Wet

Thank goodness for the fabulously fantabulous characters and world that JKR created and for my wonderful beta, Leigh-Anne!

7. WET

His neck was killing him.

Whiplash?

He opened his eyes to the dark.

Squinted.

Couldn't focus.

He raised one arm slowly, wincing.

Then, the other.

He tested his extremities methodically from long practice.

Ran his fingers along his ribs.

All the places that should be killing him weren't.

Which could only mean Poppy had gotten her hands on him. And she'd somehow missed the fucking whiplash.

He rolled over sideways, crooked and stiff, and bit back a cry as the pain knifed through him.

He gave himself up to it.

He would not be getting out of bed.

He willed the stiffness out of his neck, his shoulders. Willed himself to relax into the pillow. Closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and sank back into an uncomfortable dream that involved incarceration in an herbal sachet shop.

#

The smells.

The smells were driving him mad. Lavender, lemon verbena, eucalyptus, spearmint – the air was heavy with moisture, and he felt as if he were drowning in an insipid brew of herbal tea. His nose twitched against a sneeze; his shoulder twitched, sending another pain spiking through him.

He really was going to have to get up.

Splash.

He stilled without actually having any movement to still. His eyes opened, and everything around him came into sharp focus despite the dim light.

He sat up quickly, despite the fucking Merlin-cursed whiplash.

Books were spread across the floor, opened. Bits of parchment tucked hither and yon, with notes in coloured inks. A cup of tea, half-filled, rested near the corner of a priceless first edition potions text, the only one of its kind.

His table had another collection of books, haphazardly strewn, and his potions cabinet gaped open. It didn't take an inventory to reveal that they'd been rifled through.

Granger.

He would have loved to snarl or roar ... yes, absolutely, roar – but such action would give warning, and the one thing he did not want to do was warn the bloody chit that she was about to be dismembered, eviscerated and minced into a fine blood pudding.

Although his staggering steps as he crossed to the bathroom door were hardly silent.

He flung the door open and everything hit him at once.

The smell – the eucalyptus and spearmint.

The taste – the foggy moisture from his claw-footed tub filled with steaming sudsy hot water.

The sound – another splash as her head submerged beneath the surface.

The sight – his shaving brush bobbing on top the sudsy foam.

And holy Merlin's bollocks he was too late –

The tight curls of hair floating, disconnected, on the surface.

"Miss Granger!"

He grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her out of the water, sputtering and screaming.

He wasn't too late. He wasn't – yet.

"Get your hands off me!" She reached up to rake him with her fingernails, but he knocked her hands away, yanked the stopper out of the tub, flicked on the water and held her head under the faucet.

"What the hell are ... " she sputtered, and then choked and coughed, and evidently reserved her breath to fight him, for fight him she did. Her arms and legs were silky slick – of course – and he had to clamp down on her unmercifully to keep her head in the stream of clear cold water. And if she weren't fighting so hard, he could have warmed it, but he couldn't focus his magic with this agony of pain slicing through him, nor could he reach the ruddy handle when both hands were so vitally involved with the effort to stop her from killing him.

Bloody ungrateful little witch.

He tried to brace himself against the side of the tub but his heel hit water, and before he could catch himself, he was flat on his back in agony, staring up at the peeling ceiling.

Granger could bloody well drown for all he cared.

But of course, such a convenience would be beyond the scope of his miserable life.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she shrieked.

"Gaaaaaah!" he responded eloquently when icy water spattered across his torso – his bare torso, he belatedly noticed – as her face dangled over the side of the tub and that miserable mop of hair drained its bounty of water all over him.

"Professor," she snapped, "are you quite all right?"

He aimed his most deadly glare at her.

He rose, wincing, to a sitting position.

"If you value your hair..." he groaned, "you will keep rinsing."

She opened her mouth to argue, then suddenly didn't. Her face disappeared, and he heard the sound of her head ducking back under the faucet.

He wasn't sure what surprised him the most, her quick acquiescence or the fact that she actually valued that knotted tangle of frizz.

He curled his fingers over the side of the tub and finally hoisted himself to his feet. Rolled his shoulders experimentally. Well. That was interesting. Whatever had been wrong with his neck seemed to have improved dramatically. His fall must have knocked something back into alignment.

He rose to his full height and stared down at –

Oh, Merlin's fucking ghost, the hair sticking to the sides of the tub was pubic hair.

He felt a whimper curl through his throat but managed to keep it under submission as he realized –

She had found the final and most brutal way possible to look like a fucking schoolgirl.

Of course she fucking had. Brilliant. Brava for the insufferable witch.

"Miss Granger," he said, fighting for calm.

She froze, her slender back and shoulders and, of course, her not quite so slender arse, tense, waiting for him to continue.

"You can come up for air now."

Slowly, she rose to a kneeling position, her back still to him.

And gave her hair a mighty sling out of her eyes.

And sprayed him with more icy water.

"Shite!" He winced. "Miss Granger, why were you using my shaving soap to bathe?"

"It smells good. And it lathers. And I wanted a bubble bath."

He spoke through gritted teeth. "What do you know about the principles of wizard's shaving soap?"

"Well," she said, her head down and her back still to him. "Are you asking what I did know or, what I think I might know now?"

He let out a quick snort of frustration.

"I did assume it makes it easier to get a smooth shave, and is very sudsy, and smells wonderful, and even though I wasn't intending to shave anything – now that I think about it, I don't even recall there being a razor with it...." She was shivering in the cold now. "I think what I now know is ..."

A tremor of cold rippled down her back, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

"You don't have to use a razor with wizarding shaving soap, do you?" she asked weakly.

"No."

"The soap does it for you?"

"Yes."

"So, this shaving brush, besides just feeling silky and lovely and divine on your skin when you brush the soap on, actually ..."

He swallowed, trying not to think about what she might have been doing with his brush. "Yes."

"I couldn't find the shampoo. I was about to use your shaving soap to wash my hair." In a very small voice she added, "Thank you, Professor."

She stood up, and before he realized her intention, she stepped out of the tub, dripping water everywhere, and despite her best efforts he caught sight of a swell of breast, and bloody hell, schoolgirls had no business looking like that.

"I'm going to go get dressed, and I'm sure you need your privacy," she said primly.

And closed the door behind her.

"Miss..." he croaked and tried again. "Miss Granger. You forgot your towel." He flicked his fingers toward the door, and it opened. He sent a towel sailing out after her.

And watched the door slam shut.

Bloody fucking hell.

#

Hermione scrambled into her jeans, sadly saggy and begrimed by this point despite her use of a Cleansing Charm. The point came when clothes simply had to be laundered. She sighed as she pulled the soft white shirt on. She ran her hands over it and hoped (without hope) that Professor Snape wouldn't be too angry that she'd delved into his wardrobe and charmed one of his shirts smaller.

Well, there wasn't much she could do about it if he was. Other than, of course, charm it back, which she really didn't want to do. She rolled back the sleeves and shrugged her shoulders to feel the soft fabric slide over her skin. It was a surprisingly sensual shirt for a man who slept on sandpaper.

Listening to the sounds in the bathroom, she decided he wasn't going to be long, so she whisked the books back into place and her notes into a neat stack.

After summoning her tea things, she used her wand to light her small, personal burner and put on the tea kettle.

Within minutes, the whistle was shrieking and she lifted it off the flame.

BAM!

The bathroom door exploded open.

The man certainly was hard on doors.

"What the bloody hell is that?"

"Um, are you through in there?"

He emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist, scowling.

She slipped by him with her tea tray following behind her. But once inside the bathroom, she abandoned magic. She tilted the kettle to fat, round Brown Betty teapot and poured out enough steaming water to warm it, then emptied it into the sink. After spooning in the loose tea, with an extra spoon for the pot, she emptied the kettle into the teapot and watched the tea leaves explode and swirl in the currents of boiling water.

There was more than one way to brew a potion.

She lovingly dipped her head over the steam for a brief second just to suck in the tea oils, then quickly popped on the lid to keep all the strong, sharp flavor in. Finally, she snuggled the old teapot into her grandmother's hand-knitted tea cozy.

It wasn't until she'd completed the ritual and turned to leave the bathroom, her tea tray following behind her, that she realized Professor Snape was standing in the open doorway, buttoning a shirt over black trousers, watching her every move.

"You realize you can order tea from the kitchens."

"I prefer brewing my own."

She felt his scowl aimed at her upper body. Damn. "I'm sorry about your shirt. I can turn it back – "

He jerked his black gaze away from her. "I don't care about the shirt."

Oh.

She passed him and, with a whisk of her wand, cleared the table for the tea tray. "How do you like your tea?"

"Milk. Two sugars."

She bit back a smile. So, the professor had a bit of a sweet tooth. "I think you should at least sit down, and you probably should be back in bed," she said calmly. "I'll bring it to you."

To be obstinate, she was certain, he simply leaned against the bathroom doorjamb and glared down his beaky nose at her.

Ha. If he thought that was going to intimidate her, he hadn't spent the last four days with her. Four days in which she'd bathed every inch (oh, my) of him (and she'd never confess how long it took her to get past her initial trepidation) and learned far more about his body than she ever would have wanted to know even a week before, right down to the fact that he seemed to prefer to go commando.

Well, in a manner of speaking, he hadn't spent the past four days with her, had he? Or at least he wouldn't remember them, thank Merlin!

She stirred his tea methodically, three circles clockwise and one anticlockwise, then handed it to him.

He looked at the dainty teacup with displeasure. "I should have known you'd be the overblown cabbage rose with gilt-edge type of Muggle-born."

She refused to let him get up her nose. "They were my grandmother's."

She cast a Cushioning Charm and then sank onto the single hard-backed chair at the table, leaving him his choice between the leather club chair and the bed. She took a deep sip of her tea. The heat unfurled through her, and she almost moaned as the tension eased from her shoulders. Eyes closed, she rested her head against the wall.

"You look like hell."

"Thank you. You, however, look much improved." She drank more and otherwise ignored him.

"Merlin." It was almost a whisper, an evocation, a prayer.

She opened her eyes, surprised.

He had the teacup to his lips, his eyes closed, savoring.

She watched the contours of his cheeks move, tense, relax, as he tasted, swirled the tea in his mouth, and finally, swallowed.

When he opened his eyes to find he watching him, he demanded, "What is it? What have you done to it?"

"It's just tea. Some things," she responded smugly, blissfully sipping her own, "are not improved upon by magic."

He snorted. He lifted the teapot and examined the knitted tea cozy.

"My grandmother's," she answered the question he hadn't asked. "Her tea service, her tray, her cozy."

He examined the stitches suspiciously. "She was a witch?"

"No," she giggled. "Honestly, it's just PG Tips."

"You could have gotten tea from the kitchen," he repeated, surly. "Instead of stringing out your mess all over the room."

She sighed, flicked her wand, and all of the "mess" settled itself tidily onto the tray. "Better?" she asked.

She lowered her eyes to her own tea and finished it, carefully avoiding watching him as he finally sank down onto the bed.

She also carefully avoided any expression that would reveal she approved of such an action.

He glared at the red sheets.

"You needed something soft against your body. They're mine. They're red. Deal with it." She hid a smirk.

"Do you really think I fucking care what color the sheets are?"

In a word, Professor? Yes.

"They stink."

"They smell like sachet."

He pinned her with a scowl. "Indeed."

She rolled her eyes.

"How long was I out?"

"Four days."

He put the cup down with a clatter. "Then – then tonight is the Sorting?"

She looked down at her lap. "One would presume."

He leapt to his feet. "Why in bloody hell didn't you say something?"

He flicked his fingers toward the wardrobe, and his black robe flew to him.

"You're in no condition – "

"Miss Granger, get dressed!"

"No!" She stood up as if to block his way. "You're too weak. They can do it without – "

"We will be at the Sorting," he snarled

"We? I'm not going." She backed away from him, not meeting his eyes. "It's not proper, having a professor's wife taking classes. I can find a way to help the Order – "

He bent over her, his eyes burning. "You will gather up whatever bit of Gryffindor courage you possess, and you will walk into the Great Hall on my arm, and you will then take your seat – "

"Where?" she snapped.

He clearly had no answer. He grimaced and rubbed his neck.

"I'm sure it will be evident when we get there. I doubt if it's up to us to choose." He seemed to shake something off, then glared at her and continued. "You will take classes, and you will be the same model student you have always been, and you will work even harder for your grades than before because nothing has changed. Because anything else is a sign of weakness. And because anything else negates your motivation for this bloody sham of a marriage."

Well. When he put it that way.

"Where are your clothes?"

"In my trunk in the Head Girl's room."

"Ah. Well." His lips thinned. "That is one thing that will have to change. You can't very well be Head Girl and my wife as well. I'll have them brought down. For now – " He raked his eyes down her body and sighed.

It was the work of less than a minute for him to magic another of his heavy black robes to fit her.

"Do something with your hair."

She didn't dare argue. She saw the beads of perspiration on his upper lip, his sunken eyes, and wondered how he was going to get through this night. She simply did everything he told her to, and when she was ready, she paused at the door.

"Professor, you need to know. I am taking your name. I will be Madam Snape."

"I thought you intended to be Mizz Granger," he said wearily.

She shook her head, not meeting his eyes.

"Why the change?" His voice was measured, revealing nothing.

"Because –" She broke off, tossed her head back and glared fiercely up at him. "Because I'm proud to be Mrs. Severus Snape."

His lip curled, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as if in pain. "Miss Granger, please rid yourself of any stupid romantic notions you might have – "

"You misunderstand me," she cut in sharply, unable to hear him continue. "Hermione Granger, Miss Granger, was a stupid, selfish cow."

She noticed he wasn't disputing that fact.

"And I am not that girl any more. I shall endeavor to be worthy of the name Snape."

He laughed bitterly. "The words 'worthy' and 'Snape' have not been used in the same sentence for almost a century."

"I wouldn't know about that." She gave her most haughty and Snapeish sniff. "You are the only Snape I know."

He studied her through narrowed eyes.

"On second thought..." He reached into her hair and pulled the hairpins loose. She felt it tumble to her shoulders and reached up, aghast.

And he kissed her.

No, this was no mere kiss. This was a ravishing. She fought to stay standing, all too aware that his arms were trembling. She knew better than to think it was passion that made them so. But, oh, there was definitely passion. She felt her lips bruising with it and her blood surging with it, and for one wild moment, she even thought perhaps they wouldn't make it to the Sorting after all.

Abruptly, he broke away. His face was as cold and controlled as she had ever seen it, as if, even while sending electrical charges from her mouth to the deepest most regions of her body, he had felt nothing.

And even knowing that the kiss that had rocketed through her with such alarming strength had no impact on him at all, when he stroked her lip and it pulsed beneath his thumb, she couldn't stop herself from closing her eyes and sucking his thumb between her lips, between her teeth, and tasting his skin, salty and rough against her tongue.

"Very good, Madam Snape," he murmured as he pulled away. "Now, there will be no doubt in anyone's minds why we are late to the Sorting."

All she could do was swallow, nod, and take his arm.