The Pleasure of That Madness

By Deeble



Disclaimer: Rowling's, not mine. Alas and alack.




Severus Snape, one hand wrapped painfully around an outcropping of rock and the other gripping Hogwarts' Charms professor, felt ridiculous, angry and utterly Muggle.

"Well, that didn't work," she said calmly, as if they weren't hanging off a very high cliff. "Are you sure you concentrated properly?"

"Granger!" he bellowed.

"All right, all right--let go of me on three. Ready? One, two, three."

Snape, releasing her, watched her twist gracefully in midair and grab his ankles just as the pull of Apparition took her. They landed bottom-first in a mud puddle outside the Hogwarts gate, the disgusting icing on the moldy cake of his evening. (He was too upset to think up a better analogy.)

"You," he snarled, poking a dripping finger at her, "will never, never, never convince me to spend another minute on this or any other 'project' you take on for the bloody good of bloody wizardkind. I hate you, I hate your fecking Flootooth and I rue the day I let you badger me into helping!"

She laughed. "Drinks on me, then?"

"I should say so," he muttered, and let her give him a muddy hand up.

Hermione Granger, Charms instructor, was even more aggravating than Hermione Granger, know-it-all student. She bothered him at all hours. She borrowed his books. She sat in his chair by the fire without asking. And she'd plagued him with arguments--at meals, between classes, by Floo--until he agreed to be the guinea pig in her latest experiment.

"Flootooth"--that was what she called it. She thought the name hilarious. As it required knowledge of a gadget Muggles recently started wearing in their ears, Snape doubted that even five percent of the wizarding population would get the joke.

Granger's invention had nothing to do with communication. It was emergency transport for--as she so diplomatically put it--"the less-magically-talented." Nearly half of wizarding Britain could not Apparate, and what (Granger earnestly asked) were they supposed to do if they needed to get somewhere--or out of somewhere--right quick? Brooms were slow. Portkeys, besides being restricted magic, were generally single-use. The Knight Bus only appeared if you could get to a road. And the Floo Network was haphazard--no fireplace, no luck.

Thus, Flootooth: the fireless alternative. A Charmed charm, perfect for hanging on a necklace, that--when activated--would take the wearer and anyone touching him wherever he wanted to go.

Or to a place no one in their right mind would want to go, if the trial run was any indication. A cliff. Why a cliff? Snape, who'd expected to end up just outside the Three Broomsticks, pondered this question while they made their way there by foot.

Granger let him drink his pint of bitter without accosting him for answers. The moment the last drop went down his throat, however, she said: "Tell me exactly what you were focusing on when you touched the Flootooth."

"Oh yes--naturally this is my fault. Why blame the experimental device when a handicapped wizard is conveniently at hand?"

Her cheeks flushed in a not-unappealing way. Then she rallied. You could predict how tenacious Granger was going to be by the thrust of her chin, and now it was thrust out quite far.

"Don't think you can put me off by guilt-tripping me," she said. "And you're not handicapped, you're temporarily drained."

"I don't see what's 'temporary' about it," he said, the bitter taste in his mouth not entirely from his drink.

"Give it time! You were bitten by a giant snake and left unattended for hours."

"Left for dead, you mean," he said, purely to provoke her. Provoking Granger was one of his few joys in life.

"The problem with drinking Draught of the Living Death," she said, raising an eyebrow in a perfect mimicry of him, "is that people believe you are, in fact, dead."

That was the draught's side effect but not its purpose. It could delay, if not exactly stopper, death. It used the drinker's own magic to slow the beat of the heart and the rush of lifeblood to an infinitesimal crawl.

But as always, salvation came with a price.

The only conjuring in Snape's power the first few months post-Voldemort was a faint Lumos. Two years passed before he had enough innate magic to make all the potions in the Hogwarts student repertoire. Now--seven years since Minerva came for his body and found faint signs of life--he had yet to regain the level of magical ability that had made him the most formidable wizard of his generation.

He could do no wandless or nonverbal magic. No Legilimency. No Occlumency. No flying sans broomstick. No Patronus-casting. And most depressingly--as well as most notably for Granger's purposes--no Apparition.

He hadn't made any progress for months. It seemed (and he thought of this with the sick fear that boggart illusions were made of) that he was on a plateau he would never escape. Not Azkaban, to be sure, but a life sentence of another sort.

"Well?" Granger said, tapping her long fingers on the wooden table. "Come on. You can't distract me by changing the subject."

"Well what?" he asked--imperiously, to hide the fact that he'd lost track of what the first subject had been.

"What were you focusing on when you touched the Flootooth?" she said in her exasperated Professor Granger voice. "Are you sure you had the destination firmly fixed in your mind?"

"Yes!" he insisted, scowling at his glass. Because he had, other than for one passing moment, and he would sooner die than admit what he'd been thinking of then.

She groaned. "I must have screwed up."

He mmm'd noncommittally.

"Damn. The calculations are solid--you know they are! You checked them." She threw up her hands. "The foundational spells must be interacting oddly. Back to the drawing board."

His scowl deepened to the point that--had he the power of wandless magic--his glass would have shattered.

"Much as I hate to point this out," he said, "you cannot call it a failure after a single test run."

"But it needs to work properly every time. I can't send people with sub-average magical talent over cliffs--they might fall to their deaths!"

He winced at the implication that he was sub-average. Of course, it was true. "Still," he said, "I suggest you follow the experimentation guidelines of the Charms Guild, which I happen to know are nearly identical to the Potions Guild's: Test at least three times."

"I heard 'third time's the charm' enough in my apprenticeship, thanks."

"And decided to ignore it entirely, I see."

"I'm telling you--"

"Granger, how can you know what's wrong without more tests?"

She made a face at him. "How can I do more tests now that you're never, never, never helping me again?"

"Yes, however will you find another test subject for a device targeted at nearly half the population?"

"I don't want another test subject," she said mournfully. "I want you. Please, Severus?"

He sighed.





Destination, determination, deliberation: How many times had he heard the Ministry Apparition instructor drill that into students' heads? The Apparating witch or wizard also needed a good deal of innate magic, but it wasn't part of the Ministry jingle because it required no conscious thought and didn't start with a "D."

Little wonder so many witches and wizards couldn't travel that way. Some were too thick to be determined, deliberate and destination-focused all at once. Some weren't brave enough to make the attempt. And some lacked the power.

Snape felt that lack like a festering wound that would not heal.

But Granger--she had power. She made him twitch every time she cast a spell as easy as you please without wand or incantation. She radiated so much magic that the little hairs on his arms stood on end whenever she passed by. And she was a perfect example of what he could be doing now, if only the scar on his throat had been the worst of his battle damage.

Her Flootooth, once she got it to work, would revolutionize transportation. A minimum of magical talent needed; no determination or deliberation required. Just a destination and the ability to concentrate on it.

"Are you concentrating?" Granger asked.

"I was," Snape said, "until you interrupted my concentration by asking me about it."

"Sorry. Nervous. Second-try jitters."

She was pacing about, the now-dry dirt outside the Hogwarts gate rising like a cloud behind her.

"Has it occurred to you that this is the sort of experiment the scientist ruins by being present?" he asked, smirking at her.

"I can't send you off on your own," she said, an incredulous tone to her voice that made his skin itch and smirk vanish.

"Granger," he said, spitting the word out, "please do me the courtesy of treating me like an ex-spy who survived two wars."

"What?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Oh! No, you idiot--I mean, I have to be there. Guild safety requirements. Test any experimental Charms with an additional witch or wizard on hand should something go wrong. But I'll be quiet, I promise."

"I look forward to witnessing this miracle."

"Yes, it will be a tale for the ages," she said dryly. "'Hermione Granger Shuts Up.'"

"You're supposed to take offense, not agree with me."

"Drains all the fun out of it, doesn't it," she said with a gleeful grin.

But it didn't. That was the trouble.

"Now concentrate, will you?" she added, and took his arm.





"I assume," Granger said, bringing him a pint of his usual, "you didn't secretly want to end up halfway down the Grand Canyon."

He let his expression serve as an answer.

"Do you think I should give up?" she asked, slumping into her chair.

"It doesn't matter what I think. You're the most relentless person I've ever met. You never give up."

Her smile was half-hearted. "Perhaps I'm afraid of failing."

"Perhaps. But you're not so afraid you don't try, are you?"

"I don't know," she muttered, which seemed an odd reply. "Same time next week all right for Attempt Number Three?"

"I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing with my one night off," Snape said.

If his delivery was less sarcastic than it should have been, at least she didn't seem to notice.





"All right," she said. "Where are we trying to go?"

"Diagon Alley."

"Right. OK."

She was pacing again, the breeze lifting her wild hair and swirling the scarlet traveling cloak that made her stand out in a crowd. Snape closed his eyes to block out this distraction. He had just fashioned a nice blankness in his mind when she slipped both hands around his left arm.

Concentrate.

With effort, he replaced the mental image of her with the thoroughfare and its varied shops. He thought of the cacophony of Magical Menagerie.

Granger's quiet sigh broke through.

He thought of the acrid, intriguing odors of the apothecary.

Her hair, tickling his face, smelled of strawberries.

He thought about buying a new cauldron.

He thought about pulling her into his arms and--

At that, he grasped the charm around his neck and said the activation word ("Vado!") because he preferred the possibility of disaster to the certainty of it.

They reemerged on top of a narrow stone. Or, rather, Granger did. Snape, one foot to the left, materialized onto thin air and fell, pulling her with him. They landed in a heap on grass made softer by a hastily shouted spell. (Hers. Of course.)

She moaned.

"Are you hurt?" he said, concern making the words come out like an accusation.

"No!" she cried, ramming her fist into the ground.

He understood how she felt. He wanted to hit something, too. He hoped they were somewhere really awful so they would be required to fight their way out and he could put off admitting to her why they kept going astray.

But as he rolled onto his back, he found his usual bad luck held. He couldn't think of a more peaceful place to fall out of the sky than Stonehenge in the evening. It was quiet and dark: no one else about.

"First attempt--falling!" Granger said, kicking the ground this time. "Second--falling!" (Another kick.) "Third--falling!"

"One could hardly miss the trend," he said glumly.

"Yes," she shouted. "You were right! I'm influencing the results!"

She knew. He willed a large hole to appear below him and suck him away. (It didn't. No wandless-magic skills meant no convenient holes.)

"Severus," she said, rolling onto her knees, "I don't want to ruin our friendship, because I'm not sure what I'll do with myself if I don't have you to argue with--but God help me, I think I'll burst if I don't tell you I'm falling in love with you."

"What?" he said. Not once did he think--

But it didn't matter. In fact, that made it worse.

"Don't make fun of me," she begged. "For once in your life, suffer a fool gladly."

"Hermione," he said, savoring the taste of her impossible name in his mouth--and saw hope flare in her eyes, quickly replaced by wariness. "Is there anything in Charms theory that would suggest the Flootooth could be hijacked by stray thoughts from a hanger-on?"

"No, but--"

"Are you honestly telling me you never considered the glaringly obvious alternative?"

She stared at him, mouth open. "Considering how long you've seen the hanger-on as a semi-foolish little girl," she said after a moment, voice wavering, "I thought that the least probable possibility."

"I see you as Hermione," he said, giving into weakness and trailing his fingers down her jaw. "Hermione," he repeated, because now that he'd started saying it, he didn't want to stop. "Hermione--this affliction has a taste as sweet as any cordial comfort."

Her lips curved up, and he decided that The Winter's Tale had something to recommend it after all. "I'll make the statue move indeed, descend, and take you by the hand," she answered. "But then you'll think--which I protest against--I am assisted by wicked powers."

"The wickedest," he agreed. He pulled his hand away from her face with effort and put it over his eyes. "God, what a bloody mess it is that I've fallen in love with you."

Her laughter had a tinge of hysteria to it. "Oh thank you very much."

"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean," he said, levering himself up on one elbow. "We can't do this."

"Why on earth not?"

"Hermione," he said, sighing. "You're a constant reminder of what I had and lost."

The hectic color in her cheeks drained away. "But--but you said I couldn't have done anything. You said it wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't--the moment I drank the draught, the damage was done," he said. "But I will never again be as powerful as you are. Every time you cast a complex spell, I feel like that poor Greek bugger cursed to have food and water forever just out of his reach. Do you have any idea how insidious a poison that is?" He pushed himself to his feet. "It's madness to think love can survive that. Nothing is more powerful than envious resentment."

Only when he saw her expression was he struck by the enormity of what he had done. No more would she sit next to him at meals or grade papers in his quarters or make Hogsmeade weekends tolerable by chaperoning with him. There would be no more conversations. No more laughter.

No more Hermione.

"Oh, you resent me, do you?" she said, eyes blazing and hair crackling. "I've got news for you, Severus Snape: I resent you. I resent that you earned more NEWTs than I did, I resent that you untangle my Arithmancy errors without breaking a sweat, and I resent very much that you were more innovative at sixteen--sixteen, damn it!--than I am at twenty-six! The fact that I want you anyway, you completely aggravating git, is proof that nothing--nothing--is more powerful than love!"

He could read his future in the angle of her chin. She would never give up. She would argue and wheedle and reason with him until his admittedly small resistance was worn away to nothing. Really, why put off the inevitable?

So he kissed her.

Then, while she was still breathless, he looked down his substantial nose at her and said: "But you're not allowed to make me one of your sodding projects."

"I--I haven't--"

"Oh? Your interest in Flootooth has no connection whatsoever to the fact that I'm unable to Apparate?"

"Well …"

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"All right," she said. "I promise."

"And rename the damn thing."

"You're making that one of the terms of our relationship?"

"With pleasure."

"You are many aggravating things," she murmured into his ear, "but never dull."

Then she kissed him and the world narrowed to her mouth, her hands, the press of her hips against his and the intoxicating sound she made when he suggested she use her considerable talents to cast a Do Not Notice charm. He supposed there might be one thing more precious than all the magical power in the world, but it would take a lifetime of experiments to prove.



The end



Author's notes:

1. This tale was written as part of a fundraiser for the Support Stacie effort, which is using the combined might of fandom to help an uninsured cancer patient pay tremendously expensive bills. (Interested in helping out? Go to http://supportstacie.net.) Thank you to Smellyia and PreferBrunettes, who won the bidding and asked for a romance in which our heroes are brought together by a magical object, preferably with literary references. (Do they know my kinks or what?)

2. The Flootooth activation word--Vado--is "go" in Latin, or at least that's what the Internet's series of tubes tell me. (The tubes also report that the Bluetooth logo is a combination of two Germanic runes. There's magic everywhere!) All laud and credit to Mr. Deeble for the mashup of Floo and Bluetooth as the name for Hermione's invention, by the way.

3. "This affliction has a taste as sweet as any cordial comfort" and "I'll make the statue move indeed"--along with the title of this story--are from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. His Queen of Sicilia is Hermione's namesake. And rounding out the references: Snape's "poor Greek bugger" is Tantalus, forever tantalized in the Underworld with water he cannot drink and fruit he cannot eat.

4. Lastly but most importantly: Three cheers for Sophierom, brilliant beta reader! Any mistakes are my own darn fault.