Hermione distractedly stirred the ingredients a second time in a counter clockwise pattern, glancing nervously at the door.
She was late...
Severus would be home any minute and she needed to finish. With shaky hands she banked the fire, allowing the steady flame to glow smaller and smaller before it blinked out completely. Her potion took on a hue of pea green soup. She nodded to herself. It wasn't supposed to be pretty or appetizing.
The ingenuity behind potion brewing was that it wasn't a charm. A quick flash from her wand or a simple twist of the wrist wouldn't make the problems go away. No, potions made you swallow every disgusting bite to help you understand your choices; both the causes and the effects of your mistakes. Stay out late one night partying and you will need to choke down a revolting brew to mimic what your liver was going through. Need to regrow your bones? Well as Harry proved it was going to be as painful as how you lost them in the first place. Serves you right you know.
She eyed the door again, focusing all her senses on what lay beyond it. There was no noise coming from the den yet.
Serves her right indeed. She eyed the chunky brew. Steeling herself she tilted her head back and gagged the green mush down. She smelled her resignation. The odor was mocking her; laughing at her decision.
She tasted her startling anger. How often did she find herself getting exasperated at him these days? She swallowed her heavy guilt. Tears came to her eyes. She could never tell Severus.
A yell broke her out of her reverie. She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve, straightened her shirt, and sent a quick evanesco to the cauldron. She loved her husband, but even in his most cold hearted days he would not understand why she would do this. She winced, the world was indeed a strange place if Severus Snape was more of a softie than Hermione.
"Mawwwwwww!" came her sons shouts from the den. Hearing the fright in his voice Hermione pulled away from the room and dashed to his side.
The muggle doctors told her that he was perfectly fine health wise. He had 10 toes and 10 fingers like every other boy. His lungs took in each breath and his heart beat just like any other child's.
But when Ron's and Luna's son was 5 he was jumping up and down while getting into trouble like a impish version of George. When Ginny and Draco's daughter was 5 she was dictating to the world that she was a princess and demanded to be dressed in a green tutu and eat chocolate chip pancakes every morning.
But Hadrian, the son of the Brightest-Witch-of-her-Day and the insurmountable Potions Professor, heroes of the last war, scholars, and geniuses both… when he was five his biggest accomplishment was making a noise that could, maybe if tried hard, be construed as he was calling for his mum. But otherwise he was listless. He would stare out at the world and be content for hours. His soulful eyes didn't follow anything; they would blink and stare right through you. His patented look was always without judgment, without recognition and most definitely without depth.
His first emotional outburst came when he was five and couldn't find his stuffed lion, Sir Roar. His parents could play with him, bathe him, throw him in the air, smother him in belly kisses and he would not react. But move his stuffed animal and he would wail and little tears would form in the corners of his eyes.
He was there, somewhere tucked behind the eyes of a octogenarian.
So shocked at this new sound Hermione was almost beside herself with desolate giddiness. She moved the toy again just to see if wasn't just a fluke. He would blink. He would cock his head. And then his mouth would open and a full body wail would erupt from his tiny form. She did this straight for an hour. Torturing her son over and over again to make sure it was a valid truth. Finally after five years of doctors visits, healers visits, psychology sessions, and begging to the higher powers, she had proof that he was really there. That somehow her foolish antics as a "hero" did not crush his soul in utero.
She opened the den and her baby was seizing. Spittle was already forming in his mouth by the time she got to him. She cast a quick pillow charm so he couldn't hurt himself and quickly wrapped her arms around her stomach; waiting for his tremors to stop before she could rush to his aid.
This was another thing she could not fix. No charm would make him "better" no amount of research in Hogwarts great library would find the cure to his condition.
She just couldn't. She couldn't do it again.
Severus found her a few minutes later; rubbing the scar on her arm and shaking as much as their son did as the last of his episode ran its course. He touched her shoulder in sympathy before reaching for his son. "Shhhh" he murmured, for his love's sake as much as for his son's. Hadrian was breathing shallowly, but did not appear to have any problems that may need medical treatment. He started talking to his son. He told him he loved him. He told him he was there. He told him the secrets of his own heart just so that his boy would know on some level that he was not alone.
The seizure took all of Hadrian's energy; that and combined with his father's soothing voice their son was soon asleep. Severus put his boy to bed.
Hermione stayed in the den. Brightest witch of her age and she still couldn't fix her son,. She ran her tongue over her teeth tasting the leftover potion. At least, as the brightest witch of her age, she could make sure she didn't curse another.