Something came over him that he didn't know how to describe.
A feeling that he didn't want to, simply couldn't, put words to.
So he said the only words he could think of.
"Stay with me…please?"
oOo
She looked taken aback for a moment, but before he could castigate himself and take back the statement that had escaped him in a moment of weakness, because why would he ever ask her that?! her eyes softened and she'd answered him "of course".
Pulling the shower curtain partially around the bath she helped ease him back out of his shirt, and he pressed a hand to his throbbing and fuzzy head. "Christ"
"Sorry I don't have any headache or pain potions, I tend not to keep them in the house because…well I can't take anything with silver or wolfsbane while I'm nursing anyway… I can bring you some muggle painkillers?"
After a moment, he waved her off when some of the fuzziness cleared his vision, enough that he wasn't on the verge of collapsing once more. "I will brew some. There's an old recipe for headache relief, it's simple enough, has a good shelf life and is very effective and it doesn't contain either silver or wolfsbane, however it fell out of use because it tends to cause fairly bad heartburn. I assume you have some muggle antacids in the house?"
She gave him an incredulous look, her answer was deadpan "After my pregnancy? Yes. Fairly certain I spent more time with heartburn than I did without it"
He made to unbuckle his belt but then blushed, which she found utterly charming and she turned to give him some privacy, hearing his exhaled breath of relief and a moment later, the gentle splash as he slipped into the water. "Pull the curtain all the way, it's charmed" she tossed over her shoulder, and listened as he did just that .
Turning around she heard him jump and curse as the water splashed, no doubt he was hurrying to cover himself to prevent her from getting an eyeful, then a groan as the movement probably made his head throb once more.
"Don't worry, Sorry I probably should have explained exactly how it's charmed. See, among others there's a privacy charm imbued into the fabric of the shower curtain. You can see out, but I can't see in. Kind of like a one way mirror"
The curtain was pulled back slightly, enough that if she sat on the toilet they could look eye to eye as they spoke but she couldn't see past his upper chest.
"Effective. And appreciated… I apologise…I am not sure why I …"
She waved him off , before he could begin to fall down that rabbit hole of self depreciation.
"Think nothing of it. Harry and me, we did this a lot during the war. When we were in that tent, after Ron had left… there was nothing sexual about it, we just… talked. There was something about it, feeling vulnerable…but knowing that someone was there for you…Besides I wouldn't be much of a friend if I let you drown in my bath because you had a concussion now would I ?"
He chuckled, then winced a bit as pain lanced through his head. "Don't make me laugh, it isn't doing my headache any good"
"Press the rune on the side there, Uruz" She gestured vaguely towards the middle of the bath that wasn't in her current lline of sight.
"Ah…There may be a problem with that" Severus said with an embarassed cough.
"A Problem?" She asked with curiosity, brow furrowed in confusion.
"I barely scraped acceptable in ancient runes, would have got a Troll probably but the examiner was a Slytherin and knew I was good with potions, so you're going to have to give me more than Uroo"
"Uruz" She giggled and he scowled at her. "What ? I can't be pleased that I am actually better than you at one subject? You can wipe the floor with me in most anything else, so give me this at least…"
A flash of hurt had gone through him when she'd first laughed, the old insecurities coming forth, hurt and embarrassed that she of all people was mocking him for his inadequacies, until he'd realised when she spoke that she was teasing him, as friends do, and the thought warmed him enough to share more with her.
"I believe your knowledge far surpasses mine in many subjects. Transfiguration for one, charms most certainly you could sit the mastery tomorrow…I shall have to soothe my wounded pride with the emphatic tales from Trelawny of your inadequacies in opening your minds eye… and of course the pensieve memory that Rolanda gave me of your flying owl"
"Oh gods you saw that? It's the one that looks like a lowercase n by the way"
He pressed the rune with a grin , as he saw a heated blush hit her face, groaning in satisfaction as the water both began to churn and filled with soothing salts that eased some of the tension in his body.
"Oh everybody in the staff room saw that…it's not often that students vomit on the examiners, we had to find our amusement somewhere"
She laughed then, even though she was covering her face with remembered embarrassment.
"Well I am glad that I provided a useful source of schadenfreude for you at least, makes up for my many years of insufferable-ness"
His face dropped slightly and he reached his hand out, touching hers and she looked into his eyes as she felt droplets of water cascading down the back of her hand, where his damp one had brushed hers.
"I'm sorry for that you know, for everything I said and did when you were a student. I would like to say that it was all for show, that I couldn't show any favouritism or encouragement even but I can't in all honesty say as much, especially not in the years before his return. It was equally the depression, stress, fear and the alcohol that was fuelling me throughout your school years. In fact I spent a number of years where I consisted on naught but caffeine, firewhiskey and nutrient potions for the most part. It is not an excuse, but perhaps an explanation…and an apology, for what its worth, which is the very least you deserve"
" I'm sorry too, you know?" She whispered, taking his hand in hers before he could pull it back. "I was so full of that undeterrable confidence that I was right and as headstrong as only children could be. I was always so certain that we were doing the right thing, it's only as a mother now that I realise all that trouble we got into…how much stress and worry we must have caused all the staff, apart from Dumbledore... And It wasn't until I was much older, that I realised just how annoying my hand waving in your class must have been. Sometimes, even though I always respected you, I thought you were just being an arse when you wouldn't call on me and I didn't realise until I started tutoring that you were just annoyed because I wasn't giving anyone else a chance to speak up, and by answering all the questions I was letting them be lazy instead of making them think for themselves"
"I was an arse." He acknowledged her with a grunt. "But…thank you"
"Still friends?" She asked with a cheeky smile, and did the most peculiar thing, looping her pinky finger with his. "Always" he chuckled at her antics.
"Ha. You pinky swore, now you can't go back on your promise" Her smile was contagious and he couldn't hold back his mirth.
"Ah entrapment is it? I should have known not to underestimate you Granger, after all you did set me on fire when you were 12 years old, you little reprobate "
She grinned "You're just mad because you got tricked by a Gryffindor" She stuck her tongue out at him, grabbed a loofah and threw it at him.
"Now hurry up because my arse is going numb on this toilet seat and I would like to make a start on dinner at some point today"
"Yes dear" he grumbled good naturedly and she smiled at him entirely too happily, before giving him a mischievous look..
"Can I wash your hair for you?"
He scowled at her, deciding whether or not to be affronted by that offer but as she was practically vibrating in her seat and almost sitting on her hands to control herself as her eyes flicked from his hair to various products and he decided for once instead of becoming defensive to just… "Fuck it, why not. Merlin knows I don't know what to do with it" he rolled his eyes and began washing the blood off his chest from where his nose had bled down himself.
For her part she practically leapt into action, before he could change his mind obviously.
"Great, fix your bubbles before I get back"
She leapt over to the shelf , taking a few seconds to choose a couple of bottles out of the cabinet and after a moment of confusion, he grasped her meaning, casting a quick wandless obscuring spell, allowing the bubbles to conceal everything below his chest before she returned.
"All good?" She asked from a few paces away and he nodded in acknowledgement.
With a smile she made her way back to the tub and knelt behind him , sending a cushioning charm to the floor before she settled.
Using her wand she rinsed his hair first, getting it good and wet then pausing before she poured it she questioned.
"Wait…you're not allergic to anything are you?"
Turning slightly he raised his eyebrow and quirked a lip as he regarded her from her position on the floor.
"You've cooked multiple meals for me, and it's only now you think to ask if I have any allergies?"
She scowled playfully and splashed him with water from her wand and it made him chuckle.
"Haha yes very funny, I'd assumed if you had a food allergy you would have been smart enough to mention it, so why don't you just answer the question smart arse."
"Shellfish actually…I didn't think it was worth mentioning as I was aware you didn't partake in animal products… though if there's any in there, I have more questions than answers."
"Ha bloody ha" She joked before she began massaging the product into his scalp and it was all he could do to grasp the sides of the bath and not moan aloud.
No one had ever done this for him. His mother had been careless, bordering on neglectful, and he'd been taking care of his own cleaning and dressing from the time he was old enough to pull clothes on himself. And he'd never been close enough, trusting enough, intimate enough…to do this with any of his few short flings.
"Shea"
"Pardon?" He cracked an eye open, looking up at her. She'd tilted his head back so she was almost upside down as he peered at her.
"I'm allergic to Shea Butter, it's in a lot of bath products, that's why I thought to ask. I bought some lotion with it once, and it was horrible, it was like I'd been burned."
"Hmmm" He grumbled, far too relaxed by her ministrations to do much more. He winced a little when she reached the front of his head.
"Sorry, does that hurt?" She asked him and he cracked an eye open once more. "A little but..I think it's a good hurt."
She must have understood what he meant, because she nodded and put a little more pressure behind her actions and after the ache intensified for a moment, he felt the tension melting away.
He hadn't even realised he'd been holding so much tension, until Hermione had released it for him and he sank, bonelessly, deeper into the tub with a deep groan.
"Christ that's good …"
He thought he'd heard her whimper, but when he peeked at her, she was biting her lip and made no indication that she'd made any noise whatsoever.
"T-time to rinse"
He sat forward and she brought the shower head down. "Alright?" She asked and he nodded, letting her rinse his hair under the running water.
The sound of the water he found was dampened as it hit the full bath, and he couldn't focus on the noise, not when her gentle hands were rinsing his hair carefully and tenderly.
She repeated the process using a conditioner, which was much shorter much to his chagrin.
"You have the opposite problem to me" She explained. "Your hair is naturally oily, so we don't want to use too much conditioner. My hair is naturally dry, so I have to use a TON of conditioner or it's like straw, my arms are usually killing me by the time I'm done."
He blamed the serotonin and the dopamine her actions had released, because without thinking he answered.
"Let me know when and I shall return the favour"
He tensed suddenly, his body going stiff when he realised what he'd just implied. And then there was panic as another kind of stiffness was threatening to rear it's ugly head when he imagined their positions reversed and her covered in nothing but bubbles.
Heat flooded his face and before he could even apologise, she'd tipped his head back with a finger under his chin and raised her eyebrow with a cheeky smirk as she stared at him.
"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep Severus, because I just might take you up on that"
"