It Would Be Spring
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orange_crushedI have written- an odd thing. It is about Hermione and Snape, sort of post-HBP, sort of in another world. There's little plot, and somewhere in there is the smuttiest thing I've ever written that, you know, other people will see. So:
It Would Be Spring.
Rated R for language and sexual situations.
"Don't thank me yet, Miss Granger," he said, rising. And possibly retreating. There was most likely a very fine difference. "Supplies have been short since the fall. I may only be able to get us a very large bucket." He shut the door behind him. The sound of crockery smashing against it was the least of his worries.
Two facts came into focus at the same moment: it was winter, and they'd quite seriously blown up the bathtub.
In the summer neither of them had minded, much; there wasn't time for soaking in bath salt and re-reading Malory when it was stiflingly hot and people were trying to kill you. Unspecific people, and very far way from their current location, it was true. But then the threat was real and constant, and showering was as simple as using a hose he'd rigged up in the shed.
Often it was quicker than washing in the house, when one might have recently spilled hydra blood on one's clothes and they were smoking the smoke of the imminently burning. They worked in the greenhouse and the long, low barn in the side of the hill; and the forty extra steps to the house were often inconvenient anyway. There was a charmed pantry in the barn, and a stuffy, half-broken couch in the barn, and a shelf of novels in the barn; so why not a shower in the shed ? It had been one less thing to worry about.
But again: it had become winter more quickly than one might suppose. Showering in what was very nearly the outdoors was a ridiculous notion.
"I don't mind," he said again, and she threw a teacup at him, which he ducked.
"I mind." She frowned. "I mind most awfully."
"Am I to suppose that you can't set two halves of bathtub back together ? Has all your education come to this ?" She gave him a look that clearly indicated he'd reached a certain limit, past which was death. Gruesome death.
"There weren't two halves," she said, fiercely. "There were about thirty halves, and the tap entire was missing. The tap, as you'll recall, was too much metal, too close to the mix- which is why the damned thing exploded in the first place."
"Ah." He sipped out of a mug missing its handle; perhaps he'd better start using tin cups again if she was going to be annoyed this regularly. "I'm beginning to remember."
"We need a bathtub, Severus."
"We need another shipment of wormwood and acacia, if I'm not mistaken; which is slightly more pressing than your vanity."
"Nothing could possibly be more pressing, I assure you." Her nails were unconsciously trying to scrape the varnish from the tabletop. He sighed, and set the mug down.
"I'll see what I can arrange."
"Good." She relaxed slightly, and sat back in her chair. "I mean, thank you."
"Don't thank me yet, Miss Granger," he said, rising. And possibly retreating. There was most likely a very fine difference. "Supplies have been short since the fall. I may only be able to get us a very large bucket." He shut the door behind him. The sound of crockery smashing against it was the least of his worries.
At first it had been awkward. Far beyond awkward, in point of fact; so far from awkward that a distant cousin of awkward might have been preferred. It was by dictionary definition horrible.
"I hate you !" she had a tendency to scream.
"You're useless !" he often shouted. Once or twice he added: "I'd rather be blown up by Longbottom !"
But that was seven months ago. In the interim time they had discovered and improved a potion which would repel crucio for up to nine hours after ingestion, and also accidentally a draught which turned your hair invisible. And only your hair. Neither of them had been able to bear the sight of the naked, wrinkled barn cats for days, as their doses faded. They had earned the grudging respect of the Order for the first triumph, and a rather nice buy-out from Fred and George for the second.
It had been Severus's assignment, with overtones of exile, for the last few seasons; since that night on the tower and the aftershocks. There were still some people who would kill him on sight- both sides. The first ten months he'd worked alone, until he sent a note to Minerva that read only If I start talking to the cats I will kill myself, so send me a slave.
He had not gotten a slave. He had gotten Hermione. She was brought by Moody, owl-eyed and snarling; and though Severus was loathe to admit it, she was the best possible person they could have sent. She challenged him at every corner, inspected every detail with the eye of a venegeful demigod, and argued endlessly that impossible things should be tried anyway, on the basis of luck and imagination. It was infuriating. It was the best work he'd done in a decade. Admitting it was out of the question, but he suspected from her high-and-mighty airs that she was aware of it already.
It was interesting, her transformation. She'd arrived with hollow eyes and a skittish manner, having seen too much of wartime sickrooms. And then, he supposed, she'd snapped.
"That's it," she'd said, and hurled a book at the wall. "I'm done with this. I'm just going to start killing people with my bare hands."
"That gets tiring very quickly," he had added, and she'd done a remarkable thing- fallen backwards over the arm of a sofa, laughing. He could remember it with some confusing warmth now; though in that moment he'd feared for her sanity. And now: crockery. He guessed she was capable of worse.
"Your bathtub will arrive in a week's time," he said the next morning, over buttered toast and depressingly greasy sausages. "Until then, I've placed some very effective heating charms on the shed. You'll be quite comfortable."
"I really appreciate this." She chewed thoughtfully on a slice and stared at a space just behind his head. "I wonder if I've got any of my soaps left- the really nice ones. I don't think I used them much, when I got here." He watched her eat and think, and didn't attempt to comment. "I'm glad that it's quiet. It feels- well. It feels good to know he's gone."
"The head is gone, but the limbs remain." He cut a sausage in half, carefully. "The ugly, crooked, half-mad limbs; but limbs regardless." She giggled.
"I'm imagining Lucius Malfoy stuck in a great boot that comes up to his chin." He stopped, mid-bite, and made a disgusted face. "You're the one that called them limbs."
"A mistake I'll never repeat."
"It'll be a quiet winter, while they panic."
"Well," he said, "then it will likely be a shitty spring." She giggled again, a hand half-covering her mouth; and he discovered with a sudden jolt that he enjoyed the sound.
The morning's quiet, regardless of the winter's, didn't last. Severus was flipping idly through a notebook when a wet, freezing hand seized his shoulder and shook him- hard. Hermione stood beside him, wrapped in little but a towel and a dangerous expression. He was surprised to find that even a female's collarbones could be threatening. And horribly pretty.
"How did you- you're freezing !" It sounded stupid, even to his own ears. "Did you walk here from the shed ?"
"Your heating charms are crap !" Not even the sight of her lovely, flushed face and bare arms were registering- Severus heard his generally immaculate spellwork insulted, and parts of his brain reserved for logical thought were disconnected and asked to please dial again at a later date.
"My heating charms," he said coldy, "are exemplary."
"They're crap !" she shouted again, and shivered. "Do you want to know why I think so ?"
"No, I-" he began, but she grabbed him so fiercely that he was startled into rising to his feet. She half-dragged him out of the door, until he brushed her arm off and indicated that he'd follow her voluntarily. "If only to prove you insane," he muttered. Once in the shed (noting her bare footprints still sitting in the dusting of frost) he felt the pleasant warmth of magic envelope them both. Severus allowed himself a small smile of triumph. "The problem, Miss Granger, is apparently only in your delu-"
It was then that she turned the hose on him. He sat down backwards, entirely too quickly, and was drenched in icy spray.
"You remembered to heat the air," she said, now quite calm. She turned the tap off. "But you forgot the water." There was a long and difficult silence as the water soaked into his armpits.
And Severus began to laugh.
She helped him to his feet when he regained himself, the steam of her anger somewhat reduced. The two of them made a mad dash across the winter landscape for the house, and Severus locked himself in the bathroom with a heating charm and a handful of fluffy, stolen towels.
"It's my right !" he shouted at her, while she banged angrily on the door. "You can wait !" He went about the business of stripping off his wretchedly cold waistcoat and wringing it out into the sink. There was a sharp crack, and suddenly the bathroom seemed much smaller as Hermione elbowed him out of the way and pulled a towel from the stack. "You-"
"Apparated into the bathroom, yes."
"You are the strangest person I have ever known," he said, with the realization that it was true. She held the towel in front of her chest and glowered at him, with a few twists of damp hair hanging across her face. He leaned forward and tucked a strand behind her ear, and she stood very still. Except- she leaned, ever so slightly upwards, tilting her cheek against his palm. It was as soft as anything he could imagine, though her cheeks were chapped from the wind and still damp.
"But not in the world." She smiled at him.
"No," he agreed. She unlocked the door and padded away on bare feet, down the hall to her room; and he stared at the spot where she'd been standing.
In the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of bare feet again, shushing against the board floor. It was an impossibly small sound to wake to; a churchmouse breathing would have made more noise. But he woke all the same, and lay in the darkness listening to her feet.
She opened his door.
There was a faint light in the hallway, from the window of the bathroom; it fell on her shoulders and hips and elbow, where she curved against the doorframe. It was like watching smooth stones lapped by water in the moonlight; he felt he could watch her edges rise and fall with her breath until morning, or at least until he died. She moved then, and dipped down to kneel at the edge of his bed. The moon and all satellites were still.
"I needed to see that you sleep," she said softly. Her voice was the same color as the dark. "If you're going to be real now... if life is going to start again, I needed to see that you sleep."
"You could guess." He sat up, so close to her that their shoulders might have touched. She leaned forward and they did touch, sending warm electric currents through his arm and into his chest; and then she was kissing him, and he was pulling her down, his teeth on her mouth, and her hands around his neck, his throat, his heart.
She straddled him and he pulled her hips down; arched into her heat. He slid a hand along her thigh and underneath the curve of her waistband, and rubbed the soft center in lazy circles. "Christ-" She was warm and deep, and curved into his hand in shallow thrusts, breath against his ear. She sucked at the hollow of his throat, and starlight went fast over his eyes. "Please-"
"Take them off," she said into his neck. He did. More quickly than any action in his previous life. He pulled his loose trousers off as well and pulled her over him, pausing only to lay a hand in the small of her back and kiss her eyebrows.
"Tell me that you want this- that you want-"
"I want this," she said softly, and sank down onto him, slowly. He caught her hands in his and held them against him, and rose up against the gentle pressure of her thighs. "Oh-" He shut his eyes and rolled his head back and tried not to explode, literally, because Christ she was wet and hot and it is the greatest- the greatest thing I have ever- she twitched her hips against him and he was moving faster, hands on her hips, and she was panting into his mouth and. And. She came and he followed, and they sprawled over one another in the sudden quiet.
"You're lovely," he murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry that I didn't take the time to make that known before this."
"I forgive you." She rolled against him and closed her eyes. In the morning she stayed in his bed as the light crossed over their bodies; when he rose to make tea she was still there, colored in bright shifting blocks by the curtains. They worked that afternoon in companiable silence, though much closer than usual, as if the gravity of her body had increased and he was merely reacting in measure. They slept apart without discussion.
He began to wonder about the honesty of waking.
Work became- unusual.
There were fewer things to do and more time in which to do them, with the dark lord dead and Harry alive and everybody sort of drunk all the time. Literally and figuratively. Their main source of contact with the rest of the world had been Moody, and Moody was busy reforming the ranks and filling positions that had previously been emptied by deaths. He told them to go through Minerva instead, but Minerva was at last allowing herself the time to have a good, hearty breakdown over Albus, and became unreachable. Remus was out- he was hardly able to keep himself from baring his teeth in Severus's presence, which had nothing to do with the wolf and everything to do with the man.
Ron became their new contact; good dependable Ron, who had accidentally grown up last year when his brother died. He came twice a month to drop off supplies and requests for more healing draughts and sleeping potions and something for Neville's stomach. Severus filled the orders and rolled his eyes until they nearly stuck in the back of his head. Ron stayed late into the evenings, sitting by the fireside with Hermione, and speaking in quiet, comfortable tones. And in late November, Hermione stood beside him and said: "Alright, well, I'm off."
"You're- leaving." He managed to speak clearly, instead of shouting in sudden and incoherant bursts as his mouth and brain were urging him to do. Of course she'd go. The times were less desperate. Of course, she'd want to go.
"I'll be back," she said, slinging a bag over one shoulder. "I just need to take care of some things. See people. Don't worry, I've done everything you asked me to take care of. If anything serious comes up, you can owl me. You can owl me anyway."
"I can owl- you." He coughed. "Yes. Owl. I'll do that. But I hardly think your assistance will be necessary. Have a pleasant time, Miss Granger. Weasley." He swept up a handful of books and turned into the other room, back to the door; and did not watch her leave. A crack sounded, and a slight echo in his ears- and then stillness settled in the house. He spent the evening filing notes by category and then by date, and flicking wadded-up leftovers of parchment into the fire.
November ended. She did not return.
At last he was forced to name the cats.
"You- Horus." He pointed a skinny tom with a folded ear, who accepted with a yawn. "You- Damascus. And you, Skinny Worthless Prat." The prat in question stuck his paw into a jar of ink, and strutted across the table. "I hope your ancestors were killed for meat." There was a noise from the house, no louder than a closing door, but Severus was already on his feet. He hurtled out of the barn and checked himself halfway up the slope. When he reached the house he was practically strolling, hands in his pockets. Good day, Miss Granger, he thought he might say. I trust you had a pleasant-
She lay on the kitchen floor; no larger, it seemed, than a young doe; her legs folded to one side and her hands across her face, convulsing. He reached for her and found her, and pulled her against him, sure that the world was ending.
"My parents-" she started, and cried out. "They killed-"
He didn't need to hear the rest, to hold onto her.
She slept for two days, on and off; and at first he was afraid that her news had been recent, and whatever it was that had taken her family was fighting to take her. Some curse ? Some unspoken charm ? He recited a handful of diagnostics over her bedside and turned up nothing. She was fine. She was whole. Whatever that meant. She woke up soon enough, and he found her sitting in bed, arms drawn around her knees.
"I don't want to sleep anymore," she said, and looked at him. "Give me something to do." Wordlessly, he handed her Ron's list for the month; she dried her eyes and dressed, and went out to the barn. She stayed there until the evening, and hung a lantern when the light grew dim. He spent the afternoon writing revisions to the notebook of successes they kept- tiny notes in the margins, like this is expensive- powdered version instead ? At dinner three days later she came inside, looking less like a ghost.
That night she opened his door again and slid underneath his covers, and underneath his arm. She curled into him like listless seaweed, and he kissed her hair half-a-dozen times before falling asleep. She could, he decided as consciousness left him, come in and out of his bed just as many times as she pleased.
January passed like a waking dream; at night she slept on his shoulder or asked questions in the dark, which he answered as best he could. Where were you born, and to whom, and where are the places you've been ? London was the answer, and then Eileen, and then Russia and Bulgaria and Spain and France and Austria and Norway and Scotland, and well, she already knew Scotland. Night slipped into night again, and she asked about mountains and books and lakes and people, old people and dead people and other people; and then he began to ask her questions, from a growing sense of imbalance. She answered those as well.
In the daytime it was much more complicated: they continued to argue over work and generally have fuck-all to do, concerning the leftover war.
Ron came in February with good news: "The LeStranges are dead," he said, "the Malfoys are in prison and the rest are pretty much routed. We caught Rosier on a muggle train ! He thought it would take him to America."
"Stupid ass," Severus muttered, stirring his soup somewhat overeagerly.
"It's good news for the Order," Hermione said, smiling at Ron, and covering his hand with her own. The soup was stirred with slightly more force. "You'll be a full Auror come summer, isn't that right ?"
"Well, sort of. Moody's giving me credit for some, uh, outside work, you know ? And Harry's going to come back from Alaska very soon. I expect he'll want to see you."
"Alaska," Severus said darkly. "Horrible place."
"Harry says it's beautiful." Ron folded his arms over his chest. "He's sent me pictures of the glaciers and everything. Lovely sunsets too, and the northern lights." He turned to Hermione and grinned. "We should go visit him- before he leaves, I mean. You'll be packed up soon enough anyway I expect, with the war really over this time."
There was a dead silence in which Severus ceased stirring, and might have dropped his spoon. Hermione very carefully didn't look at him.
"I live here, Ron," she said. Something turned over rapidly, and was shaken like an hourglass in Severus's lungs.
"You- here ?" There was a look of intense confusion on Ron's face. "With-"
"I live here," she repeated, and smiled in an encouraging way, so that he'd grasp the point. "I'm happy where I am."
Severus excused himself, and ran for the barn. There was a long pause, followed by a pair of raised voices, and the distinct sound of a teacup shattering against an unsuspecting wall. Ron walked stiffly down to the barn before he left, and swore at Severus quite roundly before declaring that they, a mysterious they, deserved each other; and apparated with a crack. It was some minutes before he made the walk back up the hill.
"You- live here ?" he said, upon finding her washing the dishes. She turned around with a slightly mad look in her eye.
"Is everybody very stupid ?"
"That's n- while I'm sure you had a stimulating afternoon, please refrain from including me in your tempest." He frowned at her, and kicked aside half a teacup. "I'm merely asking-"
"A stupid question." And there it was, that mad goddam glint ! He began to suspect that there was something he'd been missing.
"You're the one who espouses that foolish notion that there are no stupid questions." He stops short of calling her Miss Granger. "Or have you recanted your entire educational canon ? It's about time." As he spoke, he began to notice that the strange gravity had taken hold again, and he was standing beside her at the sink. She dried her wet hands and put them on her hips; which was charming. He traced the shape of her mouth with his thumb, and spoke with a softness he didn't imagine he'd formerly possessed. "I'm trying to establish a simple fact- that I haven't managed to get rid of you yet."
"No," she said. "You haven't." She leaned forward and kissed him, and tugged his shirt over his head.
It was a wonderful spring.
It Would Be Spring.
Rated R for language and sexual situations.
"Don't thank me yet, Miss Granger," he said, rising. And possibly retreating. There was most likely a very fine difference. "Supplies have been short since the fall. I may only be able to get us a very large bucket." He shut the door behind him. The sound of crockery smashing against it was the least of his worries.
Two facts came into focus at the same moment: it was winter, and they'd quite seriously blown up the bathtub.
In the summer neither of them had minded, much; there wasn't time for soaking in bath salt and re-reading Malory when it was stiflingly hot and people were trying to kill you. Unspecific people, and very far way from their current location, it was true. But then the threat was real and constant, and showering was as simple as using a hose he'd rigged up in the shed.
Often it was quicker than washing in the house, when one might have recently spilled hydra blood on one's clothes and they were smoking the smoke of the imminently burning. They worked in the greenhouse and the long, low barn in the side of the hill; and the forty extra steps to the house were often inconvenient anyway. There was a charmed pantry in the barn, and a stuffy, half-broken couch in the barn, and a shelf of novels in the barn; so why not a shower in the shed ? It had been one less thing to worry about.
But again: it had become winter more quickly than one might suppose. Showering in what was very nearly the outdoors was a ridiculous notion.
"I don't mind," he said again, and she threw a teacup at him, which he ducked.
"I mind." She frowned. "I mind most awfully."
"Am I to suppose that you can't set two halves of bathtub back together ? Has all your education come to this ?" She gave him a look that clearly indicated he'd reached a certain limit, past which was death. Gruesome death.
"There weren't two halves," she said, fiercely. "There were about thirty halves, and the tap entire was missing. The tap, as you'll recall, was too much metal, too close to the mix- which is why the damned thing exploded in the first place."
"Ah." He sipped out of a mug missing its handle; perhaps he'd better start using tin cups again if she was going to be annoyed this regularly. "I'm beginning to remember."
"We need a bathtub, Severus."
"We need another shipment of wormwood and acacia, if I'm not mistaken; which is slightly more pressing than your vanity."
"Nothing could possibly be more pressing, I assure you." Her nails were unconsciously trying to scrape the varnish from the tabletop. He sighed, and set the mug down.
"I'll see what I can arrange."
"Good." She relaxed slightly, and sat back in her chair. "I mean, thank you."
"Don't thank me yet, Miss Granger," he said, rising. And possibly retreating. There was most likely a very fine difference. "Supplies have been short since the fall. I may only be able to get us a very large bucket." He shut the door behind him. The sound of crockery smashing against it was the least of his worries.
At first it had been awkward. Far beyond awkward, in point of fact; so far from awkward that a distant cousin of awkward might have been preferred. It was by dictionary definition horrible.
"I hate you !" she had a tendency to scream.
"You're useless !" he often shouted. Once or twice he added: "I'd rather be blown up by Longbottom !"
But that was seven months ago. In the interim time they had discovered and improved a potion which would repel crucio for up to nine hours after ingestion, and also accidentally a draught which turned your hair invisible. And only your hair. Neither of them had been able to bear the sight of the naked, wrinkled barn cats for days, as their doses faded. They had earned the grudging respect of the Order for the first triumph, and a rather nice buy-out from Fred and George for the second.
It had been Severus's assignment, with overtones of exile, for the last few seasons; since that night on the tower and the aftershocks. There were still some people who would kill him on sight- both sides. The first ten months he'd worked alone, until he sent a note to Minerva that read only If I start talking to the cats I will kill myself, so send me a slave.
He had not gotten a slave. He had gotten Hermione. She was brought by Moody, owl-eyed and snarling; and though Severus was loathe to admit it, she was the best possible person they could have sent. She challenged him at every corner, inspected every detail with the eye of a venegeful demigod, and argued endlessly that impossible things should be tried anyway, on the basis of luck and imagination. It was infuriating. It was the best work he'd done in a decade. Admitting it was out of the question, but he suspected from her high-and-mighty airs that she was aware of it already.
It was interesting, her transformation. She'd arrived with hollow eyes and a skittish manner, having seen too much of wartime sickrooms. And then, he supposed, she'd snapped.
"That's it," she'd said, and hurled a book at the wall. "I'm done with this. I'm just going to start killing people with my bare hands."
"That gets tiring very quickly," he had added, and she'd done a remarkable thing- fallen backwards over the arm of a sofa, laughing. He could remember it with some confusing warmth now; though in that moment he'd feared for her sanity. And now: crockery. He guessed she was capable of worse.
"Your bathtub will arrive in a week's time," he said the next morning, over buttered toast and depressingly greasy sausages. "Until then, I've placed some very effective heating charms on the shed. You'll be quite comfortable."
"I really appreciate this." She chewed thoughtfully on a slice and stared at a space just behind his head. "I wonder if I've got any of my soaps left- the really nice ones. I don't think I used them much, when I got here." He watched her eat and think, and didn't attempt to comment. "I'm glad that it's quiet. It feels- well. It feels good to know he's gone."
"The head is gone, but the limbs remain." He cut a sausage in half, carefully. "The ugly, crooked, half-mad limbs; but limbs regardless." She giggled.
"I'm imagining Lucius Malfoy stuck in a great boot that comes up to his chin." He stopped, mid-bite, and made a disgusted face. "You're the one that called them limbs."
"A mistake I'll never repeat."
"It'll be a quiet winter, while they panic."
"Well," he said, "then it will likely be a shitty spring." She giggled again, a hand half-covering her mouth; and he discovered with a sudden jolt that he enjoyed the sound.
The morning's quiet, regardless of the winter's, didn't last. Severus was flipping idly through a notebook when a wet, freezing hand seized his shoulder and shook him- hard. Hermione stood beside him, wrapped in little but a towel and a dangerous expression. He was surprised to find that even a female's collarbones could be threatening. And horribly pretty.
"How did you- you're freezing !" It sounded stupid, even to his own ears. "Did you walk here from the shed ?"
"Your heating charms are crap !" Not even the sight of her lovely, flushed face and bare arms were registering- Severus heard his generally immaculate spellwork insulted, and parts of his brain reserved for logical thought were disconnected and asked to please dial again at a later date.
"My heating charms," he said coldy, "are exemplary."
"They're crap !" she shouted again, and shivered. "Do you want to know why I think so ?"
"No, I-" he began, but she grabbed him so fiercely that he was startled into rising to his feet. She half-dragged him out of the door, until he brushed her arm off and indicated that he'd follow her voluntarily. "If only to prove you insane," he muttered. Once in the shed (noting her bare footprints still sitting in the dusting of frost) he felt the pleasant warmth of magic envelope them both. Severus allowed himself a small smile of triumph. "The problem, Miss Granger, is apparently only in your delu-"
It was then that she turned the hose on him. He sat down backwards, entirely too quickly, and was drenched in icy spray.
"You remembered to heat the air," she said, now quite calm. She turned the tap off. "But you forgot the water." There was a long and difficult silence as the water soaked into his armpits.
And Severus began to laugh.
She helped him to his feet when he regained himself, the steam of her anger somewhat reduced. The two of them made a mad dash across the winter landscape for the house, and Severus locked himself in the bathroom with a heating charm and a handful of fluffy, stolen towels.
"It's my right !" he shouted at her, while she banged angrily on the door. "You can wait !" He went about the business of stripping off his wretchedly cold waistcoat and wringing it out into the sink. There was a sharp crack, and suddenly the bathroom seemed much smaller as Hermione elbowed him out of the way and pulled a towel from the stack. "You-"
"Apparated into the bathroom, yes."
"You are the strangest person I have ever known," he said, with the realization that it was true. She held the towel in front of her chest and glowered at him, with a few twists of damp hair hanging across her face. He leaned forward and tucked a strand behind her ear, and she stood very still. Except- she leaned, ever so slightly upwards, tilting her cheek against his palm. It was as soft as anything he could imagine, though her cheeks were chapped from the wind and still damp.
"But not in the world." She smiled at him.
"No," he agreed. She unlocked the door and padded away on bare feet, down the hall to her room; and he stared at the spot where she'd been standing.
In the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of bare feet again, shushing against the board floor. It was an impossibly small sound to wake to; a churchmouse breathing would have made more noise. But he woke all the same, and lay in the darkness listening to her feet.
She opened his door.
There was a faint light in the hallway, from the window of the bathroom; it fell on her shoulders and hips and elbow, where she curved against the doorframe. It was like watching smooth stones lapped by water in the moonlight; he felt he could watch her edges rise and fall with her breath until morning, or at least until he died. She moved then, and dipped down to kneel at the edge of his bed. The moon and all satellites were still.
"I needed to see that you sleep," she said softly. Her voice was the same color as the dark. "If you're going to be real now... if life is going to start again, I needed to see that you sleep."
"You could guess." He sat up, so close to her that their shoulders might have touched. She leaned forward and they did touch, sending warm electric currents through his arm and into his chest; and then she was kissing him, and he was pulling her down, his teeth on her mouth, and her hands around his neck, his throat, his heart.
She straddled him and he pulled her hips down; arched into her heat. He slid a hand along her thigh and underneath the curve of her waistband, and rubbed the soft center in lazy circles. "Christ-" She was warm and deep, and curved into his hand in shallow thrusts, breath against his ear. She sucked at the hollow of his throat, and starlight went fast over his eyes. "Please-"
"Take them off," she said into his neck. He did. More quickly than any action in his previous life. He pulled his loose trousers off as well and pulled her over him, pausing only to lay a hand in the small of her back and kiss her eyebrows.
"Tell me that you want this- that you want-"
"I want this," she said softly, and sank down onto him, slowly. He caught her hands in his and held them against him, and rose up against the gentle pressure of her thighs. "Oh-" He shut his eyes and rolled his head back and tried not to explode, literally, because Christ she was wet and hot and it is the greatest- the greatest thing I have ever- she twitched her hips against him and he was moving faster, hands on her hips, and she was panting into his mouth and. And. She came and he followed, and they sprawled over one another in the sudden quiet.
"You're lovely," he murmured into her hair. "I'm sorry that I didn't take the time to make that known before this."
"I forgive you." She rolled against him and closed her eyes. In the morning she stayed in his bed as the light crossed over their bodies; when he rose to make tea she was still there, colored in bright shifting blocks by the curtains. They worked that afternoon in companiable silence, though much closer than usual, as if the gravity of her body had increased and he was merely reacting in measure. They slept apart without discussion.
He began to wonder about the honesty of waking.
Work became- unusual.
There were fewer things to do and more time in which to do them, with the dark lord dead and Harry alive and everybody sort of drunk all the time. Literally and figuratively. Their main source of contact with the rest of the world had been Moody, and Moody was busy reforming the ranks and filling positions that had previously been emptied by deaths. He told them to go through Minerva instead, but Minerva was at last allowing herself the time to have a good, hearty breakdown over Albus, and became unreachable. Remus was out- he was hardly able to keep himself from baring his teeth in Severus's presence, which had nothing to do with the wolf and everything to do with the man.
Ron became their new contact; good dependable Ron, who had accidentally grown up last year when his brother died. He came twice a month to drop off supplies and requests for more healing draughts and sleeping potions and something for Neville's stomach. Severus filled the orders and rolled his eyes until they nearly stuck in the back of his head. Ron stayed late into the evenings, sitting by the fireside with Hermione, and speaking in quiet, comfortable tones. And in late November, Hermione stood beside him and said: "Alright, well, I'm off."
"You're- leaving." He managed to speak clearly, instead of shouting in sudden and incoherant bursts as his mouth and brain were urging him to do. Of course she'd go. The times were less desperate. Of course, she'd want to go.
"I'll be back," she said, slinging a bag over one shoulder. "I just need to take care of some things. See people. Don't worry, I've done everything you asked me to take care of. If anything serious comes up, you can owl me. You can owl me anyway."
"I can owl- you." He coughed. "Yes. Owl. I'll do that. But I hardly think your assistance will be necessary. Have a pleasant time, Miss Granger. Weasley." He swept up a handful of books and turned into the other room, back to the door; and did not watch her leave. A crack sounded, and a slight echo in his ears- and then stillness settled in the house. He spent the evening filing notes by category and then by date, and flicking wadded-up leftovers of parchment into the fire.
November ended. She did not return.
At last he was forced to name the cats.
"You- Horus." He pointed a skinny tom with a folded ear, who accepted with a yawn. "You- Damascus. And you, Skinny Worthless Prat." The prat in question stuck his paw into a jar of ink, and strutted across the table. "I hope your ancestors were killed for meat." There was a noise from the house, no louder than a closing door, but Severus was already on his feet. He hurtled out of the barn and checked himself halfway up the slope. When he reached the house he was practically strolling, hands in his pockets. Good day, Miss Granger, he thought he might say. I trust you had a pleasant-
She lay on the kitchen floor; no larger, it seemed, than a young doe; her legs folded to one side and her hands across her face, convulsing. He reached for her and found her, and pulled her against him, sure that the world was ending.
"My parents-" she started, and cried out. "They killed-"
He didn't need to hear the rest, to hold onto her.
She slept for two days, on and off; and at first he was afraid that her news had been recent, and whatever it was that had taken her family was fighting to take her. Some curse ? Some unspoken charm ? He recited a handful of diagnostics over her bedside and turned up nothing. She was fine. She was whole. Whatever that meant. She woke up soon enough, and he found her sitting in bed, arms drawn around her knees.
"I don't want to sleep anymore," she said, and looked at him. "Give me something to do." Wordlessly, he handed her Ron's list for the month; she dried her eyes and dressed, and went out to the barn. She stayed there until the evening, and hung a lantern when the light grew dim. He spent the afternoon writing revisions to the notebook of successes they kept- tiny notes in the margins, like this is expensive- powdered version instead ? At dinner three days later she came inside, looking less like a ghost.
That night she opened his door again and slid underneath his covers, and underneath his arm. She curled into him like listless seaweed, and he kissed her hair half-a-dozen times before falling asleep. She could, he decided as consciousness left him, come in and out of his bed just as many times as she pleased.
January passed like a waking dream; at night she slept on his shoulder or asked questions in the dark, which he answered as best he could. Where were you born, and to whom, and where are the places you've been ? London was the answer, and then Eileen, and then Russia and Bulgaria and Spain and France and Austria and Norway and Scotland, and well, she already knew Scotland. Night slipped into night again, and she asked about mountains and books and lakes and people, old people and dead people and other people; and then he began to ask her questions, from a growing sense of imbalance. She answered those as well.
In the daytime it was much more complicated: they continued to argue over work and generally have fuck-all to do, concerning the leftover war.
Ron came in February with good news: "The LeStranges are dead," he said, "the Malfoys are in prison and the rest are pretty much routed. We caught Rosier on a muggle train ! He thought it would take him to America."
"Stupid ass," Severus muttered, stirring his soup somewhat overeagerly.
"It's good news for the Order," Hermione said, smiling at Ron, and covering his hand with her own. The soup was stirred with slightly more force. "You'll be a full Auror come summer, isn't that right ?"
"Well, sort of. Moody's giving me credit for some, uh, outside work, you know ? And Harry's going to come back from Alaska very soon. I expect he'll want to see you."
"Alaska," Severus said darkly. "Horrible place."
"Harry says it's beautiful." Ron folded his arms over his chest. "He's sent me pictures of the glaciers and everything. Lovely sunsets too, and the northern lights." He turned to Hermione and grinned. "We should go visit him- before he leaves, I mean. You'll be packed up soon enough anyway I expect, with the war really over this time."
There was a dead silence in which Severus ceased stirring, and might have dropped his spoon. Hermione very carefully didn't look at him.
"I live here, Ron," she said. Something turned over rapidly, and was shaken like an hourglass in Severus's lungs.
"You- here ?" There was a look of intense confusion on Ron's face. "With-"
"I live here," she repeated, and smiled in an encouraging way, so that he'd grasp the point. "I'm happy where I am."
Severus excused himself, and ran for the barn. There was a long pause, followed by a pair of raised voices, and the distinct sound of a teacup shattering against an unsuspecting wall. Ron walked stiffly down to the barn before he left, and swore at Severus quite roundly before declaring that they, a mysterious they, deserved each other; and apparated with a crack. It was some minutes before he made the walk back up the hill.
"You- live here ?" he said, upon finding her washing the dishes. She turned around with a slightly mad look in her eye.
"Is everybody very stupid ?"
"That's n- while I'm sure you had a stimulating afternoon, please refrain from including me in your tempest." He frowned at her, and kicked aside half a teacup. "I'm merely asking-"
"A stupid question." And there it was, that mad goddam glint ! He began to suspect that there was something he'd been missing.
"You're the one who espouses that foolish notion that there are no stupid questions." He stops short of calling her Miss Granger. "Or have you recanted your entire educational canon ? It's about time." As he spoke, he began to notice that the strange gravity had taken hold again, and he was standing beside her at the sink. She dried her wet hands and put them on her hips; which was charming. He traced the shape of her mouth with his thumb, and spoke with a softness he didn't imagine he'd formerly possessed. "I'm trying to establish a simple fact- that I haven't managed to get rid of you yet."
"No," she said. "You haven't." She leaned forward and kissed him, and tugged his shirt over his head.
It was a wonderful spring.
