This time when I write my disclaimer absolving me of copyright, I have the additional honour of mentioning the fantastic GraysonSteele, who answered my plea to the beta gods and offered a long dead fanfiction a second chance. Any errors are my own, naturally. Please continue to review, and I'd like to thank those of you who comment regularly :) xxx
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"Vows can't change nature, priests are only men,/And love likes stratagem and subterfuge"
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"Granger, you've gone completely mad, you realise that?"
Skeeter had provoked her as soon as the contract was signed and she had thrown herself headlong into the madness.
In a way it was a test.
"You signed."
The witches eyed each other diffidently, and Hermione felt a sickness in her stomach and the bitter taste of ash in her mouth. She waved Henri over and told Skeeter that he would take her upstairs to a second port-key. This one was legal, but she made no mention of that.
As they disappeared behind the bar, through to the kitchen beyond, Hermione sagged visibly in the booth, collapsing her head in her hands. The magical photograph of Dumbledore seemed to pull at her gaze until she was looking into those leveling eyes once more. She had made her deal now and she couldn't afford for sentiment.
Across the room, the old wizard finally pushed himself away from the booth and the whisky. As his form unfolded if became clear he was not stooped in any way.
Hermione stared, unable to process the man who was walking towards her, his hair no longer grey, and the dust gone from the dark cloak.
She panicked as the realizations raced through her mind. What had he heard? The parchments and books tied her to the booth and before she could rally into any movement, she paused to remember she wasn't at the Leaky Cauldron or the Hogs Head. Nor was she in the library after curfew, or within the walls of Hogwarts.
What was he doing here and how had he found her?
How much had he heard?
"It seems you're recruiting spies at the prophet, Miss Granger." He stood before her table and drew his hands behind his back. "Should I provide a written application, or perhaps a resume?"
"Professor Snape."
Even with his hair tied back and divested of his normal flurrying robes, he still showed an expeditious command, dropping into the booth, and summoning his bottle from the other table. Henri returned to the bar and gazed at the newly formed pair, alert concern visible on his face. Hermione wasn't sure what made her nod slightly and take a large swallow of the full bodied wine.
"I'm no longer a professor, thankfully." He settled into the seat opposite her and languorously looked over the parchments, before leaning over to examine Dumbledore's unofficial biography, and going so far as to lift the front cover and read Skeeter's scathing note. It was an uninvited maneuver and Hermione bristled.
"I'm a lone recluse now, too infirm and pathetic to read his mail." Severus smirked, raising his eyebrow laconically.
Was he deliberately trying to unsettle her? Or was this some new openly self-loathing Snape? Hermione swallowed back the retort she had biting at her tongue, and merely gave him a challenging look. She was not going to be baited.
"I suppose you would have amassed quite the collection. What have you been up to Severus? What brings you to Paris."
Severus remained still in his chair, noting the challenging tone. She hadn't asked to use his name, more thrown it at him as bait. Would he rise to the pretence? Would he allow a former student half his age to use his Christian name while sharing a drink? He scowled as he swallowed back a finger of fire whiskey.
"I'm consulting the Malfoys on a greenhouse purchase. I assure you, I did not expect to see you consorting with the likes of Rita Skeeter. I truly dare not ask."
His voice had an altered, somewhat husky quality and Hermione felt curiously aware of a sense of loss. But still it was a reply he might have given her during class, remanding a stray reference squeezed on end of her eternally overlong potions essay, before handing back her marks. Hermione smiled and took a sip from the cafes gaudy glass goblet. Severus tried to keep his gaze from her lips.
"Some of us still rely on our image in the print media unfortunately." She raised her eyebrow at him, silently seeking acknowledgement of her article. The article he'd stormed into the burrow and raved at her over.
Severus only raised his eyes fractionally as he stared at her.
Hermione tried not to show her discomfort, and instead took another sip of her drink, as he nursed his own.
"So what is Draco up to these days. What exciting potions project have I been missing out on?"
Severus remained still and eyed the café around him, while a slender finger circled the rim of his drink. Hermione tried not to stare at the elegant hand or question when her mouth had gone dry. Instead she filled it with some more wine.
She'd acknowledged her article. She had thrown a further challenge in his face, which Severus knew needed to be acknowledged. His treatment of her while in his class, and his continued protection and support of Malfoy, due not to his own brilliance but to his heritage and pure blood connections. His continued affiliation with the Malfoys. With Hogwarts.
Hermione watched him survey the room and was reminded of her precarious position. She thought of the tent waiting for her back in her apartment, filled with Luna and Dennis and research piled to the sky. Of her tenuous balance with regards to the law. Of the Caligula folder within her bag, still unopened.
What were the Malfoys doing, investing in greenhouse? Why was Snape determined to remain a bloody enigma. He sat down uninvited and offered his services as spy in a peculiar manner, and he clearly knew what she had planned. Why would the Malfoy's need to consult a potions master for the assessment of magical greenhouses?
"Would you join me for dinner?"
She almost startled herself with the question that fell from her mouth. "If you've not eaten yet, that is. I haven't"
Hermione coloured as she realised how this had begun to look. He her ex-professor, sitting down uninvited, sharing a drink, then whisking her off to dinner. She desperately hoped Skeeter didn't use this memory in her expose'.
"Unless you have arrangements with the Malfoys of course."
Severus tried not to stare at the girl's incredibly pink cheeks and shifted somewhat uncomfortably as he finished the rest of his drink. This was not what he had expected. Severus tried to focus on the woman before him and banish the thoughts and memories spinning through his head. His discovery of her unopened letters. Seeing his name included on the patent without his permission. Here sat a fiercely defiant witch, her hair lopped furiously short as though to match the weapons bared across the table. He had forgotten about the new Hermione Granger. She had found the notes (or rather, adolescent diary entries) of his old potions book, 'Personable'.
"Dinner would be acceptable. I have a copy of your notes actually, you left them as you returned a stolen Hogwarts textbook. Perhaps I should return them to you."
"Notes?"
"It was some interesting work on memory restoral. I contacted George Weasley to pass them on. I can retrieve them for you now if you would like."
He was impeccably polite.
Hermione tried to process everything at once and she supposed there was no use trying to attempt subtlety after all. Her every thought bombarded her at lightning speed as she finished her drink and Severus set about collecting the bottle and returning it to the bar. His presence as she'd been whisked away by port-key. His interruption at the burrow as Ron knelt to propose. Her burnt research. Ron in a hospital room and Mrs Weasley's stern face. George's production of the orbs and reworking the patent. All of it clinking together in a tangle as one phrase rang alarmingly over the top. Interesting work?
"Was that a compliment?"
Severus glared at her even as he opened the door and stood back to let her pass.
"Do you want the research back or not?"
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The phone had been buzzing for the past hour. Luna had stayed around and helped him compile lists of what had happened. Harry and Ginny had kept him on loudspeaker while Kingsley stopped by at Grimauld Place. A girl called Lucy had contacted Ron and he'd told her to owl Ginny. Instead, the fiery witch burst into the townhouse and interrupted the call, having once accompanied Hermione to the secret kept dwelling. He and Luna tried to keep a record of the information coming through and the two scribbled furiously through a litany of increasingly bad news. When the phone call finally petered out, Dennis could only look at Luna and let out a sigh. "Fuck."
Luna didn't flinch at the obscenity that left his mouth. She merely gazed at the papers now littered across the table before asking "What do you think Hermione would do?"
Dennis went to reach Hermione by text and instead was greeted by a message from the witch.
I've just been contacted by S. Snape. Going to dinner. Apparently Malfoys' investing in a magical greenhouse in France? Ask Harry (or Percy *if* he wants) to look into it? Tell Luna I'm sorry. I'll be another hour or two. She is welcome to stay and we can all talk in the morning?
Dennis blinked at her message, and at the fallout around the table which Luna was thoughtfully searching through.
Do you want me to be there? Maybe you should get a photo. Luna will stay here for a couple more hours I think, Kingsley, Lucy, Ginny and Harry made contact
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Hermione bristled at the tone implicit between the lines of overbearing text. Perhaps she was reading into it, but the protective offer seemed to mark a jealousy, and his concern held certain insinuations she couldn't quite place. Did he actually believe she wasn't safe with Severus Snape? Why would she get a photo when the man had been dragged through hell by the Prophet and the world at large. Hadn't he earned a reprieve?
Hermione wondered how Dennis saw her. Was she really a ruthless witch after all? Did she still have any light left in her or were her dealings and deeds slowly tamping it out.
"Don't be ridiculous. I'll be back before 11."
"Stay safe."
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Severus had staggered slightly as he apparated into his sitting room. Pitiful. Can't manage long distance apparition any more. Have to spread it over a couple more jumps I think.
He felt unbearably old as he made his way down the stairs to the basement, his knees cracking along the way. But he had to return to the brilliant-yet-foolish woman waiting for him in the street.
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Dennis' offer had reminded her instantly of her arrangement of Skeeter. Everything she did tonight, every movement and action was now going to be scrutinized upon her imprisonment. Even if she got the law repealed this would be broadcasted to a mass of people at a later date, and hadn't George just gone and made it worse with the creation of portable magical orbs. For some reason, Hermione heard Skeeters voice with an alarming clarity.
Princess of Gryffindor and her unlikely connection to Hogwarts dark hero.
Or perhaps:
Harlot or Heroine? Hermione Granger, ex-gryffindor and one time teen celebrity, 'entertains' two very different wizards in an ambitious move following the Marriage Law. Rita Skeeter recalls her earlier romantic entanglements and asks the world: Where's Ron Weasley?
The street stood drenched in moonlight and despite standing alone by a close narrow lane, she felt safe for the first time in a long time. She would get some answers at last. Skeeter would print whatever she wanted, and she would make the prophet pay. First thing tomorrow Skeeter had agreed to 'revisit' Hermione Granger's past in an attempt to uncover the political actions behind the scenes, and question the effects media scrutiny might have had on the now fragile war hero, running from the ministry. She remembered Molly Weasley's easter gift in fourth year. That, more than all the other hate mail had lit her fury. Not that it mattered now. She sighed as she thought of all the angry letters she'd be subject to once more, before smiling. Who read their mail anymore anyway?
Her thoughts returned to the enigmatic man, just as he himself appeared beneath a streetlight a few feet away and nodded upon spotting her. He whisked away and Hermione followed him without question, realizing for the first time that he was not in his typical Hogwarts attire.
The girl had followed him with an absentmindedness that disconcerted Severus. He motioned towards a café upon the corner of the street, walking with a slow ease that niggled in Hermione's somewhat fractured mind. He had always sped through the halls of Hogwarts, to the extent that simply walking by his side was an extremely odd experience.
How much had he heard of her conversation with Skeeter? He was the one who had sat down at her table initially. Had he known that she would have to give all these memories away? She was implicating him.
Hermione paid little attention as Severus nodded to the waiter, and motioned Hermione and himself before asking in fluent French for a seat. They were seated swiftly, and Hermione immediately drew the menu to herself, asked the appearing waiter for a bottle of wine. Severus nodded at the waiter, who promptly scribbled in his pad before rushing off, reappearing moments later with wine for the table, and additionally producing a tumbler of whiskey for Severus.
For Snape. Was she calling him Severus in her head now?
Hermione noted the delicate tendrils of steam signalling it unmistakably as fire whiskey. She began to eye the throng of people and the café with a slow assessing gaze, interrupting the quiet between them as she muttered
"I've agreed to give away my memories of the next three months to Rita Skeeter."
The statement hung on the air between them even as Severus sipped at his drink and eyed her seriously.
"Noted."
She watched as the man straightened in his chair and for a moment Hermione felt inexplicably and irrationally angry as he pulled his professorial mask into place and drew her Research out with an inexpressive gaze. He sat and continued on as though the thought was of little significance, handing it over to her before reading through the menu before him.
Yet he was still sitting there.
"You realise what they will say. My former professor picking me up at a bar."
"I most certainly did not pick you up Miss Granger."
Hermione bristled once more at his smooth and scathing tone.
Miss Granger.
There. He had put his foot down and thrown back the challenge of his Christian name.
"Hermione."
He stared at her dangerously as she sipped her wine and made an inane comment on the menu as though offering her first name was of equal insignificance.
"Granger, your research was mildly significant at best. The alleviation of magical scarring is truly of cosmetic value only, however the article was well posed."
Hermione glared at him furiously as she held her face in check, and she was returned immediately to her final year under the bastard Snape, and his continued commentary throughout her defence essays, and complete refusal to a lot her any extra time to query warding or material beyond the syllabus. She tried to forget the letters she had sent him and their overly familiar tone.
The man played the part of a bastard too well for comfort.
"This research however, veering into the magic of memory modification, alchemical constructs and advanced arithmacy is … impressive."
He continued as she stared stonily at him. She gave no acknowledgement of his praise other than a slight shift of her lips. Severus reminded himself not to stare at her lips as she picked up the wine glass, swirled the ruby liquid and took rather more than a sip.
"I would be prepared to offer you an apprenticeship Ms Granger."
"You haven't asked once what I'm doing in Paris."
She might have been commenting on the weather for all the enthusiasm her tone conveyed. She motioned over to the waiter and looked at over at the mask of a man sitting before her, asking without words if he was ready to order. They ordered and as Severus spoke rapidly to the waiter in Fench, Hermione tried not to notice the deep bags beneath his eyes, and his sallow, haggard appearance. He looked a good deal more than twenty years her senior. In fact, she would go so far as to say that he looked patently unwell
As the waiter departed, Severus met her studying gaze.
"I know exactly what you're doing in Paris." He scowled at her and Hermione tried not to notice the cooling of her face as she suddenly blanched.
"I remember your Gryffindor escapades well Granger, and it seems nothing has changed. What do you think you're doing, challenging the entirety of the Ministry while on the run? You do realise that they have you for the destruction of property and possession of classified Hospital documents; What could you possibly hope to achieve?"
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Finally, after only 44 chapters, a conversation occurs. Let me know what you thought!
