Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't mine…

A/N: this is sort of based on WIKKT's marriage law challenge, though only loosely, since what I know of the challenge is from the responses to it. As a general warning, there is character death and a lot of angst…just so everyone knows. The rating is mostly to be safe.

Summary: Memories. Bittersweet, yet they sustained me...They said it was an accident. Was it really? I didn't know, and I knew all too well...

Bittersweet

By Ariannaid

"Are you coming?"

"Yes…hold on!" She crested the hill, panting for breath and looking slightly nauseous.

"Look," he said softly. She gasped. The Snape House, while looking decidedly foreboding, had a sort of dark beauty, and was surrounded by magnificent, though slightly overgrown, gardens.

"My mother," he said, for once without being prompted. "Whatever else you might say about her, she was a wonderful gardener. A redeeming characteristic, maybe."

"It's beautiful," she breathed. "And if the house can be made to look like this, it would be the perfect place to raise a child." She grasped his hand, looked into his eyes, and added, "Our child." Giving her his half-smile (the only one he could accomplish without looking eviler or sneering), he pulled her towards the house.

"It's not too bad on the inside. Contrary to my preference for darker colors, my mother actually favored the more…well, you'll see." She smiled up at him, happier than she had ever believed she could be trapped in a sham of a marriage to a professor she had once hated. And, judging from the light in his eyes, he was happy as well.

If only that happiness had been permanent.

-Memories. Bittersweet, yet they sustained me. We had been so close- so close- to achieving happiness…to falling in love. And then…

They said it was an accident. Was it really? I didn't know, and I knew all too well... It was too…too obvious, really. Nothing that seemed that accidental could really be an accident. Anyway, it all became clear when the mail arrived the day after all of the final arrangements had been completed and the funeral was over.-

The owl swooped in, disrupting her stab at eating breakfast. Obviously her traitorous body had decided that until she gave birth, she wouldn't be able to eat anything remotely resembling Good Food. Nothing, however, had dissuaded her from trying…except his death…that had caused a pause in eating for nearly three days, until Ginny had come and told her to stop being stupid and force fed her some of the "safe" food they had acquired over the first five months of her pregnancy. Detaching the letter uninterestedly, she absently patted the owl and sent it on its way (after a disgruntled hoot at not receiving anything in return. Owls were so spoiled these days). She opened it, skimmed through it, and then returned to eating her breakfast. Ginny bustled into the kitchen-apparently firmly resolved to follow in her mother's footsteps-and stopped short at the look on Hermione's face.

"What happened?" she asked, fearing the worst. Still silent, Hermione handed Ginny the letter. Ginny's face paled in shock and anger in reaction to the contents.

"They can't do this! Not even those idiots can allow this. You've already gone through with the stupid Marriage Law arrangements. They can't honestly expect you to have to do it again. For god's sake, you're pregnant!"

"They can, Ginny," Hermione said softly. "And they will; you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Fudge barely even pretends to run the ministry. It's all in the hands of the Malfoys and their kind."

"But who would want you so badly that they would marry you even though you are pregnant with another man's child?"

"Look at who the letter is from, Ginny. That explains it all…and more."

Ginny glanced at the closing, and this time gasped out loud. "Oh, no…oh…Hermione…no…"

"Is there anything else they can do to me?" Hermione whispered, tears leaking from her eyes. Ginny reached for Hermione, and pulled her into a hug.

"We'll find a way out of this. You'll see." Hermione didn't reply, but they both knew that Ginny was lying.

-I had thought I was in pain then…but nothing could compare to the day I watched Lucius Malfoy murder my son.-

"No!" she screamed. "Please…please, I'll do anything! Don't touch him! Don't hurt my baby." She was sobbing now, she had been for awhile. He was holding her son over the edge of the balcony. Punishment, he said, for trying to refuse him. She hadn't meant to say no. He left her and her son alone as long as she did as he asked. She had only wanted him to let her put the baby down.

"I think you misunderstand the situation, Mudblood. I told you that if you tried to resist you would be punished. Why should I go back on my promise?"

"Please…please…" she whimpered, futilely reaching out for her son. Lucius gave her a cold, calculating look.

"What will you do for your son's life?"

"Anything! I'll do anything you say! Just don't hurt him…please don't hurt him," Hermione begged unashamedly…after all, there was no hope of ever escaping. She couldn't even see Ginny anymore…she was alone.

Lucius smirked coldly.

"Will you really do anything for the life of this worthless half-blood creature?"

"Yes! He's my son…he's all I have left of Severus…" Unfortunately, that proved to be a mistake.

"Severus," Lucius spat. "Severus was a fool and a traitor. It was all too easy to lure him into the trap and kill him. He betrayed everyone, even you, at the end. He was weak, a sniveling worm. His offspring do not deserve to live."

Hermione watched, horrified, as time seemed to slow…and Lucius let go of her child. There was a heart-wrenching scream coming from somewhere…but…she couldn't think…couldn't…falling…her baby…screaming…her baby.

-There was really no reason for me to live after that. Lucius did what he wanted to my body, it was still intact enough for that, but my soul was gone. He had taken away the man I might have loved, and he had taken away the child who was my life. There was nothing else that he could do to me. The last vestiges of humanity left in me begged for death. But alas, that wish took long to grant.-

"Hermione! Hermione!"

Her name was being called. Blearily, blankly, she opened her eyes. There was a face…with red hair…

'This seems familiar' she thought, not moving. 'Why does red hair seem so familiar?'

"Oh, Hermione," the red-haired figure said softly, then turned and called over its shoulder, "I've found her!" Two more figures ran into the room, another red-haired one and a dark-haired one.

'Why am I so fixated on hair?' she though dispassionately. It seemed that their hair was the only thing that stood out to her.

"Hermione?" she focused on the figure who was speaking. "Hermione, we're going to get you out of here. Where is the baby?"

"Baby?" she whispered, staring over their heads now, almost unconscious again, "There is no baby. Dropped it…the baby fell…dead…dead…all dead…I'll die soon too," she told the wall gravely. "Then I'll be with him again."

"Oh, god…he's driven her insane!" She heard a voice exclaim in horror. There was more too, she thought, but it didn't matter. The blessed blackness was roaring through her mind again. She would be unconscious soon.

-There was a period of time when they kept me with them, at the Burrow, I think. But they couldn't keep a suicide watch on me forever. None of them ever pretended that they would have the real Hermione back. And I didn't try to give them her. I was a broken shell of a person, and nothing on this earth could fix me. They understood that; Ginny most of all. It was on Ginny's watch that I managed to escape- something I'm sure she let me do. I think, maybe, Ginny understood, or almost did. It doesn't matter now, anyway.-

I found my way to the Snape lands. I'm not sure how, but I did. I arrived there, and looked for the familiar gardens.

But they were gone. So was the house and the small forest on the edge…everything. Lucius's doing, no doubt. However, he had left one thing untouched: the family burial plot. It was there that I was headed, anyway.

Severus's grave was on the outer edge, near a newly planted sapling. I sat down against his headstone, closing my eyes wearily.

"Do you think I can go home now, Severus? I want to be with you and our son…I want to rest. Do you think that now I will be allowed to?"

Taking out the small vial I had brought with me, I gazed at its soft, sky blue contents. It was hard to believe that this was one of the deadlier poisons created. Smiling, I uncorked the vial and poured it down my throat. Seconds later, I couldn't feel any of my body, and my vision had gone dim.

I would be home soon…

-Severus glances up from his notes, and nods a greeting. I smile in return, and move to sit next to him on the couch. I adjust my grip on our son, and plop down gracelessly beside him. He glances back at me, and seems to be fighting back a smile. I snuggle closer, and he relents and puts his arm around me. The picturesque family at last.-