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Severus is cold.
He is wet.
And if Stebbins lets in one more bloody goal, he might be liable for murder.
From his raised voice, Potter might be joining him in a cell.
Severus bobs and weaves around. He manages to catch the quaffle and force it through the far hoop. He takes a ragged breath. Why in Merlin’s name had he agreed to this?
“Way to go, Severus!”
Right. He’s here playing bloody Quidditch in a charity match against men half his age because he, like a bloody idiot, fell in love with the champion of lost causes herself, Hermione Granger. Several hands clap him on the back in congratulations. He brings his broom back around to the start.
“Way to go, Severus,” parrots Weasley with waggling eyebrows.
“Would you like me to even out your ears?”
Weasley chortles and swerves off. Knowing Hermione’s gaze is on him, Severus focuses on the game. He’s always been adequate on a broom but what serves him best is his cunning. Potter circles above him, eyes scanning for the snitch. The boy’s betrothed is on the opposing team in the supposed name of fairness; a professional Quidditch player being involved at all seems questionable, but he supposes it’s to draw in the crowds.
Stebbins lets in another goal, breaking the tie he’d just made.
Severus growls.
oOo
“And that’s the snitch! Team Morgana wins!”
Severus is the first to land his broom. Mud splatters around their feet, but fortunately the rain has stopped. He forces himself to endure the conciliatory hands and false flattery with a smile. This is a charity event after all. That and he would hate for Hermoine to think he was upset with her for asking him to do this.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the woman in question appears beside him. Her thick curls are plastered to her face though her clothes are dry. His lips twitch at the memory of her hair when he had attempted to chivalrously place an impervius on it a few years ago—her hair didn’t take to magical interference of any kind. She refused to talk to him for a week.
“You were brilliant, Severus.”
“We lost,” he says dubiously.
“Well, yes,” she admits. “But I know you did your best, but it just wasn’t enough to win—not with Stebbins as Keeper. It’s not totally his fault though, the Cleansweeps don’t hold up as well in the rain. It adds a slight drag; he should have flown higher to counteract it.”
“Since when do you know about brooms?” Potter appears behind her, eyeing her like she’s grown three heads.
“I’ve practically grown up with a whole team of Quidditch players,” she says, gesturing to Potter and the nearby redheads. “I’ve picked up things.”
“You’re Hermione Granger, of course you’ve ‘picked up things’,” he says with a grin. “I suppose I’m just surprised it’s something so… technical.”
Hermione’s cheeks turn pink. Is she embarrassed? Something protective, perhaps even a bit possessive flares in him at the sight. Potter watches her curiously for a moment, like a puzzle he can’t quite solve. Then his face changes. Incredulity softens into understanding before morphing into something knowing.
“Enjoy the match, ‘Mione,” Ginevra asks as she materializes beside her fiancé, the most annoying Weasley trailing behind her.
“It was brilliant,” Hermione says. She tenses before adding. “Your Viridian Leap was perfectly executed.”
The effect is instantaneous. Ginevra’s eyes go wide. Potter puts a hand on her arm, his eyes begging her to stay quiet. Weasley’s mouth hangs wide open. Now he’s simply offended on her behalf.
“Really! Why are you all acting like she doesn’t know a thing about Quidditch?”
“Because she doesn’t know a thing about Quidditch,” Weasley asserts, still gaping. “I mean she knows the positions and the general rules, but her eyes glaze over if you say anything more detailed than ‘I scored.’ And she’s usually too busy reading to even see you do that.”
Severus looks at Hermione. Mortification radiates from her being. Perhaps it’s the exertion from the match, but he feels exceptionally slow. Ever since this event was announced, she brought it up almost every time they talked. She spoke so intently, so intelligently about it, that he’d begun to do his own research to keep up with her. It was foolishness, truly. If their other shared interests hadn’t created a spark in her, he doubted this one would either. Still, he had to try.
“I have to go thank everyone for coming,” she squeaks into the silence.
He turns to Potter. “She doesn’t like Quidditch.”
“Er, not historically, Sir.”
“Even though most of her friends play?”
He shrugs. “She’s never gotten it.”
There are two possibilities. One, Hermione has always been knowledgeable about Quidditch and pretended not to be. Or two, she has very recently invested in Quidditch. But he cannot think of a good reason for either.
“Well, it seems like something got her locked in. Or someone,” Ginerva says musingly. She gives Severus the same knowing look that Potter had.
Finally the cauldron lights.
“Excuse me.”
Severus winds his way through the crowd, searching for Hermione. He finds her not rubbing elbows with important donors but pacing under the stadium. She’s muttering to herself. While he doesn’t try to sneak up on her, his steps are naturally silent, her external monologue loud. He catches bits and pieces of her rambling.
“… what the bloody hell was I thinking?”
“—Completely barmy to think they wouldn’t out me but—”
“—all because he said he loved Quidditch.”
“Daft. Absolutely mental. Probably thinks I’m pathetic. Or a liar. Merlin which is worse?”
“Pathetic hardly seems apt,” Severus says drily. “And hating a liar is a bit like the pot hating the kettle, is it not?”
“You’re… smiling.”
“I do that on occasion.”
“You’re not mad.”
“Am I mad that you pretended to enjoy Quidditch because you thought that I did?”
She nods faintly. Then her brow furrows. “Thought that you did? You don’t?”
“Merlin, no.”
“Then why—”
“I volunteered to play because you were desperate to have the spot filled.”
“And pretending to love it was because…?”
“I’m a lovesick dunderhead who thought perhaps the fact that you have three Quidditch players amorously linked to you might be telling of your romantic preferences and so decided it was a small price to pay for your affections.”
“For my affections,” she echoes, her voice soft with something like awe.
He nods tersely. Apparently, it is his turn for his cheeks to go pink. Hermione takes a step closer.
“Quidditch players, as a rule, aren’t my type,” she informs him. “I prefer brains over brawn, sharp wit over crass humor… It’s harder to find in those circles. However—” She steps even closer and runs her hand over the Quidditch robes he’s still wearing. “—There is something about the uniform that I find quite enjoyable.”
Her eyes flick to his lips and back up again. He smirks.
“Quite the small price to have you look at me like that.”
And then his lips claim hers in a searing kiss. Her fingers thread through his hair. He pulls her closer, one handle tangles in her curls while the other spans her lower back.
“Tell him you love innovative joke potions next,” George says from somewhere far too close. They break apart to find him leaning smugly against a post just beside the flap he’d come through. “I’ve been trying to get him onboard at the shops for ages.”