Bogus Magic

Like the Muggles Do

Chapter 9

Bogus Magic

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Severus turned the page, aware that he had been 'reading' the page before since Hermione picked up the telephone. She had been having what seemed to be a pleasant conversation with her mother. Hermione's voice had grown agitated, though, since her mother must have made some kind of request or suggestion. Her 'No thanks, Mum's had turned much harsher in nature as the book he held became more and more inconsequential.

He heard his name. Had he not already been listening, he would have started now.

"Well, no, Mum. I suppose there's nothing in the rules that states we have to always be together." Hermione sighed.

"Still, I don't think it's very fair-"

"Well, no. But just because I'm not forced to-"

"No, Mum. There is nothing going on between Severus and me."

"Yes, Mum, I know he has no claim to me-"

She was silent for a while. Her face, from what he could tell from quick glances at her, became more and more horror stricken as her mother apparently argued her point.

"Mother, we are not talking about this."

"No, I will not tell you the last time I was 'Good and Shagged.'"

"Because that is not the sort of thing I want to talk about with my mother."

"I don't care if Persy tells you every time she's been 'Fabulously Snogged.' If you haven't noticed, Persephone and I are very different people."

"Dear Merlin, Mother. Please do not finish any sentence involving Daddy and a raincoat."

"No, Mother, I am not a-"

"No, Mother," Hermione growled, "I am not a lesbian."

"Just because I do not wish to go on a date with your patient's cousin's son's best mate does not mean that I am doomed to spend my life a spinster."

"Mum, I'm a witch. I don't think it would be wise to date a Muggle," she said softly, apparently changing her defense strategy.

"Yes, there are Hogwarts students with only one magical parent."

"I don't think marrying and having children with a Muggle would be in my best interest-"

"No, I have nothing against Muggles."

"Yes, Mum. I know you and dad are Muggles."

"And I love you. But you could never understand-"

"Yes, he does."

"No, he doesn't understand what its like to be Muggle-born. But that's as unfair as saying he doesn't understand what it's like to be a woman, but at least we have-"

"No, Mum. I told you there is nothing going on-"

"No, not like Ron and Harry. It's different-"

"Well, we-" Hermione paused, and somehow Severus knew her mother was waiting in silence and not interrupting her. He stood up and made his way across the room. Hermione hadn't even noticed him moving until he was almost upon her. He caught her eyes as she attempted to speak again.

"Severus and I, we..."

He was close enough now to hear the silence on the other side, finally broken by Hermione's mother, asking shrilly, "You what?"

Severus held eye contact as he reached to her and pulled the phone to his own ear. Hermione's knuckles had turned white and her fist did not readily release the receiver, leaving her fingers resting between his own larger hand and his temple.

"Mrs. Granger."

"Who is this?" Hermione's mother asked, somewhat frantically.

"Professor Severus Snape."

"Oh, hello, er- Professor." Her voice had relaxed significantly with his introduction, likely no longer worried that a strange man had broken into Hermione's flat to rape and kill her eldest daughter... after using the phone.

"Please, call me Severus," he drawled in his smoothest tone. "I feel truly horrible, Mrs. Granger."

"Maia," she corrected him, a clear invitation to explain, in detail, why he felt horrible.

"Hermione told me almost two weeks ago about your invitation to dinner."

"Yes," Hermione's mum confirmed. "We thought it would be nice to have you both over. We have heard so much about you, after all."

Severus quirked an eyebrow at his partner, who had removed her hand from the receiver but still stood close enough to hear both ends of the conversation. If he didn't know her as well as he did, he might have failed to notice the faint blush that arose in her cheeks.

"Well, I know it's not giving you much notice, but tomorrow, Hermione and I have just discovered, we will be forced out of our flat all day. Would you like to dine with us tomorrow night? I do not wish to be a trouble to you; perhaps we could take you out to dine at your choice of restaurant."

"Oh, don't be silly, Severus," Maia Granger chastised him, in the condescending tone Hermione had complained of many times before. "We would be happy to have you here. Shall I expect you at 7 o'clock?"

"Sounds perfect," Severus said as charmingly as he could muster. He must get off the phone as soon as possible, before his head exploded from the effort of containing his usual sarcasm, derision, and malice.

"Is there anything in particular you would like to eat, Severus?"

"Oh," he responded, "if your cooking is half as good as Hermione boasts, I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy any dish you choose to make."

They exchanged goodbyes, and Maia Granger hung up without even asking to speak with her daughter again.

Hermione gawked at him, mouth slightly open and eyes wide.

"We will be dining at your parents' residence tomorrow at seven p.m.," he told her, handing back the receiver to be hung up. She stared at the phone in her hand for a few moments before setting it down and finding her voice.

"If you were that charming to everyone, people would-"

"I do not want for people to like me or talk to me more. I am quite satisfied with the loathing and fear I currently inspire."

She smiled. "Actually, I was going to say that people would drop dead from the shock."

"Ah, yes," he said, inadvertently reminding her of the headmaster. "But then there would be nobody left for me to intimidate."

==

Severus practically threw himself onto Hermione, almost knocking her to the ground. He flung his arms around her shoulders and spun her until his back was to the crowd of people.

She stood in his rough embrace, stunned beyond comprehension. What in the world had gotten into him?

And then she heard the man in the center of the crowd shout again.

"And I say the magic word once more... Abracadabra!"

Severus tightened his grip for a second and then released her completely, as he shoved his hands into every pocket he could find in his coat and trousers.

She realized he was looking for his wand and spun around to face him, catching his wrists in her smaller hands.

"He's a Muggle, Severus. Just a simple Muggle magician."

"He – what?" Severus asked, no longer frantically defending their lives but still looking confused and suspicious.

"Look," Hermione said, pointing, as part of the crowd parted, leaving the shouting man in plain sight. "Does he look like a murderous wizard?"

Severus had to admit that no, the man did not. He wore a tuxedo, covered by a shiny black cape lined with red fabric. He placed a black top hat on his head with one white-gloved hand, while the other held a black stick that looked almost like a wand, if one were to squint their eyes and cock their head to the left, just so.

"What is that?" he asked with a repulsion usually reserved for first year Gryffindors and Crookshanks' fur balls.

==

They had crept closer as Hermione explained that the man posed no threat, and was not, in fact, a Lucius-Malfoy-wannabe with a speech impediment. Being jostled by the crowd separated them temporarily, but when Hermione found herself back at the side of the foul, sneering man, she hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. He did not protest, but Hermione kept her grip loose so as not to offend, just in case.

The Muggle magician pulled a white-furred bunny from his top hat, to the 'ooh's and 'aah's of the crowd. Severus snorted. In a not-so-conspiratal tone, he verbally lashed the man's trick, pointing out where the rabbit had clearly come from.

Over and over again Severus revealed the truth behind every trick the Muggle in the tuxedo performed.

The crowd began dispersing, especially in the area closely surrounding the masquerading witch and wizard. Hermione began trying to convince Severus to move on, pulling on his elbow and then his wrist with no success. The magician, not hearing Severus' remarks, noticed only that he was losing his audience. He began attempting flashier tricks to regain the attention of the people walking away, going on their intended ways. The harder the man tried to impress, though, the more malice Severus released in his commentary.

It might as well have been Harry Potter trying to wow the thinning crowd, with the venom Severus produced to lambaste and degrade him.

Even when Hermione firmly gripped his hand and tried to walk away, Severus' focus did not leave the poor man. Eventually Hermione was standing two arm lengths away from her surly partner, pulling with all her might, the line from her shoulder to his tautly straight, if a bit diagonal due to the height difference between the two.

No matter her attempts to pull him from the Muggle magician, Severus stood firm and did not falter in pointing out the trickery behind every attempt at 'magic'.

The Muggle magician asked for a volunteer from the – now significantly smaller – audience. Hermione could feel Severus preparing to step forward. Hoping to spare the hopeless Muggle from a direct verbal attack from that man at her side, Hermione, with her free hand, swung her purse at him with all her might. The bag hit Severus hard in the chest, causing him to retract his undesirable attentions from the gaudily dressed man. Momentarily focused on her, the disdain visibly receded from his face. She took advantage of his disorientation to hiss at him.

"Severus, can we please go? I'm starving. If we stay any longer, we'll ruin our appetites, and my mother doesn't take well to any seeming rejection of her cooking. We'll be forced to have third helpings until we feel so full we become sick to our stomachs. Please, let's go."

Once his attention was taken off the defenseless Muggle, Severus' insistence on staying where he stood faded. He allowed her to pull him from the crowd. After a moment spent unsure of what way they had been going before, Hermione turned left and they continued walking.

It was a long walk to their destination, but the weather was pleasant and the streets uncrowded. The fresh air tickled her cheeks as they strolled to the small diner. She told Severus of how her parents had brought Persy and her to the comfortable restaurant every Saturday when she was growing up.

They began talking about beloved yet unofficial traditions. Severus even managed to think of a few fond memories of his youth. He did not speak of his family much in general, unlike Hermione, who often found herself recounting loving childhood moments. Severus never said as much, but she suspected he enjoyed hearing about her relatives. Whether he was fascinated by her Muggle upbringing, or wistful of the love she had been raised with, a vague look often came into Severus' eyes when she spoke of life amongst the Grangers.

There was always the possiblity that he had simply perfected the art of 'act like you're interested.' Harry and Ron had gradually improved in their attempts at the male-staple expression over the years of their friendship with Hermione, but she still felt the change in attention paid each other when talking about Quidditch as compared to her long, loving explanations of the newest eighteenth century charms book that she suspected Albus had 'come across' on purpose, for her.

As a man, she would not find the presence of such a trait in Severus to be a big surprise. As the man she knew him to be, she would not find an insistence for perfection on just such a talent to be a surprise at all.

But something told her Severus was not 'faking' such an interest in this case. A small, traitorous part of her thought that maybe it wasn't the Muggle vs wizarding world difference, nor the presence of deep familial love she felt towards her parents and sister. It was possible that he was simply interested in what she had to say, because it was her telling him about her childhood, whether good or bad.

She spoke of her familial traditions then took the logical step to telling him of the simple traditions she shared with Ron and Harry.

He still couldn't listen to her talk about the two troublemaking boys without an occasional biting, sarcastic comment about their characters. However, talk of Hogwarts encouraged a sense of understanding in the Potions master, and he was soon telling her of the staff's annual get-together a week before the students were scheduled to arrive every fall.

Apparently, Minerva had drunk Sybill Trelawney under the table before the start of Hermione's sixth year, after an argument about the 'ambiance' of the Divination teacher's tower room. Hermione found it to be equal parts hilarious and horrifying, hearing about her professors in such a way. She had found that she longed to have stories of more staff parties in the future to share with the man beside her.

It wasn't until they tried to walk through the narrow doorway to enter the small diner that Hermione realized her hand was still linked with his.

==

Hermione had just finished the last of her coffee when the doorbell rang. Her father, sitting next to her on the couch, rose to answer it, still speaking to his daughters. But Maia Granger laid her hand lightly on her husband's arm and stood. She excused herself to Severus, with whom she had just finished sharing the recipe for the pudding they had enjoyed after their delicious dinner. Lugh Granger did not protest, and continued telling Hermione and Persephone about his internet advertising campaign. He resumed his sentence as though there'd been no interruption.

Hermione caught Severus' eyes and gave a small smile, really just a slight quirk of the side of her mouth. She didn't expect a toothy grin back from the Potions master, but the subtle twitch of his upper lip was enough. The almost unnoticeable change in expression was the reassurance that Hermione needed that he was not having a dinner-at-Grimmauld-Place-when-Sirius-still-lived-there miserable time.

She suspected he wouldn't be averse to leaving soon, but she might have just been projecting. The comfort and relative solitude of their own flat pulled at her, and she doubted Severus would protest.

Her mother returned to the sitting room, but Hermione had not heard the door shut. Mrs. Granger looked a tad bit confused, but, since the first time an owl tapped on their kitchen window, the Grangers had become much more resigned to not understanding aspects of Hermione's life.

"There is a taxi waiting outside for you two. He wouldn't explain how or why he knew you were ready to go, but I suspect neither of you would mind returning home. You've surely had a long day."

Hermione and Severus exchanged matching 'I didn't call' looks, but both rose to their feet. Persy, Lugh, and Maia Granger took turns hugging Hermione goodbye at the front door. Her father shook Severus' hand amicably, while Persy waved a goodbye to the greasy man she had heard horror stories of as a child.

Hermione was unsurprised, but gratified all the same. Both had taken to Severus rather sociably, though wary. They had heard pleasant things about him for the past three years, but the ten years of nastiness Hermione had reported prior to that was not easily forgotten.

Her mother, however, gave Severus a hug as fierce as the one she had given her eldest daughter. Hermione couldn't see, so she couldn't be sure, but she rather suspected that her mum had even planted a kiss on his thin, bony cheek.

She ushered them out the door before either Hermione or Severus could react.

==

Hermione and Severus sat in silence in the back of the cab as it weaved its way through London. It was after nine, and most of the other cars on the street were taxicabs as well. The path their cabdriver chose to take, at least, had very little traffic.

The cab smelled of peanut butter and green apples, and as they went over bumps in the road and around corners, Hermione felt the familiar pull of sleep. She felt her head drooping and struggled to keep her heavy eyelids from closing. Once or twice she caught herself right at the precipice of slumber and jumped awake, startling Severus and herself. The cabdriver, on the other hand, never shot back anything but a cheeky, twinkling grin.

Again, she felt sleep tug at her, and finally leaned, ever so slightly, to her side, until her head came to rest on a solid object. It was round, and had a softness covering a very hard, steel-like structuring. The warmth radiating from it made her forget the shivers she had felt walking from her parents' house to the cab. Something slightly above it tickled her forehead, and something near the crease of her eyes let out a soft, reluctant sigh. As she closed her eyes and let herself become comfortable, she found herself almost burrowing into the object, which stayed very still except for a steady rise and fall of the area near her chin. She hummed contentedly and felt herself falling...

"Oi," someone barked out, startling Hermione from the edge of slumber. She jerked her head up and straightened, not noticing that she almost broke Severus' already long, crooked nose. She settled in a state of exhausted alertness, and focused her eyes on those of the cabdriver, in the rear-view mirror. "Yer stop's jus' up 'ere, folks." He looked straight at her and she felt her brain tingle, as though she'd had too much to drink with dinner. "Yeh look tired, Miss. I suggest yeh get 'er in safe an' in bed, Mate," the cabbie said, nodding at her while speaking to Severus. "Else she'll not make it past yer chair."

"Oh, no," Hermione interjected, feeling slightly insulted at the implication that she was a fragile little girl to be carried to bed. "I'm fine, really. I'm not at all that ti-" she did not finish her sentence, as the word 'tired' collapsed into a wide-mouthed yawn. She scrunched her nose and shook her head a bit to clear it, but by then the man she was defending herself to had already turned back to the road.

Severus eyed her askance while reaching for his billfold. As he counted out the eerily familiar driver's fare, Hermione collected herself and her things, the desire to sleep weighing heavily on her shoulders.

She barely registered the white van pulling away from the pavement as they came to a stop in front of the steps to the front door.

As the van passed on her side of the cab, she saw a glimpse of a long white beard and hair under a pointed, purple cap and saw the hem of a similarly bright purple robe hanging out the bottom of the passenger side door. She smiled and read the sign painted in a sparkling gold on the side of the van.

"Wizards' Housekeeping and Security"

She suspected the slogan "We clean and protect like magic!" wasn't quite the false advertising most would suspect.

==

Hermione felt a familiar prickle as she stepped through the doorway. Her eyes swept the apartment, finding nothing different from that morning, and rested on the digital clock. The time was 9:31.

She mumbled something to Severus along the lines of, "That driver was good," as he pulled her coat off her and hung it up, setting her bag on the table beneath it.

He just smiled and placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward her room. He took particular care as they passed his reading chair.

"Should I check," he began, "to see if you've been hexed? You seem out of sorts."

"No, I'm fine." She shook her head, an understanding occurring to her. "That cabdriver just had Dumbledore's power of suggestion." She scowled as she opened the door to her bedroom. "Bastard."

Severus considered asking whether she meant the cabdriver or the Headmaster. Seeing as how it was a word often used to describe his personality, however, he chose to keep his silence, on the off chance that he had somehow done something to offend her.

Nor did he question her when she turned from the doorway and mimicked her mother's actions, giving him a quick but strong hug and a peck on his sallow cheek. "You were wonderful today, Severus. Bloody fantastic."

She released him and turned to her bed, toeing off her shoes and not shutting the door behind her. When she reached her dresser and turned back to him, tugging at the zipper of her trousers already, he hesitated for a moment.

He diverted his eyes and gave a small, formal bow. "Goodnight, Hermione," he told her softly, before softly shutting the door and retreating across the hall.

Before he was completely in his room, he heard a muffled "G'night, Sev'russs..." followed by the thump of a tired young witch collapsing into a deep, peaceful sleep.

Author's Notes