Last Tango in Paris
Chapter Forty-One

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They lay side by side, staring at the ceiling.

This had been going on for awhile. Initially it had been accompanied by comfortable silence. Now, the silence wasn't so comfortable. Still, Severus figured that for his money, Hermione could be the one to break it.

She didn't disappoint.

“So,” she said, eyes still trained on the ceiling. “This is strange, isn't it?”

He knew exactly what she meant, but decided that in this case, feigning ignorance was the better part of valor. “How so?”

“Well,” she said. “Usually at this point we've quarreled already about what a Bad Idea This Was and how we're Not Well Suited, and one of us has gone off in a huff. We're a bit in uncharted territory now, don't you think?”

He considered this while pretending that he wasn't looking at her – though why he was pretending, he hadn't a clue. Something to do with testosterone, no doubt. “I imagine that between the two of us,” he said, “we could manufacture a quarrel rather handily. If you feel it's necessary, that is.”

This made her chuckle – a creamy, dreamy sound deep in her throat which had the portion of his anatomy that he'd heretofore considered to be completely sated sending up a flare of newfound interest. “I imagine we could. Though this is rather nicer.”

That it was.

Severus stretched, letting his arms fall in a lazy curve above his head, and found the fingers of one hand somehow, inexplicably, linked with hers. “I wouldn't become accustomed to it, if I were you,” he said. The feel of her palm against his was like a body blow in miniature, almost too pleasurable to stand. “The niceties of social converse, I regret to admit, have long escaped me. Despite the pleasure of the company, that's a fact which is unlikely to change.”

She chuckled again. Her hand had wriggled free of his grasp and was now engaged in five-pronged electric tracery up and down the inside surfaces of his fingers. “And here I was hoping we could read some Rod McKuen and start a dream journal together. Darn.”

Severus didn't have the slightest idea who Rod McKuen was, but he knew when he was being got at. Oddly enough, he found the whole idea rather endearing; gentle raillery of this sort was a delicious novelty he'd never thought to taste – the chocolate Napoleon of afterglow, encased securely behind plate glass in a shop that never seemed to be open while he was passing by.

Now that he'd got a taste of it, he wanted to gulp it down whole.

Patience.

“Trollop,” he murmured, and captured her hand again. Palm to palm again – now, if only he could remember the incantation he had in mind … Ah, yes. He murmured it, and felt the side of her leg bump his as her body arched and her heels slid apart. Hermione cursed and jackknifed up.

“What the bloody hell was that?”

He didn't let go of her hand. “Shhh. This takes concentration, you know.”

She was glaring at him with bone-deep suspicion; it did his heart good to mutter that powerful little word again and watch her pugnacious expression take a direct hit. Surprise warred with indignation and curiosity and bone-deep desire in those intelligent dark eyes; he watched her pupils dilate as the pleasure threatened to swamp her, saw her dig her teeth into her bottom lip and fight it for all she was worth. Magnificent. Breathing hard through her mouth, she struggled up onto one elbow and frowned at him.

“This is from the Pronouncements of Eros again, isn't it?” she demanded. “I looked for that book, you know. For years.”

He laughed. “I'll wager you did.”

Oh, those mutinous eyes, the irresistible sulk of that mouth – all clichés aside, she really was more beautiful when she was angry, Severus thought. Sharper edges. Darker angles. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, capturing her free hand, “that you won't find that particular volume in Flourish and Blotts. It's part of an, er … private collection.”

Her eyes went from stormy to speculative in the space of a single heartbeat. “Yours?”

“Perhaps,” he said, and fed her another hit. “Does it matter?”

“I'm going to find it,” she gasped – eyes closed, lips parted, the very picture of sweet surrender gift-wrapped and tied with a bow. “I'm going to find it, and I'm going to pay you back in spades, Severus Snape. See if I don't.”

“Promises, promises,” he said, feeling that unfamiliar, unsettling smile creeping over his face again, and swung her over on top of him.

I could get used to this, he thought, and then: And Merlin help me if I do.

**

They were both a bit embarrassed to discover that Joséphine had been and gone and written them a note without so much as registering on their collective radar. For Hermione's part, anyway, the embarrassment lasted until they got to Hogwarts. At that point, she forgot about Snape completely – for the moment, at least – in favour of the toys Draco had brought with him.

“An MRI?” she said, goggling at it. “You scored an MRI?”

“Wasn't that what you wanted?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “But I didn't think you'd actually get it. Christ – it's massive. Where'd it come from?”

The corners of his mouth quirked, and for a moment she saw a trace of the arrogant little boy he'd been when she first met him. “I have my sources.”

“Uh-huh.” Hermione stroked the top of the scanner with one reverent forefinger. “Have you tried it out yet?”

Draco shook his head. “You're the expert. We've been waiting for you. But Dumbledore says it'll work.”

“Wow.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snape roll his eyes and sidle toward the exit with a throwaway look over his shoulder that said: Later. She hesitated, then turned back toward the machine. “Just – wow.”

“Um.” Neville, looking slightly less nervous now that Snape had left the premises, came a step closer. “How does it work, exactly?”

“Magnetism,” Hermione said absently, already absorbed in the manual. “And radio waves. It's complicated.”

“Does it … does it hurt? Will they feel it?”

“They'll be fine. It doesn't hurt.” Hermione walked around the machine, marvelling at how space-age shiny and out of place it looked, in this austere, high-ceilinged room of ancient hand-hewn stone. The power cord was untouched, still coiled and held with a twist-tie; nevertheless, when she flicked the Power button, the scanner lit up like the Starship Enterprise. Two kinds of magic in this room right now, she thought, and she'd be hard put to rank them one above the other on the chart of Cosmic Miracles. “Just don't bring anything metal anywhere near it when it's on. It's got a couple thousand times as much gravitational pull as the Earth itself.”

She'd meant this to be reassuring, but Neville didn't look convinced. “I hope it doesn't scare them,” he said doubtfully.

“Easy, Slick,” Joséphine murmured, patting his shoulder. “We're going for the greater good here, remember?”

But he still looked worried, and Hermione – remembering the tragedy that had been Gram at her most vague, remembering all those tearful telephone conversations with her mother about missed appointments and temper-flares and small everyday failures, eggshells in the sponge-cake and alum instead of sugar in the tea – put a hand on his arm. “Don't worry,” she said. “It can wait. But I would like to meet them now. If you don't mind.”

His face cleared. “Oh. Okay. Sure.”

**

The Hogwarts infirmary was perhaps one of the only rooms in the castle that had no artwork at all on the walls – probably a good thing, given the propensity of the paintings toward idle chatter. There was, however, a secret door toward the back, ingeniously disguised as a window – if you looked at it, you saw the curve of lawn, a sliver of shimmering water, and in the distance, the hoop of one blurry Quidditch goal, sticking up from the rest of the landscape like a soup spoon buried handle-first in the sandbox. Turn the handle and say the password, however, and you found yourself not in midair, as you might have supposed, but in another hospital ward, this one windowless and shadowy and lit with torches high off the ground. Keep going through this one, through the series of tunnels and connective passages that led away from it, and you got to the room where Albus had put the MRI scanner – the same room, Hermione realised, in which they'd performed the Fidelius Charm.

A bit odd, that – but at the same time, fitting. She followed Neville and Joséphine through a short stretch of corridor and into a small locked room that made her blink when she walked into it, it was so bright. Someone had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to make it look cheerful and welcoming; two of the four walls were lined with Charmed windows, streaming sunlight and fresh air and making the sunny yellow curtains flutter with warm breeze. The floor was covered with a hooked rug; the two single beds, with bright quilted comforters. Two rocking chairs undulated lazily in front of the windows. One of them was occupied, and it was toward this chair that Neville was headed now.

“Dad?” he said. “Dad, I've brought someone to meet you.”

“Don't want any,” Frank Longbottom said without looking up. He was turning his hands over and over, carefully passing fingers under palm under fingers in a studied, intent little gavotte. “Haven't got time.”

“Dad,” Neville said, sinking to his haunches in front of the chair and stilling his father's hands with his own. “It's me. Neville. This is Hermione; she's a … a doctor. She's going to help you with your memory.”

“Got to finish first,” his father said. “Got to leave the stragglers. Can't catch up yet.” He darted a mulish glance up at Hermione and Joséphine. “Ladies first. No time for nonsense.”

Hermione hesitated – then, at an encouraging nod from Neville, held out her hand for Frank Longbottom to shake. “It's nice to meet you, Mr. Longbottom,” she said.

For a moment, he frowned at her hand – thoughtfully, as if he just might take it after all. Then, he turned away.

“Carrots,” he said to the Charmed window. “Not a kitten in the bunch. Strangers, every one.”

Neville sighed.

“Okay, Dad,” he said. “We'll leave you alone. I'll be back later with some lunch, alright?” He patted his father's hunched shoulder, then shot Hermione a weary smile. “Sometimes he's better than this,” he said. “The move's been pretty hard on him – on both of them. Come on – come meet my mother.”

But Alice Longbottom was sitting cross-legged on the floor, picking intently at a stray tuft of the rug, and wouldn't look up even when Neville called her name. “This and that,” she said, sounding irritable. “And the other. No news, no news. Not now.”

“What do you think?” Neville asked, once they were out of the room, and Hermione shook her head.

“It's been awhile since I looked at my books,” she said. “I want to read over a few things again. Did Albus say where he put them?”

Neville hesitated, then nodded and dug an envelope out of his pocket.

“He left you this,” he said. “Said you'd know what to do with it.” Hermione ripped open the flap, tipped the contents out onto her palm, and laughed in spite of herself.

It was the key to Elysium.

**