Arithmantic Dating Agency

Disclaimer: You\'d have to be a cretin to imagine that these characters were mine or that I was making any money from them. Disclaimers are a waste of time and have no effect in law. The original bits are mine, and are protected by UK law whether I assert copyright or not.

The Arithmancy Dating Agency


Do you feel that the world doesn’t appreciate your unique qualities?

Well we do appreciate them.

And we can find someone else to appreciate them too.

They say that everyone has their true soulmate somewhere in the world.

At the Arithmancy Dating Agency we apply the latest Arithmantic techniques to work out what your ideal partner would be like, and then match them to profiles of our members. We arrange a meeting between you, and then let nature take its course.

We are so confident of finding you a perfect match, that we only charge a fee if we are successful.

Your chance at happiness may be one in a million so why leave it to chance?

Simply fill in the attached form and send it back to us. Once we have found a suitable match, we will contact you to let you know who it is and where to meet them.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

Severus Snape had felt more than a little embarrassed when he filled in the form for the Arithmantic Dating Agency. But after all, he reasoned, its not as if all the previous years of working as a spy has given him any chance of meeting someone. This, coupled with his continuing role as nursemaid in chief to Slytherin in particular, and potions students in general, meant that he could do with all the help he could get.

The reputation of the agency had spread by word of mouth. Many a recent marriage, involving some of the most unlikely people, had been attributed to its services. Harry Potter and Millicent Bullstrode sprang to mind as one of the most bizarre couples, but they seemed deliriously happy.

Snape snorted. He didn’t really expect to be deliriously happy, but he had surprised himself with a wistful longing for company. Someone to talk to at the end of a long day that was over the age of seventeen, and below the age of seventy. Sybil Trelawney and Madame Hooch were the only candidates on the staff of Hogwarts. Sybil he had dismissed straight away – not even the prospect of a lifetime in Azkaban could have stopped fro from throttling her if he had to spend more than a couple of hours in her presence. Madame Hooch had seemed a possibility. Whilst the way she gripped her broom with her muscular thighs raised all sorts of intriguing possibilities, BUT it had to be said that her hearty manner and incessant chattering about Quidditch were off-putting. Not to mention the serious possibility that she was playing for the other side.

So he had greeted the arrival of the Dating Agency’s brochure with something approaching relief. Here was an answer to his problems. But once he had filled in the form, answering some very odd questions, and sent it off by Owl to the agency’s secret offices, he felt uneasy. It was one thing to sit in the safety of Hogwarts and console oneself with the thoughts that it was merely opportunity that was lacking, but what if the agency couldn’t find him a partner? What then?

He had taken to looking at his reflection, wondering whether there was anything he could do to improve his appearance. Listening to the students had given him clues as to what he needed to do. The teeth were beyond straightening, but he could and did clean them regularly. He had experimented with something called Shampoo, and now his hair was glossy and clean. Even the children had noticed the improvement, and he had overheard some of them speculating that he had a girlfriend. Some muggle term apparently.

He had considered buying new clothes as well, but from what he could gather the first thing any woman did in a relationship was to completely make-over their new possession. So he decided to save his galleons. Besides, he rather liked his formal suits. He just hoped that she liked black. He couldn’t really see himself in any other colour. Perhaps a very dark green, if she insisted. He had to face facts, some sort of compromise in a relationship was inevitable, or so he was told, and if that meant wearing very, very dark green clothes, he would just have to put up with it.

The owl had delivered his reply this morning at the breakfast table. Despite the curious stares of his colleagues, he had casually pocketed the letter and then carefully ignored for the rest of the day. The students had seemed to pick up on his precarious mood, and had been rather better behaved than usual. He had only managed to take a mere thirty points off Gryffindor. Now, dinner was over, with the comically casual queries from Dumbledore about his correspondence, and he was tucked away safely in his quarters. He tapped the envelope on his palm. Then, taking a deep breath, he opened it.

It is with great pleasure that we send you the names of the potential candidates selected for you by our Arithmancy system. Please remember that, although some of these names may seem surprising to you, we ask you to approach this with an open mind.

Many of our clients find that the person selected for them is not someone they would have chosen for themselves, but if they take the time and effort to get to know the individual, they have been pleasantly surprised to find that they are indeed their soulmate.

The person selected for you, as being most likely to be a perfect match, and bring you happiness is:

Severus couldn’t believe his eyes.

Hermione Granger.

Unlikely didn’t even come close to describe the sheer magnitude of the improbability of having anything in common with that girl. A Gryffindor. An ex-student. And a Know-it-all.

This must be a joke. Someone at the agency obviously thought it was funny that he should be searching for a girlfriend and had determined to humiliate him. Well, that person was going to pay.

Hermione sodding Granger, I don’t think so.

Severus Snape was a man with a mission. He was going to find the oh-so-mysterious headquarters of the Agency, found out who was responsible and make them regret the day they had ever been born.


However, he found that it was surprisingly difficult to find out who was behind the agency. He had found another advertisement, completed it in Remus’s name and then despatched it with a simple tracking spell on the owl. Too simple apparently. Although the charm was effective until the owl reached the outskirts of London, at that point the charm flickered, faltered, and then failed.

So, he had narrowed the search area down to London. He consoled himself with the thought that it wasn’t bad for a first attempt and he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating his opponent again.

As a pleasant little bonus to the whole episode, several days later Remus received a howler at the breakfast table.

Remus Lupin, it shrieked.

How dare you try and breach the security of this organisation, it went. The Arithmantic Dating Agency promises complete confidentiality to its clients. If you ever try something like this again, I will hex your balls off and make sure that you NEVER get another girlfriend for as long as you live.

Remus turned pale at the threat, and stammered out a denial to High Table. ‘But I have never even heard of the Arithmantic Dating Agency, why should they think that I want to do something like that?’

‘Its hardly fair to Miss Wilmott, to try and form another attachment before you break it off with her,’ put in Severus, with manifest enjoyment. Minerva looked disapproving. Severus couldn’t tell whether this was due to Lupin’s perceived infidelity or Severus’s comment, but he thought it was more likely to be her natural expression.

‘But.. but… I didn’t,’ Remus said. He was almost in tears at the thought of losing his testicles, whether to the agency or to Miss Wilmott.

‘It’s more likely to be some sort of student prank,’ put in Minerva.

‘Yes, that would certainly be the line I would adopt with Miss Wilmott. You never know, she may actually believe it.’

‘Really, Severus,’ said Minerva with some asperity. ‘You aren’t helping the situation!’

‘I wasn’t aware,’ he replied, ‘that I was trying to.’

However, the minor satisfaction he had obtained from Lupin’s panic had done nothing to diminish his desire to find and punish the malefactor responsible for his humiliation. Miss Wilmott had apparently been appeased, and the crisis passed, so he wasn’t even to be spared the revolting spectacle of the pair canoodling in public. Any student caught behaving like that would quickly lose house points, if not receive detention. How order was to be maintained in school when the Professors behaved in such a fashion, he did not know.

Still he had more pressing problems in hand than the imminent breakdown in school discipline. He had obtained another form, and was now examining it for charms. The charm to disable the anti-tracking spell was deceptively obvious, but a second glance showed that attempting to remove it would trigger another charm that would turn his hair bright pink and disintegrate the form in an instant. Very clever.

He felt a faint sense of admiration for the mind that had constructed the problem, but he was determined to solve it. In the end, he decided on a charm that would remain passive for 24 hours but then would broadcast its position back to him. That should give the owl time to deliver the reply, but should also mean that none of the parchment’s defences were triggered.

It was with a more than faint sense of malice that he used Minerva’s name to complete this form. He snorted. It would be amusing to see if he could intercept the reply and see who had been selected for her. Ronald Weasley perhaps? It was about as likely as he and Miss Granger.

He idly considered asking Minerva what her erstwhile protégé had been up to since leaving school, but quickly realised that even a passing interest shown in an ex-student, let alone a Gryffindor, would occasion comment.

He sent the reply off using one of the general school owls rather than his personal owl, and settled down to wait. In just over twenty-four hours he would know who he was dealing with.

He was looking forward to the meeting iselysely.