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"Well?" she asked, and raised her arms and did a little turn on the spot.
"Well, what?" he repeated back at her stubbornly, as if he didn't know what the word meant.
Hermione shot him a long-suffering look, "Don't play dense, Severus. How do I look?"
Snape's face made a strange movement, as though after all this time he still found it hard to show his emotions. Well - after all this time he still did find it hard. But his eyes grew darkly gentle as he watched her, and he murmured low, "Enchanting."
"Ah," she whispered, and smiled knowingly.
*
She'd come to him, so many months ago now, on an Autumn's night; that first night. Simply appeared at his door long after witching hour had been and gone, and when he'd opened it, she'd just walked in. Severus had gotten angry and told her she was supposed to be in bed somewhere, and she'd agreed and said, "Yours."
It was the first time he could ever remember having been truly speechless in front of a student before. But of course she wasn't his student by then. She was an adult, his colleague, the new librarian at Hogwarts. A woman...
*
The Great Hall was lit with a thousand candles and the night sky above continued the theme with a blanket of preternaturally bright stars. Hermione paused on the threshold and her breath caught at the sight.
Severus barely saw it. He was watching the crowd watching them. He knew exactly what they saw. They saw a beautiful young witch entering the room on the arm of a wizard old enough to be her father. They saw a professor courting a lovely girl who just fourteen months ago had been his student. They saw a rumour embodied; a rumour made real.
*
Severus had already realised she was a woman, before that night. He'd realised the moment she'd returned to Hogwarts; six months away and she'd changed so much. He couldn't keep his mind off her and he despised himself for it and - even worse - he hated that she knew it. But when she'd stood there in the middle of the night in his rooms and repeated in a low warm voice, "Your bed," there'd been no way to defend himself - he'd already been vanquished. He'd already surrendered his heart; he let her wilfully conquer the rest of him.
*
Hermione smiled encouragingly and Severus led her into the Great Hall. Beneath the music he could hear the whispers as students murmured cheekily to one another and teachers exchanged coy smiles. He hadn't wanted to do it like this, go public so - publicly. But it had been her idea and in the end she'd talked him over. She always did, somehow.
He walked uncomfortably at her side.
She just glowed.
Behind them the final few guests wafted in in their finery. Then the music grew louder and the dancing began. Hermione watched the dancers, then looked at Severus uncertainly.
*
The morning after that first night he'd almost not dared wake, for fear it was a dream, and the realisation startled him. Snape had never thought of himself as the pathetically sentimental type - not for years, anyway. So he opened his eyes.
She was still there, and still real, and still in his bed; her hair spread across the pillow and her warm naked body within his reach.
She blinked sleepily beneath his perusal and smiled.
Severus found the question bubbling up inside him and he simply couldn't help it. "Why?"
She stretched languidly, "Why what?"
"Why're you here?"
*
"May I have the honour?" he asked stiffly. The light in her eyes, and the surprise, were reward enough for the fact that he was about to humiliate himself in front of the entire school. He led her to the dancers and took her in his arms – and danced. As simple as that. Hermione had never dreamt that he could - or that he would. But he did, and he smiled that private smile he reserved for her, and realised that it wasn't at all humiliating to be holding the most exquisite woman in the room and proclaiming her his.
*
"Don't you know?" she'd asked in his bed, hand running along his chest.
He breathed, and shook his head.
"And I thought you were so smart, Severus Snape. Why do you think I came back to Hogwarts? You don't think there weren't dozens of libraries begging for me? Me, Hermione Granger, friend of Harry Potter? But I chose here." Her voice, mocking him.
"Hogwarts is... it gets beneath all our skins."
"Yes..." she paused and gazed at him intently, "But not as much as you got under mine. I came back here for you."
She'd come back here for him.
*
Severus had thought it would be so awkward to be there with her in the Great Hall. They'd always feigned indifference in public. And the library was far from the dungeons - it wasn't as though they'd stumbled into each other much on accident.
But it wasn't awkward. With her in public was just like being with her alone. She didn't change, not like - not like another girl in his past had changed, depending on the company. She was still his Hermione; she still loved him.
He sat and marvelled, then leant forwards and whispered, "Be mine, Miss Granger."