All the way III: More of Life

That afternoon, Eileen wandered into the large living room. Lucius and Annie were curled up on an expensive sofa watching a muggle TV.

Eileen watched quietly from the door way, as a yellow man on the screen said "Doh!” Annie and Lucius screamed with laughter. Eileen went over and sat on a big chair near them.

"What's this?" She asked.

After several more minutes, the couple regained the power of speech over giggling and Annie pointed to the screen, at the yellow man who was now talking, rather stupidly, to a blue haired woman.

"That man is Homer Simpson..." She laughed again at something stupid the man had said.

Eileen couldn't see what was so funny. The man was saying the most stupid things. She rolled her eyes and asked, "Where's mum and dad?"

"Up in one of our many bedrooms having fun." Lucius informed her, gesturing to the ceiling and the floors above, his eyes still glued to the screen.

Eileen shuddered, "Did you have to tell me that? A simple 'they're busy' would have done! I really don't want to think about stuff like that!"

"Sorry," he said absently, staring intently at the muggle machine.

"I'm bored!" Eileen insisted.

Annie sighed and got up, "I've already seen this one, anyway." She said, waving her hand at the TV, "Let’s go swimming. Where do you wanna go, in or out?"

"What do you mean?" Eileen asked, standing as well.

"Do you wanna go swimming in or out?" Annie said again slowly.

"Be quiet! I can't hear!" Lucius hissed, turning the sound of the TV up.

"Um... out..." Eileen decided quietly.

"Come on then." Annie led Eileen outside. They rounded the corner of the house and Eileen’s jaw dropped.

A huge pool took up not even half of the even bigger back garden. The water was so clear that you could see the pattern of colours at the bottom of the pool. At the far end, the water fell from rocks and splashed into the liquid below, creating white frothy bubbles. Exotic trees lined a path to a reasonably sized building that looked like a changing room with showers.

Annie took Eileen back into the house, saying, "Go and get changed."

Eileen had never changed to fast before.

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Hermione leaned on the railings of the balcony that connected to her bedroom. She looked out over the back garden, watching Annie and Eileen splash about. They didn't seem to notice her. Hermione wondered vaguely were Lucius was, but then the sound of howling laughter traveled through the house. He had finally found the wonders of television.

Hermione was glad it was nearly night; she was sleepy and wanted to go to bed. Though the last couple of hours in bed definitely made her want to gaze dreamily at celebrities in front of her husband more often. She certainly loved the way he channeled his jealousy.

She loved her life at the moment. Her family was happy and safe. Ron sent her letters every now and then, and Severus had learned to live with it, albeit grudgingly. He still wanted to rip the red head limb from limb. They visited Bill regularly and he was getting more and more used to them being around.

When Eileen had been put in Slytherin, Hermione was worried that she would become very sneaky and sly and... Well, Slytherin. But no, she was a strange girl, half and half, Part Slytherin, part Gryffindor. She was cunning, but she had a good sense of right and wrong. She was clever, but she had her fathers’ impatience for people that were not as able as her. She had Severus' sharp tongue too.

Suddenly, two familiar arms snaked around her waist, "What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking," She breathed.

"About what?" He asked.

Hermione grinned to herself. "Davi-"

She wasn't even able to get the whole name out before Severus whirled her round and kissed her long and hard. When he leaned back, Hermione couldn't keep the triumphant smile from her face.

"You said that on purpose." he accused, with narrow glittering eyes.

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" She said, sliding her arms around his neck.

He turned them both and backed her into the shade, out of sight. Her back hit the wall by the door leading into the bedroom and he pressed his body into hers, his black eyes blazing.

"That was not funny." Severus said, his voice low, making Hermione tingle.

"It was very funny." Hermione insisted.

"You find my jealousy funny?" Severus growled. Hermione just fluttered her eye lashes and smiled sweetly. "Then I will have to teach you differently."

Hermione squeaked as Severus scooped her up, wrapping her arms around his neck.

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Eileen heard a noise from above and looked up. She noticed a balcony, but there was no one on it. She frowned and shook her head, deciding she was hearing things, but she didn't have time to think on it, as at that moment, Annie engaged her in and water fight.

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A couple of days later and Severus was beginning to wonder why he had ever agreed to go to such a country. He had some how been dragged out to the beach, where far too much of the male body was on show. Not old, ugly male bodies either.

And the way Hermione was dressed didn't help at all. The five of them were sitting or lying on towels under a large umbrella. Hermione was on her back, with her hands behind her head and her eyes closed. One of her legs was straight out, but the other was bent at the knee, leaving the material that was wrapped around her waist to fall open, thus exposing a lot more skin than Severus was comfortable with. The piece of cloth she called a bikini top made Severus wish he had his large black robes to throw over her. As it was, he had settled for black below the waist and white above.

Hermione had persuaded him to roll his sleeves up to his elbows, reasoning that there was probably no wizards about that would recognize the Dark Mark. He had been fine, until a boy that looked sky high on some drug or another had come up and said, "Hey, nice tattoo, mate!” Hermione had tugged on his arm and told him to 'leave it'. He had kept his arms crossed ever since.

Lucius was enjoying all the women that were giving him the eye and Annie had introduced Eileen to some muggle thing called an iPod.

Severus had never thought in a million years he would be in this position. This was a whole new experience for him. He had never seen so much skin from so many different people; he had never been on holiday before. He had been to beaches before, but never in this context. He was slightly uncomfortable, to say the least; it was more than a bit strange.

Yet, strangely enough, he didn't miss Hogwarts that much. He felt too... normal. And that was the strangest feeling of all.

“!”!”!”!”!”!”!”!”!”!”

A/N: Thanks to every one for their reviews! I love to hear what you think so please carry on telling me!

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