A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 16 – Adjustments

He found that stepping over her to get to his bookcases was amusing, but her tendency to alphabetize his scrolls was irritating. His organization was based on mnemonic keys peculiar to himself and she was ruining his system. Having Hermione about the place was not quite as intrusive as he had imagined but it was certainly no picnic.

“Would you please contain that creature, Madame?” Severus raised an eyebrow at the half-Kneazle who was busy shredding his slippers and she shooed him away.

“Sorry, Severus, he’s just a little bored,” she apologized and he took a deep breath trying to remember the mind-blowing sex of the night before and the diminished likelihood he would ever get any again if he killed her familiar.

“Perhaps an enchanted toy?” He tried very hard not to snarl, but her wince informed him that he had not entirely succeeded.

“I’ll look into it.” She was placating him. He knew that but since few people ever even made the effort he allowed the novelty of it to sway him.

“Very well,” he agreed with a sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the incipient headache he could feel coming on. He was simply not cut out to be a husband, he really wasn’t.

Hermione hid a smile behind her hand, but he was totally oblivious to it.

Ginny sat curled up in the Room of Requirement trying to think rationally about her upcoming nuptials. Not for the first time, she wished she hadn’t been born a girl. There were far more pureblood boys than girls in the Wizarding world and the demands on the girls to marry quickly and begin breeding were great. The law had been written with the usual pureblood prejudices in it; boys were given far more time to make their choices than Ginny had been given. That pressure is what had landed her in her present predicament.

She was engaged to Remus Lupin. In the normal course of affairs, it wouldn’t be a bad match. Yes, he was poor as a house-elf, but then she was used to that. Molly Weasley had trained her daughter to pinch a Knut until it screamed for mercy.

It was the werewolf part that was the real problem.

His face had been so sad as he had explained. No werewolf had ever survived to even fifty; the curse ate away at them, destroying their health and shortening their lives to less than even Muggle years. Already in his mid-thirties, he would be lucky to live another fifteen years. For wizards and witches who could expect marriages of sixty to eighty years at a minimum, that was tragically short. For a soul mating, it was appalling.

“Ginny?” Ron came in with a frown creasing his face. The whole predicament had been laid before him and, as always, her big brother had been a steady source of comfort and safety.

“Hey Ron.” Ginny wiped tears from her eyes and essayed a small smile for him.

“I’ve been thinking.” Ron made it sound like it was hard work, but Ginny didn’t laugh. Her brother was both smart and kind, no matter how he could sometimes behave.

“Yes?”

“The problem is that he’s a werewolf, yes?” Ginny nodded at her brother with a sigh; she had thought that much was obvious. “So if he wasn’t a werewolf, it wouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“Your point, Ron?” Ginny asked exasperated.

“Well, Snape’s a git, but he’s bloody brilliant at Potions, isn’t he?” Ginny nodded again, not sure where he was going with this. “Well, he’s married to Hermione now, maybe she could wheedle a cure for being a werewolf out of him.” Ron looked quite pleased by his suggestion and Ginny hadn’t the heart to point out how incredibly stupid it was to think that Snape, no matter how brilliant, could come up with a potion that a thousand years of the greatest minds in wizardry hadn’t been able to. Perhaps her brother wasn’t as smart as she had thought he was.

“That’s a lovely idea, Ron.” She sniffled and burst into tears again. “But it will never work.”

“There, there, Ginny, I am sure that Hermione can convince him. She’s right persuasive when she’s on a tear, you know.” Ron assured her with his blue eyes filled with nothing but an earnest desire to help. Ginny sobbed harder.

Lucius Malfoy leaned back on the richly appointed cot and considered his options. Draco would have to bid for another wife in a month or so; whom else could he choose that would be guaranteed to cry off? If that was not possible, then whom could he choose that would be weak and easily disposed of, or even better a someone who was a nuisance that marriage to Draco would neatly remove?

He briefly considered the options before him. He needed someone attractive enough to make breaking her to his will an intriguing exercise for the Malfoy heir. That was, of course, assuming that Draco was capable of breaking even a House Elf to his will. It was dreadful how weak and cowardly the boy was.

It occurred to him that there was another young lady annoying enough to require silencing yet weak enough to be easily disposed of.
With a devious smirk, Lucius Malfoy began penning his next petition.

Neville escorted Helena through the halls on the way to her temporary quarters. In a week they would be married and he found himself surprisingly eager for the event.

“Thank you ever so much, Neville, I really enjoyed the greenhouses. Do you think Professor Sprout would let me take the advanced class with you?” Helena asked with a small frown.

“I’m not sure. It’s by invitation only and she’s filled all her slots for this year.” Helena looked so disappointed by his answer that he felt awful, but she shook her head and raised her chin.

“I’ll ask anyway. Worst she can do is refuse, after all.” Helena flashed him a smile and Neville found himself walking about a foot off of the ground.

“So Longbottom’s found a girl willing to marry someone as stupid and clumsy as him? Can’t be true.” Pansy Parkinson’s high whinny was clearly audible in the corridor, as Neville knew it was intended to be.

“It is true and even better, he’s marrying Snape’s sister, so he can finally pass a Potions class,” Millicent Bulstrode replied just as loudly. Neville flushed and Helena paled.

“What does my brother have to do with Potions class?” she asked him in an undertone. Neville blinked in surprise; didn’t she know about Professor Snape?

“Let’s talk about it somewhere private.” He put a hand under her elbow and steered her to one of the lounges, presently unoccupied by anyone other than a few sleepy portraits and a snoring suit of armor. He waved her into an overstuffed armchair in a plaid tartan pattern while he took a creaking leather ottoman beside her. “What do you know of your father’s first marriage?” Having gotten his rather erratic briefing from Dumbledore, he wasn’t sure quite where to begin.

“My father was married before?” Helena gaped at him in astonishment.

“Yes, to a woman named Kaleen Yidoni, whose family hates the Snapes and vice versa.” Neville was struggling to remember all the strange twisty details of family history that he had managed to unravel from the depths of a conversation ostensibly about puddings.

“Most families hate the Snapes.” Helena’s somewhat bitter laugh made Neville’s head come up sharply. Her face was twisted in misery and Neville’s heart ached to see it.

“I don’t.” He perjured himself gladly as his reward was the return of her smile. She shyly reached out and took his hand. For a long moment they just gazed at each other with goofy expressions.

“So what happened to his first wife?” Helena’s puzzled expression recalled him to the conversation.

“She died a long time ago.” Neville was feeling a little pity for Professor Snape just then, an emotion he would never have associated with the vicious Potions Master before. What must have it been like to be raised by Taliesin Snape? The few things that Helena had let drop about him didn’t make Neville look forward to meeting his soon–to-be-father-in-law at all. He took a breath. “She died when their son was about eight.”
Helena stared at him for a long time, her mouth a perfect circle of dismay.

“I have another brother and Father never told me.” Her voice was flat and he could see a hard anger rising in her eyes.

“Yes, he’s the Potions Master here at Hogwarts,” Neville added. “They’re estranged, your father and Professor Snape.” She was silent for such a long time that Neville was growing concerned.

“Killing your father is a life sentence in Azkaban. It’s the only thing that has stopped me sometimes, because I know I would be standing proudly over the body bragging about it to the Aurors when they came,” she muttered and Neville realized that she was only half-joking. “What’s he like?” she asked suddenly and Neville Longbottom turned to meet the sad, hurt eyes of his fiancée and tried to think of something nice to say about Professor Snape.

“He’s really good at Potions,” Neville told her manfully and a look of wisdom and amusement crossed her face.

“That bad, eh?” Her voice had this mellifluous quality that was like having silk rubbed over his ears. He smiled at her with a sheepish air.

“He’s not all bad, but we don’t get along very well.” It was a terrible understatement, but he found it impossible to badmouth Snape to his sister. She was sitting beside him, looking rather fragile and his brain stuttered.

“Then why did you bid for me?” The crease between her brows and the sudden look of dismay triggered something inside of him.

“Because I know what Malfoy is. Even had you been You-Know-Who’s sister, I would have bid for you to save you from him.” The hero in Neville Longbottom finally edged past the weak, frightened young man who had stood blocking it. The luminous smile on Helena’s face swept aside the insecurities of his youth. He was transformed in an instant; the smile he returned her was that of a strong, determined man.

“You really are my hero, Neville,” Helena whispered sweetly to him and Neville was utterly lost in her affectionate regard.

Sabine Snape leaned back in the rather comfortable wing chair in the Headmaster’s office and sipped the tea cautiously.

“You are probably wondering why I asked to meet with you, Mrs. Snape.” It surprised her that he hadn’t changed much from the skinny boy he had once been to the powerful wizard he had become. He still tried too hard.

“Oh for goodness sake, Albus, let us not stand on formalities, you and me.” She grimaced; too many years had passed and she was starting to feel it in her bones. She was growing tired. Albus’ grave expression lightened and his very blue eyes brightened in pleasure.

“Of course, Sabine. How have you been?” It was a kindly meant question but it made her wince.

“I’ve been stupid, wallowing in pity and feeling very poorly, if you must know,” she retorted and this time he smiled in earnest. He had always been immune to her acid tongue.

“Yes, well.” He paused and then sighed. “I wish you had been a more moderating influence on Taliesin of course, but what’s done is done.” Sabine merely nodded in reply, she had enough regrets to fill this castle. “What are we to do about Sarit? Eventually she will figure out what we’ve done.”

“He’s grown now. The Yidoni powers will be in full bloom and he will be more than a match for her, if he can be trained.” Sabine sighed and shook her head. “I should have done more.”

“Taliesin never would have let you near to the boy,” Albus reminded her and she shook her head.

“I know that, but I should have tried. He’s my grandson and I had a duty to him.” The words came out stiffly and she gave Albus an apologetic look. She was too much the product of her upbringing and history, too set in her ways to really change now, whatever her remorse might be prompting her to feel.

“It was far more important to keep Sarit from him. Her own seer powers are waning. Had she known that he had inherited them, she would have stopped at nothing to get him back to Nazareth,” Albus reminded her and Sabine shuddered at the thought.

“The powers of the Yidoni are dangerous, Albus, there is no doubt of that, but Sarit’s fears and visions have twisted her into something terrible. Her mother would be horrified and her grandmother would be utterly furious at the way she has gone about things.” Remembering the fiery laughing girl of her youth, Sabine felt the weight of her many mistakes crushing her thin shoulders. “I should never have argued with her. If only I could have kept my temper and reasoned with her, all of this might have been prevented.”

“If only – the two most useless words in the English language and the two saddest.” Albus gave her a sympathetic look. “We were all of us young and foolish, Sabine, all of us bear the blame to some degree of another. I could never reach Tom Riddle to turn him from this path, you could not convince Sarit her visions were only one possible future and none of us could keep Taliesin from pursuing Kaleen.”

“Now it is too late.”

“Too late for us, perhaps, but not for them. Severus is not a happy man, but he is a good man, honorable and deeply loyal. He is neither pleasant nor particularly kind, but he has done things repugnant to him for the sake of that honor and loyalty. He is a trustworthy person.” Albus was trying to be scrupulously fair and Sabine was amused by it. He obviously liked her grandson and she was glad of that, but he just as obviously was the same idealistic man he had always been.

“He is a true Slytherin, Albus, and you poor Gryffindors will never understand him.” She gave her old schoolmate an enigmatic smile and he rolled his eyes at her.

“Just like his grandmother,” Albus conceded and Sabine took another sip of her tea and contemplated the many possible futures before them. There was a lot to think about and she had delayed for far too long.

Hermione leaned back on the carpet and contemplated her future. Severus, she had found, could be managed fairly well if you were simply kind to him. His assumption that everyone would automatically hate him made him strangely vulnerable to gentleness from any source. She wondered if that was how Voldemort had gotten to him. For a shy, desperately lonely boy with a natural tendency towards the darker magics, a smiling friendly face that appreciated his brilliance and didn’t mind his snarky attitude must have been utterly irresistible.

Her fingers twirled a quill around and around as she thought, eyes gone distant.

“Madam, you are blocking the apothecary shelf.” Her husband’s sharp tones roused her from her contemplation and she sat up quickly.

“Sorry, Severus.” She picked up the discarded book on Transfigurations and dragged herself over to a chair to continue reading.

“What thought had you so enthralled that it necessitated the perusal of the ceiling?” He rolled the words off of his ever-so-talented tongue and she found herself grinning at him. Lately, the nasty comments slid off of her and she was finding his caustic edge rather refreshing.

“I was wondering why Voldemort hadn’t summoned you yet and if the Marriage Law has some other more sinister thought behind it than simply forcing out the half-bloods and Muggleborns.” She substituted some musings she had had earlier in the day, as she was reluctant to pry into her husband’s past life so early on in their relationship.

“I have been wondering something along the same lines myself,” he admitted. “I suspect that the amusement value of knowing that I am no doubt making you a very unhappy young woman right now is the reason that I have not been summoned.” Hermione made a face at his words, trying not to think too hard about that. “As for the Marriage Law itself, it might be a punishment.”

“A what?”

“A punishment, Hermione. Not all the pureblood families have embraced the Dark Lord’s idea of racial purity.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained look and she nodded.

“This is a way to force them to face their own mixed feelings then, isn’t it? Sort of ‘it’s all very well to talk about the equality of the Muggleborns, but you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one.’” She noted the scowl on Severus’ face and knew that she was bang on.

“I would not have put it quite so bluntly.”

“Of course not, you’re a Slytherin.”

“Touché, madam.” His lips twitched as he said it. Hermione realized that was as close as she had ever gotten to making him smile. She had a wistful moment when she wished she could hear him really laugh someday. Probably a vain hope, but she had her entire life ahead of her to make the attempt.

“So which of the families do you think he was particularly aiming at?” she asked, suddenly curious about the happiness of the other couples.

“Well, I doubt that the Zabinis are at all pleased with their son’s engagement. I strongly suspect that they had arranged his marriage quietly when he was an infant; most of the pureblood families do, you know. To have that disrupted, especially to force him into alliance with a half-blood, well, I am certain that Lady Zabini was not amused.” The rather gleeful expression on Severus’ face as he said this gave Hermione the impression that Lady Zabini’s discomfiture was a goal worthy of pursuing.

“I take it that you don’t like her much.” Hermione chuckled and he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Lady Zabini is a true heir of Machiavelli: she is beautiful, cunning and has the morals and temperament of a mink.” He informed her with that sneering tone that could reduce a first-year to a gibbering wreck.

“So she was a Slytherin?” Hermione teased him and he frowned at her in mock severity.

“Actually, she was a Ravenclaw. Her husband, Tocsin, was the Slytherin,” He informed her with due solemnity. It occurred to Hermione that this conversation might almost be called teasing banter and it was, at the very least, quite civil. She indulged in some optimism. It was possible she might actually get along with her new husband better than she had thought. “No Slytherin will ever equal the social climbing savagery of a Ravenclaw.” It was meant to be a provocative comment and Hermione bit down on a hot retort.

“Only because few Slytherins need to social climb,” she pointed out and the slight quirk of Severus lips told her that she had scored a point.

“Unlike Gryffindors,” he shot back and she stuck out a tongue at him. “Very mature, Hermione; excellent argument, quite persuasive.” He frowned at her and she quailed a bit, thinking he was genuinely angry. His brow shot up in surprise at her meek response and she sighed.

“I can never tell when you are serious!” she accused him and he nodded serenely at her.

“That’s because I am always serious, Madam.” He pulled down a journal from a high shelf and headed back towards his lab, leaving Hermione to wonder if she was ever going to understand him.

Remus slumped down further in his chair and gave Tonks a rueful look.

“Let me get this straight, Ginny Weasley?” Tonks’ look of utter horror was not reassuring to him. It had been worse trying to get through the same conversation with Molly and Arthur, but not by much.

“Yes.” He replied patiently.

“No, really, you’re pulling my leg. Ginny Weasley?” Tonks had been going on in this fashion for some time.

“You know, you could ease off a mite there, you know. After all, I convinced Albus not to marry you off to Mundugus Fletcher,” Remus pointed out with a gentle tone of voice. He had spent years perfecting the art of seeming non-threatening and it paid off in this case. Tonks groaned and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Did I ever tell you that I worship your shorts, mate?” She gave him a grateful look and he smiled back. “Not one of Albus’ more brilliant ideas,” she added.

The back door opened and Percy came in. Remus and Tonks were both alerted to something being off about him by the manner in which he entered. Instead of the excruciatingly polite greeting they were used to, a morose silence followed the ginger-haired young man as he went straight to the icebox and pulled out a butterbeer. Still silent, he popped it open and collapsed into a chair.

Remus and Tonks exchanged a glance.

“Everything all right there, Percy?” Remus asked gently. Percy raised red-rimmed eyes to Remus and took a quick slug of the butterbeer.

“The Ministry has overturned all unconsummated unions of purebloods.” Percy’s rather pompous tones sounded slightly pathetic and Tonks frowned, trying to suppress a laugh, no doubt.

“Meaning?” Remus prompted gently.

“I cannot marry Penelope and she is to accept bids starting this week.” Percy looked haunted behind his spectacles and even Tonks was sympathetic.

“Rotten luck, mate. We all know how much you two love each other.” She patted him gently on the sleeve and he took another gulp of the butterbeer.

“My heart is broken.” It should have sounded ridiculous, but Percy seemed genuinely lost as he spoke. It was as though he had never considered the possibility that things would not turn out for him just as he wanted them to. He was shocked to the core. “I know that Minister Fudge is not the brightest of men, but even he must see how destructive this policy is.” Percy gave Remus a pleading look, as though with a muttered incantation, the werewolf could restore sanity to Percy’s orderly little world.

“Fudge is desperate, and desperate men do stupid things,” Remus sighed, wishing that there were more to be done. Even after everything he had seen, Percy’s faith that the Ministry of Magic would come to see the light had been unshaken, but Remus could see cracks in the foundation. He only hoped that the poor boy wouldn’t fall apart utterly.

“So, you’re marrying my sister.” Percy changed the subject abruptly. “I wish you luck. She’s the most stubborn and headstrong of any of us and that is saying something.” The look of commiseration and sympathy Percy gave him did nothing to make Remus feel better about the situation.

“She’s a nice enough child, I suppose,” Remus groaned. “But I am having serious problems seeing her as anything other than a little girl.”

“I should think so!” Percy exclaimed and gave him a look of understanding.

“She’s only sixteen. If you thought in any other way, you’d be a right pervert.” Tonks added to Remus’ mounting dismay.

“I have to marry her in a week and get her pregnant as soon as possible and you both are not helping,” Remus pointed out. Percy and Tonks exchanged looks.

“Oi, mate, you won’t have to do much; Ginny’ll run the show, no doubt,” Tonks snorted and to Remus’ bemusement Percy nodded.

“You haven’t spent much time with her lately, have you?” Percy asked with a significant tone of voice. Remus was beginning to wonder how much trouble he was really in after all.