An Act of Love

Author's Notes: *hugs* to Southern_Witch for beta-ing =D

Chapter 6: An Act of Love

She had thought of either pretending to not notice him and walk right by him or walk up to him where he would, she daydreamed, hold out his arm for her and they would walk into the ballroom like a real couple.

By the time she had decided on the former as the safer route, he had seen her and strode towards her in quick, long strides. Before she even had time to utter a greeting, he had her upper arm in his grip. His head bent and his mouth was close to her ear; to anyone who could be observing (but there was actually no one) it would seem like an intimate gesture, and Hermione knew that no one would have known that he was actually hissing into her ear, “Get your act together!”

Perhaps that was the most painful thing of all. Knowing that the man she used to love (and probably still loved) was making himself pretend to be in love with her in front of friends and society just because they were married when he had actually adamantly said that he would never love her.

Hermione felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest. It went unnoticed by Snape. Maybe she should be thankful that he wasn’t behaving oddly. This Snape was the Snape she knew. The Snape of two days ago was most likely Pretend!Snape. She could see why he might have kissed her at Malfoy’s house – to keep up the façade that all was well with their marriage. However, it did not explain his behaviour at the bookstore. Oh, well, she mentally shrugged; perhaps there was someone she didn’t see at the time.

They entered the ballroom together, her hand on the crook of his arm. He nodded to a few acquaintances; his face was impassive as usual. She managed to paste a smile on her face, though she knew that underneath her emotions were less than joyous. Hermione knew that she owed to it her friends to not cause any commotion – for Merlin’s sake, it was the celebration of the birth of their first born. She should be happy for their sake if not for her own.

Dinner was an extravagant affair, a total of eight courses interspersed with toasts and gifts for the baby (who spent most of the night in peaceful slumber in her mother’s arms, earning lots of ohh-ing and ahh-ing from many female attendees). To Hermione’s dismay, the table arrangements did not allow her to sit beside Luna and Snape beside Draco. The two of them were unfortunately placed together. For Hermione, it was agony. She could not think of anything to say to him. She also knew that he hated small talk. He did not make any attempts at conversation with her, choosing to speak instead with Dumbledore who sat on his other side. It wasn’t even this bad when they worked together for the Order. In the end, she concentrated on the delicious food and conversed with Luna, hoping no one noticed that the Snapes had not spoken to each other throughout the whole evening.

Baby Isabella did have her share of the cake – a three-tiered mud cake concoction courtesy of the house-elves who had outdone themselves tremendously with the dinner and the dessert – except almost half of it either went to her face or her bib.

Some would say that the highlight of the evening was the dance. Young ladies were given dance cards, and young men were urged by their hosts to sign their names on the cards. Hermione fought the urge to laugh out loud when she saw Luna and Draco already practising their parental skills on Millicent Bulstrode – reminding her that she should dance with every single man in the room but to remember to not to dance with the same man more than twice, and the man that she danced twice with should be someone special. It was funny. Once again, Hermione felt as if she had landed into Regency times with her Time-turner.

She flitted across the ballroom and breathed a sigh of relief when her dance card was full. Not one single space left for Severus Snape. Being in such close contact with him in a dance would wreak havoc on her already tangled emotions.

The first dance was reserved for the host and hostess of the ball. Hermione joined in enthusiastically with the applauses going around the room when the dance ended. Draco and Luna make a lovely couple on the dance floor, she thought smiling. However, the smile slipped off her face when host announced that the second dance was reserved for the newly appointed godparents and would the godfather and godmother of Isabella Grace Malfoy step onto the dance floor?

She could hardly give the excuse that she could not dance as her dance card was filled to the brim, so Hermione reluctantly stood up and met Snape at the middle of the dance floor. She had expected the music to be a light, lively tune – similar to the one Draco and Luna had danced to, but it turned out to be a slow song, and all she could do was groan inwardly. Everyone who was not enjoying the ever-flowing champagne or in conversation with other people watched them.

He pulled her flush against his body, his hand tightening around her waist. His chest was hard and muscled despite the robes that he usually wore to conceal them. Her whole body tingled, and she fought the blush that was trying to creep into her cheek, wishing that the song would end soon. She turned her face so that her head lay on his shoulder. Much as he was staring at her rather intently, she could not afford to look into his eyes. She had not been practising her Occlumency skills as of late, and it would be detrimental for her should he look into her mind. She had already been a fool to fall in love with him in the first place. It would not do to let him know that she still pined for him like a lovesick puppy – he would just sneer at her feelings and ruthlessly squash them like one would squash a cockroach.

Much as she wanted to avoid him during this visit, she knew that it was inevitable that she would see him and that she would need to talk to him about the signing of another document. It would be their fifth wedding anniversary come New Year’s Eve. They had not spent their anniversary together since the first anniversary. Perhaps this year would be the last as well.