AN: I got a bit inspired last night. Also, to all you wonderful, incredible reviewers, I LOVE YOU :D You motivate me to write more!

I still have no idea where this fic is going to take us. I have vague scenes cropping up here and there, but nothing concrete. I'm discovering the story just as you guys are :D

Also, I forgot to mention earlier - Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand. I just doesn't immediately bring sheep sheering or shagging to mind...

I do not own anything you recognise. And now, on with the show.

This is fresh-off-my-brain and un-beta'd.

It's in your eyes, a color fade out
Looks like a new transition
The starting up and shaking your ground
Turning your head to see a new day calling

When he returned to the lounge, clean and having inspected every inch of the rest of the house, Susan Bones had left and Hermione was the only body curled up on the window seat. She looked up from her refilled mug of tea to catch him staring, drinking the sight of her in. The sun was setting, umber light seeping through her hair and throwing hints of burnt sienna and gold. Her eyes glittered.

"She has returned to the hospital," she said. "I offered a sanctuary here, but she declined." Her breath expelled in a huff. "She will conduct her own searches through the libraries she has at her disposal." He perked up and she flashed him a grin, more a baring of teeth than with any humour. "I shall do what I do best. Research."

"Allow me to place myself at your disposal," he said with a small bow. This time the corners of her lips twitched upwards in pleasure. "I own a number of texts on wandless magic that may be of assistance, at least to begin with."

"I would review them now, if I may," she acceded, rising from the window seat with a devastating fluidity. He inhaled piceous whorls that crept from her skin and exhaled his relief. She was no longer hiding from him. Her eyes were amber liquid and he was intoxicated. With a force of will, or he would sweep her up into his arms and cradle her from the world, he dropped his eyes. Her slippers encroached on the tops of his vision and he started when her fingers brushed the top of his head.

"I shall bring them to your rooms shortly," he said. He felt her smile and her hand withdrew, feet ghosting past him to her bedroom. Her door snicked shut and he could breathe again.

Circe but he didn't know himself. His hands trembled and he stuffed them under his armpits to hide them. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. All his carefully built layers of control were stripped, and all he could do was react to her instantaneously. His brain would not filter, process, only act to the immediate stimulus of her.

She'd said she had tainted him. She had done more than that. She had opened his brain to her, carved out slices and reconstructed him, and now he was tied to her. He was at the beck and call of a girl-child. He tried to be disgusted at himself and couldn't, for to be disgusted at himself he would first need to not want this connection. He could not find it in himself to reject her or what she had done to him.

His feet took him to stop at the door of his own quarters. His rooms were closest to all entrances, a position of defence, of protection. Her rooms were deeper in the bowels of this deceptive cabin. His door creaked open before him, and he entered his space.

A large bed was pressed against the golden wood of the wall, window letting the dying light in to splash across his dark bed spread. An ornate wardrobe contained all of his clothing, exactly as he had left it last night, before the party. One of the doors led to his own library, floor-to-ceiling shelves already stuffed with his books, and a pair of comfortable arm chairs overlooking a view of the ocean. The other door led to a laboratory filled with the contents of his private laboratory at Hogwarts.

Butler had been meticulous.

His fingertips easily found the books he sought. He could not fault the elf on attention to detail. Eloquent Spellcasting was the first to be removed from the shelf. Simple Sorcery of the Hand joined the growing pile. He hadn't fully contemplated how many books on wandless magic his collection truly contained. Hocus Pocus and All That Jazz was a more recent publication, and, despite its title, contained a delightfully indepth analysis of wandless magic theory and methodology.

As he straightened his back to collect the pile, Butler appeared with an audible pop. The hackles on his neck rose and his eyes narrowed. The elf did not appear daunted. "I shall take these to our lady." Butler's eyes bored into his, unchallenging but resolute. "She is abed." This was said more forcefully. Severus nodded, once, and spun away. The stack of books disappeared with the elf, and he was left to his own devices once more.

And once more to wondering what was happening to him.

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