Chapter 54: In Which We Spar

As they walked to the gym, Severus marvelled at Hermione. He could see she was angry. Deeply angry. But not at him, and so she didn't lash out at him. She remained perfectly civil, somewhat quiet, but he suspected that was part of keeping her temper in check.

When they got to the gym he asked her, "How does this work?"

"You grab a space. I'm going to take a few minutes to beat that punching bag."

He nodded and found a space towards the back of the gym that none of the other girls were using. Then he turned to watch her. After ten seconds, he was deeply glad to not be that punching bag or Dumbledore. She was punching, kicking, and occasionally hitting it with her elbows. After several minutes she came to him, skin pink, sweat trickling down her forehead.

"Better?" he asked.

"A little. The ground rules are easy; first one to land ten spells wins."

"Any spell?"

"Certainly. Just make sure we can fix any damage that might ensue."

The first round went to Snape. His stunning spell knocked Hermione cold, and he quickly cast nine other minor spells.

She stood up shaking her head. "That's not quite how this works. If you knock me arse over teakettle, let me get back up again before casting the next spell."

"You wouldn't do that in a battle."

"That's why this is sparring."

They faced off one more time. This time Snape found himself hanging in the air from his left foot, while Hermione went after her wand. His disarming spell hit her just a second after she got Levicorpus out.

When she got him back down again, he said, "One for each of us?"

"That's how it works."

He smiled and used Legilimency to wave away her next four spells. When she stopped to give him a frustrated look, he cast a quick non-verbal Jelly Legs Jinx. He quickly removed the curse.

"Two for me, one for you," he said as he helped her up from the gym floor.

She didn't wait for a second to go by from his last word. The summoning spell brought his wand to her hand, and then she used it to cast a Bat Bogey Hex on him. She stopped the curse, and then tossed his wand back to him.

"Two for you, three for me," she replied.

"What happened to stopping between rounds?" He cast the non-verbal summoning spell while asking the question, and then used her wand to cast a Bat Bogey Hex back at her. She used a wandless shield to deflect it, and then fired back with shock wave that made him drop the wands.

"Three for you, four for me," Hermione said. He focused all his energy on bringing his wand back to him, and it obeyed, jumping to his hand.

"How about we stick to wanded magic? Let me get more than two lessons into wandless before we spar with it," he said.

She winked at him. "That sounds fair."

A crowd of Slayers had gathered around them. She did a quick barrier spell. "We don't want any of them getting hit by accident."

"Of course not. And really, it's four for me, and four for you, because I landed a Legilimency you didn't notice two or three rounds back."

"Really?" Hermione cast a stunner, and he waved it away.

"Really. All I have to do is pay attention and keep up the eye contact."

"In that case…" The spell she cast was on herself. Three Hermiones stood in front of him, each one moving independently of the others. But while she cast her spell, he cast his, and now the score was Snape five, Hermione four.

The Hermiones moved to circle Snape, leaving him unable to keep up eye contact with all three. Fortunately for him, he could feel which one was the real Hermione. Must be part of that sensitivity to life magic. Nice! A second passed while he felt pleased about how easy it was to tell which was the real Hermione. Damn! He was hit with sedation charm that dropped him to the floor.

"Five to five." She released the charm and stood over him, waiting for him to get up. He decided it was time to dig deeper into his bag of tricks. His hand snaked out and grabbed her ankle, dropping her to the mat, while he cast a sleeping spell with his other hand.

When she woke up, she was on the floor and he was standing. "Six to five. You didn't say anything about waiting for me to get up after you knocked me arse over teakettle." The two other Hermiones had vanished while she slept.

She hopped to her feet, and had her wand out in one smooth move. He was already focused and using Legilimency to see what she would do next. He was ready to wave away the spell that her mind had told him was coming next. What actually happened was that she used a sweeping kick to knock his legs out from under him, and then cast a levitation spell on him. While he floated in the air, she asked, "Do you really want to add in physical fighting with the wand work?"

Instead of answering her, he cast another Levicorpus, flipping her upside down.

"Yes, but how about we both let each other down before the next round?" They both hit the floor. "Lovely use of two thoughts at once."

"Thank you. Next time don't tell me you landed a Legilimency spell just for the extra point. What's the score?"

"Seven to six, my lead."

"I'll have to fix that." And she did. A very quick non-verbal Expeliamus sent his wand tumbling.

"Seven to seven." She brought his wand back to him.

He had just begun to apparate, the idea being he'd land behind her, and cast from there, when he remembered that apparating on the Council's grounds was a very bad idea. He stopped the spell before it got going, but was hit with one of hers while he did it.

"Eight to seven. What happened? It looked like you just let me hit you."

"I remembered a second too late that you can't apparate here."

"Or you could say you remembered just in the nick of time."

"Either way, you got an easy point. Ready?"

They both looked at each other for a full minute, neither moving, waiting to see who would cast, move, twitch first. What happened was a draw. Both wands went flying, because both cast at the same time. They went for their wands, and stood at the ready again.

"Nine to eight, my favour," Hermione said.

"Not for long," Snape replied. He waited to see her begin to move, and then he dropped to the floor, rolling, while casting the first spell, her wand went flying as her stunning spell flew over him, his second spell, also a stunner, hit her before her wand landed.

He crawled over to where she lay on the floor. "Ten to eight, my match." He smiled, kissed her, and offered her his hand to pull her up.

"Still angry?"

"No, I can't say that I am. When did you learn to fight like that?"

"Hermione, my dear, I retired from fighting the first time when I was younger than you are now. I've had time to learn a few tricks. The fact you made me dig that deeply into my bag of them was impressive. I'm glad I never had to fight you for real."

"Me, too."

At which point Hermione let down the protective barrier spell that kept the watching Slayers safe. She noticed Dean and Amber in the crowd as well. Dean's mouth was open and his eyes were wide. Dean rushed to her side.

"Professor Granger! I didn't know… I never imagined… You were amazing!"

"They don't give Order of Merlin medals to just anyone, Dean."

"But still…"

"You should have seen Professor McGonagall, or Molly Weasley, or Nymphadora Lupin at the battle of Hogwarts, Dean, those witches could really fight. What brings you here tonight?"

"Oh, Sophie, Karen, and Xia wanted me to see how they fight so I can design a more resistant wand. Apparently they're too easy to break in normal combat. I was going to watch them fight. Then we saw the crowd, and decided to watch you two."

"Good show?"

"Bloody excellent!"

While Dean and Hermione were talking, half a dozen Slayers were trying to get Snape to fight them. He was holding up his hands trying to calm them down when Hermione turned back to him.

"Ladies, I really don't want to try a fist on wand fight. I have no desire to be a huge bruise in the morning. Besides, we were just taking a break from reading the Defeat the Dark Lord entries. We've got to get back to that if you want to know who won tomorrow."

As they walked out of the gym Hermione said, "How about we slip into the pool now? We're both hot and sweaty. A skinny dip might do us some good."

Snape's lips tightened. Hermione was watching him closely. "Severus, what's going on with you and the pool? You went swimming happily yesterday."

"How about we get back to our room, hop in the shower, and I'll tell you?"

"How mysterious... I'm game."

They got to their room, and Snape turned on the water to their shower. He remained quiet while they disrobed, and Hermione let the water beat down on her, smiling at him happily. "So tell me why you've got a newfound fear of the pool."

"You remember that I was supposed to be finding out about what my element is?"

"Yes. Oh, last night was your dream. Something unpleasant with the pool?"

"You could say that." He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "It turns out that my element is life."

"Willow mentioned that. It's so fascinating. There's so much to research on that. So many new things to learn. I'm starting to get a book list for further reading we can do."

"Yes. Well… The dream used the pool to show me that."

"That works, water is a major life symbol. Why so bothered?"

"You, me, Buffy, and Spike were all shagging in the pool." His face was bright pink, and she severely doubted it had anything to do with the temperature of the water.

"Oh. Well. Buffy's cute."

"You think I'd be blushing about a dream where I was shagging Buffy?"

"Well, no, not really. I was trying to give you an easy way out of having to tell me what really happened."

"Well, Willow tells me that 'accepting the death symbol' is a very important part of a life/death dream, and shagging," he winced, "Spike, is just my brain's way of doing it."

"Hmmm… I would have liked to have seen that." She smiled up at him, holding him close.

"Ick." He winced again.

"In fact, stick George in there, and that would be just perfect." She kissed his bottom lip.

"Noo! Don't tell me that. I do not want to know you think a George/Spike/Severus threesome would be fun to watch. I don't even like saying the words." He was pulling away from her, looking disturbed.

"Really, blonde, red, and black, all different body types, all wet and naked, you'd be so pretty all together." She was smiling widely. Apparently teasing him was almost as good as fighting for getting her into a good mood.

"We never had this conversation. We will never have this conversation again. I now need to go and perform a specialized Obliviate on myself to remove these last five minutes."

"I bet the girls would really like to watch…"

"Noooo…."

He fled the shower, and she followed laughing. "Okay, you aren't gay. You really, really aren't gay. You aren't bi. You really, really aren't bi. I can live with that. I'll stop teasing you."

"What about you? You and Buffy, doesn't bother you?"

"Not at all. I'm not saying I have any desire to do anything with her, but it doesn't repulse me. She's pretty, she's fun, and I bet she'd be good in bed or the pool." She smiled brightly. Snape was shaking his head.

"You wouldn't want to see the two of us?"

"I didn't say that. What man in his right mind wouldn't want to see you two? No, I just have a hard time understanding how blasé you are."

"George married Angelina first, and then both of them married Deirdre. They aren't two couples; they're a triple. I had three options: get used to the idea, pretend it didn't happen, or cut them off. I don't like to fake reality, and nothing short of death is going to take George out of my life. Besides, if you can want to see Buffy and I, why can't you get that I'd want to see you and Spike?"

"I understand that, at least from an aesthetic perspective." Not really. Snape was not a fan of the naked male form, but he was at least willing to say it. "I don't get that you and Buffy doesn't bother you."

"It just doesn't. As I said, I'm not interested in doing anything about it. But it doesn't bother me. I guess I'd rather pick my bed mates by their personalities rather than their plumbing."

Severus sat thinking about that. When he spoke, he asked, "Have you and Spike and Buffy ever…?"

"No." She laughed happily at that idea. "We've never even flirted with the idea... Well, not seriously. For all I know they're monogamous."

"So, let me get this straight: I just told you I was dreaming about having sex with someone else, a male someone else, and it does not bother you?"

"No. I trust you Severus. Plus you're practically green; it doesn't look like you're about to run off anytime soon."

"Why do you trust me?" He looked concerned.

She looked extremely relaxed as she cleared away papers to make a place to sit down on the bed. "I always did as a child, and then, when we all thought you had betrayed us I just couldn't believe it. I knew it happened, but I couldn't make myself feel it was real. A year later I knew it wasn't. It was a relief to know the world made some sort of sense."

He looked content with her answer, and sat down on the bed across from her. "So, here's what I don't understand. You're fine with the idea of male or female bed mates, but you've only had sex with Ron and me."

"I have very high standards." She smiled and then continued on, "I was in mourning for a very long time. By the time I wasn't, most of the men I was interested in were married to other women, and they didn't start looking at me until the law passed. I've never met a woman I liked enough to want to sleep with. Ginny's lovely, but she might as well be my little sister. Plus, I'm not a big fan of casual sex. I wouldn't want to go pick someone up in a bar. I want to want the person I'm sleeping with, and on first brush I haven't yet met anyone I wanted that way. I have to know the person first."

"Does it bother you that just about all the sex I've had was casual?"

"Not terribly." She paused, thinking. "Well, a little, actually. But I understand you weren't looking for the same thing I was. And I surely understand that we both desire people differently. The last ten minutes is a testament to that. Besides, I don't have any right to be upset about your past, not when I said yes to your present and future knowing about it. Although I'd appreciate you not doing it in the future."

"You're the only one I'm planning on sleeping with in the future."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I don't think it'll work out that way." She kept her face straight, and his fell a bit. Then she spoke quickly, smiling, before he got too upset: "I'm sure when we have kids they'll want to sleep with us as well."

He lunged across the bed, scattering Defeat Lord Voldemort proposals and tackling her with tickles.

"The little buggers can sleep on the floor. You're mine."