There is a rather lovely gift at the end of this chapter for you all, to make up for the lack of a flashback. As always, thank you to the guests who review and to my wonderful friend HatakeHinata (who will squeal upon seeing this note) as she is the reason for me finding the time to put my bum on the chair and finish this chapter off! I promise I have some good, multi chaptered excuses that I shall put here at some point! ;-)

Chapter 13

Darling, you're one for the ages
Your beauty suits every clime
There's a mystery deep within
And in the light upon your skin
I could study for all time

Paul Kelly

They made a peculiar pair.

Despite the almost warm weather, Severus had donned his usual shirt, coat and robes, and the light wind sent the back of the robes billowing behind him. His scowl didn't help the austere, rigid image that he presented, though if one looked closely, it became clear that the frown was one of bemusement, of a perplexing kind of enjoyment, rather than his usual bad mood.

Next to his tall, looming figure walked a young woman that his eyes kept darting towards. Each time they looked upon her, they widened slightly, even gleamed a little with the spark of male pride that came from walking with someone so resplendent. Hermione truly was beautiful, Severus decided in that moment; she strolled beside him with her hands linked behind her back, opening herself to him fully as she rambled on about the changes to the village, the kitten and owl they were due to pick up, the lunch that would surely be better than her buttered toast.

"But you do make a mean soup," she commented, offering him a sideways glance under her lashes. It took him a good moment to even register the offhand compliment, given that he had been surreptitiously ogling her deep blue blouse that matched the headband she'd slid on that morning to keep her curls out of her eyes. It didn't cling to her body – her thinness made that impossible – but as they walked against the wind, it flattened down over her breasts, highlighting the soft skin beneath the wired brassiere. He looked away, his mouth dry.

"Yes, well," he mumbled in the end, "soups are like potions. A roast, however…"

"Poppy told me that you almost burned down Spinner's End when she made you invite her over last Christmas."

"The oven was faulty," Severus deadpanned, allowing a quick grin to escape when she threw her head back and laughed. "And she was certainly not invited – she tricked me into lowering my wards and invited herself." Still, it had been an enjoyable night, even if he'd woken with the worst hangover he'd had in years.

This was different to the short months they'd spent married in Hogwarts before – despite living mostly away from prying eyes, he had been so busy with life and all it entailed that he had barely had time to appreciate the delicate beauty of his wife. Even without the pressure of day to day living, he doubted he ever would have truly seen her – he'd rarely looked twice at any students and his general distaste for such a thing kept him from her as surely as the spying did.

But now, walking with her down the lane and into the village, he wondered how on earth he had lived for so long and been able to look away from her smiling face. It was drawing him in, coaxing him out of his solitude. He tried to picture going back to live in his dungeon quarters again, alone, and found that he couldn't.

It had been less than a week, and already Severus knew that he was enjoying himself more than he had in years. It felt like he had achieved something – not a medal for his troubles, where his efforts in the war had been ranked and debated over, but something real, something tangible. In the space of just a week, he'd moved into a house with his wife. Despite being into his forties now, it was like a coming of age.

There was a persistent niggling in his mind that wondered what came after this, what was the natural progression after moving in with a spouse, but he shoved that aside.

"Everyone is staring," Hermione muttered, and he wrenched his gaze away from her to take in the fact that yes, everyone certainly was looking at the odd sight that was Severus Snape walking with the very delicate Hermione Granger. It was to be expected, he supposed – Hermione hadn't been seen out much since her release from hospital and while their marriage announcement had been tucked into one of the back pages of the Prophet, their union hadn't garnered much attention since. Living quietly had seen to that.

And the old biddies of Hogsmeade would always have something to say about an old bloke in billowing robes walking with a lovely young woman in the tightest jeans Severus had ever seen.

He was of a mind to laugh out loud, smile widely – give them a good show. But then she sidled closer to his body, seeking out some natural protection that she assumed he could offer, and he realised that it really didn't matter. He was a snarky, often dour man and for some reason, Hermione wasn't at all fazed by it.

So instead of making himself into something that he wasn't, Severus glowered into the air and held out an arm for his wife, then tucked her into his side. When Hermione curled her fingers around his elbow and looked up at him with something akin to adoration, he only grunted and continued on the walk as he escorted his wife like the intimidating bat he was, all for the cause of going to pick up a tiny little kitten.

…

They sat together in one of the new restaurants that had popped up since the death of Riddle. Severus had never been before, but Hermione liked the look of the private booths and so they seated themselves towards the back while analysing the menu.

It had been so long since he'd come into a place like this (for all that it was a casual eatery, he still was not the type to eat out for leisure) that Severus really had no idea what he wanted. It was effortless to eat at Hogwarts – no choices had to be made bar reaching out one's hand and selecting from the options already on the table, but looking at a menu was something else.

"What are you having?" Hermione had chosen to sit beside him in the booth, not opposite, and her thigh brushed against his as she leaned in to ask the question in a low voice.

"I don't know," he whispered back, holding up the menu as if it were a piece of evidence. "I'm torn between a chicken sandwich or the basil pesto pasta. A colossal decision."

She snickered and elbowed his side. "It does feel that way, doesn't it? God, I haven't been to a place like this in years. Can you get the pasta? I'll get the sandwich."

"That's an easy way out," he drawled. "You're riding on my coat tails now."

"Not really," she sniffed. "I just don't want all the bits of basil in my teeth."

The absurdity of it made him choke on a laugh that made his cheeks colour when it echoed around the almost silent restaurant. In an instant, his wand was out and he silenced the curtains around their booth. Hermione watched all of this with her lips pressed firmly together, her eyes dancing with amusement.

"What?" he complained, scrawling their orders on the magical parchment that vanished as soon as he'd finished. "Have you decided on a drink?" He eyed the menu as if it had personally insulted him. "They say that you may choose any combination that you desire."

"Let me think a little," she said. Her mouth was so close to his ear as she looked at the menu over his shoulder that her breath tickled the fine hairs on his neck. It made something hot and heavy twist in his stomach; he could feel a distinct tightening as his body reacted to her closeness, and he cleared his throat awkwardly, wanting a way to release the tension he felt but not wishing for her to move.

She hummed and tapped her fingers on the table. "Lemon and mint!"

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He was not a good cook in the overall meaning of the word, but he knew flavours and could recognise when ingredients would work well together. It was pleasing to see that Hermione had not lost her talents, either.

"A sound choice," he said, the quill scratching on the parchment as he wrote down her order.

"What are you getting? You should go all out. Get something wild."

This time he could not rein in his laugh and he chuckled, appreciating her dry, sarcastic sense of humour. Truly though, there was something new and exciting about running all the combinations through his mind.

And then he decided that he simply must get out more if deciding on a juice mixture was providing him with the same amount of thrill that a glass of Ogden's on a weeknight used to.

Or perhaps it is the woman beside you…

"Mango," he said slowly, drawing it out, "and… pineapple." There was a certain danger to the choice; he could look like a dickhead, or she would laugh and reward him for joining in on her stunt.

It turned out that the faint smell of peaches that followed Hermione around most days came from her lip balm, and as she pressed her lips to his cheek with a breathless little giggle, he could feel the slickness of the fruity concoction mark his skin.

It was not unpleasant.

…

"I think she likes you."

"She only likes me because I fed her first."

"Bollocks! Look at her! I wonder if Crooks will take to you like she has."

"One feline shedding hairs on my clothes is enough, thank you very much."

"Say what you want – I think you like her, too."

"She is obviously an intelligent animal; she knows who to go to when she wants something. Isn't that right Mog?" Severus smirked when Hermione rolled her eyes. He reached for the grey striped kitten on his lap, listening to her purrs as he scratched under her chin. Despite his stern words, he cracked a smile when Mog dug her claws into his coat and stretched before laying her chin on his upper chest so the two were almost eye to eye. "Why 'Mog', anyway?" he asked, watching his reflection in the grey kitten's eyes. "It is relatively normal compared to your other familiar."

Severus liked the name; it rolled off his tongue and didn't sound too ridiculous in conversation. But most of all he liked the cadences of his wife's voice as she cooed and soothed the animal, stroking her hands over its back. She had tucked the kitten under her arm for their walk back to the cottage, forgoing the usual cage, which had left Severus to levitate their new owl's cage behind them. It was quite a sight.

"Well," Hermione said from her reading chair that was across from his, "why 'Pippin'?"

He glanced over at the small owl perched on a sturdy piece of wood that he'd found down the side of the house. Given the small size of the sitting room, he'd nailed it to the end of a bookcase, taking pleasure in doing it the Muggle way for once. And if Hermione watched him the whole time with her teeth biting down on her lower lip, well, that was their business.

"Why not?" he answered absentmindedly, his attention somewhere between the kitten on his chest and the book in his hands. "It's a nice name."

"You don't fool me, Severus," Hermione drawled, chuckling when he cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "D'you really think I haven't seen your Tolkien shelf?"

"I'd be stunned if you hadn't, considering one of your million candles is right in front of the Silmarillion."

She giggled and waved a hand in the air. "You haven't complained about the Gardenia one, though."

He wasn't about to admit that he rather liked his books carrying the scent of her. The old copy of Potions Quarterly that was currently open on his lap, for example, carried a faint note of jasmine from the white candle that hovered on the wall nearby. It would've been almost a sacrilege in the past, but somewhere along the line such ideals had changed – and the protective charms on his books were almost as strong as the ones on the cottage itself. "Yes, well. Why 'Mog'?"

The witch drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and said with her nose in a tome on Charms throughout history, "It's from a set of books my mum used to read to me when I was younger. Have you heard of them? 'Meg and Mog'?"

He clicked his tongue by way of answering and she chortled. "No, of course you haven't. Well, it's about a witch and her cat. She makes potions, she has an owl. They're fabulous, though completely nonsensical."

"And you have some sort of affinity with this… Meg?"

That set off her laughter, and she put the book down to grin at him from the other side of the coffee table. "No! I'll show you the books one day. They're very bizarre. But our little kitten here has stripes just like Mog."

"Ah." He nodded, opting to stare at the kitten instead of her, relying on his hair to hide his cheeks that had flushed pink from her use of 'our'. Mog purred; Severus watched, transfixed, as her green eyes closed. The purrs became loud rumbles – somehow the tiny thing sounded not unlike a chainsaw.

"What do I do with it now?" he questioned, wanting to get up and potter around the kitchen for a while to get the feeling back into his legs. "It's… sleeping on me."

Pippin hooted, as if he had some crucial input, and Hermione snorted. She uncrossed her legs and waved her wand, extending the back of her chair so it turned into something resembling a comfortable looking recliner. "Are you a wizard or aren't you?"

He grumbled, acknowledging the point, and picked up his wand from the shelf closest to his chair. One flick had Mog floating in the air and soon enough she was settled on his wife's chest, still purring like a motor. He stood and watched the two for a moment as Hermione slowly ran her fingers over the kitten's forehead, and when his wife looked up at him he found he didn't quite know what to say.

"She's warm," Hermione whispered, with a soft smile on her lips. It was left unspoken that Mog had got that way from lying on his own chest. Severus swallowed and nodded quickly before awkwardly bowing his head and leaving the room, preferring to finish off the kitchen cabinets instead of trying to decipher the strange tingle in the air that had made itself known between himself and the witch.

The cabinets were easy enough to fix. It wasn't too different from the work he often had to do inside the house at Spinner's End; despite the reinforcing charms, magic couldn't replace sturdy construction when the home wasn't magical to begin with. Since there hadn't been much of that in his old house to begin with, he often spent breaks from the school doing odd jobs around the place.

The cottage was slightly different, in that it was almost an entirely Magical home – there were no electric lights, and though Hermione often spoke about getting food out of the fridge, there were no large white appliances in residence at all. Their fridge was the pantry; Molly Weasley had cast the spells that she herself had developed to keep the interior cold and self cleaning. The rest of the cupboards were mostly bare, with the exception of the one above the sink that housed a few tins of biscuits.

He was on his back on the floor when Hermione came into the kitchen; the banging of the hammer was too loud and he hadn't heard her enter, but he saw her bare feet come to a stop close to his sprawled legs.

"Should we paint the cupboards?" she asked, crouching down to watch as he fixed the hinges. He didn't answer immediately, choosing to pluck a nail that had been hovering in the air waiting for the moment it was needed.

When he'd finished, he eased himself out of the low cabinet and looked about. "What colour? I thought you liked orange and brown." The effort to keep his face straight was worth it when she giggled so much that she fell flat on her arse on the floor beside him. It was then that his resolve snapped and his loud laughter rang out through the kitchen as he took in the sight of his wife, flustered and mortified in a pile of limbs on the floor.

"All right?" he managed, holding onto his stomach in an effort to dull the pleasant ache that came from a good, uncommon laugh.

She looked very far from amused at first; her brows puckered and she screwed her lips up. There were bright red spots on her cheeks. "I'm fine," she grumbled, frowning at the floor.

"Oh come now wife," he said gallantly, spreading his hands. "It was funny."

…

An hour later the two were still on the tiled floor, though Hermione had practiced her cushioning charms in deference to Severus' aching backside. He sat with his back against one of the orange cupboards, his legs straight out in front of him, almost touching the other side of the kitchen. There was a wine glass in his hand that contained an inch of white from a winery that he couldn't remember the name of.

Hermione sat beside him, her own glass discarded long ago in favour of munching on the salty Muggle corn chips that Potter had brought over the night before.

In a practiced movement, she held out the bag to her left and he dipped his hand in. Ensuring that he had a good amount in his grip, he nudged her shoulder and the bag returned to her lap. There were fragments of salt on the tips of their fingers.

"Will I ever remember, do you think?"

He shrugged and tipped the rest of the wine into his mouth. "I doubt it."

She surprised him by sighing and shuffling over until her head was on his shoulder. "Good."

"Good?" He couldn't blame it on the wine – he'd only had a glass – but he let his cheek rest on her hair. It scratched his skin and tickled his chin, yet he had no desire to move.

"Mmm." Hermione exhaled again. "I don't want to remember. It was just one big nightmare, and now Harry says that he wasn't around much… I mean, I understand, of course I do, but…what else have I missed? Everyone seems so eager, Severus. Too eager, like they're covering something up. But why do they have this perception of me: that I'll hold it against them because they might not have visited often? I'm just…" She shook her head and burrowed her face further into his navy pyjamas – they'd gotten changed after dinner – and he couldn't help but breathe in the scent of her shampoo.

His heart hurt to see her like this, to hear her say such things. Unsure of how to proceed then remembering one hilarious evening of instruction during his youth in the dormitories, Severus raised his arm as if to stretch it then let it fall around her shoulders. She inched closer still and he smirked, a shameless and triumphant grin, glad she couldn't see it.

Hermione's arms were bare; she wore only a teal singlet and matching long cotton pants. Both were a loose fit, but he couldn't care about such modesty when her silken flesh was under his fingertips. A mumbled spell cleaned the salt away and he swallowed nervously before beginning to trace lines up and down her upper arm, dragging his short, neat nails along the fair, slightly freckled skin.

She hadn't spoken during his attempt at – what exactly? Severus had no idea in the world what he was actually doing. All he knew was that he was enjoying it, the feel of her skin and the warm weight of her body leaning against his.

He came to the conclusion that it was enough for now, this simple moment of peace, and he was thankful that Hermione, too, seemed to be willing to allow it to continue instead of turning the moment into something he was sure neither of them were prepared to deal with. Of course all of that was easier given they could not see each other; it was not unlike the act of being with a new lover for the first time with the lights dimmed. It felt safer; he wouldn't have attempted even the slightest touch if he were faced with her reaction.

Still – when she swiveled around until her legs were folded over one of his and her head was on his chest instead of his shoulder, it was a monumental struggle not to turn the languid sweetness into arousal as her breasts pressed ever so gently against the thin cotton of his shirt. Severus swallowed heavily and tilted his head back to rest it against the cupboard once more; his arm never left her shoulders.

"I don't want people to tiptoe around me, Severus. I don't care if people didn't visit me. Why would I?"

"You're asking the wrong man," he admitted. "I'm not known for my… caring nature."

"You are to me," she countered softly, her voice half muffled. "You're caring to me. You always were."

He tried to cling to common sense, to mutter some gruff remark, but he was seized by the thought that he really didn't need to. And indeed, why should he? Was he not sitting on the kitchen floor, his arm around his wife who had professed repeatedly that she wished for them to stay together, if at least for the time being? Was he not allowed this? This moment of… whatever it was?

It took more breath and time than it probably should have to formulate the response, but it came in a low, steady tone as he said, "Only to you, Hermione."

"Oh I don't think that's true," she said immediately, reaching around with a daring hand to encircle his waist. Like coal on a fire, it was futile to resist her; it was pointless. When she squeezed his side, he remembered to breathe again. "I know that you think that," she continued, "but you care more than most. You were always so brave, Severus, and selfless."

He snorted, intruding on the delicate declaration. "Selfless is not a word that can be applied to m-"

"It can and it will," said Hermione. "I think I can decide what adjectives I can use for you. And even in hospital… during the times I can recall, anyway… I was never so far gone that I didn't recognise just how much strength you were giving, even then. Not lending – you gave it. You didn't expect anything back. Even now!" She pushed herself off of him with two open palms and in the blink of an eye, Hermione's face was a mere hair's breadth away. She was so close that he could barely concentrate on anything that wasn't her eyes or lips. "Even now you're here and you expect nothing."

He couldn't respond. He wouldn't; for once, he didn't feel the need to protest. It wasn't that he believed what she was saying – far from it – but he was familiar with the glint in her chocolate eyes and had no inclination to let her chase him into agreeing with her.

Instead he stayed silent, drinking her in. Her hair already seemed to have grown and it was wilder than ever; the way his shirt had folded over under her cheek was exposed by the faint red lines on her face.

Severus wanted to kiss her. It was far beyond rational desire; there was barely any thought involved. The closeness of her – his wife – and the total contentment of it all called to him like a siren's song.

Hermione touched his cheek with cold fingers. "Do you know why I don't care?" she whispered. He could almost steal her breath. It was a struggle to tell her not to tell him, because then he would have to think on her words, to use his brain when he had no wish to. It was a struggle that he lost.

"No," he said, almost warily. "I don't know."

If she was disappointed with his answer, she didn't show it. It looked like she was amused, as if she'd hoped for his usual ineptness around all things emotional to make itself known again.

"Well," she whispered back, "I think you can come up with a reason, if you think about it."

"What if I don't want to think?" he asked without considering the words. It came out in a breathless rush of speech. He was of a mind to take it back – Obliviate her if he had to – but Hermione smiled, a small smile almost of wonder (dare he say awe?). She stared at him with the strange little smile, almost like she was waiting for something though he knew not what it was.

Again his eyes wandered down to her mouth, at how her lips looked so soft and pink in the low light of the candles. Without realising that he'd done it, he wet his own lips, seeking relief from their sudden dryness and not noticing at all that she was moving closer –

She kissed him.

It was the most delicate kiss he had ever experienced; her eyes were closed and her hands stayed at her sides.

At first he could barely process that it was happening and then by the time he did, the pressure of her lips was already easing off and he knew she would pull away. Suddenly desperate to make his own desires known, he pressed back, giving her no finesse at all. He chased her lips, pushing his mouth on hers, making no attempt to take it further. There was hardly any way to breath – he hadn't tilted his head enough to cater for his nose – but he was loath to stop, to do anything that meant he would no longer feel her lips.

As soon as it had begun, it ended.

Hermione withdrew; a bright pink blush bloomed on her cheeks and disappeared beneath the singlet.

Severus stared at her, dazed and speechless. His lips tingled.

And then after her daring feat, his wife covered her mouth and looked away, though he noted how her eyes crinkled at the corners from a secretive, shy smile.

"Well," she said, barely a shake to her voice, "goodnight, Severus."

Unable to even return her parting words, Severus offered her a feeble nod.

It was only after she hurried out of the kitchen with a smile on her face from ear to ear that he sank back against the cabinet, touched a finger to his lips and grinned.