Severus checked the elegantly wrapped bottle in his pocket before he took Hermione's hand and led her up the driveway toward the manor's glowing windows. The mead, he was sure would have been better appreciated in their own house. Instead they were bringing it as an offering to Lucius Malfoy, on the occasion of his annual Yule Ball. No doubt he would banish it to the cellars as undrinkable.

Severus still met his old friend occasionally for drinks in London, but Hermione never joined them and Lucius had never set foot in any of their homes. This outing was without precedent. They had been invited many times, but Severus wouldn't allow Lucius to capitalise politically on his wife's reputation or tolerate what passed for pureblood manners in her presence.

While Hermione had been relieved Severus had never asked her to face her former torturers, she understood that certain ties run deep and that Lucius might be Severus's truest friend, despite her husband's misgivings regarding Malfoy politics. Severus had made it plain as he raised his children that blood status in no way reflected anyone's worth, and he had never cultivated any association between their family and Draco's.

"Tell me again how our granddaughter came to be engaged to a Malfoy," Severus grumbled, obviously less than happy to be pressed into the social whirl.

Hermione sighed. "It's fate getting its own back on you because you used to tease her about how you would disown her if she married a Weasley."

 

Helen Granger wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders as they left their class and walked into the chill December night. Leaning close, she whispered, "You could repair them magically."

Hermione hugged the box of cracked and misshapen clay jars tighter to her. "I'd know. I'm terrible. Everyone else's came out."

"Anyone can have a bad firing."

"But I wanted to make Severus some special ingredient jars for Yule. He always gives me something personal."

Helen nodded to where a dark figure waited. "Twenty pounds says he repairs them and uses them. He won't care about anything except they're from you."

The fridge and freezer are always full. There are enough tins to last for months. The flat is small, but under Fidelius, and officially Severus resides at Hogwarts and Spinners End so they can't afford to spend a lot.

Harry takes up so much of her time: feeding him, bathing him, changing him, reading to him, even though she doesn't know if he understands or even hears her. She shouldn't have time to worry, but she has.

Every time Severus dons the mask, even when he returns to Hogwarts, every time he leaves, part of her heart is chipped away.

Hermione Granger, headmistress of Hogwarts, stopped and cast a silent revealing spell. When it showed no other humans, she shrugged and put her wand away, continuing her walk around the lake. Her life, it seemed, had come full circle. Minerva's portrait now adorned her office wall next to Dumbledore's, and Hermione had come home. It was probably just sense memory, linked somehow to Dumbledore's onetime seeming omniscience, that made her feel she was perpetually observed by a benevolent eye.

Professor Snape smirked. Careful to dim the glow of his ethereal body, he watched from the shadows and waited for sunrise.

The dark-eyed boy observed from behind the rhododendron bush as the girl made the swing go higher and higher. He waited greedily for the moment, just before the swing reached its zenith and the chains would no longer stay straight.

The swing reached the top of its arc, and the girl launched herself higher still, soaring through the air with the grace of a ballet dancer in slow motion.

"Hermione!" chided the old woman. "You'll hurt yourself. We better get you home so you can do your homework before your parents get back."

"Yes, Gran."

Entranced, Severus watched her go.

"Leave me be, Miss Granger." The voice that had hypnotised her for years was only a wet whisper.

"No. Accio olive oil!' A small bottle flew to her hand, and she took a mouthful, diligently swilling it around and then gargling before she spat out the remainder. She sucked at the wound at his neck, then spat again, repeating the motions until she was satisfied.

Finally, she held the sides of the ragged bite together with one hand and dribbled dittany onto it with the other.

"Why?" he croaked.

"Greater love hath no man. You gave up everything for us."

Hermione stretched slightly, and the grip around her waist tightened. She placed her arm over the one holding her, sliding her fingers between his. Severus's breath brushed the join of her neck and shoulder.

His body was wrapped around hers, cradling her as carefully and closely as if she were paper-thin porcelain. His hold remained constant, even as he slept. He always had her back.

Despite his eloquence, despite his verbosity when it came to idiotic students, Hermione could count on one hand how often he'd professed his love.

Every night, his embrace told her what his words could not.

Hermione shivered despite her many layers and gave Severus a baleful glare. "You really think October is the right time for a night time picnic?"

Severus gave her a scornful glance, which lost much of its effectiveness since her back rested against his chest. "I do. Now, if you can't be quiet, at least stop complaining," he said pointedly as he cast a Warming Charm over them.

"Why—"

"Shhh. Wait. Not all magic needs a wand."

"I know that," Hermione said, about to prevaricate when the first waves of red and green washed over the sky. "Ohhhh!" she gasped.

Hermione savoured his gracefulness. When he lectured, he would use body language to emphasise a point, but when he duelled, every movement was concise and deliberate.

His mind was his greatest asset. Hermione doubted that many of the faculty could so easily switch from one subject to another, displaying equal facility for both. She hungered to know him as an equal, to discover whether he was a true Renaissance mage, but she needed to prove herself first.

His bitterness was more troubling.

Perhaps, in the wider world, she would find a more congenial intellectual equal.

If not, she had patience.

“…Rose, ten minutes into his first debut, scores the opening goal of the game.”

Hermione snorted. “Someone needs to give that commentator a dictionary.”

“Pass the remote.” Severus slipped an arm around his wife, leaning right in as he attempted to reach the sofa's far arm.

“So that you can watch it over and over again on slow motion replay? I don't think so!” Hermione grabbed the control, holding it at arm's length.

In the ensuing struggle, they slid along the leather. He pinned her to the cushions, his mouth claiming hers as the remote fell unheeded to the floor.

"I don't see why Lucius and I have to sit in a car for half an hour," Severus said in what he considered a reasonable tone.

"Because my cousins are ushers, so you're supposed to arrive with them. You can't just appear."

"You really think it's wise to confine Lucius and myself cheek by jowl with two Muggles for all that time?"

Hermione's hands came to rest on her hips and her eyes narrowed. "Very true. Maybe you should ask Harry to be best man after all."

Severus scowled, but ducked his head. "I'm sure the car will be fine."

"He's not doing any harm under there," Hermione wheedled, as Severus approached the bed on all fours, his wand ready.

Severus glared back at her. "Under there, no, but we both know that it won't stay there once we're asleep. You do remember how I spent my morning, don't you?"

"He didn't do it deliberately. It was just a few hairs. You didn't have to wash everything over again."

"A few hairs?" Severus snorted. "That monster of yours sheds enough fur for a woolly mammoth... and if it's such an accident why's it always my clean laundry he nests in?"

"Finally!" Severus sighed as he entered the bedroom. With a flick of his wand, he was naked and his clothes in the laundry basket. Another flick did the same for Hermione's nightgown.

She gave him a reproving look before she set aside her book. "I can remember when you would take me out for dinner and then remove my clothes by hand."

"I can remember when you used to shave your legs twice a week, but that was before. Do you hear me complain?"

A disconsolate cry suddenly sounded from the adjoining room.

Grabbing a robe, Severus called, "Daddy's coming!"

"I know you would never agree to Harry." Hermione sighed. "What about Ron?"

"Never. There will never be a Ronald or a Harry living under my roof in my lifetime. It's awful. It sounds like the name of some grumpy old man on Coronation Street."

Hermione raised her eyes in a mute appeal to her mother who stood on the other side of her hospital bed.

"He's right, dear."

"You can't possibly be siding with him?" Hermione demanded.

"I never did like common names."

Hermione glared at her mother and husband in turn. "I am not calling my son Salazar!"

The sun beat down from a clear sky, but frost crackled beneath his feet.

The gate creaked as he slipped through, reminding him of how his joints protested in the mornings. He walked stiffly up the main street, his eyes on the high stone wall ahead of him. They always had walls, as if the world outside was afraid of contamination.

He laid the brightly-coloured anemones by her headstone. The frost was already melted, just as the ice around his heart had melted when she came. She'd been his spring, summer and autumn. Now, with her gone, only winter remained.

Hermione straightened the hem of her little black dress as she walked through the entrance hall. She knew that she looked her best, and she knew why she had gone to all the trouble. She knew that it was petty, and she knew that if her plan failed her insecurities would be multiplied rather than assuaged.

She didn't think she was Severus Snape's soulmate. She didn't find him unattractive. His self-confidence and physical grace were more alluring than perfect features, but Hermione thought his put-downs would be toxic in a long term relationship.

Nevertheless, tonight, she refused to be ignored.