Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery

Chapter 66 ~ A Bit of Bonding

Isadora led Hermione into the bedroom, closed the door and helped the witch to the bed, where she sat down on the edge of it, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. Isadora sat down next to her and looked at her sympathetically. She decided the best way to get the witch to calm down was to talk about the wedding.

“Do you have your dress picked out?” Isadora asked Hermione.

“Yes, but it’s white, and I can’t wear white, Isadora. I could change it but don’t know what color to wear,” she replied, calming a little. “Plus I look like a whale in it.”

Isadora smirked a little.

“Where is the dress?” Isadora asked. Hermione pointed to the wardrobe.

Isadora got up and walked over to the wardrobe. She opened it. There were several robes and dresses in it. There was a large white one. The witch took it out. It looked a bit like a choir robe, long and shapeless. Isadora could see why Hermione was upset.

“All right. Undress and put this on. We’re going to work on this dress,” Isadora said with authority.

Hermione hesitated. She felt her body was so ugly she didn’t want Isadora to see it. Isadora knew what was wrong immediately and wondered how Severus dealt with the witch concerning this issue. If Hermione didn’t want her to see what she looked like, what kind of problems did she give Severus?

“Come now, Hermione. I’ve been pregnant. I know what changes our bodies go through. No matter how you feel, believe me…you are beautiful. Like a fertility goddess,” Isadora said soothingly.

Hermione laughed. She had seen stone images of fertility goddesses. They did look like big, pregnant women with big round bellies and full breasts.

“I’m sure Severus finds you beautiful,” Isadora said softly.

“He says he does,” Hermione replied, beginning to pull off her shirt.

Her breasts were barely contained by her bra. Isadora made a mental note to go pick her up a few better fitting ones. Her belly was big and round, a dark line running from under her navel into her pants.

“I had a line like that…and what was worse, my pubic hair started growing right up to my navel,” Isadora commented. “I cried buckets.”

This made Hermione feel better. At least her pubic hair stayed where it belonged. She pulled off her pants, revealing a huge pair of white granny knickers. Isadora turned her head and smiled. She remembered those too.

“You’re laughing at me,” Hermione said, her mouth turning downwards.

Isadora turned back toward her, still smiling.

“No, Hermione. I’m not laughing at you, dear. I was just remembering what it was like to wear those huge knickers. It was very hard to feel sexy in them, that’s for sure,” the witch said.

“It’s been months since I’ve felt sexy,” Hermione said as Isadora helped her on with the dress.

From over her shoulder, Isadora asked her candidly, “Does Severus find you sexy?”

Hermione sighed.

“I think I could sprout long coarse hair all over my body and Severus would still be interested in me,” she responded.

Isadora laughed a rich, throaty laugh.

“Obviously he loves you very much,” Isadora said.

“Yes,” Hermione said. “I believe he does. He said he does.”

Hermione’s answer warmed Isadora’s heart. Her son never said anything he didn’t mean, even as a child he stuck to his word as best he could. If he told the witch he loved her, then he did.

“If he said it, he meant it, Hermione,” Isadora said, turning Hermione and stepping back to look at her, drawing her wand out of her jean pocket.

Hermione was right. The dress did make her look like a whale. It was long and shapeless except where it draped over her belly.

“See? I look awful. Severus will run from the dais if he sees me coming toward him like this,” Hermione said, her voice cracking slightly as she readied herself to cry again.

“I’m sure my son has seen things more frightening than you in a wedding dress,” Isadora said, rubbing her chin as she studied the witch. “Well, would you like me to cast a slimming spell on the dress? Then you wouldn’t look so pregnant.”

Hermione’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, could you?” she breathed.

Isadora nodded. It was a trick she had learned from an Italian seamstress in Naples. She made a few motions with her wand, then flicked it at Hermione. Immediately, her stomach went down significantly.

“It’s just a glamour,” Isadora said as Hermione smoothed her front. She could still feel her enormous belly, she just couldn’t see it. She was still slightly rounded. She looked to be about four months.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” Hermione said, looking down at herself.

“You won’t look like you’re waddling either,” Isadora said. “But you will be.”

Hermione smiled at her. She was feeling much better about the ceremony now. Then she frowned.

“What about the color? I can’t wear white,” the witch said.

“That’s easy. Has Eli told you what you’re having yet?” Isadora asked the witch.

“Yes, a boy,” Hermione replied.

Isadora’s face lit up. A grandson.

The witch waved her wand at Hermione again, and the dress turned baby blue.

“There you go,” Isadora said.

Hermione loved it.

“We’ll add a decorative belt, some flowers and some jewelry to add some pizzazz to the dress. Just leave that to me. You’re going to look beautiful,” Isadora said. “And you can wear your slippers underneath. No one will see them and you will be more comfortable.”

Hermione looked at the witch in front of her. Isadora was so unlike what she imagined Severus’ mother would be like. The young witch had thought she’d be a broken woman, one whom such a hard life would have beaten down into a mousy, retiring shadow of her former self. But Isadora wasn’t like that at all. Not only did Severus get his looks from his mother, he had also received her strength and resiliency.

“I’m not what you imagined, am I Hermione?” Isadora asked her.

“No, Isadora. You’re not. You are much kinder than I thought you’d be,” Hermione said hesitatingly.

“I take it because Severus is so severe,” Isadora said.

“Yes, and because…because…”

Here Hermione faltered.

“Because of the kind of life Severus and I lived with his father,” Isadora finished for her.

Hermione nodded.

“Severus told you about it?” Isadora asked.

“No,” Hermione admitted. “He started having nightmares after we invited you to the wedding. Terrible nightmares where he would shout and struggle, but had no recollection of the next morning. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and looked into his mind. He still doesn’t know I know.”

Isadora looked at her appraisingly. She had used legilimency to find out what was troubling her son. The witch had nerve. Isadora helped her to the bed and sat down beside her.

“I met Severus’ father Darius when I was quite young. Just out of school really. He was a laborer…did brickwork. He was much older than me, but tall, handsome, with a voice that could melt magma. Whenever he spoke to me, I felt as if he were caressing me,” she said wistfully.

Hermione could understand this. Severus did the same thing to her.

“I worked in muggle London as a clerk for a dress shop. My parents came from a long line of purebloods but almost all our wealth was gone, so I had to work to help out. I used to pass Darius every morning and every evening. One day he fell in step beside me and walked me to the shop. He told me I was the most delicate, beautiful woman he had ever seen…and the way he looked at me…gods.”

I didn’t know anything about men, Hermione. And Darius affected me so much. One evening about two months after I met him, as I was walking past the site he was working at, he reached out and grabbed me, pulling me into the building with him. He told me he just had to kiss me, and he did, and it was the sweetest thing I had ever felt. I wanted so much more. It didn’t take him long to give it to me. He took my virginity and I became his lover. And what a lover he was,” Isadora breathed.

Hermione flushed. Severus must have taken after his father in the sex department.

“We didn’t have the kind of birth control then that’s available now. There were condoms, but Darius hated them. He would pull out of me to keep me from getting pregnant. Not a very safe way to practice safe sex, but it was what we did. One night, he got carried away and couldn’t help himself. He didn’t pull away and I got pregnant immediately. He was very unhappy about it. Then, I told him I was a witch and showed him some simple spells. At first he was frightened, but soon got used to the idea and said he’d marry me. My father helped ‘convince’ him, however. He showed up at Darius’ flat one night and had a talk with him. Darius would never tell me what was said between them. He just showed up with a ring. My father died shortly after the wedding. Severus is almost the spitting image of his grandfather.”

Hermione could almost imagine what that ‘talk’ was like if Isadora’s father was anything like Severus. Isadora’s eyes darkened as she continued.

“I didn’t realize Darius was marrying me primarily because I was a witch. He didn’t understand what a witch was. He thought of me more like a genie than a witch. When he found out I couldn’t make wishes come true, he claimed I’d trapped him into marriage by getting pregnant, snapped my wand and beat me for the first time. Eli nearly killed him and I had to restrict the elf in order for Darius to stay with Severus and me. So I stayed married to him. I was brought up in the wizarding ways, and marriages were supposed to be forever, so even though he beat me, I couldn’t leave him. It would be the ultimate shame in my eyes to leave my marriage. My mother died when Severus was two, and I have no relatives, so there was no where to go anyway.”

“Severus had a hard life, though I gave him all the love and support I could, and protected him from Darius as much as possible. Eli helped immensely. He was more of a father to Severus than his own father. I taught Severus to be strong and courageous despite what was happening to us, telling him it wouldn’t always be this way. But Darius was getting worse and worse in his abuse, and when Severus was in his sixth year at Hogwarts, his father became very sick. No one knew why, though he went to doctor after doctor. He was just wasting away. Finally he died, and I was free. Then Severus joined the Dark Lord, which broke my heart.”

Hermione looked at Isadora. She knew why Darius had died. Severus poisoned him to protect his mother.

“A couple of years later, Severus came to me. He was so different. So cold, his eyes so empty. He told me something had changed and I needed to leave the country. I didn’t want to go, but Severus insisted and made arrangements for me to go to Naples. Dumbledore helped, providing the galleons. Severus was now a teacher at Hogwarts. He told me I couldn’t contact him at all. That there could be no contact between us until Voldemort was destroyed. He didn’t even kiss me goodbye, though his eyes were wet when I departed. I got a job as a travel agent and hadn’t seen him from that day until this,” Isadora said, drawing a deep breath.

“Now he is free of Voldemort, respected in the wizarding world, marrying a witch who loves him and becoming a father. And I can share in it. We are a family again. A growing family,” she said rubbing Hermione’s invisible belly lightly and smiling at the witch. “Our early life all seems like a bad dream now.”

Isadora took Hermione’s hand, patting it and looking into her amber eyes.

“You’ve heard my story,” Isadora said, “Now tell me yours.”

Hermione took a deep breath and did so, beginning with her finding out she was a muggle-born witch and discovering the magical world. Then she told of her association with Harry Potter.

Isadora frowned slightly.

“Harry Potter. His father was James Potter. I remember him. He saved Severus from being killed by a werewolf. But he and his friends always targeted my son, and made his time here at Hogwarts miserable. I always had to talk him out of really hurting those four. Severus would be so angry. I think they were part of the reason he joined the Dark Lord,” Isadora said darkly.

Hermione continued, hesitating when she came to the part of suddenly finding herself very attracted to the dark wizard.

“He was so commanding. So intelligent…his voice…” Hermione tried to explain.

“I know what you mean, Hermione,” Isadora told her. “He has his father’s voice.”

Hermione went on, telling Isadora how she couldn’t get him out of her mind or her heart and how she had saved herself, hoping to tell him how she felt about him one day. And what happened when she did, and how Severus went out of his way to make her dislike him and the small wars that occurred between them. And about Raucous.

The witch laughed at some of the situations her son went through with the witch, and what Hermione went through with Raucous.

Hermione also told Isadora about the state Severus would be in when he returned from the Dark Lord. Tears came to his mother’s eyes as Hermione described his condition, and how he would always return to try and get more information to help the Order.

“He suffered greatly,” Isadora whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“He is the bravest wizard alive,” Hermione said, “He did it all without acknowledgement. Without appreciation. He did it for the entire wizarding world. But I appreciated him.”

Hermione told Isadora how Severus finally accepted her…but didn’t profess any love for her. And how she took a Wizard’s Oath to allay his fears.

“You bound yourself to him?” Isadora said, amazed.

“I didn’t want anyone else,” Hermione said.

Isadora shook her head. “You are already married to him, then Hermione. You just haven’t had the ceremony yet.”

Hermione gave her a slight smile.

“How did he treat you?” Isadora asked the witch.

Hermione hesitated.

“Like his personal sex slave, at first” Hermione admitted.

Isadora nodded. He was very much like his father.

“Then we split up after an argument,” she continued.

“I bet he realized he missed you,” Isadora said.

“Yes. He admitted to having a ‘deep, abiding fondness’ for me,” Hermione replied.

“A what?” Isadora said, her eyebrows almost raised to her hairline in amazement.

“A deep, abiding fondness,” Hermione repeated.

Isadora shook her head.

“Talk about sidestepping,” she said, “Did you accept that?”

“Not totally. I came back when he admitted feeling affection towards me. That made me hopeful. There were a few rough moments after that, but then he started to treat me different. With more care and tenderness then he had. He didn’t treat me like such a plaything all the time. Then the end of the year came and I left Hogwarts, promising I’d see him. But I found out I was pregnant and tried to hide it from him. He had wanted me to move into this house, and I had agreed to…but went back to my dorm when university was about to start.”

“He came looking for you, didn’t he?” Isadora asked.

“Yes, and found out I was pregnant with his child. He moved me from the dorm and into his house, brought me a ring and asked me to marry him. But I didn’t accept because I knew he was only doing it because of the baby, not because he loved me. I didn’t want to trap him into marriage that way. I wanted him to want to marry me for me,” Hermione said. “But I stayed with him.”

“I see,” Isadora said, “And what happened to change your mind?”

“Well, Eli did. He told me Severus did love me, and made me see it for myself. He loved me, he just couldn’t say it. I was satisfied with that and told him I’d marry him.”

“Yet, you said he told you he loved you,” Isadora said. “When did that occur?”

Hermione flushed furiously. She wasn’t about to tell Severus’ mother that the wizard admitted it to her after she had given him a blowjob.

“After he went to the university and withdrew me because they were mistreating me because I was an unwed mother,” she said, hoping Isadora would be satisfied with that.

“Yes, I remember how I was ostracized by the wizarding community when I began to show. It was horrible, but subsided once I had Darius’ ring on my hand. It was as if I was transformed into something acceptable again. It made me so angry,” Isadora said sympathetically.

“It made me angry too. It still makes me angry,” Hermione said, her eyes narrowing.

Isadora looked at her approvingly. It seemed the witch had fire as well.

“In fact, it’s not over. I’m just waiting to have the baby,” Hermione seethed. “Some changes need to be made. And soon.”

Somehow, Isadora knew that there was much more to the witch than was apparent on the surface. She was quite Slytherin-like to be a Gryffindor. Isadora had been in Slytherin as well and recognized a kindred spirit. Hermione would be able to keep Severus happy.

“Is that all there is to tell?” Isadora asked the witch.

Hermione shrugged.

“More like a ‘to be continued’ story,” she said grinning at the witch. She felt a whole lot better after telling Isadora her and Severus’ story. Like a weight had been lifted. And now she better understood Severus’ past and his mother’s as well. She took Isadora’s hands in hers.

“Thank you for being so kind to me,” Hermione said sincerely. Isadora slipped one hand from Hermione’s and caressed the witch’s cheek.

“How could I be anything less to the witch who is going to make me the happiest grandmother in the world?” she replied.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

“Mother? Hermione?”

It was Severus. The door started to open and Hermione was still in her wedding dress. Both witches screamed.

“Stay out!”

Shocked at their vehemence, Severus quickly closed the door.

“I just wanted to tell you that supper is ready,” he said against the door.

What were they doing in there that he couldn’t come in? The Potions Master felt rather left out.

“All right, we’ll be there,” his mother called back, “Now go away!”

Severus scowled at the door for a moment. His mother was ordering him about in his own house. He started to say something snarky, but thought better of it and headed toward the kitchen.

He smirked a bit as he walked.

At least his mother was here to annoy him. He had missed it. Terribly.

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A/N: Okay. Isadora’s history is out. Her and Hermione have bounded admirably, and her wedding dress is kicking now. Not bad, Isadora. Not bad at all. Please review.

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The Burning Pen

Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery
by Ruth Solomon

 

The story content is adult in nature and can contain graphic sex and violence. Those under the age of 18 are asked to leave this site immediately. You are not welcome here. The author is not responsible for those under-aged who view these works.

CHAPTER 67

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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