On Marriage

Hermione saw surprisingly little of her fiancé in the weeks that followed their engagement. She received a few terse notes, all addressed to Miss H Granger, mostly dealing with the paperwork side of wedding preparations. There was so little contact with him that there had actually been mornings that she'd woken up and forgotten all about the engagement as though it had been a bad dream. Unfortunately, there were plenty of things to bring it back to her attention.

The engagement ring was one.

"He gave you a bloody Slytherin engagement ring," Ron had grumbled when he'd seen the ring for the first time. Hermione pointed out that the entwined serpents had been taken from the Snape family crest and that Snape's ancestors had been Slytherins as far back as anyone could trace. That wasn't a piece of information that made her any more comfortable wearing the ring.

Getting used to wearing the engagement ring was another issue. Hermione had never been the type of girl to wear much jewelry, so having to constantly wear a ring had been a bit of a challenge. It got tangled in her hair several times and she'd snagged more than one pair of stockings with it.

The Daily Prophet, however, proved to be the most upsetting reminder of her own engagement. Seeing names that belonged to classmates was upsetting, though she hadn't quite been able to determine if it was more or less distressing to see them attached to other classmates or spouses with dubious backgrounds.

Statements similar to Ginny's "Oh look! Lavender Brown and Seamus Finnegan were married yesterday," had become increasingly common over breakfast. No matter how good of a mood she had been in before, the marriage announcements were usually enough to make Hermione lose her appetite.

On a day of particularly distressing announcements - a Hufflepuff girl who had been two years Hermione's senior had died under mysterious circumstances and her "grieving widower" had married again the following morning - Hermione threw down her napkin and walked away from the breakfast table before managing even a single bite of food.

"That's quite enough, Ginny," Molly Weasley had scolded as Hermione stepped out into the hallway. "If you want to read the wedding announcements, read them to yourself." Whatever Ginny's response might have been, Hermione missed it as she made her way to the library. She had been tempted to choose another destination, someplace Harry and Ron wouldn't look immediately, but decided that a comfortable chair and the smell of leather and parchment would more than likely be relaxing enough to make the eventual interruption worth it.

Hermione ran her fingers along a shelf of books, enjoying the feel of the spines beneath her fingers. She did not choose one to read, or even bother looking at their titles as she normally would have done. Instead she wandered past the shelves and deeper into the room. She sat down on a low sofa, tucking her feet beneath herself, and fell into thought.

Hermione didn't often allow herself to spend too much time dwelling on the situation in which she currently found herself - engaged to be married against her will to a man she barely knew, much less had any warm feelings for. Intellectually, she knew that crying about it and wishing for different circumstances wasn't going to change a thing. The law was still in effect. She had signed the engagement proposal. She was going to marry Snape.

With a little gasp, Hermione found that she was blindsided by the emotions that she had worked so hard to ignore since receiving the Ministry letter. Warm tears pricked the underside of her eyelids and no matter how hard she tried to blink them away, they refused to disappear, choosing instead to spill slowly onto her cheeks. Groaning in frustration, Hermione gave in to the emotions that had overwhelmed her. She put her head down on the arm of the sofa and let it come. There was no big production involved, just quiet sniffling and a wet release of tension.

Hermione had no idea how long she'd been sitting in the library. She hadn't moved from the sofa and her cheeks were still wet, but she wasn't crying anymore. Nothing had resolved itself in whatever amount of time she'd been there, but she did feel decidedly better.

Behind her, the door to the library opened.

"Harry, Ron, I just want a little time alone, please," she said without looking over her shoulder.

"Unfortunately, my schedule will not allow that, Miss Granger."

Hermione leapt to her feet at the sound of Snape's voice. He was the last person she'd expected to see, and certainly not someone she wanted to have interrupt an emotional moment. She swiped at her cheeks, cursing herself for not having worn a shirt with long sleeves; it would have made drying her face a much easier task. Snape scowled and she scrambled to think of something appropriate to say.

"My apologies, Professor Snape, you caught me off-guard."

"Apparently." They watched each other, the silence in the room punctuated occasionally by the sound of an errant sniffle. Just as the silence was approached the point of becoming decidedly awkward, Snape moved as though to step forward, but stopped himself and crossed him arms over his chest. Combined with the scowl on his face, Hermione expected him to take points from Gryffindor or assign her a detention, though for what she couldn't imagine. Surely it wasn't against any sort of printed rule to have a cry over the summer holidays.

"Have Messieurs Potter and Weasley been giving you difficulty?"

The question seemed to catch them both off-guard.

"Pardon?" Hermione asked.

"Potter and Weasley. Have they been giving you difficulty over our engagement? I understand that it must be difficult for your friends to comprehend that your decision was made without coercion, even if not under the most ideal of circumstances." The tone in his voice was now decidedly Snapeish again.

Hermione struggled to keep from grinning. "No, sir. Harry and Ron haven't been giving me any more trouble than usual."

Snape snorted. It occurred to Hermione that he rather expected her to have said that yes, Harry and Ron were being relentless in their negativity towards the situation. Actually, their level of tact had been quite surprising. Hermione suspected that had something to do with Molly and Ginny Weasley, but whatever the reason, it was a welcome reprieve from what she had expected.

"I would not expect the rest of your classmates to behave so chivalrously once the school term resumes." The statement carried a tone of warning.

Hermione nodded gravely. "I suspect you're right," she said. "It won't matter that a large portion of the seventh year class has gotten married, I'll be the only girl engaged to a professor. The Ravenclaws will probably think that's where I got my high marks," she added, more to herself than to her fiancé.

He snorted again, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "More than likely." Hermione sent him a hard look, but he met it with one of his own and she quickly swallowed the sharp retort that had leapt to her tongue.

"You have your Apparating license." It was more of a statement than a question. The first of Snape's short notes to Hermione had been a very strong suggestion that she put in her application and take her Apparating test before the end of the summer. He had made a cutting remark about not wanting to spend all of his time setting up portkeys so that they could accomplish everything that would be required of them prior to what should have been her eighteenth birthday.

It irked Hermione that he had made the assumption that any suggestion he made would have been acted on immediately but she had done it right away. Partly because she was unused to the possibility of telling her Potions professor "no", and partly because he had a very good point. There were a number of things that would have to be sorted out prior to their wedding and things would run much more smoothly if she was just able to Apparate wherever she needed to go. Having to arrange portkeys for her would take up more of his time and lead to more frustration than either one of them was willing to deal with.

"Good," he said, nodding slightly. "The Headmaster informed me that your parents had returned from their vacation. We will visit them this afternoon so that you may discuss the situation with them. They have already received an owl telling them of our arrival."

Hermione was surprised. "You want to come along?"

Snape's scowl deepened. "The Headmaster feels it will go a long way towards alleviating your parents concerns if they are allowed to meet their... future son-in-law." He seemed to have difficulty with the last word.

Hermione bit her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing aloud. The darkening of Snape's eyes informed her that she'd been caught.

"Do you find that amusing, Miss Granger?" he asked, his tone icy. She had no doubt that, had she made the same mistake in a classroom setting, the Gryffindor totals would have been quite a few points lighter.

She swallowed back the laughter, but could feel the shadow of a smile still playing on her lips. "I apologize, Professor. I was just thinking about how absurd this whole situation will look from a Muggle standpoint."

"I do not appreciate being laughed at, Miss Granger."

"Nor do I, sir, and I think we both agree that this is hardly a laughing matter," she said seriously. "But that will not make it any less of an oddity to my parents."

He glared for a moment longer, before relaxing his sneer the tiniest amount. "I will return for you this afternoon." He turned to exit the library.

"Professor, wait!" Hermione called, taking a step after him. Snape stopped in the doorway.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" he sighed.

"Do you have to leave right away, Professor? If we're going to be telling my parents that we're engaged this afternoon, we might want to discuss some things before we go. It will help to ease their minds," she added by way of explanation.

"Such as?" The tone of his voice suggested that he would rather deal with a classroom full of distracted first year students than sit down and talk.

"They'll want to know that you're going to allow me to finish my schooling..."

"Don't be a fool," Snape snapped. "Obviously, you will complete your education, Miss Granger."

"They'll probably also feel a bit better if you stop calling me 'Miss Granger'. My name is Hermione."

Snape looked decidedly uncomfortable, but stepped back into the room. He took a seat in a chair opposite the far end of the sofa and motioned for Hermione to sit back down.

"What do you foresee as your parents' main concerns?" he asked grudgingly.