For the Potions Master's Amusement

Chapter 43: Roissy House

Hermione gaped at Taffy. 'But I thought all the prisoners were broken out,' she said.

Taffy nodded earnestly, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. 'Oh, they were—and I know it's silly of me—but I take it as a very personal favour that our mutual friend was the mastermind behind the plan.'

She's even more soppy about her Master than I am about mine, Hermione thought. Keeping her amusement to herself, she said, 'How do you know he was the mastermind?'

Taffy turned her wide blue eyes to the window, watching the countryside blur by. 'My husband told me, in a letter—"our clever friend", he called him.' She smiled tenderly, apparently lost in remembrances of her husband's missive.

Hermione shifted a bit impatiently. 'When will we see them?' she asked, her need to see Professor Snape's hawkish countenance a sharp pain behind her breastbone.

Taffy seemed to recollect her surroundings and drew her attention back to Hermione. 'I will see my husband very soon,' she said softly. 'It could be as soon as tonight, or it could be several days. It may be a bit longer before you see our friend.'

Hermione bit her lip, trying not to express her impatience, but Taffy seemed to know her thoughts exactly.

'I know how difficult it is to wait, Hermione,' she said, patting her arm comfortingly. 'It's just that my husband has been incarcerated for over a year, and he has a good excuse to slip away from You-Know-Who for a bit, to take care of personal business. Whereas your—' she mouthed professor 'doesn't have that excuse. It may be a bit longer before he can make an excuse to be absent.'

Hermione couldn't fault the logic, even if she hated the reality of it. Of course Master Maximus would be allowed time to pick up the threads of his abandoned life more quickly than her professor would be able to get away. She understood it, but she didn't have to like it. 'Right,' she said. 'Well, where are we going?'

Taffy smiled sweetly. 'To one of the most wonderful places I've ever been,' she said. 'If home is the place to which you can return at any time, always knowing you'll be welcomed with open arms, then it's home, to me.'

Hermione frowned. 'Not your parents' house, surely?'

Taffy chuckled. 'Oh, no,' she assured Hermione.

There was a loud bang!, and the Knight Bus lurched violently, and they were no longer in the countryside but in the middle of a city. Hermione and Taffy righted themselves, exchanging exasperated glances.

'I would've taken you to London by Floo,' Taffy said apologetically, 'but I thought we'd need the time to discuss things before you decide what you want to do.'

Hermione felt irritated and annoyed; travelling by the Knight Bus was enough to make anyone nauseous, and her anxiety was whittling away at her patience. Couldn't the silly girl get on with it? Stepping hard on her impatience, Hermione said, 'Why don't you explain it to me in detail?'

Taffy settled back in her seat and slipped a short, supple wand of pale wood from her sleeve and gave it wave, murmuring Muffliato. 'It all began twenty years or so ago, when my husband and his friend left school,' she said, in the tone of one about to tell a fairy tale. 'They were eighteen, had already joined their exclusive group, and yet they both felt a bit outcast amongst the other followers.'

Hermione tilted her head to one side. 'But why did they feel outcast?'

Taffy absentmindedly stroked the black fur which edged the hood of her cloak. 'Your friend was a half-blood, which made his social status questionable,' she explained. 'My husband was pure-blood, and his family were all involved in the group, but his heart wasn't really in it.' She pursed her lips for a moment. 'I wish with all my heart he had just left home, but at the time, it didn't occur to him to go against his family.'

Hermione nodded, wondering just who Taffy's husband was. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, but she didn't want to distract the other girl from the telling of her tale, so she just nodded for Taffy to continue.

'The city nightlife in those days was not as … specialised then as it is now,' Taffy said. 'There were perhaps four pubs in wizarding London, and they were frequented more along age lines—and bloodlines—than along other preferences.'

Hermione frowned. 'I'm not sure I understand you,' she said.

Taffy giggled. 'Well, in wizarding London now, you can find a pub or a club that caters to every taste,' she explained. 'There are clubs for gays, for the S and M crowd, for D/s—and plenty of places for vanilla folks to go and pretend they don't know about the other sort.'

The mischievous grin on Taffy's face drew an answering grin from Hermione. 'I see,' she said, trying to imagine what a D/s club would be like.

'There was a rather dodgy pub in Knockturn Alley in which our men spent their free evenings. Apparently, the main attraction was cheap drink. There was also a witch who was often there with her escort, and our men were fascinated by the behaviour of this witch. She either sat upon a stool at her companion's knee or she sat in his lap. She wore clothing which bordered on the provocative, but she never spared a glance for another human being—her attention was all for her escort. They found her manner and her interactions with her companion to be very compelling. Then one night, the woman came to their table and invited them to join her and her escort.'

The Knight Bus jerked to one side with an alarming rattling noise, and they were zooming along the seaside, the winter ocean an uninviting iron grey. Hermione stared at the water, feeling minutely jealous of the submissive whose behaviour had so enchanted her professor.

'That was how my husband and his best friend made the acquaintance of Hadrian Hunter, the director of Roissy House, in London.'

Hermione cut across her eagerly. 'Roissy? But that's the name of the chateau in The Story of O, where O is trained to be a submissive.'

'Then you've been reading on the subject,' Taffy said with approval. 'Well, it's no surprise, really, to see that our friend is properly educating you.'

'So, does such a place really exist?' Hermione asked. 'I understood that O was a fictional character.'

Stan Shunpike toiled up the steps to the second level of the bus, perilously balancing a steaming teapot and two cups on a tray. Hermione watched him without breathing, ready to cast a shield charm should the bus suddenly lurch and send scalding liquid into the air. Thankfully, he made it up to them and set the tray on a small table at Taffy's elbow. 'There you go, Miss,' he said with an admiring look for the fair witch. 'Sorry it took so long.'

Taffy responded with an angelic smile. 'Thank you,' she said, turning to pour hot chocolate into the teacups spangled with pink rosebuds.

The dazzled Stan Shunpike made his way back down the stairs, and Hermione accepted her welcome cup from her companion, amused.

'I thought we might be glad of something warm to drink,' Taffy confided, reaching into her handbag and producing a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. She opened them and offered one to Hermione, a perfect hostess.

Hermione took the biscuit and consumed it thankfully; she had been unable to eat much at breakfast.

'In answer to your question,' Taffy said, sipping at her hot chocolate, 'as far as I know, O is a fictional character. Roissy House was named as homage to the ideal of the chateau in her story.' She stopped to nibble at a biscuit. 'I will introduce you to Hadrian, and he will be delighted if you ask him to tell you the history of Roissy House. Let me just say that it was established about forty years ago by people who were serious about living the D/s lifestyle. A trust was established to support the running of the actual house, and there is an advisory group. The head of the advisory group is the live-in director of Roissy House.'

Hermione placed her cup on the table and frowned. 'I don't understand,' she said. 'Do people live there? What happens there?'

'It's a very large house in Mayfair, in London,' Taffy said. 'There are many bedrooms, common rooms, receiving rooms, and several spaces set up just like flats. So, some people live there, some people visit for extended periods of time, and there are many who come to stay for the weekend when there is an event.'

Good heavens! Hermione thought. It must be a mansion, if it had that many rooms. How did a group of wizards manage to maintain a low profile in a Mayfair mansion?

'Of course,' Taffy added, as if reading Hermione's mind, 'Roissy is Secret-Kept, so the Muggles don't even know it's there.' She finished the last of her hot chocolate and put her cup on the tray. 'As for what happens there, mostly, it's just everyday living. And once or twice a month, there are social occasions, like parties, or something special, such as a collaring ceremony.' She smiled. 'We really like excuses to get together and show off a bit.'

Hermione was intrigued. 'How do you go about showing off?' she asked.

Taffy giggled. 'You'll have to wait and see,' she said.

The Knight Bus careened wildly and banged down in the middle of a posh-looking street.

'Grosvenor Square, London,' Stan Shunpike called up the stairs.

'Are you ready?' Taffy said, her cheeks suddenly flushed pink with excitement.

Hermione looked wildly out the window. 'This is our stop?' she asked, her heart suddenly thumping.

But Taffy was on her feet, hurrying down the stairs, and Hermione followed her. Before she knew what she was about, Hermione was standing on the street with her trunk and Crookshanks' basket at her feet. Taffy stood serenely beside her with only a small travelling bag in hand. Hermione glanced from left to right, wondering where they were going to go from here—surely they couldn't stand here so near the United States Embassy without attracting unwanted attention?

Then Taffy grabbed her hand. 'He's coming,' she whispered and nodded her head toward an older gentleman, who approached them with outstretched hands.

'Welcome!' he said, his voice low-pitched but brimming with sincerity.

Taffy did not hesitate to step into his embrace, and Hermione watched their emotional greeting. The wizard was silver-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in a fine Muggle overcoat, hatless in the winter air. He patted Taffy's back, dried her tears with his handkerchief, and whispered something to her before turning to Hermione.

'So,' he said, looking directly into her eyes, 'you are Severus' Hermione.'

Hermione felt gooseflesh break out on her arms. Though he had said very little, there was something about this man which reminded her forcibly of her Master. 'Yes, sir,' she answered, averting her eyes.

He tipped her chin with the slightest pressure of a gloved finger, and as soon as Hermione looked up again, he removed his hand from her face. 'You're very courteous,' he said, 'and I'm sure Master Severus would be proud of you.'

Hermione flushed; she was entirely unused to having anyone else speak of her Master, and the phenomenon filled her with a mixture of pride and longing.

'I am Hadrian Hunter,' the man continued, offering his hand, and Hermione shook it. 'How do you do?'

'I'm well, thank you, sir,' she answered.

Hunter smiled at her, and she saw that his smile reached his eyes, warming their expression. 'Have you decided if you would like to be our guest while you wait for Master Severus to return?' he asked her.

'Yes, if you please, sir,' Hermione replied, hoping they would soon move off the open street. She felt entirely too strange in her school cloak to be standing about in Mayfair.

'Then please read and memorise this,' Hadrian Hunter said, passing Hermione a slip of paper. She opened it and read the elegant script.

The location of Roissy House is number eleven, Grosvenor Square.

And as the slip of paper disintegrated in her hand, an impressive Georgian edifice seemed to spring from the very bricks of the building before her.

'Welcome home, Hermione,' Hadrian Hunter said, nodding to the open door.


A/N: This would have been up yesterday, but the site was down. You've been remarkably patient, for which I thank you! The next chapter should bring some indication of the Potions master—including the past students he has mentored!—and the chapter following that should bring his actual presence. Onward!