A/N This is the last chapter but one! I'll try to write the next this week, while I'm in Mexico, but no promises because I'm notoriously bad at keeping them. Thanks for everyone who reviewed, encouraged me to continue, and generally helped this along. It's all down to you that this isn't out even later!

Chapter Seven

My love of books wasn't the only think that strengthened our tenuous friendship as the days went by, although they were the reason I got out of the mindset of thinking of Severus as a professor. He didn't, of course, take the moral high road in convincing me to use his first name; rather, he refused to lend me whichever book I was looking at next unless I called him "Severus" when I asked. Quite manipulative of him, really, although he was a Slytherin so I'm not sure why I was surprised. He, of course, still refused to call me by my first name at that point. Instead, I acquired another nickname.

"Severus?" I asked one day.

"Yes, Miss?"

"Since when have you called me 'Miss?'" I asked, completely distracted from whatever it was I had been going to say.

"Since I forgot you didn't want me calling you 'Miss Granger' so I ended the sentence before I reached your surname."

"You're a strange man, you know that?"

"I've been told so on a number of occasions. Was there a reason you interrupted me, Quicksilver, or did you just feel like chatting?"

I had actually just felt like chatting, but of course nothing could have persuaded me to admit to that. "Quicksilver?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Why Quicksilver?"

"There would be no point in these nicknames if I were to explain each and every one of them to you."

"You realise it's going to drive me crazy? Do you really want to be bonded to a crazy person?"

"I have no choice," Severus informed me, smirking.

"You could just tell me," I pointed out, ignoring the not-so-subtle jibe.

"But that wouldn't undo the damage."

"You're suggesting that I'm already crazy?" I asked, putting an affronted expression on my face. "Quicksilver as in mercury as in it used to drive people crazy when they came into contact with it? Mad hatters and all that?"

"Close, but not exactly. Although I won't contest that you may not be entirely sane," he said smoothly. "Before you become all huffy, I had an idea for separating us at lunch today."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked immediately, the thoughts on my new nickname immediately pushed to the back of my mind. "Do you think it will work? What is it?"

"I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure about it. I'm still not. The option is… ah… muggle surgery."

I blinked and sat back. "You're joking?"

"No. Muggles could probably separate us, as only magic seems to be repelled by our arms, not knives. Magic could then heal the rest of the damage after the operation."

"It's a little scary," I said frankly, thinking about the implications.

"I know," Severus replied, taking my hand on our joint arm with his and squeezing it gently. "It's still an option, though. Maybe a last resort, if we cannot find something else to solve the problem."

"Mm," I said noncommittally, resting my head on Severus' shoulder. He tucked my head under his chin, which surprised me; up until now he had tolerated my physical contact, but had not yet reciprocated. It was quite nice, though. Quite intimate. That thought made me sit bolt upright, dislodging Severus' chin from my head.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately. "Did I do something?"

He's really quite insecure, I thought absently even as I reassured him that no, he had done nothing wrong. Why is it that I find that thought endearing? Why is it that I actually enjoyed the idea of us sitting here intimately?

"I'm glad," Snape said in response, startling a little jump from me before I made the connection between his words and my previous words, not my thoughts. "Ready for bed?"

"Yes," I replied. Impulsively, I took his hand in mine and squeezed it, echoing his touch from moments earlier. "Thanks for going to bed early for me," I said. "I know you're not used to it."

"I'm rapidly becoming used to it," he said morosely. "But I suspect the additional sleep is good for me.

The idea of surgery sat in the back of our minds over the next few weeks. We still tried to find an alternate route, of course, but there wasn't such desperation to find one. Well, maybe the reduced desperation wasn't only due to the fact that we had a possible solution now; we had become much more comfortable around one another, so separating ourselves wasn't quite such a necessity. We'd been forced into physical intimacy pretty much from day one, but we were slowly becoming more comfortable with that intimacy. I don't know that we would have admitted it at the time, but sometimes it was nice to have another person there, always available to bounce ideas off, ask questions of, or even just to keep each other company. Unlike with Harry and Ron, Severus had… well, still has… a great deal in common with me.

So the next few weeks passed without much notice, until suddenly I realised it was two weeks from Christmas and not only did I have no presents but my parents were expecting me home. A quick letter to my parents solved the second of the two problems, briefly saying that there had been a magical problem that wasn't a big deal but prevented me from coming home. Severus chided me for not having told my parents of the incident but, frankly, they would have flipped out and there really wasn't any need to worry them unnecessarily. Present shopping was much more difficult since neither Severus nor I wanted to expose our problem to the public (it was bad enough the whole school knew about it; we didn't want to suffer stares in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley), but I eventually decided to order as much as I could through catalogues. Severus was more of a problem, but I eventually asked Mum to owl me a couple of Pratchett novels which I managed to hide fairly successfully by telling Severus the package contained tampons. He wasn't to know any better, and it certainly kept him from taking an interest. Quite a useful tactic, that.

It was, in fact, in the early days of the Christmas holidays that we decided to carry through the surgery option. By that point it had become fairly obvious that we weren't going to find an alternate solution, so we had the problem of trying to come up with a convincing story to tell a group of muggle doctors. We couldn't invent a single story. We even asked Dumbledore, who approved of the surgery idea but couldn't think of a convincing muggle-appropriate reason for our arm fusion (unless you count his suggestion involving white mice and an electric power plant, but personally I thought that was stretching the bounds of probability a little). Eventually we decided to tell the truth, give a demonstration of magic, convince muggle doctors to operate, and then obliviate the lot. I didn't like the idea, personally; I know I'm being squeamish but the obliviate just seems so… immoral, I suppose. I don't like the idea of taking away people's memories, even if Aurors do it to muggles all the time.

The obvious solution didn't come to us for a few days. Severus was sitting on the chair beside me, reading one of my potions essays and nibbling on the end of his quill. I, of course, was looking over his shoulder (he'd given up nagging me for that weeks before), and in the candlelight there was something about his profile that looked… well, adorable. I told him so.

"Crazy girl," he said absently, still focussed on the paper.

"No, really," I insisted, smiling now.

"You belong in St Mungo's," he informed me. "They have wards for people like you."

"No," I said, suddenly excited, "but I bet they would if we explained it to them."

"I beg your pardon?" Severus asked, frowning slightly.

"The operation! If we explain what happened to Mediwizards and witches they can knock us out, perform the surgery with a knife, and then magically heal it! No worries!"

"That… could actually work," Severus said, impressed despite himself.

"Of course it could work," I replied. "It will work." We sat back and looked at one another for a long moment.

"So that's it, then," I said at last.

"That's it," he echoed. "Problem solved."

"Mm." I put my head on his shoulder, as I'd become accustomed to doing, and Severus took my hand in his and ran his thumb lightly over it.

"It'll be weird," I said after a while.

"What will?" His breath tickled my hair, and I snuggled closer into his neck.

"Being separated. Not being with you. I'll miss my portable pillow," I teased.

"Nice to know it isn't my wit and charming personality you'll miss," he said dryly.

"That goes without saying," I said, finding as I said them that I meant the words. "I'll miss you, you know that?"

"I'll miss you too." He said the words quietly, but they were definitely audible in the near-silent room. A sudden rush of heat went through me. I lifted my head from his shoulder, tilting it to kiss his cheek, and instead found his lips there. I won't say it was the most uncomfortable kiss I've ever had, but it really didn't work, what with being joined at the arm. I pulled back, smiling slightly.

"After the operation," I promised.

"Yes," he agreed, regarding me solemnly.