Author's Note: Another odd sort of chapter. Anyway, you're almost at new stuff.
Chapter 5: Shirtless
Severus was bored. It wasn't often that he was without something to do. More often than not, he was buried under paperwork from Hogwarts (since that was a part of his job as Deputy Headmaster), had to brew dozens of different potions for dozens of different people (while Poppy was proficient as a certified mediwitch, her weak spot was without a doubt potions), and he generally was working on his own spells and potions. Today, he didn't feel like working. It was plain and simple. He still had a week until start of term so he was staying at Grimmauld Place. While he could've gone back to his hole in Spinner's End, he still wanted to keep an eye on Hermione.
Thinking of the bushy-haired gir-woman, he remembered his chat with Molly last night. Infuriating, nosey, assuming woman, she was. He had expected something like that from Hudson, not from the elder Weasley. Now that he thought about it, it was strange that Hudson had yet to say anything about Hermione. In fact, it was unbelievable. He had known Bade for years, and he was so meddlesome that Severus, himself, was surprised that he put up with him. It really was incredible.
Actually, he was right the first time around. It was unbelievable.
"Hudson!" Severus fumed, making a dramatic entrance into the living room where Hudson was sitting with a book in his hand, Theodore Lupin in his lap, and Teddy's parents on an opposite sofa.
"Ahh, Monsieur Snape! Salut! Ca va?" Hudson asked with the heaviest French accent he could pull off, tugging at an imaginary mustache. The baby in his lap giggled, and Tonks couldn't help but laugh herself.
"Ca va mal. Nymphadora, you may want to shield the baby's ears."
Bade scooped Teddy up from his lap and handed him across the coffee table to Nymphadora. She took the wand from Remus' robe sleeve and cast an oblivious bubble around her child who giggled at the lavender spark emitted from his mum's wand.
"In all these years, I thought you had finally matured. I was a fool for thinking so."
"Stop with the theatrics, Severus. I presume you've figured out I had something to do with Molly's meddling," Bade slyly commented, crossing his legs.
"Nymphadora, may I have a word in the other room?" Remus begged, desperate to flee from the conversation that didn't yet involve him.
"Are you kidding, Rem? Not a chance," She said, following the movements of the two arguing men.
Remus sat back down dejectedly.
"I don't know where the two of you got the idea that I need you to interfere in my affairs!" Severus exclaimed.
"Or lack thereof, you mean!" Bade countered in a calm voice.
"Or lack thereof," Severus agreed. "It's my business either way."
"It becomes my business when a stubborn, pigheaded mate of mine hurts another mate that's innocent and giving and would never hurt anyone herself." Bade's eyes were now flashing dangerously even though his voice remained low and calm.
"No, it does not. It may be of your own good will to comfort her, but it is of mine if I want to hurt her," Severus countered without thought.
He didn't get a chance to be shocked at his own cruel statement or to think about how loaded it was. He was thrown backwards through the kitchen door, it flying off its hinges and Severus smashing into the kitchen cabinets.
Tonks was caught between handing the baby to Remus or putting him in his crib. Upon seeing the angry expression on Remus' face, she decided the crib would be the safest bet. After she set him down, she ran into the kitchen, still wielding Remus' wand. She kneeled over him, checking him over. He was unconscious, but that was not from him hitting the cabinets, it seemed. He was unconscious before he even hit the door because of the power of the blast. It wasn't any specific spell or curse cast on him either. It was raw energy discharged from Bade- raw energy rarely any wizards had the ability to tap into.
She levitated him and took him upstairs, knowing there was nothing to do besides let him rest and tend to his burns.
---
When Severus awoke, he felt sore, and he knew he probably deserved to. It only took him a split second after waking up to realize his words were unimaginably cruel not only to his best mate but to the woman he loved and himself. Even though Hudson was incredibly nosy and insufferable at the best of times, he had a point. She was his mate, and he was just looking out for her.
To Severus' defense, he wasn't trying to be cruel to her on purpose. His feelings weren't black and white. And in the heat of argument, he wasn't likely to be rational one hundred percent of the time.
One thing still wasn't clear to him, however. When did Hermione and Bade become such good friends? It obviously happened behind his back, but when? He kept a close eye on her even when he wasn't on speaking terms with her. Bade always seemed to be around him, harassing him somehow. The friendship wasn't just built in this time obviously. They had memories of past times that even the werewolf seemed to be aware of. This bothered him even further. He knew that Lupin had a schoolboy crush on her, but did Hudson too? And worse- did they have a tryst of sorts?
"Can I go in, Tonks?" He heard an unusually timid voice ask from outside the door.
"He'll probably still be unconscious, Herms. Hudson knocked the evil out of the git," Tonks answered outside the door. He suppressed a growl deep in his throat.
"Tonks!" the first voice exclaimed. It was Hermione no doubt.
"You just got out of the bed yourself. This isn't a hospital, you know? With the amount of people getting injured lately Poppy and I should be on a separate payroll," Tonks muttered darkly.
"Why are you taking care of him in the first place? Remus seems to have more patience for something like this," she wondered to herself. Curious chit.
"Remus wants to be nowhere near him right now." There was a moment where both of them talked at the same time, and he couldn't make out the words. Nymphadora continued, "It's not for me to tell you. Now, you can go in if you want. It's not like he's in some sort of critical condition. I have to go to work anyway. I'm an Auror- not a mediwitch."
When Severus heard the old door start to open, Severus felt like a child over again- not even a teenager- a child. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing, pretending to be asleep.
Only a moment passed before warm hands touched his forehead and cheeks.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, boys. What am I going to do with you?" She asked rhetorically, uncovering his blankets and unbuttoning his casual robes, which still had more buttons than most wizards' formal ones.
Her task seemed to be to get him shirtless as she worked on his crisp white shirt next. She took it off, folding it and putting it next to his robes. Smooth fingers ran across his sparsely- haired chest. The pads ran lightly up his body and traced his collarbones.
"And I had half a mind to leave him lying there myself!" Tonks yelled through the closed door, muttering darkly to herself. The creak of the stairs could be heard next.
Hermione chuckled more deeply than he thought possible before sighing.
"It was about me, wasn't It?" she asked.
He took a shot in the dark and decided to not answer here. He was wasn't sure whether or not she bought into his elementary sick act. She may have just been talking to herself.
"I know you're awake, Severus. You've been reacting to my presence this whole time. If you don't want to talk to me, say the words."
"It was about you," he conceded simply, opening his eyes to take in her curly hair and pink cheeks. He liked her hair down, but she usually put it up. It wasn't the most practical hair.
"Okay."
Her hands continued to trace the outlines of his collarbones, her touch lingering on certain spots. The way she was leaning over him, he could see the top of her breasts and the outline of her bra though the collared, oversized white shirt she was wearing.
"It's yours. I nicked it from yours and Bade's room. The Marauders, Lily, and I were pulling pranks," she admitted, following his train of thought.
He didn't think it was a woman's shirt. It was tight on her breasts and loose around her small waist.
"It smelled like you," she continued, moving her hands from his collarbones down lower, using her hands to trace over his nipples teasingly before going up again.
He didn't have the willpower to stop her ministrations, and he had no reason to. He missed her touch. While their interactions were innocent by his standards now, they were everything to him so many years ago.
"I became addicted to the way you smell. You don't even realize the subtle scent of new parchment and old books you have about you. It's an odd mix, and yet I love it. You had shut me out when I took the shirt from you. I couldn't stand to not have your smell, Severus," she added again, one of her hands tweaking a nipple while the other moved to his lower belly to the trail of black hair that led beneath his dress slacks.
"It's still like that for me, you know? I've been back what? A week? In that week, I've seen you twice. You sneak in when I'm sleeping to make sure I'm getting better, and then, you allow yourself to falter. For just one moment, you put your hands on my lips, on my face, on my body somewhere, and it immediately sends sparks throughout my body to wake me. I pretend to stay asleep in the hopes that you don't realize my breath has suddenly sped up, in the hopes that maybe you'll kiss me like you did behind bookshelves and under trees. I can learn to live without the kisses, but it's your smell that drives me wild."
He stayed silent, not knowing what to say or whether he could even mutter the words to express his hormonal urges to her- the way it felt to run his hands through her hair and twirl the curls around his fingers. If he had admitted to loving her, then why couldn't he do it to her? What mental block was stopping him?
Her face was flushed, her eyes burned with desire, and her nipples were hard through his shirt. She wanted him, and Merlin, he wanted her. Yet something stopped him. He didn't want to toy with her feelings again. He couldn't give into emotions when he didn't think this was the best for either of them. Despite what he said to Hudson earlier, he knew the truth.
"I'm a big fan of thinking myself, but I've recently learned to stop thinking when I need to. It's clear that you can't do the same. I'll leave you to your thoughts," she said, leaning down quickly and stealing a long, hard kiss before fleeing from the room as if he would punish her for it if she didn't get away quickly enough.
What was he going to do? Take away house points? He smirked to himself, groaning when he felt the erection she had caused.
Maybe not house points, but a detention sounded good. Severus chuckled darkly, thinking of the possibilities.