Severus changed quickly, had a cup of coffee, and then knocked on Miss Granger's door.
"Miss Granger?" He asked, pushing the door open slightly. It wasn't as if she was indecent, she was a lion for Merlin's sake and he'd already bathed her. He heard a thump from the middle of the room and a small growl of acknowledgement, so he pushed the door open the rest of the way and she approached him and stopped, looking up.
"I have your harness," he said, holding up the piece of leather. She nodded, turning her body parallel to him and he leant over to put it on. He snapped it into place and realized that her fur was extraordinarily soft and sleek this morning. He stroked it briefly, under the guise of adjusting her harness, and wondered if it had been her conditioner or the lake - probably both. Either way, she look very nice in the black leather of her collar and harness in contrast to her shiny dark gold fur which was reflecting the light of the room.
Standing, he gave her a passive look and leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms.
"I've got a free period after breakfast which I'm going to be using in my potions lab. You can be present if you stay by the door and far away from my work," He narrowed his eyes at her sternly and she nodded her agreement.
"Very well," he turned from the door and she followed behind and they made their way to the Great Hall.
It seemed that Nyota was still an object of great fascination. Walking through the hallway they were just in time for the great rush of students heading for breakfast, and as such, giant swarms of them were pausing to gawk at her as they walked. Her hackles raised under the attention she was receiving, but she remained calm otherwise, walking stride for stride with him. He raised his arm slightly, causing one side of his dragging cloak to rise from the floor and drape over her bristled body. She shot him a grateful look with her eyes, now partially covered from the stares of onlookers by his gesture.
He had spoken to Albus and had requested a change of the seating arrangement at the High Table. He had refused to change it until Severus told him it was for his "familiar's" sake. She was bored of only being able to see just a sliver over the table, and was not comfortable in any way being near Rolanda Hooch after her insensitive attack on Nyota's person.
Then Albus had agreed heartily, must to Severus's annoyance, and he'd allowed Severus to sit at the very end of the table so Miss Granger could watch her friends and fellow students for entertainment. He had then moved Minerva to sit to his left so that someone familiar with her circumstances and knowledgable in how to approach a lion would be at his side instead of a "curious colleague", as Albus had put it.
They were seated there now, Miss Granger lying on his right side and Minerva seated to his left. As food appeared on their plates, Severus glanced down at the lion on the floor. Her hip was angled flat on the floor, her tail curled around the leg of his chair. The only part of her that stuck out around the table was her head and forelegs, the former resting neatly in between the latter, her ears flicked forward in curiosity as she watched the happenings in front of her.
Severus was ambidextrous, and thought nothing of shifting his fork into his left hand as he ate his eggs to reach down and drag the tip of his two longest fingers up the ridge of reversed hair on her spine.
She didn't twitch this time, to Severus's amusement. She had apparently become comfortable with his touch, something he had never experienced before in his life. Thinking about that, he frowned, and removed his hand, placing it onto his thigh.
It wasn't much later that he subconsciously reached down and began stroking her again.
Hermione lay at the door of Professor Snape's private Potions laboratory, watching his every move with barely restrained curiosity. When he had first opened the door, the sight had caused her to forget herself, and she launched forward, eager to look at everything. She'd been stopped by a lightning quick hand that gripped her harness, the sudden resistance causing her upper body to leave the floor as she was yanked back. He'd glared at her, before letting her drop, and he had waited until she flopped down obediently on the floor before he closed the door behind her and started working.
He took off his cloak and coat, folding them and placing them on a stool, then rolled his sleeves up. Now that she wasn't anxiously standing in a bath, Hermione noticed the scars scattered over the pale, fragile skin of his wrists and forearms. None of them looked deep or large, they were mostly small and appeared shallow, she figured they were all minor potions injuries - like splatters from a reaction or something similar.
He had started working, making quick work of preparing his work station and getting out the necessary ingredients. Now he was chopping and measuring and mixing and timing, and occasionally tasting, she realized with a wrinkling of her nose.
She watched as his hair, which she'd noticed had been soft and loose after swimming in the lake, was tightening up and becoming greasy and lank. So that's why his hair was like that all the time, it was the potion fumes, not a lack of personal hygiene. Not that Hermione had ever believed those rumors, but she had still wondered about the state of his hair. She knew about difficult hair, and she realized now that no product could reverse the effects of having your head ever present over steaming potions. She could only imagine what her hair would be like if it was constantly exposed to moisture... She cringed at the thought.
Refocusing her eyes on the Professor, she tried to determine what he was making, raising her nose in the air to detect the scents. Before her mind could process the swell of smells a deep voice sliced into her thoughts and popped them like a bubble, and she started.
"It's not a potion you'll recognize," he said, gracefully slipping something into the cauldron.
She sighed, then waited hopefully to see if he'd tell her what he was making, but he remained silent, entirely focused on his work, so Hermione went back to observing him, this time her eyes falling on his hands.
She'd never seen him making a potion like this, she'd only ever seen him helping students, and that itself had been awe inspiring to watch. But this, in his own lab and in his element, he was genius. His fingers moved confidently and incredibly nimbly, they were long and thin and experts at their craft. They were beautiful to behold.
They didn't call him a Potions Master for nothing, she determined.
Severus felt her eyes on him the whole time he was brewing, and then suddenly as he finally finished, they were gone. Puzzled, he looked over to her to see what had drawn her attention, or if she'd left, but she was still there on the floor... Fast asleep. Severus chuckled softly and rolled his eyes. She had watched him intensely for two hours and it seemed like the energy such undivided attention required was enough to completely exhaust her.
He cleaned up his station and pocketed one of the vials full of a pale powder before kneeling down in front of the sleeping lioness. Not sure where the urge came from, he found himself stroking two knuckles up her wide nose and between her eyes, then he traced one finger over her eyebrow and down around her closed eyelid; the creamy white underneath her eye felt like velvet. He moved his hand to under her jaw, applying slight pressure to shift the dead weight gently to see if she'd rouse. When she didn't, he directed his attention to behind her round, thick ears where the only evidence that the lioness was in fact Hermione Granger aside from her intelligent deep brown eyes was the tuft of trademark curly hair that could be found there. He twirled his fingers through it absently then curiously stroked the line of black hair that dashed across the middle of her ear. The black hair was even softer than that of under her eyes, and he rubbed it again, causing her ear to twitch.
"Miss Granger," her body tensed as she awoke, and her breathing changed, but she didn't open her eyes. "I know you're awake," he told her, removing his hand and standing up. She didn't move.
"Miss Granger," he said again more firmly. Nothing. He brought a foot to her paw and nudged it. She let it slide, not resisting, but still leaving her eyes closed.
"I'm not going to call you Nyota except in public," he told her, frowning, beginning to get agitated at her lack of response. Finally he exclaimed,
"HERMIONE!" And she opened her eyes, giving him a look of pure satisfaction, before rising and trotting up the stairs and out of sight.
Severus's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the look he received, and then he narrowed his eyes. The fucking lioness was tolerable, but if she thought that they were friends after two days of one another's company, she was wrong.
Hermione was proud of herself, but she knew better than to gloat about it. She'd gotten Professor Snape, no... Severus, she reminded herself, to call her Hermione! The idea had never crossed her mind until she had felt the stroking of fingers on her face in the Potions lab. She'd thought she was dreaming. The fingers were so soft, gentle, kind, that when she finally woke she realized that they were absolutely real and that they belonged to Professor Snape. When he'd said in an official tone,
"Miss Granger," she decided that that was not going to fly. As she lie there, her eyes closed, so thought back to the last two days. He'd bathed her, pet her, walked with her, jogged with her, swam with her, fed her, eaten in front of her, talked to her, understood her subtle body language, sat on his couch reading while she lie by his side... If that didn't make them on a first name basis, she didn't know what did.
When he finally gave in and as a last resort hollered her given name to get her up, she couldn't help the satisfaction that rose through her at having gotten what she wanted. He could try to revert back to addressing her formally, but she wouldn't let him.
She knew better than to rub it in his face that she had gotten him to do something he didn't want to do. She'd have to tread very carefully, under no circumstances did she want the Professor... Severus, she reminded herself mentally... to not trust her or to think that she didn't respect him. She would be as good as dead, then, and he deserved better. She trusted him and respected him more than anyone, even Dumbledore, now that she'd gotten glimpses at his softer side these past few days. Sure, his soft side was still mostly brittle and abrasive, but to her it was more than enough. The fact that she was seeing through the cracks of the man that had been nothing but spiteful, degrading, and verbally abusive to her and her classmates for the past six years was incredible, and she'd appreciate whatever she got.
She liked the man she saw, every nasty bit of him, and she wanted him to know he had her support and friendship. She knew he didn't have anyone else, and she admitted to herself, she would still want to support him even if he did.
He was risking his life every day for them, and she was reminded of that not too long later.
Hermione was sitting patiently as Severus and Dobby conversed briefly before the elf disappeared, leaving Severus holding the tray of bloody meat. Tonight it was chicken, she could smell it, and as he lifted the cover she could see it.
She was trying to think of something to distract her when he pulled a vial out of his pocket and poured the powdery white contents over the chicken. She watched curiously, and then the platter was in front of her and he was stepping away. She held his eyes, hoping that her curiosity was showing.
His brow furrowed as he looked down at the platter and back at her, then they rose and he looked amused.
"It's a vitamin mixture I created. I did some research and found out what the lion body requires for nutrients and compared it with what you're being fed now. There were some deficiencies," he said nonchalantly, now looking uncomfortable. She perked her ears up at him and pulled her lips up into a small smile, then looked down at the meat below her. She sniffed the powder on top for a moment before her eyes glazed over and she lost control.
She had only regained control for a moment when she saw Severus tense up and grasp his arm. Immediately concerned, she moved towards him, but he brushed past her swiftly.
"Stay in these rooms, don't go anywhere," he said quickly as he went into his bedroom and returned with black robes over his arms and what she realized was the Death Eaters mask in his hand. She fought the urge to cringe and cower, knowing he would misinterpret the behavior and take it offensively, when in reality she was afraid for him, not of him.
She tried to show her concern for him in her eyes, not sure if it was working until as he strode out the door her told her,
"I'll be fine,"
Hermione had never been more anxious in her life, not even the night she got stuck as her Animagus. She had spent the past five hours pacing the living room and up and down the hallway, and twice she had to run to the forest before her bladder burst, even though she technically wasn't supposed to leave.
She was shaking, her tail clamped unconsciously between her legs, her body tense.
She bolted at the sound of the door opening and Severus walking through. She bounded towards him and leapt up, wrapping her forearms around his neck and gripping him tightly with her paws, the tips of her claws hooking into the fabric of his cloak.
That was absolutely a lioness response, but once she realized where she was and what she was doing she didn't move. She felt Severus lower his hand which was gripping his wand, she'd set off his own primal instincts, and then to her surprise, his arms wrapped around her.
Then Hermione realized that she was whining uncontrollably, and that it sounded so hoarse that she must have been doing it for a majority of the past five hours. As she gained control of herself, she finally silenced, though she was still breathing heavily from her distress.
She felt his lips move against her ear and he said slowly,
"I'm all right Hermione,"
A whine slipped out again, and it sounded so pitiful, even to her own ears.
One of his hands moved up to her head, spreading over her skull to grip her tightly, the other rubbing slowly up and down her back. She focused on her breathing, then slowly and carefully released her claws from where they were embedded in his cloak, and she slid her forearms down from around his neck, falling to the floor. One hand dropped to his side and the other cupped her face as she looked up at him, his thumb moving in reassuring circles under her eye.
His face looked stony, but in the depths of his eyes she saw more emotion than she ever thought she'd find.
He was shocked, alarmed, cautious, pained, nervous, relieved, exhausted, alert... And pleased.
She waited for the walls to shut down and block her out, but they didn't.
He looped a single finger through her rolled leather collar and walked over to the couch and she followed behind. He dropped his Death Eater garb on the floor and motioned for Hermione to stay where she was. She did, watching as he went to the kitchen and made tea, returning to her and placing a bowl on the floor. He opened a vial with a deep crimson liquid which he held out for her to smell, Calming Draught, and poured it into the tea in the bowl. His hand was trembling slightly but she resolutely ignored it, looking up and thanking him with a slow blink before lowering herself to delicately lap up the warm, tasty liquid. He lowered himself slowly onto the couch, leaning against the armrest, bringing one leg under him and stretching the other out along the the length of the couch. Hermione finished her tea, and apparently so had he, because the cup was on the table beside her and he was looking at her calmly.
She trembled as she looked at him. He opened his arms in a gesture of invitation and Hermione didn't hesitate. She crawled up onto the couch and he slid down, resting his head on the arm rest. He moved his legs so she could lie in between them, her upper body resting on his, and she set her head gently on his shoulder, a soft whimper escaping her. Her wrapped his right arm around her back, and his left hand gripped the loose skin at the base of her neck, and he pulled her tightly to him. She heard something whisk through the air before it dropped slowly onto her back. Covered in a blanket and feeling safe in her Potion Professor's arms, she fell asleep.