Work Text:
Hermione Granger glanced down at the piece of paper in her hand, hardly believing her eyes. She had found it.
She had found him.
It was only a rumor. A meadow with shards of bone in the soil where the wildflowers grew lush and tall. A dark, haunted, abandoned place only the mad or desperate would dare visit.
Hermione wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t both.
There were no boundary lines to mark the area, no hedge or heavy iron fence. There was simply the little country lane on one side, the forest on the other, and the wildflowers between.
They were beautiful. They seemed to go on forever.
They were not what Hermione had flown - flown! - for hours to find.
She had wasted too much time locating the place - time she didn’t have. Time they didn’t have.
“Better late than never,” she muttered to herself as she dismounted her broom and began walking across the meadow.
She felt the wards before anything else, an electric chill that raced down her spine. She paused for a moment, adjusted her broomstick, and continued walking.
Between one blink and the next the manor house appeared, not more than twenty metres in front of her. So close…and not nearly far enough for her to compose herself.
Two knocks on the heavy wooden door, and a house-elf in a clean and pressed royal blue pillowcase cracked the door open and peeked out. “Oh, Missy is finally here!” the small creature said, huge eyes watering instantly. “Piper is waiting so long for Missy! Master is being so stubborn, Miss!”
“I know,” Hermione said, heart in her throat. “I’m afraid we don’t have much time. May I come in, please?”
Piper opened the door with ease despite its size and closed it softly behind her. “This way, Missy! You is here at last; Piper is so pleased!”
He led the way into the darkened building, his gait sure and his head held high. Not once did he glance over his shoulder or cower at the sound of her footsteps.
“In here, Missy!”
This was it. Hermione laid a hand on the door, breathed deeply, and pushed it open.
The moment she met the dark eyes of the man seated on the other side of the door, she felt the change.
First, an ache - the one she’d felt in her bones since that thrice-damned Ministry decree had been issued - eased, and her knees wobbled with relief. Then came fire: a sharp sting that started somewhere behind her navel and spread, inches at a time, through her belly, her chest, her limbs, finally exploding behind her eyes.
She blinked away the stars, only to find that she’d changed positions. Her knees must have actually given up because she was half-sitting with her upper body held against something firm and wool-covered that smelled of woodsmoke and herbs.
Oh. Oh that was a very nice smell, indeed.
“Miss Granger, do stop sniffing me and answer my questions.”
Ah. “Sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t hear what you asked.” And she wasn’t sure what to call him after…that.
“How the devil did you find me?” His voice was raspier than she remembered it, but it wasn’t….unpleasant.
She smiled and snuggled a little closer, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I had to do a lot of research. I admit, I didn’t know you were even alive until the Ministry passed their stupid Marriage Law and your name showed up on my paper. I…may have screamed at Harry and Kingsley for a few hours.”
“Only a few hours?”
“...per day, for over a week.”
Her head bounced, and she realised she was feeling this man’s chest contract with suppressed laughter.
“They, of course, were useless-”
“Of course.”
“So-” Her stomach growled, and Hermione abruptly remembered that she hadn’t eaten in nearly 24 hours. No wonder her knees had given out. Not that she was going to complain, given the outcome.
“Come,” he said, setting her neatly on her feet, “We can talk over tea.”
They relocated to a gorgeous parlour of some kind. A small table with a single chair sat in view of a bay window, looking out over the front walk and its carefully trimmed hedge and the wildflower meadow beyond. He held out the chair for her, and transfigured a matching one for himself.
Hermione looked at the man in front of her properly for the first time. He had…softened, for lack of a better term, in the years since she’d last seen him. Since the Battle of Hogwarts. Hot shame rushed through her when she remembered that she’d watched him enter the Shrieking Shack and walk to what was very nearly his death, looking nearly skeletal, and some dark part of her had seen his suffering and thought, Good.
Had thought, He deserves it, the bastard.
“Miss Granger?”
“Hermione, please,” she whispered, meeting his eyes again. The effect was less intense the second time. “Under the circumstances.”
“Severus, then,” Severus said, taking a sip from the teacup Piper had floated into his hand. “This is excellent, thank you, Piper.”
“Piper is being most pleased to serve, Master!” The elf disappeared without being dismissed.
“Piper came with the house,” Severus said, not meeting her eyes. “I am ashamed to admit that I require his services.”
Hermione took a sip of her own tea. It really was excellent. “You don’t need to justify yourself to me, Severus.”
“Don’t I? Isn’t that what…what people in our situation do?”
“Husbands and wives, you mean?”
Severus hissed under his breath but didn’t respond.
"I worked in the Beings Division for over a year. I helped prepare various pieces of legislation to further house-elf welfare, but I also got to know and understand them better than I did while I was in school. Piper looks happy here.”
“He’s been insufferable for the past three weeks,” he grumbled.
Three weeks…since the Ministry sent out their letters, then. “He knew?”
“Even before he screened my mail.”
“Fascinating. I was led to believe the bond wouldn’t be complete until…”
“Quite.”
They sat in silence, Hermione methodically devouring more than her share of the tea biscuits. Severus, to his credit, appeared absorbed by the view and was clearly pretending not to notice.
“How did you find me?” Severus asked again, once she’d slowed in her assault.
“Oh. Well. I’m sure it’s no surprise to hear that I didn’t make many friends in the Beings Division. They’ve been ‘encouraging’ me to transfer for six months. I wound up in DMLE’s Records Department.”
Recognition lit his eyes. “Abusing your powers, Hermione?”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d shown yourself, Severus.”
He winced. “I expected that you would leave me alone. We were an hour away from freedom.”
Her heart dropped. “Leave you…? But we’re matched! If we hadn’t met in person, then-”
“-Then you would have been matched with someone else tomorrow.”
Hermione glanced away, suddenly unsure what to say. She’d expected that Severus wouldn’t want to marry, but she hadn't thought it would be personal. She'd felt like she'd come to know him during her time researching his whereabouts, but he hadn't had the same experience. “We can break the connection,” she whispered to the teapot, “if you have someone else in mind.”
His heavy sigh seemed to weigh down the air between them. “I never expected to marry at all. My inheritance of the Prince Estate would bring its share of gold-diggers, once known, but with rumors of Dark Magic surrounding the property…well, a man must have standards. In theory, after my third match expired in my absence, a Ministry official could have appeared on my doorstep and demanded my wand of me. Assuming, of course, that an official willing to set foot on my property could be found.”
Hermione smiled. “I see you enjoy company as much as ever.”
The infamous eyebrow that had terrorised her childhood suddenly didn’t seem as intimidating. She felt a curious urge to run a finger across it, feel the fine hairs.
“I am sorry,” she said, glancing away, “to have disturbed such a plan. I can leave, if you wish.”
“Nonsense. The bond is completed.”
“...You’re taking this rather well.”
He smiled down into his teacup. “Never, in all the hours I considered this horrible law, did I anticipate anyone I was matched with seeking me out. That you are here, knowing the consequences…I would be a fool not to, at least, give it a try.”
Their eyes met again, but only briefly; Hermione found she needed to blink away tears. “Thank you, Severus.”
“Don’t thank me. You haven’t had to deal with me first thing in the morning.”
The following morning, over tea, Severus casually mentioned that the Prince Estate came with a seat on the Wizengamot. The little grin he gave her should have been illegal.
Oh yes - the Wizarding World would rue the day they forced the two of them together.