Chapter Text
The Mirror of Riapsid. An old, antique mirror in the room of requirement reveals a different reflection – what the person who peers into it would be like at their worst.
Hermione approached the Mirror of Riapsid, cautiously, nervously, a little reluctantly. She suspected she already knew exactly what it would show her. There was a reason she’d left her job at the Ministry to come back to Hogwarts and become a professor, and it wasn’t because she’d always loved teaching. Though she did love it now.
She saw her reflection, a frazzled mess working desperately to right the wrongs of the Wizarding world and being beaten down by the bureaucracy, the corruption, the sheer pig headedness of those in power and their reluctance to change. The mirror was an odd experience, conveying a depth of understanding far beyond the images it showed.
She watched as her anger grew, and she could feel the utter frustration, and her desperation. She saw injustice all around her and she couldn’t fix it. Hermione never had been able to give just a little bit of herself to a cause, she always pushed too hard. No matter how much logic she applied to a situation she never could accept the small evils for the sake of the larger good.
Minerva prompted her, “What do you see?”
Hermione scowled, displeased that she was required to share this with all of her coworkers, but Minerva hadn’t given any of them a choice, so she admitted, “I’m angry about house elf rights, and frustrated by my inability to pass legislation through the Wizengamot. My bill fails and I lose it. I find Draco’s parents and I punish them, they are wearing oversized pillowcases, on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor.”
Snape snorted and Hermione looked up to meet Draco’s icy grey eyes across the room. He smiled encouragingly, giving her a little shrug, probably unsurprised that Hermione, at her worst, would be willing to torture his parents.
“I’m torturing them and their elves are helping me. Then I’m organising a rebellion, and the goblins side with me. They are so brutal and bloodthirsty, yet our cause is worthy, and it’s not like I haven’t done worse, so I go along with them. We’ve created- well, I find it hard to imagine myself going along with this, even at my worst, but we’ve created what look like internment camps and we are forcibly re-educating witches and wizards. It’s terrible.”
She stepped back, keeping her eyes on the floor, not wanting to meet the gazes of others. This was all so bloody personal, and she didn’t want to know how people would look at her, knowing she would have done unspeakable things to them simply because they couldn’t say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the house elves who slaved away every day to serve them.
Luna, bless her, drew everyone’s attention away, saying brightly, “I’ll go next shall I? This seems very exciting, I’m so curious to see it.”
Hermione smiled, Luna was so funny, often afraid of having attention on herself, but perfectly willing to sacrifice her own comfort for the sake of others. The pretty blonde stepped up to look into the mirror though and her dreamy smile vanished. Her brow furrowed, and she watched her reflection in consternation.
Minerva didn’t need to prompt her, Luna spoke immediately, “I’m being teased and I don’t like it. I want to make them stop and I’m quite inventive, really. I’ve made a spell and whenever anyone is mean to me it makes their mouth disappear. Only people don’t like not having mouths, do they? It just makes things worse. I’m all on my own though, and I’m very angry, so I just make more spells. Oh, that one’s particularly nasty, I don’t like this at all. I don’t want to hurt them, not like this…”
Luna trailed off, tears streaming down her cheeks as she continued watching her reflection. Minerva let her, not pressing for more, until Luna finally stepped back. Hermione reached for her, wrapping an arm around the other girl. Luna was normally hesitant about public displays of affection, she was very determined that they should keep their relationship secret, but right now she clearly needed the comfort. Hermione wrapped her in a hug and held her as Hagrid stepped forward for his turn.
Luna whispered quietly, “Don’t ever let me become a Dark Lady, I don’t like it at all.”
Hermione smiled, “I’m afraid I can’t promise that, but if you do, I’ll become one right alongside you.”
Luna brightened, “Oh, well that’s alright then, I wouldn’t mind if we did it together.”
She laughed, “I’d never let you be evil without me.”
Luna smiled and turned her attention to Hagrid, listening politely as he sobbed, uttering incoherent apologies to everyone and giving them far too much detail about exactly which of his creatures was currently eating them in his reflection. It took quite a bit to convince him to calm down afterwards, and Charlie dragged him off to a corner to have some tea, though he shot a nervous glance Hermione’s way before thanking the elf who delivered the tray.
They were just settling down again when Minerva snapped, “Severus.”
Snape scowled from where he’d almost managed to slip out of the Room of Requirement amidst everyone’s distraction. Hermione was surprised he was going to participate at all, and there was a cynical part of her that wondered if Minerva was forcing them all to do this simply because she’d had enough of the recalcitrant man.
Hermione had been quite impressed with the Headmistress since she had taken over the running of Hogwarts. Hermione herself had gone straight into the Ministry after the war to beat her head against the brick wall that was the Wizarding worlds archaic legal system. She’d managed to pass a single piece of legislation to better working conditions for house elves, but it had been absolutely soul sucking for her.
She really had almost snapped; Lucius Malfoy had bought his way out of Azkaban and proceeded to oppose her at every opportunity. He was absolutely despicable, and the fact that he was still allowed to walk around the world freely still made her feel sick to think about. There had been a brief moment, during her last Wizengamot session, where she had genuinely considered murdering him, and she’d taken that as a sign to quit.
Instead, she’d come to Hogwarts to complete a Charms mastery and then replaced Filius when he retired. Most of the older teachers were all looking to retire, after the war. They’d suffered too many years of uncertainty, and most had been troubled by the deaths of students during the final battle. Sinistra and Sprout had both taken apprentices before the dust had even settled and begun training them up as replacements. Filius had wanted to do the same, but he hadn’t been satisfied with any of the available candidates until Hermione had decided two years of suffering at the Ministry was enough and he had eagerly snapped her up.
That hadn’t been enough change for Minerva though. At the end of her third year as Headmistress she’d fired both Hagrid and Trelawney. It had been quite a shock to everyone, but rumour was they’d both been on probation for two whole years and had not improved. Hagrid’s reputation for dangerous and ineffective classes had resulted in no students signing up for his N.E.W.T. classes, even though it was usually a popular subject. Several students who required it for their future careers had elected to instead undertake independent study. He had been allowed to stay on as Groundskeeper and she’d hired Charlie Weasley to take his place.
Trelawney hadn’t nearly killed any students, and her occasional prophecies of doom had now failed to come true so many times that it was a bit of a running joke that you might be the ‘lucky’ student who she predicted to die, thereby being guaranteed a long and happy life. Unfortunately, her pass rates were so low that the Ministry had threatened to cut funding for the subject. They’d tried that with Dumbledore several times and he’d somehow managed to smooth things over. Minerva was not cut from the same cloth. She’d fired Trelawney, leaving the Divination post empty. Firenze had returned to his herd immediately following the war, though he hadn’t been any better at assisting students to pass their Ministry mandated exams.
Minerva had announced, during a Thursday staff meeting, that she was cancelling the subject, only for Luna to interject, “Oh but you can’t, how am I supposed to teach the class if it’s cancelled?”
Hermione found it rather funny in retrospect. No-one had been sure how Luna had gotten into Hogwarts, or into their staff meeting, without being noticed. Minerva had asked and Luna had replied simply, as though it were a dumb question, “This is the staff meeting is it not? I’m the new Divination Professor.”
Minerva had objected dryly that she didn’t recall hiring her and Luna had said happily, “You haven’t hired me, yet.”
Luna had spent the prior two years travelling the globe with her father. They had primarily been chasing a variety of creatures which Hermione doubted were real, though she had to admit they had proven the existence of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Luna had also spent time studying Divination with various seers around the world. There was no mastery for the subject, the closest you got was having a prophecy you’d made appear in the Department of Mysteries, which made Luna as qualified as anyone else. Hermione had never had a high opinion of the subject, yet she couldn’t deny that she’d spent seven years of her life protecting Harry Potter and it was all the result of a prophecy, so she’d tried to be more open minded after the war.
They hadn’t really been friends in school, Luna’s insistence on believing in things without even the slightest shred of proof had driven Hermione batty. Hermione had never been trying to argue that something never being written about before meant it wasn’t real, obviously people made new scientific discoveries all the time, she merely thought that people shouldn’t believe in things without any evidence whatsoever. Luna didn’t need proof to believe in anything though, it made her happy, and it made Xenophilius happy, and that was enough for her to choose to have faith.
They understood each other better now. Luna still believed in things that probably weren’t real, but Hermione accepted that they might be, and even if they weren’t Luna wasn’t doing anyone any harm in believing in them. Hermione no longer felt it quite so necessary to prove her intellect and magical knowledge at literally every opportunity. She couldn’t help being a bit of a know-it-all, and she’d never be entirely free of her propensity to show off, but she was more confident now, which strangely made her quieter.
The two girls had both been close with Filius, Hermione because he was her Master, and Luna because he’d been her Head of House, and once he’d finally retired they had found comfort in each other. That comfort had led to something more soon after. They had kept their relationship a secret, both of them being rather reserved about their private lives, though Hermione did suspect that Luna wasn’t comfortable about others knowing of their unconventional relationship. One of the most surprising things she had learned about her girlfriend was that Luna wasn’t really as at ease with her oddness as she often appeared.
Her attention was drawn back to Snape as he strode forward, robes billowing, as he stepped in front of the tarnished old mirror. He was the only one of Dumbledore’s controversial hires who Minerva had left alone. Slughorn had the decency to wait to resign until Snape was released from the hospital wing, but had left him to return to teaching Potions as though nothing had ever happened. He was still as bitter and nasty as he’d ever been, and Hermione had wondered why Minerva hadn’t gotten rid of him.
She suspected there was a bit of guilt over how she’d mistrusted him during the war, but considered it also might be more pragmatic. He may be an arsehole and a bully, but he was a competent teacher. There was a lot of public outrage against him, he was widely mistrusted and maligned, but his class results spoke for themselves. Yet Hermione knew Minerva had been pushing him over his mistreatment of students, and she thought this whole forced team bonding activity may be the result of her finally having had enough of his attitude. Either he’d be forced to confront his own behaviours, or he’d refuse to participate and she’d fire him.
They watched as he finally stepped up to gaze into his own reflection, expression wary. He stared at it for a moment and then narrowed his eyes, “Is this a joke?”
Minerva pursed her lips, “What do you see?”
He stared at the mirror, looking angry, “Nothing. I see myself, exactly as I am. I’m bullying students and snarking at my colleagues, just like any other Tuesday. Is this a trick?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, “Severus-”
He spat, “I’m not lying, that’s literally what I see! I should be rallying the remaining Death Eaters and styling myself as the new Dark Lord, but instead I’m apparently already at my worst making dunderheaded students cry about their failure to even boil water and causing our new Herbology Professor’s bollocks to retract every time I glance in his direction. This- It’s rubbish. What a waste of bloody time!”
Luna quirked her head and said, “I think that makes perfect sense. You don’t have anything to care about anymore.”
“If I wanted advice from a glorified magic eight ball, I’d purchase one.”
Hermione snapped, “Don’t speak to her like that, she’s perfectly right! Everyone else saw themselves driven to their worst over something they care about. Draco wanted to impress his parents, Charlie was trying to protect his family, Hagrid cared too much about his creatures. You don’t care about anything, so you have nothing to motivate you to change.”
He stared at her, flicked his gaze to Luna, and then turned to Minerva, “Are we done here? I believe everyone has had a turn with your funhouse mirror now, and I have potions to brew.”
When Minerva didn’t object he turned on his heel and strode swiftly out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
A few weeks later Luna was having an interesting dream, she was chasing Glumbumbles around the Whomping Willow while Hermione had a picnic with a Troll and a Dementor. She really wanted to go and join them, she had so many questions, particularly for the Dementor, but she couldn’t leave the Glumbumbles to be squished by the lashing branches. Professor Snape was standing nearby watching her, eyes shadowed, conflicted.
She woke to the feeling of cold toes on the back of her calves and hissed unhappily, “Why are you so cold?”
Hermione said sheepishly, “Forgot to tend the fire after I reached the chapter where the serial killer she’s chasing sent Auror Blume a music box she’d owned as a child, that she gave to her childhood friend. It got very interesting, very quickly.”
“Don’t tell me what happens, I want to read it.”
“I won’t, even if you’ll take like a month to get through it.”
Luna smiled to herself, “It’s not healthy to stay up so late reading, but I can stay up all night tomorrow if you like.”
Hermione yawned, “Don’t be silly, read at your own pace darling. I regret staying up so late, I have an early class tomorrow, but I just couldn’t help myself.”
“You should only start reading new books on a Friday nights in case they turn out to be very fascinating. You get distracted and then Nargles get into your head, and if they really want to know the conclusion they won’t let you think about putting the book down.”
“Very wise, as always, I should not start new books on a Wednesday night.”
“You’re not going to stop though,” Luna scolded, though she turned and snuggled closer.
Hermione leaned down to press a gentle kiss against her lips and then lay back. Luna lay blinking upwards at the ceiling, which they’d charmed together to reflect the night sky, just like the enchantment in the great hall. She thought of her dream, of how conflicted Severus had looked. He had wanted to help her, she knew, though he had been hesitant, afraid of rejection.
“What are you thinking about?” Hermione prodded.
“Snape.”
“Really? Why?”
“You know the Mirror of Riapsid was my idea, don’t you?”
Hermione smiled, “Yes dear, I did figure that out.”
“I thought it would help him. I think he’s trying, but it’s difficult for him. I want to give him something to care about.”
“Shall we buy him a kitten? Or perhaps a cute little snake?”
Luna smiled, “Don’t be silly, he doesn’t need a pet.”
“What would you like him to care about then, Lu?”
“I want him to care about us.”
Hermione studied her for a moment, before asking slowly, “What, exactly, do you mean?”
“I’d like to invite him to join us. Our relationship.”
“You want us to shag Snape?”
Luna responded seriously, “Yes, shag him, and snuggle with him. The snuggling is very important.”
Hermione laughed, “I’m sure it is, though I find it difficult to imagine him doing such a thing. Do you… Are you… Is what we have not enough for you?”
“Don’t be silly Hermione, it’s not about being enough, though if it were I would be the one who isn’t enough for you.” Hermione opened her mouth to object but she cut her off, “I know you’re happy with me, and I know you’d make it work, and never complain. I think we’d be happier all together though, and I know you’ve always wanted him.”
“Not always,” she objected feebly.
“You wanted his attention when you were eleven, and then it was his intellect, and then his everything. I know you were disappointed when he resisted your attempts to talk to him after you started working here but he wasn’t ready then. I think he is now.”
“Luna, do you even want him to join us? I didn’t get the impression that you liked men all that much, and even if you did I wouldn’t have thought you’d choose him.”
“I want him in a different way than you do, but yes, I wouldn’t mind shagging him. I really want to cuddle him, wash his hair, and kiss him until he feels better.”
Hermione laughed again, “Of course you do, I want to do those things too, though I have to admit I’m probably most keen on the shagging part. Are you sure though?”
“I’m sure. Don’t you think it will be nice? We will each have our own ways of connecting. You can talk to him about Potions and Arithmancy, and I’ll be able to talk to him about Divination, and you and I will still have Transfiguration because he’s rather hopeless at it. We’ll still read romances together, but he’ll read the murder mysteries you love so much, and we can all discuss Charms together and design new spells. The two of you will shag all the time, and I’ll join when I feel like it.”
“Are you sure you won’t mind that though?”
“I don’t get jealous like you do. As long as I get to cuddle too I won’t mind.”
Hermione smiled, finally relaxing, “Okay, that does sound nice. Do you think he’ll even want to?”
“I know he will.” She hesitated before admitting, “I’ve seen it.”
“Oh, well, that simplifies things then. How do we approach him?”
She admitted, “I’m not sure, I only saw us in the future, all three of us in bed together.”
“You should do a Tarot reading, perhaps it will help?”
Luna smiled, feeling warm inside. She hated having to admit her limitations like that, Divination was commonly looked down on, and there were always people who would look smug whenever she had to acknowledge not knowing anything. Hermione had once been one of them, but she was now Luna’s biggest supporter. It felt so special to her that Hermione now encouraged her interest, even though she used to hate the subject with a passion. She now simply accepted Luna as an authority on the topic, never seeming to doubt her, and even defending the validity of her subject to others.
She grew excited at the prospect of doing a reading and bounced out of bed, running over to grab her cards, but as soon as she had them she stopped abruptly. She felt stupid all of a sudden, Hermione hadn’t meant that they should do it right now, it was the middle of the night. She was embarrassed by her own enthusiasm, so used to being teased for getting overly excited and caught up in things that it was ingrained into her now to expect that sort of criticism.
Luna drooped a little, “I’m sorry, you didn’t mean right now. We can do it in the morning.”
Hermione shook her head fondly, “Of course you should do it now. You know I won’t be able to sleep until we have a solid plan for how we are going to romance Snape.”
Luna basked in that warm feeling again before skipping back to the bed. Hermione sat up, rearranging the cushions to make herself comfortable while she began shuffling the cards.
She suddenly realised, “Oh no. We don’t have anything of his. The reading would go much better if we had one of his possessions first.”
She felt stupid again, it was just like her to run off and get excited about an idea without thinking it through properly first, to then have it pointed out to her that she’d missed a step, or that it was so obvious there wasn’t enough time, or that it had been a stupid, pointless idea in the first place. Why couldn’t she just stop and think for a second?
Hermione though simply summoned a book from her shelf and set it between them, “I have the Half-Blood Prince’s old Potions book.”
Luna gasped, and snatched the book up, because it didn’t go in the middle of the circle! That was where the outcome cards would go, and she quickly repositioned the book so that the three of them were in a perfect triangle. She flushed a little, knowing she’d been unnecessarily abrupt, it wasn’t so terrible that Hermione had placed the book in the wrong spot, she didn’t know any better. Luna criticised herself, thinking she should have simply calmly moved the book and not made such a fuss, but when she looked up Hermione only smiled, unbothered.
She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding and shuffled the cards, closing her eyes to focus on her questions. She cut the deck and flipped half of it around, shuffling and then repeating until she was satisfied. She decided to flip three cards for each of them, two for their past and present combined, and one for their future, particularly focused on any obstacles they would each have to overcome.
She started with Advanced Potion Making, explaining to Hermione, “Oh, poor Severus. The Hermit, reversed. He’s lonely, isolated, and he feels lost. Ten of Swords, also reversed. That’s not terrible, it just means things are as bad as they are going to get for him, it can only look up from here. He has a lot of reversed cards, doesn’t he? Page of Cups, he will have a lot of insecurities to work through, and perhaps some emotional immaturity.”
“That sounds about right, do me next.”
“For you we have the Queen of Cups, compassionate, calm, comforting, with Strength for even more compassion, along with bravery and vigour. You also have the Five of Swords, a clinging to resentment, with aspirations to forgiveness. I’m the sun-” she paused to smile happily, “Joyous and optimistic, with the Ace of Cups for spirituality, intuition, and new feelings. I need to overcome the Nine of Swords, trauma, anxiety, and lingering self-doubt.”
She cocked her head, studying the cards she had just laid out, until it made sense. That Nine of Swords troubled her, but she did keep expecting Hermione to treat her the way others did, the way Hermione herself used to before they got to know each other better. Since they’d become closer after the war though Hermione had never made her feel bad about herself, or as though she were foolish and odd, and Luna knew she needed to let go of her fears and trust her.
She placed three cards in a triangular shape in the centre, for the conclusion. She’d originally been thinking she would have more than that, sets of 3 certainly, but 2 or 3 of them for 6 or 9 cards. She knew these would be enough though.
“Together we have the Two of Cups, for unity and connection, along with the Ace of Wands which brings inspiration, passion, and desire, and the Page of Wands, exploration, excitement, freedom. That’s… well, a lot of sex really, but a successful relationship, certainly. I think…”
Hermione waited patiently as she looked over the cards again.
“I think we are probably overcomplicating something rather simple. We’ll seduce him and distract him with sex and he won’t even notice how emotionally intimate we’re all becoming until it’s far too late. You have to take care with your resentment. He won’t be perfect immediately. Lean into your compassion and try not to be discontented with him when he doesn’t live up to your expectations.”
“And you?”
“I have to trust you not to hurt me. I’m so used to being belittled that I continue to expect it, even though you’re always so kind, even about my foibles.”
Hermione reached out to take her hand, “I love you Luna, foibles and all. I’m sorry I wasn’t always kind to you.”
“I love you too.”
Hermione nodded, “Alright, so now we plan.” She summoned a notebook and a pen then said out loud as she wrote the heading, “How to seduce Severus Snape.”