Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for Aideen. The rest belongs to JKR and her wonderful mind.
A piercing cry in the dead of night made the inhabitants of 47 Rousseau Boulevard tumble about in their beds. Surely the neighbors would quiet whatever was making the noise. It had been too long a day for the man or woman upstairs to want to trudge downstairs and see what was going on. Upon the sleepy realization that the cries were getting no quieter and that the closest neighbors were an acre away, the woman of the house got out of her bed and wrapped herself in a terry dressing gown before drawing her wand and walking cautiously downstairs. This action, of course, made the man realize he must also get up and he did so swiftly.
Wand gripped firmly in her hand, Hermione Granger walked carefully through the hallway and down the stairs. She did not dare illuminate the hallway and give away her location. Severus Snape, who was still too tired to quite grasp the situation, flicked the lights on in the house with a swish of his wand. Hermione growled at him disapprovingly from the bottom of the stairs. Just outside the front door was the source of the wailing. She looked through the peak hole and saw nothing. She and Severus undid the various wards that kept them guarded and opened the door, wands drawn, to find an infant in a carrying basket on their stoop, letter attached.
She picked up the letter and read it, tears silently dripping onto the paper as she progressed through it. Severus was looking at the child questioningly and then to Hermione when she picked up the basket and brought the child into what had become their home. Severus redid his portion of the wards and waited for Hermione to speak. She handed him the letter and picked up the strawberry blonde headed child. Snape looked from the letter to the child in Hermione's arms and back to the letter. The child had ceased it's wailing when Hermione cradled it against her, rubbing it's back in slow circular motions. The child couldn't have been more than a day old.
"Let us go do up a nursery then, sir." Hermione said, carrying the child upstairs and levitating the carrying basket to follow her. She proceeded to the small room that separated hers from his, with doors on either side of it. At one point, it had been home to linens and unused objects but when the building was changed into a safe house, the objects were placed into a small closet near the bathroom and this room was emptied for future use. There were various port keys to the wall closest the doors, to take them somewhere else if the need be. He transfigured a shelf and placed the port keys atop while they both worked to make the room pleasant for the child. They also managed to conjure some clothing and formula.
"That is the best we can hope for tonight, Miss Granger. Being stuck here does not quite help us to provide for this child." Severus said somewhat dejectedly. They had both been placed here, in this unplottable house, while the second war waged on without them. Severus had been beyond found out and was no good to either side. He couldn't be of any aid to the Order because of the large number of people hunting him. Hermione had taken out quite a few high ranking Death Eaters in the past four years since her graduation. This had been the hardest thing for her, harder than her internship as a Healer and watching herself and her fellow Healers unable to aid certain friends of hers that had been too greatly wounded. She saw too much death in her year-long internship to want to be a Healer. She had been carried by Fawkes right out of her home after being very badly hexed by a Death Eater. Her parents were dead and she had nearly been killed trying to save them. She had seen way too much death in her life. Now, she was stuck with her former Potions Master in a stuffy old Victorian home, and with a baby to top it all off.
Hermione sighed and said, "You can head back to bed, sir. I wish to stay up with Aideen. Considering . . ." she could not bring herself to finish and he didn't really need her to. He nodded and exited the room into his own, leaving the door half open. They new they were both left in charge of this child as the girl's parents were murdered. They had been living together for somewhere around a month and a half when this infant had arrived at their door step.
Hermione sat shakily into a rocking chair they had transfigured from a loose nail and rocked the child, staring into her vibrant eyes. The silent tears continued to leak from her as she watched the child grow less fearful of it's new surroundings. Ginevra Weasley, Hermione thought to herself, had she ever even seen her daughter? Was she at least given the chance before they killed her? Hermione choked up a bit in disgust, knowing they full well hadn't given her a chance at anything. Her first child was her last child, same for Neville. Neville and Ginny had found solace in each other during Ginny's first year as a graduate.
The war was nearly in full swing by the time they had married. Shortly thereafter George and Fred had taken out five Death Eaters that had ambushed them only to be killed by five more, sharing the same fate as their uncles Gideon and Fabian. Ginny barely spoke to anybody but Neville after that, Hermione was on a more covert front of the war anyways and never really saw her much after the funeral. She hadn't even known Ginny was pregnant. She couldn't understand why Dumbledore had given her charge of the child, even in accordance with Ginny's wishes, if there were still direct family members. If, how could she have thought if? Of course the Weasleys were still alive and kicking. How could they not be? Hermione gently set the child into it's bassinet and charmed it to slowly rock.
She sat in the rocking chair for the rest of the night contemplating how closed off she was from the rest of the world and how she didn't even know the fate of her friends. Obviously, if Harry had died she would have known instantly because the war would've taken a very large turn for the worse. Charlie and Bill and the others weren't of as much importance as Harry was, seeing as how he was prophetic and all. They were all still very dear to Hermione and she would be just as impacted if any of them had passed on. She'd seen enough death in this war to age her far beyond her years. She regretted ever saying she wanted to be able to see thestrals. The first attack of the war had been at Hogwarts, directly following the graduation ceremony when everybody was off guard and relaxed, given the times. She'd never expected it and neither had anybody else, but they all fought bravely as the battle waged on for days. Although that battle was long since over, the war still lasting to this day.
She fell asleep in the rocking chair, thinking and thinking of things she could not know. She was always thinking nowadays, she felt somewhat lonely being stuck with Snape. He was not a horrible conversationalist but she was guilty for having treated him so bad for years and vice versa, surprisingly. They talked at mealtimes but otherwise stayed in their rooms reading and thinking. Perhaps this child, the child that looked so much like her beloved and now dead parents, would be the key to surviving this war for Hermione and perhaps for Severus Snape, as well.