Last Minute Crisis

By Quillusion

Chapter 2

Severus knew instantly from the look on Hermione Granger's face that she had not intended to say that out loud- whatever other reaction she might have planned to give him.

He wasn't sure what to make of that.

Albus cleared his throat in the sudden stillness and got to his feet with a swiftness that was surprising for a wizard of his years.

"Well. I think I will let you handle this little problem as you see fit, Severus," he said, his expression as cheerful as his tone, and was gone in the blink of a twinkling eye.

Severus narrowed his eyes on the Headmaster's retreating form with a dark look.

"Coward," he said under his breath, but said nothing further. He couldn't say anything, really, because he was himself suddenly desperate to get away from this embarrassing situation. Turning abruptly away from the young woman before the window, he went to check on the cauldron simmering at the workbench against the far wall, stirring it with rather more vigor than was required.

"That's your favorite stirring rod," came Hermione's voice from the window. "You'll be angry with yourself if you break it." Her tone was gentle- gentler than he deserved after his behavior- and he positively hated the thought that she almost certainly felt pity for him.

But she was right, and he knew it. Sighing inwardly, he drew the glass rod out of the cauldron, wiped it clean, and put it away with the absent efficiency of long habit. His hands, now empty and uncertain, curled around the countertop then, knuckles clenched white on the benchtop. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing what he ought to say and knowing just as well that it would be difficult to get the words out. He hadn't had much practice at apology.

It took him a moment to gather the necessary courage. "My apologies," he finally managed, feeling another wave of shame break over his shoulders at the slight grating tone of his voice. After all the work he and this girl had done together, he felt as though he owed her better manners. She'd risen in his estimation in the years since her graduation, and months of familiarity had done nothing to erode his new respect for her. It was that respect which made him elaborate:

"I did not mean to speak so harshly to you."

"I am sorry I intruded," she offered in return. "It was none of my business."

He snorted softly, her ready acceptance of his apology lifting his dark mood a little. "You say that as if you have the ability to restrain your sense of curiosity," he said, but despite his words, his tone was not accusatory. He slowly turned around, and was relieved to find her expression neutral. So she was not furious at his behavior, then. He wasn't sure why that mattered to him, but it did.

"I was not curious," she defended herself, then seemed to think better of it. "Which is not to say that the matter doesn't hold some intrinsic interest," she said. "But it's- it's not what I expected."

Severus let a wry grin twist his lips. "I suppose that ought to make me feel marginally better," he said. "But it isn't as if the offers have been rolling in- and to be frank, Miss Granger, it does very little for my ego to hear that even Longbottom has managed to pass one of the milestones of adolescence which I missed altogether."

Hermione shook her head with a smile.

"I never said that," she told him gently, and was amused to see his shoulders sag the faintest fraction with something suspiciously like relief.

"Feel better?" she asked, teasingly, and he shot her a glare.

"No," he said flatly, hoping his tone sounded final. He turned back to put the last few jars of potions ingredients back on the shelves of the worktable, and then swept the counter clean.

Hermione studied him for another moment as she moved to sit in her chair beside the chessboard. "Was there really never an offer?" She absently reached for the black king and put him back on his starting square, giving him a quelling look when he stared at her with ill-concealed disgust.

He turned his head and shot her an irritated look. "What happened to 'it isn't any of my business'?"

This time she snorted. "That changed as soon as you joined the conversation. But you don't have to answer the question. It was impertinent." She moved a knight and a rook to their proper squares and then turned to gauge the Potions master's response.

His reply was sardonic. "Thank you very much, Miss Granger." He shot her a glare. "I can't recall the last time I heard anything so impertinent. And, as I've hardly been overcome with the urge to have an utterly inappropriate conversation about sex with one of my former students, I do think I'll take you up on your kind offer not to have to answer it."

She let the corner of her mouth turn up in acknowledgment of her amusement. "Why should it be inappropriate?"

"Oh, I don't suppose the fact that my handwriting is all over your transcript has much to do with anything," he said sarcastically, then gentled a little. "The topic itself, however, is unthinkable. I don't discuss my sex life with anyone."

"Perhaps that's why we're discussing the lack of it right now."

"Stop being so insightful."

He came to take Albus's chair across from her, and Hermione realized that his remark had been completely devoid of the usual sting. Somehow the banter had entered an odd sort of place where the old rules seemed to be suspended- as if Severus was now admitting that he should move Hermione from the Student category to the Peers and Colleagues category in his mind. Although, Hermione thought, he already seemed to have acknowledged that by speaking to her as an adult with Albus in the room. She'd never thought to hear Severus Snape use the phrase "get laid"- that much was certain. Somehow she'd always thought pureblood wizards had their own slang for such things.

"So," Hermione prompted again, hardly believing her own daring. "Was there ever an offer?"

A dark eyebrow arched over one baleful eye, and he sighed as if recognizing the grip of her curiosity's teeth on the subject at hand.

"One. That I wouldn't have taken if it were the last offer from the last woman on earth. Even assuming I could have."

"Who?"

"Moaning Myrtle." He said it sotto voce, as if afraid someone might overhear. He had to repeat it when Hermione couldn't hear him.

"Oh, my God." She was at once horrified and amused; the very notion of Severus Snape standing face to face with Myrtle in the girl's lav was improbable to the point of hilarity, even without imagining the Olympic-caliber scowling match that would have ensued between the two of them.

Snape shot her a warning look. "My humiliation is complete. If I hear about this from ANY of the students, I swear on my godmother's wand I will hunt you down and hex you six ways from Sunday."

Hermione swallowed a giggle that threatened to erupt, and the effort almost brought tears to her eyes. "You have my word. That's too much for anyone to contemplate. She had a crush on Harry, and he was mortified. So at least you're in good company."

He made a sour face. "If you say so."

"At least she never offered to let you share her toilet."

Severus laughed. "You think Potter's the first one who got that line from her? She hits on anything with a Y chromosome that wanders into her bathroom without female company- and she's successful much of the time. How do you think she got the nickname 'Moaning Myrtle'?"

Hermione's jaw dropped in the most stunned expression he'd ever seen on her face. He savored it for a moment before going on, a wicked gleam in his eye and a faint curve of amusement to his mouth.

"I came across her trying to seduce Neville Longbottom one night, for example. I don't want to know why he came to her bathroom at that hour, but I suppose perhaps Neville and I have more in common than I had previously thought." He smirked a little at that. "I scared him away and gave Myrtle a lecture that would have scared most of Slytherin into good behavior for a week. But Myrtle was from the old school and was not easily intimidated, even by her current Head of House."

He saw Hermione blink in surprise. "You didn't know she was a Slytherin, did you?" he asked.

"No idea," she said. "The old robes didn't have house names on them like the current ones do."

Severus shifted in his chair a little and shrugged. "No, they didn't. I didn't know she was in my House at the time, but I found out later. When I threatened to have her toilet removed if she did not behave, she promptly offered a 'bargain'." He smiled tightly. "Her... favors in exchange for my silence. When I refused, she got quite as angry as any affronted Slytherin I'd ever seen. What she lacked in self-confidence, she made up for in feeling. That's common enough in younger members of my House; when they're not high enough on the pecking order to assert themselves as they'd like, they bottle up their feelings and vent them where they can. She might have made quite a powerful witch, if not for the Basilisk."

Hermione sighed. "Poor Myrtle," she said.

"Why?" asked Severus archly. "She gets more action than Draco Malfoy ever did. Don't waste your pity; she's a ghost, yes- but she knows how to live."

"If that's your idea of how to live," said Hermione with a shrug and a look that eloquently conveyed her doubt. "It seems lacking in more than just variety. But whatever else it is, it isn't a solution the problem at hand, as you've just said you wouldn't take her offer if she were the last woman on earth."

"Quite," Severus confirmed with a faint shudder. "Not when she has no interest in me beyond what I represent."

He paused, and Hermione knew there was something else he'd almost said. She waited, knowing that if she spoke she'd break the fragile sense of safety that had moved him to even draw breath to speak.

"It's ironic," he said at last in a soft voice, not looking at her. "I know I'm not a handsome man. I'm frightening, in a lot of ways- as much because I have cultivated the quality as because of any inherent trait of my own. I'm unpleasant, and I don't encourage attachments of even the most trivial nature. I've only successfully asked a woman out twice in my life, and I've been turned down too many times to count. And yet-" he paused, as if searching for the right words. "And yet there have been just as many times when I am certain that the woman was looking at me with interest. That sort of interest. Against all possibility, all probability- all sanity. And still she said no."

He did raise his gaze then, his dark eyes burning into hers. "A lot of women seem to be drawn to dark, mysterious, brooding, tragic figures. They like the romanticism of it- the notion that, with their love, they can heal a man like that and make him whole again. Tame him, in some cases." One eyebrow quirked, as if he found the notion unlikely. "But their fantasies leave out the unpleasant traits they know must really exist in such men, and so their devotion is only as deep as the glamour they have cast for themselves. I've had a lifetime to study this little phenomenon, and I can only conclude that while a good many women have been fascinated by the idea of me, not one has ever had the courage- or the desire- to face the reality of me."

Hermione stared up into his eyes for a long moment, her mouth open in a soft, silent Oh! of comprehension. Her heart beat painfully hard in her chest, and she could not find words to reply. He smiled a little, sadly, and nodded once as if in confirmation of something. Then he turned his gaze back to the table.

For a few moments, the only sound was the low whoosh of the flames beneath the cauldron and the faint click of chess pieces as Severus replaced the white ones in their proper places on the chessboard. The black king shot him a wistful look which he did not see, and sighed as Hermione returned his queen to her square beside him. The two pieces shared a beleaguered look, but Hermione was paying them no heed.

"How long before you have to go?" she asked Severus when she could find her voice. It took an effort to keep the emotions brought out by his comment out of her tone.

"I must leave a few minutes before midnight," he replied shortly, his tone brisk again. "Which doesn't leave much time to work around this little complication. I'll just have to find a way to make Voldemort think I've put my blood in the potion without actually doing so."

The chess pieces seemed to have caught something in the tone of Hermione's voice when she spoke, because they had stopped being melodramatic and were watching the conversation with some interest now. Neither Severus nor Hermione saw the exasperated look the black king was sending their way. The white queen was scowling at him as if he had poor manners, and he shot her a rather descriptive gesture in response. She shook her head in disgust, and looked at his queen as if to ask why she hadn't done anything about her mate. The black queen just shrugged fatalistically, shushed them both, and turned her small face up to hear Hermione's reply.

"I'm not sure that would be wise," Hermione ventured cautiously. "If Voldemort can't detect your input into the potion's effects, he'll know you skipped adding your blood. There can't be many better ways to make yourself stand out."

Severus sighed. "True." Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he rubbed his face with both hands, the fatigue and worry of the last twenty years showing in every line of his form. "I can honestly say that it never once occurred to me that this would ever become a problem. Aside from my mother pestering me about carrying on the family name, that is- but I've learned to ignore that. If I had known this was going to happen, I might have looked for a way around my squeamishness where Myrtle is concerned."

That gave Hermione pause. "Squeamish?" she echoed. "Is it the act itself that bothers you?" She'd heard of people who found sex distasteful for various reasons, but from his earlier remarks, she hadn't thought he might be one of them. The idea distressed her a little.

The chess pieces had entirely given up on staying in their places. In the absence of a game to force them into obeying the rules, they crowded back to the edge of the chessboard and sat down, looking for all the world like fans at a tennis match. They followed the conversation as it volleyed between Severus and Hermione, little marble heads swiveling back and forth like spectators sitting at the net. The black king had started making graphically suggestive gestures at them that finally moved the black queen to swat him sharply. He rolled his eyes and smacked his forehead in clear expression of his opinion of the witch and wizard conversing in complete ignorance of his antics. None of the other pieces paid him any more mind than the humans did.

Severus was looking at Hermione in surprise, pausing a moment before answering her question. "No," he said. "Not that I'd really know one way or another, of course. It's just that- well, she wears student robes, and she always will. That bothers me, even beyond the other detractors with which nature has supplied her in plenty- and I know that's the pot calling the kettle black." He grimaced a little, and rose from the chair to peek at the simmering cauldron again, speaking softly to the flames beneath it to back them down a little.

"There's nothing wrong with students per se, of course," he went on. "And Circe knows I've caught more than a few of them having sex with each other- nearly everyone you know, in fact. Your friend Mr. Weasley is among the randiest creatures ever to roam these halls at night." He shot an amused glance at Hermione. "But I've been teaching far too long to be comfortable with the notion of having sex with a student myself. Even if she was born over twenty years before me."

"That certainly doesn't sound like the sort of thing one can just override," Hermione commented, mentally cleaning up the mess he'd made in her head by mentioning Ron having sex. She ignored the little pang that came from hearing him disavow any interest in students; it was entirely appropriate, and he had no way of knowing she'd had a crush on him for the last three years of school. She had felt just as he had, that it was not acceptable for her to admit as much, and had kept a tight rein on her behavior toward him as a result.

But she was no longer a student, and no such barriers lay between them now. The odd circumstances they found themselves facing were bringing dormant but living feelings to the surface, the faint tendrils of remembered affection curling toward the warmth of the decidedly mature affection she felt for him. They were weaving together with her adult knowledge of this man, once her teacher, now her peer, and she felt a sudden sense of dizzying freedom. She shivered.

Severus was replying to her remark, unaware of her inner monologue. "No, Hermione," he said. "It isn't something I can just ignore. And if it were, well - even I have standards."

Hermione laughed at that, pleasantly distracted by the way her name sounded on his lips. He'd never called her by her given name before; in his soft baritone, her antiquarian name was exotic. "At least she's a Slytherin," she observed glibly. "It could be worse. Your only other option at the moment is a Gryffindor- although I do have the advantage of having graduated."

Her words echoed in the sudden stillness, surprising her as much as him. A fleeting instant later, she realized that her subconscious had made a decision, and a good one, without really consulting her- for while her heart was pounding, it was from excitement, not from embarrassment. When he swiftly turned to search her face, her expression was clear and open.

He didn't look shocked. Or horrified, thank Merlin. His expression was curiously blank, only the intense look in his eyes giving away any hint that he had heard her. He studied her for a moment, gaze flicking down her form, then back up to her face, and then one eyebrow rose in silent counterpoint to his voice.

"Gryffindor, indeed," he said. "Be careful what you imply, Miss Granger. I seem to have misplaced my sense of humor this afternoon and I don't anticipate finding it again until after the current crisis has passed."

She arched a brow in reply, and stood to face him. "I never thought I'd hear you accuse a Gryffindor of being anything other than blunt and obvious," she said with a smile. "I wasn't trying to imply anything. As much as I know subtlety is near and dear to a Slytherin's heart, we'll have to discuss it later. Right now, you have to make a choice."

Severus was standing perfectly still, his eyes narrowed a little on her face, his mind racing. He hadn't expected this- although perhaps he should have. Hermione Granger had never lacked for the courage of her House, and he knew that as well as anyone could. Remembering that he'd just explained his theory of female behavior to her, he felt a small streak of mirth; he could never have made that complaint of a Gryffindor, had he ever turned to one. Although, back then, he'd had neither the liberty nor the egalitarian maturity to do so.

But it was now, not then, and a Gryffindor was standing before him, offering something he'd never thought to know- whether for the right reasons, or the wrong reasons, he couldn't say- and he couldn't bring himself to let that affect his decision, even though it did matter to him.

Why did this have to happen now? he wondered silently. I would have found the courage to ask her in time. This could ruin any chance I might ever have had. He pushed away the small twinge of guilt he knew he didn't need to feel; she was no longer a student, and he had a right to the feelings that had taken slow root in his heart over the last few years.

Severus knew what his choice had to be, but the potential price was daunting to him. He honestly didn't know if taking her up on her offer- his dream- would hurt the unspoken accord that had grown between them over the years, or the comfortable near-friendship that his private feelings had kept him from fully developing. And now he lacked the luxury of time to consider the matter- because even a Gryffindor's courage would quail under too long a stare from the Potions master.

He slowly crossed the few feet of space between them, stopping only when he could feel her warmth, and looked down into her upturned face.

" You do realize, Hermione," he murmured, "that I am a virgin- not an innocent. There is a difference."

She was watching him intently, her pupils dilated, her breathing a little fast as she absorbed the scent and warmth of him so close to her. "I know," she affirmed, her voice husky. "I wouldn't expect anything less from a man of your complexity."

Severus tipped his head to one side a little, studied her face solemnly. "Then I'll tell you something I've never said out loud before," he said, his voice so low he was nearly whispering, and she leaned toward him a little to catch his words. He took the opportunity to raise one hand to cup her cheek, a streak of feral pleasure running down his spine as she shivered and leaned closer. Taking one more step toward her, bringing their bodies into contact at long, aching last, he reached around her and drew her against him. He met her eyes for one long moment, giving her every chance to back away, before deliberately bending to catch her mouth with his in a kiss whose chaste appearance utterly belied the sensual promises it whispered.

Hermione felt the touch of his lips like an electric shock that shot from her mouth to her heart and straight to her cervix. She'd never felt anything like it, and she wanted more; her hands tangled in his hair for a moment, holding him to her, until the psychic force of the kiss robbed her of strength. He wasn't being demanding, hadn't even parted his lips against hers, and yet she felt as though she'd never been kissed more thoroughly in all her life. Every nerve in her body crackled with life, every inch of skin throbbed with sensitivity. Whatever else he had or hadn't done, Severus Snape certainly knew how to kiss.

When he let her go, her knees were shaking. He smiled wickedly, the expression lighting his eyes breathtakingly, and unobtrusively increased his hold on her, for she was sagging in his arms. The fact made him feel quite a bit better about the situation; he knew better than to think that Hermione would feign interest in this for his sake. She had her arms around his neck and was not letting go, and so he reached down and deftly scooped her up into his arms. As he carried her across the lab to the door, he turned his head and softly spoke into her ear.

"There are times when one Gryffindor is worth all the Slytherins in the wizarding world."

And with that, he stepped through the door, savoring the wide-eyed look of disbelief on Hermione Granger's face as she lay in his arms. The door swung shut behind him, preventing either of them from hearing the tiny cheers from the chessboard, or the stony click of the white queen falling over in a heated swoon. The black queen was nowhere in sight, her king having long since dragged her off the board and into the relative privacy of the mahogany chest in which they normally lived.

-tbc