Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own the characters.
A/N: Treat this as if the other list had never happened. This is what would happen if Hermione had gone by a list. You know how much bookworms love lists! Anyways, enjoy and review!
How to Snare a Slytherin Gryffindor Style
Step 1: Show him that you're into him in a very obvious way, but don't touch. You want him suspicious and watchful, not hiding under a rock.
Severus glared down at his food. He glared out at the children. He glared at the staff members who dared sit by him. He glared at the enchanted ceiling, with its sparkly niceness. He then glared at his colleagues again. Then he— Wait a minute. Did she just—
Severus resisted the huge urge to do a double-take. The elves must have put some sugar in his tea. Nothing else could explain what he saw.
Nobody winked at the Potions Master. Nobody. Especially not bookworms too bookish to pull their noses out of a book long enough to wink at the Potions Master. Not that he minded all the books, or anything. It's just that he thought she was too into them to pay anyone any mind, let alone wink at them.
He decided to be more observant, just in case there was something mischievous afoot. Right. Constant vigilance, and all that rot.
Step 2: Tell him that you care. That'll really get to him.
It had been a few weeks since The Incident, and Severus felt a little less tense. Nothing major had happened. There had been fewer cauldron explosions, less staff meetings, and no stray winks sent his way by curly-headed women. He was in the middle of brewing something for the Infirmary, when someone burst through the door, causing him to flinch and cut his finger.
"Oh! I'm so sorry! It's just that I had my hands full and the door was cracked— I tried to knock, really, but everything was just about to fall out of my hands and I thought you'd rather I make a noise then cause a mess, but oh, are you hurt very badly? Here, let me see."
Severus, bewildered by the whirlwind that was Professor Granger, and her talent for ceaselessly talking nonsense, was escorted onto a nearby stool as the woman grasped and fondled his hand, taking a closer look before pulling out her wand. She lifted it but paused, looking to him.
"May I?"
His breath went out of him in a whoosh, and he nodded hesitantly. With a few swishes and a flick or two, the cut was healed with no scaring or blood in sight.
"Thank you, Professor Granger," He muttered.
"Nonsense, Professor Snape. It was my fault in the first place, and I am glad that I was able to rectify it. Even if it wasn't my fault, if you came to harm, I'd do anything in my power to help you. You know that, right?" She looked at him with her big brown eyes, and Severus felt there was less air in the room. "Anyways, I was walking along the lake with Albus a little while ago and saw these plants. I know from previous years that you use these in some of your classes, and Albus said the creatures wouldn't mind if I took a bit for you, so, here you go!" This longwinded speech was ended with a large smile on her face and a flourish of the large basket full of aquatic plant life. "I'll just leave it here and let you get back to work on your potion. No doubt you are very busy today." With that, she was gone, and Severus could have sworn he hadn't blinked once in the whole exchange. What a strange woman.
Step 3: Stun him. Rawr.
Severus was walking down a corridor briskly, his robes billowing out, making him fill more space than was usually humanly possible. It was a lucky thing no one else was there. He was just rounding a corner, when he ran into someone else coming around that same corner from the opposite direction. With an oomph and stumble, he found himself pressed against the stone wall of the corridor by a little hellion. He glanced down and forced back a groan, both of resign and pain. The hellion, aptly named, was none other than Professor Granger.
"Professor Granger, it is usually polite to not rampage around the castle as if there is no one but yourself. We all cannot, or will not, move out of your way."
She had the nerve to raise an eyebrow at him, "I could say very much the same words to you, Professor Snape." She walked her fingers up the buttons at the front of his robes, and he realized how close they were. He removed his hands from her waist and she backed away a few inches. Smirking, she turned and left, before he could say anything else.
Severus blinked and glared. She was now stealing his signature moves! He growled at nothing in particular.
Step 4: It's almost time to pounce. Give a little teaser.
Severus blinked and stared. He blinked again, extra hard, and then stared a bit longer. His mouth watered a little and he scolded himself. Clearing his throat, he pushed open the door to her office. She looked up at him and set her book down, but didn't change position.
"Yes, Professor Snape?" Her straightforwardness distracted him from the expanse of leg propped on her desk, exposed to just above the knee by the slit in her robes.
He cleared his throat, "Staff meeting tonight, Professor." His eyes felt magnetized to the smooth expanse of leg, and flitted back and forth from it to her eyes and back again. Hopefully she didn't notice.
"Thank you, Severus," She slowly moved her legs off the desk and sat up with a sigh, Severus watching until they once again disappeared beneath the cloth of her robes before clearing his throat, nodding, and exiting. He made sure not to run into the doorway on his way out. It wasn't until he was well on his way down the corridor that he noticed she had used his first name. He tried to hold back his analyzing until within the safety and privacy of his own rooms.
Step 5: Have at him!
Severus gulped and pulled at the collar of his robes, his back to the door of his rooms. He was safe.
It seemed that, wherever he went these days, he was always ambushed by at least one of the senses through her.
The other day, she had sat so close to him in the staff meeting (not that she could help it, being one of the last people there, and the place by him the last seat available) that he could recall almost nothing but how exquisite she had smelt.
She always seemed to be sitting next to him at dinner, and was always asking for this and that, and he could almost swear that she touched him on purpose when taking the various platters from him. He felt quite drained from all the little shocks to his nervous system by the end of each night, and, before dessert, where she could have opportunity to accost him some more, he would escape to his rooms to sweat and blunder and meditate over this strange turn of events.
It would not happen tonight, it seemed, as he could feel and hear the knock coming from the other side of the door. He gave it a few seconds before turning and opening it.
Of course, it would be her. She was standing, innocently framed by his doorway, holding two plates of the evening's dessert, a chocolate raspberry cake that he was particularly fond of.
She hesitated enough to seem polite, "I noticed you'd missed dessert, and they had made your favorite, so I thought I'd bring some. The house elves have started to become worried about you. They've made this same dish for the last three nights. I figured it was a sign for one of us to do something. Besides, what's dinner without dessert?"
He almost groaned. Dirty man, he scolded himself. Dirty man.
It wasn't enough for him to stop himself from moving aside and letting her enter his quarters.
"I always did wonder what your rooms looked like. It's nice here," she said, and he started to feel like a caged tiger, the meat in front of him, but knowing that there was no going back once he accepted the sustenance. He sat down across the room from her.
After glancing around at some of the books on his shelves, she turned and noticed him. "Oh! I get very easily sidetracked when there are books around." She walked over and set his plate on the table beside his chair, before sitting down to enjoy her own. "I hope you don't mind that I'm joining you."
Severus managed to make a noise of assent before picking up his plate and starting in on his dessert, trying to distract himself from the thoughts trying to cross his mind. He involuntarily closed his eyes at the taste of his favorite. It seemed the best the elves had ever made, and he had not had anything sweet for a couple weeks now.
He opened his eyes to see her observing him acutely. Her close scrutiny caused a slight flush to rise in his cheeks. A slow smile slid across her face, one both dangerous and tempting, and his breath caught. No, Severus. Calm down. She can't mean that expression.
Professor Granger slowly set aside her plate. She stood and walked the two steps it took to stand in front of his seat. She took his plate and fork from his nerveless hands and set it aside. He stared up at her, not able, even if asked, to speak aloud at the moment. The woman was suddenly sitting in his lap, his hands were aching to hold her, touch her, and her eyes were staring into his, dark and seductive. He felt it a dream, a fantasy that would never happen, but then she was kissing him and his arms were around her and he felt flustered, excited, drugged by her presence.
She was kissing him. Him! The evil Potions Master of the dungeons, in his very lair!
"Oh, Professor!" he muttered, between kisses, and flushed. She pulled back, her eyes seeming darker and yet more luminous.
"Always so proper, Severus," She turned so she was speaking in his ear, "It's one of the many things I find so intriguing and sexy about you."
He shuddered and moaned and shook with feeling and surprise and relief that he wasn't the only one. He wasn't the only one that noticed things and cared and loved.
He couldn't speak, for the life of him, the things he was feeling, but she somehow understood and they commenced kissing and he found out for himself that sometimes actions spoke better than words.
A/N: Well, I hope you liked that! It was fun writing it! Please review! Thanks!