The Return
Returning home was oddly disconcerting. She felt like a completely different person but everyone else saw her just the same as she had been a week ago. Her blood fizzed with Severus Snape, his touches, his kisses, his passion. And yet he'd made it clear, very clear, that he didn't seek a relationship with her — not that she was at liberty to seek one out, anyway. She had absolutely no idea what to tell her friends. Oh by the way I met up with Professor Snape, you know, your favourite teacher at Hogwarts? He shagged me senseless at the conference and now I can't stop thinking about him. That would go over well with all of them. Especially Ron. No… she didn't want to think about him, not now.
Crookshanks wasn't impressed, she'd sent him off to Ginny and Harry at Grimmauld for the time she was away and he gave her a disdainful flick of his tail when she brought him back through the Floo. The half-Kneazle settled in for a demonstrative and thorough grooming session on her favourite spot on the couch. Luckily, neither Harry nor Ginny had had much time for a long interrogation when she went to Grimmauld to pick him up.
Coming back to work was equally odd but luckily Lucy was busy at another department for most of the week, shadowing Healers at the Spell Damage ward, and so Hermione could zone out in peace in her office when memories of his touch, his taste, his gaze assaulted her. She quickly wrote a report from the conference for the rest of the department. Healer Trout was very interested in her meeting with Severus Snape, and asked her to consider reaching out to him for a collaboration or mentoring on the potions part of her Apprenticeship. She'd ducked her head quickly to hide the rising blush but managed to mumble something about promising to think about it.
~o~o~o~o~o~
On a whim she made her way to Diagon Alley the following Saturday. The street was full of people but for once the crowds didn't make her nervous, instead she revelled in the anonymity provided by the throng of people. She ducked into Scribbulus Writing Implements and managed to find a couple of leather-bound research notebooks with automatic indexing and spill-resistant pages which sounded perfect for potions experiments. She bought two, one in blue for herself and one green, not really questioning why until she was out of the shop. Why had she bought that? It had been so natural to pick up something that he would like but she wasn't exactly in a position to buy him gifts?
She shook her head and continued down the street to stock up on a few other things. J. Pippin's Potions was where she usually bought her household potions, and she stopped by to stock up on headache relief, hangover cure and her monthly potion. At the section for common ailments she noticed to her surprise that the Pepper-Up shelf had been expanded and now contained a batch of vials with a label she didn't recognise. Stepping closer to read the label she couldn't help but to smile. Improved Pepper-Up by Septimius Solutions. The label sported what looked like a phoenix rising from a cauldron with the name of the potion in stylised black Gothic block letters, and the ingredients and directions for use in a slightly altered but familiar spiky angular script. She immediately added a few of them to her basket, smiling at the vials as if they were sharing a secret with her. She liked the name, she didn't think many wizards would get the allusion to the former Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.
So it had been real, after all, that whole weekend and all that happened. Dazedly she paid for her wares and stumbled out into the street, only to be accosted by a Weasley.
"Hermione! You're alive!" the exuberant Weasley twin greeting rang out through the alley.
The crowd parted quickly as the Weasley twins hurried over. They performed their standard greeting of two simultaneous cheek kisses before releasing her, exclaiming relief that she'd made it back from the big bad conference. Both of them raised a hand to their brow to wipe imaginary sweat off their foreheads, in a move so synchronised they must have practised in front of a mirror. Nevertheless, the effect was precisely what they must have been aiming for, and she giggled and hugged both of them back.
"Hi both, are you off to work?"
"All work and no play…" George intoned,
"Makes George a dull boy." Fred continued.
"Hey!" One Weasley brother glared at the other who smirked.
The two brothers picked up her bags, turned her around and held out an arm each for her. She did like the twins, life was most definitely not dull when they were around. However, sometimes they were a bit too perceptive for their own good … or, to be more honest, her own good. Still, she followed them back to their store where they put on a kettle of tea water for all of them, and like every time she saw them she was glad she'd forced them to take a wizard's oath not to prank her. Business was apparently booming and lately they'd started branching out a little by taking in other kinds of products. Apparently, Lavender Brown had started a beauty product line together with Padma and Parvati Patil, and the Weasley twins had agreed to take in their products for a trial period.
"Very popular, these," Fred said.
"Their acne cream is apparently excellent," George continued.
"As is their makeup line, or at least it sells well." Fred finished.
Well, the sample jar of night cream she picked up certainly smelled nice. In a rather detached way she was happy things were going well for the three of them, even though two had been the bane of her Hogwarts dormitory experience she didn't mind hearing of their success. Lavender had been mauled badly by Fenrir Greyback during the final battle at Hogwarts. It had been hit and miss whether she'd recover, but luckily she hadn't been turned into a werewolf.
"Oh, and over here you see our latest product line," Fred said and waved his arm towards a shelf dressed completely in black with gold glitter. "You know our Wonder Witch line? This is a continuation of that, so to speak. The Wanton Wand, we call it. It's our … bedroom brand. As you can see it's behind an age line so that we don't corrupt any young children to the depravity of the flesh, and there's also a privacy charm in effect so that other customers won't see who's browsing this section."
She stepped closer and felt the tingling of magic as she passed the ward. The shelves were full of gadgets, boxes and … Oh. It took her eyes a bit to adjust to the lighting and to actually take in what they were seeing, but apparently the Weasley twins were moving into rather adult entertainment. Of all kinds. A few of the boxes contained Improved Patented Daydream Charms with the additional label "Special Extra Hot Edition, Do Not Use In Public Or You Will Regret It (Yes You Will, We Promise)". There was a section with clothes, including both lingerie and what looked like pirate garb, another with cuffs, various whipping implements and other items for mingling pain and pleasure, and a shelf full of dildos and similar things. She shuddered as she took it all in, disturbed yet oddly turned on by the collection of items.
Backing away from the shelf she turned to the twins. "Yes… I can see that becoming a huge success with a certain crowd, but have you thought about customer privacy a bit further? If I were to go shopping here on a bustling Saturday I would never dare to be seen anywhere close to this."
Fred opened the back door that led to their office. The opening was hidden behind a large cactus which would attack anyone not invited as soon as they touched the door. They'd put a wizard hat and mock sun glasses on it too, with painted eyes that seemed to turn towards the nearest person.
George led her deeper into the office, past crates of goods and the offices for other workers managing logistics and production. "Good point. Do you have any ideas?"
They'd made it to the twins' office, a large room with several couches and armchairs, tables and shelves full of gadgets. Their private flats were accessible via a staircase at the back. They had a magical tea service and a small kitchen area just outside the office, available for all their staff when needed.
She frowned as she thought about it while absently depositing her cloak and purchases on a nearby chair. "Yes… you said you have both a date line and a privacy charm? That's good, but customers probably don't know that. Some more visible dividers would probably be useful and some way to hide the products from others while paying. Oh, and your selection of items may be a bit too intimidating to some, especially younger witches. Is there a way to display only what customers are interested in so that you don't have to see all the pirate-themed plugs, chains and whips if that's not your cup of tea?"
Fred lunged for a piece of parchment. George poured all of them tea before they settled back into the office lounge chairs. "Hmm, interesting idea, Granger. I like the way you think. Ever fancied becoming a Weasley? That way we wouldn't have to rename the store to take you in permanently."
She laughed halfheartedly but managed to cover up her queasiness over the unexpected question by taking a gulp of slightly scalding tea.
"How would that work?" George asked, leaning over the coffee table while Fred was scribbling notes.
"We can't go around reading people's minds for real, unfortunately," Fred mused.
"What if you measure other types of stimuli?" Hermione asked, lost in the joys of solving a tricky problem. "Like heart rate, pupil dilation and how long they look at certain items? You might have to find a way to filter out the difference between aroused staring and repulsed staring though." She snatched another parchment and began setting up Arithmancy equations for the various aspects they'd have to balance, barely noticing George's huge grin.
They squabbled over details for another half hour before the twins excused themselves for a business lunch, and Hermione could wander off to continue her shopping. The impromptu spell creating session had felt really good, she'd always enjoyed an intellectual challenge and somehow she felt rather smug over not reacting more strongly to the contents of their new product line. Oh, she'd felt the pull of a few of the items, but the daydream charm held no allure compared to the very real memories of her former Potions professor, and some of the other items might have been exciting but only if she could explore them together with him. Would that ever happen? They hadn't made any solid plans to meet up, at all.
Her feet had taken her in front of another shop window without her actually planning to, and several small round faces were staring down at her through the window. Eeylops Owl Emporium. Oh… would Crooks mind some company? With a shrug she quickly stepped inside before any other part of her could change her mind, now that her feet had dragged her all the way there.
Dozens of owls of all sizes and colourings were looking down on her from their perches. The dim room smelled of owl, but the floor was clean and most of them seemed well behaved. She blinked a little as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light which probably was on purpose to allow the owls more comfort compared to bright daylight, and she stepped into the middle of the floor. The shopkeeper nodded at her but seemed busy with adjusting the perch of one of the owls.
She took a deep breath, feeling strangely uncertain. "Is there anyone here who would like to move in with me? I should warn you that I have a cat, Crookshanks. He's part Kneazle though and usually doesn't hunt owls. I'll need you to be strong enough to fly across the country and to the continent occasionally, at least."
Several owls hooted in reply and a few shifted on their perches. There appeared to be some sort of communication going on between them, with the occasional shifting on a perch, hooting, clacking of beaks and rustling of wings, before one small owl flew down from one of the top perches. It was fairly small, with an almost frowning facial expression. Its plumage was a rich brown with white spots over her back, wings and head, and white with brown spots underneath. She held out her arm to it and it settled gingerly on her cloak sleeve.
"Hi," she said as the bird settled, peering up at her. "Do you want to live with me and Crooks?"
"Whooo," the bird answered.
"That's a female little owl," the shopkeeper commented, looking up from the shelves. An owl was perched on his head. "Good choice. She's not been named yet but she'll serve you well if you want her."
She smiled at the owl. "Sounds good. I'll need all the supplies, and food. "
The shopkeeper nodded. His eyebrows were as impressive as some of the owls', she noted. "I'll throw in a bag of owl treats."
"Perfect," she said brightly and transferred the owl to her shoulder in order to dig out her purse.
~o~o~o~o~o~
To her relief, Crookshanks and her new owl seemed to get along, or at least they were completely ignoring each other but Hermione hoped that might change as they got used to each other. The owl named herself Iris after the Greek goddess who acted as a messenger between gods. They'd pored over several tomes of mythological characters together before Iris had decisively hooted and tapped her beak at the picture of the goddess. Hermione had immediately written to her new Norwegian friends in Amsterdam, and her owl had happily accepted her first assignment.
She revelled in the laziness of a solitary Sunday the day after her shopping adventures. There wasn't anything overly urgent to do at work and so she slept until late, had a lazy breakfast and spent most of the afternoon reading the latest issues of Hippocratic Corpus, Practical Potioneer and Potions Monthly. She'd found one article written by Septimius Prince, the pseudonym making her giggle, and another one on the proper harvesting of lacewing flies which she strongly suspected was written by none other than Severus Snape too.
Her Floo flared to life and her heart leapt into her throat when a mop of red hair became visible through the green flames.
"You there?" Ron asked before stepping through as soon as he saw her. He immediately walked over to her and pulled into a hard hug, soot flaking off him and onto her white fluffy rug. She backed away, cleaning him and the carpet with a wandless charm.
"Shoes off, Ron," she told him, again.
"Alright, alright." He did actually deposit his shoes by the Floo and looked around her flat, eyes falling on the new owl perch in the kitchen.
"You got an owl, 'Mione? I thought you said you didn't need one?"
She shrugged, flustered. "I met some people I want to keep in touch with, so I figured it was about time I got one."
Ron glowered at her. "Oh really? You met some international wizards that you're writing to now?"
"No, three Norwegian witches who live in Amsterdam, if you must know," she snapped, arms crossed in front of her. After all, the other one she might want to correspond with wasn't international.
"Oh…" Ron had already made himself comfortable on the couch and patted the seat next to him. "Got any beer?" he suddenly asked and rose, beelining for her fridge where he dug out a bottle left behind by Harry some time ago. He opened it and returned to the couch. She settled next to him, feeling slightly underdressed still in her pyjamas with her bath robe thrown over it all.
"Missed you, 'Mione," he murmured against her hair, his arm slung around her shoulder. His thumb traced circles on her hipbone.
She took a deep breath and focused on relaxing against him. He was Ron, after all. She knew him, ever since that first meeting on the Hogwarts Express all those years ago. He smelled familiar, of Quidditch supplies and cut grass and tar.
"How's Auror work?" she asked, trying to distract him from pulling her closer. Or herself. She'd lost track.
He frowned but his thumb stopped circling. "It's alright, I guess," he conceded. "I just thought there'd be more action, you know? More being out there catching bad wizards, Death Eaters and the like. Instead I'm just running errands and writing stupid reports. I mean, how hard can it be to find them? Just look at the Slytherins from our year, Malfoy is still out there, isn't he? And Nott too."
She sighed. "Draco? Yes he's working at the Ministry, didn't you know? And Theo Nott is with Gringotts. There's no reason to believe either of them to be committing crimes." She'd occasionally run into both of them over the years. Draco had made a stilted but sincere apology for being a prat and offered to buy her a coffee, and although she wasn't at all close to him she still considered him a decent acquaintance or distant friend. Theo Nott had greeted her politely at Gringotts where he was working with international investments, which she'd learned when she ran into him there once. The Goblins still didn't like her, they were still not quite over the destruction of their vaults even though Harry had paid off their fine and they'd secured a mountain troll as replacement for the dragon. At least the troll liked living in a cave.
Ron snorted and took another swig of his beer. "They can't be trusted, you know? They're Slytherins. They won't change."
She shook her head but didn't bother replying.
Some time later, Ron asked if she had any food in the house. She didn't have much at home, usually, and what she did have was often not what he liked to eat, so as usual she suggested Indian take-away, and also as usual she ended up ordering, paying for and fetching the finished dishes as the best Indian nearby didn't do home deliveries. She'd tried twice to get Ron to order over the telephone, but that had ended in confusion and a shouting match half in Hindi which wasn't very conducive to a good meal, and he didn't usually have Muggle money. Still, the food was good, there was a chance of Indian for lunch for a few days, and Ron too had a fondness for tikka masala and garlic naan. Meanwhile, Hermione usually went for the spicier lamb or vegetarian dishes since she was used to the cuisine from her Muggle upbringing, her parents having often ended up ordering Indian when their work had run late, and since that improved the odds for leftovers.
Also as usual was the way she ended up sorting out the mess in the kitchen afterwards while Ron lounged on the couch, another beer in hand. Still, she thought the evening had been rather pleasant, all in all. She finished up in the kitchen and filled up Crooks' food bowl while Ron rose and stretched.
"Come on, let's go to bed," Ron said, leaning against the doorframe to her bedroom.
She shook her head. "Not today, Ron, I'm on my period."
No she wasn't. But she wasn't in the mood for him, not this soon after her completely mind-blowing experience with one Severus Snape.
Ron flushed red and looked down at the floor. "Oh, right. I'll, um, see you later then. You coming to the Burrow for dinner Saturday?"
"Alright," she conceded.
He left through the Floo. A thorough cleaning session of the flat and a shower later, she could relax again.
~o~o~o~o~o~
The next weekend came with another Weasley dinner as she'd promised her boyfriend, since his birthday had been the day before. Being an only child she hadn't had many close relatives when growing up, and ever since first meeting the Weasleys she longed for that tight connection they all had. After her parents were lost to her that had become even more important, especially since Harry had so easily been accepted into their family. If she didn't have them, and her parents were still lost… she'd be celebrating all holidays alone, in her tiny little flat with only her animals for company.
Ron greeted her with a kiss but her entrance was mainly unnoticed by the others. Bill and Fleur weren't coming, but Harry and Ginny were there. Percy was there too with his fiancee Audrey Knighton, and she could hear him arguing with his parents as soon as she arrived. At least Percy's presence took the heat off her since the other Weasleys still hadn't quite forgiven him. The twins also teased him, in a way that made her feel grateful for not being their target and slightly guilty for not standing up against them. They had tried to make up after the end of the war but Hermione suspected that Percy's innate personality still was the main reason for their continued differences. He was too rigid and law-abiding for the twins and Ginny, and although Mr Weasley tried to keep the peace it seemed Mrs Weasley still thought she could manage his life, which of course didn't work.
Dinner was fine if a bit tense. She sat close to Percy and Audrey, a quiet witch who worked in the Ministry at some obscure department.
She stayed the night like he wanted, it being his birthday celebration and all. As usual it was uncomfortable, messy and slightly embarrassing to attempt sex in his childhood bed with his parents close by. She tried to give in, to respond to his kisses and groping, but her body didn't want to awaken to his touch.
She lay awake late into the night, not able to fall asleep. Ron was snoring next to her and she could follow the trace of the moonbeams across the floor and the far wall as time passed. For some reason she had a huge clump in her stomach, a lead weight holding her down. Why did she feel so dirty after being with her boyfriend? She padded off to the bathroom again but didn't want to run the shower that late at night for fear of waking the elder Weasleys. After splashing some water in her face she made her way to the kitchen door, snagging Ron's bathrobe on the way. The door creaked a bit as she opened it and stepped out to the kitchen stairs where she sat down, looking out over the garden. The March night was cold but a warming charm held off the worst of it, and the moonlight cast pale shadows over the lawn. It was oddly comforting, somehow, and probably the only time she'd ever been left alone with her thoughts in the Weasley household.
The next morning she was quick to hop in the shower before Ron could get any other ideas, and then she cautiously made her way down the stairs to the kitchen. Mrs Weasley — call me Molly, dear, you're practically our daughter already — cornered her while Ron was in the shower.
"While I appreciate you staying here with our Ron, Hermione, I don't think it's appropriate for you to … share a bed … with Ron until you're married, at least not under my roof."
Her passive aggressive smug indignation churned Hermione's insides and made her want to crawl into a small hole and hide under a blanket. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option.
Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley. It won't happen again."
The older witch smiled and patted her shoulder. "Oh, no no, it's just that sometimes wizards can get a bit… carried away, and you know that in our world unwed mothers are frowned upon," Mrs Weasley continued brightly. "Scones, dear? Oh, and do call me Molly, how many times must I tell you to?"
After fetching a cup of tea for herself Hermione sat down at the table, choosing a seat at the far end, out of the way. The silence was awkward so she tried to make herself invisible as Mrs Weasley continued cooking a breakfast for ten when there were only four of them in the house.
Ron ambled down the stairs, his hair wet from the shower. He went to his mother and kissed her on the cheek. "Morning, Mum. You made scones? You're the best."
"Anything for you, Ronnie dear," Mrs Weasley said and patted his cheek in return. "Soon Hermione will be able to take over making your breakfast, won't she?"
Hermione could almost hear something snapping inside her mind. She needed air, right now. After a hurried breakfast she mumbled her excuses, citing work as a reason for leaving them that quickly despite it being Sunday.
When she finally made it back home to her flat and her animals she penned a note to one Severus Snape at Hogwarts, and sent Iris off as soon as she could.
"If you can deliver this to him without Headmistress McGonagall noticing that would be great," she told her owl. "There's no need for you to rush back, there are plenty of owls you can talk to at the Owlery and there's food and shelter for you there if you want a break."
Iris hooted reassuringly, held out her foot for the letter and flew off into the evening.