Hermione looked around the table in Severus's house, littered with all sorts of ingredients, and clutched a huge cup of scalding coffee in both hands. She terribly wanted to sleep, but not just a difficult, but a very difficult day loomed ahead. Regulus, as Snape said, came to his senses and even managed to thank Hermione for helping to save his life. Although before that he tried to rummage through her brains, as befits the incredulous Slytherins. However, he was not the first nor the last who craved to do so. For now, Granger was amused by watching them try to bend her mental shields. Play, kids!
Neither Severus nor Reg, who was warily looking at the world, had yet been able to find out anything more. Hermione didn't expect to meet the Blacks just yet, and all that remained was to help Severus chop the herbs and golden fly's eyes. What was she doing here, chopping the ingredients and rolling her eyes, she wanted to laugh!
"So what's with the cup?" Granger burst out bored to tears from squeezing the flesh out of figs. It was hot in the kitchen, and sweat was running down her face, but that was the temperature at which the damned Truth Serum was supposed to be brewed. Who, if not her, was to know this? Severus was playing silent while mixing mercury and asphodel.
"It was given to the custody of the future Lady Lestrange, that is, Bella. Say, a wedding gift from Voldemort."
Hermione furrowed her brow. "Wait! But what about the taboo on the name? "Dark Lord", and everything else?"
Severus was so taken aback that he stopped stirring and turned to face her.
"There is no taboo, Maya, what nonsense are you talking about this time?"
Hermione ran over the dates frantically in her head, wondering where she might have missed. She knew exactly what the taboo was, and it cost her a scar on her wrist!
"There is pain, and it has created prejudice," Snape said casually, which confused her even more.
"What do you mean?"
"You see, our future bane of the existence of all of Ol' good Britain is a megalomaniac. And he wove some kind of a spell into the Mark, which responds with pain when you say his name out loud. That's all."
"And that's all?" Hermione muttered as she handed Snape the fig flesh and rolled up her sleeves, waiting for the toad slime. The most exciting activity!
"He just wanted to instill fear, but that's all. In my opinion, this is too much even for someone who dreamed of becoming an anagram."
"Tom Marvolo Riddle?" Hermione laughed.
"Yes, the very same half-blood Lord," Snape confirmed.
"So you're not going to accept the Mark? And communication with the Black seniors has done you good."
"No, and yes to both of your questions. I saw what Regulus almost turned into and how Bellatrix, turning green and blue, yesterday begged her relatives to get her out of there."
Hermione set the bowl back on the table and leaned against the countertop.
"Now I don't understand at all! Didn't the Blacks themselves drag or almost drag all their children and nephews into this Ku Klux Klan?"
"No, you're confusing everything again. They dreamed of preserving the traditions and magic of the ancients, which, with the dominance of Muggle-borns and modern technology, is extremely problematic to do," Snape explained, Hermione barely resisted throwing a frying pan at him.
"You are a damn racist! I'm a Muggle-born too, just so you know!"
"Hey, chill down!" Snape held up his hands, dodging the slap on the back of the head. "I didn't say it was bad! You're running ahead of the Hogwarts Express again!"
He held her wrist, and images from a distant, but never forgotten past surfaced before her eyes.
She was an Apprentice under Snape's tutelage, striving to embrace the impossible and fit a two-year program into a little over three months. Plus, no one canceled Healing potions either, because the Order needed extra hands that could darn, remove scars and burns, and repel simple curses of a clearly dark nature.
Her husband shone with all the facets of his intolerable nature, and Hermione spent days and nights bending over the cauldron. Snape did what he always did best: he hurled hurtful remarks left and right. And she, meanwhile, had not slept for two days, waiting for him from the gatherings, may Morgana curse them all, and her husband included!
"Are you even listening to what I'm telling you?" Snape growled, as she hesitated, passing the golden fly's eyes past the cauldron. "Gryffindors and your damn recklessness!"
And then Hermione blew up. She tossed the stirrer aside and stood in front of her husband with her arms folded across her chest.
"Who, if not the damned Gryffindor, is giving you Hematopoietic Potion when you are writhing in convulsions? Who, if not a damned Gryffindor, risks his life to save this damn world of ours from God knows what every damn year? Who, if not the damned Gryffindor, was once your best friend? And now you hate us all, because one of us once turned out to be a traitor! I'm fed up with your prejudices! And with the fact that you see the world in only two colors: black and white! Did you know that the Hat offered Harry Slytherin?! No? Why did you stop speaking? Can you talk to me for once in your life as an adult, and not as a teenager offended by the whole world, who only nurses his guilt complex and revels in sacrifice? You like it - to suffer! You like to play the eternal victim! You hate yourself so much that you are ready to bleed out, only for the world would to notice you! But you know what, husband of mine, the world doesn't care! The world does not care about you, and your sacrifices, and me, and all of us! We are floundering like toads in a puddle, but we could have drunk wine in Italy!"
Snape was speechless and stared at his wife as she breathed out to him everything that had accumulated over the past three months.
"And wait," he finally managed to insert his two knuts into her revealing tirade, "could you take it like this and leave everything here?"
"No! I can't! Because I live by the same idiotic prejudices as you! But we should do something! Because the war will end, they will give us the Order of Merlin, and better do so not posthumously, they will gossip for half a year, they will sing praises to us, and then they won't remember anything anymore!"
Snape wanted to say something else, to somehow comment on her angry rebuff, but the brew in the pot, forgotten by everyone at the time of the quarrel, decided to remind them of itself at the most inopportune moment. The Master's reactions were to be commended! His shields instantly surrounded the cauldron in an impenetrable dome, Hermione was shoved behind his back, under the cover of black robes and broad shoulders, and the brew was sent to the sink.
Hermione exhaled, overcoming the momentary shock, and pressed herself against her husband's back. He turned around and took her into his arms.
"You're right, you're right about everything ... I'm sorry ... I'm only spoiling both of our lives."
"Severus, I'll curse you, I swear by Merlin! Since we decided to go forward, let's go to the end. And stop apologizing. It's an annoying Gryffindor tendency!"
And now, listening to this new Severus, Hermione clearly saw what her husband could have become, but he never did. She was ready to try for the sake of memory and for the sake of the future.
"So what's up with Bella?" She recalled an overlooked detail. "How to get her out of the cult?"
"Do something out of the ordinary," Severus chuckled.
"For example?"
"Befriend the Muggles and marry someone who stains pureblood traditions with the mere fact of their existence."
"And who is this unfortunate man?"
"Do you know Remus Lupine? Is he your cousin or something like that? So, it turns out that dearest Bellatrix had a short romance not only with me."
Hermione dropped the stirrer and turned the cauldron over.