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The Beast by ladyofthemasque [Reviews - 163]


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Author's Notes: A plot-flea bit me. I scratched. This was the result.

...Enjoy! ~Lotm





It was a dark and stormy night. Severus Snape smirked at the cliched thought, but it was in fact night, two hours past dusk, which meant it was definitely dark, and the wind was whipping through the boughs of the Forbidden Forest around him, scudding clouds across the half-shadowed, half-lit face of the moon. A figure approached through the pallid, dappled silvery-blue light that slanted down through the restless trees. Moonlight gleamed off of a waist-length beard, and seemed to absorb into the sapphire blue of the old wizard’s robes.

“Severus.”

“Albus,” he acknowledged, fighting the urge to smile.

“Did you get what we needed?”

“Yes.” No, he was still feeling the urge to smile. It was very hard not to smirk. Severus had his mentor and friend over the proverbial barrel, though the aged wizard knew it not. He was about to learn it, though.

“Well?” Dumbledore asked, growing impatient as the Potions Master said nothing more. “Aren’t you going to tell me? I can tell you’ve warded this stretch of the woods to a fare-thee-well, so we are surely alone and unobserved at the moment.”

“Oh, I didn’t ward the woods just against scrying,” Severus returned smoothly. Folding his arms across his chest, he studied the Headmaster, allowing a faint smirk to curve one corner of his thin mouth. “I warded them because you are going to make a deal with me. If you refuse…I will stay here until it’s all over. No Portkey nor spell of any kind will be able to remove me from the protection of these trees, unless I walk out of here of my own free will, and you are not strong enough to drag me bodily. No torture will unleash my tongue--as you well know, given I am your most successful, longest-surviving spy--and after nearly two decades of ongoing practice…I am a better Occlumens than you are a Legilimens.”

Silence reigned between them, broken only by the creaking of swaying trees, and the rustling of their branches and leaves. Albus Dumbledore studied the younger, black-clad wizard. He knew the Death Eaters were planning an all-out attack sometime soon. Very soon, if Severus was willing to wait here in the forest until it was all over. Unfortunately, it looked like his Potions Master had considered his position carefully.

“What is the deal, Severus?”

“Miss Granger.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

Severus smirked. Apparently the old dingbat didn’t know what to make of that. “Miss Granger. Miss Hermione Jane Granger, who just finished taking her N.E.W.T.s this very afternoon. I want Miss Granger.”

“Good god!” Albus exclaimed, shocked. “You cannot mean--”

“--Bound to me in Articles of Indentureship, you pervert!” Severus snapped. “I want her remanded into my mercy as my apprentice, not…the very thought is repugnant! I want her bound to me as an old-fashioned sort of apprentice. I will not put up with her thinking she can get away with a lot of the same nonsense apprentices try to pull these days under more modern contracts. And that is not all that I want.”

Rubbing at his forehead, the Headmaster squinted at him through the patchwork of shadows and moonlight. “What else could you possibly demand?”

“A sabbatical. Or rather, to be precise, the two sabbaticals I am due, as a tenured-from-day-one professor at this fine institution,” Severus drawled, enjoying the way Albus winced. “Oh, yes, that was your mistake, Albus. Although I admit I was grateful for being tenured from the moment I was hired, for the measure did save me from having to be reviewed each year for competency…or rather, congeniality,” he sneered, “since my record of minimal injuries and the high standards my students have achieved for the past sixteen years proves my competency beyond contestation. However, I am due as tenured staff one year of paid vacation for every seven I have served…and as I have not taken those contract-promised years for myself in the past sixteen…I choose to take them the moment this war is over. Which it will be, very, very soon. And you need to know how soon, and where, and who, and what, all things that I now know.”

Albus stared at him.

“Time is running out, Albus. My information has an expiration date.”

“I cannot guarantee Miss Granger’s cooperation.”

“I’m sure you can find a way to persuade the Head Girl to see reason. And my contract states I can take my tenured, paid sabbaticals at any time. Which means I can choose to take them consecutively. And I do.” Controlling his smirk, Severus waited. “Tick, tock, Albus. Either run and fetch Miss Granger, or watch everything crumble around you.”

Eyes gleaming with something closer to anger than humor, the aging wizard spun on his heel and stalked back through the underbrush. He didn’t turn around, striding almost angrily towards the castle visible in the distance. Severus allowed himself not only a smile, but a grin as well. Miss Granger would agree. Even if the lure of learning all he could teach her about Potions weren’t enough to entice her into agreeing to the contract tucked into the breast pocket of his robe, she’d agree to it as her duty towards the war-effort. For the first time in his life, he was going to get what he wanted. The girl, the gold…and the glory of suffering no dunderheads for two whole years.



...



“Your eggs!”

The plate thumped down in front of Severus, containing congealed, rubbery yellow lumps.

“Your waffles!”

A round of dimpled bread-product thumped on top of them, half-burnt, no less.

“And your bloody coffee!”

Thump of coffee mug. Slosh of steaming hot liquid with that overly bitter, burnt smell that said it had been brewed wrongly. Dribble of cream that didn’t even halfway make it into the cup.

Severus eyed the disaster of his specially requested supper. Looking up at his disgruntled apprentice from under his brows, he eyed her flushed face, her folded arms, her petulant scowl, and the tendrils of little brown curls that clung to the sweat at the edges of her face. He arched his brow.

“Is this how you think you should repay the munificent apprenticeship I offered you?” Picking up his fork, he nudged the eggs--decidedly rubbery--and poked the crisped waffle. “Is this how you display your talents at cooking to your master? I should not need to remind you, Miss Granger, that cooking is very closely related to potions-making.”

Her eyes narrowed and her brow drew itself down in puzzlement. No doubt the girl expected him to yell at her. That wasn’t what Severus intended to do. Setting the fork back down, he eyed his coffee. Burnt. He could smell the scorched flavour, and didn’t even want to imagine tasting it.

“I see you have prepared yourself an excellent repast, Miss Granger. However, it is traditional for the master to eat first, and the apprentice last. You will eat this once I have eaten my own meal. Bring out my supper. Exactly as I requested it. Lightly scrambled eggs, cooked just long enough for perfection, a golden brown waffle--lighter than that mop you call your hair-colour, not akin to the shade of my own--and coffee that has been percolated by pouring boiling water through filtered grounds and straight into the mug. It is not necessary to brew coffee as though it were Polyjuice Potion.

“And do hurry, Miss Granger. I cannot imagine how much less appetizing this mess will be, once it is stone-cold.”

Compelled by the spell woven into her Articles of Indenture, Hermione stalked back into the kitchen to fix a fresh meal. He heard pans and utensils rattling and clanging and banging about in the kitchen, sizzling sounds, scraping sounds, and bubbling sounds. She came stalking out with a fresh plate of perfectly cooked eggs, a round waffle precisely two shades lighter than her hair, and a steaming mug of opaque brown brew lightened by a splash of cream.

From the gritting of her teeth, he could tell she was fighting the Articles in the effort to toss the lot into his face and lap.

“Much better, Miss Granger. You would do well to heed my commands as your master.”

“I am your apprentice!” she hissed through her teeth. “That means I study your potions-making skills, and assist you in the lab! It should have nothing to do with my playing the part of your ruddy wife!

“Demanding that you fix my meals has nothing to do with being my wife, Miss Granger. But if it makes you feel any better--” he mocked as she set the plate and mug down in front of him, “--will you marry me?”

For a moment, she gaped at him. Then her eyes narrowed to tawny brown slits, and she hissed--not unlike the orange fluffball of a cat she’d dragged along into his home, “…I’d rather marry Voldemort! At least, being dead, he wouldn’t expect me to cook for him!”

My, the girl has a sense of humor… Resisting the urge to smirk, Severus reached for his coffee. “I take it that’s a ‘no’, then?”

“You can take that ‘no’ to Gringotts, and bank on it!” Whirling, she turned to stalk out of the dining room of the country house he had rented for his sabbatical.

“Miss Granger, aren’t you forgetting your supper? You won’t get anything else to eat otherwise, tonight.”

…And she can growl, too, he observed, as she snarled and snatched the first plate and mug from the table. This is definitely going to be entertaining…





Supper on the second night was better. Severus was served a perfectly cooked medium-well steak, baked potato with real butter, sour cream, and fresh-picked chives, herbed green beans tossed with caramelized onions and roasted sunflower seeds, and a glass of red wine from his cellar. The girl could really cook, when she was motivated to do so. He didn’t trust her, however, and had her display both plates, selecting the more appetizing one.

From the way she gritted her teeth as he made a show of inspecting both meals, it was a damned good thing he’d included an anti-harm clause in the Articles of Indenture. She couldn’t deliberately harm him, that was. Not without his clearly expressed consent. His half of the contract included an ‘appropriate punishment’ clause, and a ‘no permanent harm’ addendum. He knew she’d read it, for she’d nibbled on her lower lip in worried indecision, before signing that contract in the moonlight, using a pen similar to the one that bitch, Umbridge, had wielded on her more recaltricant, rebellious students. A quill that drew upon the writer’s own blood, and any fool could tell that a contract signed in blood carried far more magical weight than one signed in ink--even Muggles knew that much.

So there was no chance she’d poisoned his meal. However, there was the matter of her slipping into the seat perpendicular to his. Without his permission.

“Miss Granger,” he stated as she picked up her fork and serrated knife, “have you forgotten something?”

Her confused, curious frown met his carefully disapproving gaze. It was hard not to smirk at her, but really, it wouldn’t do any good until she knew what was going on. Sure enough, she asked, “What do you mean? I cooked everything you asked!”

“You are my apprentice. Apprentices are expected to stand at the supper table, while their masters are accorded the privilege of sitting down.”

She’s rather droll-looking, gaping like a spell-struck cocker spaniel. Perhaps I should have her put her hair into two bunches, and make them look more like spaniel-ears? No, that would make her hair stand out in two unruly bunches… I’d compare her to her cat, except cats are too dignified to gape like that, even part-kneazle ones.

“Only an equal would be allowed to sit at the same table with me,” Severus explained mock-patiently. His choice of the Articles of Indenture was literally medieval, as well as positively so. Last night’s farce resurfaced in his mind, and he drawled, “As you are not yet a Potions Mistress, nor are you my wife…unless you wish to marry me?”

That bolted her out of her chair. Snatching plate and glass from the table--she was drinking milk, not wine--she glared down at him. “I’d rather marry Voldemort!”

“You said that last night, Miss Granger. Can you not at least come up with something original?”

Ooh--!” Unable to bring herself to swear, the ex-Head Girl of Hogwarts growled and stalked off, taking her supper elsewhere. Smiling into his pinot noir, Severus contemplated another peacefully silent evening meal…





“I will not wash your laundry!”

“You certainly will. You’ll have no choice. I, Severus Snape--your master--deem that learning the proper techniques of laundering linen shirts so that they remain pristine and perfectly white, is a most suitable study of bleaching and cleansing solutions…which are as closely akin to potions as the art of cooking is to the art of brewing.”

She fumed silently. He smirked openly. She glared fiercely. He studied her coolly.

“Oh, and Miss Granger…for every garment of mine that is ruined by your efforts, one garment of yours shall be confiscated and Transfigured into a replacement. So I would take extra care with my linens, wools--which had better remain their original colour--and even my bedding. You’ll have to remake the bed with fresh ones, while you’re laundering the old.”

“I am not going to do your laundry, as if I were your…!”

“As if you were my…what?” he teased her. She was so much more fun to bait and to rile than any of his other students. It wasn’t just the Articles of Indenture that kept her here; Severus knew he had her bound to his service by her desire to study the subtle, exacting art of Potions. It had become almost a running jest between them, with this third comparison. Really, her cheeks flushed quite interestingly as she bit back the dreaded word, knowing he’d toss out the dreaded question. “As if you were my…wife, perhaps? Would you marry me, then? Or would you rather marry the Dark Lord, yet again?”

“At least he wouldn’t expect me to change his coffin-sheets!”

“Remember, Miss Granger; for every garment that does not meet my exacting requirements--as good as any Hogwarts house-elf--you will replace it with one of yours…and you do not have my permission to trot off to Diagon Alley to buy any replacements!”

Her light brown eyes narrowed to infuriated slits, but she said not a word, just whirled on her heel and stalked down the hall. Really, this apprenticeship was one of his best ideas. He got competent help in the laboratory--he was very professional while they were working; the subtle art of potions-making at this level of experimentation was also a potentially deadly one, allowing no room for mistakes, let alone personality conflicts--and the fun of tormenting someone who couldn’t and wouldn’t walk away. From the gleam in those eyes, even after only three days, he could tell that she enjoyed their time experimenting in the lab under his direction too much to give it up that easily.

Not to mention, there were a few nasty repercussions in the Articles, if she tried to break her contract before the requisite three years of apprenticeship were finished. Two years as his research assistant, one year as his teaching assistant…and he would blackmail Albus into giving him the Defence position, with the additional extortion being the gilded carrot of dangling a fully trained Potions Mistress in front of the Headmaster. Severus would never admit this to her, but he could tell already she would be an outstandingly competent Potions Mistress. Her raw potential right now was amazing; with the polish he could give her, she would be a jewel among the rarified heights of his colleagues.

Oh, yes, he didn’t mind entertaining himself with this funny little game of theirs. Smirking to himself, Severus retreated to his bedchamber. I wonder…should I make it a habit to ask her to marry me each evening? How amusing it might be to torment her that way, watching her squirming at the thought of marrying me, of all people…

A rangy, orange body occupied his bed. Her cat. Disgruntled, Severus ousted the feline from his quarters, and plotted a way to make his apprentice pay for this invasion of his territory. A whole crate of shrivelfigs in need of skinning, perhaps…?





“…Will you marry me, then?” Severus didn’t even look up from the text he was reading, though his ears strained for some variation on the ‘Voldemort this’ or ‘Voldemort that’ theme she’d been taking over the past two weeks. He waited, one hand holding his book open, the other stroking Crookshanks, who had taken to curling up in his lap whether he wanted the beast to be there or not, ready to pounce on her with a chastisement for using yet another trite ‘Dark Lord’ excuse for turning him down.

“I wouldn’t marry you even if you were a Death Eater!” she snapped, triumph colouring her tone.

Severus froze. Text forgotten--feeble excuse for the initiation of tonight’s little game forgotten--he snapped the book in his hands shut, and lifted his black gaze to hers, even as she gasped. Realizing what she had said. He took in the way she covered her mouth with one hand, her cheeks paler than usual.

“…But I am a Death Eater, Miss Granger. Or rather, I was.” No longer in the mood to read, he stood and headed for the door, ignoring the thump of her startled cat landing abruptly on all fours. “You will scrub every floor in this house, save for my private chambers, before going to sleep tonight. Without magic. Combining soap and water is a form of potions-making, after all.”

There. Let the Articles force her to do it, since she had to do anything and everything he demanded which he could link--however spuriously--to his craft. It was in the bloody contract binding the two of them together for three bloody long years.





Should I? Severus asked himself as he washed his hands at the sink built into one of the two tables in the center of their laboratory, converted from a ‘wreck room’, or whatever the Muggle real estate agent had called the chamber. He studied her as she ate her half of their supper--a Muggle concoction she called a ‘sandwich wrap’, being a flour tortilla, luncheon meat, lettuce and sauces, and surprisingly good--while watching an enchanted spoon circling methodically through their current experiment. The young woman had been rather subdued since last night’s fiasco of an encounter.

He wasn’t sure he liked a subdued Hermione Granger. Not when he admired her spirit, and the vivacity she coupled with her tenacity. What the hell. She can’t say anything worse than what she did last night. And she might as well get used to impertinent questions. Her students will be just as nasty as me.

Wiping his hands on a clean towel, Severus reached for the dried acorns, measuring a small amount at a time into his mortar and pestle. “When you are finished with that concoction you call food, Miss Granger, will you be up to slicing the toad spleens into precise sixteenth-inch strips? Or would you rather marry me?”

She half-choked on her sandwich. Coughing, she swallowed, one hand in front of her mouth in case anything escaped while she recovered. Clearing her throat she looked up at him, amber-brown eyes wide. “--Did--do you mean that, sir?”

Severus snorted.

“Well…you keep asking me…”

He had no answer for that. Honestly, he didn’t know why he kept asking the bloody question, so how could he tell her? Resolving to let the jest drop, Severus returned his attention to grinding dried acorns into powder. He’d not ask her again.





“Will you marry me?”

Bugger. So much for his resolve. So much for his self-control. So much for his sanity.

No. And I don’t understand why you keep asking me!” Gathering her research notes together, Hermione stalked out of the lab.

He didn’t understand, either.





He managed to resist asking until about seven minutes to midnight. The silence in the lab had stretched on for hours as they waited for one of the concoctions to finish settling. Glancing up after finishing his own assignment, Severus caught sight of his apprentice slumped over her table, her head pillowed on her arms as the glass-sided cauldron displayed perfectly predicted layers of blue, green, brown, and gold, with a creamy foam on top that was twice as thick as the expected bands of colour.

Alarmed by how still she was, he hurried over to her, reaching through those chestnut curls, silky and yet crisp, to touch her pulse-point. Still alive. Asleep, but alive; her heartbeat was strong, slow, and steady, a match to the even pace of her breath.

Severus found his fingers lingering against the soft warmth of her skin. He’d never really touched her, before. Oh, a few grabs of her wrists and shoulders while she’d been a student, mainly to get her to stop doing something, or to protect her and her idiot friends from the various dangers they blundered into, but he had never touched her once she had become his apprentice. But now…she didn’t look like a bushy-haired know-it-all of a glaring, fuming, utterly brilliant apprentice.

She looked like a beautiful young woman in some bloody fairy tale, waiting for some handsome, charming prince to wake her from her slumbers with a kiss.

And what does she get instead? A bastard-tempered wizard twice her age with less than a quarter her looks and an eighth of her charm… His fingers slowly stroked her hair back from her cheek.

“Miss Granger, will you marry me?” he found himself whispering, barely breathing the words in case she woke.

She slept on, oblivious to the question in his tone.

Removing his hand reluctantly--he brushed the back of his knuckles against the softness of her cheek in an almost-caress as he did so--and drew his wand. It was a moment’s work to cast a stasis charm on the brew in the thick glass cauldron, and the work of another moment to cast Wingardium Leviosa, floating her off of her stool and away from the table. She could survive sleeping fully clothed in her own bed, but he needed her to be able to move and function tomorrow morning; leaving her to sleep at the table, where she could get a crick in her back in the best case, or fall off the stool and crack open her head in the worst case, was not a good idea.

Using his wand, and only his wand, to draw back the covers, place her on her bed, then cover her against a chill--since it was raining and therefore cool, despite the fact it was still summer--Severus retreated to his own bedroom. As the rain pattered against the roof and the gardens outside, he punctuated the soothing sound with the sloshing of Firewhiskey. It swirled each time he tipped the bottle to his lips as midnight became one, then two, trying to forget that, for one horrible mistake of a moment, the question hadn’t simply been a bad jest.





“Goodnight, Hermione. Will you marry me?”

Silence. Severus looked up from the text he was perusing. She had stopped in the doorway, as pale and quiet as the snow falling beyond the windows, her figure gilded by the light flickering from the fire burning in the sitting room hearth. The expression in her eyes was a strange, thoughtful one.

“What?” he enquired defensively, not sure if he wanted her examining him like that.

“You called me ‘Hermione’,” she murmured, studying him not quite quizzically.

“That is your name, is it not?” Severus drawled as dryly and sardonically as he could. He picked up the tumbler set on the table by his elbow, a mellow brandy suitable for sipping while reading an old textbook from a hundred years ago. Sipping at it, he mastered the urge to flush against the telling slip of his tongue.

“Well, yes…”

“Goodnight, Hermione.”

She paused, floundering for a moment, then managed, “G-goodnight, Severus.”

He arched his brow at her impertinence. His lips parted, ready to chastise her and make her call him ‘Professor Snape’, as she’d so carefully done for the past five and a half months of her apprenticeship, their association having settled into an almost amicable relationship of pupil and professor. But in the end, he said nothing, merely pressing his lips back together. How could he berate her for using his name, when she said it so well?

Still, there was one thing he had to ask her, or rather, remind her. “You haven’t answered my question, yet.”

“…No.”

It was the softest of whispers, and tinged with what sounded like regret, rather than the usual exasperation and dismissal. But when he dared glance up again to gauge her reaction, she wasn’t in the doorway anymore. Was it regret? Was it…was it reluctance to turn me down?

The falling snow made no sound, and gave no reply.





“Please, can’t I go? I haven’t been home or seen anyone in ages! I’ve worked very hard, with you--don’t I deserve at least a little time off?”

It was hard to resist her pleading. Severus shot her a quelling look as he continued his vigorous stirring. The potion had to be whisked by hand sixty times in twenty seconds--using magic to stir it would unfortunately interact badly with the draught at this stage--and he continued to silently count, one eye on the second-hand of the clock ticking next to him. The instant the final stroke fell on the requisite click of the slender shaft, he extracted the spoon and dropped the cauldron back onto the fire. Stripping off his dragonhide gloves and apron, he eyed his apprentice.

“You’ve worked very hard, you say? Yet you weren’t working just now; you were reading your correspondences, weren’t you? What has that to do with potions-making?”

“But it’s New Year’s!” she protested. “Harry’s rented a ballroom and a banqueting hall just for this party! Everyone in the Order’s been invited! You barely gave me two hours with my parents on Christmas morning!”

“…If everyone had been invited…where is my invitation?” he asked her pointedly. “And do not lie and say my name is on that parchment, when we both know it is not.”

That dropped her gaze. Her teeth snagged her lower lip. “…Well, neither of you really liked each other…and you’ve refused every social invitation I’ve ever seen sent to you through the owl-post. Maybe…maybe he just thought you wouldn’t have wanted to come, so…so why waste the parchment?”

“Nice try, Hermione. But it doesn’t cover the fact that I was not invited. Will you marry me?”

She looked away, distress twisting her features as she focused on anything but him. “…Why do you keep asking me that? Why do you keep playing this game with me?”

It had long since stopped being a game, for him. “A simple answer is all that is required, Hermione. Yes, or no.”

“…No.”

She would never tell him otherwise. Hands shifting to begin slicing the mandrake root, Severus found himself reaching for his wand instead. “Accio strongbox.”

The heavy metal chest floated off of one of the shelves lining the laboratory. It thumped onto the table next to him. Unlocking it with a prod of his magic, Severus fetched a pouch from one of the cupboards built under the island counter, and filled it methodically with a hefty number of Galleons. Relocking the box, he sent it back to its shelf, then tossed the pouch to her side of the table.

“Take it. Go to Diagon Alley and buy yourself something suitable for the party, tomorrow. You will only have from 8am to noon to make your purchase; my breakfast will be cooked and served by 7:30 sharp, and I will expect you to be back here by no later than one minute past noon. If you go over the amount in that pouch, you must cover it out of your apprentice’s stipend. The money comes with one caveat,” he warned her as she slowly, wonderingly picked up the pouch. “You will purchase no less than four ‘witchy’ magazines that cover various and undoubtedly spurious claims to the perfect hair-taming brews, and craft each one for experimentation tomorrow afternoon, plus practice whatever other charms may be necessary to make yourself presentable.

“You will not go to some fancy party as my apprentice while looking like a bedraggled fright. You will look your absolute best, or not go at all,” he ordered her sternly. “Furthermore, you will go the evening of the party as early as you like--provided you pass inspection--but you will stay no later than five minutes to midnight. If you are back by so much as a minute past that, it will go badly for you. I trust I make myself clear?”

The deeply please shine in her eyes, like polished amber, was answer enough for him.





Footsteps faltered up the length of the hall. They slowed even further, just before the open doorway of the laboratory. Severus had decided to busy himself with a complex potion while he waited for her to return. It had been finished at twenty minutes to midnight, been bottled by ten minutes to the witching hour, and now he had only the last few bits of equipment to clean with charms and return to their storage spots.

He knew why those footsteps faltered. She was late, by eight minutes past her curfew. Eight long, interminable minutes, three of them past midnight. His hands trembled with relief for her return, anger for the delay, and concern over whatever had kept her from him. Disguising their unsteadiness, he picked up a test-tube in his left hand, flicking the wand in his right at the glass to cleanse it.

“You’re late.” I didn’t even get the chance to ask you to marry me, yesterday.

“I…I’m sorry.” She limped into the room, making him frown in concern at her. “I think I danced most of the night away. Everyone…everyone was really impressed with my dress,” she added, unclasping her cloak. The strapless, calf-length gown was pale cream overlaid with lace appliques, fitted to her torso before flaring out around her legs. It went well with her warm skin tone and golden brown ringlets. “Thank you for letting me buy it.”

He’d seen it just before she’d left, demanding to make sure she was upholding her reputation as a suitable apprentice for the top Potions Master in all of Europe. Seeing it again, seeing her with makeup accenting those eyes, those lips, that gown making the most of her fully-grown figure, made his hands tremble with the urge to reach out and touch her. Resting them against the table--one still clutching his wand, the other the test-tube--he composed himself and spoke dryly.

“Is that the reason why you were late? Eight minutes, Miss Granger,” Severus reminded her. He didn’t dare call her by her given name, right now; not if he wanted to retain a modicum of dignity. Begging her to…well, it just wasn’t done between apprentices and their masters. He was only a man, underneath his wizarding robes, but he was an honorable man when it counted. “You were supposed to be here at five minutes to midnight…not five minutes past, by now.”

“Ron…” She licked her dry lips nervously, looking down at the cloak in her cream-gloved hands.

Her arms were covered to mid-bicep in matching ivory satin. Severus thought the only thing that could have made her look more perfect might have been a pearl choker at her throat, but he couldn’t have given her one. Not and disguised it as a gift.

“Ron,” she tried again, “he asked me…he pulled me aside as I was leaving, and asked me…he asked me to marry him.”

His reaction to her words tore through him, a whirlwind of rage, and jealousy, and pain. Severus vaguely heard a crunch and looked down at his left hand. He’d crushed the test-tube, bloodying his palm. Forcing his fingers open, he quietly cast Evanesco, disintegrating the splinters and banishing most of the blood. Fresh crimson welled up from the cuts. Drawing a clean kerchief from his pocket, he wadded it into his palm, making a fist to stop the bleeding. He’d drink a healing draught later. Right now, he had to deal with the shattered pieces of his heart.

“I see. You do realize that…” according to our contract, I can veto any marriage proposals you receive, if I wanted to, he finished silently, realizing he couldn’t say the words out loud. Not if it was what she wanted. Not if she really wanted to marry that Weasley prat. He couldn’t stand the thought of her in Ronald Weasley’s arms--he’d rather have smashed his laboratory in an orgy of rage-fueled destruction, regardless of how badly all the various ingredients would react with each other--but if it was what she truly wanted…

“I realize…what?”

“Nevermind.” Now it was he who could not even look in her direction. “I’m certainly you will be quite happy with Mr. Weasley.”

He wanted to add, Don’t bother sending me an invitation; you know I don’t care for those things. But he did. He’d gladly have attended the bloody ball tonight, if she’d asked him to go. He’d crawl across broken glass on his bared hands and knees, if she asked. But she wouldn’t. She hadn’t even thought to ask.

“I…I told him ‘no’.”

Her revelation froze the breath in his lungs. Severus dared the quickest glance in her direction. She was staring at him with that same unfathomable look from before. “You…” His voice came out husky, almost as if it had been unused for a while. Resisting the urge to clear it, since that would make him sound like a fool, Severus checked his hand. Still bleeding. He squeezed his fist and tried again. “You turned him down?”

“I told him…someone else had already asked me to…to marry him.”

His fist tightened painfully around the scarlet-dotted linen. Somehow he forced his voice to sound its usual sardonic, careless self. “My, my, Miss Granger. Just how many marriage proposals have you had, this night?”

“Just the one…and not the one I was hoping to hear. I didn’t…I didn’t get home in time to hear that one, I’m afraid.”

Another sharp glance at the doorway showed her hugging her cloak to her stomach, staring down at it. Her cheeks were pink, not quite hidden by the potion-tamed ringlets that curtained most of her face. Comprehension dawned. It stole the breath from his lungs. Only the pain from his injury, as his fingers squeezed with white-knuckled pressure around the kerchief in his hand, kept him grounded in reality.

This was no dream. No hallucination, no vision of brewing-fumed madness. This moment was real.

“Miss Granger… Hermione…” Her name was little more than a breath on his lips, but it lifted her gaze to his as surely as any command. Forcing his legs to move, Severus abandoned the safety of the island table, and crossed the space between them. Each step filled itself with memory, and conviction. Of her working beside him. Of her arguing theories with him. Discussing journal articles, and favorite books, potions-related or recreational…

Being able to be quiet around each other and not feel nagged into giving the other one their attention--content as her cat, having the right to simply be around her--was a rare, inestimable gift, in his opinion. Comfortableness with another person was highly underrated, in his opinion. Then there was the fact that she had grown into a beautiful young woman. Not a conventional beauty, but then he had always preferred subtlety over blatancy.

Stopping in front of her, he lifted his uninjured hand, almost touching her jaw, her cheek. Almost, but not quite. Aside from one stolen touch when she’d been asleep, he didn’t have that right. Yet.

“Hermione…will you please marry me?”

He hadn’t meant to say ‘please’. It made the question sound pleading, weak with a confession of need. But he supposed it could be taken another way, impatience with her ongoing refusal of him; that might salvage his dignity…

Her cheek brushed his fingers. The air in his lungs felt as if it had solidified for one shocked moment. She had closed her eyes, tipped her head, and was pressing her face into his palm. Nuzzling him with her cheek of her own free will. He couldn’t breathe properly, chained with the despairing dread and dizzying hope of anticipation, but he could return the caress with a gentle pressure from his fingers. Those tawny eyes opened, met his night-dark gaze, and the faintest of smiles curved her captivating lips. With one word, she gave him his freedom, his absolution…his happiness.

“Yes.”


The Beast by ladyofthemasque [Reviews - 163]


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