Chapter Six
Hermione hurried out of the fireplace when they arrived back to 12 Grimmauld Place. She had her hand on the door, opening it, before he could stop her.
"Where are you going?" he demanded as he brushed the soot from his black jacket.
"Anywhere you're not," she said still facing the door. He could see her shoulders rising and falling heavily, as though she was having trouble breathing. He would bet a hundred galleons that her cheeks flushed red and tears rimmed her eyes, but he couldn't see her face. Had their field trip to Miss Brown's upset her that much? Surely, she had had months to reconcile the idea that Fate intended them to be together, she had even taken to calling him that awful nickname. Or was seeing it a second time, a further validation that she was to marry him and live in a shack, was that what bothered her?
"Fine," he said sharply, watching as she left. He may not be crying but the visit to Lavender's had thrown him too. He had gone in the hopes of ridding his thoughts of Hermione, of convincing himself that it was nothing but a farce. He had never expected these results. He looked at the paper in his hand and sighed. Bright red ink circled Hermione's name and Miss Brown had further taken the liberty of adding small hearts around it. Each slashed line through a 'lonely bastard' condemned him. So these were his choices. A life spent as a bachelor, alone in the dungeon with his potions, or marriage and kids with a student who until a few weeks ago had been nothing more than a thorn in his side? It was intolerable! He needed a drink.
Hours and many drinks later he heard a soft knock on the door. Maybe it was Hermione coming to apologize; that would be nice.He wouldn't mind even ifshe wascoming to forgive him, he hadn't been terribly polite about this whole debacle. As long as it wasn't Molly come to feed him, he didn't care. A bushy haired, dry-eyed Hermione entered the room, her back straight and a stern look on her face. So she wasn't here to apologize or forgive, it appeared.
"Ah, I had so hoped it would be you, Hermie," he said, slurring a bit.
"You're drunk," she accused him, picking up the now nearly empty bottle lying on the table next to him.
"And so I should be. I played that ridiculous game of yours twenty times in a row and your name came up every time. A shack and three kids, a house with two, and god forbid, once with an apartment with eight—one more than the Weasleys! Can you imagine an apartment with eight kids! Where would we keep them? In the closet?
"It's just a game, Sevie," she told him.
"I knew it!" he exclaimed.
"Knew what?"
"I knew you still called me that in your head. You walk around here all the time, with that mischievous smile and that damned twinkle in your eye and I can just tell you're being disrespectful in your head! And now with this game!"
"You don't have to believe it if it's going to make you miserable," she said.
He knew that, but he liked being miserable; it was so much easier than trying to be happy. Besides believing it meant that somewhere deep down inside he believed that he wouldn't be alone forever.
"If I can resign myself to you not liking me then surely you can resign yourself to not liking me as well," she rambled on. She hadn't mentioned that she didn't like him, so did that mean that it was only his fear and distaste that stood between them and their eternal love?
"Why are you here?" he asked sharply. He had been happy to see her at first but he suddenly wanted nothing more than to see her gone. She represented everything he wanted but couldn't have, and it hurt too much to be reminded of that at the moment.
"I came to check on the potion. It needs to be stirred three times, counter clockwise every…"
"Every five hours, I know." Honestly! He was the Potions Professional here, not her.
"Have you done it?" she asked.
"No," he said, standing unsteadily.
"Good thing I came then," she said saucily.
He watched as she stirred the potion and walked as quietly as he could over to where she stood. He wanted to make sure that she did it correctly. He couldn't have her waltzing in here, acting as though she knew better than him how to brew the potion. Although it was a good thing she had, in his drunken state he had lost track of the time. Placing his hands on the table on either side of her, he trapped her against the workbench. The sides of his arms grazed hers, and the stray tendrils of her hair tickled his nose.
"I'm not resigned to anything," he whispered in her ear. She stiffened and then turned to face him.
"You smell like alcohol," she said, wrinkling her nose and ignoring his comment. By Salazar, she looked enticing and in his drunken state his higher cognitive reasoning failed him. She was no longer his student, so kissing her couldn't be wrong; he had been told twenty times over that he would someday marry her, and she called him Sevie for Merlin's sake!
He reached his hand out and tipped her chin up, brushing his lips lightly against hers. When she didn't pull away, he deepened the kiss, sliding his hand to the back of her neck. His other hand moved from the table behind them to the small of her back, pulling her close. She tasted like the strawberries, sweet but a little tart—just like her, he thought.
"You taste like alcohol too," she said when he pulled away from her. It wasn't the enthusiastic response he had been hoping for, but with all that he had imbibed, he deserved it.
"Are you saying I'm intoxicating, Hermie?" he asked glibly.
"Stop calling me that," she protested even as she giggled at his bad joke. He liked the sound of her laughter. It reassured him to know that besides having the power to make her cry that he could also make her laugh. She sobered quickly, too quickly in his opinion.
"Are you going to regret this tomorrow?" she asked nervously.
"Some of it," he said, thinking of the empty bottle laying on the table and the headache he was sure to wake up with in the morning. She stiffened in his embrace.
"Oh," she replied. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her tightly before she could move away.
"I'll certainly regret all the Firewhiskey I drank earlier, but not this." Not yet anyway. He might later when she left. When she inevitably discovered that his sarcasm and unpleasant demeanor wasn't an act like some thought but was, in truth, who he was. But then again maybe she wouldn't.
He hadn't told her that the last ten times he had played the game, he had added his own inventions. It didn't allow for the possibility of one partner leaving so he had changed it accordingly. MASH became MASHED; the E standing for evicted and the D for divorced. But as the alcohol had taken effect he couldn't decide whether evicted meant Hermione would throw him out of the shack or that they could no longer afford it and were thrown out together with their two to four kids. He tried MASH'D but that had just looked funny and divorced didn't really fall under the housing category. So he had replaced a few 'lonely bastards' with 'Hermione+divorce,' 'Hermione+leaves with another man,' and 'Hermione+throws me out for being snippy.'
However, to his surprise it never landed on one of these, always on just Hermione. The housing changed and the number of kids ranged anywhere from two to eight. He had learned after the first time to keep the numbers low, as much as he would like to claim that he was capable of fathering thirty-eight children, he was certain that Hermione would insist on his participation in their upbringing and that was something he certainly wasn't prepared for. But despite all this, it always came back to her, just her.
"I thought you'd rather be killed by revenge seeking Death Eaters," she said. She seemed determined to make this harder than it had to be. Couldn't they just keep kissing?
"I believe my exact words were 'almost appealing,'" he argued.
"Oh, sorry for misinterpreting," she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. She had been spending too much time with him; she was starting to sound like him.
"You're forgiven," he said, smiling at the scowl she gave him. "Am I?"
She looked at him earnestly, searching his eyes for sincerity. Whatever she saw there, she appeared to like it because she smiled mischievously.
"I suppose," she answered. "Now go sit down before you fall over, you drunken slob. I have to tend to the rest of these potions."
He returned to his chair, watching her stir. Listening to her hum quietly to herself, he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
TBC
A/N: Once again, I based this chapter on real life. My dad, before he married my mom, flipped a coin in order to make his decision. If it landed heads up five times in a row then he knew he was right in marrying her. It did. Just to be sure, he decided that if it landed tails up five times in a row then he was really right in asking her. Once again, it did. The statistical probability of a coin coming up heads five times in a row and then five times tails is supposedly pretty narrow, the same as playing MASH and coming up with the same person would be, I suppose. Twenty-four years later, they are still happily married; they still hold hands, go on dates, and have the same silly argument every night before bed, (he doesn't like to go to bed alone and she likes to stay up and watch TV.)
