CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Speak daggers but use none.

-Hamlet, William Shakespeare

The rest of September passed uneventfully and suddenly they were immersed in the cool blustery days of October. Severus and Hermione fell into a routine. During much of the week, she and the children were at his home, and more often than not they stayed over, but she insisted upon returning to her flat every weekend, and also insisted that they spend at least two nights apart per week "so as not to rush anything," which he understood but did not enjoy.

At first, they made love every night they were fortunate enough to spend together, sometimes twice before sunrise, but as the initial hormonal response to the end of both their self-imposed terms of celibacy dissipated they became more like any other couple, having sex when the mood struck and simply curling up together to sleep when exhaustion took it off the table.

They went out regularly, to the playground and the zoo, to museums and even to a family paint class, which Severus had promised to hate but ended up genuinely enjoying, going so far as to display his watercolor of an owl on a branch on the bedroom wall beside hers. They'd placed the ones made by Henry and Helena in what had been his childhood bedroom, and Hero's finger paint masterpiece found its home in the kitchen.

Hermione continued to work for Severus two hours per day, three days a week, at his home on Spinner's End while the younger children were napping, as she insisted she needed to earn the pay he continued to give her, and he currently had no desire to see her need to take a different job.

Helena spent those two napping hours per day three days per week either engaged in a quiet activity or helping the adults. She especially enjoyed carefully sorting and alphabetizing ingredients in Severus' potions storage space and tilling in the garden. She didn't even mind dusting or helping with laundry, anything to be useful and exposed to the chatter of adults. Sometimes they'd almost seem to forget she was there, and that was her favorite time, as the talk became less censored thus giving her bits of information to squirrel away and bring up intelligently in conversation later. At only five and a half years old, the precocious girl was more than ready to be treated like one of the adults, and found it frustrating whenever her mother would remind her of her age and order her to "go play."

She hadn't seen the scary scarred man in weeks and soon stopped having nightmares about him. She still missed her father, missed being his Helly Bean, but she was liking Professor Snape more with each passing week... though sometimes she couldn't help feeling jealous of his relationship with Henry, who seemed to be his favorite.

Severus, meanwhile, continued to receive letters from Delphini, once per week, as promised, and he wrote back promptly to each and every one.

Though she was still a sparse writer, he began to worry whether she'd deliberately misled him with her first letter, as each seemed to show an increasing level of unhappiness. Nothing major – she did not complain of feeling bullied by other students or overwhelmed by her studies – but there were hints of issues bubbling below the surface, lines like "The older kids are going on their first Hogsmeade trip soon. Wish the rest of the First Years were going too. I'd like the castle all to myself!" and "I'm happy my hair is black and curly like my mother's. I would hate to have stupid white-blonde straight Veela hair that makes the boys stare. Boys are gross."

To be honest, Severus hadn't even realized these were indicative of possible problems. Hermione had pointed it out.

"Oh, she must not be making friends like she said she was," she said disappointedly, taking the latest letter from him over breakfast one morning. "If she was, she'd want to go there with them, not have the castle to herself."

"Are you certain? I wouldn't have minded having the castle to myself."

"Even though you had tons of friends?"

He scowled.

"See? And this about the hair..."

"She likes her hair. That's good, isn't it? And she's right. Boys are disgusting. I hope she stays far away from them for a long time. I know what teenage boys think about. I was one."

"She's not really glad not to have Veela hair. She's jealous. She may truly think boys are disgusting, but at the same time, she might not mind being so pretty they stare. Didn't she asked you more than once whether you found her mother pretty? And she looks like her mother..."

"Girls don't think about things like that," said Severus. "Not at eleven! Shouldn't she be worried about... about homework... and... and playing with dolls?"

"A girl can worry about homework and play with dolls and question whether she's pretty enough to be noticed by boys she doesn't even like all at the same time, even at age eleven."

"I want to be pretty," Helena piped up. "Am I pretty?"

"Don't worry about being pretty." Hermione handed the letter back to Severus. "We'll continue this discussing during nap time."

"Should I speak with Minerva?" Severus topped off his pumpkin juice, then added more into the nearly empty cups of Helena and Henry.

"Not yet," said Hermione. "Write back to Delphini. We want to her to continue to open up to you and if you fly off to the Headmistress now you risk breaking her trust. But it's something to be aware of. Perhaps you should also write to Narcissa?"

"Is Narcissa your daughter's mum?" asked Helena. "Are you divorced? My mum and dad got divorced. Then he died."

"Delphini's mother died when she was a baby," explained Severus. "Narcissa is her aunt."

"Pofessah's mum die," Henry piped up, happy to have something to add to the conversation. "But Pofessah not sad. Is a long time ago. Wight?"

"Right." Severus was surprised the boy remembered that. He opened his mouth to say more, but Hero, apparently growing bored with both the meal and the chatter, grabbed a handful of scrambled eggs and chucked them at her mother.

"Not appropriate!" scolded Hermione, shaking yellow egg from her hair as Hero and Henry giggled madly.

"Not appropriate!" echoed Helena, hands on hips, staring down her sister.

And though Severus knew he shouldn't, as doing so would only encourage the naughty behavior, he couldn't help but laugh.

-0-0-0-

"Excellent work, Miss Black! Ten points to Slytherin!" chirped tiny little Professor Flitwick, who was standing behind his desk atop a tall pile of old textbooks.

Delphini beamed. It was turning out she had a natural knack for Charms. It was, arguably, her best class, though she was thus far also excelling in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Transfiguration was tricky despite Professor Terry Boot's attempts to make it both educational and fun. He was not the best teacher, Delphini decided, after the day they'd been instructed to turn a matchstick into a needle and not one student out of all the Slytherins and Ravenclaws had managed, despite having a double period in which to do so. What were the odds every single kid was rubbish at it? But Professors Rosier, Chang-Zabini, and Flitwick were pros, and she strived to be the best pupil in each of their respective classes.

She'd been the only student in her entire potions class (of Slytherins and Hufflepuffs) to receive perfect marks on her Wiggenweld Potion, the first practical they'd been assigned thus far.

"I suspect it's in your blood," said Professor Rosier, and for a wild moment Delphini thought she must mean she'd gotten it from the former potions master. Professor Rosier must somehow know that Severus Snape was her father, and Delphini was happy to be compared to a parent who was... well... not her mother. But then Professor Rosier added in a low whisper, "I sat in this very room and learned alongside your mother in the early sixties, until she disappeared. We're distant cousins, actually, and though we were in different Houses..." (Professor Rosier was a proud former Ravenclaw who wore a blue and bronze silk scarf draped over black robes every day) "We often chatted over our cauldrons. She was an exceptionally talented witch. Such a pity, what happened later..."

Delphini nodded and thanked the professor, though the mention of her mother made her nose twitch most uncomfortably, a sure sign pesky tears were on the horizon. She swallowed them back and bottled her perfect potion to hand in.

The following day, upon entering Greenhouse 2 for Herbology, Professor Longbottom greeted her pleasantly, though he still avoided meeting her eye.

"We are repotting Mandrakes today," said Longbottom. "This used to be a task left only to Second Years, but curriculum changes with time and I feel you can all manage." He went through the usual spiel about the importance of earmuffs and not getting bitten by their short but sharp teeth, then set the class to it.

Thanks to the earmuffs, Delphini didn't hear the two Gryffindor girls approaching her from behind. One pretended to trip and bumped into Delphini, 'accidentally' dislodging her earmuffs, while the other knocked her pot, just-planted Mandrake and all, to the floor. There was a crash and the shatter of ceramic, which only Delphini fully heard, as the earmuffs muffled the sound to everyone else. Then, the Mandrake began to cry... and Delphini's world went dark.

-0-0-0-

It was nearly midnight. Henry and Helena were sound asleep in the bed they shared at Severus' home and Hero was snoozing away in her crib. Hermione and Severus were in the cellar lab, brewing side by side (she was stirring the contraceptive potion as she was running low, while he brewed a batch of Veritaserum at the Ministry's request. It seemed they were worried about possible Dark activity within their ranks and wanted to test out the loyalty of a few wizards and witches presumably without their consent. Severus did not approve of the Ministry's methods, but they were offering a handsome sum in exchange for his efforts, and if it helped to keep another Tom Riddle or Gellert Grindelwald from radicalizing half the Wizarding world it was worth it.

When his had reached the point that it needed to simmer for twenty-four hours, he moved to stand behind Hermione, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his lips to her temple.

"Sometimes I don't remember the girl I was at Hogwarts," she whispered. "This isn't how I pictured myself. I don't mean with you," she added hurriedly. "I mean, I didn't picture myself living like a housewife, making meals and wiping noises and renting Disney movies and worrying about money and rocking babies to sleep. I always wanted a career. Always. A wonderful one. I wanted to be the best, not only at Hogwarts, but at my primary school too. Back then I thought I might grow up to be a judge, or a doctor, or a university professor. I never fantasized about having a wedding or what I would name my future children. It's funny, isn't it? How life can... change? How our priorities can change?"

"Our experiences shape us," he agreed, holding her close. "Do you regret... me?"

"Not at all! You're..." She felt her cheeks go crimson. "You're the sort of man I... My mother always said she thought... She used to think..." Hermione blew a tuft of hair out of her face prepared to let the thought die away, but Severus would not let it go that easily.

"What did your mother think?"

"When I wrote her that I thought I was having feelings for Ron, and then later, when I dated Viktor, she was surprised. She said she always pictured me with someone more... intellectual. Someone with whom I could have an intelligent argument. She and my father loved to argue. Not to fight, but to... debate. Verbal sparring, my father called it. My mother wanted that for me too. But Ron... our fights were fights, and not intelligent ones. Stupid ones. Frustrating ones. Ending in tears. And even when we were seeking Horcruxes on the run, he and I never had any deep conversations, never any discussions about things important to me, like books or house-elf rights or..."

"Your relationship existed on the surface," said Severus. "I understand. As did mine with Charity. We kept the conversation largely generalized and stuck in the present."

"Yes, exactly. Once we were married, he wanted me to be like his mother. To cook and clean and have a bunch of babies and raise them all while he went to work, and I just couldn't see that for my future."

"Good thing, too. With all due respect, you're much better at brewing potions and hexing me during arguments than you are at cooking and cleaning," teased Severus. Hermione smiled. "Did your second husband expect you to mother him, too?"

"Not exactly. Not at first, I mean. He was romantic. Old-fashioned. He liked theatre, especially Romeo & Juliet, that was his favorite, but there was something... unequal... about us. Almost like he... fetishized me. Put me on a pedestal. Because I had been in the silly Golden Trio, I suppose, and maybe because even at the Ministry they teased me about being 'the brightest witch of my age.' Then, once we had Helena, he became just like Ron, content to have this cute little woman at home raising his baby and making his meals, not like a real person."

"You think he loved the idea of you more than he loved you?"

"Yes," whispered Hermione. The potion had been sufficiently stirred, so she set down her silver ladle and placed her hands over his, which were still resting on her lower belly, and relaxed against him. "You're not like either of them, though. You... you know me. I'm not even sure I know me, but I feel like... like you know me... and my mother... I think... I think she'd rather like you."

"I think I'd rather like her," said Severus. "From what you've told me."

Hermione smiled again, but it was a sad sort of smile, as she couldn't help seeing her parents on the day they were released from St. Mungo's, the day she was told there was no hope in reversing the memory charm she'd done to them. They'd bid her a confused goodbye and hurried away, losing all recollection of their hospital stay by the time they reached the street.

"Severus?" Hermione whispered. "Do you ever miss the man you were?"

"Never." He kissed her again, this time on her shoulder. "But then, I haven't much to miss. Friendless and closed off, a spy, a recluse, a formerly bullied shameless glory seeker, child of a vile father and a resigned mother, obsessed with a woman who didn't want me, blaming a man who wasn't the reason, serving a murderous master long after I stopped being able to stomach his methods or intents, wracked with unrelenting guilt, teaching dozens of dunderheads every day – no offense – and eating meals at a head table in full view of hundreds of students sitting like subjects below us, as if we were royalty. I hated it, from my early childhood through the end of my tenure at Hogwarts, I hated all of it. Well, nearly all of it."

"What didn't you hate?"

"Hogwarts has the best Wizarding library in all of Europe. The food was always good – though I know how you feel about meals prepared by house-elves – and I was far away from my family, which all seemed like plusses. Until things went sour, I had my friendship with Lily and as a professor I used to play chess with Minerva on occasion. I had a friend in Charity even after we were no longer more, and I felt Hogwarts was the only place I had any shot at redemption. Oh, and Quidditch. I enjoyed watching Quidditch, and though I know you feel about betting the way you do about house-elves, I did like the thrill of risking a little something on each match."

"Aside from all that, though, you don't miss anything?" She smiled as she stirred the potion before her. "That's actually a longer list than I would've expected."

"I'm far happier here, with you, now." His hands moved to her hips as his lips returned to her neck and she could feel the twitch of his member coming to life against her back. "I have my potions, my health - relatively speaking - my daughter, and my girlfriend. All I need."

"Is this the life you want?" she asked, tilting her head to the side to grant him better access. "You want a much younger woman to play the part of housewife and four troubled children born of three different fathers and two different mothers and weekends spent at playgrounds or zoos and maybe, someday, a cat?"

"No cat." His right hand encircled her waist as his left traveled up to her breast. "And no housewife. I'd prefer a happy wife. And I do not think you'd be happy as a housewife, current situation aside."

"I don't think I want McGonagall's teaching job, Severus," she said, her heart fluttering at his 'happy wife' comment. Though she'd said 'housewife,' she wasn't quite thinking about the wife part of it. The notion both excited and terrified her. It was only mid-October. They hadn't been playing house long enough to be thinking of such a serious future yet... right?

He flicked his tongue against her neck, running it up to her earlobe, which he then sucked into his mouth a moment before pausing to respond, his lips to her ear.

"What do you want, Hermione?"

"I want you," she nearly screamed, squirming as the combination of his hot breath on the skin his tongue had just moistened and the continued caress of her breast was arousing her to the point that she could no longer pay attention to the conversation or the contraceptive potion. This was not helped by his decision to remove his other hand from her hip, slipping it between her legs instead. She thrust her arse against him, further turned on by the feel of his hardness digging into her lower back.

"I want to work for the Ministry," she said. "I want to be Minister for... Minis... I want... Oh... yes..."

He'd slipped two fingers under the band of her knickers, her skirt hiked up around her waist, and began to work them between her damp folds. With his other hand, he began to unbutton her blouse, eager to continue massaging her breasts without fabric separating her skin from his fingers.

"Then that is what I want for you," he growled. "I want you to have the career you've dreamt of since you were at Hogwarts. It's too late for me to follow my childhood dreams, but not too late for you."

"It's... not... too late... for you..." she panted, grinding her pelvis against his hand, wondering if he'd be interested in fucking her in this position. He'd taken her in many ways since their first time together, but never from behind. He said it was because he liked to look at her, but she suspected there was more to it, and didn't press the matter as she was afraid certain positions would remind her of that blond bastard... but now, in this moment, she couldn't even recall that pureblood supremacist's name. There was only one name in her brain, one name dripping from her parted lips.

"Severus... Severus... yes... yes... there..."

"I want for you whatever you desire for yourself." His mouth was but a book's width from her ear. He opened her unbuttoned blouse and slid his left hand between the material of her bra and her right breast, toying with her tit. He paused only a moment to lick his index and middle fingers, then continued flicking them over the peaked center of her nipple. "Do you want a Ministry career, Hermione?"

"Yes... yes... I do... I... I want to be Minister for Magic..."

"You don't wish to be a housewife?" He slipped one finger aside her and then another, pumping into her, letting his confined erection rub against her arse as he lifted her to her toes.

"N-no. No. I... I... Oh, fuck, yes... harder..."

"My wanton woman..." He closed his lips over her shoulder, sucking, and then nipping with his teeth, making her cry out. He removed his other hand from her breast to wave away her cauldron, levitating it to the other side of his, before bending her over the table, the edge of which pressed against her lower belly. The smooth tabletop was cold against her chest. He removed her blouse entirely, tossing it to the floor, but left her bra. She sighed contentedly as he kissed his way from the back of her neck down her spine to the band of her skirt. Lifting his hands under it, he removed her knickers, sliding them slowly down and kicking them away.

"Are you going to take me like this?" she asked as his hands made their way back up her legs until he was again standing behind her, his throbbing cock still confined by his undershorts and trousers.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes," she sighed. "I have only two life's goals at the moment. I want to be Minister for Magic, and I want you to fuck me against this table."

"I am afraid gratification on that first one may be considerably delayed, as it is something you must work for and not something I can give you," he said, his voice low and deep and rumbling, making goosebumps rise up on her arms and the hairs at the back of her neck stand on edge. "But to your second goal..." He unbuttoned his trouser placard. She shivered in anticipation when she heard the sound of his zipper. Placing one hand back between her legs to stimulate her with his fingers, he used the free hand to stroke himself, rather pleased by his ability to have increased his stamina over the last month, but also thinking this might be a better place and position for a quick shag. He lifted her skirt, holding it at her waist, and parted her legs with his knee, positioning himself at her entrance.

"Please..." she whispered, angling herself toward him, wanting him, ready...

He rubbed the head of his hard member against her sex, not taking her, teasing her, planning to hold out until she begged, though it was requiring a remarkable amount of self-control from him, which he'd not possessed during the first few weeks of their sexual relationship.

"I want you to be happy," he said. "I want you to be happy with me..."

"I am happy with you..."

"But I refuse to hold you back. If you want to go work for the Ministry..."

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"No." He leaned forward to kiss her lips, though it wasn't easy since her cheek was to the tabletop, her bushy hair splayed all around. "Quite the opposite. What I want from you is no temporary fling."

"I can be with you and work for the Ministry, Severus." She arched her arse against him again, silently pleading with him to fill her, to bring the pleasure she knew he was capable of providing... over and over and over again...

"Good." He kissed her cheek this time, then stretched to his full height, and, without further discussion, guided himself into her. She cried out, feeling herself stretching pleasingly, taking the entirety of him within her, bucking her hips in an attempt to get him to thrust. He placed one hand on her hip and held onto the table for leverage with the other, and fucked her hard, his stiff cock slamming repeatedly into her throbbing core, making her weak, making her heady. "I don't want a housewife, Hermione. I want you."

-0-0-0-

Delphini awoke in the hospital ward at Hogwarts. She cursed and glanced around, head pounding, trying to discern whether night had fallen or whether it was simply dark.

"Madam Pomfrey?" she called. In bustled the nurse, who immediately began fussing over her.

"What were you thinking, removing your earmuffs while working with Mandrakes?" asked the nurse, waving her wand over the girl to check her vitals. "You've been passed out for hours. Unfortunately time is the only cure. Thank Merlin they were only babies!"

"I didn't take my earmuffs off! Victoire Weasley did it! Then she broke my pot!"

"Did she?" Madam Pomfrey paused, ceasing her checking spells, looking over the girl carefully. "I was under the impression she was a friend of yours. She accompanied you here, along with another girl. You saw her remove your earmuffs and break your pot?"

"Well, no," admitted the girl. "But I know she did it! She's mean! She's a bully! She did it on purpose!"

"That's quite the accusation," said Madam Pomfrey, again bustling about. She handed Delphini a vial. "Here, drink this. It's a Pepper-Up Potion. Perhaps it was an accident. Miss Weasley seemed quite concerned about you. She even took your books back to your dormitory."

"What?" Delphini leapt from the bed, but instant dizziness made her sit back down. "She took my books? We're not in the same house?"

"I did think that was odd, but she said you'd shown her where the Slytherin common room is, so she could get your school things to one of your roommates. Nice of her to go out of her way, I reckoned."

"Yeah," muttered Delphini, wondering what the Gryffindor part-Veela was really up to. "Real nice."

"Give that potion time to work and you can head back to your dorm when the clock strikes ten. Take this note..." Madam Pomfrey handed her a scrap of parchment. "I've written a note to explain the situation should anyone wonder why you're out of bed after curfew."

"Thank you," said Delphini, but she did not wait for ten. As soon as she heard the nurse's office door click shut, she was out of there. She didn't know why that nasty girl had asked to take back her books but she doubted it was because she felt badly for having gotten her knocked out. Delphini thought about what she'd brought with her to Herbology. She didn't keep a diary anymore, thankfully, so there was no chance of accidentally sharing her secrets with the other girls... but tucked inside the front of her copy of her Herbology book, she had slipped the latest letter from her aunt Narcissa, and the start of a draft of her next one to her father, which, like the others, began "Dear Professor Snape."

"Damn fuck bloody shit piss!" Delphini let out a string of unrelated curse words, prompting one of the subjects of a nearby portrait to huff, 'Well, I never!.' Delphini did not want the other girls in her year to know that she'd asked her aunt for advice on how to deal with mean girls! And she certainly did not want them to know why she wrote weekly letters to the former Hogwarts headmaster. "If you share those letters with anybody, Victoire Weasley," the girl muttered as she took the stairs down to her common room. "I'll do worse to your face than Fenrir Greyback did to your father's."

-0-0-0-

She threw her blouse back on but did not bother with her knickers, and he zipped his fly, then they both made their way upstairs to the bedroom.

They changed into pajamas (just the bottoms for him, an oversized shirt for her) and slipped comfortably under the covers.

"I meant what I said downstairs," Severus said, pulling Hermione to him. "If you want to be the Minister for Magic someday, then I want that for you, and I'll do all I can to help ensure it happens."

Hermione looked into his eyes, his impossibly dark eyes, and felt her heart jolt, as if it were trying to escape her chest to be closer to his, which she could feel beating under her palm. Her lips parted, and she nearly... very nearly... told him she loved him, even though she'd previously promised herself she would save those words until they'd been dating at least six months. She closed her mouth, but could not tear her eyes away from his.

"I know," he said, understanding both her sentiment and her unwillingness to voice it. He kissed her forehead, closed his eyes, and waved his hand to douse the lights. "Me, too."

-0-0-0-

It had been a month exactly since the last bit of wand and ominous note Narcissa received. She'd saved all of them, the pieces and the parchment, and hadn't told of them to anyone, not even her husband.

She smoothed them out on the bed and read them again, wondering whether the messages had been a warning, or a cruel joke, or perhaps meant for Lucius instead.

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, the final one began.

On pain of torture

From those bloody hands

Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground.

If ever you disturb our streets again

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

Once more, on pain of death, depart.

"What the bloody hell does it even mean?" She'd been talented in deciphering Ancient Runes during her upper years at Hogwarts, but she could not crack this code, as it did not seem to be code at all, but confusing nonetheless. What mistempered weapons? Their wands? And who were the enemies to peace? Former Death Eaters still at large? Disturbing the streets... could that be about the Hogsmeade brawl? Depart from where? On pain of death? Why?

"You'll go mad trying to figure it out," she muttered. She returned the parchment and wand pieces to the hollow book in which she kept them, enchanted to open only for her, and pulled out a different letter instead. She tapped the parchment twice, murmuring the incantation that would translate the language from Bulgarian to English, and smiled as she re-read the words she'd already memorized.

Narcissa,

An elegant rose standing proud in a garden of weeds, you alone are worthy of being plucked, but to do so would be to kill you, to rob you of your beauty, a crime against nature I could no sooner commit than the murder of a unicorn. I hope you do not consider what happened between us two nights ago to have been in error, as I adore you, and would worship and revere you, and wish to make you feel as you have made me. Though I realize this is fast, and I am aware of the constricting particulars of your marriage vows, the truth is that I care not for law or propriety. I desire you as I have never before desired any woman. My beautiful rose, I need you in my arms again.

Yours,

Viktor

"So well spoken when not speaking," she whispered, before pressing her lips to the parchment. While his English was generally very good, especially considering that it was his third language, he was far more romantic in his native tongue both in writing and in conversation. That is why she'd quickly mastered the art of the language translation charm.

"You're too young for me," she whispered as she folded the letter and returned it to the enchanted hollow book, which she tapped closed with her wand. "Too young and handsome and you could have any woman you want. Why me?"

"Talking to yourself, my dear?"

Narcissa flinched. "I did not hear you enter, Lucius. Did you knock?"

"I did not. This is my home, remember? I am hardly required to announce myself before entering a room." He was walking slowly, deliberately, staring at her, not blinking. Her stomach twisted painfully into a knot. There was something... not quite right... about his appearance. He twirled the cane in which he was now keeping his new wand, the replacement for the one she'd hidden in the book, and he licked his lips as he looked down at her. She slid the book into her bedside table drawer in what she hoped was an inconspicuous way and tried to smile at him.

"What is it, darling? Did you want to go out? We could..."

He cut her off. "That's not what I want, Narcissa."

His voice was harsh and cold. He'd been harsh and cold with her before. And yet... not like this. This was... something was wrong. This was his voice, and yet... not. She shivered. She had seen this with men during the war... she'd seen it over her own breakfast table, recently, when she'd forced Delphini to pick up the chair she'd thrown back. If she was reading the signs correctly...

"Are you feeling alright, Lucius?" she asked, hoping to stall him from whatever terrible thing he intended to do. He stretched as he moved toward her and she caught a glimpse of what looked like the hilt of Bella's knife tucked into his belt. Her pulse quickened. He never wore a belt. And that knife... Bella's knife... it couldn't be. "You seem ill, love."

"I'm your love, am I?" He grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her off the bed, into a standing position, then twisted her arm behind her back and held it there as she squirmed.

"What's wrong?" She couldn't hide the panic in her voice. In all the times they'd ever fought, in all the times he'd beaten her, even the time he'd physically rearranged her face, she'd never been as terrified of him as she was in this moment. "What's wrong, Lucius?"

"A plague," he answered in a hiss. He forced her onto the bed. He removed the knife from its sheath. He placed the flat edge of it against her jugular. "A plague on both your houses."

-0-0-0-

Severus felt the wards around his home shift, alerting him to an approaching visitor. He glanced at the window. It was still dark. Who could be coming to call before sunrise?

He rose from the bed, threw on his dressing gown, and grabbed his wand, careful not to wake Hermione, who looked beautiful stretched out in the bed beside him. He made his way silently downstairs, still a bit slower than he would like to be moving, but at least he no longer needed a cane. His muscles ached, as the potion had worn off overnight, but the pain was not unbearable as it had been in the past. He glanced through the peephole and opened the door before his visitor could knock.

"Draco Malfoy," Severus drawled, looking over the young man, who seemed a bit worse for wear. His eyes had dark circles around them and bags underneath and he was paler than usual. In his arms he held the boy who could be Hero's twin, little Scorpius, who, at this moment, was asleep against his father's shoulder. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"My mother is in St. Mungo's."

"No doubt thanks to your father?"

"Yes, but..." Draco glanced around the front entrance uncomfortable, making no effort to enter further, not that Severus had offered. "But I don't think he was himself. He seemed... different. And he's since disappeared. But it wasn't... it wasn't like him. He's never been that way before."

"He's beaten her a great many times before," said Severus, trying not to direct any of his animosity over this toward the boy. After all, he hadn't been able to protect his own mother against his Muggle father. What hope did Draco have against the talented wizard who spawned him? "What makes you think this time was somehow different?"

"He had this." Draco reached into the pocket of his traveling cloak and pulled out a long, sharp dagger in a leather sheath.

"This was Bellatrix's knife," said Severus, removing the blade from the protective holder. He felt a surge of hatred directed toward the entirety of the Black and Malfoy families. This was the knife used to carve Mudblood into Hermione's arm.

"It's been missing for years," said Draco. "He used it tonight... he used it on my mother."

Severus cocked an eyebrow, playing cool, utilizing Occlumency to do so, even though he felt sick to his stomach. "What is her prognosis?"

"She's expected to live," Draco assured him. "But only because I interrupted and got her to the Healers quickly."

"What did he do to her, Draco?"

Draco's eyes filled with tears and Severus' attempt to keep a cold façade failed him. He wouldn't risk waking young Scorpius by awkwardly hugging his adult godson, but he did reach out and clap him on the shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting way. "Draco, what did he do?"

"Professor," said Draco in a choked voice. "There was blood everywhere."

"What did he do, Draco? What did your father do to your mother?"

"He took this knife... and he slit her throat."

To GUEST who commented on Chapter 35 - Feb 23, 2018

The story takes place starting in 2008, a decade after the war ended.

The A/N about the London Eye was originally in there because I had originally referenced Hermione going to it before the war heated up (and before Obliviating her parents) and didn't realize until I saw your comment that I had nixed that part but kept the author's note, which didn't make sense, so it's been deleted. Thanks!

And thanks for reading and reviewing!

-AL