Rose, seated upon the balcony she had run to, watched the space where her professor… her Severus… had vanished for a long time. As she did so she chewed her lower lip, and could not resist slipping her thumb between her lips to suck upon it. She knew her mother disapproved but sometimes that little baby-ish habit was the only thing that could calm her down. It was then that she remembered she was holding the little Velveteen Rabbit. She lifted the floppy toy up to her eyes as she stood from her place.

"Hi, Elly." She let out a small puff of air. "I'm sorry for getting mad at you." She shrugged and cuddled the rabbit to her chest. "It was sooo crazy around here, Elly, but mum's fixed it, and so has the pro… the um… Severus." Rose grinned. "He wants me to call him Severus, did you know that? It's because I'm special to him."

Spinning around she then skipped down the stairs and about a foot down the short hallway to the kitchen where her mother was occupying herself watering about a dozen house plants that were everywhere.

Rose stepped in and sat down upon a kitchen chair. "Mummy?"

Hermione turned at her daughter's voice and moved to sit across from her. "Did you catch Severus, sweetheart?"

Rose nodded quickly but then sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Hermione also noticed that the small girl had wrinkled her brow so tightly she almost had a Neanderthal-like ridge over her eyes. Hermione stroked her thumbs over the faint ridge and the frown to ease the taut muscles. She then chucked the girl's chin.

"What do you want to ask, my girl?"

"You really like… Severus, Mummy?" Rose asked slowly.

"I do, Rose. Do you mind?" Hermione nearly held her breath. She truly hoped that Rose would not mind Severus at all.

Rose smiled but she was obviously still worried. "I like him, mummy, and he seems a lot nicer… a whole lot nicer than da… Ron was." She huffed in frustration and crossed her arms over her chest as she gazed intently at her mother. "I don't have magic, Mum. He's gotta treat you nice because I can't hex him if he doesn't."

Hermione smiled and leaned forward to kiss her daughter's brow. "Severus does treat me very well, sweetheart. He's even told me that he loves me."

Rose narrowed her eyes shrewdly, "Is that why you slept in his room?"

Hermione's mouth gaped. Her mind immediately jumped to the subject of the 'Birds and the Bees' and how could she have that talk now? So gobsmacked, she gaped like a landed fish for a second or two more. She was still floundering around for an answer when Rose piped in with her own observations.

"Well, Grandma Molly sleeps with Grandpa Arthur because they love each other. You and R-ron never slept together because I don't think you really loved each other."

Hermione let out a whoosh of breath. Rose had NOT been asking what she thought she had been asking. Relieved to have escaped 'The Talk' Hermione nodded, and agreed, "Yes, Rosie, that's it exactly. Since we do love each other we get to sleep together."

"And kiss," Rose teased.

Hermione's heart dropped. Did Rose maybe know more than she was letting on? Oh god, her mind screamed, I don't want to have 'The Talk' today!

"Mummy and Sev'rus sittin' in a tree… K I SS I N G… " Rose sang the annoying little school yard rhyme until she caught her mother's eye. Her mother was not pleased by the teasing. She was not horribly angry, but she was annoyed, and something else.

"Rosie," began Hermione slowly. Rose could hear a plea in her mother's voice and so she locked her attention onto her mother. "What… well Severus and I do like to kiss… what I mean is that… and we're going to share his bedroom… but no, that's not what I meant. I meant to say…"

"You're having sex, mummy." Rose smiled, stood, and patted her mother's hands that had been wringing each other. "It's okay. Adults like that sort of thing, so it's all right with me. Can I go out in the yard?"

"Uhm… yeah…?" Blinking somewhat dazedly she heard the back door in the kitchen open, and then slam shut with the carefree attention a child normally gave a door.

After a moment as silence drifted over the kitchen, and Hermione was sure she had stopped breathing, she drew in a deep breath. "Sex." she declared to the empty room. "How does my little girl know about… s-sex?" Hermione stood and frowned. "How... does... she…" Her lips thinning she turned on her heel, went to the back door, yanked it open, and stepped out into the yard.

A warm breeze was lifting the last of winter out of the air and she just barely observed that there were sprouts of new grass, and signs of growth emerging from the thawed grounds of several garden beds. Rose was crouched down where there was a stack of pebbles beside some of the new grass. She did not seem to be aware of her mother coming towards her.

"Rosie Athene," called Hermione as she crouched down by her daughter. "How do you know about…?" she swallowed and mentally told herself to get a grip. Surely it hadn't been this difficult for her mother when she was… oh good grief! She'd been six when she asked her mother about what grown-ups did together!

"Grandma Molly," replied Rose simply. She had found a pretty little beetle and was watching as it marched past the small stack of pebbles.

"Grandma Molly," Hermione fumed slightly knowing the older woman had taken this discussion from her. "How did all of this come about?"

"Well, Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur were visiting and Aunt Fleur was hanging all over Uncle Bill and kissing his cheeks, and his neck, and his mouth, too, and I overheard her tell Uncle Bill that she couldn't wait to get him into bed." Rose shrugged, still watching the beetle. "That sounded silly to me. Who wants to go to bed ever? So I asked Victoire what her mummy meant and she told me that her mummy and daddy liked to have sex a lot in bed."

Hermione dropped from her crouch to the short distance to the ground on her backside. She hated Fleur - that nose-in-the-air French snob that Bill Weasley had married. Her little daughter, Victoire, a few years older than Rose, was practically a carbon copy of her mother always flouncing about in fancy frocks and make-up and talking about boys.

"Rose, what did Grandma Molly tell you? Why did you ask her about s-sex?" Hermione desperately wanted to use a word that was not so blunt sounding, but if she did not use the terminology her daughter was using, she might think it was a bad thing to use such words. She only hoped that Rose never said 'sex' to Severus; he would curl up and die!

The beetle skittered away so Rose glanced up at her mother. "I had to. Victoire was talking about boys she liked and wanted to kiss and stuff and when I tried to ask her, Victoire just said it was kissing, a lot of kissing and that didn't make sense to me. I'd seen Grandpa Arthur kissing Grandma Molly so I asked her what sex was and if Victoire was having me on." She smiled. "Grandma Molly gave me a really neat book with pictures in it that talked — the book talked, mum! First it told about chickens and eggs, and then about love between adults and kissing and that when adults loved each other they would go to bed together to have sex and sometimes it would make babies."

Hermione, still feeling a bit in shock, and wading through thoughts of her daughter knowing what she and Severus had done, and now her daughter knew that Molly and Arthur and Bill and Fleur had been doing the same thing, couldn't speak. It also did not help that this was the sacred talk about the Birds and the Bees that she had planned, for years, to share with her daughter. One of those perfect mother-daughter bonding moments in a little girl's life as she grew up. And, blasted Molly took that away from her!

Rose was unaware of what was going through her mother's mind. Running her finger through the dirt and around the little shoots of grass; she was worried about something much bigger.

It was Rose that finally spoke and she asked, "I know you and daddy didn't love each other, mummy, but you both still made Hugo and that meant you were having sex but I don't think it made either of you happy and the book said that sex was a… an 'expression of love between adults'."

Hermione suddenly stopped thinking about 'The Talk', Grandma Molly, Fleur, and her ridiculous daughter. Rose was looking up at her with worry and concern plain in her big blue eyes. She felt her heart clench painfully as she realised she knew what her daughter was trying to ask but in a very round-about way.

She pulled Rose onto her lap and the girl wrapped her arms around her mother's neck. Hermione kissed the curls, and gently moved her daughter so she could still look into her eyes. "Rose, are you afraid that Severus is going to hurt me now that we're sleep… having s-s-sex? The way daddy used to hurt me?"

Rose nodded. "I know Grandpa doesn't hurt Grandma and I don't think Uncle Bill hurts Aunt Fleur, and I don't want Severus to hurt you but, mum, he was so awfully angry yesterday," she whispered. Rose had grasped one of her mother's bushy curls in her fingers and was twirling it about her finger. "It was scary, mum, and I remember daddy being so scary and just like he was really scary the other day when he came to hurt us in Severus' house!"

Hermione hugged Rose tightly and felt the child's arms tighten around her neck. She even felt a tug from the curl of her hair that the girl had not, yet, let go of. Disentangling her daughter from her hair, but keeping her in her lap, Hermione touched Rose's chin. She looked earnestly into those beautiful, worried eyes. "Rosie Athene, my little warrior, listen carefully to me. Severus can be terribly scary when he gets angry, but I can promise you that he will never hit me like daddy used to. He will never wilfully hurt either of us."

"Cause he loves us?" asked Rose timidly.

"Yes," Hermione stated firmly. "Severus truly does love us…"

Rose interrupted, "I don't think daddy ever did, mummy." Her features were grim, her little mouth resentful with a sneer.

Hermione's lips thinned and her brown eyes blazed with an old fury. "I don't think Ron did either, my girl. He was foolish for that, and he was a dunderhead of the worst kind because he never knew what a jewel you are. Severus knows you're special and that you're worth loving." She then smiled and kissed her daughter's brow. "He thinks I'm special, too, and worth loving for a very long time."

"Forever?" asked Rose hopefully.

Hermione blushed softly. "I'd like him to, Rose. I know I could love him forever. Do you think you could love Severus?"

"I think I want to, mummy. If he's being scary at other people that's okay. And, he pertected us from da… from Ron and he brought us here, and he made me chocolate muffins this morning."

Hermione giggled. "Well, that's a declaration of love right there, sweetheart! Chocolate muffins!"

Rose giggled too and snuggled closer to her mother. "So, we get to live here forever and always now?"

"That we do, my girl. You get to keep your bedroom and…" Hermione hesitated only slightly, then continued, "if you don't mind I'm going to share Severus' bedroom with him."

Rose let out a sigh of relief. Her mother, like always, understood her and that was good. Now it was time to think of other, more important things. "Will Severus help me decorate my room, mum?" Rose knew that Severus had already told her that he would help her to decorate, but she thought her mother needed something normal to think about, and to know that Rose liked… even loved… Severus again. Rose had forgiven the dark man for his misplaced temper of the other day.

"I think he would like to do that very much, Rose, but you ought to ask him. Can you do that?"

"After my bedtime story I'll ask him, mum. Can we go and explore, now?" Rose tumbled from her mother's lap, stood, and held out a helping hand to her mother. Hermione grasped the little girl's hand but used her own strength to get to her feet. Before they left, she summoned quill and paper, and wrote a quick note to Severus. She then charmed it so that it when he came back home, it would find him, and pop into existence right in front of him.

Dear Severus,

Rose and I are exploring our neighbourhood. She wants to thank you for the chocolate muffins, and I want to thank you for loving us.

We'll be back no later than six o'clock. If you use a Point Me Charm you can find us if you get worried.

Your girls, with all our love,

Hermione and Rose