Decorations

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Many thanks to the lovely Sequana, as usual, for the beta of this chapter!

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Chapter 9: Decorations

The school was quiet and mostly empty due to the fact that the Christmas break had already begun. It was two days before Christmas, but even with most students at home and some of the professors visiting family, the castle was decorated at its garish best thanks to the efforts of Albus Dumbledore. All of the midyear exams had been completed and marked a short few days earlier, and the holidays had begun a mere two days before. Since then, Hermione had taken to forgoing robes around the castle, and she sat in the library quite a lot on her own as Irma Pince had gone to visit her family for the break also.

Since the day she had woken after being abducted briefly, Hermione had become rather a lot quieter and less sure of herself. Since she and Severus had parted years before, she had spent a great deal of time trying to toughen herself up to guard against being hurt again, and she was afraid she had grown rather cold. She had been so confident. But now she felt as though her whole life was slowly falling to bits in front of her very eyes. How could she have been so easily fooled and abducted that way? Had her training and experience from the war not taught her anything?

She sighed heavily. Apparently, she had not learnt enough.

'Hermione?' asked a soft female voice from somewhere around the other side of the bookshelf. 'Dear, are you in here?'

She stood from her seat and walked around the stacks, meeting Minerva, who had also been moving to check where Hermione had been. 'What can I do for you, Minerva?' she asked softly with a weak smile.

'We were all wondering if you were going to come down and join us for lunch in the Hall, dearest,' she said in a motherly tone. 'You weren't at breakfast this morning, and I rather suspect you didn't have any. Nor have you been at lunch any of the other days since the holidays began.'

'I've been taking lunch in my rooms,' she answered but conceded to follow the older woman to the Great Hall anyway. Pacifism was the key at Hogwarts when it came to the people who cared about her. 'But I will come down with you today, seeing as you went to all the effort to come and find me.'

Minerva nodded and smiled warmly. 'We managed to coax Severus from the dungeons today as well,' she said, her smile becoming wry. 'He has been very busy working on the potion for your former husband all morning.'

Hermione felt her heart flutter at the mention of Severus. He would be at lunch. She was pleased. One of the main reasons she hadn't wanted to take lunch in the Hall was because he rarely did, and she wanted badly to see him. He hadn't come out of his dungeons for the last couple of days, and she had been worried that he would not want company, so she had left him alone. She intended to follow him back down to see the potions when lunch was over. She really had missed him very badly. They had spent a lot of pleasant time together before the incident on their way to Hogsmeade.

On entering the Great Hall, Hermione had to squint a little against the brightness of it. Albus really had outdone himself. She looked up to the High Table and found a few empty seats along it, noticing there was one right between Severus and Rolanda Hooch. Despite the fact that she and the Quidditch instructor had barely spoken to each other in the past, she was willing to sit beside her so long as she had the pleasure of sitting beside the man she loved. Reaching the table, she immediately pulled out the chair beside him and sat.

'Good afternoon, Severus,' she said, turning her head to the side and smiling at him tenderly.

He turned to look at her, and she could see the warmth creep into his cold, black eyes as he smiled back briefly. 'Good afternoon to you, as well,' he replied, surprising them both by reaching out to her under the table and taking hold of one of her warm little hands in his.

'You've been busy downstairs, I hear,' Hermione commented, returning the slight pressure of his hand squeezing hers. 'I would like to come down after lunch to take a look at what you have been working on.'

'You may feel free to come down at any time to check on the progress with the potions, Hermione,' he murmured, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand gently before withdrawing his hand and turning to look at the food before him.

It was roast. He really hated the pot roast at Hogwarts. Wrinkling his face slightly, he stabbed at a potato and cut it into smaller pieces before eating it. Hermione let out a small laugh from beside him. She remembered this habit well. He would eat all of his vegetables on the plate, avoiding the meat like the plague, and then later he would whine about how awful it was and how the elves should stop serving pot roast for any meals in the castle at all. He really was one of the most peculiar and interesting men she had ever had the good fortune to meet.

'You're laughing at me,' he said, scowling at his plate.

Hermione giggled again, reaching a hand over to pat his as she did. 'Oh, Severus, it's just that everything you do reminds me so much of... well, it reminds me of back when we were...'

'I understand,' he said, cutting her off.

He didn't need for her to finish that sentence. It was obvious enough what she had been going to say to him. She was thinking back to the time when they had still been a couple. He, too, had to admit that he was thinking about it more and more these days than he had before she had come back into his life. He relished the idea of them picking up where they had left off. He had been feeling a lot more lately that she cared for him in some capacity, though as what he did not know. He wanted it, however, because he still loved her every bit as much as he ever had.

He knew what he had done wrong now, and he intended to correct the mistake he had made the last time. Though he had not told her that he loved her yet, she did know that he cared for her, and it would have to suffice until he worked up the courage to tell her the exact depth of his emotions. To put it simply, he was afraid of the rejection that he might have to face if she did not reciprocate his love for her. But he supposed it was just going to have to be one of the things he faced eventually in his life.

Lunch continued quietly, neither Hermione nor Severus noticing that Minerva, Albus, and Poppy had been observing their behaviour the entire time they had been eating. Poppy found herself pleased at the progress between the two. She had done very little meddling in this case, as she felt that the two of them would be able to figure things out for themselves, but Albus, as always, stuck his nose in a fair amount. Hermione living in quarters at the castle was a prime example of his meddling. Poppy smiled and shook her head, watching contentedly as Severus pulled the chair out for Hermione and offered his arm to her as they stood to leave the Hall.

Yes, the pair would do just fine on their own.

Hermione, meanwhile, exited the Hall on Severus' arm, grateful for the extra warmth being close to him was providing and pleased at being free to touch some part of him, even just an arm. He walked silently beside her, and it was only once in the privacy of his own lab that he withdrew his arm from her. He immediately went around, removing the stasis on all of the potions and lighting flames beneath the cauldrons once more. It was a tedious business, potion making.

'This third potion looks promising,' she said as she looked in at the pearlescent liquid simmering in the cauldron while looking over the notes for it also.

'Indeed; I thought so too, although I do not want to discontinue any of the others in case this one somehow changes course and becomes useless to us,' he murmured, sticking his stirring rod into the mixture and giving it five exact stirs.

'Oh, yes, that would be a waste,' she said, staring at the liquid. It was an odd shade that had her entranced. Somehow, she had the feeling that this was the potion that would wake Michael up.

'Let's leave the potions for now,' he suggested suddenly, startling her from her wayward thoughts. 'I feel cold and could use a cuppa – I'll order a tray for my chambers. Could you possibly cast a stasis over everything again?'

'Certainly,' she said with a small smile and nodded just before he turned and went to the door that led to his chambers.

He left the door open for her, and she quickly cast a stasis over each cauldron individually and extinguished all of the flames before walking through the open door and closing it behind her. She heard and felt the wards snapping back into place and smiled before continuing through a hallway until she reached his sitting room. She saw him standing back up from his place crouched before the fireplace, where he had ordered the tea tray for them, brushing imaginary soot from his clothes.

He had already shed his robes and was dressed in his frockcoat and trousers with the white linen of his shirt poking out from his sleeves and at his high-necked collar. It was a look that suited his usual nature. She, however, had once been rather privy to the other side of him: the side that wore green silk shirts, went barefoot occasionally, and slept in bed wearing only silk sleep pants. She longed to be able to see that side of him again. She felt that they were becoming closer, though she was still very unsure of her position as far as he was concerned.

'Cream and two sugars, correct?' he asked, snapping her out of her fantasy world and back to reality.

She nodded mutely with a small smile. He remembered how she took her tea, bless him. But of course he would. He was Severus Snape. A wizard of no mean strength and a man unlike any she had ever encountered. He appeared at her side and steered her over to the lounge, pushing her gently to sit before pressing a cup and saucer with her tea in it into her hands. She looked up and bestowed a grateful smile on him, and he nodded at her. She watched then as he went to the old antique chest by the wall nearest them and pulled a throw from it.

'It's cold, and the last thing you want right now is to fall ill,' he murmured softly, opening it for her and draping it over her lap before taking a seat of his own in the armchair beside the lounge.

'Thank you, Severus,' she said quietly. 'You are being very kind this afternoon – is there something bad that you have to tell me about?'

He snorted at that in laughter. 'Hardly, Hermione,' he said with a half-smile. 'Is this a tactic that you believe me to use?'

She grinned shamelessly at that. Certainly, she believed it was because he had used the same tactic in the past. 'Of course not, Severus,' she said with a laugh, which was countered by a small, almost playful, scowl.

They sat and talked about the potions for a while before that topic branched off into another discussion about the Potions Monthly magazine in comparison to Ars Alchemica, which they both agreed was the far superior journal, and they chatted idly together just like old times. By late afternoon, they were both still in his sitting room, except Severus had eventually moved to join her on his lounge at her urging, and they had ended up reading together there. It was already dark out, and the fire was the only source of light in the room.

Severus sat up after a little while, still reading, while Hermione had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder, his long arm resting on the back of the lounge behind her. He turned his head a fraction and looked at her head resting comfortably at the crook of his shoulder, cradled between it and his neck. Her warm breath washed over his skin in a caress that he enjoyed quite a lot. Smoothing back some stray curls, he pressed his lips to her forehead in a tender kiss.

'How I love you, Hermione Granger,' he said quietly before resuming the reading of his copy of Ars Alchemica.

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A/N – So readers, what do you think? Leave me a review and let me know!