"I haven't been there since I was a child," she'd told them, "And I vowed never to go back. Awful people, the Malfoys. If I do ever return, I hope to hardly be able to recognize it."
"I don't think that will be a problem." Severus said, rolling up the deed and placing it in one of the many pockets deep inside his robes. Hermione missed England. She loved Italy in the summer time but now that winter had come, it was barren and it became obvious just how isolated the two of them were in that house. The Malfoy Manor, for all of its dubious history, was a beautiful home in the English country side – easy to apparate to wizard London or floo to Hogwarts or where ever with out it being so long and uncomfortable.
Severus' leg had healed to the point where he no longer had to use his cane and he only limped when the weather was cold or wet and his joints ached. He was making potions again – not with the exactness of before because that would never return, but it was not as dire as he had once thought. They had been married nearly six months.
They started at the top of the house and worked their way down. Hermione gave the elves there all clothing and those who didn't wish to be free were sent to Hogwarts for employment. Hermione didn't want any elves but Severus ignored her S.P.E.W. days and he would ignore her now. The elves from the Italy house were sent for.
"We can do the magical cleansing but if you think I will allow you or me to walk around with a mop or a dust rag, you've got another thing coming." he said.
"You didn't mind watching me mop when I was in detention!" she said.
"You weren't my wife, then." he said. "You were a snotty know-it-all child who needed to spend an hour cleaning cauldrons if only to keep her and the boy who lived out of another live or death situation for five minutes!" he shouted. Hermione's face lost its color. They didn't speak of Harry, especially in such a disrespectful manner. Snape realized his mistake immediately and reach for her but she brushed him out and walked out of the attic where they were standing, sorting through boxes of Malfoy history. She ran down three flights of stairs and out into the back garden where there was a big tree perfect for climbing. She was twenty-one now, too old for climbing trees. She was a married woman, with a huge rock on her left hand to prove it. This didn't matter, now, and she hoisted herself up into the branches grateful she was in jeans and an old t-shirt instead of proper clothing. The t-shirt was orange and celebrated the Quidditch team that Ron fancied. It'd been a birthday gift one year and she wore it mainly to do chores. One of the branches formed a V-shape where she could sit and have something to lean her back against and she did this now, and let a few tears run down her face. What would Harry say now? Here she was married to a man he despised living in the former house of his arch-nemesis.
If Draco ever got out of Azkaban, he was going to be pissed. This made her feel marginally better. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and looked at the ring there. She loved Severus. They had been through a lot together and she knew he respected Harry and what he did to save the world they lived in. It was just hard for him not to speak badly of Harry simply because he'd been doing it for so long. Sometimes Hermione had to fight the urge to call Snape a greasy git when he was being unreasonable even though she didn't think he was a git at all, let alone a greasy one.
She heard a branch break beneath her and she looked down. He was staring up at her.
"I'm sorry." he said.
"It's okay." she said.
"Will you come down, now?" he asked.
"I think I'd like to stay here for a while, if that's okay."
"You'll freeze. It will probably snow tonight." he said. It was cold, she could see her breath coming out in little white puffs and the tear tracks on her cheeks were nearly frozen. She was shivering. In the summer this tree would be filled with leaves to shelter her but now she must have been easy to find.
"Alright." she said, and climbed down, nearly slipping once but getting down unscathed. He rubbed his hands briskly on her naked arms.
"I've finished the attic. Would you like to burn some photographs and important family documents?" he asked, trying to cheer her up.
"You were friends with the Malfoys." she said. "Draco was your godson. Just because I hate the stupid ferret doesn't mean you need to destroy all evidence of them."
"I tried to save Draco from becoming his father." Severus mused, opening the door for her. "It was just another of my life's failures." Hermione didn't feel like giving him a pep talk at the moment and so she shrugged and moved into the large library where there was an enormous fire place, already alive with roaring flame. Nearby was a box of things like baby pictures, birth and death certificates, some of Draco's primary school achievements, and other things that must have had some sort of emotional attachment that Hermione didn't understand. For a moment she thought that burning these things would be wrong, inhumane. But then she remembered that Draco had stuck at ax in her back and she tossed the whole box in at once and retreated to the kitchen to make her self some tea.
It took a year to make the house as they wanted it. Severus had started working in the lab again, slower then he would have liked but working again all the same. She helped him with the more minute, delicate tasks and they were a good team. They published some in the scientific journals. Hermione decided to take up writing and would lock herself away in her office, a small room on the second floor that had once been a guest bedroom. Now it held a roll top desk, similar to the one she'd used when she'd taken over for McGonagall. There was a fireplace and a window that let the morning sun in. There was a love seat and a few book shelves that held her favorites, those dog eared, well read novels that she didn't want to get lost in the extensive library that had been formed when she and Severus had combined their collections, along with what they hadn't tossed from the Malfoy collection. Hermione wrote in the mornings between breakfast and lunch while Severus slept or went to town or worked in his lab. They lead a quiet life.
She published her first book in the muggle world. She'd had quite enough fame as the friend of Harry Potter and so when they asked her to do a book tour she declined. She didn't need the sales, really.
When Dumbledore passed away, Severus was offered the Headmastership once again but he declined. He had a love hate relationship with that school and he had spent his time there. Over half his life within those cold, stone walls. At night, he slept with his arm draped over his wife. She liked to work in the garden in the afternoons and so her skin was brown and freckled and she always smelled like sunshine.
Hermione got pregnant in the third year of their marriage, but lost the baby early on. She wrote another book. Her father died of prostate cancer and so, having a huge house and plenty of fresh country air, her mother came to live with them. Severus was dubious at first, having a Muggle move in. But Hermione had been raised Muggle and found she preferred to do things without magic. She preferred to wash the dishes by hand and she preferred to hang the laundry out on the line, carrying it on her hip in a wicker basket. The elves were instructed to never do magic around Mrs. Granger and as elves were experts at not being seen, it was rarely a problem.
Her mother's memory wasn't quite as strong as it used to be; she had Hermione when she was 40. Mrs. Granger's hair had turned grey and she was often confused but Severus was endlessly patient with his innately kind mother-in-law. He took walks with her in the garden, both of them limping slightly, holding onto each other instead of walking canes. He liked to hear about her life, to hear about Hermione's precocious childhood. It was hard to watch her mother's life begin to draw to a close. Both Hermione and Severus would live, most probably, well past the age of 100. At night, Hermione would sit at her mother's feet, as she did when she was a child, and her mother would tame her daughter's hair into a braid for bed. Her mother's fingers were narrow and deft and she was the only one who could make Hermione's hair look beautiful without the use of product or magic.
Severus made Hermione fertility potions in his lab and she took them dutifully and when she got pregnant again, the baby took. Her belly grew and she carried pregnancy with elegance. At night, when it was hard for her to sleep because her ankles were swollen and her back was sore, Severus would rub lotion into her skin with his strong fingers and whisper her to sleep.
a/n: that's it! this is the end. thanks to everyone who kept with it. i know this final chapter took a really long time. i'm in college, what can i say? i really hope you like it, i wrote this last chapter like three times. hee hee. thanks again to all who read and reviewed.