Roman Holiday

Chapter Twenty

“Severus,” Minerva McGonagall said, “I’d duck if I were you.”

Snape looked up from his toast and stared at her blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Post owl at twelve o’ clock,” she said. “And closing in fast. Looks like books - did you order something from Flourish and Blotts?”

“Not in recent memory,” he said, and pushed his chair back slightly as the owl misjudged the distance and dropped the package squarely into his scrambled eggs. He picked it up, wiped it off with his napkin, and studied the brown paper wrapping for a return address.

There wasn’t one - just his name, now slightly smeared with egg yolk. He’d recognize that neat copperplate script anywhere, though … not too difficult, considering that it was all over the twenty-five bottles of Pepper-Up Potion he’d just carried up to the infirmary.

Miss Granger’s translation, he assumed, and tucked it away in an inner pocket of his robes to open later.

She surprised him. He’d thought yesterday afternoon would be the end of the extra-credit Palestrina project. And - though he’d never admit it - he’d spent a dolorous hour mourning its passing, and cursing himself for an idiot.

Working with potions, one learned quick and memorable lessons about volatile compounds. The smoke might be pretty, but the fire burned and the explosion left a mess. And you only walked away from it if you were fortunate.

He’d miscalculated twice yesterday: first, when he’d chosen sarcasm as his buffer of choice, and it had turned into a catalyst before his very eyes - and second, when he’d assumed that a provoked Hermione Granger would choose flight over fight. A wise man learned from his mistakes, though, and Severus didn’t intend to make the same errors again.

He stared moodily into his tea, replaying the scene in his head. She - stormy and magnificent, for her small height - backing him across the floor of his own dungeons. Lit up and luminous with outrage and power and sheer teenage pheromones. Audaciously trying to beat him at his own game, and not backing down even when she realized she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

Yes, he’d known, had sensed the instant when the anger turned into apprehension, when she’d resquared that stubborn little chin and laid on another layer of sex to cover up her momentary wobble. Kudos to her, he thought, for pulling it off. That kiss on the cheek had been a stroke of genius, the deliberate stroll away, a walking work of art.

At the time, of course, he hadn’t seen it so objectively.

After all, a woman hadn’t kissed him in fifteen years.

And if he lost control, if he upped the ante, if he forgot himself and his position and the million or so Very Bad Things that could come of his bad judgment, and for one moment just REACTED, it was because she’d come too close, because she’d touched a nerve.

No excuse for it, naturally. None.

But he’d been in despair for most of the evening, thinking that he might have driven her away from the Illuminata.

He hadn’t thought of that potion in years - his guess was that no one had. A good translation didn’t really exist in the public archives, after all … and it was difficult, and arcane, and too oddly philosophical and time-consuming to fit into the mainstream.

But in dark times like these, it might be just what they needed.

Him most of all.

He ran his fingers over the little brown parcel inside his robes and allowed himself a faint smile.

**

“Hermione! Over here!”

Harry, looking a bit brown and certainly less scrawny than usual - apparently Molly Weasley had been force-feeding him - was standing in the entrance hall. Behind Harry was Ron, at least three inches taller than he’d been last spring and skinny as ever. Hermione ducked around a group of chattering third-years and slid into place between them.

“Hi,” she said, and gave them both a quick peck on the cheek. “How was the trip?”

“Boring,” Ron said. “No Fred and George to blow things up, no you to talk to, no Malfoy to insult.” He grinned. “We were forced to talk about Quidditch the whole time.”

Hermione laughed. “Tragic.”

“Nice haircut,” Harry said, running a hand casually over her curls. “How was Rome?”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Ron, who had stuffed a Chocolate Frog into his mouth, swallowed hastily. “Did you really do a Petrificus Totalus on Lucius Malfoy?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Rumors, rumors.” She shot him a mischievous look under her lashes. “If you can find the paperwork, I’ll own up to it.”

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. “Think she’s holding out on us?” Harry murmured, and Ron’s freckly face split into an evil grin.

“I’ll say.”

“Only one thing to do, then.”

“TICKLE TIME!” Ron yelled.

And they lunged at her.

Hermione shrieked as they swung her into the air. “Get away, get away! Ack! Put me down, you idiots!” She was laughing so hard that she felt the hiccups coming on. “Ahhhh! I mean it - hic - I really do … Harry, come ON …”

“Give up? Gonna admit it?”

She spluttered as Ron slung her over his shoulder. “Never! Now put me DOWN!” She pounded at the backs of his legs, which were all she could reach. “I’m gonna curse you … I’m - hic - warning you …”

“Weasley! Potter! Miss Granger!” Professor McGonagall did not look pleased. “The first years will be here any moment! Kindly set an example!”

Slightly shamefaced, Ron set Hermione on her feet. “Sorry, Professor.”

He glared at Hermione in mock warning, after McGonagall had swept into the Great Hall, then wiggled the fingers of one hand at her like a manic spider. “You won’t know when,” he said darkly. “You won’t know where. You won’t know how.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, patting her hair back into some semblance of order. “But you’ll be there. I know. Come on, let’s go get seats.”

They trooped into the Great Hall, still giggling.

**

From his seat at the Slytherin table, Draco watched them darkly.

It appeared that his father had been successful in hushing up his indiscretions in Rome. Crabbe and Goyle showed up to flank him, just as usual, and Pansy Parkinson, intent on relating to him every detail of her summer holiday, had already claimed the seat across from his own.

It was a good thing that he’d never paid much attention to her in the past. She didn’t seem to notice that he was distracted - that he was in fact looking straight past her, fixated on three laughing faces at the Gryffindor table.

This secret admirer stuff sucked.

He’d watched their little reunion in the Entrance Hall - the friendly greeting kisses, the banter, the laughter. Watched them pick her up and spin her around. Watched Weasley throw her over his shoulder like a sack of feed, as if she wasn’t the most glorious thing he’d ever seen, as if she weren’t golden and glowing and …

“Draco!”

He shook himself, frowned, dragged his attention back to Pansy. She looked half-amused, half-annoyed.

“Haven’t you been listening?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Carry on.”

… and deserving of so much more than those two chortling peasants. Honestly.

He hated that she liked them.

He hated that she wasn’t just his anymore. That her time and attention, from now on out, would be split between homework and lessons and those troglodytes she called her friends. Hated that he wouldn’t be waking up beside her anytime soon again.

Hated that the main connection between them would be words on paper, words he couldn’t even sign with his own name.

“Draco!!” Pansy wasn’t even slightly amused now. “What is your problem?”

He rolled his eyes, grateful that he’d never been polite to her before and didn’t have to start now. “You’re boring me,” he said, and glanced away to the front of the hall, where the line of first-years waiting to be sorted had dwindled to five or six. “This whole thing is boring me. Crabbe, wake me up when it’s time to eat.”

He chanced one more glance toward the Gryffindor table and set his jaw.

If words were all he had, he thought, he was going to make them damn good ones.

**

TBC