Chapter 6: Diagon Alley

"Thank you for agreeing to come with me, Severus," Hermione said as she looped her arm around his. "I'd forgotten how very bright it is out here, even at night."

Hermione kept her eyes closed, allowing Snape to guide her down the street. People, as usual, cleared the hell out of his way out due the intimidation factor alone.

"It is," Snape said quietly, "not a bother at all." He closed his eyes as her unique warmth travelled up his arm along with the ease in which she shared her touch, and while he told himself it was only because she needed a guide in the light, he couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to have her seek only his touch— his intimacy.

The goblins had fitted her with a headdress to help protect her eyes in the "above world" but the crystals had not been fully cut into the delicate prisms that were customised to her eyes. So, until the work was done, if she wanted certain supplies, she still had to brave the world outside the Goblin Nation to purchase what she needed.

He could tell she had already become far too used to the quiet of the Goblin Nation's Underground vaults system, for the loud noises startled her with their sharpness and the lamps with their brightness. Goblins spoke in tones much lower and higher than the human ear could normally tune into, but the vault lizards had blessed Hermione with their bite so she could hear the musical nuances of his people's speech as well as the songs of the deep Earth.

Ironically, a goblin could go hundreds of years without ever being bitten by a vault lizard and receiving its blessing, but Hermione kept right on being bitten.

It was almost as if they were trying to permanently mutate her with a backlog of envenomations.

They obviously wished to have her stay around because they were purposely giving her the gifting bite rather than the dry bite that was agonisingly painful but not prone to making you speak lizard and gaining perfect vision in the dark.

Then again, some would say the gifting bite to a surfacer was supposed to be a curse.

Yet, he could not see Hermione's relationship with the lizards as a curse. They genuinely wanted to be with her, and they had become super-territorial of her hair-nest. If anything, they had helped her become more acclimated to the Goblin world since her induction upon accepting the Goblin's judgment on a fair exchange for having ridden a dragon out of the vaults—

The war had made her actions forgivable even to the goblins.

But only Hermione Granger had realised that, forgivable or no, she wanted to make sure the Goblins were satisfied too.

Only she had been so willing to face the Goblin's justice while her best friends happily and obliviously went on with their Auror lives as the Ministry arranged for their vaults to be unsealed by paying their recompense. Harry Potter had just paid his fees along with his best mate's while leaving Hermione Granger to live sequestered in the Goblin's world.

Surfacers had no idea what that meant, and perhaps, Hermione hadn't really known either. She was willing to, however, in the need to make things right. That had given her respect amongst the Nation. So, she was given a job first inventorying new vaults, supplies, and other such things, taught Gobbledegook, customs, how not to insult goblin elders in five steps or less, how to bare your teeth properly in social situations, and was allowed to use whatever human magic at her disposal to help in the cleaning and securing of areas being rebuilt from the war—

But somewhere along the line, Hermione Granger had been accepted as honourable and trustworthy in the Nation, and that had only been reinforced when she had her first old-vault inventory (something only the trusted were allowed to do) she was bitten by an entire nest of vault lizards.

Lizards that refused to leave her afterwards.

Lizards that rallied their friends to keep her company.

Lizards that wanted to set up housekeeping in the witch's hair.

There were some elder goblins still waiting to be blessed by a vault lizard bite at least once in their life—

But then, goblins didn't really need the blessing to get around in the Underground.

Hermione did.

When they arrived at Flourish and Blotts, Hermione seemed to perk up. "I always loved the smell of this place," she confessed. "Parchment and ink."

Snape tilted his head. "It is comforting."

"Yes!" Hermione said. She looked up at him with a smile. "I love how you understand."

Snape reached up a hand to brush a bit of vault mud off her cheek. "Your lizards seem to have painted your face for you."

For a moment. Hermione's eyes closed as his fingers brushed against her skin. Severus felt a shiver of pure pleasure as her magic responded to his touch, curling around his fingers like the vines of the Devil's Snare. She leaned into his touch, a soft hum from the lizards in her hair betraying that they hadn't let her leave the vaults alone.

The doorbell rang as people came out, and it broke the moment. Hermione startled like a skittish animal. "I promise I won't be too long," she said as she winced at the lantern light. She dove into the door and disappeared into the store as Snape remained perfectly still, all of his effort harnessed to keep from losing his control and stumbling in after her.

Snape turned his head as his eyes tried to adjust to the lights as well. The comforting dark of the Underground had become more familiar, and his goblin vision had always preferred the dim and darker places. While the Underground had light, the phosphorescent glows had a different, gentler glow to them that did not seem as harsh as wandlight or even a burning candle.

Perhaps, even while he was unknowingly cursed into a human form, that was why he didn't mind being condemned to the dungeons all the time.

But the feel of Hermione next to him, her arm looped around his, and how she moved close to his touch— it was like the forbidden fruit that was so close. So tantalisingly close.

He wanted her close to him—

He wanted—

His tongue ran across his sharpening teeth. His fingers twitched as his nails curved into claws.

He dug his claws into his palm and forced his controls back into place, willing his body to maintain the familiar and hated form of Severus Snape.

Yet part of him— his lonely, hungry heart— protested that Hermione felt safe with that familiar and feared, even hated man.

But safe did not mean she wished to bind herself to him— to the Underground, to his people. Safe did not mean she wanted to be a goblin, his queen. How could he even tell her that Severus Snape was Jareth, King of the Goblins?

She had not been on the dating list— the accursed list of eligible females wrangled by the Ministry to satisfy the treaty— which meant she had never had any desire to throw herself at the social muckery that was dating a king.

"Hermione! I haven't seen you in forever!"

Snape's head jerked up, recognising that voice.

"Hello, Ginny," Hermione's voice said quietly. Her voice was pitched lower, softer, accustomed to speaking with goblins and vault lizards whose ears didn't need volume to hear clearly.

"Are you still slaving away for the goblins?" Ginny asked. "You never should have let them judge you for what happened in the war."

Hermione paid for her supplies as a crowd inside Flourish and Blotts whispered to each other that it was a rare Granger sighting— the foolish witch who had tried to blame her friends for the damages in Gringotts.

Hermione held her supplies close to her chest. "It's not like that. The goblins have been more than fair to me."

Ginny looked at Hermione's plain clothes and faint traces of mud from traversing the Underground. "Looks like they are making you live in squalor." Ginny's nose wrinkled. "I have a plan to get you out, though," Ginny said, nodding her head as if it were the most magnanimous thing she'd ever come up with.

Hermione tilted her head, drawing it back in a suspicious expression. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Why the ball of course! The Goblin King is holding a masquerade ball! If I'm chosen to be his queen, I can get you out of there and say your punishment is at an end!"

Hermione frowned. "Ginny, you've never even shown any interest in the goblins—"

"That was before the Ministry sent out all those invitations to help with the peace treaty. All eligible witches can meet the king!" Whoever catches his eyes will be a heroine and a queen!"

Hermione's eyebrows furrowed. "Aren't you forgetting you're married?"

Ginny looked quite smug. "I had it annulled so I could be on the list. Lots of witches are doing it. It's a once in a lifetime thing! Besides, queens can have people on the side."

"Ginny!" Hermione hissed.

"Look, I have to go be fitted for my gown. It's going to be so great! You'll see!"

Hermione walked by the whispering crowd, her face flushed with embarrassment. She walked directly to Severus.

"Please take me home, Severus."

Snape glowered at the crowd of gawkers, and they scattered quickly.

He held his arm out for her, and she looped hers around it.

He couldn't help but see the resigned depression in her stance— Merlin only knew he'd seen it in himself often enough to recognise it at once.

"You— aren't going to the masquerade?" he asked tentatively.

Hermione slumped a little. "I was not invited."

"You live within the Goblin Nation, Hermione. You don't require an invitation."

Hermione seemed even more depressed. "I have nothing significant to offer a king, Severus. I'm just me, flawed Hermione Granger."

Severus stopped, his pale fingers grasping her chin and tilting it up. "Any king who could not see how special Hermione Granger is would be an utter fool ."

Hermione flushed. She shook her head, disbelieving him.

"Come to the ball," Severus said quietly. "For me."

She looked up at him.

"I fear I must attend," he said with a resigned sigh. "I would rather you make the entire saturation of insufferable syphocants falling over each other tolerable."

"You. Attending a ball?" Hermione looked dubious.

"Not without lack of argument and quite a few protests, I assure you."

Hermione bit her lip, holding back a chuckle. "I'm just— sorry. I remember how disgusted you looked at the Yule Ball. You cut quite a striking figure standing there, but your face… it was perfectly obvious that you weren't happy."

Severus sighed. "Tiresome social obligations have never been my forté, I fear."

Hermione looked down. "I don't think you really want me to attend a ball."

"Why?"

"I do not know how to dance properly."

Severus frowned.

"I only know about dancing from books— never actual practice."

Severus held out his hand. "Come."

Hermione looked at his hand quizzically.

Slowly, she placed her hand in his.

Crack!

They were gone.