Slumberous

SLUHM-ber-uh s | adjective

1: sleepy; heavy with drowsiness, as the eyelids

She had fallen asleep while reading again. Severus watched her with a small smile playing across his lips. Lying on her back on the loveseat, her book fell forward over her chest. Her mouth was ever so slightly ajar.

He set his own book aside and gently lifted her in his arms, doing his best not to wake her. She whimpered softly and cuddled into his chest. Ascending the stairs toward their bedroom, he allowed himself to marvel yet again that she was his. A month since she'd accepted his proposition of moving in with him. Six since he'd first begun to take her interest seriously.

"Dinner tonight?" she asked for the seventh time, leaning on the counter top of his small apothecary shop.

"Miss Granger," he began, exasperated.

"Hermione," she insisted – again.

Growling, he conceded. "Hermione," – he ignored the grin of triumph on her face – "I refuse to be a part of whatever sick little bet you've made with your posse. I merely wish to run my shop in peace."

She raised her eyebrows. "You think this is a bet? Is that why you keep turning me down?"

He frowned at her. "Isn't it?" She couldn't actually be interested in him, could she?

"No. I genuinely just want to have dinner with you. I'd like to get to know you better as a person rather than my professor."

"Not a date?" he queried hesitantly. Just dinner… It might be nice to eat out with another human being for once, rather than returning home to a sad dinner alone of soup and potatoes for the third time this week.

She grinned at him mischievously. "Only if you want it to be."

That night after dinner he'd apparated with her to her apartment to be sure she made it in safely – the Dark Lord may have been dead and gone, but there were still plenty of whack-jobs in the world – and she had invited him in for a cup of post-dinner coffee. Having enjoyed her company at dinner, he accepted the invitation.

"Dinner was nice" she remarked over her steaming mug of coffee.

He raised one brow at her. "It was not unpleasant."

She smirked. "Not unpleasant, my ass. You think I didn't see you drooling when they brought out that steak?"

He did not deign to answer that.

"Care to do it again sometime?"

"I would not be opposed to that," he answered delicately. He had not abhorred the evening. Her company had been pleasant and the food had been divine. "Still not a date?"

She broke into a grin. "Oh, no, this one would most definitely be a date."

His stomach lurched a little at that and he hesitated, staring into the dark liquid in his hands. It had been many years since he'd been on a real date. Did he even want to date a woman? "Alright."

The first date had come and gone smoothly, if politely, and he'd been surprised when she'd shown up at his shop again the next day and requested another.

He stared silently at the woman smiling hopefully across the counter at him. Setting aside the small envelope of dried corpse weed he'd been packaging for shipment, he came around the front of the counter. She stood her ground as he stepped close to her and put his hands on either side of her face. Their lips met gently and he felt her body melt against him.

"Alright," he agreed after he pulled back. Turning his back, he moved back around to continue packing up the order.

"Er," she said, unsure of herself for the first time in all of this, "not that I'm complaining at all, but what was that?"

He turned to look at her mildly and shrugged. "No point wasting either of our time if that didn't do anything for us."

"So… it worked for you?"

A hint of a smile ghosted his lips when he met her eyes. "It did."

He pushed the bedroom door open with his foot and moved toward the bed. He stared at the neatly made sheets and then looked down at the woman in his arms. How did he… But then, he was a wizard, wasn't he? Shifting her more securely against his shoulder, he freed one hand and waved it at the bed. Obediently, the comforter moved back from her side and he was able to lay her gently down onto the bed. After pulling the blankets back up around her, he turned to leave when a hand shot out and grabbed onto his trousers. He glanced down to see her looking up at him with sleepy eyes. A warm smile, made just for him, lit her face.

"Come to bed," she requested softly.

After a month of sharing his bed with her, he was still unable to resist the call of her, and so he nodded in agreement. He stripped out of his shirt and pants and climbed into bed beside her. He'd barely gotten settled beneath the blankets when she rolled over and pressed her face into his neck with a sleepy sigh.

"I love you, Severus," she murmured.

He froze, heart pounding. She'd… She'd said she loved him. She hadn't ever… He wanted to ask her to repeat herself, demand to know if she really meant it, but her breath was quickly evening out on his neck as she fell asleep. He rolled onto his side, wrapping an arm around her waist and watching her face as she fell into sleep.

"Wow," she muttered, lying naked beside him on the bed. "That was… wow."

His chest rumbled with a laugh. "Well put." They'd been seeing each other for a few months now and they'd been taking it slow. He hadn't wanted to rush her into anything. That attitude had been blown right out of the water tonight when she'd shown up for their date in a low-cut, Slytherin green dress with a slit that extended to absolutely sinful heights. They hadn't even made it out of his house. They'd only barely made it out of the living room. The dress was lying on the floor somewhere beside the couch. He wasn't entirely sure in which direction he had thrown the garment once he'd managed to peel it from her body.

Rolling over, he pressed a kiss to the soft skin of her neck. He curled himself around her and pressed his face into her shoulder. She smiled and wrapped her arm up to cradle his face against her. "Thank you for giving me a chance," she murmured.

"Thank you for persisting," he returned.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too, Hermione," he whispered, knowing she was too deeply asleep to hear him, but knowing that he would tell her soon enough.