(dear miss granger, the letter had started, embossed on official looking ministry letterhead. that alone wasn't a cause for alarm; she received any number of letters from the ministry in an official and unofficial capacity. as a taxpaying citizen, and as 'hermione granger, archivist.' it was the next line that had tea cups shattering in their cupboards, the curtains in her sensible flat going up in flames. 'being a witch of childbearing age and good health, you are hereby reminded of your obligation under the 'restoration of wixen society and repopulation effort (2008)' to marry. dispensations may be provided for changes in health status or preference that may preclude your marriage. the name of your partner is provided below. understanding you may not be acquainted, the law provides for thirty days of courtship. should a marriage not take place after that point, the penalty will include confiscation of your wand.'
the law. the stupid bloody law. how had shacklebolt let this happen? she'd been so certain when she'd seen him the prior christmas that it wouldn't pass, railing against it over the shepherd's pie until harry had kicked her under the table. but he'd nodded. shacklebolt had not given any indication that the law would survive, with strong opposition on both the muggleborn and pureblood sides. and yet —
crookshanks growled, a vase full of fresh flowers she'd purchased from the muggle shop down the way exploding into an array of harmless glass pebbles. she might be destructive in her fury, but she wouldn't put anyone at risk. dropping her eyes to the parchment again, hermione freezes. there, in looping script as though written in by hand, a name:
severus tobias snape
impossible, she thought to herself. surely he, of all people, would be exempted. either by age or .. or.. or what? he's not that old and you've seen him yourself. he's the same miserable g — the voice in her head sounds shockingly like ron, and she smothers it, dropping heavily into the chair pulled up to a kitchen table that lists to one side. letting the parchment flutter to wood, she buries her face in her hands for a moment, thinking hard. severus snape had survived the final battle, against all odds and not for lack of trying. she'd been there personally when madame pomfrey had brought him in, had worked with her to try and stabilize him — out of her depth, then. he'd been in hospital for weeks, then submitted to a very public trial including testimony from herself, harry, and others including draco malfoy.
then ... he'd vanished. other than rare social occasions, hermione hadn't seen professor snape in years. three years — no, four. the last meeting of the order. he was leaving as i was coming in.
there had to be a way out of this. surely he didn't wish to marry her anymore than she wished to marry him. she just had to look hard enough, find a loophole or another law on the books that contradicted this one and then they'd both be free.
standing up suddenly enough that crookshanks fled off the table with an offended mrr, hermione waved her wand at her still smoking curtains. she had work to do.
—
a week later
the flat is .. well. it's clean, at least. books put away, not piled on the coffee table. blankets normally piled on the couch neatly folded and stored in their basket. even crookshanks had been brushed, though the half-kneazel resented the very concept of the act. she couldn't fix some of parts of the flat — the overstuffed furniture that was comfortable, but not elegant; the bookshelves stuffed to bursting with muggle and wix tomes alike. but it was presentable.
she swallows, remembering earlier that morning as she'd reviewed all her notes over the past week. she'd practically lived at the ministry archives for the past week, until they had to politely (and then not so politely) ask her to leave. and there was .. nothing. not a single law she could find that didn't grant the wizengamot the authority to do this, nothing that would contradict a law requiring marriage. on the contrary, she found a number of laws she dearly hoped were no longer enforced related to marriage itself, particularly between purebloods.
for once, the archives had her let her down. and she and professor snape only had three more weeks to .. become acquainted, prior to their marriage. three weeks had hardly felt possible, given the circumstances! there was so much to talk about and the courtship rituals were quite strict. she had to register the location, time and date of their meeting. the description of the nature of the call (she'd scribbled having tea) and the anticipated outcome (friendship?). the owl she'd received back from the ministry had included a tersely worded note letting her know that mister snape had been informed of the request.
fussing with a pillow, she starts at the knock on the door. four o'clock. in the afternoon. on the dot, not a second later. smooths her hand over her jeans, tugs at her shirt (nothing fancy, just a blouse — oh merlin, should she have done robes?). a part of her hadn't thought that he would come. perhaps he'd fled to another country. perhaps he'd declared himself sterile or unable to —
bloody hell, the door.
rushing to it, she pulls it open, hoping she doesn't look hurried. hoping that the extra time she'd taken to pull her hair back made her look more mature. )
Prof — That is, Mister.. Ah. (bollocks. she hadn't thought what to call him. fumbling for a moment, she blanches, then holds the door open wider. ) Please. Come in. I've water on for us.
forgive me for the delay, i got mega behind on my game tags and had to get caught up!!
( He receives his letter in the middle of his morning tea in the tiny little flat he now calls home. Spinner's End has long since been sold — probably burned to the ground, if he had to imagine. He hasn't checked. There were too many bad memories attached to it, and too many people on both sides of the war who knew the address. As soon as it all ended, he'd done with it the same as he's done with most ties to his life before — wiped it clean, broke free from it, and slipped far away from any tethers.
He does not keep up with the Old Crowd. He does not return the letters sent to him by the Malfoys, or by the Order, or the few half-hearted correspondences from Minerva reluctantly trying to coax him back to that school. In the eyes of nearly everyone, after his public spectacle of a trial ended, Severus Snape may as well have become a ghost.
Everyone, that is, except the bloody Ministry. Whatever magic they've got in place, he thinks must be similar to what drafts Hogwarts acceptance letters. There is no true hiding from it, not without drastic means — means which he certainly would've employed, had he known he was even remotely still considered a viable candidate for this ludicrous law.
He opens his post midway through sipping his tea, and nearly drops the bloody cup. He reads it in silence. Spends several motionless seconds contemplating it all, and then, very calmly, sets the bloody thing on fire and watches it burn to ashes in his saucer.
Well, he thinks blithely, fuck. Then deeply considers hurling the tea saucer into the wall.
He spends a few days living with the fantasy of utterly ignoring that it's even real. He toys with the concept of outright rejecting the Ministry's orders, and simply hexing any official they might have the audacity to send hunting for him. They'll have a hell of a time finding his place, and an even harder time finding him. If he knows the Ministry, eventually they'll tire of spending resources on it and bugger off.
He did not factor Granger into these calculations, and when he receives the follow-up letter a week later, he sighs and burns that one as well — but it isn't nearly so satisfying. He finds hardly any catharsis in it, haunted with the realization that while he might be perfectly willing to flaunt the Ministry, she clearly isn't. Typical.
He isn't entirely sure up until the moment he actually leaves his flat whether or not he's going to meet with her at all. He goes back and forth moment to moment, a perpetual scowl on his face like he hasn't worn in years.
But he's never been a coward, and never truly been one to run from duty. And so, at precisely four o'clock per her request, he knocks upon one largely unremarkable door.
Prof-, mister-
Somehow, though his face is schooled into something stone-stoic and impassive, he still manages to look like he's rolling his eyes internally. Merlin's name and God above, save him. It isn't her fault really, he knows this, but it's incredibly hard not to take his anger out on the only available target. He bites his tongue, and sweeps into her apartment without so much as a word in greeting.
He spends one long moment tracking his eyes around her flat, the tidiness of it, the simplicity of it. If he comes to any judgments about it, none display in his features when he finally turns to look at her properly. )
Miss Granger.
( That's as close to a proper hello as she's likely to get — a flat, toneless acknowledgement. )
You've chosen an incredibly inconvenient time to turn law-abiding.
( He's plenty aware enough of her extracurriculars to know that isn't always the case, with her. )
no worries! i understand and frequently backtag! 💖
( for a moment — a very brief one — seeing him is enough to pitch her headfirst back to first year. she's a child again, so full of hope and wonder and awe, and professor snape is just as angry, just as irritated as she remembers him being. it's enough to ratchet her pulse up several ticks, until it rabbits against her ribcage —
and then he strides past her, and that gives her enough room to blink, to force the image away and recognize the differences. he may have been scowling at her, as always, but he'd seemed better. less thin, less sallow, more like he's had a decent meal or two in the past ten years. he's even ditched the voluminous black robes that'd defined him at hogwarts. rallying, she tosses her head and presses the door shut behind him, locking it and then absently resetting the ward, a buzz of her magic settling over the door. they're as safe as they possibly can be in her flat, layers of wards of her own creation as well as more traditional magical alarms and reinforcements in place.
turning, she meets his eyes as he finally looks at her — and stiffens. law-abiding. it crawls under her skin, burrows. only he would throw that at her as an insult; if anything, ron and harry would be of the opinion she was too law-abiding, too ethical. but when the law was complete and utter bollocks... )
Not for lack of trying, ( she growls, raising her chin defiantly. i will not let him bully me. not about this. not now. ) I can't believe Kingsley would do this. It's ridiculous, not to mention unethical, and —
( hermione cuts herself off, takes a deep breath that might even be cleansing. prof — no, just snape, that's neutral, isn't it? — hadn't come here to hear her wax on about her issues with the law. waving a hand, she bustles to one side where there is a neat, albeit very cramped, kitchenette and an electric kettle on. she fusses with two teacups for am moment, grateful to put her back to him for a moment to collect herself. )
There is no loophole that I could find, and I've spent the last week in the Archives looking for one. ( she says finally, throwing a glance over one shoulder to find him still lingering in her living room. snape. in her living room. merlin. ) What about you? You're here, too.
( implication being: you haven't found a way out of it either, have you? )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
➡ antisavior.
the law. the stupid bloody law. how had shacklebolt let this happen? she'd been so certain when she'd seen him the prior christmas that it wouldn't pass, railing against it over the shepherd's pie until harry had kicked her under the table. but he'd nodded. shacklebolt had not given any indication that the law would survive, with strong opposition on both the muggleborn and pureblood sides. and yet —
crookshanks growled, a vase full of fresh flowers she'd purchased from the muggle shop down the way exploding into an array of harmless glass pebbles. she might be destructive in her fury, but she wouldn't put anyone at risk. dropping her eyes to the parchment again, hermione freezes. there, in looping script as though written in by hand, a name:
severus tobias snape
impossible, she thought to herself. surely he, of all people, would be exempted. either by age or .. or.. or what? he's not that old and you've seen him yourself. he's the same miserable g — the voice in her head sounds shockingly like ron, and she smothers it, dropping heavily into the chair pulled up to a kitchen table that lists to one side. letting the parchment flutter to wood, she buries her face in her hands for a moment, thinking hard. severus snape had survived the final battle, against all odds and not for lack of trying. she'd been there personally when madame pomfrey had brought him in, had worked with her to try and stabilize him — out of her depth, then. he'd been in hospital for weeks, then submitted to a very public trial including testimony from herself, harry, and others including draco malfoy.
then ... he'd vanished. other than rare social occasions, hermione hadn't seen professor snape in years. three years — no, four. the last meeting of the order. he was leaving as i was coming in.
there had to be a way out of this. surely he didn't wish to marry her anymore than she wished to marry him. she just had to look hard enough, find a loophole or another law on the books that contradicted this one and then they'd both be free.
standing up suddenly enough that crookshanks fled off the table with an offended mrr, hermione waved her wand at her still smoking curtains. she had work to do.
—
a week later
the flat is .. well. it's clean, at least. books put away, not piled on the coffee table. blankets normally piled on the couch neatly folded and stored in their basket. even crookshanks had been brushed, though the half-kneazel resented the very concept of the act. she couldn't fix some of parts of the flat — the overstuffed furniture that was comfortable, but not elegant; the bookshelves stuffed to bursting with muggle and wix tomes alike. but it was presentable.
she swallows, remembering earlier that morning as she'd reviewed all her notes over the past week. she'd practically lived at the ministry archives for the past week, until they had to politely (and then not so politely) ask her to leave. and there was .. nothing. not a single law she could find that didn't grant the wizengamot the authority to do this, nothing that would contradict a law requiring marriage. on the contrary, she found a number of laws she dearly hoped were no longer enforced related to marriage itself, particularly between purebloods.
for once, the archives had her let her down. and she and professor snape only had three more weeks to .. become acquainted, prior to their marriage. three weeks had hardly felt possible, given the circumstances! there was so much to talk about and the courtship rituals were quite strict. she had to register the location, time and date of their meeting. the description of the nature of the call (she'd scribbled having tea) and the anticipated outcome (friendship?). the owl she'd received back from the ministry had included a tersely worded note letting her know that mister snape had been informed of the request.
fussing with a pillow, she starts at the knock on the door. four o'clock. in the afternoon. on the dot, not a second later. smooths her hand over her jeans, tugs at her shirt (nothing fancy, just a blouse — oh merlin, should she have done robes?). a part of her hadn't thought that he would come. perhaps he'd fled to another country. perhaps he'd declared himself sterile or unable to —
bloody hell, the door.
rushing to it, she pulls it open, hoping she doesn't look hurried. hoping that the extra time she'd taken to pull her hair back made her look more mature. )
Prof — That is, Mister.. Ah. ( bollocks. she hadn't thought what to call him. fumbling for a moment, she blanches, then holds the door open wider. ) Please. Come in. I've water on for us.
forgive me for the delay, i got mega behind on my game tags and had to get caught up!!
He does not keep up with the Old Crowd. He does not return the letters sent to him by the Malfoys, or by the Order, or the few half-hearted correspondences from Minerva reluctantly trying to coax him back to that school. In the eyes of nearly everyone, after his public spectacle of a trial ended, Severus Snape may as well have become a ghost.
Everyone, that is, except the bloody Ministry. Whatever magic they've got in place, he thinks must be similar to what drafts Hogwarts acceptance letters. There is no true hiding from it, not without drastic means — means which he certainly would've employed, had he known he was even remotely still considered a viable candidate for this ludicrous law.
He opens his post midway through sipping his tea, and nearly drops the bloody cup.
He reads it in silence.
Spends several motionless seconds contemplating it all, and then, very calmly, sets the bloody thing on fire and watches it burn to ashes in his saucer.
Well, he thinks blithely, fuck. Then deeply considers hurling the tea saucer into the wall.
He spends a few days living with the fantasy of utterly ignoring that it's even real. He toys with the concept of outright rejecting the Ministry's orders, and simply hexing any official they might have the audacity to send hunting for him. They'll have a hell of a time finding his place, and an even harder time finding him. If he knows the Ministry, eventually they'll tire of spending resources on it and bugger off.
He did not factor Granger into these calculations, and when he receives the follow-up letter a week later, he sighs and burns that one as well — but it isn't nearly so satisfying. He finds hardly any catharsis in it, haunted with the realization that while he might be perfectly willing to flaunt the Ministry, she clearly isn't. Typical.
He isn't entirely sure up until the moment he actually leaves his flat whether or not he's going to meet with her at all. He goes back and forth moment to moment, a perpetual scowl on his face like he hasn't worn in years.
But he's never been a coward, and never truly been one to run from duty. And so, at precisely four o'clock per her request, he knocks upon one largely unremarkable door.
Prof-, mister-
Somehow, though his face is schooled into something stone-stoic and impassive, he still manages to look like he's rolling his eyes internally. Merlin's name and God above, save him. It isn't her fault really, he knows this, but it's incredibly hard not to take his anger out on the only available target. He bites his tongue, and sweeps into her apartment without so much as a word in greeting.
He spends one long moment tracking his eyes around her flat, the tidiness of it, the simplicity of it. If he comes to any judgments about it, none display in his features when he finally turns to look at her properly. )
Miss Granger.
( That's as close to a proper hello as she's likely to get — a flat, toneless acknowledgement. )
You've chosen an incredibly inconvenient time to turn law-abiding.
( He's plenty aware enough of her extracurriculars to know that isn't always the case, with her. )
no worries! i understand and frequently backtag! 💖
and then he strides past her, and that gives her enough room to blink, to force the image away and recognize the differences. he may have been scowling at her, as always, but he'd seemed better. less thin, less sallow, more like he's had a decent meal or two in the past ten years. he's even ditched the voluminous black robes that'd defined him at hogwarts. rallying, she tosses her head and presses the door shut behind him, locking it and then absently resetting the ward, a buzz of her magic settling over the door. they're as safe as they possibly can be in her flat, layers of wards of her own creation as well as more traditional magical alarms and reinforcements in place.
turning, she meets his eyes as he finally looks at her — and stiffens. law-abiding. it crawls under her skin, burrows. only he would throw that at her as an insult; if anything, ron and harry would be of the opinion she was too law-abiding, too ethical. but when the law was complete and utter bollocks... )
Not for lack of trying, ( she growls, raising her chin defiantly. i will not let him bully me. not about this. not now. ) I can't believe Kingsley would do this. It's ridiculous, not to mention unethical, and —
( hermione cuts herself off, takes a deep breath that might even be cleansing. prof — no, just snape, that's neutral, isn't it? — hadn't come here to hear her wax on about her issues with the law. waving a hand, she bustles to one side where there is a neat, albeit very cramped, kitchenette and an electric kettle on. she fusses with two teacups for am moment, grateful to put her back to him for a moment to collect herself. )
There is no loophole that I could find, and I've spent the last week in the Archives looking for one. ( she says finally, throwing a glance over one shoulder to find him still lingering in her living room. snape. in her living room. merlin. ) What about you? You're here, too.
( implication being: you haven't found a way out of it either, have you? )