A/N: I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks to the reviewer who asked if this story has been extended from when it was posted on other sites. The answer is 'no' - I think I've taken this one as far as I can for now. Thanks for reading. DSx

Hermione clung tightly to the sleek black fur of the panther. Despite the fact that they were running away, escaping a hoard of unknown, shadowy pursuers, her thoughts went to how impossibly soft and silky he felt between her fingers, not at all the way she'd imagined. She wasn't sure where they were going but she trusted him completely. She might even trust him with her life. And as she rode his lustrous form through the forest, she realised something else—he felt so incredibly good between her thighs. In fact, the sensation of his strong, supple muscles moving under her, his easy, loping gait and the rhythmic lunges against her pussy meant that, despite their predicament, she was actually on the verge of coming. And she had the strange sense that he knew it—that he was aware of his effect upon her; how he was making her feel.

"Severus," she whispered as the sensation in her pelvis mounted with each languorous bound.

Why did she call him that? Was that his name?

She was panting. Her vision blurred as she felt herself giving in to the swelling tension. She moaned, clinging to him tighter. It felt so good. She should be worried about where they were going but all she could think about was how much she enjoyed the feel of him between her thighs, how warm he was, how much she loved tunnelling her fingers through his softness. But it made no sense. She didn't even know him. He'd appeared out of nowhere. And yet it was as though they had known each other . . . almost forever. Long enough, at least, for her to feel that he wouldn't mind if she—

"Severus!" she cried out as her pussy erupted, convulsing as he continued to rub against her. She tried desperately to cling onto him, losing form as her body spasmed, riding out its own rhythm against his. But all she cared about in that moment was the glorious sensation. And it was all because of him. He had done this to her.

As she came down from her orgasmic bliss, shuddering and gasping, she leaned forward, pressing her heart against him.

"Severus, why me?" she breathed into his deliciously decadent neck.

"Why not?"

Her eyes flew open. Her breath caught in her throat. The voice in her ear had been a growly purr. But even she knew that it didn't belong to the panther. At least not the one in her dream. He was there, between her legs, his fingers were still rubbing her pussy—just rubbing, not even inside her.

Air slowly seeped from her lungs with the relief that rolled through her body. There were so many reasons why this was the best way in the world she could imagine waking up—being brought to orgasm in her dreams by the most exquisite hands she'd ever known. As his ministrations slowed to a gentle caress, his vivid black gaze penetrated her. His beautiful eyes were devoid of even a spark of smugness; all she saw was a thoughtful intrigue, as though he was as captivated by her as she was by him. He'd told her that he'd dreamed about her—about fucking her. He'd said that he'd wanted her long before that evening. Did he . . . love her? No, it was impossible. But the intensity of his blistering gaze was certainly enough to make her heart rattle in her chest.

She was so excited by his intensity, the seriousness with which he pleasured her. But it made her wonder if she could ever interact with him on a normal level. Could they even have an ordinary conversation? Maybe it could only ever be physical between them. It was ridiculous, but she was seriously considering that it would nearly be worthwhile, even for that. Their one night together had been extraordinary after all.

"You asked why I chose you?" he murmured, gradually trailing his fingers from her pussy, up her abdomen, over her firming nipples and along her ridge of her collar bone before bringing them to his lips. "Because I find you intoxicating." He inhaled her scent deeply. "And for certain things . . . I too am insatiable."

Then he proceeded to suck her release from his fingers, one at a time, so gratuitously, his eyes not leaving hers, that she could feel her own eyes wanting to roll back in ecstasy.

This delicious man was telling her he wanted her. And yet she was leaving. But what did that really mean?

It meant she would have to change her plans. She would need to come up with a way to see him again—no matter what. And she would also need to tell him the truth. He should know that she'd fallen for him too—in no time at all, or perhaps over the course of many years, she had fallen hard.

"And here I was thinking that you were always so in control of your emotions."

She didn't know the half of it. He drank her in with all his senses, savouring her tangy sweetness on his tongue. Had he revealed too much? He'd certainly shown his hand pretty early. But then again so had she.

"Not on this occasion," he admitted.

A mischievous grin bowed her lips and her eyes ignited with a lascivious spark. She slid her hand up his bare chest, before reaching up to skim her fingertips in a feathery caress across his bottom lip. It was rapidly becoming one of her favourite parts of him after all.

"Are you telling me that I make you lose control?"

He took in a deep breath then, levelling his gaze at her.

"Yes."

She loved how forthright he was being—how disarmingly honest. It made her desperate to see him lose control again.

She leaned in close to his face, brushing her lips across his before curling her tongue out and snaking it under the lower curve of his bottom lip, scooping it between her teeth and tugging gently. He didn't try to stop her, his lips loose and accommodating. She had a feeling she could do whatever she liked to him and he would willingly comply.

She released the delicious morsel with a soft 'pop.'

"Show me how you lose control," she whispered against his soft pads before slithering down the length of his body. Despite having a clear destination in mind, she took the opportunity to taste parts of him along the way. The soft disc of his nipple tightened inside her mouth. She continued to flick at it with the tip of her tongue, before exposing her teeth and grazing along the pliable nub.

There was a rapid inhalation beneath her and his hands suddenly reached down and clenched her buttocks, pulling her tightly into his erection which sat like an extra bone between them. She smiled as she continued to tease him. He clearly liked that.

But as she worked her way down further, feeling the smear of pre-cum from his cock coating her belly, her own actions became more forceful, more fiercely desirous. Her kisses were no longer soft, they had turned firm, and her wet mouthfuls of him, gluttonous. It was something she'd despised in certain others and yet something she was compelled to do with so much of that delectable tingling skin now hers to indulge in.

By the time she reached her prize, her lips were as tumescent as his impressive cock, she was enveloped exquisitely between his parted thighs and his hands were doing delicious things to her scalp. She was more than ready to take him, but rather than grasping his firm member and devouring him like an ice-cream, she slid both hands under his lower back and simply allowed her tongue to take the lead.

Sliding her wet muscle under his shaft, she flicked it, making his weight bounce gratifyingly against her. She closed her lips and sucked along the side of his meat. He tasted divine. Clearly he'd cast a cleansing spell at some stage since their previous entanglement. Licking her way up further, she allowed him to bob and sway, enjoying having to chase his cock as it slid over his pelvis.

When she reached the weeping head she blew on it gently and his thighs contracted, his fingers curling in her hair.

"Why did you take up the tango?" she murmured, sliding her tongue out to capture the sticky drop that adorned his head.

He inhaled sharply through his nose.

"Because it's as close to fucking as one can get without actually fucking."

Her breath came out in a soft burst against him. She was laughing. He liked that he could make her laugh. Even if it was all over his cock—and at his expense. But clearly it didn't lessen the mood because she suddenly engulfed him, a ball of heat capturing the head of his cock and making him want to cram his entire being inside that sultry warmth. It felt safe in there—something that he hadn't felt a lot in his life. And as she slid down, taking him further inside her, he finally let himself believe that she desired him as he did her. If she'd only been using him to deliver the finale of fucking, a brief but intense thrill to end to her time here at Hogwarts, she'd already done that. She certainly wasn't under any obligation to stay on and suck him off. And especially not like this.

"Gods, Hermione," he groaned, his voice almost pleading with her as he writhed bodily with the rhythmic waves of her tongue and throat.

That sound, that thread of need in his otherwise perfect baritone made her even more determined to suck his mind out through his cock. She worked at him with deft strokes, drawing up his length with her probing tongue before pulling back and swirling around his head, teasing into his salty slit. She wanted to hear him lose control—to hear the strain in that deliquescent voice, to finally drink down his viscid release as a delicious proxy for the honeyed product of his larynx, the essence of what she most deeply associated with him, taking it into her and having it for herself.

Her hands joined her mouth, seeking to stimulate and gratify every part of him that had already brought her so much pleasure. She massaged the pliable skin around his weighty bollocks, feeling the tension drawing them up, tightening in preparation. Her other hand was loose and quick around his shaft, contrasting with her mouth which continued to labour down his head, dragging his skin back from his glans as it hit the back of her throat.

He moaned, a gravelly surge extruding from his depths as he rocked his hips into her. It wasn't as though she needed any help, but his primal urge to thrust had become just too great. His need to come in her mouth had also won over and was driving him to plunge deeper—it had been the grunting climax of so many of his lonely fantasies after all. The contrast was what had appealed to him so much. Her cherubic mouth, normally delivering words so properly turned, thoughts so properly considered—the vision of it sucking his cock as improperly as orally possible had been enough to make him come, sometimes without any stimulation whatsoever.

But now she was here, her lips gliding with exquisite precision up and down his slick shaft, so properly matched with her pumping fist that it was beyond perfection. It also made him wonder where she could have learned such a thing. Books no doubt. Those and her deliciously dirty mind.

He wanted to watch, to capture this moment, unsurpassed even by his fantasies, but he found himself having to strain to keep his eyes open, to stop ecstasy from stealing his vision away. It was almost too much, the incredulous sight of this entrancing beauty, sucking and pumping his cock for all her worth just to make him come, to milk his essence into her meltingly hot mouth. But what simultaneously squeezed his heart was the knowledge that she not only wanted to pleasure him but she wanted to break him down, make him lose control. She wanted him as vulnerable to her as she'd been to him. And he found himself willing to go there. He trusted her, after only one evening, not to hurt him. There had been very few people he could say that about during his lifetime. Equally moving was the fact that she had trusted him in everything he had done to her. In many ways trust was the greatest gift she could give a man who had been so mistrusted throughout his life.

And it was in this euphoric state, with his heart and cock filled to bursting, that he finally let go.

"Hermione." The word was a tight groan, squeezed from his chest as he began to convulse. "I . . . love you."

Hermione only just registered his words as the first shot of come hit the back of her throat. She'd been right. She'd read it in his eyes. But she'd never quite expected this intensely proud and private man—a man who had been so rigidly distant for risk of disclosing his feelings, to reveal such a thing. And she was equally surprised by the word that instantly sprang to her mind. 'Finally.'

Finally? Had she known it before now? Maybe she'd known it all along. She'd just needed to hear it. The final confirmation.

His words tempered her actions; she slowed her head movements to a bobbing caress, her mouth a soft receptacle for the streams of come that continued to emanate from him. She found herself loving him in return—loving his honesty and vulnerability even if she wasn't in love with him. Not yet.

And when he'd finished, the last of his seed milked from his tip by deft upward strokes from her hand, she looked up into his adoring eyes and swallowed. His chest swelled. It felt like the final acceptance he'd been hoping for. Then his hands were on her, pulling her up to him, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. And she had a good deal of breathing to do too. She'd forgone a lot to allow him as deeply into her as she had.

"Severus, you know I'm coming back don't you?" she panted, worried that he might squeeze the life from her in his efforts to keep her there.

There was a long pause.

"For what reason?"

"Well. It seems that I have suddenly developed an intense desire to take up the tango. I happen to know of a tango master here in these very walls. I'm going to ask him for private lessons. I'll be happy to pay of course."

She felt a deep chuckle roll through his chest. It was the first time she'd ever heard it and it made her smile. It seemed that they might get along just fine after all.

"His price is rather high, I understand," he murmured into her hair.

"I'm willing to do anything," she gushed in her most breathily seductive tone.

He chuckled again and she found herself melting with the warmth of it.

"You do realise that he wouldn't be able to dance with you," he rumbled.

Hermione lifted her head from his chest and stared at him, pouting. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you would need to take another dance partner. The instructor would instruct."

That intensely disappointed look captured her features again and he couldn't stop another chortle escaping.

"This particular dance partner would be very much like the instructor," he continued. "In fact, they would be practically identical."

Hermione's mouth curved into a mischievous grin.

"I believe I could cope with that," she responded as she wriggled her way up his body until her face was only inches from his. "In fact . . . I'd be quite excited by the prospect."

She kissed him deeply before pulling back.

"Does this dance partner have a name? I might know him already."

"He does." Severus gazed at her intently. "His name is Doppelus."

Exactly one year later . . .

"Severus, can you help me here, please?"

Hermione stood in front of the bedroom mirror, holding the black opal to her throat.

Severus arrived from across the room, standing close behind her to place the clasp. When he released it, he remained there, his fingers resting lightly on her shoulders as he gazed at her in the mirror.

"We actually have to go to this one," she returned his gaze, a playful smile on her lips as she placed her fingers on his.

He snorted gently before firming his grip.

She knew that look—his eyelids sinking with what she knew were increasingly carnal thoughts. She'd lost count of the number of times they'd dressed ready for a function, a dance or even to go out to dinner and had ended up undressing immediately, spending the evening fucking instead. Black was often the trigger. She was wearing a black dress right now, similar to the one she'd worn to her Leaver's ball but not quite as low cut. He'd bought it for her on their two week anniversary—a gift to wear on their first evening out tangoing together. Of course they'd not even managed to leave his bedroom, ending up fucking the night away instead.

She was often the one to instigate their last minute change of plans, finding it difficult to resist the sight of him in his black finery—white silk shirt brushing his throat, silver S-shaped snake cufflinks that she'd bought flashing on his wrists, and finally that enticing row of buttons marching down the frock coat that they'd fucked on so many times, she was surprised it still looked so immaculate.

His hand slowly caressed her shoulder.

"We said we'd go." She emphasised the word 'go'.

"We said I'd go," he murmured, inclining his head to brush his lips against her neck.

She shivered, quite unable to believe the immediate effect his touch still had upon her.

"Then you must go." She unconsciously leaned her head away, allowing him greater access to her.

"I've sent a representative," he mumbled against her skin before sliding the tip of his tongue down the smooth curve between her neck and her shoulder.

"Severus," she breathed, trying to sound exasperated but only managing to sound needy—which she always was.

He snuffled against her, amused at her unsuccessful attempts to admonish him. He enjoyed her bossiness. It made him want to fuck her. In fact, just about everything she did made him want to fuck her.

"So who is this 'representative'? Not Doppelus again?" She frowned.

"He'll enjoy it. An opportunity to show off to the latest batch of Leavers. He might even get his leg over."

"No he bloody well won't!" Hermione turned in his arms. "I won't have Doppelus fucking anyone else. Do you understand me?"

He delighted at the ferocity of her conviction.

"You might need to make sure he has another . . . option."

She grabbed him by the front of his coat, jerking him down toward her. "Tell him to come and see me when he gets back," she muttered against his cheek.

He inhaled rapidly. Fuck, he wanted to ravage her. But there was something else he needed to do first.

"I believe that you will actually be otherwise indisposed." He uttered the words as he turned to nip at her chin. "I have . . . plans for you."

Her heart skipped a beat. His plans were always exotic—always thrilling.

"And what do you want with me?" She nuzzled against him before drawing his bottom lip into her mouth and sucking on it.

He waited till she'd released him before dipping into his pocket and pulling out a glass bottle.

"A surprise."

She took the cool receptacle from his fingers and held it to the light.

"It would appear to be another Doppelgänger potion," she stated, searching his face for affirmation.

"No."

She frowned. It was rare that she was wrong with such things, especially after spending a year looking over his shoulder learning advanced brewing techniques.

"A more accurate description would be a Doppelgäng-banger potion."

Her eyes suddenly blazed.

"Does that mean . . . multiple Severuses? As many as I like?"

"I believe the correct term is, 'Severi'. But, yes."

A matching glint danced in his black eyes.

"You are fucking brilliant!" she gushed before crushing her lips against his.

He held up a hand to indicate that he hadn't finished.

Reluctantly she released him from her lip-lock.

"There is one final item."

Dipping into his pocket, he pulled out a small black box. He wished he'd done it earlier—before his cock had turned to granite and started distorting his trousers in such an uncomfortable manner that he was going to have difficulty kneeling. Still, he was rarely without some degree of swelling in her vicinity. He found her as delectable as the day he had mercifully summoned the courage to ask her to dance. Now she was an exceptional dance partner. And an even more exceptional partner in love. He was taking another risk. But she hadn't hurt him yet. Every single one had paid off and he dearly hoped this one would too.

Wincing as he finally knelt, levering his cock to a slightly more acceptable position with his free hand, he flipped opened the box to reveal a black opal ring.

"Hermione." He looked up to see unshed tears glinting in his eyes; her fingers were laced across her mouth as if she didn't trust herself to speak.

Reaching up, he grasped her hand and brought it down, holding it firmly to quell the tremble.

"Hermione. I love you with all my heart. I adore you. Will you allow me to give myself to you with this ring? And in return will you give yourself to me? Will you stay with me forever?"

She sniffed loudly as the tears began to fall. "You . . . you want to marry me?"

"I want you to be with me. You may choose the manner of our commitment."

His face was so earnest, she could hardly believe that he would question her response.

"Of course I will," she squeezed his hand. "There is no other person I would rather spend my life with. You are the most kind, loving, honest, intelligent, romantic, fuckable man I have ever met. I want you to be mine. And I want to be yours. That's all the commitment I need."

His fingers were no longer steady, trembling as badly as hers with adrenaline and relief. With some difficulty, he slid the ring onto her finger. It went perfectly with the necklace he'd bought for their six month anniversary, and perfectly with her elegant fingers which now slipped into his hair and pulled him lovingly against her belly.

"I need to fuck you now," she murmured in a small voice.

There came a sudden knock at the door.

She groaned in exasperation. "For Merlin's sake, who's that?"

Severus rose to his feet. "I believe someone is keen on joining us."

"Tell him he's going to have to wait," she said. "I'm having you first."

"And what about the rest of them?"

Her eyebrows shot up as realisation dawned on her.

"Tell them to get ready for a long night," she growled. "My appetite for Severi is, and always will be, insatiable."