The next morning, Hermione was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to force herself to eat a bit of breakfast, when Ron popped through the Floo.

He didn't look much better than when she had last seen him, storming from their home in a fit of anger. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on last night, they were wrinkled, his hair was uncombed, standing on end and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept the night before.

"Where's Hugo?" Hermione asked, trying to avoid the subject she knew Ron had come to discuss.

"I left him at my parents," Ron replied, pulling a chair out from under the kitchen table and dropping into it. "I thought it would be better if we talked without him around."

Hermione nodded, folding her hands together on top of the table. He was right, she knew. Hugo's stable little world would be upset soon enough, the least she could do was not fight with Ron in front of Hugo.

She glanced up at Ron and opened her mouth to speak only to snap it close. What to say? Where to begin? Fortunately, she didn't have to speak because Ron started to talk first.

"Okay, Hermione, what's this nonsense about Hugo being Snape's son? Why would you even say something like that?" Ron asked, as he scrubbed at his face with his hands.

Hermione sighed and bit her lip. Nothing about this was going to be easy, she might as well go ahead and get it over with.

"Ron…it's not nonsense. It's the truth. Hugo is Severus's son."

Ron looked at her and drew in a deep breath. She could tell he was trying to control his temper and for that, she was grateful.

"So you…you had a one night stand…with Snape?" Ron asked between gritted teeth. "You cheated on me for one good fool around with Snape? How could you, Hermione? How could you do this to me?"

Hermione quickly rose from the table and turned away from the pain in Ron's eyes. She needed to explain, but it was so hard to explain when she didn't even really understand herself.

"It wasn't a one night stand, Ron."

She heard him draw in a sharp breath and braced herself for what he would say next.

"Are you trying to tell me that you've been cheating on me for our entire marriage? With Snape?"

She quickly shook her head, not wanting Ron to think things were any worse than they already were. "No, I didn't…it was…it's complicated, Ron."

"Then explain it to me, dammit!" Ron cried, wanting with everything in him to scream or hit or kick something just so that the pain inside him would go away or so someone else would feel as bad as he did.

Hermione turned to face Ron, knowing that she would was getting ready to say next would most likely end her marriage and the peaceful life her children had known up until that point. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth while she tried to think of the best way to explain things to Ron before beginning her story.

While Severus was recovering from Nagini's bite, she'd been horrified to learn that he would stand trial for the Death Eater activities he'd participated in during the war and-most shocking of all-for the death of Albus Dumbledore. She had hoped that Harry's possession of Snape's memories would nullify the need for a trial and she'd even spoken to the new minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, in his first weeks in office, begging him not to put Snape on trial. Couldn't they see that he was a hero?

She'd learned that Kingsley had no more desire to put Severus on trial than she did, but he explained to her, there were those in wizarding community who were screaming for vengeance. They wanted someone to blame, someone alive, and unfortunately, Severus fit the bill. If he had died, he would have most likely been lauded as a hero. But because he'd survived, there were those who wanted his blood for the crimes he'd committed as a Death Eater. And the other surviving Death Eaters were being put on trial…it was only fair that Snape be put on trial too.

Hermione had stormed out of Kingsley's office, disappointed, not for the first time, in the wizarding world and their inability to forget or forgive.

She'd gone straight to St. Mungo's, where Severus had just learned that he was to stand trial, and burst into Severus's room in rage. He'd been lying in bed, his eyes closed, when she burst through the door.

"Of all the-nonsensical-demented-outrageous!" were just some of the words he'd caught coming from her mouth, along with some that he would have never guessed that the Gryffindor know-it-all knew.

"Miss Granger. Cease your absurd mutterings. I'm trying to rest. And after that, get out of my room." He said, not having moved one muscle, his eyes still closed.

"Professor! Have you not heard? They say you're to stand trial for being a Death Eater!"

"Yes, Miss Granger, I've been notified. Now get out."

Hermione's eyes widened in shock. "Don't you plan to do anything about it, Professor?"

"Yes, I do." He replied, eyes still closed.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't planning to take this laying down.

"I plan to stand trial and after that, live out my remaining years in Azkaban. Now, for the last time, get out."

Hermione's head started to shake before he even finished his sentence. "No, Professor, I won't let you do that. You're a hero, you do not belong in Azkaban."

Snape's eyes flew open. "Miss Granger, you do not know what you are talking about. I was a Death Eater, I murdered and tortured people. I killed Albus Dumbledore. It's only right that I should stand trial for what I did."

"How can you even say that? Everything you did, you did on Dumbledore's orders, even killing him, it was all for-" she stammered, not wanting to utter the phrase 'the greater good'. "The point is, you can't stand trial for this. You've done nothing wrong, nothing that you didn't have to do. If it wasn't for you, we might have never won the war."

"Be that as it may, Miss Granger, it does not matter. I will stand trial and then I'll be sent to Azkaban. Now for the last time, get out of my room!"

Hermione grabbed a chair from beside the door and pulled it up next to Snape's bed.

"No," she said. "No, I won't get out and I won't let you stand trial. Not alone, anyway."

Snape's eyes narrowed and he smirked at her. "What do you plan to do, Granger? Throw yourself in front of the Dementors?"

"No." she said, with a shake of her head. "I plan to mount a defense for you. I won't let you be sent to Azkaban."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think of the easiest way to get this silly girl out of his room.

"I've no need of your so called 'defense', Granger. I will deal with this myself, as I have always done. Now get out of my room before I have the healers throw you out." With that, he reclined back against his pillows and closed his eyes once again.

"No." Hermione said quietly. "That's not good enough." Tentatively, she reached out and took Snape's hand in hers. When his eyes flew open, the rage in them barely concealed, she only held tighter to his hand.

"No. You won't go through this alone and you won't go to Azkaban."

Snape opened his mouth to reply but was stopped by the feel of her hand against his. How long had it been since he'd been touched this way? In a way that demonstrated kindness and caring. In a way that said he wasn't alone.

So long that he couldn't even remember it.

It wouldn't hurt, he supposed, to allow her to construct a defense for him, even if the end result was still the same.

And that was how Hermione Granger and Harry Potter came to the defense of Severus Snape. Determined not to let him go to Azkaban, they worked day and night trying to find witnesses and other evidence that would keep him away from the Dementors. Any memory, any clue, any fragment of evidence was catalogued and filed into evidence. Hermione, of course, put in the most work, as Harry was busy with Auror training, and even though she was in the midst of her seventh year, she came first to the hospital and, once he was released, his home at Spinner's End, every day to talk to Snape and put together the defense she prayed would save him.

It was during this time that she began to feel things she'd never felt before for the feared Potions Master. At first it was little things, the way his eyes lingered on hers for a second too long, the way he seemed to smirk less in her presence, the way his eyes seemed brighter when she came through the door. Of course, she tried to convince herself that it was all just the result of spending so much time with him. And perhaps she could have gone on convincing herself that, if it hadn't been for what happened after the trial.

The trial was a mockery, held, as everyone seemed to know, for the benefit of those few unknown wizards who, for reasons no one quite understood, wanted to see Severus punished for crimes that he had never willingly committed.

When the unanimous innocent verdict came back, after less than ten minutes of deliberation, there had been screams of joy from the spectators in court, Harry had leaped to his feet with a huge smile on his face and Hermione had started to cry. While everyone else went to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, Severus simply stood up from his chair and left the courtroom. Hermione followed him, from the steps of the ministry to his home at Spinner's End.

She had knocked softly on the door and when it was flung open by Snape, he didn't seem surprised to see her there. Rather, he had simply reached for her hand and pulled her over the threshold. Shutting the door behind her, he pressed her up against the door and rubbed his lips gently over hers, one hand at her waist, the other holding her hand to his chest. And without even thinking, Hermione had opened her mouth to allow him greater access, responding to his kiss in ways she didn't even know existed. With her free hand, she put her palm against his cheek, causing him to shiver and she smiled at the thought of Severus Snape, feared professor of Hogwarts and ex Death Eater, shivering at her touch.

She didn't remember how it happened, but they ended up in his bed, limbs tangled together and as she lay in bed staring at his ceiling, she knew she would never forget the moment he entered her for the first time, the sweet mix of please and pain she'd felt or the way he trembled as she ran her hands over his back and locked her legs around his hips, the way he softly moaned her name. They'd fallen asleep in each other's arms and throughout the night, they'd woken and made love several times.

The next morning Hermione woke alone in the predawn light. She pulled her clothes from the night before on and went in search or Severus, finding him in his living room, sitting on the couch, a cold cup of coffee between his hands as he stared out the window.

She told him that she loved him, that she would leave Ron, who she'd been dating since the start of the war, although they'd yet to consummate their relationship, and they could try to make a life together. It would be hard at times, she told him, but the rewards in the end would be so much greater.

He told her she didn't know what love was. That last night had meant nothing to him and it shouldn't mean anything to her either. He told her to get out and go back to her weasel, because there was nothing for her there.

She'd left crying, the tears blinding her and she hadn't seen him again until years later, after she'd married and had Rose. She'd come to Hogwarts to talk about her career to the seventh years and Minerva had invited her to stay for dinner. As luck would have it, she'd been seated next to Severus and even though he hadn't spoken a word to her or anyone else at dinner, she'd noticed the way his body stiffened when she sat down next to him.

She'd barely been able to concentrate on dinner with him sitting right next to her and everything unspoken between them. When he'd gotten up, she'd quickly made her excuses to Minerva and followed, only, she tried to convince herself, because she'd never been able to figure out what she'd done wrong. She didn't want to admit that she loved him then and loved him still.

And just like that day so many years ago, he hadn't been surprised to see her standing at his door. And this time, when he kissed her, it wasn't a gentle kiss as it had been before. Rather, it was a kiss full of pent up passion, longing and misery, as if he was trying to express everything he couldn't say through the kiss. She hadn't been surprised when they ended up in bed, she hadn't even had time to feel guilty about it, as together they touched the sun again and again.

Afterwards, as he held her in his arms, she'd offered to leave Ron for the second time. She loved Ron, but what she felt for him in no way compared to what she felt for Severus. And now she knew, or at least suspected, that he felt the same way about her.

But for the second time in her life, Severus told her no.

She'd been so mad that she'd left, ignoring her as he called her name, just determined to get as far away from him as she possibly could.

A month later she'd realized she was pregnant with Hugo.

And she couldn't tell Severus. He'd made it clear that he didn't want her, didn't want their relationship, so why would he want their baby?

Instead, she'd let Ron believe Hugo was his and in doing so, she'd created a lie so big that it almost seemed as if there was no way to reel it in.

As she finished her story, tears were falling down her cheeks and although she'd only told Ron the basics, he was crying too. She started to reach for his hand and then stopped, because she no longer knew how he felt about her.

She had her answer, however, when he stood up from the kitchen table, his eyes red and raw, and looked at her with hate filled eyes.

"Our whole marriage has been a lie. All this time, you've been with me, yet you've been thinking about Snape," He pushed his chair in and just before stepping into the Floo, he turned and looked at her.

"We're done, Hermione."

As he left, Hermione took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face before stepping into the Floo. She knew was coming and she didn't want to delay it any longer. With a pinch of Floo powder and a cry of "Hogwarts!" she was gone.