The gentle aroma of oregano and basil drifted up from the kitchen to the rooms Hermione was preparing on the second floor. She breathed in deeply, putting the final touches on one of the smaller bedrooms, this one for Lee, Percy and Dean. The quilts were soft, and done in shades of pale blue, orange and green. Narcissa had been busy while Hermione and Snape 'procured' their vehicles.
Absently, Hermione charmed their walls a muted yellow.
"We are done in zhere," said Fleur, peaking her head around the door frame, her hair spilling in a sheet around her shoulders.
"Great, lets take a look," Hermione replied, wiping her hands on her denims. In the master bedroom, Fleur and Narcissa had been quite busy, magically enlarging and refinishing. Five single beds were laid out in a rough circle, although the room was square, and were clothed in crisp white linens and comforters.
Fleur took Hermione into the closet, which had been enlarged a touch, as well as having a small enchanted window added. "I am grateful for you giving Beel and I privacy, 'Ermione," she said. Hermione only waved her hand at her.
The other rooms Fleur and Narcissa completed were similar, the two in the attic now partitioned with a small, cramped corridor at the top of the stairs and doors leading into the bathroom and two bedrooms. They had sloped ceilings, but each were still comfortable, despite being shared by five people apiece.
Hermione turned around a few times to get a feel of the space. "These are lovely, Fleur."
She shrugged gallically. "We liked the decorating."
"Snape should be done with dinner, if you'd like to head down," said Hermione. "I'm just going to add a few more wards to the windows before I join you."
Fleur disappeared down the stairs as Hermione got to work, weaving runes and protective wards to the upstairs windows. Sweating as she finished, she laid down on one of the beds, one she figured was hers and stared at the door.
She lost track of time laying there, but soon Luna was at the door.
"You'll want dinner," she said, drifting to the bed next to Hermione's. "I've finished the portkeys and will take them after we eat."
Hermione yawned. "Thanks, Luna."
"Professor Snape cooks very well," Luna told her. "He made cioppino."
She looked bewildered. "What?"
"I think potions masters would be the best cooks," Luna replied.
"No," Hermione laughed. "What did he cook?"
Luna looked lazily up at the ceiling. "Cioppino. Italian seafood stew. My mum used to make it with grindylow too. I don't think Professor Snape has the grindylow, though."
Hermione only sighed pleasantly. "Come on then."
The smells of oregano and basil intensified as they descended, now mixed with the heady smells of thyme and garlic.
In the kitchen, Severus sat at the island bar with a book in his hands, the stew simmering on the stove.
"Smells lovely," said Hermione, taking in his tall, lean figure. He looked up at her, the last remnants of the sun flashing across his reading glasses.
He inclined his head.
"Would you like me to get the plates ready?" Luna asked.
Hermione took her bag off her arm and dug for a moment, pulling out two rather battered looking china bowls and a few odds and ends of silverware. "That's all I've got," she shrugged.
Luna took them from Hermione good naturedly and trotted off into the sitting room to set about duplicating them.
Lifting the lid from the large stock-pot that Hermione recognized as one of his cauldrons-cum-child's play pot enlarged, she smelled deeply.
"You might try some of the broth," he suggested, not looking up from his book.
She did, ladling some onto the wooden spoon he was using for stirring and putting it to her lips. His eyes were on her, now, as she rolled the flavor around her tongue. It was rich, comfortable and lemony, with a hint of heat provided by red pepper.
Snape hadn't taken his eyes from her.
"It's delicious," pronounced Hermione, placing the spoon back on a paper-towel.
He nodded and put down his book. "The bread will be finishing," he said. "Would you pull it out of the oven?"
She did, opening the door and using a dish towel to pull the loaves out to cool on the stone counter. "Smells good."
Using a long knife, Snape cut through the center of one loaf, steam curling out and around his hand. "Done," he pronounced, and began slicing in a comfortable, even rhythm the rest of the loaf. Hermione stole the fluffy heel end of the bread and began chewing contentedly.
"Minx," Snape mumbled, wrapping the loaves in a towel. Hermione quickly transfigured the pan he had baked the bread on into a sort of bread platter. She carried the bread into the dining room, where Neville was putting the finishing touches on a rather lopsided table and six rickety chairs.
"Thanks, Nev." Hermione said, putting down the bread in the center of the table.
He blushed. "Fleur and Mrs. Malfoy were much better at transfiguration than me."
"It'll hold." She gave the table a vigorous shake and was satisfied at it's stability.
Wiping at a smudge on the corner of the walnut-hued table with his wool sweater, Neville said, "We'll be needing to go to the market after dinner, won't we?"
Hermione sat gently onto the chair at the end of the table, trying not to wince. "I suppose so," she said.
"I can go," he said. "I know how to drive a car."
Taking another piece of bread, she broke it in half and offered it to Neville. "That would be good. Take Fleur and Narcissa too. Especially Narcissa. She's really got to get used to being in the Muggle world for a while."
Neville chewed thoughtfully for a while, swallowed. "You'll be ok here alone?"
Hermione scoffed jokingly. "I can take care of myself. And besides, I won't be alone. Snape's here."
"I worry about you, 'Mione," replied Neville, sitting down at her left, his chair pulling out with a soft whisper over the hardwood floor.
Hermione shook her head. "You shouldn't. I've got everything under control."
She looked around, at this unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar country and said it again, this time more to herself than to Neville.
Luna brought in the dishes and flatware, setting the table irreverently while Narcissa did some quick leveling charms on the table and Fleur busied herself making drinks. Snape brought out the cioppino and began doling out portions before sitting on Hermione's right.
"I'd like to pray, if that's all right," said Hermione after everyone had their portion. She looked down the table, Neville on her left, then Luna, Severus on her right, then Narcissa, then Fleur at her opposite.
Severus looked on at her placidly, then extended his left hand to her, and his right to Narcissa. Neville took up the idea, taking Luna's hand and Hermione's. Fleur did the same at the other end, grabbing for Narcissa and Luna.
Something happened, Hermione noted, as the circle was completed. There was a sense of calm and understanding that flowed through the group, as if the simple act of touching, of extending themselves to the ones around them, the act of merging from a group of differences: Severus the Death Eater, Narcissa the Society Wife, Fleur the Bombshell, Luna the Oddball, Neville the Klutz and Hermione the Bookworm; into something bigger than their respective titles: into a real family of their own choosing.
Her voice shook as she spoke her prayer, just like it had for Severus and her Christmas meal. "We need your help," she began. "There are more of us here now, and we're grateful to be together, but there are still more that need to be seen safely to us. We have this amazing meal and each other, but we will still sleep in cold beds. Please keep the others safe, and Luna as she takes their portkeys. Does God know about portkeys?" She shook her head. "I digress. We're still holding out for a great intercession, but I think dumb luck might do it too."
As he had on Christmas, Severus pronounced the Amen again, in his deep, clear voice.
They began to eat in silence, the tingle from where their hands had joined still evident. The shrimp, calamari and crab were cooked perfectly, Hermione thought as she devoured her stew, sopping up the last of the broth with the bread. Luna and Fleur cleared the table while Narcissa worked a bit more on the table and chairs at Neville's request.
"I want to show you something," Neville said when Narcissa had finished the chairs. "In the kitchen."
Curiosity spurred Hermione out of her chair to follow her friend who had stopped in front of the pantry.
"You need your own room, 'Mione- you're our leader now and you know it. It was Luna's idea that we do this for you," Neville explained opening the door, into what was the pantry, for Hermione. Inside was a tiny room, obviously enlarged, with a double bed and a small writing desk beside it. She stepped inside, hardly able to squeeze past the foot of the bed to the space beside, merely four or five feet. The desk at the head of the bed was a duplicate of the one in the hotel, with the same chair as was there.
She turned gratefully to Neville. "Thank you," she whispered, climbing over the bed to embrace him.
He blushed, "It was nothing. We just thought you'd appreciate your space."
"Thank you." she whispered again, into his shoulder. Neville had grown taller and more broad in the years since they had left Hogwarts for good. He still tripped every once in a while, and his transfiguration was in fact appalling, but he was a good man and a skilled fighter.
"I had better be getting the girls to the Market, hadn't I?" Neville said after a moment, extracting himself from her arms.
Hermione giggled. "Don't let Narcissa Malfoy hear you call her one of the girls. I think she'd have a fit."
"Never," he replied, slipping out. Hermione laid back on her bed, larger than the ones upstairs, and softer, too, she noted. The thick white coverlet was smooth under her cheek as she closed her eyes, belly full of lovely seafood, made by the man who was her lover.
Or was he? she thought with a start. He had made his intentions known in the car park, she remembered. But...?
The door opened then shut. Hermione heard one of the cars start up.
She rolled over onto her stomach. It didn't matter right now. Right now she was too tired to think straight.
A knock on her door. "Bugger," she muttered, going to it.
It was Luna, her traveling gear on. "I'll be leaving now," she said.
Hermione nodded. "Be safe, Luna."
She laughed, a little tinkling laugh. "Of course I will be. Dullopods-"
"I'm glad you always have a creature keeping you safe, Lovegood," Hermione interjected, smiling. "I'll walk you out."
She opened the sliding glass door to the back yard for Luna, who crunched across the frost on the grass to the property line, which glowed pink for a second when she crossed it.
Luna waved her multi-colored, mittened hand and was gone. Hermione, though, stood looking out into the cold night for quite a while.
"Close the door, you silly girl," Severus said from behind her. "You're letting all the heat out."
She did, turning to him with deep circled and haunted eyes. He took pity.
"Come," he said, taking her by the bicep. He led her into her room and cast a warming charm on her cool sheets. "Lay down."
Doing as he requested, she took off her shoes and jumper and laid on her stomach again, her arms pillowing her head.
Without warning, Snape grasped gently at the hem of her undershirt, tugging it up and over her head. Pushing up on her forearms, Hermione pulled the shirt past her shoulders and onto the floor before collapsing down to the sheets again.
His hands lit upon the flat plane above her hips, the heels applying delicate pressure to the tense and tired muscles there, and gently sliding upward toward her shoulders in smooth, even strokes. Just as Hermione was beginning to loosen up, he switched motions, his hands going in small circles, his left picking up seamlessly from where his right left off. It was deeper than before, but still not as deep as her muscles were crying for.
Severus' hands flitted up and down her spine slowly, finally beginning to knead at her shoulders, her flesh sliding through his fingers, the tension releasing. Tensing and releasing as he worked his way down from her shoulders to her hips, Hermione let out a low, poorly restrained moan. He chuckled quietly, pressing deeper and more penetratingly on each pass, her body going to jelly.
Just when the pressure of Hermione's tight muscles had receded, Severus began trailing his fingers down each side of her spine, loosening the crimped muscles from his kneading. The touches petered out into feather-light strokes of his fingers tracing inarticulate patterns over her sated back as if to say, 'I'm not going to massage you any longer, but I'll give you a moment to come to grips with that'.
The stroking stopped after a few minutes, but the loss of touch was quickly replaced by Severus' smooth chest tucking itself against her back.
"When did you remove your jacket and shirt?" Hermione asked sleepily.
She felt him smile against her neck, his breath coming in warm puffs. "I just gave you a massage and you want to know when I removed my shirt..."
Gently, so as not to disturb her languor, Severus reached down and unbuttoned the fly of Hermione's trousers and inched them down her legs and off with her help. "Would you like pajamas?" he asked.
She nodded, pointing to her bag on the desk. The bed dipped as he left it, ignoring her bag and instead taking his shirt from the chair and wrapping it around her, buttoning the buttons as she looked on with half-lidded, grateful eyes.
"Under the covers," he commanded, pulling them back for her and trying not to stare at her legs as she slid under.
She rustled around for a moment, got comfortable and looked up at him, her large, doe-ish eyes meeting his. "Stay?"
"For a while," he conceded, laying down beside her on the outside edge of the bed and letting her arms and legs tangle with his in a warm jumble. Hermione sighed happily and comfortably.
"When you became the defense professor? Really?" she said into his neck, staring at the fine unruly hairs on the side of his head.
He sighed exaggeratedly, "Must you bring that up?"
Hermione nuzzled closer. "Yes. Was it the skirt?"
"No," he ground out. "It was not those dratted skirts."
"Then what was it?" She playfully pressed.
Severus let out a long-suffering sigh, playing with a lock of Hermione's hair. "You really must know?"
Another girlish giggle, so unlike the Hermione that he had always known, or at least thought he'd known. "Yes."
Another exaggerated sigh, so unlike the Severus she had always known, or at least thought she'd known. "Fine."
She waited, near giggling. "It was at Slughorn's Christmas party. You wore that damnably gorgeous black dress and flounced around like you didn't know what you looked like."
"Well," Hermione commented sensibly. "I had turned seventeen by then."
"You think that makes it better, do you?" he asked, bolstering himself further up with pillows to look at her face.
She smiled genuinely. "You liked that dress?"
"I've said," he replied.
"I borrowed it from Parvati Patil," she explained, taking one of his hands in hers and examining it. "It was a horrid orangey color before that suited her quite well, but not me. I left early partly to escape Cormac MacLeggan and partly because my color charms have never been great."
Severus flexed his fingers outward for her perusal, "You've freckles on your nose."
"You noticed that then?"
"No," he said seriously, "I noticed that just now. I noticed your hips then."
She scrambled to look him in the eye, straddling his waist. "My hips?"
"Yes," he commented leisurely, bringing his hands to said assets. "And your breasts..."
Bucking his hands off defiantly she retorted, "Well, I've wanted you since I was at least fifteen."
"You've got me beat," he replied, dipping his head to close his lips around her nipple, showing itself through the thin white material of his shirt.
Hermione smiled, tipping her head back in satisfaction. "You're not going to let me go to sleep at seven in the evening, are you?"
He released her assaulted nipple, leaving a cool, wet spot on the cotton of the shirt she wore. "No."
She mock sighed. "Well, if that's the way it's going to be..."
Pulling her head down to him for a kiss, Severus hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Hermione's underwear, pulling it off around her arse and down her thighs.
"What do you want?" Hermione demanded, batting away his exploring hands.
He growled with impatience, shoving her off his lap ungracefully. Hermione landed with a feathery thump in the center of the bed on her side. Before she could get indignant with him for his unceremonious dumping, his left hand had worked its way down past her navel to push her panties further down her calves, to her ankle where he took them from her to stuff in his trouser pocket.
"Those are mine!" Hermione exclaimed, "We're refugees! I only have three pair!"
"You're a witch, my girl," he growled. "Duplicate some."
Caressing his left hand down to where he had taken her panties from, he deftly parted her and sunk his index finger into her, stroking languidly. Her first orgasm came easily, almost too readily, but Severus was not done in the slightest. Stroking her gently and rhythmically, he coaxed her to a second dizzying peak, after some ten minutes of murmuring endearments and encouragements into the delicate shell of her ear.
As she came down after her second climax, he trailed his finger up her folds to trace them around the shape of her lips, which were quivering from her heavy breathing.
Pushing up her shirt over her breasts, he pinched and teased her ripe little nipples, he entered her from where she lay on her right side. It took several pushes, because although she was fully aroused, it had still been quite a long time- at least, a long time before the previous night. When he achieved his goal and was seated inside her, he began long, languorous strokes, careful not to disturb her dreamlike state.
Their engagement was cinematographic, in a way; they were beautiful together. Little snapshots flashed before them: of Severus' long fingers pressing into her flank, their intertwined feet- Hermione's toes curling and flexing, her hand: coming over her shoulder to grip the back of Severus' head.
He stroked in, she pushed back; writhing together on the coverlet. Their first time had obviously been brilliant, and combustible- but this time was intimate, almost loving. Severus began to speak into Hermione's ear as he neared completion- something that she almost expected, after all, he had done it the night before.
"So good, my girl, so wet...tight..." he whispered before lightly biting the ball of her shoulder. He moaned his climax against the tender nape of her neck, convulsing and spilling. As they jerked spasmodically on the way back to earth, he gently and nearly tenderly laid kisses across her neck, almost reluctant to let go of their tenuous hold on bliss.
His lips were still on her skin when Hermione felt him slip into sleep.