From that day on they regularly went Muggle as they called it, visiting restaurants and museums and enjoying themselves immensely. A teensy tiny part of his delight came from the fact that he was pissing on the Dark Lord's grave, metaphorically speaking, but the biggest part was the Muggle world itself. In the anonymity of Muggle London Severus found it easier to be more affectionate in public, a fact Hermione seemed to relish. Even after three years together the novelty that such a loving, intelligent, understanding, independent woman like Hermione wanted him hadn't worn off. Not to jinx it, but his life was pretty perfect at the moment and yet, while every minute they spent together strengthened Severus's conviction that he wanted her child and that it would enrich their relationship, Hermione had not once mentioned children and didn't seem in a hurry to bring it up: quite the contrary, actually.

Maybe he should Floo Minerva and ask if Sybil had coughed up a real prophesy lately, because Severus was running out of ideas. In fact, he had only one last ace up his sleeve and he hated to use it, but he saw no other option, no matter how much he loathed the idea. He only had to wait for the right moment. It was difficult for him to think of something else, because he had come to a point where he started to see families with small children everywhere. In the span of only ten minutes he'd seen a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders in Diagon Alley, a family of four sitting at a table at the reopened Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and an expectant father touching his very pregnant woman's baby belly in the foyer of St. Mungo's. On that occasion Severus had been on his way to pick Hermione up. He'd been mortified when he recognised the man and woman in question were Ronald Weasley and his wife Susan.

When he asked Hermione about it on their way to lunch she told him they'd been visiting Susan's sister who had a run-in with a rogue Bludger and stopped by to say hello to her too. Severus had brought sandwiches with him and they had sat down under a tree in the park near St. Mungo's. The weather was fine, sunny but with a chill in the air that announced the end of summer.

They had sat upon his transformed robes and he had put his arm around her shoulder to keep her warm. It had been a perfectly romantic moment. He had observed her out the corner of his eye but instead of declaring her overwhelming desire to have a child with him she seemed to watch him right back. If the weather had been better he would have been sorely tempted to go for a swim in the fountain in the park and do his wet shirt number again, just to see Hermione's reaction.

The most irritating part, however, was that it hadn't been a one-off thing. It happened with increasing frequency that there were sudden lulls in their conversation, right in the middle of the most wonderful moments where their conversation suddenly ground to a halt and Hermione seemed to wait for him to say something. It was vexing.

Severus kept putting the dreaded conversation off until one evening when they were in the kitchen, Hermione sitting with a glass of wine at the table while Severus prepared their dinner. It was the time of day they wound down, relaxed and told each other what had happened in the hours they hadn't seen each other. From what Hermione had told him he presumed the Granger family had spent their evenings like that when she had been a child. It was a novel experience for him, though, and one he soon came to love. He had spent his childhood dinners cowed in fear and then used to eat either alone or in the presence of his colleagues under the watchful eyes of their students for the next decades.

"... and so I told her to be more careful with her uncle's heirlooms if she didn't want to be turned into a toad again. Are you listening?"

"I have been thinking," Severus said and turned around just in time to see her spill her wine.

Hermione swore under her breath and mopped up the liquid with the serviette next to her plate before it could trickle onto the floor. "Thinking about what?" she asked, whipped out her wand and

vanished the mess.

"The past."

She leaned back in her chair and brushed her hair out of her face. "I've asked all my questions, you don't have to tell me more."

She was alluding to the time he had turned up at her flat with a big bottle of Ogden's and a Hangover Potion when they had been seeing each other for about six months. Whenever she had brought up the war, his childhood or his time with the Death Eaters in their conversations he had given her monosyllabic answers. While she had respected his privacy and did not ask further questions he had been worried to lose her and decided to grasp the nettle.

"Tonight you will have the opportunity to ask me anything you wish to know and I will answer truthfully," he had told her. "Be warned, however, that I will not sugarcoat my answers to spare your feelings so only ask if you can handle the answer."

He couldn't remember much of that night, but he did remember the morning after when he woke up on Hermione's couch with his head pounding with the mother of all headaches, cat hair all over his clothes and Hermione's arms wrapped around him. He dimly remembered her asking his opinion of Minerva, but she swore he had only imagined it. She had been smirking, though, and only her bloodshot eyes stopped him from giving her the third degree.

Severus shook his head. "The more recent past." He cleared his throat and changed into teacher mode. "You might remember what I usually say in cases when I'm approached by former students who want to settle a score with me?"

"Sod off?"

"I don't say that!"

"No, but they always get the message, loud and clear."

Severus crossed his arms. "I tell them I was a spy and that I knew that one day the Dark Lord would return."

"I know, I've heard you say it once or twice. Normally they aren't impressed. Can't say that I blame them."

"I only tell them I was a spy and that I knew that one day the Dark Lord would return," he said with emphasis on the word 'only'.

Hermione frowned. "That's it? That's your big revelation?"

Severus arched an eyebrow. Somehow Hermione was not at her best today. "While not a lie that statement is not entirely truthful, either."

Hermione stared at him but when he only stared back, she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Right. Let's see. While you were in fact a spy and yes, you knew Voldemort would return, that's only half the truth?"

"An accurate assessment."

"And the other half?"

Severus raised his other eyebrow as well, willing her to understand without going through the ordeal of actually saying it.

"But you were horrible because... you were frustrated?"

Severus made a go on gesture with his hand.

"Because you had a bet going on with Filch or you got commission from Malfoy for every Gryffindor you made cry? Because you quite simply enjoyed it? Nargles made you do it? By Merlin's beard, Severus, what are we talking about?"

"In hindsight I may not always have chosen the most appropriate way of dealing with you."

"Uh huh, you don't say. Only me or the others too?"

"Don't expect me to apologise to all of them!"

"I don't. Wait you mean that was an apology?"

Severus took a deep breath. "What else do you want to hear?"

"Okay, just so that we're clear. You're sorry for how you treated me as your pupil?"

"... Yes."

"Me, and Neville and Harry in particular?"

"... Yes."

"And you wouldn't do it again, because you have changed and are ashamed of how you acted then?"

"... Yes."

Hermione stood up and went over to him. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone," she said in low voice and took his hand.

Severus had a sneaking suspicion what she was getting at. "You are a much, much better person than I ever could be."

The grim look on her face looked out of place. "Marietta Edgecombe would beg to differ. Tell me, what do you think were my reasons for becoming a Healer?"

Severus hesitated.

"You can say it. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked."

"One might say you were disillusioned with the Ministry, the most obvious career choice for a witch of your intelligence and ambition, and decided to be a Healer because of your love for learning, need to help others and the chance to, say, found a new experimental division where you can research and reform traditional healing procedures to your heart's content."

"And you? What do you say?"

"You think you have been touched by the dark. You think you have to make atonement for decisions you made in difficult times. It's also no coincidence that your profession as Healer is the closest thing to the magical equivalent of the Muggle dentist," he said in a soft voice and squeezed her hand to take the sting out of his words.

"I do not only think I did cruel things, I know I did them. I didn't enjoy doing them like you enjoyed making us cry and don't think I have forgotten your quip about my teeth, but I wasn't the innocent lamb some people see in me. Obliviating my parents without their consent? Disfiguring Marietta? Nearly getting Umbridge killed, no matter what an awful person she is?"

Severus shook his head. "I embraced the dark with open eyes, I brought it on myself. But you? You only did what you had to do to protect yourself and the ones you love. You had no choice."

"I didn't have the choice to do nothing, but I could have made other choices. No, I always thought I knew what was best for everybody, because I'm supposed to be the smartest witch of my age, see? Turns out I really was a bossy know-it-all, and even more dangerous because I was occupying the moral high ground. You know where I'm coming from, but Harry and Ron, they can't. To be honest I don't know if I want them to."

Severus chose his words carefully. "Actually, I think Potter might understand," he said softly.

A small smile flitted over her face. "You think so? Yes, Harry might understand me if I told him, but he's not like us. He never wanted to be special, even if you don't believe it. His biggest fear was to become like Voldemort."

"Potter doesn't need my apology."

Hermione shrugged. "You're probably right, but I'm sure he would appreciate it."

"That's not what I meant. If Potter gets an apology from me then it is because I need it."

"Oh, Severus," she said and cupped his face with her hand, "I'm glad to hear it. Maybe someday you'll even say the same about Neville."

Severus tried to hide his face behind his hair but she didn't let him.

"I know you've changed, Severus, I suspected it from the moment I came to you for advice about that cursed patient back then when you took me seriously, and you proved me right. I respected you as a teacher even when you were horrible to us, and later after the war I admired you because you nearly sacrificed yourself to make up for the mistakes you did in your youth. But I wouldn't be sitting here with you today if you still treated people like you did then. So what I mean is I already knew, but thank you for telling me."

She stood up and smoothed down her skirt. "Will dinner be long? I promised Ginny I'd Floo her." She stole a slice of bell pepper from the chopping board on the sink.

An empty, hollow feeling settled in Severus's stomach as if a part of his past had bled out of him and left the cold bitter dregs behind. He had offered as much as he could, but Hermione expected more and, if he was honest with himself, should expect more of him. Only that he wasn't ready just yet to let go of his old grudges. He wasn't sure there would be much left of him if he did. How long would she wait for him he wondered, not for the first time. Why didn't he keep his big mouth shut? Everything had gone swimmingly but no, of course Severus just had to get impatient and cock it up by raising expectations he couldn't satisfy.

He picked up the meat mallet and pounded the cutlets into submission. "Then don't let me keep you," wham, "from calling on your friend," whack, "but don't expect me to wait for you," splatter.

He shoved the mangled piece of meat to the side, not hungry any more in the least, and reached for the next. He would make the best bloody dinner he could, damn it all.

Hermione stopped munching on her pepper and grinned at him. "You're such a drama queen." She pushed off of the sink and embraced him from behind.

"I said I have regrets, not that I'm punishing myself. I have my dream job, the relationship with my parents now is better than it has been since they came back from Australia, and in case you haven't noticed I'm with you because I love you, you dolt." She planted a big smacker on his cheek. "I'll only be gone for a few minutes. Don't worry, you can order me around later and I'll do the washing up."

She relinquished her grip and headed for the door. "By the way, Ginny wants us to come over for dinner sometime. Why don't we play a round of charades? We would wipe the floor with them."

She was already out of the room when he banged his head on the wall cupboard. Repeatedly.

As the summer was drawing to a close, Severus had to face the possibility that either unbeknownst to him his coma had destroyed the plotting and scheming cells in his brain or, and he preferred this explanation although it might not bode well for his future with Hermione, she was in general immune to his attempts to manipulate her. Her thirtieth birthday was looming on the horizon, a fact that caused him quite a headache because he couldn't assess if it worked in his favour or against him. Of more immediate concern to him, however, was the Potters' dinner invitation.

Potter made him uncomfortable. Nothing new there, but Potter had changed from the disobedient boy that had divided the world into black and white to a competent Auror and, worse, a wise man. Where the boy had stared at Severus with hatred, the adult Harry looked at him with a mixture of understanding, forgiveness and gratitude. It unsettled Severus deeply that apparently they had reached an understanding without Severus even trying and without ever mentioning the past. What the hell had the world come to when a Potter called his son Albus Severus?

It was easier to dismiss Potter when he didn't treat him with that knowing look.

The Potter's spacious old country house was only a stone's throw away from Ottery St. Catchpole and the Burrow. One cloudy Sunday afternoon Hermione knocked on the heavily warded door and Potter himself opened and ushered them inside into the hall littered with toys and five pairs of wellies.

"Hi Hermione! Hello, Severus. Come in, the children are upstairs. Ginny, they're here!" Potter shouted back into the house.

Severus grimaced. Ah, yes. Another reason he avoided Potter: the brat annoyed the crap out of him. Hermione and Potter hugged and chatted while they walked down the hall, Severus following a few steps behind, into the large bright kitchen where Ginevra interrupted preparing dinner to greet them. Severus examined Potter closely, the habit of a lifetime; the last time he had been off his guard Potter had decided to name his son after him, after all.

Potter noticed him watching and grinned self-deprecatingly. "I know, I've put on some weight. It's all the paperwork that came with the promotion."

Ginevra gave him a loving pat on his small belly. "You should do the exercises with the Auror recruits to keep in shape."

Nobody asked Severus, but he found that the additional weight suited him. Potter still had his trademark unruly hair but without the scrawny physique and with the rectangular glasses instead of the round spectacles of old he now resembled his mother as much as his father. Definitely an improvement in Severus's mind.

The fireplace flashed green and a voice called, "Hullo, anybody home? Can I come through?"

A few seconds later Ronald Weasley stumbled out of the hearth and brushed soot off his clothes. There were dark smudges under his eyes and he swayed.

"Ron! Is everything okay?" Ginevra asked and rushed to her brother's side.

Ronald's tired white face lit up. "Better than okay! Much better!" He puffed out his chest and in a booming voice declared, "I hereby proudly announce the birth of our baby girl Rose Amelia Weasley."

His announcement was met with great enthusiasm, high squeals from the women and a whoop from Potter. Nobody commented on Severus's reticence.

"Well done, mate!"

"That's a beautiful name. I'm so happy for you," Hermione said, apparently sincerely happy for her friend and former lover. Severus's heart beat faster with renewed hope.

Meanwhile Ginevra hugged her brother within an inch of his life. "How's Susan doing?" she wanted to know when she let go.

"Better than me. Mum says she is glowing and I look like I did all the work. Dad says it was the same with him every time. Mum's already at St. Mungo's, by the way. Susan says it's okay that you come visit now."

This little speech seemed to have drained all remaining energy out of him, because he collapsed on a kitchen chair and stretched out his legs in front of him. He sniffed in the direction of the oven and then looked up hopefully at his sister. "Is that roast beef?"

"Yeah, it should be ready by now." Ginevra scratched her head and gave Hermione a pleading look. "Hey, I know it's rude to invite you and then just disappear, but I'd love to go and see Susan and little Rose?"

"We don't mind, don't worry," Hermione assured her.

Potter put his arm around his wife. "Ginny, why don't you go ahead and I'll follow with the children?"

"Can I have something to eat before I starve and die on your kitchen floor? I'd love to go back to my wife and daughter, too," Ronald piped in.

"Go on Ginny, and you, get the children. I can fix dinner for Ron," Hermione said to the Potters.

Ginevra snorted and then both she and Hermione laughed. "Yeah, sure, Hermione. I tried to tell Mum that Severus's the cook of you two, but she just doesn't listen." She then turned to him and pointed at the cooker. "Would you mind? Only the sauce is missing."

Suddenly he was the centre of attention. "I will take care of it."

"Wonderful. We'll catch up later." She then caught him by surprise and embraced him. He tensed but she was already off to hug Hermione and whisper something in her ear that made Hermione smile before she threw Floo powder into the fireplace and left for St. Mungo's.

With Ginevra gone and Hermione and Potter upstairs to fetch the children and get them ready, Severus and Ronald were left alone in the kitchen. Severus went to work at the cooker, glad that he could busy himself and didn't need to talk with the other man, but unfortunately Ronald didn't catch up to the fact.

"She's so tiny," he said out of the blue.

Severus actually turned around to see if Hermione or Potter had returned, but no, Ronald was talking to him. All the adrenaline in his blood, probably. Severus stayed silent, hoping that Weasley would get the drift.

"Rose has Susan's nose, but I think she has my eyes."

Apparently not. Severus loudly handled the pots and pans to try and drown out the sound of Ronald's voice, but it didn't work.

"She's a miracle. We've tried for three years to get pregnant, all the Healers told us that there was no problem but why didn't it work then, huh? We started talking about adoption and then, one day, bam! Susan's pregnant. I nearly keeled over."

The story was news to Severus; if Hermione knew, she hadn't told him. He peeked over his shoulder and found to his horror that Ronald's eyes were swimming with unshed tears. Ronald looked up, then, started when he saw Severus watching him and hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeve. For once Severus was at a loss what to say. Not even a nasty remark would come to him.

He took a closer look at Ronald and for the first time really saw the man. He then took a good hard look at himself and wished he hadn't.

Ronald Weasley had lived in the shadow of his older siblings and his friend Potter nearly all his life, had apparently even struggled to become a father and that in a family that popped out children left and right. Severus's head was swimming. He used to sneer whenever Ronald's past as Auror came up, in secret convinced that he had left because he knew that they only let him in because he was Harry Potter's best friend and might get himself killed if he had to fend for himself, not because his brother conveniently needed help to save Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Maybe Severus had to reconsider; after all Ronald was well off nowadays, partner in a successful business that bore his name and flourished because he had opened up new markets. And now he was a father to boot.

Ronald had worked hard the last years, Severus finally realised, to find his place. In a sudden fit of inspiration Severus grabbed a bottle from Potter's shelf next to the sink. His fingers tingled as he reached through the anti-underage ward. "Butterbeer?"

Weasley's gaze wandered to the shelf with the stronger booze.

"Not before you had something to eat."

"Right." He ran his hand over his face and yawned.

Severus held the butterbeer out to Weasley. "To your daughter. You are a lucky man, Ronald."

Weasleys's ears turned an interesting shade of red. Severus already concocted the top three list of explanations he could give his beloved for exactly why he had to defend himself from the new-fledged father, just in case 'no I don't know why he took my sincere good wishes for sarcasm' didn't fly. 'Sorry, darling, I just had to put him in a Body-Bind' sounded a bit weak. 'That's what happens when I try to be nice to your friends' had the advantage of being the truth, but 'believe me, it hurt me more than him' was a classic and he had decided to use that one when a big toothy grin split Ronald's face.

"I really am a lucky beggar, right? Thanks, Sn-Severus," he said, stumbling over the unfamiliar address, and grabbed the bottle. "Cheers!"

Hermione wandered into the room. "Have you seen Al? He's not upstairs."

"Perhaps in the garden," Ronald said and took a swig.

"I'll go and look for him," Severus offered, grateful for the chance to get out. He turned off the cooker and handed Hermione the cooking spoon. "Here, you only have to put in on a plate."

He hurried out of the kitchen, through the entrance door and slowed down walking around the house, not that keen on looking for the boy. It turned out that he didn't need to search at all, because he found him the moment he came around the corner.

His small namesake cowered between the roots of an old apple tree. He was sniffling and worrying the ripped edges of a torn sleeve. Albus Severus was a pale, scrawny black-haired boy just like his father had been. In fact he could be easily mistaken for a very young Harry Potter. Or for a very young Severus Snape. A disconcerting feeling of déjà vu settled over Severus. He had the unsettling impression that at that moment his past, present and future, his dreams, hopes and failures coincided.

He finally understood. The reason he had done everything to convince Hermione to have his child but ask her outright? To avoid making a stand. He couldn't declare to the world at large that he wanted a child and family, because Severus Snape never got what he wanted. Oh no, the moment Severus wanted something the other shoe dropped, fate laughed into his face, and the gods kicked him in the teeth. For now Hermione stayed with him, but in a year? In a decade? He loved her, even if the words hadn't passed his lips yet- out of fear, he now realised.

Severus thought he could hear his subconscious snigger, but that was alright. He felt pretty foolish. Obviously he sucked at that whole self-awareness thing.

"Your father is looking for you inside," he said to the boy with the same calm voice he had honed in the two decades soothing homesick Slytherins.

The boy, how old was he, three?, bit his lips and wiped over his face with the remnants of a dirty sleeve. He ended up spreading out snot all over it. Severus waited and held his distance. He realised with the hot shame that could burn a hole in your insides that if somehow, maybe through some accident with a Time-Turner it really were a young Harry before him, Severus would have by now ridiculed the boy, taunted him about the tears on his face and sneered at his attempt to hide himself. Just like he had belittled him and done worse countless times when Potter was in his care. Just like, with another spin of the Time-Turner, it could have been himself crouched down trying to hide from his father and from the other children. He could see it clearly, the cycle of abuse in his life spanning from his childhood to adulthood, from victim to perpetrator, from one generation to the next, passed from his father to him to...

No.

It stopped right here, because he had a choice and he would make sure that it wouldn't happen again. Never again.

Severus cleared his throat. "Mr Potter, I suggest I clean your clothes and then we'll go back inside where I will refrain from mentioning the particulars of the state I found you in."

Albus Severus seemed to think about it, or maybe he tried to figure out if his auntie Hermione's friend was talking English, then he nodded and climbed back to his feet. "Fell off the tree," the boy mumbled and rubbed his ear.

He stood perfectly still while Severus muttered an incantation to heal the scratches on his arm and repaired and cleaned his clothes. Only when Severus took out his handkerchief and wiped his face Al wiggled and squirmed until Severus put the hanky away again.

"Now you are presentable. Come with me."

Albus Severus didn't need to be told twice and marched off on his short legs. Harry Potter had had a horrible childhood, Severus mused, but he was a loving father; Severus could do the same. A few yards down the path Albus suddenly raised his arm into the air, still walking. It took Severus a few moments to realise that the boy wanted him to take him by the hand. Another few seconds elapsed before big Severus reached down and clasped his fingers around little Severus's small hand.

A figure with bushy hair was standing by the window. They were too far away for Severus to read her expression, but even so he could see in the second before she turned around and walked out of his field of vision that she wasn't smiling.