Chapter 3

These characters belong to JKR.

Master of Enchantment

Chapter 3

Hermione twisted her hair up into a knot and stuck a pencil through it, fanning the back of her sweaty neck with a piece of parchment. July was turning the castle into a steam bath, it seemed. Her crumpled robes were in a heap on the table; even her sleeveless white scoop neck top and navy blue shorts were too many clothes to be wearing today. Leaning her cheek upon her hand, she closed her eyes and imagined a dip in the lake; soon, she began to doze.

"Comfortable, Miss Granger?"

With a start, she opened her eyes and jerked her head up, dislodging the pencil in her hair and sending it flying across the staffroom. Professor Snape stood inside the doorway, impeccable as ever in his black coat and his robes. He immobilized the flying pencil with a flick of his wand and sent it floating back to the table. For a moment, Hermione was confused and felt like a student interrupted in wrong-doing.

"I was just resting my eyes," she said crossly, rubbing these offending orbs to clear the sleep from them.

Snape raised his eyebrows, curled his lip, and glanced at her wrinkled robes, piled haphazardly on the table.

"If you say so, Miss Granger." He closed the staffroom door and walked around behind her, glancing at the schedule she had been working on. "Still not finished with the symposium itinerary? What a pity. I was about to tell you to take the rest of the afternoon off."

Hermione shifted in her seat, feeling quite nearly undressed and oddly wrong-footed. She said waspishly, "I don't need your permission to take the afternoon off." A trickle of perspiration began to course down the back of her neck. She whirled around to glare at He-Who-Does-Not-Perspire, only to find him – was he looking down her top?

Snape immediately went on the offensive. "If you wish to work as my assistant on this project, you will follow my directions. Otherwise, Miss Granger, you can," his eyes flicked contemptuously over her disheveled state, "take yourself off to the seashore, or wherever that costume would be acceptable."

Gods but he was obnoxious! Hermione pushed herself up to stand and stepped into Snape's personal space, noting with narrow-eyed satisfaction his involuntary step back. She followed him, ignoring the frisson of excitement from his proximity. "In case you haven't noticed, Professor Snape," she snapped acerbically, "it's broiling inside. Broiling! So I am going to dress comfortably. If you find that unacceptable, you can..."

Their delightful heart-to-heart was cut short as the staffroom door thudded open and Tonks erupted into the room, her hair its own light brown color, for once. She was wearing jeans, a tie-dyed tee-shirt and leather sandals; her toenails were painted bubble gum pink.

"Wotcher, Hermione!" she said gleefully, tossing her rucksack on top of Hermione's robes. "All right, Severus?" she added, not wishing to leave anyone out.

Hermione jumped back from Snape, and his nostrils flared in self-satisfaction at her retreat. He nodded a greeting to Tonks, keeping a weather eye on Hermione. "Back for the weekend, Tonks?" he inquired.

Tonks grinned at him. "No, I've come to kidnap you lot for the weekend."

Hermione goggled at her. "Leave Hogwarts? For the whole weekend? Will there be shade, Tonks? And breezes and iced lemon?"

Tonks flopped down on a chair, and Hermione followed suit, her hopeful eyes fixed on Tonks's face, Snape all but forgotten in the lure of cooler pastures.

It had been a tense two weeks. Each morning she reported to Snape's office for her work assignments; each afternoon she delivered her completed work to him. He handed her the daily task without looking up from his own ledgers and received the completed papers back with a muttered thanks and no eye contact. The man was infuriating! After a damn-near flirtatious greeting upon her arrival, he had retired into himself again as if nothing had ever happened between them. The only time he would look at her was at meals, when he could occasionally be drawn out to speak to her. She was pleased to find out that they shared certain literary interests, and could talk quite naturally on subjects ranging from Chaucer to Dickens to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Snape tended to disappear as soon as he finished eating his meals and he was seldom seen in the staffroom. She was virtually never alone with him and was finding it bloody impossible to further her plan at all.

Tonks pulled two ordinary-looking door keys from her jeans pocket and showed them to Hermione. "One of my mates at work took a couple of rooms at an inn, right near the shore. He can't go this weekend, so he offered the place to me, and naturally, I thought of you lot." Tonks looked from Hermione to Snape with suppressed excitement. "Go on, you know you want to! We can just laze around, drink lots of fancy drinks with pink umbrellas, and tell stories about everyone we know. It'll be brilliant."

Snape's lips thinned derisively. "I think not."

Hermione grabbed a key out of Tonks's hand. "Paradise, Tonks. It sounds divine."

Remus Lupin strode into the room, a knapsack in his hand. He wore a light blue polo shirt, neatly tucked into his jeans and deck shoes with no socks. He dropped the knapsack onto the tabletop, and crossed his arms over his broad chest. "Come on, you two, time's a-wasting. If we hurry, we can be there in time for the sunset over the sea and at least one pitcher of some Muggle frozen drink concoction." He mused for a moment. "Maybe two."

Snape made a move as if to leave the room. "I thank you, but no."

Lupin barred the staffroom door. "Come on, Severus, I won't make you drink crass Muggle cocktails. For you, only the driest gin." Lupin winked at the girls and smiled engagingly.

Tonks entered into the group wheedle. "Look, Severus – two rooms – one for the girls and one for the boys. I know Remus snores like a troll – " a snort from Lupin at that – "but it will do you good to get away from Hogwarts. And, I know you have swim trunks, because Minerva told us you went on holiday to St. Tropez one summer." Tonks waggled her eyebrows at him. "Girls in bathing suits, Severus, and cooking not done by house-elves."

Lupin looked reflective. "Be a sport, old man. If they drag me out to dance clubs every night, I'll go spare trying to keep up with both of them. Show some solidarity, colleague to colleague."

Hermione sat quietly in her chair, clutching the key so tightly that it bit into her palm and trying not to breathe. "Say yes, say yes, say yes," she chanted in her mind, while she watched Snape's face for his reaction to the cajoling. His expression darkened when Lupin mentioned dancing with both girls, but he bore the air of a man politely rebuffing an invitation of dubious sincerity. As she observed him, she realized that he did not believe Tonks and Lupin really wanted him to come. Suddenly, all of her animosity towards him fell away; she walked over to him and put her hands on his sleeve.

Tonks was taking the mickey out of Lupin for being too old to dance the night away; Lupin was loudly and playfully defending himself. In the confusion, Snape looked down at Hermione's hands on his sleeve and then let his eyes travel from her hands to her face. He quickly calculated the benefits versus the risks of this proposed outing; it was dangerous to leave his comfort zone, but going on holiday could mean the advent of Holiday Severus, who operated outside the constraints placed on Professor Snape. Recklessly, before Hermione could speak, he said, "I will come with you, if only to see you in the environment actually appropriate to your clothing." Gently shaking her off, he said over his shoulder, as he walked away, "Better get cracking, Miss Granger. No doubt we will all be waiting while you pack."

Hermione felt weak with relief and a bit giddy at Snape's sudden acquiescence. "I'll bet you the price of the first round of drinks that I will be packed and at the gates before you will, Professor," she said to the back of his head.

"You're on," he replied, as he swirled out of the room in his long black robes.

Hermione hung her clothes in the wardrobe while Tonks checked out the bathroom. The inn was small but the rooms were nice and the view was breathtaking. Each room contained two double beds, a wardrobe, and a dresser holding a television set and a video recorder. There was also a sitting area, consisting of two chairs arranged before the glass doors. The girls threw the draperies wide and opened the French doors out onto the terrace, which held a white wrought iron table with a large blue umbrella and four wrought iron chairs with blue cushions. The sun was setting in a fabulous blaze of glory over the ocean. As the sun went down the temperature followed; soon, Hermione was glad of the light hooded jacket she had brought.

She heard her name and looked over to see Lupin, followed by Snape, swinging their long legs over the railing which separated one terrace from the other. "Where is Tonks?" Lupin asked, crossing to the French doors. "Not watching that infernal telly, is she? Come out, Nymphadora Tonks, hungry men await your presence so they can have their dinners!"

Tonks wrinkled her nose at Lupin from across the room, where she was primping at the mirror. "Look, I can have my violet hair, Remus," she said in a somewhat pleading tone. Lupin muttered a mild oath and entered the room.

Hermione found herself distracted by Snape's movement as he folded his long form into one of the chairs. She had been having a hard time keeping her eyes off of him, ever since he had met her in the castle entrance hall, with his light bag in his hand. "I guess we tied," he had said, taking her own bag from her hand. "That means Lupin has to buy the first round."

He had smirked at her and led the way down the path to the gates. He wore what looked like a black silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. The shirt was tucked into a pair of tight black jeans and he was wearing black trainers. Hermione had never seen so much of his skin or so much of his body, and she had certainly never seen him in Muggle clothing of the type she and her friends wore. Her mouth had been dry and her palms sweaty, just looking at him. In fact, they still were. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans to dry them.

"Are you hungry?" Snape's silky voice inquired now, recalling her from her reverie. She stared at him very hard, looking for signs of an intended double meaning, but his expression was no more or less sarcastic than usual.

"Yes, I am hungry. I'll go see if I can hurry Tonks along." Hermione moved through the French doors, away from him.

Severus watched her retreating form, taking in all the details. Her hair had been smoothed and was twisted up on her head. Curly tendrils framed her face and the back of her delectable neck. Her hip hugging jeans reminded him vividly of the Muggle fashions of his youth, but the tiny tee-shirt, which showed a small expanse of skin above the jeans, was strictly a current fad among the young. He knew that his mouth was watering for the woman, rather than the promised dinner. Deliberately, he looked away to where the last magenta and gold streaks were disappearing in the evening sky; surreptitiously, he wiped his palms on the black jeans.

Severus had been fairly certain Hermione was behind him, staring at his arse, as they walked away from the castle earlier. It served her right, for wearing those shorts and that skimpy top in the staffroom, showing her legs and her barely-covered breasts to him. Two could play at that game. He was not quite certain how he was going to withstand the sight of her in a swim suit, but he was determined to be brave.

Severus was on holiday, and his motto had ever been: What Happens On Holiday, Stays On Holiday.

Just how he was going to communicate these perfectly rational rules to Hermione had not yet occurred to him.

In the room, Lupin and Tonks were in a rather impassioned discussion.

"Your own hair is lovely."

"Remus, I don't go out like this – be a mate, let me change it..." her voice trailed off as she screwed up her face to make her hair turn violet.

"No. We agreed: no morphing."

Tonks turned on him with a sudden ferocity. "Don't you listen? I never go out looking like this, like myself – it's daft!"

Lupin stood up from the end of bed where he had patiently waited for her to finish her outburst and towered over her. "You will go out with me exactly as you are." His tone was final and brooked no argument.

"I can be cuter. Really." She looked almost as if she would cry.

Lupin took her small hand and brought it to his lips. "You accept me, 'Dora, exactly as I am. I accept you the same way. Morph your appearance for work, if you must, or for yourself, if you like, but when you're with me, I want you entirely as you are."

Tonks blushed crimson and turned away from him to apply lipstick to her mouth. Lupin stepped up behind her and looked into the reflection of her eyes in the mirror. "You are a right dish just the way you are, silly girl. Now, come to dinner – I'm starving."

In the mirror, he spied Hermione, hovering uncertainly in the background. "You're hungry, right, Hermione? I know Severus is hungry, and if we don't hurry he may start gnawing on passers-by."

Lupin began herding Tonks toward the door, grabbing her jacket from one of the double beds, and shooed Hermione out onto the terrace as well. "Severus, getting a witch out the door when you're hungry is the work of ten wizards. Why did we decide to start hanging around with this lot?"

Snape rolled his eyes as he pushed himself out of the chair and followed the others down the terrace steps to the walk. "Because one of them provided accommodations for this little outing, perhaps?" he suggested snidely.

Lupin nodded sagely. "Too right – she did! Good move on our part." Tonks slugged him on the arm, but he only smiled at her.

"Where is this pub, exactly?" Snape asked, sounding resigned to his fate of inane company.

"Down the corner," Tonks told him, linking arms with him. Snape looked a bit surprised, but courteously accepted his role as escort down the street.

Hermione put her hands in her jacket pocket and smiled up at Lupin as they began to follow their companions. "That was absolutely brilliant, what you said to Tonks back there, Remus."

"Nonsense. It was truth, plain and simple. I wish I knew who drummed it into her head that there's anything wrong with the way she looks. A good hex would sort them out straight away, I imagine." Both of them checked their sleeves for their wands, and grinned at each other. "Why do I feel so unarmed every time I go into a Muggle establishment?" Lupin lamented.

"Buck up, Remus, you'll feel better after the first pitcher," Hermione said as they followed Tonks and Snape into the darkened pub.

They found a large circular banquette in a darkened corner, away from many of the Muggle holiday-makers, who had already imbibed quite a bit. "Ladies first," Lupin said, motioning for Tonks and Hermione to scoot across the padded seat. He and Snape stepped up to the bar and placed their orders.

Tonks poked Hermione. "Quit gawping. Even Severus is going to notice that kind of pathetic drooling."

Hermione tore her eyes away from him and slapped at Tonks' poking finger. "Oh, mind your own business. I can't help myself." Then, rather pitifully, she said, "Am I really pathetic?"

"Hopeless. There's only one cure." Tonks leaned close to her ear. "You have to shag him into next week."

Hermione turned a speculative eye on her friend. "Tonks, are you and Remus..."

"No!" Tonks stared at her in comical dismay. "Are you daft? He's gorgeous; he could have anyone he wants."

"Tonks, he just kissed your hand and called you a dish, and – "

Tonks became engrossed in the contents of her coin purse. "It's habit with him. We had some assignments together during the war, and we got to be good friends." There was a rather rueful look on her heart-shaped face. "He thinks I have something he calls 'poor self-esteem.' He's just being a mate, getting me to buck up and think more of myself, you know."

Hermione tried again. "Tonks, listen. I really believe that Remus is attracted to you."

Tonks shook her head stubbornly. "I've had boyfriends, Hermione; I know how a bloke acts when he fancies me. Remus has never put one toe over the line." She looked across the room at the two men leaning on the bar, one laughing, the other sneering, and gave an audible sigh. "He thinks of me like a friend – or a sister, maybe."

Lupin and Snape walked back to the table with the drinks. Lupin carried a pitcher of margaritas and three cocktail glasses, the stems threaded through the fingers of one hand. Snape carried a highball glass of clear liquid over ice. Lupin slid in next to Tonks, and Snape took the place next to Hermione.

"Four fish-and-chips coming up," Lupin informed them, pouring the margarita concoction into the three cocktail glasses and handing them out to the girls.

"Remind me again why we're eating at this drinking establishment?" Snape queried dryly, leaning back and swallowing a portion of his own drink.

"Because we wanted a bit of food to keep us from getting sick on the drink, mate," Tonks told him, raising her glass. "To mini-breaks at the beach!"

Lupin and Hermione raised their frivolous drinks and waited until Snape grumbled and touched his glass to theirs.

They were on the third pitcher when the truth-telling began.

After the first pitcher, Snape gave in and allowed Hermione to pour a margarita for him. They ate the fish-and-chips, watched the Muggles throwing pointy instruments at an oddly segmented board ("I'm telling you, the game is called DARTS," Hermione insisted), observed some of the Muggles dancing, and they talked, and they laughed. Well, Snape didn't laugh, but he did snort a time or two.

They reminisced about their school days at Hogwarts, when they were each students. Thankfully, Lupin and Snape kept their memories to general topics and did not fall into any nastiness about the Marauders or the ill-fated prank. They each told their most and least favorite classes and teachers. When Tonks, and then Hermione, said that Snape had been their least favorite teacher, his lips quirked up on one side, and he sketched a bow from his seat. "We aim to please," he assured them obnoxiously.

Lupin and Tonks, who had both been in close quarters with Snape at one time or another during their work for the Order, exchanged a look. They had never seen him so loose and talkative and human. It was gratifying, but also alarming, because there was no precedent for where this behavior would take him.

Neither of them had ever met Holiday Severus before.

They imbibed more tequila-laced margaritas and Tonks followed up with the topic of her first shared fumble at school. She was quite droll, telling the story of meeting a fellow student on the Astronomy Tower one night. "Old Charlie got the surprise of his life when he found out I wasn't wearing any knickers..."

Lupin reminisced about his first time, in sixth year, in an empty dungeon classroom – "No, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," he answered Snape's snide query.

Snape made a "Phhht," sound, and said, ticking each point off on his long fingers, "If you were in the dungeons, it was a Slytherin, because there wasn't a Hufflepuff girl in our year you'd have looked at twice. It had to be a prefect, because you wouldn't risk a non-prefect endangering your position. It was either Belinda Flint or Mary Nott." He watched Lupin's astonishment with a self-congratulatory smirk, and offered his empty glass for a refill.

"Well, Severus, you were the observant one, apparently. I have no clue with whom you took a tumble." Lupin gave Snape a feral grin and took a sip of his drink.

"Well, you wouldn't know the lady, Lupin. She wasn't at Hogwarts." Snape's manner was almost a dare.

"Met a stranger on holiday, did you?" Tonks inquired a bit drunkenly.

"No," Snape said, drawing his words out sardonically. "When we left school, all the seventh-year boys in Slytherin were given a gift by a Slytherin alumnus – Lucius Malfoy, actually." He paused for effect. "Twenty-four hours in an expensive brothel. In Paris."

Lupin's mouth sagged open. "Twenty-four hours? At the age of eighteen?" He shook his head sadly. "Now I wish I'd been a Slytherin," he mourned to Tonks, who punched his shoulder.

"Hush your mouth, Mr. Squiffy. It's Hermione's turn."

Hermione was a bit squiffy herself. She was loving the way Snape was loosening up, loving the occasional bumps of his hand or knee under the banquette table, loving her dear friends, Tonks and Remus, having the loveliest time – and then she heard the topic of conversation.

Merlin's beard, she did NOT want to answer this question. She should make something up, but her brain was blank; she couldn't think of a single lie to tell. She could throw Viktor under the bus, poor thing, but he wasn't here to defend himself and that would be really low. She could refuse to answer, but it would be so childish. Oh, how utterly humiliating, twenty-one years old and never been...

They were all looking at her now, Lupin and Tonks with drunken sincerity, and Snape with unholy amusement – was that git looking smug? Did he dare?

"Hermione?" Tonks prompted again.

Too late, the drunken Lupin discerned Hermione's predicament, and said, "Oh, Merlin, look at the time, they're going to close the place with us still in it..."

It was a brave attempt, but Hermione paid him no mind; she was staring at Snape's face. He was now very attentive and focused on her. "I didn't take a tumble at Hogwarts. I haven't. Ever. Yet."

Hermione did not stop to analyze Snape's startled reaction to her revelation. Speaking with the exaggerated enunciation of drunks everywhere, she said, "Would you let me out, please, Professor Snape? I need to visit the Ladies'."

Snape moved across the banquette with alacrity, allowing her to escape the suddenly close confines of the booth. She took three steps and turned back to the table, drilling all three of them with slightly out-of-focus glares. "Not for lack of offers, mind you." Then she continued her weaving trek to the loo.

Severus watched her go off to the Ladies', his expression carefully schooled to indifference.

Merlin's beard! A virgin – a twenty-one-year-old virgin, of all the freakish bad luck. All that time living in Potter's and Weasley's pockets, two years of war, three bloody years with that Krum fellow in Bulgaria, and she couldn't manage to rid herself of her virginity. Well, that was a sobering thought, if ever he had one. Damn, damn, damn.

Stalking to the bar, he paid their tab and waited for Hermione to return from the bathroom. Sodding Lupin and Tonks could damn well stay the night if they wanted. Apparently they did not want, as they joined him at the door. Hermione came back from the loo and pushed out the exit door with an air of studied nonchalance.

Of one accord, the four began the short walk back. As they approached the front of the inn, Tonks turned with a look of absolute mischief on her face.

"There's an indoor pool." Her voice was excited but hushed. "Fancy a dip?"

Lupin cocked his head to one side and surveyed the detached structure at which Tonks was pointing. "Nothing like a swim after a night of drinking," he mused.

Hermione was looking from one to the other of them in horror. Were they mental? "The pool has been closed since ten o'clock," she hissed, indicating the posted hours. "We'll get thrown out if we wake anyone!"

Tonks pointed her wand at the door and muttered, "Alohomora."

Lupin pushed the pool room door open and entered, casting a Silencing Spell.

Hermione stood rooted to the spot. "But our swim suits!"

Snape was leaning a shoulder against the side of the building, regarding her with an almost predatory gleam. "By all means, Miss Granger, go retrieve your suit. You are a singular person, after all." He glanced through the door into the pool area. "Providentially, Tonks remembered her knickers tonight; she's swimming in her undergarments."

Hermione brushed right past him into the pool enclosure, where she saw Tonks and Lupin splashing about in their under things. Singular, was she? Because she was a virgin? Was he going to taunt her about that now on a daily basis ?

Hermione threw her jacket onto a chaise and tugged her tee-shirt over her head, tossing it onto the pile. Unfastening her wide leather belt, she kicked off her sandals and then wriggled out of her jeans. Without looking left or right, she dove into the water and came up sputtering. "It's cold!"

She swam to the side, prepared to pull herself out of the pool and retrieve her wand from the chaise. Snape's voice, directly above her, halted her.

"I'll cast the Warming Spell. Stay in the water."

"Thanks," she answered. She didn't move away from the side, but treaded waterwhile observing Snape's technique as he warmed the pool water. With a smirk, he looked directly into her eyes. "Satisfactory, Professor Granger?" he inquired with mock concern.

Hermione shrugged. "Nice wand work. It got the water warm." With a sudden surge of inspiration, she splashed his jeans-clad legs. "See? Warm water." Then she turned and swam deeply into the middle of the pool.

Snape placed his wand carefully on the poolside, and toed off his black trainers. Next he shed the black silk shirt, quickly followed by the tight black jeans.

Hermione, who was watching from the safety of the opposite side of the pool, observed the purposeful stripping hungrily. His skin was like alabaster, as if it had never seen the sun. There was a smattering of black hair on his chest and a mind-boggling line of the same hair down his flat belly. She wondered what activities he was involved in that kept his frame so lean and his wiry muscles so taut. Silently urging him on, she watched him peel out of the jeans, and saw, to her deep satisfaction, tight black briefs. Her glimpse was brief indeed, because he was in the water swiftly, and oh gods, she was in trouble now, because he was heading straight for her, with a determined glower on his face.

Hermione squeaked and swam for the shallows, where Tonks and Lupin were lounging, conducting a lazy conversation. Snape changed his course in the water and continued his pursuit. Hermione reached the others and slipped between them, then behind them.

"Where are you going, Hermione?" Lupin asked, while Tonks laughed.

"Away from him!" she said, pointing at the advancing Snape with increasing alarm.

Snape was in the shallows now and stood, walking toward her. "You splashed me, Miss Granger," he commented.

Hermione grabbed Tonks's arm. "Help me!" she whispered frantically.

Tonks stepped away from her and gave her a little push toward Snape. "Bad form, Hermione. If you're gonna splash, you're gonna be splashed." Tonks considered the nasty sneer on Snape's face. "Or something worse, maybe. But you're definitely gonna pay, if you rough house." Tonks looked pious. "It's important to be fair, in work or play," she intoned.

"Oh, Merlin!" Hermione squealed. She moved to pull herself out of the water.

"Miss Granger, if I have to put myself to the trouble of fetching you, it's just going to be worse," Snape promised her.

Ignoring his advice, Hermione scrambled out of the pool, standing in the cool air in her wet knickers and bra. She was completely unaware of the picture she made, her dark thatch showing clearly through the fabric of her pants and her crinkled nipples pushing against the sodden lace of her bra.

Snape seemed to be having some trouble breathing, and there was unquestionably a bulge in the briefs as he hoisted himself over the side of the pool and advanced on Hermione, while she backed away from him. Gods, he was a sight to behold; that rapacious gleam in his eye nearly stopped her heart. She wanted this man, wanted him in the worst way, in every way, and he wouldn't even call her by her name.

Snape scooped her up into his arms and stalked toward the deep end of the pool.

Tonks and Lupin were calling encouragement to Snape and commiseration to Hermione, but she could barely hear them over the pounding of the blood in her body. She was throbbing in places she had never noticed before as she willed herself to memorize the feel of his nearly naked body against hers.

Snape was looking straight ahead as he carried her across the enclosure.

"Sir?" she tried, tentatively.

"Do not speak," he snarled.

"Well, sir, I thought..."

"Don't TALK, Miss Granger." Snape emphasized his words by tightening his grip on her.

"I just thought that, since we've seen each other in our underwear, we could use each other's first names now," Hermione said in a small voice.

He glared down at her. "Would that make you behave yourself, Hermione?"

"Yes, Severus," she breathed.

"Fine." He dropped her like a lead weight into the deep water, then followed her in, to splash and dunk her repeatedly.

Hermione was breathless from repeated dunking, and from her own pealing laughter, when Snape ceased the water barrage.

"Now, will you have the courtesy to let a man swim?"

Hermione conjured the enormous, thick bath towels, while Tonks supplied the pillowed floor covering, and Lupin rustled up an entire tea service. They then slipped into the white terry-cloth robes in the changing rooms and settled down for a nice cup of tea. Snape was the last one out of the pool, after swimming lap after lap, almost as if he were trying to exhaust himself. Lupin tossed him one of the towels and pushed a cup of unsweetened tea at him when he collapsed on the floor beside them.

Hermione watched Snape with some concern as he savored his tea. It was almost as if some rigid mold had fallen from him, and he was branching out and moving in directions she had never expected of him.

Tonks heaved a huge yawn and stretched. "I am going to have a lovely lie-in this morning," she declared.

Lupin nudged her leg with his foot. "You'd lie in every morning if you could," he said.

Tonks suddenly sat forward and placed her teacup in its matching saucer. "I have a question for you," she said in a contemplative tone.

"Spring it on us, 'Dora," Lupin invited.

"Have you heard of the Enchantment?"

Hermione looked at her as if she were bent, but Snape gave a short nod, and Lupin said, "THE Enchantment, you mean? Sure."

Tonks wrapped her arms around her terry-cloth clad knees and propped her chin on them. "Do you believe it's true? That it exists?"

Lupin sighed. "I have always hoped it's true," he admitted. "But I've never felt it, sadly enough."

Hermione was looking back and forth between them. Snape observed her confusion with a slight movement of his lips, a shadow of a smile. Finally, a topic Hermione had never found in a book.

"What is it?" she demanded. "The Enchantment? I've never read about it, or heard of it. Is it folk lore, or a fairy tale – something they don't teach in school?"

Lupin, ever the teacher, took pity on her. "Muggles call it Love at First Sight, Hermione, though a more accurate description would be love at first touch. For wizard kind, the Enchantment has an actual, physical presentation. It's really very rare; I've only known two couples who experienced it." Lupin unconsciously rubbed the scar on his chin. "It's not a requirement for love, or marriage, or happiness, even. But it is a fabulous gift between two people. It is also potent, ancient magic."

Tonks was watching Lupin closely, while Hermione looked as if she wanted nothing so much as a quill and parchment, to take notes. Snape was staring down at his empty teacup, every line of his formerly relaxed body now rigid and tense.

"Who, Remus?" Tonks asked softly. "Who did you know, the ones who were touched?"

"James and Lily Potter are the only ones among my contemporaries. In my family, my father's parents were blessed that way."

Tonks nodded respectfully, a far-away look in her eyes.

Lupin smiled at Snape. "Severus, I'm surprised you haven't said one biting thing during this entire discussion. Why?"

Snape shrugged and pushed his empty teacup away from him. He appeared uncomfortable with the topic of conversation, but he answered, "The Enchantment is a historically verifiable phenomenon. It sounds like a load of Thestral crap, but it does exist."

Hermione looked from face to face. "What is the physical sign? How do two people know if they have the Enchantment between them?"

Lupin said, "Between them, within them, surrounding them – it's like an all-encompassing magical aura..."

Tonks said, "I've heard the first time hits you so suddenly, it makes you weak in the knees..."

With one of his sudden, panther-like moves, Snape was in Hermione's face; his words were so soft that she stopped breathing to hear him. His voice was like liquid dark chocolate as he said, "It's an energy field, initially generated by the proximity of the couple." Snape's ebony eyes claimed hers and bore into her as he spoke. "It thrums through their veins like the thickest molasses, enveloping them in the power and binding their souls." With each word, the image in Hermione's mind became clearer and Snape's voice became hoarser. "Inside their universe of two, they are overcome by feelings of safety and security, of blinding passion, and of the inviolable rightness of their coupling. It is elemental magic in its purest form."

Hermione was transported back; back to the kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld Place, to the night she had held his body in her arms and experienced a spiritual completion right down to her very core – and a stirring of rapture beyond her eighteen-year-old understanding.

Snape stood abruptly, breaking eye contact with her, and the vision in her mind dimmed. Transfiguring his clothes into a clutch of pebbles, Snape dropped them into the pocket of his robe, along with his wand. Hermione stared at him as he turned his back on her and strode to the door.

"Good night," he said shortly and left the building.

Hermione sat as if she had been hit with a Stunning Spell. Inviolable rightness. INVIOLABLE. And yet he let her go away to Bulgaria for three years, ignored her owls, denied something hallowed, something sacrosanct. Hermione's entire body was trembling with an excess of emotion; she was quite suddenly so exhausted that she wasn't sure she could walk back to the room.

Lupin and Tonks were moving about, chatting in a desultory way as they tidied up the pool enclosure to leave it as they had found it. Lupin leaned over to take Hermione by the elbow, helping her to stand and guiding her toward the door.

"And you know what else about the Enchantment?" Tonks said wistfully, following along with her arms full of jumbled clothing.

Lupin glanced back, a gentle smile on his face. "No, what else?"

"I've heard the shagging is amazing....."