A Bird(?) in Hand…

Chapter Two: A Bird(?) in Hand...

Happily, consciousness came in stages these days. That the sun hadn't risen as it came upon him took away none of his contentedness. Waking on his own terms, and in his own time, was one of the many perks of having survived the war. He could do what he liked: there was no fear that one or both of the two megalomaniacs he'd called "master" would say him nay. He wished both the barmy bum-bandit and murdering madman happy in Hell.

Without even opening his eyes or pausing to stretch, Severus Snape fumbled under the luxurious duvet...another thing he hadn't been allowed before the war...intent on commencing his morning bollocks scratching. He was feeling good enough, he mused, that he might even engage in a quick wank.

Not hardly! his ego whispered. Turning out that hairy, over-grown house-elf last night earned you a good, long hand-shag. At least that.

Severus certainly had no argument with his ego. Only, he wasn't certain he could oblige. Mary Palm and Her Five Friends (his left hand, you understand) were as numb as that blockhead Longbottom's skull. He couldn't feel enough to get in a good scratch, let alone to start a long-term relationship with his fingers.

A muffled scream coincided with what felt like two small but tight bands wrapping round his pecker. A brief, sharp peck on it nearly made him scream in concert. Fortunately, the piercing sensation subsided before he completely lost command of his composure.

What the fuck?

The events of the night before came rushing back in bright, vulgar colour, and Severus's eyes flew open.

A mighty yank brought his whole arm out from beneath the covers.

"Rubeus bleeding Hagrid is a dead man!"

In his rage, he barely noticed how nicely bouncy were the tiny tits on the miniature naked woman now occupying the space where his left hand and forearm should have been.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

The usual low din at breakfast wasn't enough to distract Professor McGonagall from the goings-on at the High Table.

To her right, Bathsheda Babbling was pretending...as usual...not to notice Filius Flitwick looking down her blouse. Must remember to say something to her about the proper use of buttons. Again, Minerva mused, her gaze already moving on.

Rolanda and Pomona were at odds again, and neither was attempting to hide her antipathy from the others. Luckily, a quick glance over the hall confirmed none of the children appeared to have noticed the rift. Either that, or they are simply no longer intrigued by the Argument of the Week.

A glance to her left showed little that was out of the ordinary. Septima Vector consulted with Aurora Sinistra about some upcoming astronomical event. Her interim Potions mistress sat...staring dreamily as always at her plate...in her usual seat next to Hagrid.

Must start interviews for next year's vict... replacement. Or, perhaps Miss Lovegood will consent to doing another year?

"Feeling ill, Hagrid?" The soft query from the young witch in question pulled Minerva from her silent machinations.

"Wha' makes yeh say tha'?"

"Well, you've only had eight pieces of toast, three cups of coffee, twelve rashers of bacon and half a dozen eggs this morning," Luna said, her usually vague expression uncommonly kind as she looked from his plate to his face. "I wondered whether the glitter-fistles were plaguing you this morning."

Minerva tried not to show she was listening closely as the young temporary teacher went on.

"Glitter-fistles especially like to target you when you haven't enough sleep. I do hope it didn't take you all night to get the mardler toenails from Professor Snape."

"Er, no. I... I'm jus' watchin' me figure," Hagrid dissembled. "Savin' room fer me party! Losin' two stone in two months ain't easy. But, er, I weren't able to get them toenails fer yeh. I'm sorry 'bout that."

When he looked away from Luna to catch her interested gaze, Minerva gave up all pretence of not eavesdropping. She wondered whether his pained expression was down to guilt over failing to acquire the non-existent mardler toenails or if Hagrid was truly ill.

"Do I need to ask Wilhelmina to come?"

"Oh! No need to bother Deebie...I mean, Perfess'r Grubby-Plank, Headmistress," he assured her. "I'll be righ' as rain in time fer me party!"

But Hagrid looked as doubtful as McGonagall felt, and she resolved to keep an eye on him.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

"Oi, Hermione! You look like Hell. Haven't I warned you about going on benders before the weekend?" Ron leant against her chair and slung an arm round her shoulders.

Hermione calmly finished scratching out the last line of the memo she'd been writing to her supervisor before scowling at her visitor in mock annoyance and shoving him away.

"For your information," she said loftily, "I was up late redrafting Subparagraph Sixteen of Article Nine of Doxy Regulation Twelve. It's the new regulation on..."

"You two bickering already?" Harry Potter appeared at the entrance of her tiny office, still talking even as he quickly ducked his head to avoid the aeroplane whizzing off. "I hope you're almost through. I'd like to eat lunch before dinner this time."

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances and rueful smiles at that last bit. Half the time, they pretended to argue just to see Harry squirm uncomfortably. But for her part, his nervous interruption was welcome today. There was no way she was going to tell either of her friends the real reason for her sleepless night, but going on about new laws would only alert Ron to the fact that she had something to hide.

"Not really," she said, standing and stretching. "Ron was worried that I looked tired...and I am!" Tucking herself back under Ron's embrace, she went on, "But you don't want to hear about Article Nine till you have to start enforcing it, I think." She glanced at her watch in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Let's eat. Mr Jellyby only likes me to be out for forty-five minutes at the most, and I'm hungry, too."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

This Is What Really Happened...

Long before her usual bedtime, Hermione closed the heavy book. It was the only extensive treatise available on doxy culture, and if her independent experts were to believed, it was mostly wrong! Of course it was also the official reference her department had used when coming up with the current laws. She doubted Eugene Jellyby would welcome her assessment...especially not if he knew her independent experts were giants...but she meant to do her job properly. Even doxies deserved to be treated as more than pests and a source of potions ingredients.

Still, she knew she wasn't going to get any more work done without consulting her boss, so she put aside Seekrit Dookzee Libbeeng and picked up a neatly disguised copy of the latest Ellen Morley novel. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her fondness for bodice rippers, but enjoying the amorous "adventures" of half-clad heroines hardly went with her image as an intellectual, did it? All right, so maybe she was a bit embarrassed, but shame wasn't enough to stop her sending her mum into Flourish and Blotts to stock up whenever Jean Granger wondered if Hermione might "fancy a nip to Diagon Alley". Fortunately, since returning to England, Jean had become rather more fascinated with her daughter's world than she'd been before she'd spent nearly a year as Monica Wilkins, so the visits occurred often enough to keep Hermione in regular supply of unrealistic romance.

Wouldn't hurt to have more of my own mindless smut in my own life, Hermione mused as her heroine (finally) shagged the (wrong) bloke at the start of chapter six. Even if it was with someone completely unsuitable.

By chapter nineteen, not even Clementine Colgan's on-going indecision about which man...her traditionally handsome-but-too-steady-to-be-exciting boss, or the unemployed sex-god she'd pulled in a pub three months prior...was Mr Right could keep Hermione's eyelids from drooping. Like the good dentists' daughter she was, Hermione immediately went to clean her teeth and scrub her face before stumbling off to bed. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

To her delight, her dreams were more straightforward than the book had been. The plot, however, was nearly the same. In fact, the dark-haired sex-god was so familiar...both from her recent dreams and the books she been devouring for the past few years...that at first she failed to notice everything about him loomed larger than ever.

His large nose was on an epic scale. The black lashes feathering his cheeks were impossibly long.

But it wasn't until she somehow found herself beneath the grey folds of whatever he was wearing that she finally realised everything was a bit larger than life. At least, life as her dreaming life liked to make it.

"More for me then," she murmured. Then she leant forward to do what she always did.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

"So, Robarbs said now we're almost off probation," Harry whispered after giving a furtive look over each of his shoulders, "we can partner each other on our latest assignment. It's really Wizard Squad stuff, actually, but still good training."

"That's nice," Hermione murmured. She didn't look up from the remains of her sandwich. More than half lay uneaten.

"Are you going to finish that?" Ron wanted to know just as Harry asked, "Are you even paying attention to me?"

"No." She slid the plate to her ex-boyfriend.

"What?" Indignant at first, Harry coloured deeply, but when he noticed Ron happily munching away, he caught on. "I see," he said. "But you really weren't paying attention, were you?"

"I was!" Hermione protested. "You and Ron get to do Wizard Squad work till you're off probation."

Both men exchanged glances and smiled at that.

"Doesn't mean she was paying attention," Ron observed around a mouthful of sandwich. "Not much, anyway."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

The sun was already making its downward journey, and not even the combined brilliance of both his and Miss Granger's intellects had got them any closer to working out how the hell she'd come to be attached to him.

"Well, I don't know what's happened, either!"

Snape was sceptical, and surely it showed, because the little woman where his hand should have been glared at him and seemed to put her hands on her hips. It was hard to tell since she was covered from neck to... his elbow in an old grey mitten that had once been black. For some reason, she'd belatedly become shy about her nakedness that morning. It might have something to do with the urge he hadn't been able to suppress, an urge to pluck at her pert little...

"Don't flatter yourself that I wanted this to happen!"

He was sure her little hands were covering her breasts again.

"And don't you dare try to touch me!"

He refrained from pointing out that since she was seamlessly fused to his body, he had no choice but to touch her. Instead, he pointed out, "You bit me!"

"I... I d-didn't mean to!" The expression on the hand-witch's little face lacked the anger he heard in her voice. If anything, she appeared worried, biting her own lip as she was. "I was t-trying to..."

Severus held back a smirk as she cut herself off, obviously having thought better of her confession.

Exactly what were you trying to do with your teeth on my todger, woman? he wondered.