A/N: Thanks for all the love, dear readers. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and for those who have requested more Sebastian - you'll see him plenty in upcoming chapters. Plus, he might just publish a diary when this story is complete, recounting HIS version of the events.
Severus paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. Sebastian had finally given up on his attempts to eat a scone and was curled into his own stomach, dead to the world. Severus had managed to keep his argument in his head, although he wondered in the back of his mind if it would be less strange to argue with the Kneazle rather than himself.
It was his house, even if it was her lab, why couldn't he go in?
She invited him, surely she meant for him to have room to work!
He was a Potion's Master – one sorely out of practice, what if he made a fool of himself?
What did he care what SHE thought?
Maybe he should just take this time to try and see what Hermione's room looked like. He was just dying to see how she had managed to Gryffindorize his family home!
A pop interrupted his thoughts.
"What?" he said, rather severely to Eakey.
"Eakey came to show Master to the Lab of Mistress. Eakey show him how to get in secret door that opens only for Master and Mistress."
Severus let out a short grunt. "What makes you think I want to go to the lab?"
"Mistress said you be happy in Lab, Eakey wants Master to be happy."
"Oh, she did now did she?"
"Yes, yes," Eakey nodded his head violently, "she tell Lady Red-Head that Master likes potions and will like Lab. Eakey will take Master to Lab. Master and Mistress with both be happy." Eakey smiled proudly at himself.
"Well, we can't let Lady Snape be unhappy now can we?" Severus said with a level of sarcasm that, frankly, he felt even the house elf should recognize. Eakey didn't.
"Oh YES, Master, we's want Mistress to be very happy. Mistress only happy if Master and kitty are happy!"
Severus had to contain an unfamiliar bubble of mirth as Sebastian managed to let out a growl in his sleep at the sound of being called a kitty.
"Lead on, Eakey," he said, resigned to the fact that if he wanted to be with his beloved potions he was going to have to deal with his situation.
Even without a wand, he could feel the magical wards that allowed him to pass through. Hazarding a guess, it was likely Hermione had set them herself to prevent anyone from the Ministry access. Severus wasn't sure if he should feel pleased she thought of him, or offended that she thought she knew him so well. He decided to just not let her see him feel at all.
He stopped in the doorway to stare at a potions lab straight from his wildest fantasies, right there; it was perfect. Wooden shelving ran along three walls, with the fourth wall containing the door and bookshelves. Every basic potion ingredient he could imagine was neatly labeled and sitting alphabetically in its proper place, the lowest shelves full of smaller cauldrons. Standard potion books filled the other wall, with a few hard to find volumes on the top – he could tell by the binding. Three long tables lined the walls, with two simple chairs and a small low table between them. Many different larger cauldrons of varying metals and widths sat under the tables. The floor was stone with an intricate pattern designed in the center of the room. Most shocking was the realization that the room had somehow been wired for electricity, and the light was flooding down from hidden lamps in the ceiling. He couldn't figure out how she had done it, or why he agreed it made for a better workspace. It really was perfect!
Well, except for the girl in the middle. No matter how tightly she tried to wind her bun, pieces still managed to pull free and frizz around her face. She had rolled the sleeves of her shirt up above her elbows. Her wand was shoved into her bun, the ends poking out either side of her head, looking suspiciously like it had impaled her. Underneath the table he could see her feet still stuck in those ridiculous pink fuzzballs. There were six different small cauldrons of potions going, which he assumed were Madam Pomfrey's requests. His trained senses quickly picked up on the fact that the larger cauldron she was hovering over was Wolfsbane.
"I see you finally made it," she stated, not looking up from the potion she was working on.
"I could say the same about you, took you three bloody weeks to get to my trial. You know, if you were going to save me, you could have done it a bit sooner," he retorted, taking the opportunity to ask a question that had been running around in his head.
"I had to wait for Fawkes, and he lives on his own timetable," she looked up, but gazed beyond Severus. "The last time anyone saw him was when Dumbledore died –"
"Was killed."
"Died. Fawkes sang and then burst into flames. Harry told me at Albus' funeral, he thought he saw a phoenix rise from the pyre. We all thought it was an illusion, a vision of Harry's, until about a two weeks ago. Fawkes appeared here, right in the middle of our drawing room, gave Sebastian a real fright," Hermione grinned at the memory. "Took Minerva and me another week to figure out what Fawkes wanted me to do. He's not a tame bird, Severus."
"Where is he now?"
Hermione shrugged, "No idea. He disappeared after your trial, but he had already given me four bottles of phoenix tears and three feathers from his tail. A peace offering, I suppose."
Severus couldn't help but let a tiny bit of pleasure creep onto his features at the thought of having four bottles of phoenix tears at his disposal for potion making. Ignoring the pointed look from Hermione (blasted Gryffindor wanted to keep talking, he supposed), Severus began to walk around the shelving, studying the bottles of ingredients.
"Ashwinder eggs, belladonna, cockroaches, fluxweed, gillyweed, leeches," he mumbled to himself, unaware he was talking aloud.
Hermione just continued to stir the vat of Wolfsbane, ignoring his close proximity when he stopped directly behind her. Severus came to an odd section, out of order from the rest, and turned to address her, stopping when he realized his nose was less than a foot from her head.
Dear Merlin, she smells like knotgrass, sweet soft knotgrass. STOP, you're breathing her in, Severus, quit that right now! You would think you've never been with a woman before. Well, it has been quite a while!
Shaking his head slightly, he cleared his throat and addressed her, "Why are the dragon items out of order? I see you have a collection of dragon organs, even a couple of squares of dragon hide."
"Charlie and Ron Weasley, they send me supplies in exchange for the potions they need to keep safe."
"Weasley of the Golden Trio?"
"Ron went to Romania to work with Charlie and the dragons; he and his wife love it there. I make up batches of burn salve and I've developed a special potion that they can put on their clothes to protect them. I leave the dragon items close by my main table, because I work with them so often. Keeping three people in dragon protection, especially during breeding season, can take up a bit of my time."
"Does Mr. Weasley know of your and Lady Malfoy's, uh, arrangement?"
"If you're asking if Ron knows I'm married to you and Ginny's married to Draco, absolutely. He was present at our binding and was a witness at Ginny's."
Even without looking at him, Hermione knew he had an eyebrow cocked in disbelief.
"Really, it's true," she reiterated.
"Mr. Weasely consented to his sister and his best friend marrying ex-Deatheaters?"
"I should bloody well think so, since he did it first!"
Silence permeated every square inch of the room, as Severus attempted to wrap his rather intelligent brain around that concept.
"Mr. Weasley married an ex-Deatheater?" He asked, searching for clarification.
"I just said that," Hermione replied.
"Mr. Weasley, willfully and without coercion took a bride who had been an ex-Deatheater?"
"Both her parents, actually, she was never forced to take the mark. Although she was intimately acquainted with many of the Deatheaters – due to Voldemort's Dark Revels, and therefore fell into the category of needing a Redeemer."
"Ronald Weasley, the annoying boy who followed you around for the six years I taught you, that Weasley, married an ex-Deatheater?"
"Severus, this conversation is going to take forever if I have to repeat everything six times," Hermione said, pulling her wand out of her bun and casting a containment charm on the vat of Wolfsbane. "Would you like to sit and talk? I'll answer any question you have."
"Any question?"
"Yes, anything." Hermione snapped her fingers and Eakey appeared with his trademark low bow. "Eakey, can you please bring us a light lunch here in the lab?"
"Yes, Mistress," and he was gone with a pop.
Tucking her loose hair behind her ears, and sticking her wand back in her bun, Hermione crossed the expanse of the room and sat in one of the chairs. Before Severus could join her, a tray appeared on the table, full of small sandwiches, fruit, and a pitcher of pumpkin juice. As he was seating himself, Hermione leaned over and poured him a glass, offering it to him before she poured her own.
Severus nodded in lieu of actually saying thank you, (but it was at least a start, Hermione thought), and leaned back.
"Who, when, and why?"
"The when is the probably the easiest to start with. After the final battle, Minerva insisted that all the Hogwarts students, and recent ex-students, without parents be brought back to the school for Madam Pomfrey to help. No matter which side they had fought on, Minerva wanted them to be treated properly before their trials. Really, it is pretty ridiculous to believe that an eleven year old can be "evil", and they were all still children for the most part."
"I would disagree, I found you, Potter, and Weasley to be very evil your first year."
"As I was saying," Hermione continued, rolling her eyes for good measure, "Molly and Ginny stayed at Hogwarts to help Madam Pomfrey. Ron, Harry, and I all recovered there; our options were St. Mungo's or Hogwarts, and that's not a real choice in my opinion. Without houses, without Voldemort, without worrying what our parents would say, many different friendships formed. It was like our souls were healing along with our bodies. While most of us thought it was odd, Ron and Pansy were actually the first."
"Pansy? Pansy Parkinson?"
"I know, I figured when Ron and I didn't work out, he would back away from smart girls. Pansy was a Slytherin Prefect…but instead Ron seemed to enjoy her conversation. It doesn't hurt that she adores Quidditch…"
"Pansy Parkinson married Ronald Weasley and works in Romania with dragons?"
"Again, if I have to repeat EVERYTHING six times, this is never going to work. Pansy passed her OWLS and her NEWTS in Care of Magical Creatures with flying colors. Regardless of what you think you remember of her, she's a rather strong woman. The things she went through, the things her father subjected her to, I'm just glad Ron never got a chance to confront her parents."
"Pansy cares for dragons."
"With Ron, and Charlie, and she loves it. She says she feels free there, no one knows her past and she isn't judged. I think they'll stay in Romania for a while, although Molly's just itching to have them move back when she gets pregnant."
"And that's where Draco met Ginevra?"
"Yes, and where Harry met many adoring fans."
"Potter isn't married?"
"He's dating like he plays Quidditch, all over the field."
Severus let out a snort, the edges of his mouth turning upward just a hair.
"Is that a grin?"
"It most certainly is not, I do not grin. At most it was a sneer."
"Well, you look rather handsome when you sneer. You should attempt to do that more often."
Severus nodded a second time, and then finished eating in a companionable silence. He was pleasantly surprised to find that Hermione could do the same. He waited for her to finish before asking another question.
"Are you going to the garden this afternoon, as planned?"
"Yes, I want to do some weeding, and according to Neville, certain plants do better being weeded by hand rather than by magic."
"I plan on remaining here and working. Show me what you have completed for Madam Pomfrey and I will finish some of her healing potions."
Hermione's face lit up as she stood and crossed to the parchment laying on the closest table. She unrolled it, and Severus could see it was comprised of the same basic potions for the infirmary that had been requested for years. A few had neat checkmarks to the left, and a few more had circles.
"The checks mean I've finished and bottled them. The circles are the potions currently in progress on this table," Hermione said, anticipating his question. "If you require anything else, Eakey can find me easily."
She had made it all the way to the door, her hand resting on the knob, before Severus asked her his final question.
"Who did you apprentice under?" His voice was so low, it came out as a strong whisper.
"Michael Druizlen, one of the top potions masters in the world, and the top master in the Americas. I apprenticed for two years in the US."
"Why didn't you stay in Europe?"
She slowly turned the knob, and slipped out the door quietly, stopping when only her head and hand were visible to turn back to look at him.
"I wanted to," she countered just as quietly, "but the top potions master in Europe was in hiding, and no matter how hard I tried to find him, he just stayed hidden."
Severus watched the door close. Hermione stood on the other side, wiping a tear from her eye, before heading to the garden.