Venery

A week in the life of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

A bit of plot, a dash of lemon, and a whole lotta reason to hate me. Cheers!

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~*~*~*~

Two years later…


Wednesday


Hermione bent over her papers, furiously flipping through the parchment in search of a lost sheet of notes. Where the devil had it gone to? She had a practical next week and there was no possible way she would enter into the second phase of her apprenticeship if she did not perfect this wand movement.

“Hermione?”

Ahhhh! There it was! She moved four days’ worth of tea cups out of the way to rescue the diagram. The enchanted figure demonstrated the proper angle and tilt one much maintain in one’s wand throughout the downward swooping motion. Just four hundred or so more repetitions and she would be ready.

“Hermione?”

She wasn’t quite as sure of the theoretical explanation the book had given for the wrist rotation at the end; she would bring it up the next time she saw Professor Frey. The incantation was straightforward enough, if a bit of a tongue-twister. She found the non-Latin based spells to be unwieldy for her mouth. On more than one occasion, she had cursed her local Juniors for not offering an acceptable French programme…

“Hermione!”

She jumped, clearly startled by Ron’s shout, and sent tepid tea dribbling onto the table.

“Goodness, Ron! Is it really necessary to come barreling in here screaming like a banshee?” She picked up a dish towel and dabbed her notes dry. Maybe if she could absorb the worst of this mess there would be less she would have to spell back into order.

“I’ve been calling your name for five minutes!”

Hermione sniffed tartly. “And clearly shouting was far more effective than, say, tapping me on the shoulder?”

“When are you going to make lunch?”

She finished spelling away the evidence of this morning’s tea and its unfortunate demise on her make-shift desk. “I wasn’t. I’m not terribly hungry right now.”

Ron seemed to cheer at this pronouncement, and continued in what he was sure was a suave and subtle manner. “Oh? Are you feeling ill, love?”

“No, Ron. I’m not ill; I just had a rather filling breakfast.”

He seemed to slump down, clearly not getting the answer he desired. “So you’re not pregnant?”

Hermione shut her eyes and fought the urge to bury her face in her hands. The boy could ask the most obtuse questions. “No, still not pregnant.”

Ron frowned and sensed that Hermione was not as interested in tending to his stomach’s need as he thought she ought to be. He decided to make do with what was left from dinner last night until she was less distracted.

“I really thought it was going to happen this time,” Ron said sadly. He sat down with his leftovers and pushed them around the plate.

Hermione really didn’t care to enlighten him as to the reason why she was still not knocked up. The Ministry might want them to be fruitful and multiply, but she, most emphatically, did not. Besides, she had enough experience brewing illicit potions to dodge most of the restrictions they had put into place. Not to mention that just after graduation she had received several anonymous letters outlining possible potions obscure enough to pass undetected. She would never quite be sure, but she had a pretty good idea who had done the research for her.

“There’s no rush is there?” Hermione smiled and walked up behind Ron to rub his shoulders. “I’m still a few years away from my Mastership anyway.”

“About that…”

Hermione stilled her hands. “Yes?”

Ron didn’t look up at her. “I was talking to Mum,” Hermione clenched her hands into his trapezius at the mention of that woman, “and she thought you might be working too hard, and that’s why you haven’t been able to conceive.” Ron winced as her fingers dug deeply into his muscles.

Hermione felt the vein in her forehead begin to throb. The nerve of the woman! Would she never stop interfering in their lives? The next time she found Molly Weasley in her house, uninvited, and ‘just tidying up,’ there was no force on earth that could stop Hermione from hexing her.

Hermione glared down at her husband and decided he deserved at least as much blame. Plus, he was here, and could more easily serve as the receptor of her ire.

He was putting the blame solely on her shoulders; as though there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with the Weasley genetic material or its potency. Just because the rest of the brood was breeding like Kneazles in heat, that was no reason for her to be subjected to the same fate. It was irrelevant to her own private rant that the ‘problem’ was, in fact, of her own doing.

“You know how hard it was for me to even be accepted into the programme. They rarely ever let anyone who’s married in, and it took three months of letter writing for me to convince Franziska to even look at my application.” Professor Franziska Frey had been one of the few in the field who still took in students, and Hermione felt lucky to have her for a mentor. No meddlesome in-laws were going to ruin this for her.

“There were some herbs Mum mentioned -”

“No, Ronald.” She interrupted that train of thought before it got going. “I am perfectly capable of producing my own philters. I tied Snape’s N.E.W.T. score for heaven’s sake.”

She was quite proud of that. There were several witches and wizards who did far better, but their opinions did not figure as largely in her value system. Lost in her own self-congratulations, she missed the sudden look of epiphany that crossed her husband’s face.


Thursday


Snape was having a miserable day.

Not that any particular day was roses for him, mind, but today was much, much worse.

It began with a painful reminder of reality when he awoke to find his arthritis had flared up. He had lived one too many years in a damp, dark dungeon with Circe knew how many curses imbedded in his bones to enjoy peacetime pain-free. No one expected to walk away from a career as a spy unscathed, but the aching in his joints always put him in a particularly miserable mood.

He finally levered himself out of bed and went into the bathroom to find the potion to take care of the problem. By the time he returned, the fire had cut the chill in the air enough for him to feel his extremities again. His relief was short lived, however, when he came upon the distressing realisation that the house-elves had replaced his usual morning coffee with tea.

Snape groaned; he would make due with the dregs of what the house-elves clearly thought was passable English tea, but he wouldn’t like it.

Then Albus ruined the one bright spot of his day by scheduling a staff meeting during his free period. Baiting Minerva for three-quarters of an hour had not kept him from wanting to throttle his employer when the Headmaster blithely announced that, yes, there would be a Quidditch match tomorrow, and, no, Hooch was not going to be available, and could he, Severus, referee the match instead?

Miserable old goat.

Now he was sat in his office, glaring at the fourth year’s essays, and wondering just how incurably stupid children could possibly be. He was sorely tempted to fail them all and cheer himself with the looks of agony on their faces. His gleeful smirk faded when he heard a knock on his door. If that was the MacAvoy boy again, he swore he would not be responsible for his actions.

“Come!”

“Professor Snape?” A head of ginger hair poked through the door.

Gods. A Weasley.

The tension that had begun in the base of his neck was rapidly spreading through the rest of his skull. He wondered what the Headmaster’s position on hexing one’s ex-pupils was; there was always a chance that it could be seen as serving the public good and therefore not subject to criminal action.

“Are you well, Professor?”

Snape groaned again and wondered, not for the first time, whether he had angered some deity in a past life to deserve this. Weasley must be after something particularly dear if he was risking small talk with his former professor.

“Mr. Weasley, do enlighten me as to the reason for this most unwanted of visits.”

“I’m sorry. Professor Dumbledore sent me down here, and he said that you would be free. If there’s a problem, I can come back lat…”

“No, I have no desire to prolong this already painful encounter any longer than it needs to be. Get to the point and then get out, Weasley.”

“I am in need of your skills, sir. You see, my wife has been unable to conceive and I’m concerned.”

Snape glared balefully at him. The boy had obviously spent too much time in the company of Ministry employees if he thought this solicitous pandering was going to draw him into a conversation. Fortunately – or not, depending on one’s perspective – Weasley didn’t need the encouragement, and continued on his own a moment later.

“My wife seems unwilling to consider other options – honestly, I think she’s avoiding the issue for fear of disappointing me in case she’s infertile – and I was hoping you could help her.”

It took every ounce of strength not to stare slack-jawed at Weasley during that speech. He had obvious rehearsed it from the careful way he was speaking, and it only served to astound Snape more. The boy was serious. Inconceivably, unbelievably, ludicrously serious.

It did bring Snape to one disquieting conclusion, though. It seemed there was little hope the incurably stupid would simply drop dead, and do away with his having to take matters into his own hands.

Pity.

Snape looked at Weasley again, and decided the simplest course of action was to dismiss the imbecile. Then he could spend the rest of this evening putting a large dent in whatever was left of the alcohol he inherited from Lucius.

“I fail to see why you are trifling me with this nonsense. If your wife,” he was unable to say that word without spitting, “is lacking, take her to a Mediwitch. I have neither the desire nor the capacity to deal with maladies pertaining to the female anatomy.”

He slashed through another paper and decided to not spare Weasley another glance. That took care of that. Snape estimated there were about three minutes left before he could open that bottle of scotch. Weasley didn’t agree, however, and took up residence in the chair on the other side of the desk.

Snape was clearly getting old if his nastiness was interpreted as an invitation to chat.

“I think my wife would listen to someone she respects; she always thought highly of you.”

You have no idea, Weasley.

“I remember you spent part of term on medicinal philters, and if I’m not mistaken there had been one class where you mentioned fertility potions.”

“If you’d remembered a quarter of the material half that well, you would have had a chance of passing my class, Weasley.”

Snape set his quill down before he snapped it. There were very few things he was loath to do more than discuss fertility potions, and one of them was imagining this spineless worm of a wizard between Granger’s thighs. No, not Granger anymore. He had accepted that she was marrying the twit, but the thought of them having sex was enough to make him see red.

Not that he was jealous.

“I have to go into work on Saturday, and my wife will be home from her apprenticeship. This will give you a chance to get reacquainted and talk some sense into her.”

Weasley stood up and Snape noticed an odd gleam in his eyes. Huh. The prat thought he was being clever and smoothing the way between them. Twit. He would let Weasley think he was getting his way, and he’d renew his acquaintance with Granger.

And if the fates were kind, he might even get to watch her hex Weasley for this little stunt.

That would go a long way towards making up for this afternoon. Telling the Headmaster he was going to be unable to referee the Quidditch match this weekend would make up the rest.

“Go away, Weasley.” Snape made sure to infuse the right amount of resignation in his voice to let the boy think he had the upper hand.

Just as predicted, Weasley rattled off the location of their home and practically strut out the door. Amateur. It was never wise to start gloating at the scene of a crime.

The door slammed closed as Snape slashed through his last essay. Things were definitely looking up.


Friday


Ron Apparated home from work, and was bursting with male pride. It was fitting, of course; he had been particularly successful in his masculine duties these past two days.
Not only had he been praised by his superiors at the Ministry, he had also convinced the most evil, vile, mean-hearted wizard he knew to help his wife with her unfortunate problem. The best part was the nasty, old git hadn’t even demanded anything in return.

He was getting rather good at this politics thing.

Ron set his briefcase down and saw that his wife was busily studying again. He sighed. Her priorities would straighten out as soon as they started their family. Then she would not worry so much about academics and see that there were more important things in life.

Satisfied and raring to go, Ron strutted across the room, wrapped his arms around his wife, and proceeded to nibble her neck. She jumped, but that was to be expected. He was being sneaky and surprising her with his amorous intentions.

Hermione groaned, which Ron took to be a sign of interest, but was in actuality one of annoyance. Couldn’t he wait until after she was done to interrupt her? She wriggled around and tried to shake him loose, but it only seemed to encourage him. She stifled a sigh. There was nothing to do but give in. It would be faster to let him have his way, fall asleep and give her some time to study, than to fight him now and drag this out any longer than it needed to be.

She stood up and let herself be dragged back into their bedroom. Ron kicked some of the forgotten laundry out of the way and tugged the coverlet down on their hand-me-down bed. Now that he had seen she was being agreeable, Ron stopped kissing her and focused on getting undressed.

So much for romance.

Hermione rolled her eyes as he turned his back on her and started pulling his robes off. Honestly, he hadn’t the faintest idea what constituted foreplay and she had long since missed her opportunity to train him.

In the beginning he had been so eager; it had been flattering. But when the afterglow of the wedding had faded, that early enthusiasm had waned to, well, boredom. Hermione found herself with a sex life that consisted of her on her back and Ron awkwardly poking and prodding his way in. At this rate, she might never have had an orgasm during intercourse.

Or have one ever again.

Now that she was naked, Hermione crawled up onto the bed and watched as Ron followed her.

In his socks.

Eugh.

There was very little that turned her on less than a wizard who couldn’t be arsed to take his socks off before he climbed on top of her.

“Are you really going to leave those on?”

“It’s cold,” Ron said, as though that made all the difference. She managed to remember a warming charm and take off all her clothing.

Then he started to kiss her. This was the nice part, relatively speaking. He used too much tongue, and had a tendency to drool all over her face, but he did seem to enjoy it enough to spend a good five minutes kissing her before moving on.

Next, he began to determinedly squeeze her breasts. Which, by the by, was accompanied by the scraping his five o’clock shadow across her nipples. Now, stubble could be an attractive look on some men, but a whisker burn on delicate parts of her anatomy was not sexy, and not at all arousing. This was the point at which she had to give a bit of encouragement before she was rubbed raw.

Hermione gave a gentle nudge and wiggled to signal he was allowed to continue down his checklist.

1) Disrobe.
2) Swallow wife’s face in kiss.
3) Leer unattractively at wife to hint that this was one of the nights she was going to get a ‘treat’.

Oh dear. This was worse than missionary sex.

Ron smirked up at her once more before bowing his head between her legs. Hermione stared up at the ceiling and wondered if he would get even close to her clit tonight. She could feel one of his fingers prodding her, but it seemed that neither of them could tell what it was he was looking for.

She had likened Ron’s oral technique to the same manner in which he ate an Acid Pop: he wanted to like it, but wasn’t quite sure if something was going to burn a hole straight through his tongue. The most she ever got was a few quick laps that made her feel silly and cold and splayed out on the bed.

Then the miraculous happened; he actually found her clit and elicited a surprised squeak from her. Unfortunately a Weasley wouldn’t know a female orgasm from a hole in the head and stopped what he was doing to beam proudly at her. He seemed to think one pleased ‘eek’ meant that he had thoroughly satisfied his wife.

When Ron crawled up to lie on top of her, it was all she could do to not suffocate herself with a pillow. Or better yet, suffocate him and go back to studying. A witch could only take so much bad sex before she was ready to burst.

Hermione stared up at the ceiling while he began to thrust inside her. She swallowed a sigh and practiced her wrist movements again.

There was no reason to let three minutes go to waste.


Saturday


The knock at the door came at half past ten, just as Hermione was putting the kettle on. She was still nose-deep in her notes when she absently unlocked and opened the door.

“Voldemort may be dead, but that is no reason to be slapdash about your personal safety,” a familiar voice drawled. “I would hate to think I wasted my time training you.”

Hermione looked up to see Snape, quirking an eyebrow and looking distinctly amused. She ignored the odd flutter in her chest to roll her eyes at him.

“It was hardly a waste considering I saved Hufflepuff a good 300 points by keeping you out of the corridors at night,” Hermione tossed back. She turned and left Snape at the door and walked back to deal with the whistling kettle.

Snape stood in the doorway while Hermione took the kettle off the hob and filled the teapot. She glanced back at his tall form while she fiddled with the tea.

“Well? Unless you have suddenly become a vampire, I fail to see why you are still hovering in the threshold.” She prepared two cups and carried them over to the table.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Weasley.” That name still rankled with her. “The shock that your husband’s poor manners have rubbed off on you was enough to give me pause. One normally invites one’s guests into one’s home.”

“One normally arranges such visits beforehand unless one has been invited,” Hermione replied tartly.

Snape smirked and stepped into the Weasleys’ ill-kept home. “Oh but I was invited, Mrs. Weasley – by your husband, in fact.”

He sat down on an empty wooden chair and cheerfully took his tea, black. The fluttering in her chest abruptly shifted into a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Ron and Snape talking spelt trouble.

“And you came to tell me where I could find the pieces of my late husband?”

Snape chuckled. “I am sorry to say Mr. Weasley is alive and well.” He paused to sip his tea. “It seems, though, that your health is failing.”

Hermione choked on hot liquid and looked up to see Snape looking apologetic. “What?” Hermione panted, after she dabbed her mouth on the corner of a napkin. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Your husband begs to differ,” Snape said. It was hard to see, but there was definite amusement hidden behind that mournful expression. “He has informed me that, through an unfortunate confluence of events, your body is unable to conceive.”

Hermione choked, spluttered, and sprayed tea across the table.

Snape grimaced and pulled a pristine handkerchief from inside his robes to dab his face dry. Witches, he sighed to himself. Her reaction was, of course, gratifying, but he would have been more pleased not to be covered in tepid tea while experiencing it.

Snape watched as Hermione coughed and regained her breath. Her eyes were watering and her face was covered in blotches, but she was still lovely.

Balls.

He reminded himself for the hundredth time that he was not jealous and not interested in the chit. His eyes trailed down to her chest – heaving and currently obscured by a garish Muggle shirt – and he forced himself to look away.

“And he went to see you?” Hermione said finally, disbelief etched into every word.

Snape smirked. “Indeed. It would seem that the only way to break through the crushing disappointment that has prevented you from seeking a solution to your obstetrical woes is for you to speak with someone for whom you have a great deal of respect.”

Hermione furrowed her brow. “So you thought you would just pop in and offer your services? Brilliant, really. If I wasn’t quite sure Ron was convinced of his own virility, I’d call you Lancelot.” Her voice grew more clipped as her ire rose. “But if you think I’m going to throw myself on your sword, you can march yourself right back to your dungeons and bugger off with a broomstick.”

“Alas, Mr. Weasley sought my services in a far less earthy pursuit.”

Hermione leveled her gaze over the rim of her tea cup and silently observed the wizard sitting in her kitchen. It was the ‘alas’ that had caught her attention, and it was only from years of experience that Snape didn’t fidget under her stare.

Had he sounded just the slightest bit wistful there?

Surely, not. He wasn’t getting that old.

He had certainly not been staring fondly at her breasts – no matter how tempting they were.

She sighed and set her mug down. “Better you than Molly Weasley, I suppose.” She ignored the mildly curious look on her former Potions master’s face. “Just make up some Valerian root infusion, and I’ll reimburse you the cost.”

Hermione walked over to lean against the bench as her shoulders slumped. She looked tired – exhausted really – and all the fight seemed to drain away. His first, immediate impulse was to walk up and knead the tension out of her shoulders. Her head would loll to the side, spilling her hair across his hands. Then ever so slightly, she’d lean back against his chest – all warm curves and supple surrender – and he’d feel her pulse flutter against his mouth…

“Was that all, Professor?”

The question shook Snape back into reality, blinking slowly as she turned to face him and waited for an answer. He swallowed down the hard lump of wanting lodged in his throat, and forced an unnatural calm to settle over his long frame.

“I’m curious, Mrs. Weasley,” he began, running a single finger along the grain of the table, “as to why you’ve chosen to live in this…” he gestured vaguely at the flat, “hovel.”

“This hovel, as you so kindly put it, is my home.” The bite in her voice left him relieved to know that the fight hadn’t completely gone out of her. “If you don’t wish me to cast equally unpleasant aspersions on where you live, I suggest you leave off now.”

“Your willingness to change the subject leads me to suspect you aren’t quite as content with your life as you’d like me to believe.”

Hermione was becoming increasingly exasperated with the man. He’d barged into her life, insulted her and her home, and had the gall to look at her like she was the last treacle tart. This final observation was quickly filed away between perplexing and preposterous, and forcibly repressed it before her mind ventured into territory she ought not to go.

“What would you have me do? Between my apprenticeship and Ron’s job at the Ministry, we manage – however meagerly. Shall we take a leaf out of your book and live the next twenty years off the generosity of Albus Dumbledore?”

“Surely a witch of your accomplishment would at least be capable of maintaining a rudimentary level of cleanliness. Perhaps your husband is quite mistaken; for it looks as though you have, indeed, managed to spawn a raucous gaggle of Weasleys by the amount of dirt underfoot.”

“In case you have failed to notice, Professor, I neither resemble, nor wish to emulate a house-elf. Furthermore, I would be careful of just whose hygiene you choose to malign.”

“I seem to recall a certain amount of obsequious fawning on your part over your ersatz lover while you were still at Hogwarts. Despite your assurances to the contrary, you were, at times, a mere pronoun or two away from wearing a tea cozy.”

“Ersatz? Ersatz? Rather wishful thinking on your part, when Ron’s been the wizard to share my bed every night for the past two years!”

Neither had noticed they had moved and were now body to body in the middle of the room. The painful proximity of the other’s body, coupled with the rush of adrenaline from their argument, left the air crackling around them with electricity.

Snape gazed down at her – eyes hooded – and lowered his voice to a low, menacing whisper. “And what did Weasley think on your wedding night when he discovered you had given your maidenhead to another man?”

Hermione glared at Snape and closed what little distance remained between them. “I can assure you he was beyond the capacity to think before he could notice one way or the other.”

Something dangerous flashed in Snape’s eyes and made Hermione palm the warm wood of her wand in her palm. His nostrils flared as he bored into her mind, only to be blocked by the skills he, himself, had given her. A crooked smile cracked the mask of Snape’s face – part amusement and part pride – and sent a wicked thrill up Hermione’s spine.

He bent his head to the soft curve of her neck – close enough to feel the gratifying skip in her pulse – and softly chuckled. Hermione felt a heavy weight sink into her pocket as Snape moved away.

“You’re welcome, Hermione.”

The seductive timber of his words echoed in her veins long after he Disapparated with a pop.

Shaking with unspent lust, Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out the vial he left with her. She read the label and laughed humourlessly.

He had given her another batch of perfectly brewed contraceptive potion.

Sunday


Hermione Weasley née Granger was a woman on a mission.

She strode through Muggle London with her hard won purchase clutched in her hand.

Diagon Alley hadn’t had it.

Knockturn Alley hadn’t either.

Hermione was beginning to suspect all those rumours about the habits of Voldemort and his Death Eaters had been highly sensationalized.

Nevertheless, the magical world and its hang-ups were not about to put a damper on her plans.

She quickly found a quiet, darkened part of the road and Apparated.

Hermione found her husband at home and shoveling food into his mouth – his mother had obviously been over to cook again. With a few determined strides, she crossed the room and waited for Ron to swallow and look up at her.

“Hermione, where have –”

She cut him off by grabbing him by the collar and kissing him hard.

“Bedroom. Now.”

Hermione spun on her heel and marched into the bedroom.

Not a wizard to be asked twice, no matter how oddly his wife was behaving, Ron got to his feet and followed her in.

“I want you undressed and on the bed. Don’t forget your socks this time.”

“Are you going to –”

“I didn’t ask for a conversation, Ronald. I want you naked.”

Confusion aside, Ron quickly did as he was told and clambered up on the mattress.

Hermione had, by now, shed some of her clothes and tossed her bag on the foot of the bed.

“Aren’t you going to lie down?”

“No. I’m going to do what I should have done years ago.”

Hermione stared appreciatively at the naked wizard she had before her and kneeled down at his feet.

“You’re going to get a bit of training,” she said, and tapped the tip of the riding crop on top of his thigh.

Ron jumped, and scrambled back on the bed to the headboard.

“Merlin’s balls, Hermione! What are you doing?”

“I’m going to teach you how to shag, if it takes all night.”

Petrified at the woman who was currently eyeing him up like she was about to devour him whole, Ron grabbed a pillow and protectively held it in front of him.

“With that? What’s gotten into you?”

Hermione slapped the riding crop against her palm and came closer. Hormones were quickly replaced by abject fear, and Ron gulped, cringed, and felt his erection wilt.

This only served to aggravate the frightening witch who looked an awful lot like his wife, and sent him scuttling to the corner of the room.

“What on earth did Snape give you?”

“Just a little motivation, darling. Nothing to worry about.”

Ron clutched the pillow furtively as he began to grab his robes from off the floor.

“I’m going to Mum’s until whatever potion you took wears off.” His eyes kept glancing fearfully at the crop while he made himself decent.

Hermione took out her other purchase of the day – authentic Muggle handcuffs – and dangled them from her finger with a distinct chink. (Was that a gulp in the background?) She was about to open her mouth and let him know he wasn’t going anywhere when the second man in two days disappeared from in front of her.

She let out a howl of frustration, and, with her wand in one hand and the riding crop in the other, Apparated out of the bedroom.


~*~*~*~

AN:
The Lancelot bit is coming out of The Mysts of Avalon

The part about Hermione filing the observation away between perplexing and preposterous is a tacky, unpoetic, yet extremely heartfelt homage to Sphinx and A Decoding of the Heart.

“(The mind is so suggestible. In a fraction-of-a-fraction of a second, in a moment so fleeting that he took no note of it at all, the idea of whose type Hermione Granger could be slipped to the depths of Severus Snape\'s subconscious, where it was filed - between \'Deathwish\' and \'Duty\' - under \'Dunderhead Notions\'.)”

More unapologetic and gratuitous smut in the next chapter.