Master of Enchantment
Book 5: The Christmas Rose
Chapter 1: Slamming
Seven Weeks Before Christmas
Severus Snape sat at the tiny table in the kitchen of his personal quarters at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pertinaciously marking papers. Stubbornly, he refused to consult the watch in his pocket, reminding himself that it had not been so very long since the clock on the mantel in the sitting room had chimed nine o'clock.
He did not know why it was of such importance to him to see Hermione when he lifted his eyes from his task. He had spent more than forty-one years of his life without her constant presence, and he had been content to be alone. Now, after a mere few months of marriage, he found his evenings to be curiously empty if he could not glance across the table, or across the room, or across the pillows, and see his curly-haired bride.
His hand was in the unconscious act of reaching for his watch when he heard the door open, then close, and the unmistakeable sounds of Hermione's return. Snatching his hand away from his watch pocket, he continued with his marking. It was not until he saw her heading for the study rather than the kitchen that he cleared his throat to alert her to his presence, but he still did not look up until she spoke his name.
"Severus!" Hermione said, rounding the table and bending to wrap her arms about his shoulders from behind as she nuzzled his ear.
Severus turned his face then, his large, hooked nose gliding across her cheek before he tilted his head and spoke, his lips moving against hers with his words.
"Where have you been, young lady?"
Hermione ignored the question and took the kiss, twining the fingers of one hand in his end-of-the-day oily hair and cupping his evening-roughened cheek with the other. With a tender smile into his eyes, she released him and seated herself diagonally from him.
"Why are you doing your marking in here?" she asked.
"Because I find that I do not concentrate very well when attempting to mark papers in the midst of a bloody cattery," he replied dryly.
Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Are they that noisy?"
"No, but they are damnably constant. And there is also a house-elf living in my study."
Hermione nodded. "I thought it would be easier to have Quirk sleep in the study with the kittens than in another room," she commented.
There was a soft "mrow" and Bast's elegant little head suddenly protruded between the edge of the table and Severus' stomach.
Hermione laughed. "Bast isn't even in there with them?" she said, reaching out a hand to stroke the purring black cat.
"Well, can you blame her? They never stop that constant peeping noise and they nurse perpetually. I'm amazed that she hasn't just smothered them in their sleep."
As if realizing the topic of discussion, Bast leapt lightly down from her master's lap and sauntered across the sitting room and into the study. The sound of Quirk's squeaky voice speaking to the mother cat could be heard in the kitchen.
Hermione rubbed her face. "I am so tired," she said.
"You worked late tonight," Severus commented, picking up his quill and appearing to focus his attention on the handwriting of some unfortunate Potions student. Actually, he was watching her face covertly from behind the curtain of his long hair.
She arched in her chair, pressing the knuckles of her fists into her lower back to massage her sore muscles. "Simon and I have been discussing the Christmas Rose Potion," she explained.
Severus bristled behind the screen of his ebony mane, but kept his voice devoid of emotion. "Someone was here, working with you?"
"No, we spoke by Floo. He has been trying to make the hellebore infusion but he keeps melting cauldrons."
"Is his last name Longbottom?" There was a definite dark pleasure in relieving some of the building spleen with a nastily placed shaft.
Hermione snorted in spite of herself. "No, his last name is Lewis – leave poor Neville alone, Severus!" When he wisely did not reply to this, she continued, "I think that it may be possible to charm the cauldron to hold the infusion of hellebore long enough to finish preparing it so that we can add it to the potion base." She sighed and stood from her chair, beginning to move toward the bedroom. "I'm going to meet with him and his partner, Perry Smith, in their lab tomorrow so we can try my idea."
Severus abandoned all pretence of marking schoolwork. "Perri Smith is a woman?"
Hermione glanced back at him. "No, Peregrine Smith is the other researcher from my office to whom I introduced you at the Halloween Ball last week. Don't you remember?"
Severus busied himself re-capping the bottle of red ink and gathering his parchment into a neat pile. "You cannot expect me to recall the name of every tedious person you force me to greet at inane parties," he snapped. "Of what possible interest would such persons be to me?"
Hermione stared at him for a moment, a look of confused hurt marring her features. "My workmates would only be of interest to you if you cared what I do with myself all day long, Severus. I apologize for subjecting you to such tedious and inane company. I will endeavour not to do so in the future. I will just go to parties without you!"
On this tearfully hurled threat, Madam Snape turned her back on her husband and hurried into their bedroom, allowing the heavy door to close behind her with a resounding slam.
Merlin's beard! Why could he not curb his disagreeable tongue? Now he had hurt her feelings, and she would expect him to apologize – but he was damned if he would! He spent too much of his time begging pardon for things he said to her. She was his wife, and he did not see why he should have to mind his words around her. This was his home, by the gods, and it was about time for his wife to begin to know who was the master here!
Storming into the sitting room, Severus snatched the brandy decanter from the shelf and poured some into a goblet, then settled onto the sofa before the fire and glared dangerously into its flames.
Two hours later, when he climbed into their bed beside her, she woke and moved pointedly away from him toward the edge of the bed. It was necessary for him to wait for her fall asleep again before he could pull her to him and go to sleep, as well.
Hermione seemed to float above him, just out of reach. She was at her most wicked and alluring, her dark eyes languorous in her desire, her full lips parted, with the tip of her little pink tongue barely visible to him. Her siren's call seemed to lure him on, inviting him to claim her, to take her – but every time he stretched for her she was just beyond the extent of his arms. She reached out then and stroked up the length of his erection; moving with mercurial speed, his fingers closed about her wrist…
…and he woke.
He was reclining on his side, his morning erection at odds with the headache just behind his eyes. He groped for his wand and muttered, "Lumos." Fumbling with his watch on the bedside table, he saw that it was nearly eight o'clock. His spirits immediately brightened; if his candles had not woken him for breakfast in the Great Hall, it could only mean today was Wednesday.
Dear Merlin, how he loved his Wednesdays.
A shameless smile graced his thin lips as he rolled toward Hermione; she deserved to be paid out for that bit of taunting in his dream.
It was not until he saw her empty pillow that he recalled the contretemps of the night before. A feeling of pique flashed through him, followed by an icy stab of fear. Throwing the covers from him, he surged to his feet, crossing to the bathroom in quick strides. A savage flick of his wand fully illuminated the rooms, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach had already informed him she would not be there, lounging in the bubble-filled bath, waiting for him to wake up and join her for Wednesday-type activities.
He burst through the bedroom door into the sitting room, barely pausing to glance into the kitchen before he bellowed, "Hermione!"
The door to the study rattled open and Quirk erupted into the room. When the sight of his fully enraged and entirely naked master met his eyes, Quirk quickly averted his face and squeaked, "Mistress is not being home, Master!"
"And where exactly is Mistress?" Severus inquired in an alarmingly quiet tone.
Staring helplessly at his feet, Quirk replied, "Mistress says she is going to work at the other researcher's lab today, Master. Mistress is being gone to breakfast in the Great Hall."
Severus turned on his heel and strode back into his room.
"Then I, too, shall go to breakfast in the Great Hall."
"Yes, Master," Quirk said, though his words were drowned out by the slamming of the bedroom door.
Minerva McGonagall watched the silent young woman near the end of the table as she frowned at her bowl of porridge. Following Minerva's line of sight, Albus Dumbledore spoke to her quietly.
"I don't believe I've ever seen either of them at breakfast on a Wednesday morning."
"She isn't speaking to anyone, either," Minerva said. "Perhaps I should go sit with her?"
Albus placed a restraining hand on her arm. "I think we had best leave her to her own thoughts this morning."
Under their watchful eyes, Hermione stood and donned her cloak before pulling her briefcase from beneath her chair and heading for the front doors.
"She must be working away from home today," Minerva murmured, before returning to the perusal of her morning mail.
Moments later, Albus gained her attention again with another gentle touch to her arm. She looked at him and he directed her attention to a fiercely glowering Potions master, who was standing over his wife's barely-touched breakfast as if its existence were a personal affront to him.
"Why do I get the impression that she is avoiding him?" Albus muttered, as if to himself.
"Go speak to the boy, Albus," Minerva urged him.
The Headmaster shook his head. "We must not interfere in their squabbles, Minerva. They must learn the lessons intended for them from each of their disagreements, or the relationship will not grow as it is intended to do."
Minerva sighed audibly as she watched Severus Snape stalk back out of the Great Hall without eating a bite of food.
"Severus has never been at his best when learning emotional lessons, Albus."
Dumbledore's sigh echoed her own. "I remember. That is what worries me, my dear."
Quirk jumped when the door slammed again. Scrambling out into the sitting room, he bowed to his master.
"Welcome home, Master. How may Quirk be of service?"
Snape stared at him, a nasty sneer on his face. "I was gone for all of fifteen minutes, you dolt. I do not require your services."
Quirk averted his eyes deferentially. "As Master wishes," he said, backing again into the study. He went around the desk and crawled beneath it to the nest where the week-old kitty-rats lived. Bast lay back, allowing the hungry babies to nurse. Crookshanks lay several feet away on the desk chair, which had been pushed up against the wall and to one side to allow Quirk easy access to his charges. The large, fluffy ginger cat flicked his tail and watched the other felines with his flat yellow eyes.
Quirk studied the baby kitties, which, in his unstated opinion, still looked mostly like rats. There were five of them, two fluffy ones and three smooth ones, and no two of them were alike. Two kitties were as black as Bast, and two kitties were as orange as Crookshanks; one kitty was blotched with black and orange and white. Quirk had spent much time considering the kitty-rats while cooped up in the study. If it were in his nature to question the instructions given him by his master and mistress, he might have wondered why he was being asked to spend his time watching over these kittens. As it was, Quirk was trying very hard to be a good house-elf; he would do what was asked of him with all his heart.
He flinched involuntarily when he heard his master slam out the door again.
Professor Snape burst into the Potions classroom, causing the door to rebound off the wall before thudding shut behind him. Striding to the front of the room in a swirl of his black cloak, he turned on his heel and glared at his NEWT students. Meredith Greengrass caught the eye of her lab partner, David Urquhart, and rolled her eyes toward their Head of House. David nodded minutely, immediately straightening in his seat and staring straight ahead. The table with the three Gryffindors continued to buzz quietly with conversation; obviously the idiots had become so used to the toned-down Snape that they had forgotten the malevolence of the full-force Snape. The two Slytherins experienced a moment of inner joy. Gryffindor blood was about to flow – well, Gryffindor rubies were about to fly out of the hour glass, and that was just as good.
Euan Abercrombie chuckled softly at something said to him by Ray Jordan while Emma Frobisher quickly finished up the homework she had been assigned in Arithmancy. Professor Snape, who had been quite lax, comparatively speaking, in his class thus far this term, was staring at the Gryffindor students, waiting for them to realize that class had already begun. When they failed to do so, he strolled to their table and stopped right in front of them.
Emma Frobisher was the first one to see a very cold and undoubtedly angry Potions master staring at the Gryffindor students. Her reflexive squeak alerted her tablemates to their danger, too late.
"What has so captured your attention, Mr. Abercrombie?" he inquired in his soft, deadly voice.
"N-nothing, Sir," Euan replied shakily. "I apologize; I didn't realize class had begun."
"Oh, that is abundantly obvious, Mr. Abercrombie."
The Slytherins snickered behind their hands, waiting for the axe to fall.
"Let me think," he said in his silkiest voice. "That will be twenty points each from Gryffindor for inattention in class."
Ray Jordan was so unfortunate as to gasp out loud, which drew the black, tunnel-like eyes to his face. "Another ten points from Mr. Jordan – and a detention."
He waited a moment, spreading his hands expansively. "Come, come, I am perfectly willing to take more points from your House."
The three Gryffindors sat stonily, keeping their eyes straight ahead, digging into deeply ingrained memories to discover again how to behave in Professor Snape's class. Professor Snape stood over them for another moment, then curled his lip and returned to the front of the classroom.
"Who can tell me the uses of hellebore?" he demanded.
Professor Snape entered the ground floor room set aside for the staff meeting late that afternoon, seating himself at the uninhabited end of the table without looking either left or right. Ignoring his apparent wish to be left alone, Madam Pomfrey smiled and said, "How is Hermione, Severus?"
Snape drilled the matron with unfriendly eyes. "You should ask her, Poppy."
Professor Ferguson was a recent addition to the staff, who had joined the faculty at Hogwarts as flying instructor only when Professor Hooch had left to care for an ailing relative. This was his first staff meeting, and he was very interested in everything, particularly the teachers whom he had not yet met. He sat with Professor Flitwick, who perched perilously beside him on a stack of cushions. Professor Ferguson leaned down and whispered in his broad Scottish accent, "Is that fellow as unpleasant as he looks?"
Professor Flitwick muffled a chuckle behind a raised hand. "Oh, no, he's much more unpleasant than he looks."
Ferguson's brow furrowed. "You sound rather proud about that?"
Professor McGonagall snorted from the other side of Professor Ferguson and said quietly, "We are immeasurably proud of Professor Snape's singularity, Craig. You will come to appreciate it."
Albus Dumbledore cleared his throat and called the meeting to order. The agenda was typical of such meetings at schools around the world; within thirty minutes, most eyes in the room were glazed with the dullness of it all. Things livened up considerably when, during the discussion of the Yule Ball, the Headmaster said, "Severus, may we count upon you and Hermione to chaperone at the dance?"
Snape shot to his feet with such violence his chair toppled to the floor. "If you have nothing of import to discuss, Headmaster, I bloody well have more important things to do!"
The slam of the staffroom door was still echoing in the room when Professor McGonagall's eager voice was heard.
"Who had 7 November in the pool, Professor Vector?"
The Arithmancy professor pulled out a chart as Professor Ferguson looked about at the highly amused teachers with confusion. "What pool?"
It was the Headmaster who answered him. "The office pool to determine upon which day the honeymoon would be over and Professor Snape would be back to his snarky best," he imparted with a chuckle. "I think this calls for a drink, don't you?"
Severus charged through the castle corridors, rage warring with fear, warring with hurt, warring with pride, warring with longing within his unaccustomed breast. Hearing Hermione's name was like having an open wound touched. Between any other couple, this breach would have been a normal, newlywed spat. For Severus and Hermione, bound by the Enchantment, it transmuted into an agony of separation. She was not simply his wife, his lover, his "pet" – she was his comfort, his security, his stability – a rift between them cut him to the very soul.
She had laughingly asked him, in those first heady days of their acceptance of the Enchantment, if it would always be so strong between them that they would constantly be driven to touch one another. He had told her, as he had learned from his research, that the Enchantment would not change, but that they would learn to adapt to it so that they would be able to function in their every day lives without feeling driven every moment to be in physical contact with one another. He had been correct; after a lengthy and concentrated honeymoon – during which they "concentrated" on adapting to the Enchantment – the urge had become a dull roar in the background of his consciousness.
But this torment was something new. They had not, in their short time together, had an argument that had not been settled on the spot, even if it took a great deal of shouting, swearing, and pacing to accomplish a peaceful resolution. He reminded himself that the Enchantment was not only about the physical passion; it was also about the peace and solace they each found within the other.
Now, atop the Astronomy Tower at sunset, he looked out over the grounds of Hogwarts and felt more alone than he had ever felt in the deepest despair of his Death Eater days. Then, in his youth, he had never known the rest and repose of complete acceptance; he had never experienced the peace of the safe harbour that was his Hermione.
Severus pulled his cloak more closely about him and stared, unseeing, into the Dark Forest.
A scream of indignation pierced the merriment in the staff room. The professors lowered their glasses and turned as one to stare at Sibyll Trelawney, who was standing in a welter of scarves and shawls, pointing in accusation at Professor Firenze.
Minerva McGonagall's voice cut across the room with asperity. "Really, Sibyll! What in the world are you on about?"
The affronted Divination teacher drew a shaky breath. "Him! He said he knew it all along! He constantly taunts me!"
Professor Vector looked up from her chart. "Firenze it is! Well, we don't need to ask how you knew what date to choose!" She rummaged in her pocket and brought out a bag that clinked with gold. "Here's the pot, Firenze. Good show."
The majestic centaur accepted the bag with a simple nod of his head, then turned and held it out to Professor Trelawney. "I have no use for an excess of Human gold. Allow me to make you a gift of it."
Dead silence greeted these words, as every person in the room was stricken speechless.
Severus was standing in the middle of the sitting room, his lips pressed together in a thin, tight line, when she came in the door after ten o'clock that night.
"I see you decided to come home tonight," he sneered.
Hermione removed her cloak and hung it on the peg by the door. "Please don't start with me tonight, Severus."
"Have you eaten?" he demanded.
"Yes, we ate a Chinese take away," she responded, moving past him toward the bedroom.
"We?"
"Simon and Perry and I. I told you I was working with them today."
He curled his lip at her retreating back. "I trust it will not be necessary for you to do so again?"
She turned to face him from the doorway of their bedroom. Her face was drawn with exhaustion, fatigue etched into her weary eyes. When she spoke, her voice held none of the pugnacity which she had displayed in other altercations with him; even her tone showed an alarming quality of enervation.
"Yes, it will be necessary. It will take the efforts of all of us to complete the next stage in this process. This is important work, Severus – if we are correct about the efficacy of this potion, it will make nerve regeneration possible. Do you know how many patients St. Mungo's is still seeing every day – veterans of the war – who are suffering from the after-effects of the Cruciatus Curse?" She sagged for a moment against the doorframe, rubbing at her eyes. "We are so close – I won't stop trying."
"To what strength are you brewing the infusion of hellebore?" Severus said, standing with his arms crossed and his feet braced as if for battle.
"We need the strength at no less than ninety percent, or it will not have the necessary narcotic effect."
He snorted his disdain. "It is not possible. You will just melt cauldron after cauldron. I believe I advised you so when you first discussed this project with me."
Hermione rallied her strength and stood straight again. "I will do it! It is only a matter of finding the necessary combination of Strengthening and Containment Charms."
Severus rolled his eyes. "Foolish wand waving! It has no place in a Potions laboratory."
Hermione advanced a step back into the sitting room; Severus congratulated himself on drawing her back towards him, even if it was only to express her anger.
"Just because you are stuck in the seventies as far as your Potions training goes does not mean that the science has not advanced in the last twenty years," she spat. "Did you ever bother to read my course thesis from University? I conducted some very promising research into the fusion of charm work and potion brewing!"
"Of course I read your thesis, stupid girl! Who do you think forwarded the damn thing to the Ministry for Magic? You certainly never bothered to do so – and how on earth you thought you would ever find a situation without bothering to put yourself forward I have no way of knowing!"
They had advanced upon one another until they were standing toe-to-toe, both of them angry enough to be saying things for which they would presently be very sorry.
"You did it? You're the reason why Penny Clearwater asked me to come in for an interview? So you could have me work from home? So you could keep an eye on me? How dare you!" Hermione's fists were clenched by her sides as she shouted at him, fury in every line of her body.
"Why would I feel the need to keep an eye on you, Hermione? I am, after all, stuck in the seventies – and in the seventies we believed in free love."
He spoke the last two words with such mocking scorn that it took all of Hermione's resolution not to slap his contemptuous face.
Instead, she pushed past him, grabbing her cloak from the peg and her bag from the table.
"Where are you going?" he thundered, striding after her.
Hermione whirled on him, her wand in her hand. "Don't make me hex you, Severus." She wrenched the door open. "It takes all of my energy to work on this project. I don't have time for your ridiculous tantrums. I'll find someplace else to stay."
"Do not walk out that door, madam. I forbid it." She was a strong and clever witch, but she would stand no chance against him in a duel – although he could never force himself to employ his wand against his wife. There was no need, after all – it was her duty to obey him –
– which was a belief Hermione apparently did not share. She turned her back on him and walked out, quietly closing the door to their home behind her.
It was Quirk who removed the empty brandy bottle from his master's slackened hand and covered Master's recumbent body, much of which protruded from the end of the too-short sofa, in the wee hours of the morning.
A/N: From .com, comes this definition of black hellebore: The Black Hellebore - once known as Melampode - is a perennial, low-growing plant, with dark, shining, smooth leaves and flower-stalks rising directly from the root, its pure white blossoms appearing in the depth of winter and thereby earning for it the favourite name of Christmas Rose.
For the significance of Wednesday mornings in the Snape home, see A Hallowe'en Tail, found on this archive.
Severus' complicity in sending Hermione's course thesis to the Ministry for Magic was strongly implied in the first chapter of Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These, also found on this archive.
Whether her interpretation of his reasons is correct is another matter entirely.
Professor Ferguson left Hogwarts the year before Severus began. He played professional Quidditch for an American team, then coached for the same team before coming to Hogwarts as the flying instructor.