Author's note: SO sorry for the delay on these next few chapters! Midterms and all. The very next chapter should be along shortly. It's all written, just needs some spacing and revision. In answer to the question: plot or none? Answer: quasi-plot. There's stuff happening.it's just mostly about the growing attraction and soforth. I was so wowed by the unbelievable plot of "Soul Searching" by Quillusion (can I mention another fic here? I promise it shall receive nothing but endless praise!!! Don't yell at me, please!), that I was a little hesitant to embark on any of the dark business I had planned before. So, this is mostly just a fluff, unless I get mad protestations and am forced to revert back to the plot I had planned. Anyway, on with the concerto.. (a spoiler to come: more classical music.) Ps: Thanks to all who commented! Your comments made me so very happy!

-Iphy

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day at breakfast, Hermione made a startling appearance. Usually, her presence was missed at breakfast due to her irregular study hours, and inability to digest anything other than coffee before eleven o clock.

Severus looked up and felt his heart rate speed when he saw her, and, noting the other teachers sitting at the table around him, tried to pass it off as shock at seeing her up so early.

Dumbledore looked at him pointedly from the end of the table, and Severus suddenly wondered, with slight indignation, whether the old wizard had purposely placed Hermione's practice room conveniently next to his own chambers.

The headmaster shifted his sparkling gaze to the young woman entering the hall, waving her over to the teacher's table. As the only post-graduate student, her place to dine was among the faculty, though she dined in the great hall rarely.

The teachers greeted her all around, and she engaged in brief, standing conversation with a number of them for a minute or two, mostly discussing her research, before discreetly making her way over to the unoccupied seat next to Severus.

"Good morning," she said, the happiness at seeing him unable to hide in her tone. He poured her a glass of orange juice as he answered her own badly masked pleasure with his own, "good morning," equally elated.

"I trust you had a pleasant sleep?" He asked, noting her slight nervousness at being so close to him. She blushed at his comment, looking slightly flustered.

"Yes, I was graced with quite pleasant dreams, thank you, and you?" He was recovering from the potential sexual innuendo in her last comment, and cleared his throat before speaking,

"I slept well, though the events of my evening previous wound me up to a state that made it difficult to sleep. I missed your playing. I've become dependant."

"Severus," she said, her voice becoming low and quiet, "You have but to ask and I would be delighted to play for you." She slipped her closest hand onto his knee, and squeezed the kneecap slightly.

She was rewarded by a slight startle, causing him to splutter some of his orange juice. God, he was becoming hard from just that touch.

What compelled her, a beautiful, young, intelligent creature, to become enamored of his own slimy, dark, brooding self, he would never know.

She had removed her hand as if it had never been there, but the slight smirk on her face as she ate her cereal, betrayed her knowledge of how her actions had affected him.

Well, he thought, gathering his reserve, two can play at this game. He reached a long, slender pale hand over to her knee, noting the bare skin below the hemline of her skirt, and gritting his teeth at the contact. He heard her slight inward gasp as her spoon froze halfway to her mouth.

"Miss Granger," he began, tamping down the desire and amusement he felt at the look on her face, "Your offer is quite intriguing. I shall have to take you UP." and with this he allowed his fingertips to skim up into the warmth of her inner thigh, slowly advancing upwards,upwards. ".On that."

His fingers stopped inches away from where she had expected them to go, circling in tiny, lazy, maddening circles. All the while, his other hand toyed with his juice glass, and he silently prayed that none of the teachers were noticing their reckless actions.

She, meanwhile, was trying desperately not to let herself go cross eyed with pleasure from his touch. She gripped the edge of the table, her breath coming shorter as his hand moved higher up her inner thigh. On a particularly extravagant sweep of his hand, his fingertip grazed her slightly, and she let out a slight whimper, shutting her eyes for a brief moment.

He had though, previously, that it might have been impossible for him to get any harder.

This was Snape, the dark and brooding professor, who had always seemed so tantalizingly reserved in her eyes, and who was now inching his hand up her skirt while at a table full of his colleagues. She felt what could have been joy at having finally caught his eye, but there was more to her emotions than joy, be they ever so clouded by desire. She felt something for him, this man, who expanded in her mind every day.

She heard, from down the table row, the headmaster's voice, somehow through her fog of hormonal musings. "Miss Granger, so good to see you here at breakfast, my dear! I had hoped that more time to practice had given you the opportunity to garner more rest."

Hermione nearly cried as Severus withdrew his hand, squeezing her kneecap in a promise to resume. "To be continued, Hermia. Will you save my place?" he whispered discreetly into her ear. She nodded, grabbing her glass of water and gulping down a few mouthfuls.

By then, the headmaster had come to sit across from them in the empty seat. He smiled first at Hermione and then at Severus. "Well, it's good to see you two getting along. After all, Hermione should be due up to take the place of the potions assistant next year to fulfill her graduate degree. Have you two, in fact, discovered your other mutual interest?"

Dumbledore looked pleased with himself. Severus longed to be out of the great hall, in some quiet, beautiful place, away from prying eyes and questions, with his Hermia.

Hermione was stuttering an answer to Dumbledore's question. "If you mean, Sir, our love of the bowed instrument, then, yes, we have. Severus and I seem to be matched in skill level quite well, actually."

Dumbledore was ecstatic, "Wonderful! I would certainly love to hear you two play a duet together. If you both ever decide to grace us with your talents, I know that the faculty at least would be extremely grateful for your performance."

With that, the headmaster rose, excusing himself with a chuckle at Hermione's polite smile and Severus' usual scowl.