There's a bit of everything here, I think...

"Sometimes, I want your hands inside my soul
Sometimes, I start to lose grip and I let go
Sometimes, I can taste your kiss on my tongue
Sometimes, I'm afraid and I start to come undone ."
– Matthew Duffy, 'Until The End'.

Despite her best efforts, there was really no way to avoid spending time with Harry as the other staff members began discussing the questioning – not that it was Harry she objected to; she would simply far rather be making sure that Severus was all right.

"Is he going to be okay?" Harry asked uncomfortably, keeping his voice down. "He looked like he'd seen a ghost when he saw me. I've never seen him look that shocked."

"You can't really blame him, Harry. He's been gearing up to meet you again eventually, but he wasn't expecting it today."

"No, I know. Like I said, it wasn't my idea, and I didn't have time to warn you. Why's he been planning on meeting me?" he asked curiously. "I mean, he still hates me, right?"

"Because he knows I want him to," Hermione replied calmly. "I haven't talked to him about how he feels about the idea in any depth yet, and after today I doubt I'll ever dare to raise the subject again, but sooner or later I'd like him to meet you all again. He's part of my life, and so are you, and I'm not going to keep you all separated forever. And no, he doesn't hate you. But think back to when you last saw him – when he sees you, I imagine he sees the Shack and Nagini again." She shrugged. "That bloody chair didn't help either; I think he was remembering when he was put on trial as a Death Eater after the first war."

Harry nodded slowly, accepting this. "Is he going to be okay?" he asked again.

"I don't know. You haven't driven him into a nervous breakdown, if that's what you're asking – even you would struggle to manage that. But he's certainly not going to be happy. I imagine he's quite upset at the moment and trying to deal with a lot of painful memories."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. He might just be out in the grounds, but I doubt he's still here. I don't know all his hideouts – he might have gone home to think, or he might have gone somewhere else. Either way, I'm not expecting to see him again before morning – no, tomorrow's Sunday. I might well not see him again until Monday morning."

"Sorry."

"It was hardly your fault, Harry." She shrugged and smiled at him. "He'll be all right. He's just had a nasty shock today, and it's stirred up a lot of bad memories, that's all. Severus is strong; he'll cope."

"Yeah, but his way of coping usually involves making Neville cry," Harry pointed out mischievously.

"They're getting along better these days," Hermione replied dryly. "I think they genuinely respect each other."

"I can't believe Neville was so accepting of it, after everything Snape did to him."

"Snape didn't do much to me, really, when you think about it, if you don't count that last year when he was Headmaster," Neville himself replied cheerfully, coming to join them. "Most of it was all in my own head. All he ever really did was shout at me and sometimes give me gross detentions; I don't know why I was so frightened back then, now. And yeah, that last year was... really, really bad, but it wasn't his fault, I know that now. He didn't have a choice, and he was trying to keep us out of the worst of it. He's – well, I was going to say he's a decent guy, but he's not, really, is he?" he added with a laugh. Harry joined in, before stopping and giving Hermione a guilty look.

"What?" she asked, smiling fondly at the pair of them. "It's true; he isn't. I keep telling you, Harry – I love Severus, as he is, not some weird fantasy version of him. And he's not a decent guy; he's a bastard." She grinned. "But he's my bastard."

"Oh, that's a healthy relationship," Harry snorted, shaking his head. "I almost didn't recognise him, though, I have to say. He looks really different."

"In a good way, I trust?"

"What, you want me to say if your bloke's good looking or not?" he asked, grimacing as he tried not to laugh. "I don't think so, 'Mione." He looked at Neville. "Anyone here guessed yet?"

"Nope, just me," Neville said cheerfully. "Oh, and Madam Pomfrey, I think. Nobody else. I can't wait to see their faces when they find out."

"Try and tell me. I'll bring popcorn."

"When you're both quite finished," Hermione said dryly, smiling. "They're not likely to guess, anyway. It's not as if we walk around holding hands and snogging in the corridors..." Remembering her birthday, she fought not to blush, swallowing laughter. She hadn't been able to walk down that hallway since that night.

Bantering with her friends was all very well, but even if Severus had disappeared, she didn't want to stay away from the dungeons for too long. Today had been long and tiring and frustrating and she wanted time to sit and think in peace, and his quarters were the one place she was guaranteed to be undisturbed. She was very surprised to find that actually, Severus hadn't disappeared at all; he was pacing restlessly back and forth in the living room, looking uncomfortable and ill at ease and about as upset as she had ever seen him, watched by an anxious Crookshanks.

"I thought you'd have gone... wherever it is you go when you need to be alone to think," she said softly, watching him.

He shook his head jerkily. "I don't want to be alone right now," he muttered, sounding edgy and unhappy. "Too many thoughts."

That was probably the closest he would ever get to asking her to help him, Hermione considered as she moved to stand in front of him. He stared down at her with a world of complex emotions in his eyes, breathing unsteadily, and she smiled up at him gently before reaching to touch his face. He held himself absolutely motionless until she rose on tiptoe and drew his head down to kiss him; then it was as if a dam had burst somewhere inside and he pulled her to him almost desperately, kissing her with near-bruising force, biting at her lower lip before pushing his tongue into her mouth hungrily. His roughness caught her by surprise, but she responded without hesitation, knowing what he needed.

She wasn't going to let him make love to her in this state, she decided as she kissed him back; he was far too stressed and on edge to pay attention to what he was doing. She had no wish to spoil their perfect record, nor did she want to deal with his guilt when he calmed down and started thinking he had hurt her; equally, she didn't want to have to stop him from actually hurting her, not that she thought that was terribly likely to happen. Reaching down as they kissed fiercely, she undid his trousers one-handed and slid her hand into his underwear to grasp him gently, feeling him shudder and press against her as his hands slid lower to pull her against him more tightly.

He was almost painfully hard as she held him in her hand, hot and throbbing with sheer male vitality, and his body trembled as she squeezed gently before beginning to stroke him. She could taste blood; someone's teeth had cut a lip somewhere, although she couldn't tell if it was her blood or Severus', or who had caused the damage. It didn't matter, though, not when he groaned desperately against her lips and started rocking against her, pushing his hips against her hand as his tongue thrust deeper into her mouth. He gentled the kiss then, pulling back enough to whisper indistinctly, "Please, Hermione..."

Squeezing and stroking, she increased the pressure slowly, kissing him again as she shifted her grip to tease his foreskin back gently. He growled and shoved more insistently against her hand and she took the hint – no teasing tonight. For once it seemed he didn't want gentleness, and he was already so close that she could feel the liquid on her fingers. Wrapping her hand around his shaft once more, she began working him more roughly and he groaned into her mouth again, thrusting against her grip and starting to shudder in the way she knew so well. "Come for me, Severus," she whispered against his lips, hearing his ragged breathing hitch in response. "That's it, love..."

He broke the kiss and threw his head back, his spine arching and his eyes closing; an almost convulsive shudder ran through him and he groaned thickly, before she felt him twitch in her hand and he came with a low cry, pulsing with each burst of fluid that escaped him. Letting go as he began to soften, Hermione smiled at him, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face with her clean hand. "Better?" she asked gently.

Always the gentleman, at least in sexual matters, he recovered himself enough to perform a wandless cleaning charm on both of them as his breathing began to slow down, and blinked slowly at her as his eyes cleared and softened into a smile. "Much." Bending his head, he kissed her gently. "You are amazing, Hermione."

"I know," she agreed smugly, smiling when he huffed a quiet laugh in response. "Are you all right now?"

He nodded slowly, doing up his trousers and looking much more relaxed. "Yes. There was just... too much going on in my mind. I needed to distract myself, to..." He smirked. "Relieve the pressure."

"So glad I could help," she told him dryly, laughing softly and leaning up to kiss him before moving away and crossing to the sofa. He followed and sat beside her, absently twining his fingers through hers, and she leaned against his shoulder. "Vulpes alopecoides?" she asked curiously. "I thought your Patronus was the red fox, Vulpes vulpes."

He shook his head. "Not quite, although the differences are very small. Vulpes alopecoides was the prehistoric ancestor of the modern foxes."

"Patronuses can be extinct animals?"

"Apparently so."

Interesting though that was, it wasn't what she really wanted to talk about right now. Resting her cheek against his shoulder, she turned her head enough to see his face and asked quietly, "Were you remembering your trial?"

He nodded slowly. "Partly, yes; it was a frightening experience. Dumbledore didn't take the stand and testify on my behalf until the last possible moment, when it became clear that there was no other way; I thought I would be sent back to Azkaban to rot. But I dealt with those memories many years ago; most of my difficulty today was from Potter's presence."

"Was it so terrible, seeing him again?" she asked softly.

"'Terrible' isn't quite the right word, I don't think," he murmured, lounging more comfortably. "It was... a shock. For a moment I was... back in the Shrieking Shack. That moment when I realised he was going to kill me... I thought I'd failed. I was the only one alive who had the information Potter needed, and I'd die without being able to pass it on. I never expected to survive; I just wanted to live long enough to try and secure a victory for our side. And..." He chuckled softly, shaking his head.

"I always secretly hoped to go out in a blaze of glory, to tell the Dark Lord to his lopsided reptilian face that I had been betraying him for years without his knowledge, to taunt him with the knowledge of his own stupidity. Realising that he was going to kill me just because I was no longer of any use to him, and wasn't even going to bother to do it himself – that he was merely going to feed me to that damned snake – was... rather disheartening. Even my death was going to be worthless. And then you three showed up," he added with such dry irony in his voice that she giggled.

"We were compelled to make your life hell, Severus. We couldn't even let you die in peace."

He snorted softly. "Now that, I can believe."

"Why did he choose Nagini?" she asked, remembering; she had wondered about this a lot. "If he needed to defeat you to gain mastery of the Elder Wand, just telling his snake to kill you wouldn't have done it, would it – would that have counted as a victory in a duel?"

He paused, looking thoughtful. "I don't know. I suppose, as Nagini was a Horcrux and therefore contained a piece of his soul, it might have counted as him defeating me... I hadn't really thought about it."

"How much do you remember?" Hermione asked softly, turning her head to look at him.

"All of it, I think." He shook his head and smirked at her. "If I didn't remember something, I wouldn't know, would I?"

She made a face at him. "Funny."

He shrugged and settled more comfortably. "No, I think I remember it all. I half-thought I was hallucinating at first – Potter was the one figure I needed to see in that moment, and he just happened to appear at the last minute. I was in absolute agony – it wasn't quite as bad as the Cruciatus, perhaps, but certainly bad enough – I was losing a lot of blood, the previous year had driven me half mad and I thought I'd failed, and then... there he was. I already knew I was dying; I didn't have time to think. The memories I gave him resolved themselves into chronological order in the Pensieve, but at first I only gave him the ones from Dumbledore that told him what he had to do and revealed how badly we had all been betrayed by the old man. That was all I planned to give him."

Severus paused and sighed. "Looking up at him, though... He absolutely hated me," he said softly. "He always had, really, and it was mutual most of the time, but in that moment he hated me more than he did the Dark Lord. After everything I had endured for his sake... it hurt, and I decided that I didn't want to be hated any more. I wanted people to know that I wasn't such a villain after all – I wanted them to know why I was... the way I was. So I gave him the other memories. I meant to give him more, but I didn't have the strength. I wouldn't have done it had I known I was going to live, of course," he added clinically.

"Do you remember what happened next?" she asked softly.

He nodded. "I remember asking him to look at me, yes. I don't remember if he said anything after that – I remember meeting his eyes, and then it all went black. There were no visions of tunnels or white light and my life didn't flash before my eyes – which is just as well; seeing it once was bad enough."

"Why did you ask that?" Hermione asked him quietly. "Everyone thinks it was so you could see Lily's eyes before you died, but... I'm not convinced."

That earned her a soft smile. "Right as ever; of course it wasn't – do people really think that I am that melodramatic? Apart from anything else, I might have been dying but I wasn't hallucinating, and regardless of what everyone says, Potter does not have his mother's eyes. They are precisely the same colour, it is true, but they cannot be the same shape, because he has his father's features; his eyelashes are different, and those bloody stupid glasses of his ensured that even almost dead, I couldn't have mistaken his eyes for hers. And I was too afraid and too ashamed to wish to see Lily again, when I blamed myself for her death and for much of what her son had to endure. No, I was well aware that it was Potter I was looking at. I simply wished to remind myself of why I was there, why I had taken the actions that had led me to the floor of the Shack. I believe I was trying to decide whether it was worth it."

"And was it?"

"I don't know. I died before I reached a conclusion." He smiled slightly. "I do not remember anything after that."

"There wasn't much to remember," she replied slowly. "Your eyes were open, but you had stopped breathing and you had no pulse. Harry stared at you for a while, and then I told him that we had to go, and we left. By the time we went back, there was no sign of you – just a lot of blood and the pieces of your wand. The blood was drying and there was no trail – we couldn't work out what had happened, but... you were definitely dead when we left you. We'd all seen enough dead bodies by then to know what it looked like. And..." She trailed off uncomfortably, and he smiled.

"And you had far more important things to worry about than the eventual fate of Nagini's last meal," he finished dryly. "Quite understandable. I was hardly a priority – and it was easier all around if I was dead. No need for apologies or legal proceedings; just a moment of 'oh, poor misunderstood Snape, we were wrong' and then you could all get on with your lives."

"More or less, yes," she agreed sadly. "But it didn't take long before we started wondering. Your wand was a giveaway – you never drew it when you were speaking with the Dark Lord, it was in your pocket, so either it broke when you collapsed or it was broken after we had left you. Nobody would have bothered taking it out of your pocket if someone had taken your body, so it must have been you."

He nodded. "It snapped when I collapsed, I think," he agreed quietly. "I don't know why I left it behind. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was barely conscious and in a great deal of pain, I had lost a lot of blood and I was slightly drugged on a cocktail of my emergency potions. There may have been a reason, or I may simply have dropped it when I realised it was broken."

"The blood wasn't right either – there was a lot of it, but we weren't sure if it was enough to kill someone. We didn't know if it was blood loss or poison that had killed you –"

"Both," he interjected.

"– but there didn't seem to be enough blood. And there was no trail – if someone had dragged you, the blood would have smeared, and if you had been levitated it would have dripped. We couldn't think of a reason why someone would hide the signs if they had taken your body."

"I don't remember erasing a trail. I suppose my clothing must have absorbed enough of the blood that I didn't leave any tracks when I stood up, unless I managed to do it instinctively, or perhaps I managed to Apparate before I had time to make even more of a mess."

"Well, anyway, we wondered. And your portrait didn't appear – Harry spent a lot of time arguing with Dumbledore about that. He wouldn't confirm whether you would get a portrait or not."

Severus grimaced. "I will. I had forgotten about that. At least if I'm dead I won't have to see the bloody thing."

She rolled her eyes at him. "We had people checking your house every so often, just in case – when it was burned, we had a very long discussion over whether you would have done it if you were alive."

His lip curled. "If I were going to burn the place down, I would have done it long before that. And I had gone into hiding – an act of public arson would rather have defeated the point."

"We sort of thought that, but nobody was sure. And obviously whoever did it thought you were alive – there wouldn't be much point burning a house whose owner was dead, really." A thought occurred to her. "Do you know who did it?"

"How would I know that?"

"I thought you knew everything."

He smiled slightly. "Well, yes, there is that. No, I don't know who did it. I have my suspicions, but it hardly matters now." Pausing, he tilted his head a little and looked down at her speculatively. "I have wondered... What did you first think, when you saw the memories?"

She smiled at him. "You'd have been absolutely furious, Severus. I thought it was all very romantic and tragic and beautiful. I cried about it quite a lot." He gave her a disgusted look and she laughed at him. "I was only eighteen, Severus. And it was a little bit of a romantic tragedy. And later, after Ron and I fell apart, I remember thinking about it again and thinking how beautiful that sort of loyalty was." She grimaced and gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I did."

He half-smiled and shook his head. "I suppose I am obliged to forgive you. And in case I haven't said this in a while, Weasley is a fool. He wasn't remotely good enough for you." He laughed softly. "Nor am I, of course, but I am a Slytherin and I see no reason to let that stop me."

Rolling her eyes, she snuggled closer against him. "Idiot. And possibly thank you. Why did you leave?" she asked him softly, turning to look up at him. "I know all the reasons, but..." She trailed off, not sure how to explain what she was asking, but as always he seemed to know.

"Partly it was fear – apart from the Dark Lord himself, I was the most hated wizard in the world at that point." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "Possibly I still am. In any case, I had many enemies on both sides who were bound to be looking for me, and I had committed more than enough crimes to earn several death sentences with the Dementor's Kiss on top. But the main reason was simply that I didn't want that life any more. I didn't want to be Severus Snape any more. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to live at all, but I knew I didn't want to stay while I decided."

Hermione leaned against his shoulder. "Do you want to be Severus Snape now?" she asked teasingly.

He smirked. "Well, his life does seem to have improved marginally since then," he conceded.

"You deserved so much better, Severus. Right from the start, you deserved better."

"Perhaps. But one could argue that I also deserved worse, by the end." He slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer against him. "I regret many things about my life, Hermione, but I do not believe I could have acted differently at any point without altering the final outcome, and whilst many people were partly to blame for most of my mistakes, the final choices were always mine. Besides..." His eyes softened in his familiar almost-smile. "I am happy."

She rested her head on his chest. "I've waited so long to hear you say that, Severus." Trying not to giggle, she added, "Stubborn bastard. You could have admitted it a long time ago."

He chuckled softly. "I needed to be sure. I am hardly familiar with happiness, after all." Hugging her, he added quietly, "Thank you."

"What for?"

He shrugged slightly. "Everything, really," he replied simply.

October drew to a close; ever since the Ministry's visit, it had rained almost without pause, and everything seemed grey and gloomy. Except, oddly, Severus' mood; Hermione had been watching him closely, but he appeared calmer and more relaxed than she had ever seen him for longer than a few minutes at a time. From what she had seen and heard he was his usual venomous self in lessons and in front of their colleagues, but when it was just the two of them he really did seem... happy. And while that was lovely to see, it was also quite unusual, especially at this time of year.

After the third morning in a row when he woke to find her watching him speculatively, he seemed to lose patience. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he glared at her sleepily. "What?" he demanded.

Hermione blinked at him. "Sorry?"

"You've been watching me for days, woman. What's the matter?"

"I just wondered if you were all right."

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because it's Halloween in two days," she pointed out, and he blinked, frowning; the irritated scowl faded into a more thoughtful expression, and he lay back against the pillows, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on his thigh.

"So it is," he murmured pensively. "I had... almost forgotten."

"No nightmares?"

He shook his head. "No dreams at all, not about... that, although I seldom recall my dreams in any case. Hmm."

"It's not a bad thing, Severus," she said gently, moving to snuggle closer against him. "Really, there were so many bad occasions that I expect every day is the anniversary of something terrible. It's impossible to remember everything – that's why the summer memorial service started, after all. And you gave so many years of your life to the war, it's about time you claimed it for yourself again, isn't it?"

He yawned. "I don't know why you're assuming I would feel guilty," he murmured, "when everyone knows I lack a conscience."

She snorted at him and sat up slowly. "Fool of a man; stop being an arse and get up – staff meeting this morning, remember?"

"How delightful," he replied sourly, rolling his eyes at her with a hint of a smirk before reluctantly sliding out of bed.

As they dressed and got ready for the day, Hermione was debating with herself, mulling over something that she had wanted to ask him for months and had never really found the right time to do so. "Severus?"

"I know that tone," he said, rather more warily than was really called for, giving her a mock-hunted look. "What have I done now?"

"You're not as funny as you think you are, you know," she told him dryly. "I want something from you. And if you smirk, I'm going to smack you," she added warningly.

By the look on his face, it was taking quite a lot of effort, but he kept his expression neutral; there was a glitter of clear amusement in his black eyes as his lips twitched, but he was behaving himself, more or less. "What?"

"A memory."

The amusement faded as he blinked before cocking his head slightly to one side and giving her a quizzical look. "Which one?" he asked slowly.

"France." He hesitated, and she raised an eyebrow. "Don't even think of pretending not to know which memory I mean. I want to know what you and my parents were saying."

His lips twitched. "You couldn't work it out?"

"Not from my memory. I don't speak French well enough to remember the words clearly. It was mostly gibberish. Please, Severus."

He looked away from her as he thought about it; his expression was somewhere between amused and uncertain, which Hermione interpreted to mean that he found it funny that she still didn't know but wasn't sure how she was going to react. It couldn't have been anything too extreme, he didn't look worried enough for that, but he clearly didn't want to tell her.

Finally he sighed, glancing briefly at the clock before looking at her once more, neutral and expressionless now – he wasn't Occluding in the way she so hated, merely guarding his expression. "As you wish," he said resignedly, moving to stand in front of her and meeting her eyes. "Legilimens."

Hermione watched the conversation in her parents' kitchen again, watched herself asking cheerfully whether that was all the questions and watched her father turn to Severus; Severus' own voice spoke over the top in English, translating for her. "You know what we really want to ask you."

The memory-Severus tensed. "Yes."

"Well?"

The pause was longer than it had been in real life; she could sense that Severus really didn't want to do this. His voice was very quiet when he started translating again. "She saved me. She is... everything. I barely believe this is real."

"Will you protect her?"

"I doubt she needs someone to protect her."

"Are you good enough for her?" Hearing Severus' deep and undeniably masculine voice while watching an image of her mother talking was really quite weird, Hermione decided, a little in shock over what had already been said – this hadn't been what she was expecting.

Severus laughed softly as he replied; the current Severus sounded quite amused as well as he translated. "No! But it is not my choice. She is very stubborn." She would have liked to protest that, but he did have a point.

In the memory, her parents glanced at one another thoughtfully. "Care for her."

There was another pause that hadn't happened at the time, before Severus somewhat reluctantly translated the final sentence. "I would die for her."

He ended the memory very suddenly, and it took Hermione a moment to get her bearings again; Legilimency always left her feeling slightly disorientated. "Was that really so difficult?" she chided him gently, trying not to smile – it might not have been what she was expecting, but it had certainly been nice to hear.

"Yes," Severus replied flatly with a faint huff of breath. When she frowned and looked at him, he gave her a crooked half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Even now, part of me is panicking in case you take it badly."

"Oh, Severus..."

"I know it's stupid," he interrupted her, sounding annoyed – with himself rather than her, fortunately, judging by his expression. "I know you better than that, and I do trust you completely. But I still worry, sometimes. I can't help it, no matter how irrational it is."

She had always known that he was terribly insecure, and she knew that he had been trying very hard to change the habits of a lifetime and stop always expecting the worst to happen. It was a little disappointing to learn that he wasn't quite there yet, but she knew it wasn't a conscious thing – he did have faith in her, in them, no matter what the little voice at the back of his mind might say. Shaking her head, Hermione smiled at him. "You can be such an idiot, sometimes," she told him affectionately.

His eyes softened in response. "Believe me, I know that," he replied dryly. "Come on. We're going to be late."

"You were right," she mused as they headed up the stairs from the dungeons. "I did already know."

"Hmph," he replied, before smirking at her. "Be honest – that wasn't what you thought it would be, was it?"

"No," she muttered.

His black eyes danced. "You thought your parents were interrogating me about my intentions, despite your warning them not to."

"How do you know I warned them off?"

"Because I know you," he replied with a snort, his lips twitching.

"All right, smart arse, you win – I thought they were asking if you were ever going to make an honest woman of me."

"Where would be the fun in that?" he asked, straight faced, his eyes glittering again. His expression became more serious as he cocked his head to one side. "Would you particularly want to be married to me?" he asked carefully in a thoughtful tone of voice.

Hermione blinked at him. "If that was your idea of a proposal, I may have to lose my temper," she said after a moment, grinning when he smiled slightly in response, before shaking her head. "Maybe, someday, I suppose, but it doesn't really seem all that important, somehow. I was never the kind of girl who dreamed of her perfect wedding. We've got lots of the trappings already, and I don't need a piece of paper to know that you're not going anywhere. I don't think you really care one way or the other, as long as we're together, and nor do I. And neither of us wants the world to know."

He nodded agreement. "Just making sure," he told her enigmatically as they reached the staff room, holding the door open for her.

The staff meeting was more of a general gossip to identify any potential problems than anything else. It ended with Minerva asking for suggestions for more school-wide celebrations and excuses for parties; they only really celebrated Christmas and Halloween, and vaguely acknowledged Valentine's Day, Easter and New Year's Day.

"Well, it'll be Bonfire Night soon," Hermione suggested absently, and got a lot of blank looks in response, reminding her sharply that she was the only Muggleborn in the room. "November 5th? Guy Fawkes night?" she tried. The blank stares continued, and she sighed, preparing to explain. A cool voice interrupted her.

"In the 1600s, a group of Muggles led by a man named Guy Fawkes were caught attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament – the home of the Muggle Ministry. They were tried for treason and he and many of his co-conspirators were executed in fairly gruesome ways. The successful prevention of the plot has become an excuse for large firework displays and bonfires every year, often involving the burning of effigies of Fawkes."

Now everyone in the room was staring at Severus, who rolled his eyes. "Merlin save us from pure-blood ignorance," he said caustically. "Did none of you ever wonder who Dumbledore named his phoenix after?"

Apparently, no, nobody had. The Potions master shook his head, sniffed disdainfully and returned his attention to his newspaper, leaving Hermione to start explaining the sort of celebrations Muggles enjoyed on Bonfire Night.

Halloween passed without incident, which was unusual. As far as she could tell, Severus didn't have a single nightmare, and his mood was unchanged, meaning he was merely his usual prickly self rather than the truly hateful man she'd seen this time last year. After some thought, Minerva had decided that Hogwarts should fund a firework display in Hogsmeade; at Hermione's suggestion, the fireworks had come from George, after she had extracted a promise not to use any rude or dangerous ones.

She stood with Severus now, watching the coloured lights reflecting in the depths of his dark eyes and laughing softly. "I haven't been to a proper firework display since before Hogwarts."

He nodded. "It has been many years since I have done so," he agreed. Smiling slightly, he drew his wand and solemnly Summoned a pair of sparklers, handing one to her. Trying not to giggle, she lit it and began to move it around, watching the patterns streaking the darkness.

"I remember being really disappointed that I couldn't write my name with a sparkler," she said reflectively. "It was too long. I never got more than four or five letters before it faded." She grinned at him. "Did you have the same problem?"

His lips twitched as he watched his own sparkler; she was positive that he was the only man in the world who would draw the Futhark runic alphabet with a sparkler. Then again, she was probably the only woman in the world who would recognise what he was doing. "Actually, yes," he admitted softly. "Fireworks were quite rare when I was young, and nowhere near as advanced as they seem to be now, but we did sometimes have a few sparklers and firecrackers."

"The image of you as a little boy with a sparkler is ridiculously cute," she told him, drawing a heart with her own sparkler and smiling as he scowled at her. "Then again, you look quite cute with one now."

"I'll set your hair on fire if you don't stop it," he threatened idly, rolling his eyes and handing the sparkler to her so that she had one in each hand. "I assure you, I was a very long way from 'cute' as a little boy." She promptly changed their colours so that one burned red and one burned green, and he snorted softly.

"Aren't you supposed to be watching your Slytherins?" she asked, idly drawing patterns in the air.

"I promised dire retribution if any of them dared to misbehave. They listened." He twitched slightly at a louder explosion and a hissing shower of sparks, then relaxed again. She wondered briefly what hostile spell it had reminded him of, and decided it didn't matter.

"Minerva's staring at us again," she observed, attempting a few more complicated patterns with the sparklers as they watched the fireworks. "What do you suppose she wants this time?"

"Who knows?" he replied, turning his head and staring flatly back at the Headmistress. "Whatever it is, I doubt it will be pleasant. She's been watching us most of the night," he added, sounding irritated.

She suppressed a smile. "We could hardly have privacy anyway at a public gathering like this, as you well know. Don't take it out on her until she does something to deserve it."

He snorted softly, but further comment was prevented when the Headmistress finally came over to them. "Good evening, Hermione, Severus. Not coming to join the rest of us?" she asked.

"Severus isn't exactly popular around here," Hermione explained. "It's easier to stay on the edge of things."

"That's hardly fair to you, though," Minerva replied after a moment. "You should go and enjoy yourself."

Hermione shrugged and smiled, holding up her sparklers. "I'm having a good time."

"I think I must insist, both of you," the older witch said quietly, forcibly steering them both to the side of the bonfire where the rest of the staff had gathered.

"Is there some problem?" Severus asked, his eyes narrowing a little, although he kept his tone polite enough not to create a scene.

Minerva hesitated, before sighing. "Not... exactly. But... well, the two of you have been spending a great deal of time together, recently..."

"We're friends," Severus replied shortly.

"Yes, I know that – although I certainly don't understand it," the Headmistress added caustically, "what with your friendly and outgoing personality." She paused, and sighed again. "Nonetheless, I would not wish anyone to get the wrong idea. It is... not exactly... appropriate..."

The somewhat startled silence was broken by Severus starting to choke. Trying unsuccessfully to stop the coughing and spluttering noises, he finally gave up and started to laugh helplessly, and Hermione was hard pressed to hold back her own fit of the giggles. Especially when she caught sight of Neville; even in the ruddy light from the fire, he was bright scarlet and gaping wordlessly, and she realised after a moment that even in the midst of his own laughing fit Severus had nonverbally and wandlessly Silenced the Herbology professor to stop him giving the game away.

Severus was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe, hunching over a little where he stood. Judging by the way everyone else was staring at him, Hermione suspected none of them had ever heard him really laugh before; she remembered the shock the first time she had heard it. She heard Madam Pomfrey suppress an inelegant snort, and that was it; she started laughing herself. "Thank you for your concern," she managed somewhat breathlessly, "but it's really not a problem."

Neville managed to shake off the Silencing charm; he was standing directly behind Minerva, so most of the staff couldn't see his expression as he bit down on his sleeve to stop himself laughing. Madam Pomfrey's shoulders were shaking as she fought her own mirth, and Severus was beginning to wheeze for breath. The rest of the faculty looked surprised by their reactions, save Minerva, who was starting to look highly offended.

"I am only looking out for you, Hermione. I would hate your reputation to be spoiled, and I wouldn't want your man to hear something untoward and get the wrong idea."

"What about... my reputation?" Severus gasped breathlessly, still laughing, and Hermione almost collapsed at the look on the Headmistress' face as Neville started sputtering, losing the battle to keep from hysteria.

"Minerva... it's fine," she finally managed to say, contriving to step on Severus' foot without being noticed – it didn't make any difference. He sounded about to choke to death. "The general public have been trashing my reputation for years. The people who need to know the truth, know. That's what matters. I enjoy Severus' company – when he's not being a prat," she added, drawing further laughter from her now completely breathless lover, "and I'm not going to avoid him in public to keep the gossips happy."

Finally managing to get himself more or less under control, Severus straightened up, wiping his eyes as he regained his composure. "Besides," he pointed out unsteadily, "who would believe it?"

"Good point," Neville said thoughtfully, laughing quite hard himself now. There were several muffled laughs from the rest of the staff, which Hermione thought was rather unfair. It wasn't that unlikely... Regarding Severus, she smiled. Okay, yes, it is.

"Thank you for looking out for me, Minerva," she said quietly, her ribs aching.

"Thank you for the entertainment, Minerva," Severus added in the same tone, snickering before turning away and circling the bonfire, heading towards a knot of students who looked like they were planning something they shouldn't be.

"He gets worse," Minerva said in a disgusted tone. "I was just trying to spare you any problems, Hermione."

"I know," she assured her employer, calming down now. "And I suppose some people might start to wonder why we spend so much time together. But there's nothing sinister about it, I assure you." It definitely wasn't innocent, but that wasn't what had been asked.

"We've all just seen what he thinks of the notion," Flitwick observed in his reedy voice. "I'm not sure whether he intended to be insulting or not. I seldom am, with Severus."

Hermione grinned. "He wasn't trying to be insulting, no. If you can't tell, it's usually a safe bet to assume he didn't mean it. When he's trying to be insulting... believe me, you know."

"I still don't see how you can be friends with him," Minerva said, shaking her head. "He's utterly..."

"Impossible? Infuriating? Nasty? Annoying?" Hermione suggested, trying not to start laughing again – her ribs were hurting. "I know. That's just the way he is. But he's not bad company, if you catch him in the right mood." She shrugged. "Really, looking back, Severus never did anything to me personally except to say some rather nasty things when I was an irritating girl and he was a bitter and very heavily burdened man. He's apologised for that. And he has saved my life several times."

"He doesn't seem quite as bad as he used to be," Neville volunteered, sounding much calmer now; his eyes were filled with suppressed laughter. "I didn't realise he could laugh like that, though."

Madam Pomfrey joined the conversation. "I don't think I've ever seen Severus laugh so freely, either. He seems happier now than he has ever been, and I've known him since he was eleven."

Minerva returned to the original topic with a grimace. "But, Hermione, aren't you concerned about how this will appear? You above all of us know how people talk. Your man..."

"...Understands quite well that I have friends," Hermione replied gently. "As I said – the people who need to know the truth, know it. Nobody else matters."

Whee! More fanart! Thank you so much, Kimber: tinyurl dot com / 3zuruas (moved to my own host because apparently the link wasn't working for a lot of people)