It Starts With A Dance

Chapter 9: Come On, Now


Hermione avoided Severus for quite a while after their row. Severus did his research while Hermione did her own, even visiting Oliver to help him with his defense, since she knew he had been coerced into hurting her. It went against what Severus had asked her to do, but she wasn't in any mood to listen to him. Oliver's prison at the Ministry was better than Azkaban, but not by much; some days it seemed the only thing lacking was a horde of Dementors. The Ministry officials that checked on Oliver were seldom civil, bringing cold, congealed porridges along with their insults. Once, Hermione even had to keep the guard from sending the food with someone who was violently and quite contagiously sick; it wouldn't do for Oliver to get sick while he was under watch. They'd let him die before even thinking to provide a healer.


More often than not, Oliver spent the visits apologizing and telling Hermione that he didn't feel anything like what he'd done. For his sanity's sake, Hermione refrained from telling him that the potion used on him not only had its own agenda but also heightened his own unconscious desires. For her own sanity, Hermione tried not to think about it either. Unfortunately, whenever she wasn't thinking about Oliver's case and the Black Water, her thoughts bounced back and forth between Severus at Hogwart's and her friends hiding out in the US. Neither was something she cared to dwell on.


Classes came and went, with Hermione pushing her students harder and harder; she wanted them to be more than prepared for Tonks. She had been speaking with the older woman about everything under the sun – except Severus. Lupin had broached the subject once, when he noticed that neither was at a meal while the other was there.


"Hermione, I'm beginning to think you're some muggle superhero, and Severus is your alter-ego," Lupin had joked one morning. Hermione had left without a word or her breakfast while Tonks had regarded him coldly. When Severus had arrived looking for all the world like a tiger with a thorn in his paw, Lupin hadn't tried to make the joke again. Severus grabbed food and left the Great Hall, away from possible encounters with Hermione. Or McGonagall, for that matter.


Whatever was wrong with them was affecting the entire castle, though.


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By the second week of October, Severus had to admit that he was at his wits' end. He was suffering from lack of sleep and a strange meal schedule. He wouldn't risk running into Hermione, so he went to the Great Hall at odd times, and if she was there, he didn't even enter. He'd been going to the kitchens for food, and threatening the house-elves with clothes if they told anyone, and that had resulted in Minerva ordering the house-elves to stop feeding people without her express order. He couldn't make it to Hogsmead for every meal, and even if he could, he didn't like having to deal with Madam Rosmerta all the time.


"Bloody wench," Severus muttered to himself, pouring himself a good measure of firewhiskey. "A former student has managed to push me out of my own damned hard-earned seat at the high table. She shouldn't have run. She said she wouldn't run, dammit!"


CRASH!


Severus had thrown the glass tumbler, and it collided with the back of his fireplace. Firewhiskey showered over the low-burning embers and the fire cracked to life, roaring for a moment before it died back down. Severus closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, sighing. This would never do; but how did he fix it?


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Elsewhere, Hermione wasn't faring much better. Her hair was frizzier than ever from lack of care. She bathed and ate, but she didn't care and she never had an appetite anymore. Every time she crawled into bed she remembered the night with Severus, and how he'd made her feel. She hadn't been ashamed, just exhilarated when she found her match in him.


But when he started talking about kids, she felt as if she were back at the Burrow with Ron and Molly, with no say as to when or how many children she'd have. If she could have children. The legendarily fertile Weasleys wouldn't understand that infertility and difficulty conceiving ran in her family ~ why else did they think she was an only child?


"And with my luck, Severus is overly fertile and I could be pregnant now," Hermione muttered, getting out a bottle of pear brandy. She'd gotten a taste for it while touring the Balkans and the former Yugoslav Peninsula with Viktor and some of his friends on a trip a while ago. She thought about what she'd just said and laughed. She was as regular as a clock, and she already knew that she wasn't pregnant. But a niggling little voice asked her if she was truly happy about that.


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Severus was in the middle of bullying Dobby into letting him into the kitchens when Minerva finally caught him in the act.


"Dobby, I am Deputy Headmaster, and my order stands: let me into the damned kitchens before I put you out with the nicest pair of socks you've ever had nightmares of!" Severus roared at the little elf, who was standing his ground.


"No, Masters Severus, sir. Mistress McGonagalls says no food without her orders, sir," Dobby said, pulling on an ear with one hand while he slapped himself with the other. "Not evens Potions Masters."


"Severus!" Minerva's voice cracked through the air. "You are our little mouse?"


"Minerva, kindly order Dobby to let me into the kitchen so I may eat," Severus said in a low voice. "I am not so even-tempered when I am hungry."


Minerva snorted in a very ladylike fashion. "You've never been even-tempered, Severus, not even while sedated. You'll have to give me a better reason than that. Like why you haven't been coming to meals? It isn't as if you are off on a reconnaissance mission, now is it?"


Severus's jaw worked as he tried to control himself. "I have been grading and on top of that, I have been quite tired. Satisfied?"

"No. But I can think of something that will get your mind off everything else. You can plan the All Hallow's Eve Ball."


"You are out of you mind if you think I'm going to plan a ball for those oversexed and under-disciplined atrocities you call students."


"Well, you see, technically, Rosmerta's house-elves are also under Hogwart's and therefore my jurisdiction. But if you don't want to plan the ball~"


"I'll do it. Just let me into the damned kitchens."


"And you'll start coming to meals again?"


"Yes! Now let me into the kitchens ~ or else I'll starve to death just to spite you!"


"Very well. And don't forget, Severus."


Severus turned to face Minerva, one foot in the kitchen. "What?"


"You can always just ask politely. I'm sure I wouldn't have had to twist your arm if you'd just said 'please'."


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Chuckling, Minerva left Severus to the kitchens. There was really only one person who could help him now, since Minerva herself had made sure than everyone else at the castle had a project to work on that would keep each and every one of them too busy to help Severus.


Coming to Albus's portrait, Minerva sighed.


"I think once I finish your work, I may join you, my love. I am too tired to do much else."