x x x Part Eleven x x x
She saw people on either side of the aisle, crying. Not out of joy, but because they knew what she was going through. They could feel her pain.
And even with the knowledge that she wasn't alone in how she felt, Hermione couldn't bring herself to feel any better as she walked slowly down the petal strewn corridor that was serving as the aisle. Her feet crunched the delicate pink rose petals. One step after another, she told herself. One step after another. Just get to the front and then –
Her stomach lurched desperately. Once she got to the front the ceremony would begin. And when the ceremony was over with. . .
She couldn't think of that right now. Not if she wanted to have any chance of going through with this. Of not running away right at this very moment, tearing through the chairs, heading for the hills. Anywhere but here. That's what would happen if she thought about the 'after'.
There could be no 'after' in her mind, even if the logical part of her knew, deep down, that there was to be an 'after' one way or another.
With determination borne of self-preservation, she continued down the aisle, unable to meet the eyes of her friends and family as she passed. They pitied her. For that matter, she pitied herself.
She could feel the hard, cold gaze of Snape's father on her back as she passed the front row of chairs, and longed to turn and lash out at him, to exact some form of vengeance from him, no matter how small, before she went through with this heinous deed.
Her gaze snapped to Snape himself as she stopped in front of Dumbledore. He was in black dress robes, of course. What else could she honestly expect of him? Besides, she told herself, Muggle men wore black suits or tuxedos to weddings. Why should she have expected anything more lighthearted or less dignified from a man that was the very model of dignity and decorum?
"Friends and family –" Dumbledore began, without preamble, as she turned her gaze from her husband to be to the wizard in question. It was almost as if he could read her mind, she decided. Why else would he be so quick to launch into the ceremony, if not for fear that she would run away?
She swallowed; letting his gentle words wash over her, for all that they inspired tremendous fear and despair in her very soul.
x x x
"Make him go away."
Severus found himself snorting, somewhat amused, at the faith his new. . .bride. . .placed in him.
"If I could make my father disappear, do you now think I would have done so long before now?"
She frowned, brown eyes blazing as they turned hatefully back to his father. Even Severus could admit that the old man was in fine form tonight. He'd already managed to insult her mother twice, despite the fact that the altogether too polite Muggle had done her very best to avoid being anywhere close to him. At any other time it would have been amusing to watch the dance they were partaking in. The way she would step away just as he neared, finding somewhere else that she 'had to be'. Someone that she needed to greet or chat with. And his father was playing the part of the evil old wizard very well.
In fact, despite the entire situation, it was still somewhat amusing; though he held no such reservations about how foul of a mood this was placing Her in. That was what she was now in his mind. Her. Hermione. Easy enough to remember, as if he could forget. She was. . .
His mind stumbled as the word wife came to the front, followed quickly by student. She was his wife and student. It was. . .disgusting, really. To think that they had entered into this union –
"I'm going to hex him."
"You will not."
"Why?" she arched an eyebrow, one hand already inside what he assumed was an inside pocket of her robe. "Going to give me detention for it? Believe me when I say it will be far more than just 'worth it'."
"Hexing him will not change anything."
He fought the urge not to wilt under the angry, smoldering glare she threw at him.
"No, but it might make me feel better." She growled, but her hand withdrew from her pocket, nonetheless, wand free.
Severus rolled his eyes, but the minute amount of amusement remained. Perhaps one day, when he was much older, perhaps senile and forgetting how much he disliked Her, he would relate tales of how he had nearly hexed his father for one thing or another while growing up with the slimy git.
"He should be leaving soon enough, at any rate," he murmured to her, crossing his arms over his chest as he spotted the man in question walking towards them at that very moment. "Be nice."
"You ask too much," she hissed, and he worried that she could have snapped under it all finally. But the bored look he'd come to associate with her just barely keeping her emotions in check was pasted on her face by the time his father had reached where they stood.
"I would like to say it was a lovely ceremony, Severus," Snape Sr.'s silky voice intruded on the quiet corner of the reception like nails against a blackboard. "However we both know it was not. You did the bare minimum to meet my requirements. Nothing more nothing less. Just like you, Severus, always skating by. Never excelling in anything. No initiative, that's your problem."
Severus' eyes widened, and he could almost hear the thoughts in Her head. If they had wanted the ceremony in the first place, perhaps they would have made it 'special'. Of course, he could readily admit that, being who he was, it was doubtful he would have gone all out on a wedding ceremony whether he wanted it or not.
But that had nothing to do with whether or not he excelled at anything in life, which he most certainly had, whether or not it was anything his father cared about. One foot in the dark, one foot in the grey, his father was the one to never do anything with his life. Too afraid to support the Dark Lord like he wanted in his heart, he'd wanted that for his son.
It was the only thing he'd ever done 'right'.
"Be that as it may," the old man sneered. "I will be taking my leave now so that the two of you may. . . consummate your relationship."
x x x
Hermione gagged.
He'd said it!
She turned her face away, willing herself not to throw up. Making it all the way through the ceremony was for nothing, after all, and this reminder of it was like a slap to her face.
She still had her wedding night to deal with.
"Oh, Merlin," she sighed, shutting her eyes. She could hear Snape's father speaking, but chose not to actively listen or respond in any way. Let him think she didn't care for him, it was nothing more than the truth. He was a vile, evil creature that deserved nothing more than to meet with the wrong end of an Avada Kedavra, and she wished for nothing more than to have the willpower to be the one to administer it.
Preferably after three or four rounds of Cruciatus.
Perhaps more.
Definitely more, she seethed, as finally her new father-in-law took his leave of them both. Her mother was already gone. Her friends had returned to their dorm rooms. Other than a few miscellaneous professors, the reception was empty.
She looked, fearfully, towards Snape, stomach lurching yet again.
This wouldn't be that bad, she told herself, meeting his eyes. Sure, he wasn't someone she loved, liked or even remotely cared for in any way at all, even as one human to another. But. . .
"Let's get this over with," she whispered.
"We are not required to do . . .that. . .tonight," Snape hissed, rolling his eyes up to the sky above.
"I just want to get it done before I lose my nerve, -sir-."
"Miss Granger –"
"It's Snape now, in case you haven't forgotten." Her tone was frosty, and she knew it, as the words left her mouth for the first time. Mrs. Hermione Snape, that was what she was. The ceremony had been performed and witnessed. He was her husband just as she was now his wife.
He met her eyes and nodded, ever so slightly, before turning off into the darkness, back towards the school.
This was it, she told herself. The end of her supposed innocent, in the terms of the Muggle world. As if she'd been innocent since the moment she became entangled in fighting this bloody war with Harry and Ron. But this the final blow to all of that, she knew. The last vestige of her that was still pure and childlike, gone.
She shuddered, following him through the darkness.
"Just lie back and think of Transfiguration," she murmured to herself, tasting the bitter words as they rolled off her tongue, swallowed into the night.
It would all be over soon enough.
x x x
Hermione pulled the sheet up around her torso, leaving her legs bare as Snape advanced towards the bed. He still had his robe on, covering all bits of his body that she would have rather not seen. She shut her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek.
Pincushion to porcupine, cotton ball to rabbit, she recited silently to herself, wishing that this moment could just be over and done with already.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes," she choked out around the painful ball of fear in her throat.
"And you took that potion I set out? I am not yet ready to fulfill –that- portion of our contract."
"Yes, already!" she screamed, still not daring to open her eyes. "Just do it!"
She pulled her lip into her mouth, biting down hard enough to taste blood as she waited for not only the pain of her innocence being given up, but the mental anguish that was bound to be borne of this union.
x x x
Severus looked down at her. Eyes clenched shut, hands clutching the sheet to her chest as if it were her only protection from him and this dirty act.
He wished he could not do this, for her and for himself. It would do wonders to ease the nausea in his own stomach to know that this would not be on the agenda tonight or any other night.
But that was not to be the case.
Just think of Potions, he told himself, angling his body and hoping that the potion he took only moments before, while changing into his robe, would allow him to even. . .perform. . .given the extreme disgust he felt in the act.
She is not a child, he told himself. Not in age or mind. Even if she is still a student, she is your wife.
And with that thought spurring him into just 'getting this over with', as She had said, he began, the room filling with her muffled cry of despair as he drove into her.
END CH 11-A