AN: Sorry I didn't post last week. Traveling for Thanksgiving took more out of me than I realized. I'm back now though!
Thank you for all the support! It is very deeply appreciated!
Severus smirked as Hermione scrambled to sit upright. if he was a man more open with his emotions, he'd chuckle from the absurdity of this whole situation. It was unclear why he was waking up next to her, as well as how she continued to appear in his bed despite his strongest wards.
Why did she continue to appear? Usually teleportation involved one party wanting to see the other, and their subconscious magic allowing it to happen. This was far from the case though. Not once did he dream of her. It was unlikely that she felt an insatiable urge to see him. The whole thing was as absurd as one of Camus' stories.
Still, Minerva had stated on numerous occasions that he needed to find the silver lining in more situations, lest he die more embittered than he already was. Hermione's panic and five thousand additional galleons was an adequate consolation for the inconvenience her presence caused him every morning. If a Slytherin did nothing else, it was benefit from the troubles they faced, and Merlin had he been facing troubles as of late.
"Twenty-five thousand galleons?" She exclaimed.
"Indeed," Severus answered. "We agreed that if you found your way back in here, my price would rise to twenty-five thousand galleons. Given that you are here, it seems just to raise my wage."
"But," she glanced around the room. "I don't understand. How did I get in here?"
"I don't know, nor do I care," his smirk faded. "All I know is that you need to leave now."
"No."
"No?" He furrowed his eyebrows.
"No," she replied in a firm voice.
"Why?"
"Because I need to stay long enough to talk."
"And I need breakfast, which," he turned to the clock on the wall, "ends within the next hour."
"I won't keep you long, but I can't leave, at least not yet."
"Why can't you leave? I can see your spaghetti straps, so it's obvious you aren't naked," he took note as to how one fell from her shoulder. Part of him wondered if he should return it to its proper position. The last thing he needed was her dressing immodestly again and crying because of it.
"I'm not naked, but," she shook her head. "It doesn't make sense why I'm here. I slept on the sofa last night."
"Wait," Severus drawled. "When a man and a woman argue, isn't it usually the man who sleeps on the sofa?"
"I thought if I slept on the sofa then I would awaken there, or at least apparate my bed." She sighed. "The bed I share with Ron."
"Yet here you are with your former potions professor, intruding upon his cherished privacy and interrupting his morning routine with your ramblings."
"I don't mean to ramble, but I've just learned something valuable about the curse."
"That this curse is more obnoxious than anything a student ever cast upon me."
"No," she held onto his blankets. "That this curse isn't tied to my bed."
"Wonderful," he pointed to the fireplace. "You may take this observation home with you and work everything out from there. In the meantime, I must prepare for breakfast."
"Wouldn't you rather talk this through so we can reach a solution to prevent this from happening again?"
"Talk what through?" He got out of bed. "You are trespassing. That is all I need to know. If I was wise, I would call Filch to escort you from the premises."
"And if you did that, the media would be all over you for having a Ministry of Magic candidate in your bed. You would be swarmed by the press, a victim to all that attention you're trying to avoid."
He scowled, unwilling to concede her point.
"This spell isn't attached to my bed, which is more than we knew last night," she continued.
"I still do not understand why you must bore me with your incessant chatter," he grumbled.
"Has someone enchanted your bed to attract unwanted guests?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Why would anyone do that?"
"I don't know. Did you get drunk with Lucius one night and anger him into wanting revenge? Did a house elf misfire a spell onto your bed? Did Neville drop some kind of spore which makes people apparate to you?"
"I do not recall any of those occurring," his voice was less harsh.
"Okay, do you think a student did something in retaliation for a less than stellar grade?"
"Do you believe a student could ever infiltrate my room?"
"Well, I was able to steal potions ingredients from you during my second year," Hermione noted. "So it's possible for a student to break through your wards."
"Yes, and the consequences for you were quite," he moistened his lips, "unpleasant."
"The students may not be attempting to steal anything from you, but they do want you to suffer somehow," she continued.
"The students aren't doing anything to me because they cannot enter my bedroom."
"It only takes one evening to cast a spell."
"I do not leave my quarters in the evenings," Severus replied. "The only evening I've gone out during the last five years was Draco's wedding."
"Yes," her frown deepened. "The night you didn't find me worthy of any kind of conversation."
"It is an opinion I still hold." He began shuffling through his clothes. "I have no idea why I've indulged you for so long. My breakfast is getting cold."
"It's in our best interests to work this out."
"No, it's in your best interest to leave so I can prepare for breakfast. Minerva gets quite testy when I don't brew her second cup of coffee."
"You haven't brewed a cup of coffee in your life. You don't even like the drink."
"I do not despise it."
"Do you even drink coffee?"
"I drink it more often than you think," he pulled out a shirt and pants from his closet.
"Huh," she cocked her head. "I never took you for a coffee kind of man."
"There's quite a bit you don't know about me," he shut the closet door behind him. "And a lot you'll never learn about me."
"Believe me, the less I know about you, the better."
"Then stop conversing with me and leave so I can change into some actual clothing."
"Not until we work this out."
"Why do you Gryffindors all want to resolve your problems with tedious conversations?" He snapped. "Would it not be more satisfying to do as you are told so others do not wear out their voices pleading for your compliance?"
"If I leave now, I'll just come back tomorrow morning."
"So you admit that you're behind this."
"No, but there's a good chance we're going to be stuck in this loop unless we figure out what kind of magic is pulling us together."
Severus opened his mouth, only to close it. As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. Unless they figured this out, whatever force was bringing them together would continue. The ritual of waking up with her and arguing had already worn thin. Perhaps working this out wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If it got her away from him it was worth any inconvenience he would suffer in the meantime.
"Look," Hermione crawled closer to her, her black neglige clinging to her body. "I do not have time to find materials on what could be causing this. If I go to a bookstore, people will ask me what I'm purchasing and why."
"Pity. A trip to the bookstore always calms me even in my foulest moods," his voice was more genuine than he expected.
"It does me too."
"I cannot imagine how difficult being away from books must be for someone like you." Merlin was he empathizing with her? He must still be fatigued if he felt a pang of sympathy for her.
"It is more difficult than you could imagine," there was a flash of sadness in her eyes.
He swallowed, hoping to choke back his growing empathy for her. Severus Snape did not empathize with others, regardless of how terrible their problems were.
"It's obvious that whatever is happening affects me, not you. I'm the one who appears near you, not vice versa." She shook her head in defeat.
"I do stay in one place." Severus' stomach rumbled.
"Yes, so perhaps some books on sleep apparation would help. You should get some of those."
"So I'm your personal librarian now?" His sympathy for her evaporated.
"Given that you're the one with easy access to books and I'm not," she gave him a pointed look. "Yes, you need to retrieve them."
He threw down his clothes. "I do not take orders from bossy know-it-alls."
"Then you run the risk of seeing me every morning, unless you have a better idea." She folded her arms over her chest.
"Is that a veiled threat?" He lowered his voice.
"No," she answered. "I'm being realistic. We have no idea why I keep teleporting here, nor do we have any idea how to stop it. We can hope I stay in my own bed only for our hopes to be dashed the next morning, or we can go about resolving this problem so we can live our own lives."
"I am amenable to discontinuing this sleep apparation."
"Good," she put her arms at her side. "Then go ahead and pick me up those books, and sleep in your recliner tonight."
"Excuse me?" He snapped.
"We know the magic isn't tied to my bed," she began. "Perhaps your bed needs someone in it to activate."
"You are not ordering me to sleep on a recliner when I have a perfectly comfortable bed."
"First of all, your bed is far from comfortable." She hit the mattress. "It's as hard as a rock."
"Just as I like it," he answered.
"I'm surprised you do not wake up with a raging backache every morning."
"My bed is completely comfortable so long as I am in it alone."
"It's going to throw your back out one day."
"No it won't, but the guest in my bed has been giving me a raging headache these last three mornings."
"You should probably get that looked at."
"The bill will cost me twenty-five thousand galleons."
"Yes, you'll get your hush money," Hermione grumbled.
"Also, I will not sleep in my recliner," he argued.
"Then you run the risk of your morning headaches continuing."
He scowled. The day he admitted she was right about anything was the day he wore pink.
"If I were you…"
"You aren't me."
She took a deep breath. "If I were you, I'd get any books you think will be helpful in solving this mystery, and sleep in the recliner, just to see if the magic is tied to your bed."
"You want me to risk throwing my back out because a bushy haired know it all is smothering me with her hair in my recliner due to her inability to stay in her own bed?"
"Hey, I risk getting barked at every morning, so the prospect of being in a recliner with you isn't appealing to me either."
He hummed.
"Look," she stood. "We can continue to wake up shouting at each other's throats…"
"I am not shouting today."
"Today you aren't, but you were these last few days."
"Indeed." He choked back the shame welling within him. Did she need to remind him he was more like his father than he wanted to admit?
"As I was saying," she cleared her throat. "We can either wake up disgusted with the person in the bed beside us, or we can begin working on resolving this issue so we can move on with our lives."
"I vote for creating stronger wards and receiving my galleons."
"You'll get your galleons the second we figure this all out."
"I'd better," he muttered.
"Do we have a deal?" She extended her arm.
"Do I have a choice but to accept?" He looked at it.
"You always have a choice, even if the all consequences are unpleasant."
"Sartre did say not choosing was a choice. May as well make the one with the best potential outcome," He took her hand and shook it.
"Wait," her eyes grew as a red mist formed around their hands. "You've read Existentialism is a Humanism?"
"I have," he released her hand, the evaporating red mist unnoticed by both of them.
"I guess it makes a certain amount of sense," She mused. "You always did strike me as someone who would be sympathetic to existentialism."
"I'm very sympathetic to much of Sartre's thought," his muscles tightened. "What I'm not sympathetic to is a bushy haired know-it-all who is interfering with my breakfast."
"That you have made clear," she scurried out of the room.
Severus watched her leave before glancing at the clothes on the ground. Somehow, that woman could perplex, amuse, and vex him all at once.
He needed her gone before he did something inadvisable, like develop more empathy towards her.