Chapter Text
Private Practice
„Are you sure you wanna do this?“, you asked as you were standing in front of the house. It was more looking like a ruin than like a real home, but that made it so cheap. Not that you had any financial problems. While Severus‘ first book, his memoires, only raised money for charity, his following books were selling fast and good. He had published all the potion recipes he had enhanced during his school days – sorted by school year so that his books were now the standard for Hogwarts students and potioneer apprentices.
And he was still working for the potion development department of St. Mungo’s, which paid of just fine as well.
But buying a second house still was a huge step.
„Well, I need a bigger laboratory. And you said you were sick and tired of night shifts. If you want to be a freelance healer, you need rooms to treat your patients. Not to mention your own laboratory to make all the salves and potions.“
„I could buy those, you know?“ You grinned. You knew how much Severus hated the thought.
„Wasting perfectly good money on overpriced, mediocre brewed mass production crap while you have a potions master under the same roof? Now that is a fantastic idea. If you want to win the price of biggest idiot in the universe, that is.“
You giggled. Annoying Severus was fun. But you sobered quickly. „I guess I’m just reluctant leaving St. Mungo’s behind. I love the patients. And the colleagues. I love spending lunch breaks with you and sending the trainees down to clean your cauldrons when they misbehave.“ You knew that your voice had become whiny all of a sudden.
Severus wrapped his arms around you. He still looked a little grumpy – but then again when did he not? It was his default setting. „And when did you last have the early day shift that made it possible for us to take lunch break together?“, he asked, knowing only too well that it had been weeks since your sleep patterns and day routines were allowed to run synchronized for a while.
That had been the reason why you even started thinking about making any changes. You came home when he was about to leave the house and when he wanted to spend time with you, you already had to prepare for work again. As of yet you hadn’t fought because of it. But both of you felt how it drained your energy not to be able to be a perfectly normal couple. It even went so far that he had been the one to go to your mother’s birthday party without you while you had to work. Of course you had made up for it to your mother, spending an entire morning with her in a spa after night shift, but this couldn’t go on much longer without putting a strain on your relationship.
„And what about the insurance? When I’m a freelancer, I’m completely responsible for everything I do. No superior to protect me. Not to mention … Muggles, Severus.“
It wasn’t obligatory, but you had decided to get a license to work as an alternative practitioner as well. Hiding a magical business in a muggle neighborhood was a tricky thing to do, so you had decided that opening your practice for rather esoteric muggle clients would be the better idea. People wearing fancy clothes wouldn’t be that strange if you had a few hippies coming over as well. As long as you only used potions and salves on them and none of your spells it was allowed and common after all.
But in the end that came with even another insurance you had to have. And many precautions you had to take to still uphold the statute of secrecy.
And maybe right now you were beginning to panic, thinking about all you had to keep in mind for this to work.
„Shall we?“ A brunette woman came over to the two of you. She was drop dead gorgeous – and obviously your real-estate agent as she held the keys in her hand. „I hope you found here just fine?“
Severus couldn’t hold back a snicker.
„Well, we only had to climb over the fence, really“, you said, holding back your own laughter. „We live next door.“
„Oh.“ The woman looked over to your house. To her it looked just like a normal muggle house, though a bit better than any of the other houses in Spinner’s End. You had updated the spells a while ago to make your house look less like a worn down working class home and more like a well maintained house turned middle class by a lot of effort put into it. So it actually looked to muggles like it looked to you as well, just minus the rare potions ingredients growing in the garden and your owl enjoying a good day’s sleep in the fir you planted as an outdoor Christmas tree after your disasterous first Christmas together.
„And now you want to enlarge your estate?“, the woman asked.
„Yes and no. I want to work freelance and I need room for that. The houses here aren’t exactly large, so we don’t have room over there.“
„And as the prices are cheap in this area…“, she guessed your line of thought.
„Exactly. And not having to travel a long way to work anymore is a plus, too.“
Your real-estate agent opened the front door and if you hadn’t been a witch, the sight would have overwhelmed you. The house looked even worse on the inside. Cobwebs everywhere, some of the walls actually breaking down already and the distinct smell of mold in the air.
„You do realize that this will be a lot of work? It is quite possible that the house has to be torn down and rebuilt to guarantee the statical security of the structure.“
You bit back a smile. For muggles this place would have been a nightmare indeed. But for wizards? The hardest work would be keeping up appearances to the outside world. You had to gradually change the glamour of the house to make it look like you took your time working on it instead of just hexing it repaired in a matter of days.
„We know“, Severus said. „But we want the practice to be in Spinner‘s End.“
„A practice?“, now the woman sounded interested.
„I’m a h … alternative practitioner. At the moment I’m working in a larger clinic but I’d like to work closer to home. And as we live here, we thought working here would be nice as well.“
„Huh. I’d like that. If you could get this house to look like yours over there, it would upgrade the neighborhood and raise the prices…“ She blushed when she noticed she had said that out aloud. „I mean, if you have a practice here, people wouldn’t have to drive all the way to the city clinic for every little thing. This could help the neighborhood and might even lure new people into moving here. This could be a game changer for Spinner’s End.“
„You think so?“ You had never thought that far ahead, but maybe she was right. The more businesses could be found in an area, the more people would be willing to move there.
You thought back to your first Halloween with Severus when he got angry thinking you’d insult his neighborhood just because it was so run down and empty. Hopeless.
„Could you excuse us for a moment?“
„Sure, look around. But better not use the stairs until a professional can guarantee it’s safe to walk up there.“
You took Severus‘ hand and dragged him into the kitchen that looked identical to your own – just in worse state. „Let’s buy as many of these houses as we can“, you whispered.
„I beg your pardon? We only need one house. Or are you planning on having a whole football team of children? And even then it would be wiser to just add one or two floors to our own house.“
If you were honest with yourself, you still didn’t know if you wanted children at all. „No. I don’t want to keep them. But you heard her. If we make the neighborhood look better, the houses will become more expensive. Have you ever heard of gentrification?“
„I can’t say that I have.“
„It’s about refurbishing and modernizing neighborhoods. While the process itself can be good, it usually leads to low-income inhabitants having to move because they no longer can afford living there. Also some investors use it to earn a fortune with it. They buy run down houses, do a few things and sell them for a much higher price.“
„And that is what you want to do?“ He sounded skeptical, even a bit disgusted. How could he think that badly of you?
„No! Well, not exactly. I want to fix these houses and sell them for the same price we had to pay, or only slightly higher to make up for the hours we invested.“
Severus shook his head. „Are you out of your mind?“
You were confused. To you it sounded like a great idea. Ruining those property sharks their business while still bringing Spinner’s End back to life – giving low-income families the chance to buy or rent cheap houses that still looked good and wouldn’t collapse over their heads. „Why?“
„Fixing one house without construction workers might not look suspicious. But a whole street?“
Oh, so he was worried about the muggles then. You snorted. „Oh, come on. They built a whole Quidditch World Cup stadium without anyone noticing.“
„Exactly. They. The Ministry with dozens of employees. Look around. Do we have any employees? Do we have the money to employ that many people for such a long time as necessary for a plan of that magnitude?“ His voice had gotten colder, back to his usual ‚you are a dunderhead‘ tone. But then he blinked, seeing the look on your face. „What?!“
You grinned widely. „But that’s it. Those people doing stuff like this for the Ministry, they have to be trained. So they have to have training grounds. Wouldn’t that be perfect for them? They act like they’re construction workers while fixing the houses and creating the glamours necessary to keep our … nature secret?“
Severus looked beat. He knew he had lost this argument. „You realize that this way it might be a while until you find the time to actually work as a healer again?“
„I wanted to help people. And I think in the end that’s what I’d be doing here. No more looking down on people who live here. No longer this depressing atmosphere whenever we leave our grounds.“ Your eyes gleamed while you were picturing how children would be playing on the street, how the neighborhood would work together to finally clean the river. Maybe one day one could go fishing there again.
Severus shook his head, smiling lightly. „I found myself a lunatic.“
„A lunatic that you love.“
„That I do. And a lunatic I am also very proud of. But a lunatic nonetheless.“
It worked out better than you had anticipated. Only a year later the street looked far from poor. No more broken windows, no more leaking roofs. And life was finally coming back to the once so lifeless neighborhood.
Shacklebolt had agreed to use the street as a training ground for a variety of Ministry apprentices, looking rather happy not to find new spots every few weeks where his youngest employees could learn their necessary spells. But your friends had agreed to help as well.
Sheila was the first to make you an offer you couldn’t resist. She would help and in return she only had to pay the price you had payed for a house – and in monthly instalments. „Living next door to work actually sounds great“, she had said. „You don’t need a partner by any chance?“
And she hadn’t been the only one of your friends to be interested in the chance of finding themselves a home they could afford.
„There goes our peaceful life“, Severus had sighed one day when the third house was sold to a wizarding family.
You had just laughed. „More patients for a healer“, you had winked.
But most of the houses were sold to muggles. Some of them to young families moving out of the city centre to raise their children far from the smog and dirt of so many cars, some of them to a landlord cooperative that signed a contract to keep the rent low enough for working class and unemployed families to rent them. One house had actually been turned to a small super market, proving groceries close by.
You really were proud of yourself, although Severus was right. Life had become louder around here. Even living in the last house of the street you could often hear children’s laughter, people working on their DIY projects, dogs barking and all the other little annoyances that came with having neighbors. Still, you loved it. You had finally made a home, not only for you and Severus, but also for so many other people who might not have found an affordable home without you.
And still, now that the street looked lovely again, this was the end of your career as refurbisher.
„You know that there are many houses like that all over the country?“, Severus asked. „You could earn your living by buying them for a low price, fixing them at basically no cost with magic and selling them for a fortune?“
You nodded. „I know. But that’s not who I am. I don’t care about getting rich. I care about helping people and I care about my neighborhood. But now it’s time to do what I do best again. Back to healing people.“