Chapter 8 - Hot for Teacher

Author's Notes - My lifetime debt to Barrie deepens; not only does she encourage, cajole and correct my work, she lets me borrow stuff. A tip of the hat (and a blushed apology) for our favorite anti-ardor charm, m'dear!

As the next several days passed, Hermione and Severus fell into a routine. Whichever of them woke up first would fix a pot of tea. Severus' preference for tea so strong it could melt iron was a point of contention the first time he brewed it; after taking a sip, Hermione thought her face would turn inside out from the bitterness.

Twenty solid minutes of sarcasm and particularly vituperative commentary later, Hermione got enough of a caffeine jolt to realize that if he would just pour her a cup 4 minutes into his usual 12 minute steeping process, they would both be happy. She then apologized for her snarky remarks to a decidedly amused Severus.

After finishing tea, scanning through the papers and getting dressed for the day, they would walk to the café for breakfast. Their conversations ranged over nearly every conceivable topic: politics (Muggle and wizard), religion (likewise), various articles they'd read (Snape had been reading Hermione's "Psychology of Learning" texts and had a litany of creative and occasionally accurate snide comments about them), the perfect name for the shade of Rose's hair (it was a toss-up between lavender, early sunset blue and Hermione's surprisingly accurate "Persian lilac"), and any other subject that came to mind. Well, at first, it was every subject save one.

It wasn't until the end of the second week of his stay that they began to make cautious references to the final battle and the changes it had wrought in their lives. The first few times they'd stuck to broad generalities, mostly about changes at the Ministry, then the continued threats to Snape's life. Eventually, each lost their respective dread of the other having an emotional reaction to the topic - Hermione had feared "Bastard Snape" would return, Severus had neither the desire nor the ability to deal with a teary "silly girl" - and they finally began to talk at length about what had happened.

These conversations were both difficult and reassuring. The emotions were draining, especially given the fact that both of them had sacrificed so much. Precious few had experienced even a fraction of what Hermione and Severus had; there really wasn't anyone else they had been able to talk to.

Snape had spent his entire adult life walking a razor's edge of espionage, virtually every moment steeped in deception, terror and self-sacrifice. The anger and resentment that had grown in him with each passing year had become a disfiguring tumor that he didn't seem able to excise.

For the first time in his life, he was able to talk about what he'd gone through with someone who, while not dispassionate, was at least not judgmental. Hermione listened in a way that was neither pitying nor condescending; she was genuinely interested in how he'd felt and what he'd thought. Her carefully worded questions were insightful, if sometimes painful. The silence she gave him as he formulated his responses was unexpected and considerate. Her manner was neither gentle nor delicate but it was respectful and liberating in a way he could never have imagined.

Hermione had lost her family, her best friends and nearly all of her classmates, most dying beside her on the battlefield. The guilt she felt for not having been able to protect them, for simply having survived, had led to an isolating bitterness that precluded any "normal" relationships. Severus listened to her self-directed anger and was shocked to recognize many of the same feelings. His first impulse had been to belittle her - she was an innocent after all - but the way she'd listened to him had made an impression. Snape reined in his derision and tried to direct her through the same kind of thought processes she'd forced him to consider. She found freedom in being able to analyze and even criticize what had happened without feeling disloyal to the memory of those who had died.

As the days went by, the weather got progressively warmer and stickier. Given the typically early start they had in the day, Severus and Hermione were usually able to enjoy the walk to the café, but as the summer continued, the heat began encroaching on their comfort. It wasn't long before the season was completely ensconced, making even the earliest morning sweaty and stale.

Rather than keeping them at home, this gave the pair an excuse to linger over breakfast, enjoying the cool air in the coffee shop before venturing outside. Once they stepped onto the steaming pavement to make their way to the market, they would debate the day's menu, selecting two or three main dishes to try, leaving the final decision on the quality and selection of the ingredients they found at the store.

Hermione had been accustomed to doing her shopping no more frequently than once a week. That was how her mother had shopped so it had been how Hermione had shopped. She'd learned in some of her earliest shopping forays as a teenager that most fruits and vegetables spoiled after several days so she'd avoided buying anything other than potatoes, apples and carrots, all of which seemed to have nearly indefinite shelf lives. Any fruit she bought was typically canned, any vegetables were frozen.

Severus had been appalled at both her diet's lack of fresh produce and the haphazard way she purchased her groceries. He'd spent a goodly amount of time showing her how to choose the best ingredients the market had to offer and had even convinced her to go to the local farmer's market once a week for special acquisitions like fresh-picked baby peas and strawberries.

The first time they'd gone shopping, he'd been only minimally sarcastic and cutting. His discomfiture at being so far out of his element had taken most of his attention away from Hermione's shopping technique. The only semi-snarky thing he'd said had been about the way she prioritized her shopping according to the way the supermarket was laid out and frankly, his question about whether she organized her study time according to the library's floor plan had been rather clever. Not that she'd tell him that, of course.

Subsequent trips to the grocer's had been less stressful for him which meant he was able to put more pressure on her. During one trip, he refused to say anything about her selections, leaving her fully responsible for choosing all the ingredients for the day. Fortunately, it had been a day they'd decided on a pasta salad for lunch and grilled chicken breasts for supper, so even though Hermione had been terrified at his silence, the rational part of her mind knew she couldn't go too far astray.

During other trips, he would lecture or fall into his old habit of belittling and criticizing. The lectures weren't bad but Hermione was no longer the little girl who'd needed approval and praise; she was not about to tolerate anything that smacked of disrespect or abuse and told him so.

Eventually he began to make an effort to draw her out as he taught Hermione about cooking and about food, encouraging questions and making her elaborate on her comments. His efforts made her smile; as much as he mocked the psychology books he'd been reading, it was obvious that they were making an impression on him. She could see Severus trying different teaching tactics on, as if they were new sets of robes. Beautiful robes, as dark and velvety as his voice, clinging to his broad shoulders and covering his strong back and swirling around his well-toned legs .

The sound of brakes squealing as they locked echoed through her mind. Mentally slapping and throwing cold water on herself, she felt a little like the world had shifted under her feet. She had just caught herself thinking about Snape's robes. Worse yet, she'd been thinking about what was under those robes.

No wine for her tonight; she must still be under the influence of last night's sangria. She turned her mind back to the shopping list he was trying to get her to discuss.

They were both quite adventuresome in their culinary tastes and Hermione was slowly growing more confident in the kitchen. As a result, they'd had an interesting array of food including vichyssoise, chicken couscous, and Hermione's proudest achievement: pizza with hand-tossed dough. Severus had been less than enthused about that last dish but the obvious delight Hermione had shown when her dough had risen - "It actually worked!" she'd crowed - had been infectious.

The pride she'd radiated when she pulled the pizzas from the oven had been charming. He'd been flattered that she'd preferred his traditional margherita combination of buffalo-milk mozzarella, basil leaves and freshly chopped tomatoes to her more contemporary mixture of pepperoni and black olives.

Severus had watched, entranced, as her full lips closed around the bite of his pizza on the fork he'd offered her. When her eyes rolled slightly then slowly closed in obvious enjoyment of the flavors spilling over her tongue, his heart had begun to pound a tattoo against his ribs. The husky moan of appreciation that slipped from her as she swallowed had left him throbbing for the rest of the meal. Even thinking about it now in the glaring ugly light of the noisy and smelly store was causing him to harden.

Realizing that he was on the verge of embarrassing himself - despite the heat, he now missed the concealing safety his teaching robes - he tried to think of something to cool his body's response, to think of the most unappealing thing he could imagine: Madame Pince in . well, anything. Let's face it, the vision of that woman would make any man go as limp as a lo mein noodle.

Both Severus and Hermione were unusually quiet as they made their way to the cashier with their food.

Back at the house, Hermione went upstairs to take a cool shower. It was a sweltering day but that wasn't the reason she needed to chill herself - she'd been unable to stop thinking about her former teacher's body. The graceful way he moved the evening she'd watched him in her kitchen made her think about other things she wanted to see his body do. Was he ticklish? Did he sleep on his back, stomach or side? Did he have a hairy chest? Would he be as focused on her when they made love as he was on the ingredients he'd been cooking that night?

'When they made love?' Hermione yelped as the full impact of the icy water hit her and froze the traitorous thought out of existence.

Her only experiences with sex had been disappointing to say the least, and she'd begun to believe that sex was going to be one thing that Hermione Granger didn't do well. Contrary to what she'd heard of popular opinion, she hadn't been intimate with Viktor Krum, Harry or Ron.

Viktor had been too intense and too difficult to understand for her to pursue anything other than a brief and barely romantic friendship. Harry and Ron had been her best friends forever. In her mind, they were all three genderless. The few times she had thought of them as male had been either because they'd been eye-rollingly crude and immature or because they were able to lift heavier objects than she could.

She'd only had sex a few times; her first lover - if you could call him that - was the son of her parents' best friends. He had been a virgin as well and had been so nervous that he'd barely been able to complete the act. He'd been horribly embarrassed; they'd gone out twice more but were never intimate again. Last she'd heard, he had moved up north and gone to work at a hair salon.

Her next encounter had been with an older university student she'd met while talking to her arithmancy professor. His blond good looks were reminiscent of Gilderoy Lockhart but his intelligence and honestly earned achievements quashed any further comparison to the fop that would have completely driven her away. They met at a pub near school where he launched into a discussion on wizard sex after their third round of drinks. "You've heard of tantric sex?" he'd asked her. When she had nodded, he had whispered that wizard sex was even better and he'd been practicing it.

The final battle had seemed imminent in those days - and, in fact, it was - and Hermione decided that she didn't want to die having never had an orgasm at someone else's hands, as it were. With that in mind, Hermione let him take her home with the express intent of having mind-blowing wizard sex. Apparently, "mind-blowing wizard sex" meant "interminable."

She rather enjoyed the kissing and fondling, but either he'd taken a prolonging potion or he had no nerve endings below the waist because he went on, pistoning into her like a pile driver, for nearly two hours straight without stopping. After the first forty-five minutes, she was chafed; halfway through the second hour, Hermione felt as though she was a stick he was using to earn his fire-starting Scout badge.

Neither of these experiences had rocked her world, made her see stars, or caused the Earth to move under her feet. She had begun to wonder if there was a conspiracy afoot, propagating the myth of great sex -- a sort of "Emperor's New Clothes" for orgasms. Now, for some unknown reason, she was fantasizing about having Severus Snape, the single most despised teacher at Hogwarts, test her hypothesis. For some inexplicable reason, she was imagining him proving her fears about sex wrong. For some undeniable reason, she was certain that he could.