A Formidable Adversary
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was abuzz with excitement as Severus and Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast in companionable silence. As they proceeded to the Head Table a nervous hush fell over the school. Severus quirked an eyebrow and Hermione minutely shook her head, indicating her ignorance. They took seats next to Minerva, who was obviously failing at her attempt to hide her excitement.
"Have you heard the news?" Severus and Hermione looked at one another and then back at the Transfiguration Professor expectantly. "The Law's been repealed."
"Finally!" Severus and Hermione gushed together. They looked at each other once more before Severus smirked at Hermione dissolved into laughter.
"Well," Minerva continued, "we should hear more of it in this morning's Prophet."
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
After the defeat of Voldemort, the wizarding world had found itself in danger of falling into stagnation and disrepair. The truth was that witches and wizards who had gone through the war without significant sexual relationships then proceeded to continue without them in the aftermath. Instead of an age of renewal and vigour, what followed were five years of rapidly declining marriages and birth rates. Even Hogwarts itself was not unaffected, Minerva had commented many a time on the declining number of names on the Hogwarts selection lists, and many smaller 'Schools of Magic' in Britain were closing their doors. Moreover, it was clear that although light had triumphed over darkness, tolerance and acceptance for muggleborns was still at the bottom rung of priorities within many pureblooded circles, and this looked unlikely to be affected.
The new Minister for Magic, Nigel Goodweather, had decided to tackle the two issues with one solution. Single wizards and witches between the ages of twenty and sixty five were systematically put through a protracted series of intelligence and personality tests, which the Ministry then used to calculate the best matches for each individual. Although muggleborns were not required to marry into only pureblooded families they were strongly discouraged from attempting to marry other muggleborns. It was all in the name of building tolerance and acceptance in the wizarding world after all.
Having had expected to marry each other, Ron and Hermione were disappointed to learn that the Ministry had rejected their plan.
"We want you both to develop wider links in the wizarding world," Minister Goodweather had said. In the end Ron had no choice but to accept the hand of Millicent Bulstrode that Arthur had petitioned for him.
"Our two families have been estranged for far too long. It is time for reconciliation." Arthur had stated quite firmly. Although at the time it obviously had not given Ron any satisfaction, a set of triplets between them and the eventual overcoming of inter house prejudices had seen Ron and Millicent grow into an able partnership. It also didn't hurt that they had enough family members between them to use as babysitters and the fact that they shared the same wild obsession for the Chudley Cannons ensured a favourable outcome.
That event however, left Hermione high and dry. In the end her options had been reduced to Draco Malfoy, Michael Corner and Severus Snape. By the time that Hermione had deigned it worth the effort to make a choice Draco Malfoy had already wed Lavender Brown in a lavish affair. Ginny had warned Hermione against Michael's obscene grabbing and that had left Severus Snape as the only choice, and it was a disinterested choice at best.
Bill and Jean Granger had been a little perplexed but nevertheless accepted their daughter's decision and attended the small wedding party. It was a drawn out event, with both the bride and groom attempting to out drink the other and delay the inevitable consummation; which when it occurred was a drunken fest of clumsiness.
Although they were not required by the Law to shag each other every other day, they did have to share the same living spaces, and through that closeness, Hermione and Severus managed to develop a tenuous friendship. Hermione moved into the castle and took over the teaching of Potions when Severus decided that he would retain the Headmaster position. The castle had accepted him after all.
That had been two years ago. Every three months since their marriage a ministry official, and once six months ago the Minister himself, had come to the castle to enquire after them and to encourage the recalcitrant couple to conceive. To these entreaties they both exclaimed that they were trying as hard as was possible, given their circumstances. The truth was obviously the complete reverse, but they were war heroes and the Ministry were not about to indite them on the spurious and unproven assumption that they were not having sex. It was through that way that they managed to continue happily, hoping that the Ministry would come to its senses within their lifetime and allow them to dissolve their union. They were in agreement that they would remain close friends, but it would be better without the feeling of unfairness of circumstances on each side.
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
So, that morning, although they were eagerly awaiting the delivery of the Prophet, Severus and Hermione breakfasted at the Head table and softly discussed a new article in Potente Discourse about three new applications for the heart of the Gurdyroot. Every so often they would glance at the entrances to the Great Hall looking out for signs of the owls delivering the post. They were pleased and relieved that the Law was finally drawing its last breath but they were also wary. For the past two years the Ministry had taken hammers and tongs into the implementation of the Law. That the Ministry wanted to pursue the lofty goals that it had set was undeniable and even now it was unlikely that the Ministry would allow existing unions to be dissolved with ease. Still, they agreed that it would be entertaining to skirt through the loopholes together and bring their marriage to a congenial conclusion.
Hermione and Severus sipped their teas just as a flurry of owls could be seen, heard and smelled entering the Great Hall with their packages. They both grinned as they reached for their copy of the Prophet which had landed quite unceremoniously in Severus' oatmeal. The delivery owl, on the other hand, was helping itself to Hermione's porridge, unconcerned about its soggy delivery and Severus' baleful glare. After it had had its fill of Hermione's breakfast and tucked away its payment in a small leather pouch it took flight, making sure to overturn Severus' oatmeal into his lap. A happy hoot was the only evidence that it was cognisant of its action.
"You deserved it you know. That's the one you fried last year. Shall we retreat to our rooms and make what we will of the Prophet?"
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
Severus and Hermione ignored the looks that were cast their way as they made their exit. When they reached the doors Severus made a show out of holding the door for her to pass through.
"Aren't you glad that once we're through with this law you will no longer have to do this?" Hermione said as she slipped under his arm.
"I would do it for you anyway my dear; you'd just have to watch out that the door didn't hit you on the way out."
"You're going to be that heart broken when we split? I'm touched." Hermione clasped her hands together in a mock gesture of thoughtfulness. Severus rolled his eyes and gently nudged her to go faster toward their quarters.
"You have a class in thirty minutes. Do you want to know how we're going to settle this, or are you willing to let me decide on the half that I want to keep?" Hermione gave him a disbelieving look and took off at an even brisker stride.
They never made it to their quarters. When they trudged up the stairs into the Headmasters' office they were both surprised to find the figure of Kingsley Shacklebolt reclining in a soft armchair. He greeted them as they stepped off the stairs and into the office.
"What brings you here my friend." Severus offered.
"The end of the Marriage Law, of course. You have heard right?" The Auror looked at them inquisitively. Hermione waved their copy of the Daily Prophet signalling that they had. "Well I guess you'd like to hear the Ministry's terms right out of the horse's mouth?" Hermione and Severus glanced quickly at each other, then focussed their attentions back onto Kingsley.
"We were under the impression that the Prophet was the 'horse's mouth'." Hermione quirked an eyebrow at Kingsley who offered her a smile.
"You know, it's no secret that the two of you aren't exactly carrying out the objectives of the Ministry."
"What's that got to do with anything? Are they really going to hold us to that shambles of a law until we fulfil their desires? That would be a travesty! Surely you cannot condone that Kingsley." Severus growled.
"You're war heroes, you two, they're not going to throw you into Azkaban, you'd just get a lot of unwanted attention and bad press is all. I'm just saying that you might want to listen to what I have to say before you rush into a decision." He waited for the couple to calm down somewhat at gestured for them to take their seats before he began again. "When I heard about the dissolution of the law, the first couple I thought of was you two." Severus made a move to interrupt but was stopped by Hermione's hand waving for him to desist.
"As I was saying; when I heard of the dissolution, you two immediately came to mind. It is obvious that your match, though mostly amicable was not of the sort that was furthering the intentions of the ministry. So, I came to see you as soon as I could to inform you that I could get the ball rolling for the two of you to split."
"That's great, where do we sign?" Hermione piped up. She earned a glare from Severus.
"That eager to be rid of the old bat are we?" He snarled.
"Don't start that tone with me mister; just ten minutes ago you were threatening to take all my things."
"Half, I said half!" Hermione rolled her eyes, Kingsley brought out some documents and laid them on the Headmasters' desk.
"Well, it's obvious that any moneys acquired between the two of you will be divided evenly, then there comes to the point of assets, will you sell them off and split the proceeds or will you divvy them up between the two of you?" Severus and Hermione looked at one another. "Well what material assets do you actually have between the two of you? Muggles have things like cars, houses and pets, what about you?" Kingsley started to look a little bit impatient as he looked between Severus and Hermione, who were both trying to coherently list the things that they shared with one another.
"Crookshanks – " Hermione started.
"Keep the little git; our rooms, our library and the stores. That's the important stuff. Worth a gully of galleons too."
"You can keep the rooms, they're too bright for my liking anyway. I'd like to move into closer to Gryffindor Tower too. Also, since I am the Potions Mistress I think I should have the stores, oh, and you can keep the money, I'll trade that for the library, after all, I have made the largest most recent additions."
"So that's it, you just keep everything then. Well, I don't think so. If you want those ruddy books I'm keeping the stores, you can use your share of the money to replace them for your teaching, there are a lot of ingredients in there that you'll never use for teaching at Hogwarts."
"No, that won't do, we're in the middle of a school term, how do you expect me to restock for the entire student body? It's a Monday morning for crying out loud! Even you could not be that unreasonable."
"Keep the potions stores then, I'll keep the books, after all they're already in 'my' rooms, which would be ever more of a convenience." Hermione gaped.
"No! That's not fair, I've marked some of the books in there for further study, they've got interesting chapters in them!"
"You MARKED my books?! How could you? Are you mad?" Severus bellowed. Kingsley had had enough. He cleared his throat and waited for the feuding couple to slow their breathing.
"It is clear to me that the potions stores and the books are a point of contention between the two of you. Might I suggest that you sell these and split the proceeds?" That earned him a gape and a deadly glare. "Well, I see that that's not going to work, how about you split them evenly, fifty fifty?" This time two glares.
"We would never be able to decide who got which half. And I would hate to break up collections."
"I agree with Severus, one of us will take the money and the other will take the stores and the books."
"And which one of you will take which?" Hermione and Severus looked at each other. It was clear that neither of them cared about the money.
"What would it take to be the party which got to pick the half?" Hermione looked at Kingsley inquisitively. He raised an eyebrow. When he had left the Ministry this morning to inform the both of them he had thought that the whole matter would be sorted out in moments. Hermione would take the stores to teach from and Severus the books which he was now at leisure to pore over. Well, either that or they would get into a row and donate the lot to the school so the both of them could continue to access both.
"Well, you would have to convince the other party to relinquish the right. And you cannot be at fault; that would nullify your claim to choose of course." Severus and Hermione looked at one another, plans forming in both their minds.
"I had best be off to my first lesson of the day, third years, you know how frisky they can be if I'm not there right away. We'll talk about this later my dear. Will you walk me to my class Kingsley?" Hermione held out her arm and Kingsley looped his arm into her proffered one. But Kingsley had not finished saying his piece.
"I'll start your paperwork now, but let me have your decision by the beginning of next week, that way you two can be first." He said as he accompanied Hermione out of the office and down the spiral staircase.
Hermione walked with Kingsley to the Great Entrance where he kissed her briefly on the cheek before exiting before making his own way towards the outer gates of Hogwarts. Hermione turned to walk toward her third years' potions class when she felt a hand clamp around her upper arm.
"Well, there's infidelity right there." Hermione smiled guilelessly at Severus' nonchalant demeanour.
"You know it wasn't. You're going to have to do a lot better than that to get me to relinquish my right." Hermione huffed and turned away, continuing to walk toward her first lesson.
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
As Severus returned to his office with a thoughtful expression on his face Hermione approached her third years and put her plan into action. If she were following some exaggerated school policies there was no way he could hold her responsible. After all, she was doing her best to follow the rules. Her students noticed the glint in her eye and silently vowed that they would not put any toes out of line during their double potions lesson. Hermione calmly opened the door and ushered in her students, who to her satisfaction were acting very tense.
After giving them a brief lecture on the importance of time management in the field of potions she began to set a task that she knew was beyond the level of most of her students. The fact that it was a mildly volatile concoction when brewed incorrectly or too hastily was also not beyond her notice. Hermione passed around vials of a sweet green potion for the students to swallow.
"Well, that should give you some incentive to stay on task." She smiled as she put up the required ingredients and method to brewing the Epidermis Restoris potion. The third years were a little confused at first but as she heard a few of them gasp and giggle she knew that they were beginning to understand the concept of this lesson. She turned to look at them all and had to suppress a giggle of her own as all the third years were differing hues of blue and green. "What are you waiting for? It's the antidote you're brewing. Do you want to stay green and blue all day?" With that comment hanging in the air, half the students hurried off to collect their cauldrons and ingredients whilst the other half diligently copied the notes.
Hermione allowed herself a small grin, pleased that she had planned this lesson before realising that she needed some way to taunt Severus into divorcing her on her terms. She retreated to her desk and started slicing up several pieces of parchment. After she had done so she started writing messages onto them that she intended to send to Severus. Things such as 'don't be cruel take the money', 'I do a lot of research that may involve those tomes', and 'if you don't submit it will only get more aggravating from here on in', appeared many times over. Once she had filled out all the slips she returned her attention to her class.
At this time, she thought, they would be nearing the point where the potion could become quite explosive. She glanced at each one of the pairs quite gleefully, willing someone to add an ingredient too quickly or to stir the wrong way. No one seemed to budge, so she did the sneaky thing and stared intently at one pair, willing them to look up at her. At length they did, Hermione held their gaze, ticking off the seconds in her head. She noticed the beads of perspiration on the students' foreheads as they struggled to look away from her. She smiled at them just as they realised it was too late to save their potion. A small 'poof' and the contents of their failed potion covered the pair. It was true that the messy grey gloop that had landed on the both of them was not going to endanger their health in any way but Madam Pomfrey was not where Hermione intended to send them.
"Right, you two, Mr. Saffron, Miss Karn, off to explain to the Headmaster why two third years could not manage a simple skin colour potion. And take this with you." She mumbled a spell over the slip as she folded it up and handed it over to Miss Karn. They seemed hesitant as she waved them out the door. If anything, the remaining students became even tenser. Hermione smiled, it was only thirty minutes into the lesson, and she expected that at this rate Severus would be receiving many more student visitors throughout the day. She took another look around the class but the students seemed to be over that first hurdle of exploding gloop.
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
"Dunderheads." The two students uttered miserably as they reached the stone gargoyle at the foot of the Headmaster's office. It groaned as it opened up and allowed them entrance.
They entered the office to meet a surly Headmaster, who had clearly not been expecting any visitors.
"State your business and get out." He growled.
"We came from Potions. We blew up our experiment and Professor Snape sent us to explain to you." Mr. Saffron said timidly.
"Is that all?"
"No, she also sent you this note." Miss Karn handed it over to Severus nervously.
"You may leave." He waved them out the door, as he opened the note and read its contents. The two students thought that they could hear him chuckle but the concept of it was so horrifying that if pressed they would say that they weren't sure.
As the two of them returned to their class another pair of green and blue students exited.
"What did you do to get sent out?" Karn asked.
"She's insane this morning; she was standing right behind me breathing down my neck. I dropped the glass stirrer onto the floor and surprise it broke. We're off to see Headmaster Snape to explain ourselves. Got a note and everything." The blue one huffed and they continued in their opposite directions.
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
Back in the Headmasters' office Severus gasped in surprise as Hermione's missive ripped itself to shreds moments after he had read it.
"Well, two can play at this, my dear Hermione." He muttered. He went to his bureau and pulled out a few pieces of parchment which he intended to slice up and send right back to her. Before he could get started though the gargoyle had admitted another pair of students.
"Give me that note and get out!" The students hurried to comply and all but darted out of his office again. He'd be damned if he was going to read this missive. It seemed to him that Hermione had charmed them to self destruct upon his reading them so as to leave no evidence. He would not fall for that again. He left the note on the end of his desk and proceeded to slice up little bits of note paper for himself. On them he wrote messages such as a bold 'No!', 'you're young and have years to collect', and 'I'll leave them to you in my will'.
He chuckled as he thought of the indignation that would cross her face when she received each of them. He quickly put a charm on each of them that would cause them to self destruct five minutes after she had handled them. After all her reading it would be a bonus, the important thing was that no trail of evidence would be left. Unlike Hermione, he didn't count on her reading the missives, and that was where she had failed. But before the thought was allowed to criss cross his mind a few more times the missive she had sent to him burst into flame and consumed itself.
Before the flames had been fully extinguished another green student was standing in his office, gingerly holding onto a piece of parchment.
"Hand over the note and get out." Severus growled. But this time instead of gratefully handing over the parchment and leaving his office the student stood there nervously. Severus gave him a look which clearly asked for an explanation. When it did not appear forthcoming he added a quirked eyebrow into the equation.
"Professor Snape insisted that I received a punishment for my behaviour before returning to her lesson."
"What did you do, attack her?"
"No," the green student began timidly, "I laughed out of turn." Severus looked at the crest on the boy's school robe, Slytherin house. He grumbled.
"One point from Slytherin, now get out! No, stop, take this back with you." They exchanged notes and once the boy was safely out of his office Severus opened the missive. He was quite glad that he had opened it once the boy had left, for when he did open it a wisp of smoke was emitted, it then quickly took the form of a ghostly Hermione and screamed its message at him before bursting into flames once more.
*`-._,'*`-._,'*`-._,'*
Back in Hermione's class room the students were becoming terrified and confused. Never before had they been sent to the Headmaster for such minor mishaps, there was obviously something going on between the Headmaster and their Potions professor, they were just unlucky enough to be caught in the middle.
Although it was disruptive Hermione was persistent in her attack on Severus' privacy. Streams of students were coming and going from her classroom and the Headmaster's office carrying notes to and from. By the end of her double lesson with the third years only two pairs had managed to complete the antidote successfully enough to pass onto their classmates. Unfortunately, because there had only been two batches completed, this left half the class wondering the halls in hues of blue and green waiting for her potion to wear off.
The day continued with more and taunting messages being sent between the Potions mistress and the Headmaster but both had refused to budge. Excuses on Hermione's side to send students out were becoming more specious and absurd and on Severus' side the point deductions were being replaced with more asinine punishments.
By the time it was dinner Hermione and Severus were exhausted. They slumped into their chairs and ate their respective dinners, ignoring all the glances they received from students and staff alike. After dinner as they headed into their quarters Severus turned on Hermione.
"Is this to continue tomorrow?"
"Yes, unless you want to give in now." She looked at him with a twinkle in her eye.
"Not a chance. I was a spy you know; I do have a modicum of patience."
"Yes, but I spent all my adolescent years with Harry Potter and the entire Weasley clan. You can't beat that." She gave him a light kiss on the cheek as was her custom and ducked into the bathroom.
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The next act, where the games begin will be posted within the week.
A/N: Let me know what you think, please review. I'll even promise to respond ;)