Cheat the Devil

They were in Hermione's workroom again, but this time Potter was present, wanting to know what changes were most important for Severus to be comfortable, living and working with them. Severus supposed that one of the changes should be making himself say 'Harry' rather than 'Potter'.

She had already suggested that he would want a workroom of his own, but he thought that would keep until they had a better idea of how much development work he would be commissioned to undertake, if she was prepared to share her workspace for a time. He had been pleased to discover she was content to share her bedroom with him.

Harry pointed out Severus would, nonetheless, almost certainly require some space he could think of as his own, whether for privacy, or intense thought. He did not say that he might need a place to retreat to when his native snarkiness got the better of all this unnatural amiability.

Severus discovered the limed oak desk was meant for him, not for Hermione. How well she understood him, if she knew his first need was for somewhere to work. How confident had she been that he would still be with them when the desk was ready for use? Was buying it an expression of belief, or of hope? Later he would ask her.

Tomorrow he should Floo to Diagon Alley to visit Gringotts. Some time soon he would need more Muggle clothing. The trousers Muggles wore took a lot of getting used to, but it was going to be impossible to wear robes here. He didn't want to look out-of-place at her side.

He could see he was going to have to change a number of well-established habits to cater for his new sensitivity to what others might think of him as her companion, her lover. He thought, however, he would have no trouble continuing to dress mostly in respectable, modest, unobtrusive black.

He said as much, and was disconcerted when they both laughed.

Hermione rose from her chair to sit on the arm of his, the only armchair in her workroom, sliding inexorably into his lap, and murmured, "Respectable and modest, perhaps; unobtrusive, forget it, Severus. It's not so bad in Muggle clothing, but in robes you look like the demon king with no trouble at all."

Severus made a mental note of something else he would have to ask her to explain later. There was no point in trying to deny he had long made a habit of creating a dramatic impression with the swirling skirts and sleeves of his robes.

He decided to push his luck.

"Will your lawyer draw up a marriage contract, or should we go to someone in the wizarding world?"

She squirmed in his lap; he grabbed her to hold her still before his body's prompt interest in hers became obvious.

She twisted her head, then, to look up into his eyes and say indignantly, "That must be the worst marriage proposal ever!"

He smirked at her. She had not said 'No'.

"Your experience is so vast?"

"I don't need experience," she retorted, "to know what most women would think of that. However, I'll take it. Do we need a contract, though? It's not as if either of us has any money."

Harry said with amusement, "That may change. Potions Masters make more money than schoolteachers, I'm sure. Not Mr Howard. Hermione's right, Muggles would think a contract between you odd and unnecessary. Gringotts can probably recommend someone. Someone to marry you, too, if you want to be old-fashioned and make a binding wizarding marriage."

"Yes," Severus said firmly. He added wryly, "Albus Dumbledore has married many of Hogwarts's former students, but I think perhaps we won't ask him. He's not going to be happy with either of us, and I don't want him blaming you, Hermione, for my decision to leave him."

"You could give Professor Dumbledore your notice by Floo," Hermione said softly. 'There's no need to go back at all."

Severus sighed and closed his eyes. "I imagined that conversation so often, not long after you young people were born. Albus made it clear I hadn't paid my debts. I knew that."

He did not see the scowls Hermione and Harry exchanged, as he went on, "And I still owe him; I always will. It's not a debt I can repay, that's all."

Harry said with a vigour that snapped his eyelids open, "You owe the Headmaster nothing! You may owe the wizarding world something, but if so, it's to do the best you can, not whatever someone else finds most convenient."

"You hate teaching," Hermione said bleakly, "though you do it quite well, at least for those who are up to your weight."

Harry added, "If you teach, you should teach potential Potions Masters, not schoolchildren. Take apprentices. There are people floundering for guidance, Severus, that you could give, without being driven mad by laziness and inattention and resentment."

Hermione followed up. "But you don't have to do any of that. You could spend your time in pure research, and be paid for it - going by what they pay me, someone who was your student only two years ago, you could probably be paid very well, and do only what you love to do, and more than pay any debts you may have in doing so."

In some surprise he said, "You're tempting me."

For a moment that Gryffindor grin showed on Harry's face, but it disappeared as he said, "No. We're encouraging you to do what the Headmaster himself should have suggested, strongly, as soon as the war was over, or at least as soon as you got your balance back. We all needed time for that.

"You taught for nearly twenty years because the only place you could be safe after renouncing Voldemort's service -" Severus flinched slightly at the name, but he was used to feeling that response - "the only place, was Hogwarts, under Dumbledore's eye, and hand. You paid for that safety not just by teaching, when it's not your vocation, but by spying. For twenty years you did three jobs, with no thanks. Isn't that enough remorse, enough doing well to make up for the bad you couldn't mend?"

It was not, of course, the first time Severus had reflected that Dumbledore had exploited him ruthlessly, but that it should be so obvious to a pair of children... They probably thought Dumbledore had used him as badly as he had used Harry.

Harry had suffered his share of that exploitation, and only a determined fight for privacy, when all was done, had enabled him to cut loose. Dumbledore would have been very happy to have a lucky and competent war-wizard under his hand, too, just in case. Dumbledore probably believed there would be another Dark Lord, some day. So there might, but probably not in his time. Please Merlin, not in theirs either.

It was the first time Severus had reflected that perhaps Dumbledore had exploited him heartlessly, though. Just as he had done with Harry.

"And you're offering me - shelter?"

"You don't need shelter, Severus," Harry said impatiently. "But yes, you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. That's from both of us. What Hermione's offering you," he added, a little slyly, "is between you and her."

Before Severus could bite his head off for impudence, he was gone.

Ominously Severus asked, "Did you plan that with him?"

"No."

Hermione was not at all intimidated.

Instead she moved closer, put one arm behind his back, lifting the other hand to his shoulder, and tilted back her head to meet his eyes. Without thinking he set his hands to her waist, turning her in his lap so that she straddled his thighs. She shifted closer still.

Eye to eye now, and a little flushed, she looked at him.

"Are you bold enough to take it, Severus? To believe you are entitled to it? That you don't have to earn it? Love is given, not paid for."

"You may have to rub the lesson in some more," Severus murmured, but he had his mental balance back, and a peculiar effervescent sense that he thought might be joy.

"I'll take it," he added, to ensure there should be no misunderstanding.

"And give it?"

"Bossy little Gryffindor," he said severely, but it was more of a smile than a smirk that curved his thin lips.

"Then you'd better meet my parents."

"Yes," he said with resignation. "I can't just walk out on Albus, either."

Her scowl did not worry him, but he didn't like to see it.

Before she could tell him what she thought of that, he added, 'Someone who is a born teacher, is Ross Holly. I could give those responsibilities to him with an easy mind."

"Yes," she breathed, diverted.

Not wholly, however. "So you're not walking out. You can recommend your replacement, you can let Ross have your lesson plans to get started, till he's found his feet, can't you?"

He nodded.

"And if Professor Dumbledore doesn't accept the recommendation," she concluded briskly, "that's his lookout."

Severus Snape decided that he might, after all, be a much-managed wizard, but there were worse fates. Fighting with her would be far more agreeable than trying to hold his own with Albus Dumbledore.

Before she thought of anything else to convince him of, he moved her closer still, and slid his arms hard around her, pulling her against his body from forehead to her sweet warm crotch. She opened her mouth before his lips touched hers, and he sighed gratefully, infinitesimally, into it, before he thrust his tongue into that wet haven. With leisurely care he moved her against his body so that her nipples rubbed against his shirt through the flimsy material of her own.

They both knew where they were going now, and probably so did Harry, because he never reappeared to summon them to dinner.

~~The End~~

This was an entry to the Classic Canon Challenge recently run on Live Journal by McKay (lj user scribbulus_ink): take a classic and do any one of a number of things to it. I volunteered Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman for vivisection, and chose to retell it terms of the HPverse. Hence the fic Cheat the Devil.

You don't need to read this end note (obviously!), whether you know the opera or not. These two bits of commentary and the synopsis aren't essential, unless you want to know how I got from opera to fic, and why I think they're the same story.

If you don't know Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman, and want more detail, there's an official synopsis, right at the end; but here's the deal:

The flying Dutchman was a sea-captain who offended the Devil by swearing he would round the Cape of Good Hope against a storm, if he had to keep trying for ever, so that's what the Devil arranged for.

However, there's small print in every contract, here inserted by an angel.

Once every seven years the Dutchman could come ashore, and if he could find a woman who would be faithful unto death, he would be released. He meets this other sea-captain who has a beautiful, loving, obedient daughter, who sells him said daughter (in marriage, keeping it respectable, but it's a fairly explicit financial transaction). When they get home, the daughter is mooning sentimentally over a portrait of the fellow, and instantly decides this is her job. He falls in love. She falls in love. Daddy is pleased. Her closest friend the housekeeper isn't sure; however, if Daddy wants it... Squee.

Thus a lot of ethical difficulties are skipped past.

Unfortunately, she has a would-be boyfriend. Her new fiancé interprets his pleading for acceptance as lovers' talk, and rushes off to his ship, like any idiot hero of idiot romance. On his way out, hoping to terrify her, he reveals his identity. Boyfriend, father, friend and chorus hold her back, but she follows (having always known who he is), to throw herself off the cliff in token of her good faith. This sacrifice works; both of them are seen rising to heaven, together, embraced.

Thus the Dutchman doesn't have to learn to cope with real life again, but can relax in death. Also, the girl's purity, whose strength gave her love and faithfulness such power, is not risked by allowing her to take any further independent action, or sullied by any threat of sexual activity. And neither of them has to treat the other like a real person.

If you read that para you can no doubt work out what I think of some of the propositions the opera embodies. I accept there are things like sacrifice and redemption and salvation, but I go along with what I understand the Quaker attitude to be: you do them here and now, not just in some hereafter when no work is required. I also subscribe to the view that women are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and sticking to them.

You may not recognise that story in my fic. I did a functional rather than a literal translation of the plot, and did not use the libretto, though I read it closely. Here's the casting:

Severus Snape = the doomed-to-fly-forever Dutchman
Albus Dumbledore = both the Devil and the father
Hermione Granger = the daughter
Harry Potter = the daughter's friend
Ron Weasley = the would-be boyfriend

I abandoned the physical setting entirely. To emphasise that Hermione is a functioning responsible adult, I made the fic post-Hogwarts. To emphasise that Snape's existence is a hell of meaningless repetition without purpose or escape, I made the fic post-war, and had the 'good' guys win.

Norway, 1700s. An icy storm drives the sea captain Daland's ship miles beyond his home on the coast. As the sky suddenly darkens and the waters again grow rough, another ship, a ghostly schooner, arrives and drops anchor next to Daland's. Its captain, the Flying Dutchman, steps ashore, despairing of his fate. He once swore he would sail around the Cape of Good Hope if it took him forever, and the devil took him at his word. Once every seven years he may leave his ship in search of a woman who will redeem him from his deathless wandering if she gives him faithful, absolute love; failing this, he is condemned to roam the seas until the Day of Judgment. He tells Daland of his plight and offers a reward of gold and jewels for a night's lodging. Then, discovering that Daland has a young daughter, the Dutchman asks for her hand in marriage. Daland, seeing the extent of the stranger's wealth, immediately agrees. Instructing the Dutchman to follow, Daland sets sail for his home port.

At Daland's house, his daughter, Senta, dreamily watches village women as they spin and make sails. They tease the girl about her suitor, the huntsman Erik, but she remains in a trance. Staring at a portrait of the Flying Dutchman, she sings a ballad about the phantom captain. With burning intensity she prays that she may be the one to save him. Erik enters and, after the others have left, asks Senta to plead his cause with Daland. Noticing her preoccupation with the Dutchman's picture, he relates a frightening dream in which he saw her embrace the Dutchman and sail away in his ship. Senta exclaims that this is her own dream as well, and the despairing Erik rushes away. A moment later, the Dutchman himself stands before the girl. He tells her of his sad lot, and she vows to be faithful to him unto death. Daland blesses the union.

At the harbor, the villagers celebrate the sailors' return. They invite the Dutchman's crew to join them but are frightened away by the ghostly crew's weird chanting. Senta soon rushes in, pursued by Erik, who insists she has pledged her love to him. Overhearing this, the Dutchman believes himself betrayed and jumps aboard his ship. As horrified villagers crowd the shore, he reveals his name and nature and sets sail. Senta runs to the top of a cliff, triumphantly proclaiming herself faithful unto death, and leaps into the sea.

taken from http://www.metopera.org/synopses/

~~ ~~ ~~