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The street buzzed with activity.
Loud chatter filled the air along with the sound of footfalls on the pathway, and the low hum of traffic as vehicles passed by the crowded alley. Chinatown in Singapore was a sharp contrast to the rest of the city, with it’s low-rise buildings and culture bursting out onto the streets; from the fragrant smells of traditional cuisine to the bold red and gold tones that run through the neighbourhood.
It really was the perfect place for a first date; especially when one’s date was someone you already knew, but had only just worked up the courage to ask to dinner.
Severus stood anxious off to the side of the entryway to the main Chinatown mall. He’d arrived early, not wanting to chance any incidents delaying him. For him there was simply too much at stake. He didn’t want to waste this opportunity.
‘Severus!’
He whipped his head around in the direction of the familiar voice cutting through the bustling street sounds. When his eyes clapped on her, his breath hitched in his throat. She was breathtaking. Her curls were loose around her shoulders and she wore a very simple, but elegant black dress with a jacket. Black pumps were on her feet, giving her a little increased height. Normally she’d be lucky to reach the bottom of his chin, but in her heels the top of her head came up to his nose. Mouth suddenly dry and palms a little clammy, he swallowed and tried to subtly dry his hands on his trousers as he stepped towards her.
When he was within reach, she raised herself up slightly and tilted her chin up to kiss his cheek in greeting, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder to steady herself. His chest was scorching from her touch, the fire concentrated beneath her palm, radiating outwards. His cheek felt as though it was aflame too. He was quietly relieved that he’d remembered to shave; it wouldn’t do to have his stubble rasp her lovely face.
‘Good evening, Hermione.’
She beamed up at him, her smile open and serene. He felt his nerves settle a little. If she didn’t want to be there, she wouldn’t have said yes, and she certainly wouldn’t have shown up.
‘Shall we go to dinner?’ Hermione asked, cutting through the slight awkwardness that had bubbled up between them. Gods, he was rubbish at this.
‘Of course,’ Severus replied, offering her his arm.
She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, her lips still curved up with an incandescent smile. He sucked in a steadying breath, glad he had finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date.
Their table at the restaurant he’d made a booking for was lovely and they had a great view from the window of the busy Chinatown street below.
Before that week, Severus has been content to simply admire Hermione from afar, so certain that she could never be interested in more than their polite, professional friendship. He remembered the first day they had become reacquainted as though it were yesterday.
After the war and his exoneration, Severus had relocated to south-east Asia, desperate to escape his old life and welcoming a fresh start. He only kept in contact with Minerva; his friend and former colleague regularly tried to entice him back to his home country. He found a position teaching Advanced Potions at the National University of Singapore. Being in such close range to many of the other Asian countries, it was the perfect role––stable enough that he needn’t look for other work, but flexible enough that he was still afforded the ability to travel.
Five years after he’d begun teaching there, the Junior professor had retired, leaving the position open. On her very first day, Hermione had breezed into the pre-term staff meeting, lilacs mixed with petrichor trailing behind her. She looked almost as surprised to see him as he was to see her, and he’d immediately become suspicious and surly, as was his habit. After he’d realised that she wasn’t the same over-eager, frustrating young woman he’d taught all those years before, Severus slowly came to realise that she was actually quite lovely. Though that presented an entirely different problem for him.
Four years, she had been working there. Four long years of pining in such a way that Severus often felt ashamed of. He’d wasted far too much of his youth pining in a similar way for an emotionally unavailable woman, and he’d felt doomed to do the same with her.
It was ridiculous, after all, to fixate on someone for so long. So Severus had tried dating other people in the hopes he would be able to get the beautiful, bold, remarkable woman out of his mind. It had all been doomed to failure.
That was, of course, until something shifted.
It had been subtle. So subtle that if he hadn’t worked with her and spent an inordinate amount of time silently observing her, he might not have realised the shift. On Monday when she’d come into the Potions department staffroom, she immediately made herself a coffee and greeted him as she always did, asking how his weekend had been. He’d told her the truth; quiet and uneventful.
And then she’d said something she’d never said before. ‘Surely you don’t spend all of your time alone on the weekend?’
‘Oh no, I have been spending quite a lot of time with a very needy female of late,’ he’d quipped with a smirk.
Her face had fallen for a split second before she quickly righted it and forced a smile into place. The light that her eyes usually held, however, was gone. ‘Oh, well that’s good to hear you aren’t on your own…’
‘Yes,’ he’d begin slowly, trying to determine what she meant by her response. Surely she wasn’t… It was pointless to assume. ‘I acquired a kitten on Friday evening— a stray out in the rain. I could find no owner over the weekend, and it appears the little troublemaker has made herself quite at home.’
‘Oh!’ Hermione had said, her eyes lighting up. He’d caught a note of relief in her voice, and his brain had gone into overdrive examining the meaning behind it.
‘You wouldn’t happen to be in the market for a cat, would you?’
Hermione had chuckled, her laugh musical. ‘I think if she is already ruling your home, she might have made the decision for herself where she is going to live.’
‘I––would you like to meet her?’ he’d asked hesitantly. ‘If you aren’t busy this weekend, I was also considering trying the new Malaysian restaurant that the food journals are abuzz over.’
The moment the words had tumbled out of his mouth, Severus had desperately wished he could take them back. His heart rate had increased to the point where it felt as though he had run a marathon. Hermione had frozen and turned around to face him, her eyes wide with surprise. His only thought, as she crossed the room to stand in front of him, was that he’d bollocksed everything up between them.
‘Alright,’ she’d told him.
‘Alright?’ he repeated, stunned.
She’d nodded firmly. ‘Yes,’ Hermione confirmed. ‘And just to be clear, so there isn’t any chance for misunderstanding later, is this a date?’
‘I––’ Severus had frozen up for a moment, entirely out of his element, before realising that she’d been waiting for his answer. ‘Yes.’
‘Alright then,’ she’d said with an enigmatic smile, walking out of the office without looking back.
Which was what had led them to that very moment, seated across from one another in a very fancy restaurant that he felt entirely out of place in. Likely because he hadn’t been on a date in nearly two years, but also because the woman he was enamoured with was there in front of him, looking so effortless and beautiful.
‘Severus?’
His eyes locked with her twinkling whiskey gaze. ‘My apologies,’ he said quickly. ‘I was lost in thought.’
‘No matter,’ she replied with a wry grin. ‘You just had me worried that I was boring you already.’
‘You could never bore me,’ Severus said, immediately flushing. His propensity to babble when he was anxious was a habit he wished he could rid himself of.
‘Good,’ she said, flipping open her menu. ‘Oh, they have so many wonderful choices. I’m going to struggle to choose.’
‘If there are several things you would like, we could order a few of them and share?’ Severus offered.
Her radiant smile told him that he’d said the right thing. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad at this after all?
Dinner had been lovely, and after a little awkwardness and fumbling, the conversation had been quite easy and illuminating.
After taking care of the bill, Severus asked Hermione if she wanted to take a walk, and the two of them swiftly made their way to an alleyway so they were obscured from view, and he Apparated them in tandem to the botanic gardens. It was beautifully lit at night and the colours of the lights were bright and varied, several vast structures giving the place a futuristic feel. It was the perfect place to walk off their meal, and gave him a little time to wrap his head around everything that had occured that evening so far.
As they walked along in companionable silence, Severus again felt uncomfortable, doing his best to push back on the feeling. At one point, their hands accidentally brushed, and he was more than a little surprised when her much smaller hand slipped into his own, their fingers twining together. He’d looked over at her in surprise, and she simply continued to smile, saying nothing.
‘Did you decide on a name for your kitten?’ she asked, breaking the silence finally.
‘Not yet,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been calling her “cat” but I suspect I will need to settle on something soon so she doesn’t become confused.’
‘Am I still invited to come over to meet her?’ she asked, almost shyly.
Severus glanced at her and saw that her cheeks had become flushed. Thus far, their date had gone better than he could have hoped for, although until that point he had been uncertain as to how she was feeling. The pink hue of her cheeks and the way that she was biting her fleshy lower lip, however, said everything he needed to know.
Taking a steadying breath, Severus came to a stop, leaning towards Hermione slowly, giving her the opportunity to withdraw if she wanted. Something flashed in her eyes, and her free hand came up to rest on his chest as she closed the distance between them and their lips met in a gentle kiss. He pulled back, a little dizzy with the rush of oxytocin flooding his brain. Her lips were so soft and perfect.
They smiled at one another before they both surged forward again, their noses bumping awkwardly until he tilted his head to the side a little as they met for a second kiss. This one was a little longer, and he released her hand so that he could capture her cheeks in his. Lips parted and tongues gently tangled, dancing against one another. When there was no spare oxygen left between them, Severus parted from her, both sucking grateful lungfuls of air in.
‘If you would still like to, I am certain the cat would be amenable for a visit,’ he murmured softly once he’d caught his breath, releasing her and taking a step back.
Her expression was beatific. ‘I would love to.’
Holding out his hand, Severus drew Hermione close to him, and the two of them made their way to a nearby grove of trees before Apparating away with a soft ‘pop’.
