Disclaimer: I own nothing, and only borrowed the characters for a little while.

Poppy Pomfrey needed supplies and at such a late hour, there was only one place to get them: Severus Snape.

Making the long trip down the dungeons, she mused that the Potions Master never complained about the distance when travelling up to her. Commencing down yet another flight of stairs, she pondered that Snape seemed to be in a slightly better mood recently. He was no less than his usual snarky self – just a little softened on the edges.

Arriving at his quarters, she knocked. Knocking once again, she again heard nothing. Pausing a moment, she decided to break the wards he had granted her access to (another sign of him trusting more people since the war ended, she mused).

Wards broken, she stepped in and wished she had waited until tomorrow to get the bdeth juice...

... for backlist against the fire were two people engage in a carnal act.

Severus she recognised easily – the long hair and hooked nose outlined in silhouette – but it was the female she could not identify. In her brief seconds rooted to the spot, the image forever imprinted in her mind was a head of curls thrown back in ecstasy as she rode her lover.

Poppy stumbled out the room to the sight of Severus reaching up to draw a nipple into his mouth.

Flushed, she reset the wards and swiftly disappeared.

The next morning, Poppy watched Severus approach the Head Table for breakfast. Reaching for her pumpkin juice under the guise of watching him, she mused that he didn't look that different – if anything, more smug – but was every inch his usual recalcitrant self.

It was the next voice that made her choke on her drink and recall the image forever imprinted in her mind.

"Hermione!" called Minerva McGonagall. "You've come to visit us for a few days."

Hermione and Severus?!

Finito.