Usual disclaimer, I am a humble student I own nothing except Eleanor.

Red Satin and Christmas pudding

"Why does it always bloody happen?" Severus cursed loudly from the kitchen.

"What is it darling?" came a harsh sarcastic voice from the living room.

"The kitchen has flooded again," Severus shouted back giving a flick of his wand to clean it up.

Life was not kind; he was in a house that kept finding new places to let water in. It had never really bothered him but since he was 18 it hadn't been him living in the house alone.  No, now he had Eleanor, Eleanor Evangeline Cole. Well that had been her maiden name. Now she was Mrs Eleanor Snape.

"Well clean it up then." Came her harsh call.

"I have done," he shouted back before continuing under his breath, "you sorry excuse for a human."

He made his way back to the living room with his cup of coffee and sat down in front of the fire.

Eleanor was sat on the couch reading some sort of superficial magazine. Severus almost snorted at the title stories on the front of it. They were stupid things like, 'improve your glamour's in 3 simple steps', and 'tone your legs: the pain free method.' They were pathetic. 

Eleanor was by no means in need of such things; she was the ideal of physical perfection to most men. Yet there was something that spoiled her that you couldn't put your finger on.

She was sat with her feet elegantly tucked beneath her and her honey blonde hair falling across her shoulders. She looked like every teenage bots PlayWizard fantasy and yet she repulsed him.

She had little minds games she used to play and every little habit of hers grated on his nerves. He was the cruel victim of arranged marriages. He and Eleanor were promised to be married as soon as they were born; both their parents were obsessed with pure blood families.

For almost 2 weeks after their marriage Eleanor refused to leave the bedroom. He wasn't in there of course. She just refused to leave and had everything sent up to her by house elf. The sounds of her sobs and screams of 'for Merlin's sake why him!'

Severus had been ecstatic when he was shown his wife to be, it was his dream, she was gorgeous. He was not so good looking, unfortunately.

"Severus I forgot to tell you I got an invitation today. From Albus,"

He hated the way she called him Albus, like he was a good friend of hers.

"Oh really?" Severus asked disinterested, "what for?"

"The Hogwarts Staff Party of course!" she said witheringly, "you know the Christmas one."

"Yes I know, did you reply to it?"

"Of course I did. I got a new dress for it too." She said smiling smugly at the thought of the dress.

"A new dress? We don't have enough money to by trivial things like that!" Severus said angrily, but with a tired refrain that showed they had gone through this too many times before.

~~*~~

"Are you nearly ready?" Severus head asked in the flames of the fire.

He was at work and waiting for Eleanor to get to Hogwarts for the party.

"Yes nearly, I have to look right." She said with her back to the flames, doing her hair in the mirror of their bedroom.

'Of course,' Severus thought to himself, 'never know who might be a new prospect for you to seduce do I?'

"I'll be there in 10 minutes." She called.

Severus retrieved his head from the flames and went back to his desk. He had started the party a little early by opening a bottle of brandy for himself.

He was just taking a sip when someone knocked on his door. He knew it wouldn't have been a student; they had left 3 days ago to be home for Christmas. Only about 9 were still here but they were confined to their dorms tonight.

"Who is it?" Severus ordered rather than asked.

There was no answer, he got up and opened the door.

"What?" he barked at the figure.

"Oh Severus sorry I dropped my papers, here these are the ingredients you asked me to get when I went to London." It was Professor Granger.

"Thank you Hermione." He said taking the bag and looking her up and down.

She was also dressed ready for the staff party. Red satin, that clung to her body, revealing the imperfections. Her hips were slightly too large and she had a little more chubbiness to her that robes had concealed, also overly large breasts for her lack of exercise.

To his surprise Severus found himself aroused. This woman in front of him was not Eleanor's standards. Not a size 8 and yet he wanted it, he wanted her. She was as imperfect as he. With his lank hair and tall, too skinny frame. 

"Are you coming to the staff party?" Hermione asked as she handed him the papers in her hand.

"What are… yes I am. What are these?" he asked looking at the parchment.

"oh yes sorry, staff bulletin, menu, your supposed to order now, and your list with the things I couldn't get circled and the dates they will arrive by owl written by the side." She said looking past him as she heard a pop from within the room.

Severus turned round as well. It was Eleanor, for once on time and not fashionably late.

"I'm here." She announced, trying to primp her already perfect hair.

She looked at Hermione and a faint look of disdain came over her face.

"Hello," Hermione said her smile faltering as she saw Eleanor's expression. "I'm Hermione Granger; I teach astronomy and extra help clinics."

"Oh your professor Granger?" Eleanor said with a sly smile," yes Severus told me about you. I thought you said she was attractive." She said to Severus.

Hermione blushed deep crimson, matching her dress.

"You must be Eleanor." She said highly embarrassed, "pleased to meet you."

"Isn't it though?" Was the reply that Hermione got from the cold blonde woman before her.

"Well I must be going." Hermione said and scuttled off.

"Was there really any need for that?" Severus asked testily putting down the papers and bags on his desk.

"Well you saw what she was wearing. She hasn't the figure. She must have thought she looked perfect." Eleanor smiled.

Severus looked at his 'perfect' wife; dressed in an immaculately cut, floor length, emerald green dress. He felt nothing, no stir of arousal, no warmth, nothing.

"We should go then shouldn't we?" Eleanor chimed lightly.

Severus gave her a glare and followed her out of his rooms.

~~*~~

They were dining in the great hall so the house tables had been removed to make way for one large table in the centre of the room. The hall was decked festively and the evenings band was on the stage were the staff dinner was usually.

Much to Hermione's displeasure she was seated opposite Eleanor and Severus. Severus she didn't mind too much now, she had learned to take him with a pinch of salt, ignore his moods and try and be nice. It was a method that seemed to be working for her so far.

All through the meal she ate happily trying to involve herself in conversations around her, anything to avoid talking to the jellyfish of a woman opposite her.

She talked with some of the older staff members, the ones that retired before she went to Hogwarts or before she came to work here, they were always invited at Christmas. It seemed to be as much of a tradition as Christmas it's self.

As always wizarding Christmas's were about family, friends and togetherness and nothing to do with religion, which was good as many of the professors were not Christian. In fact being a witch or wizard sort of ruled out Christianity as a religious option.

After the starters came the main course, which Eleanor took about 3 bits of and exclaimed she was full, staring pointedly at Hermione. Who was quite happily tucking into to her duck in blackberry sauce. Slightly guiltily she carried on eating and kept sneaking glances down to her waist were she could see the bulge of her stomach. The Hogwarts food was partly the reason for the weight she had gained.

"You know Hermione I saw that dress in Madame Malkins." Eleanor said.

Hermione smiled and went to say thank you as she saw Severus looking anxiously at his wife, waiting for the next words from her perfectly formed lips.

"I didn't realize that she did larger sizes in the style."

Hermione smiled slightly and looked back down at the remnants of her main course. She set her knife and fork at the side and placed her hands in her lap delicately waiting for everyone else to finish. She was looking at her food wanting to eat it, knowing how much fat was in it and that Eleanor was watching.

Remus Lupin was seated next to her leant over to reach the salt on the pretext of whispering in her ear.

"Don't pay attention Hermione, we all think you're perfect the way you are."

Hermione smiled at him.

"That's so clichéd Remus!" she said and took a mouthful of wine.

Next came the sweets and the agonizing choice of what to have. Not agonizing because of what was on offer, Hermione had to decide between her favorite of Christmas pudding with brandy butter and cream (full of fat) or the lemon sorbet (safely slimming).

Remus watched her face knowing her internal struggle.

"Eleanor," he called over the table, she looked from her empty plate smiling, "you're looking slimmer than last year," she smiled happily and gave a half glance to Hermione, "have you been terribly ill?" Remus finished trying not to smirk.

Severus saw Hermione looking at the lemon sorbet and passed it to her with a napkin. She opened the napkin to find a note on it.

'Don't worry, there's a large helping of Christmas pudding waiting for you in my office, a sort of sorry for my wife's behavior.'

Hermione looked and smiled and started to eat her sweet.

~~*~~

After dinner came coffee and dancing. Remus got up first and extended his hand to Hermione.

"Would you be so kind as to grant me the pleasure of dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room miss Granger?" he asked grinning at her.

Giggling she got up and followed him to the dance floor, closely followed by the majority of the staff.

Severus and Eleanor remained seated.

"Most beautiful woman!" she whispered indignantly "well are you not going to ask me to dance?"

Severus looked bored, took a mouthful of coffee lazily and got up.

"My dearest wife," he said sarcastically "would you like to dance?"

Eleanor got up and elegantly led Severus to the floor.

"I don't know why she doesn't like me." Hermione was saying to Remus as the danced slowly.

"Because Severus has a soft spot for and you're not the size 8 she thinks you have to be to look perfect." Remus smiled. "And you know if I was that way inclined I would have married you as soon as you were old enough." He smiled.

He started to sing to Hermione loudly making the rest of the staff turn round.

"I've never seen you looking as lovely as you do tonight! I've never seen you shine so bright, you are amazing."

The band smiled and started to play Chris Deburgh's 'Lady in Red' as Remus sang it.

"The lady in red! Is dancing with me, cheek to cheek. There's no body here, its just you me. Its were I wanna be!"

"Remus!" Hermione said blushing.

"And I hardly know this beauty by my side," he continued, "I'll never forget the way you look tonight."

Severus was watching almost with an envy he didn't know he possessed at Remus and Hermione. He berated himself mentally, Hermione didn't belong to him, no he had his wife. Anyway Remus was gay so nothing was going to happen. Just as well he thought.

To be continued….

What will happen when Hermione goes to get her Christmas pudding?