And for the doubters... The final chapter!

"T…time?"

He lifted an eyebrow and she chewed on her bottom lip. He was…overwhelming her. Nothing, no hint of him for three whole days and…and he'd stalked out of the failed Order meeting without a backwards glance. Yet, here he was, in the library.

Her mind scattered, thoughts spinning and lost. What more could he want? Her splintered heart wouldn't let her believe that he was there for her. That would be too impossible—

He was there. In the library. After the meeting.

Hermione closed her eyes and let out a slow, soft groan.

"I asked for time. Stated where I would be after the Order meeting. You took that to mean…" Another deeper groan escaped her. "I'm an idiot."

His gaze narrowed. "Was that not your intention?"

Hermione let her head fall against his chest and the scent of him wrapped around her. So right. As if breathing him in was everything… The tattered ends of her magic bloomed and sought out threads of his power, curling around his core. Even as her bloody Medusa-hair chased over the wool of his coat and tangled themselves in his line of jet-carved buttons.

"I wanted to stay. With you. In you bed. Never leave."

Her heart squeezed at that quiet admission and she shut her eyes, needing to believe that was why he waited in the library for her.

"Sweet witch." His voice was a dark and rich velvet and eased over her strained nerves. "I thought you wanted time to consider what our…reactions meant." His large hand drew over her hair and urged her to look at him, even as her insane hair swept over him in wild addicted curls. "My magic is shorn. The moment you tumbled from our bed. Only now…"

"It's growing whole again."

He gave her a slow nod.

"What does it mean…?"

He frowned, something brief and surprised. "Our magic" —he slipped his fingers across hers, warm and sure and her hand shook— "is complementary."

A curl of his magic teased across her palm and her own swelled and rose to meet it. A shine of pure gold, twisting and turning across their threaded fingers. Breathtakingly beautiful. And heavy, so deliciously heavy with want and power.

Her heart pounded and she met his gaze, the brilliant shine of magic reflected in the endless black. "Sir…?"

"Still sir?" Severus drew a line along her jaw, so achingly familiar, and her eyes fluttered shut at the bliss sinking into her flesh at the return of his touch. "It means if we feed our magic only with our pleasures…it will truly shine."

Hermione blinked at him and found her relentless hair was curling around his wrist again. "Our… Would you even want this?"

"A little witch in my bed —solely mine— willing and delicious and every touch firing pleasure and spiralling power? As I've told you before, I am a dark wizard, Miss Granger. What do you think?"

"I…"

His mouth dipped to hers, a tease of a kiss that dried her words. "This, this forming of power was what the book -through Salazar Slytherin- means to achieve."

"Was it? Is it? The book vanished. I never finished reading..." She was breathless, her focus lost. There was only the promise of more kisses, deeper kisses and maybe, perhaps, the slipping away of clothes to reveal his pale skin to the golden light of the fire.

"Ah, that explains it. You hared off to fuck me instead of finishing a book? I'm honoured."

She slapped his chest. "Git."

Severus smirked against her lips. "Then my proposal is acceptable?"

"Proposal…?"

No, he didn't mean that. He meant sex, lots of quite lovely sex, for the power and the magic, not…

"Yes, that."

Her breath was gone again. "But...but…"

He traced a gentle line over her cheek and she leant into his wanted touch. More strands of her hair bound him to her. It was certainly…persistent. "The codex's original purpose was an awakening of a magical core. It's followed that path for over a thousand years. But Salazar set a twist to catch something else. Carved the magic into the binding.

"He really was a romantic sod. In his own quite Slytherin way. Naturally."

Severus drew a line across her lip, something light, teasing. "Affinity is rare, Hermione. Magics that lock together to form a greater whole. For us so-rare few, Salazar's amended codex matches ability, character and ambitions. Everything weaves together. In perfection."

"We're...we're perfect for each other?"

"As unlikely as it seems, yes."

"Not...unlikely."

Severus' dark eyes gleamed and his mouth parted, a soft "ah" escaping him. "That explains your delight with 'Miss Granger'. And it would be wicked of me to ask how long you have been…interested." He leant in, his lips at her ear. She stopped breathing, her heart a tight drum, fast and shallow. Gods, she adored his voice and his willingness to play to her fantasies. "But I am so very wicked, aren't I, Miss Granger? So...how long-?"

"Mione, they said… I thought… You need it explained—"

Ron burst into the library and stumbled to a stop. His face was a burn of sudden and mottled red.

Shit. She'd meant to ward the room against him, but Severus had distracted her.

"This? Him? Was he why you said you couldn't, why you wouldn't— Making up...things. Merlin, Mione, have you…with him?"

Severus stepped back from her and she missed his warmth. Damn Ron. But Severus' hand reminded wrapped around hers, his magic threading around her magical core in a perfect blending of powers.

Severus lifted a dark eyebrow. "Yes, Mr Weasley. Has Hermione Granger slept with me?" He leant in and Ron reared back. His smile was wicked. A true devil. "To tell the absolute truth —and we must always be truthful, must we not, Mr Weasley?— there was no sleeping to be had. It was a thorough and quite…debauched experience."

Hermione groaned and scrubbed at her face. Damn the man. He really was a git at times. Most of the time. Fuck it, all of the time. But taunting Ron meant that Ron would not leave. "Severus…"

"Severus? You call him...?"

"You prefer she call me Professor? My, your tastes are surprisingly…twisted, Mr Weasley."

Ron was edging to purple. "And this scarecrow is your choice? Him? Snape? He's a bastard. And that you'd lie about having children to avoid me. And you said I was 'low' for trying to give you a simple surprise—"

"I didn't lie. Mad Bella cursed me. And an unwanted marriage proposal is not a simple surprise, Ronald."

"You need a family, Mione. You're by yourself. They explained it. You need a bind to our world."

She frowned at him. "What...?"

Severus swore, something quick and definitely filthy. In Persian. "Whose idea was this?" It was a growl and Ron's chin jerked up, his face flushed and belligerent. "Your mother's? And she presented her hand-wringing case to the most sympathetic senior members of the Order. Namely Remus and Minerva."

Hermione blinked. What…? What was going on?

Severus looked to her, his magic a balm to her straining nerves. "An ancient law. Long ignored. But if brought to light, old spells bloom and trap the witch. Sui Iuris."

Hermione frowned. "Self management under the law?"

Severus fixed a narrowed glare on Ron's mottled face. "A twist of a curse from Roman Law. For you to be legally independent in the wizarding world, ironically, Hermione, you must be tied to a family."

"But…shouldn't that be something they would discuss with me?" Her mouth pressed into a tight line and she joined in glaring at Ron. "Let me guess, your mother sold it to Remus and the Headmistress that I'd act as a muggleborn? That I'd rail against yet another example of a misogynistic wizarding world." She shook her head. "When you were playing just that. Trapping me. Why?"

"Trapping you?" Ron spat out the words. "Trapping...? What's wrong with you, Mione? What's he done to you? I didn't even know about this bloody sooie-thing. We're meant. Like Harry and Ginny. From the beginning."

She lifted an eyebrow, too aware that she was mirroring Severus…and that the git was smirking. "Oh, from the very beginning? When you called me a nightmare?"

Ron tried one of his earnest, comforting smiles. He simply looked constipated. "Come to the kitchen. Talk to us. All of us. You need to understand that we just want to protect you."

He put out his hand, expecting her to take it. And frowned when she stepped closer to Severus. The wash of that wizard's magic eased the riot of anger growing in her chest. She was not some simpering idiot. She was Hermione fucking Granger. And she had everything she wanted in a wizard —right there beside her.

"Who exposed me to this cursed law?"

Ron ignored her question. "They, the Order, didn't want you worried about it if you found a way out. And you have. With me. Simple. But turning me down? That's insane. You won't get another offer, Mione." He glared at Severus. "He won't offer that."

"Who? Who exposed me?"

She bit out the questions. Ron's ears were burning and his gaze darted away. Severus had divined the truth. Molly had set up the old law. Why? To trap her for her son? To make it impossible for her to function in the wizarding world without a bind to a wizarding family.

And oh look, here's a convenient ginger idiot waiting for you right there…

Ron clenched his hands at his sides. "So, I asked my mum for help with making you mine, Mione? So what? This sooie-thing could've caught you at any time."

"Yes, a centuries' old law, hardly remembered." Severus' his voice low and edged with anger. "Tell me, Mr Weasley, how often have Prewett women caught superior and reluctant witches for their gaggles of sons?"

Ron lifted his chin and ignored him. "Are you coming, Mione?"

Hermione's lip curled. "Yes. Quite soon. And not with you."

Ron blinked and his face flared a scorching red. He gaped at her, before turning on Severus. "You…you made her—"

"Why are you so eager for Miss Granger's hand, Mr Weasley?"

Severus lifted an infamous eyebrow and Ron's jaw clenched.

"We're right. Everyone says so. My Mione is clever, practical, knows her magic. She's loyal. She'll make a good wife and mother."

"And when her bloom is worn away in caring for you and your…spawn?"

Severus' hand tightened briefly around hers, a tacit request to remain calm as they discussed her as if she were…chattel. And was that what Ron truly thought of her? No hint of their years' old friendship. No offer of loving her? Everything arranged and practical and convenient for him.

What in Merlin's name had he read in her 'kissing' books?

A fresh flush darkened Ron's cheeks and a flicker of guilt chased through his blue eyes.

"You'd follow the traditional wizarding path, would you?"

Ron's face grew redder. "So? It's what's done. A wizard has needs—"

And her former-friend flew through the air, a surge of fierce magic churning around him, sinking into this flesh, sprouting boils and horns and fins and fixing his skin to a slimed iridescent green. He crashed to the floor beside the door with a half-strangled wail. Twitching. Oozing. Stinking.

Hermione sucked in a heavy breath, the flow of her wild rush of magic easing back. Fuck...fuck.

Well, that was…unexpected.

But to hear not only was she the practical option, but that he'd take mistresses as she toiled away? The sudden fresh surge of rage to ash. Her heart squeezed. Was…was that what traditional wizards did? She shot a glance to Severus and he raised her knuckles to his lips, pressing the softest of kisses there.

He shook his head. "I would never, sweet witch."

Her chest bloomed and she wanted nothing more than to be away —far away— from that dreary bloody house and people who though they knew what was best for her.

Hermione glared at the chimera that was Ronald Weasley. St Mungo's would sort him out. Probably. Possibly… "You can inform those gathered to hear a proposal, that I have accepted one. I am betrothed. To Severus Snape."

She turned a treacle smile on to her chosen wizard and he snorted.

Ron gaped at her. He scrabbled back —using fins and one of his three tails— as his gaze flicked to the dark wizard.

"Do not anger this particular witch, Mr Weasley. That is the lesson you should've learned down the years." Severus' smirk was something wicked and caught Hermione's breath, and had Ron up on his flippers and waddling for the door. "Alas, your skull has always been quite…thick."

"Insane. You're insane, Mione. Gods to do this!" He flailed his fins and flippers. "And to want…that!"

And Ron slammed the library door. Hermione flicked her wards over it and Severus hummed his approval. The flare of his own magic traced over her spells, wove and complemented and the touch of his magic was…bliss.

Hermione stared up at her wizard. "Am I insane?"

"Yes. Quite."

She snorted.

Severus drew her too him and it was a relief to her strained nerves. His warmth, his magic, his scent, woodsy…and under it, something fresher, something spring-like. "Oh, oh!" She met his gaze in disbelief, trembling fingers tracing over the hard plane of his jaw. "Your scent. You're my scent. My armotentia…"

Severus lifted an eyebrow. "Naturally."

Hermione huffed at him. "Git."

"As you say."

She let herself be enfolded in his arms, content to rest her head against his chest and to find a little hit of pure bliss in the golden firelight. Severus pressed his face to the wild tumult that was her wizard-loving hair and allowed their magic to weave, and push, to meld and grow, melding into a bright and shining power that belonged to both of them. This was her life now. Her future. Sure and powerful. With her a man who would dance on her last nerve...but gods, neither she nor life would be dull or grey or ordinary.

"Did Salazar know this? This…affinity?"

Severus let out a peeved sigh and she smiled against the wool of his coat. "Become used to questions, Severus. I'm not going to stop."

His soft laughter eased through her. "It would be impossible, wouldn't it? And yes, though he was old by then. His witch, like him, had been sought out by the codex years before. It was sheer luck for them to find each other at all." He lifted his head and frowned at the door. "Shall we adjourn to somewhere less…dreary?"

He'd felt it too. Numerous magics worked against their interwoven wards, trying to break into the sealed space. The idea of facing the order was…onerous. She'd had a shitty few days and she wanted only pleasure. The world outside could wait just that little bit longer before she had to deal with it.

"Take me to your bed, Severus."

"Commanding me, madam? Are you practicing already to be Minister for Magic?"

She lifted an eyebrow, mimicking him. "Do I have a rival, Severus?"

"Far from it. I hear the Minister's consort receives a very generous stipend." He smirked at her. "I plan to be the very epitome of a pampered trophy-wizard."

This was Severus Snape. Would be content to be the wizard on the sidelines, when so much power was there for him to twist and corrupt?

"Liar."

"Would I lie to you?"

Her fingers slid over the placket of his trousers and she cupped his impressive length. His black eyes gleamed and he hardened under her firm touch.

"Not if you value…this."

His fingers threaded through her hair and he tipped her head up. His mouth brushed hers. "Very good," he murmured. "A little crude, but a credible threat. Though, we will have to work on less...physical forms of extortion and blackmail for your rivals." His kiss was soft and slow. "Only our pleasures, Hermione."

"No touching other wizard's bits?"

"Or witches."

"Yes, that goes for both of us."

"A vindictive and power-hungry harpy? Gods, girl, why would I want anyone else but you? You're…perfection."

Her heart swelled at his declaration and she licked his upper lip in a quick tease. "Not a girl."

"Gods, no."

And as he deepened the kiss, and members of the Order of the Phoenix tumbled into the library, Severus spun them away in an obnoxiously loud crack of thunder.

Git.

Oh…but her git.

There might be a follow up, or at least an epilogue to this in the future, but I'm making it complete for now.

I need to get o-fic written now though, as I need every meagre penny. Self-pubbing is a bitch ;-)