QLFC After Party Drinks Table Prompt: Dragon Barrel Brandy — it takes 150 years for this to be ready to drink, but good things come to those who wait! Write about something which took a long time to happen.
Firsts
Severus Snape did not consider himself inexperienced when it came to most things in life. In fact, he would say that he'd seen and done far more than he was comfortable admitting. Of course, there were drawbacks. He would never speak of the times he'd torn himself from his bed gasping for breath, his hands clawing around his scarred throat. He would never speak of the nightmare (for there was only one, and it was dreadful), where twin glowing eyes glared balefully down upon him like slitted alien suns and rotted hands slipped through the floor beneath him as though it were water, grasping at his ankles as he ran. They cursed his name in papery whispers that seemed to linger in his ears even as he struggled to slow his hammering heart.
It was ironic that he'd been saved, in the end, by the very person who'd gotten him into the whole sordid Death Eater mess in the first place. Lucius Malfoy was a proud, often unpleasant man, but he was dependable when one was in a pinch.
Severus considered "bleeding out from a giant gaping hole in one's throat filled with corrosive venom" to be a particularly perfect definition of a "pinch" and Lucius had performed amiably as soon as his son and wife had been sorted. A combination bezoar and Drought of Dreamless Sleep had kept Severus stable long enough to get to Lucius' fancy private doctor in time to save Severus' life. Once he was well enough again, Lucius had given him some money, new robes, and bid him farewell after giving him the name of a bloke who made portkeys to other countries and new identities to go with them on the cheap.
Severus knew that the Malfoy family would probably retreat to their villa in France, but he had no desire to join them. And so, he went instead back to the only place he knew.
London.
Severus was smart enough to use charms to disguise his face enough not to be completely recognizable, but he also knew that Harry Potter's word was considered indisputable fact. As far as the Wizarding World was concerned, Severus Snape was dead, which meant that Severus had to figure out what this new lease on life meant for him.
The truth was this: it terrified him.
Between the nightmares and the fact that he could not bring himself to go back to his house on Spinner's End on the off-chance that the Ministry came sniffing about, Severus was fairly miserable in the tiny flat that he kept in the south of London. It was quieter here, and further away from the Ministry or wizarding business, so Severus could live fairly undisturbed. He did not have to work, for he still had access to his muggle bank account, which he'd been filling slowly over the years just in case.
And so, Severus passed each day in a gray haze of depression and anxiety. Logically, he knew that something had to change, but he couldn't get himself to do anything more than trudge down to the local corner shop for a bit of bread and cheese.
In fact, it was on one of these rare grocery runs that he blearily stumbled into another person and nearly dropped his shopping bag.
"Oof!" shouted an annoyed female voice from behind the brown paper bag. "Would it kill you to watch where you're going?!"
Severus reeled back as though he'd been slapped. The owner of the voice was mostly hidden behind the bag and the loaf of bread that jutted out the top of it. He peered over and gave her his best unfriendly scowl, the one he used on first year students to make them go quiet on the first day of class. He supposed the shaggy beard he'd charmed onto his face probably made him look even more menacing, which he was grateful for, as this would likely be a short exchange.
"I could say the same for you...miss..." he replied, looking her up and down. The raggedy-looking sweater and closely cropped curly brown hair made her look a bit boyish at first glance, but her hips swelled out on either side of her waist in a markedly womanly sort of way. The difference in size was accentuated as she put her hands on her hips and scowling up at him. Oddly enough, the gesture seemed familiar, but Severus couldn't place it.
"It's Gra-er...Grant, Miss Grant," said the woman, who still seemed a bit irritated, but who appeared to have fallen back on her innate sense of British politeness. "I live across the hall in 2B, so I'd appreciate it if you got into the habit of looking around before bulldozing people out of nowhere. It's not polite, you know."
"Hmph," Severus grunted, continuing on towards his door, which was, indeed, across the hall from the door she was pointing at.
"I told you my name, so it's only polite to tell me yours, Mr…?" she asked, her head tilting slightly.
"None of your business," Severus said pointedly as he unlocked the door to his apartment and shut it firmly behind him.
Severus did not mean to run into the young woman again, but there were only so many times that he could use Freshening Charms on his clothing, so one rainy evening, he finally forced himself to trudge down to the coin operated laundry room at the bottom of the stairs. Miss Grant was sitting and reading a criminally thick book, her eyes covered by a pair of unflattering red-framed reading glasses.
"I read too often at night by candlelight," she confessed, as he placed a load in the second washing machine. He turned back to see that one of the dryers was already running as well, so hopefully Miss Grant was almost finished. Their complex wasn't very large, so there was only two of each appliance, and Severus didn't want to be trapped down in the small room for longer than he needed to be.
"Candles, eh?" he remarked snidely before he could control himself, "were you going for the ambiance factor or did you live out in the middle of nowhere?"
She flushed and turned back to her book. "Something like that," she mumbled.
There was one long bench between the washing machine area and the dryer area for people to sit and wait for their laundry cycles to finish. Severus sat down and crossed his arms, making sure that he was sitting facing the opposite direction.
"You remind me of someone I used to know," she said nervously, many long minutes later.
"Oh?" he asked, suddenly feeling the budding sensation of anxiety prickling in his chest.
"Yeah, he scowled so much that he wore a groove between his eyebrows," she replied with a laugh. "I seem to recall he was particularly disdainful of dunderheads."
"As one should be," Severus replied gruffly, trying not to let her unwavering gaze unnerve him.
He, too, was trying not to openly stare at her by this point, while simultaneously trying to figure out where he'd seen her before. She grinned at him, her teeth small, white and even, and he looked away, his cheeks slightly pink with embarrassment at having been caught staring.
"Anyway, now I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. Escape my checkered past, you know, that sort of thing."
Severus raised an eyebrow at her. "From the look of you, the most checkered thing you have to worry about is that hideous plaid thing you're currently wearing."
"Oh?" Miss Grant grabbed an envelope and slid it into the book she'd been reading like a bookmark. "Well, you know what they say, Mr…."
"Sharp," Severus said, thinking quickly. "Like the blade of a knife."
"Yes, well, Mr. Sharp, it's as the saying goes. Don't judge a book by its cover. That goes more for people than books, ironically." Miss Grant stared at him with large, amber eyes, and Severus was struck by the dark flecks in her irises that stood apart from the other shades of golden brown in her eyes.
Severus was about to respond when the dryer buzzed and Miss Grant leapt up, dropping her book down on the bench with a loud thud. As she turned to go to the dryer, Severus noticed that the envelope bookmark had nearly slipped out of her book. Out of habit (for he had accidentally lost his place in a book many times before), he bent down and pushed the envelope back into place, but not before seeing the address on the envelope more clearly.
His eyes widened as he read her first name.
"Do you mind grabbing that?"
Severus blinked slowly and looked up at her, then down again to where she was pointing.
He grabbed the sock and handed it to her.
"Her..mione…" he said, more awkwardly than he'd thought the syllables of her name in his head, "I saw, on your letter...that's from Shakespeare, right?"
She froze, the sock dangling from her hand limply, and stared at him in shock.
"Did I say something wrong?" Severus asked, his voice growing more annoyed than he knew he had the right to be. He'd been trying to be civil and she was looking at him as though he'd just suggested eating babies for supper.
She shook her head quickly, which only made him more suspicious, and then she backed out of the laundry room with the sock still in hand.
"Gotta go," she mumbled, or, at least he thought that was what she'd said.
Severus stared at the open doorway, wondering if it was some sort of joke. But then, after she didn't reappear, even after Severus had moved his meager washing from the washer to the dryer, Severus realized that she wasn't coming back. For lack of anything else to do, he picked up her book and opened it to the first page. A somewhat fancy gold foil bookplate was pressed into the inside cover.
"Property of H.G," Severus read, tracing his fingers over the raised letters of her name. Again, he had the distinct sensation of deja vu, but he couldn't quite pinpoint the reason why. He flipped over to the spot where the letter-bookmark lay pressed between the pages. He looked through one of the paragraphs, his eyes widening with surprise.
This book...it was an herbology compendium. As Severus perused a few more pages, he realized rather quickly that whoever had written this book was not a muggle. Though the descriptions and effects appeared to be rather mundane and it would certainly not be easily noticed by someone who wasn't looking for it, Severus found references to certain herbs and plants that were considered by most muggles to be mythical. It would also be impossible for a muggle to know which would readily available for study or use, and there was a section at the beginning with an address and instruction to send any potential information about inaccuracies found in the book by owl.
It seemed unwise to leave the book in the laundry room, especially since it appeared to look rather large and expensive, and besides, Severus reasoned with himself, it wasn't as though it would be too much extra work to walk it back to its owner. He left Hermione's clothing in the dryer. He was certain that it would be a terrible idea to show up with a bag filled with her underthings in them. He looked around and, not seeing anyone, pulled out his wand. With a quick and surreptitious wave of his wand, his clothing was folded and stacked neatly in his laundry basket. Then, he set the book on top and headed back to his flat.
He climbed up the stairs and deposited his laundry basket and folded, clean clothes before walking across the way and knocking on Hermione's door.
"Who's there?" she called from behind the door. He'd petitioned the super for a peep hole at the front door, but it seemed that Hermione did not have the same amenity.
"It's me," Severus said, adding, "I have your book."
There was a long pause and then, finally, "Just wait a minute."
He listened to a bunch of deadbolts and locks clicking open before the door finally opened. A strange, electric sensation washed over him and he realised that she was dispelling a ward.
"It's none of my business," he said, as he handed over the book to the hand that snaked out through the crack in the door, "but you're doing a right poor job of blending into the muggle world."
Before he could react, the door opened the rest of the way and another hand grabbed him by the chest, pulling him inside of the apartment.
"Whuuuh," he grunted as he was knocked off balance. Severus was not used to being grabbed by anyone, much less a woman who was at least a head shorter than he was. The hallway was somewhat dark now that the door had been slammed shut, but Severus didn't need to adjust to the dimness of the light to see that her shortly cropped hair had magically grown long and bushy.
"I knew it was you, professor," she said in a low voice. "You look better without the beard."
His hand immediately went to his face and he found that the charmed beard had disappeared.
"It's part of the wards I keep up," she explained. "It's to keep the media from trying to get in here while disguised. It even works on animagi as well."
"What are you, of all people, doing here, Miss Granger?" Severus replied, but his voice came out tired and weary rather than irritated.
"I couldn't stand it. They paraded me around like some kind of circus animal," Hermione spat, "'Look at the Muggleborn! She can even wave a wand just like a normal witch!' I got tired of still not being seen as good enough even after I helped Harry to save the world from...him."
"You can say his name," Severus said tiredly, pulling up his sleeve to show her that the Mark had disappeared altogether after Voldemort's final demise. "It doesn't hurt me anymore."
"How-" she started.
"Am I alive? I'd rather not say, just in case it comes back to bite me in the arse," Severus interrupted. "I've had enough of being bitten to last a lifetime."
Hermione snickered despite herself. Severus smirked slightly before realizing with horror that he was thinking of her as Hermione and not Miss anything. For some reason, that name just rolled about his his mind like a song that wouldn't leave, and it was a struggle to call her by anything else.
"Professor-"
"Severus is fine. It's been a few years since Voldemort was vanquished, anyway. Shouldn't all the fervor have died down by now?"
"It's the Wizarding World," Hermione replied with a snort, "They're so small and backwards that they'll be talking about Voldemort until the next Voldemort appears. It's like they never learn. That's why I decided to leave and take some time to do some independent study."
"Oh?" Severus glanced at the book under Hermione's arm. "If you don't mind me asking-"
"It's the Longbottoms," Hermione said, and her eyes were somewhat pointed as she said it. "Neville's parents."
"Oh." Severus felt slightly awkward, as Neville Longbottom had been the bane of his existence until he blessedly did not have to teach the blighter any longer in class. The boy was a walking explosion waiting to happen, and he did absolutely nothing to lower his risk of doing so. What was worse was that he sat two chairs away from Harry Potter, who Severus had to ensure got through his days without being blown to smithereens. Severus' lip curled out of long-practiced habit. "I did not realize that Longbottom's parents were ill."
Hermione looked uncomfortable and then a bit sad. "You mustn't know, then. Bellatrix tortured them to insanity in the first war. Cruciatus. They've been in St. Mungo's ever since, but there's little evidence that there's anything left in their minds."
Severus didn't even try to hide the horror on his face. "Oh Merlin."
"That was my response when I first found out as well," Hermione replied. "You mean that you never knew?"
Severus shook his head. "Albus kept me separate from the other members of the Order the first time. I was absolutely not to tell anyone of my defection even after it became a moot point. But I suppose I didn't exactly spend a lot of energy to find out what happened to everyone afterward. I was too busy obsessing over whether I'd be sent to Azkaban even with Albus' support. So, then, what are you researching, Her-erm-Miss Granger?"
Hermione smirked at his near-slip-up. "Hermione is fine for me if Severus is fine for you." She chuckled ruefully. "Though I must say it does feel a bit strange calling you by your first name. After all, I called you Professor Snape for over seven years. Severus. Se-ver-us. Hn...the syllables just roll off the tongue."
"I could say the same for you, Her-mi-o-ne," Severus replied, saying her name very slowly.
"Well, Severus," Hermione said, her voice growing a bit cheeky as she said his first name again, "I'm researching possible ingredients for a Mind Restoration Drought. I'm sure you're aware the the average Unfuddlement Potion only restores mild brain damage. I'm looking for something that can rewire neural pathways that have been ruined by the Cruciatus curse."
Severus nodded. "Do you mind if I take a look at your research?"
Hermione glowed with excitement at his request. "Oh! Yes, yes! Of course!"
Severus followed her to the living room, which had been filled with books and papers. The desk in the corner was so covered in parchment and paper that it had a stack of research materials in a box next to it and at least three file cabinets that Severus could see.
"I've been doing a lot of research," Hermione said sheepishly, "not so much the tidying beyond a few dusting charms."
"But why here? Why muggle London?" Severus asked. "Surely you could do this in a research facility with a proper lab for testing the ingredients?"
Hermione shook her head. "I've already had people trying to sabotage or steal it. The popular consensus is that if it heals the mind, it might mess with other things, like one's ability to do magic. That one was Skeeter's doing. She wrote up a whole "exposé" on it. The bitch has always hated me, but now, the Longbottoms are going to keep suffering because of it."
"So, then, how long have you been here?" Severus asked.
"I only just moved in," Hermione replied morosely, looking at the chaos around her. "Usually I'm a bit more tidy than all this. I just got to thinking about mountainous herbs known for prolonging memory the other day and realized that I needed to find a book. That's the one you brought back to me."
"Why did you run off? Earlier, I mean." Severus didn't want to pry but it had been rather odd that she'd practically fled the laundry room.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Hermione replied, looking slightly shy, "but...it was your voice."
"My voice?" Severus stared at her.
"Yes. Even though it's a bit raspier than I remember, on some level it made me realize that it was you. But my brain and my heart couldn't reconcile the fact that we all know you died in the shack and that your body was burned in the subsequent fire, so I just...sort of...left. Oh shite! My laundry! I can't believe that I forgot about it. Thanks again for bringing my book back to me, but I have to...er…"
Severus nodded, obviously understanding what she meant and she walked him back out through the front door.
"Would you mind it if I...no, it would be an imposition, i'm sure," Hermione said, as they walked through the kitchen.
"Just ask. The worst I can say is no," Severus replied. The news about Hermione's research had been rather sobering.
"I, well, was thinking that perhaps you'd be willing to lend your expertise in potion-making and brewing to some of my ideas?" Hermione asked, her voice growing a bit high pitched and squeaky.
Severus raised an eyebrow. "I don't see why not. It might be a fun diversion." Mentally, he congratulated himself for not acting like a newly minted Potions apprentice and jumping with excitement at the chance. It really had been a long time since he'd put any of his skills to good use, and he had always been a sucker for a challenge.
"Oh, thank you!" Hermione's eyes sparkled with gratitude, and Severus stared, not sure what to say. She was so full of happiness and warmth that it radiated out of her and he found it hard to keep himself from smiling bashfully in return.
"Just make sure to save only the really hard bits for me," he said, settling for a smirk instead.
"Fair enough," Hermione replied, "I'll come to see you at some point, then."
"Works for me," Severus said, biting the inside of his cheek to keep him from jumping with joy. This sort of elation was not normal for him, but her good mood was infectious.
Severus walked back to his flat with a marked spring in his step as Hermione ran down the stairs to the laundry room. He didn't really want to be in the room while she was folding her knickers. Something about that mental image seemed inappropriate to him, even though he found himself growing curious about what sort she was wearing against that shapely b-
"Oh Merlin, what am I doing?" he muttered to himself, shaking his head. She was too young, and he was most definitely not the sort of pervert that Bellatrix enjoyed accusing him of being.
Still, though, she had grown up and was on her own. It wasn't as though she was still his student. And she'd called him by his given name…
No, it wouldn't do to dwell on these things. Severus had plenty of shame built up from the failed attempts at romance he'd flailed through during his misspent youth. It would be...unadvisable...for him to repeat them.
But that night, instead of that horrible recurring nightmare, he dreamt that he was lying on the bench in the laundry room (which had become significantly longer and more comfortable thanks to dream logic) with his head on her lap and looking up at the leather cover of the books she held open listening to the soothing cadence of her voice as she read aloud to him.
Severus awoke the next morning feeling surprisingly refreshed.
"She doesn't care about you, you old menace," he said to himself, but he still couldn't deny the traitorous beat of his heart speeding up at the memory of her smile.
She began to call on him every day, right around ten o'clock. Her knuckles would rap softly against the wood of the door and he'd make her wait a bit and invite her in and cook her breakfast and steep some strong black tea, and they'd chat about what she'd learned in her research and he'd come up with books of his own (he'd grabbed a few from Spinner's End in the dead of the night after the first week of the project).
Severus tried not to think how it seemed completely normal that Hermione Granger would be sitting at the little kitchen table with him and eating breakfast as the morning sunlight streamed in the nearby window. He tried not to think about how comforting it was to hear her voice as she read aloud from her notes. He tried not to be hyper aware of every little movement of her body from the little hitch in her throat before she coughed to the slight shuffle in fabric as she crossed her legs or stretched.
Soon, she was spending enough time that her notes were spilling into his flat as well, which he honestly didn't mind a bit. She began coming over at random times, sometimes at night, in search of some bit of paper that she'd left over. Finally, though Severus wasn't sure if it was a good idea, he duplicated his key and gave it to her. She smiled and did the same for him, though he knew he'd never use it. After all, it wouldn't do to appear to be a letch.
Still, it was always a pleasant surprise to see Hermione sitting at his table or curled up sleeping on his couch with a stack of notes next to her. Truth be told, Severus had been drawn in by the complexity of the potion, and had begun to do a bit of research on his own as well. He'd even anonymously owled a few potioneers that he knew who lived in France and Bulgaria with questions.
Hermione didn't have many brewing supplies other than her old school stuff, so Severus pulled more of his own stuff from the small laboratory in the basement of his home on Spinner's End. Severus realized that he didn't really care if the old place was bulldozed any longer. Most of the books had been slowly migrating over to his flat, and he held no love for the lumpy mattress in the master bedroom.
Besides, there was no Hermione here. She would not want a key to such a dingy place.
Severus knew that even though they'd grown closer in the past few months, Hermione's main focus was her work, while his mind strayed ever nearer to the very thing he'd been denying since the night he'd realized who she really was.
He was falling for her.
No. That wasn't quite right.
He'd fallen long ago, but he'd been stubbornly refusing to admit it to himself, which was a different thing altogether. Still, Severus was the sort of person who, once faced head-on with a truth (no matter how unpleasant it was), could not deny it any longer.
He warred with himself about telling her. One part of him was disgusted that he would keep it from her. She should know- she had the right to know. How many times had she fallen asleep on his couch and only shifted slightly when he placed the pillow under her head and a blanket over her body to keep her warm? It was unfair that she didn't realize that he was imagining her lying next to him in his bed, watching her sleep and feeling a yawning sense of comfort filling his chest.
The other part of him, the selfish part, knew that if he told her, it would all be over. Wasn't it an appropriate sacrifice to make? After all, he would never do anything untoward to her. She would always be safe with him, no matter how many times he thought of her in ways that would likely make her blush scarlet. Besides, Severus had grown up with the idea that his desires and feelings didn't matter, not really. So why should this be any different? He'd settled before with the role of friend and confidant. He could do it again, easily.
But his heart tired of the charade, and in the end it was Hermione who told him that they needed an evening to take a break from all their work.
"We're getting close," she said one afternoon, tapping her pencil on her notebook. "So I thought tonight, we'd have a celebratory evening."
"Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Hermione Granger doesn't want to do an all-night study session? Who are you and where is the real Hermione?" Severus mock-demanded.
"Ha-ha, very funny," Hermione replied with a smirk. "But really, I want you to dress up nicely and come over to my flat and we'll have a research-free dinner, just the two of us."
"I'll believe that when I see it," Severus said, arching an eyebrow at her. He did not remark on the fact that she'd asked him out on what seemed almost certainly to be a date.
Hermione laughed and shook her head. "Six o'clock, Severus," she said, "and don't be late."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Severus replied as deadpan as he could, his heart beating like a fluttering thing against his ribcage.
As Severus knocked on the door to Hermione's flat, he heard her screaming, "SHITE!" loud enough to be easily discernable through the door. Immediately, he had the copy of her key in his hand and he was letting himself in, slamming the front door behind him.
"Are you o-" Severus stopped when he saw what had happened in the kitchen.
"Severus! Fancy seeing you here!" Hermione said as she held a wooden spoon with one hand and a pot lid with the other rather like a sword and shield. Her hair was so frizzy from the steam that it looked twice as big as usual. "I...may have made a bit of an overestimation at how well I can...er...cook."
Severus stared at the bubbling pot, which was filled with a red meat sauce. On top of bubbling like a tomato-based lava, it was also spewing bits of red in all directions, the knob for the burner being set in the far back of the stove, which necessitated one to reach over the bubbling lava pot of doom to turn it off. Severus pulled out his wand and levitated the pot off of the burner, then cast a mild cooling charm on it until the bubbling subsided. Then, he stepped over the globs of pasta sauce that lay all over the floor as best he could and turned off the burner.
"Oh, right," Hermione said dumbly, "Magic."
"Not magic," Severus admonished, "Experience."
Hermione cleaned up the mess as Severus took over in the kitchen. Luckily, she hadn't yet started on the steaks, a fact of which Severus was quite glad. The spaghetti she'd boiled was a bit overdone, but it was nothing that a bit of seasoning and sauce couldn't mask. Severus sauteed the vegetables and hoped for the best. Vegetables were always a toss-up in his experience. In the end, the dinner was quite delicious. Hermione seemed utterly delighted at having been rescued from her predicament, and Severus found himself sinking into a sated stupor. It didn't help that she'd somehow gotten ahold of a rather nice red wine that Severus particularly enjoyed. He'd already had three glasses, and was beginning to feel a bit like he was floating on his chair instead of properly sitting on it.
"Come on, then," Hermione said, taking him by the hand and leading him into her sitting room. Severus obeyed readily, stumbling a little as she led him along.
"Wow, you cleaned up good," he remarked a bit spacily as they went into the room that was normally covered in paper and books.
The books were still largely there, but the paper was completely gone. The file cabinets looked suspiciously full, but Severus supposed that file cabinets were supposed to be used for filing.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Hermione replied, sitting next to him on the couch. Suddenly, she seemed unsure of herself, and her nervousness made Severus want to console her.
"Don' worry," he slurred a bit, "You're very pretty even when you don't. Clean up, I mean." He hiccuped and blushed, feeling very embarrassed at his lack of manners. "Scuse me. I promis' I'm no' a drunk. Jus' liked the wine."
"It's my fault, really," Hermione replied, "I'm the one who kept refilling your glass. I...I guess you could say that I wanted you to be able to be a bit more open, but...oh dear...you truly are a lightweight, Severus."
"An' don' I know it!" Severus replied, throwing his hands in the air. "Whoopie!"
Hermione shook her head. "I...I promised I'd talk to you about it, but I can't do it while you're like this. It's not fair."
She stood and went into the hallway, returning with a small phial.
"Wazzat?" he slurred.
"You know what it is," she replied, unstoppering it and putting it under his nose.
"Sob-ring potion? Bu' I like being like this!" Severus protested. He was feeling warm and nice and floaty, after all. It was nice not to be anxious and worried for a change. He didn't want it to end.
"C'mon, do it for me, please?" Hermione put on her best puppy-dog expression.
Immediately, Severus nodded. "Anythin' for you, 'ermione. Anythin' at all."
Hermione blushed at this and tipped it back into his mouth so that he could drink it.
"I wan' kiss yeh, yeh know," Severus said after swallowing, "I-oh, no. I'm sorry Hermione."
"What for?" Hermione leaned forward and Severus gulped when he realized that not only was he completely sober, but he was now also acutely aware of the ample cleavage that her low cut shirt afforded her. She most certainly didn't seem to be doing it on purpose, but Severus could feel his body stirring to attention at her proximity.
"I got drunk and was acting like an idiot," Severus replied morosely, bending over and holding his head in his hands, "Now you're going to think I'm some sort of perverted-"
"No," Hermione said firmly.
Severus sat up and stared at her. "No?" He asked, his voice cracking slightly.
"Never," Hermione replied in the same sure tone of voice.
"But surely, when I was going on about k...kissing-" Severus balked at actually saying all of it.
"But that's the thing, Severus! I want to do it!" Hermione said insistently.
"You….what?" Severus replied, his voice tinged with disbelief.
"Kissing. You. I want it." Hermione's face was burning scarlet, but her eyes were full of determination. "I've felt like this for awhile now, but...you're such a gentleman that I...I…"
"Didn't think that I'd feel the same?" Severus supplied.
"Exactly!" Hermione said, pointing her finger at him for emphasis. Then she seemed to deflate a bit and sat back, staring at her feet self-consciously. "I mean...maybe it was the wine talking, though...I...I'm sorry if I made you do something you didn't want to do."
"But I want to!" Severus exclaimed, leaning forward and grasping her hand. "I've been wanting to for ages, but I thought that you...you wouldn't...want someone like me."
There. He'd put it into words. All of the stored up humiliation inside of him had poured out into the air and he sat waiting for her judgement. Perhaps there had been some misunderstanding, some sort of-
And then she was there, her nose brushing against his and her lips, Sweet Merlin, they were warm and slightly wet and pressing against his.
Severus sank into the kiss, his body filling with an electrified jolt of pleasure that poured through his body from where she was pressed against him. Her hands slid through his hair, a comforting, possessive gesture that made him moan with pleasure into her mouth. His arms were around her and he kissed her back until they both came up gasping for air, their cheeks and lips flushed with need.
"That was...my first…" Severus panted.
"I know, I've never had a kiss like that before," Hermione replied, her pupils wide with desire.
"No...not that...first ever…" Severus trailed off, anxiety creeping into his features again.
"You never kissed anyone before?" Hermione asked.
Severus shook his head. "Never thought I would. Got used to it...but...wow. Now that I have, I want to do it again."
"And I would be happy to oblige," Hermione replied. "Many, many times. As many times as it takes to make up for a lifetime of kisses missed."
Severus was unable to respond before her lips claimed his again. He pressed against her body, his heart beating blissfully against hers. There were, after all, a lifetime of kisses that needed to be made up for, and he would be damned if he missed even one.