The Timber Hitch

A/N - Okay, so as you might have noticed, I'm speeding through posting these chapters now that I have Validated Author status and won't have to wait in the queue. Huzzah for quicker updates for my readers! Oh, and because people mentioned this in the reviews for chapter 7, I'll make this clear: I started writing this story LONG before Deathly Hallows; in fact, I started writing it during Order of the Phoenix. As such, at the time I was writing, nothing was known about Snape's heritage, bloodline, etc etc etc. So you can expect that canon will be gleefully heaved out the window for the sake of the story, because Snape would have been on the other end of the petitioning had canon been known. So that's that, and let the games resume!

~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

Chapter Eight – The Timber Hitch

"The Timber Hitch – Most commonly used to attach a rope to a log, or where security is an issue. This knot tightens under strain."

"Oh, come on now ... do you think I was born yesterday?"

Hermione sighed. This is going to take forever.

"I'm telling the truth."

Ginny Weasley's tomato-colored hair swung as she turned her head to gaze at Harry, who was now fiddling distractedly with the papers on Hermione's desk. "Harry, post traumatic stress lunacy? What do you think? I mean, really, a story like that ..."

"Ginny," Hermione said, frazzled, and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her right hand. "I'm not lying, I'm not trying to fool you, and I'm not crazy. I'm engaged to Snape."

Harry sighed as Ginny persisted with this general line of tactics for several more uncomfortable minutes before Hermione merely grunted and shoved her hand under Ginny's nose. Hermione smirked in morbid satisfaction as the grin of teasing froze on Ginny's face while her eyes glued to the glittering ring on her friend's hand. The smile melted away as Ginny grabbed Hermione's hand and yanked it closer to her view. Ginny stared at the ring, focusing and refocusing her eyes, before yanking it off Hermione's finger and staring at it further. It was obvious that she simply could not get her mind around the concept.

"Don't know anyone else that could give me a ring like that, do you?" Hermione remarked, triumphantly.

"Short of Malfoy," Ginny returned before looking up into Hermione's pained face and realizing at once what she'd said. "Oh, Hermione, I'm sorry. God, I know this must be hard for you, and here I am making light of it. I'm sorry it just ... seemed so ludicrous. I mean, it's Snape."

"Believe me, I know."

Hermione breathed in a long drawn out sigh. She chanced a look to the desk, where Harry now sat, turning a bracelet of Hermione's over and over in his hands. Something in the look on his face told her not to interrupt. She turned back to Ginny. And Hermione was suddenly struck with something. In the instant that Hermione had caught Ginny off guard – there was a second that Hermione could tell Ginny hadn't expected her to turn back – she noticed that something was warring in Ginny's face. She was holding something back.

"All right, out with it," Hermione said brusquely.

"What do you mean?" Ginny said, smoothing her face as she looked up.

"After this many years knowing you, I can see when you're chalking up a story."

Ginny looked put out, as being able to pull the wool over people's eyes was one of her special talents. But Hermione wasn't fooled.

"You're not telling me what you're thinking and I know it. Out with it. And now," she demanded.

Ginny sighed and cleared her throat a few times. Hermione drummed her fingers on Ginny's knee. She was quite aware that these sorts of diversionary tactics were Ginny's way of putting on her "show face."

"Ginny," Hermione began again.

"All right, fine," Ginny huffed, her pale and befreckled face starting to splotch red with anger. "You want to hear it? You want to know that I'm furious? That I think you have all the tact of that social-climbing cow, Pansy Parkinson, because you couldn't wait 24 hours after my brother's death to get engaged again? Damn it, Hermione! Ron's not even cold in his grave and you're shacked up with Snape! Did Ron really mean so little to you?"

Ginny was now pacing the room like a mad, caged wild cat, her small, delicate hands flying up now and again to point out her rage. And yet, Hermione could feel – as if the waves of it were visible – that this was Ginny reining herself in. Hermione knew inherently that the youngest of the Weasleys had her deceased brother's temper. She was stalking the room to rid herself of the excess energy that she could be releasing on Hermione.

After several moments of anxious, pained stalking, she stopped again and glared at the older girl. "Bloody hell, Hermione! I thought you...you were...God damn it! Ron trusted you! He was so damn worried about what was going to happen ... TO YOU! He cared about you. Hell, he lo..."

Ginny stopped in the middle of the word. Seeing a tear roll down Hermione's face only stirred her anger more, and that word refused to exit her mouth while she was in such a state. Her balled fingers dug into her hands forcing her to note the small something still curled inside her fist. Ginny raised the hand and opened it, seeing the glittering diamond and emerald ring lying there serenely. With a growl of rage, Ginny cocked back her arm and heaved the ring into the mirror on the wall across from Hermione.

"Ginny!" Harry shouted, ending his silent reverie as he leapt to his feet.

The redhead turned on her heel and marched out, not even looking at her best friend who had huddled against the throw and was now crying gently as she picked shards of glass from the fingers that she had thrown up over her head to shield her.

*****

"Hermione..."

"Go," she said quietly but firmly.

"But, Hermione, your hand..."

"I said, 'go,' Harry. I'm perfectly capable of handling this myself."

Harry sighed. "But..."

"Harry, she's just angry," Hermione said with a wince, pulling another piece of glass out of her finger. "She's entitled to be angry. Her brother's dead, for God's sake, and I have betrayed his memory."

Harry moved to sit on the bed next to her. He gently took her injured hands into his lap to stop her picking at the glass. "Is that what you think you've done?"

"No," she responded, barely audible. "Is that what you think I've done?"

Harry was quiet for a fraction of a second longer than Hermione thought necessary, and as a result tears sprung to her eyes. Harry sighed and put a hand to her hair, stroking it gently, but carefully thought out his response before speaking up.

"I think that getting engaged to Snape less than a day after Ron...after what happened was probably in bad taste," Harry began. Hermione sat bolt upright, ready to argue, but Harry patted her shoulder and continued. "But, seeing as how you didn't have much choice, I'd say you did right."

Hermione quieted a bit, so Harry decided that his next remark wasn't as dangerous as he first thought. "However," he began again, to which Hermione sat up nervously, "I do think it's going to be extremely easy to misinterpret for some people. And that doesn't even take into account what will happen at school..."

Hermione leapt from the bed and gathered the ring frantically from the pile of broken mirror near her bed. "Oh, dear God, Harry ... I never thought of Hogwarts! I can't imagine what they'll say. Oh, Lord, it'll be the end of me."

*****

Hermione was fairly certain that she most certainly didn't need to imagine what people would say at school. She was quite certain she got the full gamut of reactions, just from the members of the Order of the Phoenix:

Lupin –Remus, she reminded herself, Remus – had sighed heavily and said, "Oh dear, you poor thing ... If you need to talk about it, let me know.

Harry stood stoically in the corner at dinner that night, talking to nobody, not even Hermione.

Molly Weasley had wept for a moment, then bucked herself up and said, "Well, I'm as good as a mother to you while you're in the wizarding world, so if you need help with wedding plans, you call me dear. Ron would have wanted that."

Hermione's heart had nearly exploded after hearing that.

Ginny had remained angry and silent while Fred and George made loud, mocking comments about Snape's ability (or lack thereof) to perform his "husbandly duties." Bill blushed when he said hello to Hermione, and then spent the rest of the evening huddled in conversation with Fleur about their own wedding plans. Arthur Weasley couldn't even look her in the eye; Tonks was trying so desperately to say the right thing that she couldn't form a complete sentence. Eventually, Hermione resorted to sitting in the corner, between Harry and Mad Eye Moody, unable to think of a single non-Marriage Law conversation topic, so she remained silent.

Just when Hermione thought that the night couldn't get any worse, Severus Snape walked through the kitchen door and, without throwing her a single glance, busied himself making a plate of food for himself. The entirety of the Order watched from their positions around the room as he planted himself at the table and silently ate his dinner. He never raised his eyes for nearly a half hour. Hermione was becoming steadily more uncomfortable because, as the minutes passed and he did not look at her, the party's attention drifted from him to her.

Eventually, knowing there was no escaping it, Hermione raised herself from her spot in the corner and strode over to the table. Before seating herself across from Severus, she swept an accusatory glance around the room, following which there was a greatly increased amount of side conversation as people blushingly returned to their activities. Snape showed not the slightest notice of her presence. Hermione cleared her throat loudly, at which point he glanced up at her, raised an eyebrow, then resumed eating without taking his eyes off her face.

Unsettled to say the least, Hermione had to clear her throat again before speaking. "Would you care to discuss details of our," she had to stop to clear her throat again, "wedding this evening or later?"

Once again, she noted the serious decrease in conversation around the room. She noticed, with some satisfaction, a slight twitch in Severus's eye that told her he must have noticed as well. But, as usual, he said nothing. Instead, he got up, cleared his plate into the sink, said "Porch" to her as he passed, and headed straight out the kitchen door. The party watched again in tense silence as she hesitated for a moment then followed him.

*****

Hermione settled herself quite uneasily on the stoop of Grimmauld Place, which could not rightly be called a porch. Snape settled himself on a railing opposite her and drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket; he deposited one between his lips, lit it with his wand, and glared at her as he sat smoking silently. Under his painful glare, she was suddenly reminded of view of him in the memory: sitting insolently on cement pillar, smoking and staring into the London traffic. A light blush painted her cheek as she fidgeted nervously with the hem of her sundress, which now seemed unspeakably rumpled and ill-fitting. He continued to stare at her wordlessly as his cigarette slowly went to ash as it moved in and out of his lips.

When she could take no more of the dangling cigarette and fixed stare, she dropped her eyes to her lap and muttered, "Well, are you going to say something or not?"

Snape dropped the butt to the stone steps and ground it out under the toe of his boots without even shifting his weight. "I was under the impression that it was you had something to say. As always."

"Are you determined to be argumentative for the rest of our lives?" she spat in embarrassed annoyance.

"Are you determined to be contrary?" he returned.

Hermione sighed. "Well, I just wanted to start talking about the wedding," she started.

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, picturing what her wedding should have been. She could see herself: a crown of flowers on her head, an elegant, flowing white dress, standing hand in hand with a dark haired groom in front of a glittering lake with a small, happy party surrounding her ...

And then she opened her eyes to her groom sitting on the stop in front of her, scowling and lighting another cigarette. He was old enough to be her father.

"I hope you are quite aware that I did not ever intend to get married."

"I'd say that is perfectly believable."

He raised an eyebrow and glared at her, but continued. "So I hope you realize that I do not intend to participate in any form of ceremony. We shall engage in the prescribed charms and legal nonsense at the Ministry of Magic, and that will be the end of it."

He was standing to stub out yet another cigarette when she rocketed to her feet and grabbed his arm. "And I don't get any say in this?"

He opened his mouth to speak but she responded before he could form a word.

"I understand that you would probably rather marry a cantaloupe than me, and believe me, the feeling is mutual. However, this may not be fixable. Should the powers that be decide that this law is for keeps, we will be stuck together for all and good. I know that wizarding marriages are forever; I've done my research."

Snape snorted derisively, but she continued.

"But I ..." She stopped and took a breath, summoning her courage. "This may just be my only shot at a wedding. If it's not going to be the wedding of my dreams, I at least want a chance to make it something I will look back at in sixty years or so and ... well, at least not regret what I didn't have."

Severus couldn't help the mildly annoyed grumble in his throat, but then he looked down at his fiancée. Seeing her standing there in a pastel striped sundress, bare foot and nearly in tears, reminded him: she was just a girl. And her future was being ripped from her handily; the only one she was being offered was something second-hand with a surly old man. He smirked deeply.

Hermione watched, puzzled, as Snape smirked and then shook himself out of whatever thought process he was in.

"We have some terms to agree to," Severus started carefully.

"All right," Hermione replied.

"I will agree to give you a free hand with the ceremony on the following conditions: I will not spout any words of love or fantasy. I will not state, to anyone, that this marriage is anything other than what it is: a marriage of convenience and protection..."

"Convenience?" Hermione scoffed. "Convenient for whom?"

Severus looked genuinely puzzled. "Both of us, naturally." He scowled as Hermione scoffed again.

"How is this convenient for either of us?" she asked, incredulously.

"Well," he replied, glaring at her, "I'm conveniently agreeing to keep you from being killed, for one. But for the other, we are both dissipating the constraints of the Marriage Law for the other."

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Are you forgetting, Miss Granger, that the law not only requires Muggle-borns to get married, but that it also requires purebloods between 17 and 60 to make a petition for marriage?"

"Yes, but..."

"Surely you do realize that I am within this age group?"

"Well, erm ..."

When Hermione merely shuffled her bare feet against the stone instead of giving a direct answer, he nearly shouted, distinctly insulted, "Good Lord, Granger, how old do you think I am?"

"Actually," she replied, reddening, "I have no idea how old you are."

He cleared his throat. Dear Lord, this won't make things any easier. "I'm forty-one."

Hermione blushed. "Well, you're two years younger than my Dad."

"Thank heaven for small mercies," he said woodenly. "In any event, as I was saying, I will not pretend that this is not a marriage of convenience. I will not participate in anything overly saccharine or sentimental. I will not play the part of anything but a surly forty-one year old, and I will certainly not be overly social at any type of reception. Aside from that, I will allow you to plan the ceremony as you will."

Hermione nodded and immediately sat down with a notebook she had left outside the previous evening. Severus pocketed the cigarettes she had left on the rail and made to move inside when Hermione reached a hand out and lightly clasped his sleeve.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "It may not be a fantasy wedding, but I'll try to make it so even you enjoy yourself."

Severus raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'll try to make it so you don't hate it."

Severus nodded shortly and returned to the house as quickly as possible.

A/N - All right, so I know that this was kind of a vehicle chapter (one that exists merely to move you to the next chapter) but I hope you enjoyed it anyway and will review. *wink wink nudge nudge*