Bride Price
Ch. 2: Scheherazade
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Her classmates were staring.
Hermione tried to focus on the Transfiguration lesson Professor Trishna was teaching, she really did. They were to have a practical tomorrow, and although she was prepared in theory, she needed to practice before she felt confident enough to display what she learned.
Even as she watched, a Slytherin sixth year smirked at her and mouthed, 'teacher's pet" before grinning at her wickedly.
She quickly averted her eyes. The fifth through seventh years were grouped together as it didn't make sense to have separate classes any longer. There weren't enough survivors left to warrant it. Hers was the biggest class in the school with far more Slytherins and Gryffindors than Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Of the poor Hufflepuffs, there was only a small smattering of that house left.
Those of Gryffindor house that were left were the bravest of the brave. Those left of Slytherin were children of Death Eaters and Voldemort sympathizers who were not convicted or charged with crimes. Those remaining of Ravenclaw had been smart enough to keep their heads down and avoid the Ministry and its regime as much as possible. However, of the Hufflepuffs, that most loyal and trusting house, their numbers were decimate.
The first through fourth years in all houses but Slytherin were scant, indeed, as these were the classes most affected. When the Ministry of Magic Enforced Magical Registry was instituted, the majority of well-meaning parents had put their fallen classmates' names down in the registry as well as their own, and when Voldemort died—Hermione's thoughts stopped there. No, she wouldn't think of that time. It hurt too badly.
This was her last class of the day, and after dinner, she would not be returning to the Gryffindor common room but instead going to the dungeon quarters she now shared with her new husband.
Six more nights. Six more nights until they had to ratify the marriage or she faced a term in Azkaban as well as being stripped of her magic. Six more nights before she became with child.
Again, Hermione felt sick.
Making her way to the great hall, she sat at her customary place and waited for the food to appear. When it did, she ate mechanically even though it tasted like chalk in her mouth.
Looking down the sparsely attended table, she saw a red-haired witch looking as dejected as she herself felt, and Ron was trying to cheer her up. Poor Ginny had only just learned she was being forced to accept Lucius Malfoy as her intended; her pure blood status a boon to him.
Ginny had been so in love with Harry: the boy who lived to outlive Voldemort but who died immediately after by Rodolphus Lestrange's Avada Kedavra.
The Malfoy patriarch had not been implicated in the war, having deflected or misdirected his dealings so the Ministry could not charge him with anything stronger than conspiracy to commit acts of mayhem and murder. However even in this, with the aid of an excellent Barrister of Magical Law, the charges were ultimately dropped.
His son Draco did not fare as well and was even now occupying a cell in Azkaban. Mrs. Malfoy, having perished in the Final Battle meant Lucius was in the market for a new wife, and Ginny Weasley fit the bill nicely.
He had paid a king's ransom for her.
Ginny, due to being underage, had been given a special dispensation to attain adulthood and finish her education, while Hermione, although still a student herself, was of age and therefore compelled by the ministry to wed, bed, and immediately breed.
Three children.
She was ordered to have no less than three children before she could consider her debt to the wizarding world complete, and the threat of being stripped of her magic and sent to prison lifted.
Intellectually, Hermione could understand the logic behind the ministry's decree. The war had all but annihilated the European wizarding world, and the auctioning off of young, nubile witches of breeding age to virulent and wealthy wizards was a brilliant way to pay for war reparations as well as ensure the next generation of magical children survived.
But Hermione had fought in the accursed war; she had done her bit for God and country as the saying went, and she should not be asked for this.
That was, however, where logic failed and ministerial decree began.
Hermione had combed the marriage law looking for a loophole: using muggle birth control, not consummating the marriage, moving to Antarctica, relinquishing her magic, all of it. The Ministry had covered every base and left nothing to chance.
As it stood, she was registered as a witch of Great Britain when her name appeared on the ledger at Hogwarts, and due to this new law, her uterus was now public domain to be used how the Ministry of Magic saw fit.
She knew the bride price on her head had been vast. Being a 'war hero' and best friend of Harry Potter, the boy who had not in the end lived, had attained her a certain celebrity had it not? And not for the first time the thought occurred to Hermione that Professor Snape had chosen her, had bid for her.
The attention was not flattering.
Why her? Why had the man spent such a large sum of gold for her? The thought would not be quelled.
"Madam," a house elf suddenly squeaked before her, and Hermione looked up from her musings, the tines of her fork making mush of her shepherd's pie.
"Professor Snape has asked for you to meet him in the potion's classroom after dinner, ma'am." With a curtsey, the little elf 'popped' away.
Her mouth dry, Hermione looked up to head table to see the man himself studying her studiously with a frown of concentration on his face. Rising from the table and turning her back to him, she decided a stroll upon the grounds before they met was what she needed. Maybe then the gall of her situation would be tolerable enough to stomach.
Although, she highly doubted it.
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It had been many years since Severus Snape had actively sought to 'woo' the fairer sex, and in any event 'wooing' had hardly been part of his trysts which, more often than not, resembled business transactions than affaires de coeur.
As he waited for his wife in the potion's classroom, his fingers busying themselves with stirring the base for the experimental potion he was brewing, he thought how best to go about seducing one Hermione Jean Granger-Snape.
He did not want to hurt her. She had been through too much already in her young life.
In fact, he wanted to make it good for her.
The girl was a virgin, verified by the healers at St. Mungo's, and while this thought held little appeal for him—he preferred his partners to be knowledgeable— the thought of teaching her and awakening her to such delights as bedroom sport did hold a certain charm for him.
It was obvious the girl loved to learn new things, and he had an inkling therein lay the key to her trust in him. However, only a week did they have to build this bridge between them before they would have to couple, thereby impregnating her, and Severus didn't know if that would be enough time to make her aware of him as a man instead of her most loathed professor.
He heard the door to his classroom open, and Severus reminded himself to be gentle and above all patient with her.
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"Good evening, Madam Snape," Professor Snape stated with a formal nod of his head, "if you would come join me at the front of the classroom… please."
Hermione was taken aback. He'd said 'please'. He'd actually said 'please' to her. A little distrustfully, Hermione approached the potion's bench, intrigued despite herself at what Professor Snape was brewing.
"Come stand by me," he ordered not looking up. "I need you to continue stirring while I prepare these shriveled figs. The potion is at a critical stage and cannot be left unattended."
Hermione did as bid, reaching for the glass stirring rod, her fingers momentarily brushing his as he gestured she should intercept it mid-stir. "What are we making, sir?" she asked not knowing if he would answer her or consider her question impertinent.
To her surprise, however, he did. "We are performing an experiment of mine, madam, designed to help those with trembling disorders due to extended Cruciatus exposure regain mobility in their limbs. As you can imagine, there are those who still have residual curse damage from the war, and St. Mungo's has asked me, in addition to those few remaining potion masters left in Great Britain, to help."
Hermione looked up, her opinion of her potion's professor altering slightly. "That's very… generous of you, sir."
"Not necessarily, Madam Snape," he corrected. His intentional use of her new title was beginning to grate on Hermione's nerves. "My motives are not entirely altruistic, you see."
How so, she longed to ask but did not. His proximity to her was beginning to unnerve her. Even as she had the thought, he reached around her to grab the jar of powdered scarab beetles, his front momentarily resting against her back.
He continued, "And so, you and I will begin to experiment using tonight's work as a base for the derivatives we plan to devise. Now stir widdershins four times," he instructed.
She did so, and once more she felt him reach around her, bringing his front in contact with her back as he added his mixture into the potion. This was the closest they had ever stood together, and she grit her teeth and forced herself to accept it. She was going to have to get used to this and more besides.
Once he added the final ingredients, the watery green brew she was stirring which had but a moment ago resembled sludge immediately changed to cerulean flecked with gold. She leaned forward to better admire his work and was a bit disconcerted when her professor did so as well. This put his face within inches of her own.
Her breath hitched as he turned his head, his onyx eyes meeting hers as his lips upturned a bit. "Good job, Madam Snape, three points to Slytherin." He stepped back, and she immediately rounded on him.
"Slytherin?" she cried.
He nodded a small smile quirking his lips, "Yes, Slytherin. You are, due to being married to me in the eyes of Hogwarts' school, now officially recognized as a Slytherin with all rights and privileges therein." He smirked, "You will, however, always remain a Gryffindor to me."
Drawing up short, it occurred to Hermione Professor Snape was teasing her, and feeling more than a little put-off by the thought, she watched as he cast a stasis spell over the potion and began to magically gather students' scrolls from his desk.
"Now, the two of us are going back to my quarters. You have homework do you not?"
She nodded.
"And I have marking. It is in this way we will pass our evenings together." So saying, he dissolved the wards leading from his office to his chambers, and she followed in his wake.
Upon arriving to his study, she noticed her desk had been moved from Gryffindor tower to opposite his, and her modest but prized collection of books placed on a bookshelf beside it.
"You will have two hours to complete your work, and then for the last thirty minutes before we retire, I would like you to pick something for me to read."
She looked at him curiously as he took his seat.
"And do make it interesting, madam. After marking this latest batch of essays, I will no doubt need something entertaining to restore my good humor." Again, he smirked at her, and she had the disconcerting feeling he was teasing her again.
Forgetting her nerves for a moment, she arched a brow, "Am I to be your own personal Scheherazade as well as your wife?"
Not even looking up from his grading, he said, "I did pay a small fortune for you, Madam Snape; I intend to get my galleon's worth."
She cringed as thoughts of a different sort of payment intruded upon her including the words: 'bride price', 'wedding night', and 'whore'. Once more the thoughts circled in her mind, Why? Why did you want me? But again, she did not ask, only turned to her desk, trying to focus on her homework and revision until it was time for her to read.
And then another thought intruded upon her. What exactly was she going to read to the man who, if the bookshelves in his study gave a clue to his interests, read everything?
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Finished with his marking, Severus had been studying the girl for some time, watching as she worked a particularly vicious tangle of arithmantic equations every so often rubbing the feather of the quill against her lower lip in thought.
She had no idea as to the charming picture she made or how novel it was for someone to share in his solitude.
The girl was studious and quiet, two traits he unequivocally admired, and she had long since ceased to be a botheration to him in the classroom, having taken the hint sometime around her fifth year when she stopped her incessant hand-waving and contented herself with letting the glory and pangs of his Socratic questions attend to her peers.
However, if he wasn't mistaken, the need to please and garner his approval was still within her, and he would use this to his advantage as well as her love of learning new things. Yes, in this way, he would seek to 'woo' the witch.
Once she had solved her tangled mass of equations and looked to be moving on to another subject, Severus stood, making his way over to her.
"It's time, madam," he interrupted gently.
He saw her start slightly at his proximity, but then pursing her lips, she put down her quill with resignation, he thought wryly, and stood. His wife hesitantly chose a slim volume from the stack of books beside her desk and taking his proffered arm, allowed him to escort her to his sitting room.
He quickly transfigured one of the wingback chairs into a small sofa and bid she sit down.
She did so at the furthest part of the sofa away from him as could be found.
Frowning slightly, Severus sat close beside her, pleased when their sides touched from hip to knee. No, there will be no avoiding contact with me, my girl, he thought, neither this night nor any of the next five to come.
Holding out his hand for the slim volume, she handed it to him automatically, and he thumbed through it.
Poetry it was to be then. He could work with that. With a casual air he straightened his legs out in front of him, crossed them at the ankles and began to read aloud, silently observing the surprise on her face when he did so:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken….
Severus well-knew the power of his voice and how to capture and enthrall the attentive listener. He knew how to lure as well as verbally flay. He was honest enough to admit he had more experience with the latter than the former, but he was trying to show a new aspect of his character to her.
As he read, he felt her rigid posture begin to relax slightly against him, and with the utmost care, he moved his arm behind her along the back of the sofa where her head rested, thus making her curve slightly more into his embrace.
At his movement, her posture grew rigid again.
He paused in his reading and looked over at her, saying softly, "Relax, Madam Snape. I have no designs on your person this night."
Drawing a deep breath, she bit her lip and nodded, trying once more to relax.
Patiently, Severus resumed his reading thinking he would try to calm her so she might sleep.
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He really did have a lovely voice.
Hermione listened as he read from her book of sonnets. Other than the first, however, he had not chosen another about love, instead favoring those of history and war.
As he softly droned, she felt herself begin to drift.
It was with a start she realized she had fallen asleep while he read, tucked into his side with her head resting upon his chest.
"It's past time for you to be in bed," he said quietly, shutting the volume.
At that thought, she was suddenly wide-awake and fearful.
"I have told you once already, Hermione, I will not be exacting any form of physical congress between us for the next five nights." Far from being acidic, his tone was gentle as he drew her up and steered them towards his bedroom. "Do you think me a liar?"
She gulped, "I think my position a tenuous one, sir, and although you have proven you are honorable, it still does nothing to alleviate my fears."
He stopped at the door and looked down at her frowning. "Then come, we shall put name to these fears and maybe you will sleep soundly tonight, hmm?"
Tired despite her ragged nerves, Hermione followed where he led, surprised when he sat her on the bed and began removing her shoes for her. "Now, let's hear fear number one," he stated practically.
Once more marveling at the surreal direction her life had taken; her professor was taking off her shoes for Merlin's sake! She stated, "I do not wish to be married, not to you or any man."
His eyes met hers, "That doesn't sound as much a fear as a statement of fact."
"It is," she grit as he began taking off her other shoe.
"Then why is it you fear facts, Madam Snape?" he asked, his hands remaining on her feet as his gaze met hers. "You don't seem to have a problem voicing them."
"I am not fearful of facts, sir, but of consequences." She licked her lips, wondering how much she should tell him. Well, what was the harm? Let him see her state of mind. "I have thought of everything from facing prison in Azkaban, to exiling myself from the wizarding world, to suicide, professor, and I confess the latter holds the most appeal at present."
His eyebrows rose at her candor, but a beat later he stated dryly, "And how, prey, would you accomplish the deed?"
Hermione closed her eyes feeling heartsore. "Dreamless sleep with a valerian and belladonna infusion. Simple enough to brew and in the right dosage, lethal without being painfully so."
He moved until he was sitting on the bed beside her. Far from letting her feet go, however, he held them on his lap, moving his hands to massage her soles and instep. "Fancy yourself a potion's mistress do you then, wife? And how long have you had this plan?"
She laughed mirthlessly, "I've had this plan ever since I was fifteen, professor, when it seemed plausible I could be captured by Death Eaters. There are things worse than death, you know. However, never did I think I would have to revisit these thoughts once the war was over," she ended bitterly.
Shaking her head, she removed her feet from his hands and turned so she lay upon the bed fully clothed save shoes with her back to him.
"I did not take you for a coward, Hermione."
If he thought to appeal to her pride, he was dearly mistaken.
He continued, "It takes bravery to live, to face life unflinching as it's dealt you and demand change."
"Now who sounds like the idealistic Gryffindor?" she couldn't help pointing out.
He snorted, "Touché, witch. Turn around and face me, hmm?"
She shook her head unwilling, and she heard him sigh softly.
"Go to sleep, Madam Snape. I'll wake you in the morning."
With a muffled 'nox', the lights in the room extinguished, and trying hard not to think about the fact that Professor Snape was now sharing the same bed with her, Hermione resolved to do as he suggested and try to rest.
Soon she was fast asleep.
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His bride had a plan.
She wanted to kill herself, and she had a plan.
Severus was disturbed by how easily she could speak of her own death, how simple her plan. He could almost admire the logic if it weren't for the subject matter at hand. She would rather kill herself than be married to you, his thoughts persisted. She would rather kill herself than raise a parcel of your brats.
A fate worse than death, indeed. Nauseous bile filled the back of his throat. Did she think him a letch? Did she consider their future children to be millstones about her neck, dragging her down, and weighing on her spirit?
Of course she did!
There were options for her.
He would hate to resort to them, but there were other options. But first, he wanted to attempt it this way. Now, how could he make her see, make her understand life with him wouldn't be the hardship she was imagining?
This, he thought, would require patience, kindness, and time.
Patience he had in abundance. If his tenure as a spy for both Dumbledore and Voldemort had taught him anything it was patience. He'd had to patiently wait as the Dark Lord rose to power the second time. He'd had to bide his time and wait for the right moment to reveal his true allegiance and exact his revenge. He'd had to endure onslaught after onslaught of Cruciatus as well as the none-too-gentle intrusion within his mind by both Albus and the Dark Lord, always keeping one step ahead of them both.
And throughout it all, he'd had to be patient.
Never in his wildest imaginings did he think he'd be married, let alone to a girl twenty years his junior. Never had he thought he would have a family to tend, and now, he was going to be a father to not only one but three children. And this thought, once repulsive and terrifying, now held a certain appeal.
Loneliness for him had been critical.
It had been his one redeeming quality as a spy. However, now he was free, and he needn't be lonely any longer. Perhaps this was why he chose to become a bidder in the ministerial marriage mart and vied for her hand? He couldn't stop himself, the hope and promise he felt for her potential too great a lure to let her slip away. He could not stand by to see that potential wasted on one who would not appreciate her gifts and continue to nurture her dreams for her future.
However, first things first. His new wife believed there was only dread in store for her, her future bleak.
And why not?
The future she had hoped for, had planned for, had fought a thrice-damned war for was in ruins due to ministerial meddling.
Severus remembered watching her in the great hall as she received the proclamation of the new marriage law taking effect with her name on the registry for auction to the highest bidder.
He remembered seeing the devastation, the resignation. From that moment, he had resolved to do something to erase that defeated look upon her face and rekindle the spark in her eyes once more.
He thought of the girl he had watched grow up: the over-eager, anxious to please girl who had wanted to wow all and the sundry with her knowledge of this new magical world in which she found herself. That girl who, over the years, gained a measure of poise and a self-reflective quality that became a credit to her disposition. And although she was still eager to please, at least with her other professors, she tempered that quality with confidence and a quiet maturity.
It was heady stuff for one such as he, and Severus knew he would enjoy imparting his knowledge to her over the years to come; that was if she allowed him to do so.
She could choose to kill herself, his thoughts again suggested. But truly he did not think her capable. She had proved herself brave in battle, consummate muggle-born Gryffindor she was, and she would face this challenge with courage and aplomb.
It would take time, he assured himself.
Urging sleep to overtake him, he felt a large gulf between himself and the girl at his side and wondered how on Earth he was going to bridge that gap. Even as he had the thought, she turned over in her sleep practically into his arms.
Not wasting this opportunity, Severus held her to him, inhaling the notes of citrus and verbena in her hair, and the underlying smell that was hers alone.
As he drifted to sleep, the smallest of smiles graced his face.
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A/N: Credit goes to Shakespeare for the bit of Sonnet 116 I used. Thanks so much for the reviews. It makes me so happy to know others appreciate what I write.