Hermione leaned against her bedroom door as she closed it, feeling like a teenager after her first kiss, heady and slightly drunk off the newfound emotions.
Her heels were still on, and as she kicked them off, she caught one of them on the carpet and slammed herself accidentally against the door, falling into a sad pile on top of her discarded shoes.
Rather than rise, Hermione removed the heel poking her and tossed it across the room in a mix of frustration and defeat.
I want that, too? What in Merlin's name are you playing at, Hermione? She had dismissed him quickly after that, rushing them both through pasta and half-heartedly excusing herself by stating she needed to be up early.
"I hope you are not regretting this, Hermione," he had warned her quietly on his way out. It was difficult to say if she regretted it—if Demetri were half as dangerous as she feared, someone had to be keeping an eye on him. She just wished it could be someone else, someone who hadn't already defeated a dark wizard.
And maybe someone who wasn't hopelessly taken in by him. Hermione accepted a while ago that she was attracted to the man, and that was easy enough to stomach. He was handsome, after all. But the pull between them had been so strong earlier tonight that she was forced to confess to herself it was more than just physical. She liked their verbal sparring matches, his frustrating way of twisting words so that he wasn't quite lying, and that goddamn crooked smile. And when she saw his control slip over their last couple encounters, she felt lost.
In the morning, she brushed away her pessimistic thoughts and focused on planning. She had been cleared to spend the week in Durmstrang, working with the runes expert and otherwise working remotely, and she left tomorrow.
She had already written her fake boyfriend yesterday to work in a date that night before she left. He had seemed a bit annoyed that she was leaving, but she felt he had no room to complain after the stellar interview she had given him. It was a good thing she was seeing him later, anyway, because she needed to address Demetri's (annoyingly legitimate) concerns about how the two of them would break things off.
The question remained if she should tell her real boyfriend—if that's what she was calling him now—about her leaving. He was going to be furious if she didn't, especially after their talk last night. But still she settled on keeping him in the dark. She needed to find out more about his time at Durmstrang, and if he had a warning she was going that mission might very well be compromised.
Before her "date" with Cormac, she had an even more unpleasant errand to run. The errand wasn't unpleasant because of the person; in fact, it involved one of her favorite people on this earth. It was so because she was going to lie to her best friend again. And that she hated.
As she knocked, she heard a crash as Harry apparently struggled to get the door. A few seconds after that, he opened the door, his cheek somehow covered in ink.
"Harry, you've got a little"—she gestured to her cheek, and Harry smudged the ink around a bit, asking her if he got it. "Not quite, but close enough," Hermione responded with a shrug before hugging her friend and likely inking herself.
"Sorry the place is such a mess," Harry apologized sheepishly as his eyes raked over his apartment. "I was grading papers all night."
"All night?" It was noon, But Harry's curtains were drawn as usual and he might have been ignorant of the time.
"They don't grade themselves," Harry dodged the question.
"Of course not," Hermione tried to say in a cheery voice, feeling instead a tightness in her chest at the accidental admission that Harry didn't sleep.
"So, twice in one week? I'm afraid I can't chat long, I'm—" but Harry didn't get to finish because there was another crash that came from the direction of Harry's bedroom. In response, Harry turned beet red.
Hermione, a bit shocked, took in Harry's disheveled appearance and realized she had just assumed that he had stayed up all night and looked like a wreck because he was still struggling, but he obviously had someone at the apartment who had kept him up all night. As she processed this welcome news, she burst out laughing.
"Godric, Harry, I came to apologize for keeping my love life such a secret, but I'm in good company apparently."
"Well, I would have told you Hermione, but really it's just sex." He had just begun to finish pronouncing the word "sex" when the door slowly creaked open.
"If you think I am going to stay in here all day while you and Miss Granger talk," a very familiar voice drawled, "you are seriously mistaken."
Hermione's laugh turned into a cough as she took in the figure of her old Potions professor. "Would you care to share what you find so amusing, Miss Granger?" Hermione composed herself then, feeling like she was in class again.
"But, weren't you in love with Lily?" Hermione couldn't help but blurt out.
Snape scoffed. "I do not have the time or patience to explain the complexities of human sexuality to you, Miss Granger."
Snape's indifferent mask slipped for a moment as he seemed unsure of what to do next. With a sigh, he pecked Harry on the cheek and left the apartment without another word.
Harry and Hermione stared at one another, Harry shuffling nervously before taking a seat at his kitchen table, still facing Hermione who was leaning against the couch dumbfounded.
"Harry, I've been so worried about you since you took this position. You've seemed a lot more at peace than you did at the Auror's office, and I was happy for that, but you've been so tired and withdrawn and distant. I thought you were becoming a hermit, but have you been—has this been happening the whole time?"
"I didn't know how to tell you, Hermione," Harry half-responded.
"Over four years?!"
"No, at first I really did hide away here at the castle. It was comforting. But it has been a while. One and a half years," Harry mumbled, staring intently at his table.
"A yearand a half? Harry, why did you feel like you needed to hide this from me?"
"Well, I know Severus has never been your favorite person."
And something about the tender way Harry's voice wrapped around her old Potions professor's first name snapped Hermione out of her anger. "Harry, I'm not mad. I wish you would have told me, yes, but I understand why you didn't. I just hope you know how relieved I am that you've found someone and that's why you've been preoccupied. And as for my feelings on"—she forced herself to use Snape's first name as well—"Severus. You seem like you care about each other a lot."
"We do," Harry said in a quiet voice. "Thanks, Hermione."
And she stopped perching on the couch then to bend down and wrap Harry in a tight hug. "After the war, we all deserve any happiness we can find, don't we?" Hermione mused, as much to herself as to Harry, though she felt him tighten the hug.
A/N: This story is largely canon-compliant, but Severus Snape is alive. Because I can.
I also wanted to say thank you to all of you who have stuck with this story after my unexpected hiatus. I appreciate all of you and you all keep me writing. :)