Chapter 37: In Which We Enjoy Saturday

Snape lay on his side and watched Hermione nap. She was lying on her stomach, her head turned toward him, a sheet covering her from the very low back down. Her hair was draped over her left shoulder, covering her arm in a fluffy, brown mass.

He was feeling immensely satisfied with himself. He hadn't planned the way the marriage conversation went, but it had worked to his advantage. They could go and get the matching rings as soon as they wanted to, and he could keep the engagement ring for exactly the right time.

I need to let Ginny and Harry know the plan. I don't want them to tell her about it before I actually give it to her.

He stretched, sat up, and padded over to her book case. The one case was entirely magical works. Three whole shelves on wandless magic! One shelf on Arithmancy. The other two were a mix of magical history and defence. He found a copy of his book and smiled. He picked it up and saw that it had actually been read all the way through! His smile widened. He knew from lurking about Flourish and Blotts with a different face that many people had bought his book, and very few of them had read much past chapter three. He understood why. They had expected lurid tales of Dark Revels and heinous magics. Instead he wrote about the in-group/out-group dynamic and xenophobia.

He walked to the other shelf and found her collection of Muggle books. Lots of philosophy, more religion, and some books he thought of as 'self help.' Some Muggle science, which he thought was a bit odd, sat next to half a shelf of anatomy and physiology, also strange. He crouched on the floor to see what was on the bottom shelf. Fiction. Mostly mysteries and historical pieces, but there were a few romances sprinkled among the heavier works.

He spent a pleasant moment debating between a one of her wandless magic texts or the first book from the series about the Napoleonic wars. He grabbed both of them, and settled in her chair by the fireplace. He started with the fiction, and was amused to see the hero had black hair and eyes, and a long scar that made him look like he had a constant scowl. But like most fiction, he began to get bored a few chapters in, so he switched to the wandless magic.

Hermione awoke an hour or so later, and found a naked Snape sprawled in her chair, rapidly devouring one of her wandless magic books. She saw her copy of Sharpe's Rifles on the floor next to Snape. It didn't surprise her that he hadn't fallen in love with the book right off the bat, but she was surprised that he had taken it over and tried a bit of it. She couldn't see the title of the book he was reading, but from the shape, size, and the location of the gap in her bookshelf, she guessed it was Practical Magic for Beginners.

He didn't look up as she stood and walked towards him. She marvelled at how comfortable he looked. She wasn't sure she could read naked without constantly being on the alert for something to disturb her. You've been at Hogwarts too long. Someone's always stopping by, or popping a head in the floo, or in need of help. Try to read naked there, and within ten minutes everyone at the bloody school will know about it.

She was less than a foot away from him when he looked up. "Good nap?"

"Yes. I'm thinking I could get used to this. Wake up, have a nice walk, good breakfast, decent conversation, bit of a shag, and a nap."

"What do you mean, a 'bit of a shag'?" He pulled her into his lap and began to tickle her. "How much shagging do you require before it counts as a full shag?" He was laughing.

"At least an hour, maybe two or three, depends on the day." Her grin was huge, and she was trying to tickle him back, but he wasn't co-operating. He had her hands held tightly in one of his.

"Merlin's beard, woman! I'm not a machine," he said melodramatically. He lowered his lips to hers, and began to kiss her. She squirmed encouragingly in his lap.

"Then I guess I'll just have to get used to bits of shag." They kissed again, his hands releasing hers, and wrapping around her waist.

He pulled his lips away from hers. "Are you hungry?"

"I wasn't until you said anything, but now that I think about it, yes, actually."

"Good, because I'm famished."

She hopped out of his lap, looked for her t-shirt, grabbed it, and her panties, and put them on.

Snape walked to his wand. "I'll be back in a minute." And apparated out of her home. She was in the kitchen looking at the things she had purchased at the market that morning. The bread and cheese would make a good foundation for lunch. The asparagus would probably be more of a dinner food. She was eyeballing the tomatoes when she heard the pop that told her he was back.

A few seconds later, a now dressed Snape walked into her kitchen with a bag. "I thought we might find some uses for these as well."

She opened the bag and saw olives, prosciutto, some sort of dried sausage, more bread, and figs.

"I think we can indeed find something to do with these. Did you know I got asparagus at the market?"

"No, but it'll go great with the ham."

"So will the figs."

"That's what I was thinking."

They busied themselves in her kitchen. Hermione prepared the asparagus, while Snape sliced the bread. He cleared off the breakfast dishes and set the table for lunch. She marvelled at how well they were working together. She had cooked with Harry, and with her sisters-in-law in Molly's kitchen, but never this smoothly before. In her experience team cooking meant that someone was going to get a foot stepped on, everyone who needed salt would need it at exactly the same moment, and no matter how many knives and cutting boards there were, one more was always needed. Granted, she and Snape weren't doing anything terribly complicated, he was wrapping figs in ham behind her while she plated the olives and cheese, but still, this was a choreographed ballet compared to her usual experiences.

They sat down and tucked in. Neither one spoke for several moments. After the sharp hunger had been sated, they began to talk again.

"I was reading one of your wandless magic books."

"I saw."

"I find myself wondering why we bother with wands. Why are you going to teach wanded magic to those girls? Wandless seems much more useful."

"Wandless obviously has its advantages, but it also has some serious drawbacks. You'll probably pick it up pretty easily, because it's all about the utilization of will and concentration. For the girls, and this isn't any kind of disparagement of them, but it's often just too hard to hold that kind of concentration while fighting. You'll probably see some of them sparring, and it's staggering to see that level of physical prowess. Then try to imagine doing it, while simultaneously keeping up the level of concentration necessary to cast even the most basic spell without a wand.

"A wand makes the magic easier to control. It works two ways, a swish and words to cast the spells, and it acts as a buffer between the magic and you. Too much magic, of too high a level, on all but the strongest mind, drives people insane. That's why we're Witches and Wizards rather than Sorcerers or Mages. The wand is our tool of choice, and it keeps us from going batty and terrorizing the local villages.

"On the flip side, it makes us vulnerable to the loss of our tool. And the madness of the magic is often a key ingredient in very powerful magic. The kind we usually cannot use. Compared to the States there are almost no demons here, and it's because almost everyone with any skill with magic uses a wand. The magic will allow the creation of creatures of such malevolent evil that it staggers the mind, but the mage who wields that kind of magic is almost always three quarters insane by the time he can do it.

"One of these days I'll get to start on the research project I've wanted to do for quite a while, and that's the book on how we became Witches and Wizards rather than Mages or Sorcerers. How we learned that the wand provides a safety net. Does this discovery predate Hogwarts, or is it the reason Hogwarts was started? Then take the time to compare our magical world to the one in the States."

Snape was placing a slice of ham on one of the pieces of bread. "Why are there no wands among the Yanks? They used to be transplanted Englishmen. They come from our magical traditions."

"This is the part of the research I have done. It's pretty cool, in a morbid way. The very first Americans, the Amerindians, were powerful magic users, but of an unwanded school of magic. Then they ran into the Spanish, and most of them died from diseases they didn't know how to combat. Something like seventy-five percent of them died in less than fifty years. They hit the point where the old Shamans were dying off, but very few new ones were being born. When we got there almost all of the local magical talent had died off. But none of ours came over. Comfortable, happy people don't cross oceans in leaky wooden boats to face uncertain futures and great hardship. Magic makes life easier, so almost all of us stayed home. No reason to leave. Then came the wars with them, where we didn't head over because they were the ungrateful traitors. Then came our wars with the continent, where we didn't head over because too much was going on over here.

"Add in the fact that you need a certain amount of magical population around for muggles to start giving birth to wizards, and well... For a long time there just wasn't much of any magic going on in the Americas."

"By the time any great number of European witches and wizards were thinking about emigrating, a new hybrid of the Amerindian magic, European mysticism, and American religion had all mixed together to create their system, if system it can be called, of magic. From what I can tell, it's only been since the Great War that all the varieties of English speakers have started to let each other know what they can do with magic.

"One of these days, I'll get to see how the Aussies and Canadians have stacked up to us and the U.S. Maybe I'll write the great comparison of magic among English speakers world over."

He smiled at her. "I'd read that book." He swallowed the fig he had been munching on. "So, what about Willow? You've said she's very powerful; is she half way to mad as well?"

"I don't think so. I've heard some things that hint she was there shortly after her lover was killed, but she seems sane enough now. My guess is that if she was over the edge, it was grief and not the magic that did it, but I don't know, and I don't fancy asking."

They quietly ate for a few more minutes, before Snape began to ask her specifics about the research she wanted to do. That got them to the end of lunch and then some, while they bounced ideas about for where to look and whom to ask. Their conversation drew to a close, and Snape changed the subject.

"So, what is your schedule like for the next week?"

"I'm due back at school by noon tomorrow. I'm on lunch duty along with Neville and some of the others. Monday is Battle of Hogwarts Day, so no class. Then we've got finals. Most of next week will be spent trying to sort through the writing of my students and see which ones have actually remembered what I've been trying to teach them. You know how that works. Then the Leaving Feast and the Graduation Ball. And once more another year will be over, and I'll be free for ten weeks!"

"Would you like me to come to Battle of Hogwarts day with you?"

"I would, but as I said before…"

Snape cut in. "I'll admit I have no interest in listening to Shacklebolt pontificate about the great sacrifices and losses, blah, blah, blah. I know more about that, first hand, than anyone could ever express in a thousand years of speeches."

Hermione winced in sympathy. The first Battle of Hogwarts day had been excruciating. Everyone and his cousin tried to find a way to lend meaning to what had happened, and tame the grief, by steeping it in words. But it had been getting a bit better every year since.

"It's not like that anymore. At the fifth anniversary he said that all that could be said had been said, and there was nothing he could add. Now it is a day of quiet mourning and reflection and celebration. At noon the names of everyone who died in both parts of the war is read out. Usually sometime after lunch it goes from sombre to something like a huge Irish wake. Everyone abandons their usual house colours, wearing the black of the school and armbands in the colours of whomever they lost during the war. The first year it was an armband per person, but some people, Harry for example, ended up without enough sleeve to fit everyone. So now it's just one band per house. White roses show up around the school in the different places where people died. Usually we get together at Fred's spot near the Room of Requirement, and then go to where Remus and Tonks died. Teddy is still a bit too young to really get it, but we want him to know about his parents.

"This is the last year that there will be no class for the whole day because this is the last year that any of the students were still at the school when the Battle was fought. Next year, there'll be some sort of service that night.

"Does that sound like something you'd be willing to attend?"

"Yes, it does. What do you want to do with the rest of today?"

"Usually when I'm home I just lie about, read, watch the shows I taped during the week, maybe go see a movie, or visit with Harry."

"What shows did you tape?"

"Whose Line is it Anyway, Dr. Who, and CSI."

"I like Dr. Who." He grinned sheepishly, as if afraid to admit that he watched TV.

"Really?" Hermione asked. He nodded at her. "Well then, do you feel up for spending some time laying about watching TV?"

"I think I do," he responded.