Disclaimer: The characters, settings, etc. of the Harry Potter series are not mine. I just play with them.
Hermione did not think her cheeks would ever return to their normal color. She crossed the threshold into her flat and looked into her hall mirror. They were still stained a bright red. Sighing, she threw her keys onto the table and slipped off her shoes.
"Crookshanks," she called as she padded across her small living room to the kitchen. "Where are you kitten?"
Entering the kitchen, she saw he was already there, resting on top of the kitchen table. He opened one eye as she turned on the light, and seeing that it was only her, closed it again.
"Lovely to see you too," Hermione smiled as she pulled an apple from the basket on the counter. She sat down at the kitchen table and looked at her cat. "Crookshanks, what am I going to do?"
He made no attempt to answer, but this did not dissuade Hermione from talking to him. "It's ridiculous, really," she sighed, biting into her apple. "I mean to be so attracted to a complete stranger is not only silly, it's dangerous!"
She frowned and took another bite. "What if he's stalking me or something?" She had to laugh at her own musings, he did seem completely sane and her instincts shouted that he could be trusted. But still, she could picture him coming in, muggle police arresting him if he asked her out for a drink.
"Oh Crooks," she sighed again. "It's his voice. It has to be his voice that I find so attractive. It is rather nice, though. He always speaks so softly and it's so smooth. Oh and his eyes, of course. What I have seen of them, anyway."
She frowned as she thought of that silly baseball cap. Maybe he would come in one day without it. She was dying to get a good look at his face. The more she thought about him, though, she found she could form a fairly good picture of what she thought his face looked like.
She dropped the apple onto the table in horror when she realized who she had designed him to resemble.
"Snape?" She looked at Crookshanks who was now peering up at her. He purred and flicked his tale in response.
"No, no. He can't be Snape." She tried to picture the potions master as accurately she could. What did her mysterious bookshop man have in common with Snape? She sighed as she realized that there were, in fact, a few things.
For one, he walked like her old professor. A very purposeful stalk she had noticed when he had first entered the store. There was his stance too. She would never forget Snape looming over her as she and Neville struggled to create one potion or another. What she had seen of his skin she knew to be the same pallid shade of her former professor's. There were his eyes too, his lovely eyes, glittering and black like Snape's. The mystery man's eyes displayed much more warmth than her professor's had, but outside of the classroom setting, she imagined Snape had the potential to be a nice man. Well, he had the potential to at least be civil.
The mystery man had been quite civil towards her. More than civil, she thought, and blushed once again at the remembrance of the compliment he'd paid her. She recalled the gentle tone his voice had taken as he had finished his sentence. "Oh God!" Hermione exclaimed, looking down at Crookshanks with a distressed expression. "His voice!"
She thought about its smoothness, his perfect annunciation, the clipped and cold tone it had adopted once or twice, and it became quite obvious to whom the voice belonged.
"Oh God," Hermione sighed again, propping her elbows on the table and resting her head in her hands. "I have a crush on Severus Snape."
Crookshanks stood up and leapt off of the table. The sudden movement distracted Hermione and she watched as he walked over to sit before the refrigerator. He stared at her quite pointedly.
"Yes, yes. You're ready for your drink then, I suppose." Hermione stood from her seat at the table and walked over to a cabinet. She pulled down the saucer she used for Crookshanks nightcap and looked down at him. "I'm afraid I didn't have time to go to the market."
Crookshanks narrowed his eyes at her in a look that seemed to say, "Too busy with Snape?"
"I know, I know. I'll go tomorrow and get your milk. I promise." She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of water. She poured a bit into the dish and brought it over to the corner Crookshanks liked to drink in.
She stood back as he walked over and began lapping up the liquid resignedly. "I'm going to bed. You can come when you want," she said to the cat. Turning off the kitchen light, she walked down the short hallway to her bedroom.
She changed quickly out of her clothes and put on her flannel nightgown. She climbed into bed, turned off her bedside lamp, and laid in the darkness. She stared at the ceiling, forbidding herself to think about her mystery man.
Snape, her mind corrected her. His name is Snape.
"Snape," she said aloud to herself. "Severus Snape." She sighed and turned over onto her side. "Hello," she said to imaginary acquaintances. "Have I introduced you to my fiancé, Severus?"
She narrowed her eyes and stared into the darkness. This would not do. This would not do at all.