On their fifth anniversary as boyfriend and girlfriend, Ronald Weasley gave Hermione Granger one badly wrapped Patented Daydream Charm.

“Oh, how thoughtful,” Hermione said, baring her teeth at him. “How did you know this was exactly what I wanted?”

The Chudley Cannons season tickets she had spent thirty-eight hours camping—camping!—in the rain waiting to buy burned a hole in her back pocket. They were League Champions, having had a Cinderella Season the previous year.

Hermione ever so briefly considered giving Ron a stick of Muggle chewing gum from her other back pocket instead.

“Well, I just grabbed the nearest thing as I left the shop,” Ron replied, a relieved grin spreading from ear to ear. Ron had difficulty identifying deadpan humour. And anger in girlfriends. It was a life-long handicap.

Hermione blamed Molly Weasley for it, who had a more slapstick sense of humour—handy with six boys in the house—and showed anger by banging pots around in the kitchen. Since their days on the run looking for Horcruxes, Hermione hadn't set foot in the kitchen if she could help it.

She was generous—she gave Ron the entire pack of gum.

And invited him to sleep on the sofa.

Hours later, after reliving every excruciating moment she'd spent in a leaky pup tent wrapped in moth-eaten blankets and an extra-large lawn clipping bag, determining where on the list of spectacular screw-ups this latest fiasco of Ron's belonged, Hermione gave up on sleep.

She sat up with a huff and eyed the badly wrapped Patented Daydream Charm sitting on the dresser.

What the hell. All of her books and the telly were out in the living room with her freckled prat of a boyfriend.

She opened the package, uncorked the vial and swallowed the potion in one go, drifting easily into a pleasant fog.

A pleasant fog that became a steamy bathroom. The marble floor was warm under her bare feet. She glanced at the mirror over the vanity to her left and noticed she was dressed in the Agent Provocateur babydoll nightie she'd been secretly lusting after through the mist clinging to its reflective surface. Red and lacy did suit her—better than she'd hoped.

The shower curtain rattled, and she turned her attention that direction. The curtain itself was a plain cream, giving no hint of its owner, and it cloaked an old-fashioned claw foot tub.

Then the curtain opened and her jaw dropped. Her eyes followed what seemed like miles of long, lean, lightly muscled torso, sprinkled sparsely with dark wiry hair, down to a narrow waist abruptly wrapped with a thick cream-coloured terry towel.

Hermione pouted.

A voice like whiskey and smoke drew her attention upwards and as her eyes met his, Severus Snape drawled, “Look at your boyfriend.”

Hermione's forehead wrinkled in confusion, but she glanced to her right. Ron stood there, an arm's length away, wearing his Gryffindor Quidditch uniform.

“Now look at me.”

She really wished that towel would slip.

“Now, look at your boyfriend.”

Ron's mouth was gaping open, and he was drooling slightly.

“Now look at me.”

Severus was wearing a black cashmere sweater with a large green and silver “S” embroidered on it. And the towel.

Hermione pouted again.

“Now look at your boyfriend.”

Ronald was picking his nose and examining his findings.

“Now look at me. I'm holding an oyster.”

Indeed he was. It was enormous.

“We're on a boat.”

It was a yacht, really. No, it was the Durmstrang ship, and they were on the lake near Hogwarts. Viktor Krum winked at her from the helm. The Giant Squid waved from the water and slowly sank under the surface.

“And inside are two tickets to that thing that you love.”

She was delighted to spy the words La Traviata in embossed gold foil on the little rectangles resting on the open shell in Severus's hands.

“Look again. Now they're diamonds.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. Whatever. She'd rather have a first-edition Austen.

The scene suddenly shifted and they were alone on the beach of a deserted island.

“And now, I am a horse.”

Before her stood a proud centaur Snape. A very well-hung centaur Snape.

Then a thick white fog rolled in and the Daydream was over.

Years later, when her children were grown, they asked Hermione why their father gave her a badly wrapped Patented Daydream Charm every year on their wedding anniversary.

She would squeeze their hands, look into their dark, snapping eyes over their enormous, yet dignified noses, and smile... mysteriously.

Author's Note: This was inspired by an Old Spice commercial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Originally written for celebrate_sshg, a Live Journal community to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Snape/Granger fan fiction.