It is a fluke that Severus finds out at all. He's grading essays late into the night when he calls for one of the house elves and asks for the Gui Fei Oolong. He's never before drank it outside of his Tuesday conferences with Granger, but it provides a kick and he's not in the mood for Irish breakfast or the superior red he sometimes takes after dinner. The house elves promptly fall into abject abasement and disarray upon informing him that they do not stock that particular tea leaf.
Severus frowns. "Of course you do. You serve it every Tuesday in my office."
Roughly three thousand apologies later, Severus begins to understand that for the past nineteen months, Granger has brought the rare blend of tea with her-presumably because she brought it the first time, and he commented vaguely that it was pleasant.
Severus finds himself unable to un-know this particular fact. Nor can he change the fact that it begins to shape his other observations.
It is three days before he sees her again, and in that time he manages to pry from Minerva that she was not the only voice to recommend he be hired at the continent's test-fly of a wizarding university, as well as learn that the proper potions experts were brought into Mungo's purely at her behest. By the time she walks into his office for their weekly meeting, he is incensed. "Did you think I would owe you, Ms. Granger?"
To her credit, she pauses at the question and thinks. She does not pretend ignorance. "My title is doctor, Professor, which you well know, and no."
She does not continue.
"That is not an answer."
"It is to the question you asked," she tells him.
He swallows. "Doc-Hermione." He does not permit a smile when she blinks, although it is close. "Why?"
Her smile is sad, wise, but not defeated. "We all have a little bit of a hopeless romantic in us, I suppose."
Severus does not remember when he last felt hope, or when he ever thought she might know what hopelessness was. He asks, "Did you bring the tea?"
Severus frowns. "Of course you do. You serve it every Tuesday in my office."
Roughly three thousand apologies later, Severus begins to understand that for the past nineteen months, Granger has brought the rare blend of tea with her-presumably because she brought it the first time, and he commented vaguely that it was pleasant.
Severus finds himself unable to un-know this particular fact. Nor can he change the fact that it begins to shape his other observations.
It is three days before he sees her again, and in that time he manages to pry from Minerva that she was not the only voice to recommend he be hired at the continent's test-fly of a wizarding university, as well as learn that the proper potions experts were brought into Mungo's purely at her behest. By the time she walks into his office for their weekly meeting, he is incensed. "Did you think I would owe you, Ms. Granger?"
To her credit, she pauses at the question and thinks. She does not pretend ignorance. "My title is doctor, Professor, which you well know, and no."
She does not continue.
"That is not an answer."
"It is to the question you asked," she tells him.
He swallows. "Doc-Hermione." He does not permit a smile when she blinks, although it is close. "Why?"
Her smile is sad, wise, but not defeated. "We all have a little bit of a hopeless romantic in us, I suppose."
Severus does not remember when he last felt hope, or when he ever thought she might know what hopelessness was. He asks, "Did you bring the tea?"
She has. Of course she has.
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This is perfect. Thank you so so much.
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