So, my friends, this is the end. I realize some people were slightly confused about my last AN. Honestly, I can't even remember what I wrote. This took me longer to update than I thought it would because I don't particularly like this chapter. Yes, this is what I have been working up to, but I just don't like it. Anyway, I hope you liked the story. Actually I have another story on the backburner at the moment, so watch for that. It's a completely random pairing, but whatever. Maybe it will be done in a few months or so. Completely depends on how many mental breakdowns I have in between.
Sunlight stabbed at his eyes as he woke swiftly and silently. After ascertaining his solitude, Snape leisurely allowed his eyes to flicker open. Berating himself for remaining in the Black House all night, he wrapped his robes tightly to himself and slid effortlessly into the shadows despite his aching and protesting body. With a sudden and decisive turn, Snape stalked into the kitchen and was already reaching for a mug when the sleepily cheerful voice of Nymphadora Tonks exclaimed, "I thought you'd left last night!"
No one, he decided, should sound that happy to see him in the morning. With a stilted turn, he managed a particularly scathing glare as he cradled the steaming mug of tea in his hands. Her hair was still the electric purple of the day before, but it was tangled and mussed beyond all reasoning from sleep. Sulfuric eyes stared jovially at him as her cherubic lips angled into what he would describe as an idiotic grin. He suddenly realized she was smiling at him.
Spinning back to the semi-opaque window above the sink, he forced his lungs to start working again. Just as his discomfort receded, his unpredictable rage spilled up from the depths of his abdomen as strong and burning as bile. Furiously, he whirled back to face the gawking girl in a maelstrom of black robes and maniacally glinting eyes. Blotches of red and white marred his face as he somehow managed to both bark and hiss, "You read the bloody note."
Her face noticeably blanched and she stammered slightly before she found her strength again in the face of his onslaught. "If you had ever said anything, I wouldn't've had to resort to that! If you had told me anything, you could have saved us both a lot of misery!"
"If you could have learned to let foolish, imbecilic fantasies remain as such without humiliating me, who obviously had no prior involvement in any problem of yours –"
"Oh, just shut up, Snape," she grumbled. "You got yourself into this mess, and you bloody well know it." He was too close. She couldn't remember when she had stood up, much less knocked her toast and tea to the floor. The warm liquid pooled around her toes, and she was close enough to count his eyelashes. A completely irrational part of her noted his eyelashes were remarkably long and thick. Another part of her noted they seemed even longer than she knew them to be as they both lurched forward and tangled themselves in each other. Her fingers were hooked in his hair and the front of his robes; his were snarled in her glaring purple tresses and clutching at her hip. They were slammed together; they were reducing their awareness to mouths and hands and the aching crash of body against body.
Remotely, she noticed she was being lifted from her feet. All but hurled onto the countertop, she pulled herself back to him with a noise somewhere between a squawk and a moan. His hands and lips were everywhere, and she arched her back and slid her feet up the cabinets and around his waist leaving damp footprints in their wake. Her fingers were slipping to the line of multitude of small black buttons concealing his chest. Her pajamas were bunching in his hands pressing against her ribs just below her breasts. With a strangled noise she wasn't sure she had really uttered, she managed to push his robes from his shoulders in a black cascade that billowed to the tepid puddle of tea and toast crumbs.
Her fingers slid through the substantial gap she had opened in the infuriating line of buttons and spread over his skin. A hiss passed through his lips as they were pressed between the hollow of her throat above her collarbone as she traced the depressions between each of his protruding ribs. Her legs drew him closer to her, and she vaguely heard the snapping of her pajamas' buttons as he forced the shirt apart. His hands were cold against her skin, and she shuddered as her yellow eyes rolled back into her head. Then, his hands were gone, and she was left attempting to hold a man who suddenly did not want to be held. "I don't want your sympathy," he spat as he tried to force her legs from his waist. She clutched at his collar, his hair, and even his skin as she fought to hold him to her. Curses filled the heavy air until she managed to relatively immobilize his arms. His eyes continued to spit fire, but she matched him glare for glare, "What the fuck do you think you are doing? You finally unbend, but then you start screaming about sympathy that I don't have for you. What the hell are you doing?" Her eyes flashed and her fingers dug into his flesh. "What the hell do you think I'm doing?" she sighed into the folds of his flapping white shirt.
"I do not want anyone's sympathy, but I very much doubt that I could stand yours," he muttered with a somewhat softer tone. The poison in his eyes was diluting to its usual rancor, and she thought, for a moment, that his lips attempted to twist into a smile. She leaned forward until her forehead lingered almost against his so that their breath mingled in a warm cloud between their slightly parted lips. Slowly, she trailed her thumbs over his thin lips and into his dark as shadow hair. "And I don't want your sympathy either, Snape, no matter how inclined you are to give it," her mouth twisted into a mordant smile she could only have learned from years of exposure to him. She purred, "Unless, of course, it's in the form of you crawling into bed with me." The answering grip of his hands on her shoulders and his mouth against hers was all the reply she needed, and the thrill of victory, she discovered, was almost as sweet as the skin beneath his jaw.
They had hastily retreated into the relative solitude of his library hideaway. Together, they lay against the faded pattern of one of the library's couches. Snape idly contemplated the brown stains spreading across the once pure white ceiling as he traced tiny circles against her inner thigh. Tonks shifted her arm lazily across his chest and sighed complacently within the dull glow of the single light that surrounded them in a halo of gold. Curled happily in her euphoria, she brushed her lips against his skin and smiled to herself. His skin was warm and damp against her own, and she was sure she had never felt so utterly boneless before. Hopefully, he would not suggest standing up anytime soon, or her elephantine grace would become far more than apparent; but more importantly, she was truly and completely happy right here.
Happiness was not a feeling she was accustomed to anymore; at least not of this magnitude. For the first time in almost as long as she cared to think about, she was deliriously happy. Snape's breath trailing along her forehead and his hair tickling her cheekbones were the most wonderful feelings she could possibly imagine at the moment. With her ear pressed against his chest, she could hear their heartbeats steadying into the same rhythm she was loath to break. She didn't dare move for the fear of changing anything in this perfect moment of hers.
True, Snape was not the most beautiful lover she had ever had, but he was not the most unattractive man either. Her fingers gently traced the hideous bruises staining his skin, and she wrapped her arms protectively around him. He was hers now, and they both knew it, just as they knew she was completely and absolutely his. They could not turn back now; even though she was perfectly aware that he would try.
His sleepy yawn drew her attention back to his face. His abyssal eyes stared at her with contentment etched within them, even though his smile could not aptly portray his delight. She ran her hand along his jaw as he murmured, "I hope you know what you have gotten yourself into. Things will not always be perfect; in fact, they rarely will be." She allowed him to dwell for a few moments before she smiled the smile of one truly blissful and said, "If I was after perfection, love, I never would've chosen you, then, would I?" The crinkling at the corner of his eyes was answer enough, and Grimmauld Place rang with the echoes of her idyllic laughter.