Written for the Potions and Parchment Harlequin Romance Challenge. Here's the description of the type of romance story chosen:
"Heartwarming Romances" Elements
Clean, sweet, feel-good stories that readers can share with friends and family of all ages.
Contemporary romances with a focus on family and community. Popular themes include: coming home, becoming a family (single parents, children and secret babies), holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving), traditional romance themes such as marriage of convenience and fake relationship, and quirky pets or animals.
Characters are everyday men and women facing the challenges of modern life and relationships with courage and hope. Heroes are dependable, loyal and honest. Heroines are optimistic, empathetic and independent, with strong ties to the people and world around her.
Although the developing romance between the hero and heroine is always the focus, Heartwarming's longer permitted word count allows the author to show the family and friends around the central couple. Subplots featuring best friends, siblings, coworkers and neighbors are welcome and help create a community that readers will want to escape to again and again. "Heartwarming" typically are around 75,000 words.
Heartwarming romances feature a low sensuality level. Hugs and kisses only. Still, lots of romantic attraction and tension is required!
No explicit or behind-closed-doors sex, nudity, pre-marital sex, profanity or graphic depictions of violence. (May or may not follow this. I'm still undecided as I edit and finish this up. I'll change the rating if I slip in a little Boom-chicka-wow-wow.)
No explicit religious content. No heavy suspense.
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Chapter 1
Hermione Granger made her way into the Great Hall and up to the High Table. She nodded to Severus Snape, the Headmaster, and settled herself next to him. He nodded back. Breakfast was always a quiet time for the two of them, both too bleary-eyed to say more than a few words to one another.
Hermione eyed the students. Some were quiet, but most chattered with their schoolmates, talking about the big Quidditch game coming up that weekend. Slytherin versus Ravenclaw, with Slytherin being highly favored. Even Hermione was hoping they would be victorious, but she would never say that aloud to anyone.
She was spooning some oatmeal into her mouth when the owls entered, dropping their parcels and landing next to those who were lucky enough to get some sort of mail. Hermione's eyes grew wide when a brown owl landed in front of her with a letter in his beak.
She reached out and removed the letter from the owl, causing Severus to look over at her.
"From my parents," she explained as she dug in her pockets and pulled out some owl treats.
The owl gobbled them up and flew off, signaling a reply wasn't necessary. Hermione smiled as she watched it wing away, then slowly tore into the envelope. Reading the letter, her smile disappeared. Finishing reading, she dropped the letter down into her lap and sighed. Severus turned and arched a brow at her.
Picking up the letter once again, she waved it at him.
"They're writing about my visit next month during the Easter Hols."
"And?"
She slammed the letter on the table.
"All they've done for the past six months is nag me about finding a 'man,'" she said while making quotation marks with her fingers. "They feel I'm getting too old and need to settle down and start giving them grandchildren."
She huffed and picked up the letter.
"They even suggested I get back with Ron, for the love of all things holy."
"Weasley? Didn't you two break up because you caught him in bed with someone else?"
Hermione's lips formed a straight line. "Yes. On three different occasions. It'll be a cold day in hell before I consider reconciling with him!"
"So, what are you going to do?"
"Tell them to stop trying to control my life!"
Severus chuckled. "And how will that go over?"
She turned to him. "Probably not well, but what am I supposed to do? I can't just pick a man out of thin air and create a relationship with him."
"Hmm…"
Hermione gave him an incredulous look.
"Oh no, Severus Snape, whatever you're thinking, just stop right now."
He looked at her and smirked. "Are you sure you don't want to hear my idea? It's brilliant."
"Merlin… I'm going to regret this, but… what is your idea?"
"I can accompany you as your boyfriend."
"Oh… no. No, no, no. That will not do!"
"Why not?"
"My parents will have a fit that I'm dating someone your age."
Severus frowned momentarily but then smirked again. "Won't that help them to see that nagging you is not the way for you to find eternal happiness?"
Hermione stared at Severus for a bit before giving him a conspiratorial grin. "That actually might work. You're right, Severus, that is a brilliant idea. I can let them know about you now, and we can work together so we look like we're actually a couple when we visit."
"We'll need to really ham it up. Make them so disgusted that they never say another word about who you are dating or guilting you because you're not seeing anyone."
Hermione placed her hand on Severus' arm.
"Thank you, Severus. I think this actually may be fun! Will you come by and help me write a response to my parents?"
"I'm at your beck and call."
They finished their breakfast and agreed to meet with one another after the last class of the day so they could create a good response to the Granger's demanding letter.
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Hermione heard a knock at her door and went to answer it, knowing it was Severus.
"Hi," she said with a smile.
He bowed his head in greeting and stepped through the doorway.
"Have you thought about what you want to say in your letter?" he asked.
She nodded. "I'm formulating it. I have an idea. You can definitely help me out."
She moved over to her desk. She'd set up a chair next to hers, and Severus settled into it. Pulling out a piece of parchment, she took her quill and looked over at Severus.
"I want to just start out with the announcement."
Severus nodded.
She read aloud as she wrote.
"Dear Mum and Dad, It was lovely hearing from you. I have some news that I think you will be happy to hear."
She bit her lip before continuing to write. "I know you are concerned about my lack of love life. I want to ease your worries by letting you know I am now involved with someone. I have been seeing Severus for a couple of weeks now."
She looked over at Severus and arched a brow.
"That sounds feasible," he offered.
Nodding, she continued. "Yes, Severus my employer. We are very happy together. I hope you'll rejoice in our union. I look forward to seeing you next month, and of course, he'll be accompanying me. Love, Hermione."
She looked down at the note and then over at Severus. "So, what do you think?"
"It's good, but I think you should gush about us some more. Make them sickened by how much we adore one another."
She smirked at him.
"That's brilliant. What can we say?"
"How about… we have come to the decision that we are madly in love with one another and were just hiding our feelings for years."
"Yes!" Hermione cried and waved her wand, making space for her to fit that into the letter.
She quickly entered it in after her written revelation that she was seeing her boss.
"Anything else?" she asked, poised to write it.
"I think that will suffice."
Hermione grinned at Severus. "They're going to flip," she said.
He smirked back at her. She folded up the parchment and put it into an envelope.
"They prefer an envelope instead of a scroll. Seems more Muggle to them," she said offhandedly. "Not that they don't love magic; they do. Just not as much since I Obliviated them."
Severus frowned. "You never really talk about that. What exactly happened when you restored their memories?"
She looked at him and frowned. It was hard for her to talk about it because they had rejected her for at least a year. She shrugged at Severus.
"They were furious. They didn't understand why I didn't tell them or give them a choice. I can understand that, but they would have refused. I know they would have. And now they'd be dead."
"What did they say when you explained that to them?"
"They didn't believe it had been so serious. They didn't speak to me for over a year. Finally, Harry went and visited them. He brought copies of the Prophet during the war. He told them what we went through. He had told me he was going to try to convince them before he went there. I was pretty indifferent at the time."
"Sure you were."
Her head shot up, and she looked at him. "No, really, I was. I had resigned myself to the fact that I'd lost my parents forever, and nothing I could do would change that. I didn't dare hope that Harry could make them see it differently. I didn't have it in me to deal with the crushing disappointment if nothing changed."
"I'm sorry you had to deal with that. What happened after Potter's visit?"
"They took another month, but then they reached out and asked me to visit. They said they understood why I did what I did and forgave me for not telling them."
She bristled a little bit. "As I said, I didn't want to even hope, but they kept reassuring me that they were over their anger with me."
"So, how long did it take for you all to have a good relationship again?"
Hermione thought. "It was another year. Everything was very formal for a while. Slowly things became more natural. I visited Australia every month–sometimes every two weeks. I knew we had healed when we spent the night laughing about my childhood penchant for always being right."
"You mean there was a time when you weren't always right? Do tell."
Hermione turned red. "Well, when I was eight, it seems that I thought that the moon was really only the size of a ten-pence coin."
Severus chuckled at her. "You really thought that?"
She nodded and grinned shyly.
"It took my parents a long time to convince me otherwise. I mean… there it was up in the sky, no bigger than a ten-pence. How could it be any larger?"
Quickly changing the subject, she continued.
"Anyway, let's meet up tomorrow evening and go over some things about our families," she offered.
"Why?"
"If we're going to be a couple, we'll need to know things about one another. Things that normal friends may not know. We need to be convincing."
Severus frowned. "If we must."
"We definitely must or my parents will see right through us."
"Very well. Why don't you stop by my quarters around seven tomorrow night?"
"Sounds great."
Severus stood and bowed his head to her. "I will see you at dinner, then."
With that, he turned and was off. Hermione stared after him. Severus and she were decent friends. It had surprised her to no end, but he actually instigated it. As Headmaster, he made it a habit to make small talk with all of the professors. In chatting, they both discovered they had quite a bit in common and a friendship had blossomed. It was one of the things Hermione truly loved about her job. She actually loved everything about her job, but Severus' friendship was something special to her. She'd not imagined the man could be courteous in the least, but she hadn't really known him before starting as the Arithmancy professor five years prior.
Over the years Hermione had found Severus to be quite hilarious. His dry sarcasm was truly hysterical on most days. She felt he appreciated her knowledge. They often spent their evenings discussing the latest Potions or Arithmancy article that had been published, staying up late into the night.
Hermione smiled as she thought about that. Severus was a good friend, and it was lovely that he was willing to pose as her significant other just to shut her parents up. She didn't know of anyone else who would do such a thing.
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A/N: You know about me and being anal about posting things that are completed on my hard drive. This isn't quite there but will be by the end of the month. Postings will be weekly on Fri/Sat. Hope you all enjoy.