Disclaimer - I own nothing, not Harry Potter and the characters within, not David Benoit, not Sade.
Daydreams
Zelda OpheliaThe faint noise coming from the next apartment was what finally brought her out of her reverie. Stopping to listen for a time, Hermione soon identified it as her neighbor playing his David Benoit CD again. She couldn't help but stop and listen, enjoying the piano riffs and rills, remembering the smoky club and how he had played, as if to someone standing opposite the stage from him. Besides, it was much better than thinking about it.
It being a ticket. A plane ticket. To Barbados of all places.
Part of a pair, no doubt. One of two, the other most certainly in Josh's possession awaiting the moment of triumph.
But it wasn't coming. Not for him.
No, Hermione had finally gotten her muggle boyfriend all figured out, and it wasn't pretty. She had finally looked past the suave looks, the sexy voice and the trips to the country for picnics. The trips to the fairground where they rode the rides for hours, laughing like little children as they swung into the sky on the swing and only came down to share a funnel cake or two.
She had his number, and there was another woman's voice answering the phone.
It had been a surprise visit. She knew that he had been feeling left out, ignored by her as she studied for what he believed was her chemistry final. And she had decided to make it up to him. He had long since given her his key, so she let herself into his apartment while he was at class. Too excited for her usual eye for detail to notice little changes, she made her way back to his bedroom. She passed the long stemmed champagne glasses and nearly empty bottle on the dining room table, the seldom used ash-try next to them holding, among other things, a cigarette stained with red lipstick. It had been when she reached the bedroom that she had noticed that something was wrong. There shouldn't be steam coming out from under the door to the bathroom. She shouldn't be hearing a man's deep voice countered by a woman's sultry laughter. And there shouldn't be a set of woman's clothing thrown haphazardly on the floor, complementing a man's set she recognized all too well.
She'd like to think that she handled herself well, backing out of the room, not calling attention to herself, not making a scene. In truth she was too shocked to do anything but rush from his apartment and get back to her's a quickly as possible.
That was the first night her neighbor played Benoit.
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He seemed to have an affinity for jazz, his moods ranging from Miles Davis to the Rippingtons. She always knew when he was home, because she could hear the music through the thin wall separating their two apartments. He wasn't around much, just weekends and never more than twice a month, if that. She hadn't ever really seen him, just a couple times in passing, instances where she had seen him going down the steps when she would open her door to get her muggle newspaper. She knew nothing about him except that he was tall, had shoulder length dark hair and good taste in music. He had an affinity for black, not that she had minded for from the glimpses she had of him she had decided he looked good in it. Even if she had only seen him from behind.
He had become her mystery man.
If she wanted to be honest with herself, she'd say that it was like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. But she wasn't really obsessing, just interested. After all, he was an enigma that she knew nothing about. So she made it all up. Some weekends he was a hit actor who used the flat as an escape from the mobs of paparazzi that were sure to follow him around. Others he was a world spy, a real life James Bond, handsome, dangerous and absolutely incredible in bed. And every now and then he was another tall, dark haired man she once knew, whose merciless wit and razor sharp tongue had held her enthralled for years and visited her in dreams.
She realized that the truth is never anything like fiction, he was probably just an ordinary businessman who was on the road a lot, but her fantasies were much more fun. And they were her way to escape from the reality of everything else. Like that damn plane ticket.
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She had never mentioned what she had seen to Josh, she had never needed to. Instead she threw herself into her studies, deleting the many email messages she got without reading them, letting her answering machine take any calls. For once she had rather wished she was living in a wizarding apartment complex, instead of the muggle one she had found closer to campus. Then she could have added some wards to keep him away. As it was she couldn't, so she just didn't answer the door the few times he had come by. He had pretty quickly decided she must be at the Library studying, or so the notes he left for her suggested.
His most recent had suggested that he also thought she was mad at him for some reason. Thus the tickets, apparently he had thought he could buy her off. She had thought about burning them, but this avoidance was getting to be too much for her. It was best to just let him know how she really felt, what she knew and he would just leave her alone.
Benoit continued to play in the neighboring apartment, his sympathy for her plight resounding in every note as his fingers caressed the keyboard. No tears fell as she wrote the note; they hadn't since that first night. Instead she remembered the time she had seen the musician in concert, the passion that she had felt and the dark head she had just barely glimpsed across the smoke-filled club. The emotion of the song gave her strength as she finished the note and carefully tore the ticket into tiny pieces. Her flair for the dramatic couldn't help but be amused that she had swept them all into the envelope addressed to her former lover just as the music crescendoed triumphantly. Grabbing her jacket, flinging her scarf around her neck, she grabbed the letter and shoved it into the letterbox by her building's door as she stepped out into the brisk February afternoon.
She couldn't hear the music out here, but she could in her head and that was all that mattered. She had broken the chains she had believed to bind her heart to Josh's, and found herself in it all. That music had been her catalyst, had powered her steps and had finally put some emotion in her smile. There was no need for her to be holed up in the tomb her apartment had become. There was no need for her to hide just because this was Valentine's Day, the day of love. She had finished her grieving; now it was time for her to live.
Oddly enough, as she walked through the streets of London, it was not Josh's face that she kept seeing out of the corner of her eye. It was that of a certain dark-haired man.
She wondered if he was enjoying his holiday.
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Severus watched the valentine swoop by outside his door, two white fluffy wings holding the bright red heart-shaped epistle as it moved down the corridor. He itched to hex it into oblivion, but Albus had coerced him into agreeing to not hex anything that didn't venture into his classroom. He was certain that the eternally cheerful codger had then surreptitiously gone and warned all the students, just to spoil his fun. At least it wasn't a total loss. Instead of his usual chaperon duty, Albus had agreed to let him have the night off. And he was not staying around this garishly bedecked castle any longer on this intolerable holiday than he absolutely had to.
Once his office hours were over he quickly packed a valise with a few things he'd need. Not much, just a few things. Giving the Baron explicit instructions to keep his eye on the revels of his foolish charges – and thanking what deities there were that he wasn't the Head of House of Hufflepuff and that there would be no broken hearts for him to mend when he returned – he headed to the gates and apparated from Hogwarts as soon as he could.
There were perks to being the last living member of one of the oldest wizarding families in Britain. Money, prestige, property were among them. But he wasn't going to one of the old ancestral estates today. Instead he had finally found the last place that anyone would ever think to find him, Severus Snape former Death Eater, spy and, most recently, war hero. Albus could floo him if there was an emergency, but that was about it. Never would anyone, ally or enemy, think to find him in a flat in muggle London.
It had started at the end of the war, when it was finally safe for him to leave Hogwarts without fearing for his life. Old habits die hard, however, and the spy in him had deemed this the perfect place to hide out away from the school. It was a distinguished, if slightly old, building not far from campus – yet only one of his neighbors was a student that he knew of. It had become a place for him to explore the muggle curiosities that had always fascinated him, but that he had never been able to before. After all, no Death Eater was supposed to be interested in anything muggle.
He had started his secret life by immersing himself in music. A sales circular from the muggle newspaper - borrowed from his neighbor's doorstep - had helped him in that direction. A little bit of concentration and, voilà, he had transfigured a top of the line muggle entertainment system just waiting for him to try. A few trips through the dial of the stations and he quickly figured out that he didn't much like muggle pop music, instead preferring the classical and jazz stations that he found. And soon he had found record shops, where he could purchase the CDs that contained his favorite songs and that broadened his musical horizons.
The CD he was listening to now was relatively new. He had only had it for a few weeks, but it had become one of his favorites. This David Benoit had the touch when it came to the piano. It may not be the same classical sounds that he grew up with, but it was still incredible. He'd have to thank the young woman at the record store when he returned, since she had been most helpful in suggesting it.
He briefly considered pushing that though away, for thoughts such as these invariably led to thoughts of Her. But he wasn't at Hogwarts where it was, or rather had been, forbidden. He was in his own flat, surrounded by flats filled with people he didn't know. No one would be the wiser. Having come to that conclusion, he allowed his mind to drift to the other thoughts, the ones he rarely let out to play.
Yes, the girl at the record store looked a lot like her, brown eyes, tawny colored hair with just a bit of curl. That was where the resemblance left off, for she didn't have the riotous waves falling down her back like Her. But his neighbor did.
He had only seen her once or twice; coming out of her door just was he was going in. Never face to face, just in passing. But she had the hair, that curly mess of hair that he just wanted to reach out and touch, to run his fingers through. He had very nearly lost his control once, and done so. Instead he caught himself and spent the entire rest of the day listening to Sade singing in her sad, soulful voice about lost love. He sometimes let himself get lost in a sweet fantasy, where that woman in the neighboring flat was her, the young woman who had stood by his side during that final battle against evil, a pillar of strength and support for not only her two closest friends, but for her nasty git of a professor as well. He could remember the look on her face at the end of the battle, as she tried to convince him to remain in place until Madam Pomfrey arrived to heal him and the others who had been injured. As well as, the look on her face when he had slipped and called her by her first name, and the look when he had told her to call him by his first name. Those had been looks of concern, surprise and then what he could only hope was caring. But she had still been a student, even if it only was for another week, and he was a professor. Now all he had were his fantasies that she was the person occupying the neighboring flat.
In those fantasies she'd knock on his door and they'd spend the weekend getting lost in each other. In those fantasies she was just as much in love with him as he was with her. And, in those fantasies he was no longer the bastard Snape, he was her lover Severus.
But he knew very well that those fantasies would never come true.
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It was after dark when Hermione returned to her building, a bottle of wine and a bundle of flowers the souvenirs of her day out. Her neighbor was no longer playing Benoit, instead the sultry voice of Sade beckoned to her from beyond his door. The last time he had played this CD she had been able to feel his sadness all the way into her flat. Just as she had unlocked her door, she made up her mind. Maybe he wasn't the dark-haired man she had last seen on the battlefield, maybe he wasn't an actor or a real-life James Bond. But he was still a person, a no one should be alone and listening to sad songs on Valentine's Day. Her inner Dumbledore refused to accept it.
Steeling herself with her Gryffindor courage she walked the few steps to his door and knocked. It isn't him, it isn't him, was the mantra she spun through her head as she waited for him to answer. The longer she waited, though, the less sure she was, until, finally, she turned to go to her own door.
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He wasn't sure why he was answering, it was definitely someone who was lost. Probably the young man who had been pounding on his neighbor's door for the last two weeks. Maybe he needed someone, an outside observer, to spell it out to him that his girlfriend was definitely mad at him. He knew very well that his neighbor had just been playing at not being home when her boyfriend, or maybe ex-boyfriend, arrived. And Severus would be glad to point that little fact out to him, very glad.
Instead, he saw that tawny colored head of hair turned away from him, heading for her own door. She was already talking as she turned around.
"I'm your neighbor and I" she paused and he found himself getting lost in those familiar brown eyes. It was her.
"Hermione?"
She gasped as she saw him, numerous emotions crossing her face, those he recognized being surprise, shock, apprehension and then, could it be, joy? "Prof-" she quickly corrected herself, "Severus."
He still couldn't quite believe that she was walking towards him carrying a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers. He kept waiting to wake up from this fantasy of his, surprised that it was this vivid, this real. Then she spoke again.
"It is alright if I call you Severus," she looked confused and he realized that perhaps, in this fantasy, he needed to reply to her.
"Yes, yes. Hermione, I do recall suggesting that as we had fought together on the battlefield and were soon to be ending our teacher-student relationship that there was no reason for us to continue with the various formalities required at an educational institution." Sweet Merlin, he always got wordy when faced with a disconcerting situation, but never that wordy. Perhaps this wasn't a fantasy after all. "I believe that you had knocked on my door in a request to gain entry, please, be my guest."
Trying to prove it to himself once and for all, he reached out to her as she came closer to him. She didn't once try to move away, not even as he drew his fingers through that thick mane of hers. Not even as he drew her into his apartment, closing the door behind them both. Not even as he carefully place her burdens on the table and drew her into his arms. Not even as he
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It was two days later when they finally came up for air, their peaceful existence in each others arms interrupted by pounding on a neighboring door. Her door. She just wrapped her arms tighter around him as the commotion outside continued.
"Hermione, please let me in. Hermione, it was all just a misunderstanding. It was nothing, a mistake. Hermione, you must know that I love you, she means nothing to me. Hermione"
"You know, my dear, I would happily turn him into a frog for you." Severus' eyes glinted with amusement as he placed a kiss on her forehead.
Instead she just pulled him closer, "Who cares about him, he'll eventually get tired of making a scene or else the neighbors will call the police. Besides, weren't we in the middle of something?"
-fin-