Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Twenty Four Hours	By : Dazzlious Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 10683 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from JK Rowling’s fantastic books or films, I’m just borrowing and playing with them for a little while and get no monetary reward for doing so. Original Characters are mine.

Chapter List
- 1-Prologue
- 2-One
- 3-Two
- 4-Three
- 5-Four
- 6-Five
- 7-Six
- 8-Seven
- 9-Eight
- 10-Nine
- 11-Ten
- 12-Eleven
- 13-Twelve
- 8
- 9
- 10
‘What was so important that you couldn’t wait until later?’ Lisa asked Hermione as they sat in the staff restaurant.
She was dying to know what was happening because her friend looked more miserable than she had seen her in a long time. She also looked as if she hadn’t slept for a week, her clothes rumpled and dishevelled and her hair more crazy than ever.
Hermione was prodding a piece of bacon on her plate, moving it around without actually eating it. She was feeling sick and had absolutely no interest in food. She hadn’t actually wanted to come to the staff restaurant in the first place, but she didn’t think Lisa would be happy about being holed up in the toilets for a chat and it was vital she talked to her before she had to face Severus. With the number of meetings she had scheduled over the next day or so now was the only time she had free.
‘I’ve ended my marriage to Ron,’ Hermione admitted quietly. Once again she prodded disconsolately at the bacon.
Lisa stared at her in shock. ‘You’ve what? That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it? I thought the two of you were trying to decide whether to go to Hogsmeade or not.’
Hermione gave a loud sigh. ‘He decided without me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lisa looked confused. ‘Did he leave or what?’
Hermione shook her head sadly. ‘No. He and George have spent the last week or so in Hogsmeade cleaning and redecorating the shop and flat. The shop is due to open next weekend.’
‘That’s a bit quick. I thought it was happening after the project was wrapped up?’
‘So did I, but apparently Ron had other ideas. Shame he didn’t bother telling me about them before he gave up our flat and arranged for all our stuff to be moved to Hogsmeade.’
‘He did what?’ Lisa stared at her with the same expression Hermione knew her own face had held when Ron had told her about their impending move.
Hermione nodded. ‘Yep. Someone’s coming to pack up the flat next week. We’ve got to be out by next Friday as the new tenants are moving in.’
‘But where are you going to live?’ Lisa asked worriedly. ‘You’re not going to Hogsmeade, are you? You just said you and Ron had split.’
‘We have. To be honest, I was going to do it anyway. I had already decided that Hogsmeade and babies wasn’t for me. But after what he did I had no choice but to end it there and then. I just can’t believe he didn’t bother telling me what he was doing. He’s even decorated one of the rooms as a nursery, which shows that he didn’t bother listening at all to any of my misgivings about giving up work and just assumed that I would do what he wanted in the end. Well, he can get stuffed.’
‘You don’t think you’re being a bit hasty, do you?’ Lisa suggested.
Hermione frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I know you were angry with Ron because of what he did, Hermione, and I know you’re not keen on the idea of moving to Hogsmeade, but maybe if you give it a chance it’ll turn out to be better than you thought. I’m not saying you need to buy into it completely and go the whole hog with the babies and everything, but you can at least take some time to establish that it really isn’t what you want.’
‘I already know it isn’t,’ Hermione retorted.
She looked around and saw Harry coming towards her, across the room. She sighed and dropped her fork onto her plate, then stood up.
‘I need to go,’ she told Lisa. ‘I don’t want to talk to Harry at the moment. Ron stayed with him last night so no doubt he wants to have a go at me for being a horrible person.’
‘Perhaps you should talk to him. He’s your friend, isn’t he?’ Lisa asked.
Hermione snorted. ‘Only when he wants to be. At the moment I think he’s going to be Ron’s friend rather than mine. I’ll see you later, Lisa. I’ve got a couple of things to do before my meeting with the other team leaders, so I really need to get going anyway.’
‘Hermione!’ Harry waved at her to make sure she saw him.
Hermione sighed again then, knowing she had no choice, walked towards her old friend.
‘Morning, Harry. I can’t stop, I’m afraid, I’ve got a meeting shortly and there’s things I need to do before I go to it.’
Harry frowned. ‘I need to talk to you, Hermione. I’m sure you can spare me a couple of minutes.’
Hermione shook her head, ready to explain again that she couldn’t, Harry took hold of her arm.
‘We need to talk,’ he hissed. ‘Last night, Ron said some things—’
‘Whatever he told you was probably correct,’ Hermione said dully, ‘unless he said that I agreed to go and live in Hogsmeade with him and have babies. I never agreed to either of those things and yet he arranged it anyway.’
‘Can we go somewhere else?’ Harry asked. ‘He mentioned something about Snape.’ Harry’s voice dropped at the last word, trying to ensure that no one else could hear.
Hermione sighed. ‘Whatever he told you is true so I don’t know what we’ve got to talk about.’
‘I want to know what’s got into you. Why are you treating Ron like this?’ Harry asked.
Hermione sighed even louder this time. ‘This is exactly why I haven’t talked to you, Harry. I already knew you would take his side — you always do. Let’s face it, I’m in a group of one where the Weasleys are concerned.’
‘I’m not taking Ron’s side,’ Harry said, looking surprised. ‘I’m just trying to find out what’s happening between my two best friends. The story I got from Ron was pretty garbled, to be honest, so I thought I’d ask you about it. At least I know you’ll give me a coherent response.’
‘Come on then, walk with me back to the laboratory and I’ll explain to you what’s happened, but you’re probably not going to like it,’ Hermione said, resigned to having to talk to Harry.

Hermione was feeling incredibly nervous and wished that she had stopped at the coffee shop on her way into work. Of course, caffeine wasn’t really going to help her but the comforting thought of it made her feel even twitchier because she didn’t have any. The stupid thing was that she didn’t even know why she was feeling like this. All she was going to do was tell Severus exactly what he wanted to hear, so there was no reason for the sense of panic that had taken hold of her insides and was slowly spreading to engulf her.
She looked over at the clock. She had thirty minutes until Severus would be joining them for the weekly team meeting, thirty minutes until she called him in and gave him the news he had been waiting for. But how would she be able to conduct a meeting afterwards knowing the emotions that were bound to be released during their conversation? Perhaps she should wait until after the meeting to tell him? But if she did that, then Severus might think she was stalling again and carry out his threat to leave before she could do anything to stop him.
The whole thing was making her so frustrated and confused that she wanted to scream.
Hermione drummed her fingers on the desk in a rapid staccato rhythm, growing faster as she tried to make a decision on what to do, feeling the time inexorably ticking away. She knew she was acting a little irrationally but was that any wonder after what she had been through recently? All the problems she had been so steadfastly trying to avoid for the last few months had come crashing down on her all at once and she was feeling more pressured than before. It should have been easy, especially now she had admitted it all to Ron and Harry, but if anything it seemed harder than ever.
Outside the door she could hear Jack, Lisa and Osbert laughing about something as they worked. For a moment paranoia set in: fear that they were discussing her and her situation, that Lisa was informing her colleagues of the details Hermione had drunkenly shared with her over a few glasses of wine the night before. Queasiness rose within her at the thought of her friend betraying her confidence. She should never have become friends with the woman in the first place and then this would never have happened.
Hermione wanted to shout out and tell them to shut up talking and laughing, that she knew it was her they were discussing, but she already felt ostracised and knew that saying anything would only make it worse. If only she hadn’t taken Lisa into her confidence, but it was too late now; by the time Severus arrived for the meeting the whole laboratory, and quite probably the other teams too, would know about the two of them.
She knew it shouldn’t matter as it was unlikely that Severus would allow the relationship to remain a secret and so they would all know soon enough anyway, but she wanted people to know because she chose to tell them, not because she and her tangled love life were the subject of office gossip.
Twenty-five minutes left now and she still didn’t know how to handle the conversation, but at least her staff had finally stopped gossiping, or at least had moved away from her door to do it. Hermione picked up a file containing a report from Adriana Pérez that she had been meaning to read all morning but hadn’t been able to find the concentration for. She should just about have enough time to get through it before the meeting.
‘Knock knock,’ Lisa said cheerfully as she mimed knocking on the open door. She came in, took one look at Hermione and shut the door behind her so they could talk privately. ‘Are you all right, Hermione?’ she asked anxiously, her smile disappearing to be replaced by an expression of concern as she sat down.
Hermione stared at her, not entirely sure where to start.
‘I was just talking to Jack and Osbert about their bowling evening. They were telling me about the team they were playing and it sounded hysterical. When you go out there ask one of them about it — honestly, it was the funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks.’
Hermione felt some of the tension inside her begin to dissipate. Okay, so perhaps they hadn’t been talking about her after all.
‘I thought perhaps you were telling them about—’ she began.
‘Definitely not,’ Lisa cut in stridently. ‘I told you before, anything you tell me stays strictly between us — and I would hope that works both ways.’
‘Of course it does,’ Hermione said with a relieved smile. She rubbed her eyes. ‘Sorry, I’m just a bit paranoid at the moment, I guess.’
‘Worried about this morning?’ Lisa asked shrewdly.
Hermione nodded. ‘Severus will be here in twenty minutes and I don’t know whether to talk to him first and then try to hold the team meeting or whether to do the meeting first and hope that he doesn’t storm off in a snit because he thinks I still haven’t done anything about Ron.’
‘Are you going to be up to holding the meeting after?’ Lisa asked seriously.
Hermione shrugged and sighed. ‘I don’t know. It depends on how emotional it all gets, I suppose. I’d rather wait until after the meeting to talk to him but I don’t want to risk him storming out and upsetting everyone.’
‘Tell him you’ll talk to him after the meeting then,’ Lisa suggested. ‘Then he won’t be trying to second guess you and you can relax and take the meeting without worrying about him blowing a gasket.’
‘I don’t even know why this is so stressful,’ Hermione said unhappily. ‘I mean, it’s all but settled.’
‘Are you sure you’re making the right decision?’ Lisa asked quietly.
‘Do you think I’m making a mistake then?’ Hermione was anxious again now.
Lisa mulled the question around in her mind for a few seconds before answering. ‘I think you’re in a difficult position, where neither option is quite right for you at the moment, Hermione. I think it’s a shame that your husband and Severus both chose now to start demanding changes rather than waiting until the end of the project when it would be far easier for you to work out what you really want. If you weren’t still doing this it’s quite possible that you and Ron could be happy in Hogsmeade. I don’t mean you working in the shop — I can’t ever see that being a viable option for you, but the rest of it might be good.’
‘But I love Severus,’ Hermione said.
‘Do you?’ Lisa asked. She studied Hermione’s face. ‘You’re always arguing, and he’s always pushing. Your relationship is tempestuous but because of that lack of intimacy with Ron you’ve latched onto Severus. I know he’s good in bed, Hermione, but is that worth all the other grief you get from him? Passionate relationships often burn out quickly. What happens if your sex life goes the same way as it has with Ron? What have you got left then? Will there still be enough there for you to continue or will it just be arguments and you being miserable?
‘Also, how much of your decision is driven by the need to keep Severus on the team?’ Lisa continued when Hermione just stared at her disconsolately. ‘Severus threatening to leave us if you don’t choose him is only one step removed from what Ron did, you know. It’s every bit as manipulative, and a bloody mean thing to do when he knows how important this team is to you.’
Hermione sighed, looking downcast. ‘I know they’ve been as bad as each other. I have to admit there was a point where I felt like telling them both to bugger off and leave me alone,’ she admitted.
‘So why don’t you, then?’ Lisa asked.
Hermione looked distressed. ‘You know why. Because Severus will leave the team. Everyone’s already unhappy with me because he’s stopped coming to the laboratory. What are they going to say if he says he’s never coming back?’
‘We were a bit unfair to you when Severus first changed his working pattern because we assumed that it was your fault,’ Lisa admitted ruefully. ‘But then we discussed it and realised that Severus was at fault too, and we’d just refused to acknowledge it. You’re right that the others will be disappointed if he goes for good, but by the time I’ve had a quiet word with them about what you had to go through to get him to join us in the first place, and that he left because he was putting pressure on you to act in a way you didn’t want to, they’ll be more understanding.
‘You know this project is almost ready to be turned over to clinical trials and from what Severus has always told us he’s going to disappear back into obscurity as soon as that happens anyway. You’re talking probably another couple of months at the most—’
‘That’s not guaranteed though, something could still go wrong. We’re only in the early stages of testing,’ Hermione said unhappily. ‘And I don’t want everyone to know about Severus’ ultimatum.’
‘You’re being unnecessarily pessimistic, Hermione. We’ve all seen the results that have been coming through. It’s possible that there might be a small setback between now and the clinical stages, but we’re almost there and we probably don’t need Severus any longer, anyway.’
Lisa studied her friend sympathetically for a moment before adding, ‘As for the other thing, I didn’t intend to tell the others about that, just that he was putting pressure on you again — we all know when the two of you have been arguing and we know that most of the time it’s because he’s trying to push you too hard. I don’t think anyone would be that surprised if you told him to get lost after the way things have been between you for the last couple of months.’
Hermione sighed. ‘I just wish he hadn’t done it now. I want to be with him, I honestly do, but it sticks in my craw that I’m giving in to blackmail, and he knows it. If he’d waited until the end of the project there would have been no issue, especially with Ron pulling all that Hogsmeade crap.’
She stopped speaking, feeling slightly guilty, knowing that even if Severus had waited for the end of the project she still wouldn’t have wanted to make a decision — wasn’t that what she had been trying to put off for so long and what he had been annoyed about?
‘So tell him you’ll do it but not until the project is finished,’ Lisa said.
‘I’ve tried that — that’s what led to his ultimatum in the first place,’ Hermione retorted in frustration.
‘What you need to do is work out what you want and go with that, whatever anyone else says,’ Lisa suggested. ‘I think you’re confused and upset because of the demands being placed on you, and it’s no wonder when you’re being pulled in two different directions and you still have the stress of running the team to think about.’
‘That’s all very well but Severus will be here in fifteen minutes,’ Hermione pointed out. ‘What am I supposed to say to him?’
‘What I just told you to say. Tell him he’ll have to wait until the project is over.’
‘And when he leaves the project?’ Hermione sounded distraught now.
Lisa shrugged uncaringly. ‘Then he goes. If Severus really cared about you that much he wouldn’t be putting you under so much pressure, Hermione. We managed without him before and we’ll manage again, especially as we’re so much further along. Don’t let him push you into making a mistake you’ll regret in the future. You wouldn’t let Ron dictate to you, so why let Severus do it?’
Hermione looked defeated. ‘Because we need Severus for the project.’
‘No, we don’t,’ Lisa said shaking her head. ‘Hermione, I know you say you love Severus but you’re not making this decision because you want to do it but because you think you ought to in order to keep the team running smoothly. If you’ve got any sense you’ll tell him he has to wait, and that if he wants to run away and sulk then that’s up to him. It’ll be his loss, not yours.’
‘I don’t think I can do that,’ Hermione admitted. ‘I’m scared that the team will fall apart.’
‘That you’re feeling like this is enough to say that you shouldn’t be agreeing to anything right now.’ Lisa said sensibly. ‘The team will not fall apart just because you’re going to make Severus wait a few months.’
Lisa sighed as she realised Hermione was crying. She got up and went around the desk to give her friend a hug.
‘If he loves you he’ll back down. I understand why he was annoyed about you staying with Ron when you were seeing him too, but this is different — this is work, and if there’s one thing I know about Severus it’s that he understands how important all this is to you. Now dry your eyes, we’ve only got a few minutes.’
Hermione wiped her eyes with a tissue. Sadly, she said, ‘I don’t have much choice anyway. I won’t have anywhere to live after next week. If I don’t go with Severus I’ll end up sleeping here.’
‘Oh no. You are not saying yes to Severus just because you need a home,’ Lisa stated. ‘You can come and stay with Derek and me, we’ve got a spare room. You can stay as long as you like — at least until after the project finishes. Then you can think about things properly without needing to worry. What do you say? I can get Derek to move your stuff over this evening.’
‘I don’t want to put you out—’ Hermione started.
‘Nonsense. It’s the perfect solution. You can work out whether you want to be with Ron or Severus, without any pressure from either of them. Better still, removing yourself from both of them will make you less stressed in your job,’ Lisa said confidently.
Hermione sighed, but she didn’t say anything.
‘Well? Shall I talk to Derek? Come on, Hermione, say yes.’
Hermione gave a small nod although she felt her stomach clench as she did so. She knew Severus was going to be angry with her for her decision but Lisa was right. Whatever she felt for him she wasn’t making this decision for the right reasons and that would never have a good outcome, however much she wished it would.
‘Yes. I’ll come and stay at your place. Thank you, Lisa.’
Lisa smiled. ‘Not a problem, pet, and it’s definitely the right decision. You may still decide you want to be with Severus, but at least then it won’t be for the wrong reasons.’
‘I know you’re right,’ Hermione admitted. ‘I just wish I didn’t feel so sick at the thought of talking to Severus about it.’
‘Do you want me to talk to him?’ Lisa asked.
Hermione shook her head. ‘No, I have to do it. I’m just such a coward, that’s all.’
Lisa took hold of her hand and squeezed it. ‘I know it doesn’t seem that way at the moment, Hermione, but this is the right decision and it will all work out for the best in the end.’
‘I wish I could be so sure,’ Hermione said morosely.
- 8
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Twenty Four Hours