Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKR.

AN: I found this piece where I have some fun with AriadneAWS's Hermione and Severus from A Walking Shadow... Many thanks to my spiffy beta, Ariadne.

What's one year, anyway?

She could always tell the hour by the length of the shadows across the corridor. Looking to occupy her restless mind, she counted the perfect shards of moonlight lying on the floor as she walked. Performing her Head Girl duties seemed anticlimactic; a well earned, but hollow honor in comparison to the lifetime lived over the summer.

Her footfalls alone sounded cold, the faraway shifting of a portrait's sleeping occupant a reminder that the world had moved on.

Except her heart had not.

Every time she had caught his eye, it was there.

A year.

Patience.

She stopped, standing in the cold light, and closed her eyes.

"Keep moving, Mrs. Norris," Hermione muttered, and heard a distinctive sniff of arrogance before Filch's cat slipped back around the corner.

Every ghost had been watching them, too.

Watching both of them, their proximity to each other, every glance, measuring their length, meaning, depth...

Her thoughts, however, were her own.

She turned and continued further along, her brow furrowing when a light brushing sound followed.

Turning to tell whomever, be they ghost, cat, poltergeist, or portrait, to leave her be, her breath was torn from her throat, sharp wooden splinters from a thrust open door dragged across her back, and she was plunged into utter darkness.

The rush of air swept her hair across her face as the door was shoved closed behind her. Before she could cry out, the shock of the wall against her back stopped any attempt at a voice.

Quiet.

Her mind tangled in rules, position, proper procedure before being drowned by the simple brush of his fingers across her cheek. Warm breath in the dark, hers fast with surprise, his deep and slow.

The question came into her mind, and his response headed it off sharply.

No one, but not long.

Her shaking hands found his and pulled them both to her chest over her heart.

I've missed – this. You. We shouldn't-

Even as she formed the argument in her mind, he moved just slightly closer, leaning over her, forming a fall of robes around them both.

She needn't see them to know how they fell.

Every fold was in her mind, how each sound corresponded to each measured movement, each step to the side and their slide across rough floorboards.

Closing her eyes did nothing to prevent the sound, to stop her hand from already reaching for him, touching the curtain of fabric, slipping it between her fingers, moving across his shoulder to his chest to where she could feel his heartbeat, each rise and fall, every shuddered breath drawn through clenched teeth at every touch.

Knowing that even in the pitch dark he was following her every movement.

His hand turned in hers, spreading his fingers over her chest, pressing her harder against the wall.

Her last semblance of restraint rallied, but was again cut off, not by shared thought, but by his full weight crashing against her and a rush of feverish words against her throat.

A crushing kiss took her breath away, the warmth of him, his hands taking hers, dragging them out, pulling over each catch as fabric fought wood. Her response, a confession of every wish, every mourned dream, every secret rampaging heartbeat, all told in a single word breathed against his lips. Fingernails dragging over wool as he surged forward, a multitude of cold weather clothing cursed and torn aside, and their breath caught, lost, his hand flying to her hip, gripping painfully tight, lifting, then shoving forward, teeth hovering just below her jaw. Her mouth fell open, breath hitching, her hand finding the door's hinge and holding on, finding leverage against friction, her robes catching, his hair against her chest, sweeping from side to side, falling over, then thrown back and his voice returned, deep murmuring turning over into sharp gasps, hers rising over his, twisting, merging into one. The tearing sound as her hand fell a fraction, several buttons tumbling to the floor and a rush of heat, his furious kiss, her hand lost the hinge, catching on the handle, the door's rattle in its frame, louder, surely heard, slamming harder as if in response to her thought, losing herself in an overwhelming wave, her voice lost in his, his fingers driving even deeper into her hip, gripping harder, his breath halting, angling upwards in the dark, restraint crashing down as their voices rushed upwards, declarations of desire, love, faith and devotion, easing softly to lower into timeless words whispered against parted lips.