As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. - Seneca.
To the comments about the length and delay of this fic, I'm now writing this for me and not for you. JK owns it all.
It was above a bloody kebab shop.
Hermione dubiously checked the address she'd hastily written down on the back of a tour paris pamphlet while rushed for time in the internet cafe, wondering if Georges quill had somehow malfunctioned. With one last look at the bright mustard awning and the peeling red signage, she stepped over the threshold.
No, it was definitely above the grease layered shop. The abrupt man had fisted the key towards her, barking in French that she could look upstairs but he couldn't leave the till. She hadn't stopped to argue that the only customer seemed to be a derelict old woman muttering into her falafel. She'd only slipped the key tied to a bit of string around her wrist and made her way through the musty-onion smelling corridor and up the chipped tiled staircase. The grey door that greeted her did nothing to assuage her doubts.
It was above a bloody kebab shop and roughly the size of a broom closet. The walls were just as worn as the sign out front and the dark warped floorboards were completely bare but for a sink in the far corner and a door that led to an alcove with a lone toilet perched beneath a rusted shower head. She barely stuck her head in and the smell still wafted through the room, bringing to light exactly how the shop below disposed of it's excess grease. The drains were probably clogged to buggery.
The ministry are after you.
You've already burdened so many people.
Flashes of 'team granger' teemed through her mind. Harry in st mungos, in front of a fire of media coverage. Ron lying in st mungos besides that spectre Emmanuel. Mr Weasley braving his wifes ire. Dennis' panicky mobile call that morning. Bill's assurances only an hour ago that he'd safeguarded her some galleons, and would give them to Ginny to send over. She doubted that the goblins could have assented so quickly and the flighty feeling in her stomach that he was in fact sending over his own gold simply wouldn't go away.
Breathing in deep, something she immediately regretted given the smell that affronted her, Hermione struggled to calm the panicked beating of her heart and stem the tide of dark thoughts. She could do this. She had to do this. She attempted to remember the numbers of young witches and wizards forced into the ministries half baked scheme. She tried to remember the potions they'd be blindsided into consuming, and the miscarriages and heartache that would follow.
She'd stayed in worse places on the run, she tried to remember.
But couldn't she finally put that behind her?
The afternoon sun flooded through the cracked window, bouncing off the joviously yellow awning, and before Hermione could dejectedly return the key to it's canktankerous owner, a streak of black and white caught her eye.
Below the window, making the most of the city sun, a cat lay on its back, it's paws adorably beneath its head and his rear legs spread enough to show it was in fact a he.
Oh you absolute sap.
You cannot live in this hole just because you miss crooks.
Before Hermione could chastise herself and head off to track down the remaining two addresses on her list, the cat perked up it's head and shot his beady eye up at her. It seemed to say; I know you're there. What are you looking at? Bloody foreigner.
She marched back downstairs and informed the stunned manager she'd be back shortly with the deposit.
After all it was two minutes away from the magical Parisian hospital, and a short walk to Fleur's uncles café. She couldn't be too choosey when she knew in her gut that Bill couldn't have actually secured her account so soon.
And she really did miss crooks.
"Sit."
The red head stood next to the hearth as if still debating on whether or not to make a run for it. Clearly his now sober state made some impression though, because as he strode (trying to forget his stumbling just minutes before) through the sitting room the boy found the low battered sofa at last.
"Proffessor, are you sure you're right mate?"
Severus sneered his nose down at the stocky youth, before sitting in his own chair before the hearth.
"I am neither your professor, or your 'mate'". His voice, he was glad to note, was back to his usual icy eloquence. Yet the boy- man, youth, only seemed to perk up at this, sparking irritation in Severerus.
"Yep you're back to normal then. I need to ask you about Hermione's research. I noticed you'd marked through it, and to be devastatingly Gryffindor mate, you might be the only one who can help us."
Severus refused to acknowledge the spark of hope that flourished within his stomach and kept his face impassive. It wouldn't do for the boy to know he found the research enthralling.
Just the research.
"Us?"
oh yes, just the research my arse.
Lecher.
"Hermione's got this brilliant plan, well a little daft but brilliantly so. She's taking on the ministry. She's not just on the run, she's fighting to get the marriage law repealed."
Ofcourse she was.
House elves, fighting blindly as a child soldier in a ruthless war, saving him from death.
She always finds herself a lost cause the chit.
"I fail to see how that is my concern."
The Weasley brat had the audacity to raise his brow at this. At him. He'd bloody learned it from me , he's sitting in my living room, and he's raising his eyebrow at me. He choked back the growl in his throat and shot the boy a glare.
"Well sir, it's only one of the most amazing potions projects of the last century, and it seemed like it was your concern when you were fighting your way into the burrow."
In hindsight, it was just as well he hadn't taken up Minerva on her offer of employment. He wouldn't have lasted a day back at Hogwarts.
His trademark glare was clearly malfunctioning.
How else could he explain the curious sequence of events that lead George Weasley down into his lab, making himself comfortable while Severus poured over meticulous copies of Granger's research. He'd have to give the glare some serious practice. In fact, he attempted to several times during the boy's frivolous ramblings on ministry protocol for potions patenting. It only caused the ginger to grin and continue on.
Which made what was an admittedly quite a simple task increasingly frustrating, and resulted in his speedy prediction of changes that would improve and differentiate George's potion from the original Excito Animatum.
It was only as he flipped to the last pages of the copie's magicall produced script that he faltered.
The boy chattered on unaware that his ex professors quill had stopped, and Severus quickly calculated how to best get rid of him.
"I'll need to hold on to these notes while I brew the proposed variations. You can come back tomorrow evening to see the results."
George was apparently so eager as to ignore his former professor's uncharacteristic invitation for a return visit. He was out the lab and through the floo before Severus could finish reading the last page of the precise script.
More harm than good- Majority of magical population
Use of anti-contraceptive potions (Caligula): Publish paper on dangers of consumption
Magical economy can't sustain long term benefits Bill?
Precedent laws pure bloods?
HUMAN RIGHTS!
Women's jobs. Carers jobs
Uselessness- More harm than good.
No proof law will expand population – squib birth rates?
Previous devestation of magical community: Dragon pox, Grindlewald, Riddle's interlude. Statistical comparison. {Hogwarts register?}
DNA research – Stroulger? {Last resort.} {Switzerland}
Publicity (Eugh)
Golden bloody trio nonsense
Skeeter
WWW Orbs, Joke products, radio?
Hollywood Harpies? – Ginny
Luna
Wait for contact from Dennis.
Ask Bill to secure my account as soon as possible.
Ask Ginny to send Rita Skeeter to Fleur's uncles cafe in paris, 'The injured accordion'
Ask Harry to contact Minerva re. Hogwarts registers. (Can they be duplicated and sent?)
Contact Lucy? (Ron?) Hospital records.
Head into town, internet café for accommodation.
Musee de la Poupee (hospital)
4 Rue aux Ours, 1 Rue Papillon, 23 Rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève
Severus stared down at the parchment, still and silent as several implications sifted through his mind at once.
One, he knew where Hermione Granger was.
Two, he still had her research on memory restoration.
Three, he was about to make a colossal arse of himself and ignore every slytherin sense of self-preservation that he possessed.
As more and more implications slowly shifted about his mind, his hands set about brewing his amended Excito Animatum as if in a final attempt to bring him to his senses and remind him where he belonged.