Severus pivoted on one toe, ducked a poorly-cast fire-whip, then reflected a broad-angle physical force curse, using a concave shield form to focus the impact of the spell on a single spot...which just so happened to be his opponent's center of mass. He had, of course, tried to dodge, but Severus hadn't even needed to use legilimency to read his intention from the tension in his limbs and a quick glance to his left.
Sloppy, but that was to be expected. Morgenstern's attracted a diverse clientele, from visiting professional duelists who found the legal limitations of public dueling gyms in Britain to be too obnoxious for words and Aurors who wanted to test their skills in a more realistic setting, to would-be warlocks and Knockturn Alley thugs practicing for the street fights they would inevitably be involved in. Unfortunately, the latter made up the largest proportion of the population, and those most eager to try their hand against a former Death Eater for bragging rights.
The spell lifted the dunderhead who'd cast it into the air, throwing him into the wards with an audible cracking of ribs before he fell to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Morgenstern shot red sparks into the air, signalling the end of the match, his medics levitating the fallen wizard from the stage. "You taking another round, Snape?"
"No," he said shortly, yielding the stage. It was the victor's prerogative to hold the ground until a challenger managed to take it from him, but after three consecutive victories the proprietor began to allow pairs to attempt to unseat the victor, and Severus found himself in need of a break in any case.
When he returned from the loo, the stage had been taken by a tall, dark-skinned young man who hadn't been there when he'd left. A young man who was, unless Severus was very mistaken, an Auror...or, more likely, a Hit Wizard. He'd never before seen the kid — he couldn't have been more than twenty years old — and he was fairly certain he'd not only met, but taught all of the Aurors in that age range. In any case, the style favored by the DLE was very distinctive — a very tight, formal foundation, modified by field agents (especially those Alastor Moody had had a hand in training) to include elements of the choppier, ad-hoc street-fighting style they were most likely to encounter on the job. It tended to be a charm-heavy, largely defensive approach, with an emphasis on disarming or incapacitating a suspect rather than killing or permanently disabling them. This particular Hit Wizard clearly favored transfiguration, but Severus had already seen him pass up two opportunities to end the fight if he was willing to go for the throat, which he clearly wasn't. Still, it wasn't long at all until the witch he was facing lay bound and frozen at his feet.
"That was the second round. You gonna try taking it back?"
Severus turned to the grizzled old warlock who had addressed him with a smirk. "Try?"
He had only just begun sharpening his skills again — even if Potter hadn't alerted him to the Dark Lord's imminent return, the Dark Mark had begun prickling suspiciously as well these past two days — but he hadn't let himself get so rusty as to be incapable of taking down a baby Hit Wizard, assuming the (il)legality of his methods wasn't an issue. (Very few duelists could resist mind magic well enough to win a one-on-one match against him, if he was pressed to use it.) And the whole point of Morgenstern's was that it wasn't.
The owner had taken a page out of Anomos's book (almost literally), requiring all of his patrons to sign magically binding contracts to the effect that they consented to anything their opponents might try against them, limiting violence to the dueling stage, and refusing to testify about anything they might witness within the confines of the gym. It also helped that, while the entryway was located in Knockturn Alley, the arena itself was well outside British authority. (Severus suspected it was actually somewhere in Scandinavia, but it hardly mattered.)
The warlock, a regular called Raoul, scoffed at him. "Don't be getting overconfident there, boy. She's good, assuming she's got a decent match. Hard to show off if your opponent's out with one spell."
Well, that was true, Severus supposed, but... "She?" he repeated, because the witch now being released from a petrification curse had definitely not put up anything approaching a good showing.
"Shapeshifter. Comes in to practice with different bodies. Uses a few different styles, too."
Well he supposed that made sense, if one planned on fighting in a body other than one's own. And it would be rather impossible to infiltrate groups like the Aurors or Hit Wizards if one couldn't use their style convincingly. "Metamorph?"
Raoul shrugged. "Could be. Could be a potion. Could be a body-snatcher even. Goes by Ariel."
"You keeping the floor, kid?" Morgenstern called.
"Unless there's someone here who can take it from me," the shapeshifter shouted back, winking at the handful of potential challengers hanging around the arena. Severus could have sworn the kid caught his eye right before he did it.
Well, there wasn't much of a point coming here if he didn't get a chance to practice against someone who actually knew what they were doing. He shrugged. "I suppose I could stand another round or two," he drawled, making his way toward the circle.
As soon as he crossed the wards, he recognised the mind behind the unfamiliar face. He grinned, cast muffliato with the slightest twitch of his wand. "Why Miss Tonks, what is a good little Auror like you doing in a place like this?"
She smirked back. "Looking for a rematch, at the moment."
Ah, yes... He had fought her once, hadn't he, back in her seventh year. Filius used to ask him to come in and demonstrate the differences between dueling and fighting for the Dueling Club on occasion, before assisting Minerva with the Deputy Head duties (which she didn't have time for because she was doing half of the Headmaster's job as well) had become too much of a drain on his time and the club fell apart. If he recalled correctly, Tonks had been good, for a schoolgirl. It wouldn't have surprised him if she'd decided to do a few years on the Circuit before applying to the Aurors (though of course she hadn't). But she hadn't had much experience fighting opponents who didn't strictly obey the standard dueling code, even if he had still refrained from using illegal spells and properly dark curses. It hadn't been a difficult match.
"I hope you realise I have no intention of limiting my arsenal for this match."
She snorted. "Yeah, well, five years makes a big difference, Snape. Bring it. Fuck, you can throw around the Unforgivables if you like, God knows real criminals do."
Severus wasn't certain whether he should be pleased or insulted to be excluded from the category of real criminals. He bit his tongue on the second quip that came to mind as well, something along the lines that he wasn't going to Avada her just for being an overconfident little twit, and he certainly didn't care to see her in pain.
"Mind magic?" he asked instead. Because if that was on the table, he didn't need to use the Imperius.
She hesitated slightly, but after a moment, nodded.
Are you sure? He whispered the thought into the front of her mind. She was a passable occlumens, apparently having learned to control the emotions she projected sufficiently to deceive casual observation, but using mind magic in a fight, when your opponent was actively trying to break in, was a very different thing to defend against. Especially when said opponent was a natural legilimens. It was difficult for those who weren't to cast the legilimency charm silently and maintain it while also putting up both offense and defense. Severus, on the other hand, didn't really have to try.
She shoved his mind away from hers, a smooth, impenetrable barrier snapping into place around her. What the hell? It wasn't occlumency, but...some kind of charm to shield against mind magic? Maybe? It didn't feel like any mind-magic blocker he'd ever felt, though. He wondered if it foiled glamours and the like as well as freeform mental manipulations.
"I think I'll be fine," she said, her tone very cool. "Knives?"
Of course she would want to use a knife, it was part of the style the Blacks traditionally used. Andromeda wasn't truly a fighter, not like Bellatrix (or even Narcissa), but she would have learned as a child, and it was hardly surprising that she would have taught her daughter, if only in a futile attempt to improve her coordination outside of situations where she wasn't acutely aware of it.
He shrugged. Nodded. He would be at a disadvantage without a second focus himself, but practicing under such conditions could hardly hurt. "Third blood?"
She gave him an exceedingly casual shrug. "I usually go to knock-out or yield."
That was fine with Severus. He nodded sharply, cancelling his anti-eavesdropping spell before informing Morgenstern of the terms they had agreed upon.
The fight that followed was one of the strangest Severus had ever been involved in — almost more like an exhibition than an actual fight, opening comparatively slowly and escalating as they established each-other's degree of ability. Tonks's was, he grudgingly admitted (to himself, not to her) surprisingly high.
Not only was she very competent with the largely defensive DLE style, but when he switched to spells that were less easily blocked, she'd easily slipped into a more avoidant-offensive (traditional Black) style, using her knife to cast loosely-shaped cutting and breaking effects alongside her more sophisticated transfigurations (which were themselves comparatively difficult to block) between attempts to close the distance between them.
He'd begun using more elemental spells, then, in a bid to push her out of her comfort zone. Most mages would have quit when he started throwing fiendfire at them, but apparently Moody had taught her that ridiculous standing wave counter-spell of his, and she had sufficient power and focus to crack the platform beneath his feet with her knife while holding it, throwing him off balance long enough to crush the cursed flames. He wasn't sure if she could have done it a second time, but that had annoyed her badly enough that she doubled down on her offensive magics, shifting to area effects which forced him to adopt a more defensive style — his preference and the one he had been using was the one Bellatrix had trained the Death Eaters in, largely influenced by the Blacks' but far less fluid, emphasising an almost vampiric economy of movement which made it much more amenable to fighting in groups, using spells that had been specially adapted for faster casting to offset the slightly more limited mobility.
He misjudged a light bone-breaking curse, it sailed straight through the shield he'd thought would stop it, and lost his wand to the follow-up binding-disarming charm — Tonks reverting to her Auror training in the crucial moment. Which hurt like hell, crushing his arms against the ribs that had just been fractured, but was neither knock-out nor yield — she must be trying for the latter, he'd decided, simply for the satisfaction of forcing him to admit that she'd bested him — and was as vulnerable as any other limited-input spell to the effects of a freeform dispel.
Of course, that had left him exclusively with the options of dodging and freeform effects. He was comparatively good at freeform magic — he had the channelling capacity to use it effectively at a reasonable distance, and it was similar in many ways to unstructured mind magic — but he would have been done for if Tonks hadn't completely underestimated him, if she'd switched to wide-area knockout spells rather than sticking with targeted effects. It would only have been a matter of time until he'd failed to split one sufficiently to avoid it. As it was, he'd managed to avoid being stunned long enough to frustrate her ("Bloody hell, Snape, you're more annoying to fight than Lyra, you know that?"), and used the distraction of her annoyance to pluck his wand out of her waistband and bring it back to himself — it was, of course, enchanted against simple summoning, but freeform levitation was hardly the same as a summoning charm.
Which gave him a chance to test the idea he'd had while wandless — that spell she was using to shield her mind, it was invulnerable to everything he'd tried throwing at it, but that, presumably, was because most mind magic, and most charms that emulated mind magic, worked along similar lines. Most mind-shielding spells were developed out of the same theoretical basis, designed specifically to counter them, leaving them vulnerable to various other shield-breakers. This wasn't. It reminded him, in fact, of the one mind magic emulating charm that was otherwise entirely unblockable. If he didn't know better, he'd say someone in the Mind Division had found a way to invert the bloody Imperius, forming it into an unbreakable shield, rather than an unstoppable spear.
If that was the case, the Unforgivable should shatter the thing — annihilate it, really. And if not, it would almost certainly pass straight through the mystery shield. It was, after all, Unforgivable because it couldn't be blocked.
As it transpired, the former theory held true. The wide-eyed shock and fear that had flashed across the metamorph's face in the instant between her shield disappearing in a flash of magic that was nearly blinding to Severus's senses and his mental attack striking home was positively delightful.
No, No! Fuck you, Snape, get out of my head!
She'd snarled at him silently, her attempts to force him out pathetically ineffective, especially since he was so very annoyed over having been disarmed. There was absolutely no chance that he would let her go before he ended the match. It had taken him a few minutes to figure it out — it had been two decades since he'd played puppetmaster, and it had never been one of his favorite tricks — but her attacks were, in the meanwhile, as ineffective as her attempts to dislodge him from her mind, given that he was in a position to anticipate them the moment she decided on a strategy. And when he had got the hang of it again, well...
There were very few things in life as satisfying as making a very competent opponent stun herself.
Using the practice-Avada to peg her in the forehead with a bright green blob of paint during the minutes he spent poking about in her mind did come close, though.
The only thing Tonks had to say for herself when he revived her was, "Mind magic is cheating, and you're a fucking freak," with a pout which might have been adorable on her usual features, but only made this face look a bit like Zabini trying to convince someone he wasn't a manipulative little sociopath.
He smirked down at her for a moment before offering her a hand up. Ignoring the fact that she had agreed to his use of mind magic when they'd set the terms of the duel, "Dark wizards engaged in illegal activities do tend to cheat when Aurors have them cornered. Did Moody neglect to mention that at any point in the past four years?"
"No," she muttered, her pout taking on a rather embarrassed quality. "Carmichael would be livid if he knew you figured out how to break that shield in one fight."
And if he wasn't very dead.
"You holding the stage, Snape?"
"No, I think not." He might have won, yes, but it had hardly been an easy victory. Freeform effects were easier than wandless spells, but still far more demanding than any proper shield charm. Following up the curses he'd turned aside while he'd been disarmed with an Unforgivable had left him rather more tired than he cared to be while dueling with potentially lethal spells.
"Oh, good!" Tonks said, brightening immediately. "In that case you can take me to dinner and tell me how you knew that would work, and what the fuck you're doing here in the first place."
Severus sighed, following her out of the circle, then out of the arena entirely. "And why would I do that, precisely?"
"Um...sexual favors?" she offered, shrinking a few inches and reverting to one of her more familiar, more feminine faces. "Ah, that's better, I hate staying exactly the same that long."
"If you're attempting to shock me, you'll have to try a bit harder than that, I'm afraid," Severus drawled. He managed to keep his voice even, but only just.
"I wasn't, actually. But if you're not interested, I'll settle for just dinner. Maybe drinks. And I think you'd do that because you've been starving desperately for decent company since the end of the school year. You clearly don't know what to do with your time when you're not in classes or supervising detention twenty-seven hours a day. And also because if you don't, I'll tell Dumbledore you cast an Unforgivable at me."
"What makes you think he would care if he knew?" Severus asked, slightly amused in spite of himself. "Or that I would care if he did?"
"Oh, come on, you really think I'd believe he'd approve of his pet Death Eater chucking Unforgivables at Aurors in public when he's already got serious political problems on his plate? And I'm sure he could find a way to make you care. I mean, it's not like Lyra doesn't cause enough trouble — if nothing else, he could find excuses to give her detentions with you every day for the foreseeable future."
"I...will concede that you may have a point, Miss Tonks. How very Slytherin of you."
More to the point, he had just remembered that the young Auror knew that Lyra was actually Bellatrix, and might therefore be included in her confidence in other matters, such as who else the infuriating child might have invited to assist in judging that bloody tournament. Severus was quite certain she wouldn't have stopped with a single letter to the ICW, and he would very much like to know who else was involved in this mad plan of hers so that he could come up with a strategy to counter the likely consequences, preferably before Dumbledore realised that there had been some changes to the outline of the tournament. (He couldn't possibly know about it already, Severus would definitely have heard about it if he did.) Dinner (and maybe drinks) with a smart-mouthed Hufflepuff was a small price to pay if it would net him that information. Especially since he did actually enjoy Miss Tonks's company, even if he was about as likely to admit it as she was to actually shag him.
"The Hat did offer me Slytherin, but decided you might try to set it on fire again if it did that to you, and also the world really doesn't need a second Adara Zabini, so. Shall we?"
"How the hell does the Hat know about Adara Zabini?" he asked, following as she led the way out onto the darkening alleyway. Zabini was under the impression that his great-aunt had attended Beauxbatons.
The witch shrugged. "Mirabella, I presume. Or, you know, maybe Fawkes takes it out on occasion. Or Dumbledore, I guess, but Fawkes would be funnier. Just flaming out of nowhere, dropping it on some random person's head to catch up with the news... Where are we going?"
"I was under the impression that you had invited me out this evening."
"No, I told you that you were taking me out. There's a difference. Namely, you have to decide where we're going."
"You are ridiculous."
"It's part of my charm. So?"
Severus sighed. It was probably a good thing, really, that she was letting him choose. She, of course, could look like anyone, but people would notice that Severus Snape, ex- Death Eater (or spy), notorious misanthropist, and the bane of every incompetent Hogwarts Potions student's existence for the past thirteen years, was out in public with someone else. Almost, possibly, as though he might be on a date. It hardly mattered with whom — if he wasn't careful, they'd be in the Prophet's gossip column tomorrow morning. "I presume you don't mind something...exotic?"
Tonks beamed at him, her hair growing pink again. "I love exotic. Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise, Miss Tonks." Severus turned on his heel to lead them deeper into the depths of Knockturn Alley, seeking out the oldest parts of it, the side-alleys so narrow that the upper stories of the dilapidated buildings on either side nearly touched and he had to light his wand to lead the way; so thoroughly abandoned that entire ecosystems had sprung up within them, from glowing, magical lichen and fungi to several dozen species of beetles and spiders to mimmoths and puffskeins to feral kneazles hunting doxies, only to be hunted in turn by rodents of unusual size and the most desperate of the hags the Ministry had forced out of the surrounding muggle city.
Tonks, obviously growing more uncertain the further they went, tucked a hand into the crook of his arm. "Er...Snape? Not to be, I don't know, overly particular, but what the fuck kind of restaurant are you taking me to? Because there's nothing down this way but...well, nothing, is there?"
"Are you blind, Tonks? There are dozens of rare and valuable potions ingredients around here. That's night-blooming selas, for example," he noted, pointing out a vine that had taken over a collapsed ruin since the last time he'd been down here. He'd have to come back and collect some later. "And right around this corner is..."
Tonks gasped as they rounded the corner, stepping through a natural portal, a hole torn in the universe by the weight of magic and history in the place, or perhaps created by some ancient people from another world. It was invisible on their side, but as soon as they stepped through it was obvious that something had changed, the cobblestones cleaner, the alley wider. There were people about as well, carrying on with their evening's business as though two people stepping out of nowhere was entirely normal. Which, to be fair, it was, here.
"Is this the Crossroads?! Mum always said... But I thought that was just a story!"
It was indeed. The Crossroads was a veritable Swiss cheese of a universe, possibly artificial, consisting of a single isolated city — not very large — with hundreds of portals leading to it (or from it, if this was where they'd all been created), to various sites in different worlds: the oldest, most magically charged places in magical settlements across dozens of alternative timelines and dimensions. According to the stories — myths and rumors, nothing more, for no one could ever seem to identify the friend of their brother-in-law's cousin who happened to stumble across it once and brought back said story — one could find anything in the Crossroads. Generally exactly what one needed to complete the quest demanded by the narrative, but nevertheless.
In reality, Severus had discovered, it was home to a small population of refugees from other worlds and a much larger number of passers-through and tourists. (Apparently there were other worlds where the existence of this one was far better publicised.) Severus had wandered into it while hunting for potions ingredients several years ago, and knew of only one other person who had found it. Claire O'Rourke, a cursebreaker and mind mage working for Gringotts, had once mentioned (in passing, several years before he'd found it) that she lived here when she wasn't on assignment for the Bank. At the time he'd thought she was making some obscure joke. He'd written her after he stumbled upon it, and she'd given him directions to a few universes he might want to visit, and a few other portals back into their own, or at least others that were very similar to their own, if not exactly the same.
"It is, I assure you, very real," he informed the wide-eyed girl at his side.
"We're— Are we— When you said exotic, I thought you meant Indian takeaway or something, not going to dinner in the bloody Crossroads!"
"We're going to dinner in Byzántion." Byzántion Lamed, technically — a world parallel to their own, with a somewhat different history, but Tonks was clearly already on the verge of being overwhelmed with childish delight, so he decided it was hardly necessary to tell her that. "This is just a short-cut."
"This is amazing! Though I have to say, I have no idea how you could possibly top this on a second date." Severus very nearly tripped over his own feet, looking down at the oblivious metamorph in shock. "I mean, usually blokes leave a little room to upgrade, you know, they don't just take you to the coolest place ever right off the mark."
"Date?" he repeated. Granted, he hadn't wanted to go somewhere in Diagon because people might think he was on a date, but he hadn't actually thought he was.
She grinned up at him. "If it wasn't before, it definitely is now."
Well...okay, then. Severus had no idea what to think about this. He didn't actually remember the last time he'd been on anything that might be considered a date. In fact, it was entirely possible he'd never been on anything that might be considered a date. Er...the occasional dinner with a colleague at a conference? He and Aurora just sniped at each other in passing and occasionally fucked when one or both of them were particularly stressed, or had had enough to drink that it seemed like a good idea.
Best just...act normal, he supposed. She could hardly expect anything else.
"So kind of you to inform me. Left, here."
"Tonks."
"Tonks."
"Nymphadora."
"Don' call me that," Dora said to whoever she'd brought home last night, burrowing her face into her pillow. She'd been having such a good dream. Yeah, it was weird — like, alternate dimension weird — mixed with incredibly mundane, just going out on a dinner date, but completely surreal, couldn't possibly ever happen mundane, if that was even a thing, because she'd been on a dinner date with Professor Snape. And then...
Your alarm has been going off for fifteen minutes. You really must get up.
"Gah!" She startled into wakefulness at the thought slipped directly into her mind, the tone dry and sardonic and so altogether Snape-ish that... Oh, my God, that...wasn't a dream. We actually...and I...
"Good morning, Nymphadora," the man said waspishly, his voice muffled by the pillow he'd buried his own head under, presumably hiding from the morning sunlight flooding her flat. "No, that wasn't a dream, and yes, we did go out to dinner, and then you did propose that we go back to your place, get smashed, and shag each other's brains out. In precisely those words. And proceeded to follow through on that plan because, in your words, again, it's fucking hot when people just, know what they're doing, like they're just so good, and... I'm too drunk to explain why, okay, and way too horny to spend any more time thinking about it, just take your fucking pants off."
That...did sound like something she'd say. Even the exasperated tone he'd mimicked sounded like her. It wasn't often that anyone made her wait when she was throwing herself at them, she'd been known to get impatient on the rare occasion that they did. "Being really fucking good at what you do — extreme competence, I guess — is hot, and you're a fucking genius and I had no idea you could fight like that, and you took me to the fucking Crossroads — to a whole other universe, for dinner, on a whim, and... You're just a very impressive person, okay."
Snape muttered something, she couldn't make it out with the pillow over his face.
"What was that?" she asked, snatching it away.
He squinted, glared at her. "I said, you're not so bad yourself. You would've had me if you'd been a bit more decisive when you got me off-guard."
Dora grinned. Had he set that up for her deliberately? "Really? Because I seem to recall you being so off-guard that you were thoroughly unable to resist my having you. Twice. Though I'm sure I could be more decisive, if you're into that sort of thing."
His face twisted into a grimace. "Not my cup of tea. Speaking of which...is there coffee around here somewhere? If you're going to refuse to turn off your alarm at the unholy hour of six, the least you could do—"
Dora cut off his grumbling with a yelp as he reminded her that she was running late — he'd thrown some sort of silencing at her clock, she'd completely forgotten that was why he'd woken her in the first place. Followed by another yelp as she attempted to get out of her bed and promptly stumbled into the sharp corner of her wardrobe. Why the fuck is one of my legs longer than the other?! At least she had two arms this morning — she'd been known to occasionally morph one away in her sleep to make spooning more comfortable.
Apparently Snape didn't snuggle. Somehow she wasn't surprised.
When she managed to pull herself back to her feet, minor leg-length discrepancy sorted, Snape was laughing at her. "I may have to retract my earlier statement regarding your skills."
"Oh, shut up. If you're awake enough to mock me, you clearly don't need that coffee after all."
He groaned. "No, I could mock you in my sleep. Where's the coffee?"
"Kitchen."
"Obviously..."
"It's not like it's a huge flat, I'm sure you can find it," she snapped, waving vaguely toward the doorway as she hunted through a pile of clean clothes for uniform trousers, regretting for perhaps the thousandth time that past-Dora couldn't be arsed to hang things up properly. (Probably wouldn't make her any more likely to hang them up next time either, though.)
By the time she arrived in the kitchen, Snape was seated at her tiny table, mug in hand, glaring disapprovingly at the door, just waiting for her to enter, the piles of dirty dishes she'd been avoiding scrubbing for days washing themselves behind him. (She was bloody terrible at household charms, that was most of the reason the housekeeping never got done.) "How you live like this, I will never understand."
"Are you— What the fuck?"
"You hadn't any clean mugs."
"So...you just thought you'd wash the dishes?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Obviously. "I mean," she added quickly, "I'm not complaining, just...you really didn't have to..."
"Did you miss my saying you hadn't any clean mugs?"
He was judging her, she could feel it from here. This is an impromptu examination of your qualifications as an independent adult, Miss Tonks, and I regret to inform you that you have been found wanting, she imagined. Or some suitably Snape-like and generally disapproving mockery, anyway.
"Well, you could have just rinsed one out, they've only had coffee in them— No, what are we even talking about? Forget the fucking mugs! I need to go, Moody's going to kill me if I'm late, and Penderghast's going to spend the whole morning trying to get me to tell him who I'm shagging — don't worry, I won't tell him it's you, wouldn't want to ruin your reputation, after all—"
"So considerate of you," he interjected, still sitting there calmly, sipping his coffee and glaring at her as though she'd muffed a first-year potion.
"Ha bloody ha. But I need to go, which means you need to go, so go put some bloody clothes on, Snape!"
He sighed, as though this was an incredible inconvenience to him — honestly, she had no idea what he was complaining about, he was already up, he had his fucking coffee. Honestly she was a little surprised he hadn't gotten dressed before he'd woken her, he seemed like the sort of bloke who would feel all defenseless and vulnerable without six layers of cloth between them, or half a bottle of rum, but what did she know?
"Go!"
"You know, it's generally considered polite to at least offer breakfast," he drawled sarcastically, taking his sweet time meandering back to her bedroom — probably revenge for having to get up in the first place.
"And here I thought it was rude to offer food to an anorexic!" Am I out of cream cheese? Bugger!
Snape didn't respond to her jab at his eating habits, so when he finally reappeared, wearing the same casual dueling trousers and tunic he'd been wearing at Morgenstern's, she added, "If you don't want to get up in the morning, Tuesday's my day off," and threw a piece of toast at him.
He caught it, of course, though he made a face at getting his fingers all buttery. "Am I to take it that you...wish to repeat last night's..."
"What, you don't? Maybe less alcohol, everything's a bit fuzzy, but yeah. Monday?"
"Er..."
"Brill, pick me up at eight. It's still your job to pick the restaurant, by the way."
Snape managed to wipe the astonishment off his face with obvious effort. "Fine. But if I have to pick the restaurant, I also get to choose where we go afterward. Which will not be here," he said, eyeing the piles of paperwork she'd been meaning to file for months, his distaste clear.
"Well, excuse me, I figured you wouldn't want to bring me back to the school, but—"
"Don't be ridiculous, I do have a house."
Dora nearly dropped her toast. "You do? Here I thought you just, you know, camped out in one of the old storerooms, or something." Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but she knew he had rooms in the school like all the other professors, she'd sort of figured they just lived there year-round.
He raised an eyebrow at her. What he meant by it, she had no idea. That expression could mean anything, really.
"Aren't you going to be late?" he said, disapparating with the slightest pop before she could answer, the smooth, sarcastic bastard.
So, she thought, that...happened. Not that she was displeased about it, or anything. Obviously, she had pretty much demanded a second date. She just... Well, she'd never expected that she'd actually manage to seduce Severus Snape, of all people.
And she definitely wouldn't have expected him to be that good.
She stared at the spot he'd vanished from for several seconds before the chiming of her communication mirror startled her from her reverie.
"Yeah, sorry, Mad-Eye, overslept— Yes, I'm on my— No, I was literally disapparating when you called! Yeah, right, meet you there..."
So, yeah, Leigha wrote those scenes in AAtP with Severus and Dora running into each other for one reason or another, and then this happened. Wasn't originally part of the plan, we still don't know for sure where we're going with it (if anywhere). Because, well, pretty much all of the developments we come up with for this fic could boil down to "it seemed like a good idea at the time..." xD
—Lysandra
