It was almost midnight when they carried the girls back into the castle. They'd hardly stirred when they'd scooped them off the blanket, shushing and soothing. They were getting too big for this, especially for Hermione—the girls were going to be tall like Severus, no doubt.

Bast was too wound up. He danced around them, jogging ahead to look at the most random things, telling them stories about his afternoons with Hagrid.

"Okay, Bast, go brush your teeth," Hermione said quietly when they reached their rooms, stroking Sofia's hair.

"But you're not going to make them brush their teeth," Bast whined.

"Do as your mother says."

And just like that, with only a quiet huff of breath in protest, Bast went to brush his teeth without complaining.

Completely not fair.

Severus just smirked at her.

Hermione went into the bedroom first. It was large—not big like the headmaster's chambers, but larger than teachers' rooms—but it hadn't been meant for a family. They'd divided the overlarge bed into three, leaving a tiny gap between each and the walls. Everything was soft, and there was an excellent view of the village out the wall of windows.

The girls were floppy with sleep, making it difficult to get them into pajamas. Hermione almost woke Sofia, breaking down into giggles when the girl slumped down at an unnatural angle, looking like she might fall off the bed, purple cotton nightgown on one arm and tangled in her curls. Severus had an easier time with Ellie, but that was probably because she wasn't quite as wiggly as Sofia in sleep.

They'd just finished with the girls when Bast dragged his feet into the bedroom. He had the bed nearest the door, and he flopped down onto it without a word, rolling and kicking until he'd managed to line himself up properly on the mattress and knock most of the covers down onto the floor.

Exhausted, Severus thought to her, smirking as he pulled the sheet up over Bast.

It was a ridiculously domestic sight that made her want to cry a little bit. Severus looked so content doing it, and Bast was the picture of a little boy tired out after a perfect summer day. She'd dreamed of this when they'd been hunting Horcruxes. Yearned for it.

Severus held out his hand to her and led her out of the room when she took it. Draco had been sleeping on the couch in the small living space that was the next room, but he hadn't returned from the pitch yet.

When the door closed on the children, Severus drew her close and kissed her, lips sliding across hers, tongue probing her mouth. She tangled her hands in his hair, twisting, holding tight.

"I'm going to brew that antidote first thing in the morning," he murmured against her lips, pressing a kiss to her temple before pulling her tight against his chest and holding her.

\\

Hermione woke with a jerk. She'd had one of those awful falling dreams—not a nightmare, but obnoxious in that she always woke with her heart pounding and cold sweat on her forehead.

She groaned, rolling over, a hand reaching for her husband, but he wasn't there. She opened her eyes and looked around, but the room was dark as pitch since there wasn't a window.

"Severus?"

She Summoned her pocke twatch and checked it by the light of her wand; it was still very early. The watch went in her dressing gown pocket, and she crept from the bedroom. The childrens' door was closed. Malfoy was asleep on the couch still in his Quidditch things.

That man is happiest when he has a baby on his shoulder and another in my belly, she thought, rolling her eyes. She tied her dressing gown closed and cast a detection spell on the childrens' door before the left their room. Severus would be down in the dungeon making use of the Potions classrooms.

"You couldn't wait until a more normal hour for this?" she asked when she found him. He hadn't gone to the Potions classroom, but the small brewing room reserved for seventh year projects. "It's freezing down here, Sev."

"I wore shoes," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. She smirked and shrugged, conjuring herself a stool to sit on while she watched him work.

They were quiet for a long time. Severus moved from step to step, stirring and adding ingredients with little pauses between for counting or checking, and Hermione just watched him. He was very good at what he did. He looked a little bit ridiculous—dressing gown and sleep pants with his boots untied around his ankles—but there was no doubting his mastery of his task.

"I couldn't sleep," he said when there was a pause in the process. He turned to face her, putting a wayward curl behind her ear. "I figured I might as well come down here."

"You could've woken me."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're just as tired as I am."

"I don't like waking up to an empty bed," she said, mock-pouting.

"Don't try that," he said, eyes dancing with humor. "I was giving you a lie-in and you know it."

Hermione shrugged, smirking at his back when he had to return his attention to the potion.

"Are you almost finished?"

"Three—two—one…" He flicked his wand, turning off the burner beneath the cauldron, a tiny thing with gleaming silver sides and a pewter base. "It just needs to cool for a few minutes. It won't be long."

"And then: Jim-Bob."

"You keep that up and the children might hear you, and then I'll end up naming my son James," Severus said, pretending to shudder. He stepped in close and began running his fingers through her curls.

"James Robert Snape," Hermione said, shaking her head to get her hair behind her shoulders. "It does have a ring to it—"

Severus tugged on a hank of hair, not entirely gently. She grinned cheekily at him. He used his grip on her hair to tip her face up to his for a kiss.


"Really, Uncle," Draco said when they made their way back to the rooms. The boy was still damp from the shower. "Getting your kinks out while you're still in the castle? That's what you have a bedroom for, you know."

"That's quite enough out of you," Severus said, but he was glad Draco felt comfortable enough to rib them a bit. The Quidditch had done more for the boy that weeks of talking about things could ever have done.

"Good morning, Malfoy," Hermione said primly. She had love bites speckled across her neck and collar bones, just barely visible between her hair and dressing gown. Severus fought an odd desire to twist her hair up the way she did, holding it in place with a quill or something. He liked to see his marks on her. It was probably because he was a possessive bastard like that.

"Gra—er. Good morning."

"I think you'd better just call me Hermione. It hasn't been Granger in awhile, and 'Aunt' is entirely out of the question."

Draco looked horrified, likely because the only aunt he'd ever known was Bellatrix.

"Right."

"Speaking of aunts," Severus said, earning himself a wary look from his godson, "did you meet Andromeda Tonks yesterday?"

"The one with the Metamorphmagus baby?"

"Yes."

"I saw her. I didn't speak to her."

"She is your mother's sister as well. The Black family black sheep. Now, of course, she's all that's left of the Blacks apart from Narcissa."

"And I'm supposed to, what? Apologize for past grievances?"

"No. I just thought you ought to know that not all your family is in Azkaban."

"You aren't in Azkaban, Uncle."

That's so sweet, Hermione thought to him, handing him a cup of tea. He rolled his eyes at her.

\\

Later that afternoon, the loose Death Eaters made their sixth attack. It was more of a threat than an attack, of course—more glowing graffiti, another Dark Mark.

"We can't stay here," Severus said, glancing up at the ceiling of the Great Hall just like everybody else was doing. The Dark Mark had been easy enough to get rid of, but the words—"YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER"—had yet to fade, and any attempts the Aurors had made only made them glow brighter.

"They attacked the castle to get us to say that," Hermione said. She was holding Teddy so that Andromeda could eat dinner with both hands, and expertly flicked her hair behind her shoulders when the baby made a grab for it.

"I want to draw them out, make a spectacle of it, end it." He stabbed his roast more forcefully than necessary.

"We decided we were done fighting."

"It won't be so very long before there are students here, Hermione," he reminded her when he'd finished chewing. The food was very good—as it always was—but it barely registered. Hell, he'd barely paid attention to anything but the taunting words on the ceiling the whole meal. He certainly didn't know why Andromeda and the baby were in the building, nor the Weasley twins or Hestia Jones.

"The Aurors can handle it."

The Aurors can barely handle their own cocks.

That's rather sexist, don't you think?

Severus shoved his plate away, knocking it into the platter of boiled potatoes, which knocked his pumpkin juice over. The clank of it startled the baby, and he began to cry. Hermione gave him an annoyed look, handed him the crying thing, and took her wand out of her sleeve to clear the mess.

"Hush now," Severus murmured. "It wasn't that bad."

Her point was quite clear, of course. First off—and most obviously—his moment of petulance had made the baby cry, it was his job to fix it; and secondly, they had to think of the children. They couldn't run out and wave their arms and start a fight; if something happened to them, Bast, Sofia and Ellie could wind up orphaned like Teddy.

Or maybe she'd just wanted him to hold the baby while she cleaned up the mess. He was very good at over-thinking her motivations.

Teddy quieted when Severus started humming as he thought.

They couldn't move to any of the Prince houses. They'd briefly visited the family townhouse in London, discovering more similarities to Grimmauld Place before the Order had cleaned it than to the Malfoy family's London house. It had been layered with unpleasant things, the least of them being a few grouchy paintings and hexed doorframes. They couldn't bring the children to a place like that.

The next obvious thought was one of the Order safe houses. Unfortunately, a list of the houses had been turned over to the Wizengamot during the hearing, evidence against whichever Death Eater it had been to track a ward off Grimmauld Place using Dumbledore's—the Dark Lord's—wand. (It had been that system that had forced Hermione to camp, since the primary layer of protection had come from Dumbledore—it had just been lucky Jones and Diggle had been at Jones' country house with Potter's relatives).

There was the land at Spinner's End, now host to the charred remains of the house but that was easy enough to fix. It would be difficult to build anything in the Muggle neighborhood with the threat hanging over them, though.

There was nothing for it; they'd either have to make a point of looking at the rest of the Prince properties and hoping one of them would suit, or they'd have to rent something in a Muggle neighborhood and ward the hell out of it. When he turned to share the thought with Hermione, he found that she'd started on her pudding, a thoughtful look on her face, and most of the rest of the table was staring at them.

"What?" he snapped, patting Teddy's back when he squirmed a bit to protest the end of the humming. Small children always liked the feel of the humming when he held them close, the comfortable vibration of another voice.


"I need you to come with us tonight."

"What? Where?" That's a horrible idea; stay behind wards.

"Harry has it in his head that we should go down to the Three Broomsticks—"

"Absolutely not!"

"Yeah," Ron said, grabbing her arm like she might have been about to dash off and yell at Harry, "I know. That's why I said you should come along."

"Because I'm the party pooper?"

"The party what?"

"Nevermind."

"Right." He let go of her arm and ran his hands through his hair. "Anyway. You need to come with us. I think we'll end up in some Muggle pub or something; we should take him out, just…"

"Not the Three Broomsticks."

"Exactly."

She looked him over, wondering what he was playing at. She'd had all of three conversations with Ron since the Battle of Hogwarts. First, at the Burrow over brunch some morning when he'd pestered her for the full story of breaking into Gringotts. Second, at Hogwarts when he'd spent some time with Bast and asked her questions about her children. And finally, on the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts when he'd told her that he'd had a long talk with a representative from the Aurory about career goals.

And now they were back to managing Harry's impulses like it was fifth year all over again.

"You think he's trying to draw the Death Eaters out," Hermione guessed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Ron glanced away but nodded.

"He's feeling useless."

"Hasn't he done enough?"

"It's not like he's going to stop wanting to save the world just because You-Know—Voldemort's dead."

Hermione's lips twitched half a smile at his reflexive use of 'You-Know-Who,' but then frowned again. Ron was right, of course. She wasn't sure if that actually meant anything, though.

"He's going to join the Aurors too, isn't he?"

Ron shrugged, hesitated, then nodded. "I think so."

"At least he'll have some proper training, then. And you, too." She mock-scowled at him. "As if you are any better with the saving people thing."

"Hey, I came to talk to you about it before we ran off down to the Three Broomsticks!"

"Well at least you have some sense." She smiled at him.

\\

"'Neither can live while the other survives,'" Harry muttered, mostly seeming to be talking to his drink.

They'd talked him out of going to the Three Broomsticks, and Hermione had taken them Side-Along to a tiny pub in Edinburgh instead. It was a tiny place that poured out strong drinks to mask the terrible flavor of the food. It was the perfect place for the Chosen One to wax maudlin.

"I think we did it wrong," Harry said, looking balefully across at Hermione and Ron.

"What?" Ron asked, setting aside his empty pint glass and signaling for another.

"Killing him. I was the one the prophecy said would kill him. I didn't. So now his Death Eaters, his ideas, are still around and going after people and stuff." Harry looked from Ron to Hermione and then back down into his drink.

"You have the most ridiculous super hero complex I've ever encountered," Hermione told him, sipping her whiskey and cranberry, and shaking her head at him. "And I'm married to Severus Snape."

"What's Snape got to do with it?" Ron asked, but Harry talked over him.

"A what?"

"Super hero complex. A saving people thing."

"Oh."

She rolled her eyes. "Harry. It's not your fault." Telling him about how Dumbledore had nurtured this reaction since he was eleven wouldn't help anything, so she didn't. "You did fulfill your part of the prophecy, I think. You led the whole Horcrux escapade. You destroyed the first one and the last one."

"You got the last one. The snake."

"I meant the one in you. That was the trickiest one."

"And to think all I had to do was fall over."

"Mate, if it was that simple you would've destroyed it your first Quidditch game," Ron said. Harry looked affronted for a moment, then laughed.

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Why won't they bring me a bloody drink?" Ron asked, waving at the bartender again.

"The Notice-Me-Not," Hermione said, flicking her wand under the table to cancel the spell. "Wave at him again and talk football for a bit or something."

"I don't know a thing about football," Ron said, waving elaborately. The bartender nodded and grabbed a pint glass. "Finally."

"I never followed it," Harry said. "Neither did Dudley, actually. Big-D."

"That's a stupid nickname," Ron said, grabbing his pint with both hands when it arrived.

"Well. He was big, and his name starts with a 'D,'" Harry said, shrugging. He had a tall glass of Guinness and he took a drink, staring thoughtfully down into it again as he swallowed. "And he was never particularly bright, so maybe that was as much nickname as he could handle."

\\

Hours later, Hermione saw them safely back to the Burrow and then Flooed to Hogwarts. It had been a relatively quiet evening. A very normal evening. A trio of friends out for drinks, chatting, sorting out their thoughts on life. It wasn't two days later that Harry and Ron enrolled in training to be Aurors. They were splashed across the front page of the Prophet the day after that, and then disappeared off to train "in an undisclosed location"—as if everybody didn't know about the facility unofficially christened "Auror Academy" in Wales that had been churning out Aurors for centuries.

Luckily, Auror Academy would be a very stupid place for the remaining Death Eaters to attack. It was full of seasoned Aurors chosen to train up the new recruits, and new recruits eager to prove themselves.

It was also lucky that Harry wasn't allowed to leave Auror Academy during the work week. Number 13 Grimmauld Place was attacked, ransacked, the day after he enrolled. Nobody was killed—the Muggles were on vacation—but the message was as clear as if they'd left glowing letters behind.

She woke the following morning to find Severus lounging against the headboard next to her, glaring into the dimness.

"You have a plan," she said, because he would have been pacing if he'd still been on edge about what to do.

"I do."

"Well?"

He rolled over, moving so that he was lying next to her. He lit his wand tip between them so that they'd be able to see each other.

"Let's start looking at the Prince properties."

"Everybody knows about the Prince properties."

"But nobody knows which one we'll be at."

"There aren't that many."

"It will buy us time, though." He probably would've shrugged if it had been possible in that position. "You were right the other day: The Aurors will handle it, it will just take time. Meanwhile, I'd like to draw things away from Hogwarts. Enough has already happened here."

"Alright, then."

He kissed the tip of her nose and rolled out of bed. Just over an hour later, they were crossing the line of the wards on the largest of the Prince properties.

It went wrong before they even started.

The front doors were flanked by carved bowmen in recesses not quite deep enough to be called alcoves. They were beautiful carvings, men with Severus's cheekbones and thick beards wearing Anglo Saxon armor, sleek-looking longbows, and quivers ready on their shoulders.

"Oh, look at them," Hermione said as they walked up the short (slightly overgrown) path from the gate.

And then Severus grabbed her around the waist and they crashed to the side of the path. Severus rolled away and started swearing immediately. She looked around for what had made him hit the dirt, and saw the statues. They were no longer serene-looking guardians, but mean-looking warriors. Their bows were up and ready, one of them with an arrow knocked and the other reaching for his quiver. Hermione barely had time to bring up a Shield Charm when the statue loosed its arrow.

Severus kept swearing, now lying very still on his back next to her. He'd taken an arrow through the knee, which explained the statue already reaching for another arrow.

She dragged Severus along, deflecting arrows (the statues were slow to draw, but the arrows came deadly fast—misses buried themselves in the ground to the fletching, and one she deflected broke through a tree limb and sent it crashing into the messy grass), and Apparated them to the Edinburgh flat the moment she'd gotten them past the line of the wards. Hestia Jones, tasked with cleaning out the various safe houses, screamed bloody murder on their arrival.

"Who the fuck sets statues on anybody who walks onto the property?" Severus asked. She figured it was rhetorical and didn't answer, focusing on getting him onto the kitchen table with his leg propped up so she could look at the injury. "What the hell is wrong with—oh, fuck, don't touch it! Leave it be!"

"Severus, I can't 'leave it be,'" she admonished, throwing him a look before gently probing again. He groaned, but held still. "You can't have an arrow in your leg."

She broke off the fletched end of the arrow with a spell and drew it out of his knee. She had enough spells on the area that he wouldn't feel it so much, but his eyes widened with horror to see it.

"You still want to look at the Prince properties?" she asked him as she went about patching him up. He narrowed his eyes at her, pursed his lips, and didn't say anything.