Hermione felt Severus tug at her arm at the same instant a hand in her back pushed her into the undergrowth to one side of the track they had been following. Before she could regain her breath, the familiar weight of her lover's body pressed her flat to the ground. One of his hands found its way to the top of her head, while the other fumbled at his waist.

"Severus!?"

"Shut up," he hissed urgently. "Close your eyes and keep them shut. No matter what." He pulled free the hand behind her. Metal struck the ground by her head.

---

"Gjud be about me and mine."

Fear dowsed Hermione's body as if it had been immersed in ice-water. The cacophony was on top of them. Hoof beats thundered around them, and the dogs' baying retreated. Then, just as Hermione began to hope the danger had passed, she caught the jingling of harness no more than a few feet from them. Harness that no centaur would ever wear, just as no centaur would be turned aside by God's invocation. She felt the echoes of the horse's impatient footfalls through the earth on which she lay, sensing it prance and shy.

---

The air tingled with magic, prickling along Hermione's every nerve ending, like a butterfly's caress of electricity. It carried the scent of springtime, potent and intoxicating. Crushed grass vied with the aroma of sorrel and celandine, wild thyme and heather. They should have masked Severus's more familiar yet exotic scent, but somehow they amplified it instead, making her more aware of the faint hints of sandalwood and a hundred medicinal ingredients. Amortentia could never even begin to imitate the effect on her heightened senses. Fear forced into abeyance, she found herself squirming, grinding against Severus like a cat in heat.

---

A horn called through the forest, as if searching out the straggler and summoning him to join his brethren. Hermione held her breath until the cadence of the beast's movement shifted from a canter to a receding gallop and finally was lost in the vastness of the forest.

Severus shifted carefully to one side, still keeping any sound to a bare minimum. When his weight no longer held her down, he reached up and drew his knife from the earth where it was sheathed, replacing it in his belt.

"Hermione, did I hurt you?" he whispered.

"Nothing you can't kiss better."

---

"Hermione." Her name came out as a groan, drawn from his throat like a shard of jagged glass. Fumbling blindly, he lowered the hood of Harry's cloak. His hands plunged into her hair, and his lips crushed hers with desperation. He rolled his weight to pin her to the fragrant earth.

The far too fragrant earth.

"We shouldn't," he gasped. "This isn't us."

"Feels..."

Severus started. This time his groan conceded the battle.

"...like us."

As his nose buried itself in her apple-shampoo hair, and his mouth left bruises on her neck, his hands pushed down her leggings and underwear.

---

She made mewling noises in her need for him, her fingers fumbling at his belt and the fastenings of the still-Disillusioned cargo pants he wore.

His hand dipped between her thighs, his fingers instantly soaked in her slickness. He lifted them to his face, watching her pupils dilate as he inhaled the honey-salt scent and then sucked the nectar from his digits.

He was free.

She fondled him covetously, almost reverently, before she tossed aside her cloak and twisted beneath him, offering up the rounded curves of her arse.

"Fuck me, Severus!" she begged in a hoarse whisper. "Need you!"

---

He slipped one knee and then the other between hers, nudging her legs wide as he did. Then, he slid his hand under her hair and twisted it to grab a handful. Part-pulling, part-guiding, he brought her to a kneeling position, his dick nudging insistently against her labia. His free hand slid under her sweatshirt to squeeze a nipple through the padding of her bra as he whispered against her ear. "Oh I will fuck you, my wanton witch." His hand snaked its way down her fevered, trembling body. "First I'll fill your cunt, and then I'll fill your belly."

---

Severus heard the words as if they had fallen from another's mouth, and suddenly he found the strength to push Hermione away. He staggered to his feet, backing off and trying to put his clothing back in order despite his unnatural level of arousal.

'Fill your belly.' Never. Not his Hermione. He couldn't do that to her. Wasn't one bastard bad enough? And Merlin only knew what sort of wild thing might be sired under the influence of magic such as this; a child of unearthly beauty or a cursed creature fit only for the underworld.

"Get dressed," he barked.

---

"Severus?" She sounded bewildered and betrayed.

In the moonlight, he could see her eyes searching the shadows for the source of his voice. "Hermione, you need to get dressed. We need to get out of the forest, now."

She whimpered as she edged toward him without rising from her knees.

Severus backed away further. "Hermione, I say again, this is not you. This desire is not natural."

"Don't go," she begged. "I need you. Don't you want me?"

"I'll always want you, body, mind and soul, as long as I live. You, in your right mind. Not this enchantment-addled facsimile."

---

"Severus?" she whispered.

"I'm here," he reassured her, "but you must come to your senses before I can approach you or my resolve may prove unequal to the test. Remember why we are here, my love. We have waited a long time for this opportunity, and time is short."

"What was that? I don't understand," Hermione asked softly, pulling up her clothes.

"I cannot be sure," Severus admitted.

"But you know, or you think you do." Her fingers explored her neck, as if just noticing his marks.

"I know we do not want to be here if they circle back."

---

"Put Potter's cloak in your pack for now." Severus unwillingly fell back into his classroom tone, knowing that Hermione would be less inclined to question a command than a suggestion.

Hermione easily stuffed the cloak into the same belt-pack she had used when she and Harry had collected the basilisk teeth.

Severus concentrated on the Disillusionment spell as he closed the gap between them, releasing it as soon as he came within wand's length. Before Hermione could react, he scooped her into his arms and took to the air, weaving through the treetops at a tangent to the riders' path.