A law to herself

There were times it was a blessing being a witch, and packing was one of them. It was always much simpler packing to leave Hogwarts at the end of a term, than packing to go back when she couldn’t use magic. Now all she had to do was wave a wand, cast a few charms, and her belongings would make their way into her trunk, to be taken down to Professor Snape’s rooms.

Their rooms, now, she supposed, though she didn’t think he’d appreciate havthatthat pointed out to him one little bit; his rooms and her room, was more like it. She wondered if he expected her to trek all the way to the Prefect’s bathroom to perform her ablutions, which lead her on to the thought that they would be sharing a loo at least which was just horrid.

She resolved never to widdle again. Not in Snape’s loo anyway.

Her room looked very empty and forlorn once the books and other paraphernalia were stripped from it. Crookshanks was sitting on the middle of her bed, watching her movements with interest, just in case some food was involved in whatever she was doing. “Poor Crooks,” she said, gathering him into her arms and burying her face in his fur. “You’re going to have to make a real effort to be good for me you know. I don’t think Professor Snape likes cats. I don’t think he likes anything much, apart from Cockroach Clusters, annoying people, and occasionally Minerva. Maybe we can get her to put in a good word for you, if he’s awkward.”

She sighed. Best to get it over and done with, really.

She cast the Levitation charm and headed off to her new quarters, with her trunk gently bobbing along behind and Crookshanks tucked under her arm.

The door to his quarters was enormous, of the blackest oak, and was obviously designed to be as forbidding as possible. She put down Crookshanks, who twined round her feet in an attempt to comfort her. She released the charm on her trunk, straightening her robes, and nervously smoothing down her hair, until she was sure she looked neat and tidy. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Her knock was tentative, but Professor Snape heard it. The door opened to reveal a lovely, cosy sitting-room with a blazing fire, and enormous bookshelves that made her mouth water at the thought of all the new books they contained. He may have said she couldn’t read them, but he couldn’t stop her looking at the titles, and searching out her own copies.

“Well come in, Miss Granger before all the heat escapes,” the Professor said.

Crookshanks didn’t need a second invitation, and streaked past to settle himself by the fire earning him a glare from Professor Snape but no comments.

“It’s a lovely room,” she said a little wistfully, expecting to see very little of it.

“I spend Tuesday evenings doing my rounds, and Thursday evenings are often spent discussing school matters with Professor McGonagall, so you may use the room then, provided you don’t make a mess.” Professor Snape was obviously making a supreme effort to be civil, and Hermione began to feel more cheerful. So what if the boys weren’t allowed to visit? They hadn't been allowed in her old bedroom, and there was nothing to prevent her hanging round the Common Room just as before.

The new and surprisingly-civil Professor Snape, made her jump when he levitated her trunk into the sitting room, and on, through an open door. “That’s your room,” he said a little stiffly. “I hope you’ll find it to be acceptable.”

It was more than acceptable. Her new room was actually larger than her previous bedroom, and there was much more shelf space which meant she could buy more books! Admittedly there was something of a green theme about the furnishings, but that was trivial. “It’s wonderful,” she said warmly, and he seemed to thaw a little at that.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve got lots of books to unpack.”

“Just a few,” she said, and smiled at him. He almost smiled back, Hermione was sure of it.

Hermione checked back on Crookshanks every once in a while to see that he wasn’t getting up to mischief. There was never a moment when Crookshanks was obviously moving towards Professor Snape, but by the time Hermione finally emerged from her room a couple of hours later, Crookshanks had insinuated himself under the Professor’s hand which was absent-mindedly moving backwards and forwards. Crookshanks was wearing the smuggest expression she’d ever seen, and it was all she could do not to laugh out loud.

It was the most appalling display of creeping that she’d ever seen outside of Malfoy in a Potion’s classroom, but it certainly worked as the expected argument over Crookshanks living with her never materialised, though that didn’t stop Professor Snape from periodically complaining about her cat.

Hermione was as good as her word, at least to start with. She spent the first week or so working out what Severus’ routine was – she couldn’t call him Professor Snape in her head when she was living with him – and played least in sight.

Predictably, if perversely, that annoyed Severus as much as if she had been constantly underfoot; he felt cheated of his right to whinge about the situation. She suspected he actually liked complaining about things; she’d never known someone so disgruntled with everything in their life.

Hermione thought his middle name was probably Perversity. Some people called their children Faith, or Hope or Charity in the belief they would come to embody those virtues. Hermione suspected that Severus’ mother had taken one look at him and just known: Severus Perversity Snape.

The only embarrassing moment – embarrassing didn’t come close to describing the sheer heart-stopping mortification of the incident – came when she’d got up early one morning and found Severus in the sitting room still in his night attire and without his dressing gown. All she could do was stand there and stare at him, as her brain registered that he wore a nightie. Severus Snape wore a nightie.

He looked up, saw her, and flushed. She stammered some apology and disappeared back into her room, and stuffed her head under her pillow so he wouldn’t hear her hysterical laughter. Severus Snape wore a nightie, and she’d seen his legs: long, white, pasty-looking stick-like legs that stuck out beneath the hem of his grey nightie.

It took her fully fifteen minutes to recover, and she never saw Severus – he was very definitely a Severus now – without his dressing gown again. The experience seemed to have given her brain an odd form of hiccoughs. Every once in a while, whether in Potions or at meal times, or when bumping into him in their rooms, her brain would hiccough and all she could think was ‘Severus wears a nightie’ and ‘God that must be chilly’.

She never mentioned it to the boys though; no amount of Cockroach Clusters would make up for letting that particular cat out of the bag. Prudence dictated silence.

As time passed, they settled into a routine, and if the hoped-for conversations in front of the fire hadn't materied, ed, at least there was a truce of sorts, and civil exchanges when their paths crossed.

She hadn't summoned up the courage to take him up on his offer to use the sitting room until now but the Common Room was particularly noisy this evening, and she needed some time to herself so she could actually concentrate on her homework, which was due in only three weeks time!

She slipped away without saying goodnight to anyone. She didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that she was about to spend the evening in her married quarters, even in the absence of her husband.

Severus, true to his newly bestowed middle name, was not ensconced with Minerva comfortably chatting, but was occupying the centre of the living room. He was holding a large, expensively wrapped parcel, which he was eyeing with suspicion.

“What’s that?” she asked, fully expecting to be told to mind her own business.

The look he gave her was sour, but it seemed to be general annoyance with the world, rather than specific annoyance at her. “It’s your wedding present from Lucius. It seems he thinks that arranging for you to share my quarters is present enough for me, but that he feels the need to be particularly generous in your case, to show that there are no hard feelings over your rejection of the Malfoy name.”

Hermione gave a little spurt of laughter. “So he’s still sulking about that then?”

“So it would appear.” Severus cleared a space amongst the papers piled high on the tablnd pnd prodded at the parcel with his wand. “There don’t seem to be any nasty surprises lurking there, so it’s probably safe to open it.”

Hermione looked doubtful. “I wonder what it is?”

Severus looked at the tag attached to the present. “It says something about preparing you for your new role in life.”

“Well now I’m intrigued. The Pureblood Guide to Etiquette perhaps? Or, Knowing Your Place?”

Severus surrendered the parcel reluctantly. “Lucius isn’t usually that obvious.”

The parcel was well wrapped, and it took Hermione several minutes to battle her way through the bindings to find a book. Curious, she pushed the papers aside to read the spine. “Good god,” she said. “Unbelievable. The man is absolutely unbelievable.”

She stuffed the back of her hand in her mouth, and her shoulders began to shake. Severus picked the book up to see what it was – Hermione was in no fit condition to tell him – and blushed. He was horrified to see that Lucius had sent a book on Sex Magic for Beginners, and even more horrified to realise that Hermione wasn’t shocked or disgusted but was giggling.

Giggling.

Couldn’t she take anything seriously?

Hermione found thok fok funny enough on its own, but coupled with Severus’ outraged prudery it was irresistibly hilarious. The more she laughed, the more shocked he looked, and the more shocked he looked, the more she laughed, until she was practically doubled over with tears running down her face.

“I suppose it’s too much to expect you to behave with a little decorum?” he said huffily.

Hermione made a determined effort to stop laughing, before Severus blew a gasket. She wiped her eyes, and told herself very firmly to get a grip. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “But surely you can see the funny side?”

Apparently he couldn’t. She tried again. “At least it wasn’t Sarah does Slytherin, or are the Muggleborn Chronicles too lowbrow for Lucius?”

The Muggleborn Chronicles – Rachel does Ravenclaw, Helen does Hufflepuff, Georgina does Gryffindor, and Sarah does Slytherin – were the basic sexual education of a Hogwarts Student. Sarah does Slytherin was the most popular of the four, having a – largely undeserved, in Hermione’s opinion, who’d actually done the comparison – reputation for being extra-kinky.

Slytherin always had the reputation for being sexually adventurous, so it was disconcerting to realise that Severus was appalled that she was even aware of the books, let alone read them. She’d always thought of him as more worldly somehow. He’d been a Death Eater; Death Eaters did not blush at the mention at the mention of fairly ane ene erotica. Severus, it seemed, was something of a prude, at least as far as his wife was concerned; whether this prudery extended to not reading them himself was another matter

“What on earth were you doing reading that … that filth?” he spluttered.

“Confiscating them of course,” she replied. “And handing them over to the first teacher I found.” That was strictly true; she was just omitting the intermediate step of reading them from cover to cover first, and preparing a table to compare them to see which of the four books was the kinkiest. Severus really didn’t need to know about that.

Severus humphed, not entirely convinced, but happy to let the matter drop and returned to the issue at hand. “Nonetheless, I fail to see the humour in Lucius suggesting that my wis sos some kind of cheap floozy.”

“Actually, I think he’s suggesting the opposite. Surely a cheap floozy would already know about That Sort of Thing.”

Severus gave her a long cool, gaze, clearly unimpressed by her argument.

Hermione didn’t point out that she was the one who’d been insulted, and so it was none of his business anyway, because she was fairly certain that Lucius was chiefly trying to annoy Severus and not her. Taking that tack would be likely to explode in her face at a later date. She wouldn’t put it past him to refuse to help nex next time she wanted something, on the basis that that too was ‘her business’. She couldn’t afford to keep buying him Cockroach Clusters by the half pound, just to sweeten him up.

Anyway, there was no need to let Lucius get away with it. If she ever needed to negotiate with him later, it would never do to let him think that she was stupid.

“Of course,” she said, “I don’t really understand the etiquette that governs these situations, but surely it would only be polite to send Lucius a little Thank You note. I wouldn’t want to inadvertently insult him, so perhaps you could make a few suggestions as to what I could say. Perhaps even draft a letter for me?”

Severus smirked at that. “It’s the least I can do,” he said, and promptly sat down at his desk, and pulled a piece of parchment out from under Crookshanks, and charged his quill with ink.

“’Dear Lucius,’” he began. “That will get right up his aristocratic nose, a mere Muggleborn calling him by his first name.”

Severus was so busy polishing his invective that he didn’t notice Hermione casually drop her satchel on top of the book, scratch Crookshank’s behind the ear, and then scoop both book and satchel into her arms. “I’ll just put this in my room, out of your way,” she said, and slipped away before he caught on.

She took the time to change out of her school uniform, into some loose Muggle trousers and a T-shirt. Severus didn’t like seeing her looking like his student once school was finished for the day; there was always a faint unbending in his demeanour when she’d changed, as if she’d moved from Miss Granger to Mrs Snape in his mind, and could now be acknowledged as a human being rather than a nuisance.


Severus was looking very self-satisfied on the sofa by the time she returned. He held out the finished letter for her to read, and it was a masterpiece of snide invective.

Dear Lucius,

I would write to thank you for my wedding present, but I believe I have rather more to thank you for than that. I feel sure that it was you who put pressure on Dumbledore to allow me to live with my husband, which is very generous of you indeed bearing in mind our past history.

There aren’t many men who would be so generous to someone who had rejected an offer of marriage for their son, particularly when we were on opposing sides during the War. I am really rather touched to see that you have come to recognise the error of your ways, and are so willing to be on good terms with a Muggleborn.

Yours sincerely,

Etc.

Hermione grinned. “Now that’s what I call nasty. It’s not subtle, but it is effective.”

Severus smirked back at her, for once in perfect agreement. “I can't tell you how wonderful it was to be brutally rude for once, rather than having to skate round the issue. The hatchet is almost as much fun as the stiletto.”

“If I copy it out now, we can send it by Owl straight away. It’s rather amusing to think of Lucius opening his post over breakfast, and reading this.” Hermione took a seat at the table and began to write. It was only when she reached the end that she hesitated. What signature should she use? Hermione Snape?

She doubted that Lucius Malfoy would appreciate the subtleties of Ms Granger, and Severus would object to Granger-Snape (or would that be Snape-Granger?), and Miss Granger would send entirely the wrong message. There was nothing for it then, Hermione Snape it had to be. It would be the first time of writing that, and it felt ominous; it recognised as real something that she was trying to pretend didn’t exist.

She signed the letter with a flourish, adding Order of Merlin (First Class) to her name. There was nothing like rubbing salt in the wound. “There,” she said. “All done.”

“If you give it to me, I’ll go and take it up to the Owlery. It’s way past Curfew; if you went I’d have to deduct points.” Hermione folded the letter carefully, and slipped it into an envelope. Severus eyed it critically, and then melted a thin bar of red wax in the candle, dripping hot wax onto the letter. He tapped it with his wand, muttered something under his breath, and the puddle of wax rippled, forming into a seal with the simple legend ‘Snape’. “Much better,” he said approvingly. “These things should be done properly.”

“I’ve never seen a letter sealed like that before,” Hermione commented.

Severus paused in the act of tucking it into his coat pocket. “You wouldn’t have done,” he said, sounding a little wary. “It’s an affectation of some Pureblood families to use them. It’s a mite pretentious really, but I thought it sensible to remind Lucius that my family is just as old as his, even if it isn’t as wealthy.”

“Not to mention asserting a claim over your property?” she asked mildly. “Isn’t that what the protection of your name means? It’s not that I’m complaining; I did ask for that protection after all. And I know you don’t think of me like that, and that’s all that’s important but still….” She foundered, lost for words for once.

“Using my seal sends quite the reverse message,” he said. “It’s telling Lucius that I expect him to treat you like my wife, not a possession, with all the respect and courtesy that that entails.”

“Will it make any difference?” she asked.

“Not a great deal. Not about how he really thinks, but it does mean that he’ll keep his obnoxious opinions to himself, because if he doesn’t I’m obliged to shove them back down his throat at wand point. Lucius has never liked getting his hands dirty, not like that anyway.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, resting a hand on his sleeve. “You’re very kind to me.”

Severus looked horrified a moa moment, before recovering his usual stony demeanour, and then disappearing to the Owlery in a flurry of robes. Hermione stared at the door for a long while after he’d left. It was clear that Severus was unused to thanks, and for some reason that annoyed her. It annoyed her immensely. No wonder he insisted on a quid pro quo for everything he did. Harry had never said thank you for his help, though she couldn’t think of anything that would annoy him more. Dumbledore continued to treat him like his pet skivvy, and of the people he worked with, only Minerva and Poppy seemed to have any real affection for him.

Well that was going to change, whether Severus liked it or not. Obviously coming out into the open and saying ‘let’s be friends’ was going to lead to nothing more than a sneer and him avoiding her as much as possible, so she’d have to be a little less obvious. Crookshanks, sensing her worry, twined himself affectionately round her ankles. She picked him up and buried her nose in his fur. “Hello e. Ye. You’ve given me an idea Crooks. You know how to handle him don’t you? I’ll just take a leaf out of your book and sneak up on him.”

When he hadn't reappeared after half an hour, she assumed he’d decided to avoid her and had gone to see Minerva as usual. So she left a bar of chocolate out on the table, with a note saying that she wondered if he’d like to try some Muggle sweets, and headed off to do her homework.

She didn’t hear him come in, but in the morning the Chocolate was gone.