“I wish I was as brave as you, Hermione,” fawned Felicity Flitterbloom, hanging off Ron’s arm while he demolished the buffet. She was the latest of his blonde conquests, though from what Hermione could tell, they didn’t put up much of a fight. One goofy smile, a flash of his Order of Merlin, and they’d fall flat on their backs, legs akimbo.
“Thank you,” she replied insincerely.
It was difficult to be sincere after hearing the same vapid platitudes from a bevy of witches and wizards who had all had the chance to do the right thing, but chosen instead to hole up in their holiday homes in Geneva and wait five years to throw a pointless gala. It was loosely in celebration of the anniversary of the end of the war, but the cynic in Hermione saw it as a publicity stunt for politicians wishing to look charitable. Percy Weasley was tailing the minister about and thrusting his hand at anyone who would shake it.
“Your outfit, I mean,” said Felicity, “I always feel like I have to dress up for parties, but you’re not afraid to go basic. You don’t care what people think of you, it’s really brave.”
Hermione turned her head to see what Ron thought of this back-handed compliment, but he was engaged with a sausage roll.
Harry might have noticed it, but he was at home taking care of Ginny, who was expecting their second any minute now. This party was horrendous — but then again, Hermione would choose it any day over being stuck inside with a rambunctious toddler.
“Thanks,” she said icily, “How kind of you to say.”
Hermione had dressed up, actually. There were diamonds in her ears.
Alright, not diamonds: cubic zirconia. But they looked the same. She even had a dress on instead of her usual jeans and a jumper, and it was pinching in all the wrong places.
Basic. She had chosen plain black velvet: the classic little black dress, unlike Felicity, who looked as if she’d been covered in glue and rolled through a Claire’s Accessories. Yellow feathers dangled from her ears and a colourful costume necklace reminded Hermione of a wire and bead toy she used to play with in the waiting room of her parents’ dental surgery.
All of a sudden Ron spotted something at the other side of the room that made him grab his date’s arm and start walking backwards.
“Nice seeing you, Mione. Catch up later, yeah?”
Felicity tottered on her banana coloured stilettos as she was dragged away. “Bye, Hermione! Lovely meeting you!”
Hermione’s grandmother had taught her that if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all. So she kept her mouth shut in favour of turning to see what Ron had been so eager to avoid.
It wasn’t a what, it was a who. The who in question was Severus Snape, Order of Merlin, First Class, deliberately stalking through the crowd towards her. He was also wearing black.
After graduating from Hogwarts, Hermione had had fantasies of seeing her professors again. Daydreams of turning up for a cup of tea, getting to see the grounds, chatting with the portraits, hearing the latest developments — but it hadn’t happened. McGonagall had her hands full as headmistress, and Hagrid was on a motorbike tour of Europe with Madame Maxime. The only teacher she saw nowadays was Snape.
By a loose definition of seeing, anyway. And he was no longer a professor. He worked at the ministry, though it wasn’t altogether clear what his work involved.
Sometimes, they stood side by side in the lift. Once, they had overheard a wizard mistakenly suggest he was about to ‘prostate’ himself before his superiors. Snape had caught her eye, sardonic and cringing, and it had tickled Hermione so much she’d had to exit the lift a floor early to keep herself from laughing out loud.
Occasionally they saw each other at these sorts of events, finding them equally excruciating. He approached her now, towering almost a foot above her. Hermione took an irrational pleasure in being the only one of his former students Snape spoke to voluntarily. He’d never shown her an ounce of favouritism, but lately his behaviour proved her to be, at the very least, tolerable company.
“I’m afraid my presence has scared your friends away,” he remarked.
“And for that I’m eternally grateful,” said Hermione, placing a hand on his arm. He stared at it, so she quickly took it back.
“You’ve had a disagreement?”
“Nothing so grand. It’s just, if I wanted to talk to a Barbie doll, I’d go to Toys ‘R’ Us.”
Luckily the Muggle reference didn’t seem to go over his head. Snape’s gaze travelled the room until it landed on Felicity, being twirled about the dance floor beneath a glittering chandelier.
“Ron’s latest,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I think she graduated last week.”
“And you take exception?”
“To the age difference? No. To the fact that they have absolutely nothing in common, besides wanting a warm body? Possibly. Oh, I don’t care. I’m not jealous of her. Though I understand that any denial of being jealous only makes people think you are. Sorry, I’m probably boring you.”
“You are everything but boring, Miss Granger. Shall I fetch you another drink?”
“No,” she said quickly. He paused with his arm half-raised to beckon a waiter. “I mean, no thank you. I’m not really a wine person. This tastes a bit strange to me.”
He took her glass and sniffed it. “That’s because it’s swill. The ministry never shells out for these events. The cheapest bottle in my kitchen is ten times the quality of what they’re serving tonight.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” she said. In Scotland you couldn’t avoid good whiskey, whereas Londoners would drink anything if it came in a pint glass.
There was an awkward pause in the conversation, during which Hermione noticed the unaccountably intense way that Snape was looking at her, and was awash with a sense of déjà vu.
They’d had this exact conversation last year. Ron had hung around with a blonde on his arm (albeit a different blonde), Hermione had been by the buffet table in a dress that was slightly too loose around the bust but too tight around the hips, and Snape had come over to say something scathing about the quality of the champagne. And that the red wine was corked, and the cheapest bottle in his kitchen was ten times the quality of the swill the ministry had to offer.
“I don’t wish to be blunt—“ Snape started, cutting himself off at her outburst of laughter.
“Sorry, but you’re the bluntest person I know! You once told Gregory Goyle that if he didn’t stop sniffing during class you’d cut off his nose and feed it to him. And last week I overheard you tell the head of the Ludicrous Patents Office that her new haircut made her look like a cocker spaniel having a midlife crisis.”
“Well, it did.”
“Oh, yes, I’m not denying that. And it’s her fault for asking for your opinion, she should have known better. But I confess I’m surprised to hear you say you don’t wish to be blunt.”
“Then let me rephrase. I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable.”
“You won’t. Sorry, what were you about to say?”
He paused again, and Hermione found herself flooded with curiosity, and regretting that she had interrupted. What on earth might he say that would make her uncomfortable?
“It was an invitation. To come back to mine.”
The man sounded smooth even when he was irritated. Hermione felt a frisson travel up her spine, and tried to keep her voice calm when she spoke.
“And drink wine?”
“Yes,” he said, but she noted another hesitation.
“Now?”
He gestured vaguely at the ballroom, at the heaving crowd in their jewels and finery, tipping back crystal goblets and shamelessly hobnobbing under the guise of frivolity.
“Whenever you’ve finished… mingling.”
“I’ve finished,” she smiled.
As a matter of fact she had rather forgotten there was anyone else in the room.
*
The corridor leading to the floos was empty, layering a surreal quality over the evening. It was dark and cool compared to the formidable heat and noise of the party, and the pair were silent as they walked. Nervous anticipation on her part; on his, she didn’t know.
Receiving an invitation from Snape was surreal enough. Had he wanted this, a year ago? Even earlier? It was ironic for a man so famed for being outspoken (or, as some would say, rude) to be hindered by his own reticence. As if it would damage his pride, should she refuse. As if it meant something.
The fireplace was large enough for them to stand side by side as Snape tossed in powder and spoke his address, and she kept a polite distance. But without warning the flue narrowed sharply, forcing Hermione to press blindly against him to save scraping her elbows on the bricks of passing chimneys. Her nose was pressed against warm fabric, and under her palm she felt a quickening heartbeat.
They arrived on the hearth squeezed together like sardines, breathless with the exertion needed to stay upright. Snape removed his hand from her waist disappointingly soon and stepped away, leading her to the kitchen.
Hermione followed, but glanced behind her to take in the sitting room in which they had arrived. Low ceiling, dark beams, faded carpet. The windows were diamond paned and looked difficult to open. It was the kind of room that would be cramped and claustrophobic in summer, but wonderfully cosy in winter. The kitchen was similarly old fashioned, with terracotta tiles and pinewood cabinets, as if he’d inherited it decades ago and left it exactly the way it was.
The house had an unloved quality: rather like its inhabitant, it was in need of a woman’s touch.
“May I take my shoes off?” she asked.
He removed his head from the cupboard and nodded, pulling out a dark bottle and two glasses.
Hermione set her shiny heels on the kitchen table. They didn’t match anything in the room.
“As long as we’re being blunt," she said, "I’ll admit I’d like to take my dress off, too. Pity I don’t have a change of clothes.”
A smirk belied his amusement, but Snape’s words were all practicality. “I may have something you can wear.”
She followed him to his bedroom, where he fetched her a plain grey t-shirt from the back of the wardrobe and left her alone to change into it. Hermione was curiously thrilled to have nosed her way into not one, not two, but three rooms in Snape’s house.
This room had books piled every which way on inbuilt shelving either side of the fireplace, jumbled and dog-eared and overflowing. The sheets were plain, and rumpled, and above the bed was a magical painting of rolling hills. Bushes of heather swayed in a silent wind, and a tiny castle was painted in the distance.
Hermione’s fingertips searched for the zip hidden within the seam of her dress and yanked it down. It was as much of a challenge to get out of the dress as it had been to get into it, and she feared she heard the sound of stitches breaking as she wrestled it past her hips. After squeezing and twisting the fabric fell to the floor, and then she was naked in Snape’s bedroom.
The shirt he had given her was soft and worn, with broken stitching on the hem. She brought the fabric to her nose.
It smelled… well, she didn’t know if it smelled like him, exactly. She’d never got close enough to tell. But it smelled like man: the rich, woody fragrance that reminded her of men’s soap and expensive aftershave.
She slipped it on. The hem fell beyond her knickers, just about covering the curve of her arse, but not much else.
She tiptoed back into the kitchen. In a fit of impertinence she hopped up onto the kitchen counter, crossing her ankles and breathing in sharply at the chill of the granite worktop beneath her bare legs.
Snape made no comment, only handed her a glass with something red in it.
“Bordeaux. Château Lafite-Rothschild. Taste it.”
He’d undone the top buttons on his robes and rolled his sleeves up. She took the glass, thinking nothing about wine, and a lot about the dark hair on his forearms.
“Mm,” she said after a sip, putting the glass down apologetically. “I think…”
“Yes?”
“…I think I’m just not a wine person.”
“No? It’s an acquired taste.” Snape’s choice not to call her a philistine was a great reassurance. He picked up her glass and sipped it. “I can offer you tea or coffee, I don’t have pumpkin juice.”
“Actually, I don’t like pumpkin juice either.”
He raised one eyebrow and the opposite corner of his mouth in that signature, inimitable way. “You don’t?”
“Muggles don’t normally drink it, you see, so I didn’t even try it until I was eleven. I wasn’t allowed to have fizzy drinks as a child, because my parents are dentists. Not that pumpkin juice is fizzy, but it’s sweet. I mostly drank water. And fruit juice, but only through a straw. To protect my enamel.”
His smile led her to believe she was making a fool of herself, until he declared:
“I detest pumpkin juice.”
“Really? Everybody else in the wizarding world seems to love it! They even serve it in coffee shops, I couldn’t believe it.”
“The elves at Hogwarts served it at every meal. I loathe the stuff. It’s orange.”
“Is that why you always made faces at the house table?”
She crossed her legs and the t-shirt rode up, revealing a flash of inner thigh. Snape noticed.
The kitchen was quiet, as was the house, as was the street. Her knickers were showing. She could have pulled the fabric down again to cover them, but didn’t. Their eyes met, and the intimacy of the situation was impressed upon them.
“Did I make faces?” he asked softly.
“Only sometimes.” She pulled a face, attempting to mimic his familiar contempt. It was probably a very bad impression. It was rude enough to do any impression of one’s host when they had invited you into their home late in the evening, let alone when you were sitting on their kitchen counter, wearing their clothes.
Snape laughed.
“May have been due to the pumpkin juice, may have been due to the general amount of stupidity in the room.”
“Oh, I know what you mean.”
“Seems we have some things in common,” he said, placing his glass of Château Whatever-it-was down on the counter and taking a step closer to her. “You could say we see eye to eye.”
She nodded, because they literally were eye to eye. For some inexplicable reason Snape was leaning towards her.
Unused to invasion of her personal space, Hermione jerked back and hit her head on the cupboard behind her with a bang. Despite the shock and the pain she caught Snape’s face shuttering. He sighed and looked away.
“You had… something in your hair.”
Hermione was not brave. She was a meticulous planner, and every brave thing she had ever done had been during a life or death situation in which Harry had been shouting instructions at her. So it took a great deal of courage to grab the front of Snape’s robes and pull him toward her.
“Liar,” she breathed, and kissed him.
It was one of the scarier things she’d done in her life. As a rule it was up to men to make the first move, but he'd done that, and she’d fucked it up by flinching, so it was her responsibility to make it right.
Even with the awful taste of the wine, the kiss was delicious.
He slanted his mouth against hers, decisive but not overbearing. When she opened her legs, he fit perfectly between them. His hand rested on the edge of the kitchen sink, so she kindly relocated it to where it belonged: sliding up her bare thigh, caressing the smooth skin there. She felt him smile through the kiss as he moved his other hand behind her head, resting protectively between it and the cupboard door.
Her magic reached out to his and coalesced, a simmering heat beneath her skin. It rose to a rolling boil when his fingertips danced beneath the hem of the cotton shirt, displaying every intention of moving further.
She pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth and pulled back a fraction, whispering into the inch between them.
“What now?”
His eyes flicked to hers, then down again. He kissed her once more: slow, deep, and rich as chocolate. He gripped the flesh around her hips and she pictured wrapping her legs around him, being carried to his room and thrown down upon the mattress.
“Be blunt,” she whispered. “Tell me what you want.”
He looked her in the eyes.
“I want you. I want to see you every day. Making small talk at tedious parties a handful of times a year is not nearly enough, nor is chasing you round the ministry hoping to end up in a lift together. You’re the most intriguing, intelligent person I’ve ever met and every minute not spent in your company is a minute wasted.”
Hermione couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Wow. I thought you were going to say you wanted to bend me over your desk or something.”
Her candour caused his cheeks to flush crimson, but he didn’t seem opposed to the idea.
“Regretfully, it’s covered in paperwork at the moment.”
She hopped off the counter, landing on bare feet on the cold kitchen tiles. But she was warmed by his words, and by the heady arousal thrumming between them.
“Bed’s fine,” she grinned, and pulled him to his room.
fin.