When Hermione woke up at seven o'clock the next morning, Severus was already gone. Hermione felt shocked, horrified, and maybe a little jealous. A multitudinous array of questions occurred to her. Had she been that bad? How bad was biting a man's penis, really? Had he finally noticed that tapeworm lusting after him? Was she, in fact, bad enough to cause a man to have an interspecies affair with an intestinal parasite? She took a spare robe and slinked into it, before creeping quietly down the stairs, only to be confronted by a massive flood of yellow rose petals. Intermixed among the petals were the corpses of the wizards and witches who had not been canny enough to avoid the fallout. Hermione had to admit, their decaying bodies added a spot of color to the otherwise monochromatic yellow petals. And amidst it all, on the highest mound of petals, sat Voldemort and Bellatrix, still in their pajamas.
"You're up early," Hermione yawned.
"Actually," replied Voldemort, "we haven't been to bed yet."
"Not to sleep, anyway," giggled Bellatrix, tickling Voldemort's grotesquely protruding ribcage.
A week ago, Hermione would have envied them, thinking they were doing something earth shattering. Now, she could only admire their fortitude.
"You look radiant," cooed Bellatrix.
"I don't feel radiant," replied Hermione, "I feel sore."
"Oh, well, that often happens after the first time," replied Voldemort. "On the plus side, it means lots of long, meaningful romantic baths ensue."
"Men can be a bit rough," noted Bellatrix, "but you'll get to enjoy it."
"No," stated Hermione, "I don't mean sore like that. I'm just not used to sleeping with other people, and he takes up three fourths of the bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and just saw this huge yawning horizon over his side, while I was pressed up against the wall. It wasn't fun at all, and now my back has gone out."
"Ugh," replied Voldemort.
"Yes, well, we bear on, boats against the current and all that," noted Hermione. "What are you two doing this morning?"
"The same thing we do every morning!" replied Bellatrix.
"Try to take over the world?" suggested Hermione.
"Nonsense," retorted Voldemort, "don't be trite. We eat lox and bagels. They're delicious. Would you like some?"
"I really don't seem to have much of an appetite."
"Dear me," said Bellatrix, "was it as bad as all that?"
Hermione snuffled miserably.
"The first time is always the worst," Bellatrix responded, "over inflated expectations."
"Bella," intoned Voldemort beseechingly, his ruby red eyes radiating longing for validation of his skills as a lover. Had Voldemort not been quite so insecure, had Albus Dumbledore ever offered him a lemon drop, it's quite likely that the Wizarding World would never have found itself in such a strange predicament.
"Oh, heavens, I didn't mean you," said Bellatrix, "of course I never meant you. You're a God among men."
Voldemort smiled contentedly, and wiped some cream cheese off his chin.
"Well, this will cheer you up, anyway," noted Voldemort.
"What will?"
"The newspaper, silly," replied Bellatrix, passing the paper over to her. Across the front age it read "SHAGWARTS, Albus/Bones: The sexual abuse scandal of the century."
Hermione nibbled on a bit of bagel before remarking, "It really ought to be 'Snogwarts,' you know, if they want to give it a silly name. That would at least encompass a rhyming element."
"But there not just snogging," stated Voldemort, "it's much, much more depraved than that."
"So Rita Skeeter informs me," noted Hermione avidly skimming the article. "My word, he had her perform sexual acts on a goat? I didn't know that."
"What can you expect? It runs in the family," replied Voldemort.
"Oh, it's credited to Binns. I think he's just making things up to deflect his own part in the scandal so it doesn't reflect badly on the Spiritual division of the Ministry. They really can't afford more bad press, what with restless spirits like Peeves and the Bloody Baron around."
"Aren't we being just a little willfully naïve?" asked Voldemort. "I mean, really, Hermione, we just have to accept that every member of the family has a thing for goats. It's not so terrible. I hear a muggle playwright named Edward Albee seems to think it's alright, and if it's good enough for Muggle playwrights it's good enough for me."
"I still don't believe it," said Hermione, "I mean, did Draco see any goat artifacts in her room? Hay? Cheese? Locks of white hair? Actually I suppose it's just as possible that any locks of white hair came from Dumbledore, but still, I think there would be traces of that sort of thing."
"I don't think anyone in this room is qualified to speak about it. We hardly have sex lives that are that interesting. Therefore, we are allowed to be outraged Puritans!" squealed a delighted Voldemort.
"Shame on them all," Voldemort continued, "shame, shame, shame."
"Really, that absolute hussy!" exclaimed Bellatrix, "and him, an educator and old enough to be her father!"
"Umm," replied Hermione staring up at her in a somewhat injured fashion
"Oh, well of course it's different with you and Severus," replied Bellatrix, "I mean, you two are… well, you're much more attractive and interesting than Susan and Albus."
"Unattractive dull people should die the way the laws of natural selection intended them to," declared Voldemort. "In fact," he continued, "I might make that a sort of motto, you know. Would you go to war for that? If we had banners that said 'Death to all ignorant, dirty, ugly people?'"
"It would be like the antithesis of the French Revolution," murmured Hermione, "it gives me shivers all over."
"I think we should attempt to remember the questionable hygienic practices of certain Death-eaters," noted Bellatrix.
"Didn't we kill them yesterday night when we dropped two tons of rose petals on them?"
"Not quite. Rose petals are surprisingly ineffective as a battle weapon. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they are wholly and horribly useless. Altogether, I think we only killed about ten. And most of those died because they tripped on the petals and knocked their heads on the tiles."
"So I suppose we can't use that to take over Hogwarts, then."
"No," said Bellatrix.
"Could we do it just for fun? Because it would look interesting, I think. Rather colorful, and all that, you know," suggested Voldemort.
"No," replied Bellatrix firmly, "we don't have funding to spend on that kind of frivolous thing."
"What if we got the Goblins to help us?"
"If you want," Bellatrix said, "we could start sending them yellow rosebushes. They would assume it was a charming gift, and not a horrible portender of their imminent doom."
"Ha!" exclaimed Voldemort, "that's so devious even I couldn't come up with it! And when we take over, the landscaping will already be beautiful. Though I must say, I think anything would be better than that most unsightly whomping willow. I'm all for brute violence, but it really must be attempted with a certain modicum of flair."
"What if," Bellatrix suggested, licking her lips with anticipation, "we put ornaments on the whomping willow? You know little sparkly baubles so that it would be all cheerful, and yet, at the same time debauched!"
"Wouldn't it whomp the baubles off itself?" queried Hermione, still immersed in her Daily Prophet, which had informed her that, "anyone would twinkle if they had women performing sex with goats." Hermione couldn't figure out whether that sentence was intended to strip away the innocuous veneer of Dumbledore's twinkling eyes, or whether it was a horrible suggestion which implied that the long elusive and entirely desirable twinkle could be easily achieved if only men would force women to have sex with goats. Hermione foretold the situation all too well. That night the wives of Wizarding farmers all across the countryside would be asked, rather suggestively by their husbands, whether they had ever felt any twinge of desire towards the rams in the back yard. The wives, almost universally, would decline, and lock their husbands out of the bedroom.
"I don't know," said Bellatrix, "but isn't it something that ought to be tried?"
"Debatably so," replied Hermione, "buy cheap ornaments, though."
"My you are bitter this morning," noted Voldemort. "I've never heard anyone not enthuse over tree ornaments before! In fact, I didn't even think it was possible. It makes me sad that it's possible." Voldemort's face crinkled with sadness. Bellatrix tickled his belly, at which point he laughed happily again.
"I'm sorry for being so cranky," sighed Hermione. "I suppose I'm just not feeling as well as I should this morning. You know, Professor Snape was even gone by the time I woke up. I didn't think I was that bad. Do you know how horrible that feels, waking up and finding out that the man you spent the night with isn't even there?"
Trevor the Tapeworm knew that feeling all too well. Every morning he had become used to watching Professor Snape rise out of his bed. He would watch him perform his morning ablutions – which were fairly brief as Professor Snape neither brushed his hair nor cleaned his teeth. Professor Snape believed those kinds of ablutions were for sissy men. Really, all Professor Snape did was stand in front of a mirror and quirk an eyebrow up at himself. Trevor lived for that moment. And today, when Trevor woke, Professor Snape was not there. Trevor gurgled. And it was a gurgle that encompassed all the swear words that Trevor would have liked to shout, if only he knew them. But he did not know them. Additionally, being an intestinal parasite who lived in a glass tank filled with formaldehyde, Trevor would never be able to shout them, even if he did know them. He could only gurgle, but in that gurgle there was all the sadness and neglect in the world.
"I'm so sorry," mewed Bellatrix sympathetically.
Voldemort looked around the room frantically. Situations like this made Voldemort twitchy. Usually when he felt twitchy, he killed someone. Or he had Bellatrix do it. But he didn't feel he could kill Hermione. He liked Hermione. Therefore, he knew he had to find some alternative method of making the twitchy feeling go away. He turned his back to the women, and buried both his hands into the mound of petals interspersed with dead bodies. Then he turned back.
"Here, Hermione," he said brightly, "I have something for you that will make you feel happy again!" He handed her a fistful of decaying petals.
"Rose petals with… corpse hair," nodded Hermione, "how… thoughtful."
"That was nice of you," said Bellatrix.
"Well, I rather thought so," replied Voldemort.
Both Bellatrix and Voldemort went back to eating their lox and bagels cheerfully. Hermione began to sob.
"What's wrong?" asked Bellatrix
"Was something amiss with the petals?" enquired Voldemort.
"I bet it was the corpse hair that set her off," sighed Bellatrix, "some women don't go for that sort of thing. There's no accounting for taste."
"No," whimpered Hermione, "it's just that it's the morning after I was deflowered. I'm supposed to be spending it languorously lying about in bed being fed strawberries and cream by my paramour. I'm not supposed to be spending it with two psychotic aspiring world dictators who try to cheer me up by giving me flowers and the remnants of dead people. No offense intended, naturally."
"You really think of me as psychotic," murmured Voldemort, "really?"
"Only a little," said Hermione, a bit chagrined. She liked Voldemort. She thought he was a lovely man, and instantly felt guilty about suggesting that he was a psychopath.
"My word," continued Voldemort, "psychotic? Most people just think I'm horribly inept! This is amazing! I feel like a qualified villain, now! Bella, did you hear that? Hermione thinks we're psychopaths. I mean, I know most of the Wizarding World does, but to hear it from someone who sees our blunders first hand, well, it really makes me feel a bit warm and fuzzy on the inside, you know. Thank you, Miss Granger. I think you too have the makings of a truly promising psychotic."
"I think everyone has the makings of a psychotic," declared Bellatrix, "it's more repressed for some people than others, but it's always there."
"Bella, your girlish optimism about people makes me want to cuddle you!" exclaimed Voldemort, who began cuddling her profusely. Bellatrix giggled, and wriggled away from his tickling talons. It was at that moment Severus entered wearing a terrycloth bathrobe in a shade of yellow which would have looked lovely on Voldemort, but unfortunately caused Severus to look as though he was experiencing a bad bout of jaundice.
"Well, well," he said, clicking his tongue at Bellatrix and Voldemort, "and how is Rudolphus this morning, Bellatrix?"
For a moment, Bellatrix felt her hand twitching in the involuntary way it twitched when she was about to cast a killing curse. Then she breathed deeply and steadied herself, thinking that Snape was probably just bitter because he had proven himself to be totally inept in bed. Besides, she didn't have time to feel guilt. She was still powerful and in her prime, and she loved and was loved in return by the most physically repulsive and adorable psychotic in the Wizarding World. It almost made her feel like giving up the whole murderess business and opening a pastry shop.
"Oh, don't be so gloomy old boy," said Voldemort, "we've won! Well, almost won, anyway. The article detailing the Albus/Bones scandal ran today. Front page too, nice big blocks of text."
Severus raised his eyebrows momentarily, and then allowed his face to fall as he caught sight of Miss Granger.
"Where were you?" asked Hermione, her voice tinted with rage.
"I was taking a bath, Miss Granger, I'm a bit sore. You have a most unfortunate tendency to kick people in your sleep. I had also considered that a display of hygiene might convey my respect for you. I had intended to return. Don't you know that you're supposed to sleep until noon, in a kind of languorous oversexed haze?"
"Obviously, no one bothered to tell me that."
"Do I seem like the kind of man who would run away in the morning?"
"You seem like the kind of man who once told me he saw no difference after my teeth were hexed," pouted Hermione.
"Big teeth are sexy. I was so overwhelmed by your beauty at the time that I'm amazed I could formulate a response at all." Severus, rather wisely, had been reading the Super-Villain's Guide to Fun and Romance in the bath. It was a clever manuscript written by Voldemort a few years ago, back in the days when he was only a Super-Villain and not yet a Dark Lord.
"Oh," giggled Hermione, "I really had no idea, Professor Snape. So then you weren't disappointed…"
"By that? I hear the first time is always the worst." Bellatrix nodded sagely. She had contributed her share of adages to The Super-Villains Guide to Fun and Romance.
"I'm glad," murmured Hermione, "I had been so worried."
"Well, Miss Granger if it's troubling you, I think there's only one thing to be done."
"What's that?"
"Work on it again, and again, until we get it right. Shall we begin right now?"
"I think that would be an excellent idea." And they went off to the guest bedroom, hand in hand, leaving the corpses and roses behind them.