a/n: Yes, another fic that is slightly off the beaten path that is HG/SS… but not too much.
It is based on the lyrics of Mr. Brightside. Look them up if you don't know the song. I don't even really like The Killers other music. But this song is so damn catchy. Whiny, but catchy. Maybe that's why I wrote with Ron as the main character--cause he can be rather whiny.
I wrote this on a road trip from my house to a place in Michigan right after reading Slaughterhouse Five. I don't think there is any correlation, but it did inspire me to write something. I think I like putting Ron in crappy situations that somehow involve Hermione and Snape getting down. Am I mean? Maybe. You tell me.
Or just tell me what you think of the story, that'd be great!
Read on…
Mr. Brightside
Ron Weasley was rather prone to noticing important things just a little too late.
When he was younger, he always thought that his very best friend, Harry Potter, was always looking for another way to get into the spotlight as the Boy Who Lived or as Hogwarts' Most Precious Youngest Seeker in a Century. There were so many times when he could hardly believe that all of these things could just happen to a person the way they happened to him. He was famous, talented, and a hell of a lot smarter than he would ever be. He got into the Triwizard Tournament and won it, only after escaping Voldemort again. Not to mention, he had captured the heart of his younger sister--one of the prettiest, most popular girls at Hogwarts--simply by existing.
Then, there was the Hermione factor.
Ron was especially awful at noticing things about Hermione. In their fourth year, he finally noticed that she wasn't his other best mate--she was a girl. Sure, he knew that she was of the female sex, and that she didn't go pee standing up, but he had never noticed how nice she could look, and there was that feeling that she always seemed to give him when he saw her hanging out with or, worse, flirting with other boys. He never understood why he would get so mad at these other boys talking to her, but Ginny eventually explained the feeling as jealousy. Those other boys didn't know her like he did… they had been through so much together…
It all clicked one day, and Ron realized that he had feelings for Hermione that stretched beyond the realms of friendship and adventure. He knew that he was secretly very angry at himself for not noticing her before Krum or McLaggen did, but he made up for it when they grew older. Finally, he had kissed her during all of the horror of that final battle, thinking it may actually be the only chance he would get, and that seemed to have sealed the deal between the two. To his surprise, she had liked him all of this time but was waiting for him to grow up a little.
And, despite the fact that Ron was oblivious to just about everything, the two were planning secretly to marry as soon as Hermione finished her schooling at the International University of Wizarding Sciences. She lived abroad in Vienna, where the school was located, only able to see him during summers and on the occasional weekend. Despite the distance, they worked out their differences and were really quite happy with each other.
Their next visit was at the Three Broomsticks, and they were meeting Harry, Ginny, Seamus, and Dean at their old favorite bar from so long ago. He had arrived early, a bouquet of lilies in one hand and a box of Hermione's favorite chocolate under his arm. Making sure that they would have a table, he checked with Madam Rosemead (not without a little blushing) and head to the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face--he was unusually nervous about their visit. It was the longest time that they had spent away from each other--an entire year without seeing each other. He was anxious to see how she looked and felt, especially looking forward to going back to his flat with her. They had a year's worth of catching up to do, and he intended on catching up on the intimate parts of their relationship straightaway.
Soon, Seamus and Dean arrived, and the three guys ordered their beers and went to their table, reminiscing of all of the good (and not so good) times they shared while they were at Hogwarts. It wasn't long until Harry and Ginny were thrown into the mix, and soon, they were all laughing heartily, recalling Quidditch matches and wild after parties, along with the inside jokes that they had shared.
"Another round of drinks?" asked Madam Rosemerta as she cleared away their glasses with a wave of her wand.
" Of course!" said Ron heartily. "And this time around, it's on me!"
"Why the generosity, Ronald?" asked Ginny.
"He's excited," said Harry with a grin. "'Mione's coming home tonight."
The gaggle of men promptly took this cue to harass Ron about how he was going to get lucky for the first time in an entire year, and Ron blushed his usual scarlet. "Well, it's more than that… I've got great news!" He checked his wristwatch, which read quarter past seven. "She's running a little late… I wanted to wait for her to come before I told you, but I doubt if she'll mind if I just jump the gun and say it--we're getting married this summer!" The friends cheered and whooped, clapping Ron on the back while he grinned on sheepishly.
"Aw, we knew it would be you two," said Seamus. "We all knew it, even back in our second year, you guys were always at it like a married couple."
"By that, we mean arguing," Dean chimed in.
"Bickering, really, I don't know how she can stand you, sometimes," said Ginny, jokingly. "You don't know how many times I heard her complain about how you don't notice a damn thing she does for you… back in school, of course. You're a changed man, now."
From the table behind them, they heard a familiar snicker that they all detested. The snotty, aristocratic voice of Draco Malfoy rang through the air, saying, "Gonna make an honest woman out of Granger, now, Weasley?"
As much as they all hated the man, they were able to overcome their differences the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. Perhaps it was the fact that Voldemort had everyone living under a shadow of hatred and prejudice, or perhaps it was the fact that Harry had singlehandedly saved Malfoy's life--either way, Malfoy never again called Hermione a Mudblood, nor did he call Ron poor.
"She's already honest, Malfoy," said Ron, resisting the urge to resort to the old fallback plan of gripping his wand inside his robes in case Malfoy got the bright idea to hex him, like he would back in school. "I trust her completely."
"That's good," said Draco from around the back of his seat, facing Ron. "You can't be too careful… she is, after all, quite far away all of the time at school." His drawl made the corner of Ron's lip twitch convulsively as he ran his fingers along the hard wood of his wand in his pocket.
Harry stepped in saying, "Malfoy, where do you get off on accusing our best friend of being untrustworthy? Do you know her better than we do?" He added under his breath, "Should have let that git burn in the Fiendfyre if I knew he'd always be skulking around…"
"No," said Malfoy with his usual sneer, looking over Harry's shoulder towards the door. "I don't know her better, but I'd bet that he does." Malfoy's finger was pointing in the direction of the door, where Hermione now stood, talking animatedly to a person that Harry thought he would never see again in his lifetime.
"Snape?" cried Ron and Harry in disbelief as they looked upon the tall, lithe figure of the man who had tortured them through six years of Hogwarts, his hooked nose prominent in the firelight.
"I thought he was dead!" said Seamus, rubbing his chin with his hand, wondering how this was all even possible.
"He was, I saw him die!" said Harry angrily, getting up out of his seat, striding towards the two people speaking at the door.
Ron, however, was rather preoccupied with seeing his fiancée with another man. That familiar painful feeling inside of him tore at him from all sides with full force. He couldn't even remember the last time he had seen Hermione smiling like that, and she was talking and grinning at her old Potions professor, who was supposed to be dead. The green monster inside of him roared with anger, and he fought hard to keep his composure.
"Severus Snape?" asked Harry, tapping the man on his shoulder. As the man turned around to face him, it was unmistakable--the scars on his neck where those deadly fangs pierced his throat were visible and a dark pink, and his ferocious, cynical gaze was all too familiar--Snape was, indeed, alive. The question was this: how was it possible?
"Mister Potter," he said with that familiar sneer. "We meet again."
His vague answer was not satisfactory, in Harry's opinion. "I saw you die," he said bluntly. "There was no way around that. I took your memories that night. Remember?"
"Perhaps you simply perceived me to be dead, Mr. Potter," he said silkily. "Nevertheless, I am as alive as you or Miss Granger here. I suffered greatly that night, but what the Dark Lord did not realize was that I was immune to Nagini's venom."
"But… how…?" spluttered Harry in disbelief.
"It's so simple, really," said Hermione, chiming in happily for the first time. "Ingestion in small, non-lethal amounts will help strengthen immunity to the venom when it administered in lethal doses. It was so very… Edmond Dantes of him…" she said, beaming at her Professor.
"Yes, quite," he said, flashing what almost could have been taken as a smile at the girl. "The real problem was getting the bleeding under control and appearing to be dead. Obviously," he said, raising an eyebrow at Harry, "it was convincing."
"Right," said Harry suspiciously. "You've kept this quiet though… you didn't go back to Hogwarts."
"I found a more… lucrative… position at the University. Miss Granger here has been quite helpful as my teaching assistant throughout the past year." Almost as if on cue, she smiled sheepishly.
"I only help out here and there," she said modestly. "It's good experience. I'm more than happy to help my old professor." She then turned her attention to Harry, saying "Oh, hi, Harry, by the way. Thanks for that smashingly warm welcome… it's only been, what, two years since we've seen each other?"
"Sorry, Hermione," he said, showing her a grin to displace her surprising cool attitude towards him. Sure enough, she melted and hugged her friend tightly, smiling widely.
"We've all missed you so much!"
As he showed her the way to the table, Snape discreetly crept to the other side of the bar, taking a seat at the end of it. When they arrived where Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Ginny were waiting for her, she found them all grinning in a way that seemed almost forced.
They all greeted her warmly, which reassured her of their genuineness, and she made sure to save greeting Ron for last. He stood up and embraced her, kissing her gently and quickly upon the lips, and then pulling her down beside him at the table. Their fingers interlocked together, though she could feel the sweat from Ron's palms upon hers as they touched, and he was being awfully fidgety.
"So, I'm guessing that Ron has told you the big news," she said happily. "We've been waiting for this day for years now, and now that I'm pretty much finished at University…"
"Wait, I thought this was your final semester," said Ron. "Pretty much finished? You have even more school?"
"No more classes," she said in what she thought was a reassuring tone. "I'm just going to be doing some research with Severus for a couple more weeks and--"
"Severus?" blurted out Ron before he could stop himself.
"Yes, that's his name, Ronald," she said, her face knotting up in a little confused and slightly frustrated look. "I'm rather interested in his latest undertaking on finding a cure for the insanity caused by the Cruciatus curse, and we are.. Well, he is so close on making a breakthrough…"
"Oh," he said, allowing one minute sliver of frustration to show on his face. "Well, there's no problem with that, then."
"So why is Professor Snape here, anyway," asked Ginny, eyeing the mysterious man at the end of the bar with suspicion. "The man was dead to the world, and now he is making breakthrough medical potions?"
"Oh, well, I had never Apparated from the University straight to the Three Broomsticks, so he offered to go side-along with me here," she said brightly. "But that all aside, the wedding is this July, and we'd all love to have you in the procession, with Ginny as my maid of honor, of course…"
Ron smiled and nodded at his wife-to-be as she babbled on about their up and coming wedding, although his insides were reeling. Side-along apparition… she was touching that slime ball, holding onto him tightly… A slightly, imperceptibly shaking hand grasped the handle of his mug tightly and lifted it to his lips, gulping the rest down in one long swig. The alcohol warmed him almost immediately, and he envisioned wringing Snape's neck for a variety of reasons that never seemed to be apparent when the man tortured them at school.
"…Ron, are you even listening?" said Hermione impatiently.
"What?" said Ron, looking over at Hermione, forcing a grin. "Oh… I'm sorry, I was drifting."
"Typical," she said playfully, mussing his hair and rolling her eyes. "Same old Ronald that I've always known…"
Still, Ron couldn't help but wonder if she kept glancing over at the man at the end of the bar whenever she thought he wasn't looking.
--
Six pitchers and two hours later, Ronald Weasley was not in very good shape at all. His speech was unintelligible and walking was definitely out of the equation. The booze had caused him to act rambunctiously, indeed, and soon, Madam Rosemerta had to ask them to take their little party elsewhere. Soon, Hermione and Ginny struggling to help an almost passed-out Ron out of the doorway to the bar.
"Oof," said Hermione, as her fiancé nearly toppled over onto her bodily. "Ron, you need to… know when to call it… quits… for the night!" she said between heaves.
"He's usually not this heavy a drinker," said Ginny, guiding the hobbling couple to the apparition point. "You would have thought that he would have not drank anything, knowing you were coming…"
"Yes, alcohol doesn't really work in his favor when it comes to… you know… intimacy," she said rather awkwardly. "Either way, he doesn't look like he'll be up for much of anything for a few hours."
"A Sober-Up potion ought to do the trick," she said. "Works like a charm for Ronnie here… but I've got to run, Harry's going to trash the house with the other boys if I don't get there soon. Take care!"
The girls shared a quick embrace and with a loud crack, Ginny was gone. Hermione found that Ron now seemed to be putting his entire weight on her. With a grunt, she lifted him so that they were level, in order to apparate. The only problem was that he was not holding on nearly tight enough for her to take him alongside her.
"Come on, Ronald," she said, tickling him on his worst tickle spot (his ribs). This had no effect on the drunk man, and she made a frustrated noise.
"Having trouble, Hermione?" asked a low, familiar voice from behind her.
"I'm certainly not having fun, sir," she said, turning her face towards Snape, who was leaning against the side of the building. "Trouble seems to be an understatement."
"If you would allow me to help you with your… baggage," he said with a sneer, indicating the limp man in her arms. "I could take you both back to your home alongside me."
"As much help as that would be," she began, still struggling with Ron, "you have no idea where it is, and besides, there are no apparition points. I am Muggle born, remember?"
"I suppose we could apparate to my own home," he in a tone that may have been easily mistaken as suave. "We could go unseen safely."
"I'm not sure if Ron would rather like waking up in your house, Professor," she said quietly. "No offense to you, but he doesn't seem to get over things very easily."
"He may have good reason for that," said Snape in a tone that he had mastered long ago--it was a voice that did not divulge any information, only hinting at the volumes of secrets that he held beneath his surface.
--
Ron had woken up, very unsure of where he was, only knowing that he was on a surface that was somewhat hard, wet, and rather itchy. Soon enough, he found that he was on a bristly, unkempt lawn that belonged to a ratty, small cottage with few windows and dim lights inside. He rubbed his head, trying to remember the most recent thing he could recall. He remembered the Three Broomsticks, and going shot for shot with Seamus, who could easily drink him under a table any day. That posed the question, why would he ever be going shot for shot in the first place… especially if he was to be with Hermione later that night?
As he made his way over to the window of the drab and dank house, his questions were answered immediately as he saw two figures in the window. A surge of hatred and adrenaline coursed through his veins as he saw the love of his life throwing herself into the arms of another man--that man being Professor Severus Snape.
The two illicit lovers were unaware of the younger man's presence at the window, for they were kissing with abandon, completely absorbed in each other. For what the man seemed to lack in appearance and civility, he more than made up for with his apparent skills in the area of seduction. He had expertly lifted the girl onto the countertop in his sparse kitchen and began unbuttoning her dress as she wrapped her legs around him, her hands in his hair. He could see her head thrown back in ecstasy as the man caressed her neck with his lips and fingertips, leaving small, angry red hickeys whenever she responded to his liking. He tugged at her hair, and Ron could see her lips form into a round circle as the slight pain gave her intense pleasure.
As much as he wanted to burst into the scene and stop it immediately, he could not seem to tear himself away. They had moved up against the wall, now, and she was touching his chest as she basically tore his shirt from his body, revealing his pallid complexion underneath, muscles clearly defined against his body. She pressed into his body wantonly as he helped her to slip her out of her dress, wrapping one leg around him and gyrating her hips against his groin. She took a hand and slid it down between their bodies, grabbing him on the Prince's family jewels in a way that made him cease all of his clever foreplay. He took the girl by the shoulders roughly and pushed her onto the sofa, positioning himself in between her legs. She writhed and squirmed beneath him, begging him to please her, tugging on the hemline of his trousers, and he obliged by letting them slide down to his ankles and…
Ron couldn't take it anymore--there was no way he was going to watch his greasy, snarky, perverted old Professor take advantage of his girl… his fiancée. Yet, she seemed to be enjoying it quite a great deal more than she had ever enjoyed lovemaking with him. Was this lovemaking, or was this something to satiate their sexual hunger? Was this how she helped her Professor while she was away at school, away from everything that she claimed to have known and loved? Blood pumped through his veins mixed with rage and venomous disgust as he paced the grimy front yard, wondering what the hell he could do. If he went in, he could catch them in the throes, but what good would that do? No, this hurt too much to simply catch them in the act. He had to catch her in the lie, and then tell her what he saw--it was the only way that she could even begin to feel the pain that she had caused him. He had to hurt her back…
And as much as he wanted to destroy her, to make her world fall out from around her, he couldn't seem to do it as the days went on.
"What were you up to last night, after the bar?" asked a somewhat sober Ron.
"Oh, nothing, just sleeping," said Hermione without a single-thought.
A well rehearsed lie, I suppose, thought Ron bitterly. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"So you weren't with Snape?" he asked, not bothering to hide the hatred in his voice.
"Nope," she said rather nonchalantly. "Just sleeping. Just ask Ginny, she saw me go to bed."
"Right," said Ron, looking away from her, seething. "I'll do that."
Turns out, Ginny backed up her alibi, but Ron could tell that she was bullshitting the whole thing. Ron knew Ginny well enough to know the signs of her lying--the wringing of the hands, the nervous glances at the clock, and, of course, the inability to look him in the eye. He turned from his sister, anger still coursing through him.
Many more times presented themselves to Ron to confront Hermione about her affair with the older professor, and yet, he never could seem to. He spied on her and found out when they would be meeting, following them together stealthily to their secret spots where they would fulfill their lustful desires. In the woods, in the back of a muggle vehicle, the Shrieking Shack, the Hogwarts dungeons, the edge of the Black Lake, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley motels, Knockturn Alley brothels, even the Chamber of Secrets. And Ron had seen it all.
Finally, one night, the man had snuck into the flat that they owned together, right into the den that Hermione had converted into her own personal study. Ron crept silently behind the doorway as he heard their sighs, grunts, and squeals from behind the thin walls. He could even hear their flesh pounding against each other rapidly, their shallow breathing in rhythm. He plugged his ears tightly for a few minutes, and then put his ear back up against the door. The pounding had ceased, and their breathing became heavy and deep. It was now or never… all he had to do was push open the door and…
--
"RONALD WEASLEY, IF YOU DON'T SAY SOMETHING NOW, I AM GOING TO POUR THIS COLD WATER ONTO YOUR HEAD! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!"
Ron's eyes were too heavy to open, and his body was too tired to move--a throbbing pain was in his head, right behind his eyes. He wanted to respond, but his body and brain were not yet ready to work in tandem. Moments later, he felt a gush of icy water come down upon his face.
This, apparently, was just the trick to get his mind and body functioning on the same page, although the pain in his aching head only increased in severity. Finally, he found his voice.
"Bloody fucking hell, 'Mione!" he cried out, looking up at his girlfriend with anger in his eyes and rage in his voice. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Well," she said with her hands on her hips, "You were--"
"No!" said Ron, getting up to his feet, staggering. "No, you are the one at fault here. Not only do you dump a gallon of ice on my face, but you lied to me! Made my sister and friends lie! You cheated on me with that scum bucket excuse of a man that you call your Professor, and you did it right in my own house! I can't believe you would ever do such a thing… and to think that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you!"
Hermione stared at him in disbelief for a moment with one eyebrow raised, before breaking out a smile, saying, "Ron, are we still a little tipsy? Did we have one too many Firewhiskey shots with Seamus?"
"Stop making light of this!" he yelled, tripping over footstool that he could never remember owning in the process. He looked around the small room, knowing he had seen it someplace before. "And where in hell are we!"
"My home, Mr. Weasley," said a gruff voice from the corner of the room where, in an armchair sat Severus Snape.
Ron whipped around to face the man before lunging at him with fists raised threateningly. "I should kill you, you filthy motherfucker!"
Hermione tried to restrain the young man, but to no avail--he was already trying to pummel Snape with his furious fists. Snape, however, grabbed the man by the shoulders, saying, "What the devil has gotten into you?!"
"Ron thinks," said Hermione with a note of sarcasm in her voice, "That we're lovers, Severus."
"Oh, really?" said Snape, releasing Ron from his iron-strong grip and brushing him off, almost fit to giggle. "As much as he seems to want to believe it, I'm afraid that can't be true."
"Of course it is!" screamed Ron. "I saw you! I spied on you all of the time! You were going at it all the damn time… everywhere! I have proof… I have…"
"Ron, we just got back from the Three Broomsticks about twenty minutes ago," she said, coming over to him and laying a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature. "Are you sick in the head? That alcohol really did do a number on you, huh?"
"But I--"
"Mr. Weasley, I know you hold very little respect for me, and you have your reasons to hold a grudge against me," he said with blunt honesty, "but as much as you loathe me, understand that even I have scruples that I don't easily part with--having affairs with soon to be married students of mine is just one example."
"But I swear that I saw you guys," he said, rubbing his head angrily. "It all seemed so real…"
"Perhaps it was all a figment of your imagination," said Snape as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "Although if it was a figment of your imagination, I wonder if Miss Granger should be the one fearing for her impending marriage."