"You need me to do what?"
"Since I'm leaving on a journey, I got the sudden idea you'd like to join me," Hermione said.
"I don't understand why you need to go anyplace." Severus snorted. "As you suggested, you aren't the sole human being in the world that can be a Keyholder."
"There's no evidence they're not Muggles." Hermione pointed out. "They haven't come across anymore."
"How hard have they been looking?" Severus snapped. "I doubt anyone's looked at all."
"I'm not giving up the Shard," Hermione said. "No matter who they come up with. It was passed to me, it's mine."
Severus wiped his face with his hand as if he were exhausted. She was apologetic for upsetting him, but this was necessary.
"And I have to take part in the Brotherhood to keep an eye on you?" Severus asked with a groan. "Mother will be over the moon."
"My parents will be more supportive if you're going," Hermione said.
"You understand that you won?" Severus asked.
"Yes."
He drew her onto his knee. "Ah, much better."
"I bet." She laughed.
He laid his head on her breasts and she put an arm around him. He sighed and Hermione held him. She had been through so much, and he so much more.
She wondered if it was reasonable to retire at twenty. Run off with Luna and follow whatever she was attempting to find evidence of this week.
0
"You are very handsome!"
Severus groaned to himself as his mother ran her fingers over his new robes for the Brotherhood, reaching up to give him a pat on his tall black hat. Hermione giggled and Jacob laughed at Severus' helpless appearance.
Pieter came through the fireplace at the Snape Estate and looked upon in the sight before him. "We got you, Severus!"
"I demand that I get access to the potions journals in trade for my cooperation," Severus grumbled as his mother picked a scrap of lint off his collar.
"Talk to Nicolai. He takes care of that." Pieter's smile broadened as he looked his cousin over. "The robes fit you well."
"Thank you," said Severus in a vexed tone.
"And soon we have lunch!" Severus' mother called. "Everybody on the rear veranda!"
A rousing cheer went up as they broke into the light of day. The Snapes and the Titovs were there, along with Yuri and his daughter, and various faces Hermione didn't recognize. They swarmed along the sides of a great dining table piled with Russian and British food, some of them dishes Hermione had never seen before.
Severus sat at the end of the table with Pieter on his right and Hermione on his left, Jacob sitting near Hermione, and a saved spot for Anastasia near Pieter. They were loading up their plates when Misha ran up with a girl with abundant flaxen hair that had been sitting near Yuri.
"I think the two troublemakers have run into each other." Jacob commented.
"We need your hats." Svetlana was more eloquent in English than Misha was, and far more aggressive.
"What for?" Pieter asked them.
"They bet us we wouldn't be able to wear them at lunch." Misha gestured to the table children assembled at.
"And what do you get if you win this game?" asked Severus.
"The bowl of custard and strawberry gelatin," said Svetlana.
"The entire bowl?" Hermione glanced at the bowl on their end of the table. It was the size of a punch bowl and was decked out with colorful fruit.
"You don't need the entire bowl," Pieter told them. Their faces fell with disappointment. "Bring it back here to share with us!"
The children cheered as they picked up the tall hats from Pieter and Severus and ran back to their table, stumbling as the hats slipped over their faces.
"They're indestructible," Pieter assured everybody.
They dined together and basked in the sunlight. Hermione suspected the warmth surrounding the veranda was unnatural, but the sky was bright, and the flowers still clung to their petals.
She relaxed for the first time in weeks and savored the taste of her food. A hand fell on her knee under the table, and she looked up to see Severus smile at her.
She rolled her eyes at him, but didn't shake him off and enjoyed his touch.
"-of course when the grandchildren come things will be different." Anastasia's statement rang out over the diners from the other end of the lengthy table. She was placing a salad in front of Yuri and stealing looks at Severus and Hermione.
Hermione stifled a giggle as Severus slapped his brow in annoyance.
"Wife, you stop that this instant and sit with us!" Jacob bellowed at her.
She waved off an old woman in a large white hat and took her appointed place. "I was only saying to the cousins—"
"Yes, we heard you," Jacob sighed. "Less talking, more eating."
She sniffed at him before studying at the table around her and serving herself. "I'm just saying it would be nice to hear the pitter-patter of feet around the house again."
"The potions that keep you young make all of you young," Hermione said in a careless tone that made Severus glance at her.
"Yes, we will get to play with them!" Anastasia said absentmindedly.
Realization dawned on Severus, and Jacob choked.
"I mean, your body is convinced you're a young woman. Why don't you have more of your own?" Hermione asked pleasantly.
Anastasia dropped her serving spoon, food splattering over the tablecloth. Jacob's choking turned to amusement. Severus looked dismayed.
"We should!" Jacob exclaimed. Anastasia shot him a withering look, but he laughed harder. "We could make a dozen more!"
"Close your mouth!" Anastasia snapped at him. "You were no help with the first, you get no opinion!"
Jacob's laughs turned to giggles as his wife whipped a napkin across the table at him.
"Fine!" Anastasia snorted. She looked at Severus. "You get settling in time!"
"We get how long we bloody well take!" Severus fumed as giggles started further down the table.
"You're fortunate you live in England. You can escape her!" Yuri shouted.
"Mother, really! Must you pester everyone?" Severus asked exasperatedly.
"She does," Jacob said earnestly.
Anastasia shot him another irritated look.
"I'm not even twenty!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Better to start at once before you get too old," Anna said seriously. "You don't want your first after thirty. It's rough when you age."
Hermione was silent. She recovered her voice when she saw Severus' warning glare. She disregarded it. "I was feeling more around thirty-eight."
"Thirty-eight!" Anna chuckled. "Your classmates will be grandparents by then!"
"No, they won't!" Hermione blurted out.
Severus leaned over to her. "Many of your old associates are expecting. Eighteen and eighteen is thirty-six. You will be more than old enough for your peers to have grandchildren."
Hermione blanched. "But I have things to do!"
"You got married!" The women around the table giggled. "You're finished doing things!"
"Well, bugger that!" Hermione said, bristling. Her eyes turned to Severus. He held his palms up.
"If I never change a nappy, I'll be a happy man!"
"Severus, you don't mean that!" Anastasia insisted.
"Yes, I do. I look after a thousand of other people's offspring. That's plenty." Severus said.
Anastasia sniffed. "You're only being stubborn."
Severus looked at Jacob, who looked in another direction.
"I promise you, I'm not." Severus said firmly.
"Who will inherit?" Anastasia asked him, her arms crossed.
"Hermione, and then Yuri," Severus said irritated. "Svetlana after that. Why are you acting like this is a revelation?"
"They're cousins!" Anastasia hissed. "This family has plans, Severus, and they include you."
Jacob grinned at Anastasia. "Who cares? Don't we have enough for you, Stacie? We can make more!"
"So can we," Pieter said with a wiggle to his eyebrows.
Anna snorted. "I was convinced this was the last one."
"I forget how charming they are," Pieter admitted. "Then I want more."
Anna rolled her eyes.
"Let's quit arguing about babies," Jacob declared. "They have a mission to carry out first. They we'll see."
"Are you certain it has to be you on this secret mission?" Anastasia asked Hermione worriedly. "Can't the Ministry send somebody else?"
"I don't think anybody else can be counted on." Hermione admitted. "We're going to Atlantis to find a portal to Jotunheim so we can look for a cure for Harry and Ginny, and Asta is getting married if her family says it's all right."
"A wedding!" Anastasia exclaimed.
"All of that and all she heard was the part about the wedding." Jacob elbowed Pieter, and they chortled.
Anastasia snorted. "And if they don't, you come back. Get married here, and they don't get to visit."
"This marriage business has been illuminating for all of us, most of all that Jotun the Amazons have been harboring," Pieter said.
Realization dawned on Severus, who had a sharp intake of breath. "They've always known how to get her home, haven't they? They proved it when the Jotun answered the call."
Pieter nodded. "They lied to her, to everyone."
"Well, 'they're' dead now and are most likely traitors to the Amazons for such a crime."
"How is it a crime?" Pieter asked, sucking on a chicken bone.
"It's kidnapping and imprisonment!" Anna kicked him under the table.
"Not if they left her behind on purpose. Who leaves a child behind when the portal to your world was going to be closed?" Severus said bitterly.
"The Amazons wanted to keep her safe," Hermione reasoned.
"They wouldn't have needed to if they let her go home!" Pieter chuckled.
"What if Asta didn't want to go home, and they were preventing people from forcing her to go?" Mischa had sidled up to the table with a serving of custard and gelatin.
"What makes you say that, Darling?" Anna asked curiously.
"Well, when she came here she was my age?" Mischa asked.
"What does that have to do with it?"
"The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe?" Mischa asked disbelievingly.
The adults looked thoughtful.
"We're the wardrobe?" Anastasia asked. Mischa nodded. "You're a brilliant boy, Mischa Titov."
"Will that change anything?" Hermione took the custard and Mischa skipped away.
"Who knows?" Pieter shrugged. "Love is a battleground."
"No one else remembers back then, but I bet Asta does," Hermione said.
"It would be helpful if the Jotun were briefed before you get there," Anna said. "They were very polite when they came visiting."
"You make it sound as if they came for tea," Pieter laughed.
"While you were still sorting things out, before the door was sealed again, some of them did. That sweet fellow with a bloody mouth and snakes in his hair was fond of your personal blend. I let him take it back with him. He's the one that brought you this Shard, yes?"
"What?!" Pieter choked.
"Since he had that horrible mouth infection, and it has a touch of birch bark—"
"Is that's what was wrong with him?" Hermione asked. "It looked uncomfortable."
"You know who she's talking about?" Severus exclaimed.
"Well, it has to be Mithrax. He has snakes in his hair." Hermione sighed. "Who else would it be?"
"What else goes on when we aren't around?" Pieter asked curiously.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Anna replied mysteriously.
Jacob snorted at Pieter. "I keep telling you, you're better off not knowing."