Seven Preposterous Things

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
And wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven pillared worthy house,
That your eyes might be shining for me
When we came
-- T. E. Lawrence
Epigraph to The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Draco was rather more anxious than either Severus or Hermione, but then he had the holiday to worry about.

All his life Draco looked forward to Yule. It was the high point of his year. His parents loved and coddled and indulged him on a daily basis when he was growing up, but at Yule they went to lengths to outdo themselves and each other. There were custom-made training brooms and fanciful toys to delight even the most jaded wizard when he was small, and, as he grew older, the gifts became if anything more extravagant and wonderful.

Of course there would be silly pantos starring his Dad and the rest of the usual crowd. He suspected Mr. Mulciber looked forward to dressing up and taking a girl's part year after year.

In short, Yule was the time of year that all the things he appreciated shone. Serious industry and intelligence were expended so that the food, clothes, and presents were the finest to be had, and that there were themes, and entertainments of all sorts, and of course round after round of parties.

Draco loved parties, especially dressing for parties.

The only trouble was, Draco was now Father.

Even after he'd married, holidays in the wood were the purview of adults, or at least those older than himself. Severus might stuff an ill-wrapped trinket in his stocking and disappear to get drunk on the other end of the wood for a week or two, but in the end, even Severus had more holiday responsibility than Draco.

Before, someone else planned things, arranged parties, bought presents, hired Chinese acrobats. This year it was up to him, and his handicaps were severe. Firstly, he was among Muggles; for safety's sake, the use of magic would have to be foregone, much as the prospect pained him. How was he to arrange a proper Yule with no magic? And second, his finances were not endless.

He had a budget, which was worse than having to make do without magic.

How was he to give his little family any sort of Yule worth mentioning under circumstances like that?

And yet, giving up was not an option he could allow himself. For Millie's sake, for Baby Phil's, for Severus' and even Granger's, he had to use all his training and intelligence to devise the best celebration he was able under the circumstances. For the first time, it no longer troubled him to have compromised his dignity. He slept well for a time after that.


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Hermione felt a bit sick as she contemplated the variables in the theorem before her. It didn't require years under the tutelage of Dr. Vector to sort this one out.

Her last period ended three days ago. She'd admitted to Severus and herself that her feelings for him had passed from simple gratitude, lust, and friendship into something else entirely. In a sense, giving her a belly full of ejaculate was a fairly eloquent response on his part. Even Muggles knew reproduction, speaking arithmantically, without even realising it, preferred the stability of the number three. Millie had supplied numbers one and two. The appearance of offspring number three was, from a magical perspective, inevitable as falling downhill.

Unfortunately, she had absolutely no interest in motherhood at present. It might be sort-of-interesting in an abstracted, distant sort of way to entertain the thought of a child on some far-off day in the fuzzy future, but as a reality? The thought of a child now growing inside her this very minute, putting a damper on school and spreading their already thin finances even farther, added to the child Millie had multiplied by the one she was carrying, was all a bit much; "a bit much" in the same way that Voldemort was something of an inconvenience.

She would have to find a way round it. Muggle medicine was notoriously ineffective when applied to a witch's reproductive system, so she would need to manage it magically, even here among Muggles, which meant a certain amount of persistence and imagination would be required. Not to mention diligent care.

Severus meanwhile peeled the tattered remnants of the traitorous condom into the waste bin and switched off the light whispering "Nox" under his breath from force of habit.

Standing over her - she never realised he could loom naked - he lifted his chin, seeming at that moment every inch her distant old schoolmaster, despite the fact that he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing.

"I'll brew you a potion in the morning," he said, neither heavily nor lightly, neither pleasantly nor unpleasantly. "Now shove over, so I may get some small amount of sleep before I do so."

She wriggled over to make a place for him to lie beside her, provided he laid his head in the crook of her arm.

Severus stood impassive several beats longer than was necessary before rubbing his eyes furiously with the heels of his hands and settling into her arms and bed.

"Are you certain you've the necessary ingredients in your stores?" she asked, wrapping her arm round his side.

"I will manage," he said sleepily, shifting so he rested against her. "I assure you."

"You're certain?" she asked. She couldn't help herself.

"Quite," he mumbled, taking hold of the hand she was using to stroke his belly. "I've a knack for inhibiting reproduction. I successfully managed to brew an abortifacient before ever entering Hogwarts."

They lie there quietly. She could feel his body relaxing by the second.

"For whom?" she asked after holding the question in as long as she was able.

"My mother... She was rather indisposed at the time," he muttered. She could nearly hear the sound of sleep taking him.

Despite the late hour it was rather longer coming for her.


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Millicent Bulstrode Malfoy might be many things, she was undeniably fat, unquestionably brutish, and anyone who knew her even casually could tell she was bloody-minded, but stupid she was not.

An intrinsic part of not being stupid was knowing when her husband, the knob, was up to something. Simply because she was fagged out beyond all reason, it did not necessarily follow her brain had dribbled out her ears.

She lay awake with the bloody dog-buggering hiccups, yet again, stewing over what the idiot was up to this time.

It had something to do with the computer. She knew it the same way she knew the dough rose under the tea towel.

She glared at Sleeping Draco and fought off the urge to grab his pointy little nose and pull. On second thought, she'd just pinch it shut.

She turned, her belly impeding her for the first of what would be many times, and closed thumb and forefinger expertly over his nostrils. It took the count of five before he started to flail, ten before he had the sense to open his mouth and gasp for air.

He was still grasping and kicking when she began her interrogation.

"What are you up to? I've lost patience with waiting for you to trip up and tell me on your own."

"What?"

"I asked first."

"Millie?" he whinged, squinting as he got his bearings.

"What are you at with that computer?"

"Work," he said, rubbing at his eyes.

"Work? Explain yourself, how do you work at the computer? Snape said it was just for looking at pornography," Millie said. He'd sodding better not be holding truck with naked totty. She'd hate to have to orphan little Phil.

"You know how Severus is; he sees quim in every knothole in Hogsmeade."

Millie frowned; there was an element of truth in that. She'd always attributed that to their Head of House being chronically hard-up for female company.

"Explain to me how you go to work on the computer."

"It will be easier to show you; get your dressing gown," Draco said groggily.

"The computer's right here."

"But the television is in the lounge."

"And what has working on the computer got to do with the telly-vision?" Millie said, arms across her chest, not sure she wanted to see what Draco was going to show her.

"Come to the lounge, Millicent," Draco said, getting testy and sounding every bit like Mr. Malfoy, though the way he was looking at her, more and more impatient by the moment, reminded her more of his mum.

Grudgingly, Millie climbed out of bed.

Draco punched on the telly-vision and flipped until it fell onto one of those programs he liked to watch, the ones with the moving paintings, the car tunes they were called.

This one was about a little dog living in outer space. Or something like that. It had a pet flea.

"What do the car tunes have to do with the computer?" Millie said.

"I use the computer to make the cartoons; I do Flory the Flea, just the pictures not the voice, there's an actress for that."

Draco always drew since she could remember; she never imagined he could get Muggles to pay him for it. Millie made a conscious effort not to let on she was surprised; as an alternative, she glared.

"You're not ashamed, are you, about me having a job?" Draco said sheepishly.

Millie couldn't keep her brow from furrowing. "Start from the beginning," she ordered, "and explain."

"The offices are over by Severus' bar. I recognised the sign on the door from the little... it's called a logo, after the program ends."

"Go on, how did you get them to hire you?"

"Fascination," Draco said, wiggling his fingers in demonstration. "You lot act like Uncle Severus is the only wizard in the house."

"How do you draw on the computer?" Millie asked.

"It isn't proper drawing, exactly but it's... I can show you better than I can explain it. It took me longer than I expected to get the knack, but I'm quite good now."

"And you do this at home while I'm at work?"

Draco nodded. "Except for Wednesdays. Wednesday mornings, Phil and I take the bus to the office for the weekly meeting."

Millie rubbed her eyes, suddenly tired now her curiosity had been satisfied. She'd rather go to bed than listen to Draco give her the particulars in excruciating detail. Pulling her dressing gown closed, she headed for bed.

"Aren't you going to wait for my name to roll on the credits? I'll be right there, Gregory Black, plain as anything. Then I was going to show you how I do it on the computer," Draco called.

"Not tonight, I'm tired," she called behind her.

"Dearest?" he called after her.

"Tomorrow, when I've slept," she called from the bedroom.

She was already drifting off when she heard the sound of Draco running.

She pried her eyes open when he shook her shoulder the second time.

"You aren't upset with me, are you?" he asked.

He looked dear, for a stupid git, his hair falling in his eyes, his expression on the brink of pleading. If she'd said it once she'd said it a dozen times, she'd married the single most infantile male on Earth.

"'Course not, Silly Bugger, you've done well," she said, pounding the space beside her on the bed. "Now shut up and let me sleep before I change my mind."


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It was nearly noon before the two of them, Severus and Hermione, also known as Stephen and Jane, left the house for Severus' well-hidden laboratory.

"Have you brewed since you left school? " Severus asked, once he shut the port-a-loo door behind him and they were safely inside his laboratory.

Hermione couldn't help but look embarrassed.

"I'll take that as a no," he said archly.

"Potions making requires a great deal of time," she said in her own defence. "And my flat was a bedsit."

"I did hope..." he trailed off, standing, staring at her, his head cocked. "Never mind."

Hermione winced. "What do you intend to make?"

"There are several variables to be considered."

"Such as?"

Severus stood and stared at her, his expression impenetrable. He shrugged, but it seemed to her to be a singularly unambivalent gesture.

Hermione stared back trying to puzzle out what was going on inside that thick skull of his.

"What variables, Severus?" she finally asked, when she gave up trying to catch his beady black eyes. He was intent on looking everywhere, the floor, the table, the blue fibreglass walls, everywhere except her face.

"Would you like to be pregnant?" he said in a voice that would have been casual except for the softness of his tone; he was quite nearly whispering. "I should have inquired earlier. Technically, I venture the most... diligent of the sperm will not reach the ovum for another 12 to 15 hours, but I feel reasonably certain, if steps are not taken, conception will be achieved at that time. If that is what you desire, it is not necessary to take any further action; though I could, I suppose, ensure it, if you like."

"Isn't that rather impractical?" she asked, shocked at the words coming from his mouth.

"I did not address the issue of practicality. If it is what you desire, I will see that it is made feasible. A witch gains power through pregnancy, I do not wish to give the impression that I am attempting to slow the growth of your magic in any way," he said, still not meeting her eyes but rather diffidently scraping at the scarred tabletop with his thumbnail.

"And how do you, Severus Snape, feel about it?"

"My personal feelings are complicated."

"In what way?"

"If you desire a child, I'll be buggered if anyone else is going to sire it. Furthermore the idea of impregnation is... not repulsive." He coughed a bit at the admission, shaking his hair down over his eyes. "The reality is another matter entirely. Your school would no doubt be hindered, and our finances are already strained. But I will not have your will thwarted. If need be, I am more than capable of taking on another job."

Hermione's eyes narrowed as she waited for the one thing she had not got out of him. "And your personal feelings are?"

"Immaterial. I desire to fulfil your desires," he said, peering at her through a curtain of unkempt hair.

"Just tell me how you bloody feel about it!" she said, exasperated.

"It scares the piss out of me. Infants are bearable, but in truth I find children to be a sodding miracle of affliction. Perhaps you recall your school days," he bit out.

"That's all I wanted to know. I happen to agree; it's impractical, and I'd prefer to finish school and establish a career before I have a child, if then."

Severus breathed out sharply, suddenly able to look her in the eye.

"Neither of us is prepared for parenthood; you're allowed to say that. You have something to say about everything; why dance around a subject that actually matters?"

Severus pursed his lips again and inhaled. For his second act, he folded his arms across his chest.

"I do not wish to see you discontent."

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"I endeavour to please you, such as I am able within my meagre circumstances." He shrugged. "Impregnation is within my means. I would not deny you, were you to wish it. Were I a wealthy man, I would deck you in jewels rather than salty pearls." He managed to sound both adoring and filthy at the same time, and his lip curled in response to his own bad joke.

"I'm not particularly interested in jewels." Hermione studied his face even as he pulled his hair to cover his eyes again.

How had she forgotten that this same wizard had given himself to twenty years of miserable servitude over a boyhood crush? Moreover, the witch in question, as far as she could ascertain, had hardly done more than hold his hand.

He had saved Hermione's life and now worked a menial job in order to support her. Experience had shown he would humiliate himself, break his back, suffer Cruciatus and more in exchange for even the slightest regard.

He was not like Harry or Ron. He wasn't there with his list of demands, always wanting more.

It was strange to see him, Master Snape, essentially unchanged from her school days in so many ways, and yet she knew that he was cringing, living in fear of her displeasure. What was the worst she could do to him?

Stop loving him? It made her chest hurt to imagine.

She could no more stop loving him than she could cut off her own head. It was a morose notion to her that both ideas seemed equally absurd. She'd never felt sillier in her life. She had to be in love.

"So, what are you going to brew?"

"I've wild carrot, the hook shaped bone from a frog, fillet of fenny snake, the toenails of twelve pigeons, a fairly unlimited supply of cockroaches, and curdled goat's milk. If I am able to locate sufficient quantities of copper and moonflower leaves, I will brew a potion which will annihilate my spermatozoa as soon as they are inside you."

"How long will the potion be effective?"

"A few days past six months, possibly it a bit more. It would be longer were the carrots fresh, but they are not."

"Will it take long?"

"Three hours, once I find the copper. Any other questions?"

Hermione stretched out her hand, catching the empty belt loop of his jeans with her finger.

"I do love you, you know. I meant that."

In response, Severus' eyes flickered shut, and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes, I'd prove it to you, but there aren't any raging battles handy. I would like to save your life if I could..."

Severus' eyes flickered open as she continued to pull him to her, his lips parted as if he didn't know what to say.

It was one of those odd moments; he reached for her, she folded her arms round him, yet he remained stiff, as though he was not quite sure how to respond to a touch that was neither violent nor sexual.

"Thank you," she whispered into his ear.

"May I ask what for?" he whispered back at her.

"Everything," she answered.

"That seems excessive," he replied. She could feel his lips touch her ear.

His body seemed abnormally warm as she held him to her. She stroked his hair, already dishevelled and leaning toward greasy. She inhaled, breathing in the scent of her sex still clinging to his face. He remained impassive, his muscles relaxing in almost imperceptible increments until he cleaved to her, limpet like.

They remained that way for some time.


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It was at tea that same day, the sort of tea they always had when Millie was off work, complete with tall cakes and tiny sandwiches - they ate like scavengers otherwise - when Granger saw her way clear to bringing up the next burning topic on her personal agenda. Though Millie dropped a little bomb of her own.

"Pass the violet sugar will you, Granger? Did you know Draco got a job?" Millie said, as Phil in her arms sucked earnestly on the end of a pickle.

Severus' eyes bulged as tea shot unambiguously out of his nose and his cup clattered to the table, snorting and coughing and starting all at the same time.

"What?" Severus asked, wiping his face and righting his cup.

"Draco got a job with the telly," Millie said. "He draws on the computer."

"That's wonderful, Draco," Granger said, rather surprised herself. "When do you start?"

"The beginning of October," Draco said, which was notable considering it was nearly December.

An odd silence followed as the four of them looked round the table. Draco could only be described as sheepish. Millie smirked, which was the sort of thing Millie only did internally most of the time. Severus' expression seemed to be one of combined disbelief and pride and trepidation. Perhaps Granger didn't realise the entire issue was more complex than it looked from her vantage point.

"I usually see my parents in December," Granger said. "I've put some thought into it, and I believe I'll give them a call after tea."

Instead of the hail of protest she probably would have got from three Gryffindors in similar circumstances, for her trouble, she was awarded three narrow-eyed stares. Millie gave her one of them.

"My parents expect a call from me before the beginning of December; if they don't, they will attempt to contact every wizard and witch they know. The question is: phone them before that, or risk them poking at The Dark Lord's Britain trying to reach me," Granger said and took a swallow of tea.

Severus, meanwhile, was leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, staring at the ceiling. "And I thought the issue of in-laws had been neatly avoided."

"I would like to know, definitively, and without question, if there's any chance the family of Muggle-born witches and wizards are having their telephones monitored," Granger said.

Draco looked at Millie, perplexed; both of them were trepidatious as far as the phone went. They stared at one another, their brows knitted; they never even knew it was possible.

Severus snorted. "Not in this lifetime or any other is it even possible to imagine the thought occurring to any Death Eater to tap a Muggle's telephone."

"You're certain?" Granger asked.

Severus pushed his chair back loudly and stepped into the hall, bringing the strange white rotary phone he'd connected a week or two after they'd come to Texas. Its cord stretched to the limit, Severus and the phone came to a stop five feet away from the table.

"It's eleven o'clock at night in London," Granger said.

"I fail to see why I should be the only one who is inconvenienced." Severus scowled.

Granger looked at the Slytherins around her then back at the phone.

"Call, now."

Slowly and deliberately, she pushed the buttons.

"Mum?" Granger said, and Millie heard a sharp female voice answer on the other end.

"I didn't intend to call so late," Granger said, as Millie and the other Slytherins watched and Phil threw his pickle on the floor. Whack made off with the pickle before Millie could bend to get it.

Sometimes that cat was dead peculiar.

"No, no, nothing's wrong. I, well, I do have good news. Yes, tell Daddy to pick up the other line," Granger said.

Severus scowled and mouthed the word "Daddy" at her. Granger gave him a two-fingered salute in reply. Millie laid her chin on her fist, her eyes darting between the two of them; this was better than anything on the Telly, Draco's show included.

"Daddy? Are you listening?" Granger said. "You know how you've always been concerned that there aren't really any options for continuing my education in the magical world? I started at University this summer.

"Pre-Law," Granger said.

"Well... that's the bad news, Mum; I don't think I'll be able to make it home for Christmas this year. I'm attending University in America.

"Yes, I'm in America right now, and there's more..." Granger looked at Severus whose expression was dark and impenetrable, like he'd just lost the house cup. Draco, meanwhile, was twirling a butter knife in his fingers like a wand. "Daddy, Mum, I got married.

"Are you still there?

"No, He's English. He's a wizard. No, not Ron... Wait, I thought you liked Ron. Hmmph."

Severus apparently picked up enough of the other end of the conversation to grace Granger with a superior smirk.

"His name? Of course he has a name... His name is... Stephen Liston. He's Muggle-born," Granger said, and they all watched Severus' left eyebrow slowly rise.

Draco dropped his knife.

"Well, yes, it was something of a whirlwind romance. I mean we'd known one another for years but the romance was rather sudden.

"No, he was never a classmate. I mean after school. We got to know one another after I left school.

"Not this Christmas, we're a bit strapped... School fees.

"No... I'm not... Yes... Yes... We've agreed I need to focus on my school. He's not at University; he's working to pay for my school.

"Yes, we're living as Muggles. We aren't compelled to live as Wizards simply because we can. Thank you. I'm glad you approve.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea.

"No!

"It's not that I don't want to see you. I'm not ashamed of you. How could I be ashamed of you? Good god, Mummy!

"He's dying to meet you as well.

"Dallas. Dallas, Texas, yes, like the telly program.

"Lovely, I can hardly wait."

Millie watched as Granger looked round the room with a horror-stricken expression she had never seen on the witch's face before, not even when she was covered with blood in the airport loo.

"They're buying plane tickets in the morning," Granger said, addressing Severus. "And they're looking forward to meeting you."

Snape slumped forward, covering his head with his hands.

"Does this mean we're having Muggles for the holiday?" Draco asked excitedly.

"I, no doubt, will be the one on the spit with an apple in his mouth," Severus said mournfully.


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It was two full weeks later that Hermione had something of an existential crisis. She thought, if the truth were known, her psychology text might say it was high time, considering all she had been through.

She was in the midst of her final exam for her Psychology class, having already completed those for Calculus, English Composition I, and Biology. Soon, all she would have left was American History to 1861.

The clock ticked pleasantly, and she filled in the appropriate bubbles with her number two pencil, a bit let down that she had already completed the essay portion of the questions in her regulation blue book.

She regretted that Psychology had not been more rigorous overall. She wanted more from her current university than the university appeared to be able to give.

She wanted information, she wanted knowledge, and had it doled out to her in teaspoons, liquid and soft as pabulum, when what she wanted was great horse choking bales of unrefined knowledge to leave her belly distended and stick in her teeth. She had expected to gorge on knowledge at university, not go to bed hungry but for the intellectual grace of Severus Snape.

Her fellow students seemed more concerned with socialising than they were with learning anything. It was depressing to admit their attitudes were virtually indistinguishable from the worst of her Hogwarts days, the primary difference between the two being that she hadn't fought off a troll with any of her university classmates, and so she found their inanities not the least bit endearing. On consideration, she realised she knew the names of only a handful of students from all her classes. She counted. Six. She knew six of them by name. Two in this class: Mrs. Choate, a middle aged woman with spectacles, and Andy, whose last name she didn't know. In American History, a student named Carl Ross sat near the door and sometimes ran errands for the instructor. In Calculus, a woman named Rachel served the same function. A peculiar and smelly young man named something German she could almost recall sat near her in Biology. That counted, right?

In English Composition, an outgoing girl with a thick accent and white blonde hair had introduced herself on her first day as "I'm Jessica, and I'm from Cookie Town." Hermione would hardly describe them as friends, but Jessica did talk to her; she talked to everyone about positively anything. Every English Composition began before the instructor arrived with Jessica's running monologue on the events of her morning. In fact, it occurred to her that Jessica was the only Muggle she had got to know on her own since she'd been in Texas, not that she'd had any choice when it came down to it, the barrage of friendliness was so insistent.

Hermione was only interested in her schoolwork, and frankly she thought Jessica something of a twit. But to be fair, Jessica did sometimes specifically address Hermione.

Did she live on campus?

No.

Did she live with her parents? Jessica's parents were back home on their farm. The farm near Cookie Town.

No.

What was her name, again?

Hermione didn't recall telling her a first time, but Jane, Jane Liston.

She had some kind of an accent, Jessica said. It made her sound intelligent, where was she from?

London.

London like England? That London?

Yes.

It was always something tiresome along those lines; she'd much rather be left alone to concentrate on the facts at hand. What she wanted was more concentrated education and less socialising.

What was wrong with Hermione, that this was the only person she knew? Other people made friends without assistance from life threatening situations, why couldn't she? Or perhaps that wasn't it at all. Perhaps she simply had little in common with other people. After all, she got on with Severus perfectly well the majority of the time.

She answered the last five questions on the examination.

Severus Snape wrote more bracing tests in his sleep. In a sudden rush of insight, she felt every bit as socially maladroit as she had ever been accused of being. She realised for the first time what a good match they were, she and Severus.

She looked back down at her exam before rising to stack it on the instructor's desk.

Forgive me, Freud, for I have neurosis.

I must, my husband suits me, she thought to herself as she strode from the room and then the building, warmed by the knowledge that Severus was sure to be in his usual parking spot, waiting for her.

Unfortunately, who should block her path to him but Jessica. Every blonde freckled farm girl bit of her, as husky and healthy as a field hand.

Jessica from Cookie Town.

"Girrrrl!" Jessica shrieked, her arms open wide, and for a horrible instant Hermione feared she might hug her. "I been lookin' all over for your narrow behind."

A smile froze on Hermione's face; perhaps she was addressing someone on the other side of her.

"Janie! Have I got a date for you or what. My boyfriend's brother is up from College Station, and I told him I had the purtiest little ol' British girl in my English class. I thought he'd appreciate some sophistication bein' a graduate student and all." All this was delivered at break neck pace and the top of her lungs.

Hermione blanched. "I can't," she said simply.

"Well, why the heck not?" Jessica asked, agog.

"Because I'm married?" Hermione said, brandishing the ring on her hand like a shield.

"You are?" Jessica from Cookie Town said, tilting her head in confusion. "Let me get this straight. You got a husband?"

"That's him there," Hermione said, pointing to Severus in the car, who narrowed his eyes and took a drag from his cigarette in response.

Jessica, being Jessica, linked her arm with Hermione's and made a beeline for Severus.

"Hey," Jessica said, literally sticking her head into the car window. "I am so sorry I tried to set your wife up on a date with my boyfriend's brother. He's a dumbass anyway; Pardon my French."

Hermione would have said Severus grinned a sharky grin, except his baring of teeth was no smile at all. "I was unaware dumbass was Froggish."

Hermione leapt in. "Jessica, this is my husband, Stephen Liston. Stephen, this is Jessica; she's in my English composition class."

"I'm from Cookie Town. That's how come I sound like such a big ol' hick. Are you from London too? Like Janie here?" Jessica said, thrusting her hand at Severus to be shaken.

Personally, Hermione was surprised he didn't bite it off.

Severus kissed it instead. "I admit I hail from less exalted climes."

Jessica jumped as though she'd been electrocuted.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Severus smirked. "And should you lose me my wife, Miss..."

"Weiderstein."

"Miss Weiderstein." He gave her an appraising stare, so rudely honest in its sexual aspect that Hermione felt an odd sensation she didn't recall having experienced since she was a teenager. Severus went on, "Would you be willing to find me another to take her place?"

The emotion was jealousy with annoyance following close on its heels.

Jessica's eyes were as big as saucers. Hermione couldn't say if she was terrified or aroused.

Severus Snape laughed, or at least made a short sharp noise that was his equivalent, and flicked his cigarette out the window. He was such an arse, playing his little game of real tit for imaginary tat.

"Shall we go?" he asked. "Phillip is a growing restless."

Hermione looked in the back seat. Sure enough, there was Baby Phil in the safety seat Draco had been so keen on. Phil had, predictably, pulled off his socks and was chewing on them earnestly. At least she hoped Phil had done it and it wasn't Severus' idea of appropriate infant care.

She didn't ask for fear of getting the wrong answer.

"You got a baby, too?" Jessica whose surname she hadn't known before today asked.

"To be honest, he came from the rubbish bin," Severus said, with the ghost of a smile. "A location I seriously considered returning him to after his most recent nappy."

Jessica brayed like a blonde donkey then grasped Hermione by the bicep.

"Janie, honey, I am so sorry."

"He is an unattractive child, but I don't believe condolences are quite in order," Severus drawled.

Jessica brayed again, barely able to catch her breath. "You slay me."

Severus' eyebrows shot up, but pity stayed his tongue, or perhaps the field was so rich he had trouble choosing the best response.

"But seriously girlfriend, I got no business setting you up on a date. A husband and a kid both, no wonder you're so serious. This girl is soooooo serious."

Hermione looked at Jessica and then at Severus wondering if she ought to disabuse her of the notion Phil belonged to the two of them. What was the point?

Shaking her head, Hermione climbed into the car. "Goodbye, Jessica."

"Bye, y'all. Don't let her work too hard, you hear?" Jessica Weiderstein said, waving, friendly and cheerful to the last.

Severus pulled the car away with a screech, frowning.

"She's rather young, isn't she?"

"She's rather annoying. She is, however, the same age I am," Hermione said, straightening her books, "not unlike Millie and Draco."

"You may be the same age, but you aren't half as young," Severus said pensively.


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Severus Snape pulled a cigarette from the packet and held it between his lips unlit.

Since he and Granger had become intimate, he suffered odd flashes of inexplicable emotion from time to time.

Watching the girls come and go from their classes and realising Hermione was virtually indistinguishable from the others, at least superficially, he felt a peculiar discomfort. He'd been her schoolmaster. When he'd entered into his position as Potions Master, he taught girls he'd elbowed out of the way in the Slytherin common room. He taught girls who taunted him that he might be able to pull more successfully if he were better acquainted with a bar of soap.

Undeniably intelligent as he was, it never before occurred to him that while the girls of Hogwarts remained eternally eighteen to eleven, he grew incrementally older each year.

He was like some doddering old perv. Not that forty was much beyond childhood for a wizard; it wasn't. It didn't look bad at all until you stood it next to twenty-one. Still, it was a damn sight better than thirty-five and sixteen. Fifty and thirty-one would look even better if he could go that long without cocking it up.

His feelings at that moment were muddy. Between the two of them, Granger had the upper hand. She was beginning to realise she was more master now than he was. Certainly he was every speck as intelligent as she, yet she seemed to have some advantage that eluded him, as though she had experienced more variety, more sheer experience in half the time.

Perhaps she had.

Severus pressed his lips around the cigarette.

He had been right all those years to yearn for her; though he doubted he'd have the same opinion of another man in his thirties wanking over an adolescent, no matter how bright. He wondered if Lupin had the chance to realise, before Sectumsempra or Avada or whatever they used took him, what a dirty game he and Black and Severus had been playing at, growling at each other, straining round the leash of propriety over the prize of a half grown witch.

The thought came unwanted, that it hadn't even been Granger he, or the others for that matter, desired, but a second chance to win Evans from Potter, Evans projected onto Granger's straight back and eternally raised hand. It took little imagination to fashion Potter the son into Potter the father. All he'd wanted was a chance to prove his worth to Evans.

Granger was a far cry from Evans.

What he got was better than what he'd aimed for. It was odd, but he had the sense that somehow in the process he'd gained footing on the thing he was struggling for when his troubles began all those years ago: manhood. It pricked at him that he so often felt like a boy among men, most of his fellow teachers had had him in class; he was easily excited, childish, too loud, even when he purposely whispered so quietly the rest of the world had to strain to hear him, pedalling like hell at what should have been as natural as breathing. He strove and felt short of what the rest managed without effort.

Recalling the way he'd desired Granger before he truly knew who she was roiled in his gut like tainted meat.

He stifled the urge to ask her forgiveness. Not one word on the matter would pass his lips if he had any choice. He was well aware he was a bloody awkward sod; he saw no need to belabour the point.


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Hermione was sure she had been, at some point in her life, more nervous than she was meeting her parents' plane with Severus; she simply couldn't bring it to mind.

She didn't even object when Severus, as was his habit, used fascination to jump the queue and strode his way past metal detectors using a flick of his thumb and forefinger and a bit of wandless magic.

She did, however, draw a firm line at smoking at the terminal.

He growled but replaced the thin white stick in the packet all the same.

He was bored, he claimed, waiting in the plastic chairs for the plane to arrive. She should let him wander round the airport.

She got the impression he was in abject horror of two middle class dentists.

She made him stay, mostly because she was more than half certain he'd run away if she didn't.

In the end, he amused both of them by reading aloud from a discarded paper he found wadded up in the rubbish bin.

Severus was particularly entertained by the police blotter.

It was one of those new vistas opened up by her relationship with him. She'd never read a police blotter before she was involved with Severus.

The blotter was followed by the classified ads.

Links were drawn between items for sale, job openings, garage sales and divorce decrees in a nearly hysterical game Severus invented where he assigned items, motives, and personalities to couples who had the misfortune to have their divorce decree listed in Sunday's edition of The Dallas Morning News.

Mr. Brown's wife left him because he was a cross-dresser and had ruined the shape of her best knickers. She was selling her Lexus on the back pages after she discovered an unwholesome number of panty-girdles under the rear seat.

Mr. Hernandez' wife was caught having Sapphic trysts with the leader of her ladies book club, and as a result their His and Hers matching SUVs were going for half what they were worth.

Mr. Mueller was leaving his life as a plumber, as well as his wife and four children, to sail the seven seas as a pirate. He had an unhealthy fixation on coconuts. In a fit of rage and despair, the former Mrs. Mueller offered his collection of Don Ho records on a first come first served basis.

Mrs. Applen came to the realisation that if she was forced to listen to Mr. Applen clink his spoon against his morning tea cup one more time she would be driven to violence. Little did she realise Mr. Applen was already neck deep in a sordid affair and had run the family into terrible debt in an attempt to keep his cruel mistress satisfied.

Further speculations were cut short by the roar of an approaching aeroplane.

Panic washed over Hermione like a playful dunking from Hogwarts' resident giant squid. She looked at Severus, helpless to render him acceptable in the minutes before her parents set foot on solid ground. His hair was too long, his teeth were cigarette strained and crooked, and he dressed either like an aging greebo or the prince of darkness. His manners tended to be either supercilious or non-existent. There was nothing about him that either of her parents could latch onto to reassure themselves their only child hadn't taken leave of her senses.

Mentally giving herself a good hard shake, Hermione buckled down and concentrated until the blood felt like ice water in her veins.

Her parents undoubtedly loved her.

Severus undoubtedly loved her.

It only stood to reason that an accord would be reached.

That didn't stop her heart beating as though it was attempting to beat its way out of her chest when she saw her mother's slightly dishevelled bun, followed closely by her father's wavy grey head, pop out of the snaky, accordion-like tunnel that led from the plane.

They walked directly to the place where she and Severus stood; her Daddy, suddenly her same lovely old dad he'd always been rather than an object of anxiety, wrapped his arms round her. Her mum, though, stopped before Severus, looking him up and down critically.

"Happy Christmas, Mr. Liston," Mum said, extending her hand to him. "You are Mr. Liston, aren't you?"

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Author's Note: Thanks to Shiv for Beta