From her position on the floor she gingerly eased her way down into the sunken-in tub. Wincing a bit, but grateful for the steaming water and the soft purple bubbles that covered her. She sighed, feeling slightly better, as the steam wafted up around her. She let her eyes drift shut and had to work hard to maintain consciousness.
She started violently upon hearing the bathroom door open and quickly lowered herself as far as possible beneath the thick bubbles, overcome by a sudden fit of shyness. Although it sounded odd, even in her mind, she realized that her husband had never seen her without clothes. Everything that had transpired between them in the bedroom had taken place beneath the covers and with the lights out, at her insistence.
“Do not drown yourself on my account,” Snape said dryly as he retrieved a small green vial from a cabinet on one end of the rather large room.
Morgan didn’t reply, only watched wide-eyed as her husband sat down on her vanity stool and opened the vial and rolled up his sleeve to dab the contents on his arm.
“I have such a desire to knock heads together. One of the new first years from Gryffindor is nearly as big a dunderhead as Longbottom. I do not know what I did to deserve, not only one, but two such incompetent students.”
“What happened?” Morgan finally asked.
“To me? A mild burn. However, once I get through with that Patil boy…” Severus let the sentence hang, “make sure you are out in time for dinner,” he commanded before rising to leave.
Morgan nodded mutely, nearly swallowing a mouthful of bubbles in the process. She cautiously peered over the edge of the tub once the door clicked shut. Assured that her husband was no longer present she carefully, albeit painfully, managed to get out of the tub. She reached for her wand and performed a hasty drying spell, which left her hair hanging about her, and clinging occasionally, in semi-damp curls. Being careful not to move too much she next reached for a soft grey towel to wrap around herself.
She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror as she tried to dry herself off. She grimaced at the reflection and swore that she would go see Madam Pomphrey as soon as Severus was distracted.
She didn’t hear the door open again. She didn’t hear Severus’ gasp of horror. However, she did hear him swear loudly as the green vial he was holding, which he had brought back in to put away, slipped from his fingers to shatter on the red stone floor. She quickly, and painfully, whipped around, clutching the towel to her front for all she was worth.
Snape took several steadying breaths. “What did you do?” he finally asked in a low and dangerous whisper.
Morgan’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. She took one small step backwards and clutched the towel desperately to her.
Severus’ patience wore out. He wrenched open a cabinet door next to the sink and quickly pulled out several different colored vials. With his other hand he grabbed Morgan by the arm and made a supreme effort to lead, not drag, her into their bedroom. Once there he ripped the towel out of her grasp and firmly guided her so that she was lying on her stomach on their bed. Morgan hid her face in the covers as she blushed about ten different shades of red at being so exposed. And she whimpered softly as Severus examined her, both with his eyes and his hands.
“Merlin’s balls…” Severus ran a hand over his face as he unscrewed a jar containing a soft green and mint scented salve, “what did you do Morgan?” he asked again as he gently worked the healing salve into the mass of dark bruises covering her right side and back, all the way from her rib cage to her thighs.
“It’s… it’s not as bad as it looks…” Morgan stammered, “I do tend to bruise easily.”
“It looks as though you were caught in a Hippogriff stampede. What happened?”
Morgan stammered some more and swore she must be close to maroon in the face as Severus, although his touch was impersonal, applied the salve below her waist and above her thighs. “I… well… it’s actually rather stupid…”
“Continue,” Snape prompted her, both with a steel edged tone and a bit more pressure than was necessary to apply the salve.
Morgan stifled a yelp as her husband hit a particularly sore spot, “I feel down the stairs,” she rushed out in a desperate squeal as pain blossomed in her hip from her husband’s increasingly rough ministrations, immediately hiding her face in the covers.
Severus turned Morgan’s head so that he could see her face, “how did this happen?”
Morgan tried to turn her face away but Severus held her in place, “I told you it was stupid… I merely tried to run down them a bit too fast… caught my shoe on a rather rough spot of stone…”
“Why didn’t you go to Poppy? Or at least tell me what happened?”
“I didn’t think it was that bad…” Morgan mumbled.
Severus closed his eyes, trying to resist the urge to scream at his young wife that it was indeed ‘that bad’ and that she was lucky she wasn’t more seriously injured. “This will not take care of the bruising completely,” he said as he finished applying the salve, “but it will help and this,” he held up a small vial of red liquid, “should help with the pain. Sit up so that you can drink it.”
Morgan started to move, but then hesitated. She nearly cried when Severus wrapped a sheet around her before helping her sit up. As she quickly drained the bitter red liquid a question popped into her head… did her husband find her attractive?
She realized too late that the question hadn’t been asked in her head, but out loud. She clutched the sheet more tightly about her shoulders and looked down at her lap, red with mortification.
Severus seemed equally surprised by the question, “do you really want to know?” he finally asked. His voice still a bit cool, but it always was.
Morgan nodded mutely, before she had a chance to change her mind.
“Your breasts are too small,” Severus promptly answered.
Morgan just barely managed to avoid gapping in an undignified manner at her husband, she couldn’t believe he had just told her that, and so bluntly! On the other hand, it was Severus Snape, perhaps it wasn’t so hard to believe.
“Oh…” she didn’t dare look up, afraid of the dissatisfaction she would see in her husband’s eyes. But she nodded slightly, she should have expected as much, it was better that she held any illusions about her husband finding her beautiful.
“Other than that…” Snape cupped Morgan’s jaw in his hand and raised her face, giving it a thorough going over before visually inspecting the rest of her body, “I have no complaints. Perfection.”
Morgan did cry at that, she had never heard the word ‘perfection’ escape her husband’s lips before, not even when he was praising his Slytherins.
Severus suddenly seemed to realize what he had said and hardened his face, “get your nightclothes on and you are to remain in this bed until I tell you to leave it. I will not have you injuring yourself further. Is that understood?”