76: In Which We Tie Up Loose Ends

The party had wound down, and with the exception of Harry, Molly and Arthur, the rest of the Weasleys had gone home.

The three of them led Hermione and Snape back to the chapel. Earlier Arthur and Harry had showed off their handiwork, and Hermione had oohed and ahhed over the transformed chapel. Now, as they returned, Arthur said, "We left one part of the chapel for you two."

"It seemed fitting for you to do this," Harry said as he walked them to the disillusioned altar, and ended the spell on it. It came into view and both Snape and Hermione studied it. Unlike the rest of the chapel, the altar was in its original state of aged disrepair.

First and foremost Hermione could see it had once been an object of great beauty and reverence. The wood work had rotted, but the stone was still sharply carved, and the filigree gold was still visible, if somewhat askew because it was no longer anchored to the wood.

She looked at the stone, images of a woman and a man, clearly lovers, in a garden. There were three panels, and each panel had something written on it.

"Is that Latin?" Hermione asked, her fingers centimetres from the inscription.

Snape, who had been focusing on the woodwork of the altar, glanced at the writing and nodded. "Yes. The centre one says, 'My beloved is mine and I am his.' The left one is 'Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is as strong as death.' And the right one says, 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

"How sweet," Hermione breathed. "When did you learn Latin?"

"1983. You can't really be a Potions Master without it. If you can't read Latin, you can't read anything written on the subject before 1600."

"Oh."

Molly was shaking her head. "As well read as you two are and neither of you know what this is, do you?" They both looked somewhat sheepish. "It's the Bible. Song of Songs. Some of the oldest and best love poetry around. If you don't have a Bible in your house, borrow ours and give it a read. It's short and lovely."

"We have a Bible." Snape and Molly looked surprised to hear Hermione that.

"I have a Bible, and it moved in with me," Hermione said to Snape.

"Huh…" Snape turned to look at the altar again. "It is lovely."

"We'll leave you to it then," Arthur said, and led his wife and son-in-law out of the chapel.

Snape walked behind Hermione, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head upon hers. "Do we even want an altar in our wedding?"

"There is something sacrilegious about us using it. But I don't want to just leave it like it is."

"So we'll restore it but not use it?" Severus asked.

"I think that's the best course here. This was designed to celebrate rites we don't intend to honour."

"So was the chapel."

"Erg. I was kind of hoping you wouldn't notice that. Perhaps I could say: my hypocrisy knows some bounds."

"I can live with that." And with that they began the restoration.

A week later, Hermione Flooed Percy. He invited her into his study where large mounds of paperwork decorated every horizontal surface.

"It never lets up does it?"

"Not if I want to make Minister before forty."

"Congrats on that. I just heard that that's become much more likely."

"Likely but not certain. There is still a lot of work to do between now and then. But I don't think that's why you're here. What can I do for you?" Percy smiled precisely at her. Hermione wondered if Percy always sounded so prim. Did he ever break loose, like when playing with his kids or alone with his wives?

"I need you to let me bring a vampire into the country for the wedding." She smiled back at him, hoping that her outrageous request didn't sound as bad to him as it did to her.

His eyes got rather large. "A vampire?"

"A good vampire. He's a dear friend, and he hasn't eaten anyone in a very long time."

"Well, that's different then. I'll just let the Department of Dangerous Magical Creatures know that he's a good vampire, and all will be well." His voice was very dry, and Hermione couldn't quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

"You're being sarcastic aren't you?"

"Of course I'm being sarcastic! No one wants any vampires in this country, good, bad, or indifferent."

"What if I told you I was willing to pay you for the favour?"

Percy looked intrigued. "What coin can you offer?"

"A wedding picture and a glowing interview to the Prophet about how well the Marriage Act worked out for me."

Percy thought about it for a long time. She could almost see him counting up the value of the good press having a national hero endorse his plan versus the amount of favours he would have to grant in return for getting Spike into the country.

"I don't know if I can do it, but if I can, we're on."

"Good, I'll need a portkey to get them here also."

"Oh, a portkey, too. What do you mean them? Where is your vampire coming from?"

"New Orleans. They are Spike, his girlfriend Buffy, Willow, who I've told you about, and her friend Xander. If I remember correctly, you had some interest in talking with Willow about magic in the States."

"I did. Aren't they in Ohio?"

"They were. They finished the move this week."

"Oh. Getting the portkey won't be hard. When do you want them to come into town?"

"The wedding's on the tenth. How about the seventh? That'll give them time to get used to England, spend a little time sightseeing, and they'll be here for all the fun."

"I'll let you know when I know."

"Thanks, Perce. I'll make sure the picture is really pretty!"

"I talked to your mum today," Snape said as they sat in her office at Hogwarts, him on her sofa, her in his lap. She was between rounds, grabbing a few minutes to snuggle with her honey before heading back out into the castle to stop the students from doing just that. Sometimes it was very good to be an adult.

"That must have been fun."

"It was polite."

"Well, I suppose that's a start. What did she have to say?"

"They are coming. The plane tickets arrived today. I once more tried to get them to accept a portkey, but they'd rather fly. They approve of the hotel we booked for them. Your mum is very much looking forward to seeing our home."

"That'll be interesting. Hopefully the garden will keep her from noticing our lack of recycling bins."

Snape looked puzzled. "Why would we recycle? We can just vanish things. No landfill problems."

"She'd not be thrilled about us just vanishing things. It's wasteful."

"Oh. We can get recycling bins if you think it'll prevent arguments."

"If it's not that, it'll be something else. Might as well have an easily fixed neutral topic." She was shaking her head.

"You know, when I was first thinking about you and I, I thought the Weasleys would be the hard part. But your parents are like playing Quiddich, just when I think I know what's going on, a bludger comes out from nowhere and hits me upside the head."

"You and me both love, you and me both."

Hermione returned home, thanking all that was good and holy that she didn't have rounds that night. Her day had been long and wretched, starting with a staining potion fight at lunch that left everyone covered in dark blue and bright pink splotches. She had been assured said blue splotch would fade from her face in less than twenty-four hours. If not, she was going to personally perform all of the unforgiveable curses on the perpetrator. Then, because walking about with half of her face stained blue wasn't enough aggravation for one day, she had received a howler from the mother of one of her seventh year students screaming about how awful and dangerous wandless magic was, and what on earth had possessed her to start teaching it to children. She had debated how to respond, and finally decided to just let it lie.

When she stepped through the floo, she found the house empty. Severus was probably still in his lab. She shrugged off her robes and flopped into her favourite chair. For several moments she just sat there and let her mind wander. Finally she got up, and walked across their home toward the garden and his lab.

As she was passing the kitchen something caught her eye. Sitting on the dinner table was a prettily wrapped package. She went to it, and saw that the envelope was unopened as yet. Curiosity burned through her. Who sent it? What was their first wedding present?

She increased her pace toward Snape's lab. When she entered, she did so quietly. It wouldn't do to disturb him, not when a second of inattention could prove disastrous. She stood inside the doorway, waiting for him to notice her.

He put the flask he had been eyeballing down. "Would you call this sapphire or cerulean blue?"

She looked at it. "I have no idea. It's blue, deep blue. Can I give you a hug?"

He turned to look at her and his eyes widened, but he refrained from commenting on her new look. "Better not, I'm covered in fyr vapour. Let me get a shower, and I'll join you in a few minutes."

"Sounds good." He apparated to their shower, and she returned to the kitchen.

He found her looking through the fridge.

"Any idea what you want for dinner?" she asked him.

"Not a clue. How about we go out?"

She looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. "The stain is glamour proof. Otherwise I wouldn't be walking about with it visible on my face."

"Take away then? I'll get it."

"Lovely. I want to open this first." She closed the fridge and gestured to the present.

"Good, I've been waiting for you to get home so we could." She snagged the card, and he began to rip off the paper.

"It's from Arthur and Molly," Hermione said as Snape lifted a very modern looking black clock out of the packaging. It matched the décor of their house. Snape squinted at it.

"That's the oddest clock I've ever seen."

"It's a family clock." Hermione slid around the table, and looked at the face of the clock. And, just like the one at the Burrow, this clock had no numbers, just places and conditions, and two hands, one that said Hermione, and one that said Severus, both of which were pointing toward 'Home.' Hermione smiled widely.

"Weasley family tradition, each new couple gets one of these for their wedding. That's when I knew I was really one of the Weasleys; shortly after the war ended they added me to their clock. At this point they've had to disable it. Each new spouse and grandbaby added a hand, and by last year it had so many hands it couldn't be read anymore. I think Molly's replaced it with one of those enchanted family trees, kind of like the one at Harry's."

"So each of our kids will add another hand to this one?"

"Yep, one nice and tidy way to keep track of everyone."

Snape took the clock and walked to the fireplace, he placed it upon the mantle. "How does it look over here?"

"I like it."

Sunday morning, six days until the wedding, Snape and Hermione were sitting at the breakfast table. An owl pecked at the window. Severus opened the window, paid the owl, and took the copy of the Prophet.

"Oh, God!" He grimaced.

"How bad is it?"

"I hope you really, really like Spike." He handed her the paper. 'Lighting Strikes Twice' was the headline over a smiling picture of her. She had made sure Rita Skeeter didn't do the interview, but as she read on, she had the sinking suspicion that Daphne Greengrass had learned to write from the woman.

Hermione Granger, Heroine of Vold War II, Best Friend of Harry Potter, has found love again. After seven years of mourning for her first love, Ronald Weasley, who was killed protecting her during the now famous Horcrux Hunt, Hermione Granger has found love again.

Thanks to the controversial Marriage Act of 2004, Hermione was faced with an awful choice, leave Britain and her job at Hogwarts, or face a loveless marriage of convenience. At least, that's how she thought it would work. Little did she suspect that something great awaited her.

'I filled out my paperwork, and was astonished to see Severus Snape was my best match.' From there the young witch decided to take a chance, a chance at new love, and a new life…

"Oh God." She buried her head in her hands. "It's so sappy. 'I'd have never taken the chance if the law hadn't forced me.' 'I've been so blessed to have found a love like this twice.' I didn't say that!" Her eyes skimmed the paragraphs, and she visibly winced several times. "They better have one hell of a great wedding present..." she muttered under her breath.

"You know what they say, if you dance with the devil, you don't get to pick the tune. I still think we could have come up with some sort of way to evade the magical tracking spells."

"I know, and trust me, your idea is looking better by the second. Next time I want to do something highly illegal, I'll take your advice and find a way to do it without calling in any favours from the Ministry."