Act Two: La Belle Sorcière Avec Merci

The Punch of Death

‘And what, Mr Dursley, will Mr Potter’s help look like?’ Severus sneers, ignoring Hermione’s palpable relief.

He knows he should leave. He should get up, walk down that wide, white hallway, out the door, around the corner, down the road towards Regent’s Park, and never look back. He’s certain of this. He can never belong here, in this pristine, pricey house.

But when she looks at him, with her every thought, every feeling crystal clear in her big brown puppy-dog eyes, trying so hard not to blink, trying so hard not to cry, he finds that he can’t.

She sucks at strategy. Slytherins or Ravenclaws would start the waterworks for tactical reasons. A Hufflepuff would sob, too, because that’s what Hufflepuffs under thirty do in such situations. Hermione, however, silly little — well, not so little anymore — Gryffindor she is, tries desperately to be brave, and to do the right thing. Just like at his trial, when she sat and stared and stammered, about how he’s a hero and how he’s a good man; doing the right thing for no other reason but because it is the right thing to do.

No matter that nobody in the wizarding world ever gave a flying fuck about doing right by her. Bitterness, astringent as Armadillo bile, rises in his throat. He’s almost grateful when Dudley proceeds to elaborate on Potter’s grand plan.

Potter’s lawyers have secured Hermione’s inheritance in the Muggle world, the house plus considerable financial assets. Spinner’s End was sold. It is magical property — and more or less a ruin. Still, it’s left him a very modest revenue, a Muggle bank account in his name, and several boxes of books in Hermione’s cellar.

Dudley will help them with evening courses for Muggle degrees and Muggle jobs. The next day, he’ll take them shopping.

When Potter’s cousin has left, the room is suddenly too big and too empty, the house too quiet. Going to bed is awkward. A stilted ‘sleep well’ on the landing, then Hermione disappears in the room that once belonged to her parents, while Severus enters what was once her room. Both rooms are empty save for a futon with sheets and blankets that still smell of department store and plastic.

Muffled screams make him lunge for his wand at 3 a.m.. But his wand is gone, and his hand aches as he touches only air and knobbly futon.

When he storms into Hermione’s room, heart pounding, he’s met with a picture of abject misery. Curled on her side, Hermione can’t stop crying. He doesn’t know what to do, so he kneels down and tentatively touches her shoulder, promising it’s just a bad dream.

‘It’s not!’ she shouts at him, wild-eyed, wild-haired — and throws herself at him.

He stiffens, half-expecting Hufflepuff hysterics. But none are forthcoming. She just clings to him like a limpet.

He knows he should leave. But again, he doesn’t. And again, he doesn’t quite know why.

Maybe because no one has ever needed him like that before. Like a touchstone. As if he’s the last safe place in a world she doesn’t know anymore.

When he wakes, his left arm is numb because Hermione is lying on it, snuggled close to him. She’s very warm, and her hair tickles his nose.

He knows he should move, he should disentangle himself, and leave.

But he doesn’t.

At noon, Dudley shows up, and they squeeze themselves into his tiny blue car.

Severus expects the shopping trip to amount to a torture no less painful than Cruciatus or an afternoon in Lucius Malfoy’s dungeons. He has endured both — he will survive today’s ordeal, too.

However, nothing has prepared him for buying jeans with Hermione.

How she flushes, flustered, when he nods his approval. How Muggle street apparel emphasizes her very feminine curves. Or how she blushes and giggles when she pronounces him to look ‘hot’ in a pair of tight, black jeans.

He recognises the undercurrents of despair, the harsh edge of hysterics to everything they say and do.

Both of them try not to reach for where their wands would be.

Both of them fail.

At night Severus lies awake, listening. But no sound emerges from Hermione’s room.

Friday night they try out their new Muggle clothes in the pub around the corner, and get thoroughly wasted.

It’s probably not surprising that they conclude the night naked, and in bed.

What is surprising — at least to Severus — is the fact that Hermione is still a virgin.

That the night ends with him holding back her hair, while she vomits the half-digested remains of a good dinner — including several pints of even better ale and a glass of really excellent rum punch — into the toilet, is only fitting, considering the sordid mess his life has been so far.