The Slytherin, the Gryffindor, and the Wardrobe

When Severus Snape purchased the wardrobe from Borgin and Burkes, it was more out of curiosity than anything else. One of the most innocuous objects he’d ever seen gracing the store’s dusty interior, Severus was amused to see the attached tag read, “Warning, Man Eating Wardrobe.”

The wardrobe was not, in fact, a man-eater. Rather, it was simply an artifact that belonged more properly to the likes of Mad-Eye Moody. A watch-wardrobe, if you will.

Once placed in a room, the wardrobe would simply trap anyone who came near it inside. A gentle word and a few wand taps on the doors later, and the trespasser would be free.

Severus placed the wardrobe in his office, beside the entrance to his personal quarters. Careful to avoid its wooden jaws himself, Severus always caught one or two students every year, sneaking around in his office for some such thing. More often than not, they were Slytherins, after the stash of Firewhiskey he was rumored to keep in a hidden panel in his office, although Severus remembered one terrified Hufflepuff in particular, sent on a dare by his housemates.

A snap of the door and each and every student who attempted such a thing was trapped through a single night, only to face Severus’ scowling punishment the next day.

All in all, Severus considered it one of his best purchases.

Although at this current moment, he was beginning to reconsider the veracity of that statement.

Trapped in a web of his own making, Severus leaned his head back against the hard wall of the wardrobe, legs splayed out in an uncharacteristically sloppy fashion as he wondered what gods he had crossed to find himself in such a predicament.

Especially given that he also had one Hermione Granger crouched beside him in the wardrobe, practically radiating malice and fury.

He hadn’t pictured his afternoon ending like this, he really hadn’t.

A boring morning filled with classes followed by an equally boring afternoon filled with grading mostly meant that Severus had only himself to blame for the situation at hand. He had lost control and there was nothing else for it.

“Hermione,” he tried.

“Don’t. Talk. To. Me,” she spat, anger doubling, trebling. Severus could actually feel her trembling with trying to hold it all in.

He didn’t really know when the relationship had begun and he had a sneaking suspicion that, if pressed, she didn’t either. One moment, it seemed, they were simply incredibly annoyed enemies, continually thrown together due to circumstance. Every state dinner that Albus forced Severus to attend, he seemed to wind up seated beside Hermione Granger. Every meeting Albus called of the Order, Severus and Hermione Granger wound up being assigned some task to collaborate on.

But somehow, they’d called an unsteady truce through the years, much like the one Severus had been forced to call with Harry Potter nearly six years ago, back during the irritating child’s seventh year. And they became collaborators, sitting side-by-side in the Hogwarts library, working their ways through piles of books and squabbling over solutions to whatever problem Albus had handed them to solve.

Their library sessions gradually evolved into all-night sessions down in Severus’ office, or over at the Three Broomsticks, when Hermione could cajole him into it, scribbling on bits of parchment and arguments slowly changing into discussions.

Before Severus was really aware that anything had changed, they each began to look forward to their meetings, sitting close enough to touch and exchanging secretive smirks at Order meetings as Albus commented on their results.

When Hermione hit him in the head with a snowball one dreary winter afternoon and Severus realized that he had no desire to hex her in reply, that was when he’d realized that they were friends.

He’d never had a friend before. It was ... mind-boggling.

Six months later, Hermione came storming into his office, interrupting his half-hearted grading and furious about some such thing that Albus had assigned her. He couldn’t help himself.

Severus kissed Hermione Granger.

Instead of the laugh or slap he’d expected as he drew away from her suddenly quiet lips, he was gratified and heartened as she returned his kiss with an unanticipated ferocity.

Words were not exchanged and their embrace became more heated. Impulsive for perhaps the first time in his life, Severus had actually picked her up off of the ground as they staggered toward what he dimly thought might be his bedroom.

If only Severus had remembered his blasted wardrobe.

And now they sat, not speaking, on the cold floor of an enchanted wardrobe, trapped like errant students raiding the Potions professor’s office.

“I forgot,” Severus said into the darkness.

She laughed harshly, shortly. “Severus, how does one forget about their man eating wardrobe?” she asked bitterly.

“It’s not a man eating wardrobe,” he retorted. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“There’s no way out!” Hermione shouted. “We’re going to die in here, Severus, so it might as well be a man eating wardrobe.”

He sighed. She was probably right. It was a shame that Severus hadn’t ever shown anyone how to open his wardrobe. Of course, he’d never had any intention of being trapped in it himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said dully.

Much to his surprise, her reply was far less irate than it had been. “It’s not entirely your fault, I suppose,” she said dryly.

“I was rather distracted,” he agreed with a sly note in his voice.

“And you’re sure there’s no way out?” she asked abruptly.

Severus had tried the words and wand taps that usually worked to open the wardrobe on the outside to no avail. His search for an internal switch had also failed, as had the tried and true method of simply banging on the doors and shouting at the top of his lungs. If the wardrobe was sentient enough to be aware of the existence of its master, it simply did not care that it had trapped him within its walls. “We’re trapped.”

“I never thought I would meet my end in an overgrown cabinet,” Hermione grumbled.

“If I ever get out of here, I’m going to chop this thing into pieces,” he said, slapping the wall and hoping the wardrobe understood him. “And then I’ll burn the whole lot.”

“I’ll bring the axe,” she replied, eliciting one of Severus’ rare chuckles.

“I bet this makes whatever you were shouting about as you barged into my office seem like a dream,” he said lightly.

“No,” Hermione retorted. “I’d rather be locked up anywhere with you than have to track down that worthless swot Draco Malfoy with Moody! That filthy old lecher. I don’t know why Albus keeps forcing me to work with him.”

“Moody is an excellent set of eyes and ears, you know,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral and not incite her anger.

There were warning flashes in her tone as she replied. “He’s also a dirty old man who’s grabbed my bum one too many times.”

He remained silent, knowing whatever he said would be unhelpful.

“And then I’d have to come back with the both of them,” she continued viciously. “Moody on one side, leering at me with that damned magical eye of his, and Malfoy on the other. I don’t care if he is the best-located spy in the entire Order, he’s still a horrible prat.”

“Note my lack of disagreement,” Severus said. “One of my favorite moments as his professor, I think, was sometime during his sixth year, when I found him trapped in this same wardrobe.”

Hermione let out a rare giggle. “You caught Malfoy in here? What on Earth was he doing?”

Rolling his eyes, Severus snorted through his nose. “The idiot was mixing up lust potions in the prefects’ bathroom and he was trying to find my personal stores for a few ingredients. Why he ever thought that I would store valuable ingredients in a clearly visible, unwarded wardrobe, I’ll never know.”

She giggled again. “I can just imagine your reaction, too. ‘Mr. Malfoy!’” she cried in an imitation of his sternest tones. “’Did you have an ... enjoyable evening?’ Did you take points off?” she asked in her normal voice.

Nudging her thigh with his foot, he leaned his head against the wall once again. “Of course not,” he replied haughtily. “I had strict orders not to, as you very well remember. From both sides I was on.”

Her voice was pensive. “I can’t imagine how you must have felt through everything.”

With a shrug, Severus tried to be nonchalant although he felt the discomfort rising. “I did what needed to be done.”

Blindly reaching out, her fingers were surprisingly gentle as they encountered his cheek and shoulder. “You risked so much,” she breathed, much closer now. “For everyone.”

He shrugged again, now distinctly uncomfortable.

But she went a long way toward dispelling his unease as her lips cautiously met his. Severus permitted himself a moment to wonder how they’d gone from passion to raw fury and then back to a comfortable sort of affection, but only a moment.

He was, after all, kissing Hermione Granger.

Carefully, he stretched his arms out, her rusty chuckle vibrating pleasantly against his lips as one hand bumped into her stomach and the other encountered empty space.

“It is dark, you know,” he chastised, breaking the kiss momentarily. He’d found her waist and wrapped both hands around it in order to pull her flush against him.

“Oh, I know.” Another kiss, less gentle this time. One of her hands moved to his hair, toying with the ends, as she sweetly opened her mouth against his.

Severus decided in that instant, as Hermione Granger’s tongue began carefully exploring his mouth, that if he was destined to die in a horrible wardrobe of suffocation or dehydration or whatever gruesome fate it was going to be, he was damned well going to do it a happy man. Still fumbling, he managed to work his hands under her robes and successfully push them off her shoulders.

By the time his hands were under whatever sort of shirt she was wearing, Hermione had begun to tug impatiently on his own robes. Severus shrugged out of them, taking his hands off her long enough to work his arms out of the robe sleeves. Her hands were slightly chilly as they snaked under his shirttail, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Moments later, both of their shirts joined their discarded robes and Severus actually shivered as skin met skin. He wondered how on Earth Hermione expected him to be capable of tackling her bra when she was doing that to his ear but decided he could wait. His hands began to wander over her body and she literally squeaked as they closed around her breasts.

Severus’ mind was fogged enough by this point that he only dimly wondered how incredibly uncomfortable it would be to actually make love in this damned wardrobe as Hermione tugged on his waistband. Managing to toe off his shoes and not take his hands off of her, Severus froze as he heard an unexpected voice float to his ears.

“Severus?” Albus Dumbledore’s muffled voice asked. “Are you here?”

With a quiet groan, Severus broke the kiss and allowed his head to fall into the crook of Hermione’s neck. Why couldn’t the old coot have come to save them afterwards?

Sighing reluctantly herself, Hermione gave him a reassuring kiss before sitting up a bit and making a few rustling noises that Severus assumed were attempts to recover her clothing.

“We’re in here, Albus,” Severus called. “We’re stuck!”

Silence was his only reply.

Frustrated, Severus beat on the wardrobe door with a closed fist. “Albus!” he cried.

Again, nothing.

“Albus?” Hermione shouted herself. “Albus, can you hear us?”

“Severus, are you in here?” Albus cried again.

“Albus, help us!” Severus roared in a last ditch effort, hammering on the doors.

“Hrm ...” came the reply.

“I don’t believe it,” Severus muttered incredulously. “He can’t hear us. Of all the damned ...”

Hermione let her head drop into one of the doors with a resounding thud. “We are going to die in here,” she said hopelessly.

Unable to find a response that didn’t echo her sentiments, Severus settled for reaching a blind arm out and gathering her into what he hoped was a comforting embrace, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she reclined against his bare chest.

“Gonna set fire to this damned thing,” Severus mumbled into her hair. “Gonna watch it burn!”

“What happened to chopping it into firewood first?” she asked, lips against his skin.

Shrugging, he just pulled her closer. “Whatever you want.” He leaned down to kiss her lips again.

There was less urgency in their actions now than a simple desire for closeness and comfort. Hermione pulled Severus into a kneeling position as she reclined against the wardrobe door, carefully unbuttoning his trousers. Deciding that it was now or never, Severus began worrying at her bra clasps, reflecting ruefully that this would be easier if it wasn’t pitch black.

So convinced they were of their fate, then, that both Severus and Hermione were absolutely shocked when the wardrobe door suddenly swung open, depositing them in an ungraceful heap of arms and legs on the floor of Severus’ office. Squinting at the light now flooding his vision, Severus looked up at a mildly amused Albus Dumbledore.

“But how ...?” Severus stammered.

“Your wardrobe door was uncharacteristically shut. I always did rather suspect that trick cupboard of yours would wind up tricking even you, Severus,” Albus said.

Recalling abruptly that his limbs were currently entangled with one Hermione Granger’s and they were sprawled on the ground, only half-dressed in front of the most powerful wizard in the world, Severus immediately blushed, completely at a loss for words.

“I was, Severus,” Albus began blithely, apparently ready to ignore the unclothed state of his companions, “coming down here to see if you would be willing to accompany Hermione on a mission. It seems that Alastor is wary to work with her after the ... ahem ... incident last time.”

“He found his hand and reattached it in the end,” Hermione replied to Severus’ raised eyebrow. “And I warned him before I hexed him.”

“Yes, well,” he continued. “All in all, I reconsidered my decision to pair Alastor with Hermione, but it seems that she, erm, found you first, Severus.”

It was Hermione’s turn to blush as she recollected herself. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she attempted to disentangle herself from Severus’ still rather stunned arms. “Really, Albus,” she scolded.

“Yes, my dear?” he asked with a grin.

“I don’t mind going on the mission,” Severus said abruptly, standing and offering Hermoine a helping hand. “When do you need us to leave?”

“As soon as you can,” Albus replied, sobering. “Young Draco is apparently in a precarious position.”

Nodding shortly, Severus tried to keep his dignity as he rebuttoned his trousers. “We will leave immediately, Albus.”

“Good.” The old wizard began walking briskly toward the office door, Severus suspecting he was trying not to laugh at them.

But Albus stopped short as he called out. “Um, Albus, one question?”

“Yes?” He did not turn around.

“How on Earth did you get the wardrobe open?” Severus asked incredulously. “I never gave you the key.”

At this, Albus did turn around, smiling in what Severus thought was an overly cheeky fashion. “You will find, Severus, that most magical objects are just like people. They will respond favorably to nearly anything if you simply ask politely.” And with that, Albus Dumbledore swept out of the office, leaving Severus and Hermione to goggle after him.

“I’ll never understand that man,” she complained once the door was firmly shut.

“I gave up trying to somewhere during my first year of teaching,” Severus said very seriously.

“I wonder if he really did just ask the wardrobe to open up, though.”

Shrugging, Severus pulled his wand out of his trouser pocket and Summoned their clothing out of the wardrobe. “Quite possibly. It is equally likely, however, that he simply knew the password somehow. With Albus, I’m never sure.”

With a sigh, she untangled her shirt from his robes and pulled it on. “Well, I guess we’ve got to go save Malfoy’s arse from whatever fire he’s managed to land himself in. Are you ready to go?”

Inclining his head as he donned his own shirt, Severus permitted himself one last longing look at her. “I suppose so.”

Hermione gave him a calculating look as she pocketed her wand. “You know,” she began, “we’ll probably get back to Hogwarts so late that it would be silly for me to go back to my flat. It would make far more sense for me to stay here.”

He smirked and refastened his robes. “I believe I can assist you with your arrangements, Hermione. Although, as Albus so kindly pointed out, all you had to do was ask politely.”

As she sauntered out of the office, Hermione swatted Severus’ shoulder playfully. “Oh, really?” she asked. “I rather thought my method of bursting in and ranting like a banshee worked rather nicely.”

“I thought that was you asking politely,” he retorted slyly as he warded his office door.

Hermione huffed loudly, but she still allowed him to sling an arm around her shoulder and steal a kiss as they walked up the stairs.

FINIS