AN: Twistier and twistier it gets...

Hermione closed the book that she had pilfered from the library and set it back under the pillow. It was only The History of the French Kings and nothing to be ashamed of, but her grandmother thought reading bred ill thoughts in young girls, and after catching her too often skulking in the library, she'd forbidden her from reading at all.

She walked over to her dressing table and checked her appearance in the looking glass. She'd had a bit of a growth spurt, and her linen gown strained against her fourteen-year-old bosom, having been sewn for a thirteen-year-old girl. She fixed her lace collar, trying to cover as much as she could, and then threw her shawl over everything when that didn't suit.

She'd had to tear off a flounce from her third best dress and sew it onto the bottom of this one, and the two blacks didn't really mix well at all.

She tried to think of a way to improve things but gave it up as a bad job and headed down to join the family for dinner.

It was her grandmother's sixtieth birthday, and all of the children and grandchildren had come to pay court to the queen of self-importance. Hermione had been moved up into the attic, as her own room was needed for the children of sons who hadn't gone into a trade and disgraced the family.

She rolled her eyes at the thought.

Hermione's three uncles had all managed to marry younger versions of their mother. How her father had ever come from this stock boggled the mind.

Between them, they had eight children ranging in age from seventeen-year-old Andrew Granger III, to five-year-old Honoria.

She'd always remembered Andrew as a bit of a milksop, but she had found him rather agreeable when he had arrived two days ago. He was still over-soft and weak-chinned, but it seemed their time apart had improved him. He had been attentive and amusingly witty. The same could not be said for his sister, Veronica. She had been a pasty-faced little whiner two years ago, and now she was a pale termagant-in-training. She'd had a twin sister, Amber, who had died of a fever at seven, and the surviving twin had been treated like a glass flower ever afterwards.

Hermione entered into the drawing room and immediately found a chair and sat. If she could get through the hour before dinner without attracting any notice at all, life would be blessed indeed.

"Mother, isn't Hermione's dress shocking ugly?" Veronica said to the room at-large when her mother was sitting right next to her. "I saw her wear that when we arrived and could scarcely believe it." The gathered cousins all broke into tittering laughter, but the parents looked aghast at such bad form.

"Hush, Veronica," snapped Uncle Andrew. "She's in mourning for her parents. Fashion is the least of her concerns and rightly so."

Hermione bestowed a grateful smile on her oldest uncle but it withered and died as he continued his thought.

"I imagine her mind is rather more occupied with thoughts of whether or not her parents are in heaven with the angels, or screaming in the burning pits." He turned to her. "Do you know, dear, if your parents had been able to pray before they met their end?" He turned to his stunned audience. "Sincere prayer will always make a difference. Even right at the very end."

Hermione felt her face begin to turn red. The rushing of hot blood made it feel as if it was swelling. "I know that my father's last words were apparently an entreaty to God, sir." 'God in heaven, look out!' "And my mother prayed fervently before her end came." 'Let me just die. Please, God, I cannot live this way without my John!' "So it is my belief that they are in heaven."

Uncle Andrew nodded his head in approval. "I'm sure they are. I have to admit, I always did worry for John, what with his odd ways and his desire to take up a profession. I always feared that was a sign of a weak nature. I'm glad to hear he turned to the Lord in the end."

"As you say, sir."

"Andrew," her grandmother intoned in her most dreaded tone. "I will thank you to keep your interest in these new Evangelical preachers at home, where it is proper. Honestly, it's not even Sunday. If you wanted to spoil our appetites for dinner, I congratulate you on the thoroughness with which you have completed your task."

Uncle Andrew opened his mouth to reply, but Uncle Robert's wife, Justine, blurted, "Are you going to be observing a full year of mourning, child? Or will you accede to the more acceptable six months?"

Justine was the daughter of a Baron, and thus, considered herself far above grandmother and would use any excuse to throw her knowledge of what was considered proper in society in the old woman's face.

Hermione was no fool. She immediately dove into the fray, and if she could gain some favor, so be it.

"I will defer to Grandmother's opinions in these things. I will need new clothes soon and shall let her dictate the style and colors, as is right."

Hermione dropped her head down to her folded hands, hoping to look properly meek and submissive.

She gave a darting look at her grandmother but received the Granger Glower for her pains. She sighed. Not subtle enough. Perhaps it might have worked if she had not already asked for new clothes and been denied.

Charles came to the doorway and announced dinner, moving the impending symphony of scowls to the dining room. Her grandmother reached out a hand and pulled her back, before they had gained the doorway.

"You think you are clever, don't you? You cannot shame me into wasting my money frivolously!" she snapped.

"I will shame you far more when my bosom falls out of my dress with the next breath!" Hermione hissed back.

Her grandmother went quite red in the face before she spat, "Perhaps if you didn't eat so much, you wouldn't grow quite so fast! Go to your room! There will be no dinner for you tonight, you ungrateful child!"

Hermione opened her mouth to let the nasty woman know what she could do with her food, but was undone by the angry tears that sprang into her eyes, making her look weak. She fled up the stairs before she could lose face even more.

She wanted to hex the lot of them but then quickly pushed the thought away. Simply thinking of magic hurt too much to be borne. She couldn't perform a single spell until she came of age, and there was nothing for it but to endure.

Alice had all of her things, including her wand. At least she hoped she did. She hadn't heard from her mother's sister since she'd been shut away in this tomb. She could only assume that the letters she left by the door to be posted were being similarly interrupted. Grandmother wouldn't allow mention of Alice, and Hermione was vaguely aware that violent words had been exchanged by the two women, as she'd cried at her mother's bedside that last time.

The following months had been spent in a perpetual fog of grief. The unending shock freshened with every morning she woke up in this house. She dreamed of running away, but the only place she had to go was Otterwold, and that would be the first place anyone would look. She thought about Pearheath, where she had grown up, but it had turned into a hazy dream without detail. She wasn't even sure how to find it, and utterly sure there was no one there that would take her in.

In the loneliness of the night, she dreamed of running away to Scotland—simply turning up at the school—but she remembered the confrontation between her grandmother and the Headmaster when he had arrived to try and change her grandmother's mind about her schooling. She had walked him to the door and quietly begged him to take her with him, but he had merely patted her on the shoulder and told her to be strong.

She also thought about trying to make her way to Spinner's End in Manchester. She fantasized about her Professor hiding her from everyone and secretly teaching her magic. Those dreams filled her thoughts, and she'd knitted them into quite the elaborate fantasy, wherein he suddenly realized he loved her and married her and bought her a pretty house and a pony.

Her fantasies frequently took on revenge themes, where he would appear in the foyer downstairs and lay about with spells until he'd smashed all the mirrors and had vanquished all her foes. Even she knew this was a foolish and utterly unrealistic scenario, but the image of her grandmother throwing her hands up and begging for mercy at the end of Professor Snape's wand, while he looked to Hermione to give the word, was rather delicious. It was far more enjoyable than the recurring dream where her parents' carriage had started to tip and the Professor had swooped in and saved the day. Every day she lived with the knowledge that such a rescue would never happen. However, having her professor save her wasn't so far-fetched as to be utterly impossible. Just highly implausible.

He'd probably already forgotten she'd even existed.

She was on her own with nowhere to go.

She sighed and pulled her book back out from under her pillow and sat by her burning candle to read about another Louis. She was disturbed by a knock on the door, and she hastily put her book away and went to open it.

Cousin Andrew stood out in the hallways with a secretive smile.

"Let me in, cousin, before I'm caught!"

"What are you doing up here? You know you could get in trouble for being in the servants' wing!"

"I brought you some food! No one saw me, either. It was rather the adventure! I saw the argument you had with Gran and thought you would be hungry."

He held up a napkin filled with buttered bread and slices of beef.

"Oh, Andrew! You're an angel!"

She reached for it but he pulled it away.

"Uh, uh! Not so fast my little cousin. I thought we could, perhaps, work out an exchange."

Hermione frowned and looked about the mostly barren room. "I have nothing to offer."

"Indeed that is not so, cousin. I noticed right away that you had quite a bit more to offer since the last time we saw each other."

Hermione felt the hairs on her neck prick up and pulled her shawl tighter about herself.

"Now, now, cousin. That's not the done thing at all."

He reached out a hand and tried to tug her shawl down in the front, but she slapped a hand across her bosom and backed away.

"I think you had best leave, cousin. I can see where you might have drawn the erroneous assumption that I was powerless, but I assure you, most emphatically, that you are wrong. If you try to touch my person again, you will be sorry."

"Will I? Come on, Hermione. I know you have it hard here. I could make things quite pleasant for you."

Hermione felt her stomach lurch. Andrew took another step closer, and she didn't even think, she just curled her fist and walloped him, connecting with the side of his eye.

"OW! Blast! I think you've blinded me!"

"If you think that's bad, just imagine how it will hurt when I kick you in the stones! Now get out of here!"

Andrew scrambled backwards towards the door. "You're an uncouth, foulmouthed savage! You're… you're unnatural, that's what you are!" he yelled.

"You have no idea!" she snapped back, before she slammed the door in his face. She kicked it for good measure.

She turned around and found the food he had brought lying on the floor, still mostly wrapped in his napkin.

She enjoyed every bit of it, despite her sore hand.

Snape walked to the gates, with his head down and his spirits even lower, ignoring the sounds of the larks calling on the early summer breeze. His mind was a thousand miles away and twenty years in the past.

Lily.

This whole, wretched year had been one, long screeching nail on the chalkboard that was his memory of her. Everywhere he'd turned he couldn't escape her. Her friends, her son…

Her perfection was a constant mirror held up against his flaws, and his penance seemed endless.

He was filled to the brim with a bitter gal. That Black should prove innocent was the cap on one of the worst years of his professional life. His only solace was having rid the school of the werewolf. He'd come close to losing his grip completely when he'd wakened to find himself face-to-face with that monster again. Instead, he'd thrown himself between Lupin and those three beetle-headed boys, only to have Potter and Longbottom actually take off after the damned thing. He'd been left with an injured Weasley and no wand with which to call for help.

And how was he rewarded? He got a disappointed frown from Albus because the monster he'd hired had to be sacked, and endless nasty glares from The-Pustule-Who-Lived.

He ground his teeth together painfully.

He forced himself to relax, popped his hat on his head, gripped his cane, and Apparated to Manchester.

"Don't you have your own home?" his father spat when he saw him.

"I came to check on you and mother."

"We're fine. Don't need yer help. She's gone t'work at the Mill. Just because I'm wasting away, doesn't mean we need yer charity!"

Severus stared at the wreck of a man who had been the bane of his existence for so many years. He pulled out his wand and cast a quick Diagnostic Spell. The cancer was far more advanced than he'd expected.

"I could help you," he said again, already knowing the answer.

Tobias looked at him with no expression and then it seemed as if all of a sudden the air went out of him.

"What would be the use, lad? Do yeh hate me so much that yeh would preserve my miserable existence just t' gain satisfaction?" The elder Snape pushed his pale, stringy hair out of his face and looked out the back window. "Do yeh think I deserve more of this? Did it never occur to yeh that I might have had a dream or two, meself? I'm tired. I'm ready to go." He turned his head and gave his son a beady stare. "I'm ready to see the back of yeh, as well. Go on, fuck off out of here. You've been nothing but a misery to me since I blew yeh out o'me nutsack."

Tobias Snape turned his long nose to the wall, so he didn't have to see his son anymore.

Severus left the bottle of rum he'd brought on the table before he left.

He slipped inside the front door quietly and dropped his bag on the floor. He pulled off his hat and set it on the small table by the door. He walked down the short hallway and into the little sitting room, where his eyes took in the curtains on the narrow windows and recognized them for what they were, his old bed sheets, bleached into new life, and sewn with a careful hand. There were fresh wildflowers in a cracked jar on the table and hand-tatted lace doilies on the arms and backs of the two chairs facing the settee. There was a baby in a large, wooden box in the corner, staring at him silently, with huge, black eyes. He walked into the room, and, flicking his coattails out of the way, he sat and crossed one leg over the other.

He stared back at the child.

She wobbled on her legs and sat down hard, disappearing from sight, and he waited until he saw a pudgy hand, with long fingers for a babe, grasp onto the side of the box again. She popped back into view and steadied herself with her other hand as she went back to her inspection of him. She raised an eyebrow, and he raised his. She smiled, and he let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Small legs ran down the hallway and into the room. There was a startled squeak, and then Nigel came running over to stand in front of him. The boy looked at him with his large, powder blue eyes and timidly offered him the rest of his jam and bread.

"No, thank you."

"Ma'am. No fank you ma'am," the boy corrected gravely.

The boy stuffed the rest of his treat into his mouth, smearing a good portion of it on his cheek.

Snape went to pull out his wand and stopped. He mustn't. Not in this house. Never in this house. Magic could be traced, and lives depended on him never being traced here.

Instead, he pulled out his handkerchief and swiped at the boy's face and hands while Nigel squirmed and cried out.

"None of that," Snape snapped in disapproval. Nigel went still and silent immediately.

"Nigel? Where have you gone off to? If you're in the sitting room with that jam, I will—"

Severus turned and saw his wife looking surprised and flustered in the doorway. She snatched off her apron and patted frantically at the curls by her ears, turning bright pink before she blurted, "Welcome home… husband."

"Hello, Elspeth."

Elspeth's eyes opened as soon as she felt the bed dip behind her. She closed them tightly, to send a quick prayer of thanks, and kept herself very still. He could just need to sleep in a real bed. His nights in that chair last winter and those few days he'd spent at home in the spring would have been agony on any man's back.

Perhaps he simply didn't want to be alone. He'd looked lost and uncomfortable since she'd found him in the sitting room with the children.

It had been a puzzler, to use her old governess' word, how to make a man feel welcomed in his own home. She'd spent weeks planning and practicing, hoping she would get it right.

It was certainly out of her realm of experience. Henry had been all about pushing away. Severus was all about patience.

He was so strong, and yet the image she'd held in her mind, as she'd waited these long weeks for his return, was that of an easily startled bird. One wrong move on her part would send him flapping away again, and she knew that he would never come back if that happened.

She settled her wildly beating heart and tried to will herself back to sleep, only to feel his hand settle timidly on her shoulder. She rolled over onto her back and welcomed him with a tearful smile, unseen in the dark.

She wondered at the smell on his breath, like an odd liqueur. She wished he would kiss her, so she could taste it and find what it was, but he did not.

It began, as it always had. Stilted and restrained. She knew, in the mysterious way that women knew these things, that the magic wouldn't come this time. It didn't matter. If she was very good, it would be there in the future.

She fretted as he took what pleasure he could find, trying to figure out how to touch him, how to welcome him, without it feeling like the trap he'd fallen into knowingly when he'd saved her and the children.

Instead of the miraculous sharing she had hoped for, a different wonder occurred. When he'd spent himself inside of her with a painfully indiscreet shout, he didn't roll off. Instead, he collapsed down upon her, and she gathered his sweaty head to her shoulder.

There, in the dark, where no one could see, he cried like a wounded creature.

Elspeth Snape cradled her husband to her heart and wondered who the other woman was that had left him so broken inside.

Who ever this Lily was, this other that he would sometimes cry out for in his moment, Elspeth hated her with a blinding fury.

Elspeth brought him a pitcher of ale and a mug and set the small tray on his desk, where he was going over the ledgers she'd kept while he was gone.

"Thank you," he said with a noticeable amount of surprise.

"It is a hot day. Would you like me to open a window for you? There is a breeze…"

"I'm fine." He gestured to the books. "You've done well. I had expected more expense."

"I have learned the value of a penny," she replied with pride. "Having gone hungry so often for lack of one. I don't want to be more of a burden to you than I already am."

He gave her a direct look, and for a moment she thought that they might finally talk—actually talk—about the events that had thrown them together. Who they were, where they came from.

Instead, he pulled open the drawer and took out the twenty pound note that he'd left for her last winter.

"This is yours. Do with it what you will. When I leave again at summer's end, there will be another for emergencies."

For a moment her heart sank. Was he paying her for last night? Was she still just a whore to him? As if he read her mind, he scowled and his face grew thunderous.

"A wife needs funds, Elspeth. There are always unforeseen events in the future that are best planned for."

A wife. He'd said it! It must mean something, surely?

She reached across the desk and took the money, holding it tightly in her hand as if it would fly away.

He dismissed her with a silent wave and looked back down at his ledgers, re-inking his quill.

"I was wondering if I might have a moment more of your time?" she asked, wringing her red and raw hands.

He looked up and frowned. "Is something wrong with the children?"

Such immediate concern is a good sign, she thought. "Not at all, everyone is well. Simon is with them out in the sun."

"The boy needs a trade. He's too old to be a nursemaid."

"Well, yes. That would be good. He's a hard worker and very bright. Not afraid of a good day's labor either, if that helps color your opinion of his options. But that is not what I wished to speak to you about."

"Go on," he said, sipping his ale.

"Do you remember me asking if I could contact my family?"

Her husband's face went blank, and yet she could see him steeling himself as if for a blow. It occurred to her that this was a man that frequently had bad news dropped on him out of the blue. He nodded and waved a hand impatiently for her to get on with it.

"I did, you see. But I didn't post it from here. I was mindful of your injunctions, and I also had my own reasons for discretion, having to do with the events of my leaving my home to begin with."

"Henry Spanner," he said with distaste.

She nodded her head. "Just so. In any event, I walked into Addersley and posted it from there. I gave them an accounting of events, but omitted facts. I didn't even tell them your Christian name, only that you were a well-respected schoolmaster."

He snorted, and she suddenly realized she only had her own opinion to go on as far as that last. She knew so very little about this man.

"My mother wrote back, followed by a letter from my father."

"So you and your family are reconciled?"

"More than we were, thanks to you."

"This is good news, isn't it? Why do I suddenly feel as if I am not going to enjoy the sound of the other shoe when it falls? Get to the point."

She recoiled from the irritation on his face, and blurted, "My father is Lord Wrenham. I'm the daughter of a Baron."

The room was silent, but for the ticking of the clock and the sound of laughter out in the yard.

"This makes you the Honorable…"

"I'm just Mrs. Snape. Nobody ever actually says the Honorable part, except to address a letter."

She winced at the angry scowl on his face and took note never to correct him on points of etiquette again.

"Tell me you have seven brothers, preferably all older than you."

"One. I had two, but my youngest brother died recently."

"My condolences. This surviving brother, he is hale and whole and has seven sons?"

"Not yet, he is still on the continent taking a year to see the sights before settling down. My parents have been unable to contact him, but his last letter assured them he was in good health."

"You have older sisters with sons?"

"I'm the oldest."

He sat back and blew out a breath. "Madam, you had better hope that your brother spawns a litter as soon as he is able. If your little Nigel is in line to be the heir of Wrenham, that entails complications I do not have the time, the patience, or the breeding to deal with."

"I'm aware of that, and I made my father aware of that as well. However, as Nigel is in line for the title, there are things you need to sign, as he is your legally adopted son."

"When did this happen?"

"I was hoping you could arrange it. I told my father you already were."

"Why?"

"Because my father wants to take him away from me." Her eyes filled with tears and she twisted her fingers together painfully. "He doesn't believe we are legally married, since I willywobbled on our last name, but he knows Nigel was born legitimate because he had already found the parish Henry and I had married in and has seen the registry. I wouldn't tell him where to find our records, because they would include your real name. He has told me he would settle a sum of twenty thousand pounds on me and raise the boy himself."

He looked at her with simmering anger, and she could see the small amount of goodwill they had created last night in the dark, receding like a tide. His black eyes stabbed at the twenty pound note she was still clutching. More money than she'd ever held before, and yet nothing compared to what she would have if she sold her son to her father.

"Are there any other secrets from your past I should be made aware of, madam?"

"No. That's the meat of it, everything else is just dressing."

He nodded and then picked up the quill he'd set down again. "Then calm yourself, wife. I will take care of it."

She sagged as if she'd suddenly gone boneless. Wife. He'd said it again and had even emphasized the word. "Bless you, Severus."

He raised an eyebrow at that and waved a dismissive hand.

She fled the room.

And there you go...