Author's Note:
A gift-fic for ThePurpleWombat, even though I am months late and therefore a Terrible Friend. However! The good news is that the fluffy plot bunnies have finally smiled upon me whilst allowing me to avoid cavities stemming from overly saccharine plot points. All in all, I'd call this a win.
A Snowbell's Chance in Hell
"Severus! Wake up! The first snow is here!" Hermione's excited voice pulled Severus out of his fitful slumber and he cracked one bleary eye open only to flinch as she pulled back the curtain to look out.
"Ugh, Hermione, come back to bed. It's too bloody early," he grumbled, his voice hoarse with sleep.
"Uh-uh," Hermione chided him, shaking her finger back and forth to accentuate her no-nonsense tone. "You made me swear to you last night after we heard the wizarding weather forecast that I would promptly get you up so that we could gather the freshest snowbells possible."
Severus pulled a pillow over his head, hating the petulant tone to his own voice. "But that was Last Night Severus. He thinks he's entitled to make all manner of idiotic promises because he doesn't have to be This Morning Severus."
"Just think, though," Hermione said, giving Severus a sly look, "If we can get out of the house by half past five, we can beat all the other potioneers who are probably saying the same thing about now."
Severus threw the covers off of himself and sprang up, a withering look on his face at having been compared to other potioneers. "Fine! I am up!"
Hermione smirked and arched an eyebrow in a way that Severus suspected had been stolen from his own facial expression repertoire. "I knew you could do it."
Severus tried to reply, but he had to catch the winter robes that Hermione had levitated in his direction before they knocked him back onto the bed, so it came out more like "MFFFFHFHFMMMF!"
"I'll see you downstairs, Severus," Hermione said, and Severus was oddly pleased by the smile in the tone of her voice to be truly cross at her about the robes-flinging thing.
Severus dressed in record time and billowed down the stairs to the dining room. Hermione, bless her, had already brewed a strong cuppa for him and had poured the rest in a large thermos for the road.
"At least there's caffeine," Severus said, breathing in the rich aroma of the steaming cup.
Their daypacks were by the door; a rich teal for Hermione and a dark gray for Severus. Hermione had gotten them at a Muggle sporting goods store because they held together quite a lot better than the magical sort once the right charms were applied. Severus trusted her, and quite liked the color she'd picked for him. Inside were a plethora of instruments and tools, as well as collection chambers for the rare and beautiful blooms.
Snowbells only bloomed for one day a year— the day of the first snowfall. They'd missed it the year prior due to a medical emergency. Hermione's appendix had nearly burst and Severus had spent the evening pacing back and forth while the Muggle surgeons worked on her. By the next morning, he'd been curled up at the foot of her hospital bed after disillusioning himself so that the nurses wouldn't kick him out. He watched over her as she slept off the anesthesia and the pain medication. Magical frost blossoms were the last thing on his mind.
Still, Hermione had definitely outdone herself this year in readying them to go. He was fairly certain he'd glimpsed her cramming a whole picnic lunch in her bag, but was too afraid to ask her.
"Well, are we ready?" Hermione was standing expectantly by the door with a piece of toast in one hand as she expertly slipped into her boots without using her hands at all. Her backpack was already on her shoulders, the little clasp at her chest holding them from slipping off her narrow shoulders.
"Indeed," he said, slurping down the last of the tea and wincing at the scalding temperature on the tip of his tongue. He coughed and then poured himself a glass of cool tap water to soothe himself.
It took him moments to slip on his own dragonhide boots and shoulder his own pack, which was charmed to be light as a feather despite its bulk.
Hermione had her hand on the door knob. In her other was the portkey that Severus had secured for them a few days prior.
"I am ready, Hermione," he said, kissing her cheek and taking her hand, the portkey nestled gently between their palms.
Hermione scrunched up her nose and smiled, darting in to peck him back before he could draw away and grinned at the little unconscious smile that twisted Severus' lips up at the corners. With his free hand, Severus wrapped his scarf once more around his neck and followed Hermione out into their front yard. Once their home was warded and locked tight, they activated the portkey and spun away from their drive in the early dawn light.
"Look! Under here! Have you ever seen so many?" Hermione's excited voice pulled Severus from his reverie as he finished placing his fifth snowbell in its respective capsule.
The capsules were charmed to properly maintain the freshness and temperature of the blooms so that they could be added to potions at peak quality levels. This was especially important, as Severus and Hermione were the patent-holders for the new Wereless Potion that not only allowed Werewolves to keep their minds, but prevented transformation during the full moon as long as it was taken each day. The Snowbell would be crushed and folded into the brew at the very last step, which not only ensured that the potion would nullify the transformation, but the specific technique nearly nullified all of the physical effects of pre-transformation, such as fatigue, pain, and emotional volatility. It was for this reason and many more that they both were currently researching ways to reliably grow snowbells in artificial growing facilities, but so far, there hadn't been much luck. Not only were they gathering as many samples as they could, but they were also drawing up maps and diagrams of the surrounding habitats to see if there was some way to replicate natural biomes artificially.
Severus placed the capsule in his bag and turned to find Hermione standing under a massive fern. Despite the dusting of snow, the fronds of the plant stretched out like a massive green wing and beneath it stood a veritable gaggle of snowbells in a row.
"It's like some sort of nursery rhyme, don't you think?" Hermione gushed. She'd already pulled out her sketchpad and was drawing the scene with her charcoal pencil as quickly as she could.
"Indeed. How did it go again? How does one find the rare snowy-bell? Why, as one finds a snowball down in hell," Severus quipped, pulling out a capsule of his own to get to work.
"Rude!" Hermione let out a shriek of laughter and playfully punched Severus' arm gently enough not to jostle his collection efforts.
"Even Dante himself admitted that not all of Hell was fire and brimstone," Severus continued, his eyebrow arching as devilishly as he could manage, "There's a frozen circle, and I imagine that is where these little bastard blossoms originate."
Hermione snorted. "Well, it would explain a thing or two about how finicky they are in lab conditions."
Hermione finished sketching and they successfully gathered another forty-two specimens before their noses were too red with cold (even with warming charms) for them to continue.
"Let's take a break!" Hermione said, placing her pack down on the red picnic blanket and stretching her stiff shoulders. Severus took this opportunity to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her tightly.
"I've come to suck up your warmth," he said in a theatrically-ghoulish voice.
Hermione shrieked with laughter and turned in his arms until her arms were around him as well.
"Right back atcha!" She giggled into his chest.
Severus always felt his belly swoop whenever she was so casual with affectionate gestures even though they'd been together over two years and living together for just over seven months. It almost felt wrong that anyone could like him so much, and especially that it was her.
The idea that Hermione was an amazing partner hadn't even occurred to him when he'd been trying to find his place in the world after recovering from his near-fatal injury. They'd ended up in a low-ranking lab job together, and somehow they'd just put aside everything except for the here and now. There were Granger and Professor Snape of the foggy past, and then there were Severus and Hermione, colleagues and co-conspirators who created potions and spell combinations that made traditional wizards sputter into their hats.
(This last one was actually true— it had been Cornelius Fudge himself who had been caught on camera by Luna Lovegood herself doing so. "He had said he'd eat his hat if something more effective than the Wolfsbane Potion was ever created," Luna had said dreamily, "but in the end, it was more of a nibble than anything. I suppose that compulsions from magical oaths simply aren't as strong as they used to be.")
"Severus, you're squishing me," Hermione said with mock-breathlessness.
Severus snapped out of his reverie and released her. "My apologies," he said, "I was...distracted."
"By what we did last night, I hope," Hermione winked devilishly and Severus couldn't help himself—he grinned devilishly back.
"Oh? Are we going to have a scandalous lunch with this scandalous conversation?" he asked as she sat down onto the picnic blanket deliberately in a way that accentuated the movement of her hips.
"Come here, and find out, big boy," she replied with a hint of humor, reaching into the bag in a mock-seductive manner.
"Might I expect a hot lunch, then?" he shot back.
"Oh, absolutely," she said, and pulled from the bag two plates covered in tin foil. Pulling back the foil, she revealed two delicious open-faced turkey sandwiches, complete with gravy. Both had a stasis charm placed upon them so they did not cool off or grow soggy (in the case of the toasted bread).
Severus sighed with pleasure as he settled himself beside her. The blanket was of course charmed to heat them without melting the snow below them, and as a bonus was waterproof on the bottom so nothing would leak through. The cushioning charm was simply decadent, but Severus wasn't complaining. Hermione had worked hard on this blanket over the past few months, and the results were simply stunning.
They took turns sharing the tea from the thermos and enjoyed a few other delicious treats, from cooked apples to a soup that Severus himself had made earlier that week. Severus was in agreement with Hermione that soup simply always tasted better after it had a few days to soak up the broth. Hermione outdid herself by pulling a loaf of bread she'd picked up from the local bakery and cutting off slices for them to dip in their soup bowls and use to sponge up gravy.
When they were sated, they pressed against one another in a daze, looking up at the gray sky above them as small flurries rained down upon them, only to let up for a short time and start again. A small breeze blew and kicked up little tufts of white, but other than that, it was still in the clearing.
"Are you ready?" Hermione asked, finally, startling Severus out of his food coma.
"For Round Two? Always," he replied, and helped her pack away the dishes. They stood and folded the blanket after shaking it out, then got back to work harvesting the rest of the clearing.
By the time the overcast sky began to darken to a troubling gunmetal gray, they'd finally gotten nearly all of the specimens. The last few had begun to melt back to nothing again, and as the sun set behind all of the cloud cover, they both had to admit defeat at last. It was, of course, a very minor sort of defeat, but neither Severus nor Hermione had ever considered refraining from being obnoxious overachievers.
"Well, I guess I'll be the first to admit defeat," Severus grumbled, as his specimen crumbled and melted away.
Hermione took his gloved hand in hers and pulled him to her, going up on tiptoe to rub his frozen nose to hers. "Yep. Just as I thought. Totally frozen through and through."
"What say you that we head back home and get warmed up?" Severus said, pulling her closer to him.
Hermione pulled out the portkey from the folds of her cloak with a grin. "I thought you'd never ask."
They spun away from the gray, dusk-choked clearing, leaving only their footprints as the dancing flurries of snow began to fall in earnest.
Back at the house, they built a roaring fire and fixed up a hearty supper together. Of course, first they were sure to secure all of their precious specimens in the basement lab for future experimentation and brewing, but after, they were free to enjoy their evening.
"You know what?" Hermione said, snuggling against Severus on the couch as they settled in with some relaxing music under one of the plush blankets they kept draped over the couch for cosy evenings such as this.
"What?" Severus replied sleepily. His eyes felt so heavy that he had to struggle to keep them open as her familiar weight pressed against his side.
"I think we should make a blanket fort tomorrow," Hermione replied, her voice going a bit conspiratory, "I've always wanted to build one, you see, but I never had the courage to do it when I was a kid because my parents are weird about their things. Everything has to be just so."
"Well, if it's anything like the name implies, it sounds fairly straightforward," Severus said with a yawn. "Sure. We can build one tomorrow."
"And fill it with snacks and books and blankets and snuggling?" Hermione turned her face to look at him with wide, pleading eyes.
Severus couldn't help himself. He let out a tiny snort of laughter and stroked her hair reassuringly. "Yes, I imagine so."
"That's not just Tonight Severus talking?" Hermione asked, and both of them snickered at how they'd come full circle to that distant morning conversation.
"Of course not," Severus replied, searching for the right words. "But while we're at it, might I suggest that we let Tomorrow Morning Severus sleep in just a little bit later?"
"That can be arranged," Hermione said, a saucy glint in her eye, "but only if Tonight Severus has some time to...get up to something…"
Severus could feel his cheeks heating up (among other things), and found that he was not quite as sleepy as he had been moments ago.
"Hermione," he said, his arms wrapping her tightly against him, a thrill passing through him as her hands began to snake lower and lower, "There is nobody I would rather get up to something with than you."