Work Text:
“Good morning, Snape!”
He grunts.
“Cheerful as always. Have we gotten any of the magazines in by chance?”
“Mr. Weasley, I am employed as your potioneer, not your shop boy. If they have been delivered, they would be out back where all deliveries are placed.”
“Right you are,” he says, walking past Severus to check. He lets out a low whistle. “Reckon you could give me a hand?”
“Did you not hear me the first time?”
“What I heard is that I am your employer.” The younger man grins. “Though if you find a bit of unloading beneath you, you’re free to try to finagle a better contract elsewhere.”
Glowering, Severus puts his potion under stasis. Due to the precarious nature of their ingredients, each box must be handled without magic. They sort together, setting the ingredients to the side for Severus to shelf later and creating a much smaller pile of magazine boxes. Despite his earlier grumbling, he follows George out into the main shop with his own stack.
Although they could use magic now, they both feel a certain level of satisfaction in doing such things the Muggle way. As such, they work in quiet tandem; the only sound for several minutes is the skritch of tape ripping and the soft sound of magazines sliding into place. Lost in the rhythm of it, he hardly notices as George abandons him to the task. The last box is the latest Witch Weekly.
He rips open the box with a sneer. This particular gossip rag, with Rita Skeeter herself at the helm, constantly drags his name through the mud. Even five years post war she hasn’t tired of it; each sensational article never failing to point the reader to the biography—more of a historical fiction, really, given her creative liberties with the truth—that she’d written about him four years ago.
Hermione often reminds him that the woman is a bitter witch still desperately trying to recoup her losses from the legal fallout of the book’s debut. Given the fact that Hermione herself responsible for tying the reporter up in a months long libel suit on his behalf (he was blissfully comatose at the time), he is shocked to see her face plastered on the front of the magazine.
The photo is recent as she’s wearing the top she’d bought for Ginerva’s birthday a fact which he knows only because somehow running into Hermione at Flourish and Blott’s had turned into accompanying her on the rest of her errands. That was how it often went with her, now that he thinks about it. She would show up, sing her siren song (usually just a simple “Hello, Severus” but it wasn’t what the siren said that ensnared you, it was how she said it, and Hermione always greeted him as if nothing pleased her more than his presence), and then he’d blink and find himself in the midst of far too many Gryffindors, or handing out leaflets on the street, or, his personal favorite, on her couch with a book in hand and her feet in his lap.
That last one happened only once, just last week, and now she’s all but disappeared. She’s not truly missing, of course; Weasley had just taken a long lunch the other day to meet with her and Potter. So she hadn’t been abducted or taken ill and not thought to mention it, she just… has not wished to see him. Which is convenient, really, as he’d realized that night that he was hopelessly infatuated with the woman and as such needed this time to come up with contingencies to become less of a lovesick puppy in her presence. It was highly unbecoming.
Thoughts sufficiently soured, he refocuses on the magazine in his hand and his brow furrows. There’s something off about the image, an opaqueness as if something was between Hermione and the lens. The charmwork has her likeness smiling softly up at him. It is then he registers the article title.
Obsessive Love: Severus Snape and His Muggleborn Witches
With trembling fingers, he turns to the article. He knows, and he knows that he knows, that Rita Skeeter can twist a word more intricately than a sailor’s best knot. That knowledge, however, does not erase the factual recounting of the truths he’d shared only with Hermione; It does not soften the pain of lines like ‘I don’t want to end up like Lily’ nor ease the ache that comes with her assertion that ‘it’s absolutely ridiculous for him to think we’d work.’
“He’s read it, ‘Mione,” George mutters quietly. Severus looks up to see his patronus soar out of the shop. “Snape—”
“Don’t.” His voice is hoarse. Desperate.
“It’s Skeeter, Snape, you know—”
“I said don’t,” he roars and the windows tremble and George puts up his hands in supplication. Better.
There’s a crack of apparition upstairs. He hears the frantic sound of her racing feet, the distinct thud and cuss of a missed step, the door of the backroom slamming open, and then she’s there, standing in front of him.
“Severus—”
“How could you…?
Her fierce expression breaks at his tone. Before she can answer, however, a glowing jack russell races into the room.
“Just snatched up Mungo’s delivery. Nearly had to duel a barmy old witch who didn’t want to let go of her copy. Apparently, there’s a sweepstakes for a date with Harry—Think anyone’s actually asked him to do it yet?”
With an impatient huff at his humor, she flicks her otter into existence.
“I think that was the last of the boxes. Just drop them at mine. Thank you.” The patronus disappears with her message and she turns back to him. “You know that I wouldn’t even give that cow directions to Hell if she asked.”
“I do.”
If he were still in therapy, he might unpack the way her absolute vitriol soothes him. Instead, he simply revels in her anger on his behalf. Anger because Skeeter lied. Skeeter lies, not Hermione, and he knows that. Self-recrimination rears up in him now and he takes Hermione’s tentatively offered hand, a welcome tether in the face of his tempestuous thoughts.
“Skeeter had apparently figured out not just where I live, but also how to bypass my privacy charms.” She nods at the magazine still clenched in his fist. “I don’t know for how long exactly, but a week at least as I had Gin over the morning after you were last at mine; I guess she finally got a scoop too juicy to sit on. I’ve filed an official report, of course, and I think we’ve got back all the print, but I’m going to—”
“It’s true then. The article,” he clarifies at her blank look. “You said these things?”
“Technically,” she says, taking the magazine and skimming over. “But she’s twisted it all up and rearranged it that for as much as I said all of this, somehow none of it is true.”
“What is true then?”
Hermione chews her lip a moment. Then she sighs and gives him a wry smile.
“It felt so, so domestic last week, and perfect and I realized I wanted every evening for the rest of my life to be like that. I realized that I love you and, well, it terrified me.”
“You… love me.”
She nods, eyes wet again. “I do. But I understand if you don’t. Not because of Lily,” she adds hurriedly. “I, I don’t know if you read that bit of rubbish or not, but Gin asked if I was worried you wouldn’t love me like Lily, but I hope you don’t. I mean, I do hope you love me. But not like her. Like, well, basically what we have now really. But with kissing. If you want.”
George faux retches behind them, reminding Severus of his presence and pulling him from the mental image of Hermione’s lips against his. There’s a flash of light, and suddenly his employer is hanging upside down. They both ignore him.
“Why would I be ridiculous to think we’d work?”
“Circe tits, if I didn’t hate her, I’d almost admire the way she manages to do that.” She sighs. “I think that you would convince you that it’s ridiculous. You are your own worst enemy.”
“Oh, don’t worry I’m putting myself in the running after this,” George says, still swaying behind them.
“I’m terrified,” Severus deadpans, releasing him with a crack.
The younger man sits up rubbing his head and then retreats to the backroom. “Merlin, I don’t know what you see in him.”
“Everything you don’t.”
She answers easily. Without a thought. Severus reaches out to brush her hair back from her face. Her cheeks turn a delightful pink. It is then he realizes a critical error. He hasn’t said it back.
“I love you, too.” He cups her face. “And I do want kissing.”