A/N: If you guys are all very good readers and stay in Santa's good books (and review!), I'll update once a day until Christmas.

Anti-Litigation Charm: I do not own Harry Potter.

Please review! ;)

Everyone was at the Burrow. Hermione had unfortunately missed the celebration in Sirius's honor, as she had been in the middle of breaking a curse and killing a part of Voldemort's fetid soul during that particularly happy hour, but she was there now, striding up the lane in time to see Sirius wave his wand at Fred Weasley, only to have it let out a loud squawk and turn into a rubber chicken. Buckbeak, who was standing just a few feet away, shook his head and leaned forward to inspect it, as though hoping it might be real.

"Fred!" she said, laughing at Sirius's astonished expression. "What did you do with his wand?"

"Bugger me if I know," Fred grinned. His eyes flickered over Hermione's face for a moment, and she knew he was still getting used to the abrupt change—as least, in how he knew her— but he still took her arrival in stride.

"They challenged me to a friendly duel," Sirius grumbled, dangling the rubber chicken over his head. Deciding it was still worth a taste, the hippogriff snapped it up, and then spat it out almost immediately. "Planned this out, didn't you?"

Without looking the least bit sheepish, George Weasley returned Sirius's newly-recovered wand to him. The twins gave Sirius a mock salute, and then retreated to the table to snag more of Molly's cooking, no doubt to take back to their flat with them.

"Where've you been?" Sirius asked, keeping his voice low as Hermione greeted him with a hug. "Everyone missed you."

"With Dumbledore," Hermione said cryptically, releasing him. She took a moment to bow to the hippogriff, and once Buckbeak returned the favor, began to rub his beak affectionately. "Hello, handsome."

Buckbeak preened.

"Ah," Sirius said, as though that explained it. He glanced over his shoulder, and then added, "I went to visit Selenius, to let him know. He asked if this meant I could live at Tine Cottage permanently, now that I'm not a wanted man."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "It's much nicer than Grimmauld Place, and the Headmaster isn't using it for anything else. I don't see why you couldn't."

"That would mean Selenius would move in there, too," Sirius reminded her.

"That's fine," Hermione agreed, thinking that it would be both a quiet and protected place for her son to stay during the holidays. She had to think of him in terms of school now, since he was a student. "Did he get his school things today? I can't remember if Severus said he was going to take him tomorrow or not."

"Snape took him earlier," Sirius said, and for once, he was able to say her husband's name without sounding as though he would rather choke on it. "His school things are in his room, he won't have to pack for a couple weeks."

Hermione grinned, and then the smile slid off her face. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you," she said, looking down instead at Buckbeak's clawed front legs. The hippogriff leaned into her touch, and if he were a cat, Hermione would have suspected he would be purring. "We can't put Selenius down as… well, we're still trying to hide him from the Dark Lord—but we can't keep him out of school, and—"

"What are you trying to ask?" Sirius said, attempting to cut the chase.

Hermione breathed in deeply. "We want to ask if you'll pretend Selenius is yours. Kingsley's offered to sneak in and change the records, so that he's listed under your name, with the mother unknown. I just wanted to ask you first." She scratched Buckbeak's neck. "You and Selenius look a lot alike. Enough that you could pass for his father, anyway. We want him to go to school, but we don't want the Dark Lord to know that he's our son." She grimaced. "Not to mention that aside from the issue of his mother being a missing woman twenty years older than she should be, he'd be mercilessly taunted for having Severus as a father."

"He'll still get a lot of attention, if he claims to be my son," Sirius pointed out. He wasn't say no, per se, just stating facts. "Less, I'll admit, but probably manageable."

"We'll come up with a story for him to tell," Hermione said slowly. "Fake background, childhood, the works. It won't be easy, mind, but you're the best choice—and he really looks up to you," she added, smiling, "so I think he'd consider it, well, an honor I suppose."

She could tell this warmed Sirius immensely. Selenius would always be Severus's son, and there was no denying the bond between the two—but Selenius's childhood had been constantly disrupted, and Severus in particular had very little opportunity to spend time alone with his son. Sirius and Remus had both stepped in to help care for him when his parents couldn't, and if nothing else, Sirius treated Selenius the same way she suspected he would have treated Harry if he had gotten he opportunity to raise him himself.

"Tell Kingsley to go ahead and change the records," Sirius said. "It might raise questions about where I found the time to father a child while in Azkaban," he added, grinning self-deprecatingly, "but if it'll protect Selenius, of course I'll do it."

Hermione let a pent-up sigh of gratitude and relief escape her. "Thank you."

"It might mean admitting I wasn't in Azkaban for twelve years," Sirius said slowly, "but that's Fudge's hot water, not mine."

"True. You've been given a full pardon, after all." She patted Buckbeak's head one more time, and then pulled her hand away. "He's been getting out more, hasn't he?"

"This is the first time he's seen daylight in months," Sirius admitted, "but at Tine Cottage, he'll be allowed outside. I'm sure he's looking forward to it."

Hermione nodded, and then turned to survey the table in the distance, where people were still laughing and talking, even if they were no longer eating—the way Harry was holding his stomach, she though perhaps some of them might have eaten too much. Remus was talking to Arthur, and something suddenly occurred to her.

"Who's staying with Selenius?"

"Snape's there," Sirius said wryly, though there was a slight frown to his lips. "He said he didn't care to celebrate my pardon, and told Remus to get out."

"I think that's his way of getting time alone to spend with Selenius," Hermione told him quietly. "Don't begrudge him for it."

Sirius hesitated, and Hermione could tell he was carefully considering his next words. She pre-empted him first.

"They don't get a lot of time together, especially with teaching and the Dark Lord thrown into the mix," Hermione said, her voice so low that Buckbeak actually lifted his head to listen better. "Severus might not see Selenius often, but it's not because he doesn't want to be a father to him."

Sirius rubbed his temples. "I have mixed feelings on the matter," he finally admitted.

If it had been anyone else, Hermione would have told them to bugger off. Her son's relationship with his father was no one else's business, and few people knew or were close enough to either of them to have a worthwhile opinion on them. But Sirius practically raised Selenius when Severus wasn't around, and even refrained from speaking badly about the latter within his son's earshot, and in Hermione's mind, that counted for a lot. He deserved to have his say.

"It's not that Snape doesn't care for him," Sirius said slowly, seemingly chewing on his words as he said them. "Because if there's one thing he can't hide, it's the fact that he loves his son." This felt like a very painful admission, coming from him, but he continued. "But I spend a little over half the year doing the things a father should—and he's more absent than both of my parents put together, and that's saying something."

Hermione knew little about Sirius's childhood, but the gist of it seemed to be that his parents had considered raising him and his brother to be a chore for the house elves, particularly in their pre-Hogwarts years. They hadn't had the patience to raise children even though they wanted them, if only to continue the Black family name.

She also understood what Sirius was trying to say.

"If Severus had a choice, he would be there to see all of Selenius growing up," Hermione whispered. "He wouldn't just be there when it's easy, when Selenius is in a good mood, and has all his homework done and something interesting to talk about. He would be a part of it, every step of the way. If I had a choice, I'd do the same."

Sirius nodded. "I'm not criticizing the decisions you've made," he stated. "You've made them out of necessity—and when I see you with Selenius, I see you trying to be everything you can for him, all at once, with what little time you have. And—yes—Snape does the same," he admitted bitterly, and it seemed to take all of his self-control to be this forthright, as though he were dragging this out of himself, bit by bit. "And yet—it's not the same."

Hermione took Sirius's hand in hers, and squeezed it. "When this war's finally over, Severus and I will have the chance to be the parents to Selenius that we always wanted to be," she whispered, "but we won't lock you out. You and Remus have been so good to him—you're practically his godparents, for all that I never formally asked you to be. Like it or not, you are a part of Selenius's family now, if not ours."

Gratitude and relief made itself apparent on Sirius's face, and Hermione felt glad that she finally seemed to have straightened out—perhaps even assuaged—some of Sirius's concerns. It was difficult for the Marauder to be close to the son of a man who he had an exceptionally antagonistic relationship with, and it certainly muddled up and made the situation more confusing than it had any right to be, but it didn't change how Hermione saw things.

Sirius gave the hippogriff a friendly pat on his fearsome beak. "Molly's offered to let me stay at the Burrow tonight, so that I don't have to Apparate with Buckbeak." He laughed. "He doesn't like it. We'll fly to Tine Cottage tomorrow."

Hermione understood. Severus was at Tine Cottage, and Sirius was giving him more time.

She pulled him into a hug. "Thank you, Sirius."

~o~O~o~

Two weeks passed by with surprising quickness. Sirius had moved to Tine Cottage, though he often went flying along the shore of the rocky beach with Buckbeak during the days that Severus visited—which became quite often. It was hardly an issue of whether he could stand to be in the same room as his schoolboy nemesis, but rather that he seemed to have taken Hermione's words to heart, and grudgingly didn't intrude. Severus never made any sort of remark, but Hermione knew that this hadn't escaped him.

Sometimes, she went along. Sometimes, Sirius would stay if she was there, if only so that he could terrify her by teaching Selenius how to fly. The first lesson was one of the few times Hermione had ever seen Sirius and Severus on the same side of anything, even if they had different methods of going about it.

"I don't care how safe Buckbeak is!" Hermione had protested. Of course he was safe—Selenius would never be stupid enough to insult the giant beast, and she herself had ridden him before. But still, Buckbeak was an intelligent, sometimes unpredictable animal, and Hermione had her legitimate concerns. "I don't care if Harry's ridden him!"

"I've ridden him loads of times by now," Sirius pointed out, crossing his arms. "He might have been a little rusty in the beginning—"

"I don't—" Hermione broke off when she saw Sirius's eyes snap to the space behind her, and she wheeled around in time to see Severus lifting their son onto the hippogriff's back. She let out a shriek. "Severus!"

The next moment, her husband had swung up onto Buckbeak, just behind Selenius, and leaned forward to grab the space just in front of his wings. He smirked at her, that trouble-promising smirk that had always preceded any form of trouble that he had ever dragged her into. Selenius was grinning like Hermione had never seen before, and he waved at her.

And then they were off. Buckbeak lunged forward, heading straight for the cliff that separated them from the beach below, and spread his wings, and took to the air. Hermione ran after them, skidding to a stop at the rocky ledge to watch, covering her mouth with her hands. Sirius was roaring with laughter.

When they finally landed again, Hermione had buried her face in her palms. She didn't see them dismount, but Selenius was whooping with delight, and then she saw him, when Severus took her hands in his and pulled them away from her face. His expression was impassive, but that was surely for show, because she knew that deep down, in those black eyes of his, he must be just as elated as Selenius.

"It was fine."

And then he kissed her cheek, leading her away before she could unleash a tirade onto him. Chew him out if she must, but it would wait until they got home. Regardless, he still got his way—Selenius was free to ride Buckbeak.

Harry continued to stay at the Burrow, protected, well-fed, and happy. Hermione hardly had a free moment, given she was trying to spend time with her son between Order meetings and other obligations, but she certainly found time to visit her godson at the Burrow. Their conversation was occasionally awkward, usually when Harry offhandedly mentioned something from the Prophet or asked about the Order, and on the even rarer occasions that the subject of Severus came up. And there were moments when he would look at her oddly, trying to connect the girl he knew with the woman she had seemingly transformed into overnight—she couldn't begrudge him that, it was a bit mind-boggling.

But for the most part, the three of them were back together again, though it was nothing like what it used to be. Hermione tried to spend time with them, and though they had plenty to talk about, conversations were often stilted. Things did improve, however. A week before Harry's birthday, Hermione stopped by the Burrow, and she, Harry, and Ron sat around in the attic bedroom, and the subject of the upcoming school year finally found a way into the conversation.

"Dumbledore told me he's giving me private lessons this year," Harry said. From the look on Ron's face, Hermione suspected Harry had already told him. She merely raised an eyebrow at him, and he elaborated, "I don't know on what, really. But it sounds interesting, doesn't it? Like he's finally taking me seriously."

Hermione had to agree. She hadn't yet told them that she would be going back to teaching this year—or anyone else for that matter, only Severus knew—but she thought that now might be a good time to drop that particular bombshell.

"I'll be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year."

Hermione was glad she hadn't done this at breakfast—if either of them had been eating, she was certain they would have choked.

"I taught it for years, before I stopped," she reminded them. "I'll just be picking up where I left off."

"But—but the jinx," Ron spluttered.

"I've gotten around the jinx before. I'll do it again."

"Bloody hell," Ron muttered. And then he suddenly groaned, as a second realization struck him. "You'll be giving out homework!"

"And grading it, too," Hermione said cheerfully.

"So does that mean we call you Professor Granger or Professor Snape?" Ron asked, fiddling with a bag of owl treats that refused to open.

"Professor Granger," Hermione said seriously. "I think a second 'Professor Snape' might be a bit too much for them."

Harry coughed loudly into his hand, and Ron sniggered. But then they both turned somber.

"What happens when they ask if you're related to Hermione Granger?" Ron pointed out reasonably. "I mean, same last name, and you do look alike…"

"Let them wonder," Hermione said, with a mischievous smile.

She was twenty years older now. Age and experience had done a number on her appearance and mannerisms. No one would mistake her for Hermione Granger unless they tried very hard to see it.

Hermione had to color herself very surprised when Fleur arrived the next day, accompanied by Bill—and their wedding engagement was announced. It seemed very sudden to Hermione, but then she supposed that she hadn't really been paying attention to either of them, and she hardly had an opinion anyway. Molly seemed very flustered by this, and while she did her best to make Fleur feel welcome, Hermione could see that she had some misgivings.

Hermione was understandably a bit too distracted by the war to give this much consideration. The Prophet was loudly reporting the Ministry's activities, and it seemed that Scrimgeour had started putting words to action. Just a few names were mentioned, but with them, Hermione knew that at least a dozen names must be attached to them, and that Scrimgeour was quickly and quietly trying to roll in the Dark Lord's networks within the Ministry. To her delight, Umbridge was one of the first to be officially charged, and with the rather serious—but very real—offense of attempting to displace Muggleborn and halfblood employees with direct muggle parentage within the Ministry with Pureblood-supremacy supporters. It crossed a fine line between regular hiring and firing procedure, and an attempt to slowly rid the Ministry of Muggle-borns. Clearly, Scrimgeour was taking this as seriously as Hermione had hoped.

"I'm glad Scrimgeour's doing something," Arthur remarked one morning, as he set the paper down. "They don't print it in the Prophet, of course, Scrimgeour doesn't want too much to get out—"

"That's a bit surprising, seeing how badly he wants the Ministry to look like it's doing something," Bill remarked.

Molly shushed him, but it was more because she wanted to hear what her husband had to say. Very little credible information about the Ministry was bandied about, and she was always concerned about the state it was in. "Go on, Arthur."

"Bill has a point, but as I was saying," Arthur said placidly, attempting to keep Molly's frayed nerves at bay, "Scrimgeour doesn't want You-Know-Who's networks to realize that this isn't just random chance on their part. Once he's got this sorted, then I'm sure he'll give the Prophet enough fodder to distract them with."

"Distract them from what?" Ron asked, through a mouthful of bacon pancakes.

"Scrimgeour's making some changes," Arthur said. "Promotions here and there, shuffling people to other spots to make them more useful—he's strategizing," he added. "And from what I heard, he cleaned out the Auror department first so that he can assign them to interview applicants for other departments. He's being ruthless—Shacklebolt said they have license to use Veritserum, without question."

"I don't know if I agree with that, but at least he's not sticking his head in the sand like Fudge," Bill said, frowning.

"Applicants either accept the Veritaserum, or are automatically turned away," Arthur said heavily. "Scrimgeour figures that unless you have something to hide, you won't refuse. And they're tested for the antidote beforehand."

"Where'd he get his information from?" Tonks asked. "I've been wondering that for a while now."

Hermione carefully rested her chin on her hands, not saying a word.

"He's being heavy-handed, I agree," Remus said, helping himself to another serving of pancakes, "but he's not making false arrests and throwing people in jail without trial, which is what I was most worried might happen. As for where he got his information," he said, lifting up his fork and pointing it at Hermione, who tried to look perfectly innocent, "I suggest you ask the Professor over there."

Hermione couldn't keep her face straight any longer, and broke into a grin. "How did you know it was me?"

"Because you went to have a word with Scrimgeour the same day Sirius was pardoned," Remus said matter-of-factly as he cut his pancakes. "I know you too well, Hermione."

Ron's half-mashed food nearly fell out of his mouth at this, and Harry had to thump him on the back a few times before he pulled himself together.

"Besides, you were being much too quiet over there," Remus noted, with a half-smile. "I knew something was up."

"But why would the Minister listen to her?" Harry asked, as Ron swallowed down a glass of pumpkin juice, eyes still watering from choking. "Dumbledore said he didn't want any of his advice, just wanted to use me as a mascot, and now he's gone and done exactly—"

"I don't doubt Dumbledore's right about Scrimgeour not wanting advice from him," Remus interrupted, "but Hermione's always been rather persuasive."

Everyone turned to look at him. Remus cleared his throat.

"She did, after all, talk Fudge into letting Sirius walk out of Azkaban," he added.

Hermione let out a dark sort of chuckle. "One of my finer moments, I'll admit."

"Well, I hope you didn't have to threaten him to do this," Arthur said diplomatically, returning to his paper. "I know you did with Fudge a few times, but Scrimgeour's a different sort of beast."

"No, I didn't threaten him," Hermione said, ignoring the astonished looks on Harry and the younger Weasleys' faces. Ginny looked as though she had forgotten she had food in her mouth, and was staring at her, wide-eyed. "I won't tell you how I did it. The point is that I managed to get a few necessary things done that day, and I'm glad things seem to be resolving themselves on that front."

"You seem to get away with a lot," Ron said weakly, finally setting his empty glass down.

"She does," Arthur casually agreed.

"I'm used to it," Hermione said cheerfully, reaching over to Remus's plate and stabbing a few pancake slices for herself. "My impertinence serves me well."

~o~O~o~

Owls arrived shortly, bearing exam scores. Ron let out a kind of whoop as he read his results and showed them to Molly, who seemed to take the good scores as something worth celebrating. Harry was grinning as he read through his own results, but then she watched his smile seem to melt away as his eyes finally flicked back to one, single score.

"What's wrong?" Hermione's curiosity won over, and she leaned over to take a look.

"I… you weren't here for the career meetings with our Head of House," Harry began with a mutter. "I told Professor McGonagall I wanted to be an Auror."

He pressed the parchment closer for her to read.

"Snape doesn't accept anything less than an 'O'," Harry said quietly.

Hermione was torn, as she took the parchment and read through the rest of his grades. Being an Auror required top marks, and Severus was very stringent about who he let into the class. Hermione chewed her lower lip, thinking. She couldn't just go to her husband and ask him to make an exception. It didn't work like that. He either accepted all students who made an Exceeds Expectations or higher—of which Harry would be a part of—or only allowed students who made an Outstanding, which had been his modus operandi for the past twenty years.

Or…

"I could tutor you," she offered quietly.

"I—what?" Harry asked, not quite believing his ears.

"You've got two months before school starts," she said. "You could re-take the exam—the practical portion of it, anyway—and see if a second score will bring you up to an 'O'."

"Can I—is that possible?" Harry asked, and Hermione saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

She grimaced. It wasn't a question of possibility, but of whether the teacher would offer it. Pomona and Filius had offered it a rare few times while she was teaching, and there had been a student in her third year as a professor who had done abysmally enough to require it. It was simply that Harry generally wasn't the sort of student who needed it, and because he had passed the class with fairly high marks—higher than just an 'Acceptable', anyway—there was little incentive for the Ministry to go through the trouble of arranging a private testing. Particularly given that they didn't want to ask the Ministry for special favors on Harry's part.

"Write Professor Snape a letter," Hermione said at last. "If he says yes, we'll go from there."

Severus decided who to let into his class. If he was willing to test Harry himself, and Harry scored sufficiently high enough, that would be the key to Harry's acceptance.

"I'll bet he says no," Harry muttered under his breath, but left the room, no doubt to look for Hedwig.

When Hermione saw Severus later, when she went to pay Spinner's End a visit, it was to find him poring over not one but two letters, yet, when she peered over his shoulder to have a look, she found that they were rather distinctly alike, despite asking two separate things.

"Narcissa wants to know if I'll lower the grade requirement for my NEWT-level Potions classes," Severus said indifferently, before she could ask. "Draco managed an 'Exceeds Expectations'—which is rather remarkable, given I've never been at all certain he actually pays much attention in class."

"And Harry?" Hermione questioned.

Severus let out a huff of annoyance, and then with a sweep of his hands, tossed both letters into the fireplace. "It doesn't matter now. I can't refuse Narcissa, when I've spent my entire teaching career making exceptions for Draco." She saw him grit his teeth. Under normal circumstances—no, under any other circumstances—he would never have considered lowering the grade. "I'll have to lower the required grade."

"So, Harry won't have to spend the summer studying remedial potions?" Hermione prodded.

"No," Severus snapped. "Though it would certainly make me feel better about letting him into my classroom."

Hermione moved to sit next to him on the couch. "It won't be too bad. I think he's finally starting to get serious about what he wants to do—and being an Auror is hard work."

"I couldn't care less," Severus muttered. He glanced back at the fire, where the remains of the letters were crumbling into ash, and then asked, "What's your cut-off grade?"

"For NEWT-level?"

He sneered. "What else?"

She jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. "Don't get snarky with me, Severus." She paused. "I seriously considered raising it to an 'O', but then I remembered who they had last year, and decided to give them some slack, just a bit." She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I'll only ask for an Exceeds Expectations this year, while I have a chance to whip the rising fifth-years into shape."

He let out a snort. "At least you haven't gone completely soft."

"You like soft." She snuggled against him, and he finally relented with a sigh, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

"That I do." He nuzzled her cheek, but said nothing else.

Two days later, a rather cranky-looking school owl flew through the window of the Burrow and half-landed, half-skidded through the contents of the dinner table to drop a single, small folded piece of parchment at Harry's plate. Everyone gave everyone else a dubious look, and then Harry finally unfurled it.

"What did Professor Snape say, dear?" Molly asked.

Harry took a moment to read the note, and then handed it to Hermione, his face crestfallen.

It simply read: No, Potter.

"Well, that's just typical," Hermione said, flicking the note back to Harry.

Ron's spoon thunked to the table.

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's decided to lower the grade requirement for sixth-year potions," she said, spooning what was left of the mashed potatoes onto her plate. "But naturally, being the difficult git that he is, he couldn't simply tell Harry that, no, he does not need to retake his Potions exam."

Bill was covering his mouth with his hand, as though that might cover his laughter. Ginny was snorting into her plate. Harry read the note one more time, as though to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, and then held it up.

"Where, in all of this, does it say that?"

"Between the lines, of course," Hermione quipped.

"Hermione," Remus said wearily.

"Certain circumstances forced him to change the required Potions grade," Hermione clarified cagily, offering the irritated owl a spoonful of mashed potato before waving it away. It nicked a slice of smoked salmon from Ron's plate, and then took off, knocking over Remus's goblet as he passed. Bill hurriedly stood up to spell the table clean again. "Surprisingly, it had absolutely nothing to do with Harry. If you ever find yourself in a death-match duel with Narcissa Malfoy, do be sure to thank her for inadvertently assuring your placement in Severus's sixth-year Potions class."

Ron was the first to get it, and sniggered. "Malfoy didn't pass?"

"He got the same grade Harry did, which wasn't enough to admit him," Hermione said. "The discussion of confidential student information is now closed. Eggnog, anyone?"

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-Anubis