Just You Wait

Chapter 2 - The Party

Promenade

Snape was counting on the fact that, unlike two years ago, neither he nor his wife would be noteworthy attendees at this Fête. Also, there was liable to be a great deal of drinking, which would hopefully shorten the attention spans of most of the partygoers. In order for his plan, hatched during his weekend in Barcelona, to work, he would need to temporarily abscond with his wife without causing too much fuss.

However. He had seen the dress that Hermione was planning to wear, and it was, in a word, stunning. That tempting expanse of fabric (coupled with her innate loveliness) might put a crimp in his plans, expecting as he did to find her in the ballroom surrounded by admirers.

He wasn't jealous. Not that he had a high opinion of his own attractiveness or sex appeal - rather, having recently won the heart of the cleverest witch of her generation, an inestimably lovely woman, right out from under the young, successful, fresh-faced, famous and presumably irresistible Boy Who Lived, Severus had an acute and visceral understanding of the impermeability of that which is meant to be.

He was, however, just a little bit possessive. And he was used to possessing the object of his desire on a very regular basis. These last three days had been agony, for him anyway, the first nights they'd spent apart since their marriage.

Anyway, it had been an almost complete waste of time to go to the Potions Conference. He could not, for the life of him, remember a word that was spoken. Or even the topics, for that matter...all he could think about was shagging. His wife. In that dress. In a room. In the house. Of her former husband.

What was that? Yes, that...odd...feeling. Unfamiliar. Aah, yes, a twinge of conscience. Hmm...gone now. Oh well.

Why Can't The English?

Snape crossed the short distance to the Manor and mounted the steps. The July evening was soft and warm, and obviously silencing spells had been employed on the building, as no sounds of revelry escaped the open double-doors.

Inside was another story, however. With distaste, he ran the gauntlet of the enchanted entranceway floor (normally marble tiles, tonight showing the birds' eye view of the final, 200 feet above the pitch), along which everyone he passed was either dressed as an England Quidditch player, or was wearing the team colours. And as for the eyeball-to-highball ratio, well, it wasn't exactly a Frat party, but it was still pretty loose. [One of the folks who have read the story wonders if "Frat" is too American. I think not (otherwise I wouldn't have put it in), but do you have any thoughts/suggestions?]

Some things are to be enjoyed, others merely endured.

As he advanced on the ballroom, the most likely place to find Hermione, Severus nodded tersely to a number of familiar faces, many of them friendly, a few not. Of course Albus was in attendance, Merlin help us all the day Dumbledore misses a party. He passed Harry, tense but not noticeably tight, who gestured with a stiff thumb over his shoulder and growled "She's in there," without making [but didn't make] eye contact.

He endured the smirks of his old friend and enemy Sirius Black, Hogwarts Charms teacher and resident Agony Aunt, but managed in the few minutes they spoke to head off a one-sided re-hash of their hackneyed discussion on Snowballs Freezing in Hell. Black missed no opportunity to point out evidence of Severus's position at the foot of the pedestal on which he placed his wife.

Severus knew that the sooner he ended the conversation, the more he'd be playing into Sirius's hands, but he was just too impatient to drag it out. "Sod off, Black. Do us all a favour and hold your breath until school starts," he said in response to a particularly lewd and insightful conjecture about his plans for the evening. Wouldn't do to let on how close he was to being right. Although he probably already knows, Snape conceded to himself. Only as he walked away did he realise that his rejoinder was almost word for word something he said to Sirius when they were in school together, but his twinge of guilt was assuaged by a round of loud guffaws from the man. Having friends is...tolerable... he thought briefly as he caught his first glimpse of his wife, looking positively edible in her red velvet gown and, as predicted, the centre of quite a rapacious circle.

Without You

Although many years had passed since his days as a Death Eater, a spy, and a Paragon of All Things Unclean, Undead, Unholy (Insert Exaggeration Here), he had never lost his ability to enter a room unnoticed. It pleased him now, to create a pocket of stillness around himself and watch as throngs of people, mostly male, gravitated towards and were rebuffed by Hermione. He saw her glance around, looking for him, but she wouldn't see him until he wanted her to. It wasn't magic, at least not wand magic, but the simple mental discipline of becoming inconspicuous. It was how he had always managed to sneak up on the Potter Trio and all the other Gryffindors during - well - up to now, as a matter of fact.

When they'd seen Hermione at the party two years ago, Sirius and Severus had likened her to a statue - lovely, but distant and impassive. Not the vivacious, passionate, alive girl they'd both known during her Hogwarts days. Her fourteen-year marriage of indifference had left her sad and unmovable. Without hope.

Now...well, he wasn't the only person to notice how much better she looked. The simultaneous stimulation of her mind and body that life at Hogwarts afforded her was obviously exactly what the mediwitch (or perhaps Headmaster) ordered, as her colleagues, the house-elves, and most of Harry's friends were fond of observing. Much to Snape's embarrassment (and secret pride).

Her physical features had not changed, although as per Severus's wishes, she had rounded out a little. Just a little.

Her hair was still a mass of soft, shiny ringlets, up tonight in a loose chignon with tendrils hanging temptingly down her neck. Her skin was the pearly-white he remembered from their first meeting, and her movements were still graceful and soft. But other than that, she could have been a different person. Her skin glowed with an almost heavenly light. Her eyes sparkled, there was humour and vitality in her facial expressions and in her body, and her laugh percolated often up through the cacophony of the ballroom.

And sexy...when Severus had met her at the party two years ago, he had thought she was beautiful; he'd thought she had a great body, and he had been extremely attracted to her. But he didn't regard her as sexy, per se. She had been an object of admiration, attraction, to the men she met when she'd been married to Harry, but now...Merlin's Balls!! Mr Potter must be pretty displeased to see, or more importantly, to have others see and notice, how sultry and satisfied she habitually looked.

It wasn't overt - it was mostly in her eyes. They had a sensual, feline quality and they held a note of promise. Gone was the tight squint from when she had been Mrs Potter, and when she wasn't looking at anything in particular, her eyelids drooped and the corners of her mouth curled up as if she were thinking of something very pleasant, and very very private. Also the way her body moved. She wasn't a swayer like Marilyn Monroe, or a stalker like Marlene Dietrich, but she had an easy grace, comfortable in her skin; the movements of someone who had known pleasure, both given and received.

It definitely drew the men in the room. She wasn't flirting...she didn't need to. The presence she had, her beauty, her energy, her sexuality, caused them to flock around her like autograph hounds at the Albery. The gown she was wearing wasn't exactly a deterrent, either. An old-fashioned Muggle evening gown, an uncommon colour of red velvet, neither bright nor dark, the red of a diabolical summer sunset. It was cut quite low, with the neckline in a wide shallow circle that exposed most of her shoulders. The bust was fitted and fairly modest, and the close-fitting sleeves sheathed her arms down past the tips of her thumbs. The empire waist gave way to a flaring, but not full, A-line skirt that brushed the floor but was charmed not to catch her feet or those of her hangers-on.

Snape noticed, with a secret smirk, that she didn't seem to realise the effect she had. She smiled politely to the people who approached her, spoke for a few moments, then turned her attention to the next. In their efforts to gain her attention, or maybe just because they couldn't help it, most of her admirers touched her in some way. A hand on her shoulder or waist, a handshake, fingertips on her arm...Hermione responded with, variously, diffidence, indulgence, surprise and displeasure, with no pattern that Severus could discern. Some of them were quite persistent, but the lingerers were usually elbowed out by newcomers.

The husband in him bristled - the man in him couldn't blame them. More grist for the mill, he thought...Fodder for the role I'll be playing with her tonight, when I...play with her tonight.

Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

Severus and Hermione had a fairly conventional sex life. Fulfilling, tender, uninhibited, and even fun. Neither of them had been very experienced before their union, despite their pasts; and for most of the last two years they had been getting to know each other's bodies, testing out what they liked and what pleased the other, becoming more at ease and comfortable. Particularly Severus, as it happened, due to the unpleasant role he had held as a Death Eater, which made him very leery of anything that smacked of coercion or that he feared might make Hermione uneasy.

But over time, they had become more free with each other, and Severus discovered that Hermione liked, even craved, the darker side of his nature that he had begun to bring to their bedroom. Their new level of trust and adventurousness had added an element of excitement to their sex lives that had never shown itself before, and Severus hugely enjoyed surprising her with new scenarios and aspects of himself. She had never been shocked or hurt, and had never rejected him.

He'd wanted to do something special to celebrate their reunion, even though it had only been on Friday morning that they had parted...knowing about the celebration, and the dress, he'd spent most of the conference thinking about it. It was only on Sunday, when he met a potion maker he'd known during university, when a clear plan presented itself.

The first leg of the operation was to get her out of the ballroom and into somewhere private. In keeping with the tenor of the evening he'd had in mind, it seemed appropriate (from the point of view of onlookers also) to approach her in the persona of Snape, the Bat-like Greasy Git, aka He Who Must Be Obeyed. Besides deterring people from thinking he was taking her somewhere private to snog, and ensuring her quick compliance, it would have the side-benefit of getting Hermione on her high horse a little [Hermione's hackles up a little], which would play into his hands perfectly (and was adorable besides).

She'd looked around the room twice more since he'd been watching her, and now she had a cute little frown on her face. She moved away from the throng, as if she wanted to make sure she wasn't missed by anyone who might be... looking for her. It excited him to know that she was as impatient for their reunion as he was. She had dressed herself for him and she was waiting for him. Only for him.