In the Morning
Grimmauld Place, 1997.
Coffee.
The first need (need, not want) is always coffee.
He ambles down the stairs, shoulders slouched. The stairs creak out their complaints about his daring to utilise them so early in the morning.
The kitchen is in sight.
Lower still Severus descends, eyeing the door that holds the first cup of morning salvation. Everything about him is perfectly acceptable – coat, robes, trousers, boots. He never will take any chances in the old mutt's haunt, after all.
He places one hand on the handle then pauses. The faint hum of magic clings to it; a silencing charm, perhaps, or –
Severus cannot find any fucks to give. Not before coffee.
One twist of his wrist has the door open and –
No. No.
Not again.
This time, he allows himself just a few seconds to indulge.
The music is deafening and terrible. It sounds like the shite he confiscated from the third year half-blood just a few short weeks before, purely because of the headache inducing beat that had greeted him one evening in the common room.
But she…
Ah, she.
Her.
She stands at the sink. Her hands are busy but her hips…
Those hips.
They swirl and curl, gyrate and shake.
They provide a fabulous stage for her arse to shine in all of its youthful –
Too young, too young, too bloody young…
"Miss Granger!"
For the third morning in a row, she drops the cups into the sink. The surprised, circular shape of her lips as she whips around could almost be believable.
"Sorry, Professor Snape," Granger mumbles, hurrying past him in a whirl of messy hair and flannelette pyjamas.
Her fear would almost be palpable, Severus thinks, if she didn't stop and look him up and down on the way out.
Far, far too young.
He adds an extra teaspoon of coffee into the mug.
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