Disclaimer: I love you J. K. Rowling! Don't sue me or steal my underwear! I haven't stolen your characters, merely borrowed them for an undeterminable amount of time. He he he…
So here we go!
This certainly wasn't something he had planned.
No one, not even the omniscient Dumbledore, could have foreseen the marriage law conceived by ministry half-wits. And when Serverus had been subject to it's strictures he vowed that the Ministry would pay.
What actually happened was his new wife paid. She was the focal point of his anger and frustration against that damnable ministry. Severus vented on her day in and out, he belittled her, pointed out any imperfection in her person, essentially, he sought to wear her down as if he could wear her out of his life.
When the reality of whom she had to marry because of the Marriage Law came crashing down, Hermione had thought originally that perhaps she and her former potions professor could live amiably. This was not an inconceivable notion, they were both intelligent individuals. They shared similar tastes and aesthetics. She supposed, after the fifth heated confrontation with Severus, that she had been wrong; she had never taken into account their dispositions. She was apt to be kind, generous, and forgiving and Severus was well… not.
Hermione would sometimes recall ironically that during her fourth year at Hogwarts she had developed a crush on Professor Snape. Her dreams were haunted by his velvet voice and masculine features.
Needless to say, she no longer had those dreams.
Hermione had always been a private person. An introverted book-worm to the core. Marriage to a stranger could have worked for her, she thought. Had Severus even tried to be civil toward her.
Thankfully, after the first few months of marriage his barraging comments ceased and she was hardly ever the object of his rage. However, twice a month she was still the object of his objectionable desires, which he made clear to her each time he entered her bed.
He wasn't exactly bad in bed, he was just cold. She supposed that he found the fact that she was the best-mate of Harry Potter, a Gryffindor, and a former student to be a turn-off. Truthfully, Hermione wasn't attracted to her husband either, but she was still a red-blooded woman. Their bi-monthly encounters were not enough to satiate her needs.
So she decided to find other ways to solve this problem.
After her classes at University, she would carouse local bars and clubs. But eventually, the appeal of what the boys at these haunts had to offer lost its attractiveness; she had enough unfeeling encounters with her husband and she certainly did not want them with another man. After much consideration, Hermione realized that she wanted a relationship. One with a warm, comfortable, and decent man. She wanted someone who would appreciate her, ask her how her day had been; she wanted a man to feel passion for her.
That's when she met John. They were both taking Advanced Medicinal Potion at the university. He had everything Severus had, and everything he didn't.
At first, it was only simple coffee breaks they took together. Study sessions and such, Then… well, Hermione had never experienced this type of affection from a man before.
It was the beginnings of love.
When she spoke of her life or the simple events of the day, he listened. When she was tired or sick, he would affectionately rub her shoulders. There were small things too she noticed about him. He remembered her mother's name after the first time she had told him, or how he could tell by leaning in close to her that she had changed her shampoo.
Severus had never even met her mother, nor had he bothered to get close to her in any way.
Hermione had always considered herself a loyal woman and would have never dreamed that she would care for a man who was not her legal husband, no matter what. But then again, this wasn't something she had planned.
But whatever it was, whether it was Severus' growing distance or John's growing affection, when John asked her to stay for the night, she said yes.
That night she let him hold her, comfort her, and give himself wholly to her. She thought, life for her might be turning around.
She thought, as she lay in his arms listening to the gentle beatings of his heart and his soft whispering breathing, that this could be a man I love.
But he is not the man I am married to.
She shifted out of his loving grasp and attempted to get out of bed without disturbing John, but her rustlings woke him. He grasped her arm and gently pulled her against his chest, his arms wrapped around her shoulders and back.
"Don't leave," he pleaded into her hair, as he kissed the crown of her head. Sighing, Hermione pulled herself out of his grasp and propped herself up on one elbow looking at John ironically.
"You know I can't. I have to go home, Severus won't be pleased if he finds out I never returned home. It's late enough as it is."
"But I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yes."
Hermione began to pull on her clothes and her lover stared at her intently.
As the lovers looked at one another, there was surrender in their eyes. What future did they have with one another with the Marriage Law in place?
When John had first learned of Hermione's marriage to a man she hated, he had resigned himself against forming an attachment to her. But as their friendship grew, he slowly came to realize that he cared more for Hermione than any other woman he had ever met. Often times, he felt sick thinking about her relationship with Severus. Often times, he had thought about killing the man. She was so young and so fresh, and he was ruining her. Her life was being wasted on this fuck-wit of a man.
But as time moved on, he had become more fond of to her. Even loving her. So he invited her up to his flat. And now…
Now she was leaving to go home to her bastard husband.
"I can't stand to have you leave."
"And I can't stand to leave." She kissed him again, lingering next to his warmth and then turned and walked out the door, leaving both thinking of future possibilities to come.
Severus stared intently at the potion he was currently working on. Last night he had been in the stairwell when Hermione creped in the door at midnight. She hadn't seen him, but he saw her.
More precisely he had seen her swollen lips, disheveled hair, and pleased grin.
He threw down his stirring rod and began to chop moonwort roughly.
He couldn't exactly remember when it had happened, but at some point he no longer regarded his muggle-born wife with hostility. In fact he currently began to regard his actions toward her during their first few months of marriage with malice.
And now he regretted their current relationship.
He tried to remember when it happened. He had silently watched her for the past couple of months. Observing her at dinner or in their library. He began to notice peculiar things about her that he had not seen originally.
He noticed whenever she was nervous she would pull her lower lip into her mouth and nibble on it unconsciously. Or how she gently treated their house elves without forcibly trying to free them.
When she was particularly interested in a passage she was reading, she would draw up her legs and sit on her knees.
It was just silly things he noticed, nothing of consequence he told himself.
But then he began to notice things about himself. Like whenever she was dressed unusually elegantly, his breath caught.
How whenever she avoided his gaze at dinner his chest became tight and it was unbearable to breathe. Or when he came into her room at night and when she stiffened and turned her head aside, his heart stopped.
It was just silly things he tried to tell himself.
He tried to tell himself that, until one day he realized that he might love his wife. As peculiar as that might sound.
So he decided he might try to do something a loving husband would.
He bought Hermione flowers and had the house elves to make a special dinner for them. He had prepared a speech, of how they might start over and how he cared for her.
Then he waited for her to come home for dinner.
And waited.
She didn't return until late that night and rather than be annoyed at her tardiness he just felt glad to see her.
But more precisely, he saw her swollen lips, disheveled hair, and pleased grin.
With light, joyful steps she bounded up the stairs and he noticed something else.
The wall between them. A wall he couldn't cross. A wall he had built himself.
With aching sorrow did he realize at that moment, that he had no way to breach that wall and she had no intention of crossing it.
He had finished the potion and began to bottle it. As evidence by the current state of his marriage, Severus was not a planner.
He looked at the bottle and set it in his pocket; he would decide how it should be used later.
He thought in a detached intellectual manner, that most poisons could be used for both suicide and murder.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! I haven't decided yet if I'm going to continue this one or not, so please leave a review and let me know what you think! (or a twenty)
Thank you again! Muchas Gracias
-Sol en la Noche