UNTOUCHED
A story by Anette S
Disclaimer: Still Jo's. I play with them. No money here.
Author's note: Thank you for reading! I love your comments, you are the best!
Love, Anette
Chapter 8
Our little secret
She glanced out the window disinterestedly while she reached for a t-shirt to wear to bed. The evenings have become chillier as August sneaked away, and she wouldn't have noticed but for these quiet moments alone. The nights were, probably, equally if not more cold, but she was blissfully unaware of that. Her nights were warm, spent in secrecy in a place that called out to her every evening around bedtime.
This night was no exception. The difference was that she had made peace with it and stopped fighting it. The urge to go there yet again, to seek the warmth and safety only became stronger as the day progressed.
She took off her slippers, because bare feet made less noise to the attuned werewolf' ears in this house. Almost as an afterthought, but only almost, she grabbed her potion from the night stand.
The door didn't creek, thankfully. The hallway was almost dark, a faint ray of moonlight sneaking in through a window somewhere, the light finding its way to her floor in some unexplainable manner.
She turned the doorknob, and pushed in, finding it unlocked, again. Waiting for her. Open to her, for her. Inviting.
Her eyes swept over the room gently, noticing the discarded quills on the small desk, the half-finished glass of Ogden's. A few parchments. A soldier-boy toy. She giggled at the sight.
He sat in bed with his slim reading glasses perched on his nose, holding a magazine in one, and a quill in the other hand.
Finally her eyes met his' and she closed the door. He put the magazine and the quill down, waved his hand and the doorknob turned on its own. If she could feel it, she would have felt the wards go up, successfully protecting their little secret from the world outside.
They never spoke until she was in his arms, and tonight was no exception. Only, this time her walk to the bed was steady, practiced during the last weeks they have been engaging in this little arrangement. Her eyes no longer wondered if she was crossing any lines, or if this was the night he would look at her and see her for who she was… a used up rag. She begun to believe him, believe in him, to recognize the warmth in his eyes as something genuine, unique, something she was still afraid to delve further into, but knew there was so much more underneath.
She knelt on the bed and he turned the covers down, taking off his reading glasses with his other hand.
She slipped in next to him as if it was her rightful place, as if she belonged there since forever, as if this was not just another proof how pathetic she was. But she didn't care. As she moved in into his inviting arms, she didn't care how she found herself there.
They never talked about this either. She wanted, but didn't have the courage to speak. As if voicing it would make their situation suddenly too real. He had told her that first night… "Anytime". And he also never tried to mention the obvious fact that she was sharing his bed for three weeks now.
She accepted that some things were better left unsaid, and that many things could be felt in silence. Surely, they spoke, of little things, of literature, of her likings and his bedtime rituals.
"Severus?" she whispered after she was securely wrapped both in his arms and the comforter.
"Hmmm?" he said in reply, trying to sound casual. In truth, there was nothing casual about it, for he always feared that a moment will come when she would ask him why he let her sleep in his bed. And he would not be able to lie to her. Then she would be gone, and he left alone as he was for years and years before the strange game of fates brought her into his arms on that one fateful night.
"When was Teddy here?" she asked, turning slightly to look at the soldier-boy toy.
He let out a slow breath of relief. She won't ask. Not tonight. Good. "Right after dinner. He demanded I play with him, bringing a whole army of those little things in here. Horses and all."
She chuckled. He adored that sound. Especially when something he said made her produce it. "And? Who won?"
He smiled, although she couldn't see it. His hand slowly brushed her side over the comforter. His smile grew when she relaxed into him, rather than shy away from his gesture. "Even I am not that cruel to beat a three year old boy in a game of battle."
She let out a long breath, the warmth of it tickling his chest, the soft vibrations of her murmur as she spoke too distracting for him to understand her words.
"Pardon?" he asked.
"I said you are not cruel."
His heart skipped at her words. Sure, this was not the first time she bestowed a compliment of his character upon him, and she always did it casually, almost as an afterthought, giving him no reason to doubt her words. She said it as if it was something completely normal to say, and for him to hear, when in fact Severus Snape had never before in his life been awarded compliments of any kind on a daily basis. She always had a kind word for him, a touch, a thought. He was falling so madly in love with her whole being that he was discovering new depths of his restraint every night when her leg brushed his. He loved her mind, her hair, her soul and her eyelashes, in such a disarrayed order, and he never stopped to think a moment about it. No, if she could lay with him every night and not question it, he could love her in any way her felt inside and not question it. Trust was something he had been learning from her, every day and every night.
"Severus?"
"Yes?"
"How much?"
Always the same question. At first he wondered why she made such a big issue over her potion, but now he understood. It was the first of many areas of her life she was desperately struggling to regain control over.
And then, added softly, but only to the untrained ear. "Could we try less?"
He smiled. "I think we could try one third of a dosage."
Her reaction was instant, and not thought out. Her reaction was part childish exuberance, part feminine triumph. Seeing both emotions so evidently displayed on her face brought forth a special kind of pride to swell in his lungs. For he was the first, and the only one to see it on her beautiful face.
In a flash, she sat up, her eyes boring into his' with such joy, and then she was squishing him, her hair in his face, over it, everywhere, her arms sneaking under his torso, trying to hug him with everything she had in her. Her legs now resting on either side of him, although she didn't pay any attention to it at the moment, and neither did he. He just let himself savour her moment of joy, let his arms wrap around her as he returned her embrace.
She lifted her head to face him, her lips so dangerously close to his', not that she noticed. With a grin as wide as her heart, she said "That means I am getting better."
He returned her smile with his own, and it was a full smile. A gentle smile. Something only she was privileged to see. "You are getting better."
In a split of a second she became aware of the way she was straddling him, the way he was holding her, the way his lips looked so soft and inviting.
She sat up and moved away from him, masking her escape in an attempt to grab the potion.
"I'm sorry," she whispered while looking at the floor, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding the vial of her potion with a half dosage inside.
He ran his hand through his hair, sighed and stood up, taking a different, slightly smaller vial out of the drawer of his nightstand. Solemnly, he walked to her and knelt on the floor between her knees.
"Hermione, look at me."
She shook her head, gritting her teeth while trying to hold in the tears that appeared out of nowhere.
"Look. At. Me." He whispered again, slower, softer.
"I can't talk about this… don't make me talk about this," she said, her voice not masking the fear and despair that poured out of her.
"I won't make you do anything. Although I would like for you to take this," he said, placing a smaller vial in her palm and taking the other one she held.
"This is one-third of a dose," she said, looking at the bottle. "How did you?" She asked, meeting his eyes. There was so much pain in her eyes.
"I hoped this would be the night you asked for it," he answered softly, taking her hands in his'. "You see, only you know when you are ready to lower the dosage. I just had faith that you would ask for it."
"You have too much faith in me," she whispered, a tone of defeat in her voice.
"I could never have too much faith in you," he said as he rose off the floor and took her with him. "Now, let's go to sleep. Hopefully the first dream will come sooner with the smaller dosage and we can rest longer afterwards."
She was still having nightmares every night, and every night he was there when she shook in terror, woke up in cold sweat clinging to him, sometimes screaming, sometimes whimpering. But with time, the nightmares lessened in intensity. Now she was coherent from the moment she woke up, she knew where she was and who she was with. She knew the dreams were her past. It was progress.
"What if it gets worse?" she whispered in fear. She didn't want it to get worse again.
He sighed and pulled her into his arms, holding her head gently to his chest, caressing her hair as he spoke. "I don't know if it will get worse. We will just have to tackle it if it happens. I hope it won't though. You are healing remarkably fast, and you have made such amazing progress in three weeks. There is no need to worry about something until it happens, if it even happens at all."
And perhaps it was the sound of his voice, more than the words he was saying, perhaps it was the touch of his breath on her forehead, but she relaxed and told herself that she had come this far and she would go on until she was the master of her nights once more. Secretly, she dreamed of a night when she would lay with him and fall asleep lulled by the sound of his voice or the soft light of a reading candle, not the affect of a potion that was her omnipresent crutch.
And it never even occurred to her to further investigate the fact that he was still in her bed at that illusory moment in her daydreams.
