She wondered, for only a moment, whether it was wise to get ready for bed, brush her teeth, put on her jim-jams before calling Snape but she knew instinctively, that she would be way more relaxed, more open if the touch of make-up was gone and if the bra was gone. She rushed through her routine in the bathroom though and smilingly, settled into her bed, picking up her mobile phone and watched in fascination who her fingers began to tremble as soon as she opened her phonebook.
There he was. In her mobile phone. Snape, the entry said. Just Snape. She liked the name. It was short, it was snappy and somehow, he wasn't Severus yet. Severus had been her head-Severus and she would never, not ever, tell Snape about head-Severus. Not in thirty years or on her deathbed or whenever. She would never tell him about that.
There. She only had to press dial. She only had to do it and her smile vanished and her fingers trembled worse. Screwing her eyes shut tightly, she just pressed, then put the mobile against her ear, settling deeper into her bed, wrapping her duvet tightly around her.
"So you managed to shoo the Weasley boy from the house?" his voice said at the other end of the line and she had to swallow at his tone.
"Yes. And hello to you, too," she said softly.
"Good evening," he replied and his voice sounded so close and so real and she had to close her eyes. She just had to. Remembered every aspect of the kiss.
"How is, erm, the wand working for you?" she asked, stupid question. Stupid, stupid but what else could she say? Snape, tell me everything about yourself so I can judge whether you truly mean what I felt you meant when you kissed me? That would never do.
"Very nicely," he replied. "Did you get a statement for Miss Lovegood?"
"Oh yes," she replied, her eyes opening quickly. "It's basically just an informal blurb-kind of thing. You know, Mister Severus Snape, bla bla, your titles etc, had his magical powers restored by an unnamed person who is not working for the Ministry of Magic..."
"Unnamed person?" he thundered suddenly.
"Erm, yes," she nodded even though she knew he couldn't see her.
"You're not unnamed. Draco is not unnamed," he spat. "Why would you consent to such rubbish?"
"I, er, we thought it would be better. For you and for them. I mean if they knew that Draco and I had a hand in this, the public will immediately..."
"What will the public do?"
"Cry out? Argue?"
"What for? The imbeciles in the Wizarding World did nothing for me," he exclaimed suddenly.
"No, but..."
"You will change that. I want you to have full credit for what you've done," he said sharply.
"I thought you wouldn't...I mean...I misjudged you," she said softly. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you..."
"You didn't think I would, what?" he asked, sounding gentler.
"You know, let the public know that it was me," she said in a very little voice.
"They saw us together in Diagon Alley, Granger. I don't think anyone not believing the Daily Prophet will reach any other conclusion," he breathed softly. She could hear it through the phone. It sounded almost like he was breathing in her ear and that made her feel happy that she was half-sitting and half-lying in the bed. Otherwise, she feared that her knees would give in again.
"I will tell Luna in the morning," she said then and was silent, listening only to his breathing.
.
A little past eleven, he had decided that he could just as well take the mobile phone up to his bedroom with him and read in bed while waiting for her to call or not and as he had barely finished the first page, his phone had rung softly on the pillow next to him.
Stupid woman didn't want to be credited for the work he had done. For a fleeting moment, he considered that she might feel ashamed of it — but then again, she had gone to Diagon Alley with him for his wand and for the apothecary (which he still had to go to because of the mob that had stopped them from going), and she must have known that someone would see them sooner rather than later. It couldn't be because she was ashamed of what she had done or because of him but because she was modest. Because she was decent.
He could hear the rustle of something through the mobile and wondered if she was in bed as he was, knees propped up, back against two pillows, mobile tightly clutched to the ear. He could hear her breathing and he could almost hear her thinking.
Well, his strategy was clear, at least for the next couple of weeks. He would ask her to go out with him, somewhere nobody knew him, and he would have to make an effort to ask questions — and give answers. He would have to open up just the slightest bit. He would have to.
She was silent and he enjoyed this. She only breathed into the phone and it was almost as if she was breathing in his ear and he thought for a second that he could feel her breath against his cheek.
"Snape?" she asked suddenly.
"Hm?"
"You kissed me," she whispered.
"So I did," he smiled softly to himself, not really wondering whether those kisses were as much on her mind as they were on his. Of course they were. He had made damn sure to give her the best damn kiss he was capable of giving. To put as much intent into the kiss as he could. Intent was always the key...
"Why did you kiss me?"
"Because I wanted to," he said honestly.
"And, erm..."
"Complete sentences, please, Granger. I don't want to go around telling people that the loveliest kiss I've ever been given was from a person who couldn't even build complete sentences. Subject, Verb, Object," he mocked and tried not to sound too cruel.
"Sorry," she said on the other end of the line and he couldn't tell if she was said or felt rebuked or if she had understood his backhanded compliment.
"Erm, do you want to do it again? I mean just for me to be prepared. Flossing and...shite."
"I realise you're the daughter of dentists but isn't this taking it to extremes? Just a little?"
He could hear her smirking even though smirking wasn't usually a very audible action. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Snape, this was a stupid question and I don't even know what came over me. I mean it's not something I'd ask anyone or at all, really. I mean it's a stupid thing to ask and I take it back. Forget I ever asked. Really. Sorry. I mean..." he could hear her blushing this time and he had to interrupt her before she began hyperventilating.
"I probably want to, yes," he said softly and in the tone that he knew had made all his students perk up. Had never failed and didn't fail now.
"Really?" she asked breathlessly.
"Really."
There was another bout of silence and he smiled. He just smiled to himself. "Granger?"
"Hm?"
"You kissed me," he smirked.
"So I did," she laughed at the other end of the line, sounding terribly relieved.
"Do you want to do it again?" he mocked. "I mean just for me to be prepared, flossing and brushing and mouth wash and mouth spray and..."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"No," he said quietly. "I don't."
"Oh fu..erm, yeah. Snape, Harry said earlier that your car...I mean Mrs Callaghan's car..."
"I will come pick it up tomorrow. I already received my dressing down for it," he answered quite dishonestly. Eleanor hadn't even noticed yet that her car was missing. And neither had he. He had been too preoccupied and Eleanor had been too happy for him to notice. "And while I'm down there, would," he paused and swallowed the large amount of spit that suddenly had gathered in his mouth, "you like to go to dinner then?"
"I'd love to," she breathed.
"Good," he replied and only noticed now how exhausting it was to talk to her on the phone. He couldn't read her, he couldn't look into her eyes and he couldn't judge anything by her expression. He wanted to see her when he talked to her. Wanted to see how she reacted. That she understood when he tried (and failed) to make a joke. He wanted to see her. Hug her. Hold her. Kiss her. He took a deep breath.
"Are you alright?" she asked, sounding quite worried.
"I am very alright," answered he, knowing it would cost him a lot of nerve and a lot of strength to be open to her but he had to be. He had to be. He had to let her see the real him. He couldn't possibly end up like his parents. Not knowing one another before getting married in a rush and...no, not thinking about them.
"I had a lovely day with you," Granger whispered suddenly. "Not really the mob even though I'm curious why they'd want you as Minister for Magic. Not that I doubt that you could do it and people would certainly look up to you, or not, but..."
"Me? Minister? Are you joking now, Granger? I wouldn't be elected Minister for anything, much less Magic. And I wouldn't want to be."
"Looks like they want you," she argued.
"They also want bound and subservient house elves. And I know with absolute certainty that one of us doesn't agree with that opinion."
She laughed again. Loudly, clearly, happily. "I do appreciate having Kreacher around though," she said quickly. "But I'd feel better if..."
"He will never accept payment. Or anything of the kind and you know it. You should have seen that he likes working with people and for people and that only Regulus's last wish which he couldn't fulfil made him go insane."
"I know but still. Do you think it's right? Seriously, look at it. There are creatures — no pun intended — which live to serve."
"Ants live to serve. Bees. The regular ones anyway. They don't get paid."
"They get food and honey and...they don't get beaten," she cried out.
"No, but as soon as they're useless, they die," he shrugged. "This is beyond your and my capacity to understand. They want to do this. They're happy doing this."
She grumbled and he heard the rustling of something again.
"Granger, are you in bed?" he asked suddenly without thinking about what he should have said or should have kept inside of him. This was curiosity. He wanted to know. He wanted to picture her in his head in one of the old rooms in Grimmauld Place. A room she had surely redone. A bed which...not thinking about that yet. Soon. Not yet.
"Erm, yeah. You?"
"Yes," he said softly and knew that he had never considered saying something like this to anyone else. Never.
"It was just more comfy and I wanted comfy to talk to you," she whispered into the phone.
"I agree," he whispered back.
"And you really want to come down to London tomorrow?" she asked, her voice just as low and soft as it had been before. An erotic voice. Seducing.
"I said so, didn't I?"
"So you did, so you did. Erm, about what time?"
"I have a lecture until three and I should probably...I will be down by seven, if that's convenient."
"It is very convenient," he heard her smile again.
"I'll see you then at seven tomorrow," he said gently, needing to get off the phone as long as they still had something to talk about. Wanted to think about her in peace. Wanted to think about what she would look like in his bed...not yet. Not yet.
Then, suddenly, he decided on another thing. Just a tiny alteration to everything and he hoped that she wouldn't mind.
"Good night, Hermione," he whispered and yes, he heard the echo of a gasp and a deep breath or a sigh.
"Good night," she said back in her seductive, low womanly voice and a second later, she had clicked off, leaving him to stare at his mobile phone with a stupid, silly smile on his face.
88. Tense
It is often implied, if not actually asserted, that the distinction of past, present and future is essential to the notion of tense and that the future is like the past, except that it follows, rather then precedes, the present in the infinitely extensible unidimensional continuum of time. But the future is not like the past from the point of view of our experience and conceptualisation of time. Futurity is never a purely temporal concept; it necessarily includes an element of prediction or some related modal notion. This does not mean of course that languages could not, in principle, treat predictions as being grammatically parallel with statements about the past or present. But in general they do not; and the so-called future tense of the Indo-European languages (which is of comparatively recent development in many of them) and the so-called future tense of the relatively small number of other language throughout the world that have anything that might reasonably be called a future tense is partly temporal and not modal. Nor is it the case that tense must be based upon a distinction of past and present; it could be based instead upon a distinction of present and non-present, or upon various degrees of proximity t the time of utterance. What is commonly referred to as the present tense, in English and many other languages, is in fact more satisfactorily described as the non-past tense.
(Lyons, 1977)
She was nervous and she looked like she was nervous. The skirt would never do. She was constantly pulling it down her thighs and was constantly checking that it wasn't slipping up or down and she always smoothed it down. It wouldn't make for a comfortable evening if she was constantly fidgeting with her skirt. It would have to be trousers. She'd got so used to wearing trousers. Jeans, slacks, all those things that she had almost forgot how to wear skirts. And her legs looked like goalposts in those shoes as well.
The top was fine. The top was alright. Hinting at cleavage. Flowing softly over her tummy. But the skirt had to go and she had no trousers that matched the top. Not really. It was a skirt-kind-of-top and she knew it. But the skirt was too short and her legs looked like goalposts and...she was nervous.
Hermione flopped down on her bed, not caring that there would be creases in her clothes (because she wouldn't wear those anyway) and almost howled. Yes, she was nervous. Very, very nervous. What did he want? Why did he want it? Where would he take her? What would she do if there was suddenly a menu in front of her and she had to order? Should she eat before? It would possibly be too late for that now anyway but she didn't want to see him how she wolfed down a portion for two.
This was Snape, for heaven's sake, not just some random idiot. This was the man she had...dreamed about for months. Of course she had messed it up by sleeping with Ian but he didn't have to know that and she could always obliviate that fact from her brain.
Glad that she hadn't put any make-up on yet, she threw her hands over her face and made that howling noise again.
"Hermione? You alright?" she heard Harry outside the door.
"Yes!" she snapped and of course he opened the door nevertheless and peaked inside.
"What's going on?"
