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Severus Snape had a massive headache. The Dark Lord had elected to employ Legilimency on him at the beginning of the meeting, rather than the end, and as usual the coarse methods had left him feeling like a hollow pumpkin, scraped raw.
He had no time to enjoy his misery, of course, because Yaxley and Dolohov were gleefully recounting their plan to coerce the Ministry into enacting…a marriage law? Merlin…
When the room cleared, the Dark Lord motioned for Severus to remain behind. “Something amusing, Severus?”
“A marriage law, my lord? No one has been so profoundly incompetent since the 1200’s.” He allowed himself a smirk, bracing himself for what he had to say next. “Even if you limit the law to mudbloods, too many will choose to follow it rather than going back to their own world. Are we to sully ourselves? I have no wife; am I to be forced into the company of a former student? Or perhaps a current one? If I had known that was your will, I would have found someone more palatable before now.”
There was a calculating gleam in the Dark Lord’s eyes. Severus refused to feel anything but admiration. “It is my will to see you marry a current student, yes. You are faithful, but there is much about Potter you cannot tell me due to your adversarial relationship. A young wife, of an age with the boy…”
“I am to be saddled with a child?”
The Dark Lord waved a hand, dismissing the thought, before curling it casually around Nagini. “No consummation is required; you are acquiring a pawn, not a mate. Tell me: if you had the pick of all the mudbloods you teach, who would you have?”
Severus resigned himself to being violently ill after this was all over, then pushed the thought away. After a moment’s cold consideration he spoke his doom: “Granger.”
“Granger? Potter’s Mudblood?”
“The same.”
“Lucius wants her for Draco.”
“Draco despises her, and she him.”
“But not you?”
He smirked at his master. “Let me woo her with sweet words. Let me be her protector, her shield against callow schoolboys and predatory Dark Wizards.”
“She would not include you in their number?”
“She believes me loyal. She defends me to her friends. Oh, I am no prize, but the girl seeks knowledge, and that…that I can offer her. For a price, of course.”
The Dark Lord’s laugh pounded Severus’ headache like a hammer. He didn't know if he'd just saved the girl or doomed them both.
“Crucio.”
Severus clenched his jaw, trying not to scream or bite his tongue as every muscle in his body spasmed. His migraine was but a sweet memory.
Moody let up just as Severus felt his control slipping, and he gasped like a landed fish. “Still want to marry a child?” the Auror snarled at him. “I bet you planned all this out, didn’t you.”
“I need him conscious, Alastor,” was Dumbledore’s only input.
Severus closed his eyes, bracing for another round.
“Crucio!”
The curse was so much worse the second time, fuelled by Moody’s fury, but it cut off abruptly. Severus opened his eyes just in time to see Moody hit the far wall of the Grimmauld Place kitchen with a satisfying thud.
“That’s quite enough of that,” said a young woman’s voice, and Severus felt his heart sink.
“Miss Granger,” Dumbledore intervened in a grandfatherly tone, “This does not concern you. Please go back upstairs.”
“I will not, Headmaster, and quite the contrary, I would say this does concern me. Or is Voldemort asking Professor Snape to marry a different Hermione Granger?”
So the girl had heard the whole sordid tale. Severus had imagined breaking the news to her gently - preferably with the backing of someone she actually trusted from the Order - and easing her into the idea with promises that he’d keep his bloody hands to himself and keep her well-supplied with books.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d expected anything to go according to plan, when he had so much evidence of the entire universe conspiring against him.
“Snape you bloody bastard,” Moody snarled, having finally recovered from being hexed by a schoolgirl. “You let her go right- Granger, what the hell?”
“You will remain there if you please, Auror Moody.”
“You can’t bloody hex an Auror!”
“I believe we all have evidence to the contrary.”
“Albus, control your student! She's Confunded!”
“The headmaster,” Granger said, “is not responsible for my conduct outside school. And if he continues to attempt to Confundo or Obliviate me, I will consider that a breach of trust and will never put myself under his care again.”
Severus sat up slowly, not liking where this was going. Granger had some kind of ward over her - likely the reason the Headmaster hadn’t managed to alter her memories - and he added his own power to her protection. It was only fair, given what she’d interrupted.
“Snape’s a bloody Death Eater! Is that what you want, girl? You want to be a Death Eater’s whore?”
“I am siding with the man who hasn’t used an Unforgivable on an ally in the past few minutes.”
“Oh, aye, but he has used them - and often - since before you were born!”
“At least he, as a spy, has a reason. As far as I can see, Professor Snape is making the best out of an awful situation, and you decided to torture the messenger. I thought better of you. Both of you.” Her eyes cut toward the headmaster.
“Miss Granger,” Dumbledore finally said, taking a step forward. He was no longer the doddering old man; this was the Dumbledore who had brought down Grindelwald, who had faced off against Voldemort the year before. “As a member of the Order of the Phoenix, I command-”
“I’m not. A member of the Order, I mean. You refused to induct us, last year. I’m sorry, but you’ll need a better reason than that to get rid of me; or do you intend to duel a schoolgirl over the right to torture a member of your Order?”
“Keep ‘im,” Moody snarled, spitting on Granger’s shoes as he shoved past her on his way out of the kitchen. “You deserve each other.”
They escaped Dumbledore into the gloom of the library. Severus didn’t think it would last.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been cursed, but it was the first time Dumbledore had expressly allowed someone to use an Unforgivable on him. He struggled to understand why.
Yes, there were severe moral and ethical concerns surrounding a teacher marrying a student, even without their age difference, but despite his words to the Dark Lord Granger wasn’t actually a child. No one expected them to have any kind of physical relationship. Oh, it would look bad to everyone, but Severus wasn’t a predator and Granger wasn't some helpless waif taken in by his (nonexistent) charms.
“Can I do anything to help?” Granger whispered.
“What?”
“Your migraine.”
Severus opened his eyes and blinked at the girl, not entirely sure what to say.
“It’s only, I get them too, sometimes, when I read too much-”
He waved a hand and she stopped, thank Merlin. “I have a potion in my cloak-”
The girl disappeared and reappeared with his cloak. Cool liquid trickling down his throat eased some of the aches.
“Is there anything for the Cruciatus? I don’t know much about treating Unforgivables, sorry.”
She sounded genuine, which was enough to make his head spin. “...No, Miss Granger. You did quite enough.” He paused to gather this thoughts; then, in the interest of a good working relationship, offered, “You have my thanks.”
He couldn’t be sure in the low light, but the girl looked like she was smiling.
“Fred and George helped, with the protection and listening charms. For what it’s worth, sir, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you would’ve wanted.”
“You’re the only one,” he quipped back, feeling tremors chase across his shoulders. “And perhaps…it would be best to encourage the idea that…we are not opposed to each other.
“We will share quarters with separate bedrooms. Some of the books I own are dangerous, but the others you are free to borrow provided you refrain from damaging them. You may meet your friends wherever you like as long as I don’t have to.”
She considered him for a long moment, then gave a firm nod and held her hand out. Amused, he reached out and shook it, his fingers still trembling slightly. “You have a deal, sir.”
“Severus. If we are going to marry…at least use my name.”
She smiled. “I look forward to knowing you, Severus.”
Years later, after the war, when she was still imposing herself on his rooms and his life and refusing to leave, he would wonder if that was the precise moment he had started to fall in love with her.