I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
(Pablo Neruda, One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII)
Dressed in a black pants suit with a crisp white shirt and matching Oxford shoes, Hermione would not have been out of place in any major corporation. Since she was a witch, she was racing towards her job at the Ministry of Magic, a cup of coffee in one hand and the day's issue of the Daily Prophet in the other. Anger put an additional sprint in her step. Leave it to Rita Skeeter to ruin a perfectly good day. Again. A war hero and a member of Golden Trio, Hermione was a permanent fixture in the Prophet and the public's eye. And it had worn thin fast. Life as a celebrity was something she could do without. Especially with front page material such as this.
Another Hermione Granger-Prince Cheating Scandal? Where Is Her Husband?
The gazes she encountered along the way to her office ranged from maliciously curious to unfriendly. Of all she encountered on her way in, only Arthur Weasley smiled and waved at her. Her husband might not be the most popular of wizards, though that was terribly unfair, if you asked her, given everything that they owed him. Still nobody liked a cheater. That was just it. Her marriage was, by no means, a love match, but Hermione was not a cheater. She had never cheated on an exam and she would definitely not cheat on a husband. She was also not one to backtrack on any commitment she had made or cause an international scandal for the sake of a cheap affair. The man who had been photographed with her at dinner was a visiting high-ranking official from the French Ministry of Magic. He was interested in some of the propositions Hermione had for regulations regarding house elves and werewolves, hence, why they had decided to go out and get something to eat as their discussions on the matter had lasted well into the evening. That was when Skeeter had had to snap her picture.
Once in her office, Hermione snapped the paper onto her desk and huffed a heavy sigh. Now she had to track down her French colleague and apologize. She cringed realizing that if the man was attached, she had probably gotten him into trouble at home. Truth was she really didn't know. He was a visiting foreign dignitary; it wasn't like they had discussed personal any issues. The whole thing would be awkward, no doubt, but not half as much as what awaited for her at the weekend. She had been unsure that she would go but Rita Skeeter had just made certain that she had to now.
# # #
Hermione slammed the door to her London flat then leaned against it with a sigh. It had been a particularly long day, longer than when Skeeter had photographed her having drinks with Neville in a Muggle pub. It hadn't been even drinks, for neither was much of a drinker. It had been just friends hanging out. But Skeeter had caught them when Hermione had been leaning closer, laughing, one hand resting on Neville's arm. One day she would making disgusting boils appear all over Skeeter's face. One day…
She put her blazer in the closet and took out a set of robes. Her penchant for Muggle clothes had held the front page of the Prophet for a while but people got bored of the same thing fast so Skeeter and others like her had gone hunting for fresh stuff soon enough. The truth was that, safe for her surprising marriage and the scandal surrounding it, there wasn't much juicy gossip that could be published about the Golden Trio. Harry, who had been the main target of the press for a while, had gone into training as an Auror, which, given the aura of secrecy surrounding it, didn't lend itself to much public scrutiny. Similarly Ron divided his time between his own training and helping out in his George's joke shop. Hermione's position with the Ministry was the most prominent and visible. Couple that with her highly controversial propositions and she drew reporters in like a magnet.
She turned around with a smile and dashed out of her bedroom when she heard movement back in her living-room. She had a tiny chimney that was part of the Floo network. Surely enough Harry and Ron were already there. She ran towards them and hugged each one in turn enthusiastically. At least, in her flat, under the protection of her spells, she could safely embrace her friends without any unpleasant allegations holding the front page of the Prophet the next. When she pulled back to invite them to sit down, she saw the compassion in their eyes.
"You saw today's Prophet."
"Nobody believes that about you, Hermione," Ron said sitting on the arm of her couch.
Harry nodded. "It's just like it was last month with Neville."
Hermione shook her head. "It's different this time. Almost everybody knew Neville and I were friends from Hogwarts."
"Well, nobody who matters believes it," Ron interjected firmly. "An outrage, that's what my Mum's calling these articles."
Her chest suffused with warmth. "Thanks, Ronald. Tell your Mum I said hello."
"She's expecting you over, you know," Ron added.
"What… what did he have to say about it?"
Hermione's stomach coiled unpleasantly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten much that day. She stifled another sigh. "Nothing. I imagine he must be hoping I'll be running off to France some time soon and rid him of me."
Harry had nothing to say to that. Ron had lowered his gaze and was presently busy chewing on his lower lip. Her husband was a difficult topic between them. Amazingly enough, it wasn't her marriage, the circumstances surrounding it, or even her school romance with Ron that had caused all the awkwardness but the immense, impossible to repay debt they all owed him. It was hard to reconcile that with their opinion of him prior to the revelation of his memories. Harry no longer hated him but he still didn't like him and he was seriously creeped out by Snape's love for his mother. Ron was mostly just creeped out. Together, they were uncomfortable with the whole thing.
Hermione sprang to her feet from seat she had just occupied. "Who wants tea?" she said to change the subject.
Both Harry and Ron looked immediately relieved. They smiled and she grinned in return. It was so easy with them. Always.
# # #
The Prince Manor looked princely indeed. It was a large, majestic mansion with grim, granite walls and all the warmth and cosiness of a mausoleum. Its front was mirrored in the pond that lay just before the house. From all the other parts it was surrounded by an overgrown park that could probably do with some landscaping. Apparating on the front steps next to her levitating trunk, Hermione took a deep, fortifying breath before going in. She had changed out of her Muggle clothes and into a set of plain, pearl grey robes. The change wasn't for her husband's benefit. He wouldn't notice if he paraded in front of him in a bikini bathing suit. But everything and everyone in this house blasted would.
The heavy oak door creaked when Hermione opened it with a whispered password. The house was sunken into semi-obscurity courtesy of the opulent drapes covering just about every one of the tall, elongated windows. It was cooler inside than outside and permanently drafty. Hermione's heart gave a painful lurch. Nobody deserved to leave secluded in this awful place, with no friends, far away from everyone even remotely amiable, and surrounded by dour, prejudiced ghosts and pretentious paintings. This was no way to treat a war hero whose sacrifices had ensured their victory.
Cagey, the house elf, appeared before her, startling her. Cagey was ancient and looked it. He was also so unkind and bigoted, he made his counterpart at House Black seem almost nice by comparison. More than once Hermione had heard him mutter Mudblood under her breath around her. Her involvement with S.P.E.W. and her more recent legal initiatives hadn't endeared her to him, either. Still Hermione tried with him.
"Hello, Cagey," she said, pushing a smile to her lips.
"Master is in the lab," he informed her in a corrosive tone of voice. "Dinner will be served at 9. Cagey will now take Mistress' trunk to her chamber."
Mistress dripped off his thin, nearly white lips like an insult. "That's all right," Hermione rushed to say. "I can take it myself."
"Mistress always does everything herself," he said, making it sound like that was a terrible character flaw. "Very well. Cagey will leave then."
He vanished before she could utter another word.
As she levitated her trunk up the endlessly curved main staircase, all the many portraits lining the ashen walls glowered at her.
"Home, sweet hell," she muttered under her breath, a recent conversation with the Head of her House replaying in her mind. It was a difficult enough subject to broach with her husband but she became determined to it bring it up as soon as possible.
# # #
After she installed herself in the more modest room she had chosen on the first floor in the West Wing. The West Wing was the most modern part of the house and by modern she meant the 1920s. The rest of the house felt too much like an overly cluttered museum for her taste. Then she clambered downstairs towards the green house in the East Wing. Adjacent to it, there was an abandoned, decrepit potions lab that her husband had taken to restoring.
She knocked on the door of the lab after only the briefest hesitation. She was nothing if not brave. Severus Snape yanked the door opened almost immediately. He looked much like he had in his days as a member of the Hogwarts' academical staff, dressed from head to toe in black robes with his dark, nearly shoulder long hair neatly combed back.
Hermione shot for a smile that she was almost positive that it had come out as a grimace. "Hello," she greeted.
"Oh… hello."
Yeah, he had definitely been hoping she had run off to France!
"Dinner will be at 9… as usual," he said in that deep, cavernous voice that bore the faint edge of a mocking tone, his enunciation crisper than it was his wont.
"I know…. Cagey told me."
"Good." The word dripped just from the top of his lips.
The air was beginning to get charged and all of her good intentions regarding him were beginning to fade, replaced by incremental anger.
"May I come in?"
"I am afraid I am rather busy at the moment."
"Oh, really? What are you brewing?" she asked with a cheer she didn't actually feel.
"A potion," he replied, uttering each letter as clearly as possible, as if he were back at school speaking to an especially dense student.
"What kind of potion?" Two could play this game.
"Hermione, if you do not mind, I do not come to your place of work to bother you."
Ouch! That had stung. Nobody could do disdain quite like this man.
She couldn't keep in the sigh this time. "Fair enough. I was hoping we could talk when you can spare me a few minutes."
He seemed to perk up slightly at that. "You would like an annulment," he said mildly.
"No," she shot back with a glare. It wasn't that she didn't want an out ahead of term, it was just that she refused to take it over his assumption that she was a cheater.
"There is nothing to get yourself riled up over, Hermione," he said reasonably. "I have made it perfectly clear from the beginning that you were free to seek yourself whatever partner you may wish."
"And I have made it perfectly clear that I am not the type to sneak around with a man while being married to another, regardless of the circumstances of said marriage," she tossed, fury scorching through her patience. She was sick and tired of all of this: the press constantly chasing after her, making her feel as if she was living in an aquarium, the public attention, the rumours and the innuendos that make her wary of going out with her friends and colleagues. And she was perfectly content to take it all out on him. Ron and Harry knew she wasn't the person the papers painted her to be. After teaching her for years and after the War, how could he believe that she was?
"You seem to have changed your mind," he answered, his words slow and heavy.
"He is from the French Ministry of Magic and he showed an interest in the new law for the house elves that I am proposing. That was what we were discussing when Rita snapped that awful picture."
He raised a skeptical eye-brow at her, contempt written clearly across his features, his gaze making her feel like a particularly nasty bug that he was studying. "I am not interested in any details," he articulated calmly. "Our marriage is a sham. If you wish for an earlier way out of it, which I cannot recommend strongly enough, all you have to do is say so. Other than that, I do not care what you do and with whom."
"I am not cheating," she shouted the words she wanted to throw in the face of Rita Skeeter, every other reporter who had ever followed her around as well as to every person whose judgmental eyes she had had to face of late. There were many other things she wanted to yell, things like Let me be!, but she held her tongue about those. Unlike just about anyone else, her husband had done nothing but let her be. "Come back with me to my room and I'll show you just how much I'm not sleeping with anybody!" The words were out of her mouth faster than her brain could have stopped them. Horror kept her mouth opened for a few moments longer than it was necessary for her rushed, huffed, ill-fated last sentence to come out.
His expression shuttered closed, his gaze darkening, his brows knotting closer together. "Might I suggest that you don't issue invitations you have no intention of following through with?" He sounded infinitely patient and only mildly irritated. A moment later he disappeared before the door to the lab that was shut in her face with a sharp snick.
TBC