Summary: SSHG, AU, Crack (obviously) There should have been a rule book on keeping a Lethifold, but alas, no one ever gave one to Hermione Granger. Severus Snape needs Hermione's help to find something important to him, but they did not part ways amicably. (COMPLETE)
Beta Love: Dutchgirl01 finally found me! And a wild DragonandtheRose wandered in too. Hollowg1rl wandered in.
A Momentary Lapse
Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine.
Whoopi Goldberg
Hermione's eyebrow twitched as she saw the smouldering ruin that was her local laundromat. Clouds of black smoke rose up from the decimated metal shrapnel and machinery that had been a washing machine or perhaps multiple washing machines united in the wreckage.
A hovering, dark "cloak" in the corner of the room was looking mighty suspicious. Dripping, wet, sudsy, and suspicious.
She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath.
"Lethifold sleeping in the laundry basket again?" the Unspeakable near her asked.
Hermione shook her head. "He can't help himself. I should have known to double-check—I mean I always check mine, but this was my parents' laundry. I was just doing mum a favour since her favourite machine was down."
"I thought he liked being washed."
"By me. He hates washing machines."
"Wouldn't think there would be a difference, really," the Unspeakable muttered. "If he doesn't like being washed, he shouldn't sleep in laundry baskets."
"You going to try and tell him no? Lethifolds are like cats, with a pile of warm laundry only he doesn't seem to care if it's warm or not."
The Unspeakable frowned. "I don't like cats. They shed over everything and don't do what they're told."
"Well, Walter doesn't shed, and he normally does what is asked of him. Normally." Hermione sighed as the sulky Lethifold wrung itself out and slinked back to tuck himself around her, still slightly damp and obviously disgruntled.
The Oblivation team shook their heads as the cleanup crew set the poor laundromat back into order.
"Sorry about this," Hermione said with a heavy sigh.
"There has been worse," Amelia said with a wave of her hand as she oversaw the "setting to rights" of the Muggle establishment. "There was that one time someone accidentally released Nifflers into a Muggle shopping area. We were cleaning up from that one for days."
"Don't forget that time Neville Longbottom blew up a circus elephant while looking for magical hallucinogens," one Unspeakable said from the front of the laundromat.
"Blew up," Hermione trailed off in disbelief.
"As in made larger and destroyed the entire circus tent," Amelia clarified. "Muggles were claiming someone laced the drinks with LSD."
Hermione's face puckered. "Oo-kay."
"He had a spell that turned the psychedelics into glowing beacons," one of the Unspeakables explained. "Only, it just made the elephant aware of them, and it ate them."
"No wonder he never told me," Hermione said, boggling. "I wouldn't have wanted anyone to know I did that. I barely want anyone to know that I totally fail as a Lethifold parent."
Walter slumped on her shoulders and resembled funerary curtains, sulking.
"I wouldn't say you failed, Hermione," Amelia said. "More that you're learning quirks about Lethifolds no one ever was able to get close enough to consider anything other than fleeing for their life."
"As if one can gain benefit from being thrown to the Lethifolds by your ex," Hermione said with a sigh.
"I think you came out on top," Amelia said with a smug smile.
Walter rustled as if to emphatically agree.
Hermione sighed, pressing her fingertips to the bridge of her nose and rubbing the space between her eyes. "I'm not sure if he would agree." She shook her head wearily. "I have a really bad track record with relationships. Ron was just the first of a series of bad train wrecks of the Hogwarts Express that is my dwindled date list".
Amelia winced. "I do understand in some ways," the older witch said grimly. "I had to fake my own death during the war, and my family did not understand or forgive me for it."
"It was a war. I think people like to forget that as much as they like to forget all of the horrible things they did to survive it." Hermione shook her head. "They would rather point fingers than admit that no one escaped the war without scars, visible or otherwise. One of mine just happens to float and sneak into laundry piles."
The Lethifold wrapped around her more tightly as if to offer comfort, and Hermione's hand stroked the edge of the "fabric" in a soothing motion.
"You go on home, Hermione," Amelia said with a jerk of her chin. "Take your parents their laundry before they start to wonder what became of you."
Hermione eyed the clock that was hanging by two wires from the wall. The nearby Unspeakable was mending the wall with wand flicks, seemingly fixing everything but the abused clock. "It is getting late if that poor clock is correct."
"Shoo," Amelia said. "I'll see you on Monday for your next assignment."
Hermione raised a brow. "Dare I ask what emergency requires my finding services? Hopefully, not the undersecretary's lucky purple shorts."
"No, but that was an emergency of sorts," Amelia said. "Considering Skeeter herself was on the prowl that day."
Hermione's lip twitched. "I suppose."
"As bad as this sounds," Amelia sighed. "There was a greater good in that. I hate using that phrase considering the drama it caused during the war, but—you know as well as I do what that foul woman does when she gets the scent of a story, even if it puts in print what everyone already knows off the record."
Hermione's eyebrow seemed to spaz out slightly. "I should never have let her out of that jar."
"Well, the law says, unfortunately, that keeping a human sealed in a jar, no matter how deserving they may be, is generally frowned on outside of war. We did, fortunately, dodge that bit of law when we swore you into the Department of Mysteries."
Amelia shrugged. "Personally, I think that we should let Manfred have his way with her. They have a bit of history, or so I've been told. The kind of history that makes you wonder what causes an ancient primordial dragonbat to hold a grudge."
Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "She might voluntarily crawl into a jar rather than face Master Morgan," she said after some thought. "I know he's all cuddles and wing hugs to the majority of us, but I wouldn't want him holding a grudge against me in any lifetime or the next. He probably would hold it spanning across multiple lifetimes."
"Makes you wonder what she did in that previous life," Amelia speculated.
"Something better or something worse, I do wonder," Hermione said. "I never put much into divination, but after talking for too long with those like Master Morgan and Sanguini who have lived through multiple lifetimes in one go I think it's made me more open to the possibility that the First Law of Thermodynamics doesn't just apply to the energy of Muggle science."
"I'm not sure how you manage with both of them sharing the same space," Amelia said. "I can usually only deal with one immortal at a time before my brain tries to check out on holiday."
"You are the one who introduced them to me in the first place," Hermione accused. "Don't tell me you didn't expect it to happen."
"Tea on Tuesdays as a standing order of business? No," Amelia sniffed. "I expected you to be civil and address their needs to have their things found, not make monumental allies."
"My mistake," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. She smiled, waving her hand. "You're utterly insufferable, ma'am. You are the Head Boss of Us and all that, but I swear you forget we can get along without supervision. Sometimes."
"Unless your name happens to be Flanders," Amelia said with a turn of her head that made the bones in her neck realign. "Or Weasley."
"Old Molly would have you think there is a curse upon the family thanks to me," Hermione said. "I didn't, for the record. I didn't want Walter eating Ronald. I know what he ate day after day. It would have given any Lethifold severe indigestion."
"She would do well in taking responsibility for her family's actions instead of pointing the finger of blame at everyone else," Amelia snorted. "She's dragged Arthur around by the collar for so long, I think the reason he was so happy with being in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office was that it was so alien to her and everyone else. It was the one thing he had to himself. You'd think the Wizengamot made all the evidence up when we decided that you were a bonafide Lethifold tamer."
"Psh," Hermione scoffed. "At least Lethifold tamer is much easier to say than that long technical descriptor they came up with thanks to the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures."
"None of us can remember half of the wordage from that Department, pet," Amelia scoffed.
"I definitely can't," Hermione said, "and I worked there for a few years."
"Here's the laundry ma'am," a young man said as he set down a hamper of cleaned and folded clothes. "I'm pretty sure it's all there. There was only one other person in the laundromat, and she was washing baby things and, well, erm, a bloke's—" He looked terribly uncomfortable.
"Thanks," Hermione said, quite amused that the poor guy couldn't voice the other lady's husband's unmentionables without turning fifty shades of embarrassed. It wasn't like everyone didn't have to deal with family laundry multiple times in their lives, house-elf or no house-elves.
At least she'd left her more embarrassing crusade to save the house-elves behind her once she realised that unbound house-elves went downright feral. There was always a bond between the house-elf and a magical human or their families, even informally, or "things" happened.
Haunted houses.
Daemonic possessions.
All sorts of random "things" that clueless Muggles blamed on the supernatural—
Hermione had realised that there were a lot of things magical families knew and didn't know at the same time. They knew, for example, that house-elves had faithfully served their families since time immemorial. They did not, however, pass down the information of why. It was simply accepted.
So when Hermione Dunderhead Granger waltzed in and tried to "save the house-elves," she had no idea what that had truly meant. And the magicals couldn't tell her because they couldn't remember the real reason, either.
It was simply "not done."
Like never saying thank you to the Fae.
Sure, most magical people knew they shouldn't, but the whys and wherefores got lost more often than not. It was simply easier to repeat that "it wasn't done."
For someone like Hermione, that was a veritable powder keg of unhappiness waiting to explode, but she'd come to realise that there were many things out there that she had no clue about and, even more distressing, books couldn't tell her the truth of it all.
They find much in books that required someone to have written it down, yet there was a lot of knowledge in the magical world that was simply "understood."
It was no wonder that the gap between the old Wizarding families and Muggleborns like Hermione Misunderstands Everything Granger caused so many unnecessary arguments and unforeseen situations.
It wasn't until she'd bonded to a Lethifold that she'd understood that some of the oldest ways of communication were not with words but understanding from one mind to the other. Walter didn't need words to make himself plain to her, but she had to be open to receive his mental queries and answers.
She had since put aside her preconceptions of intelligence and speech.
Honestly, she thought, Walter had taught her more about the magical world than seven years at Hogwarts, and he'd done it while trying to communicate with her until she'd had the epiphany that allowed her to surrender to the bond that he'd been trying to cement since day one.
Hermione admitted in that sheepish moment of realisation that she was a hard-headed idiot.
Walter seemed to think she was worth keeping, however, and the side-effect of their partnership was their ability to find lost things.
Socks, grocery lists, dossiers, wands, and long-lost artefacts, she could find them because something was always paying attention.
Magical creatures and entities that people overlook due to all sorts of reasons both rational and not.
Hermione knew them, though, because of Walter.
And while the Lethifold wasn't exactly perfect, his tendency to take kips in laundry baskets, for instance, he'd by far been the most loyal friend and partner she'd ever had. Even old Crooks hadn't been a team player as much as an "I'll do what I want when I want, and maybe it will benefit you or maybe not, but I'll still do it and drive you mad."
Felines. Sometimes you wanted to murder them or cuddle them, but it was always on their terms, anyway. She missed the old half-Kneazle since his loss during the war. Part of her hoped he found an old farmhouse couple out in the country and never left their side or the warm hearth.
"I'll see you Monday, boss," Hermione said as she picked up her laundry hamper and her parents' surviving clothes. "I'll be staying with my parents for the weekend, so I won't be back to the DoM until then."
Amelia nodded. "Try not to throw any more Lethifolds into the wash," she said.
"Ma'am," Hermione replied with a small nod, a smile playing about her lips as she walked out of the unfortunate laundromat.
"Give it a week before it happens again," one of the other Unspeakables said to another.
"Two."
"Longbottom is just about due for some sort of hideous catastrophe first," another snorted.
"Fine," the other sighed. "A month, then."
Hermione's hair stood up on end as she entered her parents' sitting room with the loads of dubiously cleaned laundry. She dropped the hamper by the door, her wand smoothly sliding into her hand as she saw just who was sitting with her parents having tea like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with it.
"Get out," she seethed, her teeth grating together as her head of wild curls stood on end and simultaneously writhed like coils of angry serpents.
"Hermione," her mother greeted. "Severus here was just telling us about—"
"It's not enough that you humiliate me in my very own home," Hermione hissed, "but you also have to come to my parents' home and make it seem like nothing at all is bloody wrong? Get. Out!"
Walter seemed somewhat conflicted. He knew the rules: no otherworldly actions around the parents. That meant attacking and mauling the Dark wizard in her parents' sitting room was very much frowned upon unless he was actively attacking her.
With more than just his clearly unwelcome presence.
"I truly need your help, H—"
"Don't you even use my name," Hermione snarled. "You lost that right when you left!"
"Hermione Jean Granger!" her mother hissed. "You are in our home. You will treat our guests with all the respect they are due! I do not care what history you have obviously not graced us with to know in advance, but you will be civil in our sitting room! In our house!"
"He's the one that broke your heart," her father said solemnly, his eyes flicking from Hermione to Snape.
"What?" her mum whispered, the wind of righteousness suddenly escaping her sails.
"I don't know why you thought I wouldn't realise who you were," Mr Granger said, "but you will explain why you are here, and then you will leave."
"Michael, what—"
Mr Granger jerked his head, and his wife's eyebrows knit together.
Snape, stiff and wincing, closed his eyes. "I need your daughter's assistance in finding something very important to me."
"You can just go straight to—"
Mr Granger silenced his daughter with a glance.
Hermione grit her teeth in frustration.
"It has come to my attention that something very important was stolen from me without my knowledge. Your daughter has the unique ability to find lost things the likes of which no other in the Wizarding World has been able to match," he explained. "I will, of course, pay all of the necessary fees and such for her work plus whatever surcharges for the inconvenience of not going through the usual official channels."
"You couldn't afford me," Hermione scoffed.
"I have a patent on a very popular potion which I am willing to transfer to you at the conclusion of our business. I will sign it over now under the conditions of our contract, under witness right here and now."
"His request sounds quite reasonable, Hermione," Mr Granger observed. "Do not let your emotions cloud your business decisions."
Hermione, knowing perfectly well just how much any patented potion, least of all one developed by Severus Snape, was worth over time if not immediately, scowled. Her earlier outburst had been foolish at best. Severus Snape could easily afford her highest asking price when most couldn't. Rights on a patent would be far over her asking price even if she had tripled it for the "inconvenience."
Even though she was very well taken care of in the DoM and hardly wanted for anything, she wondered what Severus Snape could possibly want her to find that meant signing off something as valuable as one of his potion patents.
Business-wise, it would be foolish to turn down a job so lucrative.
She could do the job and then promptly shove Severus Snape down the hole he'd sprung up from.
Hermione set her jaw, tucking her wand away. "What is it that you need found?"
Snape crossed his arms across his chest and tugged at his cloak before pulling it in closer. He then very deliberately unbuttoned his frock coat and exposed his chest.
He passed his hand over his ribs, and the shimmer of a glamour dissipated to expose a gaping hole that revealed where his heart should have been.
Should have.
"My heart," he said simply.
Mrs Granger gasped and fainted right on the spot as Mr Granger hastily caught her up in his arms.
Severus looked at the Granger parents impassively. "I have been attempting to find it since I first realised its loss," he said. "Unsuccessfully."
He closed his eyes, turning his head as he seemed to ponder something. "The glamour over it was very strong. I didn't even realise it was no longer there until—"
Snape sighed. "One of Mr Longbottom's explosions during an investigation at my apothecary blew me into a wall. I was in the infirmary for a month recovering from the injuries I sustained from the blast. The healers, of course, ran many scans. Scans that broke the original glamour and revealed the true gravity of my condition. My apothecary had been ransacked as a distraction to the real theft. My heart. The Aurors suspect an artefact was used as it both breached my wards and the security devices set up in the shoppe. My wards were, or so I thought, formidable."
Hermione frowned as time ticked away in her head. "When was your heart stolen?"
"A year ago today by best guess," he said, his face like stone.
Hermione closed her eyes. "I see."
Mr Granger, who was tucking his fainted wife into the settee with a throw and a pillow, stood straighter. "Is this normal for magical people to literally wander around without their hearts?"
"No," Snape said. "It is not."
"Was there any way you could have noticed sooner?"
Snape's corner of the mouth twitched. "I woke one morning feeling nothing and thinking I'd been made an utter fool that I had emotions at all. I was too busy thinking myself used and ensorceled to realize something had been stolen from me rather than something I had shaken off."
"You lose your emotions and you don't think that's a big clue something is wrong?" Mr Granger accused.
"I—" Snape sighed as the skin around his eyes wrinkled. "I practised a mental art of blocking myself away from my emotions during the war. It felt much the same. When I had no passion for potions or any of my interests, I thought myself overcompensating."
"You really need to see some therapy," Mr Granger said. "You do have therapy in the magical world?"
Hermione shot her father a look.
"I have," Snape said grimly. "It is why I am here trying to set things right. There is an emptiness inside myself that cannot be filled. An ache I cannot ease."
"It's called loss," Mr Granger said with a shake of his head.
"I have had loss before," Snape argued. "This is worse. It is ceaseless. Neverending."
"Then what you lost was more real," Mr Granger said. "The heart is just a muscle to us normal folk in Britain," he said after a moment. "Its loss means death, except to you it seems to be another sort of unlife. You stand here living and breathing, but you are not living at all. Maybe you should look back on those memories and figure out what you really lost and set that right instead."
"Enough," Hermione said at last. "I will help you find what was stolen from you, complete the contract, and then I never want to see you again."
Snape pulled his cloak around himself. "As you wish, Miss Granger."
"It's Master Granger," Hermione said, her face devoid of emotion. "Not that it matters to you anymore."
"You should sleep, love," Severus said as he put his hands on her shoulder, rubbing the knots out of her muscles.
Hermione slumped over her study books, shaking her head. "I can't. I have to make sure I've covered everything."
"You'll do fine," he admonished. "You will give them ten extra feet more parchment than they ask for, and they will be crying as they pin your laurels."
Hermione shook her head adamantly. "I'm going to mess up."
"Only if you don't sleep," Severus said. "You've been working on this project for years. You'll be fine. Your mastery is assured. I've looked it over. They will be unable to disprove you."
"You—looked at it?" Hermione whispered.
"All thirty feet," Severus answered with a wave. He levelled his gaze to hers as he lifted her chin to look her straight in the eyes. "You'll do fine, Master Granger. And when all of your stressing is over and your laurels pinned, we can have your overly sentimental wedding by the sea."
Hermione burst into tears.
"Witch," Severus groaned. "Why are you crying?"
"I love you so much!"
Severus pressed a kiss to her lips, gentle and affectionate. "There are no words for the power of the love I feel for you, my witch," he whispered. "I have waited this long to marry you. I can wait another week, month, or year for you to come to your senses and leave me flat."
"Never!" Hermione hissed, silencing him with a kiss.
He looked at her with a softened expression. "You are the only one I have loved. Truly loved," he said. "And I will wait until eternity knocks if it means to have you in my arms forever."
Hermione burst into tears again, sobbing.
Severus let out his breath, groaning. "I give up on words of affection. They are obviously broken."
"No, I love them," Hermione sobbed. "I love you!"
"Your tears say otherwise!" he protested.
Hermione sniffled and clung to him, pressing her face to his button line. "Just shut up and hold me, Severus!"
"As my witch commands," he said sombrely, engulfing her with his arms and holding her close.
"You do remember you're marrying a manticore, right?" Severus whispered into her hair. "My very nature is argumentative."
"You have the best hugs," she murmured into his chest.
"For you," Severus said against her ear. "And you alone."
Snape bent over with a wince as a soft groan escaped his mouth.
Hermione glanced at him immediately and then winced, turning her head away.
It's none of your business, she told herself. Whatever is bothering him is not your concern anymore. He left you, and instead of fighting for the truth, he assumed and left you. You owe him nothing.
Not your concern.
Not your tears.
Not your consideration.
Not anymore.
Hermione dug her fingernails into her palms as she made a fist.
He never shifted when he left you. Not once. There was no emotion. No—heart.
He's an Occlumens! It's what he did the entire war to keep his secret!
Until he found you. He shifted when you touched him. There was a connection!
No! If there was a connection, he wouldn't have left!
It was stolen!
NO!
Stolen from both of you.
"It's near," Snape rasped, his voice barely a whisper of pain in the surrounding wind.
Hermione closed her eyes, focusing on the whispers of the unseen creatures that watched over the world of humans. Tendrils tugged at her body, drawing her in a direction.
"This way," Hermione said.
Snape let out a moan, and he began to convulse.
Hermione rushed over to him, catching him as he doubled over, and the moment her skin made contact with his, there was a rush of painfully familiar warmth.
Snape let out a soft growl as his body immediately shifted, her touch serving as both catalyst and something akin to pulling a thorn out a paw. There was instant relief, and suddenly she was supine and akimbo with a manticore on her, his massive mane of black blotting out the sun.
His familiar cinnamon breath had a hint of cream, and his fur smelled of parchment and ink.
Snape's typically pale face was rimmed in mane, his teeth transformed into unnatural not human but not-quite-feline-either fangs that jutted from his almost-muzzle that was too human to be fully animal but too beastlike to be human. The oily black scorpion tail curled around her left leg possessively and familiar as his body heat radiated through her. Two bat-like wings flopped beside her and touched the ground as he ground his maned face against her chest with a growling croon.
She could feel his agony. His relief.
Touching her.
His mate. Reunited again.
Hermione choked on a sob and tried to push him away, but the manticore licked away her tears with a sandpaper tongue. His thrumming croon was so familiar, like a song that was meant for her. The pull of a ghost of the bond his beast had wanted from the start tugged at her soul.
"Do you mind waiting, Severus? I want—I want to finish my mastery. While I still have my father's name."
Severus closed his eyes. "I have waited a lifetime for you, Hermione. I will wait until you are ready to accept all of who and what I am."
Hermione touched his cheeks with both hands, cupping his face between them. "I want to be with you. Married to you."
"My mate," he whispered, his eyes seemed like pools of ink.
"Yours."
Severus let out a slow, long breath. "I can wait, love. The beast does not understand, but I do." He touched her cheek. "This is something you have to do, and waiting is something I have to do."
He smiled slightly. "You'll just have to share a bed with a blanket-hogging beast."
Hermione thumped him with the back of her hand. "Git."
"Your git?" he whispered.
Hermione pressed a kiss to his mouth. "The only git I will ever want."
There was emotion between their touch—an echo of something real. Hermione could feel it as Severus' beastly alter-ego flew toward her direction. The unseen world was guiding her, and her body language was helping guide him in his flight with her plastered to his back like a jockey. Her hands fisted into his mane even as his tail wrapped around her body like a makeshift seatbelt, his wings flapping in the dark of night with deep, resonate thumps.
He said that they were aware of each other, Severus and the beastly manticore, but one was always more dominant depending on the form. Instinct and the beast belonged to the manticore while rational thought belonged to the man. He said they shared thoughts, but convincing the beast once the manticore was in full form took an appeal to the more base emotions that drove it.
Namely her.
It had always been her.
The beast protected her. Always.
She'd once been startled by a crack of thunder while having a flashback to her time during the war, and she'd had to convince about four hundred kilos of concerned manticore that had busted out of Severus' robes that she was okay. She'd accidentally summoned the beast when she'd been startled by spider skittering across her desk, and he'd practically ransacked the poor wall trying to avenge her honour and take out the object of her fright.
It had been why his severance from her had been so painful—
She'd felt abandoned both by man and by the beast.
But the beast seemed pretty darned convinced that whatever it was they were going through was sure to end in a happy reunion, one way or another. The closer they seemed to get to Severus' heart—
The stronger the emotions she felt from the manticore that was carrying her.
And a part of her felt ultimately guilty that she'd taken Severus at his word and hadn't pushed harder, but then what could she have done that she hadn't already tried?
She'd tried owling, visiting his apothecary—
He'd promptly slammed the door in her face, every single time.
He'd broken her heart.
Now, one year later, he was admitting something was wrong. Not because he felt something was wrong, no. Someone had to blow him up and have him checked into Mungo's and get extensive internal health scans to reveal he was missing something rather important.
Just his heart.
Just. His. Heart.
Just when she'd started to feel like she could just do without any sort of relationship and be satisfied with Walter as the only significant Lethifold in her life—
He showed up.
It wasn't really his fault, she thought. Something or someone did this to you both.
Hermione closed her eyes, telling herself it was the only wind that caused her eyes to water.
The strength of the tugging sensation was increasing, and she knew she was very close to their goal. She patted the manticore's tail that was securely wrapped around her, eyeing the wicked scorpion stinger rather suspiciously.
He'd never, even accidentally, so much as brushed her with it.
One scratch could kill a sodding dragon.
The Persians sure could host some seriously dangerous beasts…
Severus had said once the mating bond was fully complete, she'd most likely be assimilated into whatever messed up biology that had created him. She'd become immune.
But they'd never gotten quite that far.
She'd wanted to wait.
All because she wanted to have the name Granger when she finally claimed her mastery.
Stupid.
Selfish.
Making him fight it out with his beast for the multiple years it took her to research and write and—
Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.
What the hell did it matter what her bloody name was when she got her mastery? Wasn't she proud to be with Severus? Wasn't that what she had told herself? Told him?
No, she'd been too determined to win her mastery as Hermione Fucking Granger. Muggleborn witch. Claiming the mastery with the name of her very Muggle parents.
She'd made him wait—
And when he'd gone home alone, some monster had come along and literally stolen his heart.
As Severus landed, the manticore crooned, thumping his head into and under her arm, causing her arm to drape over his mane. His scorpion tail was nudging her gently, carefully keeping in contact with her as if afraid she would disappear the moment she wasn't touching him.
Perhaps, he wasn't so far wrong.
There was a cottage not too far ahead. The warmth of golden candlelight was coming from the front windows. It was a small homey-looking place with maybe one main room and a side room and bath, but there wasn't much room for more. The stone sides were damp with the remnants of a previous rain that soaked into a lush layer of lichen and moss, and even in the dark of night, she could see the distinct glint of moisture.
There wasn't the familiar feel of magic like she remembered from the Burrow or Hogwarts. It wasn't even like the borrowed tent they had lived in in the Forest of Dean.
No, this was just an odd little out-of-the-way cottage in the middle of Northumberland.
The manticore nudged her again, crooning, and she rubbed under his chin absently as she considered her options. She hesitated, a part of her kicking herself for being so familiar with the one she was desperately trying to push away—
After this, he will leave.
It was far too easy to fall back into the old, cherished habits.
Like he'd never left her.
Perhaps, he really never had. Whatever magic had whisked away Snape's heart had kept his bestial aspect from surfacing. It was clear the manticore had no intent to leave her side, nor had it shown any sign of even wanting to.
She was his mate. It was the only truth he cared about.
Severus had said as much.
Once chosen, the beast was utterly monogamous, fiercely protective, and determined. It was easy to see why the Persian legends of the manticore were of a vicious beast that ate people while crooning. Both ends of the manticore were equally dangerous, arguably the tail-end the most of the two, depending on who you were asking.
They'd laughed once over the awkward first months when the beast had made its decision after one touch of Hermione's hand, but Severus had been attempting to "be normal" and date some of his peers. There had been a few Obliviations thanks to the manticore showing up and pissing on their shoes, yawning in their face, stabbing the walls with his tail, and so many other ways-to-break-up-a-first-date-and-break-their-minds.
After each one, Hermione woke to a manticore snuggled up next to her bed as if it was most natural thing in the world.
Amelia would be waiting in her sitting room when she left the bedroom looking like she'd had a rough night of it.
"I have no idea why I have a manticore in my bedroom, ma'am!" she'd protested. "He just shows up!"
It had been a true mystery until the manticore fell asleep while Amelia and Hermione hashed out a plan for "what to do with a clingy always-appearing-in-the-mornings manticore" and found Severus Snape laying where the manticore had been.
The truth will out and all that…
Everything had gone well enough after that until the day Severus Snape woke up one fine morning and told her to go take her fake love and stick it as he walked out of her life.
"What a bloody mess I've made of things," Hermione said quietly as she rubbed the manticore's ears. "I should have just gone ahead and married you. It didn't really matter what name I wore. I wanted to be with you. I wanted you to be proud of me."
She closed her eyes and set her shoulders as she sent out a cursory scan of the cottage with her magic, calling on her bond with Walter to feel out the area with senses that weren't bound by human magic.
Suddenly there was a figure standing at the window. They opened the shutters and looked out, seemingly searching for something.
"Don't open the windows!" a familiar male voice said.
"Don't be so paranoid, Harry," the female said. "I just need a little fresh air."
Hermione frowned. A woman? Harry?
It definitely wasn't Ginny, this woman was clearly somewhat smaller, more delicate than athletic in frame.
The hair was the right shade, but Ginny's hair wasn't like that anymore since she'd gotten a pixie cut for Quidditch—
Powerful magic thumped near her like a heartbeat. The manticore reacted instantly, growling lowly.
There was no mistake. The stolen heart was in that cottage.
But Harry?
And who was the woman?
"Mum, get away from the window, someone could see you!" Harry's voice said anxiously as he pulled the woman away.
Wait.
Mum?
Hermione's fingers slowly tightened around her wand. What?
This was way above her paygrade and out of her circle. Hermione took her wand and sent a quick Patronus out to the Head Boss of You. Aurors, hearts, dead mothers come to life? No, she would most definitely need backup for this one, and as loyal as one Lethifold and newly reemerged manticore were—she didn't want to risk anything more from her two most loyal companions even if the human aspect of the manticore and her were on rocky terrain.
Her mind was ticking away the list of things that could involve missing hearts, returned mothers from the dead, and a very suspiciously tucked away hidden cottage in the middle of sodding nowhere and what came up was an alarmingly short list of extremely horrible possibilities.
All of them started with necromancy.
The Resurrection Stone had indeed been real, but Harry had been adamant that it hadn't brought back the dead in any way that could stay, only sad shadows of a loved one. It had just been enough to set his mind at ease for what he knew he had to do.
There were inferi, of course, but those were nothing but animated corpses of the dead. They did not think. They did not reason or feel. They were much like zombies, not at all like living, breathing human beings.
Snape had said there had been some sort of artefact— something incredibly powerful that had broken through his wards.
Hermione knew well that his protective wards were more than merely formidable. They were built on decades of paranoia. If something had broken through them, it would take something dipping into older, ancient magic— the kind they didn't ward for because it was so rare.
You didn't ward your property against lions and tigers in Antarctica.
The manticore growled, placing his head over hers with a solid thump.
"Easy," she soothed. "We wait for backup. I've made enough mistakes with people I care about."
Snape seemed rather conflicted. The pull to claim his heart was apparently strong, but the instinct to stay beside her was even stronger. His scorpion tail thumped against the ground a few times and then decided curling around her waist was an acceptable compromise.
"So this is what you're hiding! Hahahha!" a female voice cackled wildly from inside. "It'll be all over the Daily Prophet and WWN by morning. Maybe even a special late night edition!"
Hermione winced, groaning. "Of all the people—"
"The Boy Who Couldn't Let Go Uses NECROMANCY To Bring Back Dead Mum!" Rita Skeeter cackled meanly.
"WHAT?" Lily's voice screeched. "What does she MEAN, Harry!?"
"Oh this is so unbelievably rich," Rita chortled. "You don't even know, you poor thing. You're dead. Dead and buried. Been dead for twenty-some years now, in fact. I've been following you around for months, Harry. You'd always manage to elude me on the fourth or fifth jump until tonight. Tonight, all those nasty thunderstorms had you perhaps a touch distracted. I just hitched myself a little ride on your cloak, just like old times, 'eh? All those complex wards you put up? And you just carried me right in past them."
"Harry, what are you doing with that wand!?"
"Going to kill me, Harry?" Rita cooed. "It won't help a thing, you see. I already sent my article off to the Prophet while you were pulling dear old mummy away from the window. Everyone will know now. I'll be immortalised as the one who discovered the ugly truth about Harry James Potter, secret Necromancer and Dark wizard extraordinaire. Let's just see how long you get to stay Head Auror when that tasty bit of info gets out, hrm?"
"It wasn't like that!" Harry's voice immediately protested. "I didn't kill anyone! There was no Dark magic!"
Rita's answering scoff was all too clear. "I'm sure this little relic will have all the answers to that, won't it?"
"Give that back!"
"Ah hah! So this IS the thing you used!"
"Expelliarmus!"
Hermione held her head in her hands as her body convulsed wildly. An agonised scream followed the clank of something breaking.
"Mum! NO! MUM!"
There was a sudden heated rush of magic flowing beside her, and the manticore roared, his great body thrumming like a tuning fork as the air seemed to beat in time to a heart.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump!
CRACK!
CRA-CRACK!
CRACK!
A rapid round of Apparitions sounded off all around them even as the manticore roared in pain, his powerful body flailing. Hermione held his mane, clinging tightly.
"BRING DOWN THOSE WARDS!" the booming voice of Master Manfred Morgan roared. "Anti-Apparition jinxes NOW!"
Magic was flaring from a team of Unspeakables positioned in a circle around the cottage as the wards came tumbling down from sheer force and numbers.
"Mum! NO! NOOO!" Hermione heard Harry's wail of pure despondent grief.
Suddenly the body of one very naked Severus Tobias Snape collapsed upon Hermione as he gave a pained deep heave of air. His chest was glowing brightly as magic returned his heart to his chest, and it beat loudly with the help of magic's insistent pulse as the gaping hole in his pale chest was mended and made whole again.
Amidst all the chaos, there was a sudden thump and a shockingly shrill scream.
"Rita Skeeter," Manfred rumbled. "It has been a very long time since we last had ourselves a little chat."
Rita immediately shifted into her beetle form and buzzed away quickly.
KKKZZZZTTTT!
The remaining wards that had not been taken down promptly electrocuted Rita in mid-flight, marking the occasion with the nauseating smell of burnt insect and ozone.
"I fear that long-overdue chat is going to have to wait awhile, Manfred," Amelia said dryly as she signalled the Unspeakables to move in.
"Get Potter and the corpse and get us all out of here. Seal down this cottage and go over it with a bloody flea comb. I want every wand scanning this place top to bottom for spells, traps, artefacts, relics, and bad press until not one single speck of dust is left unscrutinized!"
"Ma'am!" the operatives grunted as one as they swiftly set to work.
Amelia tugged off her white Unspeakables cloak and lay it over Severus' nude body. "Get Severus and Hermione to the DoM Infirmary at once and have them examined and treated. And would someone please feed the Lethifold before he goes and eats someone?"
"Ma'am!" voices chimed all around her.
Amelia Bones vigorously rubbed the space between her eyes with her fingertips as people scurried around her.
"Killjoy," Manfred said teasingly, itching his ear with one long wing spur.
"That's Madam Killjoy to you, Manfred," Amelia snarked.
The elder dragonbat smiled, all fang. "I'll leave the fun to the upcoming family of manticores."
Amelia frowned and looked down, her eyes widening. With a wave of her wand she enlarged the cloak and gave nature some privacy in the midst of chaos.
"Give these two a few minutes then take them to the infirmary," she amended.
"Ma'am," the unflappable Unspeakables replied.
Harry Potter Convicted of Dark Magic and Necromancy, Sent to Azkaban, Weasley Family Cries Frame-Up!
Rita Skeeter, Revealed as Unregistered Animagus, Paralysed in Azkaban
The sun was setting brilliantly in great red and orange hues over the coast as the sea breeze kicked up from the ocean to the grassy ledge.
Manfred, dressed in his finest shiny dangles and wing ornaments, read the vows to both Severus and Hermione as they tenderly repeated them back to each other.
The small group of Unspeakables and DoM residents smiled their approval as the couple kissed and were married (officially) as magic flared in response to the ultimately redundant vows.
Walter, transfigured into a lovely (albeit carnivorous) wedding veil, crowned his beloved bondmate's head and even managed not to eat anyone during the proceedings.
Mr and Mrs Granger burst into tears together (while giving the elder dragonbat wide-eyed stares for most of the evening) and celebrated their daughter's marriage at long last.
The Grangers placed their business cards next to the sickly sweet wedding cake, and the newly minted Hermione Snape stifled a laugh into her hand as Severus scowled in weary tolerance as some of the younger dragonbatlings shamelessly stole succulent bits of fruity goodness off the enormous fruit bowl as an assortment of oddly fluffy spiders served up an edible bounty of well-aged prime rib and grilled prawns alongside many, many cases of the finest elf-made champagne— save for one that seemed to be directionally challenged thanks to a shiny silver bucket stuck over his tiny head.
While everyone was certainly well provided for and then some, a certain rather smug-looking dragonbat made sure to send Rita a slice of iced fruit cake shaped into the snarling face of a rather familiar beastly-looking creature that shall ever remain unidentified.
They said her ensuing screams didn't stop for weeks.
And in the not so distant future, when Hermione and Severus told their manticore cublings (Talon and Tasha) stories before nesting bowl bedtime, they often shared stories of the Boy Who Lived, The Man Who Conquered, and the Man Who Missed His Mummy. Hermione made sure that her cublings knew that Harry had not truly been an evil person, but the actions one performed in life could weigh the scales towards the Dark magic path. Just as they were manticores, they were not born evil. Their deeds and exploits would determine what path they would eventually take, but their parents would always love them as they learned their way through life.
Mistakes were simply a part of life, their parents would agree. What they did after made all the difference on a path of redemption and forgiveness.
But of all the stories told by the nesting bowl, the ones the cublings loved most were the stories of how daddy met mummy, lost his heart, and found it along with love again.
And they lived manticorically ever after.
Fin.
A/N: Thanks to Dragon and the Rose for staying up late to beta this fic. I've been exceedingly exhausted lately, and she managed to stay up to manage my utterly random writing shenanigans.
