Disclaimer: Au and Oc are my, the rest are JKRs.

Soon

Minerva McGonagall had called him in her headmistress's office to inform that Miss Hermione Granger would be joining them as her transfiguration apprentice. In stern words, she had made it clear, "Don't you dare make her life hell, like you did while she was a student!" Smiling to himself, he thought, did the old Scottish woman know that both Severus Snape and Hermione Granger had stepped into the well of Hell Fire and there was no going back?

She had come two weeks before the start of the new session, on a warm evening. The stoic Headmistress thought, it would be fitting to make the dour potion master escort her into the castle. He had waited till the last minute to barrel through the empty corridors snarling and growling like a beast he was known to be. Inside his pale white battered body, unknown and hidden away from prying eyes, his heart had once again pumped at a beat faster than the usual. He had last seen her a year ago. It would be technically wrong to use the word 'seen'. He had felt her, smelt her, and introduced her to the fire that he was so used to burning in on a daily basis. He had kissed her thrice that night. The first one happened when he failed the test of patience, the second happened when she introduced herself to him as a young woman and not a buck teeth know-it-all muggle girl desperate for his approval. The third one was the only thing he was able to relive again and again through lonely nights.

He had for once kissed her without any inhibition. Like a man declaring himself suitable for a woman he fancies. Like a swan dancing to attract his mate, like winter bowing in defeat at the feet of jovial spring. She was a perfect fit. She filled his gaping soul with the caress of her nimble fingers. And he filled her docile lack of inexperience with his flames of desire. Her lips danced at his cue, her tongue mirrored his moves, her curves fitted into every nook of his firm grasp...she smelt of elixir and ambrosia. She unwrapped her mind to him, like a virgin piece of hidden earth that no human had the opportunity to traverse to.

He was the first one to be there. These waves of hunger, need and lust that shrouded over his reasoning, that propelled him to grind against her cavernous abyss well hidden under folds of satin and georgette. He stopped it all by tearing his lips off her displeased ones. Her nails had dug mercilessly all around his neck. Clawing at his pulse, pushing him to the brim of losing his already dwindling composure. What could he offer her? He had lived the life of a destitute. Her heavy breath, her pebbled skin, her nails, her promising wetness, her blazing eyes, her wild hair were things she was willing to offer him to consume. Feed all his five senses until he saw the light at the end of his dark existence. She looked like the beacon of hope clinging on to his dark billowing robes, panting against the wooden door, clenching merciless around his waist, tempting him to let the devil of desire override him for once.

He took the middle path instead. Licking the bridge of her nose, rubbing his nose in between the small patch between her eyebrows, he cherished the feel of her eyelashes tickling his cheek. Parting his lips, he committed the sin. One word that made her his slave and him hers. "Soon". He had opened the door and had pushed her out, shutting the door on her astonishing face. He had crumbled against it. The bathroom walls that night was christened by her names. Each tile imprinted her name on them only for him to hear its soft echo. The shower, hot and cold had eased his burning soul as he watched pools of whiteness swirl above the water that finally disappeared through the perforated drain. It was then, that he had made his mind never to seek her as a quick answer to any built-up tension. Hermione Granger was worthy of more. He would never stoop low to sully her brilliance.

The Hogwarts Express had left the next morning and a single owl had brought him her answer. An ordinary post envelope with a single Iris flower tucked inside it. He knew she had sent it because that folded piece of parchment had inhaled or soaked in her essence ingredient by ingredient. He saw her image plastered over the front pages of the Daily Prophet, sat through nights listening to McGonagall gush about Miss Granger's achievements. Then suddenly the girl had left the magical world. The only explanation the two-third of the golden trio could provide the distraught Scottish woman, "She wanted a break, she thinks traveling a bit in the muggle world would help. She promised she would write."

Miss Granger did write to Potter, Weasley, and to several staff members of Hogwarts Castle. All of them thought Snape was exempt and clucked their tongues. While they collected parchments of her fantastic traveling tale, Severus Snape collected tags attached to a daisy that read, "I will never tell", an anemone which read anticipation, gladiolus said, "remembrance" and apple blossom, "I will come soon" and each time the messenger owl went back with a single flower of Cantebury Bell- 'your letter received".

Storming out of the castle door, fuming in pretentious anger, when he had reached the gates, at last, he saw Hagrid busy chatting with her. His irritation might have made the half-giant leave her at his disposal quicker than he intended to. Without a word, he had turned and walked ahead and she had followed his wake submissively. Up the stairs, through the corridors, they walked till both found themselves on the corridor that led to the Gargoyle statue. He had turned suddenly, stooping down till his mouth was close to her ear, he whispered," Naive, flower girl, welcome back to Hogwarts." He enjoyed her gasp and then her growing blush at his expense. Nipping her ear, he had turned and left before he went too far to committing the grievous crime of stealing a much-awaited kiss from her.

At diner Minerva had declared to the assembled staff, Hermione was to get inducted as her apprentice in four days, first thing in the morning of Saturday. The potion master made sure the girl never caught him alone. He enjoyed her frustration, enjoyed her lame efforts to corner him through the empty castle. In those four days, he felt young, gleeful, and thought he could take a leaf or two and imitate his adolescent students in their absence. Tuesday saw Granger with her bushiest mane when Flitwick had politely asked her, she made a sour face," no, can't comb them, broke all of my hairbrushes in attempting..." When Severus hid his smile behind his cup, he knew she saw him do that. She had stomped out of the Great Hall, as soon he had failed to hold on to his cup. The handle had vanished and before he knew his trousers were wet with very hot black coffee.

He thought she had had her revenge until Granger had cornered him late into the night of sleepy Friday, behind the shelves of medieval studies. Her eyes had glinted and, in a moment, she had planted herself right in front of him. Before he could say a word, she had him at her mercy, in her palm, and her nails caging him maliciously. She had her wand pointed at his navel with a warning," Don't you dare touch me!". Gripping him, clawing him, stroking him, till the point he would really groan, she left him panting, perched on the bittersweet edge, in their secluded corner. Throwing the word back to him, "soon".