Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Three Conditions	By : goldhorse Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 48513 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the HP universe. JK Rowling does. I just borrow her toys and put them back in reletively decent shape when I'm through. I make no money doing this, which is why I work two jobs.

Chapter List
- 7
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- 9
Hermione was thankful that Malfoy was silent on the way to town. Some of the village women were looking after Harry while she went in search of some special herbs for their journey. She’d managed to convince them that it was their tradition to make sprigs of dried herbs for good luck when marrying someone. With such a deep religious following, the tribal elders agreed. Luckily, she had just enough time to go to town and return before nightfall.
“You’re just going with the silent treatment then?” Malfoy asked as they came upon the town.
She sighed and shook her head, catching a familiar fluttering black cloak in the corner of her eye. “Just gathering my thoughts. Trust me. You’ll be glad for the silence in a moment.”
“Why is that?” Malfoy drawled as they passed a little alleyway by her favorite shop.
“Because the past can come back to haunt you at any time,” she whispered, pushing him into the alley.
“What in the-“
His words abruptly died on his tongue as Snape shifted out of the shadows to face his godson.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
Snape snorted. “Been hanging around the American teenage girls again, Draco?”
Malfoy frowned. “Of course not.” Then he shook his head. “How?”
Snape held up a hand. “That’s not important right now. Miss Granger?”
Hermione took a shaky breath. “They’ve accepted. We’re to be moved tomorrow. I trust you’ve heard?”
Snape nodded. “Are you ready to begin the brewing?”
She grimaced and shook her head. “I’ll only be able to mix the base tonight after… way past dark.”
Snape quirked a brow. “You wish to postpone Potter’s healing?”
She huffed. “Absolutely not. I just… can’t… until later.”
“Your beating about the bush is tiresome,” Snape growled.
“She can’t because she has to marry me tonight,” Malfoy blurted and then huffed. “Wait a bloody minute. You’re going to brew the potion for Potter. How in the hell?”
“It’s a long story,” Hermione murmured.
“Hold on,” Snape said slowly. “You must marry?”
Hermione nodded. “Mwinyi decreed it. He wants to make sure Harry’s wife is provided for before he undergoes treatment.”
Snape hummed. “No faith then. Not a good sign.”
“Did they have faith with Maryssa?” Hermione asked quietly.
Snape shook his head. “None, though they agreed to try.”
“And they didn’t make you marry her?” she asked in jest.
Snape cleared his throat and looked away.
“Holy fuck you’re married,” Malfoy breathed.
Snape sneered. “As far as the tribe is concerned, Maryssa is my wife. However, they’ve come to understand my… tastes and have accepted that we have more of a mutual friendship.”
“Mutual friendship?” Malfoy asked with a grin.
Hermione sighed. “He means that they have accepted he feels more like her protector than her lover. Anyway, we’ve got to get these herbs and get back. I’ll start the base after,” she gulped, “the ceremony.”
Malfoy smirked. “It’ll be a little more than a protective agreement.”
Snape’s eyes narrowed and Hermione silently commended him for not knocking Malfoy on his arse. In fact, if she had the strength she’d knock him there herself. Arse.
“Hope you’re ready to perform in front of the entire tribe, Draco,” Snape drawled smoothly. “I know how enthusiastic you are about putting on a show.”
Malfoy paled and then sneered. “Fuck you.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped as he stalked out of the alley. “What the hell was that about?”
“An old wound,” Snape said quietly. “He was once forced to perform in front of the Dark Lord.”
“When you say forced,” she whispered.
“On both parties,” he said gravely, throwing a hand out when she swayed. “He was unable to perform successfully and was severely punished for it.”
“Why bring that up?” she asked weakly.
“This is not a game, Miss Granger,” he said sternly. “The sooner he learns that, the better.”
“But… it’s a horrible memory.”
“Indeed. But if I were to not warn him ahead of time, Mwinyi could very well declare him unable to perform his duties as a husband and take you for his own. I am most certain that he will find any way he can to make you his. Mwinyi has taken quite a shine toward you and his favorite hobby is collecting wives. Malfoy’s arrival is most fortuitous for you. I suggest you be the most alluring you can be tonight. Draco will need it.”
She nodded warily and then tried to turn her mind back to the task at hand. “Will you be there tonight to oversee my mixing?”
He nodded. “Consider it your first task as an apprentice.”
She cocked her head and studied him a moment, intrigued that he’d fallen so quickly into line as her mentor. Finally, she took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Sir, how did you… um… live?”
He pursed his lips and then rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say that a certain old coot still had some tricks up his sleeve, even in his grave.”
She nodded and looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She figured it was something like that, especially since Dumbledore’s portrait was so well informed. But she still wasn’t quite satisfied. Her mind just wouldn’t rest until she knew everything.
“Sir?”
He huffed. “What is it, you insufferable know-it-all?”
She gulped and tried to look him in the eyes. “Why allow me to study under you?”
Snape’s brows furrowed in thought, as if he was trying to postulate a rare potion theory. Finally, they smoothed out and he studied her for several minutes. She squirmed under his scrutiny but refused to back away. She had a feeling that he wouldn’t appreciate an apprentice without a backbone and while living with the tribe had made her modify her behavior, she hadn’t truly changed. She straightened up and finally stared back into their coal depths. The nod of his head was nearly imperceptible.
“There is a shortage of persons with brains in this world, Miss Granger. As insufferable as you are, you have the makings of a fine Potions Mistress and those are few and far between. However, I doubt that many of the masters left would have the patience or forethought to shape your horribly literal mind. Potions require creativity in addition to reasoning skills.”
She frowned. “I can be creative.”
“No doubt,” he allowed. “I watched as you were on the run with those intolerable sidekicks of yours. You’re creativity and quick thinking are perhaps the reason those two idiots survived. However, you are much too hung up on the rules.”
Her jaw dropped. Had her feared potions master who had always been a stickler for the rules suggest that she should break them? The small twinkle in his eyes couldn’t be believed.
“I believe a certain old coot valued those with a certain disregard for the rules. In potions, the ability to know when to follow the rules and when to break them must be instinctive.”
“Like your book.”
He nodded. “Smashing certain beans instead of cutting them yields more juice, which in turn adds certain properties to potions. Could you envision the opposite?”
She worried her bottom lip in thought. When Harry had smashed that Sopophorous bean, his drought had been black as death. The anticlockwise stirs had ensured proper mixture within the potion to counter the increased amount of juice. That made the potion set up faster. But if there was too much juice in a potion…
“The Euphoria elixir!” she almost shouted. “Too much of the Sopophorous juice might turn irrational happiness to spotty memory loss, peppermint sprig or not.”
Snape nodded, an almost pleased quirk in his lips. “And that is why I believe you are up to the job. You were able to quickly sort through a list of potions with the Sopophorous pod as an ingredient and quickly weight the properties of more juice in reaction to the other ingredients. You even remembered that my journal had mentioned adding the peppermint sprig. That proves that your mind is a veritable library bursting with facts. Just imagine what you’ll be able to do without the pregnancy fog the drain on your magic has given you.”
She blinked hard to stop the tears. Snape had never given her a compliment before. She wasn’t sure she could take any more of his kindness. He’d have to start yelling at her soon because she felt extremely off balance. Luckily, Malfoy came stomping back up with a pout that made her feel more like herself.
“Well,” Malfoy snapped. “Are we going to get these dried ingredients or not?”
Snape sniffed at his surliness and produced a small black chest. “I took the liberty of gathering the ingredients this morning. These are the freshest available at the moment. But be warned, there is not an excess of them.”
“Thank you,” Hermione whispered as she took the chest. “Will I be able to hide this with magic?”
Snape nodded. “The chest has several protective properties on it and has been enhanced to keep the ingredients in their natural state regardless of a shrinking spell.”
“I shall prepare them tonight after…” she shot a wary glance at Malfoy.
Malfoy sighed. “Just say it, Granger.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. “After I m-marry D-draco.”
Snape bowed his head. “I shall have a #2 pewter cauldron delivered as a wedding gift. The village will see it as a fine cooking pot to bless the new marriage.”
Hermione frowned. “Still, it seems wrong. I mean, Harry and I are definitely not married, but if we were, I couldn’t just up and marry someone else when he was on his deathbed. And I especially couldn’t do it if there were any chance for his survival.”
“The tribe has a different mentality,” Snape said quietly. “You must remember that to the tribe, babies are the future and husbands provide for the future. If your husband is unable to provide for your future, he needs to find a husband that can, usually a person he could trust his life to, like his brother. In the world of polygamy, monogamous love is seen as strange. Why would you stay with just one person when love is so easily spread?”
“You mean to tell me that you’ve decided to become a polygamist?” Draco drawled.
Snape snorted. “Certainly not. But my views do not matter in the tribe as a whole. My adherence to the hierarchy does. I have a wife. I still provide for her and her child.”
Hermione cocked her head. “You still help Maryssa and Vicky?”
Snape smirked. “Who do you think sent in their applications for apprenticeships?”
“Careful Professor,” Hermione said sagely. “Someone might mistake you for a Hufflepuff.”
Snape snorted in disgust. “More accusations like that, Mrs. Potter, and I’ll make sure you start your apprenticeship learning how to harvest the bowels of a flesh-eating slug.”
Hermione did her best to shudder instead of grin. That was the Professor Snape she’d come to know and have a weird sort of antagonistic relationship with. Malfoy saved her again when he cleared his throat.
“That’ll be Mrs. Malfoy after tonight.”
Hermione spun and gave him her most deranged grin. “Really? Care to tell the elders why brothers have different names?”
His jaw dropped and then tightened. “Different fathers, Granger.”
She hummed. “Oh yes, that’ll go over well.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “And my son?”
She frowned and rubbed her stomach. “I… maybe the tribe believes in coincidences?”
Draco snorted and shook his head. “Come on, Granger. It will be dark soon.”
“See you tonight, Professor,” she murmured before allowing Malfoy to escort her back to the village.
They said nothing until they were completely out of sight of the village. It was Malfoy who broke the silence once again.
“Apprentice?”
She sighed. “There are always conditions, Malfoy.”
He hummed. “Hardly seems like a bad one.”
“I agreed, didn’t I?”
“He ask anything else of you?”
She bit her lip for a minute. “He asked me to keep his life a secret.”
“A given. Anything else?”
She sighed. “Where do you think I got that mirror from?”
He snorted. “So you didn’t call me out of your guilt ridden Gryffindor pride?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“I have to hand it to you, Granger. You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.”
“Disappointed?”
He smirked. “It’s going to be a hell of a ride.”

AN: Snape is such a bastard. No wonder I love him. :) Sorry it's been a while guys. Life happened. Don't worry though. I'm not quitting on you. As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. It keeps the doubts away. Keep them coming and let me know how I'm doing. Until next time... love you guys!
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Three Conditions