The Witching Hour

Chapter 6-I'm Falling

Many months had passed since Hermione and Severus had begun seeing one another, and they were fast approaching their sixth month anniversary. In the short time that they had been together, they had become as important to each other as air or food, though they only noticed it in the others absence. When they were apart for very long, it was almost as though they had become two completely different people to their friends and co-workers. Severus would revert to his formerly surly, sour demeanour, and Hermione was quick to snap. Whilst Severus’ colleagues were accustomed to his behaviour, Hermione’s were not. Even Harry had to take her aside on occasion to find out what was wrong with her, but she never could give him an answer. Being the friend that Harry had been before the divorce, he went to Kingsley to find out if he knew what was going on. Kingsley had an inkling but would not tell Harry, after all, it was Hermione’s tale to tell. Still, he was curious, so he decided to invite Hermione to come for a drink. If anything significant were occurring in her life, she would tell him then. He penned her a quick note and sent it off with his owl, Oaks.

Hermione was in her flat when she heard a light tapping on her window. Someone had obviously thought to write her and she wondered who it would be at this early hour in the day. It was a little after 7 am. It was too early for Severus, and she had spoken with Harry yesterday, so she was clueless. There was only one way to discover the sender, and that was to open the window and take the letter from the owl. She crossed parlour and opened the window only to discover a very disgruntled Oaks; she had kept the little brown and grey owl waiting far too long. She paused for a moment before taking the letter and Oaks just looked at her, dropped the note at her feet, and then flew away. My, the bird was in a mood today! It was too bad that Kingsley’s familiar was nothing like him. She sat the note in her lap, opened it, and Kingsley’s soft smooth voice filled the room.

“Hermione, Long time no see, luv. How’ve you been? I find myself missing our weekly chats since you have left the ministry. It seems so strange to have to write you instead of just popping down a few floors and seeing your smiling face! I know it has been a while and I was wondering if you could make time later today to come have tea with me and catch up. I have a bit of free time after lunch. Let me know whether or not you can make it, luv.”

The missive made her smile; it was so like him to catch her off guard and say something sweet. He had a point, it had been too long since they had spoken. Jeez, it had to have been at least a couple of months since they met and it was more than time to see one another. She sent him a quick reply in the affirmative and set about her day. She had one hell of a schedule planned and now she had to cancel a meeting with her staff in order to have tea with Kingsley, though she was sure that they would not mind. Instead of cancelling the meeting, she would have Bruce fill in for her. After all, he knew her business as well as she did, and the others respected him as a superior even though he was not. She would have to change that though, he was valuable to her, and she thought a pay raise as well as a promotion would show him her appreciation. She contacted Bruce to ask him the favour and to let him know of his new status in TWH.

Her morning had passed in a whirl of meetings and negotiations with her vendors. She did not think that she would finish in time to meet Kingsley, but she got a nice surprise, her last meeting of the morning had been cancelled, which she was grateful for. She hated meeting with the man that supplied the liquor, but she had no choice. He may have been a total pain in the arse, but his prices were the lowest, at least in these parts. She took her time in making her way to see Kingsley, mainly because she was a little early, but by the time that she arrived, he was ready and waiting for her.

---

“Good afternoon, luv. It is nice to see you.” Kingsley smiled at her then enveloped her in a friendly embrace, then pulled her inside his office. He already had tea and biscuits set out ready for them to partake of the small repast.

“It is good to see you as well. I must apologize for not coming sooner, but I have been busy with The Witching Hour; the business keeps me wrapped up most days, and when I am not working, I am spending time with Severus, and trying to repair my friendship with Harry.”

“I understand about being busy, as I am the Minister of Magic, I rarely have a free moment, in fact this has to be one of the rare quiet times I have had in the last few months. I don’t really mind the work, but it keeps me from having a life, well, at least a private life at any rate. I am sure that if I did have a private life, it would not stay that way for long. As it is, I have reporters here nearly every hour of my day. I don’t even want to imagine how they would treat me if I had something outside of my position.

I have wondered how you and Harry had been getting on since I last spoke with him, which was just shortly before he and Ron’s fight.”

“We have been doing well... wait, did you just say that Harry and Ron had a fight?”

“Yes they did. I thought that Harry or Ginny might have told you. I guess from the look on your face that this is the first you are hearing of it. I apologize for the oversight.”

“What were they fighting over anyway? I thought that they were on decent terms with one another, even after Harry had discovered Ron’s betrayal.”

“They were fighting over you and this whole situation of Ron’s lying, cheating, and utter betrayal. Harry had heard enough after he left your flat and tried desperately to listen to what you had told him. He tried to stay out of it and let Ron at his destiny, but when he witnessed two of his co-workers talking about you, he snapped. I walked in on him in the middle of dressing them down for their behaviour. I quickly quashed the situation before it got out of hand and brought him to my office for a friendly chat. I thought that I had calmed him down and convinced him not to go after Ron, but apparently not. Once he left my office, he returned to his, when Ron had stopped in for a visit.

From what I heard, Harry confronted Ron on his behaviour, and he did not want to talk about it. Ron started to leave when Harry stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder, and Ron broke Harry’s nose. Harry retaliated by giving Ron a black eye, then Ron whipped out his wand and threw an unknown spell at Harry, which threw him into the wall. The impact into the stone knocked Harry unconscious. I had just come back down to tell Harry that he had been promoted when I saw him lying against the wall with blood trickling down the side of his face, and Ron was just standing there. He tried to feed me some shite and I called him on it. Once I healed Harry and enervated him, he told me the story that I am now sharing with you. I told him that there really was not anything that I could do unless he decided that he wanted Ron arrested. To my utter amazement, he declined, and thus Ron walked away. I can’t say that it was the smartest thing that Harry had done; Ron needed to pay for his actions, but I guess Harry had decided to let him go.”

“It sounds like it was quite a fight that they had, I am glad that you arrived when you did, who knew what else Ron would have done to him if you hadn’t. As much as I appreciate Harry doing what he did, he should have just left well enough alone. Ron would have gotten his at some point, I feel certain of it. Oh well, there is nothing that I can do about it now, too much time has passed, and it would not do to bring up the past, and I know that it would not help mine and Harry’s friendship any. In a way, I am glad that he did not tell me about it, it would have strained our relationship further, and who knows how long it would have taken us to heal over that.”

“I did what I could, and I only wish that he would have listened to me, Hermione, but you know how he is, once he decides to do something, no one is going to change his mind on it. You’re right in letting the past staying where it is. Oh, I wanted to ask you, did you ever get around to talking to Ron?”

“Yes, actually I have, though I did not intend on speaking with him when I did. He came in a little after Christmas when I was in my office. Bruce saw him and let me know that he had finally come to patronize The Witching Hour. I was not happy that he was there, but I decided that I would go ahead and make an appearance. He tried to make friendly conversation with me and I just asked him what he wanted. During our little meeting, he found out that I owned the successful club, and he made his opinion known, not that I cared. I couldn’t believe when he actually tried to pick me up, thinking that I would go off with him for a bout of sex, especially when I had Severus. Thankfully, Ron didn’t have the chance to finish his proposition when Sev walks up from behind, and wraps his arms around me. Ron turned deathly white and looked as though he was going to faint. Sev stopped him dead in his tracks too. I told Ron that I had moved on, and told him to see himself to the door. Merlin, it felt good to tell him to get lost!”

“I am very proud of you, Hermione. You finally confronted the last of your daemons and are well and truly moving on with your life.”

“I am happier now than I have ever been Kingsley, I can’t believe how much has changed in the last year. I own my own business, I have made amends with people in my life, and am in a relationship that satisfies me, well, more than satisfies me.”

“I am glad for that. How are things going between you two anyway?”

“It is actually brilliant. I know that this sounds trite, but he feels like the other half of me. He makes me so happy, and to be honest, I think I am falling for him. Well, more than falling, I think I have fallen in love with him.”

“Have you told him how you feel?”

“No, I think it may be too soon to tell him. We have only been together 6 months, and I don’t want to scare him off. Besides, I don’t know if he feels the same for me.”

“Hermione, life is about taking chances, and you need to take this one. If you don’t, you will regret it. You need to tell him that you love him. If he does not yet return your feelings, at least he will know that he is loved. As a man that has had so little love in his life, he needs to know that someone does.”

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It was just after the staff meeting that Severus had decided to go see Minerva, for she had invited him over for their customary end of the week whiskey, and now was as good of a time as any. Hopefully she would not be in the middle of preparing for bed, he hated catching her like that. He made his way up the password-protected stairway and knocked on her door. He did not have long to wait, for she answered almost immediately.

“Good evening, Severus. Care to come in for a chat?”

“Yes. I came by for that drink. The lure of alcohol at the end of a stressful week is almost too much to ignore. And what a week it has been too! During my last class of the day, I decided to give my fourth years a lesson in duelling, and stupid me, I thought that they were paying attention, but I was wrong. When I was finished with the demonstration, I paired them off, and most of them were successful. The worst incident that I have ever had in the classroom after that. Radnor, and Watson were duelling, then Radnor nearly killed Watson with a faulty wand movement. The poor kid is in the hospital and will be for two weeks.” Severus sighed and propped his long legs on her coffee table.

“I never thought that I would be so happy to see a week end more than this one. I, too, had a difficult week. Students fighting, having to expel a 7th year just before N.E.W.T’s had to be one of the hardest things that I have had to do since becoming Headmistress. The poor kid was so full of potential, but I could not let what he did go unpunished. The use of the Imperious curse is illegal for a reason. The boy used it on a fellow 7th year to steal for him, and that made it worse.

So, how is your relationship with my brilliant former student going?”

“Things are going well with us, and she makes me happy. I mean truly happy. I did not know that I would ever be able to feel that way with the life that I have had, I certainly didn’t expect to be in a relationship with a former annoying student, but I am. One of the brilliant things in life is how it can take you off guard and shock the hell out of you. There has been so little good in my life and I am proud to admit that she is one of the best things to every happen to me, and Merlin only knows how I sometimes feel as though I do not deserve such an angel, but there she is to remind me that she is my reward.”

“It sounds as though you love the girl, Severus.”

“You know what, I think I do. I think I have finally fallen.”

“Have you told her how you feel?”

“No, not yet, but I plan to. I am going to tell her when I see her again, which should be tomorrow night.”

“I hope you do, Severus, she deserves to know how you feel about her. Try not to let too much time pass before you say something. As you have said before, life has a way of taking us by surprise, and sometimes those surprises are not so good, you do not want something bad to happen and neither of you never knowing how you feel for the other. I do not want you to have any more regrets in this life. I think that you and she will be very happy together if you both just allow it to happen. Remember to not push her away, you need her as much as she needs you, especially after all that you both have been through.



A/N: I once again want to thank all of the people that are reading and reviewing my story, you guys and gals are awesome. Please keep in mind that I welcome constructive criticism, and appreciate what you have to say. It is through your suggestions that I am able to become a better writer.