Fic! SS/HG
May. 26th, 2011 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rillaliciousOkay, so, I know how we feel about WIPs these days, but if any of you guys are in the mood to indulge me, or just bored, well, I need a break from writing all these 10k+ fics that I'll have to wait ages to post, and I'd like to get the short term satisfaction of feedback as I go. (And I realize I have one perpetually in progress SS/HG that I swear I have not forgotten. I just need full concentration for that one and I haven't had it lately.) Writing this is my reward for all those deadline fics I'm working on.
Anyway, read me? I'll bake you cookies! (Or at least I'll bake them in your honor.)
Fandom: HP
Title: The Librarian's Debt
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Rating: This chapter? PG?
Word Count: ~1500
Warnings: Vampiric themes
Summary: Hermione's research takes her to an infamous underground library.
A/N: Thanks so much to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thistle_verse and ellensmithee, who convinced me it was worth sharing. As always, thank you for reading and reviewing.
Night sweeps in like an eddy these days, tumbling down alleys and over rooftops, spilling darkness into the spaces in between concrete and wood, swallowing the grey-coated sky with mournful silence. His profession demands these noctivagous treks, and he hastens into the night in a flurry of dark robes snapping at his ankles. Their questions are always the same, their requests always shallow and fleeting. Just once, he wants one of them to ask for that one secret he has been entrusted to guard most dearly.
He entertains this thought nightly as he stands in the nondescript alley, listening to the postulants plead their cases.
And then, tonight, there is the face that he recognizes, and within the space of seconds, everything has changed.
"Are you the librarian?" she asks, and by the voice he is sure that it is her. He has been, until this moment, standing here cloaked in the inky darkness that escapes the streetlight, watching her with equal parts curiosity and resignation.
"I am." It is the first time he has spoken since she appeared to make her request.
"I know that voice."
Of course. Why had he expected anything else from this one?
"You are mistaken."
"No," she says, and she steps closer, to the edge of the pool of light casting orange glow on the pavement. "I'm quite certain I am not."
"Always so certain," he says, betraying his identity with bitter drawl, the words poison honey sliding from his lips. "Always so naively certain."
"It is you." And there is triumph in her voice this time. Another mystery puzzled out, as if anyone would be surprised.
"You are wasting my time. You've come to speak to the librarian, not a former professor. Do you have a request, or do you not?"
"I do," she says. "But... I have so many questions."
"Your time is up," he says. His snarl is well-practiced, a sound trained to send the inquisitive and sinister alike running for cover.
"Do you think I'm afraid of you?" she asks, so boldly that if he were to answer in the affirmative, he would only look a fool.
"Clearly you are not." A small muscle above his lip twitches. "Though perhaps you would be wise to fear me."
"What good does it do to fear the dead?" she says.
He steps fully into the light, grim smile illuminated. "What good, indeed."
She swallows, eyes widening in something just a shade less defined than fear. "You're not dead."
"Grand observation."
"How is that possible? There was a body, a burial."
"A rather well attended burial, much to my surprise. I hadn't known I'd that many fans."
"Harry spoke very well of you after your death--er, not-death. People listened."
"Of course they did," he says, his words leaving a bitter flavor on the air between them. "Why wouldn't they listen to Potter?"
She raises her hand in the air then, spreading her fingers as if pressing them to glass, as if this wall that separates his existence from her own is palpable and confining.
"Touch me," she says.
"Pardon?"
"If you're real, I want to feel you."
Since the snake tore open his throat, he has not been able to swallow without a tweak of memory, a small, physical ache that knuckles its way down his esophagus and sits in his stomach like a stone. He has grown used to this phenomena, the undeniable permanence of its discomfort, but when he swallows now, in anticipation of human touch, of contact with flesh and blood, that pebble in his throat feels like fire.
Her palm is warm, and damp from nerves or surprise or from clenching her hands in concentration. He touches her skin with two fingers at first, sliding them up the path of her lifeline, pausing at the soft pad below her fingers. She shivers.
"I assure you, Miss Granger, you are on dangerous ground here."
"I've been on dangerous ground before. I assure you, Mr Snape, that I can handle myself." A flash of pink slides across her lips as she moistens them. "Your pulse is racing."
"Why are you here?"
"I've come for a book," she says.
"Of course." His palm slides flat against hers.
She presses back, her lips curling in a smirk to rival his own. "Of course."
He curls his fingertips over the sharp edges of her neatly trimmed nails, for only a moment, then whisks his hand away.
"Come quickly. Don't touch anything. Don't speak loudly," he says.
She follows so closely at his heels that his robes snap around her ankles and knees, the promise of more human contact if he only stops and savors it taunting him with each step.
Once inside, he realizes she has stopped, and when he turns, she is standing just inside the doorway, eyes closed, inhaling. The scent, for him, has become indistinguishable from the scent of the night itself: the mixture of old leather, a touch of mildew, the slow and steady decay of tomes kept on dusty shelves for centuries. But she breathes it in as if it is life sustaining, and he sees in the tremor of her jaw, the flutter of her eyelids, that she would devour that scent if she could. And he understands.
The imprint of her palm on his beats against his pulse with the permanence of a tattoo. He thinks that it has been far too long since he has entertained meaningful human contact. He has gone as mad as they say he has amongst the stacks, here in perpetual darkness.
"Don't linger, then," he says, his own voice cutting through those meandering thoughts like a guillotine. How dare one young woman unnerve him so. "You're wasting my time. Come and make your request so I may be done with you."
She smiles now; it is a serene, enigmatic smile, not mocking him exactly, but seeing through him. Making the imprint on his palm prickle and galvanize. Then her expression fades, her lips forming a soft, down-turned arc, and she nods, following him into the unsettling stillness of the library.
Once they have reached his desk--and he never brings them to his desk, but he knows this one, and wishes to avoid the inevitable beleaguering that will come if he tries to deny her--she produces a small card. On it, her recognizable script lists a title, beneath it, the author's name tentatively punctuated with a question mark. He narrows his eyes, then raises them to catch her gaze.
"Are you certain?"
She nods, confident. "Yes. That is what I need."
He takes her in for a long moment, allows her to believe that he will deny her inquiry, make her search elsewhere, though they both know the tome in question is only available at his hands. Now, he smirks.
"Finally, a challenging request," he says. "Very well. Return in three days and I will have procured it for you."
Her eyes widen; she was not expecting his complaisance. He feels a small light of pride inside his chest at the acknowledgment that he has not been forgotten by the world after all. Even if his legacy is one of churlishness, it is a legacy nonetheless.
"All right," she says finally. "Three days."
"Now be gone," he says.
"In a moment. But first, I need to know how--"
"I came to work for the undead?" he asks. He is weary, and ready to be rid of her (and also, not ready, which is troublesome enough), but he remembers enough of her to know that she won't be put off when she has a question to ask.
"Yes." She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, searching out the words. "Do you live here? In the vampire library? You're not one of them. You have a pulse. I was expecting..."
"A vampire," he finishes, after the pause. He prefers not to say it aloud. It sounds so ridiculous to his ears, the culmination of vicious student gossip come to life. Severus Snape, secret vampire. "You are correct. I am not one of them. I am, however... beholden to the night."
"You're cursed?"
"Nothing so simplistic. I owe a debt." It seems as though that statement could describe each leg of his existence, and at that thought, he finds himself wearier still. "That is all you need to know. I have indulged your nosiness for long enough, Miss Granger. Your next dismissal will not be as congenial as the last."
Her lips part, the shiny pink glistening of her tongue visible between her teeth, then she presses them closed as if holding in the spate of questions that threaten to overwhelm her common sense. At least she appears to know when she should stop talking, though he imagines to do so causes her physical discomfort.
"I apologize for my curiosity," she says. "Until next time, Professor."
He allows the epithet out of impatience or ambivalence or damnable sentimentality, and finds he barely has time to speak a "Goodbye, Miss Granger," before she is flitting from the library in a cloud of unruly dark curls and trailing robe.
He raises the card in his hand, the echo of the door opening and then closing again vibrating through the shelves as she flees him. Faint amusement curls his lips. To seek a book like this, she is, indeed, in very deep trouble.
~~~
Anyway, read me? I'll bake you cookies! (Or at least I'll bake them in your honor.)
Fandom: HP
Title: The Librarian's Debt
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Rating: This chapter? PG?
Word Count: ~1500
Warnings: Vampiric themes
Summary: Hermione's research takes her to an infamous underground library.
A/N: Thanks so much to
thistle_verse and ellensmithee, who convinced me it was worth sharing. As always, thank you for reading and reviewing.Night sweeps in like an eddy these days, tumbling down alleys and over rooftops, spilling darkness into the spaces in between concrete and wood, swallowing the grey-coated sky with mournful silence. His profession demands these noctivagous treks, and he hastens into the night in a flurry of dark robes snapping at his ankles. Their questions are always the same, their requests always shallow and fleeting. Just once, he wants one of them to ask for that one secret he has been entrusted to guard most dearly.
He entertains this thought nightly as he stands in the nondescript alley, listening to the postulants plead their cases.
And then, tonight, there is the face that he recognizes, and within the space of seconds, everything has changed.
"Are you the librarian?" she asks, and by the voice he is sure that it is her. He has been, until this moment, standing here cloaked in the inky darkness that escapes the streetlight, watching her with equal parts curiosity and resignation.
"I am." It is the first time he has spoken since she appeared to make her request.
"I know that voice."
Of course. Why had he expected anything else from this one?
"You are mistaken."
"No," she says, and she steps closer, to the edge of the pool of light casting orange glow on the pavement. "I'm quite certain I am not."
"Always so certain," he says, betraying his identity with bitter drawl, the words poison honey sliding from his lips. "Always so naively certain."
"It is you." And there is triumph in her voice this time. Another mystery puzzled out, as if anyone would be surprised.
"You are wasting my time. You've come to speak to the librarian, not a former professor. Do you have a request, or do you not?"
"I do," she says. "But... I have so many questions."
"Your time is up," he says. His snarl is well-practiced, a sound trained to send the inquisitive and sinister alike running for cover.
"Do you think I'm afraid of you?" she asks, so boldly that if he were to answer in the affirmative, he would only look a fool.
"Clearly you are not." A small muscle above his lip twitches. "Though perhaps you would be wise to fear me."
"What good does it do to fear the dead?" she says.
He steps fully into the light, grim smile illuminated. "What good, indeed."
She swallows, eyes widening in something just a shade less defined than fear. "You're not dead."
"Grand observation."
"How is that possible? There was a body, a burial."
"A rather well attended burial, much to my surprise. I hadn't known I'd that many fans."
"Harry spoke very well of you after your death--er, not-death. People listened."
"Of course they did," he says, his words leaving a bitter flavor on the air between them. "Why wouldn't they listen to Potter?"
She raises her hand in the air then, spreading her fingers as if pressing them to glass, as if this wall that separates his existence from her own is palpable and confining.
"Touch me," she says.
"Pardon?"
"If you're real, I want to feel you."
Since the snake tore open his throat, he has not been able to swallow without a tweak of memory, a small, physical ache that knuckles its way down his esophagus and sits in his stomach like a stone. He has grown used to this phenomena, the undeniable permanence of its discomfort, but when he swallows now, in anticipation of human touch, of contact with flesh and blood, that pebble in his throat feels like fire.
Her palm is warm, and damp from nerves or surprise or from clenching her hands in concentration. He touches her skin with two fingers at first, sliding them up the path of her lifeline, pausing at the soft pad below her fingers. She shivers.
"I assure you, Miss Granger, you are on dangerous ground here."
"I've been on dangerous ground before. I assure you, Mr Snape, that I can handle myself." A flash of pink slides across her lips as she moistens them. "Your pulse is racing."
"Why are you here?"
"I've come for a book," she says.
"Of course." His palm slides flat against hers.
She presses back, her lips curling in a smirk to rival his own. "Of course."
He curls his fingertips over the sharp edges of her neatly trimmed nails, for only a moment, then whisks his hand away.
"Come quickly. Don't touch anything. Don't speak loudly," he says.
She follows so closely at his heels that his robes snap around her ankles and knees, the promise of more human contact if he only stops and savors it taunting him with each step.
Once inside, he realizes she has stopped, and when he turns, she is standing just inside the doorway, eyes closed, inhaling. The scent, for him, has become indistinguishable from the scent of the night itself: the mixture of old leather, a touch of mildew, the slow and steady decay of tomes kept on dusty shelves for centuries. But she breathes it in as if it is life sustaining, and he sees in the tremor of her jaw, the flutter of her eyelids, that she would devour that scent if she could. And he understands.
The imprint of her palm on his beats against his pulse with the permanence of a tattoo. He thinks that it has been far too long since he has entertained meaningful human contact. He has gone as mad as they say he has amongst the stacks, here in perpetual darkness.
"Don't linger, then," he says, his own voice cutting through those meandering thoughts like a guillotine. How dare one young woman unnerve him so. "You're wasting my time. Come and make your request so I may be done with you."
She smiles now; it is a serene, enigmatic smile, not mocking him exactly, but seeing through him. Making the imprint on his palm prickle and galvanize. Then her expression fades, her lips forming a soft, down-turned arc, and she nods, following him into the unsettling stillness of the library.
Once they have reached his desk--and he never brings them to his desk, but he knows this one, and wishes to avoid the inevitable beleaguering that will come if he tries to deny her--she produces a small card. On it, her recognizable script lists a title, beneath it, the author's name tentatively punctuated with a question mark. He narrows his eyes, then raises them to catch her gaze.
"Are you certain?"
She nods, confident. "Yes. That is what I need."
He takes her in for a long moment, allows her to believe that he will deny her inquiry, make her search elsewhere, though they both know the tome in question is only available at his hands. Now, he smirks.
"Finally, a challenging request," he says. "Very well. Return in three days and I will have procured it for you."
Her eyes widen; she was not expecting his complaisance. He feels a small light of pride inside his chest at the acknowledgment that he has not been forgotten by the world after all. Even if his legacy is one of churlishness, it is a legacy nonetheless.
"All right," she says finally. "Three days."
"Now be gone," he says.
"In a moment. But first, I need to know how--"
"I came to work for the undead?" he asks. He is weary, and ready to be rid of her (and also, not ready, which is troublesome enough), but he remembers enough of her to know that she won't be put off when she has a question to ask.
"Yes." She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, searching out the words. "Do you live here? In the vampire library? You're not one of them. You have a pulse. I was expecting..."
"A vampire," he finishes, after the pause. He prefers not to say it aloud. It sounds so ridiculous to his ears, the culmination of vicious student gossip come to life. Severus Snape, secret vampire. "You are correct. I am not one of them. I am, however... beholden to the night."
"You're cursed?"
"Nothing so simplistic. I owe a debt." It seems as though that statement could describe each leg of his existence, and at that thought, he finds himself wearier still. "That is all you need to know. I have indulged your nosiness for long enough, Miss Granger. Your next dismissal will not be as congenial as the last."
Her lips part, the shiny pink glistening of her tongue visible between her teeth, then she presses them closed as if holding in the spate of questions that threaten to overwhelm her common sense. At least she appears to know when she should stop talking, though he imagines to do so causes her physical discomfort.
"I apologize for my curiosity," she says. "Until next time, Professor."
He allows the epithet out of impatience or ambivalence or damnable sentimentality, and finds he barely has time to speak a "Goodbye, Miss Granger," before she is flitting from the library in a cloud of unruly dark curls and trailing robe.
He raises the card in his hand, the echo of the door opening and then closing again vibrating through the shelves as she flees him. Faint amusement curls his lips. To seek a book like this, she is, indeed, in very deep trouble.
~~~
