Completed Fics | Random | Help | Search | Log In | |
    | |
| Harry Potter | |
Love's Little Instruction Book by melisande88 [Reviews - 35] [3887
hits]  |
|
Love's Little Instruction Book
A/N: This is all Village Mystic's fault. She got me started thinking when I really should have been finishing up The Highwayman, so you can blame her. It's a longish one-shot. In the disc player all afternoon as I wrote--Vertigo, by Jump, Little Children and O, by Damien Rice. If you're looking for poetry in music, two of the best examples I know. The fic below contains my foolish haikus...please, no flames, I know they're bad. But I'd love to hear what else you have to say about this fic, so please review if you are so inclined! :-) Thanks, --Meli
The sun was strong, the sky was clear, the sea-breeze blew towards the land and lifted a few stray tendrils of bushy brown hair from Hermione Granger's slender neck. The rest was confined in a fat braid that hung halfway down her back. She wandered slowly down the High Street of Penzance, on holiday, heading for nowhere in particular. A string bag filled with ripe fruit and fragrant muggle cheeses and a crusty baguette loaf dangled from her shoulder. Dinner for later, to be enjoyed in the window seat of her bed and breakfast room overlooking the ocean.
It was wonderful to have a week away from Newton, Newton, Newton, Newton and Granger, the Arithmancy firm she had joined not long after the War. She had rapidly risen in the ranks of the firm, and now, at age twenty-seven, had been a full partner for two years. The most difficult part of the whole process had been the issue of the firm's sign. For hundreds of years the firm had been simply Newton, Newton, Newton, and Newton; sometimes just Newton, Newton, and Newton; or--well, the name repeated for as many Newtons as were currently partners.
The Newtons counted among their ancestors the amazing Isaac, he of the calculus and the enlightening apple. While Sir Isaac was not generally known as a wizard, one of his close relatives had invented Arithmancy. But it appeared that the Newtons were gradually thinning as an Arithmancy family, with no new blood in the current generation. The only Newton scion in the last fifty years had broken with family tradition and opened a Quidditch supply shop in Hogsmeade. Hence the addition of Hermione Granger into the once strictly Newtonian mix. They had even tried to adopt her so they could change her name, but Hermione just laughed at the old codgers and hinted strongly that they could add her name to their sign or she would add it to an entirely new one of her own. Scandalized, after three months of querulous quibbling, the firm added her name to the sign. At the end, naturally.
For several blocks now, she had been following a man with a most interesting silhouette. He was tall, with longish dark hair drawn back and captured at the nape of his neck by a few wraps of leather thong. She thought she could see the glint of a silver earring in one ear. His long legs were clothed in slim black jeans, his feet shod in what looked like snakeskin boots. She decided they must be comfortable despite the rather narrowly pointed toes, for he appeared to have been walking a long time. Over his shoulder he carried a small rucksack. His black long-sleeved shirt was silk; she knew that when the first breeze rippled it. Nothing else moved in quite the way silk did.
She was casually curious to get a glimpse of the front of the man, or his profile. For now, it was pleasant enough to follow behind and enjoy his slow, meandering stroll in the slim-fitting jeans. He had style. He had a panther's grace and economy of movement. He had broad shoulders that angled to a trim waist. He had a truly fine arse.
Her attention was captured by an escaping poodle coming directly at her dragging its leash, followed by three shrieking children. She stepped to the side to avoid collisions. When she looked back at the man, he had disappeared. She sighed. A disappointment; but taken all in all, it had been a tasty view for a time and a welcome part of her holiday.
And even more pleasant, perhaps...she was standing two doors down from a second hand bookshop. Time to indulge in another of her hobbies, browsing for old books. On very rare occasions, she even found wizarding books sprinkled into the melange. It was fun to spot them as they twinkled faintly like distant stars from the stacks of the most crowded and disorganized bookshops.
She pushed open the door and went inside.
The dry, dusty, moldy smell of old books met her. She inhaled deeply. The smell meant many things to her: knowledge, leisure, safety, pleasure, escape, solitude, company, home. The bookshop's proprietor kindly stashed her string bag in a cubby behind his counter so she could browse with free hands. She wandered into the stacks and was lost immediately.
Nearly an hour later, at the back of the extensive poetry section, a glimmer from a high shelf at the end of an aisle caught her eye. It looked promising. She moved quickly towards it, her hand reaching, and collided with another hand, reaching for the same book from the other end of the aisle, where she had seen no one a moment before. The hand belonged to a pale arm, garbed in black silk rolled up to just below the elbow. They both took hold of the slim volume and lifted it down.
"Miss Granger." An intonation of pleased surprise.
There was no mistaking that arched eyebrow and sharp, hooked nose. "P-professor Snape!"
Then, simultaneously they said, "What are you doing here in Penzance?"
Hermione was not quite over her shock--and there was more to come. Her brain took inventory as she looked him over. Silver earring (a snake, clasping its tail in its mouth). Hair drawn back and tied with leather. Black silk shirt. Black jeans. And snakeskin boots. And something completely new: a most becoming full beard and mustache, closely trimmed, attractively shot with silver.
She had been following a very dishy Severus Snape and admiring his arse for blocks. This discovery required a major adjustment to her perceptions.
For his part, Severus was looking down at a lightly tanned, relaxed Hermione Granger, dressed in a soft pink sun dress and brown sandals here at the vintage side of the summer. Her foaming hair was curtailed, tamed into a tight rope of a braid. Her legs were bare, as were her shoulders. Her brown eyes were as he remembered them, full of both light and shadow.
He had last seen her just days before the final battle that ended the War, volunteering at St. Mungo's, caring for orphaned children until new wizard family homes could be found for them. He remembered her standing in a pack of perhaps fifteen four- through seven-year-olds in the St. Mungo's courtyard, milling like puppies at her feet, all wanting to hold her hand or be hugged by her. She was teaching them defenses against the dark arts--children, too young even to handle wands, needing that sort of instruction. It had made his stomach churn.
Even though the War had taken a terrible toll on those she loved, he had seen the serenity and security she transmitted to the little demons with the touch of her hands, her smile, her gaze, her voice. Astonishing. It had hurt his heart to watch her, knowing that her parents were dead, along with Ron and Neville, Lavender and many other Gryffindors of her year at Hogwarts. She had so much tenderness to spare for others, yet no one had any to spare for Hermione herself. He had turned away, wishing fiercely for the capacity for such tenderness himself, knowing he could not give it to her even though he wanted to, not while he was still so enmeshed in the War, still a spy, still a soldier, still an assassin for the Light.
She spoke now. "I'm on holiday. You?" It seemed so strange to be standing in a bookshop, miles from anywhere she might have expected to encounter her former Potions Master, talking pleasantly with him. She was still adjusting to this new image of him; it was as though her internal compass was spinning wildly. He was supposed to be dark, greasy, angry, bitter, dressed in school robes.
"The same."
They smiled at each other, still holding the book between them.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Years. I last heard news of you when you were made a partner in that firm of yours--Newton, Newton, Newton...what have you...and they added your name to the list. The Daily Prophet was very excited by such a flagrant break with a centuries-old tradition."
"I remember that very well. Rita Skeeter was horrified to find it was me she had to write about. I've not been her favorite person for a long time, since that summer she lived as a bug in a jar in my room. What have you been doing since--" she broke off and the faintest of frowns fled across her brow. Since the War, since you and Harry and the Members of the Order broke the backs of the Death-Eaters, since you stood across a courtyard and looked at me standing with other people's children, with a look of terrible longing on your face. What was it you wanted from me then? "--since I last saw you? Are you still teaching at Hogwarts?" Then she answered her own question. "No, you must not be--it's almost term time, yet you're on holiday. You would be doing class prep."
"After the War, there was no need for me to remain at Hogwarts. I was no longer a double agent. I have been doing Potions research at my home laboratory in the Hebrides." A brief smirk quirked his lips and for a moment Hermione saw the man she remembered, but he was quickly gone again. "It's a living..."
"One that you enjoy...?"
"Very much, actually." He looked down at the book between them. "Matsuo's masterpiece, The Amorous Arts: Poems and Potions from Japan. I never thought to see another copy, it's so rare. And to find it here, of all places..."
"All I saw was the twinkle--I knew it was a wizarding text of some sort. May I see it?"
"I don't quite think I can let go of it," he said honestly. "I've been searching for it for many, many years. The only other copy I know of was in the Malfoy library, destroyed in the War. I never had a chance to peruse it; Lucius kept it under ward." The long fingers of one hand brushed lovingly across the cover, touching the tips of Hermione's fingers as she also held the book. She flinched, barely noticeably, but enough so that he wondered if she had felt the tiny spark that he had felt. It was a powerful book, one that he was cautious of, but he was fairly trembling to purchase it, whatever the price. He had heard it said that the poetry alone could stand the world on its end, and the potions that went with each poem were legendary. Love poetry, love potions, the real thing, not a farcical lust potion meant for a night or a week or a month of questionable and temporary commitment.
"Will you show it to me sometime?" she asked, releasing the book. "You've made me terribly curious."
He tipped his head to the side. "What are your plans for the afternoon?" Snape, Snape, what are you doing--
"Well...nothing particular, really...I'd bought some fruit and cheese and bread for dinner later, but I could be convinced to share them. Mangoes and cheddar for poetry, perhaps?" Is that me, talking like that to this man, the terror of all Hogwarts?
"Wine, as well?" Pushy, very pushy, Snape. Don't be stupid, you'll scare her off. You terrorized her for years, ten minutes of pleasantries won't change that any time soon.
"I'm not much of a connoisseur, actually, though I like a nice white now and then."
"I'll supply the wine, then. And I know just the place to go. There's an island, not far from here--"
"St. Michael's Mount?"
"You know it, then?"
"I've been there twice already this holiday."
"My favorite place here. There are three twisted oaks, with a large flat rock between them, nicely private--" he stopped as she gasped.
"OH! That must have been you. Two days ago, the thunderstorm--some fool--" she stopped, flushing. "You, the fool, I suppose I mean, I'm sorry, I'm saying this all wrong--"
He laughed. "I was watching the storm come in. I'm sure it was dangerous--there was lightning, but I could not resist. All that power, that fury, the wind, the noise. Glorious. Where were you?"
"At the pub up the road. Staying dry. Watching through the window like the civilized Muggle-born that I am."
"Still practical Miss Granger, I see."
"Whereas you're so very, very different." She hadn't meant to say it aloud, but it was true.
He looked down at the book. "Yes, my life has changed. Come, Miss Granger--or may I presume upon our longtime acquaintance and call you Hermione?" He offered his arm.
"Yes, of course."
"And I am Severus."
"Severus." She tried it out; awkward for her, but pleasant. It might be hard not to call him Professor or sir, but she would try. She put her hand through his elbow and followed him to the register.
Severus apparated them to his favorite spot on St. Michael's Mount, only a few hundred meters offshore from Marazion, Cornwall. He landed them at the very edge of the flat rock amongst the oaks, where the cliff fell away to the surf below. Hermione secretly thought he might have done it purposely, because when she stepped back from the edge, heart pounding, and clutched at his waist to steady herself, she felt the soundless reverberations of laughter in his chest. It was certainly a dramatic entrance, and she was not immediately inclined to release him. It was breathlessly exciting, standing at the edge of the world with the wind blowing strongly against them, bringing water to her eyes, her dress fluttering hard behind them, his arm at her shoulders clasping her to his side. He was still a risk-taker, she saw, and she was still safety-conscious Hermione. Suddenly she did not want to be safe.
When she shivered at her thoughts, he looked down at her. "Chilled? It will be warmer just a few steps back, away from the edge."
And it was. The sun beat down and there was no breeze. The tree closest to the edge was bent upslope like a bonsai by years of steady wind, but the two further back were more sheltered and only a little twisted. She transfigured a pocket hanky into a picnic blanket for the two of them, and they sat, each at a corner with the meal and the book between them.
Hermione did the honors of preparing the light meal. Severus watched her hands in the simple motions of slicing, peeling, paring. Muggles wasted such a lot of effort on these mundane tasks, but he had to admit it was soothing to watch, even as he wondered why she was not using her wand to do the food preparations. Severus opened the book to the first poem. His brows drew together. The very first haiku appeared to be aimed directly at him. He wasn't sure he quite dared to share the book with her; he could feel tremors of power through his fingers.
a whisper of hope
speaks softly, gathering strength
where darkness once walked
The accompanying potion was a recipe for honeyed chamomile tea with linden flowers and mint, conducive to sleep and rest. How very simple, how charming.
"Is it the book you thought?" she asked. He nodded. She passed him a plate transfigured from an oak leaf, filled with peeled and sliced apple, and grapes separated from their stems rolling merrily amongst the bits of cheddar and slices of bread.
"No mangoes?" he asked, looking down, smiling slightly.
"Dessert. They're so messy when they're this ripe, you almost need to eat them in the bathtub. I thought we'd let them wait until last. You don't want to get your new book sticky."
"Practical."
"Please don't say that, at least for today. Today I should be impractical."
His gaze flicked up to meet hers. She was popping a grape in her mouth with a bite of the cheese. He wished he hadn't looked up quite then; the pout on her lips to take the grape in was nothing short of devastating to him. He was glad they were sitting apart. "Sorry," he said. "Habit." He built a small stack of bread and cheese, topped with an apple slice. Delicious. Muggles certainly knew what they were doing with food, even if it was too labor-intensive.
"Will you read me the first poem?"
"Let me open the wine first." He was not sure why he was holding back about the poem, but it had affected him strongly.
"We forgot glasses," she said. "And I see nothing useful from which to transfigure them."
"Will you mind sharing from the bottle with me, then?"
It was her turn to meet his gaze and be similarly affected. The thought of putting her lips where his had been made her blood warm. Her look drifted down to his mouth, sensual and soft in contrast to the dark, otter sleekness of his beard. She swallowed. "I suppose not." She looked down at her plate.
He pointed his wand at the cork and it flew out of the bottle and over the cliff. Hermione could not watch it fall; it was too much like what was happening to her heart as she sat here with this altogether new Snape.
When he finished chewing, he took a swallow of wine and grasped his courage firmly. It is only poetry, after all. He read the haiku to her and saw her close her eyes. He read the recipe for the linden tea as well.
"Beautiful, " she said, but she did not look at him. She picked at a slice of bread. "So simple but so deep."
"So it speaks to you as well?" He was unaccountably anxious for her answer.
"My life was dark for so long," she said. "It's only in the last year that I feel like the light has begun to return."
"You were a light for so many, Hermione."
She pressed her palms to her eyes. "Oh, Severus. But they are nearly all gone, killed in the War." Her mouth trembled and he knew he had made her cry. Stupid, stupid! The git in you just won't die, will it? Still, he could not remain silent.
"Not the children. They live."
She drew a shaky breath and controlled herself, scrubbing at her wet lashes like a child. "Please, read me the next one. I despise when I get all sloppy like this. At least it doesn't happen so often any more."
He turned the page.
this day brings new light
look now, dark eyes unveiling
purest of gazes
The potion that accompanied it was for clear-mindedness, a draft of spring water flavored with lemon balm and sassafras. Severus frowned; not strictly a potion, more a tisane. But perhaps three hundred years ago in Japan it had seemed different to Matsuo, or perhaps Severus was just more rigid in his definitions. When he looked up at her to see what she thought, he found himself looking directly into those brown eyes, seeing the shadows, the light. He could not think, he could only gaze. Black eyes looked into brown eyes looked back into black eyes, endlessly repeating, like two mirrors facing. Her lashes had clumped together, spikily, making her look very young. Her pupils were small in the bright light, but as he continued to gaze, they widened slowly. His fingers curled tightly into his palm. Oh, to touch those wet lashes, the tear streak on her cheek.
He broke the contact first, looking back at the book. "Should I continue?" he asked.
"Please." She reached for the wine bottle. He watched, unable to help himself, knowing his own lips had just been there. A kiss from me, to you.
She sliced more cheddar and put it on his plate, sliding it within easy reach. Is it only me, or does the book seem to be speaking directly to us both?
a soul in need sighs
my thoughts turn towards the sun
to feed on the light
"Light, again?" said Hermione. "And the potion?"
"Quite unusual. Extract of spruce, tincture of amber, green sap. It is called a growing draft, to encourage confidences."
"As in confiding? Or as in self-confidence?"
"I believe the former." He had finished his light meal, and took more swallows of wine. He passed his plate to Hermione, who sailed it over the cliff, pointing her wand at it. It became a gull feather, drifting downward slowly, riding thermals and winds at the edge. "You do have a knack for Transfiguration," he said. "For an Arithmantic bean-counter, that is." A smile touched his lips, and she responded.
She tossed her own empty plate up in the air. It came down a penny, spinning in front of him on the blanket until he put out his hand to stop it. "Penny for your thoughts, or perhaps a confidence or two," she teased. When he lifted his hand, the oak leaf remained--the penny had gone.
"Not worth quite so much as I thought, I see. Well, Hermione, for the price of an oak leaf, I will say I am thinking about how much I am enjoying this afternoon." He tucked the oak leaf into his shirt pocket for safe-keeping. "A confidence from you, in return? I have a question, but perhaps you will not want to answer it."
"Try me."
"As your teacher, it was incumbent upon me to maintain discipline in my classes. Have you any unhappy memories of that?" Tell me you forgive me my past cruelties to you and your friends.
"I used to think so," she said. "But then came the War, and I learned true misery. Any slights I might have felt in your classes paled in comparison. Never being called upon when I had the right answer wasn't important anymore. And in giving us a common enemy--yourself--to despise, you taught us unity. A unity we later needed against the Death-Eaters."
So she has thought of me in the intervening years, with kindness, with maturity. He breathed deeply.
"Please, go on," she said, gesturing to the book.
He turned the page. A beautifully illuminated page this time. "Look, such incredible calligraphy," he said. Hermione set the remains of lunch aside and shifted closer so she could see. She brought the wine bottle with her, setting it in front of the two of them after a long swallow. She imagined she could taste him, his lips, on the rim. Silly girl, you're not a teenager. Stop this nonsense.
"I like the designs around the border," she said. They were hands, large and small, touching at the tips of the fingers. She frowned. The smaller hands looked very like her own, square and capable with broad palms, and the larger hands...well, they could have belonged to Severus, so faithful was the reproduction of knuckle, bone and sinew. It was a wizarding book, after all; she should expect oddities.
They read the poem aloud together:
hand touches to hand
interwoven, sweet contact,
sure of its welcome
The potion was meant to enhance the sense of touch, a mixture of menthol, clove, and sweet almond oil. Hermione laughed softly. "That sounds more like a recipe for massage oil," she said.
Severus said nothing, but he could see how close her right hand was, resting on her bent knee as she sat cross legged beside him. Did he dare? He found that he did, and the thrill that went through him as he slid his own hand close to hers, only close enough for their smallest fingers to lie next to one another, barely touching, was astonishing in the extreme. He moved his knee so that it also touched her.
She tilted her head, looking at him sideways a little. "Sure of your welcome?" she whispered.
"Not exactly," he said. His voice felt shaky.
"Don't be afraid to touch me," she said. He saw that she had bitten her lower lip and was staring down at their hands again. She moved her hand above his and had to draw a quick breath as his hand turned palm up and abruptly laced their fingers together, as deeply and tightly as possible. His grip was strong and warm.
"I feel like I'm sixteen again," she admitted to him, softly. "Scared, but in a good way, a shivery way."
"Do I frighten you?" Of course you do, Snape.
"No, I frighten me."
"Why?"
"If I tell you, you must promise not to laugh."
He considered a moment too long. Hermione squeezed his hand sharply. "Severus!"
"I will try. But I have this problem, there is a smile inside me just now, I cannot make it leave."
"I...think...that this book is...is reading us, not the other way round." There, I said it. Now he'll think I'm an idiot, and that will be the end of anything further, which is a shame because this is so wonderful... "I see our hands, yours and mine, in the border of this page."
"So do I." He did not laugh after all. If anything, he held her hand tighter. "I think when I turn the page this time, we will be instructed how to kiss."
She looked into his eyes. "Then I think you should turn the page," she said, softly, holding his gaze.
"I don't know that I need a book to tell me how or when to kiss you," he objected. Once again she saw a flash of the old Snape, in the sternness of his brows and the tightening of his mouth, but it was directed at such an un-Snapely topic that she had to smile.
"You tell me how, then," she said, feeling brave, feeling exhilarated, feeling nervous.
"Kisses should be shown, not exhaustively described like the steps for brewing a potion." He released her hand and fished the oak leaf out of his pocket, tucking it into the book to mark his place, and closed the book. He set it aside.
Hermione felt her heart begin to race. She watched his profile and knew he was as nervous as she. His head swung towards hers, his upper body leaned in, and a moment later his lips softly kissed her cheek. She felt the brush of his beard and the quick rush of his breath, then he moved away and got to his feet. He went to the edge of the rock and stood looking down at the sea, jamming his hands in his back pockets.
Was that it, then? She was not sure what had just happened or how to react. Probably she had been too forward. Perhaps the years as student and teacher were too much for him to set aside so quickly. For her part, she was more than willing to relegate those years to memory, and begin fresh with this appealing new Snape.
"I do not want to rush you," he said, turning to face her after several long moments. "But I would like to show you my home, Hermione. Will you come with me to the Hebrides?"
She had not expected this development, but felt a tremendous sense of relief. "Yes."
He gave her a hand up and together they gathered the remains of the picnic, putting everything into the string bag except the book, which he gave to her to hold. He put both arms around her and said sonorously, "Apparo Snape Refuge."
The wind here was different, cooler, wet. The sky was not blue, but a high, pearl grey. Thin clouds scudded overhead. Once again they were looking at the Atlantic to the west of them. Snape had landed them on a rocky beach, where the waves were washing ashore a scant meter from their feet. He turned them both inland and pointed to a crag.
"My home," he said. Hermione could see the glint of window glass and the shimmer of glamour, but other than that she might have been looking at a stone headland. Well-concealed from Muggle eyes with spells, she thought. How like the Snape she remembered, to live somewhere so remote and Spartan.
He apparated them again, this time landing on a stone terrace, and led her into his house, holding her hand, fingers laced.
Naturally he showed her his Potions Dungeon first. It was, after all, the most important room in the place. He watched as she prowled his workshop, trailing fingers on the granite lab tables, approving of the neat racks of supplies.
"I like it," she said. "Especially the view." She nodded towards the large window that looked out over the ocean. "Do you watch the storms from here?"
"When I am working," he said. "There is a better view upstairs, which I will show you later if you like."
She looked curiously at the one anomalous item in the room, a long chaise lounge upholstered in green velvet. He saw the question forming on her mildly frowning brow.
"I'm sure you recall that some potions can take a very long time to brew and many require rest periods with occasional stirring. I can sleep here when I am working on such as that."
She nodded. It seemed quite practical. She imagined him lounging there, reading his books, making his careful notes, napping beneath the soft black woolen throw. She imagined herself as well, bending to softly kiss him awake. Stop that.
Severus took her hand again and led her up a second flight of stairs, which emerged in a small, windowless kitchen. This room was quite snug for a cave, Hermione thought. A small fire burned in the fireplace.
"Your hand is cold," he said. He put tea to brew for them both. While it steeped he showed her the great room, with yet another fireplace and comfortable furniture, each seat with a good reading lamp. The back wall was nothing but book cases from floor to ceiling. Hermione drifted that way, drawn as if by a magnet, but he tugged her back.
"Not yet," he said. "I don't want to lose you in my collection. There will be time later for you to browse to your little bookwormish heart's content." Off the great room was a monstrous bathroom. "It is a copy of the one in my quarters at Hogwarts," he said. "With a few improvements, although the tub is a little smaller."
Hermione's eyebrows rose. "The tub in Hogwarts is larger than this? How on earth was there room?" For this tub could have comfortably accommodated her entire class of Gryffindors, the thought.
"Magic," he shrugged.
There was only one room left to show her, and now, looking at her tousled pinkness in his cool stone home, he was wondering how he had ever thought his Potions Dungeon was the most important room in the house. Delaying, he led her back to the kitchen and poured her tea. He took the string bag away from her and set it on the kitchen table. She slipped Matsuo's book into the patch pocket of her dress and cupped her mug in both hands.
"You were going to show me the room where you watch your storms," she reminded him quietly. She thought she knew which room it was: his bedroom. She could easily imagine him sitting up in bed, thrilling to the ferocity of a whirling Atlantic behemoth coming violently ashore.
"So I was," he said. "Hermione, I--" He stopped, not sure any longer what he meant to say.
She set down her mug and took his own away from him. "Is it up that staircase off the great room?"
"Yes." Severus followed her as if he were in a trance. Hermione Granger, leading him up a stone staircase to his bedroom, holding tight to his hand as if she would never let it go. He was seventeen again, young and vulnerable, longing desperately for a little tenderness, a little closeness, a little love. In his mind's eye she stood in the courtyard at St. Mungo's, sunlight on her hair, children about her, but her eyes were looking only at him. In a moment she would run to him and be enfolded in his arms, she would whisper how much she loved him, and he would do the same.
A few steps from the top of the stairs she stopped, turning to face him as he stood two risers down. He tipped his face up a little to look at her. His eyes were on a level with her mouth, and his gaze would not lift further than that soft pinkness.
"Before I invade the holy of holies and make disparaging comments about the size of your laundry pile," she said, "is there anything else I should know?"
Bless her for understanding and breaking the ice, he thought. He smiled, and as he did so she bent her head and kissed his mouth.
It was like a dam bursting inside him. His arms went convulsively around her, holding her hard against him. He heard himself gasping her name against her mouth.
Hermione had not expected to find such passion in such a controlled man. She had not expected to find herself trembling so hard. Her fingers moved to cup his head. When his tongue swept inside her mouth she staggered against him and pulled her mouth away.
"I will fall if you do that again," she gasped.
"I must, however," he warned her shakily. "That, and more, Hermione, unless you tell me here and now you do not want me."
"I would be lying," she whispered.
He groaned and swept her up into his arms, reaching the top of the staircase in two strides.
Her primary impression of the room, in the brief glances she had before they were on his large bed, kissing fervently and struggling hurriedly out of their clothing, was that he slept in the lantern room of a lighthouse. It seemed there was nothing but glass around them; they were floating in the sky, the sea before and the land behind. His round bed was in the center of the room and had no definite foot or head so that he could watch in all directions.
He paused only once, as he was lying between her legs, raised on extended arms above her. He was poised at her entrance. "I am rushing you," he whispered. "Tell me to stop and I will."
"If you stop now I will never forgive you," she said firmly, reaching between them to guide him home. With another groan he complied. She was warm, and wet, and so soft around him. As he pushed as deeply as he thought possible, her legs wrapped around him, lifting her pelvis, and pushed him deeper still. Her fingers unwrapped the thong around his hair and then threaded through the dark locks so that they fell around his face. She touched his beard and mouth in wonder. He was beautiful.
She looked into his eyes as he moved within her, watching as the concern over rushing her into bed was replaced by the glazing of desire. Her entire world narrowed down to his face, framed in the cavern of his hair, and the skin she could feel under her fingers on his back, and the melting center of her where they were joined. She could not look away; she could not close her eyes; she could hardly blink. He curved his lower back so that she was stroked in the most sensual way imaginable, and she felt herself splintering in pleasure.
Severus dropped his head to kiss her as she came, his tongue emulating the rhythm of their bodies, and was gratified when she dueled with him, biting gently, sucking hard. Only after the last of her shudders died away did he increase the pace of his thrusting, pulling away from the drugging sweetness of her lips to breathe raggedly in her ear, "Hermione, Hermione, how much time have we lost, not knowing?"
"Years," she responded, pressing her hands to the small of his back, sensing his end approaching in the tightening of his body and a new, more desperate rhythm. "But the waiting is over now."
"Yes," he replied, "yes." And dissolved in her, rendered speechless for long minutes, held close in her arms, pressing shaken and moist kisses to her neck and shoulders.
Afterwards she retrieved the book from the pocket of her dress, somewhere else on the bed. He nestled behind her to support her back as she opened the book to their place.
"Read it to me," he said. "I cannot see past your shoulder." His fingers were slowly unplaiting her hair. He wanted to see it loose, he wanted to thread his hands through it, he wanted it to fall on him from above as they made love again, but that could wait a little time.
She murmured,
the passage of time
from two halves one whole creates
emptiness has filled
The potion was a mixture of honey and cinnamon and wine, for peacefulness.
"And the next one?" he asked. He buried his face in her loosened hair. His breath tickled her ear, making her shiver and lift a shoulder in response.
She turned the page. "There is not a next one, the page is blank."
"What?" He pulled her hair to the side and ceased his nuzzling to look.
"It's blank." She thumbed to the back of the book. All of the pages after that last haiku were blank. Curious, she turned back to the beginning. Those pages were blank as well.
"Have we read the ink right off the pages?" he asked. His hands found her breasts and cupped their round weight, rolling the nipples between thumb and forefinger. She leaned back against him, stretching under his hands.
"You will make me purr," she threatened softly. "Here is what I think. I think the book has done its work for us. I think there will be no more poetry, no more potions." She turned back to the last poem, and together they watched it fade from the page. She removed the oak leaf and closed the book before turning to face him and push him gently backwards onto the mattress.
"I told you I didn't need a book to tell me how or when to kiss you," Severus said to her now, loosening her hair.
"Apparently not," she whispered. "Tell me one thing, Severus."
"Anything."
"Do you remember, years ago, before the final battle of the War--you came to St. Mungo's."
"Yes." He knew what was coming, but now it was all right. She had a right to know his thoughts, now.
"You looked at me that day, with such a terrible expression. What were you thinking? What did you see when you looked at me?"
"I saw a woman who needed comfort and tenderness, and no one to give it to her, not even myself. I have regretted that for years."
"Oh," she whispered, tears starting. "Oh."
"But that is all past, now." His thumbs brushed away the two tears that spilled over her lashes. Don't cry, my love. He thought it first, then he said it aloud. "Don't cry, Hermione, my love."
The next day, on the way back to Penzance to gather her belongings and check out of the bed and breakfast before returning to Snape Refuge together, they made a brief stop in the small town of Tarbert, where the Muggle ferry plied the reach between Skye and the Scottish mainland. Together they secretly placed Matsuo's masterpiece high on a cluttered shelf in a second-hand bookstore. It had done its work for them; let it be shared with others. The world, at least for them, had stood on its end, and that was more than enough.
~fin~
April 7, 2004 5:10 PM
State of Washington, USA
Author's Note: