Succumb (A Severus Snape Fanfiction)

|chapter eight|

A/N: This chapter starts out the same, but it also contains my first very big change to the story line. Hope y'all enjoy!

Stars. Bright, blinding, earth shattering bliss slowly ebbed away from my trembling body as Severus removed his firm grip on my hips. He was breathing heavily, each breath labored and dripping with exhaustion as he dropped his torso low enough to place a kiss on my shoulder before stepping away from me and adjusting his clothing. He took a yet another precautionary glimpse around the otherwise empty Hospital Wing.

"No one saw," I reassured him with a playful smirk as I replaced my own clothing. It was a rainy, dreary Saturday, and Poppy had gone to Hogsmeade for the day. The silence of the place had been enough to drive even someone sane completely mad, so Severus dropping by to check on me had been a welcome distraction.

"It will be disastrous if someone catches us. We have to stop doing this out in the open," Severus replied, though there was a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips that told me he found the risk of being caught just as exciting as I did.

"I believe you are the man such things are reported to, are you not?"

"Just because I am Headmaster does not mean I want to open my private life to an entire school of little imbeciles," he clipped back, very Severus like. I rolled my eyes with a small smile at his general annoyance with the students.

"I was once one of those little imbeciles you so loathe, you know," I teased as I finished adjusting my own robes. "Who would have thought back then that I would be fucking Professor Snape in the hospital wing one day?"

"Who would have thought you would ever even want to," Severus retorted with a small shake of his head, the corners of his lips slightly upturned on his otherwise stoic face. In the midst of all my constant bullshit, it was easy for me to forget that he was dealing with his own as well. His words made my heart heavy, and for the millionth time, I wished I could travel back in time just to beat the shit every single person in his past who had given him such a negative view of himself.

I rolled my eyes as I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, squeezing him tightly against me for a moment before stepping back just enough to look up at him. "You are incredibly intelligent," I said and placed a brief kiss on his lips. "And sexy," I added. "And you are absolutely phenomenal in bed. I'm the luckiest woman in the world."

"So you always say," he responded and kissed my forehead briefly, before stepping back and straightening out his robes again. "My meeting is soon. I should prepare beforehand."

"Perhaps I can join you after dinner.. and we could really give those portraits something to gossip about," I grinned, pulling my lip between my teeth as I eyed him, earning a deep chuckle from him as he gently pushed my hands away from his body.

"If you don't stop looking at me that way, I'm going to be late," he chided playfully, but there was a hunger in his eyes that told me he was serious.

"I suppose you shouldn't be late.. again."

"After dinner then," he said, kissing me one last time before leaving me on my own.

I began to busy myself immediately, starting with the newest batch of potions Professor Slughorn had sent for Poppy. It felt surreal to be doing something so mundane again, but I found comfort in it. I tried to tell myself, as I put away the final vial and moved on to my next task, that the all familiar pull of my powers wasn't nagging at me. It was just a few days shy of December now, and Voldemort's "tasks" were few and far between. I couldn't help but feel he was purposefully calling on me less for his own sick enjoyment. He allowed me just enough to get by. No more and no less. He couldn't care less about the students in this school and would likely be entertained if I lost my grip and hurt any of them.