Chapter 5 - Sunday, Funday
Hermione managed to stay asleep until noon. She half-expected Snape to Apparate straight into the apartment, enraged by the Prophet's story, but he either had not read the paper or didn't deem it worth a reaction. So, instead of waking up to her - yes, her what? Lover? Shag? Former professor? Very own dungeon bat? Whatever it was he was to her, she did not wake up to his arrival, but to Crookshank's paw gently poking her cheek. Apparently, the familiar was worried about her. She seldom slept in even during the weekends.
"Don't worry, boy, I was just tired after the other night."
If a cat - or a half-Kneazle - could waggle its eyebrows, that would be how she would describe Crooks' reaction. She couldn't help but giggle at him, gently scratching him under his jaw.
"You haven't made me coffee, have you, Crooks? Oh well, guess I'll handle it myself, then. But first, a bath, if you don't mind, my boy?"
She rid herself of her pyjamas, and had just climbed into the bath, when she heard the Floo activate. The baritone rumble made her shiver, as she heard her name being called, and not entirely out of fear, even though she could hear a tense note in voice. Of course he would arrive now.
"I'm in the bath! Do come through, if it is something important, or I can Floo you back later, if…"
She heard him come through before she had even finished her sentence. Merlin, so he was pissed off. Sighing, she let herself sink a bit further into the bath. One day of peace, that's all she ever wanted. Unless, of course, her whatever would join her in the bath. That she could deal with. A serious conversation? Before having had any coffee? Sure, as soon as Dementors started shooting rainbows and glitter out of their black arses.
"Do you mind if I make some coffee?"
Blessed man, reading her thoughts! That divine coffee he made would make up for the new one he was likely going to rip her. Of course, it was not her fault, that everyone was likely speculating their sexual lives, but it felt like they were so well in synch in the bedroom, that it might actually be borderline painful, if and likely when he would call the whatever it was that they shared quits.
"Of course not, as long as you make sure there's some left for me, too."
She received a small, dark chuckle as a reply. The sound went straight to her core, as it was wont to do, judging by the past few days. How come some men were blessed with a voice like that? That wretched man could probably make her come by simply reading Hogwarts: A History to her, or quite likely by simply discussing the weather, too. Good thing she had already established that she was, indeed, physically drawn to him. He didn't sound like he was too pissed off, now that she thought of it, so maybe she might be able to lure him into her bed (or some other inappropriately appropriate horizontal surface - or vertical, sure, if he had as much strength in his sinewy body as he seemed to have) before the day was over.
Stop it, Granger! You're acting like a horny teenager! You should be acting like a randy grown woman. Wait, no. That's not much better, is it?
She felt more than heard his arrival at the door some minutes later. He stayed there for a while, apparently watching her soak in the tub. Not that there was much to look at, she mused. She had hastily gathered her hair up into a messy bun before having climbed in, the bubbles covered pretty much everything else, save for her head and the aforementioned messy bun. She could smell the coffee all the way from the kitchen.
"Your familiar is not exactly a fan of mine."
She was not sure, what she had expected, but it most certainly was not small-talk about Crookshanks. She opened her eyes, which had closed on their own account at some point, and met the obsidian pair, which gave nothing away of his thoughts, as per usual.
"Crookshanks has heard so many stories about you, back in Hogwarts, I mean, that it might be difficult to win him over after all those feet of parchment you made us write. You do realise all that time was away from playing with him, don't you?"
He nodded, his face solemn but a glint of amusement in his eye.
"I understand. However, I know you, Miss Granger, enjoyed those assignments immensely, always exceeding the ridiculously high expectations I had set."
Was that… a compliment?
"I will wait you in the kitchen, in case you wish to continue your attempt of dissolving into your bathwater. I have the coffee, and I cannot promise not to drink it all, should you keep me waiting very long."
That got her attention, alright. Soon, they were sitting on the opposite sides of her small table, drinking the nectarine of gods. She couldn't stop a small moan from escaping her lips, as she sipped the hot liquid. A flash of something, possibly amusement, maybe even arousal, could be seen in his eyes, before he cleared his throat, and told her he had tried to call her the previous night.
"Oh, I was at St. Mungo's. The Potters had their baby. James Sirius, they called him. Not sure if it's already in today's Prophet."
Nice job, Granger. So the cat is on the table - the figurative one, since she had just unceremoniously dropped Crooks to the floor.
"It was not," he replied, sipping his coffee. "However, yesterday's Prophet had an interesting little story about us."
He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she couldn't help but to try to lift her Occlumency shields, feeble as they may be. Those eyes were piercing enough to make her uncomfortable in more ways than one. He, on the other hand, was completely unreadable. It was unfair, really, how well he was able to hide his feelings and thoughts. Of course, she was a Gryffindor, and wore her emotions on her sleeve, as it was, but she knew it wasn't simply a Slytherin trait, not when it was to this extent. As it was pointless to try to read his thoughts, or decipher his (nonexistent) body language, she had no choice but to answer.
"So I was told. Molly Weasley actually blushed when she told me about it."
He chuckled at that again, surprising her. "I imagine the Weasleys might have some issues about it. For people with that many children, they truly are chaste. Did they give you hard time about it?"
She shook her head. "No, not really. Ron asked me if it was true, though, that we are having… well, whatever it is that we are having, an affair, I guess."
That earned a reaction. Well, you'd have to use a special Snape scale for the slight hitch in his breathing to count as a proper reaction, but she was starting to get a hang of these small signals of his. Of course, his face showed no signs of his thoughts, but at least she had caught something. His monosyllabic answer was drawled in a way that gave it more meaning than most people had in their day's utterances. "And?"
She shrugged, hoping to give an impression of nonchalance, despite feeling that it all came down to this, what she thought of their thing and how she had portrayed it to her friends. "I told him the truth. That we are having something going on with each other, at least I enjoy it utterly, and we haven't really discussed anything beyond that. Then I told him I needed to go home and get some sleep, because you had kept me up."
That earned her an actual snort! Smiles, chuckles, and now even snorts? She might have to take back what she had said about his unresponsiveness. Of course, she knew how to make him response in a more intimate setting, but somehow having coffee with him, and sort of discussing their arrangement at the same time, felt oddly more intimate than having sex with him did.
"He must have taken that well."
"I wouldn't know, I Floo-ed back home before he managed to answer, and he hasn't contacted me since."
"He's probably afraid of catching us on the sofa if he Floo-ed you, so I'd wait for an owl."
"What exactly do you imply he would catch us doing on the sofa, Master Snape?" she asked, feigning innocence. Yes, yes. They would have to discuss their relationship at some point if they were to continue it, but she was not quite ready to do it now. It was too soon after the news of Ron and Lavender's engagement, and it was too soon after Snape had re-entered the wizarding world - and hers along with it. It was too soon. Just too soon.
He must have known she was diverting him, deliberately trying to restore the status quo of their relationship from discussing sex to having sex. She couldn't help but wonder if he was disappointed with her unwillingness to set the rules, to discuss it properly, but she was fairly certain he was not really in her kitchen because he wanted a relationship. Blowing off the steam was one thing, blowing off the steam with someone compatible was another thing in the same category, but an actual relationship, let alone with the snotty-nosed Gryffindor know-it-all? Yeah, the phrase about Dementors, glitter, and rainbows applies here, as well.
"I'll show you in a minute. I just wanted to make sure you are not upset of what that Skeeter creature had written."
"She's hated me since the Triwizard Tournament in my fourth year. I've grown quite used to her making me look bad. Worse. Whatever. I was worried that you might be upset, to be honest, that you might actually want to end this… arrangement."
"Oh, please. I've had my share of her ire, too. I have most definitely not had my share of you. Now that we have settled that, was there a show to be put up for your snooping ex?"
She shot him an eyebrow, an imitation of his ever-so-expressive ones, and opened the sash of her bathing robe, the only thing she had worn to the coffee, worrying he might actually drink it all, as he had threatened. "Quite right," she managed to say, before he captured her lips with his own.
Later, they were laying on the sofa, with her on top of him. Ron had not Floo-ed them, but neither of them really minded that. She had cast a nonverbal Disillusionment Charm before things got too heated, but she was sort of hoping he had not noticed it. (He most likely had, being who he was, but never mentioned it.)
"You, my dear Miss Granger, are going to be the death of me, you know that? I'm an old man, who normally does not engage in this kind of activities this much," he murmured, still trying to catch his breath.
"Are you saying your intentions were fully honorable when you came here today? Don't make me laugh, Snape! I wasn't born yesterday."
"Thank Merlin for that!"
She tried very hard not to ask anything that would lead their light banter to more serious grounds, but it was not like Hermione Granger to leave questions unasked.
"May I ask where you went last night?"
"Yes, you may," he answered, and she could hear his smile laced in his words. His hand had found its way in her hair, stroking the curls absentmindedly.
"Are you going to tell me?"
"No, I don't think so."
"You aren't hiding a wife from me, are you?"
The thought had crossed her mind at some point of the week. Even though she doubted it, she couldn't really trust her hunch. Well, not anymore, that is. Normally, Hermione trusted her instincts. However, Snape and everything about him seemed to make an exception to the rule. After all, it was not like she would have believed it if someone had told her a week ago that she would find herself lying on top of him after some mind blowing sex - repeatedly. He had been gone for a long time, and no one really knew what he had been up to and with whom. She did not really wish to have a serious discussion any more than she had earlier, but she wanted to be sure. Just one bit of seriousness, that she could do.
She felt his eyes on the top of her head and could not help but wonder if he was offended by the question. His hand had never stopped its soft caresses, if that was anything to judge by. His heart was still beating a steady rhythm under her ear, so he must not have been very agitated, right? After an eternity he finally answered her question.
"If it was a wife I went to, I assure you, it was not my wife."
Of course, his answer only roused more questions. She bit her lip vigorously in order to keep herself from asking more questions.
"I'm sorry, it's really none of my business."
"It's quite alright. I do understand that, in a way, it is your business, or could be considered that. I am not exactly a Casanova, if that is what you are worried of. I thought you did not wish to have this conversation."
"I don't. I'm just… well, you know how I am. Who I am."
That earned her a soft laughter and a kiss on top of her head.
"Just give me a fair warning if you intend to have the Talk at some point, alright? They're not really my expertise."
"Mine neither. Can we just agree not to discuss this for the time being?"
"Agreed, Miss Granger."
"Good."
They stayed there, sharing another comfortable silence, for some time. They might have stayed there for even longer, had Crooks not decided to join them and start kneading her naked back, trying to make himself more comfortable. The couple disentangled themselves and soon enough, they were both dressed again. He ran his hand through his hair, a gesture she did not remember from her time in Hogwarts, but one she had grown quite familiar with, as well as fond of.
"I should leave. I was only going to visit you briefly to discuss the article in the Prophet. Am I right to presume that we are simply going to ignore its existence, then?"
"I see no point in making a fuss about it."
"Very well. I will meet you in the office tomorrow morning, then."
He was already reaching for the Floo powder, when she made a tut-tutting kind of a noise to indicate that he had forgotten something. She quite enjoyed snogging with him, and there was no way in Hades she was going to let him just leave without a proper kiss goodbye. Or rather, an improper kiss of goodbye.
He huffed half-heartedly, and she could see the way the corner of his mouth tugged upwards. With a murmured "Come here, witch.", he pulled her closer by her waist and gave her a good, proper snog, just the way she had wanted him to. If he had been using Legilimency, she did not even care.
Soon enough, he had left for Diagon Alley, and she was left alone with Crookshanks, who was currently grooming himself on the armrest of the sofa. She wondered if she should do something that was considered useful, possibly call a friend or something, but ended up Accio-ing the book she had been reading before Wednesday had thrown her balance, and decided to spend the rest of the day in the corner of the couch with it.
