"Get out of here!" Hermione commanded playfully. Severus batted her hands away and continued to caress her.
"I will do no such thing." Severus replied kissing her neck.
"I would like to get some work done. I need to drink the Felix Felicis and I need to focus the luck on finding the cure." She turned in his arms and kissed him. "You'll have to wait for that, until later."
"You torment me." Severus growled in her mind.
"Yes, well think of it as a little pay back." Hermione laughed. "You tormented me for years, and I'm not talking about lost house points or insults."
"Ah, yes but I was unaware of the torment I was causing. You cannot claim such an excuse." He continued to kiss her neck.
"Were you really as clueless as you claim?" Hermione laughed and raised her eyebrows.
"Flitwick made an observation or two over the years, regarding you." Severus replied.
"What!?" Hermione exclaimed.
"He informed me on three separate occasions that you were acting awkwardly when near me and your face would flush. However you need to be aware that Flitwick thoroughly enjoyed making me uncomfortable, so I gave his words no merit. I thought, once, that perhaps it could be true when you made eye contact with me once in the great hall. Your eyes went wide and your cheeks grew red, you looked away from me, rather quickly." Severus explained.
"Yes, well…what would you have suggested I do? Should I have sat there smiling like a buffoon waving at you like love sick little girl? Not only would you never live that down it would have been worse for me! Harry, Ron and Neville weren't your biggest fans at that particular point in time. They also just so happened to be the housemates I spent much of my time with." Hermione laughed.
"Poor little Gryffindor, couldn't tell a soul she was in love with a Slytherin." Severus teased her as he continued to kiss her neck.
"It wasn't the in love with a Slytherin part I couldn't reveal, it was the fact that it was a professor I was in love with. Let's face it; you weren't just any professor either. Could you imagine what we both would have endured if I had said something?" Hermione sighed.
"I would have managed." Severus replied nonchalantly.
"Well, sir, you can just manage yourself back in your room for a bit while I work on this!" Hermione laughed, and Severus looked mildly irritated.
"Very well, I will leave you be…for now." His lips captured hers once more before he turned around and made his way back to his room. Hermione smiled, shaking her head as she watched his door close. She began to pull her hair up away from her face in a loose pony tail as she eyed the Felix Felicis that was sitting on the small table before her. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand, inspecting it. She closed her eyes as she clutched the small vial.
"Please let this work." Hermione said a whispered prayer before taking the stopper from the vial and drinking it down in one swift gulp. She sat the now empty vial back down and waited for it to take effect. All of a sudden she felt like she could do anything and she smiled widely, as she began to pick up papers at random. "Okay, liquid luck…give me the answer!"
"I wonder if Hermione will be jealous when she finds out about Ron and Lavender." Ginny asked, she was seated on the couch with her feet on Harry's lap. He was dutifully rubbing them.
"I don't think she'll care to be honest, dear." Harry replied. "You do recall that she is the one who ended everything?"
"Oh, I know. I was just wondering." Ginny shrugged, closed her eyes and let her head lean back against the pillows.
"As long as you aren't planning anything, you are more than welcome to wonder." Harry laughed.
"I'm not planning anything, I swear." Ginny opened her eyes and looked down at her husband. "I was just thinking about her, you know remembering what it was like when we were in school and all that."
"You are trying to remember who she had crushes on, aren't you?" Harry asked his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Well, that topic does tend to come up when a girl thinks back to her teen years, Harry." Ginny laughed. "Not that it does much good where Hermione's concerned though, she was always buried in a book. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she had crushed on a professor seeing on how all she ever thought about was learning, and reading."
"Ok, so who do you think it could have been? Flitwick? Binns? Oh no I got it, Mad-eye! Ginny, be serious it's not like Hogwarts was brimming with handsome, young eligible professors." Harry was laughing and shaking his head.
"No, you're right about that." Ginny agreed. "There was only Snape, and even then I wouldn't exactly use the term handsome to describe him."
"Do you think?" Harry scrunched his face up as he looked at her. Ginny raised her eyebrows.
"Harry, anything is possible. But even that, as creepy as is it…won't help her. He's dead." Ginny replied.
"Yeah, you're right. Well…I don't know. I think we should leave well enough alone." Harry continued to rub her feet.
"I agree. I don't feel much like meddling anymore." Ginny closed her eyes again. "I still care, don't get me wrong, I want her to be happy."
"Well then, at least we're on the same page. If she asks for your help, have at it…but until then…" Ginny interrupted him.
"Stay out of it. I know, I know." Ginny smirked.
After about an hour, Hermione burst through Severus' door, causing it to crash against the wall and leave a dent in the plaster.
"Gods woman!" Snape bellowed. "Try not to bring the whole place down around our ears!"
"Shut it! I have it! I have it!" Hermione cried, clutching a book to her chest. "It was so simple; I can't believe I didn't see it before!"
"Care to share?" Severus asked, his eyebrow raised.
"There's a potion…it's tricky, and not to mention highly dangerous…that's why I never considered it, but it will regenerate you to your physical self the way you were ten years ago." Hermione was speaking quickly with excitement. "There's a spell attached to it of course, a failsafe that will make the person who drinks it immune to it. It can only be used once in a lifetime. I guess they threw that in to ensure no one makes an attempt at immortality."
"What are the side effects?" Severus asked.
"That's the thing," Hermione inhaled deeply. "You'll lose your memories of everything for the past ten years. There's no way around it. Once you take it, you won't remember anything…at all. To you I'll be fourteen again."
"Ah, and there it is." Snape nodded slowly.
"It's worth it though; you can always take your memories and watch them later in the pensive. Right?" Hermione bit her lip.
"Yes, I suppose I could do that." Severus agreed.
"Then, I will start collecting the ingredients.
"What happens if I wake up, and refuse to watch the memories, Hermione?" Severus looked away from her.
"That's just something we can't allow. I'll make sure Minerva is here, most likely you won't want to talk to me, but you'll talk to her, right?" Hermione walked towards him.
"I have always been on good terms with her, yes, I would imagine I would speak with her." Severus nodded once more.
"Then it's settled. We'll put your memories into vials, and you can even right yourself a letter telling yourself everything. I'll make this potion, and you'll be cured. Everything will be alright." Hermione smiled.
"Everything will be alright." Severus repeated slowly, as if he was unsure of the words.