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teddy_radiatorTitle: Take These Stars Down To The World
Rating: R
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Reference to Physical 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stgulik, not only for the delicious prompt, but for her Herculean effort to pull this together. 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.
Chapter Six: Medicura Apothecaria
He entered Hermione's shop just as she was finishing up with a customer, a young witch with a boy in tow. The lad jumped as Severus barged through the door, and the boy's mother started as well. "A word, Miss Granger," he said in a dangerous tone.
"Certainly, Master Snape," she replied pleasantly, then leaned over the counter toward the boy. "Anthony," she added, her voice gentle and kind, "this is Mister Snape. He may look severe, but he’s very smart, just like you."
Anthony looked up at him with wary, uncertain eyes. The child was small, almost dainty, with black hair and large, dark eyes almost the same colour as his own. But it was the fading bruise on his cheek that caught Severus' eye and chilled his blood. Helplessness blended with the anger he had brought with him, diluting it to something that felt like pity.
Hermione's voice cut into this thoughts. "This is actually quite a coincidence. I was just telling Cynthia you're the very person she needs, Master Snape."
The young mother turned and gave him a tentative bow. "Cynthia Belldon. N-nice to meet you, sir." Her voice was muffled, as if she had a cold, and she kept her face downcast and refused to meet his eyes. Severus saw she, too, had bruises. She was also heavily pregnant.
Severus felt a familiar tightness in his throat. It was like seeing his mother all over again, slinking from shop to shop, shelling out her few pounds, shillings and pence to keep body and soul together, and dragging him along so he would not have to face his father alone. Even then, there was always the fear; wondering when you returned home which da was going to be waiting for you – the drunk, angry one, the slobbering one with the hard hands; the silent, sullen one with the unpredictable temper.
It was infuriating enough that Hermione probably knew of his past. Had Potter regaled the entire Wizarding world while Severus was still too weak and helpless to stop him? Severus turned away from the battered family and gestured toward the door with his wand. "If you please, Madam Belldon, I require a word with Mistress Granger. My door will allow you entrance. If you would care to wait, I shall be along presently."
Both he and Hermione were silent as the young witch walked out of the shop and headed for his. As soon as Medicura's door closed, Severus warded it and turned to his rival.
"Just what in Merlin's name do you think you're doing, Granger?" he hissed. "Getting me to do your dirty work? Or are you just play-acting at this?" He gestured around her shop. "I don't appreciate being made a fool of!"
She looked stunned at his outburst, but to her credit she held her ground. "And exactly how have I managed to make a fool of you?" she challenged.
"Every morning, when I come to open my shop, people are waiting for me —all declaring you've sent them to me because I can somehow fix them!"
Hermione smiled. "Why, that's wonderful!"
"It's not wonderful—It's unnatural. Why are you doing this?"
"Don't you want customers?"
"That is beside the p─"
"Do you give them what they need?"
"I deeply resent you─"
"Now that is beside the point. Do you help them?" She walked around the counter, her expression fiery and relentless. "You know what they need. Do you deny them? Are my instincts unfounded?"
Severus glared down at her. He was breathing hard, and his body felt tense and rigid. He was also, to his shock and disgust, aware that his cock was stiffening. He stepped back, his feelings twisting into something uncertain. "I don't deny them, none of them. In fact, I even sold Lavender Brown an experimental potion. It's not sanctioned yet. It helps to purge the body of both toxins and cravings."
Hermione's shoulders dropped a little. "That's…that's wonderful, Master Snape. More than I even hoped for." She nodded approvingly, as if he had answered some unasked question. "I do all I can to give them the desire to change," she added. "You’ve provided the means to do it."
With quiet menace, he warned, "I would be very careful, Mistress Granger. Giving someone the 'desire to change,' as you call it, is an empty promise."
"It isn't when you can show them the way to attain it," she replied tartly.
"So that's your game, is it? Bring on the miracle cure, then let me do the actual dirty work while you take the credit?"
Her expressive brows knitted together, and she stared at him in complete bafflement. "Since when am I taking credit? People come to me with their problems. Some of them are physical, some of them just need to talk to someone. Some of them need urgent help. I sent Lavender Brown to you because she knows you─she knows what you're capable of. She was there, in that first class, the same as me. We both remember that speech─for gods' sake, everyone still remembers it!"
"What the hell are you talking about, witch?"
She huffed in exasperation. "You said, 'I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death'!” She smiled up at him with an expression he had rarely seen aimed at him. In a voice trembling with awe, she said, “Do you have any idea how thrilling those words sounded, coming from you? You were so riveting, I thought you were casting an actual spell on us. It was all we first-years talked about for a week!"
Severus tutted scornfully, but he was unnerved by her regard for him. Reluctantly, he replied, "It was the same speech I gave every year. It was nothing special." He sighed. "I didn't even make it up. I read it in an old text when I was a lad."
Hermione shook her head. "I don't care if you read it on the back of a paint tin─I believed every word of it because you said it with such conviction, such certainty. It was the first time I realised magic could be made by my own hands, without wands or incantations. You were like...like Prometheus, bringing fire down from Mount Olympus to us!"
"What bollocks is this?"
Rather prissily, she replied, "In the Greek myth, Prometheus was a demi-god who took pity on humanity because he felt the gods were being unfair. So he brought down fire from Mount Olympus so humans would be warm and safe."
"I know the story─"
"But the gods grew angry that he took it without permission. And besides, they were jealous of how mortals worshipped him for his kindness. So they chained him to a mountain. Every day, an eagle would eat out his liver. And every night, it grew back again so that he could be tormented afresh the next day."
He sneered. "Gods, you still sound like a talking textbook, Granger. I thought you would have at least grown out of that habit by now."
"But it did grow back."
"Pardon?"
"His liver. It always grew back."
"And this is significant why?"
She threw the entire weight of her soft brown eyes at him. "While he was whole, he at least had hope."
Severus turned away, too distracted by those eyes. "He had no hope! The gods could have killed him outright, but they kept him alive to remind him of the cost of his sympathy and popularity. The gods don't want us to be happy, Granger. They want us to remember our sins, and tear us to pieces with them every day. Survival doesn't automatically mean happiness. The Lavender Browns of this world will be the first to tell you that.” Almost to himself, he added, “It’s been my experience that living is usually just a more insidious form of punishment."
She didn’t reply, and he shook his head, aware that had already revealed too much, and he was no farther along than he had been the moment he walked through her door. She was watching him with a look he didn’t care for at all, a terrible mixture of pity and kindness. For a moment he hated her. Hated her sweet, intelligent eyes and her niceness. Hated her easy way of talking to people and her courage. Hated her stalwart belief in him most of all.
She seemed to sense his moody thoughts, and grew restive. "Now that I think about it,” she murmured pensively, “perhaps Prometheus chained himself to the rock." She gave him a crooked smile. "He was a god as well. He could have always freed himself, if he'd truly felt he deserved to be free. But he didn't, so he blamed the rock, and the eagle and the gods for his plight, because it was easier than admitting he'd brought on himself. Sure, the eagle tore his heart out, but he renewed himself every day. He could be reborn again."
Severus felt a small demon plucking at his brain, and pinched the bridge of his nose in sympathy. "Merlin's balls, Granger, but you still overthink the hell out of everything, don't you? Let me put this more succinctly: Prometheus was an idiot! He was doing his good deed for the day by bringing fire down from Olympus. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no good deed goes unpunished."
Hermione approached him, and it gave him a little satisfaction that she did so tentatively. At least there was still enough of him to make her cautious. "He didn't do it to be rewarded, Severus. He did it because it was the right thing to do.” She laid a gentle hand on his arm, and he felt his entire body grow warm.
“There's a woman in your shop right now, Severus. She's young, and she's pregnant. She's also married to a wizard who slaps her around just for breathing, and beats his own son for tripping over his shoelaces."
"And what," he snapped, shaking her hand from his arm, "does that have to do with me? I'm not a nursemaid, I'm not a healer."
She all but growled at him. "No, you are Severus Snape! You make things right." She stepped closer. “What are you going to do for her, Prometheus? Are you going to withhold the fire this time, or deny her because you're afraid to care?"
"What in Merlin's name do you want from me, Granger?" he roared. Anger and confusion fused in his mind, but his words sounded almost like a plea.
"I need you to step up and help this woman!" she entreated, angry now. "I need you to find the juice to bring her the protection she needs. I need you to be Severus Snape again!"
He was at her in an instant, bearing down on her, wand at her throat. "I've hexed men for less, Granger," he snarled.
She bore his threat with absolute fearlessness. "I'm not the man who needs hexing, Snape," she answered.
His onslaught took her by surprise; instinctively she recoiled from him. It was not a lover's kiss; their mouths crashed together with such explosive force he tasted blood. It did not stop him from thrusting his tongue into her mouth, drawing out a moan that robbed him of the final shreds of reason. Then her hands were tangling in his hair, pulling him down to her with all the strength of a lioness. Her open, questing mouth was hot and wet against his; she tasted of tea and honey and a passion that more than matched his own.
He ground his hard cock against her belly, and he growled into her mouth as her tongue battled his for supremacy. Her lips were as succulent as ripened fruit, and he took her kisses in greedy, ravenous bites. She was gasping for air, but he would not relent. He could not bear to relinquish anything other than his own panting, desperate oxygen. He only cared about her scent, her taste, the yielding flesh, the voracious, astonishing brain that powered it all. She fused against him, drawing him in, dissolving him into her like amber.
He thought he had known desire before, but it was nothing like this – a maddening, incinerating thing that boiled his blood and charred his bones. He didn't care what happened, if he came in his trousers or fucked her blind on her counter. This maleficent electricity sparking between them must either be appeased or discharged. This is the fire brought down from the gods, oh, Merlin, this is that sweet, forbidden fruit of knowledge, his for the plucking─
This is your former student and rival, Hermione Granger. That thought sobered him up with an icy jolt, and he pushed her roughly away, staggering backward. Hermione looked up at him dazedly, her swollen mouth open, her lips wet and red from his biting kisses.
Though the words tasted like bile in his mouth, he rasped, “Do you remember how the gods decided to punish mankind?” He leaned in for the kill. “They gave the world Pandora.” He pointedly cast his eyes over to her much touted case of samples. “With her little box of tricks.”
He fled from Medicura Apothecaria as if the very hounds of hell were nipping at his coattails. Hermione's stricken expression chased him out the door. He did not care. No. Not this time. Not in a million lifetimes. He might lust for this sweet madness until Charon plucked the coins from his eyes, but he would be double-damned if he ever again willingly chained himself to any rock, even one as enticing and desirable as Hermione Granger.
Chapter Seven
Rating: R
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Reference to Physical 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. 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.
Chapter Six: Medicura Apothecaria
He entered Hermione's shop just as she was finishing up with a customer, a young witch with a boy in tow. The lad jumped as Severus barged through the door, and the boy's mother started as well. "A word, Miss Granger," he said in a dangerous tone.
"Certainly, Master Snape," she replied pleasantly, then leaned over the counter toward the boy. "Anthony," she added, her voice gentle and kind, "this is Mister Snape. He may look severe, but he’s very smart, just like you."
Anthony looked up at him with wary, uncertain eyes. The child was small, almost dainty, with black hair and large, dark eyes almost the same colour as his own. But it was the fading bruise on his cheek that caught Severus' eye and chilled his blood. Helplessness blended with the anger he had brought with him, diluting it to something that felt like pity.
Hermione's voice cut into this thoughts. "This is actually quite a coincidence. I was just telling Cynthia you're the very person she needs, Master Snape."
The young mother turned and gave him a tentative bow. "Cynthia Belldon. N-nice to meet you, sir." Her voice was muffled, as if she had a cold, and she kept her face downcast and refused to meet his eyes. Severus saw she, too, had bruises. She was also heavily pregnant.
Severus felt a familiar tightness in his throat. It was like seeing his mother all over again, slinking from shop to shop, shelling out her few pounds, shillings and pence to keep body and soul together, and dragging him along so he would not have to face his father alone. Even then, there was always the fear; wondering when you returned home which da was going to be waiting for you – the drunk, angry one, the slobbering one with the hard hands; the silent, sullen one with the unpredictable temper.
It was infuriating enough that Hermione probably knew of his past. Had Potter regaled the entire Wizarding world while Severus was still too weak and helpless to stop him? Severus turned away from the battered family and gestured toward the door with his wand. "If you please, Madam Belldon, I require a word with Mistress Granger. My door will allow you entrance. If you would care to wait, I shall be along presently."
Both he and Hermione were silent as the young witch walked out of the shop and headed for his. As soon as Medicura's door closed, Severus warded it and turned to his rival.
"Just what in Merlin's name do you think you're doing, Granger?" he hissed. "Getting me to do your dirty work? Or are you just play-acting at this?" He gestured around her shop. "I don't appreciate being made a fool of!"
She looked stunned at his outburst, but to her credit she held her ground. "And exactly how have I managed to make a fool of you?" she challenged.
"Every morning, when I come to open my shop, people are waiting for me —all declaring you've sent them to me because I can somehow fix them!"
Hermione smiled. "Why, that's wonderful!"
"It's not wonderful—It's unnatural. Why are you doing this?"
"Don't you want customers?"
"That is beside the p─"
"Do you give them what they need?"
"I deeply resent you─"
"Now that is beside the point. Do you help them?" She walked around the counter, her expression fiery and relentless. "You know what they need. Do you deny them? Are my instincts unfounded?"
Severus glared down at her. He was breathing hard, and his body felt tense and rigid. He was also, to his shock and disgust, aware that his cock was stiffening. He stepped back, his feelings twisting into something uncertain. "I don't deny them, none of them. In fact, I even sold Lavender Brown an experimental potion. It's not sanctioned yet. It helps to purge the body of both toxins and cravings."
Hermione's shoulders dropped a little. "That's…that's wonderful, Master Snape. More than I even hoped for." She nodded approvingly, as if he had answered some unasked question. "I do all I can to give them the desire to change," she added. "You’ve provided the means to do it."
With quiet menace, he warned, "I would be very careful, Mistress Granger. Giving someone the 'desire to change,' as you call it, is an empty promise."
"It isn't when you can show them the way to attain it," she replied tartly.
"So that's your game, is it? Bring on the miracle cure, then let me do the actual dirty work while you take the credit?"
Her expressive brows knitted together, and she stared at him in complete bafflement. "Since when am I taking credit? People come to me with their problems. Some of them are physical, some of them just need to talk to someone. Some of them need urgent help. I sent Lavender Brown to you because she knows you─she knows what you're capable of. She was there, in that first class, the same as me. We both remember that speech─for gods' sake, everyone still remembers it!"
"What the hell are you talking about, witch?"
She huffed in exasperation. "You said, 'I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death'!” She smiled up at him with an expression he had rarely seen aimed at him. In a voice trembling with awe, she said, “Do you have any idea how thrilling those words sounded, coming from you? You were so riveting, I thought you were casting an actual spell on us. It was all we first-years talked about for a week!"
Severus tutted scornfully, but he was unnerved by her regard for him. Reluctantly, he replied, "It was the same speech I gave every year. It was nothing special." He sighed. "I didn't even make it up. I read it in an old text when I was a lad."
Hermione shook her head. "I don't care if you read it on the back of a paint tin─I believed every word of it because you said it with such conviction, such certainty. It was the first time I realised magic could be made by my own hands, without wands or incantations. You were like...like Prometheus, bringing fire down from Mount Olympus to us!"
"What bollocks is this?"
Rather prissily, she replied, "In the Greek myth, Prometheus was a demi-god who took pity on humanity because he felt the gods were being unfair. So he brought down fire from Mount Olympus so humans would be warm and safe."
"I know the story─"
"But the gods grew angry that he took it without permission. And besides, they were jealous of how mortals worshipped him for his kindness. So they chained him to a mountain. Every day, an eagle would eat out his liver. And every night, it grew back again so that he could be tormented afresh the next day."
He sneered. "Gods, you still sound like a talking textbook, Granger. I thought you would have at least grown out of that habit by now."
"But it did grow back."
"Pardon?"
"His liver. It always grew back."
"And this is significant why?"
She threw the entire weight of her soft brown eyes at him. "While he was whole, he at least had hope."
Severus turned away, too distracted by those eyes. "He had no hope! The gods could have killed him outright, but they kept him alive to remind him of the cost of his sympathy and popularity. The gods don't want us to be happy, Granger. They want us to remember our sins, and tear us to pieces with them every day. Survival doesn't automatically mean happiness. The Lavender Browns of this world will be the first to tell you that.” Almost to himself, he added, “It’s been my experience that living is usually just a more insidious form of punishment."
She didn’t reply, and he shook his head, aware that had already revealed too much, and he was no farther along than he had been the moment he walked through her door. She was watching him with a look he didn’t care for at all, a terrible mixture of pity and kindness. For a moment he hated her. Hated her sweet, intelligent eyes and her niceness. Hated her easy way of talking to people and her courage. Hated her stalwart belief in him most of all.
She seemed to sense his moody thoughts, and grew restive. "Now that I think about it,” she murmured pensively, “perhaps Prometheus chained himself to the rock." She gave him a crooked smile. "He was a god as well. He could have always freed himself, if he'd truly felt he deserved to be free. But he didn't, so he blamed the rock, and the eagle and the gods for his plight, because it was easier than admitting he'd brought on himself. Sure, the eagle tore his heart out, but he renewed himself every day. He could be reborn again."
Severus felt a small demon plucking at his brain, and pinched the bridge of his nose in sympathy. "Merlin's balls, Granger, but you still overthink the hell out of everything, don't you? Let me put this more succinctly: Prometheus was an idiot! He was doing his good deed for the day by bringing fire down from Olympus. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no good deed goes unpunished."
Hermione approached him, and it gave him a little satisfaction that she did so tentatively. At least there was still enough of him to make her cautious. "He didn't do it to be rewarded, Severus. He did it because it was the right thing to do.” She laid a gentle hand on his arm, and he felt his entire body grow warm.
“There's a woman in your shop right now, Severus. She's young, and she's pregnant. She's also married to a wizard who slaps her around just for breathing, and beats his own son for tripping over his shoelaces."
"And what," he snapped, shaking her hand from his arm, "does that have to do with me? I'm not a nursemaid, I'm not a healer."
She all but growled at him. "No, you are Severus Snape! You make things right." She stepped closer. “What are you going to do for her, Prometheus? Are you going to withhold the fire this time, or deny her because you're afraid to care?"
"What in Merlin's name do you want from me, Granger?" he roared. Anger and confusion fused in his mind, but his words sounded almost like a plea.
"I need you to step up and help this woman!" she entreated, angry now. "I need you to find the juice to bring her the protection she needs. I need you to be Severus Snape again!"
He was at her in an instant, bearing down on her, wand at her throat. "I've hexed men for less, Granger," he snarled.
She bore his threat with absolute fearlessness. "I'm not the man who needs hexing, Snape," she answered.
His onslaught took her by surprise; instinctively she recoiled from him. It was not a lover's kiss; their mouths crashed together with such explosive force he tasted blood. It did not stop him from thrusting his tongue into her mouth, drawing out a moan that robbed him of the final shreds of reason. Then her hands were tangling in his hair, pulling him down to her with all the strength of a lioness. Her open, questing mouth was hot and wet against his; she tasted of tea and honey and a passion that more than matched his own.
He ground his hard cock against her belly, and he growled into her mouth as her tongue battled his for supremacy. Her lips were as succulent as ripened fruit, and he took her kisses in greedy, ravenous bites. She was gasping for air, but he would not relent. He could not bear to relinquish anything other than his own panting, desperate oxygen. He only cared about her scent, her taste, the yielding flesh, the voracious, astonishing brain that powered it all. She fused against him, drawing him in, dissolving him into her like amber.
He thought he had known desire before, but it was nothing like this – a maddening, incinerating thing that boiled his blood and charred his bones. He didn't care what happened, if he came in his trousers or fucked her blind on her counter. This maleficent electricity sparking between them must either be appeased or discharged. This is the fire brought down from the gods, oh, Merlin, this is that sweet, forbidden fruit of knowledge, his for the plucking─
This is your former student and rival, Hermione Granger. That thought sobered him up with an icy jolt, and he pushed her roughly away, staggering backward. Hermione looked up at him dazedly, her swollen mouth open, her lips wet and red from his biting kisses.
Though the words tasted like bile in his mouth, he rasped, “Do you remember how the gods decided to punish mankind?” He leaned in for the kill. “They gave the world Pandora.” He pointedly cast his eyes over to her much touted case of samples. “With her little box of tricks.”
He fled from Medicura Apothecaria as if the very hounds of hell were nipping at his coattails. Hermione's stricken expression chased him out the door. He did not care. No. Not this time. Not in a million lifetimes. He might lust for this sweet madness until Charon plucked the coins from his eyes, but he would be double-damned if he ever again willingly chained himself to any rock, even one as enticing and desirable as Hermione Granger.
Chapter Seven
