I posted the last chapter before work, came home and opened up my email and you 'd already reviewed. You are excellent. Have another chapter:
It was September again, nearly October. It was a Saturday.
They hadn't slept in what felt like weeks without the aid of a potion. They hadn't bothered with potions the last night, just lying in the dark and holding each other.
I have never dreaded something so much in my life, Severus thought, knowing she'd hear. They were eating breakfast, sitting across from each other. The children were still asleep, as were the Grangers. Severus and his wife had always been early risers. Not even killing Dumbledore.
Hermione reached across the table and tangled her fingers in his.
It seems wrong to have tasted paradise. Her thought. Echoing his, as always.
Now we know what we're missing.
Hermione nodded, looking away. He squeezed her hand, then brought it to his lips, turning it so that he could kiss the center of her palm.
"Morning Mum," Elaine said, wandering into the kichen. Her hair was a curly black tangle. "Morning Dad."
"Good morning, Darling," Hermione said, pulling the little girl onto her lap. The twins were just beginning to be too big for carrying around, but they hadn't outgrown cuddling yet. (Neither had Bast, for that matter.) "How did you sleep?"
She shrugged as if the question didn't make sense. It probably didn't, of course; she was too young to do anything but sleep like a rock.
Severus stood and assembled breakfast for his youngest. Oatmeal with apples and raisins and cinnamon. By the time the oats were ready, Elaine had satisfied her need for a bit of morning closeness with her mum. He kissed the top of her head as he set the bowl in front of her and poured her a cup of juice. She ignored him completely in favor of the food. Hermione smiled at him.
The routine was the same when Sofia joined them twenty minutes later, but she liked honey and milk in her oatmeal.
Severus took the seat next to Hermione, pulling her close to his side while the girls ate. They were four, halfway to five. His coloring and her curls, like their brother. Sofia was twelve minutes older than her sister.
Bast arrived in the kitchen just as the girls were finishing their oatmeal. He was lean and lanky, even at almost-seven. He had Severus's nose, the poor boy, but he didn't seem to notice (yet, anyway). Black eyes, a mop of curly hair. His face was mobile, his eyes often shone with clever thoughts. He was the eldest; he looked after his sisters.
Severus entertained strange fantasies of these children, his children, walking the halls of Hogwarts together years from now. Bast would be the father-hen, herding the girls around outside classes, badgering them to do homework, sending them off to bed. Like his mother. The twins would be together, playing Exploding Snap, Sofia chatting Elaine's ears off. They'd all sit together in the Great Hall, Elaine occasionally digging her elbow into Sofia's ribs when her mouth ran away with her.
None of that was likely to happen, of course. The war would likely shut Hogwarts down within the year. Every day that passed made parents less likely to send their children back after Christmas, let alone send them back for a new school year. According to Hermione's arithmancy, if they didn't do something to end open hostilities, Hogwarts would close within the next two years.
Hermione rubbed his back gently, shaking him from his thoughts. She couldn't read his mind from next to him, but she didn't have to use Legilimency to know what he was thinking.
The day crawled on. They were nine hours ahead of Scotland. They would Portkey to Edinburgh after dinner so that they'd arrive before breakfast.
They'd already packed what they'd had with them when they'd arrived (and a handful of other useful things). The house had new layers of protective wards. The Grangers had their false Muggle paperwork labeling them the Wilkinses, the documents for the children, the paperwork for the Muggle officials and the bank.
Severus sighed and stood, wandering into the library. His notebooks were sitting just where he'd left them, and he straightened their corners to line up with the edge of the shelf. He'd written to his children, putting everything he could think of down for them. Just in case.
His father-in-law found him there not so much time later. Sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at his feet.
"I didn't like you very much when I first met you."
"That's generally my reception," Severus told his feet. He and Dell Granger had a tentative sort of relationship. They could sense that if they all came out of the war, they could be friends in the future. If anything happened, though, there were no guarantees.
"You were her teacher." Dell sat down next to him, so Severus was obliged to sit up and actually look at him. "And you blew up our house."
"I didn't take particular pleasure in blowing up your house."
Dell scowled, shifted. Hermione had his eyes.
"What I mean to say," Dell said, pressing on, "is that I didn't like you much when I met you, but I've changed my mind."
That'll make Christmases less awkward in the future. If there are Christmases in the future.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
They sat there, slightly awkward. It occurred to Severus that he had no idea what sort of conversations people had with their fathers-in-law. The cliché, you're-not-good-enough-for-her was kind of a moot point, since they'd been married for eight years, almost nine, and they had three children. And they hadn't managed to mess up the children, either.
"Sorry about Monica."
"Don't be."
"Well, I am. She's decided to take out her frustration with the situation on you, and you don't deserve it."
Severus frowned and cleared his throat, again not sure what to say.
"Dad?" Elaine said, saving him from the moment. She stood in the doorway, fists on her hips.
"Yes?"
"Bast caught a spider. He put it in my room."
"It's nice that he shares things with you."
"Dad! It's gross! It's in a big glass jar an' he says he's going to leave it there 'til it dies an' then give it to you for potions!"
A girly shriek from upstairs (followed by a boyish cackle) meant that Sofia had found the spider, too.
\\
It was over in a blink. They all sat down to dinner, picking at their food. Mrs. Granger didn't help things by sniveling now and again, alternating that with glaring at him.
"Do you hafta go?" Ellie asked after the dishes had been set to washing themselves in the sink.
Hermione burst into tears. Severus's breath hitched.
They said "I love you," and "be good for your grandparents" and "I will miss you every day."
Their Portkey was an old knitting needle of Hermione's that had lost its match long ago. They each held an end, and then they were spinning away. They arrived at the Apparition point outside their flat in Edinburgh. His guts were churning, but it had very little to do with the international travel.
They walked down the hall, letting themselves into the flat. It was force of habit.
The door had barely closed behind them when he started shaking. He didn't realize he was crying until Hermione said, "Oh, Severus," sympathy written on her face, and then burst into tears herself.
It was harder than she'd thought it would be.
She'd known it would be hard. Not only returning to England, returning to the cold of breeding Dementors and the generally oppressive atmosphere of the conflict all around, but leaving the children behind.
Part of her—the logical part—knew that they were safe in Australia. She knew that her parents would take good care of them. She knew that they were good kids, and they loved each other, and they knew they were loved, and…
Hermione sniffled. She tried to breathe deep and look up at the ceiling and will the tears away, but there was nothing for it. She missed her children.
\\
"Okay," Severus kept saying. "Okay."
They'd Apparated to his rooms at Hogwarts after their younger selves had made their way to the Shrieking Shack. They'd tried to make light, joking about the bout of misery their other selves had in store from the about-to-malfunction Time Turmer. It had backfired; they'd both got to thinking about all the wonderful things their younger selves were about ot begin.
Hermione stood up, brushing the tears off her cheeks. She crossed to his wardrobe, straightening his voluminous black teaching robes on their hanger.
"They're still warm," she said, surprised even though she shouldn't have been. The robes just didn't seem suited to Severus, which was odd because they'd once been so synonymous with him. She felt out of place in England, though. Wrong. She belonged in Australia with her children, not in the middle of a war about to throw herself into the fight.
Severus stood next to her, fingering the collar. She leaned into him, crying again. After a moment, she sniffed wetly and took her pocket watch out.
"It's been four minutes since we Turned back in the Shack."
Severus ran his fingertips along the back of her neck. There was still a pink line where the overheated chain on the Time Turner had burnt her—he had an identical line on the back of his neck. They'd never healed them after arriving in Australia; there had been too many other things to do.
Severus kissed her temple and stepped back, taking a deep, steadying breath. She could feel the air cooling around him as he called up his Occlumency shields, and she followed his cue. She put everything in a box and set it at the very back corner of her mind. It was the darkest, most closely kept part of her mind; nobody would find it. It was too precious. But she couldn't keep it with her at the forefront, or she wouldn't be able to do what needed to be done. And if she didn't take action, she wouldn't be able to go back to Australia.
"Okay," she said, like Severus had been muttering before.
She went and sat on the edge of the tub while he shaved. She wasn't in a good enough mood to tease him when the skin hidden beneath his beard was paler than the rest of his face. It didn't matter anyway—it only took a few seconds for a potion to leech away the tan altogether.
He looked strangely unlike himself. Pale, clean-shaven. (He'd only had the beard a month, but she'd gotten used to his face with it.) And his hair was down for the first time in an age, long and loose around his shoulders, hiding bits of his expression when he moved his head.
She didn't take the potion; she left seven years' worth of Australian sunshine intact. In fact, she'd gotten a haircut only days before, clipping the curls back to shoulder length. It made her head feel lighter, and it made her look a bit closer to her actual age.
All the arithmancy had told them it would end better if Harry and Ron knew she was keeping secrets. They didn't need to know the secrets, just that they existed.
She'd tell Ron more than Harry, and she'd tell him why. He had a strategic mind—the arithmancy told her that would be useful.
She was oppressively aware that she was now almost exactly twenty years older than Harry and Ron. She'd just turned thirty-seven. They'd just turned seventeen. They were closer to Bast's age than hers.
\\
They lingered. They couldn't help it.
And then it was over. She Disapparated to the safe house.
"You did it again." It was the first thing Ron said to her, and it was a statement not a question. Before she could confirm or deny it, he asked, "How long?"
"Seven years."
"What?"
"I broke my Time Turner. I only meant to go back a few years. I had to take care of something." An infant or three, but it was best he didn't know that.
She expected the casual flippancy of her own thought to hurt, but the pain didn't come. Her Occlumency, magically-reinforced mental compartmentalization, held.
"Seven years," Ron repeated, dumbstruck.
"It was a mistake." But she didn't regret it in the least. "I put the time to good use. Where's Harry? We have a lot to talk about."
A/N: Thank you again for the reviews. You made my night. (I'm still working my old retail job evenings and weekends, and tonight was an off sort of night.)
Cheers!
—M