A/N: Your lovely words inspired me to get down to work on the final chapter immediately. This concludes Opposites Attract and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thanks you to everybody who reviewed it and I hope that if you liked it, you will have a look-see at my other stories, I Don't Want To Be Alone, Written in the Stars and My Lover's Gone. Please review if you enjoy this final chapter. Oh, and "chingling?" My word. *Smiles* I think it's pretty obvious what it means.

5. Transformations and Whispers

Needless to say, Hermione left her quarters the next morning in a dazed manner. Her thoughts still dwelling on the night before, she'd half-heartedly pulled up her hair in a loose ponytail rather than the tight bun she'd previously had, and subconsciously Transfigured her black garments into flowing robes of pale blue.

The whispers started the second she'd entered the Great Hall. She caught snatches of "Slytherin class…Grimen…fifth year…bloody terrified…that's her…"

Students from all four-house tables turned to look at her, but they were even more astonished at her change of appearance. No more was the pale Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, with the tightly pinned back hair, the cold expression and the distinct feeling that an icy draught had just entered the room.

Instead, was a young woman with a relaxed face, perhaps even dream-like. There was even a tinge of warm colour in her pale cheeks. She strolled through the gap between tables, paying no heed to the whispers.

Even the teachers looked up from their breakfast and chatter to see the changed woman ascend the steps to the High Table. Only Albus Dumbledore held a smile as she chose the empty chair next to Severus, all the others had curious frowns and equally bemused expressions painted on their faces.

Severus noticed her even before she walked into the room. The prickly warmth had crawled up his body the moment he had sat down at the table, in eager anticipation. Had his plan worked? Had he drained her of her sorrows, so that she could build herself up again? Only time would tell.

But apparently Time did not have to wait very long. The woman who had just come into the Great Hall had transformed. The restraint he'd felt the night before, to simply leave with a single first kiss came back to him now. He grimaced as he curled his hands into fists around his knife and fork. How dearly would he love them to curl around the woman on his right? Dangerously, was the answer. He feared he shouldn't have kissed her. Perhaps it had been going too far. Quickly he decided to curb his advances, should it send her spinning back into the person she was before this morning.

"Something wrong?" she asked, smiling sweetly at his grimace.

He simply shook his head and murmured a "no" into his scrambled eggs.

Hermione studied him intently for a moment, perhaps a little put out, but said nothing. Why was he so silent? Had she been wrong in thinking the kiss meant more? Sadly, she considered that there had been no fire kindled on the other side.

There was one way to find out. Regretfully, she decided to hold it back till later. She had not changed enough to submit herself to a public show of affection…yet.

Instead she turned to her right and began chatting to a surprised Flitwick.

"Eight feet of parchment on the properties of Wolfsbane," called Severus after his final class of the day, the seventh year Ravenclaws. There was a collective groan. "For tomorrow!"

Severus began to clear away the equipment, and scowled at the charred remains of an unidentified orange substance stuck to the bottom of a cauldron. The class filed out, but he heard a single pair of footsteps returning to him.

"The answer, is no. I will not be giving you any extra time for the essay. Just be glad I am not setting you the extra eight feet I would have previously assigned for my N.E.W.T students."

"When did I ever require an extension on an assignment, Professor?" came a slightly offended, slightly sly voice. Her voice.

He spun round. "Professor Granger."

She looked at him pointedly. "You called me Hermione last night."

"You didn't call me by my title either."

She grinned but he didn't return the sentiment, no matter how infectious it was. He simply nodded.

Hermione sighed. "I rather thought I'd be the one speaking so stiffly."

"Anyway, I just came to say thank you…for what you did for me."

"Had Dumbledore pursued it, he would have succeeded in taking some sense into, I'm sure. It was nothing."

In a carefully calculated move, she slowly pushed some hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ears. Smirking inwardly, she pulled out the bobble that was holding her coffee-coloured hair together and let it slip casually down her back.

"I wasn't just talking about what you said," she replied. She stepped closer to him.

Severus had to admit it; the sickeningly sweet feeling of his pulse racing and the chingling sensation tiptoeing up his spine was ruling him in that moment. As she came closer, he felt himself lowering his head to meet her halfway.

When her lips met his, she was caught up in a flurry of ecstatic dizziness. The rest of the world seemed to fade away as she melted into his embrace. Soon, the kiss deepened and he enveloped her fully into his arms, her fingers running through his hair, sending a tingle into his scalp. She opened her mouth a little wider to allow him entrance, and quickly she found his tongue willingly dancing against her own.

When they at last pulled away from each other, he felt the loss of her body nestled perfectly against his own terribly.

Smiling at him, she said, "I wonder what Ron or Harry would say if they could see us now?"

Not overly pleased at the mention of them at the moment in time, he tried to joke. "I'd imagine they'd be appalled at the sight of their innocent Hermione in such a position with their hated Potions Master."

Hermione shook her head. "I think they would approve," she said a happy glow in her features.

"And I'm not that innocent," she finished before ebony eyes met chocolate and she lifted her chin to meet his lips. She sighed in his arms. The fire was truly burning on both sides, she realised before surrendering herself completely to him. There was still pain, she knew, but it wouldn't be long until she was happier than she'd been in a long time.

Unnoticed by them, in the middle of their clinch, one of the seventh years came back to take it upon himself to dare ask for an extension on his essay. Staring in amazement, and partial horror at the couple, he backed out of the room.

There would be more whispers in the Great Hall that evening.

Finis

By DistinctVagueness