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Gift Giving

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Severus Snape strode into his quarters the same way he strode everywhere–purposefully with his robes billowing behind him. As soon as the door shut, though, he slipped the robes off his shoulders and hung them on a peg by the door. Running a hand through his hair, which had grown oily from hovering over hundreds of simmering cauldrons being stirred and slopped about by equally numerous but more putrid prepubescents, he turned back around intent on having himself a firewhiskey before settling in to some grading. He didn't realize his wife was behind him until he'd all but bowled her over.

"Ouch!"

Automatically steadying his wife with a hand at her elbow, Severus frowned. "What are you doing home?"

She shrugged off his hand and smiled up at him. "It's Friday. I work half-days on Friday, remember?"

He supposed he did. It was a memory at the far reaches of his mind where he tended to keep information that wasn't immediately pertinent. She works half-days on Friday was right beside Minerva is boinking Moody. Though they'd been married and sharing quarters for a couple of months now, Severus was still struggling to accommodate another human being into his life. After years of solitude and routine, he was a man set in his ways. Fortunately the Ministry had matched him with a witch who worked full time, was more than happy to stay out of his way when they were home, and made a decent cup of tea. Severus figured if he had to be married to anyone, at least it was someone who had grown out of being insufferable.

"I have grading," he said, stepping around the witch.

She followed him. He couldn't hear her socked feet padding across the room after him, but he could feel her presence just behind him as he settled into his chair–an old leather thing that had seen better years but, like a bad habit, he was loath to give up–and summoned his whiskey. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Severus pursed his lips when she set herself onto the very edge of the couch nearest him. She was nervous.

He took a fortifying sip of whiskey, closing his eyes to enjoy the burn of it down his throat and into his stomach, before addressing her. "Did you want something?"

"Oh," she squeaked. Severus opened one eye to look glance at her–how could she be surprised when she'd followed him? "I suppose… er, yes. Yes."

He waited. The silence stretched on and when it became apparent that his wife was not going to say anything further, he sighed and prompted her. "And?"

"You can do it. Just… just do it," she whispered to herself. His eyebrow rose at that but before he could comment on the very un-Gryffindor-like pep talk, she was standing before him and pressing a box into his empty hand.

"I got you this," she said, this time speaking to him. He smirked when he realized she couldn't meet his gaze directly; she was staring at a point just above his right shoulder. Intrigued, he ran a finger over the brown-paper-wrapped package.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Oh," she gasped. "Don't you want to open it?"

He arched his eyebrow and she gave in quickly. "Licorice wands."

"Licorice wands?" he repeated.

"Yes," she assured. "I thought… well, I saw them and I thought you might like them. They're not too sweet and I really don't know what you like and I thought–"

He pressed the box back into her hands and interrupted her. "I can't take these."

"Why?"

Severus blinked in surprise as she met his gaze with her own big, brown eyes. How odd that she couldn't look him in the eye when giving him a gift but now, when she was asking a question, she could. He saw the moisture gather on her lower lashes and scratched the back of his head.

"I'm allergic."

"Allergic?" she asked, her eyes widening even further.

He nodded. "To licorice."

"Oh."

The sound was a sort of sad-happy moan that barely escaped her parted lips and Severus took another sip of his firewhiskey. He could feel the pressure of a headache coming on and somehow knew it had nothing to do with the dunderheads he taught all day.

"Is that all Miss Granger?"

"Hermione," she reminded him.

"Apologies. Force of habit."

She nodded, still standing in front of him with the box of candies clutched between her two white-knuckled hands. Breathing deep, Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and repeated his initial question.

"Will that be all, Mis–Hermione?"

"What?" she breathed, as though she hadn't been aware she was still standing there. At his arched brow, she blushed a pretty pink and back-pedalled quickly. "Oh, oh yes. Of course. I'm sorry. Uh… happy grading."

"Thank you," Severus drawled, summoning the stack of scrolls from his desk. "Have a nice night."

"Yes. You too."

She padded out of the room and Severus plucked his favorite quill from the cup on the side table, unrolling the first abominable piece of homework from the pile and settling in to another night of being sorely disappointed by the current generation of students. As he scratched scathing remarks in over-wide margins–Mister Chapman was going to need to have a talking to about cheating for length–he missed the soft footsteps that returned to the door of the living room.

"Severus?" Hermione's voice was hesitant.

He didn't look up from grading. "Yes?"

"Do you–that is… Um…"

"I don't have all night," he drawled as his headache surged again.

"Right," Hermione said. "Sorry. I was just wondering, um, if there's a type of candy you do like?"

He put down his quill and tilted his chin down, looking over his spectacles at his wife. "Candy?"

She smiled. "You know, like Chocolate Frogs or Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans or lemon drops. Something special that you could snack on while you're grading. When I'm reading I sometimes like to have a stash of toffees nearby to nibble on. That kind of candy."

What on earth was the woman on about? Severus rubbed the spot between his eyebrows where his tension headache was throbbing spectacularly and closed his eyes. "I don't eat candy."

"Oh," she said, sounding an awful lot like a wounded animal. Severus' scowl darkened–why did it matter to her if he ate candy or not? "That's, well, that's good to know. Goodnight, Severus."

She padded back out of the room but before she rounded the doorframe, Severus found himself calling out to her. "Hermione?"

She paused. "Yes?"

Mentally berating himself for continuing their inane conversation, and wondering exactly what he was going to say to her, Severus opened his eyes again and met her gaze. In for a knut…

"I have it on good authority that the kitchen elves have been known to indulge in a licorice wand now and again."

The smile she gave him was bright enough a blind man could have seen it and Severus couldn't help but respond with a tilt of his own lips as she said, "thank you," and disappeared around the doorway.

With a sigh, Severus banished the scrolls back to his desk and leaned back in his chair. He could feel his pulse like a hammer-strike between his eyes and knew that no more grading was going to get done that night. Especially not when all he could think about was his wife's odd behavior and the brilliant smile she'd flashed him before walking away. Perhaps he had been too quick to dismiss her insufferable qualities.

Thank you for reading.

This fic is completely pre-written and will be six short chapters, coming out to 10,000-ish words. Give or take a thousand. I debated making it all one chapter (or possibly a two-shot) but something about giving each love language its own chapter seemed fitting, plus one for Snape's Response. I'll publish the first five today and the last chapter next week sometime. I truly hope you enjoy it.

Blessings.