Snape Before Coffee

I make no money off this fic. Snape and Hermione and Spinner's End are JKR's brain-babies, but I love to play with the pretty shinies. Please, no sue!

Snape Before Coffee:

Severus made his way down to the kitchen more by feel than by sight. Dawn had reared its ugly head once again and was playing havoc with his sensitive night-trained vision. There was something utterly catastrophic about experiencing this time of day, let alone without caffeine to mitigate its effects.

He blessed the fates when the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee met him on his way down. He possessed just enough energy to pat himself on the back for remembering to set the timer on the appliance the night before. He even felt grateful toward Arthur Weasley for the thoughtful Christmas gift. As he curled himself around the mug of black ambrosia, hunched over the Formica table in the corner of the kitchen, his mind began to catch up with the rest of him.

He definitely wished it hadn't.

He longed belatedly for just a few more moments of ignorance. As it was, whatever peace he might have had for the morning was effectively shattered by the knowledge that he had a house guest, and all of the memories of said guest from the night before. Merlin, help him. He despaired of surviving until term began. That he would die of a heart attack or aneurysm before September seemed a surety. He was far too old for this.

His mood degenerated along those lines while Hermione had her own depressing matters to attend to.

For the next hour or so, Severus went about draining the pot of sweet, loin-girding caffination while Hermione battled it out with her face. In the end, she had to concede to defeat. She just couldn't focus on putting on a proper disguise while the heavenly smell taunted her from just a few yards away. What she wouldn't give for a cup of Joe right about then. Coffee had always been something of a luxury in the Granger household: her parents only drank it on spacial occasions. Being dentists, they mourned the fact that coffee stained teeth, but their mixed Greek and Turkish ancestry ensured the familial addiction to the brew. Holiday mornings saw the three of them gathered around the table for coffee and baklava, followed by a furious brushing of teeth and the abstinence from such substances for at least a month. Hermione felt it was a great shame; her mother was an excellent pastry chef, and her father could brew a cup of Turkish coffee thick enough to stand a spoon in. At Hogwarts, it was tea, pumpkin juice, or nothing. British Wizarding society never took to the bean. She was dismayed to find that it was strictly a Muggle thing.

She zombie-walked from the guest room into the kitchen, grabbed a clean mug from a cabinet, filled it, and went about doctoring it without paying the other occupant of the room any mind. Severus's shocked silence lasted just long enough for her to take her first sip. The dark atmosphere of the room was lost on her; it gave her futile warning warning as to his thunderous mood.

"Miss Granger! What in the name of Merlin do you think you are doing?"

"Wha?" She took in his apoplectic mien with all the intelligence of a confounded skrewt.

"Your attire is unacceptable! I insist you put some real clothing on at once!" It occurred to her that red was not his best color, nor did that particular shade on his face bode well for her at this time.

Comprehension dawned about halfway through the cup. She blinked down at herself, taking in her threadbare camisole and pajama bottoms. At first, she had no clue what the problem was. Snape busied himself counting to thirty while the gears in her head turned audibly. She raised her eyes to take in his attire from her place against the counter top. He was fully turned out in his teaching robes, as always, without a single button out of place. It occurred to her that his customary dress was rather Victorian, while hers was currently very slumber party-esque. "Oh," was all she said, not the least abashed. "You called me Miss Granger."

Snape found that the Lovegood-like apathy in her statement did nothing to aid his blood pressure even as he mentally castigated himself for his gaffe. "Olivia Prince would not appear at the table in her night clothes," he growled out, as if he'd meant to say exactly what he did. "Olivia Prince would never emerge from her room until she was perfectly put-together." His tone grew steadily in volume until he was fairly booming in that baritone of his. "Hermione Granger will march her insolent self back into that room, and she will emerge as Olivia Prince or NOT AT ALL!"

Hermione blushed with rage at being addressed as nothing more than a child but held her tongue until he was finished berating her. She pushed off from the counter and made her way back toward her room with her prize in hand. Snape before coffee was a fate she'd not wish on her worst enemy.

Severus took several deep breaths before he could see clearly again. Once the rage was gone, all that was left was what was quickly becoming familiar: the feeling of arousal and self-disgust. It would probably take the same amount of time for her to finish dressing as it would for the newest in a long line of unwanted erections to subside. What was the girl trying to do to him? The early morning chill had pebbled her nipples, which were all-too visible due to the unbound state of her breasts. The thin chemise had done nothing to disguise the exact shape and size of her womanly attributes. The unbidden thought that they would fit perfectly in his hands, that they were firm and undaunted by gravity, took far too long to drag from the forefront of his mind's eye. And as she sauntered away, his eyes had become glued to her heart-shaped buttocks--just as easily spied beneath the paper-thin cotton of her bottoms. He sat and ground his molars together, damning Albus to hell for subjecting him to this torment.

When Hermione emerged again, she was a damn sight easier to deal with in her school robes which mercifully covered every pertinent inch of her in unrelenting draperies of fabric. She killed off the last of the coffee and set about brewing another pot while stony silence waged war between them. Finally, she turned back to fix his eyes with her own. The rage that simmered within was only noticeable in the flash of gold within their chocolate depths. Her voice was clear and without malice when she said, "Olivia Prince will require an endless supply of Pepper-up if she is to be seen before Noon."

Severus resisted the urge to groan and drop his head into his hands, but it was a very close thing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lunch was a grand sight better than breakfast. Snape-the-terrible had evaporated like the morning dew to be replaced by Snape-the-painfully-polite. By the time that she had finished with her soup, her salad, and her roasted chicken breast with rosemary new potatoes, she had been instructed, grilled, and ultimately browbeaten with proper pureblood table-manners. The Weasleys came to mind briefly. Particularly Ron, whose table manners were far enough from what Snape (and therefore all of Slytherin pureblood society) demanded of Olivia Prince, they might as well have been on a separate continent.

The day progressed with a lesson in diction, whereupon Snape left her in the Library with a phonograph and a record of 'Australian Accents for Dummies' charmed to play on repeat until he'd come to relieve her for dinner. By the time he'd emerged from the lab, she'd resolved not to ask just where the food was coming from, as she was positive that neither of them had prepared it. She strongly suspected House-Elf involvement, but she couldn't bear to part with the last shred of denial. Dinner tasted faintly of garlic and hypocrisy.

She blushed crimson when "Please pass the salt," came out "Plase paess the sault," but Snape bestowed one of his rare smiles.

Then he said, "I wasn't positive about that method, but the results are startling. Hmm. Speaking like a true Aussie and it's only the first day. Your powers of regurgitation are startling," thereby ruining the effect.

The look she shot him with was positively frosty. "Do please excuse me," she sounded out in her best impersonation of Eliza Doolittle's painstakingly perfect diction before rising from the table.

She made to retire to her room in a perfect icy snit. She got as far as the library-cum-sitting room door before his low, silky voice emerged from somewhere directly beside her left ear. "Just where do you think you are going?" She halted immediately and failed to suppress a shiver. Damnation! She hadn't even heard him rise from the table!

"I am tired and would like nothing better than to retire for the evening. It's been a long day," she replied evenly, inwardly marveling that she'd managed not to gasp.

"We still have work to do."

She turned to face him, as startled as he was that they stood so close. "And what, pray tell, would that involve?"

"Your hair, a shower, and a demonstration that you can shampoo and condition your mop correctly without my assistance." His eyebrows climbed steadily heavenward in perfect innocence. She turned on her heel and corrected her initial course to the stairs, murmuring afuero planto with neither hesitation nor a backward glance. Severus was left wondering why he actively sought his own torment.

Yes, he knew that he was in complete control of the proceedings. The feeling of absolute power over the infuriating siren was the only thing that nudged their ridiculous arrangement toward being bearable. Her tiny acts of rebellion--the fire and ice of her emotional responses to his demands--only served to provoke him to make further demands, to push her even harder. But in the end, she always complied with only the minimum of fuss. This, too, stroked his darker urges. None of this boded well for his sanity. It made him wonder whether she'd comply if he demanded the ultimate surrender of her.

By day, he yearned only to touch, to experience. By night, he burned to posses, to take, and to subjugate her will to his own.

He sighed heavily as the sound of running water through the pipes in the wall reached his ears. With the slow and steady pace born of reluctance, he made his way to the upper floor to join her, secretly glad that she'd chosen the relatively neutral territory of the upstairs bathroom instead of the one that connected to her own room. Before he transfigured his robes in an act of foolish wand-waving, he pulled from the inner pocket a phial of deflating drought and downed it in one go. He was determined not to have a repeat of the incident from the night before. Inwardly, he recognized his stupidity of not thinking of the solution prior to this afternoon, but he had to admit that there were other concerns on his mind. Like whether or not any of this would even prove plausible, much less come out looking like it would work as spectacularly as it was shaping up to. A lot of it had to do with her attitude and the fact that she was such an apt pupil, in any subject.

With a steady hand, he drew back the glass door and joined her in the cubicle.

The procedure went as well as he could hope for, even though she balked at the cold rinse. He was expecting her to and had strong-armed her in place and wrested the aperture from the wall before she could escape. Her shriek of torment bounded off the walls and battered at his nerves, but he did not relent until all of her hair was as icy cold as his house's pipes could provide.

He performed the warming charm on her person and provided the fluffy towel with an odd sense of tenderness when she couldn't quite disguise the tears that made her eyes luminous. Their gazes met and held while her teeth slowly gave up their chattering. He rubbed her arms through the towel as the silence stretched out between them. A wordless conversation seemed to be passing in their shared look alone, though neither of them would be able to say exactly what it was that had been conveyed.

His eyes were dark and inscrutable, his lashes nearly hooding them completely. The thought that he might kiss her seemed to come from very far away.

Her eyes were large, open and so very trusting. He wondered at the answer he saw there for a question he hadn't asked, or even thought to ask.

Neither moved for what seemed like an eternity, until she sneezed and the moment was gone.

He saw her to her bedroom door and set the silencing charms with bitter necessity.

He climbed into his own bed, secure in the knowledge that he'd have a full nights' sleep with coffee awaiting him in the morning. He counted down another day in his mental calendar, honestly surprised to have lasted even this long. Things would be easier once she was studying other languages with her tutors. He could avoid her entirely for the most of the day, ensconced in his basement lab. He would only have to see her at mealtimes and if he needed to make a change to her schedule. He felt positive he'd not have a repeat of the morning of dishabille. He made it quite clear what was acceptable and what was not.

He fell into sleep mentally cataloging his stores, coming up with enough ingredients for a week's worth of Pepper-up. He would need to make a stop into the apothecary around the same time as their trip to the seamstress for the requisitioning her new wardrobe.

****************************************************************

He was awoken some time in the night with the sense that he was not alone. The bed dipped beneath him with the weight of another person climbing atop him, careful and silent as a thief. He grabbed for his wand, but his 'guest' had the sense to immobilize him while he was still sleeping.

He panicked silently, helpless to stop whatever was about to happen. A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed him with the crashing force of a tidal wave. He pushed the wave back only through sheer force of will and opened his eyes to meet death head-on, as he'd done before. Death was nothing new.

What met his sight was unexpected to say the least. Hermione Granger straddled his supine form, flyaway caramel curls in a halo about her head. She grasped each of his wrists in a firm but gentle hold, smiling beatifically down at him. She placed both of his hands palm-down on her springy, ridiculous hair, close to the crown of her head. She drew them sensually downward, letting the natural weight of his arms set the pace of their descent. As they passed, her hair became the black silk that his rational mind knew it should be. She repeated the action over her face, familiar features disappearing under the mask of paint he was fast becoming accustomed to. Her smile was no longer the angelic one from the moment before; it too had changed. It was a lush-lipped smoldering smirk of dark promise.

He felt his cock stirring at the boldness of her actions and her naked intent. She felt it, too, for she ground down upon it even as she continued the slow glide of his palms and fingers over her collar-bone and down her breasts. She placed them finally on her hips and bent down over him, close to his face, until they were surrounded by a curtain of her inky black tresses.

"Severus," she whispered close to his ear. "Fill me."

With a groan and a push, he was fully encased inside her, bypassing blankets, night clothes, and physics all at once.

Her moan was surreal and perfect to his ears. She felt like heaven, a balm to his soul. Her hands cupped his face and she undulated above him as if she were a candle flame, guttering in the wind. "Severus," she whispered insistently, urgently. "Come for me."

With a shout he bolted awake, fighting his way out of his comforter, disoriented and confused and not at all happy about the mess in his pants. He banished the cold, sticky pool with his wand (which was beneath his pillow, right where it should be) and summoned a phial of Dreamless Sleep.

Before he found his way into merciful oblivion, he added the brewing of more of the potion to his mental to-do list.

A/N: I know, I'm simply ghastly at updating. But, for those who wished for another chappy, here it is. You know I'm making this all up as I go along... but it feels like this one will be coming soon to a close.