Arithmancy for Muggles

Chapter Three: The Underground

“You can still change your mind.” Hermione watched her former professor pile galleons on top of the check. He added a couple silver knuts and the check disappeared, taking the money with it.

“They always try to overcharge. I know the price of a meal,” he muttered and looked up. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Hermione smiled. If she earned what he did, she’d be a miser, too. “I was giving you a graceful way to back out. I need to leave now, but you don’t have to…”

“Nonsense.” Snape ushered her out of the wizard restaurant. “As you say, it’s not another country.”

“Well, it isn’t and it is,” Hermione hedged, taking Snape’s arm. “It’s mostly the same, except where it’s different. And you never know what’s going to be different until it smacks you in the face.”

They strolled towards the exit, Snape’s firm arm under Hermione’s hand betraying a hint of tension. “And is anything likely to, as you put it, smack me in the face?”

Hermione patted his arm in what she hoped was a comforting manner. “I’ll try to keep you out of trouble.”

“Given how well you managed to keep Potter and Weasley out of trouble during your stay at Hogwarts, I find your glib reassurance less comforting than it might be.”

If Snape had not accosted her Hermione knew she would have left Diagon Alley earlier without a backward glance. She’d be home now, or at the pub down the street, or if things were very bad, visiting her parents. But she would already be done with the wizarding world. She would be thinking ahead to the next phase of her plans.

But now, after an hour spent in fond reminiscence of school days and mutual acquaintances, Hermione felt herself less than equal to the simple task of walking through a brick wall past the Leaky Cauldron and into Charing Cross Road. Since when had walking through a brick wall been easy for a muggle born girl? She took one look back at the magical alley and the witches and wizards hurrying through the descending gloom. She still loved this world. Maybe she could save it.

“Or is it you would prefer not to be burdened with my company?” Snape asked.

“You’re not backing out now,” Hermione told him. “Let’s go.”

They walked through the barrier together, arm in arm.

On the other side, it was also earleninening. Why should it not be? The sun was just setting. Looking up at the man beside her, Hermione stifled an inappropriate laugh. She remembered a day in Muggle Studies, talking about magical impact on the normal world. They’d been asked to write an essay on the topic, “If I had to leave the Magical World forever, what I would take with me.” Hermione had turned in several feet of carefully thought out items she believed would be most useful. A lifetime supply of chocolate frogs. A copy of Hogwarts: A History. A plate that filled with delicious food whenever you touched a fork to it. A magic mirror that gave her beauty tips. An owl. The list went on from there.

They spent the next week discussing each of the items people had wanted to bring, and why you should never bring magical items into the muggle world. She’d found the lesson a bit insulting, really. She’d worked very hard on her list and resented some teacher, some pureblood witch, telling her what muggles would or would not do faced with the wonders of magic. Hermione had managed to adapt, hadn’t she?

But here, against all expectation, Hermione was Leaving the Magical World Forever and what had she chosen to bring with her? She’d brought Snape. The muggle world would never be the same.

“What are you sniggering at?”

“Nothing,” Hermione assured him, stretching her legs towards nowhere in particular. “So, what would you like for dessert.”

“Actually,” Snape kept her hand cradled in the crook of his arm as they walked, “I have an ulterior motive in accompanying you this evening.”

“Sneaky as a Slytherin,” Hermione said, attempting for light humor, but her heart pounding ticatically in her chest. “What were you, some sort of unofficial watchdog? Did the Ministry send you to make sure I left on time? Or did Albus ask you to keep an eye on me, make sure I don’t do anything drastic?” She pulled her hand from his arm. He let her.

“More drastic than letting them snap your wand?” He lifted his eyebrow in a characteristically Snapish manner. “And the phrase is: ‘Ambitious as a Slytherin.’ It just so happens that often one can achieve one’s ambitions more easily with stealth than with a frontal assault.”

They had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, people brushing past them on both sides. “So you admit it!” Hermione pointed her finger at him.

“I have not admitted anything yet, but I would prefer a less public venue for my confessional.”

He maintained his implacable dignity. The first heat of Hermione’s fear and anger subsided and they began walking again, side by side, but not touching. “Okay, so what would you like to do? We can walk to Leicester Square for ice cream, or we can find a little café somewhere for pastry, or we can try the Indian chaat house near my flat for rice pudding. It’s up to you.”

“Such a wealth of choices,” Snape said dryly. “Leicester Square. That’s the place with all the hideous American tourists throwing their wrappers on the ground, isn’t it?”

“Okay, one vote against.” Hermione was in no hurry. She noticed that Snape earned no more curious looks than she did, despite his somewhat anachronistic attire. “Café or deli?”

“Do you know for a fact that there is a café within walking distance that will serve us pastry during the dinner hour?”

Hermione shook her head cheerfully. “Nope. This is a grand adventure. Shall I take that as a vote for rice pudding?”

“Yes.” He added as an afterthought, “Please.”

Feeling as though she’d won some great concession, she took his arm again. “Come on, we’ll take the tube. You’ll like it. It’s underground, just like your dungeon.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “I do know what the London Underground is, thank you, Miss Granger. Not only does Albus Dumbledore have a fine map of it on his knee, many of the disused stations have been ceded to the Department of Magic.” However, he patted the dainty hand resting on his arm as if to take away the sting of his words.

“Well,” Hermione said, “That’ll teach me to open my big mouth. You’re practically a native.”

He continued, “Furthermore, my dungeon is only partly underground. It is simultaneously at the top of Salazar’s Tower. I have an incredible view from my bedroom window. On clear days I can see coa coast of Norway.”

After seven years in residence there, nothing about Hogwarts’ topography really surprised Hermione. “That must be some view.”

“It is,” Snape confirmed. “I’d love to show it to you someday.”

“Or not,” Hermione reminded him.

The professor stiffened slightly. “My deepest apologies, Miss Granger. I had forgotten.”

Hermione shrugged, but pulled away from him to navigate the stairs. “I’ll buy the tickets. Wait here.”

It took only a few minutes at the machine to get two tickets. She considered getting a round trip for Severus, but decided he could apparate from Hammersmith as well as anywhere else. Taking the ticket in his long fingers, Snape tucked the little slip of paper into his breast pocket.

“You’re going to need that to get through the barrier,” she told him.

“I beg your pardon?”

Hermione slipped her ticket into the turnstile and watched it disappear. She pushed through the gate and stood clear of the onrushing surge of humanity. She looked back to see Severus Snape standing like a large black rock in the middle of a stream.

She stood there for several minutes, just watching him, wondering what he was going to do, wondering whether she ought to try shouting instructions over the din or whether she should leave him here, like a lost hat, her big black souvenir of the world she had left behind. But he made no move to solicit her assistance, and she was in no hurry to get home. When the crowd had thinned, she watched him study the instructions and figure it out for himself. He was not a stupid man. On the second attempt, the ticket went in the right way around and he pushed through the barrier.

“Clever system. I can think of several ways to cheat it, though.”

“How many of them involve magic?” she asked. He didn’t answer.

An old black gentleman was playing the blues on a harmonica under the “No Busking” sign. Snape fossicked about in his pocket and came up with a shiny knut, which he tossed into the old man’s hat.

“That was a knut,” Hermione whispered. “Isn’t that against your rules?”

“My rules?” Snape raised his eyebrows high. “You seem awfully concerned about Wizard Law for a woman who has been placed outside it. However, if it will put your mind at rest, he is an old associate of mine. I do not doubt he will put that knut to better use than I will.”

On the platform, a warm rush of air blew Hermione’s skirt around her legs. She looked around, afraid she had lost Snape, but saw him take a position standing several feet away from her, where he could guard her and see the approach of the trains without exposing his back to any potential enemies.

That, more than anything, was what made them different. Even now, he was still essentially paranoid. Hermione had made a conscious effort to relax, to put the war behind her and risk the consequences of her optimism to enjoy what she still had. For Snape, the war had never really ended. He was still guarding against an attack that might never come, living each day like another battle to be fought and survived.

She pitied him. And she hated the feeling.

When the train arrived, Hermione waited for him to emerge, taking his arm again in a gesture that was beginning to feel familiar and comfortable. They found seats in a sparsely occupied car. Snape sat primly, his back straight, his knees tucked together. Hermione braced herself against the sway and jiggle of the train, leaning back into her seat, one foot wrapped around a support.

“So,” she began in a quiet voice, loud enough for him to hear, but not to carry to the other passengers over the rattle of the train. “Who sent you to follow me home?”

“Is that where we’re going? I thought we were going to have dessert?” He gave nothing away. He had been a spy. He was better at this verbal sparring than she was, but Hermione felt like she was holding her own.

“Answer me, Snape. Why are you with me tonight?”

He turned to face her. All the Legilimency Hermione knew she’d learned from this man.

The train swayed.

Hermione gripped his elbow and he looked away.

She wasn’t sure how long they sat without speaking. She couldn’t just let it lie there.

“So that’s it then?” She turned and prodded him. “We’re living in different worlds now and this is the last chance you’ll have. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“What can I say?” he ground out. His body was still, almost unnaturally so, as if the stabilizing charm he’d placed on himself at Gringott’s had not yet worn off.

“I don’t know.” Her words were light and mocking. “You could say something like, Hermione, I’ve never said anything before, but it looks like my last chance: fancy a shag?”

Severus Snape was incredulous. “Fancy a shag?” He clearly had no clue what the phrase meant.

But Hermione couldn’t resist the straight line. “Yes, please, I’d love one.” She smiled, almost meaning it. “Why not? We’ll never have to worry about running into each other awkwardly at parties. We don’t travel in the same circles anymore, you know.”

“Nonsense,” he scoffed. “I do not ‘shag’ and I do not ‘fancy’ anything.”

“A pity,” Hermione said archly. “I’ve always wanted to have sex with a real wizard, and now it looks like I’ve lost my last chance.”

Snape froze. “Shag means sex?” he asked softly. “Is this one of those muggle things that’s going to slap me in the face?”

She laughed at the mental image of Snape getting slapped by irate middle-aged women with little hats and large handbags. “Ron had no difficulty understanding it, but Harry and I were both raised muggle, so I’m not sure if it’s a muggle term we introduced him to or just the slang of the young generation.” She shrugged, never having considered the question before.

“Miss Granger.” He corrected himself carefully, “Hermione, are you propositioning me?”

She’d never really thought of Snape in that way before now, not seriously at any rate. He was older, he was a teacher. He was of an age with Harry’s parents, her own too, probably. Hermione had a rotating stable of fantasy men when she used the vibrating charm (must find muggle equivalent before week is out) and Snape had been the featured performer a time or two. She didn’t find him unappealing.

But, if she were honest, Hermione would have to admit that the attraction she felt for him right now had little to do with who he was. She was attracted by what he was. Severus Snape was her last tangible link to the magical world. Keeping him with her a little bit longer would only prolong the agony of parting with her old life, but like a drowning man tries to breathe water in a futile attempt to fill his lungs with oxygen, Hermione wanted to keep Snape with her for just a little while longer.

With Snape next to her, breathing and warm, the Wizarding World was only a heartbeat away.

“Yes, Severus,” Hermione answered his quiet question boldly. “Yes, I am.” She cocked her head to one side and smiled at him crookedly. “So how about it? Fancy a shag?”

***

A/N: I am overwhelmed by the response this story is getting. I would love to thank each and every one of my reviewers for making their mark, but if I thanked you all personally, the author\'s notes would be longer than the chapter!

To clear a few things up: this is just the beginning of a rather complex story. I realize I\'ve mentioned quite a few things in passing that don\'t quite make sense (Harry and Ron\'s lack of support, the Ministry\'s inertia, etc...) but I have good reasons for it. You\'ll just have to bear with me. Secondly, most of the narrative thus far has been Hermione\'s viewpoint. I love Hermione (we all do, or we wouldn\'t be reading this, right?) but she\'s not God. She doesn\'t know everything and she can be a bit narrow-minded in her pursuit of what\'s \"right\". And even the most truthful people can mislead by omitting important facts, or emphasizing one part of a tale over another, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

So, thank you again for reading. I\'ll try to update once or twice a week, depending on other factors in my life. -Flyingegg (flyingegg99@yahoo.com)