Fic! SS/HG

[rillalicious]

So here is my contribution to celebrate_sshg. My first ship. ♥.

Fandom/Pairing: HP, Severus/Hermione
Title: Lonely Christmas Indeed
Rating: Hard R
Word Count: ~ 2700
Summary: Christmas Eve, ten years later.
(Highlight to View) Contains: Fluff. Nothing but fluffy, fluffy, fluff..
Author's Note: This story was originally intended as a one-shot 7 years ago. A year later I added a second chapter with the intention of adding another each year. Yeah, didn't happen. Um, I don't think you really need to read the first two to catch up on this one. The first two parts can be found here at Ashwinder. (The first part is so, so, so horribly in need of a rewrite that I can't even tell you.) Thanks to ellensmithee and thistle_verse for the read throughs.



I would be happy just to hold the hands I love, on this winter's night with you
~ Gordon Lightfoot, Song for a Winter's Night


The black gloves fit her hands so sleekly that she felt as though she'd given herself a second skin. She pressed her hands against the window panes, the frosty cool seeping through the glass, through the leather, into her bones. Ten years was such a very long time.

Everything outside was silenced beneath the insulating snow.

Love was such a strange thing to hold onto, she thought. It was like a secret, a warm, pulsing spark cloistered away deep inside her. And somehow, it thrived like that. Maybe because they were so predisposed to secrecy from years of practice.

The path to the cabin was hidden beneath the smooth plane of white, and when he appeared over the crest of the hill, a figure so dark in the moonlight that he could have been made entirely of shadow, only the trail of footsteps behind him lay across the landscape as proof that he was not gliding on air.

He moved so gracefully in his smart, tailored coat, but she felt a small ache for his usual billowing grandeur. The fire crackled and dimmed, and she did not move from the window to add another log. Instead she watched him drawing closer and pressed her gloved palms together, and waited.

Finally the door swung open, cutting a clean arc of powdery snow on the wooden floor. He stepped inside and closed it with a heavy thud.

"Odysseus returns to Ithaca," she said, closing the distance between them.

"Hardly," said Severus, brushing the snow from his shoulders. "Though I see you've worn a path by the window."

"I was anxious to see you."

"And I you," he leaned toward her, brushing his lips over the tip of her nose. He pulled his wand from his sleeve, dousing the fire with one sweep of his wrist, and drying the moist scarf wrapped around his neck with the next. "Are you ready?"

"I am," she said. She pulled her fur-lined hat over her head and tucked her hair beneath.

He paused then, his finger hovering over her temple for a moment before he wrapped one errant lock around his fingertip. From the corner of her eye she could see it was peppered with a paler shade than the chestnut brown of her youth. She felt too young to have so much grey, but he seemed rather fond of it. "Silver. Indistinguishable from the moonlight," he'd told her once.

He crooked his finger, tugging on her hair. She batted him away with a smile.

"Come," he said, and he offered his arm.

Outside snowflakes whirled by in torrents, burning her cheeks with icy wet kisses. She pulled herself close against him and they Disapparated.


~@~@~@~


He would have taken her directly to the diner, but there were rules to this game tonight. It all needed to unfold in a particular order; she'd been quite clear about that. Perhaps he'd been too willing to indulge her, but she'd already given him a decade of indulgences. In fact, she seemed to thrive on his peculiarities if not on his bouts of morose self-reflection, though those, too, she bore with a steel resolve.

The sidewalk was uneven beneath their feet and quite often, as they walked downhill over patchy ice and deceivingly deep swells of snow, her heel would catch the rocky surface and he'd pull her closer, for her warmth as much as for balance.

"Are you sure it's nearby?" he asked.

"You don't remember?" There was an undertone of scolding in her voice that made him feel quite like a schoolboy.

"Of course I do, but I did not commit the exact distance to my memory."

"Hmm. Because I did."

"I'm sure you did," he said, pulling her in tightly as they dodged an overturned trashcan.

"And it's a good thing too. You would have got us lost."

"I wouldn't have had us out looking for this place at all."

"Because you lack sentimentality," she said.

"You make up for that in spades."

"I do try to bring balance to the relationship. We're here."

She'd stopped, turned him toward the small grove of trees. The soft, even patch of earth where they had made love in the snow ten years ago was laid out before them.

"My back would never forgive me another shag in the snow," she said, and her wand was poised between her fingers now. She drew it through the air and music so soft that it could have come from a distant window drifted on the air between them, dancing through the air like snowflakes. She offered her arms.

"I would have thought it was quite clear I don't dance," he said.

"And even clearer that tonight is entirely of my design, not yours."

He harumphed softly, old enough now to know defeat when he saw it at a distance, and nodded curtly, taking her in his arms.

"It's traditional after all," she said.

"Not in this order."

She wrapped a hand over his shoulder and rested her chin on his chest to look up at him. "I want this for the memories," she said. "It doesn't matter to me if they're linear. We'll do it all backward and it will be just as perfect as if we'd done it the other way around."

That distant music changed, slowed, to the soft sound of a sole piano, and a pair of voices twining around one another like drops of water spiraling down an icicle. She pressed her cheek to his collarbone.

He pressed his lips to her forehead.

~@~@~@~

The dance ended, as Hermione expected it would, too soon, but she knew it was time to move on. His patience would be spent in another moment and she had far too many plans for the evening to let his foul mood dictate their humor. She tucked her hand inside the crook of his arm and they walked in silence to the diner. The wind was growing stronger now, and fat flakes of snow clung to his hair and coat.

In the warmth of the diner, she shivered the chill away, removing her gloves one finger at a time and tucking them in her pocket. She didn't have to look up to know his dark gaze followed every movement.

"Two vanilla cupcakes," she told the waitress. "And two cups of coffee, black."

"I would have expected apple pie," he said, when the waitress walked away. "For old times' sake." Those words carried just a hint of disdain.

"Cupcakes are all the rage in the muggle world here," she said, her lips twitching as she tried to contain her amusement.

"Was there something in our long and arduous history together that led you to believe I'm the type of man who would choose to eat cupcakes for supper?"

"Nothing at all," she said, her smile broad. "But it's celebratory, and I insist."

He grunted and pushed away the menu. The waitress walked by again to deliver the coffee and Hermione held out her hand.

"We'll also have a bowl of chicken soup to share," she said. "For old times' sake."

"You remembered the first thing I ordered here?" he asked.

She shrugged, smiling coyly from behind her coffee cup. "Maybe it's just that I remember my one and only night working as a waitress."

"Of course." He looked around. "The ambiance hasn't changed a bit."

"Neither has the coffee," she said, setting down her cup.

"You'll understand if I take the celebratory cupcake with us so you can enjoy it later, won't you?"

"I suppose," she said. "I believe it's traditional that I feed you a bit of mine, anyway."

"And tonight is very traditional." Sarcasm dripped from each word.

"In its own way, yes. It is."

The cupcakes arrived at the same time as the soup, piled high with swirls of frosting and each topped with a white plastic ring sporting a garish, sparkling snowflake. Severus examined his in poorly disguised horror. Hermione scooped a bit of frosting with her finger and leaned across the table, too quickly for him to react, smearing it across his lips. He recoiled.

"Foul," he said irritably, dabbing his mouth with the napkin.

She laughed. "Your turn."

He raised the entire cupcake in his hand and she gasped, covering her face just a moment too late.

~@~@~@~

Severus stood in the vestibule beside her, one corner of his thin lips curled in amusement as he watched her furiously trying to remove every last bit of the sweet from her dress.

"You didn't have to be so thorough," she said.

"It's your fault for expecting me to participate in a tradition I know nothing about," he said. "And for expecting that I wouldn't want to dispose of that vile concoction as soon as possible."

"Point taken," she said curtly, and she cast one last cleaning charm. "There. That should be everything. Do you have my flowers?"

He pulled a tiny box from his dress robes and enlarged it. She removed the lid and took the small clutch of blossoms.

"They're lovely," she whispered.

"Indeed." They were. Red roses punctuated with snowdrops, each bloom perfect. They were clearly the best of Hogwarts' greenhouses, even if they were grown by Longbottom. "You've taken care to supply the witnesses?" he asked.

"I have."

And the chapel doors slowly opened. In the first row of chairs, on either side of the narrow aisle, sat only two witnesses: one red-headed, and one with black hair, slicked down against his scalp, yet still disheveled. Severus slid his gaze over to his bride.

"Who else would be willing to come on Christmas Eve?" she said curtly.

Of course he would have to share this moment with Potter of all people. A fact which proved to be a forgotten inconvenience once they were standing in front of the justice of the peace. "A muggle ceremony," she had said passionately, "because we first came together in the muggle world. It would only be right." He hadn't understood at first. Surely it would have been easier to call upon one of her colleagues from the Wizengamot, or even the headmaster himself, but standing here at this moment, he couldn't imagine an environment more fitting.

Her hair, still clinging to her skin from the weather and her hat, despite the strongest of charms to diffuse the effect, framed her face in soft loops of curl. Her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, her eyes watery for reasons that had nothing to do with the weather. He thought that in all his life he'd never deserved a moment less than he deserved this one. That Weasley and Potter were forced to bear witness suddenly became a boon instead of an annoyance. Perhaps that had been her intention all along.

The words didn't seem to matter, anything of meaning had already been spoken between them during private moments, and she knew him well enough to keep it all simple and efficient. Then he kissed her, soft at first, then deeper and longer for effect when he heard Weasley groan (which also seemed to be Hermione's impetus to wrap her arms around his neck and curve her body snuggly against his). She pulled away breathless and flushed, and it was like that first night all over again except with more certainty this time.

Potter's handshake was solid and firm, and as reluctant as Severus was to admit it, genuine. Weasley's less so. She didn't linger with her friends, who were likely eager to return to their own families for the holiday.

And then they were free to leave, and she didn't bother with hat nor gloves, laughing wildly by his side as they hurried down the road to a safe, secretive spot from which they could Disapparate.

~@~@~@~

As they stumbled into the cabin, falling back against the door between frantic kisses, the fire roared to life behind her and Hermione jumped. Severus chuckled softly, tossing his wand on the table and reaching for the buttons on her coat. She felt as though it took hours to peel layer after infuriating layer of clothing from his body, but finally her fingers reached bare skin and she gasped aloud, as if she hadn't been expecting it.

Her simple white dress caught on her hair as he pulled it over her head, and she laughed, disentangling herself while banishing her slip and stockings. Then his beautiful long fingers were on her stomach and tracing a path over her ribs and curving along the cup of her bra, which she removed with a flick of two fingers behind her back. She pressed against him, wrapped around him, so keen to touch and feel and taste that she could only conjure incoherent half phrases of instruction as she pulled him toward the bed.

"You lack patience," he murmured, not at all hesitant to follow her lead.

"I make up for it in overwhelming desire," she said, falling onto her back and pulling his head down, bringing his lips to hers.

She wanted so badly to kiss and be kissed, to feel him moving inside her and all around her. He wrapped his arms around her back, rolling her on top of him, and she spread her knees, raising herself above him to look down. His hair splayed out on the bed like a dark halo, his pale skin luminescent in the firelight in contrast. She skimmed her fingertips along his cheeks, along the sharp outline of his jaw, as his palms slid up her thighs. Even after ten years he drew a vibrancy from her that she never knew existed.

"You are beautiful," he said, and warmth rose in her cheeks.

"Even as an old, married woman?" she asked wryly.

"If you are old, my girl," and then his lips were on her fingers, his tongue teasing her skin between the words, "then what does that make me?"

"Mmm, sinful," she murmured, drawing her nails down his chest.

She could feel his erection pressing against her and she shifted her position, rubbing herself over him, wet and needy and ready to take him in. In the firelight, the angles of his face cast shadows across his pale skin and as she rose up on her knees, she watched the warm glow reveal his expression to her in dancing fragments. She slid down on him and he gasped, holding her hips, his gaze intense and unmoving as her body shuddered around him.

She had expected to remember more, to have memorized every moment of their wedding night the way she could recount each heartbeat during that first night together, but in the end it all folded into an elegant haze. It never ceased to astound her how graceful he could be, the ease with which he could move beneath her, inside her. When she came her pulse was thrumming in her ears to the beat of the wildly crackling fire, and he was spilling inside her, long fingers leaving shallow impressions upon her skin as he clutched her against him.

Later, after she slid into his embrace, warming charms cast to ward off the winter chill seeping through the thin glass panes, she closed her eyes.

"I suppose this means we'll have to take our relationship public," she said.

"I'm not sure I can abide the headmaster's smug satisfaction."

"That you're now a married man?"

"No, that he was correct in his assumptions," said Severus. "He knew there was a reason you refused the Arithmancy position. He tried to wheedle it out of me by suggesting you were carrying on a covert relationship with Longbottom."

She laughed. "Neville? That was playing dirty, wasn't it?"

"Indeed."

"Well, I can assure you that there is no worry of me running off with Professor Longbottom if you start bringing me around to Hogwarts functions."

"I should hope not. But I imagine we will find more productive ways to spend our evenings than attending the headmaster's inane festivities?"

"Oh yes?" she asked, snuggling closer. His hand traced the curve of her spine.

"Mmm, yes. I fully intend to use my wife as an excuse to make my life infinitely less tedious."

"Then I suppose I'm glad to be of service. Though that won't get you out of attending the Ministry's spring charity ball with me."

"I've been married two hours and already so much to look forward to."

"Oh, Severus," Hermione murmured, overtaken by the need to fall headlong into sleep. "You have no idea."


~@~@~@~