Chapter 46

Not looking at the journal becomes a kind of mental exercise for her. It's her reward for finishing a practice essay or reviewing a set of notes or eating a substantial healthy meal. Setting conditions for when she is allowed to write to him is how she avoids inundating him with meandering messages that he obviously—judging by the brevity of his communications, and the length of time between her messages and his replies—does not want.

She turns back to the first message she wrote after he was released from Ministry detention and reads the exchange.

H: Are you all right?

S: Yes.

H: They wouldn't let me see you.

He made no reply to this for several days, and as Hermione was debating whether to swallow her pride and resume the exchange or Incendio the journal in order to remove the temptation, he wrote:

S: Do you wish to resume NEWT reviews?

Checking the schedule she made months ago, she saw that the scheduled time for their Potions review had just passed. Apparently, he expected her to resume their revision schedule as though the death of the Dark Lord and their annulment had never occurred.

H: If it's convenient.

S: If it were not, I would not have asked.

That one made Hermione smile, since she could almost hear him saying it in that way he did when he pretended he was exasperated but really wasn't. She decided not to reply after that, just show up for their next scheduled revision without writing to him at all. She had to ward the journal with an unbreakable charm in order to keep herself from opening it. Filius taught her to do it, and she was alternately grateful and furious at herself in the days between casting it and arriving in the Defence classroom for their scheduled practice.

"Focus, Granger," Severus snaps, and another hex gets through her shield. Her lame, pathetic, practically useless shield. She shielded herself and Severus against a room full of Death Eaters, but she can't hold a simple Protego here in his classroom? She knows why, of course. Though he doesn't, and if she has anything to say about it, he won't.

He hexes her again and she yelps in pain. "Stop that!"

"You're going to tell a Death Eater 'Stop that!' when he tries to kill you?" he jeers.

"All the Death Eaters except you and the Malfoys are in Azkaban, and I helped put them there."

"You wouldn't have with a crap Protego like that. And you won't pass your NEWT practical with it either."

She glares at him. She won't perform like this on her NEWT practical because she won't be dueling him. He's the one who's got her off her game. "Give me a minute."

"The Death Eaters won't give you a minute, Granger." He sends another stinging hex, which she fails to block. It hurts, but not enough to cause the tears that spring to her eyes. He casts again. "Neither will the NEWT examiners."

"God damn you, I said give me a minute," she screams, then casts a series of hexes at him that makes his shield tremble violently. "That what you want, Snape?" She casts a dark hex, the darkest one she's ever cast, and it cracks his shield. "You want to play Death Eater?" She casts again, the blood roaring in her ears. She puts all her pent-up longing and frustration and anger at his coldness into her spells, flinging them at him with as much intent as she used against the Death Eaters at Malfoy Manor, but never before or since. She is filled with such a blinding rage that it takes her brain a second to register that her ex-husband is on the ground and his wand is in her hand. She looks at it as though it were another arm that has sprouted from her body. Then she looks at him, the fog of rage clearing, as though to ask, Did I do that?

He gets to his feet and Summons his wand. "Clearly, Miss Granger, you are ready for your NEWT."

She was indeed ready. Hermione looks at the unbroken column of Outstandings on the scroll before her. The owl ruffles its wings impatiently, and her mother feeds it a biscuit.

"Well?" Mum asks.

Hermione hands her the scroll.

"I would think you'd be ecstatic."

"I am," Hermione says.

"You don't look or sound ecstatic."

Hermione tries to force a smile, but gives it up as a bad job. Mum pushes the plate of biscuits toward her, but Hermione shakes her head.

"If neither good grades nor chocolate are sufficient to lift your mood, then it can be only one thing. Who is he?"

"No one."

"Ron?"

Hermione's only response is a derisive snort.

"Not Ron, then." Helen Granger looks at her daughter, who remains silent. "Okay, you don't want to tell me."

"I do and I don't."

"Why is that?"

"I do because I feel terrible and it might make me feel slightly less terrible to be able to talk about it. But I don't because you'll be furious."

"Why will I be furious? Is he someone I'll disapprove of?"

"Disapprove is putting it mildly."

Helen crosses her arms. "Hermione Jean Granger, are you pregnant?"

"No."

Helen expels a breath. "All right, then. How bad could it be?"

"Okay, how's this?" Hermione counts on her fingers. "Twice my age. Was my teacher. Was a Death Eater. Was my husband."

Helen's mouth hangs open as she stares at her daughter.

"That's how bad it could be."

"Well." Helen stands and walks into the house, emerging with a bottle of brandy. She pours a dollop into her teacup and holds the bottle over Hermione's cup with an inquiring look. When Hermione nods, she pours. "Was your husband, you say? Are you a widow or a divorcée?"

"Neither. It was annulled. As though it never happened." She tries to hold back the tears she feels welling in her eyes. "Only it did."

Helen takes a sip of her brandy-laced tea. "Why don't you start at the beginning, love?"

Author's Note

Only four more chapters to go after this one. We're almost there.

Speaking of almost there…OMG, you guys, I have finished writing Parents Behaving Badly! 37K words in something like 2-3 weeks. Crazy. I need to go back and edit, because Vitellia does not post rough drafts—though apparently, she does refer to herself in third person, possibly due to channeling Caesar because of a joke in PBB, or maybe I'm watching too much Brooklyn Nine-Nine and channeling Terry Jeffords.

Now that I've typed Finite Incantatem, I have a question about how to tag the story. When I started writing, this schizophrenic thing couldn't make up its mind if it was a Lumione or a Dramione. Obviously, it did, but I'm not sure whether to give away the HEA ship when I first post it. I've written an original fiction love triangle, and my beta readers enjoyed trying to guess who the HEA guy was along the way, but in fanfic, people are passionate about their ships, and can get really upset if their ship doesn't sail.

So...would you read a story if you didn't know which way the wind blew between the two love interests? Would you just pass on the story? Or read it and then be furious you'd wasted the time if your OTP wasn't the HEA? If I were reading, I think I'd enjoy it more if I didn't know how it was going to end, but maybe that's just because I'm primarily a Snamione writer and don't really have a dog in this hunt.

I would welcome your opinions and advice.