teddy_radiator | FIC: Take These Stars Down To The World, Chapter One; SSHG

As many of you know, the SSHG_Promptfest submissions ended this week, and sadly my submission was rejected by the mods. However, I worked very hard on it, and so did

stgulik, and I would very much like to post it regardless.

Title: Take These Stars Down To The World
Rating: R
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Domestic Violence, Character Death (not our pair), Substance Abuse.
(Highlight to View) Prompt: Hermione creates a potion just for Severus, one which he doesn't believe he wants or needs (SS/HG or SS & HG).
Note: Special thanks to

stgulik, not only for the delicious prompt, but for her Herculean effort to pull this together, literally at the last minute. Because I was so late to the fitting, I was that bride walking down the aisle while my beta the seamstress was running behind me, sewing seed pearls on the train. You rock, babe. Thank you for putting up with me.

This story is inspired by the film Chocolat, which in turn was based on the novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris. This fanfic is based on characters and situations created by J. K. Rowling, and owned by J. K. Rowling and various publishers, including but not limited to: Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended by the posting of this fanfic.

Summary: Severus' business, Potions Potentes, is not doing very well. In fact, he plans to shut his doors for good. Just when all seems lost, Hermione Granger arrives in town to open her own apothecary, bringing with her a very special brew. What exactly is she up to, and what exactly is this cure-all potion of hers? If there is one thing Severus knows more than most, it is that nothing is ever given without a price.

Take These Stars Down To the World

Chorus

March was a surprisingly calm month for England. After February's snows, spring arrived early, her arms full of false promises. Warm days soothed winter's stern features, and early daffodils poked their determined heads from the ground, gleaming in the buttery sun.

But spring has ever been a fickle and capricious flirt. While she hints at soft breezes and teases with balmy afternoons best spent in beer gardens and lolling on grassy slopes, she is far too whimsical and cruel by turns to ever be fully trusted.

Sure enough, by April she had run away laughing, leaving tearing winds and torrential storms in her wake. Beltane was too many calendar pages away; that wily old Cernunnos might eventually tame, then win her heart, but for now, spring's jilted suitors were left to fend for themselves.

Chapter 01: Potions Potentes

Watching the black clouds scudding across the angry sky like children racing from certain punishment, Severus had a sudden desire to just take to the air, run away with the clouds, and never look back. He could not remember the last time he had flown simply for the joy of it.

In truth, he couldn't remember the last time he had done anything simply for the joy of it.

The first fat droplets landed on the cobbles with a soft, plappy sound. The sprinkling became a drizzle, the drizzle a downpour, the downpour a deluge. Severus crossed the flagstone floor to the door of his drab apothecary, locked it, and turned his Open sign over to Closed. Potions Potentes would close early again today. It had become a commonplace occurrence as of late. No one would come to see him now, not in this rain. He told himself he would use the time to replenish his stock. His inventory count might be high, but so were the number of expiring potions.

Over the week, the heavy rain parked itself over Osmotic Alley, encompassing the street with a daily torrent of water-logged misery. No surprise there; Osmotic was a bleak enough prospect on the sunniest of days. Stray dogs slunk into the corners between buildings, too dispirited to beg for scraps. Hours, then days went by when Severus did not see one soul on the street. He was not a wizard given to talking aloud to himself, so the only sounds he heard were the steady, driving rain, the grind of pestle against mortar, and the slow tick-tock of his clock, measuring the increasingly-longer wet days.

So far, only three people had braved the rain to come to Potions Potentes. Hannah Longbottom, his landlady, dropped round to collect his monthly rent and accepted a sample of a new topical potion to dissolve warts. An elderly wizard slipped through the door one morning, needing "something to get my get-up-and-go up and going again." He tittered lewdly when he said it, his eyes twinkling in a way that turned Severus' stomach. He dutifully proferred a stamina/lust potion of his own making, but the old man balked on the price and left without it. And a witch stopped in to ask for directions to Phizzic Alley and a glass of water.

Occasionally, he would look out and see some intrepid soul trudging up the street toward Potions Potentes. Since there were no other open shops between his and St Mungo's, Severus would straighten, place his hands behind his back in his best proprietor's pose, and prepare a formal nod of welcome. Most hurried by without so much as a glance, too preoccupied with whatever fate awaited or had already dealt them at St Mungo’s. Some made rude gestures. Once in a while some little oik would throw a rock at the display window and run away laughing. With weary patience, Severus would repair the glass. As of late, his spells had become so apathetic it took almost two minutes to seal these cracks. That was when he knew he no longer cared.

At the end of each day, he dutifully locked the door and turned the sign from Open to Closed. He walked up the stairs to his sparse flat, ate something, drank something, read something. Slept. In the morning, he got up, freshened his appearance and did it all again.

One morning, as Severus ground and mixed his ingredients, the recipe so ingrained in his memory he no longer needed to consult his notes, his automatic movements slowed, then stopped.

A leaden, sullen weight settled into the pit of his stomach; he simply couldn't be arsed to keep going. Tonight, he would lock the door for the last time. In the morning, he would turn his keys over to Mrs. Longbottom and walk away for good. With relief, he accepted the truth; the rain was not to blame for his empty shop, the ever-increasing amount of expiring potions sitting unused and unwanted on his shelves. He had no custom, no regulars, and the small bit of compensation from the Ministry was dwindling more with every passing day. With the acceptance of defeat came relief. Now that he had made the decision, he felt a measure of peace..

He placed the pestle on the counter, and glanced out the window to the street beyond. The rain tapered off enough to allow him to actually see beyond the edge of the awning, and through the gluey grey mist Severus saw a witch trudging up the long rise of deserted pavement toward the peak of Osmotic Alley. She was dressed in a brilliant, emerald-green cloak, the hood pulled up tight around her face to keep out the wind and rain. She carried a large carpetbag clutched tightly to her chest, but by the way she held onto it, and the lack of general bulk, it looked neither full nor heavy.

Just as she reached his door the rain stopped altogether, and a sudden, strange shaft of sunlight broke from its cloudy prison. The witch stopped and looked upward. The hood of her cloak fell back, and honey-coloured hair spilled from the cloth in wild, corkscrewing ribbons. She seemed to glow as she stood in the middle of the street, eyes closed, her upturned, heart-shaped face bathed in sunlight.

Severus left his counter and walked toward his window, his breath catching in his throat. After so many long days in self-imposed isolation, seeing this young witch awoke something primal in him, originating deep within his magical core. It stirred and flared in his chest.

Later, he would mull it over, and perhaps in the mulling it would become clearer, definable, and controllable. But now, it was a treacherous, undesirable thing, to be tamped down and smothered. What was he doing, Severus Snape, the greasy git, the dungeon bat, sparing more than a passing thought for a pretty woman? He knew what he looked like and who he was. This lovely stranger would either scorn him because she knew him, or dismiss him because she did not.

A gust of wind, and the shaft of sunlight was gone as suddenly as an electric light switched off. The witch opened her eyes and looked around. She glanced toward his shop, taking it all in, and took a step toward the door. For a moment, Severus felt a smug satisfaction that she had showed up too late, then came to his senses and prepared to whisk the Closed sign to Open. Before he could act, however, she turned and headed across the street to the shop opposite.

It was an old herbalist's shop, long empty; its dingy grey walls and grimy windows told a story of disenchantment and failed dreams. She paused at the door, then produced a key. As he watched her struggle with the rusty lock, Severus rolled his eyes. "Use Alohomora, you dozy bint," he muttered under his breath. She eventually muscled the door open a few centimeters, then tossed her carpet bag onto a shelf just inside.

Then she turned her attention to the old wooden sign above the door. Its shield-shaped board had once boasted the venerable name of Peaky's Herbalist and Fine Tobaccos, but time and the elements had faded the lettering to nothing more than a greying smudge against a dull background. It hung precariously from two rusted and uneven chains, and on a blustery day like this, it could be heard creaking as it drunkenly swayed in the wind.

With a decisive flick of her wand, the sign and the iron arm that held it disappeared in a splash of raindrops. Hanging from heavy black chains was a brand-new plaque, a deeply burnished gold disk in the shape of the sun, with gilded rays that shot out from the centre in wavy spikes. On its face, in bold, black letters:

Medicura Apothecaria – Your Good Health and Happiness!

Severus stared at the gleaming sign in shock, his lethargic melancholy morphing into indignation. Why, that jumped-up little tart! Opening an apothecary – right across the street from his own! How dare she─

The witch paused from admiring her handiwork, and looked straight in his direction. He recognised her at last, and his resentment congealed into impotent rage. "Oh, no, you don't," he hissed between clenched teeth. Any last vestiges of peace or attraction evaporated, and he turned from the window, seething. If Hermione Granger thought she could just show up and run him out of business, she would be sorely disappointed.

Chapter Two