Chapter 59: In Which We Return Home Again

Snape lay sprawled out on the bed. "I missed our bed." He stretched and sighed contentedly. Hermione rolled onto her stomach and faced him.

"So, what's next?"

"Back to real life I guess. I've got enough mail piled up in the kitchen to choke a hippogriff."

"Potions and more potions?"

"Probably, I haven't read it yet."

"Time to finish up moving my things over here and then put my house on the market."

"Before you do that, let me see Malfoy. He's been setting up a real estate empire of rental places catering to the travelling wizard. Your place is right outside of York?"

"Yes."

"He may be interested. And, if he buys, he pays in gold, so we don't have to pay the conversion fee to Gringotts."

"My mortgage is in pounds, but see him about it anyway. The sooner I'm done with it the better. When will you see him?"

"Next Monday."

"Sounds good. I should have most of my things out by then. I'll leave the large furniture. If he plans on renting the place, having it furnished would be a selling point."

"Probably."

There were many things Hermione loved about being a witch. Moving wasn't exactly on the top of the list, but only because she had to do it so infrequently. Today, however, as she looked at the one box she was able to fit her entire life into, she loved it beyond all measure.

It had taken three weeks and an inordinate amount of boxes to get her parents ready for Australia. But for this, what she sincerely hoped would be her last move; she had one box, and an assortment of miniscule items. Carefully folded, her towels and bed sheets were now the size of postage stamps. Her plates looked like they belonged in a doll house. (For that matter, her doll house looked like it belonged in a doll house.) Her CD and DVD collection took up no more space than the average deck of cards. In fact her only real fear was losing something important while it was in this tiny state. After all, it wasn't too hard to lose a book when it was smaller than a domino.

She gave her house one more look over, and then gathered the box in her arms, stepped into the floo, and said her own name.

When the spinning stopped she was at Snape's, now our, house.

"You want me to buy the mudblood's home?" Draco sneered at Snape.

Snape sneered back. "I could not physically care less if you bought the house or not, but since you are working on creating a collection of wizard friendly rental properties, and since you do not have one in the area of Ms. Granger's home, I thought it might be of interest to you. If it is not, we'll put it up for sale."

Draco thought about it. Outside of York would be convenient for much of his client base. "I'll see it, so long as she is not present."

"I don't think that will be hard to arrange; she has no desire to see you, either."

"Why not? I'm a damn sight prettier than you are."

Snape rolled his eyes. "Does this work for you Draco? These little jibes and snipes? I heard worse from that idiot Potter and his friends Black and Lupin long before you were born. We could be civil or coldly polite."

"You betrayed my parents and then were legally shackled to me, and you want to be polite?" Draco looked genuinely stunned.

"I did no such thing. I betrayed Voldemort, who, on the off chance you don't remember, was likely to kill your father and enslave your mother had he lived longer. He likely would have killed you as well. Bellatrix would have inherited your considerable wealth, and then turned it over to him. When he was in prison, during the rare moments he was lucid, your father bore me no ill will."

"How would you know?"

"I was in the cell across the hall from him! When he was in the dream world to which he retreated to after your mother's death, he'd ask me to protect you and her. When he was lucid, he wished I had killed your Aunt as well as taking down Voldemort."

"And I should believe a lying bastard like you, because?"

Snape felt immensely tired of angry young men. So damn many of them left over from the war. "You can believe me or not, as you see fit. But I've gotten to the point in my life where I'm no longer interested in this pettiness between us. It bores me."

Draco didn't respond, and held his features so smoothly Snape could not guess how he would respond. And, while he was sure he could use leglilmency on Draco, he was also sure Draco would see it as akin to assault. So Severus waited.

"Tomorrow at nine, can you show the house then?"

"Yes."

"Meet me here and we'll apparate there."

"Fine." Snape left, unsure as to what had just happened.

The next morning Draco eyed the house critically. It was in a fairly good location. The back garden had a high wall for discrete apparition and disapparition. The floo was functional, if somewhat inconvenient with its bedroom location.

"Comes with the furniture?"

"If you want it. We can remove it otherwise."

Draco personally preferred darker, heavier, more traditional furniture, but he was also smart enough to realize that his preferences were not those of everyone else. "Tell me about what else is here."

"It's currently unplottable. That can be changed. The house has charms on it to keep nosy neighbours at bay. It also has about a thousand galleons worth of Weasley's best defensive work on it as well. An unwanted visitor will not enter easily or stay long. And should you deign to rent to a Muggleborn, it's got all the mod cons one could desire."

Draco nodded, and looked at the stand for the entertainment system. He had a good idea of what it was, but wasn't entirely sure of what all went where.

"Telephone, cable, internet?"

Snape looked surprised. Draco smiled mirthlessly at him. "Some of my clients are asking for these things. Especially those that do business with the Muggles."

Snape answered, "I don't know about internet, but yes, it's got telephone and cable."

"It'll do. How much?"

"One hundred fifty-six thousand pounds."

"Pounds?"

"Yes, we're not taking gold on this one."

"I'll get back to you by this time tomorrow."

"Fine."

Draco turned to leave. Snape said, "I'm glad to see you being civil." Draco snorted and left.

The next morning an owl arrived. Its note read: I'll take it. A few minutes later another owl arrived, this one from Gringotts.

"This one says the funds have been transferred," Snape said to Hermione, who was offering Draco's owl a little bit of bacon on toast.

"All I have to do now is get the deed transferred."

"Yes, and if you have it stored in your vault the Goblins will take care of it for you, for a fee."

"I wouldn't expect them to do it for free." Hermione grabbed a parchment and pen and scribbled instructions for the Goblins.

"I guess it's done then. I live here now."

He slid out of his chair, and kissed her. "Welcome home."