Chapter 2: After the Fire, the Fire Still Burns (REVISED AND UPDATED!)
(Author's Note: Okay, so I wrote myself into a corner! How about a little do-over and I PROMISE, more chapters to follow, dear boys!)
Hermione would almost rather have gone back to the torture chamber than to Snape's rooms, but, that was where her trunks were, and he was her boss, once again, so she kept a stiff upper lip and used his new password to open the door.
"Filthy lucre." Hermione said.
The doors opened.
They had never been the type for long heart-to heart's about the status of their relationship, indeed, the very word "relationship" made both of them nauseous.
No, what Hermione was dreading was being buried under mounds of unrelenting snark and sarcasm, delivered from inside the blue halo of cigarette smoke that surrounded Snape at all times, until such time as he was no longer angry with her.
"Snape, where am I going to sleep?" she yelled, not knowing where he was.
"With me, I hope." He yelled, back.
"Where are you?"
"I'm in the bedroom. Watching telly. Do you think you could be a little bit quieter? It was so quiet around here without your furious incessant quacking. Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap! Wouldn't it have been nice if you had read a course in common courtesy at university."
Hermione decided that she was not going to put up with this shit, boss or no.
She flung open the doors to the bedroom so that they smacked against the stone walls with a reverberating clang, marched over to Snape's telly and turned it off.
"Now you listen to me, Snape. I am not going to put up with six months of your fucking sarcasm. I admit it, I was wrong. But if you want to have a fight, let's have a fucking fight and get it over with. I'll start. You wouldn't know common courtesy if it bit you on your skinny arse, you greasy, low-class, ugly old junkie bastard. You're so fucking ugly you make Lemmy and Bon Scott look like underwear models! Fuck you!"
"So? Birds love a man who's ugly in a Bon Scott sort of way. Especially you." Snape rejoined.
Hermione screamed in outrage.
"I see words alone won't suffice!" she howled, and drew her wand.
She was so angry, she forgot that Snape could do wandless magic, and she had no sooner drawn her wand that did he chuckle, "Expelliarmus!", and her wand went flying across the room.
"Fine! I'll fight you like a man, then!"
Now Snape began to get a bit concerned. He had seen Hermione in action, and the only witch who could do more GBH on you than Hermione Granger was Ginny Weasley, who could have done GBH on Muhammad Ali, and that was without turning into a lioness.
"Fine, Granger, I give up. We'll have a fight. I'll insult you and call you nasty names and yell at you, and you can tell me how mean and crude and ugly and low and common I am. Then can we have it off? I mean, I've been busy writing this book, I haven't had it for about a fortnight, so let's hurry this fight up?" Snape replied.
He got out of bed, lit up a cigarette, and walked over to Hermione, all scars and tattoos with his wiry, sinewy, hairy, strong Scotsman's body stuffed into his ancient, grayish, holey, thrift-shop y-fronts.
"Let's see. Have you ever heard of makeup? What about a comb?"
"You're so full of bollocks. You always tell me you like my natural look. And I'm never to cut me hair, cos' it turns you on."
"It does. I like the way it smells."
His voice was thick and snarly with lust.
Hermione had not been expecting him to be feeling quite so randy; she was pleasantly surprised.
She'd much rather fuck than fight, especially with Snape.
He tangled his fist in her hair and leaned into it, taking a deep breath.
She still smelled like the exotic spice of a potions lab, like dragon's blood and mandrake root. The way she had smelled when she was sixteen and he used to watch her work and vainly lust after her in her cool and steely rationality, her beautiful mind unencumbered by sentiment and slosh.
Like a machine. A machine that could spin on sixpence and begin to run very hot indeed; she didn't care if you had her right on the lab table and she got dragon's blood and mandrake root in her hair.
"Divesto!" Snape growled into Hermione's neck, tugging impatiently at her robes.
Her clothes flew off her and Hermione began to tug impatiently at the waistband of Snape's disreputable y-fronts.
She'd meant all of the nasty things she said about him. And they were true.
They were also the things that really turned her on about him.
Hermione didn't like the pretty-boy underwear model type.
Snape's decidedly un-magazine worthy underwear fell around his feet, he stepped out of them, and then they fell into the bed.
By the gods, it looks huge in the light. Only fitting for the head of Slytherin house to have a Great Snake in his nasty grey y-fronts, lunging at you like a cobra from under its hood. Quick to strike and slow to spit it's venom. Still, it kills you every time.
"Granger, I don't wonder you should write that down and send it to your friend Weasley. Sounds like heavy metal lyrics. He could use it in his band."
"Are you reading my mind, you bastard?" she asked, affectionately.
He settled his skinny body between her welcoming thighs; her big, strong legs had always felt so good wrapped up around his waist that it was a pleasure just to lie between them once more.
"Yes."
"Why? Do you want to know how you're doing?"
"No. I like you hear you think the filthy things you're screaming and moaning too loud to say."
Hermione tightened her legs around him.
"Then you'd better rattle my bones, you greasy, skinny git, you!"
It wasn't sweet, it wasn't romantic, and the three little words were pretty much replaced by everyone's favourite two little numbers, but a good time was had by all.
Hermione used Snape's wand to turn the telly back on.
Snape loved telly. He had a telly in every one of his rooms. The only thing he loved more than telly was playing his rock records through his massive stereo so that you could hear them in every one of his rooms.
If you told him that sort of thing was for Muggles, if he was in a charitable mood he would remind you that he was Muggle-born and proud of same and that you could go fuck yourself.
If he was in a less charitable mood, he'd just tell you to go fuck yourself.
If he was in a rotten mood, he'd say something so beastly and snarky and awful to you that you'd want to start to cry.
Good old Snape. He was a good man, loyal and brave and brilliant with a wicked sense of humour and a valiant heart. But he really was a rotten bastard, and that was one of the things she really liked about him.
Right now, though, his prodigious tongue, useful in so many ways, was stilled, as he was sound asleep.
The only time he ever really slept was right around dawn, or right after they had a really good shag or three. He'd roll over into his back, have a smoke, roll over gain, haul her into his embrace, crash out and snore in her ear for about an hour.
Hermione didn't mind. She had earplugs for when she had to sleep, and just used Snape's wand to turn up the telly.
Eventually he woke up, and rolled over onto his back, and used his wand to queue up whatever program he wanted on the telly.
"You know, Sev, I didn't realise it while I was gone, but I missed you. I really did."
He arched his eyebrow and looked down his long aquiline nose at her.
"Of course you did! I missed you too, Granger. Why do you think I was angry that you sent me an owl a month and that was it for a whole fucking year?"
"I don't know what possessed me."
"I do. You get completely enveloped in your work. It's that terrible and magnificent mind of yours. When you start working, you don't eat, you don't wash, you don't sleep. I know you, Hermione. You're the hardest working witch I ever met in my life. I could have any stupid little lovesick dolly bid I want. It's your mind that turns me on. That, and your body. Especially your tits. And your arse."
"Well, I only put up with you being such a greasy Slytherin git because you could fuck professionally and you have a truly beautiful cock."
Snape chuckled.
"It's good to have you back, Granger. Would you like to know what's been going on in your absence?"
The way he said it, Hermione imagined that a lot of things had changed.
"Nobody died, did they?"
"No. But while you were lost in your books, Granger, life went on without you. I bought a house on the same block as the Stately Snape-Prince Family Home. Potter and Miss Weasley live there as well."
"You and Harry live together?"
"Yes, Granger. I know it comes as quite a shock to nice middle class girls from Woolton such as yourself, but us low and common working-class Scousers often come from close families. Why, parents and their children even live together, on occasion, shocking as that might seem." Snape sniped
"Typical! That's the awful thing, being from the middle class. Pansy Parkinson takes every opportunity to make fun of me and call me a dirty Scouser, and you act like I'm some bluenose from Hoylake! John Lennon grew up in Woolton, and he wrote Working Class Hero! You should talk. Your lot ended up in the Spinner's End project near Kenny with the Mersey running through your backyard, but you're from West Derby." Hermione griped.
"John Lennon's parents weren't dentists." Snape replied.
"My Dad is your Dad's dentist! And I live in a semi-detached house!" Hermione howled, indignantly.
Snape shut up.
He had just bought a semi-detached house.
The conversation ground to a standstill.
"So, how are all my friends doing?" Hermione finally asked, in a very small voice.
"Harry has become something of a born-again Scouser. He and Miss Weasley are both attending Merseyside Magical, and so is Mr. Weasley. Part-time. Miss Weasley made the Quidditch team as Seeker, and the aurors have just dropped the assault charges on her that were pending after a particularly nasty match with Manchester. They are all furious with you, except Mr. Weasley, who is under the impression that you've either died or been forcibly obliviated."
Before Hermione could make any reply, Snape got up, put on his trousers and started for the door.
"I have some work to do on my book. I'll need you to brew up ten gallons of the Purple Doom antidote."
"But Severus…"
Snape turned around and gave her his imperious, raised-eyebrow look.
"But nothing. Get to work." he said, and promptly left the room.
As she got dressed and prepared to start working, it occurred to Hermione that she was not completely forgiven. Then, it occurred to her that she couldn't fix the damage she had done with a shag and a smile.
It was definitely time to get to work, and Hermione was just beginning to realise how much work she had cut out for herself.
"Fuck me, what have I done?" she asked herself.