It has taken time to finally pluck up the courage, but she steps boldly forward and slips fingers into his hair, pulling it out of his eyes as soon as they've stopped in the snow. He, for all his sneering and scoffing, has gone silent in the face of this. His eyes are still dark, but his jaw is slack. He is looking down at her, frozen like a spooked deer. He didn't expect this.
That is not to say it wasn't anticipated. No, they have been dancing around one another for quite some time, almost as gracefully as they dance around one another in the laboratory. However, bringing cauldrons to a boil and convincing Severus Snape that there is someone that loves him are two different things. One has a simple set of steps and goals, and the other…
The other has come to this:
Hermione stands on her tiptoes, boots an inch deep in the snow, and takes those fingers in his hair to back of his neck, cradling his neck like a promise.
"Granger," Severus begins.
And she shushes him with a kiss.
Their noses bump, lips pressing softly against one another, her eyelashes resting like butterflies on her cheeks and his eyes wide open.
She kisses him again, licking tentatively at the seam of his thin lips. A hand weaves into her bushy hair, fisting in the thick curls and staying. Staying.
"Severus," she says, and he answers with a long-fingered hand at her hip. He squeezes tightly before leaning down to kiss her back. It is a battle, then. Enthusiasm and insecurity war with one another until they crash into a mess of tongues and lips and teeth and the vice like grip of an arm around Hermione's ribs.
He rests his forehead on her shoulder when their gasps have gone hoarse.
She kisses him on his brow, flitting her fingers over his hair, then looks up at the white-grey sky. She smiles, feeling his lips against her neck.