a row over the summer, leading to her realising that perhaps she and Ron were not as suited as she had thought.

Hermione saw herself as competitive and ambitious, she did not understand her boyfriend's lack of drive to study for his NEWTs or to take the opportunity to amass more knowledge.

She smiled weakly and stayed quiet.

She felt Ron squeeze her hand and her eyes met his.

"You don't have to go back either, you know…" he suggested.

The witch laughed and pulled her hand away.

"I'm sorry, Ron, but if you think I'm going to carry on with my life without a NEWT to my name, you have another thing coming! Besides, if I want to continue my work with SPEW then I need to get a decent job at the Ministry, they won't hire someone without the credentials."

The red-haired boy looked shocked for a moment, then crestfallen.

"The Ministry? I'd hoped you'd want to maybe stay home and raise a family...in the future, I mean…"

Ginny shot him a warning look which Hermione noticed and he shrugged his shoulders quickly.

"What I meant was, I'm surprised you want to work there and not stay here with us, that's all…" He spluttered.

Hermione raised an eyebrow and let the suggestion of no career pass. She mentally added it to the ever-growing list of reasons they did not have a future together.

~0o0~

The journey to the train had been relatively cheerful, though the goodbye at the platform was extremely emotional. Mrs Weasley broke down in tears several times and kept grabbing hold of Ginny, refusing to let her go.

George, who had chosen to take a year out to be with his family, held her back as the girls boarded the train.

"Write to me?" Ron called after Hermione before the door was closed. She assured him that she would and sat with Ginny in an empty compartment, finally able to express excitement about going back.

She sat by the window after changing into her robes and broke a chocolate bar in half to share with Ginny.

"How was your summer with Harry? Are you going to miss him?" Hermione asked.

She noted the hesitation before Ginny answered.

"Of course," she said, "It was really nice but I'll be glad to get away for a while… give me some time to grieve…"

Hermione's heart broke a little. With no siblings of her own, she could only imagine what Ginny was going through. She decided to change the subject and produced The Advanced Book of Potions from her bag. Opening the page, she touched the handwritten note gently: Property of the Half-Blood Prince.

Ginny craned her neck to look and stared at Hermione quizzically.

"It was his...Snape's…" Hermione explained. "He was a bit of a genius, even as a schoolboy…." She stroked his pen marks again with her fingertips. "This book was his. Harry accidently inherited it and gave it to me. He's improved all of the potions with tweaks here and there and since I can't learn off the Professor anymore…"

"You weren't there when he was Headmaster, Hermione, so I wouldn't expect you to understand, but the less I hear about that 'genius' man the better!"

Hermione was slightly taken aback but then remembered the stories of torture and fear which had occurred at the school the year before. Ginny and those left behind had endured trials as traumatic as herself and her friends on their quest for the Horcruxes and it showed on the younger witch's face.

Hermione quickly shut the book and tidied it away. She pulled out her Runes book instead and opened it to study.

She glanced up at Ginny after a few minutes and saw silent tears slipping down the younger girl's face.

~0o0~

Hermione sat on her four poster bed that night in Hogwarts, flicking through the Half-Blood Prince's potions book.

She had thought that the familiar castle and grounds would fill her once more with a sense of stability and belonging, but instead, the witch found herself buried under memories of all those who had been lost just a few short months before.

Some faces from the past were welcome: Neville and Luna had both greeted her so warmly she felt her heart may burst and Hagrid had lifted her clear off the floor in a massive bear-hug.

Others were not so welcome. Draco Malfoy had also returned and had given her a curt nod of his platinum head and left it there.

Her mind swam with the faces she would never see again around the castle. Remus Lupin, Fred Weasley, Albus Dumbledore and of course…

"Severus Snape…" She whispered to the pages before her.

It was odd. She had never considered herself 'attached' to her former Potions Master, yet somehow, with his old school book providing an insight into his clearly brilliant mind, Hermione found herself disappointed that she would not have the chance to learn from him or know him better.

The pages had scribbles ranging from ordinary to profound; spells, curses and the odd word or phrase which Hermione did not understand or recognise. Some had little tags next to them: "For Enemies…" or "Work in Progress". Others were written with strings of numbers or symbols next to them.

Hermione rubbed her eyes, suddenly aware that it was getting late. She shut the book but held it close to herself, deep in thought.

She wondered silently, as she stared at her reflection in the dark window, how she was supposed to carry on as normal when everything felt so far from it…

~0o0~

The harsh sunlight hit Hermione's eyelids as it flooded in through now fairly familiar windows. The term had barely started and yet she was enduring her third hangover of the year plus an altogether not unpleasant drunken memory…

She giggled slightly as she recalled Malfoy stroking her silky bare legs under the table as the other seventh years were distracted by a drinking game. His warm palms had caressed her, working their way teasingly close to the bottom of her short lace dress, yet never quite reaching where she had started to wish they would wander.

His eyes had locked with hers as she sipped the fire whisky he had bought her...seeking permission? Daring her? She could not be certain. Perhaps she would never find out.

She listened to Ginny's soft snores from the other side of her bed and sighed.

Her flirtatious rendezvous with the young man previously her enemy had ended abruptly as word reached her that Ginny had "rather overdone it" and needed to be taken back to the castle. Hermione had got them both back and bundled Ginny into her own bed for safe-keeping while she sobered up herself.

She wondered in her morning-after haze whether or not Snape would have invented a potion to cure hangovers.

He probably wasn't a drinker… she reasoned, thinking back to the cold, controlled man she had known.

Her head swam as she sat up but she fought on and dressed, gathered her school things and left for the potions dungeon.

~0o0~

"Good Morning, Hermione, dear, how are you?"

Horace Slughorn, Potions Master and Head of Slytherin: kindly, attracted to the rich and powerful, far too upbeat for Hermione's liking.

She smiled a weak smile and took her place near the front of the class. Draco Malfoy had already sat down and glanced up at her as she sat.

Slughorn smiled around the room and gestured to the potion sat bubbling on his desk.

"Today, we are going to start to brew Wolfsbane Potion. Can anyone tell me about it before we begin?"

Hermione ignored the looks she was getting and averted her gaze to the floor. Having been so excited to show off her knowledge before, it just wasn't the same without Ron staring open mouthed at her or Harry grinning proudly.

"Anyone?"

Draco Malfoy put his hand up and started answering, his voice sounding a little gruff after the drinking and lack of sleep.

"Wolfsbane Potion is known to allow the Werewolf to keep their mind during transformations so they do not become a wild animal and bite anyone who comes into contact with them. It was discovered by Damocles Belby who is the uncle of Marcus from our last year in Ravenclaw…"

Slughorn smiled broadly, though winced a little at the mention of Marcus. Hermione remembered the old man being disappointed that Marcus was not in touch with his famous uncle anymore, a fact which led to Marcus' invites to further 'Slug Club' meeting getting 'mislaid'.

Hermione also remembered Slughorn boasting about how he had taught Damocles "...everything he knew…".

"Ah, Damocles. I was his teacher, you know." the old man started up while making his way to the potion on the front desk. "I taught him everything he knew!"

Hermione rolled her eyes and smirked. She fished her copy of Advanced Potion making out of her bag and set herself up near a cauldron.

She discovered the Wolfsbane potion on her page was annotated as usual in Snape's scrawling handwriting.

"Now, everyone. This is extremely advanced potion making. No one but myself and Damocles has been able to produce it from scratch, therefore the exam will focus on theory as well as method after the ingredients have been collected and treated. At no point will you be expected to produce this on your own."

Hermione's mind took her back to her third year and she would have stuck up her hand, were it not for Draco Malfoy making an appearance beside her.

"Snape could do it too. Saw him make it for.…" the youth muttered to her.

Hermione nodded. "And Lupin." She added.

Draco took the cauldron beside her and unpacked his things, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as he did so.

"Why are you cutting lengthways?" He whispered after a while. "The book says-"

"I know. Why don't you do your own."

The two continued to work in silence for a few more minutes before Draco spoke again.

"About last night," he said, "things got a bit….I don't normally do that, particularly with girls of your…"

Hermione glared at him, daring him to mention her blood status.

"...background." He finished.

The witch rolled her eyes and groaned.

"I thought maybe we could have a Butterbeer or something this afternoon. If you're not busy…?"

"I'm seeing Ron at the moment, actually," Hermione snapped, stinging a little from his 'background' comment. The Slytherin stood with his mouth open for a moment before angrily slicing his herbs.

"I see," he replied, "you must have forgotten that last night since you didn't mention it once and let me make a fool of myself."

The witch held back a haughty response and reflected instead. She debated silently how best to answer before finally doing so.

"I was enjoying your attention," she admitted, "you're handsome and it was thrilling since Ron and Harry wouldn't approve. I think I liked the naughtiness of it….but we couldn't be more than a grope in a pub, Draco, not after everything...and your family would never approve of me if anything came of it. Probably best if we just shake hands and leave it there?"

Before he could answer, Hermione gathered her remaining ingredients and left him at the workbench alone.

If Hermione Granger could see her reflection in a mirror as others were starting to see her, she would see the cracks forming all over her once neat image. She would watch as, piece by piece, little shards had come away leaving her looking lost and incomplete.

She was held together by her inner strength determination to succeed, yet a looking glass cannot be held together by will alone and the next little tap could see the whole thing shatter…

#fanfiction smut Sevione mywriting maturewriting harrypotterfanfiction

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