I would like to skip to the end, please.
I woke to the slow awareness that she was already watching me. This was, in itself, irregular. I tended to wake before her—habit and constitution conspiring against any morning during which I might otherwise have slept past dawn. It was not, by my reckoning, past dawn, but the grey light at the edges of the curtains suggested it was not far off either. I had slept longer than I usually did, and I had slept more deeply. She was on her side, propped on one elbow, her gaze fixed on me. Her hair was still loose from sleep, and she had the patient, unhurried expression of a woman who had been content to wait for me to find my way back to the surface. She reached over and cupped my jaw, turning my face towards hers with the certainty she applied to most decisions concerning my person. "Good morning to the most handsome man in the world." She kissed me. It was the slow, lingering kiss of a woman who had nowhere she needed to be, and I, having nowhere I needed to be either, let her take her time about it. I would have let her do a great many things in that moment; I was not, by any reasonable measure, awake. I was somewhat more awake when she pulled back. I studied her for a moment. She was watching me with the expression she wore when she had decided something and was waiting to see whether I would catch up. "I cannot imagine why you bother lying to me. I am not that gullible." "It is not a lie." She slid out from under the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her mouth had curved—the small, private smile she wore when she had set a trap and was waiting to see whether I would walk into it. "You are the only man I look at, Severus. The competition is rather light." "Charming. So I win only when I am the only contestant." She had begun walking towards the bathroom by now. At that, she stopped, turned, and continued backwards—her eyes on me, her expression the particular kind of triumphant that meant she had been hoping for exactly this. "What—are you complaining you have no competition?" I declined to answer. Instead, I reached for her pillow and threw it at her. It caught her square in the chest. She caught it on the rebound, her hands closing around it on instinct, and the look on her face—the genuine, startled outrage of a woman who had not expected the projectile—was, I confess, not without its rewards. A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. "I cannot believe you just did that." She tossed the pillow back onto the bed beside me and pointed at me—a gesture of considerable conviction. "I am going to get you back for that, Severus Snape." I made a small noise that I judged adequately dismissive, lay back, and closed my eyes. The bathroom door clicked shut. I heard her laughing through it—properly now, the unrestrained version she had been saving for the moment she was alone. Only then did I allow myself to smile.
