Simply

Thank you to JK Rowling who created the characters and the world.

Thank you to Leigh-Anne, who is always there to slap me around encourage me when I need it!

18. SIMPLY

She emerged a half hour later, warm and quiet and uneasy. She pulled herself more snugly into the bathrobe and stopped cold.

The bed had awful white sheets on it; her skin chafed in anticipation of having to slide between them. But her soft, lovely red sheets were piled by the door, so she used her wand to move them into the loo.

He'd brought the leather chair to the bed, along with a side table to hold a pile of sandwiches and biscuits. All she saw were his long legs stretched, one graceful white hand relaxed, as he'd angled the chair to face the bed rather than the bathroom. He faced the pile of pillows that was her destination.

In less than a moment, she took it all in, and more.

There was something languid, relaxed, about him. The usual tension radiating from his body was lessened almost to the point of nonexistence.

She'd never sensed this...this absence of stress in him before.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath.

"Professor, did you need the bath?"

"My cleansing spells were quite adequate, but thank you for enquiring." The words were cool but his voice was almost warm.

A quick bit of wand-waving and the tub was filled with cold water, red sheets and a shirt that might never be white again.

As she passed him to climb into the bed, she gathered her courage. She wanted to get rid of the horrible feeling clenching at her stomach. She had wanted to erase the expression in his eyes that still haunted her. But it wasn't there now. If she said what she needed to say, would it come back?

But she had to speak.

"Professor... I'm very sorry."

He quirked the smallest of smiles, yet it seemed more a smile than any she'd ever seen grace those lips. "Again?"

"I should have never..." She swallowed. "I'm so ashamed. I should never have hit you."

His head jerked, and yes, the expression on his face shifted to discomfort.

"Miss Granger, you were frightened..."

"I wasn't frightened. I was angry." For good cause, she might have added, but didn't.

His eyebrows met in tense lines, and he seemed to pale, if such a thing were possible on a man whose skin already rivaled the angels in its pallor.

No is an acceptable answer.

And then, the strained, Hitting me is not.

"I won't...I will never do that again."

"You can't hurt me," he said. "There's no need to worry yourself." But she detected a tender ache in his voice. "I must ask you..." He avoided her eyes. "I must ask you for a promise, though. Not so very different from the one you drew from me."

She felt the air lock in her lungs as she waited, confused.

"If we have children, and I admit the idea is as foreign to me as adopting a blast-ended skrewt..." He didn't smile, but continued to stare at a fixed bit of nothing in the air before him. "I must ask you to please, no matter how justified...and I'm not so foolish as to think it might not be justified..."

He closed his eyes. His voice was soft and held no threat, only entreaty. "Promise me that you will not strike our child."

Which is why the knife-like pain caught her unprepared, and she had closed the distance between them and flung herself on him before he had a chance to prepare for it, either.

She touched his cheek with her fingers, and the air hurt her lungs when she attempted to breathe.

She touched the soft impression of her hand and knew that as much as he truly meant it, as much as he wanted her assurance, that she had hurt him, and badly.

His arms settled loosely around her; did they tremble? Or was that her own body?

"I swear it," she whispered through her shame. And with her thumb, she tenderly stroked the corner of his eye until it opened, and she could pour her heart and her apology directly from her eyes into his, because she hadn't the words, didn't trust herself to say the right words.

And again, that ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Aren't you going to ask the same of me?"

"No." That was the true shame of it, knowing deep in her core without explanation or understanding that she need not to ask him for such a vow. This big bully of a man didn't need to make that promise. She trusted him with her own body and life and soul, and she certainly trusted him with her...with their...

She couldn't even think it. "All this talk of babies and children is terrifying," she whispered.

His hand brushed her hair away but he didn't smile.

They seemed united in that particular terror.

A flash of green flared in the fireplace.

She realized that she was sitting in Professor Snape's lap, curled up like she herself was a child. She tried to pull free, but his arms tightened around her and held her pinned and unmoving.

He rolled his head sideways and glared into the fireplace. She heard rather than saw the WHOOSH, and then, Professor Dumbledore's voice.

"Severus, there you are, we haven't seen you at..." His voice sputtered away to silence.

"You were saying, Albus?"

"Ahem. Well, yes. I was saying." More throat clearing.

Hermione's cheeks flamed, so she just pressed her face more firmly against Professor Snape and kept her back to the fireplace.

"I was saying, we haven't seen you at meals today, but... well, it's nothing that can't wait, and I'm certain you have much to keep you busy, I mean, erm," followed by a choked cough.

"Indeed," Professor Snape said, and she felt his lips brush her temple, and she didn't know why he did it, whether he was playing games with Professor Dumbledore, and if he was, why he was, and her mind was whirling with it all, but she knew that brush of lips against her skin was enough to take her breath away.

"Madam Snape received two messages by owl this morning. Would you like to retrieve them or..."

"Send them by house-elf; that will be adequate. Is there anything else, Albus?"

"No, no, not at all. Enjoy your Sunday." The twinkle in his voice sounded forced.

"I'm grateful we have your permission," Professor Snape responded with no small bit of irony, and then the WHOOSH indicated the floo was closed.

"Now," his voice rumbled a velvety growl in her ear. "Get off me so we can eat."

She scrambled back onto the bed, embarrassed, but reached for a bacon butty before settling into the pillows.

He reached forward and adjusted one of the pillows. "Is the pressure off your incision?"

She shifted a little and nodded, her mouth full of sandwich. "Thank you."

And after she swallowed, she took the bull by the horns and asked, "Why did you want Professor Dumbledore to see us..." Well, she almost got it out.

"Snuggling?" he prompted, then smirked. "Because it disturbs him so."

Almost as an afterthought, he slid a look at her. "However, I should have considered that you might have been embarrassed to be seen in what was certain to be interpreted as an intimate embrace."

"I just wish Harry and Ron and Ginny had been here for it, too." She scowled. "The prats." She tossed her hair out of her face and then added brightly, "Maybe we should snog at the High Table."

He seemed to choke on that thought. "I hope you'll give me fair warning before embarking on such a performance," he remarked dryly. "Which reminds me," he continued, not looking at her. "How did your meeting with the bumbling duo go?" He reached for a sandwich of his own.

"Do we have to talk about them right now? We're having such a pleasant lunch."

He gave a slight cock of his head. "Well. They're your friends."

CRACK!

Dobby appeared, his eyes squeezed closed. "Dobby isn't looking! Dobby isn't looking!"

Professor Snape snatched the delicately coloured green rolled parchment and the heavy ivory linen envelope from Dobby's clenched fists. "Thank you. That will be..."

"Dobby!" Hermione interrupted.

One of Dobby's eyes popped fearfully open.

"Will you bring us tea?"

"Yes, Harry Potter's friend!"

Snape cuffed him, not hard, but it was a cuff all the same. "Try again."

"Professor!" Hermione protested.

Dobby looked from one to the other, alarmed. "Erm, yes, Professor Snape's wife!"

CRACK!

"I can't believe you..."

He leaned back in his chair and folded his lean, pale hands over his flat stomach. "Now, now – you promised not to hit me."

She glared at him.

"Miss Granger," he asked, his voice rippling silk. "Has anyone ever told you how lovely you are when you are in a snit?"

She was quite sure she wasn't lovely with her mouth opening and closing like a trout as she struggled for a retort.

And a lovely shiver ran down her spine.

Who was this man sitting across from her, gentling her with lips at her temple, teasing her and even, almost, smiling? What was happening? And why was her belly doing all sorts of delicious curling and stretching and rolling, like a kitten awakening from a milk-induced slumber?

He reached across the gap between them with his forefinger, freed her lower lip from her teeth. He seemed to study her mouth, tracing it with a delicate stroke of his finger, his eyes half-closed as if he were concentrating very hard, committing it to memory.

Oh, how she loved it when he did that. She pulled his finger into her mouth, caught it gently between her teeth, tasted it with the tip of her tongue....

Her heart thudded in her chest when she opened her eyes and saw him watching her so closely, so very closely.

She released his finger and turned her face into the palm of his hand.

"What is happening?" she asked.

"I believe... we might be having a honeymoon," he whispered.

"Really?" What a thought. What a very odd thought.

"The Dark Lord is unlikely to summon me again so soon, and I believe we've sent Albus scurrying back into his hole, and I do think that perhaps we have a few hours left in the day to simply..."

"Simply?"

"Yes. Simply."

She felt her small smile responding to his, and somehow it made sense that they would have a honeymoon that consisted of a few hours where they just ... simplied.

"Are you intoxicated?" she asked suspiciously. Not that she actually cared when he was so soft, so tender. She stiffened. Soft? Tender? "Are you sure you're Professor Snape? How do I know you aren't polyjuiced?"

"Honestly, Miss Granger, if you keep this up my mood will deteriorate all too quickly. Here, lean forward."

She obediently did as he demanded, and he gathered her hair into his fists, twisted it in that way he had that she couldn't duplicate, and secured it with a couple of long pencils from the nightstand.

Then he summoned a quill, inkpot and parchment. "Are you ready? We have much to discuss."

She lay back against the pillows with her quill ready, a tendril of joy unfurling in her heart at the very thought of it.

She and Professor Snape must be about to actually plan something together.

XX

He had to be insane.

But for this day, this hour, this moment...

He didn't give a flying fuck.

Her torrent of self-mortification and accusation had left him breathless with laughter.

Laughter.

He didn't know he was capable of such a thing.

And certainly, his body wasn't prepared for it.

After laughing until there were tears in his eyes, he collapsed into a brief, intense sleep...if the thought weren't so ludicrous he'd even consider it la petite mort...and he then awakened to an equally intense sense of sweet lethargy.

And after his first panic-stricken thoughts of pulling himself together, of being ready for a mind-probe or a call to Albus's office, he came to the conclusion that they could all go to fucking hell.

Knowing that if the mark burned or if Albus needed him, he'd be up and gone in an instant.

But still, it was a pleasant conceit to think he could push the world away for a day. An hour. A moment.

"Professor?"

"Mmmm?"

"What are we going to plan?"

Ah, yes. The fly in the ointment.

Even this day, this hour, this moment, still had to be used for the greater good.

"First, the rules of your private Potions tutorials. I'm assigning you three adanced potions this week. You'll be..."

"Three!"

"Is that a complaint?"

"No!" Her eyes shone with excitement. "You just surprised me, that's all."

"As I was saying, you can't do this without my supervision, yet we must work this around your schedule and mine. Thus, I will expect you to complete these assignments in the Potions storeroom adjoining my classroom while I'm teaching. Nobody is to be aware you're there, but it will make it simple for me to keep my eye on your brewing. If you have an emergency situation, we'll have a way for you to summon me, otherwise I'll just pop in and take a look from time to time. Do you have a problem with any of this?"

He looked over her shoulder to see her precise, feminine script flowing across the parchment.

"Do you want me to make two copies?" she asked.

"No, I'll keep it in my head, as always. You are the one with the disorganized mind, thus you are the one who needs the written notes."

She glared up at him, offended.

"Miss Granger, no matter how organized you seem to the typical observer, the fact remains that only someone who is desperately disorganized must keep the kinds of notes, charts and plans you do."

She blushed so deeply he thought she couldn't have been any more embarrassed had he walked in on her masturbating.

A thought that was so unexpected, inappropriate and distracting, he realized his blush equaled hers.

He cleared his throat and continued. "Yes. As I was saying."

"Nobody has ever noticed that before," she said. "The reason why I work so hard on my charts and lists."

He allowed himself to shrug. "Well, it's neither here nor there, except for the fact that it's going to create real problems for you when we embark upon our Occlumency work."

"We're going to do Occlumency work?"

"Did I not just say so?"

She peered up at him from beneath and escaping frizz of hair. "Professor, are you feeling all right?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You keep smiling, and that's not at all like you." She glowered. "You're making me nervous."

Oh, am I? He allowed his smile to spread. "Never fear. This mood won't last long. Now about your Occlumency lessons, before we begin I need you to take a small test with Albus."

"What?" Her voice was sharp. "No!"

"I need another opinion. I drew some conclusions about your inadequacies, but..."

"I will not allow him to prod around in my brain. Absolutely not!"

"Miss Granger, your reaction astounds me. Surely you're aware that Albus Dumbledore is a doddering old fool with nothing more than a grandfatherly interest..."

"Ha!"

He allowed himself a full-throated laugh.

Her mouth fell open.

Good god, was it all that astounding to see him smile or laugh? "Please, close your mouth. You'll catch flies."

He watched with interest as she closed her mouth and swallowed, her eyes fixed distractedly on the quill in her ink-stained fingers.

"Miss Granger?"

"It's not just that you're making me nervous with all this smiling," she muttered. "It's just that I wasn't prepared."

"Prepared?" Any desire to smile was replaced with a desire to climb down her throat, find the words she was repressing and pull them out one by one. "Please complete your thought," he added with a customary snarl.

She fluttered another glance up at him, then back to her quill.

"My good mood is quickly dissipating."

"I'm getting accustomed to the fact that sometimes, with certain expressions on your face, you're quite handsome," she began.

She was insane; there was no other explanation.

"But when you smile..."

The teeth. The teeth disavowed her of such romantic schoolgirl notions. Thank Merlin for the teeth.

"It makes me hurt." She placed her closed fist against her breastbone, just above the swell of her breasts. "Here."

He felt himself frowning in confusion. What on earth was she saying?

"You don't smile enough. And when you do, it makes me sad..." Her fist opened and her fingers trailed to the hollow at the base of her throat. Her voice softened to a near-whisper. "Because you don't smile enough."

"Well." He fought against the ache in his own chest. The ache that he hadn't even noticed until her hand had touched her own ache, and he felt the connecting pang shoot from his body to hers. "Miss Granger, you are an emotional weapon of mass destruction," he announced, allowing himself one more smile. "So far you've talked me out of two very eager erections and one very good mood, and the afternoon is still young. What say you we get back to your Occlumency session with the Headmaster? Perhaps you should consult your schedule and get with him about that. I want you to see him as soon as possible because only then can you and I begin..."

"I told you, I'm not doing it!"

"You will do it, and this is why. When I entered your mind, you put up absolutely no defense. The only difficulty I encountered was the disorganized chaos that evidently is the natural state of the prodigious Granger brain. But even that provided little problem because I knew enough of what I was looking for to find it quickly." He cocked his head in enquiry. "The question is, are you this open to everyone? Or is it this, forgive me, somewhat insane notion of trust you have regarding me that makes your mind an open book as far as I'm concerned?"

"I... I don't know."

"Which is why you need a session with Albus. We must know. We must find out. And if you're resistant to the idea of Albus digging about in your brain, that's all the better. I want you to fight him because I need to know if you can. Do you understand me?"

She nodded reluctantly, and he found himself reaching out to lift her chin with his forefinger. "Spies. Remember?"

That brought a rueful smile.

"I had thought to tell him that certain areas of thought were off limits, but I regret to tell you that I've had to change my mind. The Dark Lord is interested in you. At this point you haven't become important to him, but he's certainly curious. You have to be prepared for that curiosity, however it manifests itself."

"You think he's going to want to meet me? To read my memories?"

He stroked her cheek and attempted to soothe her. "I don't know for sure. But we'll be prepared, won't we?"

She nodded slowly, closing her eyes and inhaling, and he realized she was inhaling the scent of his hand. He held his hand still, watching the subtle changes on her face as she angled it a little closer, inhaled a little deeper.

"And perhaps the first step to finding out what he wants is for you," he finally forced himself to say, "is to open Narcissa Malfoy's missive."

She jerked her eyes open at that.

"The green scroll. Her parchment and her scent."

Miss Granger picked it up from beside her on the bed and lifted it to her nose to sniff. "Oh ... that's rather lovely."

"Exactly. Now watch this." He took it and performed a simple charm.

"You vanished the scent."

"As you would be advised to do any time you get scented communications, especially from Narcissa Malfoy." He prodded her. "Now, open it. Let's see what maliciousness she's up to."

"She's invited me to tea."

"When?"

"At my convenience. How about when bloody hell freezes over?"

"How about ... Thursday? Would that fit your schedule? I'll be available then to go with you."

"She didn't invite you."

"But when you write and accept, you will tell her how eager I am to introduce you, how grateful I am that – oh, hell, just accept for Thursday, and I'll write as well to inform her that I'll be with you. And yes, we will go together. Of course she'll still find a way to separate us and get you alone, but..."

"I think I'd rather talk about my friends now," she muttered.

"I'm sure. But let me finish. Assuming that Thursday will be acceptable, that leaves you between now and then to put together a Muggle ensemble appropriate for tea with your Queen. I want you in something tasteful and absolutely not revealing. It's imperative that it be Muggle because I want to emphasize those aspects of your background that will be deemed unacceptable by the Dark Lord's minions. Yet I want you to be impeccably dressed and to exhibit behaviour as equally decorous, no matter what is said to you or about you, or Muggle-borns in general or Mudbloods in particular."

She nodded. "I can do that."

"Indeed? Allow me a moment to bring my skepticism under control."

"Bite my arse."

"Ah, there's my girl."

"Hmmph."

"Now ... I debate with myself over whether you should know this or not..."

Her eyes met his with sudden alertness.

"I think it's most likely that the Dark Lord will be present at tea."

She dropped her quill and the ink splattered. Neither of them moved to clean the mess.

"You won't see him. They, of course, assume you have no idea that I might still be a Death Eater or in touch with the Dark Lord, so he won't be in the open. But he will want to see you. In fact, if not for that, I doubt you'd have this invitation. Most likely he'll be watching through charmed mirrors."

Her fear was palpable. He could taste it in the air. He left his chair to kneel beside her and kissed her gently on the lips. "He won't hurt you. For now, he's only curious. That's why it's so important that we play this well, so he won't have reason to want to know more."

She nodded, her eyes on his lips.

Good.

Let her ponder the kisses, the unexpected yet kind words they'd exchanged. Let her have something to distract her from what was ahead.

"Now," he said with one last stroke of her cheek. "What is in the other letter?"

XX

Hermione opened the letter with a calmness that she didn't feel. The words, however, caught her by surprise.

My little poppet...

Consider yourself hugged...

The word, "Father," blurred before her as her eyes blinked away tears. She sniffed and fought down the emotion and instead turned a brilliant smile on Professor Snape.

"How would you like to participate in a raid on one of the finest wine cellars in the South of England?" She tossed him the note.

He read it with one brow arched. "Other than the fact that I don't see my name included on this 'invitation,' I could grow quite accustomed to such a connection. Miss Granger, you have hidden resources beyond my wildest dreams."

This time, she was the one to smirk.

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A/N: I used "simply" as a verb when Hermione referred to their honeymoon as being a few hours where they just "simplied." I hope that doesn't annoy you. It felt right to me and I went with it.

No grammarians were injured in the writing of this chapter, though some may have suffered self-inflicted injuries when they read it!