She dreamt that she was camping with her parents in the Forest of the Dean. She'd gone off on her own and stumbled across a stranger's campsite. The fire was crackling, but no one was there. Suddenly weary, she stretched out beside the fire. The ground beside it had been warmed and the hot earth scorched her soft skin. She was too close. Too close to the fire. It was burning her arm and the side of her leg. She opened her eyes.

All was dark, but she could hear the heavy breathing of the man beside her. She flinched. Their arms and calves were pressed hard against each other. The realization made her skin burn with embarrassment. Slowly, cautiously, she tried to pull away. He didn't so much as groan. Searching the sheets, Hermione found her wand and cast a Tempus Charm. Eight o'clock?! How was it so dark if it was… oh. There were no windows in the Potion Master's quarters. How dreadfully depressing. Hermione lit the tip of her wand and slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. Snape had taken a sleeping potion of some sort, she remembered. Maybe she wouldn't wake him if she tried to get out of bed.

Casting the soft glow of Lumos over her husband's sleeping form, Hermione was struck again by how enormous he seemed to be. His limbs looked longer without his robes to envelop them. And though his frame was far from wide, his chest and shoulders were broader than she had thought they'd be. Perhaps it was mere proportion. He was a large man and his parts were large when viewed up close. She blushed at the thought, her eyes snapping to the juncture between his legs. The blankets had been pulled back when she sat up, and the edge just barely covered the top of his trousers. Even through the thick material, she could see a prominent bulge. Heat flooded her face. She had read about the phenomenon of morning arousal in men, but to witness it for herself… Heavens, she was practically staring at her professor's… well his… the bulge in his trousers. Shaking her head, she ripped her eyes away.

For a long moment, Hermione Granger just sat there. What was she to do? He had trapped her against the wall. Between a rock and a hard place. She almost giggled at the thought. And then she groaned, remembering her giggle fit the night before and realizing how stupid she must have seemed to him. With sudden force, she threw off the covers, baring a bit more of him in the process. She froze. He would be furious with her if he woke right now and saw what she had seen. And yet… she couldn't keep her curious eyes from settling on the proud outline of her husband's… of his… of Snape's penis. Oh gods, how odd.

Hermione had never considered the fact that Professor Snape had a penis. He was just her professor; a man who played a role in her life; a very fully grown adult wizard who practically owned her at the moment. Hermione gasped. She had been holding her breath, her heart pounding wildly as if the man before her were some sort of sleeping dragon. Sleeping Serpent, more like. Shaking her head, she crawled to the foot of the bed rather than risk the humiliation that would come with waking her husband by climbing over his sleeping form.

Having escaped her marriage bed, Hermione stood in the middle of the floor and wondered what she ought to do. She had waited hours the night before for permission to go to sleep (essentially), so she didn't feel the need to bother asking if she could please take a shower. Pathetic. Her mind made up, she padded over to the wardrobe and searched the contents for something to wear. Selecting a pair of comfortable jeans and a soft, white jumper, she grabbed her bag of toiletries and slipped into the bathroom.

For a man with so few items dedicated to personal hygiene, Professor Snape sure did have a messy bathroom. Nothing seemed to be in order. Empty toothpaste tubes hid behind a full one without a cap. Multicolored potion bottles littered the counter around the sink. The shower was full of replicas of the same old brand of shampoo (presumably empty ones he hadn't bothered tossing in the bin). And there was a bathtub, but it was dusty with cobwebs.

Tempted by the prospect of a bath as she was, Hermione didn't feel quite comfortable enough in her professor's bathroom just yet. Perhaps she'd hold off for the nonce. But now was as good a time as any to set her own belongings out around the room. She certainly wasn't going to keep them in a bath bag like she was on perpetual holiday. Perpetual. The word made her shiver with dread. Somehow, she still believed this was all just temporary.

Thank Merlin she had an over-the-showerhead rack for her various soaps and shampoos, or she never would have fit them in among the empty bottles cramped into the corners of the shower stall. Next to the green-grey, white, and black tiles of the bathroom, her pink and red and yellow bottles seemed to glow. It made her chuckle a little. Everything else in the bathroom was monochromatic, but her orderly little rack of bottles made the eye pop right to them. She hoped he wouldn't mind. And bugger him if he did! Oh, Hermione, that's a terrible thing to think. She shook her head. If they were going to get along, she couldn't start off on the defensive.

Fiddling with the knobs, she got the shower working and stripped out of her clothes. The water was hot and hard against her skin, and Hermione sighed. She could get used to this. She was lathering her hair with shampoo when she noticed a long black hair clinging to the shower wall. Lavender Brown always left hair in the shower, but it was somehow different knowing that this hair was Snape's. She had a sudden vision of him standing naked beneath the same torrent of hot water and her stomach jumped up into her throat. It suddenly seemed so forbidden that she was naked in her professor's bathroom, her hair mingling with his in the drain.

Once she had noticed them, she couldn't help but see them. Long black hairs stuck here and there and wrapped around the old shampoo bottles at her feet. And then there were smaller hairs lower down, little curling coarse black hairs that couldn't be anything other than… Snape's pubic hair! The thought should have grossed her out, but she found her mind wandering back to the bulge in the front of his trousers. Proof that he was a man. She had known that. She had never doubted that he was. But somehow seeing the evidence made her comprehend the fact more fully. He was a grown, male wizard. And he was going to sleep with her soon.

Reaching past the shower curtain, Hermione snatched up her wand. She banished the hairs and Scourgified the walls and floor for good measure. While she was at it, those empty bottles had to go. There was only one that had anything in it, anyway. Even his single bar of plain white soap was given a good rinse with her wand, washing away the single curly hair that had somehow wrapped around it. Ever since the first summer she spent with the Weasleys at Twelve Grimmauld, Hermione had known that boys were messy and unhygienic and gross. But she had never imagined that grown men could be the same. Well, in retrospect it shouldn't have been so surprising. Everyone knew the Greasy Git with his crooked teeth and oily skin didn't know how to bathe. Was it any shock, then, that his shower was such a mess?

When Hermione stepped out of the shower, she gave the same treatment to the rest of Professor Snape's bathroom. Those empty toothpaste tubes were completely unnecessary and the cobwebs could be cleared away with one sweep of her wand. Honestly. Was it really so hard? She dried off her hair and dressed in clean clothes and stepped out into the professor's bedroom. And he was still asleep. Incredible.

For a minute, she just stood there, debating her options. It would be nice to get some breakfast and fresh air, but she didn't know the wards to his quarters yet, so she'd be locked out until she found him. On the other hand, there wasn't much to do here but wait until he woke up.

Of course… there were the books…

Leaving the bathroom light on, Hermione meandered idly over to the bookshelves, glancing casually at the titles while sending furtive glances back at her sleeping husband. Her heart pattering, she lifted a hand to the row of books before her, trailing the tip of one finger across their leather spines. Snape was dead asleep (another glance confirmed), so she shouldn't be so nervous.

There was no rhyme or reason to the order of the books. They weren't in order of category or alphabet and some seemed to have been stuffed in wherever it looked like they would fit. Sections of the shelf were turned sideways in a stack, as if he hadn't bothered righting them when he was done. Even a couple of obvious collections were separated by unrelated tomes or shuffled out of order. It made Hermione cringe against the instinct to organize.

There was quite a variety. Mixed in with the obvious Potions and Dark Arts textbooks were texts about Arithmancy, Herbology, Divination (shocking!), Magical History, Muggle History, Muggle Chemistry, Astrophysics, and even, much to her surprise, a few Muggle Science Fiction novels tucked into the corners of the bottom shelf. Sending another guilty glance over her shoulder, Hermione withdrew what looked like a collection of experimental potions papers that looked promising. She flipped it open and was skimming the Table of Contents when a load groan made her jump and nearly drop the damn thing.

Snape was stretching his limbs and groaning wearily in a way that made her face grow warm. What would he say when he saw her standing there watching him? What would he do when he saw his book in her hand? But he only hooked a hand beneath the hem of his linen shirt and dragged it up to scratch his belly. Hermione froze, her heart hammering as she stared transfixed at his pale, hairy flesh. The man was ridiculously thin, but his stomach looked soft and was covered with long, black hairs. They circled his navel and disappeared in tapering lines up under his shirt and down beneath the band of his trousers. Which were still tented.

For one long minute, Hermione stood there, not breathing, watching in fear that he would slip those long, pale fingers down that slope of wiry hair and plunge them into his trousers to fondle himself. When he, instead, turned onto his side and let out a deep breath before growing still once more, she almost sighed with relief. Then, assuring herself that he was indeed asleep, she stuffed the manual under her arm and left his chambers without a second thought.

…*~*J*~*…

When Severus could hold the waking world at bay no longer, he was surprised to see his bathroom light on. Had he forgotten to turn it off? No. No, it wasn't him, his tired mind remembered. Granger was there now. She must have done it.

Groaning, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and buried his face in his hands. His head ached something awful. He would need to take a potion for that. It took all of Severus's strength and determination to pull himself up out of bed and drag himself over to the bathroom. And when he did, he was met with quite a surprise. It was clean. She had cleaned it. The empty bottles and tubes were gone and the surfaces shone like they hadn't since he could remember. Heat rose in his face and he snarled. How dare she! The nerve of that little Gryffindor brat! What made her think she could touch his belongings? Clean them and banish them at her will? What if he had needed those bottles for something? Well? Of course… he didn't… but that wasn't the point! Growling angrily to himself, Severus stripped out of his clothes and ran the shower.

What the hell are all of these?! The chit had put up a rack of her belongings-and a rack was necessary. Just look at them all! How on Earth could one little witch need so many hair-care products? And the soaps! 'Bath gel,' 'body scrub,' 'clear skin,' and even something called 'warming body wash!' Hmmm, of course, that last one sounded rather intriguing. He lifted the bottle out of its carefully designated slot to read the label. It's of Muggle make? Remarkable. Of course, nearly all of the ingredients were toxic, but that was no surprise. They weren't strong enough to cause any real damage, anyway. Maybe if he just tried a little dab…

Oh wow. The stuff really did warm against his skin. Incredible. The scent was familiar; a sort of warm honey spice that he had smelled somewhere before. On her, his mind provided. He had smelled it on Granger. Of course. His lip curled up in distaste and he stuffed the item back into its place on the rack, turning instead to his own bottle of shampoo and beginning to lather his hair.

As much as taking a shower usually seemed like a necessary nuisance, there were times when the hot water felt just right against his skin. The burn of it seemed to melt the pain out of his shoulders. Of course, that might just be the potion he had taken. He reached for his bar of plain white soap and began to systematically scrub his dripping body. It was then that he saw one long, curly hair clinging to the wall of the shower. The image hit him hard and unexpectedly. Hermione Granger standing naked beneath the same hot torrent, dripping wet and sudsed up with a dozen different soaps. Even as his mind remarked on the strangeness of that realization, his cock rose in answer to the image it evoked: her pale, milky skin flushed with heat, pert breasts dripping with water, bathing her extremities with those delicate hands. Furious, Severus slammed the tap to cold, dousing himself with ice water before jerking the curtain aside and stepping out.

Having nothing else to do, Severus spent the day brewing in his lab. As per usual, he didn't even notice that he had neglected to eat until the evening rolled around and he began to feel light-headed. A glance at the clock confirmed that it was time to head to dinner in the Great Hall. His wife had not returned, but what concern was that to him? The more time she spent away from his quarters, the better his life would be.

Sweeping into the Great Hall, Severus immediately noticed the girl sitting at her house table, reading a book. The other Gryffindors were scattered across the length of the table, as was the case with the majority of the houses. In fact, only the Hufflepuffs had all come together-older students with the younger-to sit in the middle of their table.

As he began the long trek down the center of the Hall, Severus began to notice the whispers and stares of his students. It didn't take a practiced spy to deduce that they had heard about Miss Granger and himself. To his disgust, he felt his face growing warm under the scrutiny. It made him jumpy and self-conscious. For the first time, he wondered if it was really appropriate for his wife to be sitting somewhere besides at his side. It showed a sort of independence that might undermine his authority over her. But if he was going to change that, it would have to be now. The place where she sat was fast approaching and she hadn't even looked up to acknowledge him. So transfixed was she by the book in front of her-a book that looked familiar-a book that was definitely his!

"Miss Granger," he growled in his most acidic voice. She nearly jumped out of her seat, whipping her head around to meet his eyes, her rosy lips popping open in surprise. "I see you have welcomed yourself to my bookshelf." Oh, yes, that embarrassed blush was a satisfying hue. "We will discuss that later. For now you will follow me." When the girl only stared at him blankly, Severus sighed in exasperation. "Your place is by my side. You sit at the Head Table now."

"But…"

"I have no patience for your questions today, Miss Granger. Come."

The girl's eyebrows came together at that in a deep frown. She was actually glaring at him. The image made him smirk in satisfaction. But regardless of her hesitance to do so, Granger started packing up her bag and stood to follow him, reaching at last minute for her half-eaten plate.

"Leave that," he told her. "You will have a new one."

"But that's wasteful," she argued.

"It hardly matters. Leave it."

"My parents always taught me not to waste…"

"You needn't listen to your parents anymore. Now… you listen to me."

"Excuse me?"

"I am your husband now. A good wife must learn to obey."

The girl's jaw dropped in angry shock. She stood there for a long moment, seeming to consider as she glared into his eyes. Then, shockingly, she sat back down and turned away from him. Severus felt his face grow warm. The eyes of his students were upon him and they were beginning to notice that something was wrong. His hand came down on the table a little harder than he had intended and he spoke softly into her ear. "Do not undermine my authority again! Is that clear? You will cease with this infantile display. Rebellion is not tolerated. You put me in this position, so it's time you accepted that I am your husband now."

"Yes," she hissed back, "and I am your wife."

"Then you ought to start acting like it."

"What? By continuing to obey you like a schoolgirl? I am your equal now."

"Equal?!" Had the girl gone insane?

"Yes."

Severus was momentarily taken aback. "Not in the Wizarding World, you aren't. You are my property. You obey me."

"Well, Professor, I'm afraid that's just not the kind of wife I want to be." Her eyes bored into him and Severus could feel that they had reached a stalemate.

"Come to the Head Table with me now, and we will discuss the rest of this later."

"I'm fine where I am, thanks."

It took all of Severus's self-control to keep from shouting at the arrogant brat. He held his breath for several seconds and released it in one impatient sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was cold and low and dangerously civil. "Miss Granger, if you will accompany me to the Staff Table, it will go easier for you in the long run."

"Well, sir, easy has never really been my way."

By now the entire Hall was watching them, and Severus was seconds away from smacking his new bride. He simply couldn't approach the Staff Table without her. And yet, as the girl lifted her fork and opened his book and began eating her potatoes as if he weren't there, Severus knew that there was nothing else he could do. Furious, he snatched the book away from her and stalked to his place at the top of the Hall.

Hermione began to feel pretty foolish as she sat there eating her cold potatoes with nothing to read. The eyes of her professors and classmates were upon her. In hindsight, perhaps that hadn't been the appropriate time to stand up to the backwards wizard. She hoped her other professors wouldn't think any less of her. Maybe she should have gone with him, anyway. That would have been a much more diplomatic way to handle things. After all, they needn't air their dirty laundry for the world to see.

Well, it was too late. And she wasn't sorry. Her professor needed to understand that she wasn't just his chattel and she wasn't about to follow orders. Still, it wouldn't be an easy evening with the dark, resentful man. She would have to follow him back to their room, and she had no delusions about what waited for her there. There was no doubt in her mind. It was going to be bad.

…*~*J*~*…

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