Author's Note:
I'm writing this pivotal chapter sitting in a hotel bar after spending a marvellous weekend in Bath enjoying basically the Austen of it all. After this chapter, I only have two more left to write and then To Save the Saviour will be finished – there are more chapters, but as I've mentioned before, they're already penned. Bit of rumpy pumpy at the start of this chapter but nothing too graphic, just a bit of tender loving but do be warned. Having said that, I suppose this chapter is dedicated to all the men and women in ages past whose circumstances changed in his city that was the true marriage market of the Georgian middle and upper classes in England. Some won't have been happy, some will have been blissful but like Hermione and Severus in this chapter, the state of play changed dramatically when their match was made and when they were wed. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter and please do review – I read each and every one and it does light up my otherwise dreary days…
DaenerysTargary3n
Chapter Ten:
"Mama's marked this one as hers." Morgana murmured, thumbing the top of the next vial of memory.
"We haven't had one of hers before. What makes this one so special?"
The young witch read the neatly written label on the bottle and sighed knowing instantly what the date signified in the Snape family history.
"It's the last day of August…1991 and I remember bits of that day so perfectly as if it were yesterday. But there's obviously something I wasn't to know as an eleven-year-old that I need to know now and that you need to as well."
Harry, truly perplexed once again by the nonsensical mutterings of his companion, had no idea what August 1991 was to Morgana, but it was evidently a pivotal memory moment for her. "Tell me, Morgana. What happened?" He asked, taking her free hand gently in his own.
"It's the night before the Hogwarts Express leaves King's Cross. It's the night before the train left when you and I were 11 years old. 31st August 1991 was the day mama took the potion and went from an adult witch and my mother to a prepubescent girl and your schoolmate."
Empathising with the hesitancy in Morgana's eyes, Harry took the small bottle away from her and flooded the pensieve with the memory himself before pulling her towards it, his hand never once straying from hers. "Let's see what 'Mione wants us to see from that night then. We've come so far with Professor Snape's memories. Let's see this one of hers and then we can take a break. Merlin knows we've earnt it. All you have to do is come with me into this memory. Then, we'll have a rest."
"I'd follow you into any memory, go with you into anything, Harry Potter." Morgana whispered softly. "But I do need a let-up from this stuff. One last memory, then we can sleep a bit. You must be exhausted, because I'm tired and I haven't just saved the world from the worst megalomaniac history has ever seen."
Memory Date: 31-08-1991
Location: Spinner's End, Cokeworth
"This cannot be the last time, Hermione!" A breathless Severus panted.
An equally spent Hermione heaved back, "It doesn't have to be, Severus!"
"Merlin's hairy ball sack!" Harry gasped as he took in the scene before him.
The pair of interlopers were in the Snapes' bedroom looking on as the couple were apparently coming to the pinnacle of their…activities. Fortunately, they were spared any traumatic visuals and were only privy to the sight of the professor's wiry legs underneath Hermione's bare back as she sat astride him, and they moved in harmony together.
"It does, my love," Severus moaned, his pleasure cresting as his wife rotated deliciously on his lap brazenly chasing the orgasm that was almost in sight, "I will not have you again after tonight. Not so long as you are not…yourself."
Having pronounced his will for the thousandth time since they had found themselves at Godric's Hollow with a scheme to protect the Potter child that he would not take sexual pleasure from his wife while she was little more than a child in appearance herself, Severus wrested control for the final time from his wife atop him and flung her down onto the bed so he could plunge into her welcoming depths at the pace he desired and needed to achieve his own climax.
"Why the hell did 'Mione put this memory in? I don't need to witness this. Can we leave, Morgana?" Harry groaned, hands moving to cover his eyes, wishing to grow two more so he could deafen his ears to the moans of pleasure his best friend and her husband were currently making.
"How the blazes should I know! I'm their daughter – I promise you this is weirder for me than it is for you, Potter! I mean for crying out loud, I'm in the living room and I had no clue! Oh, I'm so stupid – Inauditus!" Morgana hissed, annoyed that her idea came a few beats too late, as she brought out her wand and whipped it around Harry and her.
"What does that do?"
Morgana twirled her finger around, gesturing to the room around them and answered Harry but knew that all he would be able to see in the aftermath of her spellcasting would be her lips making shapes. She hoped he would comprehend that her spell had helpfully rendered them unable to hear the passionate moans of her parents in their throes of love. She remembered learning that spell from an obscure medical text from her mama's private collection written by a witch called Petronella Austen-Heywood who went mad after a ghastly time as a healer and heard voices until she created a spell which would deafen her to both the voices in her head and those in the physical world around her.
Harry gave Morgana the thumbs up when he realised that he could not hear her or her parents. Harry removed his own newly repaired wand and wrote in the air Great spell. How will you know when to reverse it?
As she read the golden sparkly writing, Morgana smiled truly enchanted by the magic starting to pass between them and raised her wand to reply in elegant, glistening green script Isn't it? I can see enough to know out of the corner of my eye.
Pervert.
Harry! It's not that I want to watch, you idiot!
Harry smiled at her irate, creased brow – expressive as if she were using spoken words. You can't help yourself. (I'm teasing you – anything to make this less awkward).
Morgana sniggered silently. I don't know why mama plonked us down in the middle of…this. She flapped her loose arm around the room. But I don't want to miss whatever is important because we are currently as deaf as logs.
Well, I'm not looking for anything until I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm not going to see something I can never unsee! I don't care if they roll off the recipe to the Philosopher's Stone. You don't have my permission to unmute this room for me or let me turn around until they are under the covers or even better, in clothes!
Morgana giggled with Harry who had collapsed into a fit at the end of the essay he had written in the air between them. You're funny when you rant. Your eyes get even greener than usual when you laugh. It's… Morgana hesitated as she searched for the word. Mesmerising.
Harry's aforementioned eyes softened behind his glasses at her profession. She had such a way with words, this strange, beautiful, lonely but perfect witch. It was a talent both her parents shared and she had the good fortune to inherit. Harry could almost believe that in Morgana Snape's words he could drown and be completely at ease with it and find his future at the end. He knew he could lose himself utterly in that idea, but although he knew her heart was all for him, she had nursed that affection, that love over the course of their lifetime. He had known her only a few hours and he already knew he would care for her for the rest of their lives – she was 'Mione's daughter after all, but his heart would need to catch up with her expectations of it.
I don't know what to say to that. Harry eventually responded, opting for plain honesty over made-up platitudes.
Morgana's lips turned up. That's fine. You don't need to say anything. I'm going to undo the spell. They're finished.
Harry watched as she undid her spellwork and suddenly he could hear Hermione and Severus' breathing again. "Is it safe to turn around?"
"Yes. They're underneath the coverlet."
As Harry turned around, Hermione spoke in a small voice as she lay in her husband's arms, "I don't know how I'll be able to cope without you, Severus."
Severus winced at the vulnerability and uneasiness in her voice, "You will never be without me. Not even if you were to age the other way and be an awful old hag."
Hermione laughed gently at his usual attempt to pull her back from the precipice of depression with his wry humour. "Why would that benefit anyone ever? But you've already said you won't lie with me after I drink the potion. I will be without you."
"In bed and in body perhaps. But where we will be parted in body, once you have my magic within you as the fuel for the potion, our minds will be more interwoven than ever. I shall be able to feel your every feeling, your every passing emotion, every heartbeat. And I know, my love, that your heart beats for me. Do you doubt that mine beats only for you?"
Hermione turned to face the man who had just made the most ardent and intimate love to her: her husband. The man who had started their journey as her enemy and now was indispensable to her happiness, her heart, and her soul. How very far they had come, but she feared the distance they still had to travel. "No doubt, my love. We have been married over ten years and I have never had cause to doubt your love for me or our family in all that time. Even when you infuriate me and when you're completely wrong and dunderheaded, I know you love me, and I know how much I love you."
Severus kissed her soundly, knocking the breath out of her slight form. "Then do not ask me again. Do not tempt me, Hermione, to go against my better judgment. You will always have me as your husband, your friend, your counsel, and your fiercest protector, but don't seek to be my lover once you no longer have the form of the woman I love. I don't know that I would be able to resist, and I would hate myself for taking you like that. It would remind me too much of our first night."
Hermione balked but she understood what burden she was placing on her husband by following through with the plan she concocted all those years ago. "I promise I will never ask you to make love to me while I'm protecting Harry. Yet, if ever I do, in the throes of teenage hormones or because I simply miss you and the pain of being without you is unbearable, you must forgive me."
"Very well. We shall both try." Severus proclaimed, a tad put out at his wife's last 'get out of jail free' clause, before swinging his legs out of bed. "Now, let's go and peel Morgana away from whatever book she's lost in and spend the evening together. She may claim she understands what is about to happen, wife, but take my word: she does not truly understand, or if by some miracle she does, she has not grasped the impact it will have on her life. The potion is ready for you to take at midnight but before that, we owe her a full explanation and our full attention this night as in the morning when she wakes, you won't be the same mother who put her to bed."
With a nod, Professor and Madam Snape both donned their dressing gowns and went downstairs to the family rooms of their quaint house. Once they reached the living room, they found their eleven-year-old huddled in her favourite reading spot with the only book she had been permitted to keep with her.
"How's the book coming, sweetheart?" Hermione asked her daughter.
Morgana looked up at her mother and replied with a grin, "The prince has just met the fox."
"Ah, yes! It's just getting good then."
Severus looked on as his wife pulled their daughter to her and read over her shoulder – a well-thumbed copy of The Little Prince that was one of Hermione's first purchases since they started living together. A childhood favourite she had always claimed from when she lived in Dijon. They both looked so comfortable in the world Saint-Exupéry had created for them. He did not know how he and his young daughter would manage so much of the time without Hermione's steady and soothing presence in their home.
"Morgana," Hermione approached tentatively as a page was finished, "can you join us? You know what's happening later and tomorrow morning. We want to spend one last night as a family here before we go to Hogwarts tomorrow. Your room is all ready and everything is safe for us to go there but it's going to be a very different life, darling, from the one we've had at Spinner's End. Do you want to ask me or papa any questions you might have? Last chance before the bell, sweetheart."
Young Morgana looked up at her mama with wide eyes. She understood as much as she could as a very intellectual and erudite eleven-year-old girl who had been sequestered at Spinner's End for her entire existence. "Mama, whether I'm locked in here or locked in the dungeon at Hogwarts doesn't matter. It's the same thing but in a different place. The only thing that's really changing is you're going to look a lot younger."
"That is a very simplistic view to take, young lady, and your impertinence is not appreciated. I will let it pass just now but Morgana Eileen Snape you do not take that tone with your mother and I. We want this to be as easy as possible on you, but rudeness is for the simpleminded and you, my daughter, are too smart for it. Now, do you really think the only difference to your life will be that mama will look like a girl your own age or are you being blasé to get a rise out of us?"
Morgana knew her telling off was warranted. She had been unnecessarily flippant, but even though her parents had attempted to prepare her for the inevitable eventuality that would be Hermione's taking the potion and its effects over the years, she never believed it would truly come to pass. "I'm sorry. I know it's not going to be that simple. I don't see why I can't go to classes though, papa; everyone else will be and if mama is in all my classes, I'll be safe. I can have friends."
"Morgana, love," Hermione sighed, knowing this was the start of a difficult and old-hat conversation she'd had many a time with her child, "the world has been convinced that you – and I – are dead. Papa, Dumbledore, and I have worked so hard to make sure we are ghosts of the past to everyone so that we're safe for the trials that are to come. It would be careless and foolhardy of us to risk it all now when we're just at the start of the hard bit by you going to class. Especially as you are so far ahead with your magic than your contemporaries. Now, we've discussed this before, Morgana, and you know how sorry we are that it can't be any other way. All it would take is one near miss with a potion in your father's classroom for you or him to reveal who you are, one spell that's years ahead of first-year magic for questions to be asked and investigations begun. Morgana, I cannot impress upon you enough how crucial your part in this…charade is for it to succeed. It is our belief that Harry Potter will be in the most danger while he's at school and before he reaches his eighteenth birthday. That is why I'm taking this blo- potion to begin with. It's all so you and Harry and all the other children can grow up without being scared of being kidnapped by Purebloods and without dying because you have magic. Though Harry Potter needs protection, and we are sacrificing absolutely everything in our lives to offer him the most protection, please don't doubt that the only reason papa and I are doing any of this is because we have you."
"Mama is right, Morgana," Severus continued seamlessly, "the moment you came into our lives, we knew we would do anything to protect you from Voldemort, from his followers from anyone who might wish you harm. Because you are our daughter you are as much at risk as young Potter, but he was left an orphan because his parents did not disappear enough. We knew we would never make that mistake after they died. Mama and I swore we would not leave you all alone, sweet girl, by not taking enough precautions. That is why we faked your deaths, and it has worked. No one has ever threatened you or will they ever. Our plan is working, Morgana, and you will need to be very brave and very strong in years to come, but we will be with you in one form or another."
The child was near weeping by the time her papa finished his speech. She knew that her parents loved her, and the deaths of Harry Potter's parents had scarred them both significantly. She knew she was far luckier than The Boy Who Lived to grow up with her own parents in her own home. She loved her mama and even though she would miss her greatly while she slept in the dormitories and spent her time with Harry and not her, she would learn to live with it. Besides, Hammer lived at Hogwarts, and he would see her more – that was some comfort. To gain her actual comfort in the moment though, she threw herself into both her parents' arms and they embraced as a family and stayed that way for quite some time.
Hermione knew on instinct when Morgana had worried herself into an uneasy slumber against her chest and wrapped in her papa's strong arms. "Severus." She whispered and pointed at their sleeping daughter with her eyes.
"I shall take her to bed. Go to our room, wife. I will bring the potion and get ready to add the final ingredient."
Once the Snape family had retired, Harry and Morgana followed Hermione back up to the bedroom. She sat on the bed waiting for her husband and wearily brushed away the silent tears that had sprung up since speaking with her girl.
"Please do not cry." Severus instructed. "I have never been able to stand your tears and I am unchanged in that regard."
"I'm sorry – I'm just so scared, now that that bloody potion is ready and the time to take it is now. What if this all comes to nothing? What if we've sheltered her and hidden her away and taken away all the experiences she should have had and should have in the future for a useless cause? What if -"
"Enough!" Snape barked, "What if, what if, what if…what ifs are pointless. I have spent two months putting this potion together, you are going to take it, we are going to be fine – all three of us. It will be a large adjustment but as I've said, we are strong, and we will persevere. And we will protect Potter with every resource we have, and we will know that we did our best and Morgana will forgive us when she's an adult with her own family and can live in the open without the threat of rape, abduction, or murder just because of who she is and who her parents are. Now, is my blade still in the cabinet?"
"Yes, love."
"Good," Severus said, depositing the large beaker that contained a smoky indigo liquid on Hermione's vanity that was to remain at Spinner's End, "fetch it for me please."
Hermione rose and went to Severus' armoire that contained his garments and removed an ornate dagger from the third drawer. When she took it over to him, she asked, "Do you want me to do it?"
Her husband shook his head and simply pulled back the sleeve of his chrome-coloured robe exposing his naked wrist. "Last chance to turn back."
This time Severus' wife shook her head and kissed him fervently before he dragged the blade at full tilt over his own flesh and let the blood that gushed from the cut fall into the waiting beaker. Once the potion changed its hue to a vibrant midnight blue, Severus retracted his arm and permitted Hermione to wordlessly seal the wound.
"Now we wait for midnight to strike. Then the potion will be ripe for the drinking. You will change overnight – you will not notice; the potion has a soporific effect and when you wake in the morning, the job will be done until such time as you ingest the antidote."
"Antidote? You make it sound like a poison, Severus." Hermione questioned, pulling Severus down to sit on the bed beside her while they killed time.
"It is. It is a poison to your true self and while it is not fatal, you should be under no illusions as to the adverse effects this will have, especially if it is consumed over a long period of time and at such potency. Let me remind you once more. You and I will have a mind bond and will be able to communicate over any distance at any time with merely a thought. We will be hyperaware of each other's emotions. If you take the potion for years on end, your magic and mine will become so entwined, so inter-reliant that should I die for whatever reason, you might…"
"I might join you." Hermione acknowledged calmly. She had heard it all before and doubtless her husband would educate her again. She knew the risks, but she was – they both were – prepared to gamble all for the chance of freedom for their daughter. "I know."
"You are still determined?" Severus asked one final time.
"Yes, my love. Now, will you lie here and hold me until it's time."
"You never need to ask me that twice." Severus replied, as he pulled both of them back to recline on the bed.
The memory faded then and became blurry as time passed. Midnight came and went, and Hermione did indeed drink the potion. The memory only slowed once the sun had risen on September 1st. When it did, Harry and Morgana were still stood in the Snapes' bedroom but instead of seeing a man and his wife lying abed, they saw Severus but, in his arms, where the adult Hermione had fallen asleep, now lay a young chit of a girl whose juvenile form appeared incongruous with her bedfellow.
Soon enough, as was customary, Severus stirred ahead of his wife. As he opened his hazy, onyx eyes and beheld his wife's appearance, his daughter and his charge watched as his face fell, almost in disappointment or in sadness, perhaps in resignation at his destiny to love this woman in her girlish frame.
"I can feel your sorrow, Severus." Hermione's new, childish voice whispered, as she woke and snuggled deeper into his arms.
"As expected, wi-Hermione." As he stopped himself from calling her 'wife' as was his usual endearment, Hermione winced.
"I am still your wife," Hermione claimed, running her hands up and down her own body, "even though I don't look it."
"You are my wife. And I love you as much as I ever did. We should get up. Morgana will wake soon."
As Severus rolled away from her, Hermione pouted at his short, dismissive sentences. Usually, their mornings were affectionate, and he would wake first and then rouse her either by ducking beneath the covers or by tracing incantations on her bare skin. Now, he was distant and obtuse. She knew why, of course, but it still stung.
She held her tongue and rose to approach her vanity and the floor-length mirror that stood at its side. She pushed her robe from her shoulders, and it pooled at her feet leaving her naked. She examined her reconstituted eleven-year-old body and simply said, "Well, this is new."
Hermione put her 1st year uniform on directly as the plan was for Severus to apparate her to the train station where she would try to pin Harry down on the train. Severus would then come back to Spinner's End to collect Morgana and the remainder of their belongings that would become part of their family quarters in Hogwarts Castle. The rest would remain at the house until such time as they could return.
"Indeed." Severus pronounced gruffly, donning his dressing gown. "Get dressed. I shall check on Morgana and our packing before we leave for King's Cross. Find me when you're ready to leave."
Hermione was truly heartbroken by his cold, callous manner, and given her ability to sense his hurt and his discombobulation, he must also be able to sense her sorrow. She had done nothing to merit such treatment but take the potion as they both were prepared for and agreed. He promised her he would always be hers, that he would be her friend and support. That could not be gone so soon, surely. That would be too much for the now much younger witch to bear.
As Severus neared their bedroom door, he sighed. "Wife, I am not trying to hurt you. I am not being curt to try and break your heart and I meant what I said last night. I will ever be your support, your succour, and your safe haven. In a few hours' time, we shall not have the liberty to be familiar and ourselves, so I must practice being standoffish and formal because everything in my soul screams to take you in my arms and hold you tight, so you do not have to partake in this charade. So, please do not torment me with your thoughts of abandonment and lack of love as well."
Hermione walked up to her husband, barely coming up to his chest at her full height and wrapped her small arms around his torso. "I am sorry. You are right, of course. It will just take some adjustment, Severus. You go and wake up our daughter and I will wait in the living room. Then, we'll go."
Severus did not look back but gently squeezed one of her hands in his in reassurance before wandering into their child's bedroom to rouse her. Once Morgana was up and had inspected the new form of her mama, both parents settled her down to finish packing up her vast young adult library while they apparated to London.
Harry and Morgana, still watching fastidiously, were turned to smoke as the memory changed location from the Snape family residence in Spinner's End to central London.
As they rematerialised behind a scarlet telephone box near the entrance to King's Cross station, Severus did not allow his wife to move away. He wrapped his arms around her and lay his head gently against hers in a brief moment of solace. "Good luck, Hermione. Find him on the train and begin our long task. I will see you at the feast – do not be late – I do not want to have to give my wife detention."
With tear-laden eyes, Hermione pressed a chaste, soft kiss to her husband's lips before tugging herself away towards the trains, "I will."