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Roman Holiday Chapter Twenty-Six Snape stared after Hermione’s retreating back in disbelief. She was walking out. Without a word. After that … that nightmare. That catastrophe. That knife-thrust to the heart of proper teacher-student relations. He sighed heavily, locked the door after her with a wave of his wand, and slumped into his chair, irritably batting away a stray wisp of pale golden steam. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. You idiot, you should have guessed that something like this would happen, he thought, and jackknifed up from his chair again to stalk over to the Illuminata. Greenish-silver, with the consistency of heavy cream, it sent up the gentle, teasing aroma of sun-warmed citrus and burning fruitwood. The smell made his lips curve despite themselves, but he didn’t feel the urge to ravish the nearest maiden. Thank God, he told himself. Once in an evening was quite enough. And the Slytherins, unflappable as they liked to think themselves, would no doubt be alarmed if he seized Millicent Bulstrode from their common room. He dismissed that rather gruesome thought with considerable effort and turned back to the problem of the Illuminata. Why hadn’t he thought about how those two ingredients would react together? Lemon balm for euphoria. Phoenix ashes, symbolizing new chances and holding within themselves the memory of fire that couldn’t help but be inflammatory, in however mild a fashion. What was left in the cauldron now, he’d guess, was the stable base. The incendiary elements of the ingredients had met, flashed, and erupted, and he and Hermione had been caught in the unsettling, if largely enjoyable, aftermath. This meant, of course, that the Illuminata wasn’t an aphrodisiac per se, despite all appearances to the contrary. It nudged out negative emotion and replaced it with its positive counterpart. And, to a certain extent, it undermined self-imposed inhibitions. That explained Palestrina’s warning about mixing it with alcohol, Snape thought. And if the liquid itself had that effect, the initial vapors were bound to be, if more ephemeral, also that much more potent. But it wasn’t a love potion; it didn’t mess with free will. That fragrant golden smoke hadn’t made them do anything that they weren’t longing to do already. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel worse, or better. The flash was over, of course. They’d never see that yellow steam again; the substance that remained was inherently inactive, and could probably be used in its current state with complete safety. The ingredients they’d yet to add were the same ones you’d find in a standard Preservation Potion; Palestrina had probably incorporated them to prolong the elixir’s effects. There was some tricky timing involved, but the Big Bang wouldn’t repeat itself. Severus sat back again and closed his eyes. He could feel that warm sense of well-being slipping steadily away from him as time passed and the room cleared, and the part of him that had never hoped to be truly happy again raged against its passing. That was the worst part of all this. Not that he’d lost control. Not that he’d had sex with one of his students on the floor of his Potions lab. Not even that the experience would probably never repeat itself. It was that he had been thoroughly, brutally reawakened to everything he’d schooled himself not to miss, or want, or need. Smiling, for example. Kissing. The feel of another warm human body, skin to skin with his own and beyond that, beyond the heat and immediacy of the sex the feel of her hair and the smell of her skin and the sheer human contentment that he’d grasped, oh, so briefly, when they’d been curled up together on the chilly floor, limp and sated and sweaty, and breathing in tandem. To be yanked back into the pleasures of humanity like that, and then have to forget it twice? That was a curse darker, perhaps, than the one on his arm. Jaw clenched, he headed for his chambers. ** "Hermione, are you okay?" Half-asleep over her eggs, Hermione hid a yawn and tried to look innocent. "Fine," she said. "Why?" "You’ve got dark circles under your eyes," Harry said, sounding concerned. "And your lips are all chapped. Looks like you’re coming down with something." Yeah, I’m coming down with something, all right, Hermione thought wildly. A severe case of whisker burn, paired with Acute Insomnia. She forced herself to meet Harry’s eyes and shrug. "I feel okay," she said. "Up late studying last night, that’s all." Studying what? Anatomy? Oh, shut up. She was momentarily relieved to see the post owls flying in, as Hedwig was swooping down with the newest issue of Broomstick Today, and that particular magazine was enough to keep Harry and Ron distracted for weeks on end. Her fragile peace of mind, however, was shattered by one well-placed shriek from Parvati. "Ooooh, Hermione! You’ve got another pink envelope!!" Christ on a bloody broomstick, Hermione thought, and eyed the envelope in question with something approaching panic. She didn’t know if she could deal with any more thousand-year-old curses. For that matter, she was beginning to rethink relationships with sort-of-reformed Slytherins. Invariably, they were more complicated than they appeared. Trying half-heartedly for the proper level of girlish excitement, she ripped open the envelope. ** This sheltering midnight is our meeting place. I will remember firelight on your sleeping face. Parvati was bouncing in her seat like a manic human yo-yo. "What does it say, what does it say?" she demanded. "Hermione, can I see it?" Hermione passed the card down to her. Her brain was revving at a million miles a minute, but she was stuck in one stubborn gear. Guilt. Academic arguments about whether or not she and Draco were in a relationship could go on until Cornelius Fudge voluntarily resigned from the Ministry of Magic and personally, Hermione figured that the world would end first. That didn’t change this: he had feelings for her. And she’d just slept with someone else. His Head of House, to be exact. The elusion of whom in Rome had led to this whole Devil’s-Snare of a sexual predicament. Of course, the Fils du Couteau had been going on long before this summer, she thought. And it was a good thing that they’d discovered it when they had, right? Right? Oh, God. He wasn’t in love, was he? "That’s quite a poem," Harry said softly, and Hermione jumped. She hadn’t realized that he’d read it over her shoulder. "Um. Yeah." She took refuge behind her glass of juice. "Ursula Vaughan Williams, I think." "You do, huh?" He gave her a small, private smile. "Know what I think?" She shook her head. "I think your secret admirer’s a secret to everyone but you," he said. Those bottle-green eyes were gleaming with humor. Hermione gulped. "What makes you think that?" "Come on, Hermione," Harry said quietly. "‘This sheltering midnight is our meeting place’?" He raised his eyebrows. "We’ve been back in time together, you and I. Don’t try to play me." "Okay," she said, her lips barely moving. "You’re right. But don’t ask me who it is. Please." He grinned at her. "Wouldn’t dream of it." Hermione collected her card from a half-swooning Lavender and hefted her bag up to her shoulder, desperate to escape the Great Hall before any more complications came her way. Nice Gryffindor girls like her just weren’t meant to have this many secrets. ** History of Magic was as dull as ever, but Hermione steadfastly ignored the card burning a hole in the inside pocket of her robes. School first. Romance later. God help her, her life was half-Harriet the Spy, half-Last Tango in Paris. Just about the only thing she didn’t have to worry about right now was getting pregnant, and that was more thanks to her mum’s foresight than her own, considering how supercilious and I-Am-Abstinence-Girl she’d been about their Mother-Daughter Sex Talk, pre-Rome. If you only knew, Mum, she thought to herself. I’m doing your flower-child days proud. A regular one-person sexual revolution. Next thing you know, I’ll be picketing something and carrying a sign. Oh, wait. Already been there, done that. Cheered by that thought, she snickered. Professor Binns looked mildly affronted. "Is something amusing, Miss Granger?" "No, sir," she said, and put on her best Future-Head-Girl Earnest Face. "I’m sorry, sir. Something in my throat." Down the row from her, Ron snorted. ** The encoded message beneath the poem wasn’t long. Or complicated. Thank you for yesterday. I thought no one cared. You proved me wrong. See you tonight? Your room? Hermione frowned. There was one more faint line of numbers at the very bottom of the card. It looked as if he’d written them, then changed his mind and used a hasty and not-too-expert Erasing Charm. Even without decoding them, she’d know those three little words. Pretend you didn’t see them, she told herself, and swept the card into her bag. She wasn’t going to deal with that twist in the plot, until she absolutely had to. |