A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews, favs, and follows! They mean a lot to me. The tome which Hermione is researching is the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian papyrus of herbal knowledge.
Chapter 2 - The Morning After Wednesday
She was quite worried about how awkward the following morning was going to be and quite frankly wished he would leave by the time she woke up to leave for work. She would make quite an impression on her new colleague by this rate, as it was, showing up hungover like a hippogriff with bloodshot eyes, smelling like old booze, and quite likely a couple of hours late to that. She would rather not imagine the state she would be in if she had to deal with Severus bleeping Snape on top of that.
She was wrong on both accounts, sort of. She woke up when he jumped out of the bed, cursing softly under his breath while reaching for his wand and immediately casting a Tempus. He let out a relieved sigh at whatever the time was, and she cracked an eye open just in time to see him gaze at her. He ran his hand over his face, groaning softly, and she was instantly hit by a vivid recollection of just what those long fingers were capable of exactly. She blushed like a virgin at that, before groaning herself, as a giant apparently started using her head as its trampoline.
He wordlessly walked to the pile of his clothes, and soon returned with a small vial which he handed to her. "Take it," he told her softly and surprisingly gently. (Was he really being gentle or was it whatever Nagini had done to his throat? Did it really matter?) "It won't make me disappear, but it'll help with a headache. Do you drink coffee?"
She nodded silently and downed the peppermint-flavoured potion in a single go. Its effect was immediate. The giant took its trampoline elsewhere and she no longer felt quite like the infamous hippogriff. His expression was perfectly schooled, as he watched her. She flashed him a tiny smile, as a way of thanking him, not quite trusting her voice. What would she say to the former teacher of hers - with whom she had coincidentally just spent the night, doing the deed, so to say? Especially since she did not wish to appear a babbling fool, and even just her thoughts were giving just that appearance even to herself. Wait, what, damn, wasn't he a Legilimens? Was he able to hear what was going on in her head? Oh man!
He gave her a tiny smirk, which did not make her feel at ease at all. "Great. I'll help myself, then, and perform a disappearing act so you can go on with your morning business. I believe you work in the Ministry, so you still have almost two hours before you need to leave, in case you work the usual hours."
She nodded gratefully, and followed him with her eyes, as sneakily as she could (and she liked to imagine she was indeed quite skilled at casting sneaky looks), as he summoned his clothes with a wandless Accio. The tall, dark unfortunately-not-a-stranger disappeared into her loo, reemerging surprisingly fast, fully dressed. He was wearing, well, what he always had worn, she guessed, save for the lack of the billowing teaching robes. Black trousers that had that expensively tailored look to them that Slytherin men seemed to prefer. (She wondered if Snape and Malfoy used the same tailor, because she could swear she had seen Draco in a practically identical attire at the Ministry the other day. She had acted like she hadn't seen him at all, of course. Those sneaky looks, you know. The ones she had mastered.)
There were so many buttons on that man, though. She caught herself wondering if she had managed her way through all of them last night, or if he had a spell for that. Vanishing the thought, she got up as soon as he had disappeared into the small kitchen and made a dash for the shower. The running water didn't quite drown the small clanks from the kitchen. Soon the divine smell of fresh coffee reached her, and it wasn't long until she heard the front door close (supposedly) behind him.
She stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her, and softly padded to the kitchen, ignoring the disapproving look Crookshanks shot at her from his usual spot on the windowsill. The hypocrite of a cat beast! She had seen the looks he gave the pretty Persian living across the street, and she told her familiar just that. She wasn't graced with any kind of an answer, which was no surprise, considering she was talking to an animal. In any case, the coffee was as good as you'd suspect the Greatest Potioneer of His Age (and Quite Possible the Century, Too) would brew. "A man of many talents, eh?" she quipped at the half-kneazle, who replied with a huff and turned his back at her.
She had been drunk last night, there was no denying it, but wasn't as if she didn't remember the previous night, she mused over the quickly emptying coffee mug. Oh no, she remembered, alright. He had made the first move, praising her practical uses of magic - obviously referring to her blouse and its pearly buttons. For a reason she was unable to name (but seriously speaking, it was Ron, or her fear of being alone forever, and the two were practically one and the same, but she'd never admit that), she didn't ignore his innuendo, like the sober-ish part of her brain told her to do, but threw gas on the fire that was likely to cause the heat she spied in his black eyes by lifting her eyebrow and, with that, undoing another of the buttons along with one of his.
Although she and Ron had enjoyed the physical aspects of their relationship, she had not been prepared to how the verbal sparring would affect her. Even in the middle of her morning after regret and shame, she couldn't quite bring herself to do that, regret and be ashamed of what had happened. Granted, it could have been someone other than her old Potions Master. Actually, it should have been anyone else than the Great Bat of the Dungeon. She could still remember the disappointed look Wee Albus had given her as the evening had progressed and the flirting had gained more physical aspects. Poor Wee Albus. It wouldn't have worked with them, not with those Dumbledore eyes, she told herself. Not that it would work with Snape either, she would likely never see him again.
She knew he resided somewhere in Britain, figuratively stirring the cauldron that was academic potioneering every now and then with his superior knowledge on, well, anything and everything. He had written a book on Legilimency a couple of years ago. Nothing personal, of course, but a study that had captivated even her attention, despite not really being into Legilimency. (Rita Skeeter, the old hag, had had a field day with that, wildly speculating whose thoughts "the dreaded Death Eater slash Professor" had read during the War.) He was rarely seen in public and he never participated in the galas and feasts thrown in the memory of the Second War (or the First War, for that matter). He appeared to have retired from wizardry, except for those discussions he occasionally participated on the Potions field. It had been Muggle London where she encountered him the previous evening, and she was fairly certain he lived mostly in the Muggle world, nowadays. He was half-blood, after all, and probably had a Muggle house somewhere. With his Order of Merlin, First Class (awarded when he was still in coma and presumed not to make it) and the substantial amount of money that came with it, he would not need to worry about income any time soon.
Snape had not once mentioned Ron last night, but she was pretty sure he followed what was going on in the wizarding world and thus couldn't have escaped the news. She knew that the whole thing that happened in between them might have been a pity fuck, a great one at that, but a pity fuck nevertheless, or even him taking advantage of her vulnerable state, had it been literally anyone else than Severus T. Snape, the very man who had made her teenage years really quite horrible. (She understood, of course, the pressure he was under, and the need to keep up the charade under all those years he had served two very different masters. It didn't mean she had quite forgiven him personally, although no one would have guessed that, had they seen her last night.) He would not need to sleep with the bushy-haired, buck-teethed know-it-all to make her feel bad - or worse - oh no. Besides, she did feel a bit better.
Sighing, she sipped the last of her coffee, got dressed in her smart robes (which, after a couple of spells taught to her by Mrs. Weasley - Molly, not the future Mrs. Ron Weasley! - were good as new, despite the fact that the white blouse she wore under it seemed to have lost all its buttons for some reason), spelled her mane into an equally smart updo (which was no small feat, Ron had always told her that he wasn't sure if it was simply a charm or more like transfiguration).
Oh, Ron. She sighed forcibly pushing away the melancholy trying to throw off her groove.
Ginny's owl landed behind her window. She let the bird in, and took the short letter it carried on his leg. Ginny was worried about her, understandably, and asking how she was dealing with the news. The baby Potter had yet to make their entrance, and it would seem they were in no hurry whatsoever, unlike their mum who was feeling like a flubberworm - and looking like one, too, according to herself. Hermione smiled softly and wrote a quick reply to her friend, telling her that she was happy for Ron and Lavender despite having wallowed in self-pity most the evening. The owl set off with the reply, and Hermione set off to face another day at the office.
She had been quite stuck with her research lately. The potion they were working on, the highly classified one, would help a multitude of people with different kinds of spell-induced neurological injuries. Among those patients were, naturally, the Longbottoms but also her own parents, whose memories she had been unable to restore, despite the help of some of the most powerful witches and wizards she could think of. The fact that she was personally involved with some of the patients or victims, as they often were referred to in this context, made the already stressful project even more so.
She reached the research chamber that had been given to her use. Her new partner had yet to show up, and of that she was grateful. She definitely needed a moment to compose herself after what had happened in the last twenty hours or so. Ron's engagement, the rumours about Lavender's pregnancy, and ending up having passionate sex with Professor Snape - yeah, it had been a taxing day to say the least. Of course, he wasn't her or anyone else's professor any longer, but old habits die hard, she mused.
She had teased him about it, of course, at some point last evening. He had sternly made a point of not having been attracted to teenage witches since he himself reached puberty. "However, I have no objections when it comes to my former students," he had continued, reaching to play with a stray of her hair before tucking it behind her ear. "Especially those who have become Potions Masters themselves and are currently less than three feet away from me."
"Does that mean I no longer have to fear that you'll give me detention, Sir?"
"Keep calling me 'sir' and I'm sure to come up with more creative ways of punishing you, Granger. I cannot guarantee that you would not like them, however."
She shook her head gently, forcing herself to emerge from the memories of the night before. It was time to work, and it was not like she had anything more important going on in her life, now that the only man who might have been brave enough to actually marry the Brains of the Golden Trio had gone and hitched someone else - someone with no brains whatsoever, it would seem.
Oh, right, she had decided to be happy for them and not bitter. Oops.
She groaned softly and ran her hand across her face, the gesture reminding her of Snape in her bedroom this morning. Had he meant to stay for the night or had it been an accident? Did he regret having slept with her? Why didn't he have the mind to stay away from her thoughts now that she was supposed to work?
Get yourself in control, Granger!
She went to her desk, and started working on the ancient tomes on the effects of long-forgotten medicinal herbs. They had managed to determine a number of side effects that were usual for memory-restoring ingredients. Since the known memory-restoring ingredients did not help their patients, she would have to find a new one - possibly one that had a known main effect but yet undiscovered memory-reducing side effect. She reached for the notebook that kept her notes on the subject, set it on the desk quite close to her, and started going through the text in front of her.
It was not only the tomes that were dusty, but the text itself was dry enough to make her throat feel positively parched. She frowned, forcing herself to concentrate for a full hour before allowing herself a small break from her ancient Egyptian sources. Despite the translation charm being quite ancient (and thus quite perfected), the text often appeared more nonsensical than not. She cast a protective spell on the ancient tomes before charming a glass of water for herself. If only she had a cup of coffee, preferably one as good as the one she had the same morning.
Nope, she wouldn't let her thoughts stray that way. She had not really pulled a one night stand before, having been in a relationship with Ron all her adult life, so it was not quite as easy to shake it off her mind as it ought to have been, she figured out.
She stretched her hands, feeling and hearing a pleasant popping sound somewhere in her neck, and dove back into "the mind's kneeling" and how it has to deal with the patient's heart being hot, as well as which herbs and plants would help to cool it down. If she managed an hour of this, she'd allow herself to sneak out to buy a proper, non-charmed cup of coffee in that marvellous Muggle place across the street from the Ministry entrance. Oh yes, and something with chocolate to go on the side. She only managed to go read a few lines of the tome when she heard the door creak and soft footsteps enter the chamber.
That would be the new colleague who would share the chamber, she figured out before turning around with a pleasant smile, hoping not to frighten her new partner, whoever it was, away. She had quite a reputation, after all.
Her heart skipped a beat when she met the eyes of the man standing in a doorway. The dark outfit Severus Snape had worn when she had left her apartment the same morning was mostly hidden under his black robes, not much different from the ones he had worn at Hogwarts all those years ago, as he stood in the doorway, unreadable expression on his face. She rose to her feet just as her superior, Professor Archibald Plunkett, entered the room, not noticing Snape's distress, if that's what you wanted to call it. He was still standing there, frozen to his spot, his thoughts and inner turmoil (if there was any, but Hermione sort of hoped there would be) perfectly hidden from any observers.
"Good morning, Hermione! I'm not going to keep you from your sources for too long, don't worry. I presume you knew that you'd get a roommate one of these days, haha! Well, here he is. I take it you two know each other, you're about the same age as my niece, so Severus here must have taught you in Hogwarts at some point. I take it you two war heroes don't intimidate each other too much, we mere mortals easily…"
He went on babbling, as he always did, not really giving anyone a chance to put a word in. Hermione suggested that was how he had risen to the position he was now in, the head of the Ministry's research committee, by simply talking until everyone else had given up or lost their consciousness. She let her eyes drift from her boss to the tall dark man, who was now openly rolling his eyes at the elderly wizard who still had his back to him. By the time Archibald finally, finally ended his tirade, Snape had composed his face into a sneer she had grown well familiar with during her time at Hogwarts. Archibald wished them a happy day, then excused himself, and left them alone.
"Well if this wasn't a surprise, Master Snape," she muttered as soon as the door closed behind Plunkett, not wanting to give a chance to the awkward silence to sit in.
"Indeed, Master Granger," he drawled before walking determinedly to the desk she had not buried under books, tomes, notes, and whatnot. She had no illusion whatsoever about engaging the man in smalltalk. He did not appear to consider the situation very awkward, but she did not share that particular set of mind.
In the end, they worked silently, each by their own desk, for a couple of hours. She was so concentrated in writing down her notes, that his hand on her shoulder took her by surprise. She turned her head to face him, and was not surprised to see his face blank, features decidedly set not to reveal any of his thoughts.
"Lunch?" he asked, removing his hand from her shoulder. She missed his touch immediately, idly blaming her loneliness for being so touch starvated. (He did touch her quite a bit last night, though, now that she thought of it. She'd better not think too much about it right now, with him standing right next to her, however.)
"A bit too early for me, but thank you for the invite" she answered, pleased that some part of her rational mind was still working like it should instead of lingering on his, well lingering touch, apparently at the expense of her vocabulary.
He merely nodded at that, and walked to his desk to retrieve his robe. "I am likely to spend the afternoon brewing in my personal laboratory."
Was that a note of disappointment she heard in his voice, or did she just imagine it? (Likely the latter, Granger. Get a grip, woman.)
"I will see you tomorrow morning, then," Hermione answered, a bit too cheerily for her own liking, turning back to the materials gathered on her desk. She heard him stop by the door for a heartbeat, and oddly enough sigh softly, before he left.
It was only then she dared to lean back in her chair and let out the long groan she had been holding in since she first saw him at the door. She would definitely need a drink - a singular drink, not half the bar - tonight, having survived both the dusty, dry, useless tomes AND the whole ordeal with Snape. He had not brought up last night, for which she was mostly pleased. Was the old git so used to sleeping around that it was no big deal for him? Why did it make her feel so uneasy then? (After all, she knew he had no complaints about her performance the previous night. Or had he?) Would it be as awkward to work with him from now on? How long would she share the working place with him? Why on earth would he touch her like that? (Severus Snape did not seem like a person who would ignore other people's personal space, oh no, ma'am!) Was there ever going to be an end to these questions?
Most importantly, where was that coffee she had promised herself?
