Part 5: In Which Hermione Labours Under a Misapprehension, But Not For Long.

There was a loud pop, and Hermione looked up from her desk, wand in hand.

"You're a daft besom, missus, aren't you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione stared at the elf. His arms were folded across his chest, and he wore a scowl worthy of his master.

"There I was, thinking I'd convinced the old sod to retire peacefully to the mother country at last, and some damn witch has to play silly buggers with him just to get herself into Lucius Malfoy's robes!"

"Hold on one minute..."

"Serve you right if they go and kill one another!"

"What?"

"Last thing I saw, they were at it like a pair of rival teenage boys, hexing one another up and down the Long Gallery and yelling curses!"

Hermione was on her feet before the elf had the chance to explain further. She twirled on the spot, chanting a spell to take her through her own wards, and vanished. The elf turned to stare along the length of Malcolm Braddock's wand. He raised a bushy grey eyebrow.

"Gryffindors," the elf said with a hint of reluctant admiration.

"Slytherins," Malcolm replied, putting his wand away. "Should I send the Aurors along later?"

"Nah," Ramsbottom said after a moment's cogitation, "I wouldn't bother."

"But someone might get hurt."

"Care to bet on who?"

Malcolm shook his head. "Pretty obvious, isn't it?"

The elf grinned evilly. "Yup. This is what stuck-up wizards get for not being polite to other wizard's elves."

"Fancy a cup of tea while we wait?"

"Don't mind if I do."

Hermione pushed past the alarmed-looking little elf standing in the front doorway of Malfoy Manor. She had no need to ask directions to the Long Gallery: she could hear the zing of ricocheting hexes from the entrance hall.

"But Madam mustn't..." the elf squeaked in alarm.

"Madam is bloody well going to!" Hermione snapped. She ran up the main staircase, wand raised and shielding spells at the ready.

"Bastard!" That was Malfoy, his usually well-modulated voice strident with anger or pain.

"I warned you!" Snape snarled, and there was the Professor Snape of old, spitting with fury. "I warned you, Lucius Malfoy, and if you..."

There was a crackle of spell-fire, and something exploded nearby.

Hermione reached the top of the stairs, although she retained enough common sense to pause and peer cautiously around the corner. Snape was standing in a classic duelling pose, feet braced, his Protego charm glowing as Lucius cast hexes from the dubious sanctuary of a half-open doorway.

"You expected me to play fair?" Lucius demanded, "Come on, Severus, when did you ever abide by the rules?"

"Stop it, the pair of you!" Hermione shouted. Snape whirled on the spot, his black robes flaring out around his legs, his wand high. Lucius sent a ball of fire towards him, but Snape had rotated his shield charm so that it covered his back, and the flames splashed harmlessly to the floor and fizzled out.

"You think you're so clever!" Snape said, blasting the door off its hinges. Lucius scrambled backwards out of range.

"That wasn't anything to do – ow! You sod!"

Snape flicked his wand in the counter-spell to dispel an illusion and then frowned as Hermione failed to vanish. Lucius took the opportunity to send a couple of stinging hexes, causing Hermione to retreat and cast her own Protego.

"Why, Hermione, how lovely to see you!" Lucius exclaimed, a little out of breath but his good humour clearly restored. "I wasn't expecting you to arrive until tomorrow, but since you're here, are you joining in the fun?"

"Fun?" she demanded, outraged. "It doesn't look like fun to me!"

"Of course it is!" Lucius puffed, darting to take cover behind a sofa. "Simply a pleasant little work-out with a friend! Confrigo!"

Snape snarled something indecipherable, and a wardrobe exploded behind Lucius, forcing him to dive to the floor and roll behind the bed.

"Severus, that was a seventeenth century armoire! Stupefy!"

"Oppugno!" Hermione shouted, and a dozen canaries burst out of the air and fell upon Lucius, shrieking with rage in their tiny, shrill voices. She spun upon one foot and launched another irate flock at Snape before he could take advantage of Lucius' distraction.

"Bloody hell, woman!" Snape bellowed, dousing the birds with a jet of water that flung them against the wall, "what was that for?"

"For behaving like a pair of stupid kids!"

Lucius spun a ring of fire around his head, engulfing the conjured canaries, and creating a stench of burned feathers. "I might have got a little carried away," he said, waving a hand to dispel the smoke, "but hardly enough to send in one of the heroes, damn it!"

"You were supposed to be testing a charm to detect the limits of shielding spells, not destroying half the house," Snape remarked.

"What?" Hermione had a sinking feeling, which came with the realisation that she had been set up.

"What did you think we were up to, my dear?" Lucius' smirk told her that he detected her embarrassment and intended to make the most of it.

"I was told – oh, never mind! I'm sorry for interrupting you."

"Did you honestly think that Severus and I were fighting? Why in Merlin's name would we do such a thing?" Lucius flicked his wand and the bedroom behind him filled with a multi-coloured whirl of fragments, which came together in a complex pattern from which emerged the original furniture, seemingly intact.

"I was clearly given incorrect information," Hermione said between gritted teeth.

"And acted without checking it, obviously," Lucius agreed.

"As Gryffindors are wont to do," Snape said, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt to adjust them inside his robes.

"Did you think," Lucius asked, his eyes crinkling in suppressed amusement, "were you under the impression, dearest Hermione – that we might have been duelling over you?"

Hermione was old enough to know how ridiculous that must sound, old enough to know that embarrassment was fleeting, and that it never killed anyone, but not so old that she didn't feel her face heating up. She glanced at Snape, but he was not laughing at all. He seemed a little pale, and his face was set in a mask-like rigor.

"Very amusing, Lucius," he snapped. "Have you quite finished mortifying your guests?"

"Why, I'm sure that Hermione has a perfectly sensible explanation."

"No, I haven't," Hermione said grumpily, "apart from being taken in by someone playing a joke on me. Pretend it never happened, and I'll go away." She paused at the top of the stairs and turned back. "By the way, do Scorpius and Rose really have to be chaperoned if they go out on a date? Since they've been in a relationship for almost two years and they're twenty-five years old?"

"Of course not. This is the twenty-first century."

"Then why the hell didn't you say so?"

"You didn't ask."

Hermione stared at him, her brow wrinkling as her brain whirled.

"So does that apply to everything? All these stupid, outdated traditions, are they all optional?"

Lucius shrugged elegantly. Hermione narrowed her eyes. "I see. Well, I hope that you derived some amusement from them, Mr Malfoy. Good afternoon."

She heard him call her name, above the emphatic sounds of her heels upon the staircase, but she was too indignant to listen. Only as she stepped outside the front door and took a couple of deep breaths, calming and centring herself ready to Apparate, did a wizard pop into existence in front of her. She raised her wand, but realised that she faced Snape. In a somewhat belated instance of self-preservation, she swallowed the hex that hovered on the tip of her tongue.

"Since it was your elf that tricked me into coming here, you can damn well tell Lucius where he can stuff his apology!"

"Lucius is unable to stuff anything anywhere until he has removed his wand from an intimate orifice," Snape said, scowling. "I am not his errand boy. What does Ramsbottom have to do with it, anyway?"

"He gave me the impression that you and Lucius were fighting." She sighed. "Actually, he made a few statements which might or might not have been true, and let me draw the wrong conclusion. I'm not quite sure why..."

"I shall have words," Snape growled.

"No, he meant well." She took a deep breath. "Lucius told me that you're going back to France. Is that true?"

He looked away, scowling at the pale shape of an albino peacock upon the edge of the lawn. "Yes, I've realised that my home is now elsewhere. There's no longer anything for me here."

His words made something in her chest feel tight and heavy. "That's a shame," she told him. "I'll miss you."

"Lucius visits regularly. You are welcome to accompany him."

Tentatively, Hermione reached out to touch his sleeve, and he looked down at her hand, pale against his black robe, but he did not move.

"I don't particularly want to go anywhere with Lucius," she said.

"He led me to believe that you will be joining him for dinner tomorrow evening with a view to exploring the delights of his library, among other things."

She snorted. "Since I've lived this long without the Malfoy library, I'm sure I'll survive the loss. Expecto patronum!" Her otter flowed from the tip of her wand, rolling onto its back as she smiled at it. "Please apologise to Lucius and tell him that I'll be unable to join him for dinner tomorrow. I have another engagement." She watched the otter as it gambolled in a circle before shooting away into the house. "There. Now I'm free to invite you to dinner with me, Mr Snape."

She held her breath as he turned to look into her eyes. There was no hint of Legilimency, just a touch of suspicion in his dark gaze, as if he thought that she might, in turn, be playing a cruel trick upon him. Far from feeling insulted, Hermione was saddened that his life had caused him to be so mistrustful. She deliberately opened her outermost thoughts to him, allowing him to read her respect and her burgeoning affection, and rather to her surprise, twin patches of pink appeared on his cheeks.

"That would be most acceptable," he said.

"Seven o'clock at my house? Would that be all right?"

He bowed his head in formal acknowledgement. "I shall be there. Good day, Hermione."

He disappeared with a crack.

"Go and send Scorpius an owl," Hermione said. "Invite him to the theatre or something!"

Rose gave a little huff of laughter. "Hey, Mum, did you really manage to get Lucius to withdraw that stupid chaperone rule?"

"Yes, or at least, I got him to admit that it's all a load of codswallop, which amounts to the same thing. Go and enjoy yourselves."

"Don't forget your protective charms!" Hugo remarked, earning himself a swat around the ear with the newspaper. "Hey! I mean, haven't you looked outside? It's pouring down out there!"

"Ha ha, very funny."

"What about you, Hugo? Aren't you going out this evening?"

"I scent a conspiracy," Hugo drawled, putting aside Juxtaposing Jinxes, Countering Curses and Healing Hexes: A Guide for the Realignment of Maladapted Magic. "Are you trying to get rid of us, Mum?"

"Yup," Hermione said, "I am. Just don't get too drunk."

"If you've invited Lucius here, I'd better take Biggles with me," Hugo said, stroking the old Crup on the sofa beside him.

"No, I haven't invited Lucius anywhere."

"Oh my god!" Rose squealed, "Are you two-timing Lucius Malfoy? Mum! You wicked witch, you!"

"I'm not doing anything with Lucius Malfoy," Hermione said sharply. "That is definitely not on the agenda at all."

"Well, I can't say I'm not relieved," Rose said. "What made you change your mind?"

Hermione looked down at the little curl of black and white fur. "Biggles."

"Really? Did he bite Lucius or something?"

"Don't be silly, the poor old thing could just about gum Lucius' ankles if he stood still long enough. No, when Lucius saw him, he pretended to like him. Severus just asked if he needed potions for his arthritis."

Hugo and Rose exchanged a look.

"I'll go and send Scorpius an owl."

"I'll send a Patronus to Jim, Al and Lils, see if they want to round up the gang for a night out," Hugo said.

Hermione rolled up her sleeves. "While I see if I can remember Molly's cookery charms."

Rose patted her mother's shoulder as she passed. "The numbers for the nearest Chinese, Indian and Italian take-aways are behind the clock," she whispered. "Just so you know..."

In formal robes, Ron had looked a bit like a gangly kid playing dressing-up. Even as Aurors, he and Harry had always seemed homely, slightly scruffy, an unthreatening couple of mates ready for a lark. Their enemies almost always underestimated them.

Hermione watched her guest take his place for dinner, arranging his black robes so that they fell in graceful folds, and thought that no one could underestimate Severus Snape.

She had moved the table into the bay window, the curtains wide open, giving a view of the back garden and the open fields beyond the low fence. Draco's elves had not been content with putting right the damage caused by the Granian, but had left the beds overflowing with pansies and delphiniums, hollyhocks and cornflowers, roses and nasturtiums. The clouds had lifted, and watery sunlight glinted upon the newly washed leaves and flowers.

Snape seemed slightly wary. At first, she wondered if he still expected her to make fun of him, or if he believed that their date was a prank after all, but then her own apprehension registered, and she realised that they were both nervous. Had he been alone since the war, living with just the old elf for company and with the Malfoys as his only friends?

"This is all new to me," she remarked, Summoning the first course from the kitchen.

"Smoked salmon with crab pâté?" he enquired, lifting an eyebrow in the manner that she had once thought supercilious.

"Dating. Having dinner with a member of the opposite sex."

"Hm," he said, non-committal, then the edge of his lip curled up. "Yes, I know."

Something relaxed inside her. He reached into the pocket of his robe, removing a tiny bottle which he placed upon the table. A tap of his wand expanded it to full size. "You might appreciate a dry white with the seafood."

"I might indeed." She held out her glass. "Thank you. You know, of all the careers I imagined for you, vintner wasn't one of them."

"You mentally condemned me to an eternity of teaching adolescents, did you?"

"Hardly! It was clear that you hated teaching. No, I thought you'd be deeply immersed in potions or spell-crafting."

"But I am," he pointed out. "Admittedly in a limited field, but turning a mediocre Muggle vineyard into something capable of producing the finest elf-made wines in the world is hardly child's play."

"Really? I assumed that you bought successful vineyards and turned them over to the elves."

"Apart from the fact that the best vineyards don't come onto the open market, where would be the challenge or the profit in that? We buy up marginal land or small businesses that fail to generate a good income, gently extract them from the Muggle records, then spend years treating the soil, planting magically enhanced varieties of vines and creating the right buildings and equipment for the production of wines appropriate for their environment. It is an art."

"Obviously," she said, sipping the delicate golden wine. "What's this one?"

"A Grüner Veltliner from Austria, a versatile white, I find."

"It's delicious. Do you enjoy your work?"

"On occasion," he said dryly, "Do you?"

"On occasion!"

"Going into business with a Slytherin? How adventurous of you. I'm surprised that your parents-in-law didn't disown you."

"They weren't very happy, that's true, but Malcolm and I get on well and we complement each other. He's very good at customer service and warding charms while I'm well-organized and I enjoy the puzzles of curse-breaking."

"I assumed that you would have taken over the Ministry by now."

"Yes, at first, so did I."

"Real life intervened, did it?"

Hermione huffed. "Are you suggesting that I couldn't balance a career with rearing two children?"

"Hm, I was thinking more of 'real life' in the shape of your mother-in-law, actually."

"Yes, Molly did try to make my life hell when we were first married, but as every single one of Ron's sisters-in-law, and his sister, all wanted careers of their own, the effect rapidly became diluted. Then Molly realized that if all these young witches employed her as a child-minder, she could try to control the next generation instead."

"Which, I assume, worked as well as did her attempts to control her own children?"

"Exactly."

"You haven't responded to my initial question. Why didn't you go into the Ministry?"

"By the time I was eighteen, I'd had enough of being told what to do and of being manipulated to last me a lifetime. I am involved in politics. I'm currently campaigning for centaurs, hags and house-elves to be allowed wands if they wish to buy them."

"I doubt that the elves will want them."

"So do I, but a few centaurs and hags certainly do, and many more resent the fact that they can't, even if they wanted to. They're sentient beings. They're entitled to the same rights as witches and wizards."

Snape forked up the last morsel of his smoked salmon. "Perhaps it is as well for the Wizarding World that you didn't stand for Minister."

Hermione smiled sweetly. "There's still time, isn't there? Accio main course! I hope you like slow-roast lamb shanks in redcurrant jelly?"

"It smells delicious," he said, eying the gently steaming platters.

"It should be," Hermione told him. "A Muggle supermarket's finest. I can't cook to save my life. Ron used to prepare our Sunday lunches if we didn't go to the Burrow."

"You could follow a potion recipe well enough at school," he pointed out as he spooned baby potatoes onto his plate. "Or perhaps it finally occurred to you that if you always did everything for everyone else, they would never learn to do it for themselves?"

She beamed at him. "Got it in one."

"A shame that the lesson never sank in while you were at Hogwarts. You were such a frustrating student. Many was the time I had to hold back from throttling you and the rest of the tiresome triumvirate."

"You made your dislike perfectly clear, Professor Snape."

"It was not entirely personal."

"Much of it was. You hated Harry."

Snape leaned back in his chair, placing his fingertips together and gazing at her levelly. His black eyes were impenetrable. "I did, but the rest of the world was upon his side. Who sided with the Slytherins?"

"Another of my future campaigns involves doing away with that damned Sorting Hat," Hermione told him equably. "Please don't let your dinner go cold, Sainsbury's put a lot of effort into this."

Snape let out a snort of amusement. "Have you told Lucius? He'll fight you tooth and nail."

"Let him. I'm sure he's got a book somewhere explaining exactly why a person's entire life, from the age of eleven onwards, should be restricted by the ramblings of a whimsical piece of mediaeval headgear."

He sighed dramatically. "It seems that we have both mellowed with age."

"I don't think we were all that different to begin with."

Snape placed his fork upon his plate and reached into his robe. "Would you like to try a somewhat tannic, brawny Merlot with the lamb?"

Hermione Summoned fresh glasses from the kitchen and placed them upon the table. "My children will be most amused if they come home to find me pissed out of my skull on Château Bonfoi wine."

"Growing old is tedious: we might as well do it disgracefully."

"I might find that insulting if I thought about it for long enough."

"It wasn't meant to be. I'm useless at romantic gestures, Hermione." He poured the wine and did not look at her face as he added softly, "Lucius is the one for those."

On impulse, she reached out and placed her hand upon his. He glanced at her through the hanging strands of his hair, and the vulnerability of his expression pierced her heart. "I'd far rather have dinner with you."

He did not reply, choosing instead to continue eating, but there was a faint blush of pink on his cheekbones and something approaching contentment in his eyes.

Ye Cellebratione of Matrimonie shall be a Tyme of Mickle Merryment & Mirthe. Ye Heades of Ye Families shall ensure yt Alle shall be welle among ye Cellebrants at ys Tyme of Meeting & Manye shall be ye Resultant Unions among ye Merry Folk.

Rose and Scorpius were married on a golden day in October on the lawn of Malfoy Manor, surrounded by their families, friends, elves and familiars. Terpsichore, Scorpius' imperious eagle owl, behaved impeccably, which was more than could be said for Biggles, who farted and barked asthmatically at intervals throughout the service, and Dancing Warlock, who browsed his way through a large arrangement of chrysanthemums and subsequently needed to be dosed with potions for colic.

Molly and Arthur were persuaded to attend by Draco Malfoy, of all people. He adored his only son, had grown fond of Rose and was prepared to dissemble, scheme and – as a last resort – grovel, in order to ensure their happiness. The fact that he was backed up by Harry and Ginny did not go amiss. However, much of his success was due to Hermione, who nobly offered herself up to replace Rose as family scapegoat.

"You do realize that carrying on a flirtation with a Slytherin, your ex-teacher and a marked Death Eater is making you unpopular in a number of quarters, don't you?" Percy told her. He indicated Molly, who was glowering at her, and a sneering Lucius on the opposite side of the lawn.

"I'm not carrying on a flirtation," Hermione said. A dour-looking old elf handed her a glass of champagne. "Thank you, Ramsbottom. Actually, Percy, we're having mad passionate sex on a regular basis."

"That's – that's appalling!" Percy spluttered.

"Don't talk twaddle," Ramsbottom told him. "The awd sod's never been happier, and this baggage seems perky enough on it. You look as if you could do with a dose of the old how's-your-father yourself."

"Ramsbottom," a silky voice remarked, "do stop insulting the guests, or I'll allow Hermione to give you a wand."

"What do I want one of them things for?" Ramsbottom snapped his fingers, and a tray of brimming champagne glasses popped into existence upon his outstretched hand. Snape tilted an eyebrow. The elf sniffed and trotted off, balancing the tray easily on one finger.

Later, in the great ballroom, Lucius slid through the throng like a pike through a shoal of minnows and held out his hand to Hermione. "May I have the pleasure of this dance, my dear?"

"Only if you promise to be gracious in defeat."

Lucius laughed, softly, deep in his throat. "Oh, I assure you, I have plenty of experience of that."

Held lightly in his arms, the scent of his cologne teasing her senses, Hermione looked up into his coldly aloof face. "Go on, then, say whatever you've got to say."

"The obvious, naturally: if you hurt him, I'll do very unpleasant things to you."

"I took that for granted."

"I like to ensure that Gryffindors understand the situation. So many misunderstandings could be avoided if everyone knew where they stood."

Hermione chuckled. "Admit it, Lucius! You did your best to intimidate, confound and generally bamboozle me throughout Scorpius' entire courtship."

For a moment, she thought that she detected just a hint of penitence in his expression, but perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight.

"You proved surprisingly hard to disconcert, displaying an almost Slytherin ability to circumvent conventions at times. I rather think that you are one of the few people in the Wizarding World capable of keeping Severus upon his toes. I shall derive considerable amusement, watching from the sidelines."

"Be careful or I might construe that as a compliment."

"My dear witch," he said gravely, "I have nothing but the greatest respect for you and your delightful daughter, believe me."

Hermione had to admire the way he kept a completely straight face. "In which case, you'll vote for me if I stand for the board of governors of Hogwarts, next year, will you?"

"That should liven up the board meetings," he said, expertly guiding her around a group of conversing witches.

"Of course, there might be a conflict of interest if Severus ever decides to go back..."

"He'll never do that," Lucius assured her. "There are far too many bad memories there for him."

"His happiness matters to you, doesn't it?"

"Do, please, refrain from ever thinking that I am turning into an old softy," Lucius purred. "Narcissa, Draco and I expended quite a lot of effort in keeping the stubborn man alive; it would be such a shame to see those exertions go to waste. Besides, it would be an awful chore to find a new supplier to stock my wine cellars."

Hermione raised her eyebrow, and Lucius' lips curved into a smirk. "My dear, you need years more practice before that is the least bit intimidating."

"It wasn't meant to be. It was welcoming, in fact."

Snape tapped Lucius on the shoulder. "I'd like my witch back, please, Lucius."

"You wound me! Don't you trust me with her?"

"Of course not."

Lucius shrugged and released Hermione. She tucked herself under Snape's arm.

"Your friend Potter has just informed me that if I hurt you, he'll kill me."

"So if we fall out, Lucius will kill me and Harry will kill you."

"So it appears."

"Isn't it wonderful to have friends?"

Biggles the Crup kept Hermione company as Rose, then Hugo, moved away to follow their own paths. When Severus Snape stopped vacillating, sold his house in France and finally unpacked his cauldron and bookcases, Biggles knew that his beloved mistress had no more need of his protection. He curled up in her lap for the last time and accepted the enticement of the strange old man in lilac robes to chase Fizzing Whizbees and Liquorice Snaps through fields of asphodel. After a suitable length of time, Lucius demonstrated rather more common sense than usual by gifting the couple a tawny owlet and a Kneazle kitten. He remained on cordial terms with his oldest friend, flirted outrageously with Hermione and annoyed the Weasleys at every possible opportunity – habits which he retained to the end of his long and disreputable life. He spoiled his great-grandchildren rotten. They adored him.

~fin~