The Love Department

One Month Later

The last person Severus wanted to see at nine o’clock on a Monday morning was waiting for him in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, seated in an uncomfortable chair opposite an aged, whiskery man wearing gold pince-nez and a yellow three-piece suit reminiscent of Toad from Wind in the Willows. The man shook Severus’ hand and introduced himself as Unspeakable Armastus.

In smart robes, Granger looked transformed. She had done something unnecessary to her hair; it was pulled flat severely against her scalp and twisted into a neat, shining braid. Her face betrayed a look of horror at the sight of Severus sliding into a seat beside her, but that too was quickly smoothed over into a polished, professional mask.

“Shall we begin?” asked the Unspeakable, offensively jovial for this time in the morning. 

Granger glanced behind her. Rows of tables and chairs sat vacant, stretching far back into the deserted meeting room. 

“Is– is everybody else late?” 

“No, no, you two are the only recruits at present. It’s traditional to hire in pairs for this role, you see.”

Severus’ face remained impassive, but a familiar sensation of dread settled in his chest: one he had hoped to leave in the past. He was cheered slightly by Granger’s anxious fingers twisting into the fabric of her robes beneath the table.

“The only recruits,” she repeated faintly.

“Indeed. We’re having a bit of a reshuffle in the department, so it’ll be just the two of you heading up the office together,” he said pleasantly.

The silver lining to this unfortunate news was Granger’s professional mask melting into one of despair. There was no way she would agree to work alone with him, not after her outburst. She would quit; she could easily get another job. 

Or he could. Probably. 

But he wouldn’t let himself be forced out, there was no way he would forfeit his chance of a fresh start. What was a little hostility after working among the Death Eaters, whose meetings regularly featured crude and violent torture?

It had been enough work getting to this stage. Even after being personally recruited there had still been psychometric testing and a bevy of tedious forms regarding personal details, career history and, for some reason, allergy information.

“And which department is that?” Severus inquired mildly. “It wasn’t detailed in the correspondence.”

Unspeakable Armastus had the gall to look surprised, even though the correspondence had been a single line and an unreadable signature. His white moustache quivered as he smiled broadly. It occurred to Severus too little too late that he had had rather enough of jolly old men telling him what to do.

“Why, you two will be in Love, of course!”

“I beg your pardon!” 

Granger and Severus shouted at the same time, then shared a look of abject horror before turning back to their new employer.

“The Love department, it’s the perfect fit. Romantic Love, to be precise, we’re fully staffed over in Platonic and Obsessive. Come, I’ll show you both to your new office.”

Granger remained seated, taking a swift and depreciating glance at Severus. “There must be some mistake.”

“On that we agree,” said Severus.

“Not possible, not possible. You are Miss Hermione Granger and Mister Severus Snape?”

“Yes,” she admitted weakly. “But–”

“Excellent,” he interrupted. “Follow me.”

＊

Unspeakable Armastus led the unlikely pair down a series of labyrinthine corridors into a circular room lit with cool blue fire. Severus counted at least ten doors, perhaps twelve, unmarked and handleless. He couldn’t help but flinch when the doors began moving around them like a zoetropic cylinder, disorientating him, and he attempted with difficulty to control his breathing. 

To his irritation, Granger was unperturbed. She turned away from him and asked the Unspeakable a string of inane questions about the cafeteria food, waste parchment recycling and the quill budget.

“I’ll let you get situated,” said Unspeakable Armastus once the room stopped moving, and disappeared through another door beyond which Severus spied what looked like a tank containing a number of floating cauliflowers. 

“Was it your heaps of romantic conquests that got you the job?” Granger asked drily, once they were finally alone. 

Severus let his lip curl, refusing to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had hit a nerve.

“Tell me, how does it feel to be dumped by a Weasley?”

“You’ve been misinformed,” she said coolly. “Ron and I are just friends.”

“That’s not what Molly’s been telling people.”

It was a complete lie, he hadn’t spoken to Molly in a year – but he could tell it rattled her. The last time he had seen Hermione Granger she had called him a foul, wretched bastard and torn through his wards like cobwebs, so he wasn’t above a cheap riposte. Still, being seen to be holding too large a grudge would appear petty. 

“Ladies first,” he said, gesturing to the expanse of black wood beyond which was the room in which they would spend all their working hours together. 

Granger pushed the door open and cried out almost immediately.

“Oh my God, it’s like Barbara Cartland threw up in here!”

Whoever that was, it was clearly a woman in touch with her feminine side. The miniscule circular room was the size of a hot tub and twice as humid, and looked as if it had been designed by Madam Puddifoot. 

The space was windowless save for a circular skylight enchanted to show a canopy of cherry tree branches, complete with rosy blossoms fluttering down onto the cerise rug below and vanishing at intervals. The walls themselves were pastel pink limestone the colour of strawberry milkshake. Severus was speechless.

The majority of the space was taken up by two rosewood desks facing each other at an angle, with a chintzy, floral patterned chair behind each. On the right side of the entrance was a filing cabinet, on the left was a truly repulsive piece of furniture. It was a striped satin loveseat, except its back was shaped, nauseatingly, to resemble a heart. 

Opposite the entrance was another door flanked by twin bookshelves. Granger strode toward the books like a homing pigeon, squeezing her hips between the narrow space where the corners of the desks almost met.

“From Russia, With Love? This is James Bond, for pete’s sake. Oh, Enduring Love? This book is about a delusional stalker! I know it has love in the title, but seriously. This cannot be our research corpus…”

Severus mentally claimed one of the desks as his (the one furthest from that atrocious sofa) and moved to investigate the door. It led to a cramped kitchenette as belligerently empinkened as the main office: all magenta cupboards and pink granite work surfaces, upon which were bowls of candy hearts and a tiered display of iced cupcakes.

“This is too far,” he told the inside of the cupboard strongly, when he opened it to find nothing but Himayalan salt and pink peppercorns. Granger popped her head inside and threw a contemptuous look across every inch of the space.

“Lavender and Parvati would die of joy,” she muttered, inspecting a roll of blush kitchen paper quilted with hearts.

“Well, well, how do you like it?”

The two of them whirled around to find Unspeakable Armastus beneath the cherry blossom skylight, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Lovely,” Granger choked out, sounding as if she was trying to swallow a live cricket.

“Excellent! Although you shall only be spending half your time here, the other half will be field work, completed separately.”

“And what is it we’ll be doing, exactly?” 

“Ah, now. Together, you’ll be finding…” Armastus left a dramatic pause that brought a pained expression to the faces of his new recruits. “...The recipe for love!”

“The recipe?” Granger repeated. “Do you mean for the Amortentia spring in the Ever-Locked Room?”

Severus was unfamiliar with such a thing, but aimed to conceal the fact. Lucius would probably know. He could tell him the next time Severus visited the cells of Azkaban.

“You would like us to reverse engineer a love potion,” he stated flatly. That would be easy enough.

Armastus shook his head. “Oh, no, you mustn’t touch the spring! That room must remain locked at all times, to be certain. No, no, there’ll be no brewing involved.”

Was the Unspeakable referring, then, to a metaphorical recipe? Some abstract notion of how to fall in love? Severus couldn’t think of a job to which he was less suited. 

He drew himself up to his full height. “If you have no use for my potions expertise, then why was I hired?”

Armastus conjured two peach-coloured files from thin air and let one float softly onto each desk.

“It will all become apparent in due time,” he smiled, and ended his statement with what looked suspiciously like a wink. 

＊

Severus chewed a mouthful of rubbery monkfish and wondered for the third time whether he should inform Ms Drinkwater that she had broccoli in her teeth. Perhaps it would be ungentlemanly, but that little piece of greenery was distracting him from her unending monologue. Snippets of speech wafted across the table towards him.

“...terrible case of Plimpygroit last Easter, my glands are still swollen, see…”

He took another sip of red wine. The quality of the restaurant far exceeded that of the company. It might have been a pleasant evening under different circumstances, but as it was, it was something of a trial.

“...and a fungal infection in my big toenail, nothing will shift it. I’ve tried all sorts of potions. Not to mention the impetigo rash on my lower back…”

It turned out that what being a Research Associate in the Love Department in Mysteries entailed was this: dates. With strangers. Every single weekday evening.

The Ministry arranged available witches and wizards who were seemingly unaware that they were participants in a research study, with which Severus and Hermione were required to spend a minimum of two hours in the evenings engaging in tepid conversation, all expenses paid. They were then required to clock in the next afternoon to write up their findings on love.

“...took medication for the eczema of course, but it interacted with what I was taking for shingles…”

The woman was a medical marvel. Severus doubted there was an inch of skin on her body not contaminated with a rash, fungus, or discolouration. He recalled that in his childhood there had been a large book containing all sorts of achievements: longest fingernails, fastest land animal, most baked beans eaten within a minute, etcetera. Was there a world record for most skin diseases?

“...psoriasis between my index and ring finger on my wand hand…”

It wasn’t a real date. It was merely a charade he had to perform for the job. Of course, he would have preferred a role with less human contact, but at least he only shared an office with one other person, even if that person was Hermione Granger. No more staff meetings, no more supervising detentions, no more late-night patrols. The unorthodox schedule was particularly appealing, as it would allow him to drink as much as he liked and sleep it off in the morning. By the afternoon, he would hopefully have forgotten how excruciating dating was.

The last time he had been on a date was… oh yes, never. He had no real interest when he was a teenager, since in his mind the potential humiliation of rejection was so large as to eclipse any happiness that could have been gained by acceptance. Then he had transitioned immediately into a teaching role alongside his former professors, most of whom were a century older than him. At the time he’d barely ever stepped outside Hogsmeade. 

The only women he ever spoke to outside of work were happily married (Molly, Cissa), or batshit crazy (Bella, thankfully deceased). He had no problem speaking to women as such, since women were, contrary to popular belief, just normal human beings, and he could feign social niceties if there was something in it for him at the end of it. 

But he was out of practice at all this dreadful ‘going out’ business. His wardrobe contained nothing but teaching robes, his tastebuds had acclimated to the acceptable but unvarying meals served by the Hogwarts house elves, and it had been many years since anyone had expected him to be pleasant.

That was his biggest concern. The talking. At least none was required for this date, only listening to her monologue.

He idly wondered how Granger was enjoying her date. She was probably lecturing the poor soul on his subpar table manners, or correcting his pronunciation. The abstract nature of their quest was driving Miss Granger up the wall, which pleased Severus immensely. 

“...a stye on my eyelid, can you see? Just there. I had six eyelashes fall out overnight…”

Severus motioned to the waiter and ordered two chocolate lava cakes. 

He then stood, Obliviated Dilys Drinkwater, and took both desserts to go.

＊

At four o’clock the next day Granger sauntered in the office, although Severus noticed it was a very forced and intentional sort of saunter.

“How was your date?” he asked, affecting a bored tone.

“It went very well, thank you,” she said airily, not looking at him. “Great food. Nice man.” 

It was a habit of Miss Granger to become so absorbed in her work that she failed to notice what was going on around her, which Severus used to his advantage half an hour later as she wrote her report.

“Subject removed my shoe and attempted to insert my toes into his mouth,” Severus read over her shoulder. Granger gasped and whirled around, appalled. “And you had to Obliviate him at the end of the night? Dear dear, what a disaster,” he drawled.

She wandlessly summoned his report from his desk and opened it, swatting his reaching hands away. “No worse than yours,” she scoffed. “Sixteen rashes? At least I didn’t risk getting infected on my date. And you Obliviated her too!”

Severus summoned the file out of her hands and returned to his seat.

“Nosy parker,” he snarled.

“Hypocrite,” she shot back.

They finished their reports in silence, during which Severus was repeatedly distracted by the framed painting above Granger’s head. It looked disturbingly like the cover of a pulp fiction novel. A centaur embracing an ample-bosomed, barely-clothed witch tossed his long flowing hair and blew Severus a kiss.

Above his own head was a mermaid emerging from a moonlight lake, reaching out towards a vampire in a billowing white shirt.

Well, really. No man had that many abs.

Near the end of the day Granger tapped lightly on his desk to get his attention.

“I’m making a cup of tea, would you like one?”

It was a polite offer, but nevertheless expressed with unsubtle disdain.

“Do you promise not to lace it with poison?” he asked.

She looked him straight in the eyes. “No.”

A smile came unbidden, and he tried hard to keep composure. 

“I’ll take my chances.”