Disclaimer—I do not own the Blacklist, Harry Potter or any of the characters therein. Nor do I make any moneys from the posting of this fanfiction.

Hello! Hope everyone had magnificent winter holidays. Here we are—another year, another Blacklist/Harry Potter crossover. This time a three chapter story! Enjoy!

Please read and review.

…

Chapter One

Hermione sat across from Harry, sipping on her wine as he stared at her perplexed. She had wanted to tell him the news on her own without anyone else there for it. Choosing the restaurant had been easy. She made reservations at his favorite little bistro for lunch. It was one of the newest places to open on Diagon Alley after the war. The food was wonderful and the privacy guaranteed. And if she was going to be telling him what she had to, she would need just that.

"I'm confused," he told her.

"I see that," she murmured. "A confused Harry is hard to miss." He glared at her, making her laugh quietly telling him that she was only teasing him.

"Okay, you're married," he said.

"Yes," she replied.

"To Raymond," he continued.

"Yes," Hermione repeated.

"But you're going to be pretending to be married to Viktor?"

"Exactly."

"Why?" he demanded.

She blinked at him, but said nothing.

"It doesn't make sense!"

"It does," she told him. "It makes perfect sense!"

"Then tell me!"

"No."

Harry nearly growled with irritation at that one word.

"All you need to know, Harry, is that I'm married to Raymond," she told him. "We were magically wed day before yesterday, I'm still working for the Department of Mysteries, and I'm still going to go by my maiden name."

He frowned. "Why wasn't I invited?"

She laughed. "We eloped. Our only guests were Viktor and a very lovely woman by the name of Luli."

"Let me guess," he said dryly. "She's going to be pretending to be involved with Raymond."

Smiling she said, "Bravo, Harry. With deductions like that we'll make an auror of you yet."

"Ha-ha," he muttered. "I don't like this, Hermione. You shouldn't have to be doing things like pretending to be married or sleeping with other people. There's more to this than you're telling me and it would serve you right if I looked into it."

All the humor left her face. "I love him." Harry stared at her stunned at her words. "I love him so much. I do not take those words lightly. I never have and you know it."

"Then why the subterfuge?"

She only shook her head no.

"Dammit, Hermione! I deserve the truth!"

"And I deserve a quiet lunch. But with you acting like that, it looks like neither of us will be getting what we want, let alone deserve, any time soon," she retorted dryly.

He crossed his arms over his chest. "That man is dangerous."

"I know," she answered. "But then again, so am I."

Harry just stared at her for a moment. This woman in front of him was nothing like the girl he grew up with. She was complex, secretive, and, yes, dangerous. Sad part of it all was that he didn't know what was more responsible for this woman he was dining with—the war or where she worked. Or both, he thought.

"What is his last name?" he asked her. "And is there a reason why you won't tell any of your friends it?"

"Of course there is. But to get into that, I'd have to tell you the entire story and that would defeat the purpose of not telling you his name," she murmured. "And if there's one thing I hate, it's that." Hermione took another sip of her wine, thinking over what she wanted to say to him next. "Do you trust Severus Snape?"

"You know I do…" he started only to have her cut him off with a hand gesture.

"Severus trusts Raymond," she told Harry plainly. "And people with him don't automatically get his trust. They have to earn it. You know that, Harry."

He was forced to agree to that, as even after the war Severus didn't automatically trust him. It wasn't until a year or two later that Harry realized that Snape was beginning to tell him stories about his mother as a child did he know that he earned a small amount of it.

"Hermione…" he started, but paused for a moment. "Do you trust him?"

"I wouldn't have married him if I didn't," she replied.

Resigning himself to the fact that this was as good of an answer about the man she married that he was going to get, he murmured, "Then I'm happy for you."

The lunch lasted for another hour before they both had to leave—He to his work and she to go back to her flat to see how the packing was going. When she arrived it was to see the last of her books being packed away in the boxes. She looked around the empty flat that she thought she would be spending the next several years in alone with at least five cats. When she told Raymond as much, he had laughed and kissed her temple.

"As if I would allow that to happen," he said casually.

She looked over to the one oversized chair still left in the room. Raymond was napping, looking pale and unwell. He worked too hard and didn't tend his own illnesses as he should. Dembe entered the flat and the two of them stared at Raymond for a time.

"Did he go to the doctor yet?" she asked.

"No," he answered quietly. "It isn't for the lack of those around him asking him to go."

She nodded to this, walking over to him and kneeling in front of him. Raymond's eyes opened to see her there. It was with a shaking hand that he reached out and caressed her face.

"Please go to the doctor," she whispered. "If not for you, then for me. Please, Raymond. I will beg if need be."

He moved so that he was now, pulling her into his lap. He kissed her forehead and called out, "Dembe?"

"Yes?" he replied.

"Make an appointment with my doctor," he ordered quietly. "Tell him I need the soonest available appointment."

"Yes, sir," he murmured, and pulled out his cellphone as he went about making the appointment.

Once Dembe was out of the room, Raymond inquired, "Happy?"

"I will be when I know it's not serious," she told him.

"Hermione?" She lifted her face to look at him in the eyes. "I think it is serious." His lips pursed and his eyes went sad. "Very serious."

Leaning forward, she kissed his mouth lightly and said, "I will rip apart the world if need be to make you well."

He nodded to this. "I know, but hopefully it won't come to that."

…

One year later…

Raymond lay in the bed, his hair gone. Hermione was sitting next to him reading as Dembe was at the door. Luli came rushing in, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of the once strong man now wasting away in the bed before her. She looked over to Hermione. It looked like she had lost weight as well and Luli seriously doubted she had a moment's rest since this had started.

She went over to Hermione, asking, "Do you want me to stay with him. You can get something to eat. Maybe get some sunshine?"

Hermione smiled at that. "Thank you, Luli. But no, my place is here."

"You should go get some sun," Raymond said hoarsely. "Get a tan."

Laughing, Hermione told him, "I'm British, love. We're not known for our tanning abilities."

"Then get something to eat," he ordered her. "You haven't eaten in hours."

Worrying her lower lip, she asked, "Are you sure?"

"Dembe, take her to eat a real meal," he called out. "Viktor will be here soon and he can watch the door then."

In truth, Hermione knew that Viktor was already there. Raymond did as well. But why have Dembe watching her? And then it hit her. It was to keep her from calling for magical help. Severus knew that he was ill. It had been going on for a year, how could he not? But he had never been told just how ill Raymond was.

Hermione got up, kissing his forehead and his mouth. "Try to get some rest, Raymond."

"I do nothing but sleep," he complained.

"And yet it's never real rest," she replied, caressing his scalp. "I'll be back before you know it. And you can tell me about how you made that little nurse in training blush yet again."

He chuckled. "That is fun."

"Apparently, as you try to do so at least once a day," she murmured, standing up straight.

She left the room and soon enough they were out on the street. It took her a good few minutes before she gathered the gumption to turn to Dembe to speak to him.

"This new treatment isn't working," she told him. "You see it as well as I do."

He reluctantly nodded. "But what else can be done?"

"Here? With these doctors and treatments? Nothing," she admitted. "You do realize that the reason that he had you rather than Viktor come out with me to lunch was to keep me from doing what I'll be doing right now."

He tilted his head and asked, "This is to make him well?"

She nodded.

"It isn't evil?"

"He's snarky, brooding, and at one time was on the verge of being evil, but no, he is not outright evil."

He rocked back on his heels and said, "If this will cure him, I say to do it."

She pulled out her phone. "I've done it his way for too long and it has gotten us nowhere." Hermione dialed Severus. "Now, it's my turn."

…

Red didn't know what woke him. The room was dark with the only lights coming in from under the door to the hallway and from the night sky. He looked over to the chair to find Severus Snape staring out the window.

"Where is my wife?" he asked quietly.

"Asleep," the British wizard told him. "I gave her a nutritional supplement as well as a dreamless sleep." He nodded his head toward the other side of his bed.

Raymond looked over to see Hermione sound asleep on a cot there, resting for the first time in far too long. Her face looked too wane and her bones seemed to be standing out all the more. Damn, when was the last time she had a meal?

"She called you?" he breathed, wanting to get up to join her in her bed and stroke at her untamable locks.

"You know she did," Severus told him. "Do you want to die?"

"No one wants to die." He looked away. "Some may feel it's their only choice, while others may feel they have to. But no one wants to die—not really."

"Then why in the name of Merlin haven't you allowed her to call me to help?" he demanded quietly. "You may feel this is just punishment for whatever crime you think you may have done, but the only one you're punishing, Raymond, is your wife."

Red winced at his words. The truth hurt, as it was written all over his wife's face.

"Will you accept the help I am offering to you?" Severus asked him. "Without your consent, the potions will only prolong the pain of this cancer you have. I've seen as much before."

He lay there staring up at the ceiling, his mind a whirl as he thought over what he was told. "Yes. I'll accept the help. I have far too much to do before I leave this mortal coil, my friend. And I will see it done."

TBC…

…

And there you go. The first chapter of three. Did you like it? Review to let me know what you think. I changed it up a bit, as I wanted the first set of one shots to be connected to the prequels with this story being a bridge of sorts. Thanks for reading and have a splendid day!