Snape Redux

Snape Redux

By April Grey

Chapter Nine – Hermione in Wonderland

It all belongs to Rowling, except for the parts you don’t recognize.


After several hours of being left alone, free to cry her eyes out, Hermione heard noises coming from outside of her room. Several people were whispering. She pulled the blanket further over her head.

“Hermione?” came a voice.

“Go away.”

She heard a bit more talking and then steps leading away from her door. She sighed.

“Hermione, it’s Ginny and I’m not going away. I let you talk to me when I was upset.”

Clutching a large pillow, Hermione dragged herself out of bed, unlocked the door and then got back on the bed. Crookshanks crawled onto her pillow and purred.

“Ron says he’s sorry,” Ginny came in holding a biscuit tin.

“Whatever for?”

“Dunno. He figures whatever he said, he must have said it wrong.” Ginny took her hand, “I didn’t get a lot of details from him. Something about colleges and Krum and him wanting you to be happy.”

Hermione felt more tears well up.

Ginny said, “That’s right, let it out.”

“I just want this war to be over. I can’t think straight anymore.”

“Well, that makes sense. We all feel that way. Now, to my understanding, there are plenty of Muggle places, umm, you call them colleges--right here in Britain. So you don’t have to leave at all and Ron can just get over himself. Men! They always over simplify things.”

“What things?”

A small dimple formed to the side of Ginny’s mouth. “Well, I heard from the grapevine that Lavender told Padma who told Louisa Partridge who then let it slip to me, that Lavender went down on my brother. And spat instead of swallowed.”

Hermione’s eyes went big. “What?”

“Yeah, and she says that was the real reason Ron broke up with her. But now he’s feeling guilty and so he’s looking to make up with her.”

“Meaning it had nothing to do with my going away to college? Why that miserable—“

“Of course, before you go hexing him, Ron does tell it differently. But that’s what Lavender says and she’s sticking to it.”

“How’d you hear all this?” asked Hermione, fascinated the distance that intimate details could go outside of Hogwarts.

“Owls. With the war that’s about the only way we get to gossip now.”

“You know, even if Lavender is lying. I feel much better. I could apply to British colleges. It was just at the time, I was feeling a bit left out, what with everyone being in love.”

“Good. I’m glad you are seeing it more in perspective. Now, you missed the wedding meeting so I have to fill you in. Fleur’s sister, Gabrielle, will be joining us for the Witches night out. And I volunteered us for the gag gifts.

“We are holding the party in a tent in the back pasture instead of at Three Broomsticks, but we’ll have fun anyhow. We’ll have lots of butterbeer and sweets and savoury. By the way, are you hungry? Mum gave me leftovers for you.” Ginny presented the tin to her.

“It’s not her Mulligatawny Surprise?”

“Nope, Toad in the Hole.”

“That’s a relief. So we’ll be getting the gag gifts at Weasleys Weezers?”

“Actually, I had an idea. With you having got Remus feeling all good and guilty, I asked him to escort us to a Muggle shop in London.”

Hermione blushed, “I really took things out on him.”

“Well, they both deserved it. Reading your owls! Oh, and an owl came in for you just now from Viktor.”

“Where?”

“It’s downstairs. No one wanted to tell you about it in case you were still in the mood to hex first and ask questions later.”

Hermione jumped up and pulled on her robe. She looked over the balustrade and saw a thin, white paper wrapped package. She ran down and ran back up with it.

Ginny eyed it greedily, “Do you want some privacy for this?”

“No, I could use your brains. What do you do if you love a person and you physically want a person, but you don’t think they are right for you?”

“Well, that’s a question.” Ginny pursed her lips, “tell me first what went on with Viktor.”

“He wants me to think of him as a potential husband.”

“Oh, that’s amazing. Viktor Krum as your betrothed. He’s so dreamy, in a rough hewn sort of way.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Is that all that happened?”

“Well, some stuff did happen, but it didn’t involve swallowing or spitting.”

“I hope you didn’t give it up for him?”

“No, my hand got a bit sticky, though.”

“I’d do that with Harry, if he’d let me. Back when we were on kissing terms I touched him once, there, but he took my hand away. And he’s very strict now about just wanting to be friends. I got Dean off by hand a couple of times when we were going out. It’s not too bad. I kind of liked doing it.”

Hermione was feeling better. “I didn’t know that. Did it make you feel all funny inside?”

“Oh, yes. What do you think Viktor sent you? Could it be lingerie?”

Hermione wasn’t sure. “It would be very skimpy, if it were. I’ll open it now. Ahh. A book, ‘Curses from the Old Country’, original Bulgarian title ‘I spit on your grave’” Hermione read.

“Let’s hope it’s not Dark Magic. You could get in trouble for that--we’d have to give it over to the Ministry!”

Hermione unfolded a piece of parchment that was tucked inside the cover of the book, “Let me read to you what Viktor wrote:

’Dearest Hermione,

As I have told you, your Ministry of Magic is very difficult when it comes to allowing books in their country on Bulgarian magic because of their prejudice against the Dark Arts. While they do not allow spell books from my homeland, this book was translated from the Bulgarian to English and published in Canada. There is a loophole in the law about bringing in Commonwealth Books via the Wizarding Trade Agreement! According to Marcellus Bixby, you cannot get in trouble for the possession of this book--”

“He’s bloody brilliant!”

“I know,” Hermione was rapidly flipping through the pages.

“Suppose you’ll be up all night with that,” she nodded at the book.

“Maybe I should marry him? He certainly knows the way to a girl’s heart.” Hermione felt better. Things did seem more in perspective. There was Ron and Viktor. And while she thought she’d been in love with Ron, Viktor was doing more than his part to win her over.

“Hermione, I don’t know what to do with you.” Ginny kissed her on the cheek. “Now, just one more thing before I head back to the Burrow. Harry wants you and Ron to go with him to Godric’s Hollow tomorrow. We can go shopping for the Witches night tomorrow morning and then you head out with Harry and Ron in the afternoon. Harry needs me to distract Remus. So I got a list of things to do with him from Mum that requires leaving the Burrow and using him as escort.”

“I wonder why Harry doesn’t want Remus there?”

“I think Remus is getting on Harry’s nerves as well. He really is a mother hen. What with Tonks being gone all day on Auror business, he has got nothing better to do than be our babysitters. And it’s wearing a bit thin, I tell you.”

“What time should we meet up tomorrow?”

“Why don’t you and Remus show up at the Burrow Eleven-ish. The three of us can take the floo to the Ministry. The shop is just around the corner.”

“Oh, I know the shop you mean.” Hermione smiled, wondering how many other Wizards and Witches stopped there for an occasional purchase since nothing like it was available in the Wizarding World.

After Ginny left, Hermione picked up the book and then put it down. She felt like she’d been running a marathon. All the information that she’d obtained from Snape and all the information from ‘ugh’ Travis needed to be sorted and thought through. It was difficult to imagine that the polite and affable young Ministry Wizard was actually more threatening than Snape! But wasn’t that what Snape had told her! To keep her mind well hidden—it’s a better weapon when they don’t know what’s coming at them. Travis had taken a page from that book!

She remembered the lesson with Snape, his dark eyes and how they had stared into hers. He wasn’t a handsome man, and he was very forbidding, but his closeness, well, what was wrong with her? Must have been the Mulligatawny Surprise. But by the end of the lesson, she felt special to him. Some mask had slipped and he’d displayed some little pride in her.

And the sight of him hungrily wolfing down his food in the bookstore had touched her deeply. Add to that the humanity of a boy afraid of what others in his house would think if they knew he was friends with a Muggle born, and the suicide attempt. He’d been several years older than she at that point—a Hogwarts professor. It struck her that there actually wasn’t very much to adulthood. One still made mistakes but there was no one to turn to or take care of you. She wished she could have taken his hand back there in his memory, as Dumbledore had. Even though his sentiments were awful, they were still very human. Something in her wanted to take away his pain.

Hermione fell asleep thinking how nice it would be if she could just touch him and assure him that he wasn’t alone.

&&&

Severus Snape hated being in the closet. Unfortunately without an invisibility cape such as Potter owned, it was nigh impossible to stay at the Death Eaters safe house without hiding in there. His being on the couch had worked the first time, only because Lestrange and his dining companion had gone directly to the kitchen.

He’d checked on other places that Death Eaters occasionally frequented, and other than finding out that Yaxley was cuckolding Nott (and it served Nott right for marrying a woman half his age)--he’d come up with no information at all. Too bad there was nothing he could do with the information about the affair. The Dark Lord seemed to have no sexual or amorous drives at all and, unable to understand such things as happened between man and women, he tended to overplay the importance of obedience to one’s marital vows. Pure bloodedness was extended to moral purity. Cheating on spouses, or any other sort of moral slackness usually meant either a Crucio curse or hexes by the other Death Eaters. Yes, it would have made excellent blackmail.

Over a year ago, he’d done his best to give Sirius Black the impression that Snape as spy was doing interesting and important things for the Order. The truth was that spying meant spending a lot of time sitting and waiting and hoping for a chance meeting. He wasn’t anymore popular with his fellow Death Eaters now than when he attended Hogwarts with them. And in fact he hated them a lot more now than he ever had as a student.

Truly, spying wasn’t much fun--not when it meant missing out on correcting schoolwork or having a warm fire to sit next to, and it was even less fun when your choice of locale was either the closet or the barn. He felt a bug crawl up his leg and cursed it soundly. It was a waste of a good curse, but he felt better for it.

He was drifting off into another fantasy. He found that he liked thinking of the Granger girl. Something was so earnest and wholesome about her, which made lewd thoughts all the more pleasing. He wasn’t a teacher anymore, not really. And Dumbledore wasn’t around to admonish him, so why not have the occasional pleasant daydream of her? No harm done as nothing would ever come of it!

He was lying in the long grass of a meadow of fragrant flowers, listening to trilling birdsong, and watching a naked Granger bent over, nicely displaying herself as she gathered daisies for a flower chain, when he fell asleep in his closet. Another bug returned to head up the leg of his jeans.


&&&


“Ah, Ginny, Hermione? Are you sure this is the shop?” asked Remus, looking rather good in his black muggle trousers and grey linen jacket with white shirt. The clothing might have been old and worn, but they were still passable.

Ginny, also wearing clothes that passed for Muggle, looked innocently at the lycanthrope, “This is the one, Salty Dog’s Pleasure Chest.”

Remus looked from one Witch to the other. “Hermione, Ginny is of the Wizarding World, perhaps you could explain to her what a “porn shop” is.”

Hermione smiled sweetly. “Remus, it’s awfully good of you to take us here.” She’d already profusely apologized over breakfast to a bemused Remus. “You just wait outside. We won’t be a tic.”

“I don’t think you are of age…”

“Oh, not that again. Please Remus, the front part of the shop is clothing, jewelry, boas and such. The back room is where no one under a certain age is allowed.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“I rang them up.” The two girls quickly headed in. Leaving Remus wondering when and where they had gained access to a phone.

Inside the shop, both Ginny and Hermione ‘oooohed’ and ‘aaahed’. The assortment of clothing ran to black vinyl and red leather, with chains and fishnets. There were some corsets and frilly camisoles as well--lingerie that could have been straight out of Victoria’s Secret. It looked to be a very posh clothing establishment, not grotty at all. U2 was playing on the music system.

Hermione wondered, looking at the prices, if it weren’t a bit too swank? Would they be able to buy anything with their budget here? A petite girl, wearing Gothic attire, with a few nicely placed piercings in her eyebrows and lip, sporting black glossy hair streaked with blue and wearing green lipstick walked over to them.

“What can I do you for, Loves?”

Ginny, not used to the Gothic look, nodded for Hermione to say something. “Um. We have a couple of friends about to get married and we were thinking of some gifts for the,” she was about to say ‘Witches Night’ but caught herself, “for the bachelorette party.”

“Hmmm. Hen Party, eh? Well, are you looking for clothing and accessories or something more in the line of—“ she walked over to a showcase and pointed to a displayed of handcuffs.

“I don’t know if they are into that sort of thing. A bit too kinky,” said Hermione.

“Actually,” said Ginny. “Fleur already has him tied up in knots. In fact this outfit would suit her just fine.” She went over to a clothing mannequin rigged out as a dominatrix in black and red.

“Your friend is a dominatrix?”

“Oh, no, just part Veela,” said Ginny.

“She means man-eater. Our friend tends to be a bit domineering.”

“Oh, well, you know then it usually runs to the opposite. Say you have a big, important head of a corporation, and they spend their days wheeling and dealing, destroying the environment, exploiting small third world nations, just an average day for them, right? They are the ones that love to be tied up and have their bottoms warmed.”

“Really, why is that?” Hermione was intrigued.

“Change of pace really. You see, someone who is a bottom is still in control, code words and all, but he don’t have to take any responsibility. He can relax. Gets rid of the stress. I’m in training to be a top. And most women who are professional dominatrixes earn much better money than a shop girl can, or you can just do it on the side as a supplement.”

“Hermione, don’t look so intrigued,” joked Ginny. “Anyway, me mum’s coming to this and the bride’s sister so we got to keep things low-keyed and amusing,” she told the shopkeeper.

“Then I have just the thing.” The clerk went back behind the counter. “We have this as a matched set: pink furry handcuffs, pink spiked dog collar, pink velvet fabric whip. Naughty, but nice.”

“Oh, Hermione, look at all that,” said Ginny with eyes shining.

“I think it might still be too over the top. What’s that there, a bracelet?” She pointed to a plain steel ring.

“Cock ring.”

“A what?” Ginny and Hermione squealed.

“You see if goes over the sac and you bring in the penis as well. It keeps all the blood in and prolongs the erection. You got to take it off after about twenty minutes or the bloke can get vessel damage but—“

“Twenty minutes! I didn’t know they could last longer than two,” said Ginny, astonished.

Hermione made a mental calculation, “Or five minutes.”

“Oh my dearies, they can be made to last much longer, most definitively. You seem like ladies of the world. Let me show you this case. She walked over to a case near the forbidden door leading to the real raunchy stuff.

“Oh my, those are penises,” shrieked Ginny.

“Dildos, love. And a few butt plugs mixed in. And here’s a bit of jewelry, everything from tush teasers to nipple dangles to Prince Albert--“

Hermione sighed, like the clothing the prices were too high. “No, no, I think we need to get back to the more humorous items.” She stopped at a case between the two. “Here we go: edible massage oils and knickers.”

Ginny joined her, “I sort of liked the penises. Do you think they move?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Remus will be coming in to see what’s keeping us. We need to make some decisions. Let’s see: how about a pair of edible knickers, hmm? Butterscotch or chocolate-peppermint? Butterscotch sounds good. And one sample collection of tasty body oils.”

Ginny pointed to the first case, “How about that set we looked at before?”

“The pink bondage set? For Fleur and Bill?

“Of course! Fleur, La Chienne Rose.”

They both burst into laughter.

“Wicked.”

“I guess it is humorous after all,” said Hermione, giving in.

She mentally totted up the amount. “Good, I think we will have a quid or two left over. So we give the oils and edible knickers to Tonks and Remus and we’ll let Bill and Fleur have the handcuffs and dog collar set.”

“Hermione! Remus is tapping on the window.”

“You can go join him while I pay for all this.” Hermione watched her friend join Remus outside. She turned back to the saleslady and put the money on the case. “Now really quick do you have any books on the subject?”

“Which subject?”

“Bondage and/or Domination.”

“Oh, sure, not a problem. I was worried you wanted porn and you look underage. But we’ve got a couple of psychological books on the subject that wouldn’t be breaking the law to sell you.”

“Great. Oh and I also want that black leather snap on cock ring.” Hermione blushed deep red. “Separate charge and bag for the book and ring, please.”


&&&


By the time the threesome had reached the Ministry floos, Hermione had come to the decision that though she was in love with Ron, and merely loved Viktor--she was going to have sex with Viktor.

She didn’t want to get married yet and when she did, it wasn’t going to be as a virgin.

Yes, there was a great deal of superstition, superstition mind you not based on real magic at all, about Witches being virgins for their spouses on their wedding nights. Frankly, if a Wizard was such a wanker not to want a Witch just because she was sans hymen, well Hermione wasn’t interested in that sort of Wizard at all.

In addition, Hermione was quite convinced at this point that neither Tonks nor Fleur were virgins. Not with the contented smiles or smirks that kept hovering around the mouths of their prospective spouses. Nor the way both couples would suddenly disappear from social occasions.

Perhaps Viktor wanted Hermione to be his virgin bride, but she was sure he’d understand that perhaps it was better to have the milk without the purchase of said cow. Hermione would get to explore the world of Viktor’s body, discover sex and be unencumbered to head off for college.

And perhaps she would apply to few colleges in the U.K. just to stay near Ron and make him sorry that he ever, ever rejected her just for wanting a bit of globetrotting before she settled down.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was a plan.


A/N: Please, please feed the author.

Many thanks to those who did review: Velvetina, The Angel of Silence, Pretty Delial, Firewall.