While they hadn't had a formal meal since they had arrived, there had been nibbles all afternoon. He'd just finished a plate of fruit and cheeses when he was ushered to the hair salon.
Faster than he would have liked, he found himself in a chair, a horrible plastic tarpaulin tied around his neck. He was faced with a young, female stylist who looked far too eager to have at his head. She stood behind him, one hand clutching a pair of scissors, the other tangling her fingers through his hair, which was still pulled back from his facial.
"Would you like to donate your hair to wigmakers, Mr. Snape?"
"What? People even do that? Just how much of my hair do you think you're going to cut off?"
With his hair pulled back, he was being forced to stare at his own face in the mirror. Quite a bit more lined than in years past, but less harsh and angular. He was still thin, but even he thought he looked better than the old days, like someone had made a point to make him eat on a daily basis.
"Oh, about this much!" the giggling hairdresser announced and, grasping firmly at his queue, cut through his hair just above the tie with what must have been the sharpest pair of scissors imaginable. In her hand, now, was at least 11 inches of grey-streaked sable hair.
He felt as if his arm had been sliced off. Yes, he had let it get a little long lately, but he hadn't had his hair short in years… hadn't felt air whisper over his neck…
Damn, it tickles.
"So is that a yes for donation, Mr. Snape?"
"Fine!" They were Muggles, and he very much doubted any wizards much cared about using his spare body parts for potions ingredients these days.
She giggled again and spun his chair around. "Now, now, we can't have you seeing the new you until the very end! Close your eyes; I'm going to be doing quite a lot of work in the front, and I don't want you getting hair into those big brown eyes!"
Snape surmised that this woman and Dumbledore must be related; only Albus could ever be quite this saccharine and perky and yet still make him miserable.
The snip, snip of the scissors was hypnotic, and the stylist mercifully quiet as she got to work.
After quite a bit of time, punctuated by his stylist nudging his head forward, backward, and sideways, he felt the chair spin once again.
"Okay," she announced, "open your eyes!"
He peeked one eye open first, then the other and was immediately flabbergasted.
His hair, parted off center for the first time since last he went to church with his dad (1969?), fell across his forehead. He had not realized just how much grey was in his hair, but now his head looked positively streaky, bits of black and grey and silver marbled together. She had put something in it to make it stick up a bit in a style quite like his seventh-years'. The sideburns, kept rather long, highlighted the angles of his cheeks rather than making him look completely ridiculous.
He felt vulnerable with so much of his face on display, the creases at the corners of his eyes no longer hidden by curtains of hair, his ears just hanging out for all to see.
He had lost all his gravitas. He had seen similar hairstyles in the glossy magazines his female students perused in the common room. "Hairporn," they often said, drooling over pictures of movie and telly stars. All of his authority currently rested on the floor of the salon.
"I suppose," he swallowed, searching for the words, "I should thank you…"
"Violette, sir."
"Violette."
He was back to having to wash his hair every day. Monthly visits to Hogsmeade to get trims… unless he grew it back out…
"Don't you dare, Severus."
Hermione came into view from around the corner.
"Dare what?"
"Grow it back out. You look smashing."
And so did she. Most of the bulk had been cut from her hair, which now graced her shoulders, a soft fringe angling across her forehead, her curls bouncier than ever. One of the locks whispered across her collarbone, peeking out of the collar of the robe. He wondered how she would respond if…
"Are you quite alright?"
He sighed. "Quite."
During their interaction, Violette had procured a dustpan and broom. "You'll want to take a shower, sir. You've got bits of hair everywhere. Just try not to mess up your hair. It's the nicest it will look, as I assume you have no experience with styling products. And tucking a tin labeled "pommade" in his hand, she ushered them toward the elevator.
It was nearing nine p.m., and without a full meal since lunch, he was ravenous. And if Luna were truly paying for all of this, he would make her suffer. Steak, lobster, caviar… Whatever the most expensive items on the menu were, he would be ordering them all.
Hermione fished their room key from her robe pocket and opened the door. Elaborately set up in the room was a romantic dinner for two, the contents of which were hiding under large silver plate covers. A decanted bottle of red wine sat on the edge of the table. Various desserts were arranged on a side table along with a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket.
It was too much.
"Buggering bugger, bugger-fucking what the—FUCK!"
Hermione's eyes widened in response to his ridiculously juvenile outburst. "Severus, it's just dinner!"
"All I wanted was to come up here, order something obscenely decadent to punish Lovegood for this hellish weekend, and get in the shower to remove all this hair off my shoulders and neck. I'm itchy!"
Yes, he was being petulant and sulky. No, he really didn't care. His arms, crossed over his chest, were more indicative of a pouting child than a brooding man, and he couldn't bring himself to stop.
And of course, the damnable witch looked up at him with an amused smirk.
"Severus, get in the shower. Get un-itchy. Find some clothes. By the time you've finished, I'll have poured this wine, and we'll both get properly sloshed. We may be stuck here together, but dammit, I'm going to enjoy my time off."
Somehow in her little speech, she had gotten close, far too close, her hands undoing the tie of his robe. She had pushed the robe off his shoulders, and it lay pooled at his feet.
"Now," her hands found his shoulders once again, spinning him, "off to the shower with you, then." And as he walked away, she playfully smacked his ass.
He spun back abruptly. "Granger…," he growled.
"Hurry up; I'm famished!" She turned and walked toward the table, and in spite of the voluminous robe, he was still able to watch her arse sway as she moved.
These cold showers were beginning to get annoying.
When he returned, she was seated at the table, legs crossed at the knee, in a short pinkish negligee, showing off most of the length of her legs and cut dangerously low.
"It was either this or nothing, so quit your drooling, Snape."
His options hadn't been much better. Silken pants in a variety of colors. He'd picked red just to throw her off. He didn't mind noticing that she seemed just as drawn to his chest as he was to hers.
"Was nothing an option? Because if so…" He tucked his thumb in the waistband and looked at her daringly, hoping she would show the courage and madness he'd seen glimpses of all day.
"Don't start something you won't finish..." Her eyes flicked away from his face, but did he see hope there? "Sit down, and let's see what Luna has planned for us."
He removed the cover from his meal, steam rising and hitting him in the nose.
He looked down at a plate of steak, lobster (How had Luna known? Oh, right, Seer.) and seasonal vegetables. Hermione seemed equally happy with her food, some sort of pasta with cream sauce, filled with vegetables. He knew she had a weak spot for pasta. It seemed Luna did, too.
He looked up to find her smiling, her glass raised. Quirking an eyebrow, he raised his as well.
"To years of hiding from this exact moment," she said, smiling, before clinking her glass with his.
Afraid that he was still managing to interpret her words incorrectly, he simply nodded before sipping his wine. She probably just meant getting him to get a haircut.
They ate their meal in companionable silence. He wondered what she was thinking but did not feel comfortable pressing, keeping his eyes fixed to his plate. The wine slowly drained from the decanter, and her cheeks became flush. He felt it was particularly warm in the room as well.
"Severus?" Her voice cut through his reverie.
"Yes?"
"You do realize you may have to fight me for that cheesecake."
He pulled a face he hoped would translate as wounded. "My dear, you should know by now I never enter fights I have no chance of winning."
She giggled, and he smiled before rising and walking to the dessert table. He reached for the bottle of champagne and turned to her as he opened it. Her eyes moved to his biceps, of course in plain view (Damn this lack of clothing!) as he held the cork and twisted the bottle.
"I always have, you know."
He was shocked. "Have what?"
"Liked the view. Though, I can honestly say not as much before now." She stuck out her hand, demanding a flute, and he acquiesced. How could he not?
He procured both of their desserts, the second flute tucked under his arm. She had stacked their dinner things to one side of the table, and he placed the cheesecake in front of her. A curl had fallen across her eye, and it was almost more than he could bear to not tuck it behind her ear.
Wine, proximity, and so much visible skin was making him far more vulnerable than he liked. This spa was terrifying him in ways he didn't know he could still be frightened. For once, it wasn't fear of bodily harm; it was fear of rejection.
Damn you, Lovegood.
He poured himself a glass of champagne as he watched her. She looked far too pleased with her choice of pudding, savoring each bite in such a way that he could not look away from her lips.
"Granger—"
"You're going to have to call me Hermione one of these days, you know. I'm pretty sure sitting half-starkers in front of each other, generally speaking, classifies as the appropriate day."
He hesitated. "Hermione, then. Why do you think we're here?"
Without Veritaserum, which at this point, he would not be above using had he had it in his pocket, he had to hope three glasses of wine and a glass of champagne would be the right amount of liquid courage to get her to talk. He hadn't missed that guilty look on her face when he had first arrived, and he knew she was hiding something.
"Because Luna has a wicked sense of humor," she said without pause.
"I don't understand."
"I may have made a comment at the last staff mixer that it would take a day at a spa and a complete makeover to make you realize that I was the only appropriately aged person at Hogwarts for you and that I was sick of you not asking me to dance."
"To dance?"
"Yes, Severus. I like dancing."
Not the answer he had been expecting, or hoping for, but it would suffice.
"I like dancing too," he said, pausing for a sip of champagne. "And it didn't take today to make me notice you."
She smiled. "Good." She drained her second glass. "Now, I do believe it is time for me to brush my teeth and go to bed. I do apologize in advance for the Medusa-curls in the morning."
As she walked to the bathroom, he gasped. Bed. He'd quite forgotten about that part.
When she returned, he was seated at the head of the bed on top of the blankets, arms crossed across his chest, legs crossed at the ankles. Her side of the bed was turned down, a buffer zone of pillows down the center. As soon as she fell asleep, he would perform his nightly ablutions and try to sleep.
Was that a look of disappointment that crossed her face?
She clicked off the light and slipped between the sheets, facing him, spooning one of the pillows.
"Bathroom's yours. They have cinnamon toothpaste. I quite like it."
Damn, she'd seen right through his plan. He made his way to the bathroom slowly, hoping not to trip on anything in the darkened room.
He brushed his teeth and waited in the bathroom for about twenty minutes, hoping it would be long enough for the wine to lull her to sleep. His eyes, better acclimated to the dark, saw her curled up under the blankets, her head covered by sheets, the line of pillows bifurcating the bed.
Careful not to wake her, and musing that this was a rather crap way to spend the night in the same bed with another person, he slowly laid down, curled on his side away from her, careful not to even touch the pillows.
"You didn't think you'd get rid of me that easily," she murmured in his ear sleepily.
The tricky woman had switched places with the pillows and now spooned her body behind his, her hand drifting up his stomach to rest on his sternum. And resigning himself to his fate, he leaned back into her warmth and covered her hand with his own.
