Severus' Punishment

Some sherbet lemon for everyone! Not really a lemon, but you get the idea... I'm just bribing you with sweets because cliffhangers are evil.

Chapter 16- Severus' Punishment

Severus had never actually worked side-by-side with another person before or in such close quarters. Potions was a singularly solitary pursuit, and that was why it had suited him all these years. Nothing was more satisfying than being left alone, and never had he relished spending time with people he did not like, or people that simply could not measure up to his standards as an intellectual. It was a field tailor made for a person like him.

Tonight was different, though.

Whether he tried to convince himself that she was in his private lab for the sole purpose of helping brew much-needed potions or not, he knew why he had really asked her to help. Sure, Minerva could have helped him. As a matter of fact, any of the other professors in the school could have helped him... but when he had been presented with this problem, the only solution that had come right to his mind was to invite her to help him.

It was laughable. He had asked her for help! Him! Severus Snape!

But she had been out... out on a date with Krum, which had disheartened him. He had sufficiently pushed that thought out of his mind when he had first learned about it a week ago, and had only been reminded of her engagements when he had been searching for her. Tonks had been the one to remind him. She had also been the one to give him that curious look, wondering why he was searching so thoroughly for Hermione. He knew well enough Hermione's and Tonks' affections as sister-like confidants. She would start to wonder even more. And what would Hermione say if Tonks questioned her? Would Tonks let it slip to Minerva?

He had retreated to his dungeons, worrying over this silly little thing, feeling surprisingly defeated, though he could not quite understand why. It certainly was not the end of the world not having that know-it-all around.

Or was it?

He had not expected her come at all. He had expected her to have a wonderful time with the rich Bulgarian, and end up in his bed. All signs had been leading up to that climax, as it were, why should he have thought anything less? The girl had a head on her shoulders, he would give her that, and given the choice he would have thought she would choose Krum over him. He would admit, albeit begrudgingly, she should end up with the Quidditch star, but she had not gone to Krum's chambers. Instead she had come to the dungeons quite early into the evening. Perhaps it was a good sign for him, but he was not one to get his hopes up, even if all it meant was that she had forgone a free evening to be cramped up inside a small lab with him and hunched over boiling cauldrons.

He dared not look up at her when she had arrived and for the next hour or so, worried that his eyes would betray his normally steeled countenance. Of course, the potion he was working on took a great deal of attention as well, and he would have been sure to lose all concentration if he had looked at her. He was glad he had enough foresight to think of that too when he did have the first chance to sit back and relax while his potion was simmering.

She sat in front of him, slightly off to the side, at a work bench originally cluttered with a menagerie of things he could find no other suitable place for. That curly brown hair of hers was rolled up precariously on her head, her wand holding it place. He smirked at that. Ollivander would have turned over in his grave if he knew his wand was being put to this use, but at least there was no "foolish wand waving" going on.

The heat of the room had increased ten fold since her entrance, not just from her presence, but also from the two cauldrons set over tall orange flames. It had not really affected him much until now; and only now did it finally affect him indirectly as he could finally feast his eyes upon her without her knowledge. Seeing the renegade curls plastered to the back of her long neck and the fine sheen of perspiration across the smooth skin of her back, elegantly displayed in a rather fetching and revealing dark blue dress, was doing things to his libido he never thought possible. Had she not even taken a moment to change out of her finery before traipsing down to help him?

Not that he was complaining.

Watching her work was cathartic in an odd way... the way she knew exactly where to reach for the correct ingredient, or the way she measured them out. The fine muscles in her back moved and shifted as she ground some seeds with a mortar and pestle. Her long fingers carefully held the sharp knife, slicing a root vertically, and then moved quickly up to brush a wisp of curl out of her eyes and behind a perfectly formed ear.

Sure, he had been overcome by her appearance on occasion before this, clean and acting the perfect lady. But he found quickly that he liked her much better this way, even though he was pretty certain there was one other way he would enjoy much more, but that was a fanciful wish at best.

"I never thought I'd say this," he heard her mutter faintly, her stool scratching on the stone ground, "but it's rather warm in here."

"Excuse me?" he questioned.

She turned to look at him, fixing him into place for the first time with a most captivating glance. "I'm usually freezing in the dungeons, and here I am perspiring so horridly."

"I am sure the classroom is much like you remember it, if the heat is too stifling," he said, wishing that his nasty tone would change. It did not seem to affect her much.

"I'm sure," she said and sighed, turning back to her cauldron. "This should be ready in the morning. If you need another batch, I can go fetch another cauldron..."

"No, no," he replied, stopping her. "St. Mungo's does not serve that many with lycanthropy. They simply do not have someone qualified enough to make the potion correctly. If they had, they would not be in this mess."

"I suppose not," she said. "I had thought it was just a faulty ingredient, though."

He shrugged and turned back to his work. The antidote to the botched Wolfsbane took a shorter time to brew, but it could wait until morning to bottle up.

"Will you need help in the morning to vial these?" she asked, turning to look at him again.

"I believe I can manage that on my own, Hermione," he said.

Though I would not be abject if you so chose to join me in the morning. Or better yet, stay the night with me?

"You've helped a great deal," he said, his gratitude at the tip of his tongue. The look she gave him was one of complete disbelief, knowing it was there as well, without having to hear it outright.

"You're welcome, Severus," she said and began organizing her ingredients back to the way they were in a nervous sort of way. He stood up slowly, stretching his long legs out, the joints crackling in protest and made his way over to her, staying her hands. She started at the touch and jumped back slightly, bumping squarely into him, and then swirling around to face him. "Sorry."

"Do not worry, Granger," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "For some reason, your usage of Granger holds an amazing amount of affection for me."

"Miss Granger," he said again.

"As does that," she replied quietly, hoarsely. "I was the only one you ever called Miss."

"You were the only one who deserved the title," he said, "no matter how much I may have said and shown otherwise."

Hermione let a slow smile cross her lips. "I like Hermione, though."

"Hermione," he said. He liked the sound of it as well coming from his mouth, but not as much as he liked the way his name rolled off her tongue.

He had not realized until now that he had pressed himself up against her, and she was leaning back against the workbench. All he would have to do was lift her up slightly, and she would be at a perfect angle for...

Especially in that impossibly short dress.

Stop thinking like that, Snape! She only wants to be your friend and nothing more.

Her hands lifted from her sides and rested on his chest for a moment before pushing him away with a firm, but not overly angry, force. He let the momentum carry him backwards, unaware that the stool stood directly behind him until his legs connected with it and he fell back onto it in a sitting position. For a moment, he thought she was going to laugh at him in disgust, and then leave him there to wallow in his own misery.

"You should know," she began slowly, walking toward him. Her hands were on his knees for a moment, spreading them so that she could fit between.

"What should I know?" he asked, trying to put on his bored tone, but it was clearly evident that he was getting very bothered by her actions, especially as she moved ever closer to him.

"You should know that I don't appreciate being dominated into submission like that all the time," she said.

"And you should know that's who I am, and what I do," he said flatly, meeting her yes directly, feeling slightly uncomfortable being in this state of equality with her. He had no trouble looking down on people, but meeting them eye to eye always made him anxious.

She apparently knew this though. "Severus, if anything is going to work between us, we're both going to have to change a little bit."

"I've already told you no one changes," he said.

"No, they don't, but they can learn to be tolerant of certain things," she said.

He raised a brow at her, challenging her.

Hermione let out a short chuckle and shook her head. "If you really do want me, then you'll learn to do that, or you won't have me."

"Are you issuing an ultimatum, Miss Granger?"

Of course she is, you dolt!

Truth be told, he still could not get his brain around the fact that she was standing there so close to him and telling him that she too wanted him. Well, at least that she was fine with this being more than a friendship, or being a tolerable working relationship.

"I believe I am... Severus," she said, his name hanging in the air as her hands found his cheek and brushed away some of the limp black hair hanging in his eyes. "Do you want me?"

"Could you be more straightforward?" he asked.

"Gryffindor," she said. "Something else you'll have to be tolerant of."

"Just as you'll have to learn it's not in my nature just to lay everything out at your feet," he said.

Hermione let out a low laugh. "Trust me, Severus, I've already been more than tolerant of that since the term started. But you still haven't answered my question. Do you want me?"

He met her brown eyes, holding her gaze for a moment, trying to divine some information from her, but it was hopeless. "I should think whether I want you or not was rather obvious, Hermione."

Her lips quirked into a small smile, her thigh brushing against his rather obvious arousal. "Yes, quite."

This time she smiled wickedly, moving her soft fingers across his lips for a moment. He knew what she was planning to do, but he had not been prepared for how short it would be. In a blink of an eye, her lips had brushed across his, as light as a feather and pulled back. By the time he had reached up for her, to pull her back to him, to kiss her appropriately, he was grasping at empty air. He looked toward the door to see her escaping and stood quickly to follow her. Strangely she only pulled her wand from her mass of hair, holding it at the ready.

"Don't follow me," she said.

"And why the bloody hell not?" he asked.

"Because," she replied slowly and stopped at the door.

"You're insufferable," he said.

"Not insufferable, Severus," she said. "I am only getting back at you for doing this to me in your storeroom the other day. You had your chance to snog me then. Why didn't you just do it? I was putty in your hands."

He sighed. "I didn't think you would appreciate it."

"I would have appreciated it much, much more than you pulling away from me and leaving me cold," she said. "So this is your punishment."

"Punishment?" he gave her an incredulous look. "Hermione Granger is handing out a punishment to me."

"I am." She nodded towards his nether regions, "And I think it will get my point across as you try to tame that beast tonight without me."

With that, she was out the door and out of the classroom in short order, leaving him standing there completely dumbfounded... for the first time in a long time.