Chapter 57: In Which We Enjoy A Little Sun

The beach was conveniently empty. For some reason all the muggles interested in going for a swim or time in the sun suddenly realized they had other business in need of attending. Urgent business. Which meant Snape and Hermione were the only humans around for almost a mile in any direction. Which just happened to suit both of them just fine.

Hermione had packed a picnic for them. Severus had made sure that no one else would want the beach. They both spent several hours splashing about in the remarkably warm, emerald coloured water.

After lunch they lay on their blanket, under the umbrella, comfortable in the shade. The breeze had picked up and provided a lovely cooling effect. Snape rolled onto his side, and let his eyes wander up and down Hermione, stopping at her ankle.

"Is that the same anklet you made the day of the ball?"

"Yes."

"It didn't have little trinkets on it before."

"No, I've added one for each place we've visited." He sat up, and she placed her foot in his lap so he could see it better. A tiny wooden spike, a little I Heart NY charm, a miniature Victorian house, a small silver butterfly, and a little Mickey Mouse had all added themselves onto her chain. He looked up from her foot, holding her gaze with his, placed a kiss on her ankle, and then walked off to the surf.

Hermione watched him from her spot on the blanket. He appeared to be looking for something. He bent down, picked something off the beach, gave it a quick rinse in the ocean and began to return to her.

She stood to watch his return. The breeze caught the sarong she had tied around her hips when they finished swimming and her hair, both trailed out behind her.

When he returned to the blanket, he knelt at her foot and held a small object for her inspection. It was a miniscule conch shell. When she saw it, she smiled brightly at him. He bent to her ankle and used his wand to attach it to the chain.

He ran his fingers up her leg, stroking the skin of her inner calf, and placing a gentle kiss on her knee. He looked up at her, seeing the curves of her legs, hips, tummy and breast, and felt a sudden surge of desire. The beach was empty, and until he released the wards, it would stay that way.

He reached for the knot keeping her sarong in place and untied it. The wind caught it, fluttering it away. He gazed at her bikini clad body, his eyes touching every inch of her.

"You're beautiful."

"You're not looking too bad yourself." Her smile was warm. Her skin was warm. He rested his head against her tummy while his fingers tugged on her bikini.

Hermione awoke some time later. She was hot. Very hot. Burning hot. Her skin felt tight. She knew she was lying on the blanket, on her stomach, with one arm across Severus' chest, and she knew she should be seeing the usual brownish-black of the back of her eyelids, not the red that indicated she was in full sunlight. She opened her right eye and was met with a view of an extremely pink Snape.

She shifted and then let out a moan. This movement caused Severus to awake. He also moaned, which rapidly devolved into a rather imaginative string of curse words as the pain from the burn hit him.

"The shade moved," Hermione stated the obvious. When they had fallen asleep the umbrella had provided a nice patch of shade. Now Snape from the knees down, and Hermione's right foot were still in the shade, and still somewhat tan, as opposed to the varying degrees of red that coloured the rest of them. She sat up very carefully and then suppressed a giggle. A perfect copy of her arm and hand were marked into his chest.

Severus stared at his poor, scorched skin. "I don't think we should even try to put our suits back on. Let's just apparate straight to the hotel room."

Several seconds later they were back in the air-conditioned gloom of their hotel room. Hermione was filling the bath with cool water, and Severus was working on a charm to counteract the burning sensation.

They both settled gratefully into the tepid water, careful not to touch each other, or much of anything else for that matter.

"What I wouldn't give for this tub to be full of Essence of Murtlap," Hermione said wistfully.

"I don't think I could survive the trip to get my store of it. I just about passed out from the pain with the apparition to the hotel, and that was only a matter of seconds."

"Don't be such a baby; it wasn't that bad."

"Easy for you to say; you didn't get your bits burned."

"Oh." She looked down and noticed that Snape's burn was quite a bit worse than hers. "Ouch. I'm sorry. I didn't notice how thoroughly burned you were."

"Yes, well, I wasn't lying on my stomach."

They sat in the water; Hermione carefully floating a few inches off the bottom of the tub.

"Aloe!" Her eyes gleamed when she said it.

Severus looked up as she said it, and his eyes caught her enthusiasm. "Aloe… yes… Aloe, lavender, oatmeal, and avocado. It'll look a fright, but it'll feel wonderful. Can you go out and get it?" Hermione winced at the idea of putting on clothing and leaving the room.

Severus tried to sound reasonable, as opposed to cranky. "Look, we need to put something other than cool water on this, or we're both going to get sick. I don't think I can stuff my bits into a pair of pants, and I can't wear a dress out."

"You could wear a dress, remember those guys we saw at the club a few nights ago."

Some of the more colourful members of the Miami club scene wandered through his mind. "Ha ha ha," he said without a trace of humor. "Let me restate: I will not wear a dress out. Besides, you're the bleeding Gryffindor, isn't helping those in need your second nature?"

"You aren't exactly the image of the damsel in distress."

"How much more distressed do I need to be before you rescue me? I can summon a dragon if it'll get you moving." She laughed; he began to smile, and then dropped the expression as the pain from moving his face hit.

She stood, water dripping down her rapidly heating skin. "I'll get your ingredients on two conditions. One: you put the potion on me first, and two: cast a cooling charm on my back so I can put a dress on."

"Done." He waved his wand, and a luscious coolness washed over her skin.

"That feels so good. If only it actually did some good."

"Yes, it would be nice if it actually helped the healing."

Snape floated in the tub for an extra twenty minutes. It helped some. But not nearly enough. He was starting to feel feverish, and wondered exactly how long he had before he'd succumb to sun poisoning. He very slowly, very carefully eased his way out of the tub. Dried the back of himself off as gently as possible, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Snape focused on trying to find a way to heal his skin. He could do it in a matter of minutes with a potions lab, or in a matter of hours with the ingredients Hermione would be bringing him, but on his own?

Well, he was good with cuts. But he knew what a cut was. He knew how the damage was made, and he could envision how to fix it. But with a burn? He just didn't know how a burn worked well enough to fix it by will alone.

Not to say he hadn't tried. He had a perfect looking patch of skin on his left thigh; that hurt just as much as all the rest of him. Willing his skin to look normal obviously wasn't enough. The oozing blister on his right leg showed him that just speeding up the process wasn't enough either. He needed to find something that would actually take the burn away, and he just didn't know how to do that.

It took Hermione an hour and twenty minutes to return. When she entered their room she had three large bags with her.

"I bought out the entire store of avocado…" She looked at his legs, dropped the bags and rushed to him. "What did you do to yourself?"

He gave her a chagrined smile. "I tried some wandless healing. It didn't work." He grabbed her hand as she was about to touch the normal looking spot. She winced as his fingers wrapped around the red skin on the back of her arm, and he dropped her hand with an apologetic look. "It looks right, but it isn't. I don't think I got it healed deeply enough."

"And the other side?" She looked horrified at the oozing blister.

"What will happen to us all over if I don't get to work and star slathering us with burn paste soon."

"Well, let's get to work. What do you need done?" She unpacked a large bag of avocados, two boxes of oatmeal, a huge bottle of aloe, and a large bottle of lavender oil. Next to them she placed a set of bowls, a set of spoons, three knives, and a hand mixer.

"What's in this one?" Snape looked into the bag she didn't open.

"I got us dinner, too. Conch fritters."

"Sounds good. Start pitting and peeling the avocados, and I'll get the oatmeal steeping in the lavender and aloe." In a matter of minutes they had a thick, aromatic, green paste. Severus took a heaping handful and began to smooth it down her back.

Hermione let out a sigh. "God, that's as good as the cooling spell, and this time it actually helps. Here, let me get you." She took a handful and rubbed it on his face while he did her shoulders and neck. Soon they were both groaning with relief as the pain eased and their skin began to heal.

"So, we now know sun block goes into any and all future picnic baskets," Hermione said, laying on her stomach, back covered in green goo, and chewing a piece of conch fritter.

"I'd say that's a reasonable plan for the future," Snape answered, sitting at the headboard of the bed, also covered in green goo. "Granted, I don't think we'll forget this picnic anytime soon."

"It's burned into my memory." Hermione smiled when she said it.

Snape groaned. "You better smile if you're going to come up with puns that bad."