The Gilded Cage

VoraciousReader- Snarky and mean tempered, but I think you’re right in that he has a strong need to protect and be needed himself.
HG4eva- It’s kinda why the Marriage Law fics are great, it’s a catalyst for all this.
Rini- I’m not so sure about comic books, but I’m certain this isn’t the first time he’s been exposed to muggle literature. But I look at it from the standpoint that as a child growing up in the conditions he did he certainly didn’t get the kind of exposure that most children do and I think once he turned 11 he had an escape and probably didn’t want to associate himself with that world. He may be half-blooded, but I don’t think he self-identifies with the muggle world. Crackberry? PDA device, technically a Blackberry, but they are notoriously difficult sometimes (separate servers) that they’ve got the nickname of a crackberry. That, and it’s trademarked.
neelix- Please tell me you’re not another reader who thinks Severus ‘just needs a hug.’ Ick. You’re right though, it will have to be a slow seduction between them.
drlincu- I’ve never seen Mugglicious on fan merchandise, but I think it would be cool. The thought just came to me. I wonder if I can have a t-shirt made up myself in glittery 1970s writing. I doubt I can trademark it though without JKR suing me.
MomoDesu- The whole ‘magical-tug’ that writers add to make the characters fall immediately in love is too far fantasy for me. Real people have real problems and though this is an AU fantasy fic, I like things natural. I agree, the break down is coming, but Hermione is a character that lends herself to that.

Chapter 12 - Saepe Creat Molles Aspera Spina Rosas


Gibson was at it again. Of all her R&D techs Imelda Gibson was her most brilliant and inspired thinker. Hermione tried to give her all the latitude she needed to freely create. Unfortunately Gibson’s muse seemed to be less of an angel and more of a horrible shit-spewing demon and she did her best work in the late at night on the weekends. This meant for Hermione, her fantasy of finishing quarterly reports over the weekend was dashed upon the cruel rocks of reality when Gibson blew up the lab. Again.


The containment fields didn’t hold either. A large hole was blasted through the outer cinderblock wall causing muggle media to speculate that it was an act of urban terrorism. Hermione’s working weekend was spent making up press releases, talking to the authorities, and trying to salvage what was left of her experimental potions lab. The only good thing she had to say about the entire debacle was that Imelda had proper warning of the impending explosion and protected herself with a powerful shield and walked away with a few bruises.


Hopper immediately argued was direct result of her utter incompetence, but then Hopper really hadn’t produced a single noteworthy invention since joining the company. Hermione was sorely tempted to fire him, not because of his lack of results, but simply on principal. The man was a tiring ass to get along with.


Her saving grace was that Lee Jordan was back from leave meaning he could pick back up on the charms research that was slipping, but Jordan was having a difficult time concentrating. Every time Hermione visited the floor Jordan was chatting with another co-worker pushing pictures of cooing baby Felicity in their faces. In a fit of weary bitchiness Hermione snapped at him yelling to get his arse back to work. It was not her finest moment.


Not even her assistant Jake Edwards who she leaned heavily upon to be the one to smooth things over could help her there. Lee immediately took offense and raged that if they hadn’t been mates at school he would have told her to stick the job up where the sun didn’t shine long ago.


Stupidly, Hermione shot back that if he really felt that way he could leave at any time.


And he did.


Bugger, bugger, and double bugger.


Hermione employed twenty five workers, but only six of them were part of the Research and Development lab that she so desperately needed. The rest of her employees were either lab assistants or worked the production line. And though they were all fairly competent and highly skilled none of them were promotable to R&D.


Lee packed up his desk Monday afternoon leaving behind a mountain of half finished research notes and backed up reports. Hermione didn’t know where the hell she was going to find another charms maverick; she’d pinched Lee away from the twins by throwing extraordinary amounts of galleons at him. As far as she was concerned he was irreplaceable.


****


Tuesday evening saw Severus agitatedly pacing his cramped cell like a caged tiger. Occasionally an eye would drift to the bedside calendar clock duo she graciously bestowed upon him so that he could be constantly informed of how long he’d been incarcerated. The clock shuffled between the ledge on the back of the loo and the farthest darkest corner he could find in the deepest of the extendable boxes depending on his mood.


Given his current mood he was inclined to smash the damn thing as hard as he could into the wall. As much as he yearned for his wand, physically destroying it would be immensely pleasurable. He pondered the effect the enchantments would have if he pitched it through his window. Would it bounce? He’d have to amuse himself destroying the clock cog by cog another time.


They supposedly had an appointment, one that she had even scheduled. By judging daylight his wife was standing him up. The inconsiderate tart, she knew how he felt about punctuality.


His bed was made, tea and biscuits were set out, he was wearing his new robes, and damn it, Severus had shaved. Did the witch not appreciate what he was putting himself through for her? It had taken all of his will power to gaze into the mirror she had brought for him. Severus had not wanted to see himself and once he had he’d regretted it immediately.


It took the better part of several hours to clip his long hanging beard and groom his shaggy hair. Her Good Hair Day product line needed several applications to cut through the cakiness of his matted hair before a comb would run through it properly, but once clean he was able to secure it into a suitable pony tail at the nape of his neck.


Apparently ‘Mother Nature’ deemed that his best look was the same as his regular-every day look. Her miracle shampoo did not produce a single wave or curl, but it did tingle and smell good. The remnants of his beard were easily swept away by a proper shave with what he now termed his ‘wicked little blade.’


Gods, he almost looked presentable if one could get over the fact that he was still rotting in Azkaban.


Severus was close to throwing an all out tantrum when Mulciber’s annoying whine called out, “Prisoner 11652 present yourself!”


“About damn time you got here witch!” Severus obligingly held his arms out wide to demonstrate he wasn’t wielding any sharp objects or weapons as much as he would have liked to.


As the wards dropped the door swung open. Severus saw her worn brown leather satchel, nearly bursting at the seams first before Hermione followed lumbering behind it. Severus easily recognized the satchel as the kind purported to hold anything and everything; he curiously wondered how she had gotten it so stuffed to the gills that she could barely manage it. Perhaps she really was moving out of her flat and had packed up the household into it.


“Sorry! Sorry! I know I’m late. I hate being late. I hope you’re not too put out.”


Hermione dropped her satchel with a heavy thud and a wince before looking up at Severus.


“Oh my…” she gaped. “You’re dressed.”


“And you’re not.” Severus said smugly.


If it was at all possible the witch looked worse for wear than he’d ever seen her, the week before O.W.Ls included. All her perfect spiral curls had fallen out and resumed their unmanageable fly-away appearance. Her Glamours weren’t holding. The tell-tale shimmers around her face and eyes obviously meant she didn’t have the energy to properly sustain them. And Hermione’s navy robes were rumpled, and if Severus had to guess he figured she had definitely slept in them. The only question was for how many days.


Hermione collapsed ungracefully into his leather armchair while Severus again sat on the bed.


“Please, I could really give a rat’s arse how I look.” She gave him a shy sweet smile, “but I really didn’t mean to be rude. You look very nice tonight.”


Hermione fought herself not to call him ‘Professor,’ but that’s exactly how he appeared. The haggard pirate was gone, and Hermione was staring at her Potions Professor.


The wizarding world had given her vocabulary for colors. There was Inferi white, killing-curse acid green, and Voldemort red. None of those were quite as indelibly inscribed on her psyche as Snape black. Seeing him again in his black robes caused Hermione to fight the natural instinct to punctuate every statement with ‘Sir, yes Sir.’


“Thank you. I was hoping we might have a civilized evening,” he gestured to the small tea service.


“That sounds perfect right about now,” Hermione was literally too tired to argue. If he had suggested they spend the evening making sock puppets and playing Gobstones she doubted she’d have the energy to say no.


As the delicate warm Assam brew eased down her throat Hermione relaxed further into the cushions. It was absolute heaven just to sit and do f-all nothing, even if the moment wasn’t meant to last. Hermione didn’t allow herself much more than a minute. While Severus offered her a small plate of wafer thin orange spice biscuits Hermione was already digging around in her satchel looking for the correct over-filled three ring binder.


Her binders were organized by subject matter and then further subdivided in several categories; backburner-working, currently-working, immediately-working, and you-had-better-get-your-tail-on-this-right-away-working. For some reason all of her work was currently flagged in the latter category. She was thinking of another category of; you-idiot-why-haven’t-you-worked-this-working.


For his part, Severus stared at her agog. How dare she? The witch had no right to come into his home (for lack of a better word) and proceed to do homework. She was on his time.


“Put that away,” he growled, throwing the plate of biscuits a bit violently on his bedspread. There’d be crumbs there tonight, but he didn’t give a damn.


“Huh? Wha-?”


Hermione looked up at him, her silver wire rim reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose threatening to fall off. Her mum had always warned her that reading in the dark would catch up with her, but she never suspected that it would take place so early in life.


“Are you deaf in addition to blind Madam Granger? I said put that away. This is not a library.”


Hermione narrowed her eyes, “Who the hell are you to dictate how I spent my hour with you? I’ve got real work to do, so if you please, leave me to it and I’ll leave you to your tea and biscuits!”


“Granger,” he growled out deep and menacingly, “Do not make me repeat myself again. Put the work away. We are going to attempt to have a normal civilized evening like normal civilized people.” He held out his hand daring her to say ‘no’ and Hermione reluctantly passed him her satchel.


In a more quiet voice Severus asked, “Can you really not spare an hour?”


Hermione slowly shook her head, pulling the spectacles from her nose. She slumped defeated into the chair.


“What happened?” he asked gingerly.


“Do you really want to hear it? I’m sure I’ll just bore you to tears.”


Severus raised a single sublime eyebrow, “Madam, do I look like someone who’s easily moved to tears?”


Closing her eyes Hermione began her story with the explosion that disrupted her lab, fried a critical hard drive, and caused her to lose all sleep that weekend. Never mind the fact that she had to give multiple statements to the authorities and reporters that she was NOT running a meth-lab (Severus didn’t ask). The blast was large enough and witness by muggles who had camera phones so Ministry Oblivators weren’t even able to be called in before it hit the evening news. Instead they quickly made up a story about a storage locker filled with medical oxygen tanks and employed lots of fascination charms for a distraction.


Severus followed intently as she described the falling out with Jordan and what it meant to her Charms department. She hadn’t begun searching for someone to take his place, but it became evident that she didn’t even have the time to hold interviews. Instead Hermione was shouldering the burden. Her ranting about quarterly reports, production meetings and supply chain woes began to break down as Hermione ran out of steam. She was holding on to her sanity by a quickly unraveling thread.


Severus was stumped when the tears finally broke from her misty eyes. He’d seen more than his share of school children crying, but somehow handing her a tissue and telling her to get to class didn’t sit right. He’d been patient with his own House, fatherly, indulgent even, but was uncertain if Hermione would react favorably to coddling. Then again the witch seemed to need a bit of coddling. And to his own astonishment he wanted to soothe her. She was his wife, his responsibility. Fuck. That meant he probably should attempt to do something nice for her.


Hermione barely registered being picked up out of the armchair, but when his warm strong arms wrapped around her Hermione could have cared less that she was sitting in his lap like a small child and just allowed herself the divine luxury of having a good hard cry. And cry she did, until she tuckered herself out from the sheer exhaustion of letting it all out. Hermione fell into such an exhausting sleep she didn’t stir when he put her to bed.


As she slept her glamours slipped and Severus could only shake his head. Hermione was doing her best Human-Bowtruckle impression. Why was it that a woman with a life ahead of her and all the opportunity in the world looked worse than an Azkaban prisoner?

*

A/N:
Chapter title: Saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas - Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses.
The chapter title comes from Ovid as a nod to Snape’s nature. Though I don’t know if he’d approve of the sentiment… or the rose reference.


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