Synopsis: After moving in next door to her cantankerous former childhood professor, an overworked, newly single Hermione Granger is forced to leave her only child, Hugo, under the troublesome wizard’s care. The complicated interactions that ensue bring with them a hodgepodge of angst, humour, drama, and much needed re-connection for all. Based loosely on St. Vincent. AU, Post-war.
Hermione reared back. “You’re heartless, you know that?” Her voice was slight, a fractured whisper in the dark.
Severus rounded on her, inching so close that they were nearly brushing nose to nose. “You’ve known that about me your entire goddamn life.” His black eyes shimmered like Horcruxes. “So, why’d you move right next door to me, then?”
Hermione rattled. “I… I didn’t… What?”
“Why’d you come here?” Hermione’s stumped silence served to his advantage; or, so, Severus believed. His ‘gotcha’ glare magnified tenfold. “There are plenty of options that were within your price point, I’m sure, so answer my bleedin’ question, Miss Granger: why did you move here?”
Hermione opened and closed her mouth countless times, her words breathless and disjointed. “I… I… You… It’s Hermione, damn it!”
“Ahem,” interrupted someone else whom neither of them anticipated.
In a flash, Severus and Hermione whirled around and extracted their wands at the same time, each ready to hurl an unfriendly spell at whomever they anticipated as being a like-minded—and similarly matched—castor. Their unified pre-emptive strike proved unnecessary, however. The culprit in question threw up his hands before any nasty hexes could be cast, indicating peace, and removed the hood of his sweeping, velvet cloak to reveal a smooth, elegant face from sinister times gone by.
Hermione held her battle stance. Severus relinquished his.
“Lucius,” Severus addressed his uninvited guest, with bite and visibly disenchanted.
Lucius warily eyed Hermione’s still drawn wand and, with heightened uneasiness, cleared his throat and commented, “Erm, yes… Long time, no see. Might I have a word with you?” He gestured towards Severus, as well as an unlit Spinner’s End at their back, and looked quite relieved when his old friend grumbled an agreement and stowed his wand into one of his jeans’ back pockets. At Hermione, who wouldn’t ease up on her wand or her fighting pose, he proposed, “No need to fret, Mrs Weasley. I—”
Hermione slammed him with a harsh retort of, “I’m divorced, actually. It’s Miss Granger now.”
“Oh, is it?” Stunned, and with an awkward noise, Lucius bent at the waist and murmured, “My condolences to you.”
“For what? My ex isn’t dead.” She snorted, lips barely moving, “Well, not yet, he isn’t.”
Lucius veered a pair of bewildered, steel grey irises towards Severus, pleading wordlessly to be removed of this most fiddly encounter. Severus swept past Hermione and balked at her as he went, “Not every Slytherin’s out to pick a fight with your lot, Miss Granger. Stand down.”
Suddenly realising that she was, indeed, still crouched in a duel stance, Hermione blushed and reverted to normal posture, though she shot daggers at the back of Severus’s head which, conveniently, went unnoticed. “Just what’s thatsupposed to mean, huh?” she goaded after him. “And it’s Hermione, remember?”
Unsurprisingly, her efforts went ignored. Hermione missed Lucius’s apologetic expression as he, too, backed away and trailed after Severus towards his house.
“Sorry for interrupting your, erm, lovers quarrel, Miss Granger. Have a pleasant evening.”
Hermione’s heart thumped to the quick. “WE’RE NOTLOVERS!” she exclaimed, but Lucius had hastily moved onto other perplexing matters outside of Severus’s home that were, at present, blocking his path.
“Blimey,” she heard him chuckle, head bobbing about Severus’s cracked sidewalk and the enormous splintered branch on the ground; he was forced to hop over them, “what happened here?”
“Askher,” Severus hissed, tossing his head in Hermione’s general direction but refusing to make eye contact. He stalked up the front steps, swung the door open, and disappeared within, leaving his fuddled guest to close the door after them.
Hermione let out a strangled groan and, after gathering herself on her side of the sidewalk, marched indoors to cool off.
