I'm back! I had a very successful NaNo, and I'm looking forward to sharing what I've written! This chapter is un-beta'd, but as soon as my beta gets me my chapters back, I'll come back and fix it. I was just too impatient to share my hard work!

Severus almost couldn't believe that Hermione was kissing him back. He slid closer to her on the fence, bringing a hand up behind her head, lacing his fingers through her curls. He could feel Hermione smile into the kiss and that gave him a bit more courage than he had before. He ran his tongue over the seam of her lips, encouraging her to open to him. When she did, he didn't hesitate slipping his tongue in, reveling in the feel of her tongue against his. He felt her wrap her arms around his neck, pulling her closer to him. After a few minutes, they pulled back from each other, resting their foreheads together, their noses nuzzling together.

"What do we have here?" a voice came from behind him. A voice he would recognize from anywhere. The last voice he wanted to hear at that moment.

"Ignore them," Hermione whispered against his lips, not moving back from him.

Severus kept his eyes closed, willing James Potter and whoever else was with him to just go away.

"It looks like Snivellus is getting handsy with the new girl," Sirius Black piped in.

Hermione groaned and pulled away from Severus, waving her wand to cancel the silencing spell. "What do you want, Black?"

"We were just walking back to the school when we noticed two figures sitting on the fence, snogging, and had to come see for ourselves, because certainly you wouldn't have turned me down for a Snake, and Snivellus at that. But apparently you haven't quite grasped the idea of House Loyalty," Sirius said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Go away, Sirius."

Sirius ignored her, turning to Severus instead. "You need to keep your hands off of our girls, Snape," Black said.

"Your girls?" Severus asked. "I wasn't aware that you had ownership of every girl in Gryffindor Tower."

"You know what we mean, Snape!" Potter spat out. "You stick with your own kind and stop mooning over Gryffindor girls."

"My own kind?" Snape asked. "What kind would that be?"

"Pureblood zealots," Black spat out. "All you Slytherins are all the same. Blood purity and power. I'm surprised that you're even slumming it with a muggleborn. What would your precious Dark Lord say?"

Severus spun around on the fence and leapt off, drawing his wand, pointing it in Sirius' face.

"Severus," Hermione said, from behind him. "He's not worth it."

Severus glared at Sirius one more time before lowering his wand, and turning to Hermione, holding out his hand. Hermione took it, and they started to walk away from the Marauders.

"That's it, Snape, walk away like the coward you are," James said.

"When you get tired of fucking snakes, Hermione, feel free to find me. I don't mind sloppy seconds," Sirius said.

Hermione stopped in her tracks, causing Severus to stop with her. Before Severus could process what was going on, Hermione had dropped his hand, turned around and marched back toward Sirius. Severus turned around just in time to watch Hermione land a right hook across Sirius Black's face.

"Next time you say something like that, or touch me, or give any kind of innuendo toward me, I'm going to McGonnagall and filing a sexual harassment complaint, do you understand?" Hermione bit out.

Sirius, nodded, while holding his bleeding nose, James Potter looked at Hermione, his jaw dropped.

That was all the reply Hermione needed, she turned around and walked back to where Severus was standing, grabbed his hand, and continued the walk. Severus moved to follow her, struggling to keep up.

"You just punched Sirius Black in the nose," Severus said once they were out of earshot of the two Marauders.

Hermione groaned. "I know," she said. "Not my proudest moment. But I was so tired of him hitting on me. He was obviously not getting the message any other way. I'm sorry. It was pretty hypocritical of me to tell you to leave the situation alone and then go back and hit him."

Severus shook his head. "No, I don't find it hypocritical at all. To be honest, it was kind of hot," he said, blushing at his forwardness.

Hermione smiled brightly up at him. "That's good to know," she said.

They walked the rest of the way to the castle, hand in hand, in silence.

SSHG

Two days after Hogsmeade found the couple studying in their usual abandoned classroom that they typically used on Monday's after classes were over. Instead of sitting in their usual desks facing each other, however, they were sitting on the floor with their backs pressed against the wall, sitting shoulder to shoulder, sharing a book. Severus had his right arm draped around Hermione's shoulder, and she leaned into him while they completed their reading for Transfiguration. They had managed a system to let the other know when they were ready to turn the page, and they had settled into a comfortable routine.

Severus still couldn't believe that he for all intents and purposes had a girlfriend, and one that he didn't have to pursue for years and years, at that. In the grand scheme of things, not much had changed in terms of outward appearances. They were already spending all their time together, it's just now, after the kiss, they now walked to their classes holding hands, and apparently they sat on the floor snuggling while doing their homework. Severus bent his head down and pressed his nose into Hermione's hair and inhaled. He could really get used to this. He was pretty sure there was nothing that could be ever as nice as holding a girl in his arms.

Hermione shifted, closing the book in her lap, turning her body a bit until she faced him. She brought her hand up, gently placing it on Severus's cheek. She lifted her head up, closing the gap between them, covering his lips with hers. Severus shifted so that he could wrap his other arm around her as well, pulling her closer to him, deepening the kiss. He ran his hands up her back, pulling her close. He could feel her breasts press against his chest, and that's all it took to cause his cock to start to stir. He pressed his eyes tightly shut, and tried to will away his erection, but Hermione took that moment to moan into the kiss, as she pressed herself closer, raking her hands through Severus's hair. Severus returned the groan, and moved so that his lap wouldn't come into contact with Hermione. They lost themselves in the kiss, and Severus was pretty sure if he went to the Dark Lord tomorrow and told him where to shove his offer he could die happy. He moved his hand down Hermione's back to the hem of her shirt. He lifted the hem a bit, and touched his palm to the warm skin he found there.

Hermione pulled back, breaking the kiss. They sat in each other's arms, trying to catch their breath.

"We should go back to studying," Hermione said, threw her quick breaths.

Severus nodded, moving away from her and pressing his back against the cool wall, closing his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked.

Severus nodded his head quickly, not opening his eyes. Silently listing all the ingredients in polyjuice potion in his head.

"Oh," Hermione said, quickly picking up on the situation. "Severus, I-"

Severus shook his head. "No need to apologize. This is a totally normal reaction to snogging a beautiful witch. Just give me a second to, um, pull myself together, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course," she said.

He could hear her flipping through pages of a book. He opened his eyes, and turned his head toward her. He could see the remnants of a blush coloring her neck and her cheeks. She was focusing all of her attention on the book in front of her. Severus reached over, and grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. He noticed her shoulders visibly relax, before she squeezed back. After a few minutes they were side by side continuing their Transfiguration reading until it was time to return to their dorms for curfew.

So what'd you think? During NaNoWriMo I completed TWELVE chapters of this and twelve of Dual Marks. I'm going to try and have some self control and only update once a week until I complete the fic, and then I'll update daily until the fic is complete. You can find me on Tumblr, beatlechicksteph, and I welcome any questions, comments and such there. I'm quicker to respond on that platform.