Big Name Death Eater by Shiv (PG-13)

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Length: 49,000 words
Author on LJ: shiv5468
Author Website: Her Obscurus Books site and Her Yahoo Group
Why this must be read: Hermione (who has been nudged into taking a teaching position at Hogwarts for "the good of the Order") comes across a dirty, bleeding Severus Snape lying on the Quidditch pitch late one night. As if she had somehow read the dozens of Snape/Hermione stories that begin this way, she naturally assumes that her colleague's desperate state is the result of his dangerous work as a double agent. Instead, as she soon discovers, Snape's state is the result of a night spent drinking with "the Lads."

***

It's the morning after Hermione found Snape drunk and semi-conscious on the pitch. After spending the night on his couch, she's gone back to her rooms, and in very little time, Snape comes after her, set on finding out what, precisely, took place the night before. Surprisingly, however, he doesn't appear to be looking for a fight.

Severus turned to look at her. He didn’t look shamefaced or guilty, as she had half-expected, but merely exasperated. “Do you like working here?”

“Are you threatening me?” she asked indignantly.

“Don’t be silly,” he snapped. “It’s a serious question.”

“Not much,” she sighed. “Not much at all. I hate the children, I hate most of my colleagues, I hate the weather and I hate the way Albus is using me as a skivvy under the cover of working for the Order.”

Severus sat in the armchair by the side of the fire, without being asked, and said, “I hate it too.”

Their eyes met in a long moment of common feeling.

Hermione worked through the implications of his half-confession; he wasn’t going to admit more than was strictly necessary, but if she could put the pieces together for herself, that was a different matter. The answer seemed reasonably clear; she was impressed, and envious, that he’d been pulling the wool over their eyes for so long. Poor Severus and the terrible effects of bouts of Crucio was nothing more than a foul hangover and alcohol withdrawal. “So, you nip off every once in a while for a night out and tell Albus you’re on Order business,” she asked, relatively sympathetically whilst wondering if there was any way she could put the same tactics to good use.

He smiled faintly; he could hear the note of envy in her voice. “Something like that; I did go to a meeting last night. I just didn’t … hurry back, shall we say. You can imagine how Albus would have reacted if I’d said, oh, by the way, it’s been a hell of a week, I’d like to nip off and see my mates for a swift half after risking life and limb for you spying.”

“Not well.” Not after he’d recovered from the shock of finding out that Snape actually had friends, anyway. “He kicked up an awful fuss when I wanted to see my parents during the holidays. Kept making all sorts of dire warnings about Death Eater attacks. He just couldn’t find anyone to cover for Minerva, so he could go for two weeks in Spain. He backed down quickly enough when I pointed out that if there was a risk of attack on my parents I really ought to be there to protect them, unless he was going to arrange round-the-clock Auror protection for them. The Bastard.”

Severus nodded. “He tried that same trick on me last year, only that time it was a fortnight in Italy whilst he did important research for the Order. The only research he was doing was whether Minerva liked it better on top.”

They both faltered at that mental image, and tried very hard not to think about it.

“So,” continued Severus, “I don’t have much of a conscience about letting Albus think that my job as a spy is more physically demanding than it is.”

“And Albus doesn’t ask too many questions about what goes on at these meetings, because he’s a bit squeamish and doesn’t want to hear about unpleasantness, particularly if it’s unpleasantness he’s responsible for.”

“It’s not my fault Albus is an idiot; I mean, how long do you think any evil overlord would last if he were regularly submitting his followers to Crucio? Not bloody long, I can tell you. Particularly when the followers in question are Slytherins: we joined up for world conquest and unlimited power, not personal discomfort. If You-know-who was as daft as all that, we wouldn’t be still waiting for Potter to do his duty; Malfoy would have stabbed him in the back long before this.” Severus looked a little wistful at this thought, though he supposed that Malfoy as evil overlord wasn’t much of an improvement on You-know-who.

***

Ironically, one of the things that's so wonderful about this story is how very prosaic everything is. There's very little in the way of heroic glamour for Order members (and none at all for the beleaguered teachers at Hogwarts). And where the Death Eaters are concerned, well, it's really more of the same: a passel of unappreciated minions, virtually indistinguishable from low-level employees everywhere in the Muggle world as they whinge about the 'inner circle' over a pint or three.

And Snape? He's about as close in this story to being "just a guy" as he ever could be, unhappy in his work and all but resigned to the idea that he's not the kind of man who's ever going to be lucky enough to find a girlfriend - particularly not one as well suited to him as the eminently practical Hermione Granger.

Read "Big Name Death Eater" (...and then read the sequels, "Big Name Death Eater 2" and "Big Name Death Eater 3")