Chapter Text
April, 2016
Outside Hermione’s office door, DMLE staff have been trailing home for the past hour to start their weekends, leaving only the on shift law enforcement officers behind. Her own assistant left twenty minutes ago. She still hasn’t quite broken her habit of working long hours, but tonight is different, special, so when the clock strikes half past five, she puts the final words and her signature on a memo, sends it out the door, and stands.
She’s stacking the files on her desk into piles for Monday when Harry knocks and saunters in.
“Hey boss,” he says amicably.
“What do you need? I’m about to leave.”
He perches on the corner of her desk as she summons her bag and plops it on her chair. “Going home nearly on time? I thought you’d be working late given the announcement today.”
“Severus and I have plans tonight,” replies Hermione, dropping the last of what she needs to take home in her bag. She surveys her desk to make sure she’s hasn’t forgotten anything. “As you so often remind me, the work will still be here on Monday.”
“Well, I’ll go home with you then. I was just coming to say goodnight and make sure you didn’t need anything.”
Islington is a quick Apparition hop away from Whitehall, so ten minutes later, Harry and Hermione are on the front steps of Number 12. With Harry by her side and the home secret kept, she doesn’t feel the need to check over her shoulder, something she’s slowly been doing less of since moving out of her old flat.
She moved in with Harry permanently after her forced holiday, and hasn’t regretted it. It’s nice to know Harry is around if anything happens, and that Darren will never find her home. It’s been good for Harry too, who she thinks was lonely in his big old house alone. He’s been smiling more since, she’s noticed. She has too.
“I take it you aren’t staying for dinner?” asks Harry in the front hall.
“No. I’m just going to grab a few things, shower, get changed, and then I’ll be gone. I’ll be at Severus’s until Sunday night,” she adds, which isn’t unusual. “So if your date with Stella goes well tomorrow, don’t worry about me being here if you want to take her home.”
She waggles her eyebrows suggestively as Harry’s cheeks turn pink.
“It’s only our second date,” he stammers defensively.
“I’m just saying it’s an option,” she says with a smile, and then climbs the stairs.
Her rooms are on the second floor, which Harry offered her as a whole. Given the size of the house, it’s a little like having her own mini flat, and Harry has the same on the floor above. She passes by the door to her cozy office library, the one to her bathroom just beyond it, and turns into the room across the hall.
Her bedroom is bright and airy, with a tall ceiling and sash windows that look out onto the tree-lined street.
It doesn’t take her long to get ready, and then she’s in a slim black dress and heels under her cloak and slipping out the front door. Being able to Apparate from her stoop is another wonderful thing about living at Number 12.
She lands a block away from the restaurant, a little Portuguese tapas place they discovered thanks to John, who seems to know all the best restaurants in the city. As always, Severus beats her, and she finds him sitting at a table against a wall. He’s handsome in a tailored suit coat over a collared shirt unbuttoned around his neck. She kisses him in greeting before taking her seat.
“I have news,” she announces with a smile as she plops into her chair.
“Well, this is turning into a night for celebration.” Severus says. “I have news too. But you first.”
“RCMC released their final report today and actually managed to do their jobs this time, and the first half of the decree got approved by the Wizengamot to go to committee,” Hermione says. “So that means in three to six months from now I might be a legal person again.”
“If we weren’t in a restaurant I would pick you up and twirl you around,” says Severus. “We are definitely celebrating that tonight.”
“We should plan in case I’m also getting smeared by the Daily Prophet and out of a job at the same time because they decide to review all the files, but at the moment, things are looking positive.”
He reaches across the table and takes her hand. Even after so long, the way he looks at her still makes her breath catch. “I’m proud of you regardless, and think it’s more than likely you don’t need to worry about the Prophet or your job.”
“What’s your news?”
“St. Mungo’s approved my research proposal, and they want me to lead it,” he says with a wide smile. “You’re looking at the new director of mental health research.”
“Severus!” Hermione exclaims. She decides she doesn’t care about the fact they’re in a restaurant surrounded by people, and jumps out of her chair to give Severus a hug and a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
“Congratulations, my love. You completely deserve it. You’re going to do such great things for people,” she praises him as she gives him another squeeze.
“Thank you for inspiring me,” he mumbles softly into her hair.
She holds him for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, then returns to her chair.
“Well, I think that means we need a bottle of wine,” he announces with dark eyes dancing.
Hermione feels a little tipsy when they finally leave for home, her cheeks warm as she exits onto the street. She hangs onto Severus’s arm as they stroll down the block.
It’s raining lightly, and once they Apparate to Derbyshire it’s a positive downpour, but it doesn’t dampen her spirits, nor her resolve. She shrieks gleefully as she and Severus run for his front door.
Her phone buzzes in her coat pocket as she’s taking it off, and she pulls it out to find a message from Sarah: I’d wish you luck tonight but you don’t need it. You’ve got this, Baby Girl, she writes, followed by a winking face blowing a heart-shaped kiss.
“What’s Sarah want?” asks Severus.
“Other people do text me you know,” retorts Hermione, “and it’s secret lady stuff.”
She ignores his raised eyebrow, slips her phone into her bag, and kisses him on the cheek. “Make tea? I’m going to go change quickly.”
Leaving him in the foyer, she goes upstairs, slips off her clothes, and gives herself a quick freshen up with her wand. There’s a mirror on the back of his wardrobe, where she takes a moment to pin up her hair in a knot, leaving a few tendrils to accentuate her neck. Then she pulls out another dress from her bag.
It’s made of leather and is tight as she pulls it on. It’s not too revealing, a low v-neck with wide straps on the top, and a skirt that goes from short in the front to long in the back. It has a slightly formal air about it, which is why she picked it. She leaves her feet bare.
With her chest fluttering with nerves but feeling sure, she goes to find Severus.
Selena is perched on the newel post when she descends and gives her a displeased stare.
“I’m sorry. I forgot to say hello, didn’t I?” She pets the owl on her head and she squeezes her large black eyes closed and makes a soft noise. “I’ll be here all weekend, but I need to go talk to Severus right now.”
She leaves the bird in the hall and goes to the kitchen, where she can hear Severus pulling out dishes. The teapot is steaming on top of his kitchen table along with empty mugs and a pot of milk. His back is to her when she enters, and when he turns from the cupboard holding a packet of chocolate biscuits, he immediately freezes.
Eyes scanning her up and down in her new dress, his eyebrows fold in confusion at the same time desire sparks in his pupils.
“Hermione? What are you wearing that for?”
She doesn’t answer. Smiling, she crosses the kitchen and takes the biscuits from his hand. Placing them on the counter, she lifts herself on her toes and kisses him gently, her hand cupping his cheek.
“Come with me,” she invites him to follow her, grasping his hand.
She pulls him gently through the doors into the living room and around to the other side of the couch, so they stand in the room’s centre.
She can tell he’s both confused and curious, and his eyes flick upward as she darkens the room with her wand then spells the ceiling and walls with hundreds of tiny flickering lights so it looks like they stand in the middle of a starry night sky. The lights reflect off Severus’s wide eyes and cast shadows from his sharp features.
“Hermione?” he questions her softly.
Swallowing, she grasps his other hand in hers so they stand facing each other, hands linked between them.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she begins, so he has a hint of what’s coming. She watches his adam’s apple bob, and his fingers squeeze hers tightly.
They’ve talked a lot about him collaring her over the past several months: what her rules will be, what limits she’ll maintain, and how their power dynamic will work day-to-day. He’s made it clear he won’t do it unless she’s ready and that when she is he wants her to ask him.
“We’ve been talking a lot about what it would mean if I were going to become your slave, and in all that time, I’ve only grown more sure that I want to be yours,” she begins, the words flowing out of her easily. “You’re like no one I’ve ever met before. You are the most caring, wonderful, intelligent, captivating person, and I have never adored or wanted anyone as deeply, as completely as I do you.”
She lets go of his hands and lowers herself to the ground, spreading her knees and placing her palms up on top, just how he likes, her heart beating steadily.
For a long time, she believed that in order to truly give herself to someone, that meant she had to be nothing without them. That to be owned, to be subservient meant giving everything she had, even if it was at her own expense. She wanted to be nothing, because she thought that was all she had to give.
But Severus makes her feel capable, wonderful in ways she never thought possible. It is his kindness that makes her want to surrender herself to him. His patience. His intelligence. His belief in her. His love. His playfulness. His sex and his pain too. She wants to live her life knowing she is his. Pleasing him, caring for him, growing with him, because it will make her happy too.
She looks up into his midnight eyes in his living room full of magic stars and sees nothing but endless love.
“I love you so much, Severus,” she says as a smile spreads across his face. “Will you collar me?”
END