The Ties That Bind - Snamione, Post War

The Ties That Bind - Chapter 16

[Hello lovely people, we have returned after a longer than usual wait! We've been very busy the last couple of weeks and we're very sorry! But we definitely wanted to make sure this was in the best possible shape before releasing it. We think we've accomplished that, but you tell us!

Now listen close: this is a dreamscape segment, so this is your smut warning. It applies more so for the next chapter than this one, but this one is far from innocent. Though as it calls back to the Summer of 1998, there is also a light warning for PTSD/emotional turmoil, mentions of blood/massive injury, one-sided alcohol ingestion, 18-year-old Hermione, and technical if not explicitly defined infidelity. In fantasy, at least.

In short, this one goes out to all of you hurt/comfort fans! Including our amazing beta, Marilynn aka hizqueen4life! Happy Early Birthday and thank you sooo much for all of your patience and ideas! 🙌🎉

Enjoy! Please let us know what you think!]

Chapter XVI: The Whetted Dream - Part I

"By night, beloved, tie your heart to mine and let them both in dreams defeat the darkness." — Pablo Neruda

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Saturday, 29th November 2003 – Sometime after Midnight

Whilst still locked in a haze of vexation, Hermione had finally achieved in getting herself properly dried and then clothed into the emerald-green jumper, her damp clothes laid dutifully in front of the hearth, and her scattered bearings no more easily corralled. It felt as though every individual sector of her body was either unbearably, carnally feverish from his surviving presence, or still bone-chillingly hyperborean from their joint, polar bath. Most galling of all, her ever-edacious tendency toward officiousness refused to rest. Indeed, the inquisitive witch both desired to appraise every commodity and artefact, every crevice and nook, every wrinkle of the floor's wood or peel of the wall's paling Lincrusta, whilst also, wanting nothing more than to retain herself stiffly and determinedly within the confines of his bed. Cocooned by his bedding. Supported by his head cushions. All of which emitted his personal scent of dried ink, mortared wolfsbane, and freshly chopped sandalwood. Swoon, indeed.

Normally when she suffered from such bouts of fermentation at night, she would be inclined towards a bath. That leisure, however, was irrefutably out of the question given their aforementioned encounter with his washroom's basin. Her other dilemma, that of her insatiable horniness for the man and everything that comprised him, was fairing no better in opportunity for immediate alleviation. For as inflamed and tremulous as the bale of nerve endings persisted between her thighs, the act of self-pleasure seemed far too indecent, and too staunch a breach of his private, most personal habitation, to abandon herself to partaking in altogether. In addition to roosting in an article of his wardrobe, even if he clearly hadn't worn it in decades, it, nevertheless, seemed imprudent to 'taint' – no matter how exceedingly tempting that very fact forged the abstraction to appear. Yes, the gratification of her loins, in any fashion, whilst in Severus' bed, must be prohibited. Even at the self-enforcement, and detriment, of her own hand. Oi, an unfortunate selection of phrasing that had been.