Costume Party

“Jack and Elizabeth.”

“No.”

“Jack and Rose.”

“No.”

“Jack and Sally.”

“No.”

“Jack and Jill?”

“What is your affinity with Jack?” he snapped. Severus was bent over his desk, potions journals spread across every available inch of surface.

“I’ve not heard you give a single suggestion,” Hermione rolled her eyes. Her legs dangled over the edge of the couch, bare feet facing the sliding door. The warm breeze drifted through from the veranda tickling her soles and she sighed. “Antony and Cleopatra.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Severus, you can’t say no to every couple I suggest!” she sat up glaring at him.

“Well if you would stop proposing such ridiculous atrocities…”

“How about Tim and Faith?”

“Who?”

“Urgh, Jesse James and Miss Kitty.”

“I am not wearing cowboy boots and a Stetson.” He flipped a few pages in one of the journals, jotting down some notes.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully for a moment. “What about Paris and Helen?”

“Of Troy?” he pondered for a moment and then shook his head. “No, I’d rather not be Roman, thank you.”

“Aphrodite and Ares.”

“Weren’t married, just violent lovers, and I am not going in guise as Hesphestus.”

Hermione rolled her eyes again and got up from the couch. She sauntered into their library as he continued thumbing through his research. It was frustrating, and she figured he was being difficult than usual in hopes that she would get agitated, give up, and decide that it would be all together easier if they just didn’t go. He had a second thing coming. Her voice carried through from the other room, “Romeo and Juliet!”

“I’d rather play Tybalt.” He called, hardly looking up from his notes.

“But the idea is so romantic! Star crossed lovers—”

“Hermione, there is nothing romantic about star-crossed suicide,” he said flatly. “And I already told you, I am not wearing tights.”

“Santa and Mrs. Claus,” she countered.

“More suited for Albus and Minerva, don’t you think? I’m hardly jolly enough.”

“Pity it’s a couples ball or I’d have you go as Scrooge,” she muttered.

“Who?” he said, straining a bit to hear her, though only half-heartedly interested.

“Nevermind, dear.” She sighed and moved up two rungs on the wall ladder. Their library was rather an impressive feat, a vast circular room with a small portion of the wall opening up to a window, the rest of the wall being covered from ceiling to floor in books. The collection rivaled that of the Hogwarts library, restricted section included. She shifted her weight, pulling a book from one of the higher shelves. Flipping through the pages, she stopped a picture of a small general on a horse. “What about Napoleon?”

“What about him?”

“Didn’t he have that girl that he gave the fountains too?”

“Josephine?”

“Yes, Josephine and Napoleon then.”

“He’s too short. And he has a funny hat.”

Hermione tossed the book to the floor. “You’re impossible!”

“How about Adolph and Eva?” he called, a smirk forming on his lips. He’d been saving that response until she was particularly frustrated, hoping it would put her off the stupid ball all together.

“Who?”

“Adolph Hitler and Eva—”

“We are not going to that ball dressed like Nazi war leaders!”

He snorted, muttering to himself. “You’ve got a better chance of me wearing a swastika than tights…”

“Bo and Hope!” she shouted.

“Not on your life, Fancy Face…”

Another book fell to the floor. “You know, you’d be fit to play Shrek.”

“Who?” he asked massaging his temples before slowly rising from his desk. He made his way over to the library and stood in the doorway.

“A big, green, ogre, dear.” He stayed silent, glaring at her. “Shrek and Fiona then?”

“I think not,” he said flatly. “What about Charles and Diana?”

“Far too soon,” she called as she climbed further up the ladder, not realizing that he’d entered the room. “And there was no real love there anyhow.”

“Pity,” he muttered, refocusing his gaze on her rather lovely posterior as she climbed higher up, reaching for another book. From the size of the tome he could tell it was a collected works and it looked all too much like one that would make him shudder.

“Tristan and Isolde?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Well Beatrice and Benedict,” she called, skimming over the table of contents. “Though you’ll have to grow—”

“—a beard I shall not grow and it will not make me any less of a man for you.”

“Helena and Lyssandar!”

“No.”

“Titanya and Oberon!”

“I am not being the bloody King of Faeries!”

“Othello and Desdemona!”

“Black face will break my skin out.”

“You can use a glamour it will be easier that way.”

“So would levitating the books down, you don’t run the risk of falling,” he muttered and watched her spin around so fast that she nearly did fall from the ladder. Severus waited until she began her decent down the ladder before adding, “And besides, if I’m Othello, Kingsley has no one.”

She tossed the book at him and then turned to climb back up the ladder. “What about Ophelia and Hamlet?”

“Would you give Shakespeare a rest?”

A growl of frustration rose from her lips. “You are making this absolutely impossible.”

“We could go as Mary Magdalin and Jesus,” he offered.

She laughed. “Hardly! Honestly, is that the best you could come up with?”

“Well, I don’t hear you spitting out suggestions that I like.”

“That’s because you don’t want to go!” Hermione came gliding back down the ladder almost as quickly as she’d gone up it, another book in hand. “How am I supposed to pick a costumed couple for us if you shoot down everything I say?”

“If you wouldn’t say the first thing that pops into your head, I wouldn’t have to keep shooting it down!”

Waving her hand, several more books came flying off the shelves, and Severus had to duck to avoid being hit by a rather large one. She stomped her way back into the living room and flopped down on the couch. He followed but returned to his desk. “Oh no you don’t, give the research a rest and come over here.” Almost about to sit down and pick up another journal he locked eyes with her. “Severus!” she snapped and he growled. As he took a seat beside her, she thrust a book into his hands. “Here.”

“Why’ve you given me an encyclopedia?”

“Start looking for a couple,” she said and began to flip through a different volume. After a moment she paused. “Katherine and Henry.”

“The eighth?” She nodded to his question. “Goody, I’ll get started on the beheadings right away.”

“Ferdinand and Isabelle?”

“Too many ruffles in the collar.”

“Anastasia and Dmitri?”

“Who’s Dmitri?”

“The young castle serant boy, he slipped her out of the castle the night Rasputin came to kill the Tsar…” her eyes got glossy and dreamy as she spoke.

“That’s rubbish, there’s no such person as Dmitri. He was simply written in fro that campy Disney musical cartoon.”

“It wasn’t Disney.”

“Whatever.”

“Speaking of Disney—”

“No.” he said sternly.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Hermione, we’ve been through every fairytale prince and princess combination in existence. All of the princes have had ridiculous costumes an even worse names.”

“I was going to suggest Mickey and Minnie Mouse.”

Severus turned his head to the side and glared. “You’d better bloody be joking. There is no way in hell I’m dressing up like an enormous cartoon mouse.”

Grabbing his shoulder she began to shake him. “Why are you being so difficult?” He fell back, and she fell forward, tumbling into his lap. He sighed. She sighed. “Severus, you’ve got to like something!”

“I’d like us not to go.” He said.

Hermione closed her eyes. “Sometimes, I honestly do wonder why I married you.” It was a harsh statement to make, but she didn’t move his lap and he didn’t bother to toss her off him either. There was a silence between them. The breeze from outside was the only sound as it ruffled across various journals still open on his desk. She closed her eyes, resting her head on his chest for a moment.

“Hermione, I’m getting too old for this nonsense…” he said.

She was quiet a moment longer. “Too old to be arguing with me?”

He sighed. “I don’t think age is a factor in that arena,” he muttered. “I mean for this costume nonsense. Balls and parties and whatnot.”

“Look at Albus—”

“Who should rightfully be going as the Mad Hatter,” he said, and wrapped an arm around her stomach. He too closed his eyes. “I can see the gray in my hair, Hermione, and I know you can too.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, laying across him. “Is that was this is all about? The costume party? All this research? Because you feel like you’re getting old?” She planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. “And let me guess…you’re afraid that as life slips away from you, as it does from all people, magical and muggle alike, that you’ll not have accomplished all the things you wanted to?” Turning herself a bit to better access his ear, she whispered. “You got married, found and fell in love, things you’d swore you’d never do.”

He sighed. “I do love my wife,” he said and kissed her cheek. “I just thought that by now…ah, bollocks, forget it.”

“What? You thought that by now what, Severus? That we’d both have some diabolical breakthrough in Potions research? Or that we’d have split? Because I told you that I was sticking through thick and thin—”

“No, Hermione, I didn’t think you would split…” he said a bit annoyed. “And although the potions research breakthrough would be fantastic, and it’s coming along, I just figured—”

“Well if it’s coming along then you’ve nothing to worry about, I mean it’s not like you’re going to up and die tomorrow. It’s all I’ve been hearing from you all week is how you’re on the verge and you’re nearly—”

“It’s not where I thought I’d be at this point in my life.”

“Nonsense, you’ve gotten out of teaching, into research, happily married, lovely home, Dark Lord is dead and gone, and you’re on the—”

“I just figured at this point in my life that I’d—”

“Be successful? Have won a potions mastery award? Have made some epic breakthrough in the cure for lycanthropy? Have—”

“Have a child, Hermione.” He had difficulty in believing he’d actually said it, but not nearly as much difficulty as she was having believing that she’d heard it. She quickly closed her lips and pulled back from his lap. “Forget it, Hermione.” He said and then moved to stand, but her hands on his shoulders kept him seated on the couch. “Don’t.”

“Why haven’t you— why didn’t you— why did you wait ‘til now to—”

“Because I’m old, Hermione, I just— look, forget it, you’ve got costumes to pick out and I’ve got research to do.”

“Severus,” she said, trying to keep the confusion mixed with hurt and drops of anger from her voice. “This is serious. I mean, honestly, you thought by now you’d…that we’d have a child?” she closed her eyes for a moment, but took both his hands in hers. They’d been married for seventeen years, and the age gap between them had never meant anything to her, but she’d always assumed that he didn’t want children as he’d had quite enough of them in his days spent teaching at Hogwarts. He’d never approached the matter before and she was just as happy without them. But she was no longer the spring chicken she’d once felt herself to be. The big scary four zero was looming just a couple of years in the not so distant future. She sighed. “I always figured you didn’t want children.”

“I never thought I would after teaching your lot,” he said quite gravely but then smirked a bit. “Longbottom was enough to put me off the idea permanently…or so I thought.”

She chuckled softly and then leaned closer to him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Severus was quiet for a moment, leaning back into the arm of the couch, pulling his wife into his chest. “To be honest, I thought that it was a fleeting fancy. I knew decades ago that I was destined not to have children, and I got over it, but I suppose it was about the time that—”

“Ginny.”

“What?”

“Ginny, it was right after Ginny gave birth to Lilliana, goodness how could I not have seen it?”

“Hermione, what on earth are you talking about?”

She shook her head. “Severus, it was just after Ginny had Lily, I noticed then, but I didn’t think much of it of course, I was just so happy to see you and Harry getting along on the floor with his daughter that I didn’t even think about the fact that you might want one of your own. Of our own. How could I have been so blind?”

Severus chuckled. “Don’t beat yourself up, Hermione, I didn’t know that I really wanted a child, that day, per say…” he trailed off for a moment, lost in thought. “I suppose it was when I was being dragged all around that baby store that afternoon when Ginevra was pregnant with James,” he paused thoughtfully. “Seeing all those other parents with their little toddlers and newborns…I just didn’t think that you were interested.”

“Oh, well…” she trailed off. “It’s not that I wasn’t interested I just figured we were happy enough the way we were. The way we are, I mean, we are happy, aren’t we?”

“Of course,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “Well not lately, you’re still insisting that we go to this stupid costume ball…” Hermione smacked him playfully. “But in reality, yes we’re happy, and I’m not saying that we need a child to make us happy, I just thought that by now, perhaps we’d have one.”

She nodded and then sat slowly up from his embrace. “Severus, I’m getting older…” she said.

“Let’s not do this now,” he said. “It was foolish of me to mention it.” He pulled himself up to a more formal sitting position and ran his hand through his hair. “Come on, back to who was it? Buffy and Angel did you say?”

Hermione’s nose crinkled up as if she’d smelled something horribly foul. “Dear Merlin not in a million years.”

He sighed. “I’m going back to work.”

“No, no you aren’t, not until we have a costume set picked out.”

He rolled his eyes. Neither was arguing that the subject of a potential child had been completely glossed over. “You can do what you’ve been doing. I’m going back to my journals,” he said a bit defiantly and sat down behind his desk. “What about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy?”

“I don’t like any of Jane Austin’s women.” She said.

“Not even Marianne and Colonel Brandon?” he offered with a slight smile.

“Especially not Marianne and Colonel Christopher Brandon…though that does make me think, what about her sister and that Edward fellow?”

“Elinor?”

“Yes, Elinor and Edward Ferrars that would work lovely, don’t you think?”

“You had better luck with Katherine and Henry,” he muttered and began rummaging around in his desk drawer.

Hermione stood up and began to pace around the study. “Tony and Maria.”

“From West Side Story?”

“Yes, they’re the ones.”

“I thought I already vetoed Romeo and Juliet.”

“Fine,” she sighed, leaning against the door that lead out onto the veranda. “I’ve got it!”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re going to say, if it came to you while leaning against the window looking out over the vineyard, chances are I’m going to say no.”

“You’ve said no to everything else anyhow.” He did not respond. “Rick and Ilsa…how dreamy would that be?”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Hermione burst into a fit of giggles. “Oh you idiot, that’s the wrong movie! That’s from Gone with the Wind! Rick and Ilsa are from Casablanca!” she could hardly contain her laughter.

“Whatever, I’m not going as either of them.”

“Oh you are completely hopeless. How do you mix up Gone with the Wind and Casablanca?”

“I’m not a muggle, for starters, Hermione, nor did I grow up in a muggle household, so the silver screen muggle classics hold very little importance there. I’ve never seen either of them, but at your insistence we watch that damn AFI tribute every year and every year it’s the same damn line, forgive me if I’ve mixed my references of which line came from which movie. But in my book they might as well be the same damned one.”

Hermione nearly slid down the wall in a fit of laughter. “You really are hopeless,” she managed between gasps of air. After she’d managed to gain her breath, she walked over to his desk and perched herself on the edge of it, warranting her a very annoyed glance from her husband, as her rear end covered one of the journals he’d been leafing through. “We’ll have to fix their significance in your life. We’ll just have to have a movie night where we watch them both.”

“Merlin help me.” He grumbled and swatted at her behind. “Move, woman, you’re sitting on my research.”

"Well we could go as Scarlett and Rhett...though you look nothing like Clark Gable..."

"Here's looking at you, kid..." he muttered and then rolled his eyes. Again she burst into giggles. "What?"

"That's Casablanca! Rick and Ilsa!"

"Woman, you're still sitting on my research and I don't care if it's Damned Yankees! I don't do muggle movies!"

“Oh! Wolverine and Jean Grey!” she smiled and hopped down from the desk.

“I don’t even want to know where that came from, but my suggestion is to leave that one to Lupin,” he sneered.

“Not funny,” she smacked his shoulder. “Oh, but that’s a whole new ball game right there. Think of the possibilities…there’s Clark Kent and Lois Lane.”

“I am not dressing up like a nerd in glasses and I do not do the journalist thing.”

“Well, Superman then.”

“That goes against my no wearing tights rule, Hermione.”

She pouted. “What about Spiderman?”

“You are not Mary Jane.” He said flatly. “I’m not being Peter Parker either. Stupid Super Heroes and their stupid alter ego…” he grumbled.

“I suppose that you won’t be considering Mr. Incredible or Mr. Fantastic?”

Severus frowned. “Do I look like an overweight version of Craig T. Nelson to you?” he sighed. “And although I’m sure you’d make a lovely invisible woman, Miss Storm, I’d prefer to keep my eyes on you.”

She sighed. “I feel as if I’ve run out of ideas.”

“Thank Circe!” he said only to receive another smack on the shoulder. Hermione moved through their study back into the library. Severus sighed. “You cannot keep this up forever,” he called to her. “You should just quit while you’re ahead,” he added though much quieter.

“June Carter Cash!” she shouted.

“What about her?”

“You’re going to go as—”

“No I most certainly am not.”

“But, Severus,” she poked her head back into the study. “You already have the all black wardrobe for it, and you do sing divinely.”

“No.”

“But, Severus!”

“Don’t you but Severus me, Hermione. I am not strolling around singing Folsom Prison Blues just because you want to go as June Carter Cash.”

“Johnny Cash would be perfect for you, I’ve heard you sing his music in the shower,” she teased.

“I don’t care what you’ve heard me sing in the shower. I said no.”

“Urgh!” she growled. But not a moment passed before she’d moved on to the next idea. “John and Marilyn.”

He did not object for a moment. “I suppose you would look rather lovely in that dress,” he pondered and then shook his head. “No, she’s a blonde, I don’t much care for blondes.”

“Damnit! I thought we almost had one.”

“Sorry,” he said and then turned his attentions back to one of the journals. At exactly that moment a large tawny owl came swooping into the study, flying straight past Severus and perching on Hermione’s arm. “What the devil?”

Hermione shrugged, shaking the owl off her and then staring at the creature. “Hello, what’s this?” she asked, untying the roll of parchment from its foot. Before she could properly thank the owl with a treat, the bird was swooping back out the doorway through which it had come just moments before. “Odd,” she said and shook the roll of paper out to read it.

“What is it?” he asked, mildly curious.

“Oh my goodness, why didn’t I think of them before?”

“Think of who?”

“Severus, I know exactly who we’re going to go to the ball as.”

“I’ve got a sinking feeling that I’m not going to like this.” He muttered.