Across the Bows

Across the Bows

Much later, Hermione would swear Severus leapt an entire foot upwards— before springing five feet back.

"What in…?" Not quite a scream, but there was no mistaking his shock.

Hermione tried not to feel hurt. "You seemed… interested," she explained quietly.

"Feeling charitable, then, Miss Granger?" Snape sneered. "Or just desperate?"

Her face froze. Snape tensed, but didn't expect the solid fist to his solar plexus— or to be tossed bodily out the front door by Hermione's reactivated wards. As an afterthought, Hermione snatched her nightshirt and flung it out after him. She'd never want to wear it again anyway.

'Charity'! 'Desperate'! For the first time, Hermione understood the phrase 'seeing red'. She swore. She threw small, fragile objects. She kicked the furniture. She paid no notice to the tears streaming down her cheeks.

But it couldn't last forever. Hermione finally broke down and sobbed in sheer humiliation. 'Desperate…' She must have been, to even consider Snape, of all people…! But she had been honest.

And he had been cruel. Deliberately, unequivocally cruel.

He'd meant to wound, just as he had when she was a child. But she'd be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of knowing he'd succeeded.

Living well is the best revenge, they say. Hermione was prepared to do so— to a point. After all, it wouldn't do to have anything Pro— that man could point to and say, "She did that because of what I said."

So when Hermione dressed the next day, she wore make-up, but only to polish her features a bit— not unusual for her. Her robes were work-casual, but altered just enough to flatter her figure a little more. She'd learned that feminine armour was not to be disdained.

It was a damned confident woman who left her flat that morning.

Snape was nearly always at the Ministry; his orders kept him stalking— he never ran —through every corridor as he delivered messages and packages deemed too sensitive to be trusted to magically-propelled methods.

It was work a half-witted, adolescent troll could have managed. But as they would hardly have trusted him to brew potions for general consumption, he was reduced to glorified messenger boy while working out the term of his 'probation'. Ludicrous, but it beat Azkaban.

It also meant that he saw her when she arrived, cheeks rosy, chest rising and falling rapidly due to a Muggle-like commute.

Hell.

He could have had her, the night before. He might not be terribly experienced, but he'd been able to read the offer she'd made in her kiss. He'd had the opportunity to spend the night with a young, willing, fairly good-looking witch. Whatever her reasons.

And he'd fucked it up. The first opportunity in… a long time… to get laid, and he'd fucked it up. Royally.

Idiot.

Watching her as she dashed through the hall, oblivious to his presence, he could imagine that flushed face above him, those full breasts bare and moving just that way as she…

Bloody idiot.

_{AN - Apologies for the delay, everyone. And apologies to those expecting certain… content in this chapter. I was, too, to be honest, and prepping to write it… when Severus just had to open his mouth.}