A/N: Hello again! The first bit of this little piece popped into my head, so I decided to write it down and give it an ending. Hope you enjoy it.
Thanks to my beta, the wonderful AdelaideArcher.
Look
A year into Hermione's apprenticeship, something about the way she looked at me changed. She was always attentive, her brilliant mind a sponge in constant search of information to fill its pores. But there was something, something I couldn't quite discern, that altered in the depths of her deep chestnut irises.
I mostly ignored it. Sometimes, though, when I was alone in my rooms or just before I went to sleep, I thought about her gaze and contemplated what it meant.
It wasn't until my birthday in the second year of her apprenticeship that I admitted to myself what it was.
My birthday that year was on a Saturday, and she'd lightly knocked on the door to my rooms. Grumbling about being disturbed on my day off, I'd gone to the door, intending to vent my anger at being another year older and still stuck at Hogwarts—not that I'd made any efforts to change that.
I'd opened the door to find Hermione holding a small rectangular package, a shy smile on her face.
"I'm not staying," she said quietly, before I could do more than raise an eyebrow at her. "I just wanted to give you this."
She shoved the little brown-papered something into my hands, and gave me that look. "Happy birthday, Severus," she said, and walked back down the corridor, leaving me feeling slightly stunned.
That she had purchased me a gift would not have meant anything on its own. But she had not given me what I'd come to expect from my colleagues on the rare occasion they bought me presents: socks, stirring rods, potions ingredients, whiskey (not that I ever drank), or fat tomes on potions or the Dark Arts.
She gave me a book. Not a wizard book, but a Muggle one. It was a book I loved as a child, that had somehow come up when Hermione had quoted it during one of our lessons. I admitted to reading it as a boy, of enjoying it, but that truly did not encapsulate how I felt about this particular book.
My mother had found an old, worn copy at a charity shop, had bought it for a penny and brought it home to her awkward son. Before her spirit had been beaten and abused into hiding, she'd read it to me before bed—always after my father had passed out from too much ale. I drank in every word the same way my father downed liquor. I could not get enough of it, of the words. When I was older and my mother's love had disappeared, I read it to myself, huddled in a womb made by my worn wool blanket in my room.
I read it to Lily as we sat under an old, gnarled oak tree near the park, and she listened intently while staring at the leaves flickering in the summer breeze, even though I knew my boyish voice did not do the words justice.
I kept it under my pillow when I wasn't holding it in my hands. The book, that book, had meant so much to me at the time. And then one day I'd found it ripped to shreds in the middle of the sitting room floor, my father in a drunken rage, towering over it and screaming as if he'd found drugs in my bedroom instead of literature.
I'd taken the beating, and then picked up the pieces of the book's paper corpse, carrying it gently back to my room. I cried, cried like I had when I lost Lily, but it was no use. It was gone. Irreparable, even with magic.
Not that I told Hermione any of that. Only that I'd enjoyed it as a child. Perhaps there had been something in my eyes when I said it that gave my true feelings away.
And then, there it was again on my birthday, sitting in my hands, nestled in the scraps of torn brown paper. I felt tears well in my eyes as I stared at the cover: not the pristine form of a new edition, but the slightly tattered and dull binding that I remembered from so long ago.
Somehow, she'd known the book meant something to me. No one had ever been so thoughtful.
That was when I finally realised the look in Hermione's eyes was one that spoke of love. I could only admit then that I loved her in return.
Not that it changed anything. A life of pain and two decades of spying had made me nothing if not cautious. I spent my evenings wondering how it had happened, how she could care for me, how I'd fallen in love with her when I'd sworn I would never love again. Mostly I longed to hold her, to give her every last bit of my soul through my actions and my voice, to worship her and make her happy as best I could.
But she was still my apprentice. And apprentices and their Masters could not be in relationships. It wasn't disallowed by the Guild, but I would never do anything to make our peers believe that Hermione had achieved her Mastery by anything less than her own sheer brilliance and hard work.
And so I waited.
And so did she, even as the look in her eyes deepened and bloomed in front of me. Even as I gazed at her in return.
Something changed in Severus's eyes the day after I gave him his birthday present.
It was the same look he'd given Harry just before he'd passed out in the Shrieking Shack, the night we all thought he died. It was the look I know he'd given Lily Evans, the look I never expected him to give to me. It was love.
I figured he would like the book. Severus is the most dextrous and controlled man I know, but when I quoted that line in the laboratory, I saw him fumble. It was only a second, but a second with Severus Snape is a long time. A year of almost constantly being in his company had attuned me to how his body moved, how his expression changed with each passing emotion, most of it so subtle I doubt anyone else could see anything behind his sneer. But I saw it all, eventually.
And when I said those words, he fumbled for just a second, and then there was sadness and a touch of longing in his eyes when he told me he'd read it as a child.
So I went to an old secondhand bookshop in London and found an old copy, knowing he would prefer it to a newer edition. I wrapped it in plain brown paper, and gave it to him without much more than a 'happy birthday.' I knew Severus didn't like a lot of fuss.
I hadn't intended it to be more than a thoughtful gift. But something changed after I went back to my rooms.
The next day, when he thanked me for the gift, he gave me that look. The look that said he loved me, and said he knew I loved him too. I wanted to kiss him, but I held back. He was my Master and I his apprentice, and I didn't want the Guild to think he was some sort of pervert who preyed on his apprentices.
He'd never seduced me, but if I'd kissed him then, and something had started between us, I knew that's what people would believe.
In reality, my love for Severus Snape had built slowly, with each bite of his quick tongue, each flick of his wrist, each billow of his cloak, each rumble of his velvety voice, each brilliant morsel of knowledge he shared with me stoking a fire in my heart until I could no longer deny my feelings for the man.
I finally admitted it to myself when we went to a conference, and someone insulted him in front of me. The lioness inside of me had roared with rage and lashed out, determined to protect the man I loved. Severus had chewed me out for it, of course, saying it was unprofessional and that I needed to grow a thicker skin and how I was such a Gryffindor and to mind my own bloody reputation if I needed to care at all what people said. I'd nodded and taken it in silence, even though my head was screaming, "I love this man!"
After his birthday, I knew he loved me too.
To anyone else, nothing would have seemed different between us. I was still firm and sarcastic; Hermione was still diligent and cheeky. But every so often, she'd gaze at me with that look, and I would gaze back at her the same way, and something would pass between us—energy or magic or love, maybe they are all the same thing anyway, I don't know—and it was enough.
Outside, I waited patiently for her apprenticeship to end. Inside, I desperately awaited the day she was no longer bound to me.
The day I presented her with her Mastery Certificate, my heart was whirling in my chest like a jet engine. I placed the scroll in her outstretched hands, allowing my fingertips to brush against her own.
"Congratulations," I said, my voice a deep rumble.
"Thank you," she said, her big brown eyes staring up at me.
"I hope this won't be the last time we meet." I wished I could kiss her, but knew it was still too soon.
"I'll make sure it isn't," she replied, the love in her eyes nearly choking off my breath. "I promise."
"Until then," I said with a nod.
She smiled, and went to the door. She gave me a final, loving gaze before disappearing into the corridor for the last time.
It would be three years before I saw that look again.
Letters. All I had of Severus for three year was letters.
It was barely enough, but the distance was necessary. If I acted too soon, we might as well have shagged the day after his birthday.
So I settled for letters; letters that became more eloquent and open the longer we wrote, but they were still only letters. I could not hold his words in my arms, could not press my lips to the paper and feel soft flesh, could not see my love mirrored in his eyes.
And yet, I waited.
While I waited, I got a job in St. Mungo's Research and Development division, published papers in the most prestigious potions journals, celebrated birthdays and anniversaries with my friends, and wrote letters to Severus.
I waited until I could bear it no longer, until I thought I would go insane with want, and even then I pushed our meeting away, scared that I would ruin things by going too soon, fearful that the look I had seen in his eyes was nothing but a hopeful dream.
I waited until one day, when heading home after a long day of study and research, there he was.
He stood in front of my two-story flat building, his black robes billowing in the summer breeze, looking just as I remembered. For a moment, I wondered if he was a trick of my tired mind, until he smiled and gave me the look I remembered, and reached his hand in my direction.
I quickly advanced towards him, stopping only a foot in front of his outstretched fingers.
"Severus," I breathed, feeling my heart thumping in my chest.
"Come with me," he said softly, his eyes glistening like black marbles reflecting the night sky.
"Yes," I whispered, and placed my hand in his. His skin was soft and warm, and his fingers curled around my own, giving them a soft squeeze. Then he stepped forward, closing the remaining space between us, and spun us away—to where, I did not care.
We landed on a grassy hilltop, the warm wind tickling my ears and lifting my hair as I pressed my nose into Severus's robes, smelling his scent of herbs and musk and pine. My arms had wrapped themselves around his waist upon landing, and Severus held me in his own, his large nose resting against my scalp.
We stood this way for some time, until I could no longer bear not to look in his eyes, and confirm once more what he felt, that this wasn't some dream conjured by my desperate longing. I pulled backwards enough to meet his gaze, and there, there it was: the look, the same as I'd seen it three years before; a look of deepest love and affection, only now mixed with a deep, shimmering desire.
"Oh, Severus, I longed for this," I said. The long fingers of his right hand brushed against my cheek, the back of his index finger feathering over my bottom lip.
"Will you be mine, Hermione? And allow me to give myself in return?" he asked, his voice as warm as the wind that swirled around us and turned the grass into green waves.
"Yes," I replied, never more sure of an answer.
I looked at him, and he looked at me, and then his lips descended onto mine in a perfect, sweet kiss that lingered, and deepened, and then pulled apart with hitching breaths and shy smiles.
"Let's go home," he said. "I need to look at you completely."
"Oh, Severus, don't you ever look away," I said as he spun us off the hilltop, both our eyes firmly fixed on our future and each other.