The Snow

Two days after their agreement, Friday morning, Snape arrived at the Great Hall for breakfast before his colleague, former student, and now Snow Day partner, Hermione Granger.

The atmosphere in the dining room was almost out of control. The students were beyond excited due to the weather warnings issued by the Ministry of Magic. The trip to Hogsmeade village had been postponed until the following week as a precaution, and no classes were to be taught outside for the safety of the student body.

As a result, the young witches and wizards were skittish and restless as they constantly stared out the window, looking for the impending snow with eagerness. Despite the fact that these students saw miracles everyday by simply pointing their wands and whispering incantations, there was a sense that this storm was immensely powerful since it could not be controlled by magic.

Minerva looked frazzled, as the potential for mischief always increased when something out of the ordinary altered the routine at Hogwarts. Severus knew that teaching would be exponentially worse than usual. He sat beside Filius, who winked at him as he pointed to the rowdy students. "It will be all worth it in a few hours, Severus!" Snape made no reply and let his mind shield him from the commotion around him as he ate his eggs, bacon and toast. Though he would never have admitted it, a small portion of his mind insisted that he eat well enough to sustain him should the... extra-curricular activities take place that evening.

He had managed to put the Snow Day Charm out of his mind almost completely. He was gifted at compartmentalisation and blocking out the potential positive or negative outcomes of different events. It was a survival tool. How else would he have been able to teach second year DADA students something as trivial and ironically simple as an Expelliarmus hours before killing Dumbledore?

But it was not to say that he had not thought of the potential storm at all. The past two nights, in the privacy of his chambers, he had let his mind, and other parts of his anatomy, explore what sex with Granger might be like.

Overall, it was good. Very good. Miss Granger had exceeded his expectations as potential wanking material. Every single time he had taken himself in hand, he had been surprised at the intensity of his fantasies. Fantasy sex with Lily was different. It never had the same urgency. Perhaps because there was no need to rush when you had been masturbating to the same images for nearly twenty-five years. Professor Granger was a completely different matter.

The first night, the night they had drawn up the conditions, he had entered his chambers, shrugged out of his cloak and collapsed on the sofa, legs sprawled wide, his cock jutting out of his too-rushed-to-pull-all-the-way-down trousers. He had been so goddamn hard, and after just three strokes up and down his rigid shaft, he had been ready to come as he pictured himself pounding into Granger from behind.

His fantasies of Lily were tinged with anxiety, as if he were still certain, after all these years, that if he performed perfectly, if he took notice of every detail, then she would be convinced once and for all that she loved him. Every lick, every thrust, was measured against fantasy-Lily's response, and only the fact of her, bare and perfect, was allowed to contribute to his own arousal. He would never have dreamed of taking Lily from behind, or of any of the wild and somehow wildly disturbing things that he could say to fantasy-Granger in his mind.

Sex with fantasy-Granger was a bit more competitive, a bit more playful. He imagined the sound of his balls slapping against her, the patchy pink of her neck and shoulders where his mouth had been, the sweaty tendrils of hair clinging to her cheeks.

Is this what you meant by civility? he asked fantasy-Granger in a growl.

And he very nearly laughed when she shifted her weight to one hand, lifted the other and raised two fingers, giving him, in no uncertain terms, her definition of civility. She grinned over her shoulder as she did it, and he sunk deeper into her in response...

Snape forced his mind to refocus on the business of eating breakfast before he found himself with a raging hard-on that would surely make Filius wink at him again. He exited the Great Hall without making eye contact with any of the staff, as was customary for him. In the periphery, his eye did, however, catch Granger entering the dining room as he was marching out. Her head snapped up brusquely as she tried to make eye contact with him. He purposely ignored her as per their agreement, but internally, he was acutely aware of the way the fabric of her teaching robes clung to her body, how her hair was pulled back from her face with an ornate pewter clip, and the pink colour in her cheeks when she almost missed her chair while sitting down.

Once in the hallway, he paused in front of the same large window where the foolish young witch had first suggested they partner up. The sky was overcast, dull and grey, and to the west, it even looked liked the sun was trying to pierce through the thick clouds. There was not one snowflake on the horizon.

Typical.

He would have to endure the hell of trying to keep the students focused on the lesson, and there would be no reward at the end of the day.

But it was just as well, he concluded. Miss Granger had looked so nervous and withdrawn that she had just barely managed to say good morning to her colleagues. The head table had been eerily quiet, especially in comparison to the nonsense going in the rest of the dining room.

He wondered if Granger, like him, had gone over the details of their encounter. She probably had changed her mind. Come to her senses. As he took the stairway down to his dungeons, Severus was glad that he had insisted that the possible snow night occur in his chambers. At least, this way, if she had changed her mind, he would not be humiliated by her locked door.

~~~***~~~

Hermione pushed her unfinished breakfast plate away, stood up, and muttered a quick goodbye to Pomona, who winked at her jovially before resuming her annoying humming of 'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!'

To say that she was in a bad mood would be an understatement. Her students had been rowdy and excitable ever since the snowstorm had been upgraded to a blizzard, and she'd assigned more detentions in those two days than in her previous five months of teaching. She felt more like Auror Granger than Professor Granger.

Also, she had been sleeping poorly. Ever since her meeting with Severus, she had been suffering from some sort of insomnia. She had tried meditation, relaxation techniques, and visualization, but the nervous mass in her belly insisted on communicating with her brain, and in the end, there was nothing that could help her to slow her thoughts down and fall asleep. She found herself worrying about an impressively diverse list of items:

Were her lesson plans long enough to keep the fifth-years busy the entire period? Had she remembered to book the library? What shade of blue did Snape like? When would she know when the charm was triggered? Would there be enough snow? Snow was kind of interesting really, not one snowflake the same, and how come she had never taken the time to cast an Engorgio on one to examine it closely? Gosh, had she remembered to return Brian Thomas's wand after it was confiscated for enlarging a mouse to scare his sister? Would she need her wand on snow night? Yes, she would surely need it! It wasn't as if she was serving a detention and he would forbid her from using it. Was Snape thinking of her?

Last evening, in order to stop this nonsense, she had paid Madam Pomfrey a visit to see if perhaps she could get her hands on some Dreamless Sleep. (There was no way she was going to Snape to ask him for a sleeping aid.) The Mediwitch had given her a sample of the potion in a small vial, and finally Hermione had been able to fall asleep without the constant questions spinning in her head like a hamster on its exercise wheel.

The Dreamless Sleep had stopped the non-stop questions from entering her mind, but had not prevented her from dreaming. The dreams, however, had been pleasant, and even though she could not remember all the details, images of Snape, passion, desire and an overwhelming feeling of well-being and warmth had stayed with her throughout the night, at least until her next dream.

Her final dream had occurred at dawn after she had decided to sleep for an extra five minutes; exhaustion had weighed heavily on the thin flesh of her eyelids.

This one, like the others, involved Snape, but this time the images were clearer, more vivid and real. She dreamt that she was kneeling on the floor, nestled between Severus's thighs, fulfilling condition number nine. She had no clear picture of his cock, just that it filled her mouth and that it was very hard. His hands were buried in her hair, and he was groaning appreciatively. She remembered beaming inside that she was finally able to please the man. But that feeling had quickly evaporated when dream Snape started talking to her in his usual sneering tone.

"Miss Granger, were you not the one to write the conditions? The instructions called for two strokes vertically and then six swirls of your tongue clockwise, followed by three counterclockwise. Obviously you have not come prepared. You will never reach NEWT level in this task."

Well, she certainly didn't need a psychoanalyst to interpret what that dream meant. It was obvious that, unconsciously, she still really wanted to impress this man intellectually and win his approval. The fact that the dream had manifested itself in a sexual context was obviously due to the fact that they had become Snow Day partners, and not because she had a deep desire to be the best lover Snape had ever had. She did not mind that people found her bossy and over intellectual--it was who she was--but for Snape to recognize that she was more than a walking dictionary meant a lot to her.

Now, Friday morning, the day of the potential Snow Day, Hermione felt tired, cranky and insecure. It hadn't helped that her brief encounter with Snape earlier had left no indication of his feelings for her. He had not even glanced her way! Just as well since she had nearly landed on her arse trying to sit down.

Well, she was glad she had prepared the famous 'Friday Special" every teacher pulled once in a while when they felt they--er, the students--needed a break. She had booked the library for independent research in the morning, and in the afternoon she had scheduled educational movies for every single class.

Hermione reached the library where her rambunctious students had been instructed to meet her. Thankfully, only two students had arrived ahead of her. She would need to remind them of the library rules as soon as they walked in, or else Madam Pince would surely send her a Howler later.

While waiting for the remainder of her students to arrive, Hermione ventured over to the large windows to see if the impending storm had started or not. The horizon looked gloomy, but it looked liked rain clouds were coming instead of the blizzard of the century. She seriously had no idea which way she wanted the weather to go. Two days ago, she had been positive she wanted this, but now as the time approached, she wondered if this were the context in which she desired to know Severus Snape better.

"Hello, Professor Granger! Are you excited about the snow too?"

The young Ravenclaw's voice snapped her out of her musings quickly. She was glad that she had the library booked all morning, for she doubted she would've had the concentration to keep a neutral face on all day.

By the end of her second period in the library, she had changed her mind. The students were far too distracted by the lure of the huge windows surrounding the periphery of the library to focus on their research project. They kept getting up from their seats, pretending to need just one more reference, and taking a peek. Hermione wondered if there was some sort of Snow Charm on them too. She had tried to use a Concealment Charm on the windows, but Madam Pince had insisted that the natural light was needed for the plants. Hermione thought that the librarian was secretly enjoying seeing her trying to control this wild bunch, even though her eyes were shooting bullets at her.

She walked to the window. Still no snow.

All this commotion for nothing.

When she turned around, she was shocked to see Severus standing at the circulation desk returning two manuscripts. On any other day, she would've been infinitely curious as to what kind of books Snape needed to borrow from the library. But today, her curiosity was trumped by the fact that she had an untitled document in her quarters that said she would sleep with this man if it snowed.

She had to remind herself to continue breathing as per usual.

Relax, Hermione!

He was obviously just returning books and would be gone in a second. No big deal. She just had to keep her mind off the fact that she was to give him a blow job if the forecast was accurate, that was all.

But to her surprise, he did not immediately vacate the premises but walked towards the Magical Creatures shelving section with a piece of parchment in hand. From a distance, their eyes locked, and he acknowledged her with a small nod of his head. She swallowed in reply.

For a moment she took him in as if he was someone that she had never seen before. Her eyes followed his attire downward all the way to his feet.

He was so goddamn layered. It was hard to picture his body underneath all the fabric and the buttons. Was he hairy? Lean, for sure. Oh, and what about his neck? It would be hard not to stare at his wounds, to touch the flesh that had scarred, and to block out the flashbacks of that day. Well, surely the aphrodisiac aspect of the Charm would would help to shunt images of these past events.

She was still openly staring his way when she noticed that the shy Francis March had raised his hand and was waiting patiently for her assistance at a small cubicle in close proximity to where Snape was still standing, leafing through a heavy atlas of some sort. She had to walk past Snape to get to her student. She squared her shoulders. Hadn't they agreed that their behaviour should not deviate from its usual pattern? "Excuse me, Professor Snape; I need to get by to go help Mr March."

Snape took a brisk step in to let her go by. He did so without looking up at her, his eyes still scanning the book he was immersed in. She had a crazy urge to casually touch his hip as she shuffled past him. See if could ignore her then!

It still made her want to laugh whenever she thought of Snape's sensitive, ticklish hips, but her internal laughter died quickly as she approached her student. She noticed his chin quivering and his eyes on the brink of tears. She knelt beside him. "Would you like to go in the hallway to tell me what's wrong?" She knew that boys and girls alike did not like to be seen crying in class.

Francis nodded his head vigorously. Above the boy's head, she met Snape's eyes; his lips were compressed into a thin line. She hated to ask, and she hated that he was witnessing her chaotic classroom atmosphere, but it wasn't in her nature to watch idly when it was obvious that this boy had been the recipient of a nasty prank.

"Can you supervise my class for a minute while I take care of this?"

"Certainly," he said in a neutral tone, though there was a strange expression in his eyes.

She turned back towards Francis. Discreetly, she took out her wand and whispered, "Here, let me clean your face."

They stood and exited the library. Once in the hallway, she found out that, indeed, Francis had been the recipient of repetitive pranks whereby every time he wrote something with his quill, it automatically erased what he had previously written. Consequently, he kept getting into trouble for not having completed his homework properly. His roommates obviously needed to learn the distinction between a practical joke, a prank, and bullying. She would have to make sure that Filius took this matter seriously as their head of house.

Hermione promised that it would end, and told him that if ever he was bullied again, to come to find her immediately and she would take care of it.

When they went back in, Madam Pince was standing next to Snape and had a sour expression on her face. Hermione overheard the last part of their exchange.

"...she is letting the students intimidate her too," the librarian was complaining with a scowl worthy of a Hippogriff.

"Yes, Professor Granger is so malleable and easily intimidated. It must have been the other Hermione Granger who held her own in front of Lestrange and the Darkest wizard in history in order to help us win the war," Snape replied cooly as he walked away from his stunned, older colleague.

Hermione had no idea if he knew she had heard his sarcastic retort to the librarian, and frankly, it did not matter. She didn't need anyone to defend her to the cranky librarian, but still, the underlying message behind his snide remark filled her with something warm that resembled pride and elation.

Suddenly, Hermione's earlier doubts vanished. She had been right all along; Severus was her friend. And if that were true, perhaps she had also been right when she imagined a spark of something... interesting... behind their arguments.

She scanned the library, and it seemed that her students were still considering this a free period, even though they had stopped migrating to the windows to look for snow. She would have to remember that planning quiet, independent research on a Friday when a snowstorm was in the forecast was a bad idea.

She still needed to go thank Severus, if he hadn't left already, for covering for her while she handled the Ravenclaw House situation. She found him helping Christophus Crowley with a set of calculations.

"I assure you, Mr Crowley, that it is quite impossible to get a negative yield in this particular situation. Unless, of course, you have cleverly found a way to make the sum of forty-eight and sixteen add up to less than zero?" he said as he handed the young Gryffindor his assignment back.

Christopher frowned for a minute, scanned the long set of numbers and symbols, found his mistake and exclaimed, "Oh, yeah. Thank you, sir."

Hermione had an irresistible urge to laugh. Snape's teaching methods had not changed at all since her student days. With a grin on her face, she started to express her gratitude for helping her out when suddenly Esmeralda Easingwood gasped loudly and yelled, "Look, it's the snow!!!!"

Twenty students' heads (plus two teachers') snapped towards the window in unison.

Yes, it was snow, but like nothing Hermione had ever seen before. The storm had started so suddenly, and yet it wasn't made up of the usual fat, fluffy snowflakes that tended to pirouette across the horizon at the beginning of a snowfall. No, this snow was compact, dense and angry. It seemed to appear out of nowhere to attack the grounds of Hogwarts like tight diagonal arrows determined to go through the earth instead of just covering it.

Everyone stared at the spectacle in awe.

"Wow! Professor Granger, it looks like we're going to get the huge storm we were all hoping for!" exclaimed the usually quiet Esmeralda who was now standing on a chair leaning against the window.

Goodness, it's going to happen!

"Esmeralda! It is highly inappropriate to discuss snow amounts in class!"

Hermione blushed at the absurdity of her own statement. She couldn't bring herself to make eye contact with Snape, despite the fact that he was now addressing her.

Snape's gaze seemed to take in the students and the mayhem at the window. "If you no longer need my help, Professor Granger," he said somewhat dubiously, "I will be on my way now."

"Yes, thanks again; I will see you later, I imagine," she said, blushing exponentially at the double meaning behind her goodbye.

~~~***~~~

By dinner time, the fascination with the snow had died down for the students. An impressive amount of precipitation had already fallen, and the novelty had worn off. It was a different matter altogether at the Head Table, and any perceptive individual would have noticed the complete role reversal from this morning's meals. The teachers were excited and loud, while the students were subdued and quiet, probably from having been assigned so many detentions throughout the day. Curiously, no one noticed that none of those had been scheduled for tonight. Slughorn was being boisterous and loud, making inside jokes about 'his first snowfall' and the 'duration of it.'

Snape sat stiffly in his chair, wondering why Minerva was allowing this foolishness to go on right in front of the student body. Everyone seemed to be making deliberate eye contact with each other and asking for food items that had double meaning. "Oh, Sybill, could you pass me the gravy; you know I like it extra juicy."

His partner was sitting at the end of the long table, next to Jackson. She seemed to be sketching something for him on a piece of parchment. Probably a map to her private quarters.

He pushed his chair back, stood, and rolled his eyes when Filius called out, "Gooodnight, Severus! Hope you have no time for sweet dreams!"

He exited the Great Hall and went straight to his chambers to pour himself a generous glass of Firewhisky. He still planned on doing a bit of reading for his independent research, for that was nothing that would be affected by the consumption of alcohol. He stopped in front of a window with a ledge before taking the steps down to his private quarters. The snow was still falling heavily as it gathered in the corners of the window in thick prisms of white. He noticed two Slytherins with a glint in their eyes that could only mean one thing; they were up to no good. He decided to do an impromptu inspection of the common room. It was obvious that the rest of the staff had given up on discipline for the rest of the night, but he wasn't about to be disturbed later on by their shenanigans.

He gave his house a stern warning and finally made his way back to his private quarters. As he walked by the same window again, he unconsciously noticed that the velocity of the falling snow had not slowed down at all. When he turned back, he saw Granger coming his way down the deserted hallway to his quarters.

"Severus," she said when she was close enough for him to see the bright pink spots on her cheeks, "It's obvious that the charm is going to be triggered, and I'm going crazy waiting in my chambers by myself. I noticed that everyone else is meeting up early for wine and such, and I was wondering if I could just wait here with you."

Something in her tone made his insides feel hollow. She looked nervous, yet absolutely confident at the same time.

His first instinct was to turn her away. He was not prepared mentally or physically to play host to Granger without the assistance of the Snow Day Charm. It wasn't that he needed the effects of the aphrodisiac flowing through his blood stream to make him want her, quite the contrary, he already desired her deeply, but there was no way he was going to let her know that.

And wasn't she already breaking the rules? Had he not made it clear that there would be no entertaining?

Yet, he was powerless to send her away. How was it that his young colleague could make him feel so off-kilter when he had taken every precaution to keep the upper hand at all times?

"Did you bring your book?" he inquired.

"Yes, of course."

He sighed heavily to indicate the depth of her imposition. "Come in, then."

A/N: My eternal gratitude to Lariope for the beta. Your support and friendship means the world to me!