reynardo | Such a lucky bunny!

magicalpresence very sweetly drew this for me as a commission. It's a scene from Time for a Change that I wrote for last year's

sshg_exchange.

Quick backstory - Hermione has been using a dating service where you send the hair of the person you want to date to them, and they use that hair to make a look-alike date for you for an hour. This time, though, it seems that Hermione's date wasn't an ersatz one:

He pulled back and looked with shock and horror into her eyes. "HERMIONE?"

"Oh sweet Merlin – Severus – is that the real you?"

"As real as you." He scrabbled out of the bed, a pillow clutched at a strategic level. Hermione sat up, the sheets falling to her waist as she held her head in her hands and tried to make some sense of it all. Finally something else clicked into place.

"So you … all this time .. every Saturday night …"

"Saturday nights I spend my time as befits an adult, in private. And now you've deliberately invaded … " He reached for his robes, still trying to hold the pillow as he shook them out. Hermione reached the logical conclusion and climbed out of bed, wrapping the counterpane around her. She walked up to Severus, who backed up to the wall. Eventually he couldn't go any further, and he looked in horror as she approached, but then she gently took his hand in hers.

"Am I right in assuming, Severus, that you spent the previous two Saturday nights with a simulacrum of myself because you were afraid to ask the real me to join you? Were you afraid I would say 'no'? Or was it easier practice before the real thing?"

"Do you honestly mean to tell me", he spat out, unable to meet her eyes, "that you had no idea that this is what I was doing?"

"See for yourself, Severus. Look into my mind and tell me what you see there."