Chapter 35

Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to JKR. I only borrowed them and will return them when finished.

Author's Note: I subscribe to what I call the "Nora Roberts" style of writing, where sex scenes are seen more in the imagination of the reader rather than in explicit detail on the page. Thank you to noybate for her beta of this chapter and the moderators of this archive for their corralling of my commas.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Severus awoke Saturday morning with the feel of fur in his face. Starting up, he realized he was cuddling...cuddling...with Hermione Granger! Memories of the night before flooded his mind as he watched her peacefully sleeping.

Pulling Hermione by the hand to his secret entrance into the dungeons... removing the protection spells to his quarters hurriedly as she kissed his neck... moving as one into the bedroom while disrobing, not caring where garments landed... hours spent playing and laughing and loving only to fall asleep in each other's arms...

Hermione stirred and yawned as she opened her eyes. With a slight screech, she sat up and looked around in confusion, but her face cleared as her memories of the night came back. She turned to Severus, and he breathed a sigh of relief as she smiled shyly.

"I would say our experimentation was an unqualified success," she said. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Actually," he said with a smirk, "I believe more experimentation is in order. After all, we do want to show a consistency in results each time."

"Mmm. I couldn't agree more," she purred, reaching for him.

"Severus? Are you there?" Minerva's shout made them start guiltily.

Severus looked disgruntled at Hermione's nervous giggle as he answered wearily. "Yes, Minerva. I'll be right out." Looking around, he spied his dressing gown hanging on the front of his bathroom door. "Accio dressing gown," he said with a display of wandless magic. As he stood up and pulled it on, he caught Hermione ogling his backside with a satisfied air and smirked.

"Severus?" Minerva sounded antsy, so he didn't bother to delay any further. In the study, her head sat bathed in the green glow of the Floo. "Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You missed breakfast."

"Minerva," he said in an exasperated tone, "I have missed a great many breakfasts over the years I've been a teacher here. There is nothing new about that."

"Yes," she said with a smirk, "but you weren't snogging Professor Granger the night before either."

Severus felt the heat in his cheeks flare up. Certain she could see his blush, he dropped his head to allow a curtain of hair to conceal his face. "I see Poppy and Madam Potter wasted no time. By now I'm sure everyone in the entire school knows we shared a kiss. We did not snog."

"It's early yet." Minerva smiled benignly. "I don't expect the entire school to know until sometime this afternoon. May I come through?"

"Don't you think we said enough last night?" he temporized, looking around for the garments he was certain he and Hermione had discarded in their hurry the night before. He didn't see anything and, as the room look neat, hoped the house-elves had already been in to clean. "If you must come through, then do so."

Minerva grinned, no doubt discerning what was on his mind, and withdrew her head from the fireplace. A few seconds later, she stepped through the Floo and stood on the hearth. Severus caught sight of the scrap of blue lace just as Minerva picked it up from the seat of one of the armchairs.

She grinned, twirling the bra by its strap. "Rather unconventional undergarments for you, aren't they? Tell Hermione I know she's here."

"I heard you," Hermione said as she walked out of the bedroom wrapped in a sheet. "May I have my bra, please? I would like to finish getting dressed." She held out her hand imperiously, and Minerva dropped the lacy scrap into it.

"What about you?" She turned to Severus. "Don't you need to dress as well?"

"As these are my quarters," he snarled, "I see no reason why I couldn't sit around on a Saturday in just my dressing gown." As Minerva drew breath to speak, he continued, "However, to protect your delicate sensibilities, I will endeavour to clothe myself in a more modest fashion." He bowed and walked back into the bedroom, where he found Hermione laid across the bed, silently laughing and dressed in all but her outer teaching robes.

At his quirked eyebrow enquiry, she cast Muffliato and explained. "I heard what you said about sitting around in your dressing gown. I can just imagine the look on Minerva's face." Once again she dissolved into silent laughter, helpless to do anything but lie on the bed.

Severus harrumphed and, as he picked out a clean set of clothing, decided to retire to the bathroom to dress and shave. "You might go keep her company," he said. "I wouldn't put it past her to come in here if one of us doesn't get out there soon." Hermione gasped, and he smirked as he closed the bathroom door.

Donning her outer robes and straightening them as she walked out of the bedroom, Hermione braced herself to face the Headmistress. Rather than the angry Scotswoman she expected, Hermione found a smiling and vastly amused Minerva sitting in Severus' favourite armchair, looking at the potions journal he had borrowed from Hermione just the other day.

"A most interesting article," Minerva said, looking up. "It's too bad I can only comprehend about a third of what this author is trying to say." She sighed. "But then I'm not a Potions master, am I?"

Sensing this was a rhetorical question, Hermione very wisely held her tongue on the subject. Instead she offered tea as if she belonged in Severus' quarters and would ask the house-elves for tea every morning. By the time Winky had returned with tea for Minerva and breakfast for Hermione and Severus, he was dressed and sitting in his second favourite chair. After all, one did not eject the Headmistress of the school where one taught out of a chair once she was seated.

Minerva gave an almost imperceptible cat-like smirk. She knew full well whose favourite seat she was in and just what the rules were as per said seat. Settling back with her cup of tea, she slowly sipped as she watched the two of them eat their breakfasts. When they were finally replete and their plates disappeared with a pop, she set her cup down on its saucer and spoke.

"I owe you both a most sincere apology for my behaviour last evening after dinner. No, don't speak," she said as Severus opened his mouth, "I need to do this. It was inexcusable to treat you as if you had broken some rules when you hadn't.

"I agree that the two of you pretending to be the other was a good joke on the rest of us and was in the spirit of a masquerade which this was. I am truly sorry and hope the two of you will forgive me."

Severus looked at Hermione, who shrugged. "I was told by a very wise young woman last night that people get angry easily at those they love because they know they will be forgiven in time," he said. "Since that is the case, I must beg your forgiveness for my anger last evening as well."

"And me, too," Hermione added. "It just seemed so unfair to treat him that way, and I just... exploded. If I hurt your feelings, I truly apologize."

Minerva gave a strangled laugh. "I take it you are the wise young woman he's talking about," she said. "It's very good advice, my dear. I shall have to remember it. Of course I forgive you. I forgave you last evening, but I thought you might still be angry with me."

"I think I was over my anger even before I got outside," Severus said. "I was all ready to blast your favourite rose bushes, then found I couldn't do that to you. Perhaps, if Hermione hadn't come along when she had, I might have still done it." He shrugged. "I really don't know."

"Poppy told me she and Ginevra found you kissing in the Rose Garden," Minerva said. "I wasn't sure they hadn't made the story up to make me feel better." She smirked. "But this morning I can see I was wrong."

Hermione coloured up prettily. "We were conducting empirical experiments to see what could raise our pulses to the same extent that Poppy and Ginny did when they startled us last night."

"Mm-hmm." Minerva smiled. "If that's your story, dear..."

"...and we're sticking to it." Severus said with finality.

* * *