A/N: Updated, due to my recently discovering a massive chunk of html nonsense right in the middle. For all of those who have reviewed in the past, thank you! For those of you just joining us, enjoy!

I was not in his bed.

Severus Snape, that absolute git, has managed to ignore every single advance that I have made thus far.

I'm just a tad miffed, that's all.

I was sitting in the Great Hall, eating breakfast, and waiting for Severus to show up. It's early Saturday morning, and we have an excursion planned for later. I've had some Charms books come in, and I know there was a tome at Flourish and Blotts that he'd been salivating over.

It had taken me my first year of teaching to come to grips with my feelings. I've never been good at not thinking, and I'm sure I've already analyzed a few relationships to a painful, unromantic demise. I considered it a personal triumph for me to finally realise that I fancy Severus Snape.

Alright, more than fancy. I think he's bloody marvellous, and I have spent the past year trying to get him to realise my affections. But, to my utter consternation, I've gotten nowhere! Nothing. Nada. Zilch to reward my efforts.

I looked up when Severus walked through the door, and I smiled. He sat down in the empty chair to my left, and I decided it was the perfect moment for a spot of flirting. As opposed to tea.

I resisted the urge to slap myself in the face for that last thought.

I leaned in his direction and smiled coquettishly. "Are you looking forward to later, Severus?"

No answer. He cuts off pad of butter with his spoon, and dumps it into his porridge.

I take my right hand and lay it on his arm. "I know there are some books that I can't wait toget my hands on." I accompany the visual with a squeeze of said arm and batted eyelashes.

"Pass the sugar, please."

Pass the sugar? Dumbfounded, I do what he asks and pass him the sugar bowl.

I really can't understand my utter rejection.

I refuse to believe that my once being his student is the cause of my rebuff. Sure, that excuse would have worked—ahem—five years ago, when I was his student. However, two years of being colleagues should have quashed that.

I also doubt that my being a Gryffindor has anything to do with it. After all, he and Minerva get along well enough. Once joining the staff at Hogwarts, I learned that they were actually dear friends, not the bloodthirsty rivals they pretend to be. Ah, politics.

No, I believe that there is a much droller reason for my rejection.

That handsome, bitingly sarcastic, otherwise brilliant man was really, and I mean really that dense. Is it just a wizard thing, or are all men that blind when it comes to taking a hint? To quote Rodgers and Hammerstein, 'What's a matter with the man?'

Blimey, what do I have to do? Break into his rooms and throw myself on his bed? Oh, and maybe I should be starkers, too!

I find myself grumbling under my breath, and Severus catches me at it. (Finally, something he notices.)

"Is something bothering you, Professor, or are you usually this petulant in the mornings?" He asked me.

I fight the urge to huff in annoyance and prove him right.

"Oh...I just remembered some paperwork I had to take care of," I lied. "And it's Hermione, Severus. You know that."

"Pardon me," he said, inclining his head. "Old habits die hard." He looked at me with narrowed eyes. I wondered what he was thinking. "We can postpone the trip if you have work you'd rather be doing..."

"That's all right," I answered quickly. I was not going to allow him to weasel out of this trip that easily.

Well, that was fun. If you please, put extra emphasis on the sarcasm.

I have never been so humiliated in my life.

We were leaving Flourish and Blotts, our arms full of new treasures, when one of those picture perfect, only-happens-in-the-movies kind of moment happened. The sun finally broke through the fog of London and illuminated the stones of Diagon Alley. Colours seemed brighter and truer, and I'm sure I heard birds chirping above our heads. I happened to look up at the exact moment that the sunlight caught Severus' hair, making it gleam blue-black against his pale skin. As he turned to see if I were following, I received the only genuine, true smile that he had ever given me. A smile, not a smirk!

In that moment, he was handsome. No, it wasn't in the Lockheartian sense of the word, but Snape-handsome, in a 'take-me-as-I-am-and-fuck-the-others' kind of way. I felt my heart skip a beat (how sweet!), and I gave him a blushing smile in return.

I glanced up at him through my eyelashes and knew it was the proper moment to finally bare my heart to him...is that the ground?

I fell flat on my face.

Ow.

No, really...Ow.

Where's a mediwitch when you need one?

We returned to Hogwarts and I was nearly in tears. I have embarrassed myself in front of the man I lov...er, greatly admire, and beyond his normal concern for a colleague, there was no sense of emotion. Nothing beyond, "You're usually not this clumsy."

Clumsy? Clumsy!

Argh!

I walked swiftly to my quarters and threw myself on the bed like a petulant teenager. Tears were welling up in my eyes, and as much as I tried to hold it back, I was already beginning to sniffle.

"I'm not going to cry, I'm not!" I told myself. Evidently, I wasn't listening as I began to cry in earnest.

Maybe, I should just give up. No, not just on Snape, but on love in general. Krum was a mistake, Ron is...well, he's like my brother, as much I we tried otherwise, and I'm sure I'd only get in the way of his Quidditch groupies.

I threw a pillow off my bed, and it hit the wall with an unsatisfying thud.

"I give up!" I said to the room. "I give up!"

I wanted to rip my hair out.

I wanted to scream until the whole castle could hear me.

I wanted to shred every sentimental thought I've ever had.

I wanted to go down there and beat him until...

I stopped my rampage and looked at the mirror. My reflection seemed to be laughing at me. I was sweaty, my face was mottled in my fury, and tears had dampened my cheeks. In a fit, I pulled out my wand and pointed it at the mirror, determined to blast it across the Veil and back.

I paused, looked at my reflection, and I realized I had been going about this the wrong way. From me, Severus would never expect subtle. In all of his dealings with me I had been direct and to the point. Maybe that's why my flirting has failed. It...it wasn't me.

I lowered my wand.

There's a reason why the Gryffindor mascot is a lion. I'm going to charge down there and get what I want.

The time was ripe. Tonight was Severus' turn for evening rounds, and I had just the perfect thing to wear...somewhere.

I had a negligee whose sole purpose was to be taken off, rather than worn, courtesy of Ginny Weasley. She had given me one as a gag gift for my twenty-first birthday, complete with an admonition to not become a cat lady. Shortly thereafter, she learned that she wasn't the only one who could cast a Bat-Bogey hex.

I slipped on the ice-blue gown and shivered as the satin slid over my skin. I donned my professorial robes over that, slipped on my shoes, and slipped out the door.

Oh bugger.

Thrice damned bugger.

I forgot one important detail in planning this excursion; Severus Snape has wards to rival Gringotts.

I'm standing in the dungeon corridor, hoping nobody comes by, and seriously regretting and seriously regretting my lack of bra. If it were any colder, I may have had to mend my robes.

Now, I know better than to tamper with another wizard's wards, especially one whose paranoia was only surpassed by Moody's, so I looked for alternative means. There was a painting covering his chamber door, not that it would do me much good without the password, or someone to give the password to...

Was that whistling?

I leaned over and peered down at the pastoral scene and heard another rather wolfish whistle.

"Nice view there, mum. Do you mind leaning over a bit further?"

"I beg your pardon!" I said with no small amount of outrage to the small shepherd peering at me from behind a tree.

"Just a little show?"

This painting had no idea just how close it was to destruction.

"Please?"

"No."

"O come off it, luv...how much action d'ya think I'm gettin' down 'ere anyways? You're a sight fairer than ol' greasy any day," the shepherd chuffed.

I removed my arms from their protective placement across my chest as a plan developed. "'A sight fairer,' you say." I glanced down at what I assumed was the door's guardian. "What would you do for a proper look?"

I'm generally opposed to such debasement and cheapening of the female figure (not to mention how Harry and Ron would have a heart attack if they knew), but I was desperate! I could see the shepherd salivate and nearly trip over himself in his haste to enter the foreground as quickly as possible.

"You'd do that fer me, mum?"

I loosen my grip on the front of my robes. "And your trade?" I ask again.

"I...uh...I'd let...I'd letcha through t'door!" He finally stuttered. "Yeah, and not breathe a word; swear it on me honour!"

I smirked. It may not be the most satisfactory means, but certainly the quickest. I obligingly opened my robes, and the portrait nearly faints.

"Bless you..." he said, and the door to Severus' chambers swung open.

Men. Berks, the whole lot of them.

It was a while before he had come back to his chambers, and I awoke as he was about to leave the bedroom.

"Severus?"

He stilled on his way to the door, but did not turn around.

"I've been waiting for you."

"What do you want?"

"I tried subtle, but gave up and decided to go for direct." After all, a year was enough of a wait.

He had the temerity to not understand. Was my being asleep in his bed not proof enough?

I gave him a warm smile and knew my eyes betrayed my full intentions.

"You."