Goodnight, Demon Slayer

Goodnight, Demon Slayer
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Everytime

After sending off the owl in a hurry, Hermione flopped onto her bed, nervously twisting her fingers and chewing her lower lip. Had she done the right thing? Had she taken him back too easily? What would happen now? Would he hurt her again? Would he come to her? Should she go to him? What would happen when they saw each other? Would she kiss him? Would he want more? Was she ready for that? Was she ready to see him again?

Oh, shut up, Hermione!

After a few moments of contemplating her doom... er... fate...no... doom? Uh… future? Yes, after a few moments of contemplating her future, Hermione's eyes flew wide open and she jumped to her feet.

She was nowhere near ready to see him! Whether she went to him or he came to her made no difference. She was in no way, shape, or form ready to be seen by him again. Had she even shaved her legs recently?

A quick once-over only confirmed Hermione's fears. Not only were her legs scarily reminiscent of Harry's, her face was less-than-perfect after this afternoon's shouting match, her hair was... well… hers, and somehow she thought she'd forgotten to put deodorant on this morning. With a high chirp of anxiety, Hermione sprang to the bathroom and ran a quick, hot bath. She attended her needs with haste; after all, if Severus tried to come up here while she was in the tub, he wouldn't be able to get in!

Plus- naked…

But Severus was coming, right? She wasn't supposed to go there, right? But what if she was? What if he was in the dungeons now, pacing back and forth, waiting for her to come to him? What if he was waiting for her and she was taking so long that he lost hope that she'd meant her words? What if he thought she was merely playing a trick on him? Leading him on, lulling him into a false sense of security? And what if he sent another owl instead of coming to her himself? She hadn't been lying when she'd told him that the owls were driving Crookshanks insane, and the last one had escaped her room uninjured only due to her intervention. What if he sent another owl while she was in the bathtub and Crookshanks got to it and ate it?

Shut up, Hermione!

Finishing up with her beautification ritual, Hermione practically growled with impatience as she tried to pull a brush through her hair. It was impossible, really. Her hair was just impossible, and she had no time to deal with smoothing serum and detangling spells right now. She had to be ready when Severus came to her.

He was coming, right?

Shaking her head to clear any doubt from it (about Severus, not her hair- she still had major doubts about her ability to look like anything but a troll doll at that point), Hermione threw down her brush and concentrated instead on her outfit. It was nearly 10:00. Normally, she would be in her pajamas at this time, but should she really meet Severus wearing her pajamas? Honestly, she didn't even have any sexy ones. Just the wit with little teeth on them, and she highly doubted that would be arousing to Severus.

Then again, he'd liked them this summer.

But, contrarily, if she had to go to him, she couldn't be seen in the corridors in her pajamas. After all she was the Head Girl! And Head Girls simply did not walk through the hallways undressed.

Or even kind of dressed.

So, she had to wear real clothes, but what kind of real clothes? If she put her uniform back on it would give the impression that she hadn't been too concerned with the night's proceedings. With her uniform on, she could play it cool. However, there was also the problem of her forgetting to wear deodorant today, so the uniform was probably out. Jeans and a t-shirt were out because if she was taking enough effort to get ready to see him, then she might as well not look skeezy. Plus, jeans are a bitch to get off when you put them on and your legs are still damp.

Hermione gasped at the thought. Did she really want that? Would she have sex with him again if he wanted to? More importantly, would she have sex with him tonight? Calming herself for a moment and logically thinking of all the pros and cons of the situation, she took a deep breath and decided.

Yes.

On both counts.

What, are you kidding? It's Severus! Of course you want to have sex with him!

And so the search began for the perfect outfit. Wildly, Hermione threw top after top over head as she emptied her dresser. Nothing seemed right! And the pants were worse! Did she want to wear pants? Or should she wear a skirt? Would a skirt give the wrong impression? Well, technically, it would be the right impression, but she didn't want to seem needy or despserate.

Even though she was.

Both of those, actually.

She was now in a wild frenzy, trying violently to find the perfect outfit that she wasn't even really sure she owned. It was beginning to infuriate her, but just before she acquiesced to her body's urge to let out a primal roar of frustration, she heard the soft, almost fragile sound of a piano outside her window. Following the noise, she was perplexed. She had sound-proofed her room from the rest of Gryffindor tower at the beginning of the year; one can only hear so many celebratory parties after Quidditch matches, so the noise had to be coming from directly outside her window.

Which was extremely odd considering her room was about a hundred feet up, the highest room in the entire tower.

Reaching her window, Hermione stopped dead in her tracks. She knew what song the piano was playing, recognized it immediately. It was the song she and Severus had danced to at Harry's birthday party over the summer. She inhaled sharply, the implications of this song's choice, making her throat tight and her eyes begin to water.

And then she heard it.

Infinitely deep and out of place in the sweet pop song, Severus' voice entered her ears. Hermione stood disbelievingly for a moment, but soon ran to the window only to see Severus floating there, directly at her eye-level.

"Notice me, take my hand
Why are we strangers when our love is strong?
Why carry on without me?
'Cause everytime I try to fly I fall
Without my wings I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And every night I see you in my dreams
I see your face, it's haunting me
I guess I need you, baby
I make believe that you are here
It's the only way I see clear
What have I done?
You seem to move uneasy
'Cause everytime I try to fly I fall
Without my wings I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And everytime I see you in my dreams
I see your face, you're haunting me
I guess I need you, baby
I may have made it rain
Please forgive me
My weakness caused you pain
And this song is my sorry
'Cause everytime I try to fly I fall
Without my wings I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And everytime I see you in my dreams
I see your face, it's haunting me
I guess I need you, baby
After all"

The song ended quietly, and it appeared that neither of them really had any clue as to how to proceed. Sheepishly, Severus avoided her eyes while continuing to hover there in front of her, and Hermione, for her part, just stood there looking at him, dumbstruck for once in her life.

"So... What do you think?" he asked quietly, looking up as he asked. Her throat thick with tears, Hermione found it hard to speak, but soon smiled sweetly.

"It kind of sounded like a guy desperate to save his own arse," she giggled, purposely parroting what he'd said about the song at Harry's party. At the memory, Severus smiled, sensing that she was beginning to be turned by his blatant acts of contrition. Now when he looked at her there was no mistaking the hope in his eyes.

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?"

"Of course!" Hermione whispered excitedly, a tear falling down her face.

"Well, then, can I come in?" asked Severus shyly but very obviously needy. "Levitation spells are quite exhausting especially when coupled with absolute humiliation and embarassment."

Hermione giggled again but nodded, moving out of the way so that the Potions Master could climb inside. She continued to grin up at him, but as soon as his feet were on the ground and he was standing in front of her, his expression changed and his face flushed bright red.

"Um... Hermione..." he stuttered, looking away from her. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No. Why?" The question honestly perplexed her- until she looked down. "OH MY GOD!" It was then Hermione's turn to blush. In all of the commotion, she'd completely forgotten about the perfect outfit and had gone to the window, and, subsequently, was now standing in front of Severus in nothing more than a black lace bra and underwear. Hastily, she tried to rip the comforter from her bed and cover herself.

"I'm sorry," she began. "I... I just got out of the bath when I heard you." Not looking at Severus, she began tnd tnd the cover around her more and more tightly, looking for a way to hold it up. She was nervously trying to tuck it into itself like a towel when suddenly she felt his hands on hers.

"You don't have to," he breathed, barely allowing himself to hope that she'd accept his advances. He stepped closer to her, pressing against her in a mildly presumptuous way. After all, she had greeted him half naked. "You don't have to if you don't want to, if-"

"I don't want to stop," interrupted Hermione quickly. She had no idea what she was doing, what all of this meant, where they would be in ten minutes- let alone ten years. Nothing was planned out, nothing was scripted.

And for once in her life, Hermione didn't care.

For a split second Hermione's wide, frightened eyes met Severus' hopeful ones, and then all pretense of modesty and naivety was gone. With a fervor normally reserved for her studies, Hermione flung herself into Severus' arms and began kissing him passionately.

Leading her to the bed, Severus sat on its edge, holding her hand lightly as she stood in front of him, between his legs. Looking up at her, he was immediately awed.

"Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" he whispered, his eyes pinned to her face.

"If I say yes are you going to stop telling me?" Hermione asked, a tiny hint of teasing creeping just under the surface of her voice. She looked down at him then, blushing and batting her eyelashes. It must be genetically inherent in women, Severus decided. One of those cute little looks from her and he was quite ready to give her each and every thing she could ever ask or wish for.

"I could never stop telling you how beautiful you are." Giggling in a nervous but still playful kind of way, Hermione responded, still holding his hand and clutching it even tighter.

"Well, in that case, yes. I am fully aware of how beautiful I am." Although he was trying his very hardest to be serious, Severus could not help the barb which slipped quite easily off the tip of his tongue.

"And what I love most about you is your humility."

Narrowing her eyes at him, Hermione released his hand and moved to lay back on the bed.

"That's what you want to do? Trade insults? 'Cause I'm telling you if I had a half naked girl in my bed I could think of somethingter ter to do, and I don't even like girls like that." Her face spread wide with a Chesire Cat grin, Hermione licked her lips in a way Severus would have to be an idiot to misinterpret. Crawling up to the head of the bed to meet her, he hovered dangerously close to her face, constantly teasing her with the possibility of that soon he would be kissing her and soon after that... well...

"And what do you think I should do in bed with a half-naked girl?" he hissed almost menacingly, that deadly Snape smirk making a return as he nipped teasingly at her lower lip. The facade was fun, but he was much too eager and she was much too naked, and after only seconds he swooped down and captured her mouth fully, crushing his body to hers. The kiss only ended when Hermione gasped for breath.

"That's a good start," she whispered breathlessly, her eyes closed and her lips glistening. From somehwere inside, Severus felt a deep, almost growling laugh pulled from him. Arching what she had come to think of as the fabled eyebrow of legend, he responded.

"Indeed."

Giggling softly but quickly calming, Hermione gently raised a hand to cup the side of his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes in a tender kind of way. Suddenly her face became very somber, very sincere.

"I really do love you, Severus."

"And I, you, Hermione."

Smiling like a child given a Christmas present, Hermione sighed contentedly and kissed him sweetly. For once she did not know what was going to happen in her life, but she didn't care. She had her Severus, and that was all she needed.

***************************A/N**************************
Yes, I know, no smut, but sometimes it's better to imagine your own smut. Especially since I suck at writing it.
Thank you to everyone who's reviewed! I hope you have all enjoyed it, and that the end doesn't disappoint!