What really happened between Hermione Granger and Severus Snape? What has Lucius got to do with anything? And who the hell is Aurelia? (besides some character i made)
Disclaimer: not mine.
It was quiet that night in June.
Curled underneath a hill of blanket, Aurelia hid and further buried her face in her slowly, dampening pillow while a pretty dress lay in a dishevelled heap of purple silk, lace and ribbons across the foot of her bed.
It had been a little like this from time to time. Today was just slightly different.
"Keep that up Lia and you're face will stay like that," fthe freckled boy teased, the grin pulled up to his ears while he wiped the lenses of his thick squared glasses with the sleeve of his newly ironed shirt, "sulking won't leave them with much of a good impression of you, it would just drive them away."
Aurelia rolled her eyes as she muttered irritably, "so what? I hate going to these stupid meetings anyway, they're a waste of time."
"Maybe today will be you're lucky day!" His green eyes sparkled happily through his lenses as he tried to brighten up his friend brooding in her puffy dress.
"And maybe it will be just like any old other… what's another ten or so yeeeeaars?" she mocked, curving an eyebrow questioningly towards Robin, his light brown hair, greased with a clump of gel that glistened in the sunlight.
"Don't you want to leave this place?" he whispered, disheartened by Aurelia's lack of eagerness. "Don't you want to finally have… parents?"
She crossed her arms defensively over another as she sat on her bed deciding on how to answer that question. She was tired and sick of it all. Growing up, subjected to the close scrutiny of couples, observing you from foot to face like a hawk and asking you endless question while trying to be overly polite thus blatantly fake. It seemed almost like a test or some sort of examination to see if she was 'good' enough for them or worthy enough for how much galleons they'd be saying goodbye to in exchange.
And apparently, to her dismay, it never seemed that she was.
She had been here for almost ten years, since she could remember. The results would become predictable and she could see herself curled underneath the confines of her covers in her bed once again as the night engulfed the lonely orphanage.
"No," was her answer but Robin saw right through it and grabbed her hand, practically dragging her out of the room.
"You lie Aurelia," he said, "Oh- you wait, I say, cheer up! One day, if not in a matter of hours, someone's bound to like you, who can say no to that sulking face in the pretty dress?" He teased and she narrowed her dark eyes towards him before she started fighting his grip.
"Lia! Don't-you'll ruin you're dress- my hair! C'mon, I don't really want Miss Bumrose trying to chase us for the rest of the week if we're late again."
"It would take her more than a week, that's for sure."
It was quiet that particular night. Much more quiet than any other nights she had remembered.
The room felt empty, it must have been Robin's muffled sleep talking or the soft snores that had not invaded the silence like it usually did.
She wasn't surprised, knowing that she had to return to her bed that day. But she was when she realised that the one a couple of feet away from her would remain a blank space of emptiness.
TWELVE MONTHS LATER...
Robin, now Robin Wickers, had written to her a couple of times since he left about his new family, which he seemed to be getting along with fairly well and occasionally sent her photos.
Aurelia observed the one he sent her last year for Christmas clutching her lucky peridot pendant, a birthday gift he'd sent her also. He looked quite happy, maybe enough to make her feel a tinge of envy. How could she not? There he was snuggled in between two decent looking people, smiling and glancing ever so often down at him as he returned it with his cheerful wide grin.
He had been to many places around the world, while she memorised every surface of the orphanage from toilet tiles to the fluff of carpet. He had been pre-enrolled into a wizarding school in America, in which he now lived, while she was stuck here reading the lines of her palms to every book there was on the bookshelves in the orphanage library at least twice every year.
Little did she know, that one early morning, she would wake up to find a heavy yellow envelope bearing a purple wax seal with a large 'H' on it, addressed under her name, on the seventh bed from the bedroom on the second floor, at 79 Quincy St, The Valerie Orphanage.
Things were already getting brighter for Aurelia.
Hermione was leaving her manor, the elegant royal blue cloak, adorned in silver patterns running along the hems, followed her, as well as the yellow haired man looking smart with his gold framed spectacles, a sleek, dark, green suit and his hands decently clasped behind his back as they made their way to the apparition point.
"Saffron! Hurry along!" she beckoned happily, practically skipped and nearly tripped from excitement.
"Miss! Please be careful!" He hurried to her about to lend a hand when she gently slapped it away.
"Really now, just a little trip- look, after some light shopping in Diagon Alley, we'll head to Hogsmeade and I'll shout us a drink, god knows you could use a bit of loosening up and I really need to get out!"
"Do you think Master would be alright about this?"
"He's not here is he, Saffron? Just you and me," she rested both hands on her hips, waiting for the large heavy gates to open. "And why not? I'd like to consider you as more than the noble servant of the manor. You know, you're the best friend I've had in a long time and I quite enjoy you're company."
She smiled and he blushed in return before they apparated away to find themselves at the very step of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Mr Filch." Filch stood before him, eyes squinted as he glanced momentarily down to his cat. "And.. Mrs Norris," Severus finished hesitantly.
"Sir?"
"Do us a favour will you?"
"Sir?"
"Kindly tell Mr Longbottom, to keep his bloody Gryffindors out of my dungeons. I will seriously murder every one of them who steps foot anywhere near here without reason. Sudden loss of potion ingredients? That have found themselves curiously elsewhere than where it should be...? No doubt his stupid miscreants are to blame and i will not tolerate it any longer!"
Filch waited questioningly for him to say something else while at the same time tried to recall what his superior just told him.
"So.. what you're saying. Is that- that you want me to tell him… that you told me… to tell him to keep his... bloody- was it?"
Severus inhaled deeply through his nostrils, feeling his teeth tightly grinding against each other. "Precisely." while Filch was trying to memorise the speech.
"Should I- should I maybe write that down-"
The room in where the potions ingredients were kept had been mugged once again and Severus had flooed to Diagon Alley to restock, vanishing in a whiff of green smoke.
"Now, now, Miss Aurelia, you know full well, first years aren't allowed a broom," the lady said, struggling with the shorter girl's curly ebony hair as she tied it in a neat middle ponytail that ended just above her neck.
"A peep won't hurt," She said trying to edge her head in different directions to get a better view from afar where many huddled in front of the window.
"Stop moving girl– there, all better. Right- come along, we don't have all day and we still have plenty to buy."
"Oh but Genevieve! –fine."
It was the first time she had set eyes in Diagon Alley and she already felt at home, as they wandered the cobbled street, swarming with witches and wizards in every angle. She knew of the wizarding world, and it's history, what with the war and all, the evil Voldemort and the famous Harry Potter.
She knew a little bit of it from the books she had read and was well up to date with rest of them from the newspapers like the Daily Prophet, she often sneaked out of Miss Bumrose's garbage bin in her office.
After she had equipped some of her supplies, Genevieve had the checklist in hand and the other rummaging through the shelves of Flourish and Blotts while Aurelia breezily strolled along the aisles stroking the spines of the many books, picked a heavy one off the shelf and began to eagerly immerse herself in it.
"Is this yours?" she looked up to where a lady, probably in her mid twenties, holding her pendant in her outstretched hand.
"Oh- yes, thank you," Aurelia, seized it and threw it in the pocket of her skirt.
"It's very pretty."
"It was a birthday present," she replied dully before continuing to read.
The woman was still there, dressed in expensive blue robes. She had light and dark shades of brown hair and eyes alike. It was rather curly, in fact curlier than Aurelia's and loosely tied so it lazily slumped on her shoulder.
"Believe it or not, I've read that book over ten times front to back when I was in Hogwarts. I'm afraid to say, I was the very few who did, not a popular choice that one."
"I think it's rather interesting." She glanced at the lady who was smiling down at her, a couple of books clutched under her arm. She looked quite familiar, but didn't know where she had seen her before, they were rarely allowed out into the streets in the orphanage. Aurelia closed the massive volume and clutched it to her chest. "You know, just a bit of light reading… getting to know the school a little better before I go."
"Well I can tell you now, you'll absoloutley love it there-"
"Aurelia! Aurelia!" Genevieve came bustling out of nowhere embracing a heap of textbooks. "There you are- been looking all over for you- oh what have we- my good heavens- if I'm not mistaken you must be-" Genevieve's eyes brightened up as she slightly dipped her head in gesture towards the older lady. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Pleasure's all mine…uh-"
"Call me Genevieve!" she said flippantly before offering a hand.
Genevieve was a squib, as young as sixteen, uneducated and worked in the orphanage. Her light brown hair, half tied up, was slightly tousled and she wore a casual peach dress that flowed dully to her knees.
The other lady shook her hand. "Hermione."
Of course it was her! Aurelia's memory took her back to the articles and moving pictures she'd so often read in the Daily Prophet.
"You mean you're Hermione Granger? The super brainy one in the golden trio?" Hermione laughed while Genevieve's eyes widened, scowling down at Aurelia.
"I apologise if she has caused you any trouble, we were just leaving."
"I wasn't-!" Aurelia cried and the lady grinned.
"No- of course not, we were just talking weren't we… is it Aurelia?"
She nodded before she squealed pleadingly to Genevieve. "- About this book! It's about Hogwarts she's read it more than ten times and no wonder- it's really good!!" She only got a stern look in return and Aurelia sighed in disappointment "oh… alright."
Hermione not being able to stop herslef as she gazed at the girl's black eyes. "Forgive me for prying… is- is something the matter?"
Genevieve spoke, "Well, we're actually from the Valerie Orphange. I'm just an assistant there, looking after the little ones.
You see this lady visited –think her name was Minerva- a while ago, good friend of Miss Bumrose Hermione's brow knitted in confusion at that name.
"Oh, she's just the person in charge.
And well, Aurelia's met the woman a couple of times and soon she received an invite of enrollment at Hogwarts and as headmaster, she was kind enough to take care of the expenses."
"I see…"
"Therefore, we have to… well- shouldn't abuse such privilege. I think it wise if we were just to acquire whatever it says here." She waved the checklist before folding it to fit her pocket when a man, in his dark green suit popped out from the corner, golden glasses askew, balancing a tower of books.
"Miss, will this be all?"
"Oh Saffron!," she laughed. "Let me help-"
"No-no-no- I'm fine."
Aurelia, who had left the older people uninterested in the tedious conversation, had crossed the other side of the room to look out the window and observe the hordes of cloaks and pointed hats below. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and she turned around to see friendly brown eyes of the lady as she smiled at her.
"It was nice meeting you Aurelia, I trust we'll see each other again."
Severus sliced through the crowd with his black sinister robes, heading towards the Apothecary, until a voice stopped him.
"Severus! My, what on earth are you doing here?"
He knew that voice before he even turned around to acknowledge it. He wasn't to keen either, on socialising at the moment, especially with this man.
"Mister Malfoy," he greeted curtly. "Restocking potion's supplies."
"Care for a drink? I just finished work, and now hunting for my wife, seems she's out and about with the servant, might as well take the bunch of houseleves to a shopping spree." The blond man laughed deeply and Severus forcibly smirked in return.
"I'm afraid I'd have to decline that offer. I'm on school business here."
"I say, it's been quite a long time since you visited the manor."
"Yes it has."
"Come round for dinner sometime will you?"
Severus sighed. "I really don't think-"
"-Well I look forward to catching up with you Sev. Right-best be off. Good day."
The men parted their ways, Lucius hand in hand with his cane, Severus stalking impatiently and irritably towards the Apothecary.
Saffron tailed behind the elegant couple walking side by side, listening subtly into their conversation while the previous encounter still lingered in his mind. The pretty lady in the bookstore, wearing the peach dress as he peeked from behind the tower of books he was holding looked rather familiar but his memory was far too blurry. He had an inkling that he 'd seen her before… 'Genevieve.'
"Saffron just accompanied me for a bit of light shopping and fresh air," Hermione grinned sheepishly as Lucius smirked, and turned his head around glancing at Saffron's full hands as he held on to the tower of parcels.
"Of course, light shopping… so I take it I'm not good company for you then dear?"
"Don't be silly Lucius, I'm always with you and plus you were at work."
"I caught up with Severus a while ago," he said deciding to change the subject. Hermione however, didn't seem to comfortable with the new topic.
"He's here?" she said a little too quickly and a tad too stiff, but Lucius disregarded it.
"Him and his brooding self… school business, out for potion supplies." He rolled his eyes, his cane clicking as it hit the pavement.
"And?"
"I asked him to join us for dinner sometime, didn't seem too keen."
"You know him. Severus is a-" she gulped and her voice slightly shaking continued, "-a very private man and, I suppose, prefers to keep to himself than indulge in other people's company."
"Odd... The manor was like a second home to him."
"That was before and during the war."
"Before and during the war, we were well acquainted, just as we were when Narcissa left and Draco murdered. Even more when I surrendered my Deatheater title."
Lucius bit the bottom of his lip. "I don't know why he seems so cold all of a sudden."
Hermione, if her suspicions were correct, possibly knew the reason why. But it had been so long... Although, Severus was a man who never forgot.
"It was Azkaban, you know how it was. People change and he's still recovering." It wasn't the real reason that lurked in her mind, but something reasonable nonetheless, just to assure him.
"And that takes uh- ten years does it? What in Merlin's name did I do? I'm the one who bailed him out."
"He was there for eight months, eight bloody months!"
Saffron decided to cut in, coughing loudly.
"Excuse me, but I believe, Mr and Mrs Malfoy that we just passed Madam Malkins," he said dumbly pointing his thumb back to the shop, feeling rather stupid afterwards as Lucius looked questioningly at his wife.
"Oh- I need to pick up something for Ethan."
"And where is the boy himself?"
"With Pixie."
"Trust a blundering elf with our son... you're blinking mad," Lucius muttered.
He had bought the supplies shortly after. They had shrunk the glass jars in miniature sizes before tucking them away in a parcel and sending them off to Hogwarts by owl. That done, Severus left and returned to the cobbled stones of Diagon Alley, stopped carelessly in the middle of a sidewalk and rechecked the receipt.
"Look here Genevieve!" close by, he overheard a girl's voice say and another older girl reply.
"What is it?"
"It's the book!"
"What book?"
"Oh- read why don't you – Hogwarts a History!" Snape nearly cracked his neck as his eyes shot up. There was she was, for a moment it was a splitting image of someone he knew… or 'had' known. She had black hair coiling from a ponytail that ended on her shoulders as she clutched a voluminous tattered book.
"Aurelia! Where in Merlin's name did you get that?"
"I don't know I just found it! It was just here!" The smaller girl pointed inside the Flourish and Blotts paper bag that must have contained other books. Judging by the other paper bags and parcels, a tawny owl pecking the bars of his cage as well, the two girls were struggling to carry, no doubt that this was a first year he would be teaching in a matter of months.
"Don't lie to me –" Aurelia, if he heard correctly, rolled her eyes and began, flicking through the pages anxiously.
"No… she must have slipped it in while they were packing it away - There. See?"
"No way! Did she just give you her own copy?!"
"I think the question is, she actually walks around with this thing?"
"Look at how old and used it is though, don't think she was kidding when she said she'd read it over ten times. And that was when she only still in school!"
Aurelia smirked, shaking her head in disbelief before embracing the book happily to her chest.
Severus knew too well whose copy that was.
He watched their retreating figures amid the swarm of colourful cloaks, the people behind him shaking their heads in annoyance as he ignored their pleas to move.
He was finally leaving, the same direction as they had gone earlier, when the young girl's head popped out from inbetween two cloaks trying to squeeze her way through, as if she'd forgotten something and came back for it. She had a unerved expression on her face and eyes that were cast downwards looking for the missing object. She stopped at his feet and picked up something green and shiny, glanced up about to apologise and then he saw it, for almost a moment there, the same hollow, bottomless eyes.
Hm you probably went.. whatineffsname was that all about? so stick around people and find out.
That may have been confusing. Just know that HG and LM are in fact.. married. And.. snape is hot and secretly loves filch (the second part was a joke)
And Aureila.. well u don't have to be a genius to figure that out. since this issss a HGSS fic.
questions will be answered.. pasts revealed.. and all that shyt..
HISTORY WILL REPEAT ITSELFFF oooooh.