Warmth enveloped him, a light weight on his chest, and an even lighter weight in his right side. His midnight eyes opened slowly and took in the sight before him. Hermione was snuggled up to his chest, her arm over his waist and her head in a position to listen to his heartbeat. In his right side was his daughter, curled up and clutching to him like he never thought was possible. He felt his heart swelling at the sight.

Not even in his dizziest daydreams would Severus Snape have pictured himself in the arms of an attractive woman with his daughter curled up beside them.

"Unfortunately no matter how long you look at me, I won't get any better looking – in fact, I might begin to deteriorate." Came Hermione's sleep muffled grumble.
Severus fought to contain his chuckle, looking down at the woman on his chest.
"I think you will find that while most men wake up looking the same as when they went to bed, all women seem to deteriorate during the night." He smirked to himself, letting out a deep chuckle as he heard Hermione's grumble.
"Very funny." She commented sarcastically, her eyes now open and a sliver of a smile on her delicate face.

Annaliese's small yawn was enough to break the non-official couple from their playful bickering.
"Good morning little-one." Hermione whispered to the little girl whose eyes had just popped open.
"Hello." She whispered, suddenly wide awake and sitting up. She looked down at the man and woman before her and grinned. They were cuddling. Anna leaned down and booped Hermione's nose gently, sliding off the bed and waddling into the hallway, expecting the pair to follow her.

SS/HG

Hermione was sat at the kitchen table, perusing over newspaper articles of her friend's death. With a magnifying glass in her hand, she was able to make out a familiar face in every single photo. A tall, chubby man with short, silvery hair and a clean-shaven appearance was in the background of every picture.
"I've got it!" She exclaimed while circling his face in all of the articles she had seen him in. He looked so familiar to her too; she just couldn't place where she had seen the man.

Hearing Hermione's exclamation, Severus barrelled into the room and stopped at the table.
"What is it?" He asked as he leant over her shoulder to look at what she had found. With his good eye-sight, he could clearly see the man that was in every single picture.
"Who is he?" The Slytherin asked.
Hermione looked puzzled, "I-I don't know, I have seen him before but just can't remember where."
"He might be the missing link." Severus murmured to himself, sitting down on the chair opposite Hermione.

They sat at the table for what seemed like forever, trying to narrow down who the mystery man might be. Hermione spent hours just looking at the man's face and going through various memories where she could have seen him.

It wasn't until the wee hours of the morning that Hermione finally found a memory with the man in it. It wasn't even a full memory, just flash-backs.
"Severus, get a vial." She instructed as she took her wand and pointed it to her temple, extracting the selected memory that she wanted.
Snape went to the kitchen cupboard and took out a small vial, he handed it to her and watched as she delicately put the memory inside the vial and handed it to him.
"Do you have a pensieve?" she asked, still watching as his long fingers grasped the vial.
"In my lab."

Hermione followed Severus to his lab, going down a series of stairs until they reached a complex potions lab, similar to the one that he had at Hogwarts. He took the pensieve out with great care and placed it on his empty work bench.
"I will need you to watch this with me." Hermione murmured, unstoppering the bottle and tipping the memory into the pensieve. The Slytherin and the Gryffindor both put their faces in the large dish and watched as the memory unfolded around them.

It was a warm spring day, Hermione had taken Annaliese out for a walk in the park. Children ran around everywhere, but Hermione had managed to find a somewhat solitary spot right beside a shallow stream. She took little Annaliese out of her pusher and sat down beside the stream with the girl in her arms. Annaliese looked up at her godmother with big happy eyes and began to squeal in delight.
"Blacks and bays, dapples and greys, running in the night." Hermione sung to the girl, her sweet mezzo-soprano voice flowing out of her perfect mouth.
"What a beautiful little girl." A man's voice interrupted the perfect moment.
Hermione looked up and smiled at the tall, fat man. "I'm Hermione, and this is my goddaughter Annaliese. How do you do?" She asked politely, holding out her hand for the man to shake.
"John." He replied shortly, his hazel eyes nearly glued to the little toddler in Hermione's arms. "What an interesting eye colour." He mentioned, looking at Annaliese with almost predatory eyes.
"She is a very special little girl." Severus heard memory-Hermione say as she pressed a kiss to the toddler's brow.
"Where is her mother? She must be a beautiful woman to conceive such a child." The lecherous man asked, looking around for a woman who looked much like her daughter.
"She is unwell." Hermione said shortly.
"I would very much like to meet her." John murmured, looking back to Hermione with an almost evil grin.

Severus and Hermione were panting when they came out of the memory.
"He's the one. He is the one who was harming Annaliese." The woman gasped, looking up at the enraged Potions Master.
"How often did you two attend that park?" He barked.
"Uh, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes Anna's mother would attend." Hermione tried not to cower like a first year when Severus used his 'teacher' voice.
"He was watching you for quite some time then." The man stated with clenched fists.
"O-oh Merlin." Hermione felt sick, "If he was watching me he would know that we have Annaliese... then he knows that I live here now. He is a wizard. I felt his magic when he knelt down to look at Anna. He knows where we are."

There was only one thing that both Hermione and Severus had concluded from that night, and that was that Annaliese had a stalker.

"Call Minerva." Severus instructed when he ran up the stairs to check on his daughter.