Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Severus eased Hermione down onto the grass. After the roiling sea in the last painting, he was happy to have solid land under his feet. He figured Hermione was too, as she lay down and curled herself into a ball. He stooped down and examined her.

"I'm sorry I don't have any nausea potions on me," he said. "The dead really don't need such things."

This caused Hermione to giggle, despite still holding her stomach as if she were about to retch.

"Incorrigible," she said.

He felt something within him stir. He had an intense urge to pull Hermione Granger to him and hold her tenderly. He shook his head to clear it. It would never do to have fantasies about her. She would go back to her living state outside the painting soon enough, and he would be forced to stay behind. Nonetheless, he found her intriguing. She was much more than he'd expected. Not only passionate about what she believed, but caring too. He'd found few in life that had cared about him, and her obvious concern earlier had given him pause.

Hermione moaned, and his gaze concentrated on her once again. His hand reached out to her.

"What can I do?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It just needs to pass."

Without giving it much thought, he rubbed her back. She lay still with her eyes closed, swallowing now and then. It took her some time, but finally he felt her body relax under his hand. Her eyes finally opened, and she looked up at him.

"Thank you," she said gratefully.

He nodded and stood up. Bending low, he offered her his hand and gently pulled her to a standing position. She gave him a wan smile. He couldn't help but tease her now that she seemed recovered.

"I never thought that I would see someone literally turn green from being sea-sick."

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Definitely incorrigible."

"You're feeling all right, then?" he asked, ignoring her jibe.

She nodded. He removed the book from his robes and motioned to the willow tree.

"We should continue our study," he replied, feeling a bit awkward as she stared at him.

Hermione nodded and followed him over to the tree. They spent the next two hours poring over the book with no results. They discussed the theories behind moving from painting to painting, but nothing seemed to translate itself into moving out of a picture. After an intense debate about combining Apparition with movement through pictures, Hermione looked to him and thinned her lips.

"It won't work. I'll splinch myself in the process."

Severus nodded.

"I'm hungry," Hermione said offhandedly.

Severus gave her a curious look. "I think I am too. That's odd."

"Why?"

"I haven't wanted food since I died."

"You mean you don't eat?" Hermione asked.

"I can, I just haven't had any desire to do so."

Hermione tilted her head and looked at him curiously. "So, where can we get some food?"

"There's that giant painting of fruit by the kitchen," Severus suggested.

Hermione nodded. "I guess that will have to do."

Severus rose and reached down to offer his hand to Hermione. She took it and pulled herself up. She was smiling a bit to herself as she did.

"What?" Severus asked sharply.

She smiled at him. "Oh, it's nothing...." His scowl made her reconsider her comment. "It's just that I would have never taken you for such a gentleman before now. I'm used to you snarling at everyone."

Severus found himself turning red. He looked away. "I was just helping you up," he said quickly.

She gazed at him for a bit, making him shift and look farther away crossly. Her light, tinkling laughter caused him to peer at her curiously. She didn't say a word.

"Shall we go?" he ground out roughly.

She grinned at him, her eyes seemingly filled with some unknown secret. "Yes," she agreed. "Would you mind guiding me?"

He stared down at her outstretched hand before nodding uncomfortably and grasping it. He found when he took her hand that he secretly wished he wouldn't have to let it go. Angered with his foolish emotions, he tugged her a little too hard when moving out of the picture so when they appeared in the fruit painting, she slammed into his side.

"Ow!" she cried. "Please don't be so rough!"

"Sorry," he mumbled. Slight annoyance flit though him as he realized she wasn't moving away from him. He glanced over and saw the reason why. She was smashed between him and a giant pear. The pear, he thought to himself as he gazed at it. It was so much bigger now that he was just a painting himself. The green-skinned beast loomed up behind Hermione. Severus tried to move away from her, but found he was equally as crushed by an apple that was pressing into his side. He turned his body, trying to move away from the woman, but his chest was now pressed into hers. Hermione gave him an exasperated look before chuckling.

"I suppose we should have thought about what this painting looked like before we leapt into it," she said.

Severus cleared his throat. "How on earth did we end up in the bowl?" His eyes grew wide. "Your... your hip is..."

"Oh! Sorry!" she exclaimed as she twisted to avoid pressing against his pelvis. That really didn't help at all. Severus jerked back and bumped into the apple. It wobbled and bumped into the bunch of grapes behind it. They began to shake. Severus and Hermione stared in horror as the whole bunch tipped and began to slide down over the apple and toward them.

Severus would have advised them to duck, but the pair couldn't move. He grabbed Hermione and pulled her to him, shielding her with his hands and head. The grapes made their descent, bouncing off him. One particularly juicy one landed hard and exploded, sending grape juice in every direction, but mostly all over Severus. When the grapes had settled, he pulled back enough to see Hermione.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded. Looking up at him, her face turned red. She quickly looked away and slapped her hand over her mouth, obviously trying to avoid cracking up in front of him.

Severus felt his hair. It was sopping with grape juice. It was running down his face in little rivulets and some had pooled at the tip of his nose and was dripping onto his once white shirt. He frowned intensely.

"You think that's funny?" he asked.

She nodded, but didn't look at him. Reaching up, Severus grabbed his hair and held it over the top of Hermione's head. Squeezing the juice from his hair onto hers, he got a satisfied look on his face.

"There, now you can laugh at the both of us."

She looked up then, a look of horror on her face. Severus couldn't help it... he burst out laughing too. The juice had wet the top of her hair so it was quite flat, but the rest of her mane was still in its raucously curly splendor. She looked like a half-drowned poodle.

Hermione frowned and tried to move, but she was quite pinned by the pear and the grapes.

"Severus, I'm stuck," she advised him.

Severus pushed a grape out of the way and climbed on top of the others. Turning, he reached down and pulled her from the boulders that were trapping her.

"I don't know why we are not to scale in this picture. You'd think we would be gigantic," she complained.

Severus steadied her, then bent down and grasped a basketball sized grape.

"Dinner?" he asked.

"I need to get cleaned up," she said. "I'd rather find something else to eat anyway. Giant grapes were never my favorite."

Tossing the grape over his shoulder, he took her hand. "I know just the place to go." He pulled her along, stepping gingerly around the grapes to the side of the painting, then walked out of it.

They appeared in a bathroom. The room was white and yellow and in the middle of the picture was a footed tub. A woman sat in it, covered in bubbles. She looked at Severus and Hermione and screamed.

Severus averted his eyes. "Sorry, madam. We need to use the tub."

"Well, I'm in it right now! This is my tub time!"

Severus frowned and glared at the woman. "I know for certain that this is not your portrait. Lady Carillion is supposed to occupy this frame. She's obviously given you permission to take a dip. She has told me that I might use her bath whenever I wish. As you can see..." He pointed to his grape-juice sodden hair and body and then to Hermione. "This is an emergency. We will turn our backs on you, and you may exit."

The woman looked at him haughtily, her nose in the air. "Well, I never!" Yet she began to lift herself from the tub, even as she complained. Severus and Hermione wheeled around so as not to see anything private.

"I want this bath back in half an hour!" they heard the haughty woman demand before she left the painting.

Slowly they turned back to the bath. Hermione looked at Severus warily.

"Umm... how are we going to do this?"

"Oh, I thought we'd bathe together," Severus said matter-of-factly.

Hermione's mouth dropped open in shock.

He smirked at her. "You first. I will step through to the neighboring picture." He pointed to the left.

Hermione nodded dumbly as he headed for the picture edge. Turning back, he smirked again. "Just come get me when you're done."

Disappearing into the next painting, Severus was happy to see that it was empty. There was a large mountain in the background and the sky was a rich blue. Severus sat on the grass and awaited Hermione.

He batted a sticky lump of his hair from his eyes as his mind drifted to the woman and what she was doing. He was tempted to peek into the other frame and catch a glimpse of her in the tub.

Merlin, you are a lecherous dead-man! She would probably scream louder than that old bat we chased out of the tub if I were to look in on her.

And yet, he couldn't help his mind from wandering and wondering just what she might look like under all the bubbles in the tub.

Well, who wouldn't? She's a beautiful woman... who's my age.... Despite the fact that I'm dead, I'm still a man!

He rolled his eyes. Thoughts like that were pointless. If he wanted to start something up with someone, he should choose one of his peers in the paintings. Hermione Granger was a living, breathing woman who would return to her own world, leaving him behind. Severus frowned, disturbed that the thought of her leaving stung quite deeply within his psyche.

Baths done and hunger satiated, Severus and Hermione returned to the Headmistress' office. The plan was to try to exit from Severus' portrait there, as this was her own office and might have some importance to her, triggering her egress from the painting.

They tried everything. She tried to walk through the painting. He tried to push her through. She tried to Apparate; he tried to push her through again... gaining him a glare for his efforts. He smirked at her.

"Maybe I didn't push hard enough the first time?" he asked innocently, his eyebrow arching in a teasing manner.

She shook her head and looked out into her office. "Incorrigible."

"Any other ideas?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly. "I'm fresh out." Severus watched her turn away from the outside world and sigh unhappily.

A/N: Thanks to slytherinlaurel for her great beta work.