I don't own a thing, as all of you would know, if you weren't such dunderheads.
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Severus Snape stepped out of the fire into warm summer sun. His eyes landed on Hermione Weasley, who was at the moment setting down the book she'd been reading, and smiling at him in welcome.
"Hello, Severus."
"Good afternoon, Hermione. Are you reading junk again?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "It's no junk. You should try Muggle literature sometime, it's great for relaxing. It might not contain precisely revolutionary thoughts, but it's fun to read and he works great with various cultural references..."
"Muggle cultural references."
"Well, it's usually high culture, so you'd catch most of them...this book, for example, draws heavily on Shakespeare."
"In that case, why read it if I can go straight to the Bard himself?"
Hermione rolled her eyes again. "You're incorrigible. Would you like some tea?"
"It would be lovely."
She went to the kitchen, followed by Severus. "How's Professor Flitwick managing under his new workload?" She asked from her preparations.
"I believe he's doing just fine."
"I sort of feel guilty for coming up with my improvement ideas right when he's going to be new to the job...don't take me wrong, I really appreciate your help with planning it, but...I made the transition more difficult for Flitwick."
Severus leaned on the doorframe. "I wouldn't be so sure. He's thrilled by the idea, and after all, the initial stages were still done mainly by Minerva. She prepared the curriculum and hired the teachers. He is sensibly taking it step by step – it'll be just Languages and Artefacts next year, and if it works, Geography, Literature and Personages the year after that. It does make preparing the timetables a bit more complicated, but Minerva is helping him with that, so I don't believe it's such a strain after all."
"But still. And I'm sure many people think I only did it for Victoire. I don't deny I want a good education for her, but it was done for everybody's benefit, really...even though part of is that there are my children to think of." She smiled a little. "Rose would never forgive me if I didn't ensure she got the best possible education, I'm sure of that already."
"So I'm to prepare myself for another know-it-all in a couple of years?"
Hermione's smile broadened and she turned to him, leaning on the counter. "Yes, even though I don't think she'll be as obnoxious as I was. She doesn't have the Muggle-born inferiority complex I had. She'll just be a pleasant, clever girl," the proud mother finished, even though she was laughing.
"And your son?"
"It's much too early to judge in Hugo's case. I can certainly tell he's intelligent, but then, Ron isn't stupid either, just not intellectual, so our son is bound to be clever. We will see what comes of it."
"Would your husband mind if both of your children took so much after you?"
Hermione turned her back to him to pour the tea, considering. "No, I don't think he would. Rose isn't my copy either. As long as he can see something of him in them, I don't believe he'd mind if they both were intellectual."
The tea preparations finished, they returned to the living room. "You should meet my children some time, really." Hermione added, sitting down. "I think you'd like Rose."
Severus was silent.
"Oh, I know," she said, "seeing them involves seeing Ron, so that he could take them away later. But I'm sure you could manage for a couple of minutes..."
"Could he?" Severus asked drily, sitting next to her on the sofa.
"Good question. Yes, I think he could...for a couple of minutes." She smirked.
They took first sips of their tea, and Hermione changed the topic.
"Have you read the new Starkey?"
"No, not yet. I've been mostly focusing on my own research."
Hermione mock-scowled at him. "Don't make me jealous."
He smirked. "You choose your path."
She sighed in response. "I know, and I'm content with it...mostly. The worst moments come precisely when a book like the new Starkey comes out. Then I always think, this could have been my life...this could have been my book..."
"It couldn't have, and you know it."
She actually stuck out her tongue at him. "You're just determined to be irritating today, aren't you?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Today?"
That earned him another eyeroll. "Actually," Hermione continued in a more serious tone, "I wanted your advice on something in there."
"Oh, of course. I should have known you wouldn't have asked me just for my charming company."
"Yes, that's just me. I'm simply one of the worst opportunists ever to walk the earth."
"Well, you are a lawyer."
Hermione snorted. "Right. Not that most of the Ministry doesn't wish it wasn't so. But anyway, back to my problem. I've been pondering it for weeks now, and I simply have to know the answer." She picked up a book lying on a table by the sofa, and quickly browsed through it to find the page she needed. "Here it is. He's dealing with Veritaserum here, and this is the basic Arithmantic formula for it. That's clear enough, obviously. What I simply don't get is how he arrived at the modification for pregnant women. He simply assumes it makes perfect sense and moves on to the things he's really concentrating on, his little theories and improvements, but I can't possibly follow if I don't get the pregnancy modification of the formula. So I figured you could help here..."
"Let me see..." Severus moved closer to her and she angled the book so that he had a better view. "Yes, that's the pregnancy formula all right, I recognize it...but I confess that since I never work with it, I didn't bother to try and see the Arithmantic logic behind it...that's not my field, after all...so, what exactly do you think is wrong with it?"
"Well...what is number three doing there? One of its main functions is communication, Severus. I know it's a very powerful number, but just...not for this. What he's trying to do, obviously, is to prevent communication, in a way – he wants the potion to affect only the mother, not the child. So...what it the number three doing there?"
"What would you expect there instead?"
"Anything, really. Well, perhaps not one. But...eight, or six. Four, even. Two, certainly. Not three."
"Perhaps it's just there to balance it out?"
"That would have to be in a different place altogether, at the end of the formula...this is in the very centre of it, and just don't see how that can work..."
Severus though, stared at the book, and though some more. "Perhaps the tarot..." he tried in the end.
"I thought of that, but it doesn't work either...maybe if it was an antidote targeted specifically at women...but making the woman stronger won't help us here, not just that anyway, we need to create a barrier between her and the child..."
There was a long silence, as they both pondered the problem.
Suddenly, Severus raised his head. "Hermione," he said, and sounded excited. Her head shot up. For him to be actually excited, he must have realized something pretty major.
"Our assumptions were wrong...and not just about the Veritaserum, I'd bet...they're not trying to isolate the child in modifications for pregnant women... they're doing the exact opposite! They're trying to bring the two in perfect harmony, so that the effects were simultaneous and there wasn't any gap created between them...they're actually aiming at as much connection as possible...it's not the Veritaserum itself that could harm the child, it's the difference in time when they'd be under its influence. It would get much later to the child, and that would be dangerous...we've been looking at it from the wrong perspective!"
Hermione was staring at him in admiration, her eyes shining. She couldn't help it, sometimes she was simply overcome by how brilliant this man was. She'd spent weeks on this, and he saw it almost immediately, even though she was sure he never worked with any modifications for pregnant women, and knew for a fact he wasn't all that good in Arithmancy.
She gave in to her instincts and hugged him.
A moment later, she realized very acutely that it had been a mistake. One of the biggest she ever made, possibly.
It was meant to be a friendly hug. A happy, spontaneous thing, expressing her joy. But the moment she touched him, it was impossible not to feel the rush. Her breath caught. Some barrier was broken by that touch, and all sorts of emotions were flowing to the surface. She froze, took a deep breath and used all of her will to make herself slowly pull back, at least a little. They looked at each other for a long time, eye to eye. Then she said very quietly, "I think you should go now."
She saw his face transform into a cool mask, his eyes Occluding, and closed her own eyes in pain. When she opened them a short moment later, he was halfway to the fireplace.
"Severus..." she whispered. He stopped, not looking at her, and she took a deep breath. "I wouldn't tell this to anyone else in such a situation, because it is unwise and dangerous, but I believe you need to hear it. I..." she paused. "I want to. Very much so. At the moment, I feel like there is nothing in the world I want more." She was pressing her hands together so hard she was sure she'd have bruises later, but she continued. "I am very attracted to you. I admire your intellect, your knowledge, your wit...I'm drawn to it. It is what I renounced when I decided to marry Ron, and right now I feel like a thirsty woman in a desert, and you are an oasis to me. I cannot express how much I desire right now to..." she stopped herself. Saying it aloud in any detail could well be her undoing. But still, there was something that needed to be stated clearly. "Look at me." He turned around and locked his burning eyes with hers. "I want you, Severus." She could see how he was fighting with himself to stay where he was, across the room from her. She was almost at the end of her capacities for self-control too, but she needed to finish this. "But none of this," she continued, "changes anything about the fact that I love Ron, and I don't love him any less for it. He is my husband. I gave him my promise, and I'm not going to break it. I wouldn't do it to him. I wouldn't do it to myself. I could never look in a mirror again if I did. I want you and admire you and am attracted to you, but Ron is my life. It doesn't mean I don't care about you, but only one person can be my first priority, and it is Ron. I could have been you, very likely, had I met you first...but I haven't." She paused, and then finished: "I'm sure I can handle this, but I'm really, deeply sorry for making it so very difficult for you."
He nodded stiffly, threw some Floo powder and disappeared in the fire.
Hermione kept staring at it till her husband and children came back in the morning.
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It felt right to end the chapter here, which means there's going to be another one.
I'm sure you can see why I didn't want to give this to Severus on his birthday.