Hermione gazed intently at the brown mixture boiling in the copper cauldron. The colour of the base was way too far from the pale blue potion that should have been the result of her hard work.
Severus sat nearby and pretended to be completely absorbed in checking his sixth-year students' tests. He left poisonous red marks in the margins, he muttered curses under his breath, in a word, he depicted an act of violent activity. In fact, Snape was watching Hermione, waiting for her to finish fooling herself and start a conversation that had been tormenting her for a long time and open up to him.
He knew perfectly well that his wife would not be able to stay in silence and solve riddles on her own, therefore he was not going to run after her with a cup of chamomile tea and a handkerchief. After all, he was married to Hermione Granger, a force of nature, the ministry's waking nightmare, and the beloved teacher of all the Hogwarts children.
Hermione, as if overhearing his thoughts, counted the required thirteen beats of the metronome, stirred the base for the potion one more time, glanced at the purple color that the slurry in her cauldron immediately turned into, and annoyedly declared her project a failure.
"Enough. I give up! Let's go have a cup of tea!"
Severus raised an eyebrow, glanced at his wife, and shrugged.
"We're going to collect moonflowers, they are just in bloom."
"But it's almost midnight!"
"That's the point: the midnight nectar of these flowers has healing properties, and haven't you been working on a healing potion for three weeks already?"
Hermione pretended to be passionate about cleaning her workplace. Snape was frankly amused as he watched her move the bottles, mortars, and vials from place to place.
"I thought you'd never ask, Slytherin!"
"Dear, from your lips it sounds like an exquisite compliment, meanwhile, if you have forgotten, then I dare to remind you that I have been a spy for more than two decades, which is why I notice far more things than I would like to openly admit."
Hermione blew off her curls from her forehead, tied her hair into a ponytail, took a warm jacket from the hanger, and stood in front of her husband:
"Well, are you going or not?"
Snape smiled broadly, listening to her cursing the Slytherins in an undertone, and followed her out.
At the edge of the forest, Severus caught up with Hermione, who was quickly sweeping away from him into the fragrant distance and took her hand.
"Where are you running away so swiftly?"
"For flowers, as you have said..."
"I also have told you that you have been spoiling my stocks of ingredients for a week. You've been writing and rewriting recipes, for some reason, unknown to me, you even wrote a letter to Viktor Krum's wife, Maria, and you didn't like her response. Have I mentioned everything?"
Hermione sighed and buried her forehead against her husband's chest.
"I'm failing, Severus. I'm failing everything!"
"Come on, let's sit down under that tree, and you will tell me everything. And I'm not talking about the three months overdue newt eyes that you bought from some swindler in Diagon Alley. It was their fault that your entire base for a healing potion is completely ruined now."
"You knew everything and yet you decided to remain silent!" Hermione jabbed her fist in his shoulder. He grabbed her wrist and kissed her open palm.
"I knew that sooner or later you would figure it out for yourself."
"Don't you even feel sorry for the melted cauldrons?"
"You would never be able to beat Longbottom's record, dear. I do not care about my cauldrons. So what's with the Pristine Memories potion?"
Hermione just threw up her hands in annoyance.
"You! You... Slytherin!"
"And this is news," Snape shrugged.
In fact, his indifference was only a skillfully constructed play-pretend. Lupin, with his wolfish instinct, began to notice the oddities in Snape's behavior, a couple of times he even stuttered something about his desire to return to the past and save his own deceased wife. Black brought up a conversation about a memory recovery potion, which he would gladly apply to his still-not-found brother. Snape did not like the sagacity of his former enemies at all. Hermione hadn't noticed his dismay yet. She walked to the tree and sank to the grass, leaning her head on the trunk.
"It's not about my parents, as you probably think. Rather, it is not only about them."
"What are you afraid of, Hermione? Tell me. That they will hate you?"
"I don't know, Severus," Hermione answered honestly and ran a hand through her tousled hair. "I'm sure they won't hate me if I try to restore their memory. My parents are sensible enough people to understand the depth of the danger that hung over them all those years ago. And you confirmed that they were on the list of Muggles to be attacked by the Death Eaters."
"What is it then?"
"I didn't live up to their expectations, you know? I did not become the Minister of Magic, I didn't graduate from a Muggle university something like the Sorbonne, and did not receive a Ph.D. in chemistry. You'd think I'd make a decent chemist! I keep trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and I keep failing."
"To add the insult to injury, you became the wife of the man almost two decades older than you and you have come under the influence of the Marriage Law. Nothing to say, a dazzling career!"
"Severus, stop it! I'm not going to stroke your ego now! No one forced me to marry you. I could have just left Britain and go looking for a better life somewhere in the States. You know perfectly well that I do not care about our age difference and that I love you no matter your nasty personality."
"Sometimes it seems to me that you are still mired in illusions, and in them I exist somewhere in-between Mr. Darcy and Ebenezer Scrooge," Severus grumbled, lifting her chin to look her into eyes. She just huffed at him.
"I don't want to rush headfirst into the saving mission of my parents, for now, we all suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in one way or another, and we need time."
"But, nevertheless, you started to invent this potion. What for?"
"For several reasons. Fred Weasley is still in a coma, the Healers are helpless. Neville's parents could also try to use some help. Also, what if Sirius is able to find Regulus? And simply, such a potion has a lot of uses. Just imagine, we can help all the patients of St. Mungo, we will revolutionize the field of magical medicine. Perhaps we can even come up with something akin to magical psychotherapy, what do you think?"
"You still need the approval of this world," Severus concluded after listening to his wife.
"I don't know anymore. I need to see that I haven't completely lost."
"What are you saying? You are Hermione Snape! You are the brightest witch of your generation! And you are my wife. I, just like you, will not tolerate semitones."
Hermione smiled.
"I want you to be proud of me. And so that you do not regret your decision to marry me."
"Hermione," Snape began cautiously, "the last thing you should doubt is my feelings. And even more so to think that I can regret marrying you. I just want you to believe in yourself. You're doing our Slytherin strategy, the children are looking for your approval."
Hermione's eyes lit up with enthusiasm again.
"Listen, after I took them to the cinema for some superhero film, Professor Flitwick and I seriously discussed the idea of a magical cinema!"
"And what did the children say when they saw Batman?"
"That he looked like you," Hermione admitted looking down.
"Mr. Darcy, Scrooge, and now Batman. I grew up in my own eyes."
"Which is why I just need to bring Fred back into consciousness!" Hermione remarked casually.
"To tell him about superheroes?"
"No, to convince him to help George with the magical cinema! The more we adapt Muggle ideas for magical needs, the more pureblood wizards will understand the very essence of the Muggle world. I'm sure they will have a lot in common."
"Of course, for example, nuclear weapons, which are capable of destroying the entire Earth without any magic."
"This is where Sirius, Narcissa, Draco, and the new Alliance will come to the stage. It is necessary to teach children the essence of both worlds, but do not forget, at the same time, to instill in them harmony, understanding of the basic doctrines and ideas of the Statute of Secrecy."
"So, wife, why do you need the approval of the wizarding world, if you are going to turn it upside down with your progressive ideas anyway?"
"Let them approve of me, and they can go hang themselves after that!"
"Darling, when will you understand your value without involving third parties in these conclusions?"
"Probably when I can be like everyone else," Hermione exclaimed hotly.
"You have never been like everyone else, why do you need it now?" Severus wondered.
"What's the use of all my achievements if I can't even give birth to a child, like a decent witch and a decent wife?"
Snape was speechless for a moment, and then - with a familiar gesture, he opened his arms to his wife. Of course, all her despair, self-doubt, depression, and endless projects were the root of her insane desire to become a mother, to become needed by a little creature who would be able to embody her whole newfound world. Severus understood Hermione perfectly. After all, he, despite all his past sins and terrible deeds, sometimes really wanted to prove to himself that even someone like him was still capable of creating something pure and beautiful, something innocent like a child. He also wanted to love, educate and pass on his knowledge to his son or daughter, to protect them from everything bad and give them the life that he and Hermione were deprived of.
"We can handle it, do you hear me? I swear to you, we can handle this test too. Me and you. Together."
"Don't leave me, Severus. Even if we don't succeed, just don't leave alone," Hermione whispered absently, pouring tears into his shirt.
"Stop talking nonsense, witch. And we will succeed."