An Army of Snapes

Fandom: Harry Potter.

Author: Ladyofthemasque.
Genre: Humour. Parody. PWP. Romance.
Rating: Explicit.
Characters: Hermione Granger. Severus Snape.
Pairings: Hermione/Severus. Severus/Severus.
Other Tags: AU.
Status: 58,700 words; 7 Chapters, plus Epilogue; Complete.
Summary: Hermione suffers a chocolate-frog accident, Severus suffers the
hiccups, and Snape (& Snape & Snape & Snape & Snape, ad singultium)
suffer existential needs…
 Chapter One
“—Shoot! Where did it go?” Ron hissed at Harry as they descended the steps to the dungeon level.

“What, your chocolate frog?” Harry asked. “I didn’t notice.” He turned around with his redheaded
friend, checking the stairs behind them, then the walls, then the corridor ahead. Harry finally
shrugged. “… Sorry, Ron. I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Well, that’s a loss,” Ron sighed disgustedly. “That was my last chocolate frog until our next
Hogsmeade weekend.”

“It could be worse,” Harry commiserated, nudging him down the corridor. Neither of them noticed
the small, brown, quasi-amphibious body clinging to the back of his robes. “You could be stuck in
Advanced Potions class, with Hermione.”

“Yeah—how long is she going to be working on that ruddy project of hers, anyway?” Ron asked, his
voice cracking mid-whinge. Turning eighteen had just been a signpost for him; puberty was still
having an effect on the youngest male Weasley. “She’s almost neglecting her homework!”

Harry laughed, and pushed open the Potions classroom door. Sure enough, even though it was a
Wednesday night, with half the week behind them and half still ahead, Hermione’s project was
occupying no less than three of the lab tables. Hermione herself was busy bustling from table to
table, her curls ruthlessly scraped back from her face, dragon-hide gloves tugged halfway up to her
elbows, and a protective charm shielding her eyes.

“Hey, ‘Mione, when are you going to be done with this ruddy thing, anyway?” Ron called out to her.

She barely even acknowledged them. “Not now, boys! I’m at a delicate stage in the process.”

“Yeah, but how long is this going to take?” Ron repeated, eyeing her equipment warily.

“We were thinking of playing a five-way of Exploding Snap with Neville and Ginny,” Harry offered,
drifting up to the table that looked like it was being used as an ingredients preparation area.
Unnoticed, the frog hopped down from his robes, safely landing past the alligator lilies, though they
rustled and snapped their petals briefly in irritation.

“It’ll be Exploding Snape, if the Professor catches you in here!” Hermione warned them.

“Oh, come on! How long are you going to work on this ruddy thing, anyway?” Ron protested.

Hermione added something to the central cauldron and stirred its contents counter-clockwise,
counting under her breath. She answered as she flipped over an hourglass and moved to stir a
second cauldron in a figure-eight. “… Three point one-five more hours. If everything goes right.
Dean Thomas plays a mean hand of Snap; ask him to take my place.”

“But, Hermione—!”

His whinging broke the restraints of her patience. He knew how important this project was for her!
“Ronald Weasley, if you don’t exit this classroom within the next thirty seconds, I will personally
feed you to Professor Snape! You’re interfering with my concentration—out! If I’m right, this will
revolutionize the duplication of heavily enchanted tomes, and I’m not going to have the two of you
messing it up because you wanted to play games, instead of concentrating on your homework!”

“Well, don’t get your knickers in a twist!” Ron muttered resentfully. He elbowed Harry. “C’mon,
Harry! Let’s leave her to her precious project. Even Colin’s ongoing obsession with photographing
you will be better company than her, tonight.”

***

Finally, Hermoine sighed. She tried not to let Ron’s comments get to her. He was still such a boy in
so many ways. Put it out of your mind, she ordered herself, grinding up the carefully dried skullcap
flowers as the next ingredient. Girls just mature into women at a faster rate than boys mature into
men, both physically and mentally…

A voice emerged from the shadows of the door that led to the Potions Master’s office, dark and
snarky, silk wrapped in steel. “Why do you put up with such ambitionless wastrels, Miss Granger?”

Hermione had become acclimatized to Professor Snape’s sudden appearances during the course of
this lengthy project, so she didn’t grind her fingers into the flowers, although it was a close call.
She took a deep, calming breath before looking at him. It wasn’t his voice that startled Hermione,
so much as it was the perceptiveness of his question. Some days, she wondered the same thing
herself. But they were her friends; the three of them had survived any number of adventures,
mishaps, misunderstandings, traumas and trials.

She looked up from her grinding, hands working deftly, automatically as she sought for a tactful
reply, but that was all she could come up with, lame as it was. “Well… they’re my friends!”

“But they clearly do not understand what it takes to succeed. Drive. Ambition. Discipline.” The
dark-clad frame of the Potions Master emerged from the shadowed entrance, a collection of boxes
in his hands. “Tell me, can they truly comprehend what this project of yours could do, if it
succeeds?”

The Head Girl snorted. “Hardly, sir. They don’t care for… things that are complicated.”

Severus regarded her. He’d heard the whole exchange through the partially open door of his office.
Now he wondered which words she’d censored, ‘they don’t care for… you’, or ‘they don’t care for…
potions’. She wasn’t inclined to be cruel by nature; some would label that a flaw, but he thought it
brought an intriguing twist to the mix of her intelligence, optimism, and practicality. Of course, she
could be too tender-hearted, but at least all those damned escapades of hers and her two
dunderheaded friends had knocked some caution into her. She was certainly taking suitable
precautions with her special project, he noted with quiet approval.

Crossing to the preparations table, he set the boxes down. “Fresh hartstongue, spleen of a sphinx,
unicorn hair, dragon heartstring… and a feather plucked from Fawkes. The Headmaster wishes you
luck.”

“Thank you for fetching them for me, Professor,” Hermione murmured gratefully. She finished
grinding the dried skullcaps and measured out what she needed. Only the tiniest scraps were left
over when she was done weighing the delicate white powder on the tiny, feather light scales.

Severus was impressed. Skullcap was expensive, and its magical properties had to be preserved
intact. One couldn’t grind the dried blossoms to a powder and store them on a shelf; it had to be
ground and used all within a few minutes, before the powder would darken to a dirty grey and
become as useless as hearth-ashes. He didn’t normally do this, but… “Five points to Gryffindor, Miss
Granger.” She glanced up at him, startled, as she carried the powder over to one of the smaller
cauldrons. “For avoiding a profligate waste of precious supplies.”

The smile she beamed at him felt like she was trying to extract the strings of his own heart. Severus
looked away. Such things were not meant to be felt by a teacher for one of his students, and he
squashed them ruthlessly under the practiced weight of his Occlumency, scowling off to the side. In
doing so, he didn’t notice the tiny brown figure leap onto the sleeve of his teaching robe. Shifting
away from the preparations table, he perused the other two tables. One held a line of three small
cauldrons, the other a distillery and hanging flasks of additives dripping into the steam being
decanted from a fourth small cauldron.

He felt he had to make a point, to hide his reaction to her smile. “Do not expect me to fetch and
carry for you again, Miss Granger. I am not some menial squib, or some house-elf, to be ordered
around.”

“Of course not, Professor,” she returned smoothly as she stirred and turned hourglasses, before
heading back to process the hartstongue and sphinx spleen while they were still as fresh as possible.
“The fact that you even offered was a singular honor. I know how valuable your time is.”

Again, that tug in his chest from the sincerity of her response. Severus grunted, and watched her
composing what would have been a masterwork beyond the comprehension of any other student.
Even he was impressed with the project’s premise, and he was a Master in his field.

The chocolate frog hopped, unnoticed, onto the table with the distillery coils, and crept behind a
flask.

“… The hartstongue should be dealt with,” he warned his star pupil as she grated the spleen, first.

“I’ve only got one set of hands, Professor, and I can’t use the doppleshell, since it’s
undifferentiated at the moment, and needs to stay that way,” was her calm reply.

Severus sighed heavily—to prove he was doing this under duress, and for no other, less acceptable
reason for the Head of Slytherin to help a Gryffindor—and started opening the box with the
hartstongue in it, grumbling audibly under his breath all the while about the lack of foresight in
over-ambitious Gryffindors.

It was uncanny how well they worked together, over the next few hours. Only a few words here and
there were spoken between them. She was still a know-it-all, but at least she knew how to hold her
tongue when speech was unnecessary. He was still taciturn and withdrawn, yet willing to do
whatever he could to encourage her undeniable talents in his own way. From the smile she gave him
as he dissolved the phoenix feather into the brew, Severus knew his assistance was in and of itself a
significant praise for her, a gift beyond words, beyond House-points. He didn’t give up this much of
his after-class time for just anyone, after all.
Bloody lovesick fool.

Dint of will kept him from flinching at that thought. Without revealing a single twitch, Severus
finished dissolving the feather, watching warily as the potion took on the fiery-golden hue her
complex Arithmancy calculations had predicted. Truth was, this potion was not just a special
project for his class alone, and he felt a little cheated that his teachings didn’t have the sole focus
of her attentions. Richard Vector was stout, balding, and snub-nosed, but he was almost as brilliant
as Severus, and the Potions Master knew it was the Arithmancy professor’s shining intelligence that
drew the Head Girl to his theorems and calculations, like the proverbial moth to the flame.

For her part, Hermione herself felt drawn to the enigmatic, snarky, brooding man working at her
side. It was an uncomfortable feeling, because the last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of
herself over Professor Snape of all people—not because she disliked him, far from it, but because
she knew he’d mock and deride her admiration of him. She definitely didn’t want to turn into a
squealing, swooning “fan-girl”, as Ginny called the kinds of girls who did such things. She hadn’t
done that for Viktor Krum, and she wasn’t going to do it for Severus Snape, never mind any of her
other teachers. Okay, there was the Lockhart incident, but she’d only been twelve, a mere second-
year. Anything with a smile that charming would’ve melted her young adolescent brain… and clearly
had, to her current chagrin.

It was almost as if she was overcompensating. She’d had a brief crush on Ron, who wasn’t really all
that charming, and on Viktor, who wasn’t all that handsome, and now she’d gone overboard and
fallen for the least-liked male teacher in the whole school. But she actually liked his sarcastic sense
of humor—when it wasn’t being aimed at her—and he really was very competent, which was
attractive to see in a male. And he was oh-so intelligent, it was a serious turn-on for her.

She blushed and focused on her work, double-checking her copious notes and hoping he’d take the
flush of her skin for the proximity to the table of cauldrons. If she did really well on this project,
the look of praise in those dark eyes would be reward enough. Even though it would take a great
deal of effort to wring the tiniest word of praise from his lips, Hermione felt it was worth it. She’d
learned long ago the value of those rare, inestimable things which were difficult to acquire, versus
those that were all too common, and all easy.

Time crept onward, as they worked. The chocolate-frog crept to the end of the table. It rested
there for a moment, then leapt with a sudden spring of enchanted-confectionary legs… and landed
not far from the trio of cauldrons. It crept around the table as the witch and wizard bustled through
their preparations, pausing now and then as its enchantment randomly determined. The ingredients
table was cleared, and the distillery production finished and dismantled. The last few items were
placed on the distillery table, then the Head Girl started clearing the cauldrons on the other table,
cautiously pouring them one at a time at the prescribed moments into the greater cauldron.

Still unnoticed, the chocolate frog leapt and hitched a ride on the back of her school robes when
she fetched the second pot, and leapt off again onto a brown wooden box on the distillery table
when she headed back, while the man working with her brought the third small cauldron into
position for pouring. It was no doubt a boring life, being a chocolate frog, enchanted to move and
leap, yet having no awareness of its surroundings, and destined only to be eaten in the end. Did
chocolate frogs dream of marshmallow sheep? … Probably not.
Hermione stopped by the table, watching the draining grains of sand in the last hourglass, as
Severus gently stirred the combined ingredients the prescribed number of times. She opened the
latch of the box and tilted the lid back, unaware of the sweet lump riding its surface. Her fingers
found the silver-and-black braided cord, and drew it out. The frog, crawling to the edge of the lid,
lost its footing as it pawed around blindly, and fell onto the shell just a split second before it lifted
off the silk-lined interior. There it clung unnoticed as Hermione kept her eyes on the hourglass,
needing to time things exactly right, according to her calculations.

Removing the ladle with the last stroke from the oily, forest-green brew, Severus set it to one side,
and moved to join his student as she swung the magical pendant into position. The last few grains
trickled down through the narrow neck of the hourglass. Five, four, three, two… Just as her fingers
released the necklace strands, they both realized the pendant wasn’t shaped right. That it had a
lumpy brown body clinging to the ridges on its inner side, making the half-cut shell look oddly
whole.

“No—!” gasped Hemoine as the Professor yelled a most unprofessional, “—Shite!”

Acting instinctively, Severus whirled both of them around, shielding her with his body even as the
damned chocolate frog plopped into the dark green liquid, still riding the doppleshell. The liquid
hissed, then exploded. Thick goo struck him in the back, coating him from hips to head. Thick,
foamy, luridly peach-coloured goo. Severus prayed frantically that the young woman clutched in the
protective curve of his body was alright.

He hiccuped.

Banff.

“What the—?”

Severus straightened at the sound of a bizarrely familiar male voice. He realized two things in that
instant; that Miss Granger was utterly unharmed by the peach-coloured foam splattered over the
closest set of desks—

Banff!

—and that his groin was pressing into the sweetest mixture of softness and firmness it had ever been
his delight to experience. Namely, Miss Granger’s robe-covered buttocks. Surprisingly, the robes
between them did nothing to hide her delectably rounded derriere. Instantly, desire drugged his
mind, closing his eyes as he struggled vainly to control it. Hiccup—banff. This was one of his
favourite positions—hiccup-banff—and sweet Merlin, how he wanted—hiccup-banff—to rip off her
robes and thrust into her—hiccup-banff—in as many positions as poss—hiccup-banff—ible, until she
screamed his name in ecstasy—

He hiccuped three more times at that, each staccato spasm of his diaphragm accompanied by that
odd sound… and a sudden babble of voices. All demanding to know what the bloody blue blazes was
going on. Severus snapped his eyes open, jerking his hips away from his pupil’s with an
embarrassed, guilty flush; he really needed to make sure she hadn’t noticed the thickening lump
that had formed. Hiccup-banff. The sight that met their eyes surely guaranteed a sufficient
distraction.
“Oh, sweet Merlin…” Hermione whispered, staring at the nine extra Severus Snapes all staring at
each other in near-identical looks of mixed dismay and disbelief. All of them blinked at roughly the
same time. All of them turned to her with near-identical scowls, and demanded, almost in unison,

“—What is going on here?” Well, some of them actually said, “—What is the meaning of this?”, while
another said, “—Whose fault is this?” but five of them said the first one, so it came out the clearest.

The burst of angry, confused noise focused almost entirely on her made Hermione yelp and leap
back. Which only pressed her into her professor’s body again. The original one, that was. He
wrapped his arms around her reflexively, protectively as she twisted halfway around and clung to
him, seeking shelter in his arms, stirring up protective feelings and an uncomfortable longing within
the Potions Master… who hiccuped again.

Banff. A tenth duplicate professor, clad in black and scowling in confusion, burst into existence.
Hermione twisted further in his arms, facing the original Potions Master. He stared down at her as
she licked her lips, preparing to ask him a question… and he hiccuped again. Banff.

A glance over her shoulder showed Professors Number Ten and Eleven. Right on hiccuped cue.
Realization struck her. “Professor! They’re appearing when you hiccup!”

“I can see that, Miss Granger! What I want to kn- hiccup! -ow,” banff! “is why they’re appearing—”

Realization struck. As did that odd sound, again. Banff. Professor Number Twelve vanished almost
as quickly has he had been duplicated. All of them blinked, the various duplicate-Snapes, the
original one, and the witch whose concoction was still lurking in lurid peach foaminess around his
classroom.

“… Well. Obviously it’s the potion,” Severus muttered, staring at the missing duplicate. It was a
very disconcerting sight to see, watching his own body appear and then vanish like a popped soap-
bubble.

Hermione stared at the eleven professors, all who were scowling at her, at the original Snape, at
each other, and at the peach foam scattered around the immediate vicinity like tufts of sugar-spun
wool. Peach goo that was still clinging to the original Potions Master’s robes. Goo that looked like it
was being absorbed into his skin and hair. Well, it was a bit late to deal with that, but she could
handle the rest of it. “Collectus purare! ”

Samples of the foam severed itself from each and every tuft, collecting over the cauldron, which
was filled with the foamy stuff to a point well above the brim. As the original Snape shrugged out of
his teaching robes, she started eradicating the remaining bits. He hiccuped—and another duplicate
banffed into existence. Hermione looked at him sharply, wanting to see what he was doing.
Professor Snape was scowling at the foamy goo on his hand, apparently scraped from the black locks
at the nape of his neck. He looked like he longed for a shower.

“Sir… aside from the hiccups,” Hermione asked him carefully, “do you feel any… side-effects?”

“No.” He gentled the terse response with a little more information. “No extraneous sensations, no
dizziness, no sprouting of extra limbs… beyond theirs.”
More than one of the duplicates folded his arms across his chest, arching their brows sardonically.
Several of them started to speak, looked at each other, then gestured at the nearest version to the
original, electing him their spokesman by right of proximity.

“We,” and Duplicate Snape drawled the word sarcastically, “want to know exactly what the bloody
hell is going on, here.”

“My replication project was contaminated,” Hermione confessed, trying not to quail in the face of
so many Snapes. “Somehow a chocolate frog got in here, at the last instant.”

“A chocolate frog—” several of them sneered, then broke off to eye each other. From the dark looks
they gave each other, a dozen Snapes were just as unsociable as the original one.

“It’s not my chocolate frog!” she protested as number of them glared at her accusatorially. “I don’t
eat that much sugar!”

“A likely story!” one of them snorted.

Upset already with the ruining of her project, unsettled by so many Potions Masters, and disturbed
by the unmistakable erection she had felt from the original one—she’d been bumped by a masculine
lump or two from Ron, who perversely was trying to snog her now that she’d finally lost all interest
in him—Hermione lost her temper.

“Don’t you dare get snarky with me!” she snapped headedly. Startling all of the males in the
classroom, replicated and original.

“I am your Potions Master!” the duplicate sneered. “And I demand the resp-”

“—No, you are not!” she shot back, pointing at the real one. “He’s the Potions Master. The lot of
you are nothing more than duplicates! And copies, however well-made, will never be able to
compare to the original!”

“Five points from Gryffindor for your insolence!” twelve male voices snapped. They glanced at each
other, and smirked slightly at the thought of sixty points having been lost.

Hiccup-banff.

“One hundred points to Gryffindor, for being absolutely correct!” a thirteenth voice returned from
the newest arrival. Who banffed out of existence again.

Wheels churned, in the original’s head. Severus closed his gaping mouth and swallowed. “I think I
know why they keep appearing… and some keep disappearing,” he murmured. If it was true… he
paled at the implications, recalling some of the circumstances under which he had hiccuped. “I
need to talk to—Hiccup-banff—the Headmaster. We,” he gestured at the lot of his duplicates as
another one appeared and headed for his office to work on that very task, confirming his
hypothesis, “need to talk to the Headmaster.”

“Wait!” Hermione interjected as some of them turned towards the door. “You can’t go out there!”
She received a ragged reply of arched brows and, “Why not?”

Flushing, she struggled to explain. “Because… because there’s only supposed to be just one of you!
How will you explain this to the whole school? And it’s not just the school you’ll have to worry
about. What if… what if You-Know-Who hears about this duplication process? I mean, I don’t know
yet if your magical abilities have been duplicated as well, but it’s clearly like some sort of Polyjuice
Potion, only it duplicates rather than transforms. I don’t know about you, sir, but the last thing I’d
want to see is an army of duplicated Death Eaters trying to bash down the school doors, if the
enemy gets wind of this!”

They paused, eyeing each other. One of the Snapes finally ventured, “… She, regrettably, has a
point.”

The latest arrival spoke over his shoulder as he opened the original’s office door. “I’ll fetch him
here via the Floo then, since we cannot afford to be seen traipsing through the halls.”

The original one wiped at the back of his head with his kerchief—the last of the foam was gone, but
his hair still felt sticky—and murmured, “Fifteen more points to Gryffindor, for keeping a cool head
in a crisis, Miss Granger. Your idea that we should keep this a secret was very astute.”

“Thank you, Professor.” She eyed his replicants and whispered out of the side of her mouth, “Er…
what are we going to do with all of them? ”

“We will do nothing with them,” Severus informed her, as his duplicates arched their brows. “You
will clean up the remainder of this mess, and bottle that… stuff… for future analysis. And you will
continue with your experiment. See if it will replicate a book—without touching any of it directly,”
he added quickly. The foam on his robes hadn’t diminished, but the stuff that had hit his
unprotected head had dwindled rapidly with the onset of his hiccups. “One set of duplicates will be
more than enough to deal with, for now.”

“I’ll oversee her experiments,” one of the Snapes offered, lifting his hand slightly from where he’d
folded his arms across his black-clad chest.

Severus started to agree, then realized he didn’t know which Snape was which. If his hypothesis was
correct, he didn’t dare leave a single one alone with her. The presence of others might currently
curb their reasons for existence, but not if one of them had the opportunity to, well, seize the day.
He didn’t know how strong the imperative of their exigency was, after all. “No. All of you, go into
my office. Now.” He cut off their arguments with a lift of his hand. “—I am the original, and
therefore take precedence and seniority over all of you! My office! Now! ”

A collection of sneers aimed his way, some looking sourly rebellious, but they all queued in the
direction of the indicated door. Whereupon they were greeted by a startled shout from the
Headmaster, who had apparently arrived by Floo already. Severus reluctantly followed the last one
through the doorway, leaving Miss Granger to clean up the residue from her project. Closing the
door on the Gryffindor Head Girl, he made his way through the others to Dumbledore, quelling his
disgruntled copies with a look.

“Quiet, the lot of you! I’m the original, Albus. It seems that, through an unexpected addition to Miss
Granger’s experiment on replicating magical tomes… we accidentally created a foam capable of
replicating actual wizards, instead.” He started to say more, then eyed his dopplegangers. “Each of
you, starting with that one: cast some sort of magic, if you can.”

They eyed each other, and the one Severus had looked at drew a wand from his sleeve and swished
it. Coloured sparks flew from his wand. The next one released a pair of twittering birds, which were
turned into a shower of flower petals by a third. The spells grew increasingly more complex, until
the last Snape Transfigured the original’s desk into a pony and back, in a trick that Minerva
McGonagall would have applauded, had she been there and not dumbfounded by so many Snapes in
such a small space. The Headmaster clutched at his chest, his blue eyes wide as he peered over the
tops of his half-moon spectacles.

“My word…! What an astounding discovery! Tell me everything you know,” Albus Dumbledore
directed him.

Severus folded his arms uncomfortably. “Somehow, a chocolate frog got into the classroom. I
suspect Potter and Weasley brought it during their visit, since Miss Granger isn’t inclined towards
such foolishness when it comes to the risk of contaminating a project as complicated as this. It
clung to the doppleshell as it was added at the last instant, in the last stage of the experiment.
That caused an explosion.

“I grabbed Miss Granger and shielded her with my body; I was caught in the blast, but Miss Granger
thankfully was not. And then… I started hiccuping, and with each hiccup, one of these would
appear.” He gestured at his duplicants. “I eventually realized that the hiccups were triggered by
something specific. A… a strong want or need, on my part. When I wanted to know why these
duplicates were appearing, I realized it was the result of the potion… and when I realized that, the
one that had appeared with that particular urge to know vanished as abruptly as it had
materialized.”

“Exactly,” said one of the duplicates. “The mismanaged foam replicates us when we suffer a strong
need, and we vanish when that need is fulfilled.”

Banff. The latest duplicate Snape vanished—it was the one who had been created last, out of
Severus’ need to tell his employer what was going on here. Now that Dumbledore knew, the
duplicate had vanished.

“That one was created with the need to tell you what happened. Now that I have,” Severus
finished, “it has vanished from existence, its purpose fulfilled.”

“He, not it,” one of his other duplicates snapped defensively. “We may be clones, but we are not
eunuchs!”

“—You had better be,” the original snapped back, scowling at his replicants. “Considering what
triggered some of your appearances!”

“Severus,” Albus interjected before he could get into a yelling match with himselves. “Kindly
explain what the problem is, and try to do so calmly and succinctly, if you please.”

Severus flushed. “It… when the frog dropped with the doppleshell into the potion, I grabbed Miss
Granger and sheltered her with my own body. It… it left us in a position that… that my body
noticed, and I hiccuped. Several times. If my hypothesis is correct, each of these duplicates exists
to fulfil a need… and some of that need is, ah, of an indelicate nature.”

The Headmaster tried to give him a stern look. It was spoiled, however, by a quiver that ran through
his body. A quiver that became a chuckle, evinced by the way all of the duplicates were flushing
and looking aside. The chuckle became a belly-laugh, which seemed to only be goaded into greater
gales by the glares aimed his way from all sides. Winding down, Albus wiped at the tears that had
trickled down his bearded cheeks, panting. “… Sorry! Sorry, my dear… erm… my dear boys. I realize
this is a very serious situation but… it is also an amusingly absurd one!”

The original Severus bit his tongue for a moment, then grunted, “Well, at least we know the effects
of the duplication foam have worn off, since I’m clearly feeling the need to strangle you, yet I
haven’t hiccuped and made another one appear again.”

“… No stormcloud ever exists without some form of silver lining, somewhere about it,” Albus
returned, making a visible effort to sober himself. His eyes still twinkled, however.

“Save at night, when the sun cannot illuminate it,” one of the dopplegangers pointed out grimly. “I
can feel my existential need, Headmaster. It is… highly inappropriate in nature.”

Several others nodded.

“The sun may not be able to illuminate the lining of a cloud, but the moon also shines, on most
nights. Even the distant stars can shed some small light upon a situation. ‘Twould be a dark time
indeed, if there was no good to be found even in the most unfortunate of incidents,” their employer
pointed out philosophically. “But… it is also equally true that the school rules forbid intimate
congress between students and teachers. Only in dire circumstances, as adjudged by the
Headmaster, can such a ruling be lifted. The clauses covering magical-mistake management might
come into play in this instance, but there is much we do not know about your existences.

“For now… try to restrain yourselves,” Albus admonished all of them sternly. “This may be merely a
temporary condition; there might be a time-limit on your duplicated existences.”

“What if there is not?” one of them asked. “I, too, can feel the urge that created me. What if that
need increases in its urgency? What if we were created solely to fulfil that purpose? Would not the
need to comply with our created function increase with time, the longer it was delayed in its
completion?”

“And is it our need, or his need, that needs to be fulfilled?” another asked. “We do not know if the
one that vanished just now did so because the original spoke of this matter, or because he himiself
did so.”

“—Of all the idiots I could have been replicated next to!” a third snapped. “Didn’t you see how the
one who gave her back all those points vanished as soon as his function was fulfilled? God, I’m
surrounded by replicated dunderheads!”

“What demon poured sand down your undershorts?” a fourth enquired snarkily.

“My purpose is to make sure the woman didn’t notice that I—he—was ruddy well attracted to her!”
that one snapped. “I cannot exactly ask her if she noticed, since that would draw her attention to
the matter, negating the the maintenance of her ignorance, if any… and if the rest of you should
fulfil your lecherous reasons for existing, I’m stuck with an utterly unfulfillable purpose!”

“Well, at least you’re not the one stuck with what feels like a permanent erection!” another
duplicate snarled. Several of the others grimaced and nodded their agreement.

One of them looked smug. The others eyed him expectantly. He settled his arms across his black-
clad chest and smirked. “My only driving purpose is to take a shower.”

“Do not take one just yet,” Severus ordered him. “We need to know if it’s solely your needs that
need to be fulfilled, or if my fulfilling them is also capable of terminating your existence, or a
combination thereof. And a shower is the least of our concerns. For now, the lot of you must go into
my quarters and wait there. Someone must supervise Miss Granger in the last of her project… and
right now, aside from Shower-Boy here,” he quipped dryly, earning a dark look for the nickname
from his replicant, “I’m the only one I know I can trust around the girl.”

“I’ll supervise Miss Granger,” Albus countered. “I’m not a bad hand with Potions even after all these
years, and I suspect all that the supervision will require will be for me to watch her clean up the
mess, and bottle and store what she can of the foam. I can certainly handle that.”

“I ordered her to attempt to duplicate a book with the foam, which was her original intent,”
Severus countered. He wanted to protest, but he knew the Headmaster was capable of overseeing
that project, and he needed to find a way to reduce his duplicates with the minimum of fuss—if he
could fulfil those objectives himself, then at least the Head Girl wouldn’t have to be snogged, and
more, by nearly a full dozen versions of himself. “Make sure she doesn’t accidentally replicate
herself. We’ll be lucky if the rest of the school is still standing after my own duplicates trample all
over it, nevermind copies of anyone else.”

“Keep them in your quarters, Severus,” Dumbledore ordered him, not quite twinkling. “And take a
shower—how wonderful it is to finally be able to say that!”

Snarling silently, uncomfortably conscious of how much greasier than usual his hair now felt,
Severus opened the hidden entrance to his quarters and brusquely ushered his duplicates through
the door.

***

Out in the classroom, Hermione listened to the rise and fall of several Snapely voices—if there was
such a word—behind the closed door. She worked methodically, cleaning the last of the equipment,
finding several wide-mouthed jars to magically pour the thick, peach-coloured foam into—sort of
like a soft-whipped cream, only more airy and colourful—and a supply of self-sealing corks big
enough to stopper the openings. It was tempting to try and duplicate herself, but she refrained. If
anything went seriously wrong, if there were any delayed side-effects, someone needed to keep a
clear head, to be able to explain exactly what the project had been about, and what had gone
wrong with it.

She had too clear a head, actually. Over and over, she kept replaying the protective, almost heroic
way Professor Snape had snatched her into his arms, sheltering her from the disaster with his own
body. The way he’d cradled her close, stooped over her. The way she’d felt his burgeoning arousal,
hardening in unmistakable masculinity. The way he’d pressed the evidence of his desire into her
slightly with each hiccup, making her think of utterly inappropriate things.

The office door opened, and the Headmaster stepped out. Blushing, Hermione hid her face as she
fetched and stroked the spine of the tome they’d picked as expendable enough for the replication
process, should something go wrong: The Monster Book of Monsters, a snapping, toothy, furry tome
that Hagrid had ordered for his very first year of teaching Care of Magical Creatures class. One of a
very few books she wouldn’t miss, if it was destroyed in the process of experimentation.

Under Dumbledore’s watchful blue eyes, she donned protective gear and used a spatula to smear
some of the peachy, foamy goo onto the furry cover of the textbook. It snapped and snarled for a
moment, then sulked. And did not replicate anything, let alone hiccup so much as once. Nibbling on
her lip, Hermione recorded her observations in the experiment journal she was keeping, and
evanesco’d the orange-pink foam out of existence. A heavy sigh escaped her, louder than the
grumblings of the now-cleaned volume.

“What’s wrong, Miss Granger?” Professor Dumbledore enquired lightly.

“I’d have to start the experiment all over again to prove my theorem, but a lot of those ingredients
were incredibly expensive,” she confessed, worry pinching her brow. “I don’t know if the school
could afford to pay for a second round, after barely approving the budget proposal the first time I
offered it.”

“I think I can authorize the expense,” the Headmaster assured her kindly. “Provided we take a few
more precautions, that is. Such as locking up the precise information on how to make the… the
dopplefoam, I think we’ll call it,” he decided, winking at her. “After all, it did use a doppleshell in
its construction, and did wind up not only replicating Professor Snape, but turning rather foamy in
consistency as well.

“And it could prove quite useful in the war against Lord Voldemort. The copies have proven they
can wield magic about as well as the original can, and that could be very useful, indeed. Although
I’m not too sure of the wisdom of replicating so many Professor Snapes…” He watched as a slow
blush crept up Hermoine’s face, confirming his suspicions. Oh dear, oh dear.

“Quite,” she blustered, trying to hide her face from a too-close inspection. She didn’t know what
good duplicants that appeared at a hiccup and disappeared almost randomly would do for the forces
of Good, however. There had to be a pattern to the dispellings! If only she could figure it out… it
was on the tip of her mental tongue…

“Miss Granger… are these all the observations you have to make about what went wrong?”
Dumbledore asked her as he flipped through the last page of her journal. “Or is there more to be
added?”

“What do you mean, Headmaster?” Hermione asked, putting away the last cauldron before returning
to his side.

“I mean, you didn’t observe any of the physical characteristics of the original Professor Snape,
during the actual moment of contamination?”
That quirked her brows. “ ‘Physical characteristics’, Headmaster?”

“Yes—was he suffering a cold, was he whistling through his nose, was he standing on one foot or the
other…” the Headmaster prodded, guessing well enough what the answer was.

“Well, there was…” she trailed out, quickly ducking her head to hide her blush. “There was so much
going on, I didn’t really notice. That’s why I didn’t include any observations of that nature.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” he pressed her gently. “Any little piece of information regarding this
accident could prove to be very important.”

“Yes, Headmaster,” Hermione lied firmly. She didn’t dare tell the kindly old wizard that one of his
own employees had experienced a… a purely involuntary reaction to the proximity of a student.
Their position had been involuntarily intimate, after all. Any male would’ve… well, any male who
wasn’t gay would’ve probably found himself aroused purely out of reflex. It wasn’t personal…
disappointing as that was to acknowledge.

“Hmm. A pity. I’m going to authorize two duplications of the experiment. One for the original
purpose, and one to attempt to replicate this potentially fortuitous accident,” the aged wizard
informed her. “With suitable precautions to contain the resulting explosions, when you add the…
the chocolate frog, I believe it was?” At her nod, he chuckled. “How amazing… how simply amazing!
Who knew Severus could be duplicated so successfully, and so purposefully, all because of a simple
wizarding sweet! I wonder what would’ve happened, had it been a lemon drop?”

“You’re paying for that particular experiment. And doing it yourself,” Hermione quelled.

His chuckle told her he did not take offense at her sharp words.

***

“I have good news,” Albus Dumbledore announced when Severus let him into his now crowded
private quarters. The Headmaster looked over the sea of identical pointed noses and stringy black
hair occupying every possible chair-like surface in the sitting room and hesitated. “Erm… which one
of you was the one who didn’t want that pesky sexual interest to be noticed?”

A hand raised. The Headmaster twinkled at him.

“It’s all solved, for you! I asked some very discreet questions, and the young lady has no clue of
your, erm, collective interest in her. Being distracted by everyone’s arrival, she admits she didn’t
even know what foot you were standing on, let alone any other details about your originator.”

They all looked expectantly at the Snape-duplicate who had raised his hand. He didn’t disappear. A
moment later, a pained look creased his brow, and he dropped his face into his hand. “She knows…”

The twinkle dimmed a little. “Yes, I’m afraid she did blush and then vehemently deny noticing
anything… which means that she did indeed notice, but was too polite to mention it to me. This also
means that false information, or even a faked simulation of the necessity that drives your being,
will not be sufficient to release you from your unused existences. But on the bright side for
Severus—the original one, that is,” Albus added with an odd touch of satisfaction, “—she does seem
bound and determined to protect his reputation, in keeping the truth from me. That tells me the
girl isn’t offended by what she felt. She might still be embarrassed, but at least she wasn’t grossly
offended.”

“How did the experiment with the book go?” a voice asked from the doorway to the bedchamber.
The real Severus stood there, hair still dripping, a towel wrapped around his waist, visible under the
unbelted folds of his dressing gown.

Albus shrugged. “A complete failure, Severus. I have, however, authorized a repeat of the original
experiment, and a repeat of the accidental version.”

“But the expense—” one of the Snapes protested as the others looked at each other.

“Hang the expense! I’ve got more than enough money set aside to cover the costs personally, if
need be, and Fawkes will gladly donate another two tailfeathers to the cause,” Dumbledore
countered firmly. “Yes, it is true that Miss Granger cannot turn in her original experiment, nor
especially the journal in which she has diligently marked down all the details of this deviation that
she knows about so far. She also needs to repeat the original process correctly and mark a new
journal so that she can complete her grade with no one the wiser about the nature of her
spectacular failure.

“And yet the accident needs to be proven repeatable, too. If we can duplicate the foam, and
secretly create an army of witches and wizards whose originator carefully creates them with the
driving need to hunt down and capture Death Eaters, we can finally turn the tide in the war against
Voldemort!”

“Assuming there are no dangerous side-effects,” Severus reminded his employer darkly.

“Yes, assuming there are no dangerous side-effects,” Albus repeated grimly. “You should get
yourself up to Poppy for a general exam, in that case.”

Severus winced, but nodded. The School Nurse wasn’t high on his list of personal favourites, though
that was mainly because she mother-henned him, clucking and tutting over the injuries that
inevitably came with being a spy amongst the Death Eaters. As Albus left through the hidden door,
he glanced around the room. “Which one of you needed to take a shower… or did he disappear
already?”

A hand raised. The expression on that duplicate’s face was one of resignation; he had been silent
during Albus’ and Severus’ conversation, and didn’t bother to speak now, either. The results of the
original’s shower-experiment were quite clear, after all. However, the expressions on the others’
faces ran to a different, rapidly spreading, identical emotion: speculation.

“—No! Absolutely not!” Severus denied them, cutting his hand through the air.

“There’s ten of us whose strongest sense of purpose lies in physically interacting with the young
woman in question,” one of the duplicates reminded him silkily. “Do you really think you can stop
all of us?”

“Would you like to experiment to see if any of your existences could be terminated through death?”
Severus growled back, groping for his wand.

“You created us to have passion for the girl!” another doppleganger asserted. “Now you would deny
us the very purpose of our existence? Merlin’s arse, you’re pathetic!”

“—If I don’t get to have her, you don’t get to have her!” Severus retorted. And winced. Even to his
alternate selves, that wasn’t something he cared to admit aloud. Covering his face for a moment,
he dragged his hands down and sighed. “Just… stay here for now. I need to get to the Infirmary.”

Turning, he retreated back into the bedroom. It occurred to him as he donned a fresh set of clothes
that he might have to feed, clothe, and find places for all of those replicants to sleep at night.
Damned if he was going to share his bed; it was big, but it wasn’t that big!
 Chapter Two
“Alright, he’s gone.”

“Pushy bastard.”

“He’s you. He’s all of us.”

“God, how annoying!” one of the duplicates muttered. That generated a round of agreements.

“You’ve got that right.” “Quite.” “Definitely.” “He needs to get laid.”

That comment generated a general round of chuckling, though one of the Snapes groaned and
buried his face in his hands.

“… So, what are we going to do?”

“Well, we’re not going to rape the girl. I want that very clear from the very start,” one of them
asserted firmly.

There was a quick round of agreements, along with several scoffing sounds.

“None of us have that imperative; it’s all free-willed and consensual,” another duplicate offered,
summing up the feelings of the rest.

“And no coercions. No holding our position or authority over the young woman’s head just to ensure
her cooperation.”

Another round of affirmatives, though a few were slightly less enthusiastic.

“But that being so, we do need to know if she’s even interested.”

“What we first need to know is how strong the imperative of our existence is. I suggest a period of
abstinence to test that hypothesis.”

“You don’t have a hope in hell of fulfilling your objective, so you’re just whinging about sour
grapes.”

“—Go take a shower, you ruddy git!”

“I’m not Shower-Boy; I’m the one who’s feeling the need to shag the girl in every single way I can
think of duplicating.”

One of the other Snapes rose and stalked into the bedroom. He paused at the doorway, looked
back, and smirked at the rest. “As much as it would be amusing to watch the rest of you suffer… I
will fulfil the purpose for which I was created.” A pause, and his smile fell. “Ah… someone check on
the shower in a few minutes, in case I… In case I go before I can turn off the water.”

He stepped through the doorway; the others eyed their counterparts.

“… Do you think it hurts?”

“Fulfilling one’s purpose and…?”

“It looked like it happened too quickly for any of the previous ones to tell.”

“I do feel a little disappointed that I’m only here to fulfil one purpose… though the opportunity to
indulge in carnal delights with Miss Granger is one that I feel is worth giving up my life to
experience.”

A round of snorts followed that.

“We’re built to feel that way, you imbecile. How about you, Prude-Boy? Do you feel it would be
worth your life to copulate with Miss Granger?”

The others waited silently for his answer, various mixtures of curiosity gracing their identical,
somewhat harsh features. His answer didn’t take long to decide. It did, however, come with a few
caveats.

“… Yes. I believe it would be worth my life. We’ve all got the original bastard’s memories, emotions
and feelings. It would be worth our lives, our career, our futures… but not worth hers. I wouldn’t
want to do anything to jeopardize her school career, her job prospects, or how she looks upon me.
Or rather, upon the original Severus.”

“I could’ve told you that,” one of the others snorted. The rest eyed him. He pointed at the previous
speaker. “You are screwed existentially, because you cannot fulfil your objective: to ensure that
Miss Granger didn’t notice how aroused our originator was, at the time we were being created. The
rest of you,” he continued, sweeping his gaze over the remaining nine Snapes, “were created out of
thoughts of lust and the need to copulate like rabid weasels—”

“—I beg to differ! I was created to merely kiss the girl!”

“Whatever. It’s still a lust-based action. But I was created out of a different need.”

They eyed him in curiosity, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

“… And that is?” one of them finally prodded the doppelganger brooding from his perch on the arm
of the sofa.

The copy on the sofa revealed his secret to his fellow copies in a single, terse phrase.

Silent looks were exchanged, at that. They all knew how their host felt about the girl. They had his
memories and emotions within them, up until the moment of their creation. The copy-Snapes felt
what he was feeling, albeit at a much less compelling level than this particular version of them,
given they each had their own overriding concerns. Worse was revealed in his next breath, however.

“… But I find that my exigency is complicated, because I feel an uncomfortable level of compassion
for the man who created us. We know from the shower-incident that it is we who must fulfil our
reason for being, thus she must do this thing to me to fulfil my destiny and release me from my
existence. Yet I find I want her to do it for him more than for me,” the clone of Severus Snape
confessed. “And I find this is possible for two reasons: because he is the one that will have to deal
with whatever the consequences are for our actions, once we are gone… and because I know that
what I need is what he needs, with equal desperation in his veins … though we all know he would
deny it to his dying breath.”

Subdued expressions, slight nods of heads, and the avoidance of eyes meeting equally dark eyes
revealed their agreement.

“So, what are we going to do?” one of the others asked.

“I suggest waiting a day to see how strong the imperative is, and to observe whether or not it grows
in strength the longer it is denied. From that, we can gauge how swiftly or slowly we should then
proceed. If we do not have to fall upon the girl like wolves on a wounded deer, we should avoid
doing so. Otherwise we’ll likely traumatize her, and that won’t help any of the rest of us manage
our exigencies.”

“… A reasonable assertion.”

“And a logical one.”

“Yes. We are not animals, to be governed by our baser instincts.”

“Speak for yourselves,” one of them retorted half under his breath. He was sitting at the table by
the hearth, writing a list of some sort at the top of a scroll which trailed down to the floor. “Or
rather, be honest about your needs.”

A few throats cleared, but no one said anything.

“… A show of hands, then?”

Eleven hands raised. The one writing raised his own distractedly as the nearest cuffed him, before
going back to his writing. Another of the copies eyed him thoughtfully, but said nothing about his
odd behavior.

“We are in agreement. We wait until tomorrow, then see what needs to be done.”

One of the Snapes grimaced. “I just hope my ruddy erection doesn’t grow any worse, in the
meantime…”

“Right.” “Tell me about it.” “State the bloody obvious, will you?” “I’ll check on Shower-Boy to see
if he’s through… though there’s no need to be concerned over the level of hot water available, for
most of the rest of us.” “Crude, but an amusingly accurate assertion all the same.” “Quite.”
“Unfortunately…”

***

Soft noises roused Severus from sleep. Bad enough he had to share his quarters with eleven other
Snapes—Shower-Boy had fulfilled his purpose at some point while Poppy was determining there was
absolutely nothing wrong with him—but those noises… he knew those noises all too well. The
whisper of a hand cupping a length of hardened flesh. The lick of a palm for lubricating moisture.
The unsteady, quick breaths, the faintest groans, the soft, meaty thumps as each increasingly
frantic stroke bottomed out at against a crisp-haired pubic bone.

“Incendio,” Severus whispered, and the dying embers on the hearth blazed to life, illuminating one
of the Snapes, lying on a pallet conjured for him, the blankets shoved off of his naked frame,
arching his hips in the firelight gilding his body.

“—Hermione! Ahh! ”

Other figures roused at the half-strangled exclamation. They caught sight of the pearly jets erupting
and arcing to splatter on that lean, muscular stomach, the frantic, final movements of those
clasping, caressing fingers. Some groaned in disgust. Others groaned in arousal. Most of them,
Severus realized with mounting horror, reached for their own erections under the scant covering of
their bedding.

“What the bloody hell do you idiots think you are doing?” he hissed, almost hysterical with shock.

The one who had climaxed first smirked, tracing a finger through the semen puddled on his
abdomen. “Stop being a prude, Severus. We all know you’ve wanked yourself to thoughts of her
before. We do have your memories, after all…”

Shite.

***

“God, I think my erection’s getting worse.”

“Ditto.”

“I reluctantly concur.”

“He’s not going to help us, you know.”

“That’s because he’s a lazy bastard.”

“You mean he’s disgustingly shy.”

“Are you saying he should’ve jeopardized both of their positions in this institution by approaching
her for a snog long before now?”

“No, I’m just saying he knows what we have to do, and he’s not going to help us, because he’s shy.”

“You mean he has no confidence in his own self-worth.”

“Well, look at our faces! Do you not agree?”

“I think we’re not that bad-looking, from the neck down.”

“… Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“You’d better not be gay!”

“It wouldn’t be gay, you moron. It would be autoerotic. And I’m simply saying, from an aesthetic
point of view, we’re in excellent physical condition.”

“True. Women do fall for ‘hard bodies’, I believe is the Muggle term?”

“Perhaps, but they don’t fall for hard heads. Our progenitor is a stubborn old fool. Abs of
adamantite or not, he won’t do a thing to assist us.”

“Are you suggesting we take matters into our own hands?” a dry voice interjected.

“I thought we already tried that, last night.”

The snickers of barely suppressed laughter hissed from all sides, some trying to disguise it as a
cough, others not even bothering, choosing to snort openly.

“… Seriously, we need to know if the girl is interested in us. I propose a test.”

“—Ah, the food has arrived!”

“Bless Albus for handling the house-elves, however he managed to convince them to send up so
much food…”

“Bangers-in-blankets, and sticky-buns, my favorite!”

“They’re all our favorites, you moron.”

“Wanker.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“Especially after last night.”

More masculine laughter filled the room, and one morose groan, before being replaced by the
sounds of plates being passed around and food being enjoyed. Two pots of coffee had been popped
from the school kitchens as well. They didn’t go very far, but it was enough for everyone to have a
mugful apiece.

“… So, what’s your proposed test?”

“Well, Kiss-Me-Boy, here, needs to snog the girl. I suggest we let him. It’s the least offensive thing
we could to do test our theorem.”

“—And how would I report on her interest, or lack thereof, if I wink out of existence the moment I
finish snogging the girl?”

“One of us needs to go along as an observer.”

“We cannot risk being seen in duplicate! Merlin’s Magical Arse, if the Dark Lord finds out about us—
!”

A murmur of reluctant agreement passed around the room.

“… Why don’t we bring her down to the office? That way we can all observe, without the risk of
being seen roaming about the corridors.”

“How do we get her down here?”

“Send a note.”

“Notes can be intercepted. How would we bloody sign it, without getting caught?”

“Albus did call us an ‘army’,” one of the duplicates offered after a moment of thought. “Why not
‘Wednesday’s Army’? Only she would be able to guess correctly what that means.”

“She is a clever girl. She’ll figure it out quickly enough.”

“Yes.”

“Quite.”

“… Do you remember how quickly she solved our progenitor’s poison-riddle, back in her first year?”

A general agreement, and a series of soft, reminiscent smiles.

“Oh, stop mooning over the girl! We’re all in agreement that we have feelings for her! What we
need to do is find out if she has feelings for us. Or at least is willing to be our lover.”

“I’d settle for just a snog, myself.”

Kiss-Me-Boy was pelted with a half-eaten sticky-bun. With several half-eaten sticky-buns, actually.
The buns were retrieved with flicks of wands and cleaned before being devoured. As the last of the
coffee was drunk, they drafted a letter, and—after debating for several minutes how to send it,
since they couldn’t exactly hand-deliver it, nor even trek up to the owlery without the risk of being
seen—flung it through the Floo connection into the Gryffindor common-room. Then the duplicates
reluctantly settled down to wait.

***

“Hermione! Get your head out of those books! You’ll be late for breakfast!”

Dragging herself out of the depths of sleep to the pounding and shouting at her private bedroom
door—there were some perks to being Head Girl, though she was still sequestered in Gryffindor
Tower—Hermione stretched and sighed contentedly. She had slept an utterly deep, relaxing sleep,
and stretched and sighed again, enjoying the languor that pleasantly weighted her limbs. A moment
later she stiffened, remembering. Professor Snape. And Snape. And Snape and Snape and Snape and
Snape…
Not just the multitude of Snapes down in the classroom, but a multitude of Snapes in her dreams…
Oh, dear Merlin… did I really frig myself senseless last night, to the thought of all those Snapes at
my… at my sexual beck and call?

Pushing back the bedclothes, Hermione checked the mattress. The fine cotton bedsheets were a
bright Gryffindor red… and they were wet at roughly the midpoint, with a whitish residue at the
edges. Where her own essence had leaked out and dried. She had indeed frigged herself senseless
last night to the thought of a dozen Severus Snapes crowded around her, imagining them stroking
her body, brushing their erections against her flesh…

Hermione might have still been a virgin, but she was a well-read virgin. Certainly she’d confiscated
any number of PlayWizard and PlayWitch magazines over the past several months, ostensibly taking
off House-points from the miscreants who had smuggled them onto the school grounds, yet secretly
pouring over their pages and the moving wizarding pictures they contained in the privacy of the
Head Girl’s suite. She knew what aroused male anatomy looked like, and how well it worked when
conjoined with aroused female anatomy. She’d studied texts and tomes, clinical and Restricted,
Muggle and wizarding, even read numerous Muggle romance paperbacks. She’d dreamt last night of
what it might feel like to finally be taken by the dark, brooding, mysterious, ultra-intelligent and
therefore sexy Potions Master… and all of his equally attractive duplicates.

Stretching one more time, flushing a little with guilt, shame, and a lingering arousal at that
thought, Hermione dragged herself out of bed and dressed. A brushing charm dealt with her sleep-
tangled hair, and another charm knotted her school tie. Leaving her books to be gathered later, she
left the Head Girl’s room and descended the side-stairs that attached it to the girls’ tower. When
she reached the common room, almost everyone had left, save for Harry and Ron. They were
waiting for her, chatting about something Quidditch-sounding. She started to cross the room to join
them—and the fire flared green.

A rectangle of paper sailed through the flames, smacking Ron in the hip before thumping to the
floor. The lanky, tall redhead frowned and stooped, scooping it off the carpet. “Oy! … Hey, it’s for
you, Hermione!”

She hurried over to him as he cracked open the seal, a blob of common red wax applied without any
impression stamped into it. She snatched it from his freckled hand even as his hazel eyes skimmed
the contents. “—If it’s for me, then it’s for my eyes to read first!”

“I’m just curious,” he protested, voice cracking a little. “You don’t see many letters flung through
the Floo. And who’s this ‘Wednesday’s Army, and why do they want to meet you at lunch?”

“Yeah, what’s going on, Hermione?” Harry asked her, trying to read over her other shoulder.

Hermione gave them both quelling looks, and read the missive herself.

Hermione Granger;

We need to meet and discuss a certain matter that is very important to most of us. Please
meet us next door to our beginning point, where we went after it all began. Come at
lunch time, while the other one is occupied, and tell no one who we are, where you’re
going, or why; you know the reason for these precautions, and we trust you will maintain
 them more than adequately. Come alone, and do NOT bring the other two. They
especially must not become involved, and for the same reason.

Wednesday’s Army.

P.S. We will feed you, so you need not worry about starving while you are absent from
the Great Hall.

“… Well?” Harry prompted her as she refolded the letter, which had been written with a
copperplate-script spell to further disguise its originators. “Who is it, and what do they want?”

“No one you know, and nothing you need concern yourselves about.”

“But, Hermione—”

“I mean it!” she asserted, tucking the note into her robes. “It’s not your concern!”

“Hermione, you’re our friend,” Harry reminded her pointedly. “Everything about you concerns us!”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, nodding sharply.

She knew they weren’t going to give up the mystery of it. Thinking quickly, Hermione gave her two
best friends a shrewd look. “Not everything about me concerns you.”

“Yes, it does!” Ron protested.

“Yeah, we have a right to know!”

“Not in this matter…” she strung them along, affecting a doubtful lilt.

“Listen, you either tell us what’s going on, or we’re going to be sitting on you until you miss your
mystery appointment,” the Boy Who Lived threatened her.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione ‘gave in’. “It’s about… you know.”

They frowned at her.

“… You know!” She gave them both pointed looks.

They exchanged puzzled glances. Ron shook his head slowly. “No… we don’t know.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Harry added, equally bemused.

“Girl stuff? Monthly girl stuff?” Hermione added in a pointed lie, and had to bite back a giggle as
both boys paled. God, Professor Snape would kill me if he learned I linked his duplicate army of
snarky masculinity with the mere thought of a girl’s monthlies! Giving her cringing male friends a
disgusted look, she shook her head. “Trust me, that’s all you need to know. Will you promise to
cover for my absence at lunchtime, while I’m off discussing… stuff?”

They shuddered, and mumbled something that sounded like a reluctant agreement. Pleased with
her little deception, Hermione hurried them out the door. They were going to be late for breakfast,
after all.

***

The advent of lunchtime saw the Head Girl patrolling in the dungeons. She broke up a pair of
snogging Slytherin males, chivvied along a clutch of second-year Hufflepuffs, and when the corridors
were clear, knocked on Professor Snape’s office door. It opened and a hand yanked her inside. The
door was shut quickly, if quietly, as Hermione found herself surrounded by eleven Potions Masters.
She frowned and counted to be sure, then counted again.

“Erm… weren’t there twelve duplicates, last night? When all was said and done?”

“Shower-Boy fulfilled his mission,” one of the Snapes drawled, folding his arms across his chest.
They were standing around the edges of the room, dressed much as she had seen them before in the
same black clothes, frock-coat, and teacher’s robe, each one standing slightly differently from the
next—some leaning against the shelves of icky-things-in-jars, some standing with their feet braced
and their arms folded, others perched on the edge of the original professor’s desk—but each one
looking identical to the next. Tall, dark, and snarky. Sexy as hell, reminding her of last night’s
dreams and fantasies.

“Er…‘Shower-Boy’?” Hermione asked dubiously but carefully, not wanting to offend so many
professors. She prayed they would stay true to Snape-ish character, and not bother to notice the
flushed state of her cheeks.

“We have a dilemma,” the one who had spoken before asserted now. He seemed to have been
elected as the spokes-Snape of the group. “We have ascertained that we each have been created to
fulfil a purpose. For a number of us, that purpose is similar; for others, it is unique.”

“Oh!” It all made sense to her, now. “So the one who appeared and gave me all those House-points,
when he gave them to me and then promptly vanished—that was his purpose for existence, wasn’t
it?”

Spokes-Snape nodded. “Yes. Apparently our progenitor didn’t care for the rest of us taking quite so
many House-points off of you for your impertinence on his behalf, yesterday. Clearly, he felt a need
to correct the injustice of so many points being lost, hiccupped with the force of it… and his
duplicate appeared and fulfilled that need, whereupon he promptly vanished again. Which brings us
to our own existential needs, and the reason why each of us currently exists.”

“… Oh.” Hermione blinked. She couldn’t imagine what was still keeping so many Snapes still active.

“I’ll go first,” another one stated, one who was resting his black, wool-clad hip against the table of
equipment opposite the professor’s desk. “Miss Granger, I must ask that you do not lie to me, nor
hesitate to answer. You are not speaking to the Headmaster this time… nor are you speaking to the
original Professor Snape, as you pointed out so… eloquently… yesterday. Thus what you say here will
be held in the strictest confidence. Indeed, if our theory is correct, it is vital that none of this
discussion leave this room. Aside from our right to protect our existential privacy… it would not
bode well for our side, if the Enemy discovered the means of our creation. Do you understand and
agree to this?”
“Um… yes, sir.” Hermione prayed he wasn’t going to ask her about certain of her exploits with the
boys, in past years.

“Good. What, precisely, did you notice about the original Severus Snape’s condition, at the moment
when most of us came into being?” he asked her calmly, his dark eyes studying her with a shuttered,
neutral expression.

What did I notice…? Oh, god, Hermione thought, feeling her cheeks blaze with colour as the impact
of the question struck her. What did I notice?

“You’re hesitating, Miss Granger.” More than one pair of black-hued eyes bored into her.

She felt like she was suffocating under the embarrassment of the question. “I… can’t…”

“Spit it out!” he snapped impatiently.

“Don’t yell at her, you idiot!” another duplicate-Snape ordered her interrogator harshly. “If it goes
for the rest of us, it certainly goes for you! Now, apologize to Miss Granger!”

That high, firm brow furrowed, and a disgusted sigh escaped the length of that long, pointed nose.
“… Fine. Miss Granger, I humbly apologize for shouting at you, and I apologize for any discomfort my
question may be causing you. However, your answer is the thread upon which my very existence
depends. So I ask you again. What did you notice about the original Snape’s condition, when the
majority of us sprang to life?”

“I… he… was…” Oh, god, this is embarrassing! Unable to meet the gaze of so many copies of the
man who had haunted her spare thoughts for far longer than a single day, Hermione stared at the
floor, her entire face burning with humiliation as she mumbled, “He… had an erection.”

“Bloody hell. I’m stuck here forever!” She looked up, at that. Seeing her confusion, the extraneous
Snape explained brusquely, “My entire purpose for being was to ensure that you did not notice that
singular fact, Miss Granger. Since you clearly did, I cannot fulfil my exigency. Unless I were to
Obliviate your memory of course, but Memory Charms are tricky, and your knowledge of how to
correctly recreate the duplication potion is invaluable to the Order. Which means I cannot do so
with a clear conscience.”

He looked like he was about to mutter, “Bugger it,” or some such profanity, but pinched his lips
together before continuing with his observations.

“About the only possible good that could come from such a situation,” the prudish duplicate
muttered darkly, “is that I am now in the perfect, unenviable position of being a test-subject for an
unfulfillable existential need. I trust to Merlin there’s a time-limit on my existence… because you
cannot possibly be more embarrassed about this whole matter than I myself am. The fact that you
noticed, Miss Granger, is the very antithesis of my reason for being.”

“I’m… I’m sorry—”

“Save your platitudes,” another Snape interjected smoothly, dismissively. “He’ll still serve a useful
purpose, as has been noted. Hopefully, there will be a time-limit on this replication process, and if
so, we’ll eventually know exactly how long it lasts. However, you still have ten more Snapes with
purposes in need of fulfilling to handle… and the need to fulfil that purpose grows a little stronger
within us with every passing hour. I’d say you have a far more immediate problem to occupy your
concern.”

“I have ten… more…” Hermione’s eyes widened, her voice trailing out as it struck her. These
dopple-Snapes had been created because of needs and wants being felt by the original Professor
Snape, causing him to hiccup and create them… and at the moment when the majority of them had
been created… the original had been… he’d had a… a…

She was trapped in a room with ten sexually-impelled Severus Snapes. Hermione didn’t know
whether to run screaming for help, or fall to her knees in a fervent puddle of lust. She did know she
was having a hard time breathing. Prude-Snape—she couldn’t think of him as anything else—pushed
away from the table and caught her elbow. He gently guided her, step by reluctant step, towards
one of the straight-backed chairs opposing the desk.

“Breathe, Miss Granger. None of them are going to—”

A horrified yell interrupted him, followed by the clatter of wood on stone. Every head jerked in the
direction of the side-door, the one that led to the Potions classroom. Ron Weasley stood in the open
doorway, transfixed by the sight of so many Snapes in one space. He had dropped his wand in his
fright, but Harry Potter, looking past his tall, redheaded friend’s shoulder, had not. Though he, too,
looked shocked at what he was seeing… and seeing… and seeing…

“—Impedimenta! ”

All of the Snapes jerked their gazes back to Hermione. Her shock jolted out of her system by the
need to act, she hurried to the doorway, wand still at the ready. “I told them not to follow me! I
even pretended I was having a girls’ meeting to get them to stay away, but did they? But no, not
these two noble idiots! Boys!” The disgust in her tone made the Snapes exchange bemused looks.
Thinking quickly, glancing over her shoulder, she looked at the others. “… Well? Don’t just stand
there! Help me get them back into the classroom before the Immobility Charm wears off!”

Several of the Snapes shifted to comply, though one did remark, “And what good, precisely, will
putting them back into the classroom do?”

“I’m going to cast a Memory Charm, just enough to erase the last five minutes… You can set them
there, thanks. Now, get back into the office,” she ordered them as they released the two spell-
frozen youths.

“You’re very bossy, ordering around a teacher like that,” one of them observed dryly.

“Technically, none of you are my teachers… and it was your note that got us into this mess,”
Hermione countered.

“The woman has a point,” another muttered.

“You will still need to rejoin us, once you’ve sent these two dunderheads on their way,” one of her
dark-haired helpers remarked, steadying Ron on his feet beside one of the lab tables. “The matter
in question has not yet been settled.”

She blushed and swallowed. “I… of course. I’ll be right back. As soon as I’ve sent them on their way.
Shut both doors this time, will you?”

“They were shut,” one of them sighed exasperatedly. “But as usual, these two dunderheads refused
to heed even the most common of courtesies.”

“Do not forget Mr. Weasley’s wand,” another Snape reminded Hermione, handing it to her before
hustling the rest of them back into the office and closing the door behind them.

A moment later, shouting emerged from behind the panel. Hermione stared at the door, wondering
what was happening. Chiding herself mentally, she aimed her wand at her two best friends. “I’m
really sorry to have to do this, but Professor Dumbledore says that no one, and I mean no one is to
know what happened. Which means I’ve got to erase your memories of the last few minutes. I’m
really, terribly sorry about this…”

***

“How dare you call her down here!” Severus fumed at his duplicates. He’d suspected something was
up, when he’d caught Weasley and Potter whispering together in the entrance hall before heading
down towards the dungeons instead of the Great Hall. They’d muttered something about the Head
Girl’s patrol pattern. Instincts twanging, he’d watched them enter his classroom, then heard Ron
Weasley’s octave-cracking shriek, and watched from the shadows through the partially open
classroom door as the other Snapes had come boiling out of his office to deal with the two
dunderheads.

As soon as he’d heard Hermione ordering the lot of them back into his office while she dealt with
her dunderheaded friends, he slipped over to the next door and let himself inside. Now they were
all giving him mutinous looks. Well, the patented Potions Professor Glare certainly wouldn’t work on
the original one! A pity it wouldn’t work on them, either, though he gave them a collective glare
anyway.

“I thought I told you—I thought the Headmaster told you—to stay in our quarters!” he snapped at his
replicants. “What did you think you were going to ask her, if she wanted to snog the lot of you?
God, what a lackwitted lot! Thinking with your loins,” Severus sneered disdainfully. “Have you no
common sense? Have you no respect for the woman?”

“We were going to make it her choice. If we left it up to you, there’d be no choice!”

“Well, it is left up to me, because I will have to deal with the consequences of your folly! Get in my
suite! ”

Dark looks from mere duplicates couldn’t sway him. His own fiery black gaze did sway them,
thankfully, as did the finger he pointed at the hidden passageway. Reluctantly—sullenly—they
moved, the nearest one activating the entrance with a soft-spoken password. Hands dropping to the
front edge of his desk Severus lowered his head, wishing his life weren’t so bloody complicated right
now. A knock at the side door was followed immediately by the opening of it. Severus jerked his
head up and to the side, watching Hermione Granger closing the door behind her as she finished
slipping inside.

“There. They’re gone, and none the wiser. I… oh! Er… where did all the others go?” she asked him,
toffee-brown eyes wide with surprise. She looked at him without any trace of fear in her gaze, just
curiosity. “Which one are you?”

He straightened, settling his robes about his body with a slight twitch. “The original, Miss Granger.”

“Oh!” Her hand flew up to her mouth, and colour tinged her cheeks, before they turned pale. “I…
I’m sorry I just came in like that—I thought it was the others, they said to come back in here—”

“Miss Granger, you will not go anywhere near my dopplegangers. Is that clear?” Severus ordered
her, flinching inside at how innocently and how trustingly she’d come into a roomful of horny
Snapes.

“But I—”

“—I said, is that clear? ”

“Erm… yes, sir. It’s clear,” was her subdued reply. “But I don’t understand. If they—”

“Your understanding is not necessary. Only your compliance. Now, get out of here. You’re not due
in Potions class until tomorrow.”

“… Yes, Professor.”

It was a relief to see her turn and leave through the side-door. Severus slumped again, bracing his
hands on the desk once again. He couldn’t, daren’t let his lust-driven duplicates go anywhere near
the Head Girl. Her innocence shouldn’t be sullied by the likes of him. Certainly not by so many of
him.

He didn’t notice the eyes of one of the duplicate Snapes watching him from the secret doorway, nor
the narrowing of those dark, identical orbs.

***

A groan woke him. Severus’ ears pricked at the soft sounds of fingers caressing flesh. Another groan,
this time from the other side of his bedroom. A third, quiet moan, accompanied by the uneven
sounds of several hand stroking several erections. Rolling his eyes in a pained expression lost to the
near-darkness of his chamber, Severus tried to block out the sounds of eight or nine Snapes
wanking.

Soon, a number of them climaxed with soft grunts, a few whispered and groaned words… the same
name, of course, just staggered depending upon the owner’s sexual timing.

At last, he thought, twisting onto his stomach to try and sleep. Until the masculine sounds started
up again, just as he was drifting off to sleep. Severus yanked his pillow out from under his head,
and slapped it over his ears. Now, if only the musky scent of so much release wouldn’t linger like
that in the air…
A moment later, he jerked the pillow off of his head. Pushing up onto an elbow, Severus started
counting heads. One, two… four… seven… ten. Only ten of the duplicates were accounted for… and
the eleventh was missing, with no way to tell which one it was. Unfortunately, with only one of
them being Prude-Boy, that left a disconcertingly high chance of the missing one being a sexually-
compelled Snape. He didn’t bother to assign a prize for figuring out what reason would have
compelled the copy to leave his pallet, nor for guessing where that doppleganger would go.

All of the professors had the current list of passwords to the various House dormitories, in case of
some emergency cropping up and demanding their assistance, regardless of House affiliation… and
his duplicates knew everything that Severus had known, at the moment of their creation.

Shite.
 Chapter Three
The tingling of the silent wards woke Hermione. She was a little disoriented, but the magic was
specific: someone had broken into the Head Girl’s room. Snaking her hand out towards her
nightstand, she reached for her wand as quietly as she could.

“You’re awake.”

Hermione froze. She knew that voice. She knew that deep, soft, velvety-dark voice very well. She
also knew she was naked, under the covers. With her own room here at the school, Hermione had
reverted back to her summer sleeping pattern—no pajamas, no nightgown, nothing save for a pair of
knickers when it was that time of the month, and it wasn’t that time of the month right now. She
was naked, and he was in her bedroom. Well, one of him, at any rate.

“Do not be frightened, Miss Granger. I came here merely to talk.”

“Erm… talk?” she repeated, carefully twisting her arm so that she could grab for the bedclothes
baring part of her back and draw the sheet and blankets a little higher. Something soft dropped
onto her back making her flinch.

“Talk,” the Snape in her bedchamber asserted quietly but firmly. “There is your dressing gown; I
would be obliged if you would don it. I will turn my back while you do so, to give you some privacy.”

A cautious peek over her shoulder showed a dark-clad figure indeed turning away from her,
silhouetted in the faint glow cast by the dying firelight. Hermione debated for a moment, nibbling
on her lower lip, then slid out of the covers and quickly wrapped the dark red dressing gown around
her body. Tying the belt, she tugged the lapels closed, wishing she’d laid out her nightgown as well.
Since the Head Girl’s suite came with its own bathroom, which she could pad into naked if she
liked, she hadn’t bothered with such niceties in some time. The dressing gown was only there in
case one of the girls in the tower needed her for some reason.

“Erm… are you the one who, ah, is geased to not want me to know…?”

“No.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“But neither am I one who is compelled by excessively carnal thoughts about you.”

“Oh.” Hermione wasn’t sure if she should be more disappointed or more relieved. She did feel a
confused mix of the two.

“May I turn around?”

She checked her front, adjusted the lapels, and sat down on the edge of the bed as demurely as she
could. “You may.”

“Thank you.” Turning, he looked at her, taking in the dark cranberry red of her robe, the tousled
state of her hair. His expression was somewhat shuttered, yet there was an emotion in his eyes all
the same. Hermione couldn’t identify it, however. He blinked and looked away, then gestured at
the chair by her desk. “May I sit?”

“Of course. What… what did you want to talk about, in the middle of the night?”

He lifted the chair, turning it and moving it closer. Seating himself, he crossed his legs gracefully
and clasped his hands in his fully-clothed lap. He’d even donned his, or rather, the Potions Master’s
teaching robes. “Severus Snape.”

“… I beg your pardon?” Hermione asked, confused.

“I wish to talk to you about Severus Snape,” he clarified. “Everything that he knew at the time of
my creation, I myself know, the same as his other replicants. I am giving you this opportunity to ask
any question of me that you have ever wanted to know about him.”

She still didn’t understand. “I don’t get it… First of all, you’re him, for all you’re a replicant, and I
don’t think the Professor trusts a single living soul, outside of Professor Dumbledore. Second of all…
if this is your compulsion to exist, it’s a very strange sort of compulsion.”

“It’s a side-effect of my reason for existence. Please do not ask me what that reason is,” he added
quickly, lifting a hand to ward off her impending question. “Suffice to say, in the revelation of its
existence, your knowledge could negate it, as surely as your being asked about our progenitor’s…
physical status… ruined things for Prude-Snape, whose only goal was to keep you from knowing that
the original Severus Snape finds you interesting.”

“Oh. Er… right. So I can ask you… anything about the original Professor Snape,” she asked him
slowly, warily, “… and you’ll actually answer? Honestly?”

“Anything.”

“Your word of honor?” Hermione found herself asking daringly.

He arched a brow at her audacity, but inclined his head graciously. “It is given.”

Oh. Wow. Hermione blinked. An absolutely honest version of Severus Snape, in her quarters, late at
night! And willing to answer her questions! Unfortunately, her mind was blank with shock. “Erm… I
don’t quite know where to start. What do you think I should know, about the original Professor
Snape?”

His mouth twisted wryly at having the responsibility turned back onto him. “As you wish. First of
all… he’s not the man he pretends to be. Some of it is his own personality—and he does loathe your
two best friends, Potter because he still has trouble separating Harry from his father, who was a
tormenting bully to Severus for most of his youth, and Ronald Weasley simply because the young
man hangs around Potter and shows a lack of confidence in his own abilities that makes the Potions
Master cringe nearly every time. He knows that Weasley could be doing a lot better with sufficient
faith in himself… but though he cannot do so openly right now, Severus longs inside to be fair to all
Houses, to openly oppose Voldemort, and to earn not only the respect of his colleagues in the
Order, but their open admiration for his efforts in the war.
“He is starved for affection and genuine friendship, though much of the latter can be blamed on an
unhappy childhood that didn’t teach him how to easily make friends, and his current status as a spy,
forced to lie to his former friends among the Death Eaters by pretending that nothing is wrong,
forced to lie to his non-Order colleagues to maintain his cover, and unable to make any friends
openly. Not even within the Order, because of his need to retain his unfriendly personality in order
to not arouse any suspicions over accidental inconsistencies. It is easier to live the lie full-time than
to attempt to switch back and forth from the truth, after all. None of which makes it easy for him
to make new friends.

“He is a good man at heart, and wants to prove Albus Dumbledore’s faith in him to be justified. He
doesn’t know if he’ll survive the war—a quite reasonable doubt, given his position—but worse, he
doesn’t think he deserves to survive the war. Certainly he doesn’t feel as if there’s anything on the
far side of the Dark Lord’s defeat that’s worth living for, other than the general belief that the Dark
Lord should be stopped at all costs.”

Crookshanks emerged from under the bed, stretched, then padded right over to him, sniffing at his
trouser leg and the boot dangling over the butterscotch cat’s head, before rubbing against the man
in her room.

Duplicate-Snape reached down and stroked the top of her cat’s head. “He needs something worth
living for, Miss Granger.”

Hermione stared at the duplicate Snape sitting on her chair in her bedroom. She forgot to hold her
dressing gown closed at knee and chest. “Is… is that your purpose for being? Needing something
worth living for?”

She realized even as she asked it that he’d warned her he wasn’t going to tell her; still, Hermione
was surprised to actually receive one.

“It could be construed as such, though only in a roundabout way. His favourite colours are black and
silver, he prefers coffee in the morning and tea in the evening, he does love the art of Potions,
though teaching so many dunderheads is highly frustrating. He’s always disagreed with Dumbledore
on what lessons should be taught for the Defence Against the Dark Arts class—and it should be
pointed out in his favour that some of his ideas would have saved some of his students considerable
grief over the last seven years, including you and your friends. He has been advocating these ideas
since Voldemort’s original disappearance, and pressing the issue even harder since the Dark Lord’s
return to the living was uncovered with the hiring of Professor Quirrell as an instructor. And… you
should know that he likes cats, though he’ll deny it to anyone who asks.”

Stooping a little more, the Snape in her bedroom dangled his finger in front of her fickle cat.
Crookshanks sniffed at his fingers once, twice, thrice, then head-butted those long, callused, deft
fingers. To Hermione’s amazement, duplicate-Snape not only stroked and scritched her cat’s head,
he bent even further and scooped Crookshanks into his lap… and her cat permitted it. That was the
truly amazing part. Crookshanks not only permitted it, he kneaded his paws against the duplicate’s
crossed knee, settled down on his haunches, and slitted his eyes in that happy-feline way that said
I’m getting all the attention I want, and I’m Cat of the World because of it…

The sight of those hands, so skillful when it came to preparing ingredients, stroking her cat with
equal skill and grace, made Hermione envy the orange tabby in his lap. She wondered distractedly
what it would feel like to be stroked by those hands herself… and how loudly she would purr if and
when he did so. Looking up, she caught sight of that same look in his dark eyes again. Guiltily, she
wondered just how much of her thoughts had been visible on her face, a moment ago.

Hermione cleared her throat. “So… what sort of books does he like to read?”

“Anything and everything. Much like yourself,” copy-Snape added, glancing at her bookshelves,
crammed with everything from old school textbooks to Muggle paperbacks. “He is an addicted
learner. A perennial scholar. He was very much like you while he was going to school. Save that he
was shunned on the Hogwarts train on that very first ride by everyone save for Lucius Malfoy, who
offered to be his friend. He could even have chosen to go into Ravenclaw during the Sorting, if his
nose hadn’t been laughed at by several of the older Ravenclaw students, making him want to avoid
the members of that House. Children can be very cruel to those who are different, you know.”

Hermione felt her heart twinge at the thought of a very young Snape, nervous and on his very first
trip to the wizarding school, being picked on by those who should’ve been his friends. “I could’ve
been picked for Ravenclaw too,” she found herself admitting as he stroked the purring, contented
Crookshanks in his lap. Those hands were definitely mesmerizing; she had to collect her thoughts
after a moment. “But the Hat put me in Gryffindor. Obviously.”

“Your high intelligence is one of the things he admires,” the Snape in her bedroom offered with a
faint hint of something that could have been a smile.

“He… he admires me?” Hermione asked, heart thumping in her chest. Her hand crept up to her
sternum, encountering bare flesh. Blushing, she quickly yanked the lapels of her dressing gown
closed, thankful that the velvet folds over her knees remained decorously in place. It wasn’t that
she’d been showing a lot of skin, just that her breasts had finally grown full enough to insist on
parting the material and displaying distinct hints of her cleavage, if she wasn’t careful.

“Very much so. You can only imagine how vexed he was to learn that the brightest student of his
entire career had been Sorted into Gryffindor, the House against which he’d held his greatest
grudge since his student days, here, based upon the torments inflicted on him by Potter, Black,
Lupin and company. Doubly vexing, for he cannot show favour to any student outside of his own
House, due to the fact that he’s had to maintain his position of a supposedly loyal Death Eater all
this time. He knew as well as the Headmaster did that the Dark Lord would return, and carefully
maintained his cover as much as he could throughout the intervening years.”

“How horrible it must have been,” Hermione murmured sympathetically. “All those years of not
knowing, all those years of hoping Voldemort would stay gone, and yet dreading his inevitable
return.”

“It has been difficult. A lot of his sourness comes from being trapped in the role he has maintained,
forced to kowtow to a madman, to hide his better inclinations, to pander to inbred idiots and
endure the misconceptions of his colleagues, both in the workplace and in the Order. ‘Once a Death
Eater, always a Death Eater’,” copy-Snape murmured dryly, scratching gently behind Crookshanks’
ear as the cat tucked his paws under his orange-and-cream chest, clearly content to stay for a
while. “Do you believe his work for the Order is heartfelt and sincere, Miss Granger? Do you think
he’s choosing the most expedient side to ally with, since the Dark Lord’s goals are
counterproductive to wizarding society as a whole? Or do you think he’s merely biding his time,
waiting to see which side will win, playing both sides in the hopes of being on the right one when
the war finally ends?”

She chewed her lip. Hermione could’ve gone with the obvious, faith-filled answer, but this version
of Snape was being very honest with her. It wouldn’t do to make a hasty decision; that would be an
ill repayment of the information he was revealing. Giving his question due thought, she finally
stated,

“… I do believe his defection from Voldemort’s camp was sincere. Professor Dumbledore has
absolute faith in him, after all. That’s a strong recommendation right there,” she offered.

“Yes, but do you have faith in him?” the duplicate seated across from her quietly pressed, an
unreadable yet intense expression on that normally neutral, bored face.

The wards tingled again as the doorknob turned. The door opened silently, revealing the glowering
form of the very subject of their conversation. Hermione didn’t question how she knew it was the
original Severus Snape; she just knew. He glared glacially at his replicant, swept his gaze over her
demurely seated and gowned form, and stepped into the room. Shutting the door quietly, precisely
behind him, he hissed at his copy, “You are forbidden to be here! If you have done anything to her—
”

“—He’s actually been rather nice!” Hermione found herself interjecting bravely.

Severus blinked and shifted his gaze to her. Brow creasing in a puzzled frown, he stared at her, then
collected his scattered wits with a scowl. “What are you doing, receiving a male visitor in your
bloody dressing gown? Twenty points from—”

“—Recorder!” the other-Snape coughed into his fist. The original instantly fell silent, his face
flushing slightly.

Hermione looked quickly between the two of them, amazed that the true Potions Master could be
cut off like that, mid-tirade. And that blush! Just as amazing was the way he subsided. For a
moment. He fixed his glare on her again. “… Be as that may, you are not appropriately dressed! Nor
are you allowed to have any male visitors—”

“—I didn’t invite the bloody man!” Hermione found herself snapping back, surging to her feet in her
indignation at the accusation. “He came in here of his own free will! And though he may have been
uninvited, he has behaved like a perfect gentleman the entire time!” Her hands planted themselves
on her hips as she gave the staring Potions Master—the real one—a glare or two of her own. It was
all she could do to remember to keep her voice down, in case her outrage carried far enough for
one of the girls in the nearest dorm-levels of the tower to hear her and awaken. “As for what I can
or cannot do, I’m a legal adult and the Head Girl of this school, and that gives me a hell of a lot of
leeway! I’m also intelligent enough—and a powerful enough witch—to decide who would be
appropriate to have in my bedchamber, and who wouldn’t!

“If anyone should be kicked out of my chambers for ‘inappropriateness’,” Hermione continued in a
hiss, jutting her chin forward aggressively, “it is you, for being an arsehole! ”
Severus gaped at her, in the silence following her tirade.

Snape, on the other hand, sighed and lifted Crookshanks from his lap. Setting the cat on the floor,
he rose and dusted fastidiously at the cat hairs clinging to his formerly black clothes. Looking up at
his progenitor, he stated calmly, “… She is correct, you know. You are being an arsehole. You
always manage to cock things up when you open your mouth. Most spectacularly, I might add. So I
shall end this little interlude, and leave the two of you to attempt to discuss the matter in a
civilized manner.

“Not that I have much hope for the uncouth beast, here, but there is always a first time for
everything,” he added, glancing at Hermione. His gaze dropped a little, lingered a moment, then
flicked away. It was hard to tell in the dim light cast by her fire, but Hermione almost thought she’d
seen a hint of a flush on his cheeks.

I’m probably just imaginging things—a Snape that could blush? Hmph, and my cat really is part
kneazle. She spoke as he reached the door. “Thank you for dropping by, erm… Snape.” She couldn’t
really call him ‘Professor Snape’ when the real one was standing next to him, still staring in her
direction and looking unusually stunned. “Our conversation was enlightening. I think I’d enjoy
continuing it, sometime.”

“As would I.”

That shook off whatever spell the real Snape was under. He snapped his expression into a scowl at
his duplicate. “—You will do no such thing! You’re coming back to the dungeons with me, this
instant!”

“We cannot travel together,” copy-Snape drawled, sending a smirk Hermione’s way. “If anyone sees
us in the halls at the same time, our little replication secret will be blown. One of us will have to
stay behind for at least ten minutes, so that the chances of someone seeing two Snapes too closely
together will be negated. I’ll stay behind, since I—”

“You’ll do no such thing! You’ll return to the dungeons at once!” the real Snape ordered him
sharply. “I’ll stay behind for a few blasted minutes!”

“Excuse me! Since it’s my bedroom, shouldn’t I have a say in who stays and who goes?” Hermione
interjected. She didn’t want the snarly Snape to stay behind; she wanted the charming Snape. Well,
‘charming’ might’ve been a bit of a stretch, but ‘communicative’ and ‘polite’ did fit on the ticket—

“—No!” both men snapped at her. They glanced at each other, and the duplicate wrinkled his nose
in disgusted defeat.

“Fine. You’ll stay here for ten minutes, no less and no more. If you’re not back down in our quarters
at the end of that time, I’m coming back up here to hex you.” Slipping out the door, he closed it
quickly… and a sparkle that wasn’t entirely due to the metal of the knob glittered over its surface
as Hermione watched the panel shut.

Severus grabbed for the doorknob. “I’ll stay here for only two bloody minu… what the?” He twisted
the knob, or rather, attempted to twist it. He jiggled it, yanked on it, and shook it. “He locked it!
Ouvrum! … Alohomora! ”
Nothing happened. He tried another spell, and then another. Still locked.

“—Bloody bastard!” he hissed, staring at the immovable door, trying to out-guess his duplicate as to
which spell the other wizard had used.

“Great. Just great! Stuck in my bedroom with you,” Hermione drawled, hands settling more firmly
on her hips. The Potions Master rounded on her, drawing in a breath to lambast her… and stilled,
staring at her.

Stared at her chest, rather. The same place, Hermione suddenly realized, where his gaze had been
riveted in utter distraction just a few moments ago, before the departure of the other-Snape.
Which the other-Snape had stared at, too. Those dark eyes were now riveted to the inner curves of
the breasts that were even now flushing with embarrassment, because she was simply the kind to
blush that low on her body when overwrought.

And yet… and yet embarrassment wasn’t the only sensation coursing through her body. She
recognized the other major emotion, too: desire. Arousal. A positive feminine response to his
obvious fascination with the inner curves of her breasts, quite visible through the gaping folds of her
dressing gown. Not that she was entirely indecent; she didn’t even have the outermost edges of her
areolas under threat of exposure, yet. But the inner curves of her breasts were quite visible… and
apparently acting as magnets to those iron-dark eyes.

She had two choices. Close her robe lapels, or leave them open. Her nipples—which were tightening
under her desire to the point that she could feel their peaks rubbing against the fabric—were voting
for brazen exposure. Her morals insisted on closing the front of her dressing gown. She had two
options there, as well; yanking the robe shut and acting defensive and offended that he would
stare, or simply closing the fabric together without any fuss. Since she wasn’t about to act the huffy
virgin—she was a virgin, but she wasn’t going to overreact huffily—Hermione methodically and
calmly re-tucked the front of her robe together and tightened the sash a little more firmly.

“… Since you’re apparently here for the next ten minutes, you can sit in the chair at the desk while
you wait,” she told him, foregoing the polite titles of address she usually gave him. Normally
Hermione prided herself on being polite and respectful… but it was late, she was tired, and she had
not expected to have to entertain a single Severus Snape, let alone two identical yet disparate
versions of him. “You can either be polite, or you can be silent. I would not suggest being rude to
me, in my own quarters. You would not like the way I’d shut you up.”

“You think you can silence me, you silly little girl?” Severus sneered at her as he moved away from
the door, striving to regain some semblance of control over the situation. “I will not be addressed in
such a manner by someone like y-”

That did it. The shock of the two disparate Snapes, the revelations of the night, the worry of the
consequences of the botched experiment, the real Snape’s apparent lack of common decency, and
the incandescent need to shut this prig up, all collided within her brain. Something snapped; that
was her only defense, when she thought about this moment later. Something within her decidedly
snapped.

Hermione yanked apart the bow-knot of her sash, and flung open both folds of her dressing gown.
Revealing the fact that she most definitely was not wearing a single stitch beyond the opened
panels in her hands. Where the idea had come from to shut him up this way, she wasn’t sure, but as
Hermione calmly re-tucked the cranberry-red material around her body—calmly, save for the
trembling of her hands and her knees—she noted with carefully hidden satisfaction the success of
her little gambit. Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts, was utterly flummoxed by the sight of
her naked curves revealed literally from head to toe. Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted.

Blissfully silenced.

“… Now that I have your attention, sir, you will sit in that chair and behave yourself for the next
nine or so minutes. At that time, you will leave. If you wish to say anything, you will think twice
about exactly what it is you intended to say. If it will displease me, you will refrain from saying it. If
you do persist in saying things that displease me, do remember who got the highest ‘Outstanding’ in
Curses last year. However, if it is polite and considerate in its tone, you may express it. And if you
say one word about ‘inappropriateness’ in my presence… I will remind you in graphic detail just who
was pressing an erection into my bum last night, while hiccupping nine or ten lust-filled versions of
yourself into existence!”

His face, flushed with shock and embarrassment, drained of all colour, leaving him looking
particularly sallow and unhealthy. Hermione watched him close his eyes and bow his head, clearly
struggling with some uncomfortable emotion. When he spoke, his voice was tight and barely above a
whisper. “I’m… sorry…”

His apology cut into her heart. Hermione wasn’t expecting the stab, and struggled to control her
own emotions physically and vocally, before choosing her response. Disappointment was a bitter
taste to swallow, she discovered. Disappointment as much for herself in thinking he’d take
advantage of the view and pounce on her with all the passion she wanted to believe he held within
him, disappointment in that he’d shown no overt signs of interest in her, sexual or otherwise… and
disappointment that he regretted having a ‘stiffie’ around her. Lifting her chin slightly, she
addressed him as composedly as she could.

“I think, Professor, that any heterosexual male pressed up to an adult female in a similar position
would have experienced a similar involuntary reaction. I realize you didn’t mean it, nor did you
mean for all of those exigent Snapes to appear and be charged with a socially unacceptable reason
for their temporary existence. Since it clearly makes you uncomfortable, I see no need to bring up
the topic between us again.”

Her voice faltered a moment, then she continued bravely. She’d been sorted into Gryffindor, and
she would live up to her House’s reputation. Even if it killed her to admit the next part.

“I’ll admit it would’ve been flattering to be found specifically attractive by someone with your
sharp intellect, but I am well aware of your ongoing opinion of me, and will not take it personally,
as if I were some silly, witless schoolgirl who cannot put two and two together and reach the proper
sum of four. You are male, I am female, and these things occasionally happen, whether we want
them to or not. Now, kindly be silent for the rest of your allotted entrapment with me—I’ll make it
easier on you by removing myself to the lavatory.”

With that little speech exorcised from her system, with as much dignity as she could manage,
Hermione walked over to the other door, stepped through, and quietly closed the panel behind her.
And sagged back against the door, blinking her tear-stung eyes. Damned if she’d let him see her cry!

On the other side of that panel, Severus stared at it, stricken by her quietly dignified words. He was
still shocked that she’d so casually flash herself at him like that—he would never have thought she
had it in her!—but she did so in a way that showed she had absolutely no discomfort in her own
body. Even as she had admitted in the next breath that she knew, or at least believed, he had no
voluntary interest in her in that manner.

It had certainly ceased his tirade, but then anything that sent that much blood rushing out of his
head and straight to his loins probably would have qualified, since it had left him with an inability
to think, let alone speak. He could still see her shapely curves in his mind, those curvaceous calves,
luscious thighs, the flare of her hips and the narrowness of her waist, with just a touch of feminine
softness around her navel… those full, ripe breasts… Sweet Merlin, when had she grown such
sculpted, alabaster breasts?

Perfection… absolute perfection, a corner of his mind babbled, still in shock from what he had
seen. And she thinks you loathe her!

… Why couldn’t the chocolate-frog potion have just killed me, and have done with this miserable
existence?

***

“Miss Granger, a word with you.”

Hermione stiffened at the sound of that too-familiar voice. Cheeks flushing, then paling, she turned
aside from the next set of shifting stairs and approached that dark-robed figure with trepidation.
Apparently he couldn’t even wait for breakfast to begin to castigate and chide her… nor even wait
for her to reach him, for aside from a penetrating survey with those dark eyes to make sure she
followed, he swept around, robes fluttering, and stalked off into the once-forbidden third-floor
corridor. Leaving her two best friends behind, she headed after him in silent misery, shifting her
bookbag higher on her shoulder.

He stayed silent until he opened the door to a disused classroom. The furniture was shrouded in
white canvas, and the portraits had long since been removed, leaving lighter-coloured rectangles on
the walls between the shelving. Closing the door behind her after she entered, he folded his arms
across his chest and studied her.

“… I take it he was rather unpleasant after I left the two of you alone together, last night?”

Her breath hitched in her throat. Eyes wide, she looked up at him. “You’re the…?”

“The duplicate, yes. From your demeanor and the way you would rather be avoiding my eyes, I take
it he was an arse of some kind?”

“I…” Hermione flushed, remembering what she had done. She’d flashed her Potions Professor… and
in just a couple of classes, she would have to face him again. Burying her burning face in her hands,
she gave him a muffled reply. “I made a horrible mistake… and he was as nasty as ever. It was
horrible! ”

“What did you do?”

If the question hadn’t been asked quietly, with a remarkable level of gentleness for the normally
acerbic Potions Master, she wouldn’t have answered. But it was just the right tone to invite even
the most humiliating of confidences.

“I… I flashed him,” she whispered, lowering her hands and staring at the floor. “He was being mean
and nasty, and… and I flashed him, to get him to shut up. I don’t know what I was thinking! I’ve
never done anything like that, before—I’m not that kind of girl, honest! And… and I wish I could just
die and have done with it all!”

“Embarrassment alone has never caused a single death, as far as I am aware.”

“—Are you absolutely positive?” Hermione found herself asking darkly, glancing up at him glumly. It
earned her a slight curve of the dopple-Snape’s mouth, an actual, amused smile. She eyed him
somewhat askance, bemused at the sight of a smiling Potions Master.

The smile disappeared after a moment, returning him to a sober mien. “What did he do, when
you…?”

Her face flamed again. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Consider it payment for all the honesty I gave you. How did he react?”

She looked at the floor again. “He… well, he stopped talking, and stared, and by the time I had my
robe closed and knotted again, he was blushing. And then… and then he went really pale, like he
was going to be sick, and then he… well, he looked at the floor, and looked like… I’m not sure,
really,” Hermione admitted. “And then he apologized, for getting… you know… in-involuntarily
aroused.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

Turning away, Hermione wrapped her arms around her body. She couldn’t even face him anymore.
“I don’t want to talk about it…”

Hands touched her shoulders, startling her. Of all the things she expected Snape—any Snape—to do,
touching her was not high on the list of possibilities. Touching her gently, for that matter. Those
palms slid down her upper arms, and a warm body brushed against her back, pressing her school
robes against her body. His arms lightly wrapped around hers, utterly confusing her. It was such a
tender stance, she felt as flummoxed as the original Snape must have felt, being flashed by the
normally-by-the-rules, bookish, brainy-and-therefore-considered-sexless Head Girl last night.

Severus Snape—regardless of the version—was not a tender man. Wasn’t he? Hermione was
confused. Yet, if this duplicate had all of his memories, opinions, knowledge and longings… did this
mean the real one was capable of such tenderness, too?

“What did you say to him, when he blanched and apologized?” duplicate-Snape repeated gently.
“I… I saved my dignity, of course,” Hermione stammered, flustered by the gentle, non-threatening
way she was being held. “And his, too. I said it was simply one of those things, you know? Just an
involuntary reaction. No fault, no blame.”

“… And then?” the duplicate-Snape holding her prompted quietly.

“I… I retreated to the bathroom, until he left.”

“Did you cry?”

Embarrassed, furious at the question, Hermione tried to throw off his arms, but they tightened,
holding her in place. She struggled again. “… Let me go!”

“Shh, shh… I’m afraid I cannot do that, just yet,” that low, silky voice murmured in her ear.

“Why not?” Hermione demanded, twisting in his arms enough to look over her shoulder at him.

He regarded her steadily, soberly. “Because I haven’t fixed the problem my creator caused, last
night.”

“What are you, some sort of janitor-duplicate, with your reason for existing tied to your cleaning up
the messes the original Professor Snape makes?” she scoffed, struggling again, though not as hard as
before.

Those lips curved upward in humor. His cheek touched hers, warm and clean-shaven, with only a
tiny hint of a beard-shadow that gently scraped her temple. “Not exactly.”

Hermione frowned, only somewhat disarmed by the… by the nuzzling action. “What does that
mean?”

“You’ll figure it out, in time. I have faith in you. When you retreated to the lavatory, last night…
did you cry?” he asked her once again.

Confused, embarrassed, Hermione reluctantly nodded. That rubbed her cheek against his.
Disconcertingly, he rubbed his cheek against hers again when she stopped, giving her a sort of
nuzzling nod of his own.

“I regret that my creator confused and hurt you, Hermione,” he murmured apologetically,
disorienting her even further. “But I think you misunderstood his reaction, last night.”

“I don’t think so! He… he…” She couldn’t finish the rest of it, because it was too embarrassing to
admit, even to a replicant.

“You thought he rejected you. Have you considered the possibility that you mistook his reaction?”

“I didn’t—! Of course he rejected me!” she protested. “He cannot abide me! The very thought of
having such an involuntary reaction surely repulsed him—not that I care,” Hermione added quickly,
defensively. Protectively. “In fact, I care about it as much as he does!”

The arms caging her against that black-clad chest tightened. “Then you care a very great deal.”
Hermione stiffened in shock. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. If the copy of Severus
Snape hadn’t been holding her so firmly, she might have lost the strength in her knees necessary to
stay standing. Especially when he repeated himself.

“He cares a great deal for you, Hermione Granger. A lot of his anger comes from being trapped
between two masters, one unworthy and cruel, the other worthy but demanding. A lot of his
sourness comes from the lack of honest friendship and affection shown to him by others, because
they confuse the role he must play with the man he would rather be. And much of his depression
comes from considering himself undeserving of being liked and loved and admired by anyone…
especially someone as intelligent, caring, fascinating, and beautiful as you.

“But none of these things can bury and smother the other emotions he feels. The fact that you are
his student complicates matters tremendously, because he takes his responsibilities seriously. The
fact that you could be teaching most of these classes makes your position as a mere student
redundant, but a student you are, and that is a trouble and a pain all of its own. As it has long since
been his habit to use his cloak of sourness and shield of bitter anger to protect himself around those
things that are painful, forbidden, or otherwise considered beyond his reach, he would push away
you and his caring for you as surely as he would anything else.

“I suspect his show of remorse was mostly for the fear of offending you, who in his eyes are
innocent and pure, all the things he traded away foolishly when he was your age. You are a shining
grace in his eyes, where he is nothing but tarnished disgrace,” he murmured quietly, calmly, but
with traces of the deep emotions that went with those words. “This, I know, because I feel that
way, too.”

Unable to stand it anymore, Hermione squirmed around in his embrace and wrapped her arms
tightly around his chest, hiding the tears in her eyes in the black wool of the collar of his frock-
coat, and the soft cotton folds of his teaching robes. It was his turn to stiffen in surprise, before the
dopple-Snape wrapped his arms around her again, resting his face in the curls of her hair. He held
her close for several moments, just held her, letting her listen to the muffled beat of the heart
buried underneath all of that layered black wool. Shifting after a few moments, he cupped her
cheek, tilting her face up from his shoulder to meet his. In specific, to meet her mouth with his lips.

The kiss he gave her was soft and gentle, remarkably tender for such a harsh-seeming man. It
triggered an ache of emotion in her heart; Hermione daringly shifted a hand to the back of his head,
deepening the kiss. He returned her fervour with interest, tangling his fingers in her hair, slanting
his lips across hers, coaxing them open with his tongue, tasting her own when she tentatively sent it
out to play.

This kiss wasn’t awkward, like it had been with her first boyfriend, Viktor, though the Durmstrang
student had at least some experience from his fangirls in snogging. Or even later, the kisses she’d
shared with Ron, who had very little clue how to go about the matter. They’d finally agreed they
were better off remaining good friends, though Ron was still trying to get her to change her mind.
No, kissing this man—whichever version he might be—was as natural and instinctual as breathing. As
smooth and delicious as a creamy pudding.

Her stomach rumbled again. He ended the kiss, pulling back with the glow of a smile in his eyes.
The faintest brush of his mouth against hers, the momentary lowering of those dark lashes, and he
set her back from him, his palms cupping her shoulders gently. “… Try to remember that he’s a man
who believes he’s trapped out of reach of what he wants, though he is caged mostly by bars of his
own making. Now, go down to breakfast before anyone misses you, and act as you normally would. I
will meet with you again, but do not let the original one know. He would not be able to let himself
approve, no matter how much you will need the information I can impart… and you will need it to
deal with him properly.”

With that puzzling comment, the duplicate-Snape urged Hermione out of the neglected classroom.
 Chapter Four
Severus roused from a dream of his Advanced Potions class, vaguely aware of the duplicates on the
pallets laid out around him, and of the lateness of the hour. Much like the real class had happened,
he’d been trying to avoid her eyes, though there had been no less than six times when their gazes
had locked during the session and he’d almost lost his train of thought, aware that she had full
knowledge of the lustful purposes of the duplicates they’d created. In the dream, however, each
time their gazes had locked, both of them had somehow lost an article of clothing, and when the
last item had gone, so had the desks…

The duplicates were not sleeping around him. They were wanking around him, and… and worse. It
had been a while since he’d heard those particular sounds. The kind of sounds one often heard at a
Malfoy orgy. Snapping his eyes open, Severus stared at the canopy of his bed, then rolled over onto
his side and peered at the pallet-strewn floor. Sure enough, some of his dopplegangers were
stroking themselves… but no less than three pairs were stroking and suckling each other… and one
pair was… was…

“—Bloody hell! I am not interested in that sort of thing, anymore!”

“Liar,” the Snape on top of the other Snape grunted with the apex of each slow, deep stroke. “You
just want her more. We all do … but this will have to suffice.”

The one underneath the speaker gasped and clutched at the edges of his pallet. “Oh, god… oh god,
yes… right there! Right th… unhh! ”

The one on top choked and thrust deeper, trembling with a satisfied groan of his own as the one
lying face-down on the pallet clenched in the spasms of a mutual orgasm. A bracing arm was tapped
by one of the others, who had been busy suckling his partner’s erection in a masculine sixty-nine. As
Severus watched, wide-eyed, they changed places. The one on bottom groaned and lifted his hips,
shuddering with renewed pleasure as the new one on top thrust into those semen-slick depths with
a satisfied hiss… and that was the signal that broke the others away from their individual pursuits.
The Potions Master’s bedroom quickly degenerated into a sea of Snape-sex, with deep sighs, throaty
groans, wet suckling sounds and the grunting of ten bodies in the throes of quasi-autoerotic
pleasures… ten bodies…

Shite. Scrambling out of the bed, Severus slapped at the hands that reached up to pull him down
into their depraved midst. Not that it wasn’t mortifyingly erotic to see ten versions of himself
pleasing each other, and not that it didn’t give him some definite trouble when it came to fastening
his trousers, after checking all of his quarters and not locating the eleventh, missing body. Oh,
please let him be Prude-Snape! Please let him be the missing one!

Not even bothering to throw on a shirt under his frock-coat, nor socks on his feet before shoving
them into his boots, Severus left his quarters in a rush, checking his office and the classroom. No
one there. Silently swearing, he hurried out of the dungeon level, striding as quickly as he could
hurry up the stairs to the Fat Lady’s portrait. A murmur of the cipher that allowed instant access to
a teacher, and the sleepy woman didn’t even bother to crack open her eyes to look at him, just
waved one plump hand as the other one cradled her cheek, releasing the frame so he could enter.
Given the hour was twenty past one, there was no one in the common room, thankfully. Murmuring
the same password as before, the one that temporarily locked the girls’ tower steps—he did not
want the ignominy of sliding back down, nor the cacophony of the alarm waking everyone—Severus
mounted the stairs. At the turning that led to the Head Girl’s room, he crossed the short distance to
the door, then hesitated. If he was wrong, if she was alone… she slept in the nude. Did he want to
startle her awake, where she might sit up, and… and the covers would fall down, tormenting him
further with visions of things he was not allowed to touch?

In the silence of his indecision, Severus heard voices. Hers… and a much deeper one. Leaning close
to the door, he whispered a charm to hear better. “Magnaurum.”

“… named him Mephistofleas—that’s with an f-l-e-a-s at the end, because the creature was rather
mangy and pest-ridden when I… Severus… found him. We cared for that cat for three years, feeding
it in the shed, visiting it on the sly, before the bastard—pardon my language—found out about it,
and tried to kill it with a Skinning Curse.”

“Oh, no! Tell me your father didn’t succeed!” Severus heard Hermione begging, making him flush
with the reminder of those long-buried memories.

“Thankfully, no. That was my first manifestation of magic,” the copy that was in the Head Girl’s
room related. “Somehow, I deflected the curse onto a tree, stripping a huge patch of its bark with
the averted blow. My father was pleased I had demonstrated unquestionably that I wasn’t a Squib
and a further disgrace to the family line. But he wouldn’t let me keep Mephistofleas, and in fact
wanted to drown him.

“I got Mephistofleas to run away, then found him later and carried him all the way to the nearest
Muggle village, where I found a girl playing at the edge of a garden with a couple of kittens. I told
her my father wanted to kill my cat, so I had to find him a good home. She promised to take care of
him, and I walked home again. Whereupon my father beat me for going off without telling him
where I’d gone. On the rare occasion when I could go that far again, I saw what looked like my cat,
healthy and well, prowling around that general location… but I could never be sure, because I could
never stay long enough to tell.”

“How sad…”

“Here, a kerchief. Try not to let your emotions overwhelm you, Hermione; the real one wouldn’t
thank you for such a display of sentimentalism on his behalf. That’s not to say he doesn’t feel bad
about it himself, because it still hurts him inside, but he won’t let it show, and won’t like having
any attention drawn to his true feelings.”

There was the sound of a nose being blown, and a clearing sniff. “Yes, well, we all know he’s a bit
of a stick-up-the-backside when it comes to his pricklish dignity, privacy, and self-protectiveness.
But the more I learn, Kind-Snape, the more I can’t blame him. He’s under tremendous pressure,
isn’t he?”

“And tremendous type-casting from everyone around him—he’s well aware of his ‘greasy git’
reputation, Hermione. He may have to maintain it, but he doesn’t have to like it.”

Noise from below, the opening and closing of a door, alerted Severus to his exposed location. If that
person came up from below, seeking something higher in the tower, the Head of Slytherin would be
seen. He didn’t want to get caught by either side, but the pair beyond the door was a better choice
than traumatizing whatever young miss was on her way to the lavatory. A whisper and a tap of the
doorknob with his wand opened it. Slipping inside, he closed it as silently as he could, as the other
two broke off their conversation to stare at him.

As before, the Head Girl was receiving the other Snape—thankfully one that was fully clothed and
seated almost three yards away at her desk—in her dark red dressing gown. This time at least, she
wore a pink nightgown of some shimmery fabric underneath, since the lace-edged neckline was
visible. No doubt she thought it was a demure thing to wear, but Severus knew otherwise; that
shallow triangle of lace only made him want to touch it, to compare its undoubted scratchy texture
to the softness of the skin just above, and the silky-looking texture of the material below, anchoring
the lace. Not to mention it made him want to slide that material over her breasts, to tease and test
the weight and shape of her flesh…

A tentative knock at his back startled all of them.

“’Mione?” came a young female voice, one that sounded distraught. “Are… are you up? I can see a
light under the door…”

The Snape in the chair met Severus’ eyes, jerking his head at the bathroom door. Setting the cat in
his lap on the floor, the duplicate rose and padded quickly but silently into the lavatory, as the
Head Girl called out, “Just a minute, Chelsea…”

Severus, following his replicant, closed the bathroom door soundlessly. He still had the
augmentation charm affecting his hearing. Listening, he heard Hermione admitting the girl, and the
girl confessing to some strange, frightening dream about old trees that came to life, and a
Quidditch broom that was trying to chase her into the trees, which were trying to ‘get’ her. A
breath of a whisper ended the charm. He didn’t need to hear the private details of some child’s
nightmare. Turning away from the door, he faced his counterpart, who had leaned one hip against
the sink counter, arms folded across his chest.

Shifting to stand right in front of himself, Severus got into the closest range possible of that beak-
nosed face without actually touching it and hissed near-soundlessly, “What the hell are you doing in
here, again?”

“Fulfilling my reason for being!” was the fully-dressed Snape’s equally nearly-voiceless reply.

“By telling her stories about my childhood?” Severus scowled at the duplicate. “Forgive me for my
overwhelming skepticism, but I don’t recall feeling particularly chummy during any of your
creations!”

Duplicate-Snape gave him a flat, you’re-being-an-arse look. “My exigency is a complicated one.”

“… Are you the same one that was here last night?” the Potions Master demanded as silently as he
could, narrowing his eyes.

“Of course—and before you castigate me for disobeying your orders, you might consider the fact
that I am not acting out of as selfish a purpose as the others are… and that, just as they are
becoming increasingly agitated by their creation-needs, I, too, am feeling increasingly overwhelmed
by the rising need to fulfil my own reason for being,” the dopple-Snape hissed back. “You should be
grateful my own existence isn’t dependent upon shagging the girl to death!”

The sounds of the younger Gryffindor girl sobbing on the other side of the door stilled their
conversation for a moment, but only a moment. Hermione’s voice could be heard as well, speaking
in soothing tones. The two men eyed each other. Sighing roughly, copy-Snape spoke in a bare
whisper, continuing his lecture of his progenitor.

“… Though I’d think very carefully about what tomorrow night will be like in your quarters, if the
others cannot fulfil their reason for being by directly interacting with the source of their stimulation
and distress. At the rate they’re grumbling about constant erections, I shudder to think of how
uncivilized they’ll be when they finally snap. It won’t take long for them to get to the point where
they’ll just throw your orders down the nearest u-bend and grab the girl for a ten-way orgy! Well,
technically a nine-way, once Kiss-Me-Snape vanishes upon his requisite snog.”

Severus wanted to dispute that assessment, but he’d seen his own self, all ten of them indulging in
an orgy of autoerotic masculinity. “If your purpose for existence was to keep Miss Granger from
noticing my moment of arousal—”

“—That was Prude-Snape,” the copy corrected, shaking his head. “I have a different onus. There’s
eight that want to shag her, to varying degrees of intensity, one that wants to snog her, one that
will just have to live out the rest of whatever passes for his life in the frustration of knowing that
she knows that you had carnal thoughts about her at the moment of our creation… and me.”

“So what’s your purpose?” Severus asked him warily.

Complicated-Snape smirked. There was a trace of bitterness among the humor. “If I told you that,
you’d try to sabotage me, because you’re a ruddy idiot who doesn’t know what’s best for himself.”

“—And you do?” the real Snape hissed skeptically.

“I know what you need a lot better than you do.”

Severus snorted, belatedly remembering to keep the noise, and his voice, quiet. “I doubt that!”

“I am the embodiment of your deepest desire, Severus Snape. I am a living, breathing Mirror of
Erised, for you. And I know this beyond all doubt, because it is the entire source of my existe-”

“—Oh, you don’t want to go in there!” Hermione’s voice came through the door, speaking sharply
enough to be heard by them, yet with a lilt of friendly advice to her voice.

“Why not?” came the Gryffindor girl’s muffled. “I’ve got to go!”

“Moaning Myrtle’s in there. She’s sulking in the u-bend over Harry. I’ve been forced to go up to the
girls’ lavatory to have a pee ever since curfew,” the Head Girl improvised cheerfully. “I really
wouldn’t go in there if I were you, because she’s made nasty comments about my anatomy every
time I walk in there and try to have a sit-down, and I’m the Head Girl. She won’t hesitate to
humiliate you!”
Complicated-Snape—Kind-Snape, as Hermione had dubbed him—aimed his wand at the toilet,
splashing the water noisily with a wordless flick. The toilet splashed loudly, then flushed itself. That
seemed to do the trick, given the reply that followed.

“Oh. Er… I think I’ll head on up to the girl’s lavy, and then… and then go back to bed. Though how
I’ll be able to sleep, I don’t know.”

“You’ll be fine; don’t worry about your nightmare, really…”

A bit more of murmuring could be heard, and then the sound of the outer door opening and closing
met their ears. Severus stared at Snape, neither moving for a long minute. Finally a soft tap rapped
on the bathroom door. Gripping his wand, Severus opened the door. Hermione eyed him, eyed the
other one, then studied him again.

“You’re the new one; I can’t see a shirt at your collar. So, are you the original?” she muttered
dryly, hands going to her hips again. “You seem to be him.”

From the tone of her voice, Severus guessed that she didn’t like the thought of him being the
original one. That sent an unexpected pang through his chest. An unwelcome one, for the only
interpretation for the sharp sensation was that… was that he had feelings for her. Feelings which
she could hurt with such a simple thing. He drew himself up with a breath, intending to lambast her
for entertaining a man in her chambers again—and a palm struck him between the shoulder blades,
stumbling him forward as he coughed at the unexpected blow.

“He might be Snog-Me-Snape. Give him a kiss, Hermione, and see if he goes away,” the traitor at
his back drawled as Severus almost knocked Hermione over before he could catch his balance; their
arms and legs tangled, steadying each other so they wouldn’t fall over.

Severus glared over his shoulder at his clone’s audacity, then glanced back at the young woman in
his arms. There was no denying she was a woman, not with those warm curves pressed against him
from their inadvertent clinch. Shock of shocks, she wasn’t… she wasn’t trying to push him away? She
was trying to pull him closer by the fingers clenching his coat-sleeves? She was… she was bobbing up
onto her toes and… kissing him!

A shudder swept through him, as the minimal light in the room briefly took on a greenish hue. He
wouldn’t have gambled what was left of his soul on her doing that willingly, and yet she
unmistakably had. And she was still doing it! Kissing him. Kissing him! Hands sliding from her arms
to her back, Severus clutched her closer, returning and deepening that kiss. She was in his arms, she
was clearly willing, and he was not strong enough a man to resist a Hermione Granger who was
bound and determined to snog him, and snog him thoroughly, at that.

Unable to resist, Severus slid one hand down to the curve of her rump; hooking his fingers under
that delectable curve, he lifted her pelvis up into him, deliberately grinding into the softness of her
lower belly the rapidly returning erection that had started this whole mess just the other day. Shock
rippled through him as she shivered and pressed back with her own pelvis, moaning softly. Hungrily.

His control shattered and fell away, forgotten in the need to consume her, to be consumed by her.
This was his deepest desire, surely! Groans escaped him as he tasted her lips with his tongue, as
met and riposted with her own when it came out to play. Hungry whimpers met his stroking fingers
as his free hand swept over the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist, rising to meet the straining
flesh that was buried under the lapels of her dressing gown. Her own fingers swept over his chest,
mimicking with his flatter chest-muscles what she could of the way he palmed and massaged her
breasts.

Those fingers eventually voted in favor of attacking his frock-coat buttons, while their mouths met
and mated. Sooner than Severus would have thought, her palms glided over the warm, bare skin of
his chest underneath in a silken shock of direct contact, making him moan and arch into her touch,
greedy for more. Severus pulled aside the folds of her dressing gown, thwarted by the silky Muggle
material of her nightgown that was keeping him from touching her own flesh directly, yet revelling
in the way the material slid over her breasts as he rubbed and caressed. He could see a dusky nipple
through the semi-sheer material. That inspired him to kiss her again, intending to nibble his way
down to that peak, to link her mouth, throat and breast erogenously.

Somehow both of his hands ended up inside her un-sashed dressing gown, while both of hers splayed
and slid over his own bared skin beneath his jacket, pushing back the black-dyed wool with
impatient haste. Abandoning her mouth for her jaw, her chin, her neck, Severus ate his way in
heated kisses down to her collarbone, licking at the pulse that beat just above the delicate hollow,
while his hands inched up the back of her nightgown as it briefly took on a greenish hue, until—
glory!—he could caress and clasp those luscious, shockingly bare buttocks in each palm—

Pain lanced through him, yanking on his ear. Gasping, Severus pulled away, torn between the tight
grip that dopple-Snape had on his earlobe and the hungry way Hermione growled and suckled on the
base of his own throat. A moment later, she gasped in pain, too, both of them pried apart by the
strong hands pinching each of their ears. At least the duplicate was egalitarian in spreading around
such unfair agony. As soon as they had both faltered back out of range, separated at nearly the full
extent of Kind-Snape’s arms, he addressed both of them, easing his grip but not releasing their ears.

“… As much as this does need to continue, I’ve just checked on the others. They’re definitely
worsening in their condition. If their existential needs are not taken care of tonight, while they still
have a modicum of control over themselves, you’ll either have to lock them away, murder them, or
run the risk of Miss Granger being taken forcibly. I believe they’re getting very close to the point
that they’d rather fight you than be chained up quietly,” he warned Severus bluntly. “I also
wouldn’t care to see so many versions of myself murdered… and I will not allow this woman to be
forced into anything she doesn’t want to do.”

The young woman in question turned beet-red at that, as did the original Potions Master, but the
dopple-Snape continued smoothly before either could interject anything.

“Since it is patently clear from your mutual little display just now that she does want you, I suggest
you take the Floo to the Headmaster’s quarters and arrange for that special dispensation he
mentioned earlier. It is now technically early Saturday morning; we can arrange a note on your
door, Miss Granger, warning everyone that you don’t want to talk to anyone or see them while
you’re studying all day long, and then ward the door to keep out intruders while you’re gone…

“… Well, what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?” he prodded his originator with an
impatient look. “I’ve put a pot of Floo powder on the mantel; use it!”
Shaken by his passions, the pinched ear, and the other Snape’s revelations, Severus glanced at
Hermione. “Is…” He licked his lips and tried again. “Is this alright with you? I’ll… I’ll dispose of
them, if you don’t…” She nodded, staggering him. Severus eyed her a moment more, then ran his
hands through his head and headed for the hearth. “Right… right… Headmaster’s Study, password:
hot fudge sundae!”

Stepping through the whirling green flames, Severus emerged in the quiet darkness of Albus’ study.
He started to turn towards the door and the corridor beyond, knowing the Headmaster’s
bedchamber was further down the hall, but movement in one of the armchairs angled to the side of
the hearth caught his eye. A sigh accompanied the soft thump of a book being closed, and half-
moon spectacles glittered.

“I thought you might show up here at some point, Severus,” Albus murmured. He was covered in a
red flannel nightshirt, with a darker red blanket spread across his lap; his head bore a matching
nightcap, and his beard had been braided and bagged in yet more red for the night, leaving most of
him blending into the red Moroccan leather of the armchair.

“I, um…” Severus suddenly realized his state of undress and hastily closed his frock-coat, securing it
in place with a couple buttons. “Things are getting worse, and… and Miss Granger has consented to
alleviating the, er, condition of my replicants. With your permission. That is, your special
dispensation…”

The nightrobe-clad Headmaster eyed him over the top of those spectacles, assessing his dishevelled
and somewhat gobsmacked condition. “… I trust you will take the necessary precautions where Miss
Granger’s future is concerned?”

Severus gave the older wizard a blank, uncomprehending look.

“In specific, what might happen to her future nine and a half months down the road…?”

Heat suffused through his face in a flush of embarrassment. “I… of course. I have some supplies in
stock for, ah, preventing that sort of thing. I’m sorry this happened, sir. I would never have acted
on any of these feelings under normal circumstances, you must believe me.”

“I know you wouldn’t, my boy,” Albus sighed. A moment of thought, and he shrugged. “Truth be
told, I’m not upset. In fact, I think I could be quite happy for the two of you. She’s an exceptional
young woman, and you’re an exceptional man. You’re well-suited to each other in many ways: both
highly intelligent, both well-read, both misunderstood by your peers, yet you don’t let that stop you
from doing what you know is the right thing. You’re perhaps a bit more ruthless and jaded than her,
but that’s only to be expected, given your greater experience and years…”

“You… approve?” Severus asked, floored yet again. That seemed to be the gist of Albus’ ramblings,
at any rate.

“Well, I could’ve been quite happy to see you two remaining student and teacher for the rest of the
school year, but the cat’s out of the bag, as the Muggles like to say,” the older wizard shrugged.
“Just be advised that if you continue to see her on a non-professional level once the dopple-Snapes
disappear, and do so while she is still in school, I’ll expect you to marry the girl. At wand-point, if
necessary.”
Severus felt his mouth slacken, gobsmacked by what he was hearing.

“This is not an idle threat, Severus,” the Headmaster added, giving him a level look. “That’s the
only other provision for student-teacher relationships, according to the school’s charter. Article IX,
Section C, Paragraph 4, sub-paragraph a, if you’ll recall the school’s charter. It’s the section on
magical-mistake management, for which your copies certainly qualify. Magical-mistake
management… or marriage. You have until the last copy expiates its existence and vanishes to
decide how you wish to handle the matter after that point… and that is my official word on the
matter.”

Nodding dumbly, Severus carefully did not point out that at least one of the copy-Snapes couldn’t
expiate his reason for existence. Of course, they still didn’t know what the time-limit on the
existence of the dopplegangers might be, either, or even if there was one. Turning back to the
hearth—missing the twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes—he fumbled a fistful of powder into the
flames,and with the return location and Gryffindor Tower password stated, whirled back through
the roar of green into the Head Girl’s quarters. She was alone, seated at her desk, writing
something on a sheet of paper. When she finished, she looked up at him, her expression shuttered.
It was a little disconcerting to read nothing but neutrality in features he had been kissing heatedly
only a few minutes before.

“Miss Granger…” Severus cleared his throat again, abruptly at a loss for words.

He had an uncomfortable epiphany, staring at her. He’d mucked things up, somehow, and it was
entirely his own fault. Severus had mucked things up with this woman—who was decidedly no longer
a young girl—and he was nonplussed to the point of actual discomfort to realize that her good
opinion of him mattered to him. It was highly uncomfortable, feeling the unnatural urge go down on
his knees and beg for her forgiveness.

“… Hermoine, I apologize profusely for the awkwardness of this… situation. I would never have
violated the confidence and trust of the teacher-student relationship. I… cannot deny that I have
wanted you,” he admitted hoarsely, hating how his cheeks flushed with shame, “but I would not
have acted upon those feelings.”

Her expression softened marginally at his utterance of her name. She regarded him for a moment,
then uncurled from the chair, bringing the paper and a thumbtack with her. “Is that, you would not
have acted upon those feelings until after I was no longer your student… or you would not have
acted upon them, ever?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, considering her words. Finally, Severus confessed, “Not
until after you had left the school, and… not without some sign from you that they were…
reciprocated.”

The look she shot him was a mixture of impatience and disappointment. Her words, however, made
his heart thump in his chest. They were not the words of a little girl, or even a teenager but the
words of a woman full-grown. One who clearly knew her own mind. “Which begs the question of if
you’d ever show you had some modicum of interest in me, so that I’d have reason to show whether
or not I had any interest in you.”
“I… It would not have been appropriate while you were still my student,” he managed stiffly. “As
for the future, after your seventh year is over… I don’t know what I might have done. That question
is moot by now. What’s done is done.”

She regarded him a moment, then padded to the door, opened it for a quick peek to make sure no
one was outside, then tacked the sign to the door before closing, locking, and warding it. The fire
flared green as the other Snape stepped through, brushing soot from his sleeves.

“—Is the sign ready? Good. I’ve prepared everything on the other end.”

“That was rather fast,” Severus observed dryly as his replicant cast another fistful of Floo into the
flames, reciting the password for his own quarters.

“… Let’s just say they were motivated to comply with my arrangements.” A gesture of his hand
indicated the hearth. “The original first, then Miss Granger, and lastly myself. So you can reassure
yourself that she won’t be grabbed and ravished indiscriminately, the moment she steps across. And
I’ve taken the liberty of sending one of the others for a certain potion. One which should help
alleviate any concerns over long-lasting complications, shall we say?”

“—The Nihou Dze?” Severus enquired. Relief coursed through him when his copy nodded. The potion
in question was a powerful, reliable contraceptive. That little detail was for the same complications
Albus had cautioned against. Great minds did indeed think alike, proving his copies weren’t exactly
inferior to him, though he at least wasn’t ruled by any exigencies other than the need to try and
survive the war. Glancing at Hermione to make sure she was ready, he stepped into the roaring
green flames. Praying the lusts of all those duplicates were still controllable, for her sake.

***

Hermione eyed the copy-Snape as soon as the original vanished through the flames. “Um…
concerning what’s about to happen…”

“Yes?” he enquired.

“I’m… inexperienced.” She blushed as she admitted that.

He smiled slightly. “I know. I’ve arranged things so that the first time should be gentle.”

“Will you—?” Hermione was disappointed by the shake of his head. “Why not you, Kind-Snape?”

His smile, slight though it was, looked as gentle as the sobriquet she’d given him. “Someone else
needs to have that experience.”

“One of the other Snapes needs to have my virginity?” she asked, curious.

“You’ll see. Trust me, Hermione,” he murmured, guiding her to the hearth. “I will not let anyone
harm you. Least of all myselves.”

She did trust him. There was something about this particular version of Severus Snape that was…
well, ‘soft’ wasn’t the right word for it, but both it and ‘gentle’ came fairly close. If only he could
be like that around me all of the time … An impractical wish, but there it was. Even if it were in his
nature to do so—moreso than an existential imperative—the circumstances of his life, what with the
war and his status as a hidden spy, wouldn’t allow him to be anything remotely like soft and gentle
around her. At least, not in public…

Though why he should be so gentle around her, what reason for his existence could possibly compel
him to protect her and enlighten her and be so nice to her, she simply didn’t know.

Stepping through the roaring flames, Hermione stumbled out into a bedroom. The air that spell-
scrubbed scent to it, sort of like an air freshener, only better; it had been scented with hints of
vanilla and roses and something spicy. There was only one Snape in the room, and he wasn’t
wearing a shirt under his haphazardly buttoned frock-coat. The fire in the hearth behind Hermione
flared green again and the other Snape emerged.

The first one—the original one—cleared his throat, his cheeks bronzed with hints of awkwardness. “I
think we should, ah…”

“—It’s been arranged,” Kind-Snape demurred, nudging Hermione towards him. “You’ll have an hour.
Make the most of it.”

Hermione glanced over her shoulder at the neatly dressed Snape nudging her right up to the Potions
Master. “You want me to… with the original one?”

“Who better?”

A last, firm nudge of his palm at her back, and she stumbled against the unsettled original. Severus
caught her, of course, his dark eyes staring down into her brown ones, searching for something.
They both jumped a little as the bedroom door clicked shut, leaving them alone.

“Miss Granger, I would not—”

Hermione covered his mouth with her fingertips, silencing him. Surprisingly, it worked; a pity she
couldn’t silence him this way during class, or out in the halls. She was tired of hearing him
apologize, and that had to be addressed. “I don’t want to hear what you wouldn’t have done, if
circumstances were different. I want to hear what you do want to do within these circumstances.”

“Miss Granger—” he stated as soon as she removed her fingers. Hermione quickly reapplied them
again.

“—I think, under the circumstances, I’d rather we dropped the formality,” she asserted, and gave
him an unsteady smile. “Or I’ll be a nervous wreck before we’re even a quarter done… Severus.”

It took a lot of her courage to say his given name. Those obsidian eyes regarded her silently for a
moment, before his dipped his head slightly, acknowledging her point and dislodging her fingers. “…
Hermione.”

A thrill rippled down her nerves at the sound of her own name being voiced in that quiet, deep,
husky voice. The voice that had unwittingly seduced her over many a cauldron through the years,
though she’d not figured outs until recently exactly what it was the Potions Master did to her when
he lectured. At first she’d just thought him a fascinating lecturer, and he was, full of knowledge
and confidence, and that sharp-as-a-razor wit. But then, somewhere after puberty had struck, his
lectures had become something… more. Summoning more of her Gryffindor courage, Hermione
replaced her fingers with her lips, initiating their second kiss. This time, he responded much more
quickly, if a little more gently. Last time she suspected she’d ambushed him. This time, he was a
willing participant.

Very willing. His hands shifted from her upper arms to her back, to her waist and the ties of her
dressing gown. She felt him opening the folds and caressing the material until it fell off her
shoulders, which necessitated her own arms releasing him long enough for the material to drop to
the floor. In retaliation, Hermione unbuttoned his coat once again and pulled it off, baring the
upper half of his body as the dark wool slumped onto the carpet under their feet. He pulled back
from their kiss at that, but not to protest; instead, he looked around, caught her wrist, and backed
up to the side of the large four-poster bed. Sitting down, he stooped, removed his boots, then
straightened.

Hermione blushed as he caught her staring at his chest. She’d seen naked male chests before,
usually in the summertime, and mostly either family members’ or friends’ chests, those males who
had stripped off their shirts to cool down on a hot afternoon. This was different. This was vastly
more intimate, because this was in the privacy of a fire-warmed bedchamber in the middle of an
early winter night, not in some sun-drenched yard at home, or over at the Burrow. This was also
Severus Snape’s naked chest. She doubted she’d seen anything more than his hands, his face, and a
touch of his neck in the entire six and a half years she’d been attending this school. The sight of all
that naked flesh, knowing she was likely the only female student in the entire school to have seen
the Potions Master even so much as half naked, nevermind a Potions Master about to get even more
so… it was a heady thing to contemplate.

The urge to touch him was overwhelming. Stronger than her shyness, thankfully. Stepping out of her
slippers, Hermione moved between his slightly parted knees and touched his shoulders. They were
an intriguing mix of cool and warm. The coolness, she knew, came from the slight chill in the air
that the fireplace couldn’t quite dispel. The warmth was pure male. Tracing the lean muscles and
the bones they were attached to, Hermione glided her fingers over his shoulders, his collarbone,
glad when he didn’t protest the touch of her hands feathering their way up the column of his throat
to his jawline, his cheeks, even his brow.

His eyelids drifted shut as she explored his face, stroking his nose, rubbing the faint rasp of stubble
along his chin, tracing the thin curve of his lips. It was not a handsome face, but it did have
character. Bending over, Hermione gently kissed the end of that beak-like nose. His eyes snapped
open at that, making her jerk back a little in uncertainty. The look in those dark eyes was equally
uncertain, as if she had done something puzzling. All she’d done was kiss… all she had done was
willingly kiss the nose that nearly every student in the school ridiculed, Hermione realized. If she
hadn’t heard about his past, his thoughts and memories and opinions from the other-Snape, she
might not have fully acknowledged his humanity, nor thought about the frailties that went with it.
But she did now.

Returning her fingertips to the long, pointed protuberance, she murmured, “Your nose isn’t small,
or pretty… but I like it all the same.” His brow furrowed at that, so she stroked that next. “I like
how intelligent you are, how brilliant you are at Potions, the sharpness of your wit… well, not when
it’s turned against me, but you’ve a wickedly funny sense of sarcasm, you know. There’s been a
number of times when I’ve nearly burst out laughing in the middle of a class, listening to you
castigate someone else for their idiocies.”

“I’m not a handsome man, so there’s no point in your pretending otherwi-”

Her fingertips stopped his lips. Yes, a definite pity I can’t use this technique to get out of a
berating in class, Hermione mused, smiling softly. “I never said you were handsome. I said I liked
the way you look. I may have been an idiot when I was twelve, fancying that Lockhart git, but I was
only twelve. I’ve grown up since then, and I know now that substance is always the better choice
over mere appearance. You, Severus Snape, are a man of great substance, to me.”

Severus closed his eyes. His hand came up over hers, pressing her fingers to his lips, then he opened
his eyes again. Before Hermione knew it, he had drawn her down onto his lap. There was a look in
his eyes that she couldn’t fathom, but she had seen it before. In the other Snape’s gaze.

“If substance is what you want, Hermione… then you shall have it.”

His gaze drifted to her mouth. Hermione knew he was going to give her another mind-stealing kiss.
She looped her arms around the back of his neck, brushing the tip of her nose against his. The knock
at the door came just as their lips brushed and met. Jumping in surprise, Hermione found herself
clinging to Severus as they both looked at the door. The person knocked again, then opened the
door. A familiar dark head peered around the corner for a quick look, then the rest of that equally
familiar frame stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

The duplicate had a goblet in his hand. Without any visible reaction to the sight of Hermione sitting
in her original professor’s arms, clad only in her thin nightgown, he strode briskly up to them and
proffered the cup to her. “You need to drink this, Hermione. We almost forgot the most important
step: ensuring there aren’t any lifelong consequences of this night.”

Hermione blushed as she took the crystal glass. The deep red liquid smelled like strawberries, but
when she lifted it to her lips, it tasted like seaweed. Holding her breath, she knocked back all of
the slightly thick potion, tilting the goblet to make sure the full dosage drained into her mouth. This
was not something to be left to chance. Swallowing, she shuddered, waiting until the strong
aftertaste went away. Thankfully it was a property of the potion that the flavor vanished within a
minute or so, letting the drinker know that the potion was now active and effective. As she waited,
the duplicate took the goblet back and retreated to the door.

“You have just over fifty minutes left,” Kind-Snape reminded them both over his shoulder.

“I’ll take as much bloody time as I like,” the original one muttered even as the door shut behind the
exiting copy. He looked at her again. “Hermione…”

“Yes, Severus?” she asked, licking her lips to get rid of the last of the contraceptive. The flavour
vanished as she did so. Whatever he was going to say was discarded in favour of tasting those lips,
for he closed the distance between their mouths and licked the same soft curves of flesh her own
tongue had just traced.

He pulled back after a moment, cupping her cheek. “The aftertaste is gone. You’re now protected.
Which is good, because I find my vaunted self-control vanishing…”

He kissed her again, delving his fingers deep into her hair so that he could hold her head at exactly
the right angle. Sighing, Hermione returned the caress, twining her fingers through his silky black
hair. It wasn’t really all that greasy, just soft and sleek, though it was a bit tangled. Resolving to
have at least one of her own fantasies played out before the night was through, Hermione promised
herself the chance to wash and brush his hair properly, later. Any of the duplicates’ hair, for that
matter.

Those hands, those marvelous, deft hands stroked her arms, sliding briefly under the short sleeves
of her nightgown, then slipped down to massage her breasts again. Hermione sighed against his lips
in pleasure. Slipping her own hand down, she covered his gently kneading fingers, encouraging his
efforts. He deepened their kisses, entwining their tongues. The arm cradling her back urged her
closer even as he lowered the one at her breasts, stroking her stomach through the pink nylon of
her nightgown. When she tried to drag his hand back up to her breasts, he murmured something
indistinct, hooked his arm under her knees, and stood, lifting her in his arms.

Not for long, however; Severus’ intent was merely to turn and lay her on his bed, carefully adjusting
her hair so that the curls weren’t caught under her back. Climbing onto the bed next to her, he
settled against her side, impatiently brushing his shoulder-length locks out of his way with a rake of
his hand before dipping his head for another kiss. The position allowed that hand to stroke freely
over her front, from a gentle caress at her throat to a brief massage at her breasts, to a gliding
touch down over her belly. She tensed in uncertainty as his fingers brushed her mound through the
fabric of the gown, and he pulled back slightly.

Dark eyes searched lighter brown for a moment. “Hermione, are you… experienced?”

She licked her lips, blushing and determined to not look too much like an inexperienced
dunderhead. “No, but… but I’ve read a lot of books.”

A strange expression twisted his features. “You’ve… read… a lot of books.”

“Well, yes. On the subject of sex and pleasure and lovemaking. I’ve actually done quite a lot of
research over the years—”

His expression crumpled, scrunched… and dissolved with laughter. Hermione might have been
offended, if she hadn’t been so fascinated with the sound and the sight of him laughing. Unable to
maintain his proximity, he pulled back a little, chuckling as he calmed down. His frown lines
softened along his brow, and unexpected crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes. He stared
down at her, and the surprise she didn’t bother to hide seemed to tickle his sense of humor further,
for the chuckle transformed back into a full-blown laugh.

In fact, he was so taken with laughter, he slumped onto his side, half squishing her as he slumped
over her right side, half deafening her right ear. It was a little disconcerting, but… he was laughing.
Hermione found herself smiling involuntarily. “… I’m pleased I’ve managed to make you laugh, but I
really don’t see what’s so funny; I did a very serious search into the subject this last summer,
ranging from tawdry bodice-rippers and Muggle journal quizzes all the way to the Art of Eromancy
itself!”
What little control he’d gained of himself during the first part of her speech dissolved in a snorting
spasm of more laughter. Snickering quickly led to guffawing, which in turn led to him rolling limply
onto his back, helpless with mirth. The scowl lines that had begun to etch themselves on either side
of his nose and mouth transformed into laugh lines with remarkable ease, given this was the very
first time Hermione had ever seen him doing anything more vigorously amused in nature than a
sardonic, jaded smirk and a short chuckle at best. Pushing up onto her elbow, she stared down at
him, her confusion and the halfhearted irritation roused by his laughter eroding under the pressure
of a very strange realization.

The world dropped out from under her, as that realization crystallized fully within her mind. And,
just like that Muggle cartoon coyote from her childhood, Hermione had one brief moment to realize
what was happening to her before she fell, long and hard… in love. She loved the man next to her,
the bizarrely jolly madman still laughing so hard that tears were being squeezed out of his
scrunched-up eyes. She loved the Potions Master. She loved her teacher. She loved the greasy-git.
She loved the black-bat bastard of Hogwarts. She loved the Head of Slytherin, her House’s deadly
rival.

No matter how many ways Hermione tried to state it, no matter how hard she tried to exhaust the
subject into absurdity… it remained as solid a fact as the metaphorical ground that slammed into
her at the bottom of her long plummet, stunning her speechless with the impact of the revelation.

She loved Severus Snape.

Tears prickled in her own eyes. Rolling the other way, Hermione blinked to regain control of her
wayward emotions. She wasn’t crying, or trying to cry. She was just… overwrought. Behind her, the
chuckles died down. A few panting breaths, and she felt the mattress shift, and the heat of his body
pressing against her back.

“Hermione? Did I offend you?” he asked, his voice almost as soft and gentle as Kind-Snape’s. That
made the stinging in her eyes return. She shook her head quickly in negation, blinking to clear away
the tears. Severus’ voice turned somewhat dry and rough. “Somehow, I think I did, despite your
silent protestations…

“Look at me. Come on, look at me, woman,” he half-ordered half coaxed, sliding his fingers under
her cheek, cupping it and turning her head to look up at him. Hermione looked up at him as she
rolled partially onto her back, drowning in those dark eyes as he shifted his position a little to allow
her room to turn. He met her gaze firmly, almost earnestly, though such an expression would have
been even more foreign on his normally cynical face than outright laughter had been, had it been
fully formed. “I was not laughing at you, Hermione. I was laughing because it was a very you thing
for you to do, if that makes any sense. I—”

She stopped him with her fingers again. A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. “I know. It is a
very ‘me’ thing to do.” Heart aching, she gave him a teasing smirk as she removed her hand again.
Daring to test the murky waters of how he felt about her in turn. “Would you have me any other
way?”

If it was possible for obsidian eyes to turn even darker, his seemed to do so. She didn’t have much
of a chance to observe the phenomenon, for his head blocked out the light from the fireplace and
the candles burning in the wall sconces. His mouth blotted out rational thought as he kissed her
again, urging her fully onto her back and sliding over her, considerately bracing much of his weight
on his knees and elbows. Wanting to feel more of his body pressing against hers, Hermione arched
up into him, pressing her nightgown-covered breasts into his chest. Touching his ribs, she explored
the warmth, the play of the muscles, the bones close to the surface of his thin but strong frame. He
shuddered when she touched what she could reach of his belly, and flexed his hips, nudging his
arousal into her pubic mound.

The feel of it gave her a thrill. Hermione tickled his stomach again, and lifted her own loins into the
press of his when his breath escaped from him in a trembling gust; Severus Snape, ticklish—what an
intriguing concept… Moaning softly, she nipped at his lower lip. Her hands slid around his back,
pulling more of his weight down onto her.

Legs shifting, he nudged her thighs apart with one knee, then the other as he kissed her. She wasn’t
even aware of a subtler goal on his part, to lift the hem of her nightgown up her thighs, until he
squirmed a little and pressed his wool-straining erection against the bare flesh at the tops of those
thighs, grinding his hips a little with impatient need. The ambush was so unexpected, yet so
welcome, Hermione moaned and shuddered, pushing up into him as a minor climax trembled
through her flesh.

Severus groaned, too, and tugged impatiently at her gown, pulling it up the length of her torso.
Breaking their kiss, he freed the gown from her arms and head, flinging it somewhere to the side
before lowering himself to her naked body for another heated mating of their lips. The feel of all
that lean, warm, bare skin against her upper belly and breasts made Hermione gasp. That made him
pull back after only a nibble.

“… Are you alright?” It was a husky question, and the desire-drugged sound of his voice sent another
thrill through her.

“Oh god, yes!” She arched into him again, undulating from breasts to hips, hands smoothing down
his ribs, enjoying the feel of him. When she reached the waistband of his trousers, Hermione tugged
impatiently at the material. It frustrated and offended her that she was naked and he was not.
“Off. Off!”

A soft exhalation, almost a laugh, escaped him. Catching her hands, Severus pressed them to the
mattress. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” Hermione demanded, frowning at him. She wasn’t sure if she liked his command of the
situation. Bloody arrogant git… god, I cannot believe his domineering control is turning me on! That
was going to make class-time difficult, she realized hazily, if every time he lectured and thundered
and hissed at his Advanced class, it made her ache with this same kind of impassioned need.

“Because,” he replied, shifting down her body, pressing his lips to her throat, her collarbone, her
sternum, “I’m not ready for that… and neither are you.”

He nuzzled the slopes of her flesh, rubbing his slightly stubbled face against the curves of her chest.
The raspy sensation was intriguing, but it was the sight of him revelling in his senses, revelling in
her femininity, that shot an answering desire through her veins. Unsure of what to do, only knowing
that she wanted more, Hermione lifted her hands to her breasts, plumping them for him. The groan
that escaped him let her know her action pleased her lover, and he attacked her breasts with
renewed fervor, licking and suckling and nipping. He didn’t stay there for long, however; eventually
he drifted lower down her body, making her twitch and bite back a giggle when he licked the
bottom curve of her ribs, and gasp when he rimmed and explored the hollow of her navel with the
tip of his nose and his tongue.

Her thighs were stiff with uncertainty, when he shifted further south. She’d read about this sort of
thing, that it was supposed to be very pleasurable for a woman, but it was the most private part of
her body. The most vulnerable part. He was solidly seated between her thighs, however, and there
was more than enough lean strength in his shoulders and arms to wedge her thighs wider. Gently,
but powerfully. “Relax, Miss Granger; you’ll enjoy this, I promise you…”

“It’s Hermione,” she asserted, not wanting to hear such a formal, distanced version of her name at
such an intimate moment as this. She choked on her breath in the next heartbeat as he dipped his
head between her splayed thighs, tickling her skin with the silky feel of his black locks, and lapped
at her distinctly wet flesh.

A sound, too husky to be a groan, escaped his throat. For a moment, his head lifted from her mound
and those dark eyes gleamed up the length of her body, meeting her wary gaze. His tongue licked a
gleam of moisture from his upper lip. “No… it’s delicious.”

He attacked her with no further warning than that. She quickly forgot the importance of her own
name under the stimulating onslaught of his lips and tongue, even his teeth. The first moan he
wrested from her embarrassed Hermione, but he did it again, and again, and she gave up trying to
control herself, gave up trying to salvage some dignity—what use was dignity, when the dreaded
Potions Master of Hogwarts was brewing such… such magic between her legs? Her moans soon
became louder groaning, her twitches morphed into thrashings, her gasps merged into rapid
panting.

She could feel her climax rushing her way, like the terrifying, distant thunder of an avalanche
sweeping down a snow-cloaked mountainside. Hands clutching at the pillow under her head, at the
bedding, at his hair, Hermione arched into his mouth as the orgasm hit, blinding everything in an
ongoing, white-noise-like pleasure, blanking out all other sensations as she groaned his name
hoarsely. Her body bucked and shuddered violently as the tingling fires of desire crashed together
and flared outward again like waves in a wildly agitated tub. Drowning, yes, she was drowning in
the intensity, unbelievably intense compared to the otherwise quite enjoyable pleasures she had
given herself, frigging under the covers late at night. Perversely wanting more, knowing it was too
intense already, Hermione clutched and tugged at his scalp, pulling him closer, uncaring if she was
suffocating him, or maybe just threatening to break his nose with her pelvic bone.

Finally, he gentled her down out of the ongoing rush of her climax. A few last savouring licks, and
he climbed back up the length of her body, scattering a kiss here, a nibble there as she tried to
steady her breathing. Her nipples were tender enough to make her suck in a sharp breath as he
rubbed his stubbled chin over them. Mouth curved in a masculine smirk—as opposed to his usual
sardonic one—Severus kissed her with his damp, musky mouth. Sharing her flavour with herself.

Hermione had already sampled herself out of curiosity, and had found she didn’t mind the taste of
her own essence. Smeared on him, however, it was fantastic. Licking her tongue around his lips
caused him to moan and kiss her more heatedly, and Hermione returned every sweep of his tongue
and nip of her teeth with ones of her own.

The lethargy that had followed her climax gave way to returning excitement, and a rousing
curiosity. Hermione felt an urge to explore and reciprocate. Pushing him off, she earned herself a
puzzled look as he broke their kiss, but thankfully her lover didn’t protest as she nudged him onto
his back. In fact, he unfastened the placket of his trousers and shoved them off, along with the
black boxers that had lain underneath, baring himself without hesitation. She didn’t have any real
experience with male members outside of the pictures in PlayWitch magazine and others of that
ilk—the models for which were surely picked for their masculinity’s size as well as their general
attractiveness—but Hermione could tell he wasn’t small, either in length or in girth. Not excessively
large, but not exactly small, either.

As he kicked the material off the bed and lay back down again, she flipped herself over so that she
was half lying over him. His hand stroked her hair as she pressed tentative lips to his chest, silent
encouragement for her efforts. Glad that he didn’t mind, Hermione explored his chest, enjoying the
way he shivered when she licked experimentally at his nipples, testing the textures of the soft
areola, the tiny bud at its center, and the thin scattering of fine black hairs around the perimeter.

He wasn’t a very hairy man, for which she was grateful; there was at most a patch of sparse hairs
over his sternum, and a thin line that trickled down below his navel. Hermione followed it with her
lips and tongue, bemused at the way he groaned and sucked in his flat stomach when she lightly
kissed the skin below his ribs. That led her to exploring the hollow of his own navel… and to the
somewhat embarrassing grazing of her chin and jawline against his erection. Mainly because the tip
of its mushroom-like head was leaking drops of some clear, musky, slightly viscous liquid. That
liquid smeared itself on her jawline as the shifting of her position grazed her cheek against the
warm tip of his glans.

Wiping at her chin, Hermione ducked her head a little more and surreptitiously tasted the masculine
dew on her fingers. All the books talked about precum being salty, but she found it somewhat
bitter, too. Unsure if she wanted to taste more of it, she kissed her way down to his hipbones to
give herself more time to decide, crawling somewhat awkwardly between his legs.

She was glad that he parted them for her more willingly than she had separated hers for him; she
wasn’t exactly weak, but neither was she strong enough to force such muscular, lean thighs apart.
From the sharp sucking of his breath and the way he squirmed when she reached the joint between
hip and thigh, Hermione was fairly sure he was ticklish. Daringly, she explored his reactions from
the jutting bone to the depths of the seam that defined his upper thigh, until he buried his hands in
her hair and tugged her firmly away from that area. Centering her over his erection, where he
loosened his grip, letting her know without words what he wanted her to do.
 Chapter Five
Glancing up the length of his body, Hermione met his gaze, as sharp as polished jet. Dipping her
head slightly, she kissed his shaft, just a soft, gentle touch of her lips against velvety-warm flesh…
and moved on to his other hipbone. A strangled grunt escaped through gritted teeth as he squirmed
under the lapping of her tongue. Again his hands tightened in her curls, directing her back to the
center of that region. Again, she pressed just a kiss to it before taking a new route, heading south.
An exasperated sound left his throat.

“… Is it that repulsive, woman?”

That lifted her head in a self-defensive glare. “Contrary to popular belief, the title of ‘Head Girl’
does not automatically confer any knowledge or expertise in the art of fellatio!”

He lifted his own head to stare at her for a moment, then dropped it back onto the bedding with a
grin. And a chuckle. Freeing a hand from her hair, he pulled one of the pillows free from the
coverlet and tucked it under his head. “Well, here is your chance to experiment to your academic
heart’s content.” Still smiling, albeit with a wicked sort of warmth, he tucked both hands behind his
head, under the pillow. “I will endeavour to remain patient during your explorations… and will be
available for consultation, if you wish instructions and directions.”

“What, you aren’t going to just automatically lecture and badger me about, ordering me to comply
with every last, pesky little detail?” Hermion dared to tease him, her tone mock-indignant.

“Passion is a much less exacting, yet much more fickle brew. The key ingredients are willing
participation, and experimentation to discover what works most pleasurably for your partner and
you…” Severus trailed off, winced slightly, and amended, “My apologies; this is not exactly the
moment for a lecture.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Hermione found herself confessing, and winced internally at the unwitting
revelation.

“But it isn’t conducive to passion,” he reminded her.

She blushed, but when she ducked her head to hide the telltale flush, nearly banged her nose into
his penis. Embarrassed further, Hermione didn’t notice his hands shifting until those long, thin
fingers delved into her hair, lifting her face back into view. His dark eyes bored into hers, searching
for something.

“… You blush at the thought of my lecturing you?”

“I… You have no idea the effect your lecturing voice has,” she mumbled, ducking her head. Or
trying to. He lifted her by the chin, holding her in place until she lifted her gaze to his. One of those
black brows arched. Hermione licked her lips, endeavouring to find the right words as he waited
patiently for her to explain. “It’s… well, ‘lovely’ probably isn’t the right word, but… I like the way
you can convey so much with just a few quiet words here, or an explanation there. And you always
have something interesting to say; you never speak just to hear the sound of your own voice during
a lecture. The inflection, the emphasis… it’s… um… fascinating to listen to, and… er… I like it…”
Bother her cheeks, for blushing so much! Feeling the heat lingering in her face, Hermione dropped
her gaze to his groin. The hairs here were thicker than anywhere else, save for maybe his scalp and
his armpits, certainly thicker than the patch of hair on his chest or the fine dusting of black that
was scattered sparsely over his shins and the lower halves of his thighs. Deciding the best course
was to change the subject, she bravely picked the one closest to hand. Though perhaps it was
better to call it an object. Wrapping a hand tentatively around his shaft, she gingerly touched the
sueded-silk soft flesh, marvelling at how the skin slipped a little bit over the hardened flesh
underneath.

There was still some of the previous moisture at the tip, but no further had seeped free. Wiping the
crown gently with her thumb, Hermione tentatively pressed her lips to it, then licked the warm,
delicate skin. Severus’ breath shuddered out in a sigh. Encouraged, she experimented by licking the
rest of his shaft, pleased when he moaned softly and flexed his hips upward. Swirling her tongue
around the tip, taking care to rub the spot on the underside of the slanted little cap—all the books
she had read suggested men liked that bit, and from the way he groaned softly, those books had
spoken true—Hermione finally wrapped her lips around the tip of his shaft. His flesh was warm and
slightly salty in her mouth. And musky, though she hadn’t realized musk could be a flavour as well
as a scent.

Experimentally, she sucked. His response literally curled his abdomen, lifting his upper torso half off
the bed with a grunt. His arms pulled free of the pillow as he flopped back down, his hands
clutching at her head. Intrigued, Hermione kept her eyes on him as much as she could while she did
it again, watching his reactions. It seemed to pain him from the way his face had scrunched, eyes
squeezed shut and teeth bared, hissing each indrawn breath, but when she tried to pull off entirely,
his palms pressed her back down again, encouraging more.

Definitely intriguing. Experimentally, she swirled her tongue along the underside of his shaft the
next time she bobbed her lips, working her way down as far as she could comfortably go without
gagging. He grunted something unintelligible, his fingers tightening in her curls briefly, making her
grunt from discomfort. Severus forcefully relaxed his hands with a sigh, massaging her scalp in what
felt like an apology.

Those fingers increased their pressure again after five or six more of her groan-inducing strokes, this
time pushing her away instead of tugging her close. Prying her mouth from him, he nudged her onto
her back, urging her to scoot up the bed a little. The determined set to his face made her wonder
just how close she’d brought him to the edge of his control, as did the uncompromising way he
pressed her onto the bed. And the look he gave her—that was a clear, firm admonition to heed his
control of the situation. Hermione let him part her legs, breath catching in her throat as he dipped
his dark head between her thighs for another taste.

If she had just done even halfway for him what he had done earlier for her… Make that what he was
doing right now. Hermione could actually feel her toes curling. It seemed like a trite phrase, the
kind that one read in those bodice-ripper romances she’d perused last summer, but they were
actually, literally scrunching with pleasure…

Just as she started to moan, caught on the edge of a new climax, he shifted position, crawling
quickly up the length of her body. She didn’t have time to pout, however, for he lifted her calves,
hooking them over his hips. Bracing his weight on a forearm and his knees, he reached down
between them and rubbed his erection against her dampness. He literally coated it; she could feel
him working his fingers gently into her body, then rubbing the collected moisture along his flesh.
Hermione wasn’t sure what to make of that, other than that it felt odd and yet titillating.

Nudging her opening with the head of his shaft, he settled himself over her body, bringing his hand
up to his mouth. Staring down at her with those burning dark eyes, Severus deliberately licked the
residual moisture from his first and littlest fingers, holding her gaze all the while. That was
surprisingly erotic. Dazed, Hermione licked her lips, which were drying out from the way she was
panting through them. With two digits left to clean, his middle and index fingers, Severus lowered
them to her mouth, offering her a taste of herself. She accepted them, sucking on his fingers with
the same eagerness she had used on his penis.

Groaning softly, he dipped his head, nuzzling the side of her throat. Words murmured next to her
ear, seductive and arousing. “I am going to make you scream with pleasure, Hermione. I will teach
you such depths of pleasure, you will think you have drowned, and drowned willingly. I will drag you
up to the heights of desire, and teach you to cast yourself fearlessly into the depths of eroticism,
leaping with all the fervor of a martyr. Then, when you think you are finished, I will show you how
sweet it is to come crawling back, begging for more.”

She drew in a breath to protest that she wouldn’t beg him for anything—she was a Gryffindor, and if
he—

“… And when you do,” he breathed over the pulse in her neck, his murmuring distracting her as he
removed his hand and braced his forearm on the bed next to her shoulder, “I will teach you how to
make me beg, too…”

His teeth grazed her throat. Desire thrilled through her very nerve, and when Hermione arched her
head back, offering more of her flesh to him… he bit her, and thrust inside. The pain of the love-
bite was a distinct pleasure; the pain of her rending hymen was a distinct discomfort. But the thrill
from his teeth transmuted the soreness into something bearable, keeping her exclamation down to
a mere gasp.

He gave her a moment to breathe and adjust, then sucked strongly on her throat, and thrust harder,
deeper. Thrilling and hurting her at the same time. Hermione couldn’t help the grunt of pain that
escaped, nor the sting of tears that prickled in her eyes. Holding his hips still, he eased his suckling,
then kissed his way gently up to her mouth.

His presence in her body was a stinging, stretching pain, but his lips managed to provide some
distraction as he coaxed her into responding. His patience was amazing, too; Hermione had thought
that a man, once inside a woman, would be compelled to race towards the finish-line, so to speak.
But not Severus. No, he seemed perfectly content to bathe her face with his lips, licking at the two
small tears that had squeezed out of her eyes during that second, deeper breaching. He brushed her
brow with his mouth, and even kissed the tip of her nose. Tenderly. That made more tears sting in
her eyes, but not from any pain. The hands that had clutched at his back now shifted to his face,
holding his head still so she could do the same to his own nose.

That look came back, the one she couldn’t interpret in Kind-Snape’s eyes. It shone in Severus’ gaze
once again, and he kissed the tip of her smaller, straighter, somewhat pert nose a second time,
reciprocating. She did the same to his once more, then kissed it a third time, not waiting for a
reciprocation. His eyelashes drifted shut as a soft sound escaped him; Severus kissed her hard,
plundering her mouth with another moan and reviving the thrill in her blood. Her inner muscles
clamped involuntarily with pleasure, which reminded her of his hardness and the lingering of her
aches, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as before. Flexing his hips, he rocked into her gently,
shallowly, then withdrew partway after a dozen or so strokes. Pulling back from their kiss to gauge
her reaction, he paused for a moment, then sank back in, slowly but firmly. Deeply.

It hurt, but it was only a minor discomfort this time. An enquiring arch of his brow was met by a
slight nod of her head as he withdrew, and he pressed back in again. That hurt a little bit, too, but
it wasn’t bad enough to ask him to stop, so she nodded again and lifted her head off the bedding,
kissing the tip of his nose once more.

Again, that soft sound escaped him, preceeding the descent of his mouth, and the flexing of his
hips. She resettled her legs, hooking her knees higher on his hips, and he groaned and rested a little
more of his weight on her body, blanketing her with his warmth. Rocking gently, Severus mated his
mouth to hers in a deep kiss, coaxing her tongue into playing with his. Not that she needed much
coaxing; as the stinging in her vagina eased, the sensation of him sliding within her flesh was
increasingly enjoyable. Intriguing at first, it shifted gradually into something distinctly pleasurable.

One of his arms shifted, pushing her leg down. That tightened her around him, and with the first
new thrust, a husky moan escaped his chest. Lowering her other leg, he thrust in longer strokes,
almost withdrawing completely before plunging slowly back in again. Hermione enjoyed it for a
little bit, but she liked the depths he had reached before, and lifted her knees once again. That
drew a deeper groan from his chest. Hooking one of her knees with his forearm, pulling her right leg
even higher, Severus braced himself over her with his other elbow and stroked deep and hard. That
felt good. Really, really good.

Arching her head back, Hermione bit her lower lip, moaning. He shifted over her, angling his hips
for an even deeper, upward thrust—and hit something. For a moment she thought she had to pee,
which was embarrassing, but he hooked her other leg up, somehow managed to brace his upper
body on his outstretched arms while keeping her calves doubled up against his taut biceps, and
pounded into her with meaty, forceful slaps. Rubbing against that spot deep inside, turning it from
something uncomfortable to something surprisingly good.

Her bottom lip escaped her teeth as she gasped. Dipping his head, he nipped at it himself for a
moment, licking her lips, but the vigor of his thrusts and the angle of her body interfered with the
gentle teasing. Bracing himself more solidly, he focused instead on pounding into her. The feel of
the forceful blows was good, really good, but it was the intensity in his gaze that truly excited
Hermione. She’d never had anyone look at her like that before; not like she was the center of that
person’s universe.

She’d known all along the Severus Snape was an intense man, that he had untapped depths of
passion only glimpsed in snatches because of the tightly self-controlled way the man usually acted.
She also knew he had an equally intense ability to concentrate on one task to the exclusion of all
else. Hermione just had no idea that she would ever be the recipient of all that passion,
concentration, and intensity… and not a single clue in the universe that it could be so arousing to be
the focus of such sensual absorption.
As he stared down at her, breathing heavily with each stroke, Hermione felt a tingling gathering in
her body under the burning weight of his gaze, sort of like sweet lightning. It spread outward from
both her heart and her loins, twisting through her nerves. Her hands, clinging to his shoulders,
tightened, digging her nails gently into his flesh. The prickling must have been pleasurable for him,
for he growled—a sexy growl, increasing her arousal for all that it almost sounded angry—and
amplified the force of his thrusts until both of them were grunting and the bed creaking with each
stroke. Experimentally, she raked her nails down as much of his back as she could reach—and he
gasped her name.

“—Hermione!” His steady rhythm broke as he plunged into her, mashing their loins together for a
long, hard-pressed moment. Hermione felt his penis twitching inside her flesh, felt something wet
and warm tickling her deep inside.

It was such an unexpected sensation, it took her a moment to realize he was ejaculating at the
mouth of her womb. A string of thoughts raced through her head—ejaculate, semen, seed; womb,
uterus, ovaries; fertility, pregnancy, child—oh, god! I want his child! Her head thrashed back
against the bedding and the edge of the pillow that had worked its way out from under her, as the
sweet lightning fried its way through her nerves, triggered by that unexpected longing. “—Severus,
ahh! ”

He grunted and shifted his stance, pulling almost all the way out before plunging back in hard and
fast, the first of a series of rapidfire strokes. She had no idea anyone could do it that hard and fast,
nor could she really think coherently about it, for it was exactly what she craved, desired, needed!
Pleasure snapped through her limbs, writhing her body under his, drawing animalistic snarls from
her throat that at any other moment would have probably mortified her to hear emerging from her
own throat. Raking her nails raggedly up and down his back, Hermione gave herself over to her
pleasure, writhing and squirming as he drove into her, rode her bucking body, prolonged her
pleasure. His semen had thoroughly slicked her passage, permitting him to pound into her almost
frictionlessly fast, even though she had tightened her inner muscles along with the rest of her
stiffening, struggling frame.

Eventually the pleasure drained out of her. As her limbs weakened, as her muscles slackened and
turned limp, he slowed his strokes and released her legs, allowing them to slide down to the bed for
a rest. Lowering his head to hers, he kissed her between panting breaths, eating her mouth as it if
were some succulent fruit. The shoulder-length strands of his black hair tickled the edges of her
face, swaying with the gentle lunges of his body. Forcing some strength back into her arms,
Hermione clutched at his head, returning his kisses fervently as she brushed his hair back out of her
way.

They moved like that for a while, mouths and loins mating more and more leisurely, lungs and
hearts slowing down from their former frenetic rates. Finally, he slipped out of her body, making
her aware of the fact that he was no longer fully erect. It also made her aware of two other things
down there: one, how wet she was, and two, the pressure that his lax weight was applying to her
bladder. Not that his full weight was resting on her; she could tell he was bracing some of it on his
elbows and knees, and was grateful for that. But the pummelling he had given her, pleasurable
though it had been, had taken its toll on her body.

Unsure how to express her need, Hermione eased her head back out of their kiss. His lashes drifted
open as she looked up at him, and there it was again. That look in his eyes. This time, there was a
certain sated, almost sleepy daze to it, and the warmth of satisfaction, plus whatever that Kind-
Snape-look might be; all three qualities lurked in his expression. His gaze drifted down from her
eyes to her mouth, then down to her throat. Dipping his head, he bit the column of flesh gently.
Stimulatingly.

An aftershock of pleasure rippled through her. Groaning, Hermione pressed up into him, enjoying
the shuddering wave of desire. He bit the other side of her neck—not even hard enough to bruise,
just enough to stimulate—and she shuddered again, raking her nails down his back. He groaned and
sucked on her neck in appreciation. Lifting his head, he gave her that indefinable look again, this
time mixed with a little soberness. It didn’t last long, just long enough for him to nuzzle his nose
against hers, to brush their lips together. When he lifted his head again, her mouth chasing his for
an inch or so off the pillow, smugness had crept into his gaze.

“… I trust you enjoyed yourself?”

That embarrassed her. Lifting her chin, feeling her skin flushing, Hermione retorted, “No moreso
than you!”

To her surprise, his face cracked briefly into a grin, and a chuckle escaped his chest. “Then you
enjoyed yourself immensely.” Some of his humor sobered away, replaced by more of that warm, not
quite wondering look, though he still smiled a little. “I know I certainly did.”

Desire twinged inside her sated body, proving that her appetites still weren’t quite so tired-out as
she had surmised, even including the aftershock. It warred, however, with another need. She
blushed harder, but gathered her Gryffindor courage. “Be as that may, I, er… have to visit the
lavatory.”

Nodding, he eased off of her, and climbed off the bed. To her surprise, as she scooted to the edge,
he scooped her off the mattress, cradling her in his arms.

“What the…? Er, this isn’t necessary,” Hermione protested hesitantly, unsure of his intent. “Really.”

“On the contrary, you’ll need to save your strength for later.”

His straightforward comment unnerved her, reminding her of what the rest of the night contained.
Somewhere in the rest of his quarters, ten more Severus Snapes waited for their turn with her.
Well, technically eleven, if Prude-Snape wanted to have a go at her, too. The thought both
titillated and unnerved her. As much as she had fantasized about being the center of the sexual
attentions of so many Potions Masters, the realization that she was about to actually be the center
of their attentions was disconcerting. About the only thing that kept her from being actually afraid
was the unbelievable pleasure she had just experienced. As far as first times went, the pain had
definitely been uncomfortable… but she avidly liked the rest of it.

Severus carried her into the bathroom and set her on the edge of the counter. She squeaked a little
as her bare rump came in contact with the cold stone surface flanking the basin. Before she could
slip down onto her feet, he parted her knees, stepped up between her thighs, and prodded her with
his erection; she hadn’t even noticed its restoration. Shivering as he re-entered her flesh, making it
twinge a little with residual pain, Hermione looked up at him in confusion. Silently, he reached past
her, opening the mirrored cupboard over the sink. Extracting a pair of bottles, he pulled the cork
from one, then hesitated.

“May I… collect…” He stopped, cleared his throat, and did his best to ignore the stain of pink
colouring his normally sallow cheeks. “I would like to collect the blood, if I may. It’s a, er…”

“A valuable potions ingredient,” Hermione finished for him, blushing equally at the subject. She
managed an approximation of a nonchalant shrug. “Go right ahead.”

“Thank you.” A muttered word, and the empty glass vial filled with a small amount of reddish fluid.
Capping it, he set it aside, then uncorked the second vial. “Here. Swallow a sip of this,” he directed
her.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, accepting the green bottle. She trusted him, but she didn’t
understand what this position had to do with a potion.

“It’s a healing draught. If I am buried within you when you are healed, your hymen will not be
restored,” he explained matter-of-factly. “It will ensure that you need not experience any pain
from copulation again. Now that the hymenal blood has been collected without the dilluting effects
of an analgesic, there’s no reason to let you suffer any further discomfort.”

How… considerate… Bemused, Hermione swallowed a modest amount of the potion, feeling it tingle
down into her gut. It spread throughout her body a few moments later, warming every nerve. For a
moment, it burned down at her loins, then faded away. Nodding her head, she handed the potion
back to him. Corking it, he placed it in the cupboard, closed the mirror, and—while he was pressed
up against her—kissed her. Thoroughly. Withdrawing from her flesh after a minute or so, he stepped
back, licking his lips briefly.

“I’ll leave you to your ablutions, then take my own turn.” A slight, oddly courteous dip of his head,
and he padded out of the bathroom, apparently unconcerned by his naked state.

Hermione eased down off the counter, looking around her. Everything was polished granite, down
here. Near-black granite for the floors and huge, semi-sunken bathing tub, silvery grey granite for
the walls and ceiling, black-flecked white granite for the counter and showering stall. The fixtures
were silver, and the walls nearly devoid of decorations, save for some beautifully crafted, silver-
wrought runes hung here and there. If she hadn’t taken Advanced Runes, she wouldn’t have realized
they weren’t decorations, but instead were the sourcepoints for some rather complex protections
fixed on his suite.

Her bladder reasserted its need. Taking care of herself, Hermione found a washcloth and used it to
clean her groin and thighs at the sink. There was a slight brownish-red smear on the nubbly white
fabric when she started to rinse it, proof of her torn innocence. I’m no longer a virgin, Hermione
thought somewhat dazedly. There wasn’t even any lingering soreness in her body, thanks to that
potion, no discomfort… but her hymen was gone, sacrificed to her Potions professor. Physically, I
know I’m somewhat different, but emotionally… yes, I feel different. Very different.

Unbidden, the memory of her most stimulating thought during her largest climax swept back into
her.
Oh, dear god! Tell me I didn’t have an orgasm from thinking about… oh, ruddy hell! Hermione
swore silently when she felt her abdomen clench with lingering desire at the idea. That’s just…
that’s…

She couldn’t bring herself to call it ‘sick’, though. Perverted, maybe, perverse, definitely, but the
thought of bearing his child… for a dizzying moment, Hermione could almost feel her stomach
swollen with pregnancy. Cupping her hand over her belly, she tried to make sense of her reactions.
She knew she was attracted to the Potions Master, that she found him intelligent and sarcastically
funny, that he had many admirable qualities hidden under his greasy git facade, but how much of
his mean-spirited nature was a ruse and how much was real, she couldn’t tell.

Kind-Snape knew. Kind-Snape had been telling her quite a lot about the real Potions Master. She
didn’t know what Kind-Snape’s imperative was, but she hoped fervently that he would continue to
exist and be willing to explain enough things for her to finally understand his progenitor. For all she
was in love with Severus Snape, she knew she had a long way to go before she could claim that she
really knew the enigmatic man.

Aware of the passing of time, Hermione headed over to the door, then hesitated, acutely aware of
her naked state. A moment later she snorted in disgust at herself. Honestly, ‘Mione! The man’s had
his hands and mouth over every pertinent bit you own—and you enjoyed it, too! Why should you balk
at strolling out there totally starkers? You already know—by ten times’ worth of him, no less—that
he honestly wants your body!

Ah, there was the rub. Her chest hurt a little, as Hermione acknowledged it. Yes, he wants your
body… but does he want any part of the rest of you?

A knock on the door startled her. Firming her courage, she opened it. Severus stood on the other
side. As breezily as she could, she stated calmly as she slipped past him, “All yours!”

The door shut behind her. Finally free to examine his bedroom, Hermione found it themed only
somewhat in black, silver and green. Most of the colour actually came from the bookshelves lining
the walls, mostly from the spines of tomes stacked there, but partially from the odds and ends he
had collected through the years, knicknacks, objects d’art, that sort of thing. She itched to examine
them closer, but decided he wouldn’t appreciate her snooping blatantly through his things at the
moment. Unsure what to do with herself, Hermione padded towards the bed.

The door opened and closed behind her just as she crawled onto the mattress. Caught in an
indelicate position, Hermione scooted her hips under herself, facing the headboard as she fought to
control her blush before he could notice it. The bed dipped a moment later, and arms dusted in fine
black hairs wrapped around her. Warm lips dusting her shoulder with kisses, he stroked and kneaded
her breasts, slipping one hand down her belly to play with the folds of her potion-healed loins.

He pushed her over and kissed his way from her inner knee to her intimate secrets, making her sigh
and arch up into him. Apparently they would have a second round together, before sending in his
army of clones. Not that she’d object, now that she knew what all the fuss of lovemaking was
about; Hermione just wondered how bloody exhausted she would be, by the end of the experience.

***
Severus opened the bathroom door and spotted himself making love to Hermione. It was a doubly
disconcerting sight. He just wasn’t accustomed to seeing himself making love to anyone—in mirrors,
let alone via this unique method—but more than that, he hadn’t expected any of the other Snapes
to enter his bedchamber until they were summoned. Apparently one of the hormonal buggers simply
couldn’t wait. Tempted to slam the door, Severus found himself shutting it quietly instead, softly
enough that the young woman whimpering with desire on his bed wouldn’t notice his entrance. Now
was not the time to startle her with the realization that she was naked in a bedchamber with two
equally naked Severus Snapes.

Still, he couldn’t help but be captivated by the sight of Hermione Granger whimpering and biting
her lower lip, squirming on his broad bed while one of his clones devoured her delicious essence.
There was no hesitation, no lingering maidenly shyness in the lithe young woman, not in the way she
splayed her thighs, nor in the way she tugged on fistfuls of his duplicate’s dark hair, yanking him
closer as she thrust her pelvis up into that long-nosed face. Circling around the foot of the bed,
Severus stared down at her, observing how her eyes had fluttered shut at some point, not even
seeing his approach. Leaving him free to enjoy the sight of her body wriggling in the impatient
effort to reach her climax.

She licked her lips. That was the only reason why he did it, he was certain, but it was enticement
enough to coax Severus into crawling onto the bed, dipping his head over hers. Her eyes flew open,
registering the movement of the mattress; those lips parted on a startled gasp. He didn’t give her
any more time than that to react. There was an art to kissing someone while upside down, and
Severus hadn’t done it for several years, but it helped that she was an apt, eager learner, once past
her initial shock.

She got over her shock quickly, too. One hand came up to his head, spearing into his hair, clutching
him close as she returned his kiss enthusiastically. Balancing his weight on one hand, Severus used
the other to teasingly caress her breasts, tickling the sensitive underside, flicking one of his neatly
trimmed nails over the pebbled tips. That was enough to make her cry out, shuddering and arching
her back in an orgasm. The duplicate shifted his position quickly, sitting up and lifting her thighs
over his knees, pushing his erection down so that he could slide into her. Severus swallowed her
gasp along with her groans, rubbing her nipples to keep her pleasure going while the copy fulfilled
his purpose for being.

The mattress dipped. Severus broke off the kiss, looking up in time to see four more copies climbing
onto his bed, two on each side. It didn’t take long for Hermione to notice, but her reaction wasn’t
one of fear, to his surprise. No, the wild-eyed young woman between them gasped in surprised,
choked on her own breath, and then cried out, “—Holy god—touch me! ”

And quickly dissolved in a spine-bowing orgasm when the extra Snapes eyed each other, shrugged,
and complied, caressing whatever bits of her flesh they could reach. Shocked, Severus watched the
young woman in their hands writhe with lust, moaning and panting and gasping almost incoherently
for them to touch her, pinch her, kiss her and lick her. Her hands flailed and grasped, catching and
tugging the nearest one close for a kiss as the first of the copies to enter the room continued to
thrust into her, keeping himself upright and out of range. That one muttered a command, and
several hands assisted in lifting her upright onto his lap.

She moaned and tossed her head, mumbling something about so many hands, so many hands… The
copies did their best to comply. Writhing, she looked like she was having a seizure, hands almost
blindly groping at the bodies around her.

The one thrusting up into her grunted and picked up his pace abruptly. The Head Girl gasped and
arched backwards; two dark heads descended on her breasts, and again Severus was drawn to that
panting mouth. Just in time, too, for with a hard grind, the duplicate copulating with her
ejaculated, grunting her name, triggering her own orgasm. Severus devoured her gasping cries,
savouring the sound of her passion, thoroughly aroused once more.

Everyone gentled their touch on the young woman; Severus stroked his fingers through the curls he
had clasped, supporting her head as he gave her enough room between their kiss-swollen lips so
that she could pant for air. A flick of the fingers from the one she was straddling, and they lifted
her upright. That duplicate caressed her cheek with his fingers, getting her to focus on him.

“… Thank you,” he murmured.

She blinked and stared at him dazedly. “For what?”

“For the gift of making love to you.”

Her brows quirked in puzzlement. “Isn’t that why you…? Wait a minute—you haven’t vanished!”

The one still impaling her smirked, and rotated his hips, pressing into her. “I know. This wasn’t my
purpose for existing.” As her mouth fell open, he grinned wickedly. “All I was supposed to get was a
kiss.”

“You—you—! You Slytherin!” Hermione hissed… though she spoiled it—and surprised the original as
well as the copies—by giggling. She lifted her hand to cover the sound, then hit Kiss-Me-Snape in the
chest impudently with the backs of her fingers. Her brow pinched in confusion in the next moment;
she craned her head, looking at the naked Snapes clustered around her. After staring at each one,
including Severus, she pointed at him. Surprising him a second time. “… You’re the original.”

“How did you know?” one of the others enquired, the question that Severus had been about to ask.

“It’s something in his eyes. Something I don’t see in the rest of you,” she confessed, glancing at the
one that had spoken.

Kiss-Me-Snape arched a brow at his comrades. “I think we’ve just been insulted.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Hermione retorted jestingly.

“Speak sweetly to our brother-in-exigency,” one of the other copies warned her, his voice
somewhere between a purr and a growl. “How you treat one of us is how you treat all of us.”

“And we will all remember how you treated us,” another confirmed.

“It was a joke!” she protested, looking around. “Merlin’s arse, can’t any of you take a joke? ”

Kiss-Me-Snape caught her jaw and turned her head to face him. “Not when our very existences
hinge on your responses in our arms.”
Hermione caught his fingers, releasing her chin. “I am well aware of all of your reasons for being,
and I’m more than willing to comply, but I prefer a man with a sense of humor.”

“I don’t have much of a sense of humor, Hermione,” Severus stated quietly, still kneeling behind
her as she turned her head at the sound of his voice. “I am neither jocular nor jolly by nature.”

“But you do have a sarcastic sense of humor, and you can be very witty,” she pointed out, craning
her head to look back at him. For a moment, Severus almost imagined she was oblivious to the
presence of the others, her gaze was locked that firmly with his. A hand caressed her cheek. It was
not his hand, turning her back to the one she straddled.

“Do try to pay attention, Hermione. Now that I’ve made love to you—an extraordinary, if secondary,
goal to experience—I cannot resist my primary desire any longer, with you in my arms. And I would
like your full attention as I fulfil that need.”

“… Alright,” she agreed, licking her lips. It was an innocent enough action, but the Snape she
straddled groaned and snatched her close. She squeaked against his mouth, then sighed into his
kiss, wrapping her arms around him. It was a hot kiss, too, full of entangling tongues and shifting
heads; Severus noted the glazed eyes of his compatriots, feeling a little dazed himself—he had no
idea she could kiss that well. Merlin, he had no idea he could kiss that well!

***

The kiss was literally orgasmic in its intensity; Hermione could feel her pleasure building, then
rippling through her as the duplicate Potions Master proved he could brew the sexiest snog on the
planet. Their mouths finally parted on a shuddering sigh—and Kiss-Me-Snape vanished with a familiar
banff. Hermione squeaked again, dropping to her knees on the bedding at the loss of those
supporting, muscular thighs. Hands reached out to steady her; dazedly she licked her lips, savouring
the last little taste of that now-lost kiss… and then blushed a deep red.

She could feel warmth trickling out of her body, smearing its way down her thighs.

“What’s wrong?” one of the copies asked her. “Surely you cannot still be shy by now.”

“I… er… can feel… juices,” she barely managed to say, blushing halfway to her hips in what was no
doubt an interesting display of visible mortification. “Leaking…”

A ragged chorus of groans accompanied all those hands pressing her backwards, down onto the bed.
There was a bit of shoving as the Snapes fought to see who would be first, then two of them on
opposing sides hooked her knees wide, and two heads bumped and jostled together in uneasy
alternation, lapping those juices from her thighs. Two more went back to devouring her breasts,
and the fifth—the original—reclaimed her mouth. Apparently he was just as determined to prove
himself as much a master-snogger as the one who had just vanished. Not that she would complain!

He was so good, she didn’t even realize one of those mouths below her waist had withdrawn, until
she felt the others retreating, and hands pulling her away from Severus’ lips, turning her over and
settling her upright on her knees. Leaning forward, positioned so that she was bent at the hips,
Hermione clutched awkwardly at the original Snape’s shoulders for balance while the one at her
hips adjusted himself and pressed into her from behind. The other one that had been licking her
quim was nudged into trading places with one of the Snapes who had been suckling on her breasts.
That made her cling harder to the real Potions Master as an anchor for her sanity, as well as an
anchor for her body, as their attentions threaten to overwhelm her once again with so many
pleasurable sensations.

She needed an anchor; Hermione chose the mouth of the man in front of her. It didn’t take more
than two or three seconds at most for him to prove—as if driven to prove, in fact—that he was
definitely as good at kissing as the copy who had vanished just a short while before As their mouths
met, parted, and mated once more, the one thrusting into her from behind groaned and ground into
her. “Just like… I… imagined… it! Ah, god, Hermione—!”

Banff!

No sooner had he vanished than another one took his place. This one was’t content to let her kiss
the original, however. Grabbing her by a fistful of curls, he pulled her head back, his other arm
cupping her belly as he, too, thrust into her from behind. A sexy, domineering growl poured into her
ear as he pistoned his hips roughly, making her shiver; this one was hitting that strange spot deep
inside her, the one that felt so embarrassingly good.

“Scream my name, Hermione; scream my name as you cum for me!”

His lower hand speared between the nether-lips of her femininity, finding and tweaking her clitoris;
Hermione cried out, eyes squeezing shut.

“Scream my name!”

“Oh, god—I’m—I—”

“Scream it! ”

“Severus!” she screamed, bucking in his arms as another shuddering orgasm started to sweep
through her while he, too, came with a tortured groan—

Banff.

She dropped, unsupported, onto her hands. Frustration smothered her scream into a strangled
grunt, as his abrupt disappearance aborted the second half of her climax. Another one took his
place—there were more than the original group in the room, now, ready to replace those who had
vanished—and she choked as this one pounded into her without any preliminaries, just pounded and
pounded and pounded until he came, grunting and thrusting… and banffed out of existence again.
Leaving her empty, wet, and feeling like she was piddling, simply because of the amount of semen
seeping out of her somewhat battered insides.

Hands touched her, flesh approached her from behind, no doubt wanting more of the same—and it
was suddenly too much. She panicked. “No… No! Don’t—!”

“—Back off!” The command, snapped by the original, paused the others. They glanced warily at
Severus as he glared around the bed, then eyed Hermione and the way she collaped in on herself,
huddling with thighs closed and arms folded tightly over her breasts. Obediently, they released her,
moving cautiously back from her huddled figure.

There were six Snapes now in the room, four on the bed with the original, and one standing at the
foot of the bed. That one was still clothed, though he had removed his frock coak, baring the white
shirt underneath; the rest were all naked. The eyes of the original and the clothed copy met. The
copy made a gesture, mouthed some words, and gave him a pointed look. Another gesture, this time
with both arms, and Severus caught the gist of it after a frown of confusion and a moment to try
and puzzle out the pantomimed action.

Shifting forward on his knees, he gently pulled the young woman in their midst against him, tucking
her head under his chin. Cradling her against his chest with one arm, he stroked her hair with the
other. The motion was a little awkward for him, since Severus had never had cause or reason to
comfort someone this way, but it wasn’t a difficult task; her chestnut hair was softer than
expected, for all it was stubbornly curly. A circular flip of Clothed-Snape’s hand—Prude-Snape?—
prompted him to speak.

“It’s alright M… Mione,” he covered, wincing internally as much for the use of the same nickname
her two best friends sometimes used as for having nearly called her ‘Miss Granger’. He had meant to
do so as a gesture of respect, but she probably would’ve taken it as a distancing, perhaps even a
rebuke, and that would not go over well in such a fragile, intimate moment. Obviously the girl had
become overwrought within the presence of so many lovers, and their unsettling, abrupt
disappearances. They were certainly unsettling to watch from his own perspective. “It’s alright.
We’ll take a break, for now. Rest; no one will make you do anything you do not want to do, I
promise you that.”

She shuddered, but unfurled from her tight, self-protective position. Squirming, she wrapped her
arms around him, leaning more fully against his chest. It almost overbalanced him, until one of the
other Snapes shifted behind him, providing a sort of backrest. She relaxed further into him; the
simple action of her letting him hold her without reservation or resistance displayed a remarkable
level of trust in a man he knew most of his students would rather not have touched, not even with
the proverbial ten-foot-wand. That she would trust him so, the same teacher who had belittled her
staggering intelligence and tormented her and her two best friends for years…

His chest hurt. Severus didn’t even realize he had turned her gently in his arms, tilting her onto her
side so that he could shift his hand from her hair to her cheek, brushing her curls from her face.
When she finally glanced up at him, he didn’t recognize the look in her tawny eyes… but it did ease
the ache within the cage of his ribs. Stroking her soft skin, Severus held her gaze silently, not
wanting that look to end.

One of the other Snapes sighed, impatience implicit in his tone. “… As fascinating as it would be to
hold the girl forever, are we going to continue anytime soon? Because my exigency is giving me a
bloody case of blue-balls.”

“Bugger off!” Severus snapped, forced to break eye-contact so he could glare at the impatient arse
to his left.

“We tried that earlier, remember?” one of the others to his right reminded him dryly. Some of the
others chuckled.
The woman in his arms stirred, first tipping her head back, then sitting up, clinging to Severus’
shoulders to help herself twist around and peer at him. “You… you mean you actually…? With
yourselves?”

Every single greasy-git face flushed from forehead to sternum around her. The clothed one leaning
against one of the posts at the foot of the bed snorted. “They certainly did, the randy bastards. I,
of course, was busy elsewhere with more important matters, as you already know.” That revelation
made him the one Hermione had dubbed Kind-Snape. “I don’t know if our progenitor joined them;
he hasn’t said anything, yet.”

Hermione, no longer feeling quite so panicked at being surrounded by too many men—intrigued,
rather, by the possibilities once again now that she had calmed down—looked up at the original
Severus Snape. “You actually like that sort of thing?”

“Er… like is a strong word for it,” he mumbled, blushing harder. Guilt and discomfort warred with
his embarrassment. There were things he had to do to keep his place as a spy, and it was
undoubtedly morally shameful that he could find such things enjoyable.

“Oh, he likes it. But he doesn’t consider himself a homosexual,” Kind-Snape offered dryly, as
Severus glared at him. “And truth be told, he really isn’t. Given a choice between a woman and a
man, he’ll pick the woman nearly every single time. But there’s nothing wrong in deriving pleasure
from such activities… and it has had its uses, as a part of his cover among the Death Eaters.”

“So, it’s pleasurable, then?” Hermione asked, looking up at her professor as she relaxed into his
arms.

Severus cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks burning again. “Yes, but… Pleasure is pleasure,” he
finally managed to convey, albeit with a dismissive shrug. “How it is derived is not important, so
long as it’s consensual.”

“I wouldn’t think… you know, up the bum, would be all that pleasant,” she murmured, eyeing him
askance.

“Well, it is,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Moreso for a man than for a woman, I’d think,” one of the other Snapes pointed out. “If the right
angle is achieved, the pressure on the prostate is quite stimulating.”

“That’s not entirely true; there was that one woman, at one of the Malfoy parties; she preferred it
that way above all others,” another proffered. “From all the squealing and shaking she did, I’d say
she enjoyed it thoroughly.”

“…‘Malfoy parties’?” Hermione asked warily, arching a brow. “Let me guess, they’re Death Eater
orgies?”

“Essentially, yes,” one of the others snorted. “Though the activites that take place at Malfoy Manor
are usually consensual.”

“What some of the Death Eaters do, during their raids against Muggles and Muggle-borns… is usually
not,” another finished grimly.

“—We have never participated in that,” Kind-Snape quickly and firmly asserted, cutting his hand
through the air. The others shook their heads firmly, confirming his words.

“The Dark Lord is actually less interested in such activities than one might think,” the one behind
Severus offered.

“He has little use for love, tenderness, compassion, or any of the kinder emotions,” a copy-Snape to
her right proffered, “and tends to lump sex and making love into that same general category of
uselessness.”

“The Dark Lord knows that sex can be used as a tool, even a weapon,” another duplicate to her left
stated bluntly, “but that it can also be used against its wielder. Magic has always been preferable to
more physical means of coercion, torture, or coaxing, in the Dark Lord’s eyes.”

“Physical seduction is considered to be crude, compared to the magical secrets he offers.”

“Yes, he prefers to seduce others to his side with promises of power, and hints of the Dark Arts he
has learned…”

Hermione was getting dizzy, following the conversation from Snape to Snape to Snape. Four had
been eliminated, and one wasn’t in the room; that was most likely Prude-Snape. There was Kind-
Snape, Original Severus, and four Sex-Snapes on the bed with her and the original.

Two of the Snapes in the room didn’t have fully-raging hard-ons, those being the original Potions
Master, who was semi-erect at most when she glanced down discreetly to check, and the other
being Kind-Snape. Of course, it was hard to tell because the latter wizard was mostly clothed,
wearing a white shirt buttoned at wrists and neck, and black trousers; he was also standing with his
back to the fire crackling in the hearth, shadowing his body, so it was difficult to tell. The
remaining four, however, were firmly, redly erect. Positively turgid. They were also caressing her
with their eyes… and two of them were covertly brushing their fingers against their shafts.
Masturbating themselves lightly as they studied her naked flesh. She wanted to watch, but as she
focused on one of them, he quickly moved his hand away.

“… I want to see it,” Hermione found herself stating, a wicked thought racing through her head. She
blushed a second later, and blushed even harder as every last one of them arched their right
eyebrows in confusion.

“What, exactly, do you want to see, Hermione?” Severus enquired, puzzled.

“You and them, making love,” she blurted out, feeling even her breasts redden with
embarrassment. Bringing her arms up, she buried her face in her palms, muttering a muffled, “—
Forget it! Forget I even said it! God, I wish I could cut out my tongue…”

Severus stared down at her. Even her belly was beginning to flush red, she was clearly that
embarrassed. And yet, she had made the request. The voyeuristic interest was there, lurking within
her. Glancing around at his duplicates, Severus arched a brow, wondering if there would be any
takers.
One of them shrugged. “I’ll do it.”

Her hands dragged down her face. Tawny eyes regarded that particular copy with shock. “… You
will? ”

“I’m geased to want to make love to you in every way imaginable, Hermione,” the copy-Snape in
question told her dryly. “If you agree to join our fun, I’ll ensure it’s quite enjoyable for you, too.”

“You mean you want to… to bugger me?” she squeaked, embarrassed, shocked, and secretly
flattered.

“Of course. It is still quite enjoyable for most women, though it seems to be moreso for men. I have
no doubt that I can teach you to find pleasure in it.”

Kind-Snape cleared his throat. Pointedly. The duplicate-Snape who had volunteered cleared his
throat, too, if in a different way. “… That is to say, the original gets first go at that particular
honor… but if he’s willing to join the two of us, we could make it quite a pleasurable little menage
a trois.”

“Try ‘menage a sept’,” one of the others retorted. “There’s seven of us in here, including her.”

“It doesn’t matter to me which way we’re doing it, so long as she’s screaming my name in ecstasy
when I go,” the one to her left asserted.

“… Another one?” Hermione asked him weakly, remembering the rough, fierce pleasure of the first
one to demand that. “How many are there of you who have to have that from me?”

He and the one behind Severus’ back raised their hands.

“And how many of you want to… to do it with me in every way imaginable?” she asked next.
Honesty prompted all of them—even Kind-Snape and Severus—to raise their hands. Hermione rolled
her eyes. “I meant, how many of your exigencies depend on making love to me in every way
imaginable?”

The originator of that statement raised his hand. As did Severus. It lifted before he even knew his
arm was tempted to move. Squirming around, half-reclining in his lap, Hermione eyed him askance,
catching him before he could lower his hand again as the others reflexively glanced his way. “—Wait
a minute, you’re the original. Your existence isn’t predicated on making love to me!”

“… Don’t be so sure of that, Hermione.” It wasn’t the original Severus Snape that spoke, however.

She looked the other way, at the clothed copy lounging against the bedpost. He had made that
counterclaim, not the original Severus Snape. “Whatever do you mean?”

“My dear, I’m afraid you will have to figure that one out all on your own,” Kind-Snape mock-
apologized, not looking the least bit repentant.

Frowning as a thought struck her, Hermione asked him, “—Why haven’t you joined us, anyway? Even
Snog-Me-Snape demanded equal time with me carnally, and all he really needed was a kiss!”
“Because I want something else from you.”

“And that would be…?”

“You’ll have to figure that out on your own, too,” he demurred, moving around to the foot of the
bed, bracing his hands on the carved board. “Well, Progenitor? Are you going to show her how to
make love to yourself, or not?”
 Chapter Six
At Hermione’s look of renewed interest, Severus sighed and hooked his hand around the back of the
volunteering copy-Snape’s neck. He didn’t question why he was willing to go through the foolishness
of literally making love to himself. She had requested it; apparently that was reason enough for his
copy-taxed brain.

So, in obligation of her desires, thin lips met and mated in the air over the widening eyes of the
young woman reclining in his lap. Tongues tangled, a hand stroked a cheek and buried itself in that
dark, identical hair. Another hand caressed and gripped a shoulder; it didn’t really matter which
one of them did which. They did it, it was pleasurable, and that was all that mattered.

Hermione squirmed out from under the two of them, shifting over onto her hands and knees so that
she could continue to watch from a better angle. A hand hooked itself around her hips, drawing her
back against a warm male body with a startled gasp. A low murmur soothed her, then soothed her
again when that same hand wandered over her backside and tickled the cleft between her nether-
cheeks, making her breath catch a second time. “Shh, shh… I’m just going to get you ready for
them…”

“I’ll go get some pommade,” another of the Snapes offered, climbing off the bed and heading for
the bathroom.

Hermione was torn between feeling a fingertip gliding along her crease, dipping briefly into her very
damp vagina before smoothing the liquid found there back along the crevasse towards her anus, and
the wide-eyed wonder of watching Severus pushing the Snape in his arms onto his back on the bed,
still kissing his duplicate almost as thoroughly and passionately as he and Kiss-Me-Snape had snogged
her. She squeaked as one of the fingers playing with her semen-soaked flesh pressed its way into
the tightly budded muscles of her backside. The Snape that had been serving as an impromptu
backrest for the Potions Master shifted, lifting her right thigh with his hands and bending her knee,
propping her leg up out of his way. Pillowing his head on her thigh, he snugged his mouth against
her mound, licking and caressing the front half of her femininity. That distracted her somewhat
from the discomfort of having her fundament invaded by that long, narrow, skillful finger, giving her
something else to anchor her attention.

The Snape with the finger gently plundering her backside leaned down and whispered in her ear as
he worked his digit gently into her fundament. “Pay close attention to our progenitor, Hermione.
He’s going to be stimulating his duplicate in all of the places he himself loves to be touched. This is
a rare opportunity for you to learn exactly how to seduce the ruddy fool… and you would be one,
yourself, if you did not seize the information for future use against him.”

An odd, stray thought ghosted through Hermione’s distracted mind. How very Slytherin… he’s
teaching me how to seduce himself, and making it sound like I should learn it as a sort of power-
play advantage. How very, very Slytherin…

Then again, being a Gryffindor didn’t exactly guarantee sexual expertise, and this was indeed a rare
learning opportunity. The missing Snape returned, opening a jar and offering its contents to the one
behind her. He removed his finger, slicked the digit, then reapplied it. The cool, creamy moisture
helped the glide of his finger, but it still unnerved her that he was touching her there.
“Relax,” the one behind her murmured, as she watched Severus licking the nipples of his
duplicate’s chest. “You must relax and accept this touch, or it will hurt. It takes patience, time and
care to prepare someone for this, but it is very pleasurable for both genders, when properly done.
Relax…”

Hermione blinked, as he eased a second finger into her fundament. The stretching pain wasn’t
pleasant, at first. In the next moment, she forgot about her discomfort; no, the sight of the Potions
Master scraping his teeth over his counterpart’s pectorals, then actually tugging on that tiny little
nipple, pulling it up from duplicate-Snape’s chest, arrested all thought. She expected the copy to
shove him away, since surely that would hurt, but instead the man moaned and arched his back
sensually, his hands tangling in Severus’ dangling black hair. A glance down between their bodies
showed the duplicate’s prick rampant and hard, with a trailing trickle of moisture leaking from the
slit in its tip. When Severus did it again to the other nipple, biting the pebbled peak delicately, then
tugging hard enough to lift it slightly, Hermione watched as the duplicate’s penis jumped and
twitched, red and hard with arousal.

Hunger made her mouth water. Disentangling herself from the other two duplicates, Hermione
crawled over to the two men and inserted her head between their groins. Catching his manhood,
she licked at the moisture, oddly craving the salty-bitter liquid, even if it wasn’t the absolute-best
taste in the world. The fingers prodding her netherflesh followed, cool from being coated in
something slick, as did the mouth at her mound, that copy readjusting himself as soon as she had
settled into place and started suckling the shaft in her hands.

Severus gasped, lifting his mouth from the hipline of his duplicated lover. Distracted, seeking the
source of his shock, Hermione realized Pommade-Snape had arranged himself behind his originator,
and was doing to his nether-regions the exact same thing the one behind her was doing to hers.
Preparing it with pommade-greased fingers of his own.

Shifting further down, Severus nudged her hand away from copy-Snape’s scrotum, replacing her
fingers with his mouth. He licked at the hair-dusted sack as he’d licked at her own private parts,
and Hermione forgot what her assigned task was, forgot even to flinch and resist when a third digit
worked its way gently into her body in short, rocking strokes. Mesmerized, she watched that
tongue, slightly longer than expected, lick and swirl and flick with abandon. He bathed his partner’s
scrotum, paying extra attention to the crease underneath the soft, masculine sack. Then he licked
up the centerline, firmly enough to dimple the flesh out of his way, and tipped his head, fastening
his lips around the underside at the base of the shaft.

Duplicate-Snape really liked that, if the ragged way he groaned and the way his prick twitched in
her mouth, seeping another droplet or two of pre-cum onto her tongue, was any indication.
Hermione caressed the head of his shaft with her tongue, then moved back as Severus worked his
way up the shaft, tonguing and—very gently—biting the turgid flesh caught in his lips. She had never
in her life considered the thought of two men making love with each other as something erotic—
absurd was more the word for her reaction, since she couldn’t have pictured it without shuddering
and thinking quickly of something else—but this was erotic. As Severus took what was essentially
himself into his mouth, eyes closed as he focused on his task with his other senses, as his duplicate
writhed and moaned for more, Hermione shuddered, overcome with pleasure instead of revulsion.

As she shivered down the far side of her unexpected orgasm, she reached up, grabbed her Potions
teacher by his tangled black hair, dragged him off of that twitching prick, and pulled their mouths
together. Hermione hadn’t known she could be so aggressive as this, but she was; demanding his
attention, she tasted Snape on Severus’ tongue, and moaned with her own need. The eroticism of
the moment combined with the tongue still bathing her clitoris, and the fingers flexing themselves
rhythmically into her well-lubricated anus. Breath rushing through her lungs, she tore her mouth
away, pinned him with her eyes, and demanded, “Fuck me! Now!”

Severus had never heard anything so erotic as Hermione Granger, prim, proper Head Girl,
demanding that he ravish her. Bodies were shoved indiscriminately out of his way as he moved
swiftly to comply. The sight of those long, slender fingers sliding out of her fundament almost made
him take her right then and there… but he didn’t want to take her as she rested on her belly. No, he
wanted to see her expression when he penetrated her for the first time this way. The first time,
but, Merlin grant him, not the last time he would be invited into this part of her body—any part of
her body—so fervently.

“Pillow!” he commanded, brushing the others out of his way as he twisted her willingly onto her
back with a touch of his hands. Someone wedged the pillow in question into place under her hips.
Lifting and parting her knees, Severus slipped his hands down to her buttocks, but there were
already hands there, prying them apart, leaving him free to support his weight with his arms. One of
those hands even cupped him, slathering pommade on his member in a deliberate caress. Severus
hissed and mock-glared around him, wondering which one of his copies the impertinent would-be
wanker was.

“Just lending a hand to make sure you’re prepared properly, Progenitor,” the copy-Snape
responsible offered him with a smug smirk, guiding him to her waiting flesh. “And that you hit the
right mark…”

Waiting only long enough for the head of his penis to lodge itself in place, making his young lover
moan softly and tilt her head back, closing her eyes as if dizzy from the sight of so many dark-
haired, dark-eyed lovers, Severus waived them all away from her with a flick of his hand. He could
finish the rest on his own. Hot, tight, slick flesh… his senses narrowed down to just the two of them.
This was in its own way even tighter than her virginal depths, and just as hot. For a moment she
closed her eyes, but then she opened them, as if hearing his unspoken plea to see her every
reaction. By the time Severus was buried to the hilt, his groin snugged firmly against her flesh, he
couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of his heart, couldn’t see anything but the trust in her
tawny eyes, couldn’t feel anything but those places where her skin brushed against his own, where
her flesh tightly clasped his own.

It was then that Severus discovered he didn’t care about the feel of her flesh. He loved it, yes, but
that wasn’t what was important. It was the trust in those eyes, enfolding him in an almost
protective warmth; that was what he needed. Her trust, and her caring; her acceptance and her…
and her love.

He needed Hermione to love him, because—Merlin help him—he loved her.

He loved the Head Girl of Hogwarts. He loved the foremost female Gryffindor. He loved Harry
Potter’s best friend. He loved the brainy, bushy-haired, hand-waving, book-devouring know-it-all
that had been the bane of his teaching career, the one student he wanted to praise and encourage
above all others, but the foremost soul he didn’t dare show any favoritism towards, because she
was a Gryffindor, and Potter’s friend, and a Muggleborn, all things which meant he couldn’t for
afford his feelings to be known by anyone else.

However it was put, it was an undeniable fact: he loved her. Hermione bloody Granger. And he had
virtually no chance of her loving him back. Severus Snape, the greasy, gitty, black-hearted, bastard
bat of the dungeons, the sourest, surliest, snarliest professor in probably all of Hogwart’s long
history, knew exactly what he was, in the eyes of all others. He was twice as old as her, twice as
cynical, twice as jaded, twice as everything that could possibly drive a rift between them. That she
was here in his arms was solely and entirely due to a magical mistake, and not from a true source of
affection.

With his heart breaking even as he realized he actually had one, Severus dragged his gaze away
from hers when she frowned softly in puzzlement; he didn’t want her to see in his eyes what he had
just realized, and perhaps pity him. He met the dark gaze of the one Snape still dressed, the one
copy—aside from Prude-Snape—who had not participated yet. Looking into those identical, knowing
eyes, Severus realized what the so-called Kind-Snape’s exigency was.

He wasn’t damned, for his unrequited love. They were damned for it. Both of them.

All of his resentment, anger, and yes, jealousy at the copy-Snape’s constant sneaking off to be with
Hermione, to tell her all of his—Severus’—secrets, his emotions and thoughts and memories, all of it
drained away. Returning his gaze to Hermione’s, Severus resolved to not get in his duplicate’s way
again. Whether it was to express his love for her, or—god help him, for not even Merlin had that
much power—to get her to love him, either version of him, the other man had nothing to lose, and
his very existence to fulfil, in the attempt. And far less in the way of uncertainty and pride, for that
matter, dragged out of the way as it clearly was by his overwhelming reason to exist. He himself
would probably only make a mess of things, if he attempted the task himself.

With his resolve in place, Severus lowered his body onto Hermione’s. Closing his eyes, he revelled in
the feel of her belly pressing into his stomach, her breasts cushioning his chest. Seeking her lips
with his own—glad he was tall enough to manage the maneuver—Severus kissed her as he slowly
pulled partially out, then pressed back into her fundament. This was pleasurable for most women,
and even if it killed him, he would ensure it was pleasurable for the woman he loved.

For her part, it was a bizarre sensation. A pleasant one, but bizarre. Hermione had no idea there
were nerve-endings that could experience enjoyment of such an activity in such a location, but they
existed, and she was definitely enjoying it. It was hard to worry over any possibility of personal
deviancy, however; not when her beloved Potions Master was devouring her mouth, licking his
tongue against hers in a mimicked counterpoint to his loins. For a moment, he had almost looked as
if his world were shattering apart when he had entered her, though she couldn’t have said why. As
it was, he seemed to be overcompensating for it by giving her incredible joy.

Hermione wanted to give it right back to him. Catching his tongue, she sucked on it, making him
groan and thrust a little firmer—and then both of them gasped as a third body was added to the
moment. Severus grunted from the prodding of his own backside, and Hermione grunted from the
extra weight, as the copy-Snape who’d offered to join them braced himself over his progenitor’s
back, his palms flattened on the bed to either side of their entwined bodies.
The sight of those two identical faces, dark-haired and dark-eyed, flushed with passion for both her
and each other, triggered her climax. Head pressing back into the bedding, Hermione arched into
Severus’ thrusts, gasping and clawing at his and his partner’s ribs. Shushing both of them, the copy-
Snape on top tugged them apart before Severus could join her.

Rolling onto his back, the duplicate tugged Hermione onto him, arranging her still-trembling limbs
into straddling his hips. A thrust seated himself in her quim, and a flick of his hands had his
originator re-entering Hermione from behind. The unexpected fullness had her gasping in surprise. A
sudden jolt and gasp from the wizard at her back told her that someone else had taken their place
at Severus’ backside, forming a convoluted four-way…

Individual movements blended together, individual moments blurred, and the young witch at the
center of it all found herself drowning in a flood of sensations. Hands groped, lips caressed, bodies
moved, loins burned, semen spilled and voices cried. In the midst of a shuddering climax, she found
herself pushed onto her back, and a warm, masculine body plunging into her, a ragged masculine
voice begging to hear his name on her lips. But those lips were occupied, until her groans became
cries, and she was freed from that kiss to yell their name, his name—that one vanished in a banff of
imploding air, and another took his place, shifting her into a new position, a limp, lascivious
marionette, pulled wherever her sexual strings were tugged.

Somewhere after the next one vanished—or perhaps the next, or the next; it was all becoming
hazy—somewhere after another major, mind-blowing, senses-reeling, name-screaming orgasm,
Hermione passed out from sexual exhaustion.

Severus, watching her carefully, almost obsessively even through the haze of his own pleasure,
roused himself and pushed the other away when he realized the Head Girl was insensate. Though he
himself was still as erect as the others—the passionate young witch had him feeling as randy as a
young man half his age—he cleaned both of them with a wave of his wand. Then banished the
remaining naked duplicate from his bed. He dismissed the copy’s grumblings with a pointed,
possessive glare, and gently gathered her into his arms.

Kind-Snape brought the blankets up over Severus and the young woman sleeping bonelessly in his
arms; the clothes replicant drew the bed-curtains into place around them for some privacy, then
extinguished the candles one by one. The remaining Snape reluctantly conjured a pair of pallets so
the two duplicates allowed in his bedchamber could rest for the night. Prude-Snape had apparently
exiled himself to the parlour for the night, but then that was understandable. Probably even very
wise.

Severus didn’t even think twice about his right to be the only one in bed with her while she slept.
He didn’t trust the others to leave her alone, and he didn’t trust them to lay quietly enough to not
jostle her from her slumber. How ironic, that he didn’t trust his clones; he didn’t entirely trust
himself to be able to sleep quietly, either, just slightly more than he trusted them. Then there was
the matter that he sincerely cared for her well-being; Severus felt that if he personally oversaw her
rest, then she would be guaranteed to actually get some. So, curled up beside her as he arranged
her partially on her side and partially on her stomach, upper knee bent and arms tucked around one
of his pillows, Severus dragged another pillow between his head and one arm, rested his own knee
on her inner thigh, tucked his other arm around her ribs and stomach, and nuzzled his face in the
soft, shampoo-fragrant curls of her hair.
She felt right, nestled in his arms. There should have been some awkwardness, for Severus had
never technically slept with anyone. Had sex, made love, whatever the euphemisms were, yes, he
had done those things, but he had never lowered his defenses enough to sleep in the same bed as
someone else. There was none of the tension, none of the wariness or fear he would have expected
from her presence. Instead, he simply felt good. So good, that he did something very daring for him.
Not too daring, since it helped immensely that she was asleep, but daring for him all the same.

Kissing the curve of her shoulder through her tangled locks, Severus quietly breathed his confession
to her hair, knowing she was unconscious but needing to test the words in his mouth all the same. It
wasn’t even loud enough for the other two to hear, but then they probably already knew, or at least
felt, what he’d learned about himself tonight. “I… I love you.”

There. That wasn’t too painful to confess. Now he only had to gather enough bravery to admit it to
her while she was awake, to say those three devastating words in the light of day. Merlin help him.

***

She woke from an odd nightmare of being trampled by Hagrid’s old Blast-Ended Skrewts—for some
bizarre reason, the horrid creatures were clad in purple ballerina outfits and each one wore a black-
haired wig, even though the creatures never really had a proper head to begin with—to the
protestation of just about every muscle in her body at having to wake up at all. Those aches and
pains warred freely with the nagging pressure of her bladder, which was insisted on being attended
to sometime soon; not a truly urgent call, but impinging on her awareness all the same, now that
she was awake. Blinking away the lingering edges of the bizarre dream, Hermione heard voices
arguing softly. Familiar voices. Familiar male voices.

“… But my exigency demands it!”

“My own is growing stronger with each minute that I breathe, but I can and will control myself! And
you will, too, or be exiled to the parlour!”

“I am not going to sit in that room for the next several hours, listening to that whingey bastard
muttering on and on about the ethics of Obliviating her. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is
make her forget all the things that we’ve done!”

“And that is exactly why she needs some recovery time. Having completed some of your task, didn’t
your needs diminish somewhat in strength?—Enough to hold off for a little while longer?”

“Well, yes, for a while but they’ve begun returning just as strong as ever, if not moreso! And what
we’ve done so far was only a fraction of the list that I’ve made!”

“Shh! You’ll wake them both!”

… List? Hermione wondered muzzily, trying to pry her sleep-gummed eyes open. What ‘list’ are
Snape and Snape arguing about? Oh, dear god… I made love to a dozen Snapes last night!

Her eyes snapped wide as memory cascaded through her. Memory, and something else. Pleasure.
Her body shivered and trembled, all the sore parts giving way to a different ache for a moment. All
those hands, all those mouths, all those muscles and manhoods, all focused on her body, and the
task of bringing her pleasure beyond her wildest imaginings. They had done that, and more;
Hermione couldn’t remember where it had ended, or how many duplicates were left. At least three,
if she’d followed the conversation correctly.

Or maybe it was four; she was suddenly aware of the weight of a warm body spooning against her
backside, of a warm hand that had wedged itself between her breasts, of warm breath tickling her
shoulder as it gently stirred her hair. That weight was adding to the pressure on her bladder, but it
was a strangely comfortable, welcome weight all the same. She was being cuddled closely in his
sleep… and Hermione, by some instinct she hadn’t known she possessed, knew who it was. Not a
clone; the original. Still…

Severus Snape is a cuddler in his sleep? No one would ever believe her, even if she could have told
anyone. Which she couldn’t. Ohhh, Merlin… shagged half to death by roughly a dozen Snapes…
Another moment of remembrance swept through her like an aftershock following a major
earthquake. Not quite as powerful as the original, but still devastating in its own way.

She became aware of a lump prodding her right buttock. An erection-sized lump. And a soft, deep,
sleepy sigh. The hand between her breasts flexed and moved slightly, then shifted just enough to
capture her left breast. Languid fingers rolled her memory-tightened nipple, shrivelling it further. A
soft sound escaped Hermione, not quite a moan, but definitely a sigh of pleasure. That hand shifted
in response, sliding down over the softness of her belly, delving between her thighs. Warm, moist
lips pressed unhurried kisses to her shoulder blade.

It surprised her that those fingers encountered moisture, down there. Somewhere along the line,
her body had been cleansed of all prior evidence of desire, both hers and her partners’—her thighs
should have been a sticky, crusted mess, if nothing else—but no, she was quite clean all over, save
for where she was wet with fresh desire. It might have surprised the man in bed with her, but it
apparently pleased him, too, from the deep, soft moan he released as he flexed his fingers, rubbing
the tender flesh encountered. In spite of her soreness, Hermione groaned softly as well, rocking her
hips into his touch.

Another soft groan from him presaged a shift in their positions; pressing her onto her stomach, he
withdrew his hand, only to use his damp fingers to lift her bent left leg a little higher where it
sprawled on the mattress, parting her thighs. Shifting on top of her, weighting her down with warm,
aroused male, Severus tugged on her hips. That tilted her pelvis up to meet the prodding of his
erection even as he continued to kiss her back, brushing aside her hair. A few nudges teased her,
then he pushed himself firmly inside.

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath, torn by two sensations. The soreness imparted by last night’s
orgy… and the delicious sensation of being filled once again by a hot, hard, needy male. He stilled,
bracing himself over her. A breath, and he spoke, his voice husky with sleep, concern, and desire.

“… Are you alright?”

The angle wasn’t one she recalled from last night. Certainly she couldn’t remember feeling so
instantly aroused by the pressure being imparted. True, he was nudging her bladder, which still
needed to use the lavatory, but the impending ecstasy overrode that concern. Somehow, she
managed to squeak out an affirmative noise, nodding her head against the feather pillow squashed
under her warm, flushed cheek.

“Do you want me to continue?”

Another squeak, another fervent nod, and she added a flare of her hips for good measure, arching
her back and pressing up into him. There wasn’t much room for shyness this morning, though she’d
felt some underlying embarrassment on waking up and realizing just how wanton she had been, last
night. Still, he held himself immobile over her. Whimpering, she pushed back into him again.
“Please, Severus…”

“… Do you know which one I am?”

“The original,” she moaned, and was rewarded by the kisses he dusted over her shoulder blades. It
was part instinct, and part logic; since she hadn’t noticed anyone else in the bed with them, it only
made sense that the original Potions Master would claim it for his own resting place. He wasn’t the
type to share what was his, after all. A further reward came when he pulled out partway, then
pressed himself back in again.

Yes, she was sore from last night’s exertions, but this felt too good to tell him to stop. His pace was
slow, thorough, methodical. It drove her up to the crest of her desire, then with a firm, circular
grind, dropped her shuddering and mewling over the edge, her fingers curling in the bedding as she
panted for breath and pushed herself up to meet him between spasms. When her trembling had
eased, he withdrew, eliciting a soft sound of regret from her. It changed to a sound of surprise
when he rolled her over and slipped between her thighs again. Brown eyes met and questioned
black, as he prodded and sank into place.

“I want to see you,” Severus murmured in reply, pumping into her in a resumption of his previous,
steady rhythm as he braced himself over her body on one forearm, the other one easing between
them, his fingers seeking the folds of her flesh. The look in those dark eyes was intense, compelling.
Needy, with that extra look in his eyes, that emotion she couldn’t quite name, though she knew it
was a strong feeling within him, very strong, however unfamiliar it might be. His voice added to the
impression of his gaze, being husky with sleep, and need, and more of that emotion she still
couldn’t quite name. “I want to see your face when you shatter in my arms… I need to know that I
am the one making you scream my name.” His fingertips circled and nipped at her clitoris, his head
lowering until the dark strands of his hair brushed her cheeks, until his nose grazed the tip of hers,
his gaze boring into hers, blotting out everything but the feel of his body, warm and sweaty and
muscular, flexing against hers. “Moan for me… Beg for me… Scream for me, Hermione…”

His demand was the, roughest yet sexiest whisper she’d ever heard. Panting, licking her drying lips,
Hermione whispered his name, clutching at his back, his ribs. “Severus…”

“Yes,” he encouraged her, his fingers rubbing and circling a little faster. “More…”

“Severus… please…” Her eyes drifted shut, her head tipping back as his actions started to lift her
back up again.

“Look at me,” he growled softly, and captured her mouth with his when she complied. She let her
eyelids close again, tangling one of her hands in his hair, holding him close to prolong their kiss. Not
that he seemed inclined to give her the time to breathe; his mouth devoured hers. Lips and tongue
and teeth proved once again that, yes, the original Severus Snape could devastate her with his kiss
just as thoroughly as Kiss-Me-Snape. Combined with the feel of his manhood plundering her depths,
and those talented fingers tweaking her flesh, devastating was definitely the word for it.

Of their own volition, her legs lifted and wrapped themselves around his lower body, allowing him
to thrust to the hilt of his flesh. That allowed him to hit that special spot deep inside, again.
Tearing her mouth free, Hermione gasped for breath, flinched as he drove even deeper in
encouragement, and shattered. “Severusssss!”

Her voice came out in a hiss, not a scream, but it was enough for him. Her own name escaped in a
torturned growl as his steady rhythm broke in a flurry of thrusts. “Hermione—!”

His ejaculation was a tickling, pulsing, fluttering sensation, low in her belly. Warm and wet, it made
her think of things she shouldn’t have found arousing, yet did. The sight of him shuddering in a
rictus of bliss, when she slitted open her eyes as her orgasm tapered to its end, made her shiver
anew. To know she had devastated this man, this self-controlled, self-contained, unshakable man,
was a bit overwhelming. Hermione felt a strange, fierce possessiveness, the urge to grab him and
mark him and stake the claim that he was hers, the one, the only, the original Severus Snape,
Potions Master of Hogwarts. She loved him ferociously and yet tenderly in that moment as he
slumped onto her body, weakened by his climax, trembling with repletion.

Unfortunately, as pleasant as his weight might be in the aftermath of their pleasure, he was putting
pressure on her bladder once more. Now that she was no longer distracted by the delights of their
bodies, her original discomfort was making itself known. Unsure how to handle the matter,
Hermione almost opened her mouth to tell him to get off of her. She caught herself in time,
blushing a little. Even a neophyte such as herself could guess that proper etiquette demanded a few
niceties, first.

Such as a kiss to his cheekbone, the nearest part her lips could reach. She did so. Then a kneading
caress of his back with her hands, and another kiss. That elicited a sleepy murmur. Which evoked a
third kiss, and a brave, if quiet murmur, “… That was a bloody brilliant way to wake me up this
morning. Thank you, Severus.”

“Mmm… you’re very welcome,” was his sleepy, sated reply.

“Um, Severus…?”

He sighed and nuzzled her shoulder.

“… Given that I do want to come back and, er, cuddle with you afterwards… I kind of have to, uh,
ask you to move now. If you don’t mind…”

He grunted and removed himself, squirming onto his side next to her. One of his arms, the left one,
the one with the Dark Mark, encircled her waist still. That arm tightened with a sleepy protest as
she moved towards the edge of the bed, manacling her in place.

“Please, Severus. I have to go.”

“No. Not leaving… this suite,” was his sleepy, yawn-split denial.
Damn the bugger for looking so… so… well, not adorable, but enticing when he yawns like that…
Rolling her eyes, wondering if he was always such a slug-a-bed upon waking—and if so, if it was the
cause of his nasty glares over breakfast every morning—Hermione nudged him with her elbow. Then
nudged him again, repeating herself to get her meaning through to him. “No, really, I’ve got to go.
As in, pee? You’ve got to let me go pee, Severus…” The bastard’s falling asleep again! Whacking
him with her elbow—not too hard, since she loved him—Hermione asserted firmly, “C’mon, wake
up! I’ve got to go to the lavatory!”

A sleepy, sated, protesting grumble was followed by the press of his lips against her naked shoulder.
“Hurry back.”

Finally released, Hermione scooted away from him and sat up on the edge of the bed, sliding free of
the covers. Her body protested, doing that. It protested even more vigorously the necessity of
standing, emerging as an unwilling groan. As she emerged from between the navy bedcurtains, she
found a dark green dressing gown held out in front of her. By Kind-Snape, no less.

Blinking in surprise—and blushing a little in embarrassment—Hermione turned around and let him
assist her into the robe. Tying it in place told her how much her arms ached, even over such a
simple action, eliciting another soft groan. When she started to hobble in the direction of the
bathroom, Kind-Snape scooped her up, making her squeak, “—What are you doing?”

“Ensuring you don’t take forever in getting to your destination.” Carrying her into the lavatory, he
set her on her feet next to the toilet, then drew his wand and tapped the spigots on the tub,
causing steaming water to gush into the marble tub. A dollop of something from a bottle on the
shelf next to the bathtub caused the water to turn somewhat milky and foamy. “There. The water
will shut itself off at the correct depth. Call me if you need help getting into the tub; you’ll need to
soak, to get the stiffness out of your muscles, and you might be too sore to manage on your own.”

Smiling slightly, briefly at her, he exited the bathroom, shutting the door behind him as he left.
Hermione gaped after him. The room smelled faintly of rosewater and sandalwood, and the thought
of Severus Snape having perfumed unguents for his bath boggled her mind. The steamy heat
entranced her, though. Shrugging out of the too-large, deep green robe—Severus’ dressing gown,
from the size and length of it—she attended to her needs, then climbed carefully into the tub,
groaning from stiffness as she did so.

The water was perfectly hot, and perfectly wonderful. Groaning again, this time in pleasure, she
shifted over to the section with the slanted back and stretched out her legs, lolling in the steamy,
frothy, milky liquid. A giggle escaped her; it suddenly struck her that she was in the middle of the
foamed milk for a cappucchino. How Muggle, and yet how magical… Thankfully, the bathwater
didn’t smell like coffee; she didn’t like the smell of coffee in the morning. Mmm… I could get used
to bathing like this. The Head Girl’s room is nice, with its plethora of magical taps, but there’s
nothing quite like having a Potions Master craft all your toiletry supplies…

If she hadn’t guessed long ago—given his sheer aptitude for potions-brewing—that Severus Snape
deliberately underachieved when it came to his personal hygiene, she would’ve wondered about
him having unguents like this milky stuff in his bathroom. Still, it made sense to pair an unpleasant
appearance with an unpleasant persona. If no one wanted to get physically close to him, then they
likely wouldn’t get close enough to still be around if he ever slipped up as a spy. No one could keep
up appearances and lies forever, after all… and from what Kind-Snape had to say, Severus didn’t
always want to be unkind to everyone. Much of his surliness apparently came from having to keep
people away, to distance himself from anyone who might become a potential target for the Dark
Lord to harm.

All of that wasn’t meant to suggest that he was sweetness and light on the inside; Hermione knew
the real Snape was a complex man. Sour, sarcastic, and even a little cruel, sometimes. She figured
the habits of half a lifetime had carved certain ruts within his psyche that he’d never completely
escape, once Voldemort was dead. Not that I’d want him to give up all of his sarcasm. It’s what
makes him who he is, and I like the sharpness of his wit. When it’s not aimed at me. Does that
make me cruel, too? I don’t know; I do know I’m impatient with dunderheads, too, though I do try
to be kind to them…

The door opened. Turning her head told her that even her neck muscles were stiff. The man who
walked inside was clad in a black bathrobe, with black hair and black eyes, his skin dungeon-level
pale… but the look in those eyes told her he was merely one of the copies. Glad the water was
murky enough to hide her appearance, Hermione politely faced him.

“Hello, Snape. Which one are you, and how many are left?”

He arched a brow at her, but lifted a scroll into view, pulling it from a pocket of his robe. “Call me
List-Snape. There’s just the three of us left, now; you literally exhausted the others out of
existence, last night. I should thank you for it, on their behalf. Every last one of them vanished from
existence with a smile on his face, or at least the sexual-bliss equivalent for their expressions.”

“Um… you’re welcome.” She wasn’t quite sure if he was being sarcastic or sincere, but opted to
treat his comment as an honest compliment. Wracking her brains, she came up with the names for
the other two, recalling the snippet of conversation she’d heard upon waking. “Let me guess; the
other ones left are Kind-Snape and Prude-Snape. Right?”

“An accurate guess. I trust you can guess my own existential need. You’re a smart woman.”

“Um… you’re the one who has to make love to me in every way that you can imagine, aren’t you?”
Hermione asked him cautiously, watching him untie and shrug out of the somewhat ageworn
dressing gown.

“Correct. I’d give you House-points, but it wouldn’t be wise.” A flick of his wrist, and the scroll
unravelled. Hermione gaped as it hit the floor, bounced, and unravelled a few feet more.

“—Great Merlin! Your ‘list’ is that long?”

“No, unfortunately,” he demurred, his tone distressingly sincere. A twist showed her the list
actually only extended about half the length of the paper… which was still at least four feet long,
each line neatly penned in his smallish, spidery handwriting.

“There must be a hundred things on that list!” she whispered, gobsmacked. “You can’t… we can’t
possibly do them all! There can’t be that many different ways of making love to someone!”

“Two hundred and fifty three distinct positions, so far. I came in here to mark down all the ones I
can think of for us to do in the water… and then do them with you.”

“Now wait just a minute—there will be no repeats!” She had to draw the line somewhere, and this
was definitely the line she didn’t want to cross. “If the only variational difference is doing it in the
water, then you have to cross off the dry-land equivalent, too!”

“My exigency—”

“—Is to experience everything once,” Hermione asserted, knowing she had to lay down the law, or
find herself worn hollow from the inside out. Or rather, rubbed. “Minor deviations will not count;
there has to be a substantial difference between each… between each position.” She tried not to
blush as she laid down the rules. “Locations will only count as a minor difference, unless it’s
something like having me float while… while so on and so forth are happening. But since that can be
achieved as easily by a Levitation Charm, you will have to cross off anything that’s closely similar.
Or I’m not cooperating. I’m sore, I’m tired, and I’m not going to be used over and over again as
your personal sex-toy!”

“Ten points to Gryffindor for giving him hell, Hermione,” Kind-Snape asserted, entering the
bathroom, a tray floating in front of his wand, and Severus following behind. The Potions Master
scowled at the presence of the other duplicate, but climbed the steps of the bathtub and joined her
in the water without a word. Kind-Snape settled the tray on the rim of the tub and sat on the brim,
while List-Snape did the same, still perusing his list. Kind-Snape elbowed him, giving him a dark
look. “Pay attention, you duplicated dunderhead; some of this involves you, too.

“Severus, you need to patrol the school corridors, as you would normally. I’ll stay here, and keep an
eye on these two. I would advise, given his increasing state of agitation, disarming Prude-Snape of
his wand, and possibly confining him somewhere. Unless you wouldn’t mind being Obliviated,
Hermione; you’ve had some rather intense experiences recently,” the shirt-and-trouser-clad version
allowed.

She blushed and snuck a glance at the original in the milky bathwater with her. “Erm… I think I’d
like to keep these memories, if it’s all the same to you.”

Kind-Snape took that in stride, as List-Snape leered and Severus flushed. “Then he’ll need to be
watched carefully. I think he’ll be fine for a few hours, but by supper, he might grow agitated
enough to want to act,” Kind-Snape continued. “Taking away his wand and warding the room so
that he cannot leave should be sufficient to stop him from wandering about. Since she and you need
to make an appearance at supper, the two of us will keep an eye on him at that point in time.”

“—Why does she have to go to supper?” List-Snape asked. “My own needs will be only partially
sated, even if we shag for most of the day. I thought you said she left a note saying she didn’t want
to be disturbed all day, on her door. Why should supper be an exception to that rule?”

“Because her friends will have worried about her unresponsiveness, all day long,” Severus pointed
out on his replicant’s behalf. “It would be best if she showed up for at least one meal, before
sequestering herself away again. Given that we have slept through most of the morning, an
appearance at breakfast is out of the question. Ergo she must appear later in the day.”

“As she’s too sore right now to go down to lunch, a supper appearance makes the most sense,”
Kind-Snape agreed.

List-Snape scowled softly. “Well, I intend to make the most of my exigency anyway. You will return
here immediately after supper.”

“I will return as soon as I feasibly can, after supper,” Hermione retorted. “Unless you want someone
to know something’s going on, I have to act like I normally would, and if someone wants me to stop
and chat with them for a few minutes, I might have to do that, now won’t I?”

“Do what you must, but do not delay deliberately. I’d like to get through my list while I still have
some self-control,” the duplicate warned her. “Making love to you does take some of the edge off
my need, but not all of it, and each time we delay, it still comes back stronger than before. I really
do think there is a distinct time-limit to our overall existence,” he told the other two men.

“I did some caculations, based on my observations and questionings of the others,” Kind-Snape
admitted, setting a plate and a goblet of pumpkin juice on the broad, shelf-like rim of the bathtub
next to Hermione. He passed the next plate and a mug of coffee to his progenitor. “I think the most
any of us would live would be a week. If we satiate what we can of our needs, our reasons to exist,
without fulfilling them completely. Otherwise… I think Prude-Snape might reach the limits of his
existential tolerance sometime tomorrow. There’s no way to soothe his need, unfortunately, so
there’s no way to prolong his existence. Nor would I think that to be a kindness, in his case.”

“Well, I’m trying to do my best to fulfil my own needs, thank you very much,” List-Snape grumbled.
He sighed, rolled up his list, and slipped into the water, too, bringing the level of the milky liquid
dangerously close to the brim. “I’ve still a few menage-a-trois scenarios to fulfil with your
assistance, progenitor.”

“Well, could you at least wait until I’ve had breakfast?” Hermione groused as a hand—presumably
his, since he was now between her and the original—groped and kneaded one of her breasts under
the white, murky surface of the bathwater. “Merlin, at this rate you’ll practically shag me to
death!”

A snort of barely suppressed laughter made her glance quickly, warily at the other two. Kind-Snape
was glaring at List-Snape, who was looking over his shoulder at the original. Severus was the one
smirking. He was the one who had made the amused noise; he didn’t lose that smirk, either, when
their gazes met. Instead, he lifted his chin slightly and gave Hermione a decidedly amused look. “I
never thought I’d hear the day when the proper Head Girl used such a vulgar, common word as
‘shag’.”

“Sod off, you snarky git,” she retorted, sipping at the pumpkin juice. “And don’t even think of
taking off House-points for that, because you’re one of the reasons why I’m so bloody sore this
morning. In fact, you’re the initiating reason. So it’s technically all your fault.”

Pushing away from his end of the largish tub, Severus glided up to her before she could do more
than reach for her fork. Capturing her hands, he folded their combined arms across her chest and
stomach, caging her in his embrace. “And do you have any regrets, Hermione?” he asked her, his
jawline pressed to the edge of her cheek. When she shook her head, blushing hot enough for him to
feel it against his own skin, Severus dropped his voice to a deep purr. “Good. Because I myself do
not. I could regret inflicting so many of myselves, plural, upon you… but never myself, singular.”

It was quite possibly the bravest speech he’d given in her presence. When she turned and tilted her
head, looking back at him, Severus found himself falling into her wide, questioning eyes. He didn’t
know what kind of answer his own gaze gave to her, but it made her reach up and cup the back of
his head, pulling their mouths together in a kiss. Twisting in his arms, she wrapped herself around
him, straddling his hips, twining her arms around his head and shoulders. He did the same, cradling
her in his lap, moulding her torso to his under the milky surface of the water, both of them
heedless, even mindless, of the two duplicates watching their embrace.

Until pain pinched the lobes of their ears in a very familiar and very unwelcome manner. Kind-Snape
tugged them into releasing each other. “Give it a rest, you two! You both need to eat, to maintain
your strength. You,” he ordered Severus, “go sit at that end of the tub, and eat your meal. You,” he
ordered Hermione, “sit here and eat your breakfast, too. And you,” he told List-Snape, who was
licking his lower lip, eyeing the flushed witch speculatively, “get out of the tub, dry off, and go eat
your breakfast in the bedroom.”

“—In the bedroom?” List-Snape protested. “What am I, a child to be banished?”

“Would you prefer the parlour?” Kind-Snape growled in an un-kind voice. List-Snape snarled, but did
so silently, climbing out of the tub. As he dried off, the clothed copy evanesco’d the milky, scented
water that had slopped over the edge of the oversized bathtub during their activities.

Hermione watched the other duplicate depart, then eyed Kind-Snape. “Kind-Snape, what sort of
seniority do you have over the other copies, that they would obey you so readily?”

“The seniority of having the most important exigency,” Kind-Snape replied calmly, Transfiguring a
spare towel into a stool, which he placed near Hermione’s end of the tub. “Alright. Where did we
leave off last night?”

The Head Girl eyed him, eyed the original Severus, who was frowning, and swallowed her mouthful
of scrambled eggs. “Erm… you’re just going to continue talking to me?”

“Of course. Ah, I remember, now… We were talking about pets and Familiars, and Mephistofleas.”

“But… he’s right here,” Hermione hissed at him, glancing quickly at Severus again. “Isn’t that…
well…?”

Kind-Snape met Severus’ gaze. “I believe he knows now what my exigency entails, and that he will
not interfere. In fact, if he knows what’s best for himself, he’ll actively participate in our
conversation.”

Severus drew in a breath to protest, but subsided. After a moment, he sighed and joined the
conversation. “Mephistofleas… now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. He has probably
long since died; cats don’t live overly long lives, though they are second only to horses, turtles and
parrots in longevity, and Mephistofleas wasn’t a kitten when he found me. But… I lo… I loved him,
while he was mine.”

Breakfast forgotten, Hermione stared at him. Severus Snape had just admitted to loving something,
albeit in something of an uncomfortable stammer. She almost expected the walls to start singing
like canaries, or for the water in the bathtub to turn itself into banana yogurt.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he ordered her, looking uncomfortable. “I do have feelings, you know.
I am as capable of harbouring a tendre for someone or something as the next wizard, and that was
my first pet, after all.”

“Er… well, I’m sorry you lost him, and very sorry your father tried to skin the poor creature,”
Hermione offered as he reached for his breakfast, scrabbling her thoughts back into a semblance of
coherency. “Did you ever have any other pets?”

Kind-Snape fielded that one, since Severus was eating some of his sausages. It might have been
lunchtime, but the elves had sent them breakfast food. “Yes, the next one was a raven. His father—
the bastard—thought a bird would be far more fitting, and thought a raven would be more suitable
than a cat, or an owl.”

“He almost got me a snake,” Severus added, flicking his duplicate an unreadable look, but going
along with their choice of topic. “But Mother didn’t want a snake in the house—she was Ravenclaw,
you see, and had a raven for her own Familiar. Cats were too plebian for my father, and owls too
common—we had two family owls to carry letters. They were work-animals in his mind. Ravens
weren’t, but then they don’t make very good letter-carriers. And they don’t purr softly, when you
pet them.”

Kind-Snape laughed. “—Oh, yes, there were a number of times when we tried using Maximus like an
owl. Letters ended up being dropped in the breakfast porridge, or stuffed into biscuit tins, shredded
into curls of paper that were then twisted and used to pry ants out of their nests—ravens are smart
enough to be tool-users, you know, and they have an incredibly sardonic sense of humor.”

“Oh, yes,” Hermione agreed quickly. “I saw a Muggle nature program once, discussing that. They’re
very clever animals. If I could pick what I’d turn into as an Animagus, it would either be a cat or a
raven.”

“We thought about trying for an animagus form,” Kind-Snape admitted with a shrug, “but decided
in the end against it. The process is extremely difficult, and then there’s the whole registering
thing. Being an unregistered Animagus is a sentence of six months in Azkaban, plus a month for
every year you’ve passed unregistered, and that didn’t appeal to us.”

“I know what you mean. I think I could manage it easily enough, and having a secret form to turn
into would be a real advantage in the war,” Hermione admitted, “but I’ve seen what the Dementors
do to people. I don’t want to suffer that.”

“I’m surprised you and your friends haven’t tried to become Animagi already, despite the
consequences of not registering,” Severus murmured. “Given you have an example in the previous
generation of Gryffindors getting away with it, I’d think Potter especially would want to follow in
his father’s footsteps.”

“Harry is not his father, Severus,” Hermione chided bluntly. “Don’t put James’ motivations into
Harry’s mind. That’s like smashing a rectangular peg into a square hole; it’s not going to fit all that
well, even if both of them have four straight sides and four right-angle corners… Truth is, though,
it’s never really crossed our minds,” she added after a moment of thought. “We’ve also had too
many other things to deal with—when would we have had the time to practice?”

“True,” Kind-Snape admitted. “So, what else would you like to know about us, while we have him
here as a captive audience?”

Hermione smiled. “A captive in his own bathtub? The man can walk out at any moment, Kind-Snape.
What’s to keep him here?”

“You.” Severus held her gaze as he sipped from his coffee mug. Held it as he extended his leg,
probing and finding her knee and thigh under the murky, milky water. Gliding his toes along her
flesh, he stroked her, soothed her, stimulated her. She shifted a little closer to him, moving her
thigh slightly to the side, and his toes encountered her crinkly pubic hair.

Kind-Snape narrowed his eyes. “What are the two of you doing, under the water?”

Hermione blushed, and Severus smirked. Deciding to retaliate, she shifted forward a little—carefully
not dislodging his foot—and extended her own leg, resting her arm along the brim of the tub for
balance. Reaching the juncture of his thighs, she gingerly probed. His eyes widened, then narrowed,
and his smirk deepened. His foot rubbed between her thighs. Hers rubbed along his loins. Kind-
Snape sighed heavily in exasperation.

“You’re supposed to be eating your breakfast, and have a decent conversation, here! Stop playing
with each other and cooperate with me, or I’ll pinch your ears again!”

That made Hermione giggle. Severus chuckled. Kind-Snape sighed and shook his head ruefully. Until
Hermione playfully splashed at him, that was. He narrowed his eyes for a moment at that, then
smiled wickedly and splashed her back. She shrieked, giggled, and retaliated, sloshing more water
his way.

Severus watched them play, and the way they were getting his bathroom wet. “The two of you are
behaving like children!”

Kind-Snape splashed him as well. “Loosen up, you old stick-up-the-arse! If I can play, you can play!”

“—Yeah!” Hermione agreed, and splashed her professor.

Spluttering, Severus wiped at his face. Deliberately, he scowled at her until her amusement
faltered, then growled and lunged, drenching her with a doubled arm-lash of milky, scented spray.
Shrieking, she lashed back, and the two of them got themselves and quite a bit of the bathroom
soaked as they yelled and splashed, playing with each other in a very childish way. They moved
closer to deliver watery volleys more accurately, and then it happened. Arms tangled, bodies
collided, and lips mated with all the inevitability of opposing poles on a pair of magnets. It was wet,
it was warm, and it was wonderful.

Until Kind-Snape rapped his knuckles on the tops of both of their heads, breaking the kiss with a
rude thunk-thunk. “… As wonderful as I’m sure that is, she needs to save herself for List-Snape, and
you need to confiscate Prude-Snape’s wand in case he goes a bit barmy ahead of schedule. Plus you
must dress yourself, and be about your afternoon corridor patrols. Since you’ve ruined your
breakfasts, you can both just go without.”

Sighing roughly, Severus shifted away, then moved back and pulled Hermione to him for a brief but
thorough kiss. Pulling back, he eyed the somewhat dazed young woman. “… I expect you to practice
your sexual skills upon my duplicate as much as possible. If you must make love to someone other
than me—personally and originally—I still intend to reap the benefits of your acquired expertise.”
Catching her chin, he held her gaze with his own. “But you will only practice upon a duplicate of
me. Am I making myself clear, Hermione?”

“Crystal,” she murmured, mind racing with the implications of such a possessive little speech.
Watching him exit, Hermione speculated until he vanished from view, then turned her attention to
the two things still in the room. Her breakfast, which was now quite soggy from their water-fight,
and Kind-Snape. The look in those dark eyes was just as intense and possessive as Severus’ had
been. Bringing her that much closer, she realized, to finally knowing exactly what that look in both
their eyes was all about…
 Chapter Seven
“—Dammit, I said five thrusts maximum per position!” Hermione snapped, scowling as best she
could considering her convoluted, yoga-like position. “What are you trying to do, chafe me to
death?”

“Your attitude, Hermione, is not assisting this matter,” List-Snape retorted. “Lift your right leg six
inches higher.”

“I don’t see what the difference will be,” she groused, though she did comply. Five thrusts, and he
had her lift her left leg a little higher. Three thrusts, and he slipped out; the angle was too
awkward. “Hmpf! Now can we take a break?”

Letting her slide fully to the floor, the duplicate sighed heavily. “Fine. Five minutes. Then we move
to the couch.”

“A couch is the same as a chair, and we’ve already used the chair in here,” Hermione grumbled,
closing her trembling, aching thighs. Trembling and aching from the positions they’d been in—some
of them straight out of the Wizarding Kama Sutra, literally taken from the moving illustrations of
the original Severus Snape’s personal, unsettlingly dog-eared copy—her legs were happy to do
something other than a sexual pretzel for a little while.

“A padded, sprung couch is not the same as a hard-seated straightback chair,” List-Snape disdained,
lifting his thin, beaky nose a little.

“Oh, really? It’s a seat, Snape,” Hermione retorted dryly.

“A couch has springs.”

She rolled her eyes, then closed them with a sigh of her own, content to rest on the shades-of-blue
rug on the floor next to the four-poster bed. She heard him moving over to the bathroom, then his
return a few moments later. Opening her eyes, she watched him crouch beside her, a familiar
bottle in his hand. “More anti-chafing potion?”

“I’ve had mine; now you need yours—you cannot accuse me of leaving you chafed,” he smirked,
helping her to sit up and take a swig of the spearminty, peanutbuttery flavored liquid. “Only of
making you so.”

“—Quite,” she was forced to agree as soon as she finished swallowing the somewhat acrid dose. He
held out another two bottles.

“More healing draught, for bruises and strained muscles, and a touch of contraceptive. Healing
first,” he added, exchanging vials. “We don’t want that overriding the contraceptive, if you swallow
too much.”

“… Considering your existences don’t last very long, I’m not sure your seed would, either,” she
observed as soon as she finished flinching from the motor-oil-and-jalapenos taste of the second
liquid. Waiting until the tingling subsided, she knocked down the third. “—Urgh, that’s awful!”
“It’s supposed to taste like oranges and coconut,” List-Snape observed, frowning softly at the bottle
as she handed it back.

“It does; I simply hate coconut,” Hermione enlightened him, shuddering. “Horrid stuff.”

“Do you feel ready to continue?” he asked her solicitously.

Sighing, Hermione let him lift her to her feet. “Why not? Better to get it all over with during the
weekend, rather than risk missing some of my classes come Monday.”

Returning the bottles to the bathroom, List-Snape came out and intercepted Hermione on her way
to the door. “You keep insisting on walking; you’re wasting valuable energy, my dear.”

Hermione blinked in bemusement as he swept her into his arms. He arched a brow at her in
curiosity, and she shrugged. “Who knew that Severus Snape had a Rhett Butler complex?”

His puzzlement pinched his forehead even as it quirked one brow. “… A who what?”

“It’s a Muggle reference. Nevermind.” Opening the door for him, she let him nudge it shut with his
foot behind them as he carried her straight to the settee. Twisting, he sat down, shifting her in his
lap so that she straddled him. As he adjusted and held himself ready, Hermione impaled herself
slowly, hissing as he filled her. Not that she was chafed or sore physically, but mentally she was
growing a little wary of such things. Or perhaps weary was a closer word. When this had all begun,
Hermione couldn’t have imagined growing so quickly weary of sex in all its seemingly infinite
variety.

Just as their loins snugged together, fully impaled, an unstead voice demanded, “Wha… what are
you doing? You’re—you’re doing it, right here! In front of me!! God and Merlin, if I still had my
wand—!”

The rising shout came from Prude-Snape. He looked terrible, his dark eyes underscored by dark
circles, his mouth pulled down in pinched, sour lines, his forehead wrinkled in consternation. His
hair, never in the best of condition normally, was not only greasy and tangled, but rumpled into
lumps as he grabbed it in his fists, looking ready to literally tear it out.

Apparently, he objected to their invading the parlour for another bout of sex.

As they gaped at him, he moved sharply, snatching up a heavy, wrought-iron candelabra from a
nearby table. Self-preservation instincts kicked in; Hermione dove off of List-Snape’s lap, hitting
the floor just beyond reach as Prude-Snape tried to bash the metal against her scalp. The other
copy hissed at the rough treatment of his member, but lunged off the cushions as well. His
objective wasn’t to escape, but rather to wrestle with Prude-Snape.

“—Control yourself! What are you trying to do, kill her?” List-Snape demanded, grappling with his
fellow duplicate.

“If that’s what it takes to make her forget!” yelled the deranged copy, struggling for control of the
makeshift weapon.
List-Snape threw him back against the edge of the stones delineating the hearth. Prude-Snape
caught himself with a grunt, then grabbed the fire poker and charged Hermione, who scrambled for
the bedroom door with a yelp. She heard a loud, dull thunk behind her, and whirled in time to see a
wide-eyed Prude-Snape toppling to the carpet. The poker dropped from his unresponsive ringers—
and a moment later, the fully-dressed duplicate exploded. Bits of aquamarine foam dotted the
room for a full ten feet in any direction, including the gaping Hermione and the grim-faced List-
Snape. They both flinched from the explosion, and the splattering of the warm, ugly-coloured,
rapidly greying, oddly-scented foam.

Whatever it was, it smelled almost entirely unlike chocolate—really, really bad chocolate, only
thankfully not.

A moment later one of the other two doors into the parlour opened, and Kind-Snape leaned
through. “What is happening… in… here?”

“Apparently, in the defense of Miss Granger, it seems I, er… killed Prude-Snape. It was very
disconcerting,” List-Snape murmured, eyeing the foam-splattered candelabra in his hand, then his
equally aquamarine-and-grey dotted flesh. Very greyish-aquamarine; the foam was already
disintegrating, leaving behind that hideous scent again.

… Carob.

That was what it was. Hermione finally realized the odor was rancid carob—not even real chocolate,
but that icky imitation stuff one found in Muggle health-food stores. Grimacing, she wiped gingerly
at the residue clinging to her skin; it didn’t seem to be harming her, but she didn’t like the sticky,
tacky feel of the foam as it withered and dried. “So that’s what happens when you… when you kill
one of the duplicates… or maybe just when he reaches the end of his existential rope…”

“Let me clean you up, Hermione. Cutimundic,” Kind-Snape murmured, flicking his wand at her and
his fellow copy, before tidying the room in general with a broader-ranging spell. “… I was afraid
that might have been what was happening, but when I heard the shouting, I was in the middle of
something delicate. I’m very sorry I wasn’t here to save you.”

“It’s… it’s alright. I’m alright,” Hermione managed, still seeing the dazed, dead look in the
duplicate’s eyes before he had exploded. She wondered if that counted as a death where being able
to see the thestral herd of Hogwarts was concerned. “I’m more concerned about List-Snape; he
essentially had to kill himself, after all.”

“—I’ll be alright. It’s not the worst thing our progenitor ever had to do,” the copy in question
demurred grimly, returning the cleaned candelabra to the end table. He turned as Hermione picked
up the fire poker and restored it to its stand by the hearth. “We’ll take another break to observe a
few moments of silence for his departure.”

“Don’t delay too long; she’ll need to go back to her quarters to change for supper in half an hour,”
Kind-Snape pointed out. They fell silent for a few respectful moments, then List-Snape muttered
something about fetching dressing gowns for the two of them. He retreated with a frown,
apparently still not entirely happy with what he’d had to do to protect her.

“What were you doing in the Professor’s laboratory?” Hermione asked Kind-Snape as the other
duplicate headed back into the bedroom. She needed something to distract her mind from what had
just happened.

He smiled at her. It wasn’t as broad a smile as Ron’s or Harry’s, but the not-quite-shy curve of his
lips suited him. “Making presents for you, actually. Toiletry items for your hair, your skin, scented
bath oils, that sort of thing. And a tonic for detangling your curls. That one is taking the longest,
but it should be ready for you after supper.”

“So I won’t be quite so bushy-haired, right?” she teased lightly, aimed as much at herself as at him
for the gift. “That’s a wonderful present, really. If you make it, I know it’ll work. Too many of the
ones I’ve tried commercially have been all hype and no success, where my bushful of hair is
concerned.”

His smile widened, then he ducked his head, flushing. A shy, embarrassed Snape was a rare thing,
even in a duplicate. Feeling a bit bold as well as pleased, Hermione bounced up onto her toes,
dusting his cheek with a kiss. When she rocked back on her heels, he smiled again, then dipped his
head and brushed his lips lightly against her own.

“… You have your own existential needs, Kind-Copy, and they technically do not include snogging
her; save her lips for the original and me,” List-Snape chided them, tossing a robe at Hermione.
“Here; you might as well go back across to your own quarters, if there’s only half an hour before
supper. I’m still a little unsettled from… from what just happened, and no doubt you are as well.
We’ll take a longer break. But you’re to be back here no later than an hour past the end of supper.
Sooner, if you can make it.”

Sighing, Hermione stuffed her arms into the longish sleeps, belted the longish dressing gown around
her waist, and padded back into the bedroom to fetch her wand and locate her long-absent clothes.

***

“What have you been doing all day long, ‘Mione?” Ron asked her as she bit her lip, trying not to
wince too openly from the aches produced by stepping over the Gryffindor table’s bench. They’d
drunk chafing solutions and healing potions, but nothing for general soreness.

“—Studying,” she returned curtly, careful to not indicate what, exactly, she’d been studying. Her
bottom didn’t like the hard plank of the bench, even with all the healing and anti-chafing potions
she’d consumed. She modified her tone into something a little more pleasant as she flashed the
others an approximate smile. “The N.E.W.T.s are only a few months away, you know.”

“How come you didn’t answer the door when Ginny banged on it, earlier?” her redheaded friend
persisted, as Harry rolled his eyes.

“Because I didn’t hear her, that’s why,” Hermione replied, reaching for the pitcher of pumpkin
juice.

“Hermione, I banged on the door for five minutes straight. I even kicked the ruddy thing—you didn’t
hear any of that?” Ginny asked her, leaning past Dean Thomas to eye her friend.

“No. I put a Silencing Charm on the door, so I wouldn’t be disturbed. Got a lot done, that way, too.
I think I might just do it again tonight, maybe even tomorrow.”

“You didn’t come down for breakfast, or lunch,” Ron reminded her. “You’ve skipped a meal or two
before, but never two in a row.”

She manufactured a smile. “I actually had a bit of a kip to nibble on, in my room—speaking of
which, I’d better stash a bit more in my napkin for tomorrow.”

Thankfully, they believed her, as she started loading her napkin with bread rolls stuffed with meat
and sauce for makeshift sandwiches.

“Hey, Hermione, how did that potion thing of yours turn out?” Harry asked her as they neared the
pudding end of the meal.

Debating swiftly, Hermione allowed herself to wince. “Er, yes… about that. It… it failed, actually.”

Ron’s brows shot up towards his hairline. “You did a project, and it failed? ”

“There’s no need to broadcast it to the whole school!” Hermione retorted under her breath, giving
him a fierce look. “Truth be told, I’ve been in my room running Arithmancy calculations on why it
failed. I think I’ve got the problem pinpointed, but I’ll have to redo everything from scratch. I’m
not looking forward to that; it means I’ll have to spend even more hours in his company… and he’s
not too happy about it, either,” she added, tipping her head towards the high table. In specific, the
end where Professor Snape sat, scowling as usual at the world in general, and the non-Slytherin
students in specific. “Not to mention the ruddy expenses. But Professor Dumbledore is being really
nice about it.”

“So, what happened when your potion project failed?” Harry asked her between bites of roast beef.

“Yeah, we didn’t hear any explosions, Wednesday night. Leastwise, not any from outside our game
of Exploding Snap,” Ron added.

“Oh, well, it actually… er… it just turned rather foamy,” she explained somewhat lamely.

“That’s it? That’s all it did, was turn into a foam?” Ginny asked.

“Well… it was sort of a peachy-orangey colour,” she shrugged. “And, erm… when it touched
someone, it gave them the hiccups. There’s not much more to it than that, I’m afraid.”

“Huh. I’ll bet Fred and George would love to get the recipe for a hiccup-causing foam,” Ron mused.
“They’d pay good money for that.”

“Not at the price of the ingredients involved,” Hermione countered glumly, not really having to
manufacture the emotion, or the words underlying it. “The Hiccough Draught that Professor Snape
told us about in our third year is vastly cheaper and easier to make, trust me on this; they’d be
better off modifying that one for their joke shop needs… Anyway, I need to keep going back over my
calculations this weekend, and I need to stay uninterrupted, because they’re really complex. I can
only repeat the experiment one or two more times before the cost just becomes far too prohibitive
to continue experimenting, and I want everything to work perfectly the next time I try.
“So I’m going straight back to my room after supper, and I’m putting up the wards and charms
again.” She grimaced slightly and added, “I might even stoop to asking the house-elves to send me
up something to eat directly. The flaw is very vexatious, and difficult to pinpoint… but I’ll bore you
if I go into the details.”

Ron looked relieved; Harry looked like he would have said something, but then their pudding
arrived, a literal chocolate pudding, layered between a slice of spongecake and dollops of clotted
cream. Discussion of projects and homework got tabled for more pleasant pursuits. It was chocolate
pudding, after all.

***

“I’m not getting on a broom!”

“You are getting on a broom!”

“I’m not getting on that broom!”

“Look, you’re already mounted on me, and I’m the one who’ll be mounted on the broom!”

“I don’t like brooms!”

“Well, wonder of wonders, a Gryffindor who doesn’t like riding brooms! We’re getting on this
broom!”

“Would you stop yelling at her? I thought I told you to be nice to her!”

“—Would all of you just shut up? And where’s Prude-Snape?”

Three sets of eyes flicked to Severus’ face: Kind-Snape’s were resigned, List-Snape’s grim, and
Hermione-Snape… er, Hermione’s eyes were stricken. Severus arched his brow, folding his black-
clad arms across his fully clothed and robed chest. With List-Snape as naked as the young woman
clinging to his torso, and Kind-Snape clad casually in shirt and trousers only, he hoped he made an
imposing sight.

“… Well? ”

“He, erm… attacked me when we started to use the parlour couch, and List-Snape coshed him on
the head during the fight,” Hermione confessed, biting her lower lip.

“That’s when he exploded in a sort of aquamarine-grey foam,” List-Snape added, shrugging almost
casually save for the signs of discomfort in his averted gaze. “Either I… either I killed him with the
blow, or his exigency became too much to contain, and he simply exploded from the pressure.”

“It wasn’t pleasant to watch,” Hermione added in a subdued murmur. “Especially as he was trying
to bash in my brains at the time.”

“—Where were you when this happened? Aren’t you her self-appointed watchdog?” Severus asked
his other copy. The thought of one of his duplicates actually attacking the Head Girl upset and
disturbed him.
“I was in our private lab, working on some projects. I didn’t expect them to come out into the
parlour where he was fretting. Thank you for taking his wand with you, by the way,” Kind-Snape
added. Then narrowed his eyes. “Speaking of which, where is it?”

Severus sighed roughly. He reached into one of the pockets lining his teaching robes… and drew his
fingers out, face wrinkling in disgust as they all saw the greyish slime clinging to his skin. The scents
of rancid fat and carob stained the air, curling his lip even as it wrinkled his nose.

“… Bloody perfect. I hope to Merlin this residue doesn’t have any nasty side-effects associated with
it. Or stains my wardrobe.” Heading towards the lavatory, he eyed Hermione and her current
partner. “Get on the ruddy broom, stabilize it with a charm for as long as absolutely necessary,
then get off and stop traumatizing the woman. And keep your voices down! Yes, there are noise-
reduction charms placed on this suite so I don’t have to listen to any students whinging on the other
side of the hidden entrance, but they only stretch so far!”

“Mmm, ride on the broom until I ‘get off’, is it? I can definitely do that,” List-Snape mused.

Hermione mock-gasped and thumped his shoulder for his impertinence.

***

“Can’t I just go back to my own bed, in my own room?” Hermione asked her professor wearily, as
the other two Snapes flicked their wands, conjuring bedrolls for them to use. “I’m tired, and I’m
whingey, and I’m not very good company right now. And… I’m getting a little burnt-out on the
whole sex thing.”

He arched his brow at her—all three of them did—but Severus held up his hand towards List-Snape,
who had drawn a breath to speak, perhaps to protest. In a quiet voice, the original simply asked,
“Are you, now?”

“Yes. It’s sex, sex, sex—Hermione, lift your leg; Hermione, arch your back. Hermione do this,
Hermione do that! Hermione drink this, it’ll keep you going like some bloody Muggle toy being given
a fresh battery so the little boy playing with it can keep playing for another few hours! I’m not a
rabbit! I need my rest! I’m feeling very whingey about it, right now,” she muttered forcefully,
pushing her hair back from her brow. Her fingers tangled in the curls, making her sigh roughly. “… I
want my hairbrush. And my toothbrush. And I don’t want to be seen as a sexual object for the next
twelve hours!”

“I don’t think I can last twelve hours. The hour and a half she took for supper lasted long enough to
make my needs distinctly worse,” List-Snape muttered grimly, dropping onto his pallet and fingering
the scroll laid next to it. “And I can’t help it if I’ve got a vast and varied imagination that won’t
stop coming up with new ways to make her moan in ecstasy.”

“—I’ve got a solution for that!” Kind-Snape interjected as Hermione drew in a breath to scream. He
ducked out of the room as Severus flicked his wand, responding to her earlier plaints. List-Snape
subsided with a rough sigh of his own. A toothbrush and a hairbrush materialized in the air in front
of Hermione, making her frown tiredly.

“I’d rather have you close at hand, Hermione, than risk one of those two going barking mad from
your absence,” Severus told her as she frowned at the proffered objects. “Go brush your teeth.
You’re staying here, but we’ll fix things so that you’ll get a full night’s sleep. And… there are two of
us here who do not view you as a sexual object,” he added, meeting her eyes levelly, his face
flushing a little. “You’re a beautiful woman, that much is true, but you’re much more than that.”

“I’ll settle for a comparison to Aphrodite, myself,” List-Snape agreed, his voice coming from down
below. Hermione glanced down, only to catch him in a sort of modified push-up position, dark head
dipping so that he could press kisses to the tops of her feet. Sensual kisses.

Disgusted, Hermione wrestled with the temptation to kick him. “Stop slobbering on my feet! Or I’ll
kick you—I will! I mean it!”

“For god’s sake, show some dignity!” Severus snapped, striding over and yanking his duplicate away
from her, gripping him by the hair.

Kind-Snape came back in, hurrying over to the two of them with a vial in his hand. “Here, drink
this.” He thrust it at List-Snape, making him tip the entire contents of the small bottle down his
throat. “There… Now lie down on your pallet before the potion hits.”

“What is it?” List-Snape asked, frowning at him.

“A Deep Sleep draught. You’ll be unconscious for the next ten hours.”

“—You buggering basta… aaaaaahh!” List-Snape yawned. He slumped to the carpet as soon as his
jaw closed, unconscious.

“That was a particularly efficacious brewing,” Severus observed, brow arching in surprise, shifting
to pick up the naked duplicate at the ankles, while Kind-Snape passed the empty vial to Hermione
and grabbed his fellow copy at the shoulders, heaving him over to the pallet. “Did you use fresh-
chopped vetch, or freeze-dried?”

“Actually, it was a half-and-half mixture of both. We ran out of the freeze-dried. I’ve put in an
order for more with Flora’s & Fauna’s Potions Wholesalers, for you,” Kind-Snape added helpfully.

“Half and half? I’ll have to remember that one. Go brush your teeth, Hermione,” the original
repeated, glancing her way. “You’ll sleep here tonight, but I give you my word the remaining two of
us will not treat you like a sexual object,” Severus promised as they settled the recumbent
duplicate onto the pallet.

Sighing, Hermione padded into the bathroom, swerving by the chair where her borrowed, Snape-
sized dressing gown had been left. She’d gone well past any body-conscious based shyness, thanks
to the last twenty-four hours, but she didn’t want to put a strain on the remaining two male’s
psyches. Having a naked female body parading around naturally led the eye to look at one’s bits and
bobbles, after all. Though Hermione knew the remaining two would do their best to treat her as a
person, not a plaything, their eyes would still be inclined to wander if given a sufficiently
distracting view. It was as much her responsibility to reduce the view as it was theirs to not ogle it
openly.

The toothbrush Severus had conjured wasn’t her own, nor nearly as fancy, but the toothpaste in his
bathroom cupboard was better than the Muggle stuff she normally used. Hoping she could worm the
recipe out of the Potions Master, Hermione took a quick shower as well, then wondered if she could
get away with asking for fresh linens, since the ones currently on Severus’ bed were heavily scented
from all that sex, earlier.

She’d come to the decision that what she was doing with List-Snape was sex, not making love. When
Severus had been with her… that had felt a lot more like making love, to her. With List-Snape, sex.
Beyond all doubt.

Now there’s a question I haven’t considered, she mused. I know I’m in love with him, but how does
he really feel about me? He’s attracted to me, I know that much beyond a doubt, she conceded,
towel-drying her hair, as she had neglected to bring her wand into the bathroom for a drying charm.
But that isn’t the same as genuine caring… except Kind-Snape cares about me, I’m sure of it. And
the others all seemed to bow to his will with only the bare minimum of grumbling—he did say his
exigency was the most important and overwhelming of all of them… But what does that mean?

Severus Snape was an enigma ground up and stuffed into a mystery, tied shut with a riddle, and
wrapped in black, herb-scented layers of wool for wrapping paper.

Emerging from the bathroom, she hesitated a moment, then padded over to the four-poster bed. If
he was going to fuss about her sleeping in his chambers, she’d be damned before she slept on a
pallet on the floor. Or the floor itself. The sight of a neatly remade bed, the sheets looking crisp
and fresh, reassured her. As the original Potions Master slipped into the bathroom to tend to his
own late-night ablutions, Hermione eyed Kind-Snape. He was clad now in black silk pajamas, and
stood on the far side of the bed, turning back the covers with a twitch of his wand.

“I just realized I haven’t seen you in pajamas, before. Or… or naked,” she added.

“The pajamas are something new, yes—our progenitor sleeps either naked if it’s warm or in a
nightshirt if it’s cold—but you’ve seen the others; if you’ve seen one of us unclothed, you know
you’ve seen all of us that way.”

“Perhaps,” she was forced to concede. “But you each have developed distinct personalities, over
time.”

It was his turn to murmur, “Perhaps… Into bed with you.”

“My hair’s still wet. It needs drying and brushing, or it will tangle hopelessly,” she pointed out,
moving to the head of the bed and the wand resting on the nightstand. The hairbrush had been
settled next to it. A flick of her wand dried her hair, but when she reached for the brush, Kind-
Snape accio’d it out of her reach.

“… May I?”

Hermione eyed him askance. “You want to brush my hair?”

“I used to do this for my mother. Well, when I begged her to let me, and my father was out of the
house,” he amended dryly. “He didn’t like me doing something he deemed ‘unmasculine’. But I find
it soothing. May I?”
“Alright,” she found herself agreeing, and climbed onto the bed. He settled behind her, and she
quickly cautioned him, “—Start at the very bottom, and work your way up in small amounts,
otherwise it’ll snarl beyond all hope.”

“I remember my lessons. Mother’s hair was straight, but long, and she taught me how to brush it
properly.”

The bathroom door opened and Severus stepped out, clad in a knee-length nightshirt. Hermione
stared at him, then bit her lower lip, stifling a giggle. He padded over to the bed, caught a glimpse
of her gleaming, humor-filled eyes, and frowned, feeling uncomfortable at being laughed at like
that. “What are you…”

Kind-Snape cleared his throat between careful brushstrokes, interrupting his terse demand.

Severus tried again, striving for a less hostile tone. “… Are you laughing at me?”

“No, no. I just… it’s just that the sight of a grown man in such an old-fashioned nightshirt is…
amusing.” She winced. “I guess I was laughing. I’m sorry. Erm, why are you in a nightshirt, while
he’s in pajamas? Shouldn’t you both be in one or the other?”

“I thought you might prefer seeing a more Muggle style of garment,” Kind-Snape stated, working an
inch higher as he brushed out her curls. “We actually prefer to sleep naked. A nightshirt is faster to
throw on for clothing during an emergency than struggling into a shirt-and-trouser set would be, and
close enough to wizarding robes that few would care. So, what do you sleep in at night?”

She craned her head, looking at him reprovingly over her shoulder. “I thought I wasn’t going to be
treated like a sexual object.”

“It’s just a question. A get-to-know-you question,” the duplicate returned calmly.

“… Please tell me it’s not flannel and covered in prints of fluffy bunnies, or little hearts,” Severus
muttered, joining them on the bed.

“Actually, it depends. Most of the time, I sleep in the nude, too,” she confessed. “But when it’s,
erm, that time of the month, I wear knickers, of course, plus in the summer I wear a cotton nightie,
and in the winter, flannel pajamas. But my pajamas are blue-and-green striped flannel, and my
nightie is a sort of pale lavender. No fluffy bunnies, not even for my slippers.”

“Thank god for that,” the original Snape muttered under his breath.

She smirked. “Actually, they’re faux-fur cats, replete with stuffed heads stitched in place over the
toes.” His affronted look made her laugh. “—You look exactly like Crookshanks does, whenever he
sees me wearing them. They’re orange-tabby, just like he is.”

Severus sighed, part honestly, part mockingly. “Then I shall take comfort in the fact that I will be
able to torment you mercilessly about their mere existence. In class, no less.”

She mock-narrowed her eyes. “… You wouldn’t dare!”

He smirked.

Kind-Snape shifted and smacked the hairbrush against his progenitor’s chest. “Here, you brush her
hair. Obviously you need some sort of activity to calm yourself down before the two of you get into
a blazing row loud enough to wake up List-Snape, in spite of the brew I poured down his throat. I
know both of you; you’re both stubborn enough to manage it, somehow.”

Hermione quirked a brow, and Severus found himself responding with an old quote whose origins he
couldn’t recall. “… Too wise to woo peacefully.”

She stared at him, and he felt his skin warming with embarrassment. He hadn’t mean to to reveal
that. A shift of his body moved him behind her, stroking the brush carefully through her mess of
curls as a way to distract them from his words. It worked, sort of.

“You know Shakespeare?” she asked him as he worked on her hair. “That was from ‘Much Ado About
Nothing’, if I remember right.”

“Shakespeare might’ve been a Muggle, Hermione, but he was famous in both worlds as an
outstanding playwright,” Severus informed her. “Of course, it’s been a decade or two since I read
his works, which was not since I was a student myself… and that’s just what I needed,” he
muttered, the strokes of the brush slowing. “A reminder of our age-difference, and the the fact
that you’re my student, ruining the mood. I’m sorry.”

She drew up her knees, tugging the dressing gown into place, and shrugged. “It’s alright. Things are
the way that they are.” Stilling for a moment, Hermione glanced over her shoulder at him. “… Did
you just apologize to me?”

He smiled slightly, as Kind-Snape fetched his wand and tapped her dressing gown, Transfiguring it
into a lavender nightgown that didn’t gape like the dressing-gown had. That turned the moment
into a sort of bizarre slumber-party, in atmosphere. Severus ignored the moment of magic, holding
her gaze. “You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?”

“Well… no, not really. You’re not the sort of man who apologizes.”

“No, I’m not. Or rather, I cannot afford to be. Nor do I often want to be,” he admitted honestly.
“My apologies are usually saved for Albus alone.”

“What about… You-Know-Who?” Hermione asked. She’d almost said ‘Voldemort’, but figured neither
the original nor the clone version of Severus Snape would appreciate hearing their former master’s
name spoken out loud. “Don’t you have to apologize to him once in a while for whatever reason?”

“… I was only counting the sincere ones.” The rhythm of the brush against her hair barely faltered.
There it was; she’d mentioned the chartreuse elephant rampaging through their lives, and she’d
gotten away with it. Hermione let out the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

“You’re very brave, you know,” she observed after a moment, daring to continue on the subject at
hand. “Spying is incredibly dangerous, especially around such a madman as that. Any time you go
out, I can’t help but fear that you’ll never come back.”
The brush, which had reached the tops of her shoulders, stilled for a moment. “You… you’re
concerned about me?”

Hermione wasn’t fooled. His voice was too casual, with that question. She blushed, wondering how
to answer without destroying the mood. She wasn’t going to tell him the truth, that she loved him;
he might mock her feelings. Or feel uncomfortable. Aware of the seconds stretching between them,
of the brush paused mid-stroke, she managed, “Well, of course.” She couldn’t leave it at that, and
shrugged slightly even as she tightened her arms around her knees. “I care about you.”

The hardest thing Severus ever did was not sprawl her on the bedding and kiss her senseless. It was
a near thing, and his hands trembled as he resumed brushing out her hair. Kind-Snape gave him a
pointed look, and Severus bit back a sigh. It took courage, but he managed an equally honest reply
of his own. “I’m… glad. I’m glad you care enough to worry about me; not many would. I… I care
about you as well.”

She went very still for a moment. Then relaxed. “Good. I mean… um… it’s nice to be cared about.”

Kind-Snape rolled his eyes in a pained look for the awkwardness of the moment, but only Severus
saw it. His duplicate mouthed words at him, and on the second try, Severus caught the gist of it. “—
Tell her you love her! ”

He opened his mouth to do so. A soft snore interrupted him; it came from off to the left, between
the bed and the quiet crackling of the fire. List-Snape, deeply asleep. If Prude-Snape’s anguish over
being unable to complete his reason for existence had caused him to be willing to harm Hermione—
when that was one of the last things in the world the original wanted to do—it was quite possible
that List-Snape’s insatiable lusts would overwhelm his common sense at some point, too. About the
only exigency Severus felt he could trust was Kind-Snape’s, because if he was right about that
Snape-copy’s reason for existing, Kind-Snape would rather slit his own throat than harm a single
curly hair on Hermione Granger’s head.

Shaking his head slightly, he continued brushing her hair. Kind-Snape gave him a pointed look—
making him glad both of them were currently positioned behind her back—and he shook his head
again, then tipped it pointedly at the other copy over on the floor. It took a moment for the awake
duplicate to make the logical connection.

With a resigned sigh, the copy subsided in his efforts to get Severus to confess his feelings. He’d
watch over the young lady, make sure she wasn’t harmed. Aware of the silence between them,
Severus sought for a topic of conversation. “So… tell me what it’s like, growing up as a Muggle.”

That surprised Hermione. “You actually want to know?”

“I asked you, didn’t I?” A nudge from Kind-Snape, and Severus modified his reply. “I was raised a
Pureblood. I don’t know what it’s really like to be a Muggleborn.”

“Well, I don’t know what it’s like to have been raised in the wizarding world,” she returned with
another shrug. “So I don’t quite know where to start. Other than that I didn’t know magic was real,
when I was a little girl. And when funny things happened, when my magic manifested itself in little
ways and my parents and I noticed them… well, Muggles are very skeptical about that sort of
thing…”
 ***

A soft popping, banff-like sound woke them from their sleep. Hermione and Severus jerked out of
each other’s arms, sitting up and staring at the bedcurtains, which were rustling and swaying
slightly. A moment later, they heard a masculine groan, and smelled the stench of carob in the air.

“… Oh, ruddy hell! He’s gone and exploded in his sleep. Mundicum!” The curtains ruffled and
billowed again, this time from being cleansed. The air freshened as well, thankfully. A moment
later, Kind-Snape yanked back the curtains, braced his hands on the bedding, and glared at his
progenitor. “And I feel ready to explode, myself. Would you please tell her now? ”

“If I tell her, and if—if—she reciprocates, she’d do it to me, not to you, and she has to do it to you! I
don’t want to sit here and listen to her saying it to you,” Severus returned in a still-sleepy growl,
rubbing a thumb and forefinger over his eyes to rid them of their grit.

“I want her to say it to you! Yes, I’m the one with the need, and yes, I need her to say it to me, but
you’re the one who truly needs to hear it, not me!”

“—Would somebody please explain what you’re talking about?” Hermione pleaded, glancing
between the two men, one clad in Muggle pajamas, the other in a wizarding world nightshirt, a
contrast of masculine black to the feminine pale purple of her nightgown.

Kind-Snape flipped a hand at Severus, who ran his own through his sleep-rumpled locks. “This is
hardly the most romantic moment for it…”

Hermione’s eyes widened. Shock raced through her veins, and her heart pounded to keep up. She
stared at her lover, Kind-Snape all but forgotten. “You… ro… romantic? ”

Stilling at her stunned squeak, Severus regarded her warily for a moment, then lowered his hand
from his hair. Touching her chin, holding her gaze with his own, he gave her the absolute truth.
“I’m in love with you, Miss Granger. And I have no idea how you feel about me… other than that you
‘care’ for me.”

Shock robbed her of speech. Joy robbed her of breath, and wonderment robbed her of movement.
All the world was still, as Hermione absorbed that singular, solitary fact. He loves me…

His hand shifted, brushing her cheek. His mouth tightened, and she could see him rebuilding his
defences. “You… don’t have to say anything. Not if it isn’t true. I—”

Hand flying up to his lips, Hermione stopped him from making an arse of himself. “Severus Snape, I
love you, too.”

“… Thank you!”

Banff.

Both of them looked over her shoulder, at the empty space between the curtains where Kind-Snape
had been. Without any rancid-carob smell, or scattered, rotting foam. Hermione blinked, lowering
her hand from the original’s lips. “Erm… wow. If that was his exigency, and I was supposed to say it
to him to complete his existence… but I said it to you…”

“He may have been a duplicate, but he was a real person, while he existed. And… he answers a
question about myself that I’ve doubted for many years,” Severus murmured. At her curious look,
he clarified, “… Whether or not I could love myself.”

“Apparently you do. I know I do, and have for quite some time, though I didn’t really want to admit
it,” Hermione added. His dark gaze turned wary, and she winced at the awkwardness of her
phrasing. “I meant, not because I didn’t want to, but… well, you’re my teacher, and I’m not
supposed to have those sorts of feelings for a teacher. But, now that we know, and we’ve already…
well, they’re all gone, now, and as enlightening as all that sex was…” She blushed, but forged ahead
with the courage of her House, “I want to make love to you, and just you.”

His body liked that idea. His heart loved it. His mind winced, as her words drew a memory out of his
conscience. “—Dammit! Buggering hell!”

“… Severus?” His exclamation, and his flinching from her hand as she raised it to touch him, puzzled
her. “What’s wrong?”

“The Headmaster,” he explained brusquely, turning away from her so that he wouldn’t be tempted.
“He reminded me Friday night that our… liason… was covered under Section IX, Article C, Paragraph
4, the clauses covering magical-mistake management. He reminded me that, so long as my
duplicates remained and had the existential need to make love to you, I, ah… that I could
participate, too. It’s a stretch of the rules, but Albus allowed it. But… he warned me that, as soon
as the last copy was gone, we would have only two choices of conduct, or he would have to sack
me, and expel you.”

“What… what are those two choices?” Hermione asked, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Severus grimaced. “Abstinence… or marriage.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly.” Bracing his elbow on his knee, Severus rested his forehead in his palm. This would be so
much easier if Kind-Snape were still here to do all the talking for him. His exigency had given him
the courage; now Severus had to find it within himself, on his own. “I’m torn between asking you to
marry me, and asking us to wait. Waiting would be painful, especially after tasting heaven in your
arms… but it would be worse to be found-out. If the secret were leaked on our side, your friends
would try to kill me. If it were leaked on the other side… we’d both be dead. Eithe rway, the Order
would lose their best spy in the Enemy’s ranks.

“And yet… it’s so easy to see the two of us married, in my mind.” No, this wasn’t the easiest
conversation he’d ever had, and he wasn’t even looking at her, but Severus wanted her to know just
how difficult this choice was for him. “You fascinate me, amuse me, aggravate me, stimulate me in
so many ways… but it would be too dangerous… Now that I’ve tasted the bliss of your body, and the
knowledge that you love me—which I’m still finding a little hard to believe, because I’m not a very
lovable man…”

Shifting her body, Hermione wrapped herself around him, draping her torso against his back and
laying her cheek on his shoulder. “You’re remarkably lovable, Severus Snape. Don’t you ever doubt
that. You’re also an outstanding actor, hiding all that you do from the world. I would want to marry
you, too, but you’re right about how it would be too great a risk to your position. We’ve got to do
the right thing, not the selfish thing. But… when it’s all over…”

Twisting, Severus pulled her into his lap. It took all his effort to not press his lips to any part of her
body, but he did embrace her closely, pressing their cheeks tightly together as he muttered in her
ear. “Marry me. The day after you graduate and leave this place. The first full day you’re not a
student in my care.”

“Gladly!” she promised, and lifted her head to kiss him.

A tortured groan escaped his chest before their lips could meet. With unsteady hands, he pushed
her off his lap and rose quickly from the bed, pushing the bedcurtains out of his way. “—Back to
your chambers, Miss Granger!” A glance at the clock on his wall, and he ran his hands through his
hair. “Half of Sunday morning has wasted away while we slept, and you haven’t done a single scroll
of homework all weekend long.”

“As if I weren’t already weeks ahead in my assignments,” she snorted, disappointed but knowing
they were doing the right thing. Forcing herself to crawl out of his bed on the far side, she looked
back at him. “I do love you, you know. I’ll still love you, even when you have to be absolutely mean
to me out in public, like you always were. Because I know you’ll have to be, even if you don’t want
to be.”

The relieved look in his eyes told her she’d said the right thing. “… I’d worried about that. Because I
will have to be just as cruel as ever, in public. Even if I do love you.”

She managed a smile. “I’ll try to treasure each snarky comment as if it were an endearment—would
that help?”

A laugh escaped him involuntarily. “—Baggage! Impertient baggage,” he added. His words were a
verbal slap, by their definition, but his tone was distinctly a caress. “Then I shall view that
damnable hand-raising of yours as your way of telling me you still care about me.”

“You’re going to get an awful lot of hand-raising, then,” she smiled ruefully, fighting off the urge to
feel weepy, too.

“I look forward to being thoroughly annoyed, and suitably vituperous… Go on, with you. The Floo
Powder’s on the mantel.”

She turned to go, then looked back, fingering her nightie. “Your dressing-gown…”

“Keep it. Think of me, when you wear it,” he murmured.

“But what could I give to you?” she returned wistfully.

“I’ll have your essays to moon over, like some lovesick boy—but I will be grading you all the harder,
to make sure there’s no taint of favoritism,” the Potions Master warned her sternly.
“… Yes, Professor,” the Head Girl returned demurely. With a smile.

“And, Miss Granger—”

“Yes, Professor?” Hermione wanted to call him ‘Severus’ one last time, but that time was now past.

“You still have the correct version of your project to make, as well as a repeat of the altered one,”
he reminded her, his dark eyes gleaming in the firelight. “Plus lessons in Occlumency, to hide the
secret of how the dopplefoam experiment was made, however accidentally. It… it will be difficult
to associate so closely, though I will fob off the Occlumency lessons on the Headmaster to further
reduce our tempation level… but I trust you will be strong, and resist that temptation. And… resist
the urge to tempt me deliberately as well.”

“I’ll be strictly platonic, sir,” she promised, knowing she would likely regret that vow, but knowing
the last thing she wanted to do was give anyone reason to sack him. Trying to keep her wistfulness
from her face, she eyed him one last time, then firmed her courage. It was time to go back to being
merely teacher and student. However much both of them wished otherwise. “Good day, Professor.”

“… Good day, Miss Granger.”

A fistful of Floo Powder, a flare of green in the fireplace, and she was gone—almost as swiftly as if
she’d banffed out of his life.
 Epilogue
“Psst! Harry!”

The Boy Who Lived skidded to a stop, catching sight of a furtively beckoning Hermione Granger. He
almost didn’t recognize her, for she’d draped herself in a hooded robe that concealed most of her
features… and almost made her look like the Death Eaters whose spells were already making the old
stones of the school rumble with distant explosions. “—Hermione? What are you doing back there?”
he asked her. “C’mon! Voldemort’s attacking the castle! Everybody’s needed! I’ve… I’ve got to go
fulfill my bloody destiny…”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. You’ve got to come with me, first!” Gesturing him to follow her,
Hermione caught his arm as soon as he was close enough, tugging him into the emptied classroom.
Shutting the door, she pulled a jar out of her pocket, a glass jar filled with a peach-coloured foam.
Almost all of the samples had decayed, but then she had tried various different preservation
methods. Only this one and the one jarful treated the same way from the second batch, both kept
under a carefully renewed stasis-charm, had outlasted all the others, refusing to turn aquamarine-
grey after less than a week. “Harry, this is really important. Do you want to defeat Voldemort?”

“—More than anything,” her best friend muttered, gripping his wand tightly. “I want it all to stop,
and I want to put an end to him, and all of his Death Eaters!”

“Good. Hold onto that feeling. Feel the need, and—whatever you see—keep holding onto the
desperate need to put an end to Voldemort, his followers, and their reign of terror.” Unscrewing
the lid, Hermione fished a wooden spatula from her pocket.

“… What is that?”

“Dopplefoam. I’m going to help you create an entire army of Harry Potters,” Hermione told him,
brown eyes gleaming. “Now, you’re going to hiccup, but I want you to concentrate entirely, and
solely, on defeating Voldemort and capturing or defeating the Death Eaters. Can you do that?”

Green eyes studied her in uncertainty. “It… you’re going to create a what of me?”

Rolling her own eyes, Hermione heaved a sigh. “We don’t have time to play Twenty Questions,
Harry! Do you trust me?”

“Well, yeah,” the lanky, curly-haired young man shrugged. “Of course I trust you!”

“Then concentrate. Ready…?” Sighing, he focused his mind, and nodded. Hermione scooped out a
large dollop of the foam, and smeared it on cheek. He blinked, but she gave him a firm look.
“Concentrate! You need to defeat Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and win this war. Concentrate! ”

He hiccupped.

Banff.

A grim-faced copy-Potter appeared, clutching his wand. Ready for battle. The real one blinked,
flicked his gaze to Hermione, then narrowed those green eyes. Harry concentrated again, and the
foam absorbed itself into his skin, roughly a tablespoonful at a time.

Banff. Banff. Banff banff banff banff banff!

When the foam had completely vanished, there were fourteen Harry Potters, plus the original,
crowding the classroom. Hermione grinned fiercely at all of them. “Now, send one of you out first
to confront him, and hide the rest, or something—and then, when he and the others least expect it,
maximize their confusion with the lot of you!”

Harry—the original—grinned and pulled something from his robes. Long and silvery. His Invisibility
Cloak. “I’ll hide myself under this—”

His dopplegangers also pulled out Invisibility Cloaks from their own robes, and eyed each other in
delight. “—Cool!”

“Go get ‘em, Harrys!” Hermione praised, and they swirled under their Cloaks and hurried out the
door. She watched them go, still grinning. Her smile faltered as another explosion rocked the
castle. Eyeing the jar, she sighed, scraped the jar, and smeared it on her hands. Focusing fiercely
on keeping herself, Harry, Ron, and especially Severus Snape guarded from the attacks of Voldemort
and his followers.

Banff. Banff. Banff banff banff banff…

***

Everyone stared at the smoldering boots in the front courtyard of the school, as Harry Potter—all
seven surviving Harry Potters—lowered their wands. It was over. All around them, the Death Eaters
had fallen to a wave of Potters, and Grangers… and an army of Severus Snapes. From the sheer
number of them, Hermione suspected he’d used up the other jar, focusing firmly on the existential
need to protect the students, the staff… and herself especially. Tag-team partners of duplicate
Grangers and Snapes fighting back-to-back had proved to be a particularly dangerous combination.
Now it was all over.

Both of them were safe; she could tell just by looking at him which of the identical, dark-clad
figures was her long-denied lover. The right side of the war had finally won, thanks in part to their
own duplicated efforts, and thanks in the larger part to the efforts of all the others. As the Aurors
finished disarming the last of the Death Eaters, the air of the school, redolent with the smells of
scorched stone, spilled blood, and hints of carob, started filling with odd banff-noises. In ones and
twos, the duplicates winked out of existence. Including the line of Potters that had confronted the
confounded Dark Lord at the bitter end.

The seventh Harry Potter banffed out of existence, too. Hermione’s eyes widened at the
implication. If all seven in the final confrontation had been duplicates… A lopsided shape emerged
into view on the far side of the smoldering shoes that were all that was left of the Dark Lord. The
figure was bloodied, battered, but mostly intact. Invisibility Cloak slithering from his shoulders, the
real Harry Potter lowered his wand, a sheepish, rueful cross between a smile and a grimace twisting
his lightning-scarred features. Hermione hurried over to him, greatly relieved he was still alive. Ron
reached him before she did, hugging the Boy Who Lived with one arm, his freckled face grinning
despite the bloody cut creasing one cheek.

Harry rhugged sheepishly as the others stared at him. “I… I guessed he would be so focused on the
multiple attack from the front, he’d not be heeding the threat of an attack from behind. It… it
wasn’t very honorable… but it got the job done.”

“Harry, there’s no knowing which of you managed to get that final hex through his shields,” one of
the copy-Grangers scolded him, even as she kept her wand and her eyes trained on one of the
surrendered Death Eaters. “The important thing is that this war is over. Well, as soon as these scum
have been hauled off and dealt with…”

“I’ve got him, Miss,” Kingsley told her, disarming the Death Eater and confining him in a binding
spell.

“Thanks!” the duplicate praised—and banffed out of existence.

“That was wicked,” Ron muttered in an awestruck tone, blotting a bit of blood from his upper lip.
Someone had managed to bloody his nose in the battle, too. “All those Harrys and Hermiones—how
did you manage that? They could cast real magic, and everything! However did you do it?”

“—How is a secret not meant for you to know, Mr. Weasley,” three overlapping voices chided him.

Ron turned to confront their owners, and yelped, dropping his wand in fright. Five Severus Snapes
stood righ behind him, dark and foreboding in those black teaching robes. They strode around him,
parting and rejoining as they headed straight for their goal. Stopping in front of Hermione, all five
Potions Masters stared down at her.

She searched their faces, and focused on the one in the middle. His gaze, she knew. “Professor. I’m
glad to see you’re alright.”

“As am I, Miss Granger. Are you injured?”

“Twisted ankle, and someone turned my left arm blue, but I know that hex; Madam Pomfrey will
have it fixed in a trice. You?”

“A broken rib, but I’ll have recovered by the time you graduate. Speaking of which, you insolent
piece of baggage, shouldn’t you be preparing for your N.E.W.T.s?” he chided her, as his four
duplicates banffed out of existence. “They’re only three weeks away—don’t you dare think you can
use this battle as an excuse to not study!”

“Oy! We’re the heroes of the day!” Ron protested, scowling at the Potions Master. “Don’t we get a
chance to celebrate?”

“Yeah—without Hermione’s strange salve, we might not have won,” Harry pointed out. “Can’t you
lay off for once, you greasy git?”

Severus drew in a breath to lambast the two. Hermione touched his arm. Their eyes met, and he let
out the air in his lungs on a sigh. Leaning in close, he murmured for her ears alone, “… Do we have
to invite the two of them to the wedding?”
“It might be easier to elope,” Hermione muttered back. “I’m not looking forward to their reaction,
either, once they find out.”

He pondered that, then sighed again. “We’ll elope and get married right after you graduate… and
then hold a wedding and a reception. So it’ll be a fait accompli by the time they find out about it.”

“Well, you can start getting them used to the idea of us as a couple by finally being nice to
everyone,” Hermione told him in a chiding undertone. “You don’t have to favour Slytherins to
excess and scorn all the rest anymore, to stay in old Smoking Boots’ good graces. So be nice to
everyone. That’s an order from your fiancé, you know.”

That made him wince, but he didn’t protest, beyond a sigh. “Remind me to send a thank-you card
to the makers of all those ruddy chocolate frogs. Even if we daren’t tell them why.” Straightening,
Severus turned and eyed the two wary, speculative youths, raising his voice to its usual crisp
volume. “Five points from Gryffindor—from each of you—for your insolence. And… five hundred
points to Gryffindor, for the both of you, for defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

“Now get yourselves to the Infirmary; you’re both injured, and I’ll not have you using your injuries
as an excuse to not take your N.E.W.T.s!” A graceful bow to them all in counterpoint to the
harshness of his demand—teeth gritting from the pain in his side—and Severus strode off in that
direction himself. Leaving behind a confused Harry, hero of the hour; a dumbfounded Ron, equally
brave; and a beaming Hermione… his future wife.