For the Potions Master's Amusement
Chapter 42: Double Duty
Hermione was staring down into the hated face of Miss Taffy Smith, shop girl and cow.
'You!' Hermione spat, the collision of her worlds throwing her momentarily off balance.
The other woman's face broke into a smile. 'I've seen you before, in the Three Broomsticks,' she said in a friendly fashion. 'I wonder why he didn't just tell me it was you—because you've grown up tremendously since this was taken.'
Taffy extended something towards Hermione, who snatched it and stared if for no other reason than to have something to do besides looking into Taffy's face. It was a newspaper clipping, carefully trimmed about the rectangular edges of the photograph, but dangerously tattered along the midline crease, as if it had been folded and carried in a man's wallet. The photograph was of her, primped and dressed for the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournament—the year she had gone with Viktor Krum. With a fingertip, she traced the nearly transparent crease, worn from numerous occasions of hiding, revealing, and hiding again the photograph, in which Hermione smiled, dipped her head shyly, and darted a coquettish look from beneath her lashes.
'Where did you get this?' she asked, her mind unable to grasp the obvious answer.
The Knight Bus lurched violently into action and a chorus of startled laughs issued from the students seated below. Taffy Smith braced herself and watched Hermione with a half-smile on her lips. 'I think you already know the answer to that question,' she said simply.
Hermione thrust the clipping back at Taffy, but the other girl waved it off. 'You can keep it,' she said. 'I'm sure he'll want it back.'
Hermione looked up eagerly. 'I'll see him?' she breathed.
Taffy leaned forward and gave her hand a comforting squeeze. 'Of course you will,' she said staunchly.
Hermione pulled her hand away, studying the other girl's features, feeling a roiling conflict of loathing mixed with hope. 'But he told me you aren't a submissive!' she blurted, remembering.
Taffy's eyebrows arched at Hermione's tone. 'Did he?' she said. 'How strange.' She pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her breasts. 'Were you, perhaps, jealous when you asked him?' she asked shrewdly.
Hermione felt her face flame, and her lips parted to deliver a heated response, but she was foiled by Taffy's soft, understanding laugh.
'Of course you were,' she said, almost as if to herself. 'You asked about me, he wouldn't tell you anything, and he finally got you to shut up about it when he told you I wasn't a sub.' She nodded, as if she had solved a difficult puzzle.
Hermione desperately wanted to say something annihilating, but she couldn't do it—Taffy's assessment was too close to the truth. 'I never really shut up about it,' she admitted sotto voce, staring at her hands.
A gurgle of laughter greeted her statement. 'I wouldn't have done, either,' Taffy assured her. 'I'm sorry that he wouldn't tell you about me, Hermione, but you see, he had promised my husband he wouldn't.'
Hermione's head jerked up, her eyes widening. What was she thinking? This was t, Master Maximus' wife—of course she wasn't after Hermione's Master. 'I … I see,' she said.
Taffy took her hand again, giving it another squeeze, and this time, Hermione returned the pressure, feeling a measure of comfort beginning to thaw the icy terror which had been coursing through her for the best part of two days.
'Would you like to hear about it?' Taffy inquired gently.
'Very much,' Hermione said gratefully.
Taffy nodded and settled back in her seat again. 'Well, if you've read my book, then you already know how I met and married my husband,' she said. 'He was a schoolmate of …' her eyes darted side-to-side as she lowered her voice 'our mutual friend's. They both became part of two exclusive groups when they left school. Can you guess what they were?'
Hermione swallowed. 'One was the Death Eaters,' she whispered.
'Yes,' Taffy said. 'The other was the D/s community in London.'
Hermione's lips formed a small horrified circle. 'Please tell me the two aren't related,' she begged.
Taffy shook her head in the negative. 'There is some overlapping of those in the lifestyle amongst both the Dark and the Light,' she said. 'As a group, however, the D/s community is apolitical. When we come together, we leave those distinctions at the door.'
Hermione looked sceptical. 'And it's as easy as that?' she asked.
Taffy shrugged. 'The doyen of our group is well respected, and at our meetings, his word is law.' For a moment, she seemed lost in thought, then she turned back to Hermione. 'You're familiar with the return of You-Know-Who,' she stated.
Hermione grimaced. 'Unfortunately.'
'That occurred soon after my marriage took place.' Taffy looked sad. 'My husband was, of course, constrained to return to You-Know-Who. However, during the years of the Dark Lord's absence, our mutual friend had convinced my husband that the Light were in the right of things.'
Hermione breathed an internal sigh of relief. Thank Merlin Taffy's husband was no longer a believer in Voldemort's cause. How awkward it would have been for Harry Potter's best friend to be in the safekeeping of a Death Eater's wife! 'Where is your husband now?' Hermione asked.
'Patience, little sister,' Taffy said, her tone tinged with affection. 'My husband met with the Headmaster and pledged himself to spy for the Order of the Phoenix. Then a group of Death Eaters encountered Harry Potter at the Ministry of Magic.'
'I know,' Hermione interrupted grimly. 'I was there.'
Taffy regarded her with respect. 'You're very brave,' she said quietly. 'You know the Death Eaters involved in that debacle went to prison.' She pressed her lips firmly together, but Hermione could see the trembling, and suddenly, she understood.
'Your husband was one of them,' she said. 'He went to Azkaban.'
Taffy nodded, dashing at the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand. 'It was a terrible time,' she said, her voice thick with emotion.
Hermione pulled a handkerchief from her cloak pocket, feeling a thump of sympathy for the other girl. She had been separated from her Master for well over a year! How could she endure it?
'You must miss him awfully,' Hermione said.
'Every single day,' Taffy answered. She cleared her throat. 'My husband and I had been married secretly, you see—our families would not have consented or approved—so only our friends in the D/s community knew about us. He didn't want the Dark Lord to know about me, so he had made a contingency plan.'
'That must be a Dominant speciality,' Hermione said wryly.
Taffy continued as if Hermione had not spoken. 'I was frantic with worry, waiting for my husband to return, but it was our mutual friend who came knocking at my door well after midnight that night.' Taffy pulled the handkerchief through her fist, clearly lost in her memories.
'Did that alarm you?' Hermione asked. 'Having a stranger come to you?'
Taffy gave a watery chuckle. 'He wasn't a stranger,' she said. 'He's my husband's best friend and was the best man at my wedding—it was a relief to see him, I promise you.'
'Of course,' Hermione agreed, seeing how the pieces fit together. 'That makes perfect sense.'
Taffy continued her story. 'He insisted that I pack up my necessities and leave with him immediately, upon my husband's orders, for it was his task to see after me while my husband was unable to do so.'
Hermione tried to imagine the horror of the situation. 'You must have been very much afraid,' she said.
Taffy shook her head fiercely. 'Our mutual friend was stern and comforting at the same time. He told me I had to be brave and have faith that my husband would come back to me. He took me to Hogsmeade, and I became the shop girl at the apothecary's.' She smiled grimly. 'I worked six days a week in the shop and lived in a tiny flat above it, and I was never allowed to tell anyone who I was or where I was from, nor to correspond with my husband—but once a week, I was able to meet with my husband's best friend.'
Hermione closed her eyes. All those meetings—the ones Hermione had protested against so ferociously—had been poor Taffy's only contact with the life she had left behind her. Hermione felt sick with shame that she had been so possessive and untrusting.
'If our mutual friend had received owl post for me from the prison, he would bring it to me. He would accept my letters and agree to send them to my husband. He would listen to my worries and concerns and the petty annoyances of working as a village shop girl, and he would give me advice and assignments to keep me focussed.'
Hermione frowned. 'What sort of assignments?' she asked.
Taffy chuckled again. 'Not the sort he gave to you,' she said drolly. 'Mine were about learning to control my temper with the customers and holding my tongue with the apothecary and his wife.' She looked frankly into Hermione's face. 'He saw me every week for a few hours, Hermione, but there was never a hint of impropriety—it was like having a very strict older brother keeping tabs on me—but oh, he was kind. He understood how I felt to be away from my husband for so long. He was my saviour.'
Hermione looked into the wide blue eyes of Taffy Smith and believed her. Of course Professor Snape would have refused to discuss his best friend's wife when he was hiding her from Voldemort. What a heavy responsibility for her professor to have to bear … but he rather made a career of bearing such burdens, did he not? Her heart felt as if it contracted in her chest, and she was pierced with an intense stab of want for him.
Then Taffy's eyes filled with tears again as she said, 'He's doubly my saviour, now.'
'Doubly?' Hermione asked, perplexed.
'Of course,' Taffy said, her face suffused with sudden light. 'I would do anything for him. He broke my husband out of prison—haven't you guessed?'
A/N: I know very well how difficult it is to be without the professor for prolonged periods of time, but this telling of the back story is necessary. I'll try not to give too much at once, but you've had loads of questions, haven't you? Hopefully, I'm answering them. And patience will be rewarded, as you may imagine!
