Arithmancy for Muggles

Chapter Four: Dessert

“Don’t,” Severus said softly over the rattle of the underground train.

Hermione waited for the rest of it.

“Don’t do this…”

She watched him struggle with his own emotions, so powerful she could see them on his face, like one sees the floating tip of the iceberg. What iceberg mountain of emotion must be still hidden under the surface?

“Don’t do this out of some misguided sense of pity,” he said, completing his thought.

“I don’t pity you,” Hermione said, realizing as she said it that she was lying.

“You do.”

“Yes,” she admitted, “but that’s not why…”

Snape looked at her intently. She locked his eyes with hers and let him in. It was easier this way, quicker. They would not be overheard. He looked away when he was done. “Oh.” Then, “I think I see.”

The bland female voice called their stop. Hermione stood, gripping the pole. Severus stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. His body radiated warmth. She leaned back into him, briefly, catching another whiff of his scent. Now he smelled more like vinaigrette and roast chicken from dinner than potions ingredients. “Mutual need,” she said, tilting her head back to touch his shoulder. “Mutual convenience.”

His hands cradled her head, his long, clever fingers resting along the sides of her jaw, his thumbs tucked under her ears. He could have snapped her neck like this, so easily. But she trusted him, trusted him enough to touch her like this, trusted him enough to touch her intimately. He agreed. “Fine. Just don’t do this out of pity.” His fingers pressed into her face, a subtle warning.

“I might ask the same of you,” she reminded him.

The train lurched to a stop. Severus let Hermione go first, but she reached for his hand and twined his fingers with her own. They crossed the platform connected like this.

“Do you still want dessert?” he asked, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.

So, Hermione abandoned their previous plan and bought a small tub of ice cream at the corner store. She led Snape directly to her flat, the common brown paper bag with ice cream clutched in one hand, the uncommonly elegant hand of her former teacher gripped in the other.

She had spoons, courtesy of her mum, but little furniture apart from a few expertly charmed pieces, like a bookshelf that held any number of books and always had the book you were looking for at eye level. Without speaking, they sat on the floor together, Snape awkwardly cross-legged, Hermione sitting up on her knees. She pried the lid off the tub and placed it creamy side up on the floor.

Crookshanks appeared, sniffing the air eagerly. The cat went to work, tidily scraping the frozen cream from the lid with his raspy tongue. Severus watched him as Hermione dug her spoon into the tub of ice cream and took a huge bite. “Take your shoes off. You look uncomfortable.”

A more un-Snape-like situation Hermione could not have imagined. Snape removed his shoes and accepted the tub of ice cream. His stocking feet were long and thin. He wiggled his toes a bit as he tried to make himself comfortable on the floor. “I haven’t done this since I was a student,” he admitted. Whether he was referring to sitting on the floor, or lounging without his shoes or sharing a tub of ice cream with a girl, he did not elaborate.

They passed the carton back and forth between them, not saying much between bites. Crookshanks had long since finished cleaning the lid and was lolling on his back, paws in the air. Hermione scraped the last bite of ice cream from the corners of the tub and offered it to the shoeless meforefore her. He leaned in to lick the ice cream off her spoon, his eyes lowered, his lashes dark against his pale cheeks. He looked up from under those dark lashes and said, “I have eaten the food of the fairy realm. Surely I am doomed to remain here the rest of my days?”

“But where am I going to keep you?” Hermione joked to hide her discomfort.t’s t’s a small flat.”

Realizing he had overstepped some bound, he sat up, adopting a brisker tone. “Well, I am due back at Hogwarts eventually.” He took both spoons and the empty tub and stood. “But if it should happen that my heart remains here, find a corner for it to sit comfortably and perhaps dust it occasionally. I find I have little use for it in the day to day.”

She took the lid of the container and followed Snape into the kitchen. “Severus?”

Ignoring her entreaty, he tossed the empty tub in the dustbin, rinsed the spoons under the faucet and left them in the sink. “I realize you don’t want protestations of love, so before we go any further, I wish to make it absolutely clear that my interest in you is entirely selfish. I want you because I want you, not because I want to ease your loneliness, not because I wish to comfort you in this transition, but because you are young and beautiful and optimistic and I am none of these things.” Severus turned to look at Hermione. “You may rescind your invitation at any time.”

Picking up his discarded shoes, Hermione held them up. “Here are your shoes. I’m going to go put them by the bed so that when you are ready to leave, they’ll be right there for you.”

He followed her into the bedroom.

Hermione knelt and placed the shoes, toes neatly together, near the foot of the bed. Snape stood near her, looming nearly as tall and dark as he did in her imagination. Reaching to touch his foot, he was suddenly human again. When she looked up at him, he smiled, a little wryly, a little sadly. Hermione stood and pressed a kiss onto that half-smile.

It was early yet. Severus was in no hurry. Neither was Hermione. They undressed each other leisurely, adventurers in a new land, discovering hills and plains and deep running rivers. They met on the virginal white sheets, artists with a blank canvas, molding each other with their hands, painting each other with soft lips and wet tongues. Alchemists discovering new elements, they were no longer Severus or Hermione, teacher or student, wizard or muggle, not man, not woman, but mind and flesh came together and transmuted into something new. Acquaintances became not friends, not lovers, but forged a connection that neither wished to label.

It was not until Hermione noticed Snape’s normally steady hands shaking that she noticed her own hands trembling against his skin, her breath catching in her chest as this man worshipped her body with his own.

“It feels like magic.” Hermione whispered. “Like magic before I knew what magic was. I was frightened of it, but I wanted it still.”

“Do you want me, still?” Severus kissed along her neck, his voice a vibration under her ear.

She pulled him close and wrapped her legs around him. “I want you more than I wanted my wand.” That was all she said for a long time, as they moved together again. Metaphors became superfluous. It was sex. In, out, together, beating rhythm quicker and quicker in time with their pounding heartbeats.

When they had finished, their breathing slowed and the sweat cooled on their bodies. Severus pulled the duvet over them and insinuated his long arm behind Hermione’s head. Neither could think of anything to say, so neither spoke. They rested, breathing in synchrony.

“Thank you.” Residual good manners prompted Hermione to speak, but her gratitude was awkward. He had wanted this as much as she. She convinced herself that was all it was: want.

“Do you want me to leave?” Severus asked.

“Eventually you’ll have to, I suppose, but not just now. Not unless you have to.” No please don’t go. “This is comfortable.” Remarkably so for a one night stand.

“I’ll stay, then.”

She was calm now, melting into Severus like warm butter melts into toast. They had no future. She risked nothing by enjoying the moment with complete selfish abandon. Hermione let her curiosity ask the question: “Why did you come home with me tonight?”

“You asked me to.” To him the answer was obvious. “I didn’t plan this, if that is what you are asking. Nobody sent me to spy on you. Our meeting at Gringott’s was an accident, but our meeting outside was not. I followed you.”

“Why did you follow me?” She turned on her side to face him.

“Slytherin ambition.” Severus chuckled darkly. “Sometimes we have lofty ambitions and sometimes we have ambitions that are a bit more earthy. My ambitions have mostly been, I thought, worthy goals. But my desire to seduce you has been, from the outset, a most ignoble aspiration.” He turned his head to look at her. “Does that surprise you?”

Hermione’s forehead wrinkled as she thought about it. “Yes, I think it does surprise me. How long have you wanted…” me? “…this?”

Snape studied the cracks in the ceiling. “I am not certain I could point to a moment and say that is when I first noticed you had become attractive to me. However, I remember a night at Grimmauld Place, before Voldemort fell. The Order met for a late meeting. Albus told me I was too tired to apparate, that I would no doubt splinch myself trying. I understood he meant it as an order, and agreed I would stay for the night. Molly showed me to one of the guest rooms.”

“I would have been a student still?”

“Yes. The walls were thin, and I heard you speaking with Ronald Weasley. I had never heard that quality in your voice before. Your voice was gentle and confident, quite unlike that shrill defensiveness I heard from you class. You told him that you would sleep with him if he could tell you truthfully what he wanted from the encounter. It could have been anything. My mind supplied half a dozen ready answers. Because everyone else is doing it. Because I don’t want to die a virgin. Because I love you. Because I need comfort and I can find it in your arms. Because you’re my friend and it won’t be so frightening with you. Because I need something to remind me that life is not all bitter.”

Embarrassed that he’d overheard such an intimate conversation, Hermione turned her face away.

“Young Mr. Weasley, never a great orator, replied ‘I dunno, Hermione, don’t you want to?’ and you said, ‘Yest not not for the reasons you have given me.’ I thought to myself that here is a woman I would trust to break my heart cleanly.”

“I don’t remember being half so clever.”

“It was not merely your cleverness that impressed me, but your ruthless honesty.” Severus pulled her close to kiss the top of her head. “And your unwillingness to accept Ron Weasley’s insciencient answer.”

Hermione shrugged. “I eventually did, you know. He was persistent, which was sort of flattering.”

“Ah. Another great illusion shattered,” Severus spoke softly.

“Sorry.”

“Well, I am hardly one to speak of moral high ground,” he admitted. “I admit my desire to, what was the word? Shag? My desire to shag you has always been a bit inappropriate. I never thought tonight would be my last chance to fulfill it.”

“But you’ve succeeded. What are you complaining about?”

“I have consummated my passion for you and all I can think now is how much it will hurt to leave.” His mask cracked slightly. “I have fulfilled a long-cherished dream tonight. I should be rejoicing, but I find that I am only tired.”

Curling up against him, Hermione tucked her head under his chin. “I think we’ve celebrated enough for the moment. Sleep, Severus. Hold me and we will sleep.”

Severus turned off the light with magic before wrapping his arms around her. “You don’t love me, obviously. I must ask, to what do I owe my good fortune tonight?”

She took so long in answering he thought she might have drifted to sleep. Her answer, when it came, surprised him. “You’re the first person in a very long time who listened to me, not because you had to, but because you seemed to want to. It’s very sexy. The next time you feel the urge to seduce a student, listen to her and then take off your shoes.”

“Former student,” he corrected absently. “Why should I take off my shoes?”

“Because you have sexy feet. I never knew feet could be so sexy.” In response, Snape raked his toes along the underside of her feet. Hermione giggled and squirmed. “Now sleep. I want you well rested for the morning.”

“What happens in the morning?” His inquiry was lazy, knowing.

“Exploding Snap tournament,” Hermione told him blandly. “You do have an Exploding Snap deck with you, right?”

“I must confess I do not own any such item.”

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to have sex again.” She was rewarded with a blind, seeking kiss. They clutched each other in the dark, unwilling to let go. Satisfied and sated, Hermione nevertheless understood Severus’ melancholic mood perfectly. Now that she was leaving his world, what an unlikely time to discover a kindred spirit in Severus Snape. “What a shame we didn’t do this a year ago. We might have had more than a night together.”

Too sleepy and relaxed to do more than settle in to sleep, Hermione’s half-mumbled pronouncement accompanied them both into their dreams.