Chapter Thirty-Four: Hazelnut
It was a small thing, but Hermione decided to cut her hair. She had sat her NEWTs at the end of June, and the trials she was helping with were over. It was difficult, but after a prolonged conversation with Luna about Thestrals and death she realised that Harry was never coming back. She had recovered from being cursed in the back by a Death Eater, and had survived parting with the Resurrection Stone. They had not yet found a way to destroy it, but Severus had taken it to an unknown location and warded it against discovery. She had even adjusted to Severus' new schedule of work as a Dark Arts consultant to the Ministry.
Hermione Granger survived the war.
Her life was never going to be the same, but she did not have to be the same either.
So she cut her hair short and cropped into a pixie cut, and felt lighter than she had in months. There was something freeing about cutting off all her hair, as if all the burdens of war had fallen off her shoulders; the pain and tensions from her losses melted with each lock of hair that the Muggle stylist snipped.
In the end, she looked very much different, but somehow even more like herself than she had before. Hermione had been afraid that she would feel less attractive with short hair, but she liked how she looked. She had grown a little gaunt in the aftermath of war, but paired with the short haircut she felt as if she looked quietly strong. She liked that.
She was nervous and excited to show off her hairstyle, and had timed the cut right before a small gathering at the Weasley's. Luna and Severus had both been invited, as well as a small number of other members of the Order, and Neville.
"Hermione darling!" Mrs Weasley greeted at the door, and then stopped at the sight of Hermione when she drew her hood down.
"What did you do with all that lovely hair?" Mrs Weasley asked, shocked. Hermione felt uncomfortable, but tried to tell herself that Mrs Weasley was rather traditional and traditionally neither witches nor wizards had short hair in the wizarding world.
Hermione greeted Ginny and Fleur, who both hurriedly reassured her that she looked gorgeous, before she turned to Ron, who was also waiting at the door, and braced herself. He did not disappoint.
"Blimey Hermione," he said, taking in her haircut. "You look just like a Muggle boy!"
Gritting her teeth, Hermione tried not to say something scathing in turn. Her relationship with Ron was still delicate, but she had hoped that he would have been more supportive.
"But definitely a very good looking Muggle boy!" he added hastily, as if that made things better. He yelped as Ginny hit him upside the head, and the conversation then was cut short as they were all ushered to the table set up in the garden of the Burrow, where Ron and George had outdone themselves with a feast for those gathered.
On the table was what smelled like a very close rendition of Mrs Weasley's famous roast dinner, as well as curried meat pies, and sides of salad and fancifully shaped bread rolls that she was the work of George. Mrs Weasley was still recovering from being cursed during the Battle of Hogwarts, and was still not up to her usual activities, though Hermione had seen a towering chocolate cake in the kitchen that could only have been the work of Mrs Weasley. It was good to see her recovering, even if it was slow.
"Wotcher Hermione. Nice look," Tonks said, as Hermione slid into the seat beside her. Tonks bounced Teddy on her lap, who reached out for Hermione. The boy looked confused for a moment as the first thing he always reached for was Hermione's hair when she held him, but he soon adjusted by tugging on the long pointed collar of her blouse and trying to stick the slim piece of cloth into his mouth.
"Thanks Tonks," Hermione said quietly, and then held her breath as she caught sight of Severus. Severus looked good. His hair was pulled back, showing off his sharp cheekbones and dark eyes, and his skin no longer had the sickly sallow pallor that he did while he was stressed.
Hermione shivered as she felt the intensity of his gaze over her face, and tried not to let her disappointment show as he said nothing.
It didn't bother her, she told herself, at the end of the surprisingly well done dinner, that they left separately so as not to give Molly Weasley ideas.
Returning to Spinner's End made her feel no better than she had before the dinner—Severus had been more loquacious than his usual self, but he had made no conversation with her. It had rankled, that he had managed to say several nearly positive things to Remus and Fleur, but had said nothing to her all dinner long.
Hermione tried not to slam the door as she entered Severus' home, and hung her cloak with a violent jerk.
"...what is wrong?" Severus asked quietly, as he emerged from the kitchen.
"Can you believe it? Ron said I looked like a boy," she blurted out.
"I'm not sure I see that much of a difference," Severus said, which only infuriated Hermione further. She had left the hair salon feeling beautiful, and dinner at the Weasley's had tarnished that feeling. Severus' lack of response had just let that feeling fester, and this was her final straw.
"Of course you wouldn't," Hermione snapped against her better judgement, and stormed off to Severus' guest bedroom with his box of mementos for Lily Potter.
She warded the door shut, and then let out a frustrated scream.
Severus stared down at the bouquet of purple hyacinths resting against the floor in front of his bedroom door. When Hermione had stormed off to the guest bedroom and had not emerged all night long, he had briefly contemplated sleeping outside her door to apologise, but he was getting too old for such actions, and somehow, he felt like Hermione would not require such debasement from his person.
Hermione Granger was always surprising him in alarming and delightful ways, and her apology was just that.
He had been shocked when she had cut off the lion's mane that she called her hair—very few witches wore their hair short, and it had taken him a moment to realise that the very attractive witch standing in the Burrow was Hermione, and he had found it unnervingly difficult to tear his eyes away from the graceful line of her now exposed neck.
It was shameful, the things he thought of doing to her neck, as he sat two seats down from Teddy Lupin and three seats down from the Interim Minister for Magic.
He had been so focused on trying not to say something inappropriately lecherous and to continue on with his experiments in being positively honest with people around him that he had scarcely noticed the mood Hermione was in. He was too busy trying not to look like a lecher and trying to see how alarmed he could make Lupin look by being pleasant to him.
He had missed out on what others said to Hermione, but he realised that someone in the Weasley family must've said something unpleasant to her about her appearance; the Weasleys were many great things, but tact was in short supply amongst all of them.
He realised after that telling her that he saw no difference in her appearance was the wrong thing to say. He had been so caught up in trying not to sound like an unmitigated pervert that he didn't realise how his words sounded until he realised how familiar they sounded.
"I see no difference" reminded him of one of his lowest moments in the war.
He still remembered that moment in the corridor. It had been frustrating to see her trusting eyes, looking at him for help in the corridor, while her hexed teeth had grown past her chin. It had been infuriating because how often was he the one who had been in that position, and had help denied him? Who else watched out for the hurt Slytherins of Hogwarts aside from him? It had been tempting to cut her down just because she was a Gryffindor, but even then he remembered being mocked for his physical appearance as a teenager—it had been years before the Marauders had finally tired of hexing his nose in various ways—and he remembered wishing desperately that someone would look out for him. He remembered feeling the rage that he had to be the one to teach Hermione the cruel lesson that people in authority couldn't always be trusted to look out for her, that he couldn't always look out for students like students like her. Like himself.
Against his better judgement, he had apologised to her in the most roundabout way he could think of, and she had forgiven him.
He had not realised how important that forgiveness had been, back then. He still had the hazelnut she had given him for reconciliation. But the forgiveness she extended to him took on a strange significance in later years; he did not deserve the forgiveness, yet she gave it to him anyway. He had never been forgiven so easily; it was the first time someone had forgiven him since he joined the Death Eaters in a way that he felt touched by it. Dumbledore never fully forgave him, Hagrid never blamed him much for his actions in the first place, and Minerva only forgave him once he worked for it. Which were all valid reactions.
But Hermione had forgiven easily. Perhaps that was a weakness of hers—she frequently forgave Potter and Weasley when she shouldn't have, but he had no complaints when she forgave him.
And now—once again surprising him, she went one step further, and had apologised to him for something that he felt was largely his fault to begin with. His awkward words had hurt her, and while her reaction had hurt, it felt justifiable.
But she had apologised.
People did not apologise to Severus Snape. Lupin, for all his mild manners, had yet to apologise for his role in enabling some of the worst years of Severus' life. Dumbledore never apologised for all the ways he used Severus. The Ministry had not apologised for putting him in chains for his trial, and Kingsley had not apologised for disturbing his post-war peace to ask for help with dark curses and Death Eaters.
The only apology he had heard in the past year was from the Dark Lord, and even then, that had been but an excuse to kill him.
Severus did not know what to do with an apology.
Which was unfortunate, as at that very moment the door to his guest bedroom opened, and Hermione emerged wearing not much but a flimsy sleep shirt, her neck and and upper chest on display in a way that they never would have been with her longer hair.
"Well, fuck," Severus said, because apparently when confronted with truly unexpected delights he no longer knew how to have a filter.
"Severus?" Hermione froze in the doorway, her doe eyes impossibly wider now that she had been shorn of her mane.
Severus cleared his throat. "How are you?" he asked, helpless to think of anything smarter to say.
"I'm good. I just—wanted to apologise for last night, for getting upset at you like that. It was really not your fault, and Ron and Molly were being…Ron and Molly, and you aren't obligated to like what I do to my hair—"
"-but I do like it," Severus blurted out, having given up on controlling his tongue entirely. "It's very… lovely neck, and well," and he found to his horror that he was gesturing to her chest area, which usually was hidden by thick curtains of hair but was now barely covered to his eyes.
"Oh." Hermione's face grew flush, and Severus found his eyes tracking how far down her chest that flush went.
What were they talking about again?
"So you like my new hairstyle?" Hermione asked shyly.
Severus straightened, and tried to ignore the feeling of being quite exposed wearing nothing but a pair of old grey sleep trousers that were very thin and not at all adequate to cover any unfortunate reactions to seeing Hermione in scanty sleep garments that he had not seen before.
He found himself reaching out to touch the end of her haircut, the edge of which was shorter than her chin, and found himself fascinated by how she shivered under his touch as his fingers ghosted down her neck.
He shook himself out of his trance, and the mood burst like a bubble.
"Hermione, I liked your old hairstyle," he started, and then cursed himself as he saw her face fall. But he soldiered on. "I loved your long and wild hair, but I also love it the way it is now."
He found himself choked up at that moment—Hermione's lips had parted and she was listening raptly, and she seemed receptive, but pushing forward with honesty like this was not something that he usually did.
"The…length is very flattering to many aspects of your person," he said, and found himself distracted by the sight of her neck again. He wondered briefly if it was possible that he was a vampire like the students were fond of saying after all. He had a strong urge to put his mouth on that neck.
"Not that your attractiveness is determined by the length of your hair," he added, horrified by the implications of his previous sentence.
"No?" Hermione asked with a small smirk. She looked amused. Amusement was good, right?
Severus felt like escaping. He was groggy and horny, and Hermione was wearing very little clothing. Alarms were blaring in his head.
Hermione took a little breath, and straightened up. Severus tried to keep his eyes off her chest.
"So what is my attractiveness defined by?" she asked with a glint in her eyes.
"Ah—proximity?" Severus asked, any hope of a verbal filter completely gone.
"Proximity?" Hermione looked upset for a moment, and then an enlightened expression appeared on her face. She took a step towards him, which he found alarming for all sorts of issues, not the least of which was the tightness of his sleep trousers, and he took a shuffled step back. Then she took another step forward, and another step, and soon he felt the back of his knees hit his bed, and sat down with a heavy exhale.
"How's this proximity working for you?" she asked, as she sat down on his lap.
"Ah—good," Severus said, finding it hard to concentrate on his concerns. He was reasonably certain that he was the most accomplished Occlumens in all of Great Britain at the moment, but he had a lapful of Hermione, whose bottom was plush and round, and warm, and felt very pleasant pressed against his erection, which was not at all subtle. There was no mental defence against this form of attack.
"You know, I never asked you how your neck was feeling," Hermione said, apropos of nothing.
"My neck feels—" Severus let out a strangled gasp as Hermione started laying down gentle kisses on his neck, and was reasonably certain that his mind had just shut off, "—good."
"Fuck," he hissed, as Hermione sucked on the scar left behind by Nagini. That part of his neck was particularly sensitive.
Mindless of his vague concerns about the situation in general, Severus ground himself against Hermione and chased the pleasure spiralling up and up. He had had many dreams of similar situations, but reality was turning out better than his dreams. He held her hips tightly as he ground against her until he felt a tell-tale tingling of impending release, and stopped himself.
They didn't speak for several minutes as he panted into her neck, hands gripping her hips tightly to prevent her from moving, and slowly regained normal brain function.
He didn't want his first time finishing with Hermione like this. His body protested, but he was glad that he had stopped.
Severus thought ruefully of the courtship that he had wanted to conduct—carefully planned of course, each step taken when the last had been welcomed, entirely chaste until they had committed themselves to one another, and realised that yet again, Hermione Granger was setting fire his plans, though at least not literally this time.
"Hermione—" he started cautiously, unsure of how to go on.
"Did you not enjoy it?" she asked, her earlier confidence gone, and Severus had to take a deep breath from saying something crass.
"I enjoyed it but—I don't know how to put this any better but—what are we?" he asked, and cringed hard. This was not how he had envisioned their romance. It was encouraging that Hermione had not yet left his lap, and he grimaced, thinking of his still rigid length lying against her.
Hermione froze in his lap.
He decided that it was time to be brave. "Hermione, we live together. We sleep together. We go almost everywhere together, when I am not working. I know what I would like—I would like for us to share a life together, because while you were the only thing that made the war somewhat bearable in the end you make me wish for an even better life after. I want to build a better society for you. With you. Any way you will have me. But it has to be your choice. And…I don't do things like this casually. So I would like to know," he said, cursing his nerves. He had speeches planned, convincing arguments made, but at the end of the day it was her choice. It had to be her choice.
Her continued silence was not doing his nerves any favours.
"I—I would like many things with you," Hermione said, voice muffled slightly by where she had buried her face into his neck. Then she lifted her head, and looked him in the eye.
"But before that, could you tell me about…Lily?" she asked in a timid voice. Severus cursed in his head.
