Seven Preposterous Things

If All The World Was Apple Pie
And All the Seas Were Ink
And All The Trees Were Bread and Cheese
What Would We Have To Drink?

--Trad.


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And so the little group, despite their individual preoccupations, found an angular sort of domesticity in their new home. It was far from conventional, and there was a good deal of bickering, but all were suited to one degree or another.

Hollow threats to further his education aside, Draco pursued the goal of rendering the house fit, not only for habitation, but for his personal habitation, with a zeal his companions considered teetered on the brink of mania. With nothing more than his own hands - well, his own hands and a roller and brush - the heir to the Malfoy line painted the exterior a distinctly unMugglish shade of lavender. He was inordinately proud of himself, in an embarrassed-to-be-caught-doing-manual-labour sort of way.

After the interior was cleaned and sorted, each room, except, notably Severus' own, took on signs of Draco's distinctive treatment. Silk panels, cut from surplus dressing gowns, were stretched to cover the walls of the lounge. Room by room, day by day, draperies appeared and mouldings were gilded. The others were unsure if he had found a Muggle willing to launder his doubloons and was being coy about it, or more unnervingly, whether he had taken up sewing while they were out, or in Severus' case, asleep, during the day.

Hardly a week went by without some sort of improvement. Hermione was amused to see Draco's chest literally swell when Severus commented, over one of Millie's extraordinary pre-dawn teas, that the whole place looked "like something Narcissa would come up with".

"Nice," Millie said staring distractedly out the window, but Draco was too busy feeling proud to notice.

Millie, for her part, continued on with her gainful employment. The Tea Shop was not to be confused with Snape's Tea Room. One sported concrete floors strewn liberally with cigarette butts and sometimes featured musical acts with names like "Fist Full of Cunts" and the other had wall-to-wall chintz and oil paintings of dead aristocracy everywhere. In any event, The Tea Shop had a marked increase in business when the smells of Millie's baking began wafting out the front door.

She spent a good deal of time puzzling over the strange behaviour of Muggles with Hermione. Her employer was a complete nutter, even for a Muggle, even for an American Muggle, as far either of them could reckon.

First off, she wasn't 70 and was, in fact, around Snape's age. Apparently, Muggles aged faster than normal but that was the only thing easily explained about Mrs. Bertolli.

Mrs. Bertolli was inexplicably mad for any and all things English in way that made Millie's eyes cross. She nattered all day, every day, on the topic of the innate superiority of everything English to everything American, a trait that particularly confounded Millie being as Mrs. Bertolli was, herself, an American thing.

And then there were the royals; Mrs. Bertolli could easily spend half the day going on about who the British Royals shagged and didn't shag. While Millie was vaguely aware the Muggles of her nation of birth did have a queen or king or something, in the enchanted wood where she was raised the only monarch to speak of answered to the name "gran" and wore a necklace of skulls when she was feeling festive. To be fair, Millie wasn't entirely sure you couldn't say the same of Elizabeth Mountbatten.

On the occasion Draco walked over because he was feeling a mite peckish, Mrs. Bertolli all but declared a national holiday. Lots of women had that response. That didn't make Millie less cheesed off by it.

The accent was the most perplexing thing though. Mrs. Bertolli would, at random intervals and with varying degrees of success, mimic random English accents, occasionally straying, during an odd phase of the moon, as far afield as Scotland.

Weirder still, Mrs. Bertolli admitted she had never set foot on the sacred ground that was the U.K. and Millie herself was the first real live English person she had known "intimately", though Millie thought "intimate" was a gross overstatement.

Millie couldn't put her finger on anything harmful in any of it; it was fairly fucking bizarre, though.

Millie held her other, more private concern, close to her chest.


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For her part, Hermione spent the first month of her new life adjusting to university as well as the minutiae of Muggle life. She was more than a bit disappointed at the lack of real intellectual challenge, but the ease of her transition was cheering, at least. She was also relieved at the marked distance maintained by Snape.

Oh, he demanded she recount each class period in exacting detail and regularly disappeared into the den of revulsion that was his bedroom with her textbooks, not to mention combed her class work for mistakes. But his only act that could reasonably be described as even vaguely romantic was glaring death at any males within a three meter radius of her person when, at his own insistence, he rose a few scant hours after returning home from "pouring liquor down idiots" to ferry her to classes, quite often still under the influence himself. It might have simply been a matter of being painfully hung over; it wasn't as though he was a ray of sunshine even under the best of circumstances.

Millie said she'd never known him to bath daily before, but he continued to be short-tempered, sarcastic, tightly strung, smoking and drinking entirely too much; in other words, on his best behaviour and toned down considerably.

Though she did her best to keep her night time terrors to herself, Hermione sometimes awoke in a cold sweat to find Snape sitting at her bedside fresh home from work, an unlit cigarette in his lips, smelling of liquor, a glass of water and a stiff word of comfort at the ready.

The second month, Hermione came to the striking conclusion she preferred the company of her housemates, Draco included, to any of the people she met at school.

Millie had been the greatest surprise. She'd never had a friend like Millie before. Millie was every bit as bright as Hermione knew herself to be, which was not something Hermione was accustomed to. Once or twice, she had the painful traitorous thought that her former friendships, namely the ones she'd had with Ron and Harry, had been closer to the sort of sort of love one had for a particularly intelligent and familiar Labrador Retriever; the unspoken things like love and loyalty worked perfectly well but most of the subtleties were in short supply. Things would have been different had they known enough to make friends when they were still at Hogwarts.

She sometimes worried that Millie, whose skewering of Muggleborn and Pureblood alike knew neither blood loyalty nor pity, was a bad influence as they laughed at the kitchen table until they choked on their tea. Sometimes, Millie proved herself too astute for comfort as well.

Her assessment of Snape, for example.

Aside from excessive staring with his hair pulled down over his eyes and a jittery sort of hovering, one might think he was a paid tutor the way he treated her. Occasionally, as they discussed her course work and air between them grew tense, she thought the situation might be drawn out of its current miserable limbo through mutual agreement. Unfortunately, each and every time a kiss appeared on the horizon, Snape would excuse himself for a cigarette.

Once, as Severus draped himself across the settee, engrossed in the paper with Whack ensconced on his lap, she took the liberty of petting the cat. He did like being scruffed round the neck. She had never seen a living person go so still without the benefit of a Petrificus curse as Severus Snape did at that moment. The bulb in the lamp nearest them shattered and everyone retreated to their bedrooms, grateful there hadn't been flames.

She sincerely hoped Severus was pleasuring himself regularly, God knew she was. It was a hellish sort of bind. Yes, she understood he was not pressing her despite her obvious obligations to him. She got the bloody point. If there was going to be any movement on that front, she was going to have to seduce him. It seemed unfair. He started it, after all.


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One day, during the second week in October, she attempted to give Severus a hand out of their mutual rut. Hermione sat at the aged formica table Draco had yet to replace, working through her calculus with one of Millie's chocolate biscuits in her mouth. She was running through an internal complaint about how depressingly two dimensional the study of calculus seemed after Arithmancy, when she not so much heard as felt Snape enter the room and loom close behind her. The time was past ripe. Keeping her right hand poised holding pencil to paper and doing her best to give Snape no forewarning lest he bolt, Hermione moved her left hand from her lap to Snape standing behind her. The flat of her palm rested gingerly against the front of his thigh.

He grabbed her hand quickly, like a springing trap. She feared him and his temper as he stood there, a death grip on her hand, though she had no rational reason beyond the ever hardening suspicion that, under his usually icy exterior, Severus Snape was as calm and collected as a wet cat in a sack.

As he gripped her fingers with his, she was afraid for an instant that he was going to do something terrible. Bite it off or something. She'd rather not lose that hand if it could be helped. It wasn't her dominant hand, but they'd still had many good times together.

She was rather shocked when Severus pressed his lips stiffly to the back of her hand then ran, not walked, not strode, but ran out the door.

The cowardly shit. She knew Slytherins weren't renowned for their courage but this was ridiculous. The screen door rattled behind him.

Severus Snape was interested, he'd made that much clear repeatedly, but he could only act on his sexual feelings for her provided he was blind drunk, fully expecting to die in the morning, and she was in the relatively unthreatening role of underage student. It was a fairly narrow set of requirements.

Hermione didn't see herself recreating that particular set of circumstances, even if it were possible. Not even if memory had failed to deceive her, and he was as well endowed as she recalled.

What was she to expect? Well-balanced wizards generally didn't join the Death Eaters, particularly when they were decidedly mixed blood themselves. Neither did they make entirely inappropriate sexual advances toward students less than half their age. Too bad he'd grown on her so much. Too bad he'd saved her life and was, in all honesty, doing all he could to assure her safety and comfort. Well... driving aside.

She turned the whole knotty question over in her mind. Did she really want him? If so, how badly?

Had circumstances been different, had Snape not been a fugitive wanted for the murder of one the greatest wizards of his generation, had they been back in the magical London, had Hermione been living the life she had since graduating Hogwarts, she would have got Snape into bed weeks ago. The current state of affairs necessitated a bit more discretion than she usually bothered with.

Crap! She was starting to talk like him, in her own mind, at least.

His appeal was undeniable. He had physical grace, keen wit and showed concern for her person, if not in word then in deed. In all honesty, she'd never met anyone as intellectually fascinating as her former potions master, whether the subject was Magical or Muggle. True, he wasn't the prettiest piece of male flesh she'd ever come across, actually he was fairly ugly, but she didn't fault him for it; pretty tended to bore Hermione after the third or fourth time she woke up next to it.

It was when she looked at the other end of the equation that she started to come down with a dull ache behind her eyes. He was obsessed. With her. Apparently to such a degree that he could barely speak to her unscripted if the topic strayed beyond academics. Which might be a sign to run screaming in the other direction. In addition, he had a myriad disgusting habits. If anything could put her off, it was smoking.

He was not unlike a gorgeous old house fallen into wreck and ruin. Which she supposed cast her in the role of potential buyer, trying to puzzle out whether she was interested in the outlay of time and energy required to rehabilitate him.

What did they say was the deciding factor in cases like this? Oh, yes, location, location, location.

As far that went, he might as well be the last wizard on earth. That almost sealed his fate and left Severus Snape at the mercy of whatever form of self-abuse he got up to in his room; Hermione despised not having a choice.

Unsure what to do next, she went back to simpler maths only to be interrupted by Millie coming in to wash her muddy hands at the kitchen sink.

"What did you do to him?" Millie asked, jerking her head towards the door as she turned on the faucet.

"It was scandalous. I deserve to be whipped in the public square. I touched his leg, Technically, though, all I made contact with was trouser fabric," Hermione said, head down still juggling numbers on the page.

"You do realise if you ever get hold of his prick he's going to burst into tears," Millie said, intently cleaning under her wedding ring.

"What sort of action do you think our Mr. Snape would take were I to decide to keep company with someone else?" she asked, suspecting she knew the answer to that one as she jammed another biscuit into her mouth.

"Not sure," Millie said, drying her hands on the front of her skirt. Hermione ignored the way Draco's muddy handprints perfectly framed Millie's bum and hoped against both reason and experience that Millie would put forth an argument for Snape's self-control and rationality. "Whatever he'd do there'd be gore, most likely a speech as well. You know how he loves melodrama. Not sure which is worse, really."

Hermione sighed and wished she could disagree. "So what would you do in my place?"

"I've no idea," Millie said. "We're chalk and cheese me and you."

"Which am I?" Hermione asked, propping her chin on her fist. "The chalk or the cheese?"

"Definitely chalk, class room chalk at that, made from ancient whale bones," Millie said with a frown. "I, on the other hand, am the cheese. Big smelly cheese... an acquired taste, know what I mean?"

"Not extremely smelly, though, roughly Wensleydale level," Hermione said, "not even approaching anything French."

Both witches winced.

"You're making me hungry," Millie said, "You know I heard there's a market not two mile away that carries real live Wensleydale. Neal's Yard and everything."

"You can't be serious," Hermione asked, forgetting her Snape problems for the moment.


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"What the hell are you doing, Snape?" Draco said, fanning himself with a folded piece of newspaper.

"Working, eating, sleeping, moving my bowels... drinking when the mood is upon me. I wouldn't have imagined you could have any question of my occupation under present conditions. I am certainly well aware of your goings... and comings. ‘Oh Millie! Oh Millie!'," he answered sarcastically, taking a sip of his wretched American beer. In the sickening heat, the only thing to recommend it was the icy temperature at which it was served. Ambient outdoor temperatures hovering around 98 degrees were horrid at any time of year; in October it was cruel.

Draco responded, looking quite bored. "Granger. What are you going to do about Granger?"

Snape, utilising all his powers of play-acting to neither bolt nor cringe, instead looked Draco dead in the eye and shrugged.

"Is that it? A fat lot of nothing?" Draco said.

Severus noted that while Draco was nowhere as suave as his father, he was every bit as annoying.

"Sometimes the wisest course of action is biding one's time until an opportunity to act presents itself," he said, inspecting his fingernails as though they were tiny chips of the Rosetta Stone.

"Funny, from where I sit it looks less like you're biding your time and more like you're waiting for someone to come along and take her off your hands," Draco said, and Severus' stomach dropped at his words even as he sneered at them.

"Why, precisely, do you care? Haven't you some concern of your own to pore over? The shrubbery, perhaps?" Severus asked, trying to lead him away from the topic of Hermione.


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Inside the house Millie and Hermione laid hold of their purses and headed out in pursuit of cheese.

As they walked, matching purposeful strides, Hermione looked to the side to see Millie regard her thoughtfully for a fleeting instant.

"You can understand why Snape might be a little shirty," Millie said casually.

"Not particularly," Hermione said. "By all rights, I ought to be the nervous one."

"You don't know then?" Millie said, a certain tightness in her voice that passed almost instantly.

"Know what?" Hermione said, grabbing hold of Millie's sleeve at the intersection until the cars passed, as was her habit.

"When you have a shag, d'you ever notice you're a bit..." Millie seemed to struggle for the right word, "...peppy afterwards?"

"Why shouldn't I be? Vigorous exercise floods the body with adrenaline and sex floods the system with a host of hormones and chemicals," Hermione said, warming to the topic.

"And the wizard sleeps like somebody dropped dreamless death in his tea?" Millie asked.

Hermione snorted.

"You have a Muggle explanation for that one?" Millie asked.

"Not particularly." Hermione laughed; Millie had funny ideas sometimes.

"You ever wonder why no one thinks less of a wizard who takes up with a Muggle woman, but a Witch who fancies a Muggle is something of a laugh?" Millie asked.

"Typical double standard," Hermione said with a frown. She still didn't understand where Millie was going with any of this. She lived in a house with three Slytherins and not one of them could make a point without circling it three times first.

"You ever wonder why all the really powerful wizards are known virgins but not the witches?" Millie said.

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks.

No one had ever pointed this out to her before, and she wondered why it had never occurred to her.

"Millicent, stop dancing around the subject and tell me whatever it is you're trying to tell me," she said.

"It isn't the sort of thing people talk about, not even in private," Millie said uncomfortably.

"Tell me," Hermione said. putting her hands on her hips.

"I thought you knew," Millie said, wincing.

"What? What did you think I knew? What don't people talk about? What is it?" Hermione all but shouted.

Millie laughed a nervous laugh, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "When you shag, when any witch, shags a wizard, you... they... we... when we take their essence..." Millie stopped as if she expected Hermione to draw the correct conclusion from half a sentence.

"And by essence you mean semen." Hermione motioned for her to go on.

"Along with their essence, a witch takes a bit of their magic. You can learn to siphon off more with practice, kill ‘em or come close to it. That's what my gran does. But even if you aren't trying, you take a little every time," Millie said. "It sounds worse than it is."

"And the Purebloods keep it secret," Hermione said, Molly Weasley's comments about "scarlet women" suddenly taking on a whole new meaning. Her brain ticking, she suddenly realised her entire life had taken on a different light in an instant. How many wizards had she stolen power from since she'd left school and had a flat of her own? To be fair, stolen wasn't an accurate description; they'd been eager enough to share.

Hermione wasn't sure why she felt unreasonably angry at Millie at that moment. It was the sort of thing any number of other witches could have, no, should have, told her years ago. McGonagall, for instance, was probably in dereliction of duty for not telling her.

Ginny. Ginny ought to have told her before she started sleeping with Ron.

"I thought you knew," Millie said, wincing, "We heard you practically lived with the Weasleys when you weren't at Hogwarts."

Hermione stared at her. It was a strange thing for the Slytherins to care where she spent her summers, though, knowing them, it was likely a great source of amusement. Everything in the world had changed; only it hadn't. Things remained as they had always been and only her knowledge had been altered. Suddenly a thousand little things in the magical world made more sense.

No sex before a Quidditch match.

She wanted to laugh. She wondered if anyone gave this pertinent little gem of information to Harry Potter, if it could have saved his life and changed the course of the war. Surely he knew. Surely someone told him. Still, some cynically shrieking part of her wondered if instead of Occlumency Dumbledore should have arranged for Harry to have basic sex education.

She wanted to ask Millie why it was such a bloody secret, but she already knew. She had lived in the magical world long enough to understand perfectly. Wizards didn't talk about it because they didn't want to let any witch who wasn't already aware in on the secret and put their power in more jeopardy. Witches didn't share the knowledge casually because they didn't want to encourage other witches to exploit wizards. Or give them competition.

"Wensleydale, remember?" Millie said, jerking her head toward the busy intersection.

This time Millie steered her across.

"Of course, it's not as good with Muggles," she said as they stepped back on the curb.

"How do you know?" Hermione asked. "Have you ever had sex with a Muggle?"

Millie laughed and there was nothing false about it. The pure silliness of the question bubbled up from deep in her chest.

"Neither have I," Hermione said, smiling without intending to. Her instincts certainly suggested Millie was correct in her assertions.


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In the meantime, Stephen Liston, so-called, left the house and arrived at work promptly, liquored up the customers, then himself in the accepted order of operations, all in all keeping a low profile.

He was diligent, as well, about making certain Hermione didn't surpass him academically, though he discovered the holes in his knowledge were rather larger than he'd previously surmised. He didn't let on. More than once he wished... he wasn't sure what he wished. Something stupid about telling Lucius and the others to take a flying fuck when he had the chance, and running off to America twenty years ago, most likely. It was immaterial. All the wishing in the world would not undo the years of mistakes that surrounded him like a dung pile. Even now, missteps clung to the bottom of his boot.

He was determined he would not ruin his chances with her, after all the years she'd eaten at his thoughts like a cancer he would not make the wrong move now and lose her. Draco was a fool. Everything in the boy's life had come so easily he'd never learned the cardinal rule: He who hesitates... is often the sole survivor.

As soon as he managed to work out the proper approach, he would make Granger his own. For the moment unfortunately, every time he looked her straight in the eye his coherent thoughts all disintegrated like soap bubbles in a storm. He was working on that one.

He wasn't too proud to admit he'd impressed even himself when he managed to kiss her hand, despite the fact that the retreat he'd beaten was rather hastier than he'd originally intended.

The only solution was to mix the morons their poncy drinks and do his time; planning a healthy allowance of liquor for himself after closing so he could bear to be in the same room as the love of his life when he returned home.


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Standing amid the aisles of food in the posh market Hermione waxed introspective. She wasn't religious but somehow, with their cart loaded with Wensleydale and huge fragrant apples the stirrings she felt could only be described in ecclesiastic language. If she could locate a package of Jaffa cakes she was going to sing hosannas. Figuratively anyway, her singing voice was not exactly pleasant.

"Had anyone suggested any of this when we were at Hogwarts..." she started but was cut off by Millie.

"Any of what?" Millie asked.

"Any of this," she said gesturing to herself. "You marrying Draco..." Again, Millie interrupted.

"I didn't marry Draco. Draco married me. There's a difference. And I didn't pick him out myself," Millie said, scrutinising a jar of lemon curd.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"It was a set up. His mum made a deal with my mum. Paid her two thirds of everything in the Malfoy coffers for the privilege," Millie said shaking her head and putting the jar of curd back on the shelf.

"That's incredible," Hermione said, horrified. "In this day and age, how could someone do that?"

"My mum and dad are old fashioned. They thought they were being very... what do you call it... progressive not making him fight dragons and shag some old hag to prove his mettle. Or knowing my mum it could have been the other way ‘round; shag a dragon and arm wrestle a hag," Millie grumbled. "Still, two thirds of the Malfoy fortune isn't exactly small potatoes."

Hermione nodded, though she wondered in passing how Millie's parents verified the amount.

"My uncle's their tax attorney. Or else we never would have trusted their numbers," Millie said matter of factly.

Hermione stared, holding in the thought that came immediately to mind; it was a relatively untested new skill.

Millie looked at her expectantly. "Well out with it. Whatever you are going to say, say it.

"You have to admit it seems uncommonly like slavery. Expecting your daughter to spend her life with the highest bidder," Hermione let the words have their way and jump recklessly from her mouth.

"Who said anything about life?" Millie asked, apparently surprised by the idea. "They married me to him for a year and a day. Contract subject to renewal at that time and capable of being dissolved at any time by either party."

"When did they... arrange it?" Hermione asked. Was Millie due to leave them any time soon? If she did leave that could change everything.

"We've been married since summer after sixth year," Millie said. "Not exactly sure when they arranged the whole thing. Draco prob'ly put his mum up to it after winter hols."

"Millie, that was over three years ago," Hermione said.

"Yeah, I know," Millie gruffly. "I reckon the brat grew on me."

Hermione chuckled.

"Draco's all right he's just..." Millie said.

"Draco," Hermione supplied.

"And now I'm going to have a baby... Well, I'm pregnant. I don't know if I'm going to have it much longer or not," Millie said, putting a jar of strawberry jam in the cart.

"What happened? I mean I know what happen, weren't you using contraception?" Hermione said automatically.

Millie rolled her eyes. " Of course I was, My granny braided a contraceptus into my pubes when I came to Hogwarts; my fucking husband unbraided it while I was asleep."

Hermione cringed. "That's not very convenient."

"Life generally isn't convenient, in my experience, and Draco doubly so," Millie said with a sigh. Then, after a pause, she asked, "Do you like babies?"

"Theoretically I like them; I don't hate them. I never pictured myself with one, but..." Hermione said, shrugging; what exactly was she supposed to say?

"I've always wanted a baby. I never wanted a husband, but I always planned on a baby or two," Millie said, and Hermione was surprised by the sadness in her voice. "It doesn't seem very practical now. Under the circumstances, looks like it might never be practical."

Hermione looked at her and said the first thing that came to mind. "I always planned on a husband and no baby."

Millie let out a short sharp bark of a laugh that ended just as abruptly.

"I've got some pennyroyal in the cupboard at the house, waiting 'til I work up the nerve," Millie said, randomly tossing items in the cart.

It seemed horribly unfair until a series of thoughts coalesced in Hermione's brain.

"When you think about it, having a baby is never really practical," she said, and Millie just glared daggers at her. Hermione had the feeling she was treading dangerous waters. She was thankful Millie didn't have a wand at present.

"No, no, follow me on this, Millie," Hermione said levelly. "Don't you think, if a witch has all the money and stability in the world and she doesn't want a baby she shouldn't have one?"

"'Course not, that's not fair to either of ‘em," Millie said gritting her teeth.

"Do witches who aren't wealthy and powerful have a right to have babies, as long as they can care for them properly?" Hermione asked.

Millie rolled her eyes in recognition of the obvious answer. "We're in hiding as Muggles, that's hardly the same as being a Weasley."

Hermione didn't blanch. "Muggles do have babies, you know. If you have this baby, it's not going to be a red flag for you-know-who to come and kill us all in our beds. In the end, I think the only reason to ever have a baby is because you want one."

Millie was silent.

"I'm not saying you have to have it, all I'm saying is you can if you want to. If you don't want to, I'll help you with that. The choice is yours. I'm on your side either way," Hermione said, wracking her brain for the right words.

"Snape's going to a have a fit when I tell him," Millie said flatly.

Hermione imagined it went without saying that Draco would be overjoyed at the continuation of the Malfoy line.

"Then why tell him at all? He's bound to put two and two together eventually," Hermione said, raising her eyebrow in imitation of a certain obnoxious wizard she knew.

The employee stocking breakfast cereals seemed taken aback when the two women at the end of the aisle erupted into uncontrolled paroxysms of laughter.

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Author's Note: Special Thanks To Shiv for Beta