Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except Stanley, Sylvia, Katrina and Damon. They just need to be around to build the characters. Anyways do not sue me or anything. The characters are by J K Rowling and most of the plot is borrowed from Circle of Gold by Diana Palmer. But bare in mind that I spent hours typing this ::sighs::
Forbidden Love
By: GaiNax
Hermione Granger was excited. Her hazel eyes were brimming with delight as she sat in the sprawling living room in her ex-potions professor's house. There was a potions assistant position available and she had the necessary qualifications. She was only twenty-two but she had a certificate from Weird Sisters College certifying that she is very highly qualified to be a potions assistant and a potions master in the future. She had set aside her plans to be a famous auror and decided to become a teacher at her old school. Hermione decided that it was best to learn from the best so she applied for this job.
There was a very interesting story about this house in a Daily Prophet article that Hermione was reading while she waited her turn to be interviewed. The article talked about the Snape's family situation. The elder Snapes were still alive and they are very well off in America. Though the Snapes were believed to be one of the 'evil' families who supported Grindelwald and Voldemort, they actually weren't. They had lived nice lives and wished the very best for their son but had moved to a big estate in Malibu ever since they found out their son had turned against them. They had left their sons to their uncle and never contacted them again.
Then there was Stanley Snape. He didn't turn to the dark side yet he supported his brother no matter what. He was the owner of the Leaky Cauldron. Of course, no one knew that since it was Tom who was the bartender. And everyone assumed he was the owner. Stanley was also a promising potions master and he was quite the ladies' man.
Last but of course not least, Severus Snape. He was a potions teacher at a wizarding school called Hogwarts. He got married at the age of 35 and left the school. His wife Jessica Avery was a not-so-famous auror. She died five years ago during the battle with Voldemort in Harry Potter's 7th year at Hogwarts. The only family Severus had left was his brother and his two daughters, Sylvia and Katrina. His parents were also alive but they don't live with him.
There was a photograph of him in the Daily Prophet, but she didn't need it to know what he looked like. He was Hermione's professor for 4 years, after all. She had gotten a glimpse of him on her way into the house to wait for her turn to be interviewed. It shocked her that a man, who actually had a wife, should glare at her so intently.
A more conceited woman might have taken it for masculine interest. But Hermione had no ego. No, that tall, lanky raven-haired man hadn't liked her, and made no secret of it. His pale gray eyes under that heavy brow had pierced her skin. She wouldn't get the job. He'd made sure of it.
She glanced at the woman next to her, a glorious blonde with big brown eyes and beautiful legs crossed under a thigh-high skirt. Then she looked at her own ankle-length blue jumper with a simple gray blouse that matched her big eyes. Her chestnut hair was in a long braid down her back. She wore a little lipstick on her, soft mouth, and no rouge at all on her cheeks. She had a rather ordinary oval face and a small rounded chin and she wore contact lenses. Her eyesight diminished after reading every book in the Hogwart's library. She wasn't pretty at all. She had a nice figure but she was shy and didn't make the most of it. It was just as well that she had excellent potions skill, she supposed, because it was highly unlikely that anybody would ever want to actually marry her. She thought of her parents and her brother and had to fight down tears. It was so soon. Too soon, probably. But the job might her from thinking of what happened…
"Miss Granger!"
She jumped as her name was called in a deep authoritative tone. "Yes?"
"Come in, please."
She put a smile on her face as she clutched her small purse in her hands and walked into the paneled office, where photos of Hogwarts and the Snape family lined the walls and burgundy leather furniture surrounded the big mahogany desk. A man was sitting there, with his eyes piercing and intent. A raven-haired man with broad shoulders and a hard, lean face that seemed to be all rocky edges.
She stopped in front of the desk with her heart pounding and didn't bother to sit down. Severus Snape was obviously doing the interviews and now she was sure she wouldn't get the job. She knew Stanley Snape from her college since he'd visit often. Stan had talked to her, teased her and even told her about the potions assistant job. He'd have given her a chance. Severus would just shoot her out the door. It was obvious he didn't like anything about her.
He tossed a pen onto the desk and nodded toward the chair facing it. "Sit down."
She felt vulnerable. The door was closed. Here she was with a hungry tiger, and no way out. But she sat anyway. Never let it be said that she lacked courage. They could throw her into the arena and she would die like true Roman… She shook herself. She really had to stop reading Plinys and Tacitus. This was the new millennium not the first century A.D.
"Why do you want this job?" Severus asked bluntly.
Her thin eyebrows lifted. She hadn't expected the question. "Because Stan's a dish?" She ventured dryly.
The answer seemed to surprise him. "Is he?"
"When I was in Weird Sister's College, Stan would visit often." She said evasively. "He told me about this job, because he knew I was just finishing my academic certificate. I got high grades too."
Severus pursed his lips but didn't smile. He looked down at her résumé she'd handed him and read it carefully, as if he was looking for a deficiency he could use to deny her the job. His mouth made a thin line. "Very high grades," he conceded with obvious reluctance. "This is accurate?"
Hermione nodded.
He pushed the résumé aside and leaned back. "I guess you haven't changed much, Miss Granger." He leaned forward on the desk to face her. "Boyfriends?"
She was nonplussed. Her fingers tightened on her purse. "Sir?"
"I want to know if you have any entanglements that might cause you to give up the job in the near future," he persisted, and seemed oddly intent on the reply.
She shifted restlessly. "I've only ever had one real boyfriend, although he was more like a brother. He married one of my roommates two months ago. You remember Ron and Lavender of course? Well anyways that was before I moved to Surrey," she added, mentioning the nearby city, "to live with my aunt McGonagall. It seems that I have wizarding relations after all. Anyways with her around during the summer, I couldn't date much."
She was so uncomfortable that she almost squirmed. He didn't know much about her background, of course, or he wouldn't need to ask such questions. Modern women were a lot of more worldly than Hermione. But she'd said Stanley was a dish. She flushed. Good grief, did he think she went around seducing men or something? Was that why he didn't want her in his house? Her expression was mortified.
"He averted his eyes. "You have some odd character references," he said after a minute, frowning at them. "A quidditch star named Harry Potter, a joke-shop keeper err… keepers and a self-made millionaire with Death Eater as friends."
She only smiled demurely. "I have unique friendships … besides you know who they are."
"You could put it that way," he said, diverted. "Is the millionaire your lover?"
She laughed out loud. "Draco Malfoy?" she sputtered. "…He wouldn't dare sleep with a muggle-born like me…" She stopped laughing when she noticed him glare at her.
"Oh, hell, never mind," he said, apparently disturbed that he'd ask the question and uncomfortable at the reaction it drew. "That's really none of my business. All right, Hermione…" He hesitated. "Well, if nothing else, you'll be efficient. You're also less of a distraction than the rest of them. There's nothing I hate more than a woman who wears a skirt up to their briefs to work and then complains when men stare at her if she bends over."
"I don't have any skirts that come up to my … well, I don't wear short ones," she blurted out.
"So I noticed," he said with a deliberate glance at her long dress.
She fumbled with her purse while he went over the résumé one last time. "All right, Hermione, you can start Monday at eight-thirty. Did Stan tell you that the job requires you to live here?"
"No!"
His eyebrows arched. "Not in this room, of course," he added just to irritate her, and then looked satisfied when she blushed. "Miss Brown, who has charge of my daughters, lives in. So does Mrs. Weasley who does the cooking and housekeeping. In case you are wondering, it is not Molly Weasley. It's Penelope Clearwater? Do you remember her? She's the widow of the late Percy Weasley. Anyways, we have other part-time help that comes infrequently. Board and meals are provided by us, in addition to your salary." He named a figure that made Hermione want to hold onto something. It was astronomical compared to what she would earn as something else. "St. Mungo's hospital pays a lot for the potions we brew for them, also the other wizarding hospitals in the world. You'll be a private assistant," he added. "That means you have to travel with us from time to time when we send our potions. They can't be trusted with birds of any sort but I do think my falcon could take it. However, rules are rules."
"Err… travel, sir?"
"Do you like to travel?" he asked.
"It depends. What's the form of transportation? Apparation? Floo? Port-key?"
He looked into her eyes and shook his head. "We can't apparate to far places, maybe St. Mungo's but other than that it is impossible. We can't use the chimney since it might contaminate the potion and the port-key is too unstable. We're going to use brooms."
Hermione's heart leapt. "Come again?"
"Look … do you want the job or not?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"All right, I'll tell the others they can leave." He got to his feet, elegant and lithe, moving with a grace that was unequaled in Hermione's circle of acquaintances. He opened the office door, thanked the other young women for coming and told them that the position had been filled. There was a shuffle of feet, some murmuring and the front door closed.
"Come on, Miss Granger," Severus said. "I'll introduce you to…"
"Daddy!" came a wail from the end of the hall. A little girl with disheveled long raven colored hair came running and threw herself at Severus, sobbing.
He picked her up, and his whole demeanor changed. "What is it, dead?" he asked in the most tender tone Hermione has ever heard. "What's wrong?"
"Me and Katrina was playing with our potions toy-kit on the deck and that bad dog came up on the porch and tried to bite us!"
"Where's Kat?" he demanded, immediately threatening.
A sobbing little voice answered him as the youngest girl came toddling down the hall rubbing her eyes with dirty little fists. She reached up to Severus, and he picked her up, too, oblivious to her soiled dress and hands.
"Nothing is going to hurt my babies. Did the dog bite either of you?" Severus demanded.
"No, Daddy," Sylvia said.
"Bad doggie!" Katrina sobbed. "Make him go away!"
"Of course I will!" Severus said roughly, kissing little cheeks with a tenderness that made Hermione's heart ache.
A door opened and Stanley Snape came down the hall, looking very unlike the friendly man Hermione knew at the college. His pale eyes were glittering in his lean, dark face, and he looked murderous.
"Are they alright? He asked Severus, pausing to touch the girls' hair. "It was that mangy cur that Damon Epstein insisted on bringing with him when he hired on. I got between it and the girls and it tired to bite me, too. I called Damon up to the house and told him to get rid of it and he won't, so he's fired."
"Here." Severus handed his girls to his brother and started down the hall with quick, measured steps.
Stan stared after him. "Maybe Damon will make it to his truck before Severus gets him," he murmured. "But I wouldn't bet on it. Are my babies all right?" he asked kissing their little damp cheeks as the girls clung to either shoulder.
"Bad old doggie," Sylvia sobbed. "Our Rover never bites people!"
"Rover is a toy collie," Stan explained to a silent Hermione with a smile. "He lives indoor. Nothing like that vicious dog Damon keeps. We've had trouble from it before, but Damon was so good with picking the right ingredients that we put up with it. Not any more. We can't let it endanger the girls."
"If it would come right up on the porch and try to bite them, it doesn't need to be around children," Hermione agreed.
The girls looked at her curiously.
"Who are you?" Sylvia asked.
"I'm Hermione Granger," she replied with a smile. "Who are you?"
"I'm Sylvia," the child replied. "That's Katrina. She's just five. Mom died a month after Trina's birth," she added, indicating the smaller child, whose hair was medium-length and more brown that raven.
"I'm sorry about your mother. Anyways, I'm very glad to meet you both," Hermione, said, smiling warmly. "I'm going to be Mr. Snape's potions assistant," she added with an apologetic glance at Stan. "Sorry."
"Why are you sorry?" Stan asked amusedly. "I only flog assistants during full moons."
Her eyes crinkled with merriment and she grinned.
"Sev won't let me hire assistants because I have such a bad track record," Stan confessed. "The last one turned out to be a jewel thief. You, uh, don't like jewels?" he added deliberately.
She chuckled. "Only costume jewelry. And unless you wear it, we shouldn't have any problem."
There was a commotion outside and Stan grimaced. "He'll come back in bleeding, as usual," he muttered. "I just glare at people. Severus hexes." He gave Hermione a wicked grin. "Sometimes he hexes me, too."
The girls giggled. "Oh, Uncle Stanley," Sylvia teased. "Daddy never hexes you! He won't even hex us. He says little children shouldn't be hexesed."
"Hexed," Hermione corrected absently.
"Hexed," Sylvia parroted, and grinned. "You're nice."
"You're nice too, precious," Hermione said, reaching out to smooth the back of the disheveled hair. "You've got tangles."
"Can you make my hair like yours?" Sylvia asked, eyeing Hermione's braid. "And tie it with a pink ribbon?"
The opening of the back door stopped the conversation dead. Severus came back in with his shirt and jeans dusty and a cut at the corner of his mouth. As he came closer, wiping away the blood, his bruised and lacerated knuckles became visible.
"So much for that little problem. It seems Damon would rather fight with fists than wands," he said with a cold satisfaction. His eyes were still glittery with temper until her looked at the little girls. The anger drained out of him and he smiled. "Dirty chicks," he chided. "Go get Miss Brown to clean you up."
Stan put them down and Sylvia looked up at her father accusingly. "Miss Brown doesn't like kids."
"Go on. If she gives you any trouble, come tell me," Severus told the girls.
"Okay, Daddy!"
Sylvia took Katrina's hand and, with a shy grin at Hermione, she drew the other child with her up the winding staircase.
"They like Hermione already," Stan commented. "Sylvia said…"
"Miss Brown takes care of the kids," Severus said shortly. "Show Miss Granger the way we keep our ingredients. She's a potions whiz. We need her to teach us to use that muggle com – computer to keep track of our stock."
"Okay," Stan said. He hesitated. "Damon get off okay?"
"No problem." He wiped the blood away from his mouth with a wicked look at his brother before he turned and went up the staircase after the children.
Stan just shook his head. "Never mind. Come on, Hermione. Let's get you started."
Hermione moved into the house that weekend. Most of her parents' things, and her own, were at McGonagall's, about ten miles away in Surrey, to whom she'd come for refuge after losing her family because of Death Eaters. She had only the bare necessities of clothing and personal items; it barely filled one small suitcase. When she walked into the house with it, Severus was on the porch with one of his men. He gave her a curious appraisal, dismissing the man.
"Where's the rest of your stuff?" he asked, glancing past her at the small, white used car she drove, which she'd parked beside the big garage. "You came in a car? Is your stuff in the trunk?"
"Yes Prof- err… Mr. Snape, I came in a car. McGonagall doesn't have a chimney and I lost my apparating license a month ago for accidentally apparating into the Ministry by accident. Anyways this is all the stuff I have," she said.
He looked stunned. "Surely you have furniture…?"
"My other things are at my aunt's house. But I don't have much stuff of my own."
He stepped aside to let her go inside, his face curious and his eyes intent on her. He didn't say a word but he watched her even more closely from then on.
The first week on the job, she misplaced the potion she brewed that Severus needed for a patient he was flying to on his broom. Severus was quite eloquent about the missing file, his deep voice soft and filled with impatience.
"If you'll just be quiet for a minute, Mr. Snape, I'll find it!" she exclaimed finally, driven to insubordination.
He gave her a glare, but he shut up. She looked through the drawers on her desk with cold, nervous hands. But she did find the misplaced potion bottle. She extended it, sheepishly, grimacing at the look in his eyes.
"Sorry," she added hopefully.
It didn't do any good. His expression was somber and half-angry. His eyes glittered down at her. She thought absently that he looked very nice in a gray pleated robe. It suited his not-so greasy hair and pale gray eyes and his tan. It also emphasized the excellent fitness of his tall, muscular body. Hermione thought idly that he must've had a lot of women stalkers until he came to Hogwarts and stopped showering. He was striking just to look at, in addition to that very masculine aura that clung to him like his expensive cologne.
"Where's Stan?" he asked.
"He had a date," she said.
"One more thing," he added curtly. "My girls are Miss Brown's responsibility, not yours."
"I only read them a story," she began, blushing guiltily.
His eyebrows arched. "I was referring to the way you braided Sylvia's hair," he said. "I thought it was an isolated incident."
She swallowed hard. Hardly isolated. The girls were always somewhere close by when Hermione stopped for lunch or on her lunch breaks. She shared her desserts with the children and frequently read to them or took them on walks to point out the various sorts of flowers and trees around the house. Severus didn't know that and she'd hope the girls hadn't said anything. Miss Brown was curt and bullying with the children, whom she obviously disliked. It was inevitable that they'd turn to Hermione, who adored them.
"Only one story," she lied.
He seethed. "In case you didn't get the message the first time, Miss Granger, I am not in the market for a wife or a mother for my daughters."
The insult made her furious. She glared up at him, forgetting all her early teachings about turning cheeks and humility. "I came to work here because I need the experience," she said icily. "I'm only twenty-two, Mr. Snape," she added. "And I don't have any interest in a man who's old enough to be my father, with a ready-made family to boot!"
His reaction was unexpected. He didn't fire back. He grew very quiet. He turned ands went out of the room without another word. A minute later, she heard the front door close and, soon, she saw him flying on his broomstick.
"So there," she added to herself.
Severus came home from his trip even quieter than when he'd left. There was tension between him and Hermione, because she hadn't forgotten the insulting remark he'd made to her before he left. As if she'd come to work here just so she could chase him. Really! But there was another complication now, as from seeing how much time she actually spent with his little girls. She didn't need to worry when he was off on his frequent business trips to the hospitals, but they suddenly stopped. He started sending Stan to send the potions instead. He stayed home on the pretext of overseeing massive improvements on the property.
Hermione found herself involved unexpectedly with Severus when Stan went out to show the Ministry this new potion he created to heal some side effects of the Cruciatus curse, and Pansy Parkinson, Severus' current assistant spilled a burning potion on her skin and caused her boils.
"I need these yesterday," he said without preamble, laying a list of ingredients and instructions beside Hermione's neat little hand on the desk. "Pansy can't do them. She accidentally spilled a boiling potion on herself and it caused her boils."
She managed not to make a disparaging comment – barely. She didn't like Pansy anymore than Severus' daughters did. The woman was lazy and seductive, and always hanging on Gil like a tie, just because he had regained his looks back. What little work she actually did was of poor quality and she was pitifully slow as well. She worked here three days a week, and Hermione had already inherited a good deal of her work. Pansy spent her time by the pool when Severus wasn't watching. Now, Hermione thought miserably, she was not going to end up doing not only Stan's potion work, but Severus' as well.
"If you love potions so much, why don't you do the work yourself?" she asked.
"I stopped making potions after … never mind!"
Hermione looked at the potion she was supposed to make. "Is this all?"
He glowered at her. "You have to make 50 batches and you have to make them individually. Plus I need you to keep track of inventory."
"Okay."
Severus went to reply to the owls he just got and when he came back he asked, "How do you like your job so far?"
"Very much," she said. "Except for typing it up in the muggle computer."
"You'll get used to doing them," he assured her. "It's what you do best…." Ahem. "Can you manage Stan's load and mine as well, or do you want me to get a temporary to help you?"
"There isn't a lot," she pointed out. "If I get overwhelmed, I'll say so."
"You're very honest, just a Gryffindor should be." He sat in front of her desk watching her as she poured the finished potion in a bottle. "My wife was like that." He smiled. "She said that lies were a waste of time, since they got found out anyway." His eyes were far away. "I met her the summer of your fourth year. We got married in September." The smiled faded into misery. "She was a wonderful auror. She was great with charms and potions as well. But fighting in a war with him ended her life. Katrina was only a couple of months old and Sylvia was about a year and a half years old. I thought my life was over, too."
Hermione didn't know what to say. It shocked her that men like Severus would even discuss something so personal with an ex-student. Of course, a lot of people discussed even more personal things with Hermione. Maybe she had that sort of face that attracted confidences.
"Do the girls look like her?" she asked daringly.
"Katrina does. She was a brunette and hazel eyed. She wasn't beautiful, but her smile was." His eyes narrowed in painful memory. "They even had to stun me to make me let go of her. I wouldn't believe them, even when they swore to me that no means on earth could save her…" His fingers clenched the top of the piece of parchment he was holding. "Thank you, Miss Granger." He said curtly, turning away, as if embarrassed him to have spoken of his wife at all.
"Prof – Mr. Snape," she said softly, waiting until he turned to continue. "I lost … some people three months before the defeat of Voldemort. I understand the grief."
He hesitated. "How did they die?"
Her face closed up. "Raped and tortured by Death Eaters. My parents were lucky to killed by one of the Unforgivables but Parvati and Padma weren't."
"I give my condolences to the Patil family…"
They shared a long, quiet, puzzling exchange of sorrow before he shrugged and turned away, leaving her to work.
To be continued…
A/N: Do you like it? Please tell me aite? See if you can guess where I got the Weird Sister's College from…