Hermione had only been asleep for about half an hour when she heard a crash coming from downstairs, followed by someone muttering and swearing. She sat up and reached for her wand, which even in the holidays she kept under her pillow. You could never be too careful with Mouldymort and his cronies back and after blood of any kind. Mostly her kind.
She climbed out of bed, nearly falling over the pile of books she'd been flicking through before she fell asleep. This was going to be her last year at Hogwarts and she wanted it to be her very best. God, she was going to miss that place.
Hermione felt around in the darkness for her dressing gown, not wanting to draw attention to herself by casting 'Lumos'. She was wearing a tiny nightie that Ron had given to her last year as a valentine's day present. It was a silky deep red, with tiny red pearls as straps. Ron had blushed all the way to his ears and muttered that his sister had talked him into buying it for her, but she had loved it – the rest of her clothes being more functional than beautiful.
She was on the floor, still feeling for that wretched dressing gown, when her door was pushed silently open. She stifled a scream and froze, hoping that it was far too dark for whoever it was to see her. If she'd been 100 sure it wasn't one of her parents, she'd have pointed her wand in the direction of the door and cursed, but she couldn't risk hurting one of them. Maybe Draco had been right, when he'd sneered to her last year that to love was to be weak.
Whoever had opened her door was moving about her room, feeling for her bed. She heard them fall over her pile of books and grinned triumphantly into the darkness. Her studying was paying off already.
As the figure tripped, it let out a muffled curse.
"Professor... Snape?!" Hermione asked, sitting up, startled.
"Yes."
He didn't say anything else, but walked over to where her voice had come from. She got up as he came over and touched his arm to let him know he'd managed to get to her.
"Are you a dream?" she asked, sounding a little dazed.
"Miss Granger, I assure you I am very real. I can pinch you later, but right now your life is in danger. Yet again," he added, as an afterthought. "And I have no wish to ever, under any circumstances know about your night time fantasies."
Hermione gaped at him in the darkness, for once at a loss for words.
"And after all this is over," he added. "I would like to discuss with you, why danger seems to follow you around. Are you suicidal, Miss Granger, or just plain stupid? Some of the scrapes you get yourself into..."
Scrapes?! How old was she – six?
"What have I done this time?" she snapped back, finding her voice. After all, this was her bedroom, not his freezing cold, miserable dungeon where he was allowed to scare them all witless.
"Upset Draco, apparently," Severus said, almost to himself. "Now, I need to hide you. Where are your parents?"
Only the fact that Dumbledore trusted Professor Snape implicitly made Hermione admit the truth: her parents were away having a brief holiday in Whitby, while she and Crookshanks looked after the house.
There was another crash downstairs, followed by a very distinctive, "Fuck!"
"Draco Malfoy?"
Hermione turned to Severus with a bewildered look on her face, before turning away in annoyance when she realized that he couldn't see it.
"What's going on?" she asked him, trying very hard not to sound as irritated as she felt.
"This is neither the time, nor the place, Miss Granger," he replied in a harsh whisper. "All I can tell you is that if we are found, the consequences are not those that either of us will want to live with. I can't Apparate us away, because Lucius can follow my trail. Our only option is to hide. Is there anywhere?"
Severus couldn't for the life of him see why he'd chosen to come. All that he'd succeeded in doing was making sure that if Hermione got captured, he'd get caught with her. He sighed in frustration. If it had been anyone but Hermione, he'd probably have been thinking more clearly, but he'd developed a sort of... liking for the girl, even if he would never admit it to her. He barely even admitted it to himself. Her quick mind was one that he'd miss if it disappeared from his classes.
"Her mind almost made up for the minds belonging to people like Longbottom," he mused.
Severus jumped as Hermione reached for his hand. He started to pull it away instinctively, but he noticed she was surprisingly strong and she kept a firm hold, pulling him towards the door as slowly and as quietly as she could. Both were aware that Draco and however many people he'd brought with him could be anywhere in the house by now.
They both strained their ears, wondering where the Malfoys were. Surely they'd have come upstairs by now? Hermione heard a stair creak. The fifth stair from the top, she realised. In total darkness, she pulled her professor along the hallway and into another room. Her parents' room. She gently pushed the door closed and dropped Severus' hand.
Working quickly and quietly, she felt along the wall, behind her parents' bed. Severus watched the door quietly, straining his eyes and ears and thanking God (even if Voldemort really was that God) that there was no moon that night, because if there was they would surely have been seen by now.
There was a sound coming from the room they had just vacated. Severus listened intently and could hear people feeling about the room, probably looking for Hermione, assuming she'd be asleep in bed. Obviously Draco was wanting to find Hermione asleep and take her without a fight, which was probably a clever move because given Hermione's aptitude for anything magical, Draco would certainly have lost the fight. Lucius however, was another matter.
It wasn't that Severus didn't think himself able to match and probably better Lucius in a fight, it was the fact that in doing so, he would have run a very high risk of one of Malfoy's troops escaping and it getting back to He Who Is Very Grumpy When Crossed that he was batting for Dumbledore's team.
"Oh, the images..."
"Alohomora!" Hermione whispered. But it was too loud. A sudden noise from the room next door told that she had been heard.
"Fuck," she said, and Severus raised his eyebrows in the darkness.
She grabbed his hand again and felt along the wall, looking for the opening that her Alohomora spell had just uncovered. She pulled him onto the bed and then pulled him up to make him climb over it. They both dropped over the headboard, trying to be as quiet as possible and they landed in another room.
Hermione pushed Severus further into the room, not able to see his incredulous look at being treated in such an offhand manner.
"Reparo!" she whispered. The wallpaper Severus guessed had been covering the door she had led them through was suddenly intact. It wouldn't stop anyone getting in, but at least they wouldn't be able to see where the door was.
Severus and Hermione pushed the door shut together as gently as possible, and both started working every charm they knew to lock it.
At one whispered charm that Hermione had never heard of before, she touched Severus' shoulder, making him jump.
"If we get out of this, you're teaching me that one," she whispered in his ear, her hot breath against his neck making him shiver. He glowered at her in the darkness and carried on with the locking and protection charms.
When they both had done everything they could do, they backed away from the door, as if trying to get as far away from the intruders as possible.
Severus felt around with his long, perceptive fingers. The room was small. About half as large again as your average wardrobe.
"Where the hell are we?" he thought.
Hermione's breathing was speeding up, until she was almost panting. He cringed, hoping to Merlin that they couldn't hear her in the other room. What was wrong?
He felt for her in the dark and she backed away, fast, as far as she could get from him, which admittedly wasn't far. Was someone cursing her?
He daren't light up the room in case someone saw, so he felt for Hermione until he found her, which didn't take long given the size of the room. She was curled up in a ball, pressed against the wall. Her breathing was coming in gasps and she was shaking. He felt for her hands and realized her nails were digging into her palms. She'd drawn blood – he could feel it pooling in her palms.
"Hermione's claustrophobic? Bloody Gryffindors – it was always something like this that was their downfall. She'll face Voldemort without flinching and even look him in the eye when he was ranting at her, but stick her in a small room and she was a wreck."
With Harry, Severus had found out during one of their Occulemency lessons, it was worms. An odd thing to be afraid of, admittedly. Maybe it was something to do with Voldemort? Maybe instead of reminding Harry of a snake...? Maybe he should mention that to Voldemort at their next gathering. That'd be fun. "Master, I think Harry Potter associates you with worms. Maybe it's time for a make-over? Maybe something less... wormy?"
With Ron it was spiders and with the youngest Weasley, it was fish. No one in that family had ever been particularly sane. Whatever happened to that Gryffindor courage they had all been picked for?
Severus quietly dropped to his knees and put his arms around Hermione. He held the shaking girl gently in his arms for a moment, before he squeezed in beside her and sat on the floor next to her. There was only just enough room.
He awkwardly pulled her into his arms and half onto his lap, knowing that touching her and holding her was the only way she might just calm down before she got them both killed. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he stiffened in surprise as she breathed deeply into his neck, trying to calm down.
A sudden noise seemed to come from the room they were in. Hermione jumped and clung harder. Only years of not reacting outwardly to anything at all stopped Severus from jumping too. They must have realised no one was there and opted for trashing her house instead, Severus realized as he heard more banging and crashing.
Hermione wriggled so that her legs were at either side of his. She could get closer that way. She could cling better and everything would be okay. If she could just melt into his body, she'd be able to breathe again.
"God, his hair is soft," she thought, as it brushed against her cheek. "It doesn't look like it should be this soft. And it smells of... I don't know... spices and wood."
She nuzzled into his neck, temporarily relieved of her extreme claustrophobia by the shock of Professor Snape smelling and feeling so... good.
He was holding her stiffly in his arms and she longed for him to just relax and hold her. She lifted up a hand and tentatively touched his cheek.
"Relax..." she whispered.
"That's bloody rich," he thought. "Crucio would be more relaxing than this."
He deliberately relaxed his arms.
Hermione wrapped her arms around his back and tried not to let herself register that it was Professor Snape who was holding her close and making her feel safe and... something else.
She wriggled in his lap, getting into a comfier position, her breasts pressing warm and firm against his chest. Severus raised his eyes heavenwards and cursed Lucius for putting him in this position. He hoped to Merlin that he wouldn't embarrass himself, knowing he wouldn't be able to prevent it if she kept bloody wriggling like that.
Her head rested against his chest and he slowly lifted his hand to her hair. When he had first seen her, it had been a bushy mess. Now it was almost waist-length and a gorgeous mass of unruly waves and curls. He let his fingers run through it – it felt like silk.
She sighed, almost imperceptibly at his touch, which made him start stroking her hair more confidently. The sat like that for so long, they both lost count of time. Hermione's arms were wrapped around him, her hot breath against his neck and he was holding her, while stroking her hair gently, sending shivers down her spine with every touch.
She didn't want to move, didn't care why they were there, she just wanted to be held by him. My God, she was being held by Professor Snape, the man who had hated her from the moment he'd laid eyes on her.
Yet he'd come to her rescue tonight and now his amazingly skilled hands were stroking her hair, moving to knead her scalp and brush against the side of her neck. God, it felt good...
She shivered noticeably against him and froze for a second, wondering whether he'd stop. He brushed his fingers against her neck again and she shivered again, holding onto him more tightly. She suddenly became even more aware of her attire and silently cursed Ron.
"I bet Ron didn't think that Professor Snape would be seeing me in this before he did..." she thought, with an almost wicked grin. "Although technically, he's feeling it, as opposed to seeing it."
Severus had realised the moment he'd pulled her into his arms that she was wearing barely anything, and it was probably that fact that was making his fingers 'accidentally' brush against her earlobe and neck so often.
Okay, she was Hermione Granger, that annoying girl who always stuck her hand up in class and kept helping Longbottom instead of concentrating on her own work. But he would have been blind if he hadn't noticed how beautiful she'd become. Which was funny, because he'd never really noticed any of the other girls in her year in the same way.
All thoughts suddenly left his mind, as Hermione wriggled again. He bit back a groan.
"Miss Granger," Severus said, in a barely audible whisper, "You wriggling like that is not helping this situation. Contrary to popular belief, I am human."
Hermione froze, understanding his meaning.
"Do you think they've gone?" she whispered against his ear, making him bite back another groan as her breath tickled his ear.
Severus wasn't sure he cared anymore, he just had to move away from Hermione, before he did something they'd both regret and Dumbledore would kill him for. Dumbledore had always had a soft spot for Hermione.
He gently pushed her off his lap, both of them jumping briefly when his hand touched her bare thigh. Hermione mentally cursed Ron yet again.
They both scrambled to their feet, Severus with a little more grace than Hermione. They both listened intently at the door. Severus knew he shouldn't trust that he couldn't hear anything suspicious, because he'd known Lucius to lie in wait for hours for his victims in the past.
"Stay here," he ordered, breaking all the charms with a wave of his arm and pushing the door open.
"I'm impressed," Hermione murmured in his ear, making him jump.
"I thought I told you to stay there," he snarled, his voice intimidating even in a whisper.
"You did, yes," Hermione said, not moving from his side.
Severus sighed and made his way carefully out of the bedroom room. He cast a locator spell, which shot out of his wand in a flash of blue light and disappeared down the stairs. Hermione watched, impressed again as the little blue light zipped into every room and every nook and cranny, looking for anyone still left in the house.
When the light returned, still blue, Severus finally relaxed a little. It was only then that he realized he could smell something; something horribly familiar.
