"I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain undefinable something directed my way by members of the opposite sex. For want of a better word, call it magnetism. Like it or not, it's a kind of power that snares people and reels them in."
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
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The white robed witch that entered the room did a double take when she spotted him in the corner. Snape didn't have to work hard for the glare he shot her, but it didn't stop the assessing look on her face. Striding up to the mirror, the witch floated a stack of magical photographs behind her, and from his vantage point he could see Hermione's bemused expression at the images of happy beautiful women with generic smiling fiances and intricate hair pieces. He was still looking in the mirror when the stylist witch whisked Hermione up from her chair and stripped her outer robe off her.
He didn't stop to think of looking away. It had happened in a second, and he felt separate from what was happening. His eyes were glued to the mirror as the younger woman's arms, neck and shoulders were bared to the room, then covered as the stylist conjured a silk red robe, draping the elegant material over the slim witch and pushing her back in the chair.
He should have looked away a second later, when the stylist leant Hermione forward, ostensibly to pull the robe more tightly about her neck, securing a thin red ribbon across her collar bones, while the thin, white shift she wore peeked forward, revealing slight but shapely cleavage to the room. To the mirror. To his eyes.
Eyes the girl now met through the looking glass as Severus realised he ought to look away.
Trapped in her gaze, he now found he couldn't. She didn't look accusing, or affronted. The girl stared at him, surprised but curious. His gaze faltered to her now parted lips and unbidden came the image of them stained with red wine over a gaudy crystal goblet.
It was only when the stylist's amused eyes met his own that he turned, eyes fixed firmly on the carpet in front of him. Lecher. Fool. Bastard.
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Snape was staring at her. Or rather, at her now overly warm chest, and then her lips, before finally those onyx black eyes, so inscrutable, met her own. Hermione felt the blush racing from her cheeks to her collar as he finally looked away, abashed.
She barely heard the stylist as she pointed out the designs Skeeter had chosen. She wasn't thinking, for the first time that day, about her upcoming press charade, or of Rita's deal for her memories. Her heart raced, as the witch began applying an amber potion to her short, riotous hair, dragging a comb as the locks grew beneath skilled, deft fingers. Narcissa's words spun through her mind and she questioned the tingling in her lower abdomen that had nothing to do with anxiety.
He was so old. He had been her teacher. Hated teacher. Well she hadn't hated him. Disliked him, sure, but never the hatred Harry and Ron had summoned.
Ron.
Why, after her triste with Dennis, had she felt nothing, and yet a captured glance of the dark wizard behind her, could she feel guilt and other not to be examined feelings stirring within her. Hermione tried to calm her breathing and dull her blush as she gazed circumspectly at the wizard now pacing the room.
He could certainly pace. He had lost none of the graceful movement he'd shown so often at Hogwarts. Tall, lean, sweeping between cauldrons and corridors. Now, cramped in the overly bright and floral room, she could see the pallor to his skin. His hands and face were ice white, although with the green turtleneck he wore today beneath his black, bat robes, he looked more... Human.
For the first time since he had torn his way into the Burrow, Hermione saw Severus Snape as a man, and Narcissa's warning words ran through her head once more.
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Severus sneered at the arrangements of lilies mocking him as he paced the room and tried to ignore the prickling on his neck that told him he was being watched. The girl had every right to look now that he had ogled her so openly. Let her see him for the old, lecherous, greasy haired, bat of the dungeons he was. The room was silent but for the rustling of the stylists hands and the awkwardness was now tenfold as minutes slowly passed..
Damn Narcissa.
Damn him.
He ought not to have come. He ought to have stayed in his hole, and continued drinking himself to an overdue grave.
His internal diatribe of loathing was interrupted as lilting french disturbed the room.
"Monsieur, Qu'est-ce que tu penses?"
He turned slowly, and Hermione's large brown eyes stopped his movement. Her harsly cut hair was discernible, as silky brown waves flowed from her scalp, twisted and braided into an intricate celtic knot, with two hearts woven into the infinity symbol. Her neck was still bared and he could see her blush as it crept down from her cheeks.
Silence fell for a beat before he realised the stylist was waiting for some comment, as it seemed was Hermione.
"Your suitors will be irrepressible, I'm sure, Miss Granger."
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His deadpan voice, dark and low, only made her blush worse, and she struggled to fathom the smile pulling at her lips at his ironic humour. She tried to ignore the several octaves her voice seemed to climb as she dismissed the overly curious stylist.
"Thank you that will be all."
If her heart continued to thrum, now that she was alone with him once more, the mirror in front of her did not show it. She looked every bit the picture of the Gryffindor princess of the Golden Trio. Not someone who could possibly feel any vestige of attraction for Severus Snape. As she looked away from her reflection to seek the man himself out, she found him by the door, determinedly not looking at her. Words floundered in her throat as she thought of something, anything she could say to return whatever had happened to normal. For once Hermione Granger was speechless as she realised, she didn't want him to leave.
