The Morning After

A/N: This story was originally written for the sshg_exchange Summer 2007 round in response to a prompt by Clare_009. The prompt will follow the last chapter. Many heartfelt thanks and much chocolate to my betas Melusin_79 (who also Brit-picked) and Sahiya. Any remaining errors are all mine. Thanks also to Shalimar1981 for the early-on brainstorming.

Disclaimer: Not mine and not making any money.

The Morning After

Snape awoke as he always did: suddenly. His eyes snapped open, and he took in the unfamiliar surroundings quickly. There was the barest moment of stabbing fear, replaced promptly with the memory of why he was waking up in an unfamiliar place and with whom. Glancing at the tangle of curls on the pillow beside him, he felt himself wince internally.

It was not that he was ashamed of what they had done precisely. There was absolutely no reason why two adults, who were sick of being alone and of being fawned over, should not take a night of comfort and pleasure with each other. She had been very clear that she was not looking for anything more and would hex him if he tried to make it into something more. She had also been absolutely brilliant, but he forced himself not to begin reminiscing before he had even left. The problem was that in Severus Snape’s experience, even women who said things like that and meant them often discovered after the fact that they really did want something more, and something had flickered through her eyes suggesting that whatever she had said, she might not be any different. It was also his experience that the most effective way to nip such an idea in the bud was to be absent when the woman in question awoke.

A soft snore escaped her, and he found himself unaccountably reluctant to leave.

Dismissing the ridiculous notion, he slipped carefully out from under the duvet and Summoned his clothes. How, exactly, had his shirt landed behind her tallboy? He slipped into the bathroom to dress, narrowly avoiding what appeared to be a large, orange bottlebrush in his path, which was apparently attached to a cat that was looking at him intently. Perhaps he had taken the animal’s usual sleeping spot. He smirked.

Once dressed, he made to leave her flat only to discover that she had an alarming number of enchantments, some of them quite Dark, protecting her doorway from exit as well as entry. Well, yes, she was an Unspeakable, but this was an absurd level of security! For that matter, if he used any of these on his own home, he would probably be out of a job and perhaps even arrested.

Irritating chit.

He drew his wand and began dismantling them. The large, ginger feline came out of the bedroom to observe him, making odd, soft vocalisations from time to time.

Several minutes later, Snape felt utterly exhausted, but at least the charms were all undone and in such a way that they would snap back into place upon his exit. He staggered through the door, waited a moment until he was certain her utterly paranoid precautions were in effect once again, and left. He had planned to Apparate home, but that little exercise had taken far more out of him than he had expected. Instead, once he reached the street, he held out his wand hand with a grimace to flag down the Knight Bus. It would be an uncomfortable ride, but preferable to Splinching himself.

~*~

Hermione awoke as she always did on a Sunday morning: languidly. She stretched, yawned, rubbed her eyes, and felt around for Crookshanks. Why wasn’t he in his usual spot? Then, she remembered.

That had been utterly brilliant. Who would have thought? She let her eyes drift closed and remembered. Apparently, his hands were every bit as skilled with a woman’s body as they were with potions ingredients or a wand. She had done rather well herself, she thought. And he hadn’t hung around for some sort of awkward breakfast scene, which was exactly what she had hoped. No complications.

That was what she’d hoped, right?

Crookshanks jumped up onto the bed and uttered a soft mew.

“So, what have you been up to, then?” she asked, scratching that spot behind his left ear.

He sniffed the pillow next to her, purred for approximately two seconds, and then mewed again. He appeared surprisingly unperturbed that his pillow had been so rudely borrowed, which was rather unusual. With another mew, he butted his head against her chin.

“All right, all right. Breakfast is coming!” She pushed him away with a laugh and clambered out of bed. This was going to be a lovely and relaxing morning.

When she had put the kettle on for tea and served Crookshanks his usual breakfast, she padded over to open the window so that when the owl with the Prophet arrived, it could come right in. She was surprised to notice that in addition to her usual locking charms, several more layers of enchantments had been added. Some of them seemed to be outright Dark in origin. Was this Snape’s idea of leaving a flower on the pillow, turning her flat into an impenetrable vault? Well, he probably was rather paranoid. Looked at in a certain light, it was almost sweet, which was a frightening thought. Besides, she could get into awful trouble at work if she were found to have such Dark enchantments on her flat, and they did have their ways of knowing these things.

Then again, he worked for the Ministry, too, and should know that. Perhaps that was his objective: to get her sacked? That would be more in character, but almost as annoying as the “sweet” interpretation.

Flicking her wand, she made short work of dismantling the charms and opened the window. Then, with a sigh she turned to address the door, which was no doubt even more severely protected, just as the kettle began to whistle.