I hope you all enjoy the fic. I am not an English speaker, so please be patient with me. If you wish to help me, please send me a message. I will be grateful for your help.
HarryPGinnyW4eva: You soon will see lol
Emers2021: Lol yep
Chapter 12: Living like Muggles is so boring I
The small London flat was far from the grandeur of Hogwarts, but it was home to Hermione Granger, at least for now. The cold wind blew outside as she and Severus Snape carried boxes into their new home; Severus begrudgingly. Hermione knew that this would be a difficult journey, but she could not have anticipated just how challenging it would be.
As they set down their boxes, Severus looked around the flat with disdain. "How can you stand living in such a place?" he asked, his hands on his hips. "So far from the magic you practiced so diligently at Hogwarts?"
Hermione took a deep breath before responding. "We don't have much of a choice, Professor," she reminded him gently. "You're on trial and also receiving a lot of hate mail for marrying me. We need to lay low for a while."
"Don't worry, Granger, owls will bring us that mail here anyway. And if Rita Skeeter keeps writing these articles, soon your apartment will be flooded with them," Severus Snape said sharply. He simply began unpacking the boxes, his frustration evident in every movement. "We will have to add another bedroom, a potion's lab, and I suppose that just one bathroom is fine if you aren't one of those women who likes to look at themselves in the mirror for hours on end."
"Two bathrooms," Hermione decided. As silly as it sounded, a bathroom was almost like a private sanctuary where she could retreat if needed. She could always just cry under the shower and no one would ever notice anyway.
Snape's nostrils flared and his gaze narrowed; she could guess his thoughts, as his face was no longer as impassive as it had been before, at least not in that moment. Something was obviously bothering him immensely.
"I want your cat away from my bedroom and any of my belongings," he warned her, looking around for the animal. "Where is it?"
Hermione couldn't help but laugh freely at that, and the sound startled the man, as he had never heard her laugh like that before.
"I just moved out, Professor. My parents wanted something to remember me, so my cat volunteered to stay with them as a way to remind them that they still have a daughter who will visit them and her cat occasionally."
"How charming" Snape scoffed, curling his lips contemptuously. "I supposed that Weasley still lives with his mother".
Hermione considered it a low blow due to their financial situation and decided to simply lie rather than keep humoring the man.
"Each one of us is looking for their own future, Professor. Harry lives now in Grimmauld Place as was contemplated in Sirius' will and Ginny Weasley will probably be signed for a Quidditch team soon. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is still very popular among the students and visitors alike, so we are not just kids anymore."
"I can see it perfectly," Snape answered crisply, crossing his arms. She couldn't tell if it was a defiant gesture a or protective anymore. "I suppose that we will not receive any visitors for a while, now that your friends are angry with you, Miss Granger." The tension draining a bit for his rigid stance.
"If you're worried about any "unwanted visitors," well, yes, I suppose not. Aside from my parents or any other friends who wouldn't want my head on a silver platter right now for marrying you, professor."
As they unpacked together in an uncomfortable silence, Hermione pondered what had brought them to this point-two adversaries from completely different worlds united by surprising circumstances. They barely knew each other outside of their tense encounters during Hermione's time at school, yet here they were, forced to rely on each other.
"Professor," she said, but Severus remained tight-lipped and distant. "If our magical marriage was meant to be, how could any Death Eater force me to marry them if my soul wasn't destined to bond with any of them?"
Snape simply shrugged while unboxing a pair of books and stacking them neatly on her sofa.
"Amortentia, charms to confuse you; whatever possible way to ensure their protection from Azkaban."
"Could they try to break our bond somehow, Professor, if they were so desperate for it?"
"I would instantly feel it; like the mark on my arm used to burn when the Dark Lord was alive," still Hermione noticed how hard it was for Snape to call Voldemort by his name, but decided not to look for another unnecessary argument. "An excruciating pain that perhaps would result in having to kill again, like in the old times, Granger."
Hermione desperately wanted to argue, but she knew he had a point. The last thing she wanted was for him to commit another crime just for serving her. What Dumbledore had asked him to do in the past was simply enough.
"No more killings and definitely no more dark magic," she declared, and Snape raised both eyebrows at her statement.
"You may condemn my knowledge of it for now, Granger, but I believe you will be grateful for it soon."
"I'm not like the professor Dumbledore used to be; I can defend myself perfectly well, too."
Snape simply said nothing, returning to his task at hand, but Hermione wasn't done yet.
"Who, for the sake of their own judgment, would marry a Death Eater anyway?"
This time, Snape laughed; a short, bark-like laughter that resonated through the apartment.
"There is always someone meant for each other, Granger. You have just married a Death Eater."
"Former Death Eater, and I should add, a spy."
"It doesn't really matter. We are witches or wizards, but we are also human and there is darkness in our hearts that could perfectly match the darkness in the heart of someone else. Or we could just be fanatics of any Death Eater who always dreamed of marrying one and being on the brink of danger."
Hermione sighed and wondered about what Minerva had said about his health condition, and suddenly the crumpled recipe she had still in her pocket weighed heavily, as if it were made of stones.
"Professor Snape," Hermione insisted, and Snape raised his head again from his unpacking, visibly annoyed. She hadn't offered to help with anything, but kept asking more and more questions that he was tired of answering. "You haven't told me yet how you managed to survive such a wound from Nagini's bite. I did some research and found out that Nagini wasn't just a serpent; she was a Maledictus woman who eventually became a giant serpent. No one survives that easily."
"I have noticed that you have done nothing but ask me ten thousand questions."
"We're married now, so why can't we be honest with each other?"
"I simply survived and that's enough, isn't it?
"But how? Mr. Weasley needed almost a month in a hospital bed to barely survive his bite. What kind of resource, as a potion master, did you use to save your life if you didn't need any medical assistance?"
"Why are you suddenly worried, Miss Granger? Don't worry, I don't plan to die anytime soon."
Even if he didn't accept her help, she would ensure it.
"Perfect, because we also need to procreate," she reminded him again. Snape hissed, tipping his head slightly as if trying to let these words fall off his ears like water and just forget that he had heard such a thing.
