Author's Note:

This chapter and the subsequent one is a bit different – be forewarned! I realised quite late on that I didn't plan for any HG+SS memories from any of the years at Hogwarts and what a shame that would be as so many moments lend themselves to Hermione and Snape having a deeper relationship than they share in canon. This chapter starts an intermission from the journey in the pensieve, I am going to change up the narrative style for these as Harry and Morgana need to have a wee snooze (not together and not very interesting), so I have written some vignettes (mostly just bits of behind-the-scenes dialogue to the films/novels) for your enjoyment set at various times in the years from Harry and Hermione's first year to the time they leave to hunt Horcruxes. They appear to deal with various injuries on both sides quite unintentionally but when you're disguising yourself as not-man-and-wife, difficult to think of when they would have carved out time together. The chapter was going to be all of them but in truth I'm finding them difficult, so I've split the chapter into two. This chapter is elements of Philosopher's Stone to Prisoner of Azkaban and the next will feature Order of the Phoenix to Deathly Hallows. After these chapters, I've only got one more to write so the end is well in sight now… Hope you enjoy!

DaenerysTargary3n

Intermission (Part the First):

Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone

Chapter 11: Quidditch

Hermione, Harry, and Ron sat huddled in the Great Hall. The former was poring over a book, the second was eyeing the head table with intense scrutiny and the latter was singlehandedly justifying the castle's budget in hash browns. Two days before the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match and the rest of the school was abuzz with anticipation.

Quietly, as he was pondering the conundrum that was the Hogwarts Potions Professor, Harry was presented with a book. His female companion smiled gently as she slid a small volume across the table. The emerald-eyed wizard looked down at it. Quidditch Through the Ages – presumably a history of the game he had a natural talent at and had made the house team.

"Thanks." Harry said surprised. "I'll give it a read."

"You should. It might help you. Anyway, if we've quite finished," she said, eyeing their russet-haired friend, "we should go to Charms."

Ron nodded his assent and the trio quit the Great Hall under the watchful eyes of the previously offending teacher and began the journey to their class. As they passed through the hallways, meandering past other students on their way to their lectures, they suddenly had to halt their tracks.

"Well, well, well…what have we got here then."

Severus had appeared like Chernobog in front of them and loomed over the three preteens peering down at them with all his disdain. Harry and Ron audibly gulped in unison and attempted to garble out an adequate response.

"We're going to Charms…" Hermione said calmly, adding, "sir."

"Naturally. It would not do to be late, Miss Granger." Severus paused over her title, sharing a tiny joke with her as he played his part. "You will have to pick up the pace so as not to incur docked points."

"Yes, Professor," Hermione replied, taking pains not to accidently smile at her husband's attempt to scare her and her companions, "if we might be permitted to be on our way."

Severus' eye pinged up in surprise and daring her to goad him. "But of course, I shall not detain you further than necessary. I do require an explanation for your possession of that."

The foursome's eyes shifted as they followed the thin finger that pointed to the Quidditch book tightly nestled in the crook of Harry's arm.

"It's a book, sir," Harry pointed out, "Quidditch Through the Ages. Hermione gave it to me at breakfast. To help with the match."

"Obviously. You will need all the assistance the library can furnish, Potter. I hope after last night's fiasco, you can demonstrate more sense having read it. Especially on the Quidditch pitch, where events so often go…awry. It would not do for life and limb to be endangered twice in one term, after all, Potter."

Hermione watched her husband as he spoke to her companions. She had never really been a witness to it but my God with his voice he could convince you that you were the basest of morons. She could see Harry and Ron's brains devolve before her until they couldn't form a thought in his presence. She wondered if it was some form of mild legilimency.

Yes, wife, it is. But that is between us.

Severus? What is this? How?

I can only assume that while my magic sustains your youth, our core is mutual, and we will be able to communicate within ourselves. I cannot think as to the distance though.

Fascinating…we can test it!

As you wish.

Don't pretend that you aren't curious, Severus! I know you're excited – it's new magic – and I can sense it from your thoughts.

By Merlin's saggy tits, there'll be no keeping anything from you from now on!

We can work on controlling it too, I can't have you overhearing my every waking thought. You'll go mad.

Inevitably.

You'd better say something, love, or they'll think we've gone doolally.

"Make sure you return it to the library. Allow others to benefit from its wisdom." Severus said noncommittally.

It's a Quidditch book, husband, don't get carried away. 'Wisdom' indeed…

"Yes sir." Harry said, perplexed at the interaction.

"On your way then."

As Severus moved away, he brushed his hand against Hermione's side, longing for even a semblance of their former closeness hoping it would sustain him. Fortunate it was short-lived, as before he was three paces away, Harry turned to observe his stagger.

"Look. He's limping."

Hermione flew round, appalled at his hurt and devastated she hadn't noticed or been there to balm his injury. "Yes, he is. From the troll last night?"

"No, I saw him," Harry replied, "he slunk away through the door behind the teacher's table. He never saw the troll conscious for it to hurt him. He must have gone to the third-floor corridor. He must have let the troll into the dungeons as a distraction."

Later that evening, Hermione stole away herself to pay her husband a visit. He had plagued her thoughts since he left them in the corridor. She hadn't been able to make out any thoughts that gave away the source of his wound, whether because she had been in the various castle towers throughout the day while he taught in the dungeon or because he had swiftly mastered the novelty of their bond, she didn't know. She made it her mission to find out while Harry was safe at Quidditch practice and Ron was content to watch the session.

"Mater Morgana." Hermione whispered as she stood before the protected door to the Snape family quarters.

"Mama!" A small, lithe childlike figure shrieked as she flew from across the room to wrap her arms about her mother. "You're here!"

"Yes, my heart, I'm here. Let me look at you. Tell me about your day. What did you get up to? You were with Hammer today?" Hermione asked her child, who looked more like her sister currently, with wide and maternally curious, loving eyes.

"Hammer taught me levitation. I'm very good at it."

Hermione chuckled at her daughter's self-assurance and relationship with the truth. Morgana had a want to tell the truth absolutely and forgo all flattery or self-deprecation. She beheld both as untruths and knew her mama and papa wanted the truth from her always. She didn't know enough people to check her feelings or words; Hermione hoped sincerely that one day Morgana would be freed from her sentinels and learn a few more social cues and graces.

"Unsurprising, Miss Snape. Utterly predictable. My daughter was always set to be a natural."

A baritone tenor interrupted the mother-daughter praise and pronounced, "I think you'll find, Madam Snape, that the child in question is not solely of your making."

Hermione smiled as she turned to face Severus, completely at liberty in their guarded home with their daughter, "Oh yes, our daughter. Sorry, Severus."

Severus smiled serenely and thought to her waiting mind: You are forgiven, wife. We are both rightly proud of her. Shame few others will have that privilege.

It can't be helped now. Hermione sighed, pushing a stray ebony hair away from Morgana's cheek. Come here. Join us.

Severus nodded his acquiescence and began to hobble over from the bedroom door. Hermione took precise note as his every sinew tensed, and his eyes betrayed the pain his leg sent shooting up his nerves. She knew her stubborn man would be reticent to tell her the truth of how much the injury hurt, but she would come to know how it had been caused and why it had not undergone treatment.

"Sit down. At once." Hermione ordered aloud, pulling Morgana with her as she gestured for her husband to sit in his favourite armchair so she could play nurse.

"Do not bark at me, witch."

Hermione huffed, "I will, when you insist on limping about, wizard. You are drawing attention to yourself. Harry thinks you're trying to steal the Stone, you blithering idiot. You went to see Quirrell off, didn't you? But Harry, not knowing that, saw you leave the Great Hall during the feast, and I can't tell him that I know you're innocent and are trying to protect him when you are appearing so very guilty. Plus…"

As his wife's words withered, her eyes softened towards him, and Severus saw her vitriol die as she knelt before him. "Yes, Hermione?"

"Plus, I can't bear to see you suffer."

That was him undone. Mindful that his attentive daughter was beside them and that though the being at his feet spoke his wife's words, bore his wife's heart and negotiated her burdens (him included), they were contained within an eleven-year-old girl. Her untarnished face, her frizzy, unkempt hair and the girlish uniform she wore, were a blade sinking into his heart. For, had his wife and the mother of his child voiced such sentiment and expressed such tenderness to him, she would have been swept up in his arms and deposited onto his lap in an instant. She would be gratuitously, thoroughly thanked for her love and attention and rewarded in ecstasy amply. Now, however, Severus wrestled constantly with his conflicting feelings towards his soulmate and there was no cure for that injury.

Don't do this, my love, don't persist in torturing us.

Us, wife? Your own libido is years from forming. Pray how is the torture exacted upon you?

Is it so hard for you to understand? Have I not made myself crystal clear? Any assault, any wound, any grievance to you is mirrored in me. Not because our magic is now shared, and I can hear the very thoughts you think but because I love you. I love you above all save our daughter. When I hurt, do you not feel with me? Bear my pain as yours? Well, foolish man, the experience is not one-sided.

"What are you doing?" Morgana's curious voice asked, breaking her parents' internal conversation.

"Sorry, 'Ana." Hermione said, removing Severus' boots. "Papa and I can speak without saying a word now. We found out today. We're just having a bit of fun."

"Didn't look fun."

Severus guffawed at his daughter's read of her parents' mood. "Quite, child. Your mama is telling me off."

"Like she does with me."

"Yes, exactly." Severus agreed, knowing the tease would cause Hermione's hackles to rise.

"I didn't think adults could get told off."

"They can when they are being stupid, foolish, thoughtless and idiotic!" Hermione interjected, not taking her eyes off the edge of Severus' trouser that she was attempting to roll up.

"Woman…" The ministered man warned.

"Man!" She snapped back buoyantly. "Stop mocking me and let me look at your leg, Severus."

"Your wish is my command." He complied throwing a wink to Morgana.

As Hermione succeeded in baring the pale skin of her husband's leg and she and Morgana hissed in disapproval and sympathy as they received a full view of the laceration.

At the sight of the purplish, bruised cut still caked in blood and demonstrating the sign of a clawed paw, Hermione asked, "Why didn't you heal it?"

"It won't heal with magic. It's one of Albus' many 'smart ideas'."

"Poppycock! What are you taking for it? I hope you're using some of that essence of dittany in your store cupboard?" Hermione asked, outraged.

"Yes, I am. It's helping, though slowly. I thought to speed the process with some Wiggenweld but to no avail."

"And Albus has no antidote or counter-measure?" Hermione asked.

"No."

The witch exhaled in sympathy, "You're going to have to rest it more then. Why don't you stay away from the Quidditch? Just rest, love. I'll be at the match. You can stay here and read with 'Ana."

"No. Quirrell is planning something, and you can't easily gain access to the staff tower. You need to keep your gaze firmly on Potter. You know this, Hermione. Your task is the boy; mine is what moves against him and Morgana."

"I know, but my earlier thoughts apply. I am permitted to worry about you and want you to be well again. It's the essence of my job."

"Not really, dear," Severus corrected, but offered his wife a conciliatory pat on the hand, "but I love you for the thought."

Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 15: Aragog

"How is she, Poppy?"

The matron answered forlornly, "She is…stone. Like the Creevey boy, she has no perception of the events around her or the passage of time. She will be like this until the antidote is ready. Poor girl. Potter and Weasley were naturally distraught at the news. I do wonder if those two will be alright without her. She always seems to ground them to me. Such natural troublemakers I haven't known since…well, dear boy, since you were a pupil here."

Severus, standing at the foot of his beloved wife's bed in the hospital wing, was incandescently angry. He was angry they had not uncovered the source of the hegira that had been unleashed upon their home. And, to push the dagger in further, Hermione had just informed him through their psychic connection that she had solved it. As she was distracted, so had she fallen prey. It was intolerable for him. To be without her and comfort Morgana who was so distressed at her mother's state. He did not have the heart to keep her in the dungeons and he knew she snuck off to the hospital wing to sit at Hermione's bedside. He trusted that she was sufficiently concealed, and he had alerted the headmaster, who was always sure to distract Madam Pomfrey when needed.

"I will keep watch over Granger and Creevey. It is still lunch in the hall. If you make haste, you will catch the last of the pudding." Severus announced, leaving little room for dissent or refusal.

"Thank you, Severus." Poppy sighed, relieved at the offer of respite. "I would be glad of a change in scenery, even a brief one. I will return within the hour."

"Take your time. All will be well here."

Poppy smiled at the young professor. He was a snide and dour chap but ever since that incident with the Whomping Willow during his own school days, she had always thought he was incredibly hard done by. He never let her down with supplies for the accident-prone students and he was always happy to be consulted on the difficult ones. Nodding her approval, the grey-haired witch flurried out of the hospital and went down to grab a bite.

Once she had left, Severus took a seat on the bed beside Hermione and disillusioned himself. It would not do to be caught so close to her by a dunderhead. Long, serpentine fingers trembled as they reached for her outstretched hand. A hand that had been clutching her mirror when she was petrified. He could not work it out.

"What were you doing, my love, what had you learned? Hmm?" Severus cooed as he felt her cold, still hand within his. "You were so close to telling me."

When she had first been found, Severus had tried to reach out with his mind to see if that had the power to breach the boundaries her state put between them, but to no avail. She was silent. His mind was without her emotions, without her little thoughts and messages to him through the day for the first time in nearly two years. He had thought at the beginning of their mission when she had first become younger that he would be irritated by the presence of another – even one as dear to him as she – in his mind. There were, naturally, times when he had to block her out for the sake of his concentration but more often than not, he relished the closeness it gave them during a time when they were physically estranged. He felt her long for him and miss their daughter. He felt her ennui at the lessons she endured that were mastered long ago. He felt her exasperation with the two boys in her charge when they abused their schoolwork.

Now that all that was missing, he yearned for the background noise. He needed it to know she would return to him. To know that he would not have to raise Morgana without her mother. To know that they would and could keep Potter safe until the time of his destiny.

"Come back to me, wife. Come back." Severus begged to the shell of Hermione. "I cannot be without you."

Swiftly surveying his surroundings, Severus satisfied himself that he was alone in the room with the petrified victims and leaned over the youthful form of his wife. As his large black cape concealed him, he chastely, reverently, pleadingly placed a gentle kiss on the fixed ajar lips of his wife and made to smooth her wild locks before realising why they were unyielding and solid.

Pulling away with the sourest of looks on his face, Severus removed the enchantment and began to pace the length of the ward until its custodian returned from her lunch.

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter 22: Owl Post Again

Severus flew into the Potions classroom, robes billowing in his wake as he bellowed, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Hermione winced as she stood in the soundproofed and sealed classroom with her husband bearing his temper down upon her. She had expected to bear the full brunt of his considerable ire when she had closed the link between them as she and Harry had rescued Sirius. She did not know the reason for it, but she had felt Severus' near glee at the idea of Sirius receiving the Dementor's Kiss and knew he would try to stop their attempt if he could. After their close call with the transformed Professor Lupin, Severus had stood between her and the werewolf. He had protected her the only way he could in that moment – with his own body – and she had seen his fear alongside its root. He had been face-to-face with Lupin on the full moon before. He had tried to have Lupin and Black arrested because he believed they were a threat to Harry, but there was something else behind the story. Something he had concealed from her.

Before she could ask him, all hell broke bloody loose and she was separated from Harry. She woke in the hospital wing to Dumbledore advising her about the Time Turner that he had assigned to her, not as it was believed to give her more time at lessons, but to spend more time with Morgana. Morgana had not recovered from her mother's near death the previous year and Hermione worried for her so much that Severus and Albus had found the perfect solution: a Time Turner. She would be able to spend time being with and teaching her daughter while never losing sight of Harry.

The only problem with the time manipulation was that she became aware that the mind link between them did not recognise the anomalous Hermione. When she was an interloper with Morgana, she could still hear the other Hermione and Severus in her mind. This was acceptable when she was merely in the dungeons but for the covert rescue of Sirius Black, Hermione knew she could not reveal herself to her husband for it to succeed.

"Sit down, Severus." Hermione entreated. "And I'll tell you. And you can also tell me some things I would like to know."

"Very well. You may begin."

The witch rolled her eyes at her husband's schoolmaster-like imperiousness that she usually found endearing, but when she was on the receiving end, it was downright infuriating. "We rescued Sirius Black from the tower before the Dementors had the chance to administer the Kiss. We used my Time Turner and we also managed to save Hagrid's Hippogriff from the executioner too."

"Why?"

Hermione groaned, understanding this was less of an explanation, more an interrogation. "Why not, Severus? One: Sirius is innocent of all charges laid against him. Two: Harry deserves to have his godfather in his life. Three: Harry was going to try and do it, so I might as well have helped him to make sure he didn't get himself killed or Kissed. Four: The Kiss is a barbaric punishment for any crime, and nobody should be subjected to it. Five: Dumbledore told us it was the right course of action."

Severus started, "Dumbledore did? Dumbledore knew about it from the off?"

"Yes. He steered us to it. Harry was going to try for Sirius, but it was Albus who laid the path to Buckbeak."

Severus pulled himself down to cradle his weary head in his hands, husband, and wife both deeply feeling his exasperation and fatigue. "Why conceal it? Why not reveal your scheme to me?"

"I know you, husband." Hermione crooned, pulling herself down to settle between his knees and rest her petite face against his large nose. "I know there is something about Black and Lupin you are concealing from me. Now, you know my side in its entirety. Unburden yourself and tell me why he provokes your ire. What are Black and Lupin to you? I know that you knew that Lupin is a werewolf before he boarded the train at the beginning of the year…how?"

Taking comfort from his wife's proximity, Severus cooled and began to tell of how Harry's father and his cohort of Gryffindors had tormented a young Severus Snape throughout his school years. He delved further into his early friendship with Lily Evans as she was then and the grand moment when he had called her a Mudblood. From thence, his descent into the hellish circle of Death Eaters such as Lucius Malfoy, Goyle Snr. and Walden McNair was inevitable.

"Teachers did not intervene, not even after the incident with the Whomping Willow. I was a friendless outcast with no friends and a dark past. I was ripe pickings for the Dark Lord's followers. For there, I belonged, and I was valued for more than my ability to provide homework and a punching bag – often simultaneously. I loathed the whole fucking lot of them, Hermione. I was a shy, bookish, ugly child and an easy target. I wanted to show all those who laughed as they mocked me and humiliated me just precisely what kind of bastards they were. I didn't care if I came to harm while doing so – it would have been pain well spent."

Hermione caressed his cheek. Her husband, bullied mercilessly at school, had been toting this unresolved pain from his youth around and when confronted by the perpetrators in the home he had cultivated since he was eighteen, naturally, he had wanted to see them receive their overdue comeuppance. She could not fault him for wanting that, though she would not apologise for being glad Sirius had been spared the Dementor's Kiss. If Lupin lost his post because Severus had dispersed the truth, then so be it. Let that be the end of it and give Severus his peace of mind on this matter when he had so much to disquiet it elsewhere.

"You will concede that Black did not deserve a soulless vegetation for what he did to you as a boy. I will concede, begrudgingly and knowing you too well, that on behalf of his friends Remus has now taken sufficient reprisal. Let that be it, my love. There are more important things for you to ruminate on rather than past wrongs."

"Yes, wife." Severus acquiesced with a wry smile and a swift, tender brush of his nose against hers.