CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—Midnight Excursions
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The Snapes did not sleep close. For a while, Hermione slept so far away from him, her toes poked out over the edge of the mattress. It was her custom to sleep on her side anyway, but the awkward aura kept her muscles stiff most of the night.
Severus slept on his side as well, so their backs were to one another most of the time. But Hermione was used to sleeping on the side of the bed Severus had claimed (which she was fine with—this was his bed, after all).
In her own bed, she would curl to the right—and if she had to guess, Severus usually faced away from his bedroom door when he slept. So, a month into their marriage, the two had—slowly—resumed their normal sleeping positions. She would throw one leg out further, like bouncing a football on her knee. His leg barely strayed from his body; he was all angles, even in sleep.
Hermione would often wake to see they were now facing one another. One time she had been horrified to realize her cold toes were pressed to his ankle.
The fact that Hermione curled further into the middle of the bed, where most of the body heat collected under their shared quilt, could be contributed to the bitter weather this time of year or maybe she was just…used to him, now.
They both refrained from speaking to one another once either of them got in the bed. It was a rule neither had agreed upon but both somehow knew. But one day in October, she woke up and realized her shoulders were not sore. Sure, they didn't sleep like how other married couples might sleep, but Hermione, at least, was not kept fitful all night, afraid to cross over their invisible line down the center of the bed anymore.
She was worried about freezing to death in the dungeons, though. His fireplace was in the sitting room—quite a ways away. No, no one would claim Severus Snape was a cuddler—but you know, that wouldn't be so bad in the winter.
Hermione had burst out laughing at that, in the middle of the library. The shushes she received did not dull her amusement.
Ginny would die if Hermione was somehow able to convince Professor Snape to cuddle at night.
Hermione put her head down in her book. Her shoulders shook but she kept the laugh in, a balloon in her chest. Spooning Severus Snape circled around her brain. Am I spooning or is he spooning?
The witch couldn't take it anymore—she packed up her things and all but ran out of there. As soon as she entered the hallway she began to giggle. Unable to concentrate, Hermione decided to do the washing.
…
Two hours later, Hermione lugged the washing into her bedroom. Hagrid claimed there wasn't a spell Hermione couldn't learn—and it was true. But these domestic spells she just didn't care for. So she laid out all her shirts on the bed, and shoved them onto hangers by hand. She found a rhythm to it with the aid of her charmed Walkman and the Spice Girls.
The spell for wrinkles she mastered immediately. Hermione had an unfortunate habit of taking a book along with her to the washing room. And if it was a good book, she would forget what was in the charmed wringing-machine.
When all the shirts were hung in the armoire, she charmed each one into pressed, sharp lines.
"I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want," she sang under her breath.
Crookshanks moseyed in from Snape's bedroom.
"So tell me what you want, what you really really want," she said, pointing at Crooks.
The cat paused for a moment. Then he sat, lifted his leg, and began to lick it.
"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends," she said a bit louder.
Hermione spread her trousers and skirts over the bed to right them one at a time.
"Takin' is too easy—you—have got to giiive," she sang.
When those were done, she separated the socks into pairs. With a flick of her wand, they jumped up and folded into one another.
"—that's—the way it iiis!" she declared as she scooped up her wrinkle-free clothes.
She turned to the dresser.
She stopped dead.
As still and lifeless—and pale—as a Bernini sculpture, stood Severus Snape. He was on his side of the door. Arms crossed. Face blank. Eyes a bit unfocused until he realized she had stopped singing.
Hermione pulled the headphones off her ears. They were cold against her suddenly flushed neck.
"So you're definitely not dying," he said, slow around the syllables.
Her face burned. "No—thank you for the concern, but I am merely doing chores."
"What part of the chores are giving you such trouble that you start wailing?"
"I was not wailing, I was singing." She held up the Walkman. "Spice Girls."
His head retreated back as if a rabid animal had approached. "I don't know what that means. But if you want to call what you were doing singing, I'll play along."
"You think you can do better?" she challenged. This was her room and her alone time and her charmed Walkman and he could stuff it.
"Better than you or better than the general populace?"
She cocked her hip. After she ran her tongue over her top teeth, she said, "Either."
He flicked his hair from his face to ponder it. "At the very least, I would choose the appropriate volume."
"You don't like it?" she asked and took a step forward.
She put her fingertips against the door.
And gently shut it in his face.
"Thank you!" he called through the wood, relieved.
"Bugger off!" she called back cheerfully. "Git," she murmured.
"Mrrow!" Crookshanks added.
Hermione dumped the clothes into their drawers. "You liked my singing, didn't you?"
Crookshanks licked where his privates used to be.
"Oh shut up!"
Hermione took her revisions to Snape's sitting room once she had tidied up her room. Not a moment later, Snape stiffened. He Summoned his mask and tattered cloak. Hermione had never seen him in either.
And she didn't care to.
He quickly departed.
Hermione was once again alone. She did not put her headphones back on.
Being alone in here freaked her right out. She gathered her books and went to their bedroom instead.
Snape did not return before she went to sleep, so she readied for bed in his washroom.
At some point, Hermione shivered herself awake. That's what she thought, anyway. Her feet prickled with cold. She drew her legs closer to her chest. When her knees didn't bump Severus, she realized he was still gone.
Hermione gathered her half of the blanket to her. She may have grabbed some of Severus's half, too, and pulled it close.
She didn't notice the smell of him anymore unless she wandered too close to his side of the bed, or his pillow ended up squashed against hers. With his comforter pulled up to her nose, she smelled whatever soap he used and whatever it was he used to wash his clothes.
Hermione didn't care what time it was—she begged her brain to go back to sleep, to ignore the temperature and eek out a few more hours of shut eye. The permanent dark of the dungeons had mussed up her sense of time. It had scared her a bit, at first. Lately she was more annoyed that she could not tell how much of a lie-in was too much of a lie-in, with no sunlight to tell her how late she'd slept.
Hermione's eyes adjusted to the gloom in time to notice a shadow move across the dull glow from the hearth in the other room. A log was shuffled into the embers.
Hermione burrowed into the mattress. How hard would it be to convince him to let a house-elf tend the fire in the winter?
When she next opened her eyes, Snape…Severus leaned over to set his shoes near the open door. Hermione heard the faint crackle of the fire reawakening.
It didn't give her much light to see. Sn—Severus stood in the doorway, eyes on the fire, as he undid the three buttons at the bottom of his coat sleeves.
Does he seriously have to unbutton and rebutton all of those? she wondered. Firelight gleamed off the row of buttons from his throat to his waist.
Her question was answered—he unbuttoned half of the ones on his torso then pulled the coat over his head.
Hermione smirked behind the blanket. Lavender owes me a Sickle, she thought. Then she remembered that she couldn't possibly claim that money without revealing she was married to the wanker. Besides, that wager was from their fourth-year.
Severus turned to hang his jacket in his armoire. Hermione quickly shut her eyes, just enough so she could make out basic shapes through her lashes.
He had his back to her now. He undid each button on the white shirt he wore underneath his jacket. He slid it from his shoulders and tossed it in the corner. He had a space between the bedroom door and the armoire. The door was usually open so Hermione only noticed he threw used clothes there because Crookshanks had gotten comfy there two weeks ago.
Even in the dim firelight Hermione could see long marks slashed across Severus's back.
The scar on her chest seemed to prickle, along with her conscience: How would you feel if he stared at you while you undressed?
Yeah, right, she retorted. He thinks I'm hideous. So she was safe from any untoward glances.
He undid his trousers and began to slide them down his legs. That made Hermione blush.
I will definitely stop now, she thought, and closed her eyes tight.
Then she opened them again to watch him slither into a black t-shirt. She liked those better. Even if it did bring her face to face with his Dark Mark some nights.
He quickly pulled some trousers on over his sharp hips, probably afraid of prying eyes.
He was enviously thin. Hermione would bet he didn't even weigh two stone.
He chuffed the back of his hair as he turned to the bed. Hermione closed her eyes and kept them closed this time. She didn't move as he climbed into bed.
Severus kept his back to her. Even though she was more in the middle than to the side, he was still far enough away they didn't touch.