“beyond wandpoint” 084 by gingerbred
“11 11x Tuesday - Unexpected Company”
Hermione 7G, Severus, Sunny (the Snapes' house elf), Slinky (the Slytherin House's chief house elf), Portrait Salazar Slytherin (Founder), Vincent 'Vince' Crabbe 7S (Beater), Luna Lovegood 6R, Portrait Phineas Nigellus Black (One-time Headmaster), Crookshanks
In which Severus wakes and wonders WTF?! Miss Granger is doing...
Originally Published: 2018-08-09 on AO3
Chapter: 084
Slinky approaches the door to the Head of Slytherin's private chambers and is about to knock when Sunny, the wretched creature, appears immediately in front of him, barring his way, of all things. The audacity! There's a bit of bad feeling between the two, even after all these years (although it may be mostly one sided) as Slinky - by far the more senior elf in service - hadn't been given Sunny's position as the Master of Potions' very own personal house elf when the most honourable Head had replaced the Slughorn. Naturally Slinky has no way of knowing what other considerations the Headmaster may have had when he made the assignment. For all his occasional bursts of independence, Sunny can be relied upon to keep Severus' secrets from anyone likely to do him harm, and that, more than anything else, had quite sensibly been the deciding criterion.
Although his name hadn't hurt.
Still, Albus could have negotiated a renaming had it come to that. He has few scruples. As was, he took it as a sign it was meant to be.
Sunny casts a silent Privacy Charm and draws himself upright, his miniature teaching robes with their buttons of jet in sharp contrast to the tea towel uniform Slinky wears. It earns the younger elf a displeased shake of the head, it's most unseemly, but at least he isn't one of those thoroughly disreputable free elves. That would be the final insult, of this Slinky is sure.
"What is Slinky wanting of Master of Potions?" Sunny challenges, pushing the grizzled elf further back from the door by advancing on him.
"I's be telling the Head hisself, I's be doing. Sunny is not needing to know."
"No!" Sunny objects, raising one of his little hands in outrage and pointing a knobbly finger at the other elf's chest. "Sunny is needing to know," he insists, poking Slinky's chest, "for the Head is not being disturbed." There's a wave of magic, strong elven magic, as Sunny suddenly opens his hand, flicking his fingers outward and Slinky finds himself blown backwards, clear of the wards that unlike the humans they both can feel quite distinctly. Faster than Slinky can shake off his surprise, Sunny rushes him, drawing himself up to every inch of his diminutive height and commanding, "No one is being disturbing the Head tonight. If you is needing help, you is telling Sunny."
At this point, that's probably the last thing Slinky is about to do, and there are a good many perfectly stupid solutions he would prefer. By elven logic, governed by some very singular rules, those extremely wanting solutions may not appear quite as stupid as they do to humans, but even things he can objectively recognise as frightfully poor solutions seem highly preferable just now.
They bicker briefly, Sunny holds his ground, he doesn't even let the other elf get close to the wards again, assuming any disturbance in the field to be more likely to wake the Master, and that's not on as Sunny sees it.
He's done his very best to get the Mistress to help the Master. The Master had needed help, that much was clear. He hadn't taken care of his wounds, after all. And the Mistress, she seemed... reluctant to... lend a hand. Not uncaring. No, not that. Mistress cares, of this Sunny is sure. Perhaps... shy... Well, the Master can be... difficult. Humans. No, they obviously needed his help, they did. They're bondmates, after all. They aren't very smart these humans, they so often fail to see what needs doing. And he won't be having some other pretentious elf coming and making a hash of things. It's out of the question.
Slinky has become more easy to frustrate in recent years, having had to accept far too many decisions he doesn't at all like, and with a huff of self-righteous elvery, and a crack far louder than need be - he can be silent when he chooses, after all - he Appartes back to the landing to tell the waiting portrait of Salazar Slytherin that the Head is still too ill from yesterday's assault to be disturbed. He's interpolating from the facts he has, and his explanation is within the realm of the probable.
He's taking liberties, obviously, but then house elves do that given a chance.
All together, it hasn't taken long, and armed with the knowledge provide by the House's chief elf, Salazar returns to his portrait in the common room. The boy quite unsurprisingly hasn't left his spot on the floor. That may have been too much to hope for.
"You. Boy."
There are only seventy students in his House, and certainly by the time they're seventh years, no matter how disinterested he is, Salazar has come to learn their names. He knows this is one of the Crabbe line - 'Vincent', if he's not mistaken, after the maternal grandfather - but he also has the impression that this particular boy has so poorly grasped what it was supposed to have meant to be a Slytherin that he refuses to acknowledge that he knows his name. That that might be a tactic should really be expected of the portrait of Salazar himself.
"Boy," he verbally prods again, and it's greeted by a moan. "I'm afraid I must disappoint you. The Head is still recovering from his injuries and is unavailable. He cannot come to your aid."
A more protracted groan answers that, followed by a weak and wheezy, "But he wasn't in the Infirmary."
Frankly, the portrait couldn't say anything to that one way or another as he hadn't thought - or perhaps cared - to ask the house elf about the Head's whereabouts. He naturally has no intention of admitting that, how absurd, just as he never lets the students know that he simply asks a house elf to do his bidding in order to fulfil their requests. He greatly prefers the impression it leaves otherwise, that he might be capable of more than the average portrait. Plainly his painters had thought him somewhat vain. A bit irksomely, it leaves the possibility open that the Baron had as well.
That's probably not altogether wrong, although 'proud' would have been closer to the mark, both in terms of the reality and the Baron's perception of it.
Still, somewhat superciliously, Salazar replies, "One needn't be in the Infirmary to be poorly. Take yourself, for example." Vince lets out something that sounds suspiciously like a death rattle, as if to make the portrait's point while simultaneously emphasising his supposed need to be brought to the facility - and soonish, if you please - but Salazar is unimpressed. Heavens know, he's seen worse. "It merely makes it more comfortable.
"I imagine."
Vince has no good reply to that, and continues his noisy struggle for breath from the floor.
"If you aren't currently in your death throes..." At that Vince does look up, his glance somewhat murderous. The portrait is unmoved, and not just because of the inferior portrait magic that prohibits much motion in this particular painting. "No, I thought not. Then I fear you'll have to wait until the morning so that someone can see to you.
"But if it's truly that bad, might I suggest levering yourself up off the floor and onto the nearest couch?" Frankly, the sight of one of their seventh years sprawling in such an undignified manner on the floor was offending his sensibilities. He can't believe the boy or one of his Housemates wouldn't know a suitable Charm - or ten - for this. Disgraceful. Just what are they teaching them these days? Some modern balderdash like Arithmancy, no doubt. Newfangled things. It will doubtless go out of fashion soon enough, just give it another couple of centuries...
Naturally, the fact the students' meetings to discuss what they should do about the seventh years having taken place in their quarters meant that the portraits weren't aware how things currently stood in the House. Experience shows, they have only to wait, and soon they'll know all. Or near as. By morning, having observed the various comings and goings and hexings and jinxings, they have a pretty good idea that the Snakes have decided the Serpents' claims warrant an... appropriate response.
And they'll also have an excellent feeling for just what that might be.
Erstwhile Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black in the group portrait hanging across from Salazar gives the order that holds their collective tongues through the night, and they never once cry out to alert the sleeping boy to his plight as his Housemates do quite the number on him. The other portraits know enough to realise Black is... sharper, more... there than the rest of them. He seems to have retained more of the wizard's own knowledge than the others have of their subjects, and acceding to his qualifications, they defer in this as in so many other points to his patently superior judgment.
It hadn't hurt, of course, that so many of them have him to thank for their extra portraits.
So if he says they should let the boys hex away, undisturbed, then naturally they shall do just that.
And by morning they're agreed, the fairy wings had been a very nice touch. Well done, indeed, by Mr. Shafiq. None of them can recall seeing that one before. But the third years really need to work on their Ear Engorging Jinx. That had gone strangely awry. Salazar (typically) blames the curriculum's excessive focus on Arithmancy, for this and so many other things, completely ignoring that it's an elective, and that on the outside any third years enrolled in the course haven't been exposed to more than a couple months of the material at the expense of anything else. But then that particular portrait isn't inclined to let details interfere with his convictions. Not when the theory was so neat.
An unintended consequence of the little game of Chinese whispers - elf to elf to portrait to boy - that took place this evening occurs when Vince is freed from the couch, healed of the worst of the Hexes and writing home tomorrow, and he mentions that Professor Snape had still been out of commission this evening, despite having stayed in the Infirmary all the previous night and much of the day. Those gathered at the Manor and present - as always, given their fugitive status - when Crabbe Sr. reads his owl, will take that as further confirmation as to just how much the bonding had taxed Snape. It would be worrisome, were they inclined to worry about the man. With few exceptions, they are not, but it certainly provides food for thought.
And if they underestimate Severus as a result, that might just prove helpful.
The movement of Hermione's hand across her bondmate's belly is arrested by a strange disturbance to their wards. A flash of panic that he could wake has her withdrawing the offending member with lightning quickness to rest at her side, although the Salve now carefully, and so thoroughly, applied to his muscular chest and her own kneeling presence beside him would probably be sufficiently inexplicable as is. Not that she should need to provide explanations; presumably he would be able to draw his own conclusions.
The man's not completely daft.
Briefly, at the back of her mind, doubts begin to gnaw at her as to what she'd been doing. So very typically, after the fact. She really needs to work on that, and promptly adds it to her mental 'to do' list. She quickly tamps those doubts down to listen instead to the wards, as the Professor had taught her to do, and believes she can identify that someone, or more likely two someones have passed, which is odd given the hour, past curfew as it is.
There had been a brief moment where she half expected a knock, she imagines that must be a question of proximity, that they'd approached the door. Yes, she thinks that seems to correspond to what the wards relayed. But then perhaps the individuals didn't even know the door was there. Most can't see it after all.
Odder still, the ripple she feels to the wards isn't... It's not like it's been before, when the students were coming and going. That feels a little as though she were on a boat, and there's a gentle wave, like from the wake of another boat, that sets it to rocking, ever so slightly. Or how she imagines bat sonar, echolocation might be physically represented.
If she's going with water, she should probably use dolphins for the analogy, and yet... Looking at her bondmate, she grins softly, almost affectionately, remembers her quip to Corner at lunch and can't help thinking, this is the dungeon bat's cavern after all.
But this... it isn't that sort of disturbance to the wards, somehow. It's softer yet. There's something fundamentally different about it that she can't define, and she finds herself wondering if perhaps this is how it might feel when the ghosts cross them, or perhaps when Mrs. Norris goes mousing. She may need to ask the Baron and Crooks to help her trial that.
She certainly won't be waking the Professor to ask.
She looks at him sleeping there, his lashes long and dark as pitch curving in a soft sweep against his pale skin and half laughs to herself at the very notion.
He's still sleeping soundly, and she's pleased to note it. Something mischievous in her asserts that he's more agreeable this way. That inner voice is more mischievous than she'd expect, and wondering just how she meant that - because Merlin knows there's something quite... agreeable in his current dishabille - she finds herself now blushing at the thought. Which doesn't make it any less true.
He seems so much more restful than before. She kneels there, just watching him for a while, and for someone eager not to be caught doing so, it's somewhat curious behaviour. But she's enjoying taking advantage of the situation (it is really, and yet she can't find it in her to blame herself for it, not at all) and appreciating the sights on offer, as it were. Had he wanted his privacy, he should have retired to his room. (And then she tries hard not to feel guilty - the Calming Draught helps - that she's encroaching on him just by sharing his quarters like this, because she's sort of tired of guilt and ultimately it's rather inconvenient.)
That stubborn strand of hair has fallen back over his face again, it really seems to have a mind of its own, and she gently tucks it behind his ear with a low, "Goodnight, Sir." As she rises, she uses a Tergeo to remove the last traces of the Salve from her hand, noting as she does so that her finger is still glowing, before wiping both hands reflexively on her jeans. Rather peculiarly, her palms seem a little clammy.
She sighs deeply as she stands there looking at him, her... husband, and with a faint smile she can't quite fathom, but luckily only half notices, she casts an Impervius on the man, the couch and the blanket that's still lying, all but forgotten, on the floor, and then bends to retrieve it. Slowly, cautiously, she spreads Madam Pomfrey's gift over the Professor's sleeping form, taking care, without waking him, to tuck him in well. Very well. Oddly, once again, the Charm for doing so seems to have completely slipped her mind.
Well, she'd only just learnt it, now hadn't she?
She sort of hopes that he's drunk enough to think he'd tucked himself in. That would probably be helpful.
And as long as she's hoping, she may as well hope he thinks he'd applied the Salve too, of course. Or perhaps that he assumes Sunny had, which is funny in as much as Sunny obviously hadn't, but his matchmaking measures had been the reason she'd thought to apply the Salve to the Professor in the first place. Not that she'll ever know that...
She's very satisfied to see that the colour she'd Transfigured the blanket now perfectly matches the throw pillow that's cradling his head, his face pale against it, his hair inky black and fanned out around him, the contrast still stark in the weak light. It was absolutely worth the extra effort she'd taken with matching the colours, getting the proper blue, she's sure. He shifts, noticeably a little more restless now that she's gone, and his bare right arm closes over the blanket, pressing it to his chest and nudging the edge up towards his face. He almost appears to snuggle into it, seeking its scent. She assumes he's attracted by the notes of lavender and forgets she'd been using it enough that it probably smells faintly of her. But then she wouldn't be able to imagine why that might be a comfort for him.
He inhales deeply and stills again, and she stands there like a numpty. Watching. Her hand wrapped around the phial at her neck as she does so, her thumb running idly over her ring. She could probably do that all night...
There's a shifting, a crackling from the fireplace, and the soft sound shakes her out of her reverie. Feeling almost as if she's been caught in some spell, she shivers, slightly, and crosses to the kitchen where she Summons a serving bowl from the open shelves by the door and places it on the island. A careful Incantation (the Charm is new to her), a few waves of her wand over the bowl, the room around her and towards her room where a certain feline lies, and she's performed the spell to collect Crooks' shed fur and deposit it there. It would seem she's Banishing it to a receptacle after all.
There's a hint of an idea that he'll see that in the morning and be pleased she kept her promise. That seems likely. Because clearly that will be the first thing he wants to see. To have this proof and unequivocally know she solved that fairly trivial problem. Priorities, after all. Hmm. He most assuredly wouldn't have a hangover or anything more pressing to think about... Well, really, as a Potions Master, he should be able to sort the hangover if he has one. Anything else would probably be weird. Or masochistic.
Still, she's looking forward to teaching him the Fur Banishing Spell tomorrow. Sort of like how he'd shown her how to 'read' the wards just yesterday. It had been... pleasant. Nice. Dare she say... fun? She'd like a little more of that.
She crosses through the lounge again on the way to her room and it occurs to her she still has his handkerchief in her pocket. She removes it, performs a Cleaning Charm, neatly folds it together into an almost perfect square and then centers it under the small jar of Scar Scarcefying Salve with a pat that seems strangely affectionate. For someone theoretically eager to have him think she had nothing at all to do with the Salve on his chest, it seems an odd choice. As no one interrogates her on it, she doesn't even notice it.
But true to his nature and with a very specific (but otherwise atypical) failure of imagination, Severus will decide that that fact, the presence of his handkerchief on the end table under the jar has nothing whatsoever to do with the application of Salve to his chest. He can be terribly myopic that way.
She pauses in her doorway, turning to look at him again. Nibbling on her lip, she silently wishes him 'sweet dreams', and then feels a little foolish before deciding it was simply polite. There's no good excuse to linger any longer, and she withdraws, but leaves her door ajar. It's another one of those things she really can't explain, or more accurately doesn't wish to try doing so, because after applying the Salve, she does have some sense of her motives. Still, if he needs something, if he calls out, she'll be able to hear. It strikes her as the responsible thing to do, ensuring she can be at hand should he need her during the night.
That thought, quite deservedly, draws a hot blush, not even the Calming Draught can stop it, because she's being completely and utterly silly. She blames it on the turmoil of the past few days. And the whole marriage thing seems to be throwing her. Somehow it seems she has at least a couple of expectations as to what that might mean that are knocking her off kilter. Not anything too... forward, no, no of course not... Well, not by and large. (So strangely, she's having slight difficulty swallowing again.) But surely they're mutually at least a little... responsible for one another, aren't they? It's only... natural that she should keep watch. How the man has survived until now without her is a total mystery.
Now in her room, she dares to chuckle softly at herself. She has no idea when she became so ridiculous. Or her judgment so compromised. She can't explain her behaviour at all. A good thing it is then that no one seems to have noticed it.
She looks at her desk with her texts tidily arranged, so tidily one might suspect a compulsion at the root of it, and there's a surge of happiness to finally have a space like that to herself. A desk of her own, where she can leave her things lying out - neatly, naturally - instead of carting her books back to her trunk every evening...
And then promptly finds herself unwilling to sit there. She's having trouble coming to rest and feels... antsy.
She hops on the bed, disturbing Crooks who 'mrawrs' at her before making himself at home in her lap. She's glad of his warmth, but of course he's well aware of that. Why else would he allow himself to be reduced to a fuzzy hot water bottle? He's not some... dog, for Bast's sake. Which isn't to say he hadn't met an agreeable dog or two in his time. Although it might be worth noting that the most agreeable exemplar had been Sirius not!dog.
Perhaps he shouldn't count.
Crooks snuggles deeper into Hermione's lap with a steady purr that helps calm her nerves, and she strokes him appreciatively as she Summons one of the texts from her desk. She flips through it briefly before Banishing it back to the desk with a sigh and Summoning the next, soon repeating the process. The fact she hasn't bothered to light more than the single sconce in itself probably reveals how little inclination she has to read just now. As far as her course work goes, she's more than caught up, there's nothing she needs to do and the more she tries to find something productive to occupy herself, the more she comes to feel there's just nothing she can do right now about anything that needs doing, and an assortment of thoughts she's been trying to avoid begin to nibble their way into her consciousness.
It had been all well and good as long as she kept busy, as long as she had things to do, things to respond to, and people around her. Alone now, in the dimly lit room, without all the distractions the day had to offer, her thoughts are beginning to encroach on her fragile peace. She's not willing to examine them closely, not just yet, but even without a closer look, intuitively she knows she really doesn't want them bouncing around her head. Not now.
She flicks her wand and lights another sconce.
Not unsurprisingly, it doesn't make much of a difference except for in lumens. Which doesn't stop her from lighting a few more.
It doesn't do the trick.
Next she Summons her beaded bag and pulls out Luna's candleholders, then rummages a moment longer to find the candles and puts the taper in one and the tea light in the other. She Banishes the one holding the taper to her desk and the tea light in its silvered turnip joins the tableau comprised of the chocolate frog and her wedding bouquet on her improvised night stand. Adding a wedding present to the mix seems... right. And Crooks doesn't mind her using his carrier for that, she's sure.
An Incendio lights both candles, and there's a momentary thrill at her control as her aim hits home, Miranda Goshawk's warning in the 'Book of Spells' about the dangers that Charm represents to one's books (or classmates, but her priorities being as they are, primarily to her books, obviously) comes to mind. The candlelight improves both the ambiance and her mood. She's smiling a little now, but still, she's restless.
Three more books follow, Summoned and then Banished. They offer no real relief. She's begun to fear she won't be able to keep those bothersome thoughts from taking over, rolling over her, overwhelming her, when she's suddenly startled out of her musings...
Severus wakes quickly, as is his habit. Which isn't to say he finds himself thinking clearly. He is not.
He recognises the effects first more than actually remembering, and then bit by bit details filter in as he begins recalling his binge from the afternoon and... evidently most of the evening. Well. That was certainly decadent. And then he recalls his motivations for indulging and decides he'd more than deserved it.
Bloody hell.
Two rounds of life threatening torture quickly pale by comparison (Merlin knows, he's been there and done that often enough) as he considers the fact he apparently married a student. Yes. That is never not shocking, he is sure, and he wonders how long he'll wake to that recollection in mortification. With his typical optimism, quite, he decides that's likely to continue for the rest of his life. Alcohol really does nothing to improve his disposition...
Considering that marriage, how could he not, something self-loathing in the back of his mind tries to make a quip about swotty Gryffindors, having a type, and that it had certainly taken him long enough to get around to it... He fails to find it even obliquely amusing and resolves to save the humour for sobriety.
Then it occurs to him in answer to that charge that he should have sat this round out as well...
Ah yes, and said student has taken up residence, which brings him back to why he woke. Someone was speaking. He turns where he lies on the couch and can see that her door is open, which he greets with some less than generous thoughts.
Well, it was damned inconsiderate, now wasn't it, for her to leave the flaming door ajar, especially if she insists on talking out loud or to that creature of hers. He's undoubtably missing that she was keeping an eye on him. She, however, had missed that Sunny generally did that quite nicely, really. But then it suits Sunny just fine that she did. He's perfectly willing to share the watch.
Next Severus tries to puzzle out how he got here to his couch. The last thing he remembers, he'd repaired to his room, was in his bathroom getting ready for bed... He has no idea how he got back out here, why he's sleeping in the lounge, or for that matter why he's not wearing a top given that winter is clearly in effect in Scotland, no matter what the calendar might say.
A suspicion as to why he may be lying there half-clothed forms, however, when he notices a tightness to his chest as he turns to look at Miss Granger's (open!) door. That tightness combined with a faint scent he recognises, and he believes he has the standard Scar Salve on him, which makes no bloody sense whatsoever. If he's going to use any at all, and admittedly he's only a moderately well behaved patient, he happens to have a much better one. He hasn't the foggiest idea why he'd have used this one.
Presumably, that's all the more reason not to imbibe in this measure...
There's a spike of panic that Miss Granger might have seen him like this, followed by a petulant 'serves her right' for invading his space as she has, and then that flash of panic becomes more of a lightning strike as he finally pays attention to the voice in the other room.
"...I worry about you, you know."
There is no question that that is not Miss Granger. No, he knows the voice well enough, and that is most definitely Miss Lovegood.
He lies there in complete and utter shock. He's appalled. The very notion that not one, but at least two students should have seen him lolling, bare chested and inebriated, passed out upon his couch lending new meaning to the word 'mortification', which heretofore he's clearly used far too casually. This is a redefining moment. Certainly for his vocabulary.
He's now seriously contemplating Obliviates for at least one of those students.
And then he's overcome by the idea that his wards should be so... diminished - or so inferior - that Miss Lovegood had been able to just stroll right in, popping by for a chat... It's absolutely flooring.
He supposes it was inevitable that if he had a wife in his cambers, one day he would - eventually - also come to have her friends there. But honestly he'd sort of hoped that wouldn't be an issue until he was dead and buried, or she and said friends had graduated, whichever came first. He does have his preferences. Of course, very unlike most people, he'd prefer to be dead before such an event ever took place.
That that's not the healthiest of attitudes should go without saying.
In the second instance, that in the years to come her friends might visit once they'd completed their studies (considering the majority of her friends, he anticipates the need for the adverb 'unsatisfactorily'), he was relying on intimidation, er, that is to say, his naturally engaging personality, to keep any company to a bare minimum. Barer than his chest, it would seem. He blames his drinking for this... visitation, adding it to the lengthening list of reasons not to partake, deciding she would never have dared to permit such an incursion had he been sober. And then he sets to worrying about the far more worrisome how...
How has she done this?
Miss Lovegood natters on... About footwear, it seems. Blackly, he imagines that's just the sort of thing women chat about amongst themselves. Shoes. There's more than a little disdain at the thought.
"... I just don't seem to have any matching pairs at the moment. Nargles, I suppose."
He lies back, endeavouring to calm himself, staring at the ceiling, and listens to the wards, but he's once again shocked by the results. That's becoming a thing. An annoying thing. He examines that feeling and decides he's rather lucky he's cabbaged and has taken a Calming Draught, all things considered, as this has been far too many shocks to his system. He's at an utter loss and with no explanation for what he senses, and fleetingly doubts his capabilities. He closes his eyes and tries again, listening to the wards more attentively, only to confirm the results. There's no one present within their wards but himself, Miss Granger, her creature and Sunny.
There's nary a trace of Miss Lovegood.
And yet that's incontrovertibly her voice coming from what had recently been his study.
Miss Granger is answering now, very much her usual cheery know-it-all self, he almost groans, "I recently learnt a few new tricks, I could probably make you something nice. Would you like me to Transfigure your shoes tomorrow?" He imagines it's like having a couple of the young women from his House camped in his quarters, and turns quite green around the gills. It's almost definitely not due to the alcohol.
Tonight seems to be a night for surprises, because he's not at all prepared for what comes next, although it does help explain a few things. There he is, genuinely grumpy and decidedly drunk on his couch when a silvery form shoots from Miss Granger's room. Bounding towards him, within moments it stops by his couch before darting, circling, climbing over it, over him, disappearing behind the couch's back, apparently to scoot under the furniture and reappear to his left to repeat the manoeuvre. Again and again, circling him repeatedly, spiralling down his body, before coming to a pause on his shins - finally providing him a chance to recognise it as Miss Granger's otter Patronus - and, of all indignities, proceeding to sniff his feet. Or his toes, seemingly, in the case specific.
The ghostly form takes a playful nip of those toes (the sensation is most strange) before darting again for the door in the rippling, wiggling way that Mustelids do - if Severus chooses to think of that more in terms of a ferret and less in terms of a weasel, it's probably only natural - before reaching the door and disappearing for good beyond it.
He lies there blinking for a bit, ultimately deciding this is clearly preferable to the woman inviting people into his... their home, not that he is precisely pleased, before it occurs to him that at least this means he was spared the further indignity of having been seen in his present state by Miss Lovegood. And then he staunchly refuses to think that Miss Granger will still obviously have seen him. It doesn't bear considering.
Reflexively he pulls the blanket he's sure he doesn't own tighter about him, although inexplicably the thing very much looks like it belongs here, tucking his long feet under it, as if that would keep a Patronus from scenting him. Not that he believes, not even for a moment, that Patronuses are capable of such a thing. They only mimic the behaviour of the animals the represent, after all...
That conviction is briefly called into doubt when moments later a ghostly, silvery hare hip hops its way into his... their home, hoppity hopping up onto the couch and his recumbent form. It comes to a stop on his chest - Severus is so taken aback, he's momentarily relieved he'd just covered himself so thoroughly before he dismisses the thought for the complete rubbish that it is - and then the translucent little lagomorph crawls its way cautiously forward, coming to a rest when they are literally nose to spectral nose. The hare's nose twitches, and twitches again, before it bumps noses with his own rather prodigious specimen and then leaps... sailing clear over his head and disappearing into Miss Granger's room.
And soon the conversation continues.
Hermione is hugely surprised, although she probably shouldn't be, when Luna's hare Patronus appears the first time in her room. She's equally surprised at its message, and also really shouldn't be, when it turns out that it isn't some call to arms or an alert to some threat. No, it's just... Luna.
The spectral leveret leaps up onto the bed beside her, and Crooks gives it no more than one half-cocked eye in evaluation before tucking himself more comprehensively into Hermione's lap. And then the room, it really is so very nice, beautiful even, is full with Luna's soft, lilting, slightly dreamy voice, and it feels more like... home.
"Hey, Hermione, how are you doing? I didn't see you at dinner, and I just wanted to check on you, to make sure you're alright. And see that you're remembering to eat."
Hermione blinks at that before beginning to laugh. Leave it to Luna to send a Patronus for that. Well, she'd waited until after curfew so as not to disturb people in the corridors with the sight of her Patronus racing along. Really, that sort of consideration seems very Luna, now that Hermione gives it a think. She smiles broadly, draws her wand and casts a Patronus of her own.
She may just have used the memory from Friday night when the Professor had clutched her tightly to him and risked his life to come to her rescue. She hadn't even needed to consider which memory to use, it came instantly to mind. That her free hand is once again fingering the phial at her neck as she performs the Spell should come as no surprise, it's becoming something of a habit, certainly when she thinks of him. It takes her no effort at all to conjure her Patronus with that particular memory. It helps immensely that it's limited to that; there's no thought of what he'd needed to rescue her from, or any embarrassment, or the state he was in, or her worry for him once she'd discovered it. Simply that even in that state, that man, her bondmate, her... husband had risked everything to save her.
She's never cast a Patronus so easily in her life.
It takes her a few seconds to shake off the breathless feeling the memory leaves her with to get back to the business at hand.
She gives her otter her answer, a very sincere, "Hi, Luna! What a nice surprise! And what a nice thought. Thanks for caring.
"Yes, you're right; I wasn't there. I had dinner with the Headmaster instead. But I made you a promise, and I won't forget it. I meant it." Hedging her bets for the days to come, it really hadn't been pleasant at the Gryffindor table the last couple of times, and she means to give it a wide berth for the near future, she continues, "But even if you don't see me at meals, you really needn't worry. I swear I'll be sensible. I'm sure our house elf can get something for me if I need anything. Something substantial," she adds with a smile, remembering Luna's entreaty.
"And thanks again for the candleholders, by the way. They're lovely.
"Say, what was with your mismatched shoes today? A new style?" She shoots for a lighter tone, shying a bit away from why Luna might think she needs checking on. She's fine, after all, isn't she? And then she watches as her otter scampers off at her bidding through her door, beginning its journey towards the Ravenclaw Tower.
She doesn't have to wait long before the hare reappears with Luna's reply. "Glad to hear it. I worry about you, you know.
"The shoes... Well, it really wasn't a fashion statement. I just don't seem to have any matching pairs at the moment. Nargles, I suppose."
Thanks to their bond, Hermione's now very much aware that the Professor is awake in the outer room. She wonders for a moment what she should do. She decides against closing her door for fear of emphasising what the link reveals, trying hard not to respond to it, to him, in the process, it seems subtler to just ignore it.
Not that it proves an easy task.
Again she conjures her Patronus, with a little more difficulty this time. She feels self-conscious thinking of him with him awake and evidently both shocked and stewing in the lounge. It had been easier before. "I recently learnt a few new tricks, I could probably make you something nice. Would you like me to Transfigure your shoes tomorrow?" Her otter disappears, followed immediately by spikes of surprise and annoyance and then some relief through the bond.
She's still trying to work out why he'd be relieved - as subtly as she can, it's really not her strong suit - when Luna's leveret reappears. "I doubt there's much point," the Ravenclaw's voice responds. "The matching shoe would probably also just disappear. But thanks for offering, though; that's very sweet. Well, I really only wanted to check that you're taking care of yourself. Good night, Hermione. Try to get some sleep, will you? I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
The thought is nice, and it definitely sounds appealing, but Hermione can't help thinking that sleep is unlikely. Still. He seems to be settling and Hermione concentrates on thinking... relaxing thoughts, hoping to put him more at ease. He was exhausted, she's sure of it. But then he'd had a rough couple of days. Unconsciously employing a few of Professor Taylor's relaxation techniques, they're practically second nature now they've practised them so often, she's trying to lull him to sleep. Her answering Patronus comes more easily again when she casts it now.
"I will, thanks. Good night and sweet dreams." And if he happened to hear that and she just got the chance to voice that sentiment in his presence - well, more or less - then all the better.
In the outer room, Severus relaxes again now that the comings and goings, however... immaterial, seem to have come to an end. He cuddles into his blanket, there's no other word for it, but then he's still snockered and can't really help it (and the thing smells bloody wonderful), and tries to get some more sleep. For her part, Hermione sits there in her lovely new room, smiling quite pronouncedly to herself as she feels him drift off.
Sweet dreams, indeed.
A/N:
And now I'm open to your Luna feedback if you'd care to give it, thanks. :-)
Hermione 7G, Severus, Sunny (the Snapes' house elf), Slinky (the Slytherin House's chief house elf), Portrait Salazar Slytherin (Founder), Vincent 'Vince' Crabbe 7S (Beater), Luna Lovegood 6R, Portrait Phineas Nigellus Black (One-time Headmaster), Crookshanks
In which Severus wakes and wonders WTF?! Miss Granger is doing...
Originally Published: 2018-08-09 on AO3
Chapter: 084
Slinky approaches the door to the Head of Slytherin's private chambers and is about to knock when Sunny, the wretched creature, appears immediately in front of him, barring his way, of all things. The audacity! There's a bit of bad feeling between the two, even after all these years (although it may be mostly one sided) as Slinky - by far the more senior elf in service - hadn't been given Sunny's position as the Master of Potions' very own personal house elf when the most honourable Head had replaced the Slughorn. Naturally Slinky has no way of knowing what other considerations the Headmaster may have had when he made the assignment. For all his occasional bursts of independence, Sunny can be relied upon to keep Severus' secrets from anyone likely to do him harm, and that, more than anything else, had quite sensibly been the deciding criterion.
Although his name hadn't hurt.
Still, Albus could have negotiated a renaming had it come to that. He has few scruples. As was, he took it as a sign it was meant to be.
Sunny casts a silent Privacy Charm and draws himself upright, his miniature teaching robes with their buttons of jet in sharp contrast to the tea towel uniform Slinky wears. It earns the younger elf a displeased shake of the head, it's most unseemly, but at least he isn't one of those thoroughly disreputable free elves. That would be the final insult, of this Slinky is sure.
"What is Slinky wanting of Master of Potions?" Sunny challenges, pushing the grizzled elf further back from the door by advancing on him.
"I's be telling the Head hisself, I's be doing. Sunny is not needing to know."
"No!" Sunny objects, raising one of his little hands in outrage and pointing a knobbly finger at the other elf's chest. "Sunny is needing to know," he insists, poking Slinky's chest, "for the Head is not being disturbed." There's a wave of magic, strong elven magic, as Sunny suddenly opens his hand, flicking his fingers outward and Slinky finds himself blown backwards, clear of the wards that unlike the humans they both can feel quite distinctly. Faster than Slinky can shake off his surprise, Sunny rushes him, drawing himself up to every inch of his diminutive height and commanding, "No one is being disturbing the Head tonight. If you is needing help, you is telling Sunny."
At this point, that's probably the last thing Slinky is about to do, and there are a good many perfectly stupid solutions he would prefer. By elven logic, governed by some very singular rules, those extremely wanting solutions may not appear quite as stupid as they do to humans, but even things he can objectively recognise as frightfully poor solutions seem highly preferable just now.
They bicker briefly, Sunny holds his ground, he doesn't even let the other elf get close to the wards again, assuming any disturbance in the field to be more likely to wake the Master, and that's not on as Sunny sees it.
He's done his very best to get the Mistress to help the Master. The Master had needed help, that much was clear. He hadn't taken care of his wounds, after all. And the Mistress, she seemed... reluctant to... lend a hand. Not uncaring. No, not that. Mistress cares, of this Sunny is sure. Perhaps... shy... Well, the Master can be... difficult. Humans. No, they obviously needed his help, they did. They're bondmates, after all. They aren't very smart these humans, they so often fail to see what needs doing. And he won't be having some other pretentious elf coming and making a hash of things. It's out of the question.
Slinky has become more easy to frustrate in recent years, having had to accept far too many decisions he doesn't at all like, and with a huff of self-righteous elvery, and a crack far louder than need be - he can be silent when he chooses, after all - he Appartes back to the landing to tell the waiting portrait of Salazar Slytherin that the Head is still too ill from yesterday's assault to be disturbed. He's interpolating from the facts he has, and his explanation is within the realm of the probable.
He's taking liberties, obviously, but then house elves do that given a chance.
All together, it hasn't taken long, and armed with the knowledge provide by the House's chief elf, Salazar returns to his portrait in the common room. The boy quite unsurprisingly hasn't left his spot on the floor. That may have been too much to hope for.
"You. Boy."
There are only seventy students in his House, and certainly by the time they're seventh years, no matter how disinterested he is, Salazar has come to learn their names. He knows this is one of the Crabbe line - 'Vincent', if he's not mistaken, after the maternal grandfather - but he also has the impression that this particular boy has so poorly grasped what it was supposed to have meant to be a Slytherin that he refuses to acknowledge that he knows his name. That that might be a tactic should really be expected of the portrait of Salazar himself.
"Boy," he verbally prods again, and it's greeted by a moan. "I'm afraid I must disappoint you. The Head is still recovering from his injuries and is unavailable. He cannot come to your aid."
A more protracted groan answers that, followed by a weak and wheezy, "But he wasn't in the Infirmary."
Frankly, the portrait couldn't say anything to that one way or another as he hadn't thought - or perhaps cared - to ask the house elf about the Head's whereabouts. He naturally has no intention of admitting that, how absurd, just as he never lets the students know that he simply asks a house elf to do his bidding in order to fulfil their requests. He greatly prefers the impression it leaves otherwise, that he might be capable of more than the average portrait. Plainly his painters had thought him somewhat vain. A bit irksomely, it leaves the possibility open that the Baron had as well.
That's probably not altogether wrong, although 'proud' would have been closer to the mark, both in terms of the reality and the Baron's perception of it.
Still, somewhat superciliously, Salazar replies, "One needn't be in the Infirmary to be poorly. Take yourself, for example." Vince lets out something that sounds suspiciously like a death rattle, as if to make the portrait's point while simultaneously emphasising his supposed need to be brought to the facility - and soonish, if you please - but Salazar is unimpressed. Heavens know, he's seen worse. "It merely makes it more comfortable.
"I imagine."
Vince has no good reply to that, and continues his noisy struggle for breath from the floor.
"If you aren't currently in your death throes..." At that Vince does look up, his glance somewhat murderous. The portrait is unmoved, and not just because of the inferior portrait magic that prohibits much motion in this particular painting. "No, I thought not. Then I fear you'll have to wait until the morning so that someone can see to you.
"But if it's truly that bad, might I suggest levering yourself up off the floor and onto the nearest couch?" Frankly, the sight of one of their seventh years sprawling in such an undignified manner on the floor was offending his sensibilities. He can't believe the boy or one of his Housemates wouldn't know a suitable Charm - or ten - for this. Disgraceful. Just what are they teaching them these days? Some modern balderdash like Arithmancy, no doubt. Newfangled things. It will doubtless go out of fashion soon enough, just give it another couple of centuries...
Naturally, the fact the students' meetings to discuss what they should do about the seventh years having taken place in their quarters meant that the portraits weren't aware how things currently stood in the House. Experience shows, they have only to wait, and soon they'll know all. Or near as. By morning, having observed the various comings and goings and hexings and jinxings, they have a pretty good idea that the Snakes have decided the Serpents' claims warrant an... appropriate response.
And they'll also have an excellent feeling for just what that might be.
Erstwhile Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black in the group portrait hanging across from Salazar gives the order that holds their collective tongues through the night, and they never once cry out to alert the sleeping boy to his plight as his Housemates do quite the number on him. The other portraits know enough to realise Black is... sharper, more... there than the rest of them. He seems to have retained more of the wizard's own knowledge than the others have of their subjects, and acceding to his qualifications, they defer in this as in so many other points to his patently superior judgment.
It hadn't hurt, of course, that so many of them have him to thank for their extra portraits.
So if he says they should let the boys hex away, undisturbed, then naturally they shall do just that.
And by morning they're agreed, the fairy wings had been a very nice touch. Well done, indeed, by Mr. Shafiq. None of them can recall seeing that one before. But the third years really need to work on their Ear Engorging Jinx. That had gone strangely awry. Salazar (typically) blames the curriculum's excessive focus on Arithmancy, for this and so many other things, completely ignoring that it's an elective, and that on the outside any third years enrolled in the course haven't been exposed to more than a couple months of the material at the expense of anything else. But then that particular portrait isn't inclined to let details interfere with his convictions. Not when the theory was so neat.
An unintended consequence of the little game of Chinese whispers - elf to elf to portrait to boy - that took place this evening occurs when Vince is freed from the couch, healed of the worst of the Hexes and writing home tomorrow, and he mentions that Professor Snape had still been out of commission this evening, despite having stayed in the Infirmary all the previous night and much of the day. Those gathered at the Manor and present - as always, given their fugitive status - when Crabbe Sr. reads his owl, will take that as further confirmation as to just how much the bonding had taxed Snape. It would be worrisome, were they inclined to worry about the man. With few exceptions, they are not, but it certainly provides food for thought.
And if they underestimate Severus as a result, that might just prove helpful.
The movement of Hermione's hand across her bondmate's belly is arrested by a strange disturbance to their wards. A flash of panic that he could wake has her withdrawing the offending member with lightning quickness to rest at her side, although the Salve now carefully, and so thoroughly, applied to his muscular chest and her own kneeling presence beside him would probably be sufficiently inexplicable as is. Not that she should need to provide explanations; presumably he would be able to draw his own conclusions.
The man's not completely daft.
Briefly, at the back of her mind, doubts begin to gnaw at her as to what she'd been doing. So very typically, after the fact. She really needs to work on that, and promptly adds it to her mental 'to do' list. She quickly tamps those doubts down to listen instead to the wards, as the Professor had taught her to do, and believes she can identify that someone, or more likely two someones have passed, which is odd given the hour, past curfew as it is.
There had been a brief moment where she half expected a knock, she imagines that must be a question of proximity, that they'd approached the door. Yes, she thinks that seems to correspond to what the wards relayed. But then perhaps the individuals didn't even know the door was there. Most can't see it after all.
Odder still, the ripple she feels to the wards isn't... It's not like it's been before, when the students were coming and going. That feels a little as though she were on a boat, and there's a gentle wave, like from the wake of another boat, that sets it to rocking, ever so slightly. Or how she imagines bat sonar, echolocation might be physically represented.
If she's going with water, she should probably use dolphins for the analogy, and yet... Looking at her bondmate, she grins softly, almost affectionately, remembers her quip to Corner at lunch and can't help thinking, this is the dungeon bat's cavern after all.
But this... it isn't that sort of disturbance to the wards, somehow. It's softer yet. There's something fundamentally different about it that she can't define, and she finds herself wondering if perhaps this is how it might feel when the ghosts cross them, or perhaps when Mrs. Norris goes mousing. She may need to ask the Baron and Crooks to help her trial that.
She certainly won't be waking the Professor to ask.
She looks at him sleeping there, his lashes long and dark as pitch curving in a soft sweep against his pale skin and half laughs to herself at the very notion.
He's still sleeping soundly, and she's pleased to note it. Something mischievous in her asserts that he's more agreeable this way. That inner voice is more mischievous than she'd expect, and wondering just how she meant that - because Merlin knows there's something quite... agreeable in his current dishabille - she finds herself now blushing at the thought. Which doesn't make it any less true.
He seems so much more restful than before. She kneels there, just watching him for a while, and for someone eager not to be caught doing so, it's somewhat curious behaviour. But she's enjoying taking advantage of the situation (it is really, and yet she can't find it in her to blame herself for it, not at all) and appreciating the sights on offer, as it were. Had he wanted his privacy, he should have retired to his room. (And then she tries hard not to feel guilty - the Calming Draught helps - that she's encroaching on him just by sharing his quarters like this, because she's sort of tired of guilt and ultimately it's rather inconvenient.)
That stubborn strand of hair has fallen back over his face again, it really seems to have a mind of its own, and she gently tucks it behind his ear with a low, "Goodnight, Sir." As she rises, she uses a Tergeo to remove the last traces of the Salve from her hand, noting as she does so that her finger is still glowing, before wiping both hands reflexively on her jeans. Rather peculiarly, her palms seem a little clammy.
She sighs deeply as she stands there looking at him, her... husband, and with a faint smile she can't quite fathom, but luckily only half notices, she casts an Impervius on the man, the couch and the blanket that's still lying, all but forgotten, on the floor, and then bends to retrieve it. Slowly, cautiously, she spreads Madam Pomfrey's gift over the Professor's sleeping form, taking care, without waking him, to tuck him in well. Very well. Oddly, once again, the Charm for doing so seems to have completely slipped her mind.
Well, she'd only just learnt it, now hadn't she?
She sort of hopes that he's drunk enough to think he'd tucked himself in. That would probably be helpful.
And as long as she's hoping, she may as well hope he thinks he'd applied the Salve too, of course. Or perhaps that he assumes Sunny had, which is funny in as much as Sunny obviously hadn't, but his matchmaking measures had been the reason she'd thought to apply the Salve to the Professor in the first place. Not that she'll ever know that...
She's very satisfied to see that the colour she'd Transfigured the blanket now perfectly matches the throw pillow that's cradling his head, his face pale against it, his hair inky black and fanned out around him, the contrast still stark in the weak light. It was absolutely worth the extra effort she'd taken with matching the colours, getting the proper blue, she's sure. He shifts, noticeably a little more restless now that she's gone, and his bare right arm closes over the blanket, pressing it to his chest and nudging the edge up towards his face. He almost appears to snuggle into it, seeking its scent. She assumes he's attracted by the notes of lavender and forgets she'd been using it enough that it probably smells faintly of her. But then she wouldn't be able to imagine why that might be a comfort for him.
He inhales deeply and stills again, and she stands there like a numpty. Watching. Her hand wrapped around the phial at her neck as she does so, her thumb running idly over her ring. She could probably do that all night...
There's a shifting, a crackling from the fireplace, and the soft sound shakes her out of her reverie. Feeling almost as if she's been caught in some spell, she shivers, slightly, and crosses to the kitchen where she Summons a serving bowl from the open shelves by the door and places it on the island. A careful Incantation (the Charm is new to her), a few waves of her wand over the bowl, the room around her and towards her room where a certain feline lies, and she's performed the spell to collect Crooks' shed fur and deposit it there. It would seem she's Banishing it to a receptacle after all.
There's a hint of an idea that he'll see that in the morning and be pleased she kept her promise. That seems likely. Because clearly that will be the first thing he wants to see. To have this proof and unequivocally know she solved that fairly trivial problem. Priorities, after all. Hmm. He most assuredly wouldn't have a hangover or anything more pressing to think about... Well, really, as a Potions Master, he should be able to sort the hangover if he has one. Anything else would probably be weird. Or masochistic.
Still, she's looking forward to teaching him the Fur Banishing Spell tomorrow. Sort of like how he'd shown her how to 'read' the wards just yesterday. It had been... pleasant. Nice. Dare she say... fun? She'd like a little more of that.
She crosses through the lounge again on the way to her room and it occurs to her she still has his handkerchief in her pocket. She removes it, performs a Cleaning Charm, neatly folds it together into an almost perfect square and then centers it under the small jar of Scar Scarcefying Salve with a pat that seems strangely affectionate. For someone theoretically eager to have him think she had nothing at all to do with the Salve on his chest, it seems an odd choice. As no one interrogates her on it, she doesn't even notice it.
But true to his nature and with a very specific (but otherwise atypical) failure of imagination, Severus will decide that that fact, the presence of his handkerchief on the end table under the jar has nothing whatsoever to do with the application of Salve to his chest. He can be terribly myopic that way.
She pauses in her doorway, turning to look at him again. Nibbling on her lip, she silently wishes him 'sweet dreams', and then feels a little foolish before deciding it was simply polite. There's no good excuse to linger any longer, and she withdraws, but leaves her door ajar. It's another one of those things she really can't explain, or more accurately doesn't wish to try doing so, because after applying the Salve, she does have some sense of her motives. Still, if he needs something, if he calls out, she'll be able to hear. It strikes her as the responsible thing to do, ensuring she can be at hand should he need her during the night.
That thought, quite deservedly, draws a hot blush, not even the Calming Draught can stop it, because she's being completely and utterly silly. She blames it on the turmoil of the past few days. And the whole marriage thing seems to be throwing her. Somehow it seems she has at least a couple of expectations as to what that might mean that are knocking her off kilter. Not anything too... forward, no, no of course not... Well, not by and large. (So strangely, she's having slight difficulty swallowing again.) But surely they're mutually at least a little... responsible for one another, aren't they? It's only... natural that she should keep watch. How the man has survived until now without her is a total mystery.
Now in her room, she dares to chuckle softly at herself. She has no idea when she became so ridiculous. Or her judgment so compromised. She can't explain her behaviour at all. A good thing it is then that no one seems to have noticed it.
She looks at her desk with her texts tidily arranged, so tidily one might suspect a compulsion at the root of it, and there's a surge of happiness to finally have a space like that to herself. A desk of her own, where she can leave her things lying out - neatly, naturally - instead of carting her books back to her trunk every evening...
And then promptly finds herself unwilling to sit there. She's having trouble coming to rest and feels... antsy.
She hops on the bed, disturbing Crooks who 'mrawrs' at her before making himself at home in her lap. She's glad of his warmth, but of course he's well aware of that. Why else would he allow himself to be reduced to a fuzzy hot water bottle? He's not some... dog, for Bast's sake. Which isn't to say he hadn't met an agreeable dog or two in his time. Although it might be worth noting that the most agreeable exemplar had been Sirius not!dog.
Perhaps he shouldn't count.
Crooks snuggles deeper into Hermione's lap with a steady purr that helps calm her nerves, and she strokes him appreciatively as she Summons one of the texts from her desk. She flips through it briefly before Banishing it back to the desk with a sigh and Summoning the next, soon repeating the process. The fact she hasn't bothered to light more than the single sconce in itself probably reveals how little inclination she has to read just now. As far as her course work goes, she's more than caught up, there's nothing she needs to do and the more she tries to find something productive to occupy herself, the more she comes to feel there's just nothing she can do right now about anything that needs doing, and an assortment of thoughts she's been trying to avoid begin to nibble their way into her consciousness.
It had been all well and good as long as she kept busy, as long as she had things to do, things to respond to, and people around her. Alone now, in the dimly lit room, without all the distractions the day had to offer, her thoughts are beginning to encroach on her fragile peace. She's not willing to examine them closely, not just yet, but even without a closer look, intuitively she knows she really doesn't want them bouncing around her head. Not now.
She flicks her wand and lights another sconce.
Not unsurprisingly, it doesn't make much of a difference except for in lumens. Which doesn't stop her from lighting a few more.
It doesn't do the trick.
Next she Summons her beaded bag and pulls out Luna's candleholders, then rummages a moment longer to find the candles and puts the taper in one and the tea light in the other. She Banishes the one holding the taper to her desk and the tea light in its silvered turnip joins the tableau comprised of the chocolate frog and her wedding bouquet on her improvised night stand. Adding a wedding present to the mix seems... right. And Crooks doesn't mind her using his carrier for that, she's sure.
An Incendio lights both candles, and there's a momentary thrill at her control as her aim hits home, Miranda Goshawk's warning in the 'Book of Spells' about the dangers that Charm represents to one's books (or classmates, but her priorities being as they are, primarily to her books, obviously) comes to mind. The candlelight improves both the ambiance and her mood. She's smiling a little now, but still, she's restless.
Three more books follow, Summoned and then Banished. They offer no real relief. She's begun to fear she won't be able to keep those bothersome thoughts from taking over, rolling over her, overwhelming her, when she's suddenly startled out of her musings...
Severus wakes quickly, as is his habit. Which isn't to say he finds himself thinking clearly. He is not.
He recognises the effects first more than actually remembering, and then bit by bit details filter in as he begins recalling his binge from the afternoon and... evidently most of the evening. Well. That was certainly decadent. And then he recalls his motivations for indulging and decides he'd more than deserved it.
Bloody hell.
Two rounds of life threatening torture quickly pale by comparison (Merlin knows, he's been there and done that often enough) as he considers the fact he apparently married a student. Yes. That is never not shocking, he is sure, and he wonders how long he'll wake to that recollection in mortification. With his typical optimism, quite, he decides that's likely to continue for the rest of his life. Alcohol really does nothing to improve his disposition...
Considering that marriage, how could he not, something self-loathing in the back of his mind tries to make a quip about swotty Gryffindors, having a type, and that it had certainly taken him long enough to get around to it... He fails to find it even obliquely amusing and resolves to save the humour for sobriety.
Then it occurs to him in answer to that charge that he should have sat this round out as well...
Ah yes, and said student has taken up residence, which brings him back to why he woke. Someone was speaking. He turns where he lies on the couch and can see that her door is open, which he greets with some less than generous thoughts.
Well, it was damned inconsiderate, now wasn't it, for her to leave the flaming door ajar, especially if she insists on talking out loud or to that creature of hers. He's undoubtably missing that she was keeping an eye on him. She, however, had missed that Sunny generally did that quite nicely, really. But then it suits Sunny just fine that she did. He's perfectly willing to share the watch.
Next Severus tries to puzzle out how he got here to his couch. The last thing he remembers, he'd repaired to his room, was in his bathroom getting ready for bed... He has no idea how he got back out here, why he's sleeping in the lounge, or for that matter why he's not wearing a top given that winter is clearly in effect in Scotland, no matter what the calendar might say.
A suspicion as to why he may be lying there half-clothed forms, however, when he notices a tightness to his chest as he turns to look at Miss Granger's (open!) door. That tightness combined with a faint scent he recognises, and he believes he has the standard Scar Salve on him, which makes no bloody sense whatsoever. If he's going to use any at all, and admittedly he's only a moderately well behaved patient, he happens to have a much better one. He hasn't the foggiest idea why he'd have used this one.
Presumably, that's all the more reason not to imbibe in this measure...
There's a spike of panic that Miss Granger might have seen him like this, followed by a petulant 'serves her right' for invading his space as she has, and then that flash of panic becomes more of a lightning strike as he finally pays attention to the voice in the other room.
"...I worry about you, you know."
There is no question that that is not Miss Granger. No, he knows the voice well enough, and that is most definitely Miss Lovegood.
He lies there in complete and utter shock. He's appalled. The very notion that not one, but at least two students should have seen him lolling, bare chested and inebriated, passed out upon his couch lending new meaning to the word 'mortification', which heretofore he's clearly used far too casually. This is a redefining moment. Certainly for his vocabulary.
He's now seriously contemplating Obliviates for at least one of those students.
And then he's overcome by the idea that his wards should be so... diminished - or so inferior - that Miss Lovegood had been able to just stroll right in, popping by for a chat... It's absolutely flooring.
He supposes it was inevitable that if he had a wife in his cambers, one day he would - eventually - also come to have her friends there. But honestly he'd sort of hoped that wouldn't be an issue until he was dead and buried, or she and said friends had graduated, whichever came first. He does have his preferences. Of course, very unlike most people, he'd prefer to be dead before such an event ever took place.
That that's not the healthiest of attitudes should go without saying.
In the second instance, that in the years to come her friends might visit once they'd completed their studies (considering the majority of her friends, he anticipates the need for the adverb 'unsatisfactorily'), he was relying on intimidation, er, that is to say, his naturally engaging personality, to keep any company to a bare minimum. Barer than his chest, it would seem. He blames his drinking for this... visitation, adding it to the lengthening list of reasons not to partake, deciding she would never have dared to permit such an incursion had he been sober. And then he sets to worrying about the far more worrisome how...
How has she done this?
Miss Lovegood natters on... About footwear, it seems. Blackly, he imagines that's just the sort of thing women chat about amongst themselves. Shoes. There's more than a little disdain at the thought.
"... I just don't seem to have any matching pairs at the moment. Nargles, I suppose."
He lies back, endeavouring to calm himself, staring at the ceiling, and listens to the wards, but he's once again shocked by the results. That's becoming a thing. An annoying thing. He examines that feeling and decides he's rather lucky he's cabbaged and has taken a Calming Draught, all things considered, as this has been far too many shocks to his system. He's at an utter loss and with no explanation for what he senses, and fleetingly doubts his capabilities. He closes his eyes and tries again, listening to the wards more attentively, only to confirm the results. There's no one present within their wards but himself, Miss Granger, her creature and Sunny.
There's nary a trace of Miss Lovegood.
And yet that's incontrovertibly her voice coming from what had recently been his study.
Miss Granger is answering now, very much her usual cheery know-it-all self, he almost groans, "I recently learnt a few new tricks, I could probably make you something nice. Would you like me to Transfigure your shoes tomorrow?" He imagines it's like having a couple of the young women from his House camped in his quarters, and turns quite green around the gills. It's almost definitely not due to the alcohol.
Tonight seems to be a night for surprises, because he's not at all prepared for what comes next, although it does help explain a few things. There he is, genuinely grumpy and decidedly drunk on his couch when a silvery form shoots from Miss Granger's room. Bounding towards him, within moments it stops by his couch before darting, circling, climbing over it, over him, disappearing behind the couch's back, apparently to scoot under the furniture and reappear to his left to repeat the manoeuvre. Again and again, circling him repeatedly, spiralling down his body, before coming to a pause on his shins - finally providing him a chance to recognise it as Miss Granger's otter Patronus - and, of all indignities, proceeding to sniff his feet. Or his toes, seemingly, in the case specific.
The ghostly form takes a playful nip of those toes (the sensation is most strange) before darting again for the door in the rippling, wiggling way that Mustelids do - if Severus chooses to think of that more in terms of a ferret and less in terms of a weasel, it's probably only natural - before reaching the door and disappearing for good beyond it.
He lies there blinking for a bit, ultimately deciding this is clearly preferable to the woman inviting people into his... their home, not that he is precisely pleased, before it occurs to him that at least this means he was spared the further indignity of having been seen in his present state by Miss Lovegood. And then he staunchly refuses to think that Miss Granger will still obviously have seen him. It doesn't bear considering.
Reflexively he pulls the blanket he's sure he doesn't own tighter about him, although inexplicably the thing very much looks like it belongs here, tucking his long feet under it, as if that would keep a Patronus from scenting him. Not that he believes, not even for a moment, that Patronuses are capable of such a thing. They only mimic the behaviour of the animals the represent, after all...
That conviction is briefly called into doubt when moments later a ghostly, silvery hare hip hops its way into his... their home, hoppity hopping up onto the couch and his recumbent form. It comes to a stop on his chest - Severus is so taken aback, he's momentarily relieved he'd just covered himself so thoroughly before he dismisses the thought for the complete rubbish that it is - and then the translucent little lagomorph crawls its way cautiously forward, coming to a rest when they are literally nose to spectral nose. The hare's nose twitches, and twitches again, before it bumps noses with his own rather prodigious specimen and then leaps... sailing clear over his head and disappearing into Miss Granger's room.
And soon the conversation continues.
Hermione is hugely surprised, although she probably shouldn't be, when Luna's hare Patronus appears the first time in her room. She's equally surprised at its message, and also really shouldn't be, when it turns out that it isn't some call to arms or an alert to some threat. No, it's just... Luna.
The spectral leveret leaps up onto the bed beside her, and Crooks gives it no more than one half-cocked eye in evaluation before tucking himself more comprehensively into Hermione's lap. And then the room, it really is so very nice, beautiful even, is full with Luna's soft, lilting, slightly dreamy voice, and it feels more like... home.
"Hey, Hermione, how are you doing? I didn't see you at dinner, and I just wanted to check on you, to make sure you're alright. And see that you're remembering to eat."
Hermione blinks at that before beginning to laugh. Leave it to Luna to send a Patronus for that. Well, she'd waited until after curfew so as not to disturb people in the corridors with the sight of her Patronus racing along. Really, that sort of consideration seems very Luna, now that Hermione gives it a think. She smiles broadly, draws her wand and casts a Patronus of her own.
She may just have used the memory from Friday night when the Professor had clutched her tightly to him and risked his life to come to her rescue. She hadn't even needed to consider which memory to use, it came instantly to mind. That her free hand is once again fingering the phial at her neck as she performs the Spell should come as no surprise, it's becoming something of a habit, certainly when she thinks of him. It takes her no effort at all to conjure her Patronus with that particular memory. It helps immensely that it's limited to that; there's no thought of what he'd needed to rescue her from, or any embarrassment, or the state he was in, or her worry for him once she'd discovered it. Simply that even in that state, that man, her bondmate, her... husband had risked everything to save her.
She's never cast a Patronus so easily in her life.
It takes her a few seconds to shake off the breathless feeling the memory leaves her with to get back to the business at hand.
She gives her otter her answer, a very sincere, "Hi, Luna! What a nice surprise! And what a nice thought. Thanks for caring.
"Yes, you're right; I wasn't there. I had dinner with the Headmaster instead. But I made you a promise, and I won't forget it. I meant it." Hedging her bets for the days to come, it really hadn't been pleasant at the Gryffindor table the last couple of times, and she means to give it a wide berth for the near future, she continues, "But even if you don't see me at meals, you really needn't worry. I swear I'll be sensible. I'm sure our house elf can get something for me if I need anything. Something substantial," she adds with a smile, remembering Luna's entreaty.
"And thanks again for the candleholders, by the way. They're lovely.
"Say, what was with your mismatched shoes today? A new style?" She shoots for a lighter tone, shying a bit away from why Luna might think she needs checking on. She's fine, after all, isn't she? And then she watches as her otter scampers off at her bidding through her door, beginning its journey towards the Ravenclaw Tower.
She doesn't have to wait long before the hare reappears with Luna's reply. "Glad to hear it. I worry about you, you know.
"The shoes... Well, it really wasn't a fashion statement. I just don't seem to have any matching pairs at the moment. Nargles, I suppose."
Thanks to their bond, Hermione's now very much aware that the Professor is awake in the outer room. She wonders for a moment what she should do. She decides against closing her door for fear of emphasising what the link reveals, trying hard not to respond to it, to him, in the process, it seems subtler to just ignore it.
Not that it proves an easy task.
Again she conjures her Patronus, with a little more difficulty this time. She feels self-conscious thinking of him with him awake and evidently both shocked and stewing in the lounge. It had been easier before. "I recently learnt a few new tricks, I could probably make you something nice. Would you like me to Transfigure your shoes tomorrow?" Her otter disappears, followed immediately by spikes of surprise and annoyance and then some relief through the bond.
She's still trying to work out why he'd be relieved - as subtly as she can, it's really not her strong suit - when Luna's leveret reappears. "I doubt there's much point," the Ravenclaw's voice responds. "The matching shoe would probably also just disappear. But thanks for offering, though; that's very sweet. Well, I really only wanted to check that you're taking care of yourself. Good night, Hermione. Try to get some sleep, will you? I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
The thought is nice, and it definitely sounds appealing, but Hermione can't help thinking that sleep is unlikely. Still. He seems to be settling and Hermione concentrates on thinking... relaxing thoughts, hoping to put him more at ease. He was exhausted, she's sure of it. But then he'd had a rough couple of days. Unconsciously employing a few of Professor Taylor's relaxation techniques, they're practically second nature now they've practised them so often, she's trying to lull him to sleep. Her answering Patronus comes more easily again when she casts it now.
"I will, thanks. Good night and sweet dreams." And if he happened to hear that and she just got the chance to voice that sentiment in his presence - well, more or less - then all the better.
In the outer room, Severus relaxes again now that the comings and goings, however... immaterial, seem to have come to an end. He cuddles into his blanket, there's no other word for it, but then he's still snockered and can't really help it (and the thing smells bloody wonderful), and tries to get some more sleep. For her part, Hermione sits there in her lovely new room, smiling quite pronouncedly to herself as she feels him drift off.
Sweet dreams, indeed.
A/N:
And now I'm open to your Luna feedback if you'd care to give it, thanks. :-)