Chapter 17: The deal

If Severus accepted her conditions, it would make a lot of things easier for Hermione, since it was the best way to integrate into this era without anyone knowing about her past life, and having the head of an important family like the Prince family validates everything she did was without a doubt the best option she had to avoid problems and questions she couldn't answer, Besides, being able to have the Prince surname being from a distant branch of the family was like having the status of a half-blood and this gave her more freedom at this time, something that a squib-born or a muggle would not have, whether she liked to admit it or not.

This was because sadly British and European magical society, in general, was always very attached to the traditions of purebloods and the great magical families, especially in this time of war.

"Mmmmm, I understand" Severus began "In short, in exchange for the ring you want me to add you to the Prince family tree once I am the heir, even though you are a witch I have just met of whom I only know what little you tell me of your story which may or may not be true, along with giving you my word that I will not revoke your Prince surname for any reason."

"Well, yes..." Hermione knew she might be asking a lot, but she needed it and she wasn't going to bargain for less than that.

"Well, what you're asking for isn't going to be a problem. We have a deal Hermione" Severus said surprising Hermione, she was already expecting a negotiation or threat of some sort, after all, she was helpless at this point.

"I may not be entirely convinced of your story and your side of things, but I couldn't refuse to be the heir to the Prince family, so we have a deal" Severus continued.

Severus knew that she was asking for something unthinkable for any other member of a family as important as the Prince's, but right now, he didn't care about these standards of pureblood wizards, being able to inherit the family was above all things, maybe he would have refused before without even wanting to listen to what she had to say since he would feel blackmailed by someone he considered mudblood, but now he couldn't care less about that if to be the heir of the Prince family he had to grant her the family name along with the background that she is a distant part of it, swearing also not to revoke her family name and also support her in her proceedings with the Ministry, Severus would now do it a thousand times more, the political and economic power he would gain being the heir of the Prince house is worth that and much more for him at this moment, especially because he needs to stay away from the death eaters and get money for his many future ideas.

Initially, the inheritance from his maternal family was Severus' first choice before he gave up and decided to accept to go to the SCoP program at SWI USA.

He had dismissed the inheritance idea because he didn't have his maternal family's ancestral ring, but it seems that life is smiling on him a bit now, things may have taken an unexpected turn, but he is benefiting from it.

Hermione on the other hand was very surprised by the quick acceptance of his request, she thought it would be much more difficult to convince young Severus, after all, as the son of the descendant of the heir of a great family like the Prince no doubt any wizard in the same position would have a lot of pride regarding that subject, No wizard descendant of important families would put in the family tree of his ancestral family for anything in the world to a person they just met and of whom they were only given a version that this person is their relative, no matter that they could not be the heirs if they did not accept the deal, they would look for other options before doing such a thing or at least they would try to negotiate things.

But Severus didn't even flinch, he accepted without thinking twice, or discussing anything.

Hermione isn't going to complain though, if things are easier for her she doesn't have to give the matter any more thought, with a magical oath she can be unconcerned about any attempt of him breaking his word.

"Then it's a deal Severus and thank you, truth be told I'm glad and reassured that I don't have to negotiate much about this, I thought it was going to be quite a hassle" Hermione honestly spoke her mind, she was quite grateful that Severus was more open than she expected, she thought he was going to threaten her or look for some method to extract the information from her, but he accepted her terms without any problem.

Hermione was much more relaxed now than at the beginning of the conversation, between not having her wand, having to credibly explain a whole made-up story, and also trying to reach an agreement with Severus to be able to join this time, she was under a lot of pressure, despite her good handling of the situation on the outside, she was still a bundle of nerves on the inside.

"Well, I also preferred not to discuss the subject any further, I knew I was going to end up agreeing to it one way or another, so why waste time. Besides I noticed your teak determination to get what you asked for, so it would only be a wasted effort to try to convince you otherwise" Severus replied just as sincerely.

"Unless you use methods less ... Cough well ... less conventional ones to get the location of the ring" scoffed Snape and also laughed a little seeing the nervousness barely present in Hermione when he said that "But I better not, I have no intentions of doing such things, too much work and time I don't have at the moment."

"You..." Hermione realized that he was just teasing her and she wanted to give him a strong reprimand, but she controlled herself, he was not a friend she could do such things with. But despite not saying anything to him, she gave him a sullen look to let him know that she didn't think his comment was funny.

"Okay, okay, okay, don't look at me like that Hermione, it may have been an unnecessary comment and maybe I went a little overboard, my mistake, now then you seem to give our word that we will honor this deal and that it will not be divulged to other wizards about it."

Hermione seemed to accept the apology, she was very nervous at the moment without her wand which made her feel so helpless, that's why she was so angry at young Severus' joke.

Hermione replied in a calm tone, but inside she was happy that everything turned out better than she expected "I agree S-Severus."

She still found it hard to just call him by his first name, but she knew she could get used to calling him that, he was much nicer than Professor Snape.

"Very well, I will start with the vow and then it's your turn to follow," Severus said as they both linked their forearms "I swear by my magic that once I get the ring and the Prince family inheritance I will integrate Miss Hermione as a distant cousin, giving her the Prince surname for life, I will also give my absolute support as head of the Princes for the processing of her identity along any matter related to it both at the Ministry and at Hogwarts and by all this, I swear"

Hermione was very pleased with his oath.

She merely looked at him before speaking. "I swear by my magic and pledge to give you the Prince family ancestral ring, I also accept the obligation to keep the secrecy of this oath. Thus binding our words."

Wisps of light faded in and out of sight over their linked arms.

Severus had not sworn oaths that could be avoided before, only once had he been forced to swear for the sake of staying at Hogwarts. And that had been a horrible experience for him.

But now in a more convenient and relaxed situation, he could say that it was a unique and interesting experience, involving many things about magic and the power of the word itself.

Hermione had already sworn many oaths in her life, so she didn't pay much attention to this and separated her forearm quickly.

"Ready, so Hermione, how about we start discussing well the details of the ring along with the future paperwork I'll have to support you with, I'd rather go ahead with some things and see what I can do to make things easier for us."

"This..., well, sure, I would love to discuss the details, I have several things to consult you and several ideas that I want to know if they can be implemented for my integration as part of the Prince family to the British magical world, this if you don't mind, of course, the deal was just your support in the paperwork, you don't have to waste your time in helping me."

"Oh, lose, but given that I will surely have to intervene as heir of the Prince family to get your identity papers from the Ministry, I would like to be well informed about the matter, I don't tend to wait for others to tell me what to do or how to do it, besides, this way it will be faster for both of us, don't you think so Hermione?"

"I... find your logic very reasonable, thanks for the help, then..." Hermione wasn't expecting that answer, she was used to finding out everything on her own and then relaying it to others.

The two continued to talk about many things about the future paperwork she would have to do and the best ways for both of them to avoid problems and save time, she would also need to take the exams given by the ministry and Hogwarts to validate her private studies at home.

Hermione began to think that she could get used to young Severus, she liked talking to intelligent people, it was refreshing and she could almost feel that young Severus was a male version of her, albeit rather darker and colder, but compared to the adult Severus, the one now was much more approachable and she believed that the two could be good friends, or should I say, good cousins?

After discussing the final details of the deal well, along with several questions that Hermione had, Severus let Hermione rest easy because she still had to recover to be completely well, the headache and the occasional burn had not yet healed completely, so they were still bothering her and he had to make sure that his patient was well.

Even though she grumbled because she didn't want to lie in bed anymore, Severus treated her like a patient and wouldn't let her move from the bed until at least the headache was gone. He had learned a lot about medical magic and patient treatment, all thanks to Madame Poppy Pomfrey who was the magical nurse that used to attend him at Hogwarts, whenever he finished some quarrel with the marauders she was the one who was in charge of helping him, which was quite often, she was always very professional in her work and Severus respected the woman for that and learned a lot from her in all these years.

Severus decided to spend the rest of the day making various potions for Hermione to take so that her headache and her more persistent burns would improve as the days went by.

Severus also proceeded to give Hermione back her wand, he had taken it before just to avoid trouble, but now that they had reached an agreement under oath, it seemed reasonable to give it back to her, a wizard without his wand always feels naked and helpless, so it seemed the right thing to do as a show of trust between the two of them.

Hermione was very grateful for the fact that now Severus trusted her enough to give her his wand, when she woke up she knew right away that she didn't have it, she tried not to be too alarmed at that moment, but she knew that he could hex or threaten her at any moment and she couldn't do anything, so she went on to talk, explain and answer things so calmly to Severus, she tried her best to sound confident and not show her concern, but even so she was very uneasy without her wand, she knew she was in a dangerous situation, she was a witch without a wand at that moment, she was at Severus' mercy, and to make things worse, she was looking to reach an agreement in those conditions with a wizard like Severus Snape, he had everything in his favor to threaten or torture her as long as she gave him the information without the need to agree to any deal, clearly she would not give that information even under torture, but he did not know that.

As Hermione was in a disadvantageous position, the best option she found for that moment was to present herself as a distant cousin of his, this would make Severus suspicious but it would also make him more curious and open to listening to her.

Hermione had already thought of several ways to blend in at this time without raising much suspicion about her person, one of those options was to use the Prince family along with Severus to validate her identity at the Ministry and Hogwarts, but she also had more options to turn to, she would have liked to have more time to think about the best option, but given her disadvantageous meeting with Severus before even being able to think things through, she proceeded to choose the option that best suited the situation she was in.

She knew Severus wanted answers as to why an unknown witch was lying unconscious in his house with burn wounds all over her body, she could come up with many excuses, but nothing very convincing, so she decided to use the option involving Severus and his family, she luckily had already thought of a believable backstory for that option.

One of the reasons why she could relax a little and seek to reach an agreement with Severus Snape despite being at a clear disadvantage without his wand was that she knew from the memories of the adult Snape, that he had no living relatives, And if he had any distant relatives, he would not know about them since he had never met his maternal family in person, and his mother had never spoken to him about them, so there might have been a relative who, like Snape's mother, had been disinherited and erased from the Prince's family tree.

Another reason was that she also knew from Professor Snape's memories that he would not go so far as to torture her for information, at most he would threaten and frighten her in various ingenious ways, but he would not resort to physical violence, That is somewhat because Severus Snape always considered himself intelligent and capable enough to be able to get the results he wanted without the use of torture, he felt it was unnecessary to extract information through torture or suffering, he felt he was above such acts, he would use his wit, intimidation or a potion if necessary to get the same or better results.

Despite his wit, talent, and his good ability to read people, Severus could not quite see the emotions Hermione was going through, this was because she not only had a quite believable story, but she also appeared outwardly quite calm and confident when speaking even though inside in her head she was a mess.

Hermione knew that this was due to her training with Professor Snape, she had learned how to deal with difficult situations in the best way possible without showing weakness or uneasiness.

Once Severus had left to let her rest, Hermione who when she woke up had instantly noticed the lack of her wand and Severus' treatment of her burns, belatedly fell into another small detail she hadn't noticed before, she was wearing only an apron and Severus had treated her burns, so he had undressed her.

Hermione turned red at this thought and was quite furious as no one had seen her naked before, but she calmed down quite a bit when she realized that he had left her at least in her underwear and had also apparently covered her on top with magical bandages that had rolls of celluloid over it to convey more peace of mind, this was a way widely used by the magically ill to let the patient know everything that happened in the procedure of tending to their wounds.

A magic bandage is used that has a roll of celluloid that will record everything the medical magician does on the patient's body during the treatment, so one can see a film of how the whole treatment process went.

Once she saw the filmed content from start to finish, Hermione relaxed noticeably at how professional Severus had been in attending to her burns, but she was still a little red from the awkward situation she was in, she was glad that young Severus didn't have second thoughts or maybe he just didn't find her attractive, she couldn't tell.

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Well, I'm finally finishing this tedious part of the story.

Now Severus' new life begins.

Happy Easter to all of you.