Severus was mildly disorientated when he woke. He thought he could get used to the prospect of waking with an armful of warm Hermione, and he'd certainly like the chance to try. He took a few minutes to simply luxuriate in the heady sensation of sharing a bed with a willing, if not a rampantly enthusiastic, woman.

Which created something of a tricky situation – how were they going to 'come out' about their relationship to a wider world than Draco, Harry and Ron? He didn't think that it would be wise to broadcast the fact that they had formed an attachment whilst she was still at Hogwarts, but he wondered how well Hermione would take this. She was after all a Gryffindor and therefore prejudiced against telling lies, no matter how convenient.

He didn't think that the news of their relationship would be greeted with universal jubilation and cries of joy; more like puzzled expressions, if not outright hostility.

In fact, he and Hermione had still to discuss the future, and what it held for them, at all. Where was she going to live? Where was she going to work? What was she going to do? Where did he fit into all of it?

And yet, whilst he had occasional doubts about his ability to make her happy, and periodically wondered what on earth she saw in him, and more often wondered whether he would be able to keep up with her and her apparently inexhaustible reserves of energy – he'd been so pleased when she'd confessed to being tired - he had no doubts that Hermione was serious about their future together. She wasn't the sort of girl to enter into anything lightly, much less seducing her teacher.

He could always soothe his admittedly already elastic conscience with the thought that she had seduced him and not the other way around, and he'd been tempted, oh, how he'd been tempted. She'd definitely made the first move. If anyone was being taken advantage of here, it was him. Poor, innocent, unworldly Severus had fallen to the wiles of a teenage siren. He snorted at that, a little more loudly than he had intended.

He lay back for a moment, grinning widely at the thought of how often she'd taken advantage of him.

There was a faint stirring beside him, and Hermione blinked up at him sleepily. "You look happy; what are you plotting?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Ravishing you within an inch of your life," he suggested.

"That sounds fun."

He pulled her closer, and sighed. "Actually I was thinking; how are we going to come clean about us?"

A little huff of laughter played across his shoulder. "That's obvious," she said. "We bump into each other at some point during the holidays, and I ask you for a coffee. We go and have a spot of lunch somewhere highly visible and let the gossips do the rest."

He hadn't thought of that; it was simple, it was elegant, and it would avoid all necessity for awkward explanations. It would also allow her a sop to her Gryffindor conscience; they weren't actually lying about anything, merely allowing others to draw their own – entirely wrong – conclusions.

Not that he would have provided an explanation anyway, merely glowered at people until they went away. It had worked for him in the past, and it would doubtless continue to work in the future, with others although not, he thought, with Hermione. She would merely ask him if he was feeling alright, offer him a pepper up potion, and then ignore his bad temper until he had worked himself out of what he would admit, only to himself, could be called a fit of the sulks. Or possibly apply more dramatic methods; it's hard to sulk when someone was snogging you senseless.

"What are you going to tell your parents?" he asked, curious to see whether this new need-to-know approach would spill over into her relationship with her parents.

Apparently it did.

"I think we'll stick to the expurgated version," she said with a broad smile.

"That's probably wise." More than wise, he though, bloody essential if he were to survive any potential meeting with his future-in-laws with his genitalia intact. Her parents may be Muggles, but even Muggles could do damage with a blunted carving knife and enough determination.

That was every boyfriend's nightmare, he supposed: meeting the parents; and he wasn't even comfortable with the idea of being someone's boyfriend. It made him sound like some spotty teenager, and he had been entirely grateful to leave that part of his life behind. He had no wish to be reminded of it now, not when his life was finally bursting into vibrant bloom. Mind you, he didn't think that being introduced to her parents as her lover – which is how he thought of himself – was likely to smoothe matters over.

Not at all.

He doubted if he would welcome his daughter's boyfriend into his home with open arms. He was bloody certain he wouldn't welcome his daughter's boyfriend into his home with open arms if he was twenty years her senior and her teacher to boot.

That was a thought to go on the back burner for now, daughters, for a very long time in fact, because Hermione was giving him that look and saying, "Didn't you have some sort of plan for the rest of this evening?"

"Let me think, what could it be?" he said, nibbling gently on her ear lobe. "Marking? Reviewing my lesson plans?"

And then Hermione was pulling his head down into a kiss, and he suddenly lost interest in teasing her, and the rest seemed to have done him some good because he was feeling all frisky again.

Much to Hermione's evident appreciation.

Several times.