Snape awoke to the strangest sensation.
He woke feeling rested.
Heavy eye lids cracked open for a moment, gaining a blurry view of a slanted, bare wood ceiling, before lowering again. The perfect comfort of bed was too much to sacrifice at that moment, so he allowed himself to sink deeper into it.
He had dreamt of Sova again. Recently, he had been doing that more regularly then he cared to admit. Usually, the dreams fluctuated between three different scenarios. The first involved shaking her until her teeth rattled. The second tended to be replays of those few odd moments of relative calm between them, watching her brew while he graded or read Potions Weekly. The third, and most unsettling dream, was a variation on the theme of what happened between them in the janitor's cupboard; a few moments of heated bickering, silenced by him kissing her. Last night's dream started that way, but then devolved into something much . . . worse? Better? Certainly much more unsettling.
The images were still fresh and vivid in his imagination. Skin on skin, limbs tangled, her shivering in delight at his touch. His pulse quickened at the memory of that thought.
Part of him felt a nauseous wave of guilt; he shouldn't be fantasizing about a former student for one thing, and more importantly, he shouldn't be fantasizing someone he didn't love. The feeling of having cheated on Lily was very real, even though she had broken all ties with him, was dead, and ultimately the fact that the act had only been in a dream . . .
The light behind his closed eyes was growing brighter, more insistent, and all of his daily responsibilities, the weight of his world started pressing down on him, and begrudgingly, he cracked opened one eye again, preparing himself to waken to the day.
Yes, same wooden slat roof staring down at him. . .
Except nowhere he slept had a roof like that.
The castle was vaulted stone. Spinner's End was crumbling plaster.
His eyes flew fully open, though the rest of him remained still as stone, no sudden movements before he made sense of where he was, letting each sense take account before he took action.
This was an attic roof. There was an old, leaded glass window that let the light into the dormer that housed him and the bed he slept on.
The bed was shabby – old and worn. The quilt, even more so. It was clearly hand-stitched, the fabric faded, though it had clearly once been made of bright, vivid colours.
The pillow next to him – though unoccupied – smelled familiar. Yellow gentian and agrimony. The illusory memories of the night before stopped swirling around and solidified into actual memories rather than night time fantasies.
The guilty, wretched knot in his stomach tightened, but a warm, contented heat still washed over him.
There was a clattering from across the room and he dared to sit up to look across the room and face reality.
There she was – clad only in a pair of completely utilitarian underpants and an oversized tee-shirt, proclaiming that she was a part of "United Holdings [Holdings] PLC Initiative Combat Course, 1990", which was sufficiently filled with holes for him to assume it was a charity shop find. He had worn enough of them in his youth to spot them . . .
He mentally groaned in disgust at himself. He had no time to be finding similarities between himself and this woman. He needed to get out as quickly as possible. He was about to reach under his pillow for his wand, so as to hastily apperate away, but then he remembered he had not placed it there, and that it was most likely still in its pocket in his cloak.
He quickly cast another furtive glance across the room where she was removing a dented tea kettle, puffing steam, from the world's tiniest hob. Maybe if he moved very slowly, he would be able to reach his pile of clothing, strewn haphazardly – oh merlin, he wasn't even wearing pants. Knowing that he had such a small window of opportunity to slip away, unnoticed, he moved, pants or no pants, but instantly regretted it when the ancient springs of the mattress creaked and groaned with his movement.
"Morning!" She said cheerily, behind a wide yawn as she rummaged in a small cupboard for mugs. Before he could make the first cutting comment that he could think of, that her declaring it morning was a painful statement of the obvious, and that clearly she was some kind of idiot, she turned and shot him a lazy, wide smile. "Want a cup of tea?"
"This is not some kind of romantic tryst where you get to feel the womanly urge to play house the next morning." He had thought of refusing to acknowledge what had happened entirely, but he was lying naked in her bed, and only a fool or idiot would think they could pretend that meant other then it appeared.
"Um, technically, that is exactly what this is, and for Christ's sake, I asked if you wanted some tea, not a snuggle." She brewed tea just as she brewed anything else – an elegantly haphazard dance of tossed tea bags, carelessly sloshed water and unartfully measureless dribbles of cream, that somehow combined into the most exquisite version of the drink it could possibly be.
His mouth watered at the prospect of a morning cup, but his mind still rebelled - grasping for any means to push this very human interaction away. "This can never happen again."
"Next you will be getting scorecards out to tell me how bad of a lay I am, just shut up and drink your sodding tea."
He tried to muster as much dignity and professor-like gravitas, but found it difficult considering he was half standing, half sitting on her bed, naked, and desperately attempting to use the threadbare sheet to obscure his partially erect penis; it clearly was still caught in those few indulgent seconds when he had been recalling the events of the night before, and was seeking out an encore performance. The embarrassment, the awkwardness, the unfamiliarity of situation and the complete lack of any kind of shield, either physical or emotional, left him even more desperate to lash out, in some kind of self-defence. "You do not have the right to speak to me like that."
"I spent the night doing the horizontal tango with you, so I think that entitles me to talk to you however the fuck I want to. Now shut up and drink your goddamn tea, before I decide burn you some eggs and bacon, just to mess with you." Irritation – she said this with casual irritation. He would have met tears and sadness with even more cruel disinterest. If she had responded with anger and vitriol he could have given back in kind. But her tone was both a world weary statement of the obvious, as well as holding a complete disinterest in continuing the conversation. He recognized it as a way he himself spoke, often times to foolish students who would not stop arguing with him – only he used it in regards to very different subject matter and never included profanity.
She placed the mug on the table that stood between them - her in the kitchenette and him in the bed-occupied dormer. Her face bore a smug look, the likes of which he had seen before when playing chess with her. She then calmly took a long appreciative sip from her own tea, as if to taunt him, one hand casually tugging at a damp strand of hair hanging down over her face.
A moment of silence passed, and her attention had seemed to stray to a scrap of paper in front of her that she was scribbling on.
He felt like a hostage. He couldn't even remove himself from the unpleasant situation – at least without risking even more exposure and making the situation far worse. So he was forced into a modicum of civility, even if he did he best to sneer his way through it. "Since I apparently have no option in whether or not I even WANT a cup of tea, perhaps you would be gracious enough to allow me to dress in some privacy before I partake? We can't all be content in rudely sashaying around in under clothes at the breakfast table."
"Oh, is that all." with a careless flick of wandless magic that silently impressed him, a curtain suddenly divided the sleeping area from the living area, granting him the privacy he had requested and he almost breathed a sigh of relief. "But even your industrial grade boxer-briefs won't hide that morning wood" She called from behind the curtain, and any urge to compliment how much her wordless and wandless magic had improved dissipated as his annoyance solidified.
He dressed himself hurriedly, planning how quickly he could escape and deciding if he should sling more barbed comments at her as he beelined for the door, or if her should just apperate away, while still hidden by the curtain. But he could not apperate without his . . . "I am assuming by its conspicuous absence from its pocket that you have hidden my wand. No doubt taking their means of escape or self-defence away is your only method to keep a man in your bed."
"I will avoid all 'hide the wand' jokes 'cause you make it just too easy. It'd be like making fun of the special needs kid." He heard, rather than saw her deposit her empty mug into the thimble sized sink, next to the two burner hob. "It's under your pillow. Let yourself out will you? Door wards itself behind you. Tea's on the table if you want it."
All her words were said carelessly and quickly and he digested each sentence one at a time, in reverse. She made tea for him, but seemed ambivalent about drinking it with him. She enjoyed and sought his company but did not crave or need it. She trusted him to be alone in her flat. She felt no need to hover and talk about emotions. And, she had left his wand exactly where he always kept it, as if she knew this small fact about him.
"She's perfect for you Sev!" His sweetly mocking conscience teased him, earning a low growl of disagreement that pierced the new silence that was so stark in contrast to the noise that always filled rooms Anezka was in.
