Wow, thanks for all the reviews, faves and follows! I snuck this in before I have to slash, hack and burn my way through my o-fic. :)


"Are you ready?"

Severus' calm voice eased the tight knot of nerves bundled in her stomach and she pushed out a hot breath. She rubbed her fingers together, the tips cold. They stood on a corner of a suburban street in North Sydney. It was well before seven and the sun hadn't yet risen, though strange birdcalls cut through the silence. Severus had left the warmth of a Scottish evening behind and she'd advised him to wrap up, aware now that something in that hateful venom had made him susceptible to the cold.

He was a shadow at her side and it brought her a strange comfort for him to be with her. "I'm ready," she murmured.

Her lips pinched together. "They live above the premises. There's a door off the drive. They open at eight on a weekday, but at the weekend I've seen them pottering around at this time."

He knew all this. For seven weeks, she had faithfully reported back the minutiae of her parents' lives to Severus Snape. Sometimes three or four times in a week. Every exact detail of how they ran Wilkins Family Day Care from a leafy, sweet sprawl of a house opposite a primary school, and their lives beyond it.

When Hermione had first found them —only her third day in Sydney— she'd stopped on the pavement, her hand over her mouth and willed herself not to cry.

Her mother, looking tanned and happy, had a wildly giggling toddler on her hip and was chatting with the baby's mother. Hermione had almost turned back. Her mother had always wanted more children, always, like an ache under her heart, and now she had a whole rambling tribe of them from eight in the morning until five, every weekday.

Hermione had scrawled a note to Severus, explaining her mother's longed for wish, and how could she take that away, what right did she have and spelling away the stains of her tears on the letter, desperate for his advice.

He'd warned that his research into her memory charms showed a high chance of the magic failing within five years. The disaster of that moment could be stopped by their planned intervention.

And because of his advice, six weeks later, they were crossing the silent, empty road to give the Wilkins back their former lives. Her heart drummed and she ached to hold his hand, to have some reassurance.

They stopped at a plain door and Hermione stilled. A large hand on her shoulder forced her eyes to close. The urge to thread her fingers through his, to deepen the contact pulsed in her belly. It was her dependence on him these past weeks, that was all. His faithful and detailed correspondence —as frequent as her own— compared to Ron's single missive of eight lines, seven of which were about quidditch—

"It will be fine, Hermione."

She twitched a smile and pushed down her silly crush. In a few weeks, he would be her headmaster again. After Christmas, he would be her employer. And…and she was on a promise with Ron. That had been his eighth line, after all.

She pressed the bell. Severus' wand slipped into his hand, tucked against his thigh like a shadow. The clatter of feet on stairs and a muffled, female, "Well, if I knew who it was, I wouldn't say 'Oh, I wonder who that is?', would I? Honestly!"

Hermione smirked. The memories may have twisted, but her mother was still the same.

The door swung open to a smaller, more tanned, older version of herself. Hermione's eyes burned at the familiar wild profusion of morning curls. A herculean effort she faced every morning herself.

"Hello, yes? Our core hours are from eight till five, Monday to Friday. Currently, we have no slots open. I can take your names and the name of your child for a waiting list. That does cost."

"Monica Wilkins?" Severus smooth voice practically purred her name and Hermione's mother blinked. There was an undercurrent of power there that pricked Hermione's skin.

"You're British?" Monica looked to Hermione. "You too?" She frowned. "You know, you look very familiar."

Hermione jerked a nod, unable yet to speak. Her heart was a drum and she had to breathe. Just simply breathe. What if the charm was already breaking?

But Monica looked back to Severus. "Yes, I'm her."

Severus murmured a spell and Monica turned on her heel, trotting back up the stairs. With a glance at Hermione, he followed her. She looked to the silent street, stepped into the shadowed porch and shut the door behind them.

The stairs fed into a bright sitting room, something well lived in, packed with books and an assortment of toys that had obviously migrated from downstairs. Monica flopped onto the red couch and was silent. The first stages of breaking the charm were at work in her mind.

Her father popped his head out of the kitchen. "Hello? Who are you? Monica? Monica…! What have you—"

"Wendell Wilkins?"

That same flare of power worked through Severus' voice and Hermione shivered. It was hardly fair that he was putting all of his energy into curing her parents. But she didn't have the necessary skill. It would've been a disaster…

"Yes."

The same murmured spell had her dad flopping down next to his wife. Severus let out a long breath and wiped a hand over his face. "It's begun. Now we wait."

"Sit." Hermione pressed a hand to his arm and urged him into an armchair. "I'll put the kettle on."

"Proper black tea." He stretched out his legs, a great length of shadow in the white-walled room.

Hermione bit back a smile. "A dash of milk, before not after."

"Anything else is an abomination."

His head fell back against the padding of the chair and he closed his eyes. Thick black lashes fanned against his sharp cheekbones and Hermione had to will herself to stop staring at him. It didn't help that he looked even better than he had in his office earlier in the summer. Which was insane when he'd just expended so much non-verbal energy. Her belly performed a little swoop and she cursed her crush. But, in Merlin's name, how powerful was Severus Snape?

Hermione clamped her lips together before she began to mutter and headed into the narrow kitchen. Her father had already boiled the water and had mugs set out on the counter. So it was simply a case of pottering about in search of milk, tea and a spoon. "He'll have to suffer a lack of teapot."

"I heard that!"

Hermione stilled, a bloom of mortification filling her chest. It was a very good thing she'd kept her mutterings to herself if her murmur over fifteen feet away was the range of his hearing. "And I thought the bat rumours were false…"

Severus' soft laughter warmed through her.

That had been another aspect of their copious letter swap. A dry humour that had held her spirits up in her pokey little service flat above an apothecary shop. The scents from below –of spices and herbs and sometimes something so acrid her eyes watered— brought him to her and she could almost hear his voice as she read through the sheaves.

A silly schoolgirl crush. She splashed milk and strained tea. One that she'd put behind her when she went home to Ron. She was simply…frustrated. Heat warmed her cheeks and she took a sip of her tea, to blame the redness on that. And well, that frustration would be well and truly solved the first weekend back at Hogwarts.

Hermione crossed the room and handed Severus his mug. She pulled over a chair from the small dining table tucked under the window. "How long will they be…like that?"

"The return to themselves will run surprisingly quickly." He looked at her over his mug and her heart squeezed. "That was your reason for choosing this particular charm, was it not?"

"It was. But the magical range needed..." Her lips twitched upwards and she took a quick sip of her tea to quell her sudden nerves. "I was ambitious."

His voice was a darkly velvet purr. "You, Miss Granger? Never."

Her face was beat red, she was sure of it. "Thank you again, Severus." She looked away from him to her parents. "For all of this."

"I must finally admit, I have ulterior motives."

The barest of smiles touched his lips and Hermione had to remember to breathe. It wasn't what she was thinking. It wasn't. He couldn't have any interest in her. Not one jot.

"I haven't mentioned it before, the planets –as they say— had not yet aligned. Now they have. I want to offer—"

Her mother moaned, and Hermione's gaze snapped to her. Her heart was in her throat and for a moment, she cursed her mother's return. Guilt smacked into her. Trembling, she put her mug on the floor and fisted her hands at her breast. "What do we do?"

"This."

Severus set his own mug down, sat forward and power thrummed from him. His wand was in his hand, weaving out the intricate and familiar patterns she herself had memorised. A touch of smile quirked his mouth again. "Open your eyes, Gwendolyn Granger."

Her mother's eyes shot open. She stared. Her hand pressed to her mouth, before she murmured a disbelieving, "Hermione?" She frowned then, a sharp drawing together of her brows as her gaze darted over her daughter. "My god girl, your hair!" Her lips thinned and she huffed. "You've stopped using your conditioner, haven't you?"

The peal of laughter broke from Hermione, even as she cried.

Severus' warm hand –callused and long fingered— found one of hers and she knew in that moment, everything would be just fine.


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