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And They Didn\'t Live Happily Ever After	By : ElizabethStump Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 90306 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 82
- 83
- 84
“And They Didn't Live Happily Ever After”

Chapter Eighty-Two
“Remus & Hagrid”

Disclaimer:
Hickory-dickory dock
Rowling owns Potter and lot
Betz disclaimed
that she had no claim
Hickory-dickory dock

========================

Returning from the toilet, Severus opened the door to the conference room and found Tina and Manny half-undressed with their tongues down each other's throats.

“Oh, pardon me,” Severus said with the most sincere voice he could dredge up.

The potion-laced chocolates he'd left in the middle of the table were half-eaten, and the two real estate agents barely noticed they had been found in a compromising situation.

Severus closed the door quietly and looked at the clock on the wall. He figured if he came back in a couple hours, the potion would have run its course. Given that Severus had waited this many weeks to find a home, a couple more hours wouldn't hurt before the deed was handed over to him.

Walking back to the waiting room, he whistled a chipper tune. He watched while Manny's secretary minced in the opposite direction towards the conference room, her arm full of files and more paperwork for Severus' transaction.

'Three... two... one...'

Right on cue, Manny's secretary let out a piercing shriek, which seemed to cause the two lust-crazed lovers to make some hasty and awkward noises of their own, before a few shouts were exchanged and a door slammed.

Manny's secretary marched back to her desk as fast at her fat, short legs would let her, muttering under her breath, “The decency of some people. They should get a hotel room if they are doing to do that. Honestly!”

Looking over at Severus, who barely hid his amusement, she said as diplomatically as possible with a saccharine smile, “They'll just be a few more minutes.”

“I guess they still have some details to hammer out then,” Severus replied with a quirk of his brow.

Manny's secretary looked a bit flustered and went back to making busy work, nervously shuffling papers and making agitated huffing noises.

'Two down, six to go,' Severus mused to himself, as Justina was no longer chasing him either. And when Akela began her tutoring under Severus next week, or possibly two weeks, there would be one less witch chasing after him.

Akela wasn't exactly pursuing Severus, but she was lumped in with the other witches who were seeking to snag him for a date or more.

“You know, I left something brewing back at the shop. Why don't you just have Manny come find me when he's ready,” Severus suggested, with a jerk of his thumb as he was heading out the door.

Manny's secretary gave some grunt of acknowledgment, not finding the humor of the situation like Severus did.

Sauntering along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets, Severus smiled. He had felt he had done a good deed, not just for himself, but two people who would be a bit happier. But most of the joy came from the knowledge that Tina would no longer be employing her obnoxious methods in her pursuit of Severus. Manny could have Tina's attentions all to himself.

Given how he had heard from various sources why Tina had sought sanctuary in Malu Palekaiko, Severus hoped Tina would never catch Manny in bed with another witch. The townsfolk of Malu Palekaiko would not take kindly to a double-homicide in their little town, given that Tina said it was a crime of passion that led to her request for sanctuary – or so the gossip around town had hinted.

Severus unlocked his shop and checked on some potions that were simmering over the weekend, pleased that everything was coming along nicely. In his office, he finished correcting the latest batch of homework, glad to see that the students who needed his help the most were improving the greatest amount.

There were a few concerns he had regarding some of his students whose parents had meager incomes. Some of the parents requested to cut back the number of brewing lessons and hours tutored, which saddened Severus a bit. He couldn't necessarily start offering a discount rate for the poorer students, as then there was the question of sliding scale and resentment that others should get his services at a reduced cost. Then there was the fact he had overhead every month to deal with – namely rent, laundry services for rented robes and gloves for students and for himself, Potions ingredients for brewing classes, equipment replacement as cauldron bottoms were melted out or ruined, and so on.

It was a business and he was not in it to run as a charity. He had a house and business he needed to eventually repay Draco for. Miss Brown still had not set up her banking interests abroad yet, as she was needing more time, he guessed.

Setting the homework aside, Severus pulled out some fresh parchment and began calculating how much his time was worth, then began calculating how much time he spent scrubbing cauldrons himself, collecting local Potions ingredients that he normally harvested himself, the amount of time required for finding different ingredients from various sources around the island, and preparing harvested ingredients for pickling, drying and preserving. Then there was time spent sweeping, changing candles, chipping and cleaning up melted wax from the chandeliers and torches above, and so on. Even with spells to do most of these chores, all those still took time away from more profitable tasks.

Severus calculated that his time was most valuable doing tutoring, brewing, commissions, and consultations. For some of the scut work around his shop, he considered hiring a couple of the older and more responsible students in exchange for tutoring services. A couple hours of work in his shop could easily translate into fifteen to thirty minutes of tutoring time or a brewing session, depending on the chores. And there was always at least an hour or two of work required to clean his shop up at the end of the day. At Hogwarts, detentions served to cut down on his time spent to maintain his classroom. The use of children to do more of the mindless work to keep his shop in order would be a fair exchange.

Then there were ingredients. Not having to go himself to hunt for fresh sea cucumbers, specific corals, and other sea life would be a great help. Severus didn't mind diving, but he would rather enjoy a good swim than spend time hunting for ingredients that sometimes could not be found in the areas that were safe for swimming – that didn't involve getting dashed up against the rocks. And there were other things – like butterflies, local beetles, flowers, roots, bark, leaves and other ingredients – he didn't feel like paying full price for at the local apothecary when he could harvest them himself for “free” in the nearby forests. Spending his time doing that did not necessarily make it free, since time was money.

The children were well versed in the local flora and fauna of their island, so he felt confident that he would be assured quality ingredients that were fresh for his needs, and correctly identified. He would pay a fair market price, more than what the local apothecary would pay, but cheaper than purchasing them at full retail price. The children could then use that money to pay for Potions lessons, or pocket money for themselves. It was a win-win situation that would free up more of his time and be more cost-effective.

Severus made a list of those parents who had approached him about reducing tutoring due to costs. He began drafting letters to each of them, requesting an appointment to discuss a solution to address their financial difficulties while not cutting back on their child's or children's education.

Having grown up poor himself, he could certainly empathize. If his education growing up was based solely on how much his parents could afford to pay for tutoring, instead of a formal academic environment like Hogwarts, then he would have had major gaps in his education. Given Severus' love for knowledge, he did not want anyone who truly loved knowledge as much as he did to be deprived of it either. But they would still have to pay for his services somehow.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Showered and dressed, after a long and exhausting day, Hermione promised Neville she really would go with him to that Greek restaurant and bar. A quick owl to Neville the week before explained there was an emergency at work and she had to take a rain check for next week. She didn’t bother to explain she was at her aunt's, divulging a lot of secrets and baggage to her, while helping Lavender contract her aunt for some consulting work.

Because she was gone for an entire Saturday the week before, Hermione had double the chores to catch up on at Albert's. She had to move a lot of potted plants from the greenhouses out to the fields at Neville's nursery.

Dressing in her best Muggle wear, since Neville did say it was a Muggle Greek restaurant in Palmers Green, a Greek enclave in the borough of Enfield, Hermione Apparated over to Neville's place first.

He was living in the little cottage his parents had, moving into it after graduating from Hogwarts. It had been kept in fine condition for him until he came of age.

It had a lovely front garden filled with snowdrops poking up through the late winter snows, with a low wall of aged and worn brick demarcating the front edge of the property.

Knocking on his front door, Hermione was greeted by Neville who was sporting some very modern Mugglewear that would certainly make sure he blended in. He was wearing a nice button-down shirt, gray Muggle-style trousers, and some stylish shoes.

“Ready to go?” he asked, eyebrows raised and eyes cheerful, picking up a potted cactus before heading out the door.

They Apparated together to a spot in Palmers Green that Neville knew would be a safe place to arrive.

Walking into the restaurant, Neville was greeted by the host in a very friendly manner, involving hugs, kisses upon the cheek and lots of excited chatting in Greek. They spoke so fast, Hermione had trouble keeping up with the conversation.

Neville introduced Hermione, who was soundly kissed upon the cheek, having been introduced as an old friend. She could have sworn there were some hand gestures by the host remarking about Hermione. She caught the word “beautiful” before catching snippets from Neville that they were nothing more, using the word appropriate for non-romantically attached friends of the opposite sex.

At the end of their greetings, Neville presented a new cactus to the host, so he could place it by the front door with the other cacti the herbologist had brought as gifts over the years.

“What's with the cacti?” Hermione asked, glancing at the collection of cacti near the front.

“In Greek,” he gently reminded her.

“Why do you bring cactus?”

“Why did you bring a cactus” he corrected her before answering in Greek.

“Because in Greek culture, the thorny spikes ward off the evil eye.”

Hermione nodded, making sure to remember that custom.

Other staff members of the restaurant came over to greet Neville as an old friend. They were shown to a nice table near the dance floor.

“If had know I there be dancing, I would have worn dance shoe,” Hermione said.

“If I had known there would be dancing, I would have worn dancing shoes, he corrected her. “Trust me, the flatter the shoes the better, for this type of dancing. When you get the hang of it, if you want to come back, then you can wear heels. But for learning to dance, your shoes are just fine,” Neville assured her, his Greek easily tripping of his tongue. He spoke without hesitation as if he was a native speaker, though Hermione didn't speak Greek well enough to know if Neville spoke it with much of an accent.

Neville offered to pay for dinner as his treat, since he was getting free labor out of Hermione, even though her labors were going towards her apprenticeship.

He recommended the avgolemono soup, a chicken and lemon soup with rice that Hermione found quite savory, despite the surprise of the citrus flavor. Neville had the moussaka while Hermione ordered kleftiko, a piece of bone-in lamb slowly baked with lemon and garlic. While they ate their entrees, the restaurant began to fill up and the band began playing.

Early on in the evening, most of the patrons sat while enjoying the music, but as the evening wore on, more and more people began dancing.

The two friends chatted while they ate, discussing some of the seasonal aspects of Neville's business. They also discussed his relationships with some importers and exporters, including one who had recently moved her business to Spain – a witch by the name of Katherine Bigelow, who’d mentored him.

As they sat finishing up a bottle of Italian red wine, waiting for dinner to settle before Neville took Hermione out onto the floor to teach her how to dance, he asked, “So what do you plan to do once you become a Potions mistress?”

The two had given up speaking Greek when the wine started making Hermione's head a little fuzzy near the end of the second glass. It was taking too long to conjugate some verbs for there to be any flow in the conversation.

Hermione had been focused so much on just getting an apprenticeship in the first place, she had given little thought as to what to do with her accreditation once she attained it. Right now, she was so focused on learning all she needed to reach the level of mistress and mastering her five languages, she really hadn't thought much beyond that. The only thing she considered was that one day she might go to Hawaii and hopefully join Severus there. As to how to make use of her knowledge in a strange new land, she hoped it would all work out. There was still time to make plans.

“I'm not sure what I'm going to do exactly,” Hermione pondered aloud. “It will be a while until I master everything I need to know. Perhaps an opportunity will present itself in the meantime. I have a couple years to go, or longer depending on how quickly I master certain skills, learn the basics and four more languages.”

The taste of lemons throughout the evening had reminded her that she had a mound of dried lemons back in her flat; she hadn't bothered to unravel their secrets yet. She had been too distracted – with work, her apprenticeship studies, learning Greek, the recent murder of Blaise Zabini which was barely mentioned in the papers, reviewing Severus' two memories over and over for hints to how to find a way to prove his innocence, and dealing with her Aunt Christine for whom she was acting as a temporary liaison – to even consider working on the lemons.

Hermione knew there was something significant about the lemons, but could not decipher why Dumbledore had a lemon tree growing out of his gravesite. There was a hint on his headstone's epithet about the lemons, but Hermione just had no idea what the importance of it was, and how it fit into the tree that grew lemons with little juice and dry pulp.

Sighing, while swirling her wine in her glass and studying the way the liquid clung to the side of the stemware's bowl, all Hermione could think of was how much Severus would have enjoyed the wine, and the lamb she ate. Hermione wondered if Severus had started up his own Potions shop by now, as he mentioned he might do.

Sensing Hermione in a melancholy mood, Neville decided it was time to dance as a way to cheer her up.

Holding out his hand, he nodded his head towards the dance floor.

Hermione had watched the people dance during dinner, and while she could see there was a repetitious pattern to the footwork, the movements seemed almost counterintuitive. When she thought someone was going to step twice, they stepped only once, sometimes moving on a four-count, sometimes as if moving on a three-beat count, changing directions in a way that seemed arbitrary but was part of the pattern.

Neville assured her that as long as she was having fun, she couldn't dance wrong, and there was no one who was going to judge her so. The only purpose was to enjoy the music and feel joy in dancing.

The people on the floor joined each other side by side, grasping each other's arms or hands, moving sideways. It took a couple songs, but Hermione eventually picked up the pattern of the steps.

Laughing, she felt her troubles ebbing away for a short while. There were no thoughts about how her loneliness was starting to consume her bit by bit each day. There was no fixating on the fact that there was yet another Death Eater killed (and this one in her own block of flats), pushing away fears of what might have happened had Severus and Draco still been living there at the time and if they would have been victims too. There were no dark thoughts about murders, aching hearts or anxiety about an uncertain future with Severus – only feeling her movements in time with the music, and the infectious revelry of everyone on the dance floor having a good time.

A few of the staff, who were on the dance floor guiding patrons to the steps that went along to the music, broke away to the inner circle. Neville was coaxed to join them, and the small group of men began dancing with and around one another. There were shouts of “Opa!” when one man did a particularly graceful movements or complex step. Neville did his own squat-and-bounce step. It almost surprised Hermione what a good sense of rhythm Neville had, given she still had old impressions of him being a clumsy and shy boy those first four or five years at Hogwarts.

As the evening wore on, Neville and Hermione periodically sat down to take a break. They were starting to sweat with the exertion on the dance floor, which could sometimes speed up with dancers running around in large circle.

Neville ordered a bottle of Tsipouro, a distilled grape marc spirit. To Hermione's relief, it did not include any anise or fennel in the manufacturing process, as some distillations did. It was bad enough she could smell the Ouzo (distilled anise) coming from neighboring tables, which only reminded her of the libido-killing antidote she and Severus had used during their weeks of Potions experiments.

In-between trips to the dance floor, they downed shots of Tsipouro. Hermione swore never to mix the grape and the grain again, but Tsipouro was distilled from the pressed leavings of grapes, so technically, it was not a grain spirit. Hermione made a promise to stop after the third shot, remembering that two weeks’ prior she had drunk far too much.

They stayed until closing. As the rest of the patrons trailed out at the end of the night, Neville and Hermione stayed behind. Neville and some of the staff were sitting in chairs chatting in Greek like old friends while Hermione, in her pleasantly inebriated state, tried to follow and occasionally made a few comments when she understood what the topic was about and caught most of what was said. The other men and the few women who were there chatting encouraged Hermione and complimented on her proficiency, given she had only been learning the language for almost three months.

Eventually, farewells were said, with effusive hugs, kisses upon the cheek, and shaking of hands.

Neville and Hermione decided to hop on a late train and ride it north for a while, letting the alcohol work through their system until they were sober enough to Apparate home from some station stop along the route. Neville wanted to be the gentleman and insisted on making sure Hermione made it home safe without splinching herself, given she had drunk the same amount as Neville but with far less body mass than him to metabolize it.

Eventually, they Apparated inside of her flat, since Hermione explained briefly why she didn't want to Apparate to the outside of her building. Neville was partly aware of Zabini's murder and was kind enough not to press her on details, especially since the Aurors had asked that she not share any information as they still had not caught the murderer(s) yet.

Neville gave Hermione a brief hug before Floo-ing home.

As Hermione laid on her back in her bed, still drunk and dressed, feeling a little bit carefree for the first time in a while, a hallucination of Hagrid and Remus stood by her bedside. They were leaning over her.

Oh, my' the vision of Remus remarked in his particularly eloquent accent, 'had a bit too much to drink tonight?'

'Neville seemed quite the gent'lman, not taking advantage of our Hermione, now,' Hagrid added in his gruff voice and thick accent. 'But then again, Neville 'as always been a gent'lman. His Gran raised him right.'

Had Hermione been sober, she would have judged the sudden ghostly appearance of two dead friends, who she always considered as a source for good advice and companionship, as shocking. As it was, she was drunk, so it seemed like this was just part of a very surreal hallucination brought on by some very strong foreign drink. The swirling colors of the bed curtains didn't help either.

'Does this mean you're dating Neville now,' the ghostly vision of Remus asked.

“No way. We're just friends. Besides, I don't think of him that way,” Hermione insisted, ignoring the memory of him looking quite attractive the night of the Ministry's Halloween masked ball.

'Besides, Remus, 'Ermione is still in love with Severus. How would it be if her an' Neville were more than friends?' the large manifestation of Hagrid reminded the vision of Remus.

'Yes, how indeed?' Remus dryly replied.

“I must be really blind stinking drunk if I'm hallucinating you two both discussing my love life or lack thereof,” Hermione groaned, wishing she had the strength to get out of her clothes she had been sweating in for most of the night.

'Or maybe we're just manifestations of your conscience, since you seem to be battling a small attraction to Neville, feeling as if it is somehow being unfaithful to Severus,' her former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor noted.

The vision of Remus nailed the source of the small pit of guilt that had gnawed at Hermione during the evening.

“Nothing is going to happen between us. I promise you,” she insisted, pulling a pillow over her head to try to block out the sight and sound of the two wizard apparitions.

If Hermione's flat was haunted, she wondered why Severus never made mention of it or had never seen the two ghosts before that moment. Perhaps it was a manifestation of her subconscious mind. If it was, this was a new type of magic she had never heard of, but would not be surprised by.

Before she could meditate on the matter much further, Hermione fell asleep in her clothes.

Of course, of all the days for the sun not to be cloaked by London's morning fog, it would be the day after Hermione had drunk too much the night before and left her curtains open.

As the sun pierced her eyes and straight into her brain with the needle-sharp precision of a surgeon, finding the right spot in which to cause maximum pain, she groaned and rolled over, pulling the bedclothes she had fallen asleep on top of over her head. The mere fact of making any noise and the changing of her body's orientation caused even more grievous injury to her skull, which throbbed like a big bass drum in time to each beat of her heart.

“Marf,” she whimpered pitifully in a whisper, “hangover relief potion.” Her hand shot out blindly beyond the covers, her fingers waiting for the house-elf to fetch a vial of the much-needed elixir.

Fortunately, Hermione had the foresight to brew several doses ahead of time, given the fact she'd be attending a monthly binge party with her Potions master in the months to come.

Marf gently placed the vial in her hand, which slithered back under the bed-covers. There was a rustle of the covers, indicating that Hermione had tipped the vial back, and a gentle sigh of relief escaped her lips.

Hermione swished her wand and the curtains were closed before she removed the bedclothes from over her head. She was no longer suffering from a hangover, but that didn't mean that the morning sun wasn't offending her eyes that day.

After slipping out of her rumpled clothes, which smelled of dried sweat and garlic, and into her terrycloth dressing gown, she stumbled into the kitchen.

It was a good thing Hermione had already taken her hangover relief potion, as the scream she let loose upon seeing the shimmering apparitions of Remus and Hagrid – sitting at the kitchen table, smiling at her as if awaiting her arrival for breakfast that morning – would have surely caused her head to feel as if it was a ripe melon splitting open.

“Wait, I'm not drunk anymore. Why are you two still here?” Hermione asked, her face frozen in stunned amazement.

She knew they couldn't be ghosts, since Remus and Hagrid had passed to the other side and left no part of themselves behind.

'As I mentioned last night, we're just manifestations of your conscience.' Remus smiled at her.

'An' it does seem you have been in needin' of unloading some parts of your subconscious as of late, 'Ermione, Hagrid added in explanation for their appearance last night and this morning.

Hermione knew it was definitely not the ghost of Hagrid, as the original Hagrid's vocabulary was not expansive enough to use the word “subconscious” nor understand the finer aspects of psychology. It surely must be a manifestation of her mind, as the vision of Remus had already explained.

Slumping into an unoccupied chair, Hermione put her face in her hands and her elbows on the table, which still wobbled just a little.

“God, I miss Severus. This wouldn't be happening to me if he were here,” she moaned sorrowfully into her hands.

'Probably not. But as it is, we are here, which means you must need to resolve some issue you are battling within your head or heart.' Remus remarked.

'I don't need this shit,' Hermione thought to herself.

'No one asks for 'this shit,' but here we are.' the pale manifestation of Remus replied to the thoughts in her head.

'Such language, and from a nice witch like you,' Hagrid gently chastised her.

Now she knew that these really weren't ghosts, since “Remus” read her thoughts. She just really might be going mad, or this really was some strange way for her mind to deal with the fact that she no longer had Severus, her confidant and confessor, around anymore.

Standing up from the table, suddenly filled with anger, she blurted out, “If you're in my fucking head, they why can't I solve the problems of these damn lemons?” She stomped over to the counter and picked one up, throwing it at the head of Remus, who did not flinch. The lemon passed right through the silvery vision of Remus and hit the kitchen wall behind him, rolling across the floor before coming to rest by the leg of her chair.

'As I said, we're in your head. So if you haven't figured that out by know, we would not know either,' Remus answered before amending his statement. 'But given that Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's Stone in a rather unique but simple way, it would not surprise me if he had a simple answer for unlocking the secret of these lemons.'

The thought had already crossed her mind before, but hearing it said aloud from another source, even if the source was her own mind, gave Hermione something to ponder.

If the answer was so simple, then why hadn't anyone at the Ministry unraveled the secret yet. Since Hermione no longer worked at the Ministry, she would not have access to what methods the Ministry used to determine the significance behind the lemons or what tests they had conducted. Even if she still worked there, she wasn't even in the right Department anyway. Perhaps Kingsley would know what the Ministry had done so far, so she would not waste time replicating their experiments. But even if they did conduct certain experiments on the lemons, she would probably do them herself, just to confirm the results or see if it was just sloppy work resulting in error.

Dumbledore had once mentioned how witches and wizards were prone to use magic, not logic, to solve their problems. She figured that this problem must be something that would require more common sense and deduction than any spell to figure out.

Hermione didn't have time to spend that morning on the enigma of the lemons on her counter. She had to eat breakfast and head over to Albert's home.

Sundays were intensive study days, making up for time during the week that she spent doing work for Lavender that didn't apply towards her apprenticeship. There would be brewing, preparation of ingredients for preservation, including pickling and dehydrating, discussions delving deep into the theory of Potions, and the assignment of more books and scrolls for her to study during the week. Though Hermione had been out of school for over five years, she now wondered how she'd had the stamina to spend all that time at Hogwarts studying, in addition to going off on various adventures with Harry and Ron, and attending Quidditch games. She didn't think her energy could have flagged so much within a few years, since she was still young. Perhaps the constant fear of dangers lurking around most corners of Hogwarts with the rise of Voldemort had spurred her on, but maybe it was that she was no longer a teenager full of boundless energy.

Of all the things she wished she could bottle, it was that vim and vigor of youth she wished she could brew and distill. Invigoration Draughts only did so much.

Once at Albert's, she spent her time in his laboratory, skinning, eviscerating and butchering snipes, which the Potions master had hunted and caught during the night. He promised to take her snipe-hunting next month, which was best between the new moon and the full moon in the middle of the night. March was usually the peak of the season when the little buggers were plump and ripe for mating season. The ones Hermione was butchering were still a little on the small side, as it was still February, but February was almost over.

Hermione hated this part of her apprenticeship. If she inserted the knife in the wrong place or too deeply, she punctured the bowels of the snipe and the lab would smell of fecal matter and some parts of the offal would be ruined. The liver and spleen were exceptionally valuable, and the contamination of fecal matter from pierced intestines meant that she had to catch and prepare that many more snipes next month. Then there was the blood. It was thickly sticky and was an odd vibrant pink. Had it been more viscous and darker red, she would have needed a Calming Draught, as the sight of that much blood would have brought back memories of the war. The harvesting of the brains from the skull was a rather gruesome task that truly tested the limits of her stomach.

Once the meat and organs were harvested and prepared for immersion in preserving fluid, she moved onto the bones. She would have to boil them to remove the remaining bits of meat and dry them for the next month. In one month's time, the Potions apprentice would have to then grind and powder the bone and cartilage for various potions Albert brewed.

Since Albert had experienced a great deal of financial hardship during the contesting of his wife's will, he had to refrain from buying more ingredients, and even sell off some of the more valuable Potions ingredients in order to keep himself financially afloat. Since his stores were depleted, it was up to Hermione to help Albert restock his personal inventory with the preparation of new ingredients.

While the two were filleting snipe, removing the membrane surrounding the small hunks of meat, Hermione asked, “Albert? What would happen if I couldn't finish my Potions apprenticeship with you? You know, just for the sake of curiosity, as I'm definitely going to finish my apprenticeship.”

Albert gave Hermione a curious look. “Is there a reason why you wouldn't finish your apprenticeship with me that I should be aware of, Hermione?”

“No, but after Zabini... I was thinking, what would happen if something happened to you?”

There was a long pause before Albert replied, as he formulated his response. “Well, I know I'm not as young as I used to be – no, hold the blade at a shallower angle so you'll leave more of the meat behind,” Albert said, interrupting his answer to instruct her on how to improve her knife skills. “Yes, perfect, like that. As I was saying, I know I'm not as young as I once was, but even wizards younger than me have passed away from natural causes. I can understand your concern. But should something happen to me and I was unable to finish instructing you, another Potions master or mistress would step up and offer their help. Niles, Braxton, or Royston would probably offer to help you finish.”

“Not Royston,” Hermione immediately responded.

“Yes, I could certainly see why, given the propensity for masters and female apprentices to marry. Especially since he is close to your age.”

Hermione could not help but think about Severus' offer to teach her, offering himself as her master if she agreed to come with him.

“Of the situations where a bachelor master and a single female apprentice work together, how often do they wind up marrying? Just out of curiosity?” Hermione added for clarification.

“I can't think of a single instance within the past 300 years where a single Potions master who was unattached and a single female apprentice, who were within 30 or 40 years of age of one another, didn't wind up getting married. And of the married Potions masters, cases of infidelity with a female apprentice, whether she is married or not, is fairly high.”

“Infidelity in the wizarding community without masters and apprentices is already pretty high,” Hermione said darkly.

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” Albert freely admitted. “But be that as it may, it's easier for female apprentices to get apprenticeships with female mistresses. That is why some married male masters tend not to take female apprentices, married or not.”

There was a pause in the conversation which Albert mistook for awkwardness from Hermione as she had not said anything.

He amended his answer by saying, “Not unless the age difference is great. So I don't think there is any risk of us, in case you were worried. Plus, I'm still mourning Dangerose and probably still will for quite some time. And I can tell you're mourning yourself, which is a bit understandable even if you said you're happier now after the divorce. You seem quite heartsick, if I may be so bold as to state the obvious.”

Hermione had not been worried about her and Albert falling into each other's arms at all, now realizing he'd mistaken her silence regarding that particular matter. The revelation that in 300 years, every single male Potions master wound up marrying their single female apprentice set Hermione's heart aflutter. She could only wonder if Severus' apprenticeship offer had been his indirect way of proposing to her. She knew about Severus’ first marriage and how he had been thrust into it against his will, so she could see his reluctance to flat-out ask her to marry him. It had taken until the last month of them being together before either one of them could openly say those three words to one another that always changed the dynamics of a relationship.

Given Hermione's bad marriage and the tragic end of Severus' first marriage, it would be that much harder for either to say two more words: “Marry me.”

Dragged back from her reflecting upon Severus' offer to teach her with Albert's last comment, she almost instinctively said she was not mourning over her divorce of Ron at all. To admit as much would only then lead to speculation about whom she actually was heartsick over.

Maybe this is why the old fortuneteller had told Hermione to go with Severus if she could.

She felt a sudden urge to see how much money she had in her Gringotts vault at that very instant. The potions she was receiving royalties on were doing well, and the twins said her butterfly hearts idea was a huge success at The Sirens' Secrets. She hadn't bothered to count how much was in her vault, but merely noted each time she went back, she took out far less each visit than she had accumulated since the last visit. Hermione was amassing a nice amount of gold on her own, and she wondered if it would be foolish to suddenly splurge for a Portkey to Hawaii.

Filled with a certain notion, Hermione suddenly wondered if she did go to Hawaii, could she have the strength to leave Severus to go back to England and finish her apprenticeship with Albert.

“Since we are talking hypothetical situations: What would happen if you were perfectly capable of teaching me all the way through my apprenticeship, but I chose to switch to another Potions master or mistress to finish? Has that happened before? Not that I'm going to leave you, since I think we have a fine working relationship, but just out of curiosity.”

Albert shook his head as he finished up one batch of meat, chucking it into a large wooden bowl before grabbing more pieces of meat to de-membrane. His mouth was set in a grim frown. “Those sorts of instances have happened, but it's not good. It's a sign that the Potions master did not take the time to fully vet his apprentice, and his apprentice did not have the discipline to see their term through to the end with his or her first master. And then the apprentice who is finally accredited is not looked upon kindly in our little sub-set, since it seems everyone knows everyone.

"Hypothetically speaking, should I still be living and able, and you left for another Potions master to finish your studies, it would be a move that would haunt you for the rest of your career, unfortunately.” He paused and amended his statement adding, “There is the instance where if you wanted to study a language I may not be versed in, you might partially study under another master or mistress who was fluent in that language, but it would only be for between two to six months away at most. But then you would come back and finish your apprenticeship under me anyway.”

Hermione kept her face as impassive as possible.

Albert looked over at Hermione, pausing in his task, to add, “Had I taken Trevor Spawn, and he did not have the discipline to be an able apprentice, given the history of his failures at the Department S & R, I think I might have made the move to pawn him off on another master. As it was, I would have been stuck with him out of financial obligation, being paid handsomely by his father to take him. I think it's hard to tell from a few interviews and letters of recommendation if a master or mistress and a potential apprentice will get along well. I think it is a bit short-sighted and discriminatory for our community to take such a petty attitude regarding switching masters or mistresses. But unfortunately, that is the prejudice we currently have, and it is one I hope will eventually vanish. It's like divorce – sometimes it just doesn't work out in the end, and both parties are happier if they part, given from what you've told me of own your divorce so far. I hope I'm not being too bold.”

“No, not at all Albert,” she assured her master.

It figured that the same attitude regarding divorce in the wizarding world would be the same between master or mistress and apprentice, both parties encouraged to stick it out and suffer, no matter how disastrous or unhappy they are with the arrangement.

With Albert's insight, Hermione squashed the idea of running off to see Severus before the end of her apprenticeship. If she saw Severus, she would probably never leave his side again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It certainly didn't take long for the invitation to arrive at Severus' shop. The wedding invitation to Tina and Manny's wedding arrived via snowy owl, as the couple had chosen to use white owls to deliver their invitations, other than those they handed out personally.

Severus wondered if he was invited because Tina was in hope of accruing a large pile of gifts from guests, or that Manny considered him enough of an acquaintance to bother inviting. It seems that Draco and Ginny had received an invitation as well. He would have to ask Ginny for recommendations of a gift for the couple, that was under a certain denomination.

Severus' wedding gift to the Malfoys was based on the fact that Draco had already bought everything to set up house for Ginny, so his gift was more for something to enjoy immediately on their honeymoon.

Draco still occasionally grumbled that he wished he could retrieve his mother's sterling silver flatware since the Ministry had seized Malfoy Manor, all its contents, and his entire Gringotts vault in London. Perhaps as a first anniversary present, Severus would send Naomi off to England in search of his mother's sterling flatware, since it was a full service of 24 place settings that had been handed down through the Black family for over 300 years before Narcissa received it as part of her hope chest and dowry. Not many families needed a silver service for 24, or wanted one associated with a family more renown for being Death Eaters than of the headmaster that once ran Hogwarts a long time ago.

For his lunch break, Severus went over to the shop where the wizard who was building his house was busy planning a beam of 'ohi'a wood. He had picked 'ohi'a for the main support and frame of his house because it was a very hard and dense wood, he wanted something that would last a long time, since Severus had no intention of ever moving away from Malu Palekaiko. Many other houses on the island used koa wood for construction as it was a very good hardwood, but Severus wanted something a little bit more durable, and something a little different, though the price was just a bit more.

Draco had fronted Severus all the money he needed to purchase the land and also for the construction of his dream home. He hated to be literally in debt to Draco, but he was willing to put his pride aside since he would be able to pay Draco back, eventually.

Severus had worked with the builder for a few weeks on the design of his house. He preferred tall open-beamed ceilings, especially in his Potions lab so there would be room for the smoke and fumes to rise above into the rafters and not choke him out of his own lab. This was because a few advanced potions required the burning and scorching of some ingredients in order to unlock some of their magical properties.

There were specific requirements for the room he had designed specifically as his library. Severus had visited the island's one and only bookstore many times, compiling a long list of titles he wanted to purchase, but refrained until he had his house built. Currently, Severus was storing his entire library at his shop, and there was barely enough shelf space for both his work and personal library. Once his house was built, about half of the books would be coming back home. He made sure to have enough shelf space to hold his entire library, plus room to grow in hopes that Hermione might join him someday, and since buying and reading books was one of Severus' few compulsions. And it was a fine hobby to have, especially since he could afford to buy most of the books he wanted now. But since opening his shop, he wasn't able to spend as much time reading as he once had.

Running a business was a full-time job. It was almost as demanding of his time during his tenure at Hogwarts during the school year, but there were no sudden calls from the Dark Lord to drag him away from scrolls of Potions homework that needed correcting anymore. At least during the summers, while teaching at Hogwarts, Severus had plenty of time to catch up on reading that he didn't have during the term. But running his business was a week-in, week-out demand of his time. There were some scheduled breaks coming up in the year, as there were various harvests throughout the year that would demand much of the children's time as they helped on the various farms all around the island. There was sugar cane, pineapple, mango, papaya, taro, coffee, other exotic fruits, plus the cut-flower trade, all of which was exported mostly to the mainland and other countries. There were some Potions ingredients that were harvested and exported, but the amount was much smaller than the agricultural side of the export trade.

But given how the schedule seemed to run with six to eight weeks of tutoring with a one- to two-week break, this actually would be more beneficial to the students retaining knowledge, since there would be none of the degradation of the students' knowledge from a three-month break that he normally encountered at Hogwarts. For some reason, a three-month break meant that some of his lessons and pearls of wisdom he imparted to his students dribbled out of brains and out their ears, since it seemed he spent the first month of every year going over the previous year’s lessons that the students seemed to have forgotten during their lengthy break. Frequent short one- or two-week breaks would mean that knowledge would still remain fresh between the ears.

Such a break was coming up soon in early April. It would be a one-week break for Easter, since many of the island's multi-generational inhabitants were practicing Christians, a hold-over from when Christian missionaries first came to the islands, unaware that before they came Hawaii had an integrated society where Muggles and wizards lived side-by-side. It was shortly after the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy that the islands were discovered by not only Muggles, but by the rest of the wizarding communities, which forced the segregation of Hawaiian society. There was still a lingering resentment over that fact, but the resentment seemed to wane more and more as the generations passed, and the last of the ones who had lived during the days when their society was split in two had passed away over one hundred years ago. It was for the fact that Muggles and wizards had once lived harmoniously with one another in the Hawaiian Islands that Muggle culture was not shunned to the degree it was in England.

Severus was certain that if he had been born and raised in Malu Palekaiko, he would have been a different person. His parents still might have been just as awful, abusive, and neglectful, but the people who would have surrounded him in this community would not have been of the same caliber as the Slytherins with whom he'd attached himself at Hogwarts – who had seduced him into the Dark Lord's cult.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was time for the weekly staff meeting at The Lovely Lavender Company. Hermione had fetched her Aunt Christine from in front of the Leaky Cauldron and escorted her through the old pub, out the back, through the moving brick wall, and into Diagon Alley before arriving at the company's headquarters, which was located past Gringotts and off on a side street.

Aunt Christine, despite being through Diagon Alley a few times before, kept craning her neck around to see all the various quaint stores and odd dress of the wizarding population, which seemed to find Christine's business suit just as equally strange, garnering stares back. Even the trip to Gringotts and the introduction to the goblin bankers was quite the experience, since Christine could not have Lavender deposit funds into her Muggle bank, and would require a vault at Gringotts for the wizarding side of her consultation business. The goblins would then convert Galleons into Muggle money as Christine needed. However, Hermione or Lavender would always have to be with her to help her get into Diagon Alley and deal with the goblins, since goblins were reluctant to deal with Muggles unless they were accompanied by a witch or wizard. It was an issue the Muggle Alliance Network leadership promised to look into, once the Alliance was large enough to be taken seriously by the goblins.

As the four staff members sat there, Lavender had Wonkle bring tea, which caused yet another startled response from Hermione's Muggle aunt. The sight of house-elves was quite disturbing, having her preconceived notions about elves being cute and adorable smashed with the grim reality of seeing an actual elf, with bulbous eyes, bat-like ears, wrinkled skin, sparse wisps of hair, tatty rags and all.

Christine found her composure once again as talk of business began. There were layouts for new ads that Lavender found ingenious in their concepts, but made some suggestion for her to change regarding word choices, since there were a few Muggle cultural references that didn't translate very well into the wizarding world. The launch plan for India was in the beginning phases and Christine was in her element, as her specialty was launching into new regions.

Albert and Hermione had updates regarding the latest Potions they were testing. Unfortunately, since Christine was a Muggle, she could not participate in the trial phase, or even sample a potion. It was up to Hermione and Lavender to give Christine feedback regarding a product's effects.

It seemed that the business at hand was drawing to a close; however, it wasn't. Lavender was holding a very weather-beaten letter in her hand. It seemed to have traveled a long way, given how it was worn around the edges and along the fold, and the water stains.

“I was wondering how your apprenticeship is coming along, Hermione?” Lavender questioned, fondling the letter.

“Well, Albert would be the better judge of that since he knows how much I have left to learn, though I still have four languages to master,” Hermione deferred.

“Four more languages?” Christine asked with astonishment.

“Many Potions books have anti-translation spells. Trade secrets and such,” Hermione answered.

Now Christine recalled walking in on such a conversation before between Hermione and her sister, Wendy. She finally pieced together what the two had been talking about when she walked in on them in the kitchen at Hermione's birthday party.

“I can help you with French, if you need any,” Christine offered.

“Thank you, but next I'll be working on Latin,” her niece replied.

“Which brings me to something I wanted to discuss with you, Hermione. After you master Latin, what other languages did you have in mind to master?” her boss asked.

“Well, I was thinking of Arabic, German, and Chinese.”

Lavender folded up the letter and moved it back and forth, playing with it, almost like a fan. “What if I were to suggest that perhaps you might consider Japanese and Spanish instead of Arabic and German?” Lavender asked, her brows raised, almost looking amused.

“Well, I guess I could, though learning German allows me to learn other Germanic and Scandinavian-based languages faster. And Spanish will be quite easy to master once I've learned Latin,” Hermione surmised. “Why the interest in those two languages?”

Lavender leaned back and began slowly swiveling her chair from side to side. Smiling, she said, “I figure by the time you have finished your apprenticeship, I'll be ready to launch in eastern Asia, Australia, and the Americas, given my launch in the Americas was put on hold. And given that Mexico, Central America, and most of South America speak Spanish, it would be a very useful language to learn.”

“You're launching into India soon. Wouldn't Sanskrit serve me better, given that India is home to a population nearly as large as China?” Hermione countered.

“Well,” Lavender said slowly, smiling secretly to herself, “there is more than just expanding into these markets I'm considering. You see...” She paused wondering the order in which to reveal several bits of new information. “I'm thinking of possibly having you run the Asia-Pacific region of The Lovely Lavender Company, in addition to developing Potions for regional markets, as the Eastern Asian markets have certain cultural preferences that would be far different versus European and American markets.”

Hermione stammered. “I... I... I don't know what to say. I'm flattered you would consider me, but I know nothing about running a business, especially a regional office for such an operation.”

“Oh, but you will. You see, I want to train you to help run my company, Hermione. As I will definitely need your help in the near future. Say in another eight months or so, I'll be a bit too busy with other things in order to come into the office full-time, and I'll need your help,” Lavender admitted, lazily stroking her still flat abdomen.

“You're pregnant?” Christine accurately guessed, recognizing the unconscious stroking of her abdomen from her own pregnancy and the way Lavender smiled.

“Yes!” Lavender gushed with a huge smile.

Christine jumped up and ran around Lavender' desk to congratulate her one and only client. Albert also got up and walked over to shake Lavender's hand in congratulations as well.

Hermione's initial reaction was to say, “Better you than me,” but held her tongue. Thinking about it, she was actually happy for Lavender and Ron. Ron had wanted children, and better that he have them with someone whom he truly loved.

“So, Hermione. I need someone who will help me run my company while I'm recovering and spending time with the baby. The twins wanted you to run The Sirens' Secrets, so if they wanted you to run that, I have faith in you to help run my company while I'm working with far, far, fewer hours for a while, and to eventually run operations for Asia-Pacific. What do you say?” her boss asked

It was a thrilling prospect, running an operation of near equal size, plus developing Potions, making use of her talent, but suddenly, she wondered how Severus would fit into all this. She wanted more than anything to be with Severus and was ready to turn Lavender down, even though she and Severus had made no promises to one another.

“I... well...” Hermione hoped it would be somewhere close to Severus so that perhaps she could Portkey into work. “Do you have an idea where you want this Asia-Pacific office to be?” she asked, feeling nervous that it might be someplace like Tokyo, Beijing, or Lima – and keep her traveling so much that it would strain her possible future relationship with Severus.

“What better place to have you manage that region from than to have you smack dab in the middle of it. I was thinking someplace like, oh...” Lavender said, dragging out the suspense, “... like... Hawaii?”

Hermione didn't know if she should laugh or cry. In short order she was doing both, feeling relieved and thrilled that the fates were working to put her and Severus back together.

“Hawaii? Where's that?” Albert asked, which confirmed Hermione's suspicion that Dumbledore not only wiped Hawaii and Malu Palekaiko from books and maps, but from the minds of the British wizarding public.

Christine looked over at Albert and asked flatly, “You are joking, right?”

Hermione looked at her aunt and minutely shook her head, indicating this was something not to question and she would fill her in on it later.

Lavender, sensing the potential for a future problem, interrupted the conversation between Albert and Christine. “So, Hermione, are you interested?”

Hermione jumped up and ran around and hugged Lavender, thanking her profusely and also congratulating her on the happy news.

For some reason, this news about eventually moving to Hawaii gave Hermione the courage to finally view the third and last memory from Severus. For some strange and silly reason, she couldn't view it before, fearing what his message to her might be. She had no reason to assume it would bear bad news, but she couldn't find the strength to pour it into Lavender's Pensieve until now.

The only reason Hermione could think of Lavender suggesting setting up operations in Hawaii was because Severus had owled her with the suggestion. She wondered if Severus was going to go back to working for Lavender, or if there was something else he would do. Maybe he'd opened his Potions shop and this was a way to bring her back to him once she was done with her apprenticeship. Lavender did say that around the time Hermione was done with her apprenticeship she would be launching in the Asia–Pacific region. Maybe if Hermione applied herself even more, she could finish her apprenticeship quicker, and be on her way to be reunited with Severus that much sooner.

Albert and Christine left Lavender's office, heading back to their respective offices, as Lavender had set up a place for Christine to work when she was on-site for Fridays. Hermione stuck around, hanging back, eager to talk more with Lavender.

“Is there anything else Severus says in his letter,” Hermione asked, eager to hear more news about him.

Lavender's smile faltered. “Severus didn't write to me, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Well, the letter in your hand, and your decision to set it up in Hawaii...” Hermione could feel the tears filling up in her eyes. She had hoped it was Severus who had written the letter, but it was not.

“I'm sorry if you assumed he wrote it. It was Draco,” the blonde witch admitted.

“Draco?” Hermione didn't know what to think. She thought Draco still couldn't stand the sight of her, given that murderous look he had given her when he was Polyjuiced as Harry the day they fled. They grated on each other's nerves.

“It seems Draco misses doing advertising and marketing, finding it more rewarding than his current occupation,” Lavender said without giving away even of a hint of what Draco was doing for work.

Hermione flopped back into her chair feeling a bit defeated. She had thought that Severus had found some way to bring her back to him without outright begging, which was not in his nature to do. Well, except for that one time she was blindfolded and their hormones got the better of them. But Hermione remembered how it had almost pained him to beg her to come with him. She should have known. Her heart felt a little less elated.

Lavender must have seen the chance, between teaching Hermione how to run the business for her upcoming maternity leave and Draco's suggestion to open up a regional office in Hawaii, to blend them into a new opportunity for Hermione.

Squaring her shoulders, Hermione put on a brave face and went back to her own office. Even with her hopes wavering between elation and disappointment, she made a promise to stay late and view Severus' third and final memory that night. Her curiosity had finally become stronger than her fear, or so she thought.

============

A/N: Thank you to both of my lovely betas, JuneW and Hope, for their work on improving this chapter.

You can read about Palmers Green, the Greek enclave in North London, on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmers_Green

“No Greek home would be complete without at least one cactus positioned somewhere near the front entrance. In a big ‘Feta’ can or garden pot, a cactus with its thorny spikes, takes it place proudly warding off the evil eye from the property.”
http://www.faliraki-info.com/susie/superstitions/greek-traditions.htm

You can read more about tsipouro here:
http://www.seaop.gr/en/drinks/tsipouro/

Snipes are the mythical creatures Muggle men say they are taking women in search for as a euphemism for taking them some place discreet for a bit of canoodling.

“ 'Ohi'a (METROSIDEROS POLYMORPHA) is unique to Hawai'i. It is one of the trees initially used by native Hawaiians for critical construction applications such as tools, and wear-strips along the gunwales of canoes.
Its modern applications are typically in flooring, furniture and cabinetry.
It is the most common endemic tree in the state, can be a major component of mixed forest stands, and is one of the very first trees able to take root on new lava fields. The tree is present in shapes ranging from shrubs to 100 feet in height. The wood ranges in color from pale brown to a dark reddish brown. It is fine grained, very hard, strong, and dense (specific gravity .70) In furniture and cabinetry applications, 'Ohi'a is nearly indestructible. However, great care and experience must be brought to bear in the seasoning of this notoriously unstable wood.”
http://www.winklerwoods.com/ww/hawaiianwoods.html
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And They Didn\'t Live Happily Ever After