A/N: I'm super pleased that so many of you are reading and reviewing this one. A special thanks to all of you for your encouragement that I keep writing because you'll read it all, no matter what. Makes me all gooey inside with joy. Much love! xx-Kitten.
Limerence Laws
By Kittenshift17
CHAPTER THREE
Hermione blinked at Severus Snape carefully, waiting to see what he had to say since he had refused to let her travel through the Floo after Harry so that she could see Sirius and try to sort all this mess out. Not that she was particularly looking forward to the idea of having both volatile wizards in the same room at the same time. That would surely spell a death sentence for at least one of them – most likely her.
"Miss Granger, how exactly do you envision this ridiculous little law is going to play out?" Snape purred at her, his voice low and silky in a way that made the hairs on her arms prickle uncomfortably. That was the voice he most often used in the classroom when he was baiting a student, just waiting to lure them further into the own stupidity and allowing them to dig their own grave.
"I… didn't we agree it would no longer be appropriate for you to refer to me in that manner?" Hermione asked, thinking fast and trying to figure out some way to avoid having all of the blame heaped upon her.
Snape curled his top lip at her ever so slightly.
"And what, pray tell, would you prefer to be referred as from now on, witch?"
"My name will do," Hermione said. "Feel free to call me Hermione."
He narrowed his eyes on her,
"Answer my question, Hermione." His voice dripped scorn over her name as it rolled off his tongue like pure arsenic.
Hermione sighed, moving away from the fireplace – which she'd been hovering in front of as though she might be able to make a quick getaway should he be horrible to her – and dropped into one of the armchairs by the fire. Snape curled his lip at the way she didn't ask his permission or wait for an invitation before sitting, but Hermione was more than prepared to remind him of his comment about how they would also be her quarters now too. Glancing around, Hermione made a mental note that she would be changing a few things. Running a hand through her unruly curls, Hermine tried to gather her thoughts.
"I honestly have no idea how it will go. I imagine you and Sirius will try to kill one another," Hermione told him seriously, looking up to meet his gaze and having to squint thanks to the poor lighting in the dungeon chamber.
"Ob-viously." Snape curled his lip at her as he drawled that one word, breaking it into two to further enunciate her stupidity. "However, I was referring to the small matter of your continued education."
"My education?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Yes, you see it may have escaped your notice, Hermione, but you are still a student and I," he stepped a little closer to her chair until the light from the fireplace illuminated his formidable form from amid the shadows. "Am still very much a Professor; one who has been teaching you since you were eleven. Pray, tell me what you think will happen with the instigation of these Limerence Laws."
"You think that the Ministry will make a big deal over me being a student when you're a teacher?" Hermione frowned. "If they have a problem with it, they can take it up with their marriage department or whoever matched the three of us together. If they made the mistake of putting a student with a teacher, they can deal with the fallout of that mistake."
Snape's lips curled into a cruel smile for a short moment.
"You are forgetting that wedded bliss is not in your future if you truly wish to continue to sit as a student within my class once you are my wife, Miss Granger," Snape pointed out in a low, dangerous sort of whisper that made Hermione shiver.
She hadn't thought of that.
"Right." Hermione frowned further, her cheeks blushing at the way he spoke the words 'my wife' as though it uttering some Volkon curse. "Well, erm, I suppose there is always the chance that I could take my Potions NEWT early. I'm ahead of the curriculum in my studies. I could sit it, if I have to, though I'd prefer to wait until the end of the year like everyone else."
"I have seen your essays, Miss Granger. You are not ready to sit the exam," he told her bluntly.
"Well, the only other option is that you tutor me privately," Hermione informed him, snapping slightly as her eyes flushed in annoyance. "I'm not dropping the subject."
Snape curled his lip at her for her tone, looking like he'd very much like to dock points for her cheek, but refraining.
"Besides, I think we have a bigger problem to discuss than the fact that I want to complete my studies and might have trouble doing so if you are my husband in addition to my professor," Hermione sighed. "The letter says that the rings I was sent will monitor sexual activity. I'd be willing to bet they also monitor location. And given that the Ministry still believes that Sirius is a mass murderer and you are suspected of Death Eater ties that we both know you do, indeed, have; I would think it rather more prudent to figure out how we are going to get away with this without them finding Sirius and without exposing you for a criminal as well. Professor Dumbledore's influence only goes so far – or so I'm told – and so it would seem that we have something of a conundrum on our hands."
"I hardly care if Black is found and hauled back to Azkaban." Snape shrugged his shoulders, crossing the room to one of his many shelves and beginning to search the drawers for something.
"You say that now, sir," Hermione said quietly. "But should you be caught returning from a Death Eater meeting, I think you would also be thrown in prison. And while I would rather happily be husband-free if you were both in prison, I don't tend to wish such wretched punishments on innocent men."
"You would do well to remember, Hermione, that neither Black nor I are all that innocent," Snape informed her coldly. Hermione narrowed her eyes on him.
"Be that as it may, the fact remains that were they to catch Sirius and not you, well, you'd be stuck with just me, Professor Snape," Hermione said quietly. "And while you may have burned your letter in a fit of rage, I have had the chance to read mine very carefully. Do you really want to be left alone with just me, forced by law to have sex with me and interact with me and share my bed? Just you and me?"
"As opposed to having my hated childhood nemesis there, too?" he scoffed. "Distasteful as I do not doubt such things will be for both of us, Miss Granger, I think you will find that I am slightly more pleasant to deal with when Sirius Black is not constantly ridiculing me or annoying me with his general existence."
"Perhaps you do not grasp the concept that I am a hormonal, emotional teenage girl who will no longer be forced to bow to your whim as you will no longer hold any authority over me, Professor." Hermione's tone was saccharine. "But while I assure you that your formidable temper is noted, I will remind you that you are not the only one within this marriage equation prone to violent outbursts of fury."
He glanced at her sharply as Hermione crossed one leg over the other and peered at him carefully, awaiting his reaction to that little nugget of information.
"Dobby?" Hermione called when Snape didn't speak again.
The elf appeared with a soft pop, looking alarmed to find Hermione in Snape's quarters.
"Miss Hermione?" Dobby asked carefully, glancing worriedly at Snape before meeting her gaze.
"Could you bring a pot of tea please?" Hermione asked the elf. "And three cups."
"Of course, Miss Hermione," Dobby nodded, bowing before he disappeared once more.
"You're ordering tea to my quarters?" Snape sneered.
"Oh," Hermione let a cruel smirk crawl across her face just as the Floo suddenly roared to life. "But Professor, I thought you said that by the end of the week, they would also be my quarters."
Snape was scowling at her fiercely as Sirius Black climbed out of the fireplace.
"Sirius?" Hermione asked, smiling slightly and getting to her feet before realising that he might be just as angry with her over this as Snape was.
"Hey 'Mione, love," Sirius smirked at her, fishing a bottle of whiskey – unopened – from inside the pocket of his robes and pressing it into her hands as he crossed the floor to where she stood. He drew her into a one armed hug and dropped an affectionate kiss to the top of her head, just the same way he always did when he greeted her.
She took the bottle from him as he pulled away and Hermione held her breath as the two dark haired wizards squared off, eyeing each other uncomfortably for a moment. She didn't know if she or Snape was the most shocked when Sirius fished another bottle of whiskey – similarly unopened – from his coat pocket and silently handed it to the Potions Master. Snape eyed it like it were a large snake before snatching it when Sirius quirked a challenging eyebrow at the man.
His hands free once more, Sirius fished a third bottle from somewhere and cracked the lid before tipping it to his lips and chugging down almost a third of the bottle.
"Well," he said when he's wiped his mouth. "This is fucked."
"Eloquent, as ever, Black," Snape sneered at Sirius and Hermione sighed before cracking the lid on the bottle she'd been given and tipped it to her lips.
She didn't drink this brand of firewhiskey that often – it was usually too expensive to afford, but Hermione sighed as she swallowed down the first smooth yet burning mouthful. Her eyes drifted closed at the caramel flavour that soothed the lump that had formed in her throat.
"Bite me, Snivellus!" Sirius retorted. "Go easy on that, 'Mione. That whiskey is aged fifty years."
"What are you doing here, Black?" Snape growled at the man though his eyes danced towards Hermione when she kept right on drinking from the bottle Sirius had given her, ignoring the way her insides flooded with an uncomfortable heat.
"What the fuck do you think, fool?" Sirius rolled his eyes. "Figured the three of us needed to discuss this shit without external forces interfering. That, and Tonks showed up at HQ where Harry and Remus are and Remus might've told her she was mad as a march hare if she thought they'd all just get along and then he snarled at her when she told him to suck her cock. And at that point I really didn't want to deal with the mental image painted by the idea of my best mate, my godson and my cousin all going at it, so I left before the domestic drew me in."
Snape curled his lip at Sirius's rambling and Hermione noted the way Sirius's words slurred slightly as though he were already rather inebriated.
"Sweetheart, that stuff will knock you on your arse if you keep chugging it like that," Sirius warned, stepping towards her as though he might stop her but Hermione moved out of his reach and kept right on chugging back the whiskey.
She was feeling overwhelmed and the last thing she wanted to do was be sober while Severus Snape and Sirius Black had another fight – this time over their impending marriage.
"Miss Granger," Snape warned, eyeballing her like he might give her detention if she didn't stop.
Hermione supposed the alcohol might've been going to work on her system faster than expected when she did something she'd never done to Professor Snape before. She flipped him the bird and kept right on chugging the whiskey until the bottle was half gone.