Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any related characters. Making no money here, as they all still belong to their prospective owners.
Chapter Fifteen: Harsh Reality
Whoever said that time healed all wounds was a liar. And time, itself… well, time was just a bitch. Somehow, though Hermione could not rightfully state how the days had passed, but passed they had and now it was the day before the dreaded wedding. Snape and she had made another trip into Diagon Alley straight to Madam Malkin's to pick out another set of dress robes. Snape, it seemed, was eager to keep up appearances in more ways than one, which shocked Hermione only marginally less than his revelations about his feelings for Lily Potter.
Wouldn't Harry get a kick out of that?
But Hermione had kept the subject a closed one, as it obviously caused Snape a great deal of pain. He looked almost physically wracked whenever Lily was even slightly referenced—which she had done only once, on accident, immediately following their discussion that night—so Hermione was sure never to bring it up—and she surely wasn't going to mention it to anyone else. As she had decided about the resistance, some secrets were not hers to share.
So now, they stood in the fitting room once more, Hermione clad in the red set of dress robes that Snape had allowed her to pick out for herself. She had never been the sort to waste time posing in mirrors, but she had to admit, she struck quite the figure in this dress. Its straps were thin and mostly decorative—with cloth flowers dotting them, all solid red—and it cut in a V at the neck. The dress came down just to her shin, and it had a bit of a flare in the skirt, instead of hanging close to her legs. Hermione couldn't quite put a word to her feeling—because there were certain words she was just simply not going to use—but it felt important that she wore this dress—this particular dress—to Ron and Pansy's wedding.
Madam Malkin was out of the room, doing God knew what since the dress didn't exactly need altering, and Snape was seated in his usual chair in the corner. Instead of hiding his face in the newest edition of The Daily Prophet, he stared at Hermione, his chin resting on his knuckles.
"What?" Hermione finally asked him.
"Nothing. Just… are you quite sure that this is the dress you want to wear to the wedding?"
Hermione frowned at him from over her shoulder. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"It's just very..."
"Uh-huh?"
"Provocative."
She really didn't know how to respond to that. After all, for anyone to know—logically—what was provocative or not, they themselves had to find it provocative. And Hermione honestly didn't know how to feel about her former professor, now owner, finding her choice of dress provocative. She decided to shrug it off and change the subject, fast.
"So, Voldemort wants all of his Death Eaters to attend the wedding?"
She tried to poise this question as innocently as possible. But Snape's brow arched, ever so slightly, and she had the feeling that he was seeing right through her. Her face was growing hot for reasons she could not explain.
"Yes, with the exception of a choice few, we all must attend. Otherwise, I would obviously not be attending."
Hermione turned, trying to peer at the back of her dress in the mirror. Thankfully, enchanted mirrors had the singular advantage of showing you your back without you having to stretch in any odd way. She liked the way the V in the back was set against her shoulders. She glanced back at Snape.
"So, why? Why does he want you all there?"
"Haven't the foggiest."
"Do you think that it has to do with the weapon?"
At this, Snape sighed and rested his hands in his lap, glaring daggers at her.
"Could you speak louder? I don't believe the diners at the Leaky Cauldron quite heard you."
"Sorry," she answered, properly abashed. "But… do you, really? I mean, what else could it be?"
"It could be, and then again it might not. As you can attest to, there have not been many meetings called lately. Unfortunately, we are all, quite well, in the dark on this one."
Malkin took that moment to bustle back in. She questioned Hermione about the fit, and when the younger witch said that it was perfect, Malkin then instructed Hermione to redress and bring the dress robes for packaging and payment. Once it was all said and done, Snape and Hermione were back at Spinner's End well before it was time for tea.
Snape did his usual afternoon ritual of sitting and reading, leaving Hermione with no instruction on anything whatsoever. Which was fine. The less she was ordered around like a slave, the less she felt like one. But now, without a wand and being unable to leave without Snape in attendance with her, she had very little to do. She would be damned if she was going to clean like a maid for him. Most of the shelves and books, despite Snape's avid reading habit, looked as if a duster had not touched them in a decade or more. If he wasn't going to care to keep them properly cleaned, then neither was she.
So she was back at square one. Truth be told, she should be taking up her free time with something a bit more academic. Since choosing not to return to Hogwarts for her seventh year, going instead with Ron and Harry, she had very probably fallen way behind the level that perhaps those who remained at school were at. But catching up without a wand was difficult, nearer to impossible.
When she looked up, she realized she had wandered upstairs, floating outside of the doors to the loo and her own bedroom. She frowned, knowing that there was nothing useful up here. She made her way back downstairs, hoping that Snape had not noticed her absent-minded wanderings. She made her way over to the bookshelf built into the wall on the right side of the alcove. She ran her finger across several spines, grimacing at the dust collected on the pad. Finally, she came to a stop at a potions book she had not heard of before. There were some potions that didn't require wand work. It wouldn't be much catching up, but it would be some.
She liberated the book from its musty brothers, taking up her usual seat at the end of the sofa. Her eyes grazed over the ridiculous invitation to the wedding she would be attending tomorrow. Why hadn't they thrown that thing away yet? It wasn't like Snape didn't know where it was. But, nevertheless, it lay there, unharmed and unmoved since the day of its arrival—simultaneously the day that Hermione was attacked.
Doing her best to put it out of mind, she cracked the cover of the book, her eyes roving over the title Everyday Potions Not Taught at School before she flipped to the first page of the introduction.
She skipped the first paragraph or so, flipping the page before she realized she had not so much skimmed as not read at all. She turned the page back over, trying again. The author was describing how some of the most useful potions were often neglected when it came to teaching curriculum. The author then continued to describe, in some detail, why these potions…
Her eyes were beginning to strain, not but a single page into the book. She lifted them, searching the room only to give them a break from the tightly formed lettering. They flitted across the invitation again, and she huffed before returning to her reading.
…why these potions were necessary. The author was advocating that the potions listed in this book—while rarely taught—were among the most widely used potions in wizarding kind. They were potions such as—Damn it all!
There was that damned invitation again, just sitting there! A constant hellish reminder in blue and silver of the horrible event she would be forced to endure tomorrow. A reminder of how much her and her friends' free wills were jeopardized. Ron didn't want to marry Pansy. He couldn't stand her! The fact that this thing had made it as far as this was laughable and sickening and horrifying and unbelievable all wrapped up into one.
Snape clearing his throat brought Hermione crashing back into the present. Apparently, she had stared away from the open book in her head, and instead was openly seething at the parchment invite beside her. She felt his eyes on her, and she turned, seeing that his gaze was not without its sympathy. Hermione decided to forgo pretense. She shut her book, tossing it gently to the other end of the sofa, and picked up the invite. She held it in her hands, staring at it but once again not really seeing it. Snape lowered his own reading material.
"I know how you must feel," he whispered.
She spared him a glance, letting him know that his words were being heard. He continued.
"I, naturally, was not invited to Lily's wedding, but I was aware of when it took place. I won't lie. It was torture. Worse than any Cruciatus I had ever endured."
That caused Hermione to lower the invitation out of her eyesight. She was sure that any mention of Lily was something of the most horrible difficulty for him, any way one could look at it. But he broached the subject… for this. For her and what she was going through. She cracked a tiny, watery smile.
"I can imagine how you felt."
Snape rolled his eyes. "Of course you can. Why else would I bring it up? But—" Snape stood, moving to sit on the cushion next to Hermione, as he had the day she had killed Crabbe. Without touching her, he held her gaze, and he continued. "But you must understand something. To remain alive in this new world, in this new life, you have to allow yourself to mourn. You need to let it out."
She blinked, her lashes wet with unshed tears. "What? I don't—Ron's not dead. Mourn? None of my friends are dead," she said, adding "yet" in a tiny voice.
He sighed. "You don't understand. You see, we have no real way of knowing what life will be like, once this is all over. Once the Dark Lord's reign is ended. There's no way of knowing how long the world will be like this. Weasley and Miss Parkinson's wedding, while forced upon them, will still be legally binding. Even after the Dark Lord is gone. No one can say what will happen to them during this interim. And, sometimes, enemies become lovers. Believe me. I… speak from experience."
Hermione's mouth dropped open, ready to protest. Ron hated Pansy! That would never happen! But before the words could make it past her lips, she paused. She thought back to the last resistance meeting she had attended… Ron had seemed almost forgiving of Pansy. And Ginny with Draco… it was like they didn't mind them so much anymore. Like… it was okay, being forced to be with these horrible people.
She lifted her eyes to Snape's, and then the tears began to flow. She sobbed, weeping into her hand. Before she knew what she was doing—so desperate for comfort, for the aching inside her soul to subside—she had leaned onto Snape's shoulder. She didn't care how damned awkward it was, she needed this. She needed to mourn and be comforted in that mourning—much like Snape had suggested. After several long moments of sobbing, she felt his arms rise, wrapping around her. He made no attempt to shush her or verbally console her at all. Instead, he simply let her cry, her tears soaking into his sleeve.
And it was better for her that way.
