Chapter Twenty Two

Severus woke somewhat . . . distracted the following morning, his sleep-dazed mind confronted with a giggling Helene bouncing happily on his lower abdomen and tickling his sides. With a low, rumbling growl, he clutched her sides and flipped her beneath him, pinning her hips with his and letting her feel him above her, waiting. She pecked at his lips before wiggling to get him off her, so eager was she to wake Sirius and Isolde.

They had forgotten about the nightly Imperturbable Charms each couple used to allow the other to be more comfortable. It was with great glee that the two began throwing things at the curtains surrounding the bed in order to weaken and hopefully break the charm. The charm broke when, in a brilliant moment of creativity and genius, Hermione used her wand to throw Severus into the curtains, counting on the fact that he would break through the charm and wind up in the midst of an awkward moment as the sleeping Isolde and Sirius woke up.

Fortunately for him and still relatively comical for her, Severus landed across their laps, his head in Isolde's and his . . . erm, lower body, in Sirius's. The usual morning grogginess that accompanied their normal wake-up routine was conspicuously absent as Sirius took stock of just where Severus had landed, and just what were nearly lined up and—natural for a boy on waking up with an attractive woman in his bed—hard.

With a girlish shriek unbefitting the endowment Isolde had seen the night before, Sirius threw the other boy off the bed and scampered to the headboard, Isolde rolling and tangling in the sheets as she laughed. With an air worthy of the future head of Slytherin house, Hermione watched in perfect deadpan, until Severus scooped her up in his arms, depositing her firmly on the bed with the other two. They each took a good look at one another—Helene with a smug smile, Severus with disheveled hair and a bruise forming on his arm, Sirius still in his safe place at the headboard, and Isolde attempting to free herself from the sheets—and laughed long and loud, especially as a red-faced Sirius offered his apologies.

Severus brushed them off, mock-glaring at his girlfriend who responded with a cheeky, "Consider it an unplanned Christmas gift."

"If I could only return it," Sirius replied wistfully, receiving a light smack from Isolde.

The door to the world upstairs opened, a jovial voice—Matt's—calling, "Do you lot want gifts or not?"

"Oy! Wait for us!" Sirius called, tossing a shrieking Isolde over his shoulder. She waved good-bye as he leapt up the stairs. Severus gave Hermione a speculative look.

"Don't even think about it, mister."

Instead, he took her hand and pressed a kiss to the knuckles, never breaking eye contact. Hermione blushed prettily, her lips quirking into a smile.

"Happy Christmas, Severus."

"Happy Christmas, 'Lene." He cast a nervous glance to the upstairs before pulling her back to the bed. "I'd like to give you your present now, if you don't mind. It's just that it's . . . personal."

Hermione perched lightly on the bed, obeying his order to cover her eyes with her hands as she giggled.

"Open your eyes, Helene." The command was hushed, a silk whisper against her ear. Severus kissed the line of her jaw lightly before lingering a moment over her lips. She felt herself sigh, shuddering as he brushed his lips timidly over hers, waiting for reassurance before he drew her closer and deepened the kiss.

It just felt right.

He could feel her eyelashes against his cheek as he drew away; Severus was down on one knee, and Hermione felt herself beginning to tear up—wondering how she could say no without losing him forever.

"Please, here me out first," he began. "We haven't known each other long and we're still in school and we're young. This isn't a proposal. This is me telling you that because I love you and because this feels right, that someday I will ask you to marry me." He looked stubborn, ready to pitch a fit if her answer wasn't what he expected; it may have been why he told rather than asked. The Severus Snape of the here and now and the Severus Snape of her future were proud creatures.

"Someday I want you to ask me to marry you," she said, sliding from the bed to the floor. Severus joined her, wrapping an arm around her before he opened the box in his hand.

"I sent for it from Gringotts; it's a family ring, and while we don't have much, I wanted you to have this." It was beautiful: a soft gold pearl set in silver, surrounded by swirling filigree. The ring was delicate, light and fragile as he set it on her finger. Severus kissed the hand that bore his ring before smiling gently at her, his eyes warm and intense and comforting all at once.

How could she have said no, damn the consequences when she had to return? No, wait—if she had to return. Hermione was finding herself more and more enveloped in this past—what was supposed to be the past—and she never wanted to leave, if only for him. How was it that three short months had taken her world away and replaced it with something so perfect she couldn't even describe it? Her mind and her body soared with Severus; this boy had taken her professor and made him hers—she didn't love him in spite of him being her strict and often unfair Potions Master, she loved him for it, or she would later.

How frequently she had mocked the teenagers of her world who claimed to be ready to marry and settle down with the first boy they dated! And now, here she was: promised to him after a mere three months, with no knowledge of any sort of future for the two of them, especially not here. Would she be sent back, or would she be forced back? Hermione didn't know. Looking at the ring now sparkling with quiet beauty on her finger, she could only know that for now, she was happy.

The indignant screech of a barn owl distracted the family as they opened their gifts. "Isolde, would you please take care of him before the neighbors see?" Donna asked, cuddled happily with Doc on the sofa. It really was cute to see them together; Sirius's parents were always fighting—or rather, his mother was always making valiant attempts to pick one.

As if she actually needed motivation to be the raving bitch she was.

Either way, Isolde stumbled back over the discarded wrapping to him. "Seems the (she wrinkled her nose as she said it) Marauders sent their packages for us. Do you have their gifts? We could send the owl back to them. My family hasn't got one."

"Erm . . . I don't know if going downstairs is wise at the moment," Sirius replied, glancing over at the piles for Helene and Severus. They're still downstairs."

"Ah. Right then." Isolde turned to the owl. "Come with me into the kitchen and we'll get you some water and a bit of toast. Do you prefer butter or jam?" Doc looked bemused. "Oh don't give me that look. He deserves bit of something." She sauntered into the kitchen, the owl perched happily on her arm to hoot in her ear.

Sirius, meanwhile, resized the package as Matt crowed in triumph over a eckletric bass guitar—whatever that meant. Carefully, recognizing Lily's persnickety wrapping style as he pulled gift after gift out, making one pile for himself and the other for Isolde-all of them would be opened later.

Isolde returned from the kitchen, happily sitting at Sirius's feet and pulling her last gift from her parents out from under the tree. It was awkwardly wrapped and large enough that she gave up on pulling it, resigning herself to tearing the paper wildly, squealing when she saw the guitar case neatly packaged.

"We didn't want to spoil the surprise," Doc said. "I'll never forget you looking at me when we gave you your last guitar and thanking me profusely before you'd even unwrapped the thing."

Isolde rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault I was a bright child," she sniffed, grinning as she undid the clasps and ran her hands over the smooth leather of the case.

An electric guitar—and a Fender Coronado at that; she'd always wanted one. It was beautiful—old fashioned looking, which suited her well and the weight felt right in her arms as she adjusted the strap. A Les Paul would come later.

Matt loped over for a high-five. He grinned happily at his little sister. "We're going to kick arse this year! I got a new bass."

"Brilliant! Let me know when you and the Neanderthals set up a rehearsal, and I'll get straight on working with this." Isolde rested the guitar in her lap, stroking the wood gently. Carefully, she tucked it back in its case.

"Is that everything?" Donna asked. The room murmured agreement that each and every package had been opened before she continued. "Then I suppose the rest of the day is yours once this place is cleaned up."

Isolde rolled her eyes and whipped out her wand, Sirius doing the same. Donna, Doc and Matt went about piling up their own gifts as Isolde and Sirius Vanished the wrapping and trim from the gifts. That being done, Sirius began to pick up Isolde's gifts, leaving her guitar for her to carry. With one hand, he flung open the basement door, shouting, "Get decent, 'cause we're coming down!"

Isolde followed, taking her guitar with her. "Sirius, there's no need to embarrass them. Besides, they know we've got presents for them."

With one last tender peck, Helene and Severus parted. They scrambled off into the bags they had brought with them, pulling out neatly wrapped packages. The four placed the gifts they had gotten for one another in the center of Isolde's table, Sirius bringing the Marauders' gifts for them as well. Hermione's left hand remained under the table; for now, it was their secret.

They talked and laughed (and after Isolde ran up to fetch food) and ate for a few hours, passing gifts to one another, little exclamations escaping them as they opened presents. The mood was only dulled when Sirius found a curious-looking thing from the other Marauders to Severus that, when opened, proved to be a bar of unused soap and a nasty note. Before Severus even had a moment to fume, Isolde had taken out her wand and incinerated the "gift" as Sirius apologized profusely and Helene took his hand, running his long fingers over her ring.

Matt came down and bugged them later, shooing them onto a plushy couch in their garage so that he could begin to work with Isolde on the new material she had been working on in whatever spare time she had at school. Besides, she always added, an editing ear is always important. And then, of course, there were classic hits they covered, the longest and most painful being "Inna Gadda Da Vida." Isolde's fingers were (in her words) destroyed after the guitar solo, but that was more of a warm up for her to get used to the new instrument; thankfully, they normally only played the short version. The last time they tried the seventeen minute monstrosity, their fingers and voices had been so wasted that that had been their last song for the evening, and it was only seven-thirty, especially as they'd done a few sets before then.

The afternoon passed, becoming night, and after dinner the teenagers were joined by Doc and Donna. Hermione rarely remembered such a tension-free sort of night, especially once Voldemort had been resurrected and whatnot. She was enjoying being a kid, and, ever the quick learner, had learned the intro for "Smoke on the Water," using Isolde's old guitar.

Severus and Hermione decided to turn in early, and fully understanding just what that meant, Isolde and Sirius sat by the fireplace and the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. After a cup of tea and multiple biscuits each, Isolde made Sirius cover his eyes.

"Wait here. I've got something for you." She opened the front hall closet, where she had hidden Sirius's real gift—the one she had given him this afternoon was far less personal. It was a book she knew he'd been eying, whether he'd confess to it or not. This one—well, it wasn't something she could return. Isolde was terrified.

She put the box into his hands. "I really hope you like it. I mean—I couldn't give it to you this afternoon. I wanted it to be just the two of us for this."

If his eyes had been open, they would have widened.

She opened the box in his hands, and his eyes opened out of shock. Soft piano music trickled through the room, and Isolde met his gaze. "I wrote it f-for us. I wrote another one for Severus and Helene, too, for their present, but I wanted this to be just for us."

It was soft and sweet and breathy and heartbreaking all at once, and what was more, it was true. Isolde, a Slytherin by nature, was not one to lay her heart on the line, especially with someone so risky by reputation, if not always by nature.

Her hot breath caressed his ear as she whispered the last line: "I loved you first."

"That's where you're wrong, Zelda," Sirius replied, placing her hands back in her lap. "Now, it's your turn."

He plugged his ears before opening the basement door, rushing over to his things and retrieving her gift. Rushing back upstairs, Sirius quickly controlled himself, feeling his palms begin to sweat and his heart race.

He thrust the box into her hands, feeling her fingers move over his as she accepted it, her smile graceful. She untied the ribbon carefully, Sirius watching intently the entire time. She lifted the mirror from the velvet lining of the box. "It's magic, an heirloom I brought with me when I left home. I have the other. If you know how to use it, you can find me wherever I am, always. It can show you wonderful things. May I show you?"

Isolde nodded, handing him the mirror. "Just speak into it, Zelda. It'll show you what you want to see."

"Show me myself . . . the way Sirius sees me," she whispered to it. "Please."

Something shimmered across the mirror's polished glass, and colors the likes of which Isolde couldn't name mistily swirled in the world beyond the mirror. The blurred image of a girl in a tree began to take shape, her hair flying behind her—fiercely beautiful even as she fell for some immense span of time, her body twisting and arching in the space between her falling and her landing. Then there was his hand caressing the scar on her torso, fingers smoothing over the rough, silvery flesh—her eyes on his in the Great Hall the day she had received the ring.

"Do you like it?" Sirius asked, watching as she placed the mirror back gently in the velvet wrappings in the box.

"It's perfect."

"I have another just like it. I always have it in my bag, so whenever we're apart, we can still use it to communicate and be together.

"If you want, I mean," he amended a moment later, as Isolde threaded her fingers between his. He gazed at the fire for a moment or two before turning to face her. "Do you understand what you saw?"

She tilted her head, looking perplexed. Her brow furrowed lightly, but she said nothing, almost afraid to breathe.

"Everything I've done since . . . I dunno, maybe the day 'Lene showed up and you cursed James and all, well, I wasn't able to stop thinking about you. Ever. Sometimes I feel like I never saw you before then, but I've loved you since. Just ask them—they couldn't stand me until the Halloween Ball because I wouldn't stop talking about you. I couldn't even explain it if you wanted me to, but I've loved you since that day, and I don't really have any intentions to stop."

Isolde took an uneasy breath, her body tense and her eyes suspiciously alight. "You mean that?"

Sirius nodded slowly.

She threw her arms around his neck and he caught her lightly, one of his hands cradling the back of her head. Their foreheads together, it took only a moment to brush their lips together, feeling a jolt of electricity fuel them further, their mouths coming together once more in a way that seemed too personal to put into words. It just was.

When the kiss broke, Sirius pulled a blanket down to cover them as they shared the couch, which would have been much too small for the two of them to be comfortable under any other circumstances. As it was, however, their bodies meshed neatly together, Isolde nestled into Sirius's shoulder, his body covering hers.