Title: Meet Your Match
Rating: T (Snape is sweary)
Disclaimer: Don't own ANYTHING
A/N: It is time once again for the annual Xmas Fic Exchange between Rickmanlover24601 and myself. This year, her prompt to me was 'Online Dating'. After reading this, she threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't add a chapter for her birthday in March, so stay tuned!
It was Hermione Granger who figured out how to fully integrate technology into the Wizarding world.
Of course.
After the final battle, after setting new records for NEWT scores and graduating with honors, she'd launched into a career at the Ministry of Magic. It was there, when faced with the absolute chaos that was the filing system in her department, that Hermione decided the presence of a computer-run database would be immensely useful.
She'd taken it on as a side project, something to keep her occupied in her time off, but it had quickly morphed into so much more. Muggle technology was evolving at a staggering rate, and its potential applications were nearly endless.
Though it took her nearly two years to figure out how to insulate the electrical componentry against the effects of magic, she accomplished what she'd set out to do. She also quietly patented her work. It had actually taken a surprisingly short amount of time to convince her supervisor to give it a try; apparently he'd experienced one too many disasters at the hands of the magical filing cabinets currently in place, which tended to spontaneously rearrange themselves when they were feeling neglected.
And so it was that in 2001, department by department, the Ministry joined the 21st century alongside the rest of the Muggle world. Hermione had received a promotion, and had been put in charge of the newly formed Department of Technological Integration. She'd even been given her own staff to manage, and had been tasked with outfitting all government buildings with computers, along with arranging for training seminars.
When word got out to the private sector, there was such a demand that Hermione seized the opportunity and started her own consulting firm. She was essentially doing the exact same thing as before… arriving at a new location, installing computers with internet access, and arranging for training programs… except now she was getting paid quite a bit more.
Hermione loved the work, and continued to build her business, adding additional staff to oversee different regions of the world. Things were going so well that after only two years, Hermione had mostly stepped back from the actual installations and trainings, focusing mostly on effectively managing her growing business. When she received a request for her services from Hogwarts, however, she chose to attend to things personally.
Coming back to Hogwarts after nearly five years was an interesting experience. Though she was by no means old, surely she'd never been as young as the group of first-years that had practically mowed her down…
And the professors! It was almost surreal, speaking with them as equals, and even at times with her as the authority, rather than the other way round. And then, after accepting an invitation to tea in the staffroom, she'd had to totally reassess her opinions of them…mostly. The surly Potions Master never seemed to change at all. Hermione found that she still felt a degree of wary respect and admiration for the man, though he seemed determined to go out of his way to avoid being the least bit likable.
The installation of computers and wireless internet access (thank goodness dial-up was on its way out) was completed without any significant difficulties. And after a bit of wheedling, she even convinced Madame Pince to give over a small corner of the library to allow for the installation of six general-use computers for the students to use.
The Hogwarts WiFi password was SherbertLemon, in Dumbledore's honor.
Hermione had been at Hogwarts for three weeks (a week longer than she normally allotted for jobs) when she entered the Staff Room to find Minerva consoling a weeping Alecia Brownsap, who taught Muggle Studies. There had been an accident, Minerva explained, an automobile accident, and Alecia had just received word from her husband that her mother and sister had been fatally injured. Her father, who was in the car with them, had been transported to a local hospital in critical condition.
Minerva assured her that the school would be fine, it was perfectly understandable, and of course she needed to leave immediately to be with her father.
The Headmistress sank into her chair with a heavy sigh once the sniffling Muggle Studies professor left the room to pack.
"Are you all right, Minerva?" Hermione asked, sitting opposite the older witch and ringing for tea.
"Thank you, Hermione. I'll be fine. I'm just concerned about the speed at which I'll be able to find a replacement for Professor Brownsap. Muggle Studies isn't exactly a popular course, but it is an OWL and NEWT subject, and I fear the students currently enrolled will fall behind."
Hermione, having gone through the debacle of DADA professors during her tenure, sympathized. And then thought about it as she poured tea. Her business really was reaching the point where it practically ran itself; she had hired in competent people who knew what they were about, and it was rare that anyone contacted her directly with a problem that she couldn't resolve with a few minutes of conversation. She loved Hogwarts, and a part of her had always planned to return someday. So why not?
To Minerva's shock and delight, Hermione found herself offering to work as the substitute Muggle Studies professor until Alecia was able to return.
And that was how Hermione Granger, when Alecia Brownsap sent a letter saying that she wouldn't be returning at all, became the full-time Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts.
Most of the Hogwarts staff were somewhat baffled by terms like 'WiFi' and 'Router', and looked at the new laptops present in each of their offices with a degree of suspicion. Much of Hermione's time outside the classroom was now spent helping them undo the technological snarls they'd managed to get into (honestly, she would never be able to unsee the browser history on Filius's computer, but had little doubt as to where the computer virus came from).
The one person who took to the technology almost as quickly as the students themselves was Severus Snape.
Growing up in a Muggle household, Snape didn't possess the general suspicion most Wizards his age held towards technology. And furthermore, as a former spy, it wasn't in his nature to leave something with so many potential benefits as an area of ignorance. In his (albeit former) line of work, ignorance got you killed.
So he was the first to take advantage of the fact that certain potions ingredients could be ordered from remote apothecaries online. In addition, his personal research progressed by leaps and bounds when he discovered the online journal subscriptions available.
The only brief downturn was when the devious little shites in his class thought they'd found a wellspring of new material from which they could plagiarize. Hermione put an almost immediate stop to that by finding a corporate sponsor willing to donate funds for each student to have their own personal laptop. Within a week, all essays were required to be submitted through a system that actually pre-checked for plagiarism.
The professors raved about this, citing the cumulative hours saved trying to decipher illegible handwriting. Assignments were given in terms of word count, which took away the ability to change the length of a document using larger fonts or wider margins. And the students…well, the students complained at first, but by the time the holidays came around, their biggest complaint was that they were unable to take their laptops with them.
Unsurprisingly, it was Minerva who discovered the more social aspects of the internet...online dating sites, in particular, . Severus knew something was going on, as there were far more gossiping and tittering at the dinner table between most of the female staff members than usual. Hermione, seated on his other side, merely shrugged at his raised eyebrow.
When he excused himself to his rooms for the evening, he sat down at his desk to finish his marking. To his utter shock, he had over 50 unread e-mails. Normally, he was quite diligent about keeping that number at zero, and had turned off the email alerts from the assignment submission software after that immensely annoying day first day of 237 alerts in a 24-hour period. So what was…
'You have 1 new match! Click here to view!'
Match? Match of what?
Hermione had given them all a lecture about the dangers of computer viruses, and warned them against clicking on things sent in emails from unknown senders (he'd received a few from a Nigerian prince telling him he'd inherited a fortune), so he first went to Google in an attempt to verify the validity of the sender.
Google Search Results: Match dot com is an online dating service with web sites serving 25 countries in more than eight languages. Its headquarters…
Oh, surely not.
Cringing, he returned to his email and clicked on the first one.
A former student. And a Hufflepuff, at that. He deleted it and went to the next email. Bloody buggering fuck, could this get any worse?
It could, apparently, because the next so-called match was a current student. He needed alcohol if he was going to survive this.
One glass of firewhiskey and 17 emails later, and Severus was torn between disgust, amusement, and being genuinely intrigued. It wasn't that he had any actual objections to dating. It just seemed that the pool of candidates was immensely limited, and in the past he'd had far better things to do with his time. Like staying alive while trying to stop the Dark Lord. After the war, it was actually even more difficult; the pool of dateable women hadn't really changed, but now the ones that did want to date him seemed only interested in his fame.
This…this online dating thing…well, it was certainly simpler to cast a wider net whilst maintaining a degree of anonymity. His account profile had been created without his real name or a photograph, for which he was immensely grateful. And the messaging feature within the site would allow you to actually talk to a person for a bit, find out about them, before actually meeting them in person. He supposed that he'd actually have to thank Minerva for signing him up (of course it was the interfering old tabby), and wouldn't that just take the wind out of her sails.
By the time he finished all of the emails, it was after midnight and he had a delightful buzz going. Shockingly, there were actually three matches which seemed to hold a degree of potential. And looking at the messaging feature, two of them were also online.
Five minutes of conversation had one of those two apparently in tears and signing off, but the second…the second was definitely shaping up to be something. She seemed able to keep up with him intellectually, was well-informed about some of the latest potions research being published, and even recommended a website or two that would help further his own work. She was a teacher, and admitted that while it hadn't been her first option as a career, she found the work rewarding. Her curriculum, she said, was horrifically dated, so she was planning to try rewriting it over the summer. Like himself, she enjoyed reading, and they formed a somewhat surprising bond over the subject of craft beers.
With the hour getting late, they made promises to meet up the next evening and chat more. It was a promise they both kept.
They talked off and on for the better part of two months, as winter finally gave way to spring, before the topic of meeting in person came up. There was a new microbrewery opening in London, she said, and she'd love to have some company trying it out.
He agreed.
He almost talked himself out of going.
He very nearly turned right around halfway there.
And he most certainly almost left the pub immediately after entering and taking a look around.
For there, at the agreed-upon corner table, sat none other than Hermione Granger, wearing a green blouse.
It was too late to run, because she saw him standing there at the door wearing a red scarf.
There was a brief moment where she looked absolutely stunned.
And then she smiled.