AN: I need to thank everyone who has taken the time to leave reviews…especially those that wish Dragoon811 a happy birthday! We're about 2/3rds of the way in! I do plan to finish this in August so keep an eye out for updates. I post as soon as I finish a chapter!
It had taken Blaise days to pacify his mother. And the bloody woman only let up once he'd allowed her to check him for every spell, poultice, and potion known to wizardkind. She'd finally admitted defeat but not without a sour grumble about how Hermione's sudden popularity wasn't natural.
He thought the statement was rather ironic coming from his mother.
By the time he received his invitation to the Malfoy ball, it was too late. He caught her in the hallway of the Ministry, knowing that he wouldn't be able to enter her work space. She blushed and told him that Draco had already asked her.
"This is going to be about the cause, not about socializing. Making certain that treaty passes is very important if we want to avoid unrest with the Centaur herds across Britain."
He pushed back a lock of her hair with a slight smile. "And even though you don't work in either of those departments, you are campaigning to push it through because it's the right things to do." He gave a weak chuckle, but kissed her hand. "I understand…really I do. But I also know Draco Malfoy and he's going to use this opportunity for everything its worth."
She waved off his response. "I know he's using it to regain his family's position…"
He pulled her to his chest, letting her feel the laugh deep in his chest, and crushing her soft curves into himself. "That's adorable. Don't forget that Draco Malfoy is looking for a wife." She looked uncomfortable, either with him holding her, or with his comment about Malfoy: he really hoped that Malfoy was the problem.
She rolled her eyes. "He's pretending to look for a wife. He won't marry until he finds the right witch and that could take another decade."
Blaise leaned over her and pressed his lips to hers' in a soft, sweet kiss. "I think you are underestimating the pull he feels toward you. But that's better for me. I wonder if you'd be free next Friday night then? I heard the Russian ballet is in Muggle London, or there is an excellent sushi restaurant that just opened in Hogsmead…"
"Sushi in Hogsmead?" The incredulous tone of her voice was charming.
"No one does fresh fish like a wizard chef."
She bit her bottom lip in a way that might drive him mad. "I'm not sure."
He gave her his best smile. "Just trust me. Me, you, sushi, next Saturday if Malfoy doesn't convince you to elope between now and then."
She rolled her eyes at his antics. "It's a date then."
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek softly. "Until then."
SSSSSSSS
Severus was busy in the lab, as he always was. That didn't mean that he missed that insipid puppy delaying his partner.
She greeted him as she always did, with a bright smile as she walked into the lab. He nodded as she hung up her robes, revealing her normal attire: a plain well-washed pair of muggle jeans that hugged her arse like a second skin, and a comfortable shirt of some sort. Today it was a white button down blouse that showed, ever-so-slightly, the outline of her lacy bra underneath.
He cleared his throat. Those were not the kind of thoughts that he would entertain in a professional setting. "I see Zabini finally slipped his mother's leash long enough to come sniffing at you again."
She looked a little uncomfortable. "Do you think she dislikes me because of my blood?"
Severus snorted. "She dislikes you because she's never seen her baby boy so besotted with a female before. Zabini is never serious about his lady-loves; he's never had to be."
"I admit, I was surprised when he asked me out, but he's been very nice. And everyone is always telling me that I should start dating again. I do want a family eventually, and I won't get it if I don't at least try."
"Ah, so this explains your allowing young Mr. Nott and Draco time with you as well."
She chuckled lightly as she organized her notes. "Now, I'm quite certain that despite their kindness, the Malfoys don't want anything to do with me as far as romance is concerned. No, Draco is showing just enough interest to keep his mother from forcing him to wed."
He raised a brow. "You sound very sure of that."
"I am." She tapped the stack of parchment neatly and used a muggle-style binder clip to keep the pages together.
She was worse than Arthur Weasley for bringing Muggle objects into the Ministry, but at least she didn't charm them illegally…most of the time.
"And how do explain an intimate tête-à-tête between you and young Mr. Nott this weekend over a certain Greek text? "
She did blush at that. "Well, that might have been a bit more. I think he's a bit lonely and misses a good discussion. We should start a club of some sort where people can come together and bounce ideas off one another…Theo works alone and he needs people."
"Theodore Nott has avoided human beings for the entire length of time that I have known him. If he is seeking you out now, rest assured that his intentions are not merely to engage you in conversation, no matter how intelligent you might be."
She raised her eyes to the heavens. "Honestly Severus! Not everyone has some hidden dark agenda."
"I never said it was dark. I simply stated that he had another motive. Theodore is well aware that he is the last of his line. Like young Mister Malfoy he will be expected to wed, and fairly soon, and produce heirs. He, like young Draco has begun to look around and find that the field of potential brides has shrunk at a rather alarming rate. You, by putting yourself out into the arena at this stage present a perfect object: a witch with a proven record of brilliance, connections that no pure-blood would ever scoff at, and most of all, a fair bit of natural power. Add in a hefty dollop of loyalty and honor, and present in a rather striking physical package and it was no wonder that most of the single wizards on the island asked you for a dance."
She snorted. "You didn't. And you know me better than any of them. That should tell them something."
He grinned at her and gave her a little mocking half-bow. "Alas, if I had asked you to dance, it might have made the rumor mill jump into overdrive and then we'd be forced apart. I would not give up he only decent lab partner in the whole bleeding Ministry for a single dance."
She chuckled while she started crushing a batch of shrivelfigs with a small silver pestle. "I doubt anything that dire would have occurred. I have some decent blackmail on Reynolds."
Severus raised his eyebrows. "On our dear, dear supervisor. For shame Miss Granger." He let his voice drop wickedly. He did enjoy it when she showed her claws.
She batted her eyelashes at him. "Yep." She popped the 'p' at the end obnoxiously; she tended to do that when she was insufferably pleased with herself.
"I don't suppose you'd like to share this interesting tidbit."
She gave him a look that promised retribution if he dipped into her mind. "Minx. Very well…deny me information. I've long been accustomed to that treatment from Gryffindors…"
"Don't try that line on me Severus Snape. You used it last Christmas to find out what I'd gotten you."
"It worked then too."
"Well no more." She siphoned the juice into a small bowl and tossed the figs into the wastebasket. "Yes, I have a bit of information Reynolds doesn't want getting out. No. I won't tell you, that would negate it. No, it isn't anything that will harm you."
"Does it have anything to do with how your were transferred into the position of my lab partner over the heads of other, more senior members of the department?"
She laughed. "I think your attitude did that for me. How many partners did you run off before I got here? Nine?"
"Dunderheads, every single one of them. Longbottom had more finesse with a cauldron."
She smirked as he expertly chopped horsetail fern.
"So the rumors were true. It was nine."
He sniffed. "Ten. Eleven if you count the dolt they decided to saddle me with for training, but he lasted less than a week so I don't."
She pulled three books down as they moved around the room in a perfectly synchronized dance of brewing brilliance. She helped with the ingredient preparation and was always the one to do the arithmancy calculations. He watched over the brews because they were experimental and he often knew things were happening instinctively before he could verbalize. Together, they'd cured a half dozen minor diseases, took up patents on several potions for memory and longevity, and had been the team that brewed the most difficult potions for St. Mungos.
It wasn't that she wasn't an able potion-maker in her own right; he was quite good at artithmancy himself: but together when they worked they could focus on their strengths and trust the other to work in their own.
They brewed the base with focus, and the conversation today was non-existent. It always was when they were trying a new potion for the first time. Every spit and sputter of the cauldron could herald an oncoming explosion or implosion. Even if everything should work perfectly, mathematically speaking, there was always a chance that an ingredient would be off…though those happened very rarely since they convinced the ministry that they needed to gather their own for quality control.
"You used your leverage to get our pointy-haired boss to allow us to gather our ingredients." He realized seconds before he said it that it must be so. Reynolds had denied the section access to gather their own supplies for years.
Hermione nodded once as she measured out mutlap essence. She was well used to referring to Reynolds as 'pointy-haired'. He'd been the victim of a botched curse that left his curling hair in two points on his head…points that resembled horns to an absurd degree. "It shouldn't have taken blackmail to get him to allow it. If he'd gotten anything over a T in potions on his NEWTS there wouldn't have been a question."
Severus snickered. It was marvelous how much she sounded like him sometimes.
She finished pouring, stirred the brew three times and looked over at him…what was that look? Was there a hint of…regret in it?
The look was gone too quickly to tell. He made a mental note to pull it out and check it in a pensive. She was his partner. Keeping track of her emotional cues was a survival instinct.
And it let him know when he should restock the medical-grade chocolate he kept in his desk…for his own use of course. (He used it as a sacrifice to the lioness he worked with once a month when her hormones left her unhinged…he found it very useful.)
He turned to his next task and frowned. "We are low on unicorn tears and these dove's eggs are a disgrace." He shook them and they barely moved. He wrinkled his nose. "I thought you were going out for supplies this morning?"
She nodded. "Sorry. I did. They are still in my bag." She tried to blow her hair out of her face as she chopped a horicius fliticus. Blasted thing kept trying to squirm out of her grip…which at least meant the plant was fresh. He pulled the silky curls away from her face and tied them back with the brown string from the potions supplies.
She smiled at him in thanks. She'd nearly come out of her skin the first time he'd done it when they began working together. He wondered why she seemed to forget a hair tie on a daily basis. It was inconceivable that woman who had her life so well put together would forget something so essential every single day. Except that he took care of it every single day, so it wasn't really an issue. He'd stop, since he really should insist that she take care of herself, but he relished the feeling of those locks in between his fingers. He had waited too long to move away from her body, but she didn't seem to notice.
"I had to go to Cornwall to Vi's to find the eggs. Even Knocturnally was out. And Hagrid got the Unicorn tears for me from the forest. There wasn't a drop to be had anywhere else."
He felt his brows snap together. "Someone is brewing. I wonder what…?"
"I already asked George, he swore he was being forced to import his eggs from Ireland, so it isn't the Weasley brothers."
Severus frowned. While he didn't approve of the mild love potions that the Weasleys brewed, they were easily removed and kept the little dunderheads at school from trying to brew their own. The addition of the Unicorn tears could have several uses…of course, there was no guarantee that someone was brewing commercial love potions, but he decided to slip a word to the wise to Potter…anonymously of course. Very little good could come of mass dosing people with mind altering potions…at least the mind altering potions that left them conscious.
She rummaged in her little beaded bag and pulled out a container with the carefully packed eggs and a small phial of a silvery liquid that looked almost like unicorn blood, but was less viscous.
"Just enough for today's batch." She shot him a brilliant smile. They were working on a potion that would be the culmination of several months of work. Frank and Alice Longbottom had yet to recover from their torture and together he and Hermione had come up with a potion that might call them back to their only son.
He couldn't keep a grin off his face as he lit the flame under his second cauldron. "Very Well Miss Granger, if you are ready. Let us begin."
Seven and one half hours later his hair was a sodden limp mass haphazardly tied away from his face. (Hermione had pulled it back with another bit of string). Her hair was curling so violently that he wondered if it might be trained to attack enemies. They were footsore, hungry, and he was fairly certain he had a dollop of murtlap on his shirt.
In recompense, they had a single beaker of a potion that would help the Longbottoms to connect with the outside world.
It had been Hermione's idea that if mind magic couldn't bring them back (and many talented witches and wizards had tried) then perhaps if they stimulated a different part of the brain…
Hermione had brought in reams of papers from Muggle scientist showing the effects of emotion on the brain. Severus had grumbled a bit at first at having to dabble in bases that were traditionally used for love potions, but he quickly relented. For one thing, they were only trying to gain the recipients' attention, not cause an obsession. For another, love potions never acted on the bits of the brain where the actual feelings were centered. It had been an interesting process, with tricky arithmancy and trickier brewing.
Severus couldn't help the triumphant grin that kept finding its way to his lips. "We still need to test it…"
She chuckled. "But we both know it should work."
She pulled out their test subjects, a pair of chicks that had been rejected by their mother. They showed abnormal social patterns even within a few days of the rejection, and most died. Hermione sprayed a fine mist of the potion on one chick.
The animal quickly began making social gestures to the other chick, which, not having been exposed to the potion, did not return them. The baby, nonplussed, made the same gestures to Hermione's hand and was quickly fed. The other chick was still refusing food.
A true scientific test in a muggle installation would probably require the death of the second chick from starvation and then the dissection of the first…but they had magic, and Hermione wasn't one to allow anything cute and fluffy to die on her watch. She sprayed the other chick and offered it food as well. Bloody sentimental Gryffindors.
A few tests and confirmation was sent to St. Mungos.
"She we call Neville back?"
Severus frowned. "I thought he was teaching at Hogwarts?"
Hermione shook her head as she tidied the lab. "He still is, but he got a grant over the summer to go and study man eating plants in Uruguay." She dabbed at the murtlap on his shirt absently as he pulled the string out of his hair.
Severus smelled a snake. A blond snake. And he'd bet that it was a female blond snake with a grandchild obsession.
"Let's do some more testing. A few more days won't make a measurable difference and I'm sure he'll be back well before term."
"Somewhere in late August I think."
Severus nodded. Blast Narcissa. Her meddling was inhibiting his research and that's where he drew the line. And if she was going to send someone off, why couldn't she have manufactured something for the other gits? Then at least he would only have Draco to contend with.