A/N: Hope you enjoy! Let me know in the comments!
Shoutout to my alpha readers Ruby, Juby, and Bryra, as well as my mom and my husband for all the encouragement along the way!
Massive amounts of thanks to SnakegirlSprocket for beta-ing and getting this ready for fan eyes!
And of course, if you're here, you probably know - I do not own Harry Potter, I just like to play here.
It wasn't so much Hermione's answer that had floored Severus, but the darkness that had flitted multiple times across her face as she'd spoken. He'd seen her anger and sadness about her old career before, but the anguish and doom that had flashed in her eyes when speaking about civilians had been something else entirely…and too familiar.
They were the same expressions he saw in the mirror…on Draco's face when the demons of their past as Death Eaters became overwhelming. To see the same self-loathing and despair on Hermione's face hollowed out something in his chest painfully. There is certainly more to learn about her time as an Auror.
Otherwise, her response was perfect. As much as Draco put up with his pontificating about the state of their government and often helped Snape work through theories, he wasn't one for long brooding discussions. Hermione on the other hand appeared to be holding back at present for the sake of getting through these preliminary administrative discussions. He liked how her mind worked on problems even as she was still hearing the initial info, ready to volley and answer or another question as soon as he was done talking.
One side of his mouth crept upwards unconsciously as he realized the irony: it was exactly the type of behavior for which he'd taken points during school. Something of a necessary evil— her questions, and even sometimes her answers, had always been far out of the range for what even the average students could understand. She typically had arrived to class already having done multiple readings on the topic of lesson and proceeding to query for information years above level. Rather than take her aside and inflate her already buoyant ego by explaining that he had to teach in a way that everyone could understand, he'd opted for the mean and direct path.
"Well, it looks like he's satisfied with that response, Granger, if that creepy little grimace is any indication," Draco said, raising an eyebrow at Severus's thoughtful pause.
"Indeed," Severus said, pulling his expression back to something neutral and vowing to give Draco a stern talking to later about his cheek. He proceeded to discuss his ideas about the finer aspects of their partnership, pausing every so often to hear out her perspectives. As he spoke, going further into his vision than he'd ever broached with another person, he discovered he was anxious for her approval.
The deeply critical part of him was watching every quirk of an eyebrow, every movement of her mouth, as if waiting to say "There, there! See, this plan won't work with her!" Luckily, that part was nearly fuming with the lack of evidence for anything of the sort. And anyhow, he'd recently learned that that part of his mind was perhaps the most unreliable when she was involved.
Hermione was not only very agreeable to his presentations, but pleasantly unintimidated, regularly bringing up suggestions he'd not yet considered. He'd always suspected that she was the central planner behind the majority of her little trio's escapades, and nothing about her current behavior dissuaded him of the theory. Before long, the charmed parchment was filling nicely with their expectations for the venture.
"So, this is hardly the most important part for me, but what of money and time?" Hermione asked.
"Ah, yes," he said, hoping she would accept the lack of clarity he himself had around how they were to fund this venture. "Although we have received contact from two new clients, in addition to Madame Grospinks, it is difficult to anticipate how much interest our services will stir up. As such, I think it wise that you continue to maintain some other form of gainful employment."
Hermione nodded and then looked at him with bemusement. "I have no idea what you are presently doing professionally, Severus."
"I make my living through a handful of Potioneering contracts, as well as the occasional patent royalties or article. It's enough for me to live comfortably and fund my personal research pursuits." He slid a piece of parchment across the table towards her. "Here's the rate I used for Madame Grospinks. I'm not attached to it in any fashion, though I would like for it to remain affordable."
Hermione read the scrap, her eyes widening before she looked back up. "Severus…this is hardly enough. I've been making more than that with the lousy temp rates from the Ministry, and I'm just helping with accounting, not investigating possible nefarious activity!"
Draco perked up from his chair, snatching the number out of Hermione's hand. He audibly gasped as if scandalized when he read the number and Severus's eyebrows drew together.
"Listen, you know I'll gladly bankroll this whole thing, but you're cheating yourself out of a lot of money, Snape," Draco drawled, shaking his head in shame. "Granger, you have an entirely better grip on your self-worth, please handle all the rate inquiries from here on out."
Snape scowled darkly. Before he could open his mouth to point out how important it was to him for their services to remain accessible to as many people as possible, Hermione smiled gently at him.
"How about a sliding scale, so clients pay something appropriate for what they have?" Her brown eyes flickered with warmth and he felt himself nodding. "It's just that for someone like Madame Grospinks, this is entirely too little."
"And besides, even if you two are content in working for knuts, I'm sure whoever you end up hiring as an office manager or the like is going to be looking for steady pay," Draco pointed out. "Unless Granger is willing to do that as well?"
Hermione shook her head emphatically. "No. I'd say bringing in the treats this evening is about the extent of my intentions towards such things. I've been forced to take notes in far too many meetings, make too many cups of coffee, and field too many low-level inquiries. Mostly by men who had no right."
Draco winced and chuckled. "They really are idiots at the Aurory, aren't they?"
Severus sighed. "Alright, all of these are good points. However, in case you two have forgotten, I've found it near impossible to find someone competent, available, and amenable."
"Lavender Brown," Hermione said with a start.
"I hardly thought you two were friends," Draco said, confused.
"We weren't…I supposed we still aren't. But I just saw her this afternoon and frankly, I think she'd be perfect. She's looking for work. And she knows how to play nice…as well as when not to."
Severus frowned as he considered it. He recalled Miss Brown as an often obnoxiously bubbly presence, though she typically stayed out of trouble and did just fine in her classes. Suddenly, another recollection about her came to mind. He regretted his next question as soon as he asked it.
"Didn't she date the youngest Weasley boy as well?"
A pair of gray and a pair of brown eyes swiveled to him immediately.
"Um…yes," Hermione said, a light shade of pink creeping into her cheeks. "I didn't realize you…noticed such things."
"He didn't," Draco said, barely holding back his laughter. "I had to explain to Snape the other day about your very public breakup and the fit you threw about the Prophet. Good on you by the way, for both the breakup and the fit."
Desperately wanting to move the subject along and not give Hermione any amount of time to consider how else he and Draco had discussed her in private, Snape grasped at the original suggestion. "Miss Brown is as good a lead as any. Hermione, would you mind setting up an official meeting with her?"
"Gladly! Well…I don't know about you, Severus, but I'm pretty content with this contract. I imagine there are other things we need to get to this evening?"
"Quite," Draco said slyly, and Severus had to close his eyes in order to not lose his temper.
"Yes, everything seems in order, and we can always revisit and renegotiate if the need arises."
Draco led them through the steps to finalize the agreement. Once again, he clasped Hermione's forearm, though they also held their respective wands this time, tips pressed against the parchment between them. And once again, the rush of magic between them was notably strong. Severus felt a sudden squall of emotions stumble through him as his gaze locked with Hermione's. Her eyes were as wide as his felt and he was about to confirm whether she had felt the same magnitude of power, when Draco cleared his throat obviously.
"Well, with that done, I'm off," he said, triplicating the contract and pocketing one of the copies. "Glad you're here, Granger. I can finally have a night to myself instead of being Snape's cauldron boy."
Unsure of what he would say, Snape simply nodded. He heard Hermione mumble a goodbye as Draco slipped out the door and suddenly they were alone. There was a pressure to the quiet of the flat, as if the magic of their agreement still crackled through the air. Cognitively, Severus knew there was work to be done, but uncharacteristically, he was at a loss for what to say. Some part of him revelled in the strange tension of that moment. As they looked at each other, it was as if his internal agitation was not only collectively tangible but mutual.
Hermione appeared slightly out of breath, as she had been the night before, and her curly tresses were voluminous with the leftover static. He watched, with not nearly as much regret as he should possess, as her tongue flicked out to rewet her lips. Severus began to muse that they would stay there forever, forgoing kinetic progress in exchange for an eternity of loaded potential. Hermione's eyes narrowed on his, her lips pursing in thought.
"Are vow spells always so intense with you?" she asked boldly, no trace of embarrassment or shame. "Is it because of the types of vows you've taken in the past?"
He was thankful for the questions, even if it did cause another strangled hope to writhe in his chest. At least she felt that too. Still he was in no state to assume what exactly she had felt and seized on the opportunity to deflect in the face of her overtly personal questions.
"How should I know what making a vow with me is like?" He shrugged as the spell over him finally broke and he began to lay out the potion ingredients they would need. He smirked as he heard her huff a sigh behind him. "To your theory, I don't believe it's a question of causation, merely of coincidence. I am not the type to enter into bargains lightly, therefore the vows I do make are significant. I can't imagine you are much different, or have you been throwing around Unbreakables these days?"
"I suppose that makes some sense," Hermione said, though he could tell by the lift of an eyebrow that she thought nothing of the sort. She continued more quietly. "I'm glad you see this as a significant situation."
He chose not to respond, prepping his mortar and pestle in the relative silence of the popping fire. If he hadn't made such a point of berating her for opening her mind to him before, he'd search her eyes for an explanation of her words. But it was better left untouched. This venture could be called significant for many reasons. She approached the counter.
"I'm sure you'll recall the use of some of these ingredients," he said, seizing the opportunity to regain some composure. "Anything…familiar?"
Fluxweed, Boomslang skin, leeches, powdered bicorn horn…
Hermione blushed furiously as she recognized several of the prominent ingredients of Polyjuice Potion—many of which she'd stolen from the private stores of the man now looming triumphantly in front of her. It was obvious he'd worked it out eventually that she'd been the one to do so, but she wasn't so easily cowed. If she'd been brash enough at thirteen to steal the ingredients, the least she could do now was to appear shameless. So instead of apologizing meekly or some other such deference, Hermione stared directly into Severus's black eyes and smirked.
"It looks like we're just short the stewed lacewing flies, if Polyjuice is the intention," she said easily and watched as his dark gaze narrowed on her, clearly hoping for an embarrassed apology
"And cat hair." He sneered. "Though I'd rather not waste my time brewing you another antidote."
This time, Hermione couldn't help that her jaw dropped. She'd hardly thought about her accidental transformation in the years since, but she'd always had the impression that no one other than Madame Pomfrey had known about her botched Polyjuice experiment.
"I didn't realize you had been involved in my…healing," she said primly as she looked back at the ingredients. It made sense, of course, that he'd been the one to brew what was likely quite a complicated potion. "Why didn't you say anything before now?"
"Because in addition to admitting that a second year had managed to break into my stores, I would have had to try and hold an austere expression while doling out some form of discipline," he said, his tone matching hers in delicate professionalism. "And there was hardly a chance of that given the memory of your appearance."
Hermione gritted her teeth, her temper quick to rise to the occasion.
"My potion was successful, you know," she gritted out. "Harry and Ron transformed perfectly."
The flash in his dark eyes told her he hadn't known anything of their larger caper as he took a step towards her, no longer pretending to set up his cauldron.
"And here I was thinking that your unfortunate stint as a feline was punishment enough. What could the three of you possibly have needed with Polyjuice?" She couldn't place his tone, as it wasn't exactly angry nor was it the placid boredom he seemed to use when he was actually bothered by something. To her ears, the words were a challenge that she was more than happy to meet.
"Infiltrating the Slytherin Common Room to interrogate Malfoy about the identity of the Heir," she said languidly, squaring herself to him. He was close enough that she could feel a slight zap of his magic around him. As usual, he was using his height to look down his nose at her. She tilted her head to the side, chin defiant as she looked up from under her lashes at him. What am I doing? "Also quite successful."
The corners of Severus's mouth curled up, but the resulting smile could hardly be considered a kind expression. "Well, I suppose it's a shame we aren't brewing Polyjuice tonight. Given your apparently renowned skill."
The words weren't cutting by Snape's standards, but he managed to deliver them with enough spite to push her temper higher. Hermione had the impulse to grab the front of his robes and yank him down to her eye level and… No, I said I was putting all that aside. He could hardly know the effect he was having on her considering this was typical snark on his part. She decided to do her best impression of the man himself.
"Shall we get on with it then?" she asked, sighing as if the whole interchange was trivial instead of wholly enticing. "By this point, you probably could have made a significant dent in brewing a Polyjuice antidote anyhow."
To her surprise, Severus huffed a laugh and handed her a heavy notebook full of potion notes in his spiky handwriting. She had thought the cramped scribbles in the Half-Blood Prince's copy of Advanced Potions were interesting, but this was on a completely other level. Flipping through, she could tell he'd been diligently working to develop a new potion and marvelled at the artistry of it. After a few moments she looked up to find him watching her intently.
"Well?" he asked. It was both a test and a genuine question of what she thought.
"You're trying to create an identification potion," she said thoughtfully, though the bookworm in her really just wanted to keep reading. "Not something to be imbibed, but a solution to isolate genetic and magical trace evidence. Like muggle DNA testing, but not reliant on pattern matching. It's brilliant!"
Severus scoffed as he turned back to the cauldron to light a small fire underneath it. "It would be, if I could actually get it to work. I've been brewing this most nights since that terrible case you worked on last summer. So far, Draco and I have been able to separate out materials belonging to different individuals, but the identification aspect has been a lot more difficult to nail. Take whatever notes you think will be helpful, I need new eyes on this."
And so they set about recreating his latest version of the potion. Hermione tried not to stare admiringly at his long, thin hands as they crushed and cut and stirred and expressed whatever he was saying at the moment. Or how he seemed more relaxed even when discussing his experimental frustrations now that he was working over a cauldron. She volleyed a few troubleshooting questions that sprang to mind, but most of them he acknowledged as approaches he'd already tried. Once all of the ingredients were added and they simply had to wait, they sat down at the table with fresh mugs of tea.
"You mentioned we have new clients?" she prompted, not wanting to pelt him with more potions questions until she'd taken a closer look at his notebook.
"Yes." He summoned three letters from his desk and offered them to her. "Apparently, direct referrals from Madame Grospinks. You'll be happy to know that I only received them this evening and I have yet to respond with any rate information."
Hermione chuckled as she skimmed each letter. They all described remarkably similar situations: pureblood family heirlooms suddenly missing and the desire for no law enforcement involvement as family members were suspected.
"Now why would all of these rich kids suddenly be nicking their parents' stuff?" Hermione said skeptically. "What does Draco think of all this?"
"Draco believes that's more or less a smokescreen for the fact that at least some of the items may be ill-begotten or quite cursed by this point. It all reeks of plausible deniability, both for them, and for us—their potential saviors. Recognize any of the items from the shop?"
"No, but that hardly means anything," she said, making a copy of each inventory. "I'll run them through the matrix first thing in the morning."
"Thank you," he said. For a long moment, they didn't speak, listening to the flames of the two fires and the quiet gurgling of the brew. Hermione was surprised to find that despite the heated beginning to their work session, she was more than comfortable sitting and drinking tea with Severus. She was thankful when he spoke again. "How are things at the shop?"
"Good," she said somewhat automatically before correcting herself. "Well, actually they're quite dreadful. The cake went a long way towards placating Ract, but it will all be for not when I give them my report tomorrow. I'm sure you know this, but they hardly sell anything these days and it doesn't look good for their books."
Severus nodded. "To be honest, I'm surprised they've held on this long after the war. Both of them are truly experts in their field, though they hardly have the credentials or the temperament for official Ministry work."
Hermione giggled at the idea of the crotchety old men having to appeal to fussy bureaucrats and proper office workers. "There's not enough cake in the world, I'm sure. But I think they are going to have to make some big changes if they want to survive. Actually, I've been considering the idea of helping them become a museum of sorts. What do you think?"
Severus considered her idea, his black eyes flicking around the room as he thought. "It's not a terrible idea. I assume you were planning that they could charge for admission and actually make something for all of the work they do just maintaining a building with that many powerful objects in it? I do have to admit, I feel like I'd be losing a major source of information about their deals. I'd rather not have to go to Mundungus Fletcher as a first option for such things."
"I'd think that having such a shop operating would go against your larger purposes," she said slyly.
Severus shrugged. "People will always find a way to secure powerful objects, I'd rather it be through a channel to which I have access."
"How does that work by the way? What are the ethics of using the info we get from one client to accomplish something for another?" She had been wondering as much about her own services. Given Snape's relationship with Borgin and Burke, it hardly constituted a conflict of interest for her to share information, but she could imagine that not always being the case with her financial clients.
"Hermione." She wondered if she would get used to hearing him use her given name, despite how much she'd requested the change herself. There was a sharp glint in his dark eyes as he answered. "If your quandary is of an ethical nature, I'm hardly the one to ask. I am an opportunist and often find that the right ends justify many of the means."
His words were heavy and she could tell he meant them, but the intended profundity had the opposite effect on her as she burst out laughing. His stricken expression only made her laugh harder.
"You don't actually think that of yourself, do you?" she demanded, trying her best to regain composure. He scowled at her and she had to fight off another bout of giggles.
"Perhaps it's too late and you are overworked," he said, as surly as ever, standing up from the table. Without thinking, she caught his hand as he passed her, standing as she did so. It was an automatic gesture, and he froze at the contact though didn't yank away as she expected.
"No, Severus, I'm sorry," she said, finally gathering herself and trying to find his eyes again. He continued to look away. "I don't intend to minimize the lengths you've had to go to in order to accomplish everything you did. But if you were truly an opportunist, I hardly think you'd have done any of it. And it only ever seemed that the righteous ends we saw were gotten through the means of your own sacrifice. So I think you're actually quite a good person to ask about such questions."
His hand was warm in hers, the strange current of magic that seemed to accompany all of their recent contact present again, though this time it was a calm thrum rather than the explosive bursts she'd experienced with their vow and contract. It was soothing, and the heated urge Hermione had felt earlier returned. She couldn't help but swipe her thumb across his knuckles, an action that felt much more daring than it actually was. He looked at her finally, his expression difficult as always to read, though it was certainly lacking the annoyed edge it had possessed at her laughter. Almost on impulse, Hermione dropped her Occlumency shields, another ill-advised dare in this game she wasn't certain she was playing with anyone but herself.
Severus's grip tightened around hers, and her heart leapt momentarily as she felt him on the edge of her consciousness. It felt important to show him that she really hadn't been laughing at him maliciously. She was prepared to offer up her emotions as proof when he lifted her hand and pressed a cool glass phial into it.
"Time to decant," he said, letting go of her hand and turning back to the cauldron. It felt like a rejection—though of what she couldn't say. Hermione knew she was certainly imagining the roughness she'd heard in his voice because his next words came out smoothly as usual. "The potion is ready."