"What's been happenin' in your world?
What have you been up to?
I heard that you fell in love or near enough
I gotta tell you the truth, yeah"
"Snap Out of It" – Arctic Monkeys
The day had been long, and full of trials. The night felt longer still, and perilous with the new and the terrifying.
Twenty minutes after she had agreed to leave for Nottingham, Severus returned to her room from his excursion to modify the memories of the doctors and nurses that had attended her and who would remember that she was supposed to be holed up in the recovery ward.
Thankfully, they were all rather occupied, and only minor suggestions of having been relocated elsewhere were necessary. The couple would be able to return to visit Marcus without anyone suspicious as to Hermione's absence after her major surgery and death-defying brushes with eclamptic tonic-clonic seizures.
As they prepared to leave, Severus insisted on carrying her to one of the ambulance bays on the ground floor, and he disillusioned them both.
"I'll be bringing us straight into my sitting room at home." He explained in her ear, his voice tickling the hair at the nape of her neck. "Mother will likely still be sitting up waiting for us, but I didn't want to have to carry you up the stairs."
"Okay," she agreed, too exhausted to argue. Her arms hung limply around his neck, and she blinked the bleariness in her eyes away with a wasted effort.
"I explained earlier what I would have to do to heal your suture, but I don't want you to worry. I have localized pain potions that are topical; you shouldn't feel a thing—"
Hermione's head snapped up to stare at him with horror. "You're going to cut me up...? Right when we get back?" She whimpered, her brown eyes wide and fearful.
Snape stiffened, his face looking pained. "It can't be allowed to heal further, or the damage may be permanent. If I heal it today, layer by layer, it'll be as close to as if it had never happened as I can make it. I had brought the Dittany with me, but it's still closed well enough that I didn't want to risk it here. It'll be sure to scar badly if I had to close it and then open it up once more. The wound is still fresh. The blood barely clotted. Now is the right time to do this."
She didn't answer except to give him a piteous stare of pain and misery as she dropped her curly head back against his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his t-shirt in an attempt to derive some sort of elusive comfort.
Finally, he reached a spot hidden behind a dumpster and spun them out of the night and into the cozy, cool room that sat atop his building in Nottingham, startling his mother for the second time that evening.
This time it was her knitting she dropped to the floor, though it was mostly in her haste to rise and fret over the witch that had appeared clinging to her son's front.
"Heavens girl, you look a mess!"
"Mother—" Snape began, swinging Hermione away to try and keep her out of the older witch's reach.
"Tell me now—is what Severus told me true?" She demanded, "Are you quite alright? Am I a grandmother—?"
"MAM!" Snape's voice boomed so loudly that the witch in his arms winced at the noise so close to her ear. "Give me enough room to set Hermione on the sofa, then go make yourself useful, would you?"
"And just what would you call 'useful,' Severus?" The old witch complained, hands on her hips and her face creased with an ill-tempered scowl.
"Go make us some hot water,"
"For tea?" Eileen asked, apparently startled by the request.
Snape growled with barely repressed irritation. His eyes flashing like they might have at a particularly dimwitted Hufflepuff first-year.
"Not for tea. I'll explain as I go. Just get us the damn water," he bit out as he relieved himself of his burden onto the uncomfortably stiff cushions of the Ikea-couch.
Hermione squirmed for a moment before she realized that doing so hurt terribly. She ceased her efforts immediately after and looked to her... well. She wasn't sure what he was to her. She looked to him with a rather pathetic expression of pain, however, and the man stooped to attend to her, stuffing a cushion under her shoulders and whispering softly enough that only she could hear that he'd get her something for the pain as soon as he had what he needed to begin his amateur attempt at surgery.
She didn't feel at all reassured, and instead gripped him by the bicep. It felt childish but she didn't want him to leave her side. Not now that he was there again.
He didn't leave, however. Only turned to summon a stack of towels from the box room adjacent to his own bedroom and then to summon a parade of phials from the kitchen. They floated past where Eileen stood at the cooker, waiting for a large stock-pot of water to come to a boil.
The surgery itself was over in a matter of moments. She couldn't be put out for the procedure, but Snape had draped a damp, warm towel over her eyes in order to help distract her from the sensation of pressure below her navel.
He had administered the pain potion, tracing globs of it over her belly and then giving her a swig of a narcotic-based brew, that he cautioned her over, asking her not to ask him for more, and then the pressure grew for several moments only to evaporate seconds later.
When she removed the towel and glanced down at her midsection, the messy yellow of the surgical pre-treatment she'd had smeared there was now her normal pale, fleshy pink, and the incision was nothing more than a thin white line, looking as faint as a string of spun spider silk.
Settling in that evening had been an exercise in awkwardness.
Severus had shown her the upstairs bedroom he'd had his mother prepare for her. It was across the hall from his mother's own. There had been some five minutes of inexplicable lingering at the door before he retreated and Hermione went to examine the room that was to be hers.
It was impersonal, utilitarian, seemed comfortable enough, and was also on the stuffy side. It took her something like thirty minutes of sitting on the side of the mattress (testing its firmness, she'd told herself), before she had decided it didn't suit her one bit, and had snuck back downstairs to find Eileen asleep on the sofa in front of the television, evidently having fallen into slumber while watching two nattering older women on a cottage-themed cooking show.
The woman was snoring lightly through the copious amounts of silvering black hair that fell over her face and Hermione tiptoed past, coming to the door she knew led to Snape's bedroom.
With one last look behind her at Eileen's prone form, she had pushed the door open and claimed her spot beside the man on the single-wide bed.
There hadn't been any questions. No negotiations. It took longer than might have been expected for them to even decide to enlarge the bed to be big enough for two adults. A whole week went past before the thought entered either of their minds.
Perhaps that was to be expected, given how busy that first week was.
The very first morning after they arrived back in Nottingham together, a pounding on the ground floor entrance woke Hermione, as Severus sat up from a dead slumber, shaking his head to try and shrug off the shrill claxons that were ringing in his ears.
It had been the wards, set to alert him when someone magical came to call. Snape leapt out of bed and tore through the apartment, intent on checking his exterior cameras.
Whoever was there was actually banging on the door and seemed to be growing impatient, or else his wards would not have risen above the normal buzzing.
"Severus!" His mother awoke from her position on the sofa. "Put some trousers on, boy! That's quite more than I bargained for so early in the morning—"
"Mam, the wards; can't you hear them?" He asked, distracted as he brought up the camera on his extra monitor. It was the same door as last time. The one where deliveries were usually dropped off.
It was no wonder that the wards were shrieking. He counted four heads all intent upon his domicile: Potter's instantly identifiable rat's nest, his wife's head of orange brushed silk, a carefully pomaded men's cut of well-maintained curls, and, to his immense displeasure, a towering, slightly frizzy, bouffant.
Damn Potter. Damn him to the nineth level of Hell.
Snape had cursed himself once more for not adding the microphones he'd decided upon after Potter's last incursion into his space. He'd be addressing that oversight within the upcoming week, he decided.
Behind him, Hermione had commandeered his housecoat and had moved out of his—their—room to join his mother, both of them watching him as he cursed.
Finally, Hermione came up beside him and turned him about, giving him a small push in the direction of his bedroom.
"Go get dressed, I'll bring them up," she told him, gathering the robe about herself and preparing to open the door that led to the building below.
Snape shook his head, "You're still recovering—"
"I feel great, Severus. Really. Like none of yesterday happened." She denied, brushing him off. "Hell, I feel better than I did before I showed up for work yesterday with swollen ankles and a head-ache."
"You've not taken a blood pressure stabilizer yet," he countered, though he had allowed her to usher him back into his room and was now searching for yesterday's jeans and shoving his long pale legs into each side, drawing them up to buckle over his navel and shoving his t-shirt into the waistband. "I don't want you doing anything strenuous—like taking the stairs—until you do.
"So don't you move," he finished, stepping into a faded and holey pair of trainers that had seen better days. He laced them impatiently, shaking his head to clear it of the persistent ringing. "I know, I fucking know, shut up—" he hissed under his breath, locating his wand and cancelling the alarm.
"Er... Severus?"
"What is it?" he asked her as he brushed past her into the main chamber, preparing himself to go greet their unwelcome guests.
"I... I don't know where my wand is." Hermione gulped from behind him. "I just realised... I've not had it since I woke up in hospital. Do you know when they took it off me?"
Snape paused, his shoulders tensed as he considered this for a moment.
"One problem at a time." He told her, before he hopped over the metal balustrade and threw himself from the top landing, allowing his magic to blunt his fall to the bottom of the stair-well.
Several moments later, echoing voices could be heard coming steadily closer. A chorus of oohs and ahhs that Hermione recognised as coming from her father, and polite chatter that sounded like Ginny. Harry's voice sounded clipped and impatient. She didn't hear her mother say a word, and when she finally caught a glimpse of the woman as they wound up and up again around each landing, she saw that the woman's lips were drawn in a tight line of impatient aggravation.
Margaret also seemed preoccupied with pulling her heels out of the expanded metal floors. By the third floor she grew too irritated to continue and stopped to remove her shoes, holding them in one hand by the stilettos, but, to Hermione's private amusement, she then found that the steel caught on her nylon stockings and began to tear at the material.
By the time the group appeared before her at the top of the stairs, her mother's stockings were nothing more than a mess of stripy, vertical runs.
The young woman had to stifle a giggle. Her mother appeared absolutely furious. Her stockings were never the cheap variety.
As the odd group made their way to the entrance of Snape's abode, Eileen joined Hermione in watching their assent, her eyes openly curious. A glance at the older witch told her that she had gone to don her favourite lavender cardigan, one which she had repaired several times at the elbows and hem with a complimentary shade of yarn. Snape's mother had also taken a moment to draw her long hair back into a rudimentary coiffure at the back of her neck and had seemingly applied a bit of rouge.
Apparently Snape's mother was taking the promise of company quite seriously. When Hermione glanced down and saw her own attire: Snape's over-large, black, terrycloth housecoat over a pair of men's polyester football shorts that covered her to the knees, and a faded Galdrvale promotional t-shirt, she felt herself blush with embarrassment.
Everyone but her was fully dressed.
Feeling a bit shame-faced, she twisted the hem of the shirt—which said something about Wulfric's Keep on the front—between her hands, but then she noticed that behind Harry was a large suitcase, and atop that, Crookshanks' pet-carrier. The witch felt herself smile. Evidently, they'd realised her intent to stay with the Snapes and had brought her things.
She felt a strong desire to run out and hug the Potters for that, and that's just what she did, catching up first Harry and then Ginny in her arms and squeezing them fiercely.
"Hermione!" Harry crowed, "You're up and moving around!" he observed, holding her back at arms-length to examine her.
"How are you feeling?" Ginny asked from behind him, "How is it that you're looking so well after yesterday?" She marveled, studying the woman before her. "You just had a baby, and then two seizures, and today you're looking better than you did before you left our house the other morning..."
Hermione shrugged as she pulled away and led the way back into the flat atop the building. "I think it was the pregnancy itself that was making me so ill, I'm feeling much better, and Severus healed my incision last night when he brought me back here. It's like it never even happened..." she trailed off.
As Harry directed his wand to lower the suitcases he'd brought her, Hermione reached out and unlatched Crookshank's door, watching as the cat darted out, far faster than should have been possible given his age, and streaked into Severus' bedroom, probably to hide himself. She straightened back up and grinned at her friends and parents.
"Where's Marcus?" Ginny asked as they all congregated in the small living chamber, all four guests looking uncomfortable as they stood around.
Snape seemed loathe to accommodate them, so Hermione waved her hand and indicated that they should sit. Both Ginny and Harry did so, and, after a fashion, her mother did as well, all three of them gathered together on the tiny sofa, shoulder to shoulder. Her father and Eileen were still standing. He was craning his neck in a not-so-subtle attempt to get a good look at Snape's computer corner with its Galdrvale knick-knacks and posters, and Eileen was peering at the assembled Potters and Grangers with ill-disguised interest, though she seemed too shy to speak.
"Marcus will be staying in hospital until he's gained enough weight and strength to come home," Hermione explained, her voice sounding more frail to her ears than she was comfortable with. She turned to look at Snape, who had retreated to the kitchen and was puttering about a cauldron. "When can we go back to him, Severus? How soon?"
"This afternoon." The man announced, clearly distracted.
"I suppose there's no chance that that rude curmudgeon of yours is in there making us tea?" Her mother finally asked, her tone snide. She craned her neck to glare at Snape's back as he stood over a cutting board, mincing daisy roots.
Eileen bristled on her son's behalf and inhaled loudly. "One doesn't appear uninvited and presume to be offered tea," she sniffed in a prim voice, her nose upturned.
What resulted was a rather amusing face-off between the two older women. Each of them trying to out-snob the other.
While Margaret's clothes were undeniably newer and in better repair, her appearance maintained with the exception of her shredded stockings, Eileen had hundreds of years of good breeding and a whole childhood of training in how to conduct herself in wizarding high-society to fall back on. It wasn't at all clear who would win the debutante détente, given both women's propensity for officious snobbery.
"My apologies, dear," Margaret simpered, her tone dripping with condescension, "I'm afraid I've not been fortunate enough to have made your acquaintance. Who are you to my daughter's young man?"
The dismissiveness did not sit well with Eileen, who drew up to her full height—unimpressive though it was—arranged her shoulders in a composed line, and drew her heels together. It was a rather more composed posture than she normally was privy to. Hermione had only ever seen the woman at a slight slump. The way she stood now reminded the younger witch of someone.
Walburga Black. That was it. Or perhaps the late Narcissa Malfoy.
"Severus—or rather that rude curmudgeon, as you so discourteously referred to him earlier—is my son, Madam. This is our home, and I'll thank you not to forget that you are here by virtue of his graciousness—"
At this, neither Harry, Ginny, nor Hermione herself could suppress their assorted snorts and soft guffaws.
Severus Snape was many, many things, but he had never been mistaken for 'gracious' in his entire life.
"Mam, that's enough." Snape himself called, seemingly still distracted by his ingredient preparation. "I don't need you defending me," he said, his words a near exact foil to those he'd spoken in anger thirty-some years earlier while hanging upside down from his ankle.
He paused after they'd left his mouth, and his eyes met Harry's. Both wizards stared at each other for a long moment, before Snape made an about face and went back to tending his cauldron.
"What are you brewing, Professor?" Harry asked, perhaps shooting for a bit of levity.
"Wolodymyr's Remedy." Snape barked, his shoulders stiff as he measured precise amounts of crushed garden snail shells into the belly of the cauldron. He stirred thrice anticlockwise with each addition.
Harry appeared sheepish, one of his hands rising to scratch behind an errant cowlick. "And... er...what exactly does that do?"
"It's a treatment for hypertension, Potter."
Harry's incomprehension must have shown on his face.
"Oh for the love of—" Snape spat, turning about at the end of a series of stirs. He brandished the stirring rod in an impatient gesticulation. "High blood pressure." He enunciated with ill-disguised contempt. "It's a treatment for high blood pressure."
"Who—" Harry began, but he was interrupted by a hand on his arm.
"Me, Harry. It's for me—so I won't have any more seizures," Hermione explained. She brought the sides of the robe around herself, hiding her attire beneath, though everyone would have seen it by then. She felt a bit of a chill, and wasn't sure if it was from the environmental charms on the floors below, or simply from her sense of unease. "When will it be finished, Severus?" she asked.
The man in question mumbled under his breath as he stripped strings of sarsaparilla root straight into the bubbling potion, each new piece lightening the colour of the brew as it transitioned from a forest green to a cheery orange. "Few hours." He answered finally. "Why?"
Hermione frowned at the wizard. He'd clearly chosen to retreat from the overwhelming fracas that had arrived on his doorstep that morning without his sanction. She didn't necessarily blame the man, though she did perhaps wish that he'd not left herself and his mother to entertain the four interlopers. In the end she merely shrugged.
Snape raised an eyebrow at her non-reply. "Why?" He demanded again, his voice silky and slightly dangerous.
"No reason, Severus. I'm merely feeling a bit peaky—"
Immediately after Hermione's admission—in no time at all really—Snape cast a stasis over the cauldron and strode into the midst of the assembled guests where he grasped Hermione firmly by the elbow. He steered the witch over to the computer area where, with the arm he had free, he summoned the rolling computer chair over to himself, pushing the slight woman down onto the seat.
"Potter," he called, over his shoulder. Both Harry and Ginny sat up straighter in their seats, "give me one of the pillows your privileged arse is perched on." He commanded with a sneer.
It went sailing over the back of the sofa and Severus caught it up, mid-air, transfiguring it into a sort of tall ottoman cum pouf that he shoved beneath Hermione's legs.
He rose to his full height and scowled at the rest of the room. "Nobody let her up, she's to rest."
His imperious decree was met with shocked silence, only Ginny and Eileen reacting with nods.
The youngest witch rose from her seat and walked to Hermione's side as Snape stalked back over to the cooker, resting a pale, freckled hand on her friend's forehead.
"You do feel a bit clammy, 'Mione," To Hermione's mild irritation, the woman began fretting over her and examining her ankles for evidence of swelling.
"That's no reason for this brute to go about acting like a... a neandertal!" Margaret cried, her expression scandalised.
Eileen let out a noise of dismayed offense. "My son is no brute!" She cried, as impassioned as Hermione had ever seen her. "You, madam, have clearly never met a real brute if you imagine my Severus capable of—"
"Mam—no."
"I won't stand by while this... this cow speaks ill of you under your own roof, Severus!"
Margaret gasped and stared around from Robert to Hermione, perhaps looking for backup. "A cow!? Me?"
Robert and Hermione said nothing, though they did exchange a commiserative glance.
Margaret had waded into these waters of her own accord. As such, neither felt inclined to come to her rescue.
"And this is the sort of mother-in-law you've decided on, Hermione? A shrieking Brunhilda like her—?"
Eileen laughed, loudly. It was clearly affected for show as it wasn't natural in the least from Hermione's experience. "You pay me a compliment, dear," she sneered, her lip curling up to expose her canine, much as Severus' often did. "I'll gladly play Brunhilda to your Tamora!"
"How dare you—"
Little improvement was made for the remainder of the visit, and Eileen and Margaret continued to throw pot-shots at one another until Margaret rose from her seat and demanded that Harry and Ginny apparate them home.
"I see we won't be making any headway in such company," she'd said, glowering at Eileen who shot her a look full of venom. "It's no question how your son comes by his sense of manners," the muggle woman sniffed, turning her pert nose up in the air.
She turned to her husband who was glancing about with reluctance. He'd remained rooted to the spot.
"Come along, Robert."
Hermione half expected the woman to pat her leg as if to call upon a favoured dog.
Robert was clearly hedging, and had coloured a little at the woman's demand for obedience. "I think I'll stay a while longer, Mags. If I'm welcome to?" He glanced at Hermione who smiled at her father with delight.
"Yeah Dad," Hermione said at the same time that Harry piped up from his seat.
"We'd be happy to take you home Dr. Granger. And perhaps we could return for... er... the other Dr. Granger in a bit? We have to work in the afternoon. It's still Tuesday, after all."
Margaret glowered at her husband, who shuffled from foot to foot, avoiding his wife's steely glare. He cleared his throat and straightened, making it clear that he wasn't moving, even as he refused to be any more firm with the woman than he'd been in his decidedly indirect stand.
Ultimately, Margaret departed with Harry and Ginny, who gave Hermione parting hugs and admonitions that she should call them if she needed anything, and with dual looks shot at Snape's back that clearly showed that they didn't quite fully trust the man with their best friend.
Hermione attempted to put the couple at ease with as much subtlety as she could manage under the circumstances, which was unfortunately not much. "I'll be fine," she whispered back to Ginny after the red-headed witch had asked her for the third time if Nottingham was where she wanted to be. "Severus will take good care of me," she assured her.
Snape's back was stiff where he stood in the kitchen, obviously privy to the discussions about him that were happening right under his nose. He mulishly ignored them all, though Hermione thought she could read his offense in the rigid set of his shoulders. He was stirring the cauldron with decidedly more vehemence than was strictly necessary. His grip on the stirring rod was inflexible where normally he would hold it in a loose and easy grip that allowed for more finesse.
It was clear to the witch that her... something or other... was holding on by a thin thread that was rapidly unraveling. His behaviour was reminiscent of how he'd acted at Order meetings where he'd retreated to a shadowed corner of the basement kitchen at Grimmauld place in order to avoid his perennial occupation of favoured whipping boy.
She glanced to Eileen who was now standing next to her father. The old witch looked tired. She'd let go of the tight composure she'd conjured, seemingly from nowhere, when confronting Hermione's mother and presently slumped onto the couch, as was usual for her, where she grabbed up her needles and tensioned the yarn between the fingers of her right hand, moving stitches from left to right with a frantic, anxious speed. It seemed that whatever small amount of bravery she'd summoned earlier had left her all at once, and she was once more the apprehensive, neurotic woman Hermione had grown to appreciate.
When Hermione looked away from her perusal of Eileen's migration to the couch, she saw that her father had started toward her, his expression resting somewhere between grim resolve and wistful regret.
"Hi there, little pea," he began, his voice low as he came to stand beside her at Snape's desk. "How're you holding up?" he asked softly, chucking her beneath the chin with his index and middle finger as he'd done when she was much, much younger.
The nostalgia of the moment brought a small grin to the exhausted witch's face, and before she knew it her eyes had begun to water against her wishes.
"I'll be okay, Dad."
"You're sure?" He asked, squeezing her shoulder now as he crouched down on his haunches to reach eye level. "I'll understand if you didn't want to come back with your mother and me. I don't like to speak ill of her, you understand, but she's not exactly made a good showing these past two days,"
"That's an understatement," Hermione sniffed, her voice hoarse.
"And you weren't even there for the worst of it, last night," Robert reflected with a small grin. "I also know you know your mind well enough to have your reasons for not wanting to go back with the Potters,"
To this, Hermione nodded, swallowing the words that wanted to come justifying her decisions. She didn't owe anyone an explanation.
Robert merely nodded back, his mild grey eyes filled with a melancholy understanding. "Sometimes I feel like we barely got to know you, Hermione Jean. You were the tiniest little thing, with a head of spit-curls, and then you were the most curious, bright little girl I've ever had the privilege to know. And then, when I blinked, you were a young woman. That's not your fault, little pea, but I do miss you. I miss what might have been..."
"Had I not been a witch." Hermione finished for him. Robert only stared back at her, his eyes filled with a sort of longing. "I miss you too, Daddy. And Mum, even when she's being a holy terror."
The doctor snorted. "I won't tell her you said so,"
"Please, don't." she laughed.
"But, Hermione, while you don't have to come with us, and you don't have to go back with the Potters—I want you to know you have options," he urged, his eyes pleading.
"Dad..."
"I don't care what your mother says about it—I'd be happy to put you and Marcus up somewhere. For as long as necessary. I don't know about how this purported marriage came about, but knowing you I don't quite think it's all it may appear on the surface." Her father's eyes met hers, clearly desperate for some answer.
Hermione glanced around and watched as Severus moved from the cooker to head to the upper level, mumbling under his breath about needing a cleaver.
It was a pretense to leave and give her some privacy with her father, she knew. Severus never began a potion without everything he needed sitting within arm's reach.
When she looked to see what Eileen was absorbed in, she saw that Snape's mother had fallen to counting stitches. The witch was single-minded when it came to any of her hobbies and likely didn't have the presence of mind to listen in.
She looked her father in the eye and reached out to squeeze his hand in her own. "I care for Severus very, very deeply, Dad. If Marcus had never entered into the equation, I still would be happy to wear his ring and to stay here with him."
Robert Granger nodded slowly, and offered up a wan smile. He looked around for a moment to the rest of the flat and his eyes rested on something that sat atop Severus' computer desk. Tentatively, he reached out with his right hand and brought the small figurine closer for examination.
He turned the statuette in his hands, his face set in a wry smile.
"I know he cares for you, Hermione. Your mother won't hear a word about it, but the proof is right here," her father chuckled, waving the little collectible in front of her face.
The little figure was a model of The Bookseller, though far more realistic than the one portrayed in the game. Her cherubic heart-shaped face smiled up brightly at them, displaying two, over-large incisors and a halo of corkscrew curls. Atop Hermia's head a robin had made its nest in her hair, but her brilliant expression showed a sort of cheeky insouciance with which the young woman faced her circumstances. A bird in her hair? A lost or damaged book? Abduction by occultists? A great and consequential purpose of being? All met with a grin that dimpled the young woman's cheeks.
She had her arms crossed over her bosom, crushing a tome to her chest over her rose-pink tunic, and her feet, clad in scuffed rubber boots that had seen better days, were turned in slightly, reflecting Hermione's own, often pigeon-toed, stance.
"It was important to me that you felt the same. If not... well." He heaved a sigh and set the figurine back down beside a wizened old wizard with a long white beard tucked into his sash, his periwinkle and gold robes clashing terribly with his red-leather high-heeled boots. "You deserve to have options. You and Marcus." He sniffed a bit and wriggled his pert nose, so like her own. Perhaps in an attempt to dispel the glassy quality his grey eyes had adopted.
"It really is very cool to see The Scribe's desk, you know," Robert commented, his voice coming out a bit rough with emotion. "It's a bit like making a pilgrimage." He chuckled.
Hermione's brow creased as she heard this, the non-sequitur registering somewhat slowly.
When he spoke next his words sounded far away. As if he wasn't speaking them to her at all, but to himself. "I suppose I should have realised that Galdrvale was based on your world. After all, there must have been some reason I gravitated toward it so strongly."
"Dad, what do you know about Galdrvale?" the witch asked, her eyes widening when the knut had finally dropped.
Her father chuckled. "I suppose you two were too busy for him to have told you that I was familiar with his creation, eh? I started playing before we left Australia. It was a lot different back then. I guess I see now where that man of yours was pulling his inspiration from. The first iteration of the game was far darker than it is now: everything felt tense... immediate. Like if you didn't continue to sit and play that the whole world would fall to pieces while you were logged out. It feels a lot more open-ended now, and a bit less dire, though this latest questline for Lady Hermia has been refreshing. After Wulfric was killed off things felt a bit stale for a year or two."
Hermione wrinkled her nose. "You wouldn't know it from the discussion on the forums."
"Pah," Robert ejaculated, waving a hand. "Any man who's known a woman they wished to woo probably likes it just fine. And you can't please everyone, particularly not that crowd—they'll always find something to kvetch about." He grinned. "Anyway, I think I'll phone your mum and tell her that I'm going to take the train back to London. I have a lot to think about and I fancy a bit of space to do the thinking."
He rose to his feet before her. "I want to see that baby of yours sooner rather than later, little pea. And if Severus is to be my son-in-law? Well... I can't say I'm not just a tiny bit star-struck over it, as long as you're happy. Tell him that I'll happily buy him a few pints—wherever he likes—so long as he lets me pick his brain a bit."
Hermione smiled at her father, feeling her heart lighten considerably. "He likes ciders."
Robert nodded. "Good man."
Then he dusted off the knees of his trousers, perhaps more an action borne of anxiety and awkwardness than out of any real necessity, and bent to kiss his daughter on the forehead. "I'll see myself out. You have our number?"
Hermione nodded and took his hand to squeeze it between her fingers. He gripped it back for a few seconds.
As he made for the exit Severus was descending the stairs once more. A moment passed between where both froze and seemed to be taking each other's measure.
It must have been that they both passed muster, as they exchanged terse nods, and Dr. Granger excused himself to his son-in-law and Eileen, tipping his head to the latter in acknowledgement as he let himself out of the upper-floor flat.
With the departure of the final guest, Hermione felt a precipitous drop in the pressure of the social-atmosphere. Both mother and son were clearly relieved to be left once more to the dynamic that they had grown comfortable with, and Hermione realized with a grateful heart that she was seemingly a part of that.
Eileen rose from her spot at the couch and joined Severus in the kitchen, where he was conducting an intricate series of stirs, to-and-fro, diagonal to a quarter circle, and then endless switching between clockwise and anticlockwise for a matter of minutes. He was wholly absorbed in his task, not even noticing as his mother skirted by behind him and reached for a sleeve of digestives out of the cabinet.
She arranged them on a plate with a tinned pudding and brought them over to where Hermione sat, foisting the plate of sugary sweets into the girl's lap.
"Er... thanks Eileen," Hermione said, picking up a cookie to nibble at, "you didn't have to wait on me, you know—"
Eileen shook her head with stubborn vehemence. "You're not to get out of that chair until Severus is finished, girl—and you'll need your strength. You've not eaten since you got here,"
"I haven't eaten since..." Hermione pondered it as she began to dig into the spotted dick with a spoon the older witch had handed her. She shoved a towering bite into her mouth and moaned around it, eyes half closing as she savoured the taste. "Since yesterday morning."
The admission brought a small crash as Snape slammed down the stirring rod beside the cauldron, cursing as he was made to scourgify the potion from the rapidly melting faux-mica countertop.
When he spoke his words were laced with impatient fury, "You've not eaten since breakfast yesterday?"
Hermione winced and selected another biscuit from the plate, dutifully shoving it into her mouth. "I think I had a Mars bar before you showed up at work,"
"And what did you have before leaving Grimmauld Place?" Snape demanded, turning around to face the two women.
The witch reddened, though she didn't quite know why she ought to feel so embarrassed. "A strawberry Yoplait..."
There was a beat of silence, over which Snape's scowl intensified. He canted one of his eyebrows as he prompted her: "And?"
Hermione shrugged, reluctantly.
"Damnit, Hermione!" Severus seethed, anger twisting his features into a tight web of planes and angular lines. "How did you expect to sustain yourself on such a pauper's meal, much less yourself and our child?!"
The witch frowned and defiantly took another hulking bite of the pudding. She'd begun alternating between the two, finding that her hunger was, by now, more than substantial. "I wasn't hungry, Severus—"
The wizard appeared ripe to rip his hair out by the roots, his hands fisted into claws at his side. He took two, deliberate, steadying breaths before he turned on his heel back to the cauldron, preparing to decant the potion into a waiting beaker.
"I thought that wouldn't be ready for a few more hours?"
Snape looked over his shoulder, granting her a rather ugly look until his attention was resumed with his task as he ladled the frothy, mint-green Wolodymyr's Remedy into the waiting vessel. "I lied."
For several seconds his wife's eyes bored into his back, causing his shoulders to tense under the scrutiny, before her lips turned up into a small, wry grin, and she let out a little chuckle.
"I don't know why I'm surprised."
"Neither do I. You shouldn't be."
He strode over to her and held out the steaming beaker, both of them staring the other down for several seconds before Hermione offered the man a small grin, and he broke his stoic façade with an amused snort. "It'll be hot," he cautioned, "but it has to be imbibed fresh, so there's nothing for it."
Luckily, the beaker itself was charmed not to scald her fingertips as she took the potion from him and began to sip at it, wincing at the strong spearmint flavour. It was better than some potions but had the undesirable effect of making her eyes water. She felt rather like she was drinking piping hot mouthwash.
"Now," he began, stepping back from her, "I'm going to go order us a pizza, and you're going to eat a full half of it—"
Hermione sputtered a bit, and had to wipe some of the froth back into her mouth from where she'd spewed it. "A whole half?! I couldn't! Why?"
"You need to eat to produce enough milk for our son," he informed her, "And if we want to be able to continue supplying him with Strength Potion and Nutritive Potion then the best way will be to smuggle it in laced into your breast milk."
The witch digested this and nodded with a bit of ill grace, before she paused, a thought occurring to her.
"Severus, how am I to do that without a way to express my milk for him? I don't have a pump."
For a moment, Snape appeared as flummoxed as she herself was, before it was Eileen who surprisingly provided the answer.
"Do you have my old books from the house, boy?" She asked from the couch, her needles clicking delicately as she spoke.
"I didn't throw any of them away, if that's what you mean," he answered, his brow creasing.
"Ach," the old witch ejaculated, throwing her head back with frustration. "Don't be defensive, it's unbecoming."
"And when have I ever cared—"
Eileen didn't wait for him to finish, "Where are my old books, Severus?"
Snape's mouth twisted with annoyance. "Upstairs in the large box room,"
"Summon The Weaned Witch," his mother directed him. "There are spells in there that should allow a witch to express her milk."
Snape did so, standing at the bottom of the staircase to catch the soaring mauve book as it flew down from the upper level.
It was a thin volume, printed in the early part of the twentieth century, and provided incantations and illustrations to help a new mother with magical childcare. The man flipped through the pictures for a moment, his eyes scanning the text. His eyebrows were alive with motion as they rose and fell according to whatever he saw.
"Could it really be that entertaining?" Hermione called from her seat, amused by his reactions.
The wizard snorted and shook his head, his stubbornness back in full. "I simply never imagined there could be so much to a witch's postpartum care." He said, handing the book off to his wife, turned to the appropriate page.
"You wouldn't," Eileen complained, as she slipped a few stitches onto a third, shortened, needle, moving it to the fore. "You men never do. Did you know I tore terribly with you, Severus? I did." She griped. "You had as large and hard a head then as you do now, boy. The midwife had to give me stitches all the way to my arse—"
Snape had journeyed to the kitchen where he was readying a jar for Hermione to express into. He blanched upon hearing the graphic description of his birth. "That's—"
"—and your father didn't give a single shrivelfig that I'd torn, either, did he? No. I was up the very next morning, not to mention every hour in-between, scrubbing the baseboards and hanging the laundry in the back-garden. You were so new I had to keep you in the laundry basket with me," she continued. Though what she said could have been construed as a complaint, her tone was conversational. "I couldn't sit normally for months, of course—it was almost better being on my knees, scrubbing, or up and about."
Snape seemed to have given up on stopping his mother's impassioned retelling of his first few days of life, and he brought the sterilized jar over to Hermione, passing her his wand so that she could begin expressing her colostrum into it.
"When you're finished I'll add the potions, and we can keep it in the fridge until we leave for hospital." He informed her, withdrawing his mobile from a holster at his belt. "I'm going to go check the servers and order the pizza."
Snape let himself out of the living space quickly, like he was escaping something he found uncomfortable in the extreme. In all likelihood, he was.
The young witch stared after him. Her husband.
They'd not talked about it... not much anyway. They both kept stopping short of having the sort of conversation that could actually shed light on what had transpired to bring them together as man and wife. It was entirely possible that the rings were nothing more than a fabrication...
But then neither of them had removed the rings when there had been ample opportunity. It was far past the time where they were necessary for providing a pretense to be joined in the hospital together. Now they had overstayed their initial purpose by hours. By a whole day...
Hermione rather thought she'd like it if she managed to forget to remove the ring for the rest of her adult life.
She twisted the silver band around her third finger with her thumb, examining it, her expression thoughtful. Its weight was comforting. Its appearance seemed to answer an unasked question: like it completed the symmetry of her life by adding an element of asymmetry to her hands. Her brow furrowed. She wouldn't be taking it off. She wouldn't. If the marriage was Snape's bluff, she was calling it. He would have to ask her to remove the ring.
Otherwise...
Well. Otherwise, he had himself a wife.
It was, perhaps, the case that Severus himself felt that Hermione had in himself a husband too, for throughout the following month as the new parents attended their son daily with fresh bottles of potion-laced milk, ready to love and hold and touch the boy as he grew rapidly from a fragile neonate weighing fewer than three pounds to a more respectable five and a half pound infant, he, too, refused to doff his ring.
"I wanna grab both your shoulders and shake, baby
Snap out of it (snap out of it)
I get the feelin' I left it too late, but baby
Snap out of it (snap out of it)
If that watch don't continue to swing
Or the fat lady fancies havin' a sing
I'll be here waitin' ever so patiently
For you to snap out of it"
"Snap Out of It" (reprise) – Arctic Monkeys
A/N: I would like to thank the reviewer who pointed out to me that hospital administration wouldn't need to speak to the new parents! This is totally different across the pond, and while I can't correct it in this fic, I'll keep that in mind going forward as I have a few other fics where a trip to hospital is a part of the plot (though not dealing with birth). Also, a special thanks to the reviewer "J" who has been beyond kind throughout this whole process (and also shares my musical tastes lol) and who wished us the best with our basement fiasco. We had the insurance adjuster out the other day, and none of the guitars were damaged I don't think (though he did lose some expensive guitar pedals and his computer which he uses for his guitar YouTube channel. Luckily, insurance should cover it! PSA: if you are a homeowner, invest in flood insurance!)
Thank you all so much, and I hope you're enjoying the ride!
P/S/A/N: Far be it for me to mention his guitar channel without also plugging it. If you like rock/metal, reviews of guitars/equipment, or instructionals on how to repair/upgrade guitars, you can find him on YT under the username BigJakeMusic/ BigJake Music. He's the long-haired Filipino dude with the cowboy hat. (FFN hates links and I give up on fighting with it)