AN: I am so sorry for the wait! Thank you all for your patience...it has been a crazy week. But fear not, I did not abandon Severus and Hermione. We probably have one more chapter after this...and then an epilogue...because I have no self control...
Chapter 21 - The Next Step
Hermione closed her eyes and blinked…hard. Even with her eyes closed she could hear Ginny squealing behind her and the delicate sniffing of Minerva was indistinguishable somewhere to her right. She opened her eyes again and still couldn't believe what she was seeing. I've never liked how I look in all white. But she had to hand it to Madame Malkin, this dress was spectacular. The strapless bodice fit tightly over her top, showcasing the curves that normally hid under layers and layers of baggy jumpers. When the dress hit her hips, it slowly flared out into an ethereal collection of wispy white trains. Most of the wedding dresses she had seen were bulky and looked like the wearer would be better suited standing on top of a cake than walking down the aisle, but this dress suggested motion even when she stood completely still.
"You look so beautiful, my dear." Professor McGonagall's voice trembled slightly, her maternal urges swelling as she watched her former student twirl slowly, eyeing the mirror as if she wasn't sure she believed it.
"Are you sure it's not too…" Hermione's voice suggested skepticism, but her face had begun to indicate that she couldn't find anything to make her anything on the dress that made her look anything other than gorgeous.
"…perfect?" Ginny finished Hermione's sentence. "He's going to die when he sees you, Hermione." And with the thought of her Severus, Hermione's stony mask finally crumbled away as she broke into an ear-to-ear grin. Giggling like the schoolgirl she had not been for quite some time, she indulged herself in one more spin, watching in the mirror as the bottom of her dress fluttered in the small breeze created by her movement.
"Okay, I kind of love it." Hermione grinned at the two, still slightly teary-eyed women in the fitting room with her.
"Meddling old fool. I bring him back from the dead, and your first official act…it's like he can't help himself!" Severus muttered, mostly to himself, as the tailor's hands covered what felt like every inch of his body. He chanced a look over his shoulder at Harry, who was snickering quietly at Severus' mutters. How times have changed. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be getting fitted for wedding robes with the bloody Boy Who Lived as my best man and I'd be doing it all voluntarily, why I'd have hexed them into the next dimension.
However, it was hard to hang onto the same level of bitterness he had previously held for every aspect of his life with the constant idea that in less than a week his Hermione would be Hermione Snape. Just thinking of the idea that she would be his, that she wanted to be his, made it hard for him to suppress a smile that would truly be contradictory towards his hard-fought reputation as the surly potion master. But as the tailors hands continually tugged and pulled on the black fabric (at least I get to wear black) his mind wandered back to how this had all come to pass.
"He offered you a job?" Severus' eyes widened as Hermione recounted the outcome of her meeting with Dumbledore. "What position?"
"Professor of Arithmancy," Hermione said both meekly and with a small hint of pride. When she saw Severus' face light up, she beamed. "He said that after the battle Professor Vector didn't think she could manage to be at Hogwarts anymore, and with the independent work I had been doing…he thought that I would be able to manage. For the next year I will complete my seventh year course work while undergoing extensive training both in arithmancy and in teaching. I'll shadow different professors, learn as much as I can, and then begin teaching the following year."
"Congratulations, love, that's quite a vote of confidence!" Severus reached out to hug her, but stopped when he saw a flicker of something cross her face. Immediately worried, he pulled back. "What?"
"Well, there was one condition for my employment." Hermione bit her lip and glanced down before continuing. "Since I will technically be a student for one more year, he had, well, there are school rules against students dating teachers."
Severus launched into a very well-spoken rant about how it was preposterous that Dumbledore could not see that what had transpired between them was far and above that which those rules sought to prevent when it hit him.
"Why did you say it like that?" His eyes dug deep into her as she dared to lift her brown eyes up to meet his gaze.
"He said that the only way we could navigate around our relationship and my continued presence as a student was if we…um…expedited things a bit." She held her breath, awaiting his outburst of rage and indignation, but it never came. Instead, he breathed a sigh of relief and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"You're not upset?" She looked at him questioningly.
"My dear fiancée," he pulled her deeper into his arms and used one hand to brush a tendril of hair out of her face as he spoke, "I had rather hoped the end result of my proposing to you would be that we would, in fact, get married." He placed another chaste kiss, this time on her nose. "While I would have preferred that Albus not have such a say in personal decisions between the two of us, it does give me an excellent excuse not to have to wait to make you my own." And with that, he swooped her up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and pressed his lips so fervently to hers that it was clear the conversation was over.
It was incredible to the couple how fast everyone in their lives had mobilized around the joint cause of their wedding. For everyone around them, it was a testament to the fact that the war was really over and an excellent excuse to focus on something other than repairing the damages to the castle, recovering from the vast number of funerals that had been held in the wake of the battle, and dealing with the emotional trauma that always came with war. No one could turn down the chance to celebrate something good that had happened because of the war. For those that had been items on Severus' list or the family members thereof, this was a chance to show their gratitude.
Ginny and Molly seemed to have made the wedding their full-time jobs. Hermione and Severus had both been told that they were officially banned from the now-restored Great Hall, for fear that they would catch a glimpse of the decorations that had already started going up. The happy couple was only too happy to accommodate, leaving the wedding planning to the "Weasley womenfolk", as Severus called them, and retreating into Severus' rooms. Their meals were served to them by house elves, much to Hermone's dismay, but she allowed it as this meant she was now free to spend quality time with Severus without the inconvenience of braving the crowds at mealtimes.
Much to Severus' surprise, they were not alone as often as he would have thought. Harry stopped by regularly in the evenings to visit not just Hermione, but Severus as well. He, Ginny, and Ron had been offered positions as Aurors and were just beginning training, so the conversation often revolved around his training, the best ways to track down remaining Death Eaters, and how best to avoid Ministry politics. Somehow the revelation of everything Severus had done for Harry in his mother's name had created a bond of mutual respect between the two. Hermione occasionally sat back in surprised silence as the two verbally dueled over whatever was that evening's hot topic.
Another surprising friendship was that between Severus and Lupin. Since the engagement party, Lupin regularly stopped by Severus' room for extended periods of time. Dumbledore had rehired Lupin as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, so the first few days Lupin knocked hesitantly with muttered excuses about needing help refining the curriculum. After a while, the two men lapsed into an unusual friendship that often featured long work sessions about the application of certain spells to complex potions. After trying to follow one such conversation, even Hermione declared herself completely lost and allowed the men to retreat back into Severus' private laboratory to test their latest theory while she curled up with a heavy tome on advanced Arithmancy.
Hermione's favorite visitor was Minerva, as she now insisted on being called ("we're going to be colleagues, after all"). Minerva came up most mornings after breakfast to help Hermione with her teacher training. While Severus constantly reminded them that Hermione was only going to be the Arithmancy professor, the two witches had a knack for getting caught up in a topic and straying deep into transfiguration theory, historical runes, or many other realms, some of which he vehemently insisted were not actually real topics of study. The only thing that Hermione enjoyed more than her intellectual discussions with Minerva was listening to the sarcastic banter the two colleagues traded back and forth.
Even with all the visitors, Hermione and Severus made the most of their time together at night. It always started out with dinner, then a cup of tea and a discussion of the events of the day, yet they usually found themselves drawn toward the bed and discussion faded away into more interesting activities. While Severus made sure that the boundaries they had set remained intact, there were several moments when it was only the self control he had cultivated as a long time double agent in a brutal wizarding war that had made it possible to not pin her to the bed and claim her as his own.
After one such session, Hermione lay panting against Severus' chest. She lay silently for a few minutes, listening to the sound of his heartbeat returning to a normal pace. Severus' silky voice broke the silence.
"This is your last night as Hermione Granger, my dear. Any last requests?"
"I already have everything I want. Now I just need tomorrow to come," she said smilingly as she absentmindedly drew shapes on his chest with her fingers.
"I'm glad you feel that way. Would you indulge me one thing?" Severus sat up as he spoke and, seeing her nod of assent, traipsed over to his drawers and came back to the bed with a box in his hands. Hermione sat up, wrapping the sheet around herself like a toga, and looked excitedly at Severus.
"I got you a wedding present, but I know we will both be quite busy tomorrow, so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind opening it tonight." He handed her the plate-sized box and looked at her with a mix of the look of a small child on Christmas morning and that of someone of great faith looking at a holy relic. Hermione opened the box and gasped.
"How did you find this?" Her eyes were wide with shock, surprise, and adoration.
"I have some friends who are very good with locating charms. One of them owed me a fairly substantial favor. May I?" Hermione nodded, still overcome with astonishment and disbelief. As Severus pulled the sapphire necklace from the box, he wordlessly conjured a mirror so she could see herself as he put it on. To his great pleasure, he saw a smile growing rapidly on her face.
"I believe the tradition states you need something old, new, borrowed, and blue. This most definitely fits three out of four criteria, as it was borrowed from the nest of a particularly avaricious creature of the deep somewhere in the waters North of Anguilla." As he spoke, Hermione turned to him with a look of wonder on her face.
"I can't believe you even remembered the story I told you about my mom losing this. And you actually found it….thank you." It was the most heartfelt expression of thanks Severus had ever heard, reinforced by a slow, tender kiss.
"You look beautiful," he replied, watching the necklace mirror the way the moonlight danced off her eyes. Hermione's expression changed into a mildly mischievous smile as she spoke.
"Wait until you see me tomorrow."