Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Thanks to DHLane for her help with beta-ing this chapter.

For the admirable gift of himself, and for the magnificent service he renders humanity, what reward does our society offer the scientist? Have these servants of an idea the necessary means of work? Have they an assured existence, sheltered from care? – Marie Curie.

Granada, Andalucía: 4th July, 2010

The hot, midday sun beat down on the small courtyard, filling all of the tiles and ceramic pots with warmth.

Snape watched as Hermione dozed on the sun lounge in the shade of a small grove of olive trees, a book open on her chest, and dark sunglasses blocking some of the light out. He watched the rise and fall of her chest as she took slow, deep breaths, and saw a small beam of light filtered through a gap in the leaves onto her cheek as the wind blew the branches lightly.

She was beautiful in her summer attire – tan shorts that fell to mid-thigh, and a white shirt over a black tank top. She wore a straw hat almost every time they went out, and used Muggle sunblock even though there were potions that provided much better protection. All of the exposure to the sun she was getting was giving her a slight tan and bringing out the freckles on her cheeks that they both knew were in hiding from the cold English terrain. This wife of his was amazing to behold, and he could still hardly believe that she was actually his.

Unable to resist any longer, he picked up his book and allowed his feet to carry him outside and over to where Hermione was sleeping. He sat down on the lounger with her, gently moving her so that there was room for him to budge up beside her and gaze upon her form more freely. From up so close, he could see that her lips were curved ever so slightly in a smile that spoke volumes.

He had no doubt that her rest was finally peaceful and that her dreams were not of a negative nature.

After a while of sitting there with her and reading his book, while every now and then glancing at her, he felt her stir from her slumber and watched as her eyes began to flicker open. When she was almost fully awake, she smiled to see him out in the open with her, and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

'How long have I been asleep?' she asked, unable to contain the yawn that she produced and hurried to cover with her hand.

'A couple of hours, perhaps,' he replied, marking his page and putting down his book. 'I'm sorry if I woke you.'

'You didn't wake me at all,' she replied. 'How long have you been out here for?'

'About half an hour, maybe more,' Snape answered. 'Are you hungry?'

'Starving, actually,' she said, blushing despite her grin. 'I think it might be what woke me up, actually. Is there anything in particular that you feel hungry for?'

'I was thinking we could go into town and find a nice little café to eat in,' he replied with a small smile. 'I was told by one of the locals that there is a lovely place on the other side of town that has a famous fish special.'

'Sounds brilliant,' she said, getting up off the lounge and grabbing Snape's hand to pull him up with her.

They locked up the house once they had both applied more sun block, and hopped onto their bicycles and road down from their little hilltop perch, into the heart of town and further on to the other side where the café was purported to be. They took their time as they rode side-by-side, riding through the day market where Snape bought her a set of beautifully carved wooden bangles, and arrived at the café at a leisurely pace.

For someone positively obsessed with keeping to plans and deadlines, Snape had found it relatively easy while he was with Hermione to actually sit back and relax on his holiday. He knew she was somewhat similar herself, but that she also was much better at balancing her work-life ratio than he was. Snape was happy in this case, to simply follow her example and enjoy their time together.

When they had first arrived at his little holiday home four days beforehand, Snape had been all for purchasing a scooter for the two of them to use for small day trips and outings in the local area, but when Hermione had spotted two shiny new bicycles, well, he'd had a hard time trying to deny her. Over the past few days though, he had found that he rather liked them, and enjoyed the bit of exercise that they got from cycling up and down hills all over the area.

The pair parked their bikes and left them propped against a large tree right beside the café, and walked in, sitting at a small table beside the front window.

A waiter immediately arrived at their table to serve them, and he ordered their coffee in Spanish that was slightly rough from lack of speaking the language. Hermione smiled at him, and stretched her hand across the table to lace her fingers with his. The café was warm, but they were lucky to have rather a more dry heat in the area due in most part to the ocean breeze that swept inland towards them. When their coffee arrived, they ordered two of the fish specials, and sat back to enjoy the rich Spanish roast.

Snape watched his wife as she added one sachet of sugar to the espresso he had ordered for her. He could never understand why she always ordered the straight shot of coffee and sip at it for longer than it took him to swallow down his regular black coffee with cream. Coffee was so bitter without some milk or cream in it to water it down.

It wasn't long before their food arrived, and the waiter placed it down in front of them. What sat before them were two steaming bowls of what appeared to be fish stew with muscles, squid, and scallops without the roe, combined with fresh herbs, spices and a hint of coconut. Snape breathed in the smell of it and felt his mouth begin to water. He loved a good stew, and it looked to him as though his reference had been correct.

'It's delicious!' Hermione exclaimed, as she scooped some more up into her spoon and blew on it slightly.

'An excellent suggestion,' he agreed as he dug into his meal also.

They finished their food a little while later, and Snape walked to the counter to pay before they went back outside to collect their bicycles. On their ride back up the hill to their house just outside of town, Snape stopped them so that he could collect a few wild flowers to decorate the house.

Granada, Andalucía: 14th July, 2010

'Right up here!' Hermione announced as she pushed her bicycle along, walking to the crest of the hill.

She looked back to see Snape following her, pushing his bike along similarly, although attached to his was a rather full picnic basket that she had insisted they did not shrink down. She wanted to try and take a little break from magic while they were on their holiday, and doing everything the Muggle way was something of a comfort to her. She detached the picnic blanket she had strapped to her bicycle and spread it out on the ground, as Snape collected the basket.

He placed it down in the middle and sat down on the blanket unceremoniously. She could see that he was sweating slightly from the heat and their little bit of exertion climbing the hill laden with food and their bikes. She too, was feeling a little warm, and decided to remove her outer layer of clothing, stripping down to just shorts and a tank top, replacing her wide straw hat once her over shirt was out of the way.

'I'm starving,' Snape said, opening the basket up and beginning to pull all of the finger-food out of the basket.

Hermione had packed it just before they had departed home that morning. Snape had cast a cooling charm over the basket one bit of magic she didn't not object to purely out of sense. She pulled out stuffed olives and sweet peppers filled with feta and herbs, marinated chunks of feta, various other cheeses, crackers, bread, home-made dips, sundried tomatoes, dried figs and apricots, roasted nuts, and some fresh apples, grapes and pears. It was something of a small feast of finger foods, but she planned on enjoying every single bit of it.

They sprawled out over the blanket and starred at the sky, watching the occasional group of white clouds float past and playing at trying to guess what shape the cloud formation took. Most of the time, Snape let Hermione have her way, which she rewarded him for with kisses and feeding him bits of cheese and fruit. They shared a bottle of cabernet franc, and sipped at their drinks while the sun began to make its way across the sky and down.

'I will never get used to how warm it is during the day here, and how chilly it get's as night grows nearer,' she said to Snape as they watched the sun setting in the sky.

'Shall we pack up and go home, pet?' he asked, passing her over shirt to her to cover herself with.

'I think so,' she replied, sitting up and beginning to pack everything they had been unable to eat, back into the basket.

A few minutes later they were ready to go, and Snape fastened the basket to his bicycle before hopping on and riding down the hill, which they had trudged up earlier. Hermione followed close behind, and they followed the main road back towards Granada and their little house on the hill.

After arriving home, they retired to the shower but only after completing the task of storing their leftovers in the refrigerator, and putting away the bikes in the small garden shed out the back. Dinner was passed over as they were still very full from their day of snacking, and instead Hermione sat and read in the sitting room at the front of the house, while her husband dozed on the lounge chair across from her. She occasionally glanced over, to watch the even rise and fall over his chest as he slept, and was taken aback by how much younger he looked when asleep.

His black hair shone in the orange-yellow glow of the wall sconces scattered around the room, and she could see that there were a few strands of silver sprinkled through it, with a tiny streak of it starting at his left temple. He did not have the look of a man who was in his 50's. He looked 10 years younger normally, although wizards did not age at the rate that Muggles did. But when he slept, Hermione could swear he looked her age.

She closed her book, feeling drowsiness begin to make her eyes feel blurry. She resigned herself to the same fate as her partner, curling up in the armchair and closing her eyes, immediately drifting into an exhausted sleep.

When she awake a while later, she was tucked snuggly into their bed, but the other side was empty, the sheets still cold. Slightly disoriented, she pulled herself up into a sitting position and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Stumbling out of the bedroom, she followed an orange glow into the living room, and found Snape awake and reading in the armchair she had seated herself in earlier.

'Thanks for putting me to bed,' she told him, perching herself on the arm of the chair right beside him. 'What time is it?'

'It's about 2 in the morning,' he answered. 'I woke up and felt like a bit of light reading, but I'm well and truly ready for bed now.'

Hermione smiled and plucked the book from his grasp, marking the page for him before placing it on the coffee table in front of them. 'Then let's go to bed,' she suggested, standing up before him.

'Okay,' he replied, taking her hand and following her to bed.

They were beneath the sheets moments later, and Hermione fell asleep once more, this time listening to the sound of Snape breathing.

Greenwich, Ipswich: 22nd July, 2010

Hermione went about the house, throwing open the windows and letting the summer breeze wash through the rooms.

The summer had been hot so far, and while they had been away on their holiday, the house had been shut up tighter than Fort Knox and had grown stuffy and stale. They had returned home the night before, and other than changing the sheets on their bed to fresh ones, the Snape's had done little else that night. She stood beside the window in the sitting room downstairs and sucked in a grateful breath of fresh air, humid though it was.

She had reduced her wardrobe down to a thin tank top and shorts as she milled around the house doing the cleaning while Snape himself was off talking to a client about a special order that had come with the Owl Post that morning. Needless to say, her husband had not been in a good mood when he had left that house, so she set herself a task that would keep her out of the line of fire when he returned home from his meeting.

She had planned to begin cleaning in the library. Some dust had managed to accumulate there, and it was easier to get rid of it before the layer got so thick that she would need to use a spell to remove it. She found the duster in a cupboard in the laundry and took it upstairs with her, climbing the ladder to the upmost shelves and dusting from the top down. It took about two hours for her to complete the task and put away all of the books they had taken with the to the villa.

Hephaestus and Ophelia were both asleep on the perch there, snuggled up close beside one another.

Hermione wasn't sure when it had happened, but the two owls had gone from fighting one another for space on the perch every other day, to sharing it with one another and acting friendly. She was a little concerned that they would be finding a nest and little hatchlings in the library any day now. She left the library, closing the door carefully so as not to disturb the two nocturnal beasts.

As she was heading back downstairs, she heard the clock chiming Midday, and felt her stomach rumble in response. She hadn't even realised that she was hungry before then. Heading to the kitchen, she pulled some eggs out of the fridge, and cream, cracking three into a bowl and adding a little cream, salt and pepper to the mix and giving it a whisk with a fork. For some reason she was craving them. She scrambled them lightly over the flame lit on the stove until they were just cooked before depositing them into a bowl and grabbing a clean fork to eat them with.

Sitting down at the table, she began to nibble at her food while perusing the Daily Prophet. After her third mouthful, she felt her stomach lurch, and felt dizzy and ill all of the sudden. A fever came over her suddenly, and she could feel the eggs making their way back up her throat. She gasped for a breath and ran out of the kitchen towards the downstairs toilet, throwing herself down in front of it and opening the lid just in time to hurl the contents of her stomach into the bowl.

She pushed herself to her feet a few moments later when the urge to retch finally passed, and flushed the toilet.

She went to the bathroom next door and rinsed her mouth, washing her face and patting it dry with a soft towel. Taking a few deep breaths, she left, feeling slightly better. Returning to the kitchen, she disposed of the remainder of her cold eggs. She took an apple from the bowl on the kitchen instead, and quickly wolfed it down before heading to the sitting room with the duster.

Twice more over the duration of the afternoon, she felt herself getting dizzy and nauseous, but only vomited once again. Deciding there was something more wrong with her than simple food poisoning, she went to the library to look up her symptoms in a medical text. It wasn't the first day that week where she had been feeling ill, but she'd been a little reluctant to read too far into it. She looked down at her stomach and put a hand on the slight roundness she found there.

'Bloody hell,' she muttered under her breath, immediately pulling her wand out of the back pocket of her pants and casting a quick charm.

The end of her wand glowed pink. She bit her lip, and sucked in a deep breath. Pregnant. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it sooner. She tried to think back, wondering when the last time she'd had her monthly visitor, and she couldn't actually remember. Her hand rubbed her stomach. Well, perhaps she was a little bloated around the middle where her stomach was normally quite flat.

She sighed and went back downstairs, sitting on the bottom stair and stretching her legs out in front of her. She couldn't believe she hadn't realised she was pregnant. Hermione stood and began pacing, wondering what she should do.

She didn't have to wait long before Snape arrived home, Apparating straight into their front hallway. Before they could say a word to one another, she threw herself at him in a desperate hug. She clung to him, burrowing her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

'What's wrong, pet?' he asked, pushing back gently to look at her face.

'I'm pregnant,' she replied, unable to think of anything else to say.

'Really?' he asked seriously.

Hermione nodded. A small smile broke out on his lips and he held her even tighter to him. She stopped caring about what she should do.

To be continued.