Chapter 4

A/N: My Golden Trio each passed on this story: Shug (sshg316) alpha read, DeeMichelle beta read, and MagicAlly Brit-picked.

Rumour Has It

by Subversa and SubHub

Chapter 4

Hermione woke without opening her eyes. She was on holiday, wasn't she? And no one should have to get up early on holiday. Her lips curved in a tiny smile, and she exhaled a sigh of sheer laziness even as she cuddled her pillow and rolled to her side ...

'MISS GRANGER!'

Her eyes flew open as she jerked awake and climbed off of the man beside her, feeling utterly disoriented. She wasn't on holiday. She was stuck in the index of the World Atlas (Thirtieth Edition) with Severus Snape, and he looked and sounded none too pleased about it.

'If you would kindly unhand me,' he said icily, 'I must move.'

Hermione blinked at him, dismayed. 'You ... you're not going to leave me here alone?' she asked in a small voice.

He studied her for a moment, his black eyes travelling over her face. 'You seem more lucid,' he said finally. 'Do you feel differently than you did?'

She nodded once. 'Yes. The chocolate seemed to help to clear my mind, as if the potion I was given was a Dark one.'

He sneered. 'Considering its provenance, I have little doubt that Dark Arts were used in its creation,' he said. Then he disengaged his arm from her grasp and stood, though he could not hold his head up straight, for the ceiling was too low. 'I can no longer sit against the wall with my knees about my ears,' he explained, walking a few steps back and forth, as if to relieve cramped muscles. 'This place...the index...seems to be shaped like an elongated rectangle, though I cannot see the short walls in either direction. We are undoubtedly in the space betwixt two lines of text, and the edges of the page could be a long distance. I must sit where I can have my legs straight. You may suit yourself.'

Hermione watched him move, admiring the long legs under question, his words washing over her with the silken tones she found so beguiling, without actually penetrating her consciousness. She was far too engaged with her own thoughts regarding the likely appearance of those legs, sans clothing, to be at all concerned about his continuing annoyance over her landing them in the index, much less his reasons for wishing to shift positions.

'Miss Granger, are you attending to me?' he demanded, stopping to glare down at her.

'Call me Hermione,' she entreated him. 'And tell me how you found me.'

He seated himself again at a slight distance from her, his booted feet a foot away from her knees. 'It is my belief that you are still impaired,' he said grumpily. 'Your behaviour is not at all consistent with what I have come to expect from you.'

Without a moment's hesitation, Hermione crawled up to sit beside him, the two of them fitting side by side in the narrow space like two peas in a pod, arm to arm and hip to hip.

'Must you sit so close?' he demanded, sounding to her ears more than annoyed ... almost alarmed.

'I'm cold,' she said, not altogether truthfully. She liked being close to him, had been longing to be close to him for weeks...perhaps even months...and she had been given this opportunity to achieve her ambition. Who knew if such a chance would ever come her way again? It would be foolish to squander it. What's the use of being kidnapped if you can't snuggle?

He huffed but did not repudiate her, and with a happy sigh, she allowed herself to relax her posture.

'Isn't this nice?' she asked, darting a sideways glance at him from the corner of her eyes.

He sat rigidly beside her, as if doing so might reduce the square footage of contact between his body and hers, and stared straight ahead without answering her.

'So,' she continued, striving to sound light and airy, 'how did you find me?'

He shifted, and Hermione held her breath, afraid that he would stand and move away. However, he simply held his hand before her, and she reached out to take the key-card from him, allowing her fingertips to trail across his skin. The key-card was warm to the touch and became warmer still as she drew A Holidaymakers Guide to Antigua from her own pocket.

'I thought you might have had an opportunity to take something from a shelf before you were overcome,' he said stiffly. 'I waited until your staff went home for the day and checked the key-cards against the map. This was the only item I could not account for...it appeared to be beneath the floors.'

Hermione felt the rush of pleasure through her entire body, and she smiled tremulously at him. 'You thought that of me?' she said wonderingly. 'That ... that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.'

He glanced down at her, a faint frown between his brows. 'You've never been stupid,' he conceded.

Still aglow, Hermione disregarded the grudging nature of this encomium, even as she pocketed the warm key-card. 'May I have the map as well?' she said, and he smirked as he surrendered it.

'Not a bad knock-off of Potter's map of the castle,' he observed.

Hermione took a deep breath, unsure of how much praise she could receive from her hardest-to-please former professor without spontaneously self-combusting. She felt she should give something back, something that would make him feel as good as she felt, but she had no idea what sort of words would please him. In the end, she settled for simplicity.

'Thank you,' she said. She could feel his eyes still on her face, and she wondered why he was studying her so closely. Her hands felt slightly shaky, and her heart was still beating too quickly, as some women were purported to feel in the presence of a cinema star. Even so, her curiosity was paramount.

'But how did you know I'd been kidnapped?' she asked, daring to peek at him.

His appraising stare became enigmatic. 'Don't you know?' he inquired. 'Did the dunderheads not tell you?'

Hermione cocked her head to one side inquisitively. 'No one has told me anything,' she averred. 'I've been quite out of it, you know.'

The hand which she had lately caressed slipped inside his robes, emerging again with a creased parchment. 'Then allow me to enlighten you,' he drawled as he dropped the note into her lap.

Severus watched her as she read.

Here was a most fascinating creature, with a rats' nest of unremarkable (save for its untidiness) brown hair about her face, framing the largest and most limpid brown eyes it had ever been his misfortune to encounter. These were set above an average little nose and a rosebud of a mouth, its perfect cupid's bow of an upper lip arresting in its contrast to its fellow, a full, plump lower lip made for gentle biting...an exercise in which she engaged far too frequently for his peace of mind.

Oh, buggering Merlin, he had become aware of her as a woman.

Why? Why, after all these years, was he suddenly noticing another woman? And one so ... well frankly, so ordinary in comparison to the ideal he had held since he was ten years old? Had he, Severus Snape, become at this late date ... inconstant?

He watched as the delicious colour rose in her cheeks, spreading from the vee of her no-nonsense white office blouse up her throat, until she was blushing to the roots of her hair. As the pink diffused, miraculously, the guilt with which he had ruled himself all his adult life seemed to dissipate in equal measure. After all, had not Lily herself told him his debt was paid? Was it not true that he thought of her far less often now, and had done, ever since his recovery from his war injury?

Now she...Hermione...turned to him with a stricken look. 'I ... I don't understand ...'

And the man who normally prized his own cold rationality flared with emotion, suddenly filled with a righteous indignation he had not realised he felt. Glaring down his nose at her, he snarled, 'Don't. Lie. To. Me.'

'I'm not!' she cried. 'I wouldn't!'

He sneered and thrust the Rita Skeeter article at her. 'You've deliberately spread this rumour!' he thundered, not knowing why he was railing at her, but unable to stop.

Hermione took the clipping from him, and the self-conscious blush she had worn when reading of herself as the love of his life receded. In its place, a storm of fury visibly built in her. When next her eyes met his, there was no hint of softness in her gaze.

'She dared!' Hermione spat. 'Oh just see if she doesn't end up in a glass bottle for this!'

Severus found himself simultaneously enchanted...she was magnificent when she was enraged!...and confused. How could a full-grown woman be put in a glass bottle? Not that he was averse to the notion; he simply did not comprehend how it was to be achieved.

Hermione, seeing his look of confusion, segued from icy rage to a snort of laughter. 'Never mind,' she said, returning the clipping and the ransom note to him. 'It's a long story.'

'I have nothing pressing,' he commented, looking about them. 'I am ... at my leisure now, if you would care to tell it.'

And without further ado, as if she were relating a tale to one of her friends, Hermione told the story of Rita Skeeter, the beetle Animagus.

When she finished speaking, Severus said, 'When you are ready to take her down, let me know. I will be happy to provide back up for you.'

Her expressive face broke into a smile, her eyes warming to their previous pansy-softness, and he felt himself responding to her, even before she grasped his sleeve and blurted, 'Oh, you're very good...so kind!'

His strongest impulse was to jerk her body against his and kiss her...one he hadn't experienced in years beyond counting...but there was another voice in his mind that refused to be silenced, and because it involved self-denial, he trusted it more than the other. Turning up the volume on the nay-sayer, he realised how wrong it would be to take advantage of a female lately drugged with a Dark potion...one who, moreover, was entrusted to his care. For though she was no longer his student...those days were long past, and he was not thinking of her in that light...she was still his responsibility, and here and now were neither the place nor the time for such activities.

So he peeled her fingers from the sleeve of his coat and said, 'Don't be ridiculous. I am neither good nor kind...but I am a handy wand in a fight, and you may always call upon me in that regard.'

And her wicked glance intensified, her chin tucked into her chest, her head tilted away from him, a look of pure mischief dancing from the corner of her eye, as if she knew more about him than he knew about himself.

Gritting his teeth, Severus fisted his hands and did his best to ignore her.

Hermione couldn't tear her gaze away from his face, the chiselled planes of his cheekbones, angling from his hooked, jutting nose, the stubborn set of his chin, and his fascinating mouth, thin lips that were nevertheless oh, so exquisitely shaped. He seemed alternately furious and fully engaged, and she was confused, but not despairing. Oh no, far from it!

'Don't worry,' she said coaxingly, watching his inflexible form for signs of relaxation. 'I won't say nice things about you...I promise.'

He turned his narrowed eyes on her, and she knew intuitively that he suspected her of making fun of him. She didn't know how to reassure him on this point...not without causing him to withdraw from her again...so she resorted to diversion instead.

'How will we know when our reinforcements arrive?' she asked.

'I will hear them,' he replied. 'I, as the spell-caster, am able to hear what is taking place in the immediate vicinity of the book in which we're hidden.' His lip curled. 'For instance, your captors are now accusing one another of not watching you carefully enough and determining who will take first watch.'

She gave him a shy smile. 'It really is a brilliant spell,' she commented. 'I'm very glad you thought of using it to rescue me.'

He shrugged, seeming slightly discomfited. 'Oh, the atlas was Plan B,' he said. 'Plan A was to find you alert and to slip away, unnoticed.'

Hermione bit her lip. It wasn't as if she had wished to be drugged and unable to fight. But the important thing was; he had a back-up plan. This man would have a plan for every contingency.

And determined to continue engaging him in conversation, she said, 'Was it Sara who showed you how to use the key-cards?'

The expression in his eyes became speculative...some might say dangerous...but Hermione preferred not to think in such terms.

'Miss Creevey was good enough to share a wealth of information with me,' he said silkily. 'For instance, she said that you...how did she phrase it?...ah yes. That you admire my bum.'

Hermione flushed with mortification...oh, damn Sara! Couldn't she keep her mouth shut?...but Hermione could scarcely deny it, could she? So she stumbled into unfamiliar territory, going on the offensive.

'Well, what if I do? Don't you like my bum?'

The instant the words were out of her mouth, she realised that she was not as fully recovered from her drug dose as she had supposed. How could she have said something so appalling to him? And look at his face! He was going to say something horrible, and she had no one to blame but herself.

'I've no opinion of your bum, Miss Granger,' he informed her icily. 'Unlike you, I do not make free of your form when your back is turned.'

Incensed, Hermione shot to her feet, turning on the spot, trying to look over her shoulder. 'What's the matter with my bum?' she demanded hotly. 'I'm not even thirty yet! There's nothing wrong with it!'

To her consternation, he actually glanced about the small space, as if worried that someone had overheard Hermione's outburst. 'Sit down, Miss Granger,' he bit out, his fingers closing imperatively about her wrist.

She stared stormily down at him. 'Call me Hermione!' she demanded, knowing she was sounding shrill but not caring.

'Hermione,' he supplied promptly, his tone now conciliatory as he pulled upon her wrist.

'What's wrong with my bum?' she asked again, sounding rather more petulant.

'I'm sure it's ... fine,' he said soothingly. 'However, I have had no occasion to make a proper assessment ...'

'ASSessment?' Hermione chortled, and in her excess of merriment, she allowed him to compel her to a sitting position once again.

'Very amusing,' he muttered.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'You can be quite clever.'

He seemed somewhat uncomfortable with her comment and turned away from her, but she took hold of his coat sleeve again.

'I thought men always looked at women that way,' she said forlornly. 'Am I really that bad?'

He did not shake her hand from his sleeve, but he refused to look at her as he spoke, his voice sounding strangled. 'It is impossible to tell much about your ... form ... when you're always in robes.'

Hermione felt immediately more cheerful. 'Well I can remedy that now,' she said, releasing him and twisting to remove the garment.

'Not now,' he said, grabbing her wrist again, and Hermione desisted. He was looking rather harassed. 'You're already chilled,' he pointed out reasonably. 'Some other time, perhaps...but for now, we should try to sleep. It's late, and we'll want to be fresh when our reinforcements arrive.'

Hermione studied his face, wishing she could tell more about what he was thinking or feeling. 'Do you promise?' she asked.

A smile, possibly less than sincere in nature, touched his lips. 'Indeed,' he said, and she had to be content.

And truly, it got better after that, because he stretched out flat on his back, with only his arm beneath his head for a pillow, and he made no objection when she curled up beside him, twining her arms about his as she cuddled close.

She slept beside him as if they were not hiding in the index of an atlas, eluding detection by armed and dangerous adversaries...she slept, in fact, as if she had nothing to fear because of him. What had she said to him? I hoped you would come.

He sneered at the ceiling of their ridiculously small hiding place. She had developed some sort of inane fantasy around him...or around some fantastical version of him which was really not like him at all...and she was behaving based upon her fantasy, rather than on the unpleasant reality of the unsavoury git he really was. No gentleman would act upon such encouragement, regardless of the provocation provided by enticing eyes and inviting lips...and say what you might about him, Severus Snape had learned how a gentleman was supposed to behave, regardless of the way he had been raised and the company he had kept.

He turned his head slightly, and the tangle of her hair was just inches from his face...close enough for him to have a breath of its fragrance, even if he could not avail himself of the implied invitation of her manner. What was she on about, demanding his evaluation of her bottom...would her next question have been his thoughts on her breasts? For that part of her body was not as ill-defined by her clothing ...

Closing his eyes, he stretched his neck and inhaled the scent of the preparation she used to tame her mane, smiling faintly to himself as he remembered the lock of her hair sent to him by her kidnappers...the lock he had not handed over to her with the ransom note, but had kept hidden in the inner coat pocket which just happened to be beneath his heart.

And for a while, he was lost in a pleasant, dozing reverie, wherein Hermione's welcoming eyes and smiling lips figured prominently.

He was instantly alert when the smoke slithered its way into the book and made itself known in their hiding place. Severus knew what action would be necessary for them to take, and though he dreaded it, there was no other option available. He dared not try to wait it out, for if the atlas were to burn, they would perish with it.

He sat up, and Hermione stirred.

'Wake up,' he said. 'We have to go now.'

She struggled to a sitting position, and he produced another chocolate bar, holding it out to her.

'Eat this as quickly as you can,' he commanded. 'We may have to fight our way out, and you must be clear-headed.'

She took the chocolate and stripped the wrapper away without comment, beginning to ingest the Dark magic-palliative. He studied her and was satisfied with what he saw. Standing, he withdrew his pocket watch and checked the time. It was six o'clock; the kidnappers had not only failed to receive their midnight ransom money, but they had also misplaced their hostage. They were trying to force their quarry into the open, and they would succeed in doing so...Severus could only hope it would be very much to their detriment.

'How many of them are there?' he asked her.

Hermione considered as she chewed, her eyes narrowing. 'Three voices I recognised and at least one I didn't know...I believe he was using a distortion spell to disguise himself.' She stuffed the torn wrapper into her pocket. 'I smell smoke,' she added, her manner rock-steady. 'Are we going to escape?'

His earlier, rather mawkish thoughts about her rushed away in the face of the capable, straightforward woman before him. He pulled his second wand from its hiding place and put it into her hand.

'Yes,' he said, watching her face for any sign of fear or reluctance.

She raised the wand and performed a quick series of simple spells to test her understanding of her weapon; Lumos gave way to Aguamenti, and the fount of water had scarcely splashed at his feet before Orchidious produced a bouquet. She dropped the flowers without a glance.

'What's Plan C?' she asked, a soldier receiving her orders.

'It is being formulated, even as we speak.'

Her brown eyes glowed. 'I'm ready,' she said.

Filled with a sudden violent emotion for which he had no name, Severus circled her waist with one arm and pressed a hard kiss to her lips.

'You are extraordinary,' he said, and with a non-verbal thrust of his wand, the book opened, and they were assailed by billowing smoke and leaping flames.