Chapter Three: The Usual Rules Don't Apply

Miss Granger still stood in the doorway, left hand now on her hip and the leather-bound book clutched in the right as she stared down at whoever waited outside.

Violet Eileen Snape. She can't have meant... He daren't even complete the thought.

Hoping that it might rouse him from his nightmare at last, Severus Snape focussed – or rather, attempted to focus – on what he knew to be real and true. If nothing else, enumerating the truths which could not be denied, he decided, would help quell the queasiness threatening to overwhelm his senses. When he was a child the practice had done that much for him, at least.

Fact: The bedroom walls are white, just as they should be.

At the sound of soft murmuring, his gaze was drawn inexorably to the doorway and the back of Miss Granger's head. Neither loose nor braided, her was tied back in a careless tail just long enough to dip between finely formed shoulder blades.

Didn't notice the hair before. Odd that. I must be slipping. Still, short and neat – shorter and neater, anyway – suits her.

"But, I wanted to surprise Daddy!" Miss Granger's (Or is it Mrs Snape's?... No, no, no! Not Mrs Snape!) unseen companion whinged in a piping voice. "I couldn't do that while he was awake, could I?"

Fact: The mattress is as firm as it was when I lay down.

"Well, I doubt anyone can sleep with you screaming. Why don't you calm down and show me what you're making?"

Fact: I am covered to my waist with the new duvet Minerva insisted on sending last month.

"No, Mummy! That will ruin everything!"

Fact: There is no comfortable-looking chair with any sort of upholstery beneath the window.

"Will it?" Miss Granger asked, the wry note in her voice sounding very much like a tone he'd use.

Her... husband must be rubbing off on her, he thought. Then, when the words caused an unwelcome reaction below his waist, he amended, Her husband's personality must be influencing her. For the better.

And then he realised thinking about the man who was most likely her husband was hardly any better. He hurriedly went back to surveying his surroundings.

Fact: The battered bedside tables looked the same as they had when my parents slept in this room. I really ought to change that. I'm surprised Miss Granger hasn't insisted on it.

Bugger it! This is not real.

As he wrenched himself away from his faithless thoughts, Severus heard a soft thud he imagined was the stamping of a little foot.

"Why are you always so mean to me? It isn't fair!"

"Come off it, Violet," Miss Granger said with more calm than he'd have thought her capable of displaying. "You've a long way and a lot of practice to go before you can fool me; your father would be ashamed of such a feeble effort. I don't like it when you fib at all."

Fact: Miss Granger is not, and has never been, a pushover.

"I'm not fibbing! I was making a gift for Daddy's unbirthday, and you will ruin everything if you make me show you!"

Violet Eileen Snape.

Fact: If those two don't shut up, I'll be stuck here for ever!

"Daddy's birthday was nearly a month ago, Violet. Try again."

"I said it was an unbirthday present!" the little girl shot back. Snape wondered which of her parents had bequeathed her such a defiant streak. He rather suspected it to be himse...

I am not that child's father!

Severus gave it up as impossible. Too much of his situation was fake and false for him to effectively fool himself.

For one thing, he realised he was no longer dressed (as he'd initially imagined) in his favourite grey nightshirt. Nor was he wearing a silk dressing gown or whatever he'd been in moments before as Miss Granger had tended to Weasley's – Weasley! Surely there were less idiotic wizards to whom he might have attached himself if he were so inclined – wounds. The grey cotton pyjamas were crisp and unfamiliar, though not at all uncomfortable. Even so, he couldn't imagine they were a personal preference.

For another, although he couldn't imagine that he'd ever choose to be married to anyone whose own child dared to speak to her in such a manner – not that he was ready to consider that any of this might be actually occurring – he couldn't deny he felt inordinately invested in the outcome.

Violet Eileen Snape.

Surely the name was as meaningless to him as this... whatever it was he was experiencing should be.

Isn't it?

"Enough! I am appalled by the way you're behaving," her mother was saying when he returned his attention to the pair. Clearly, she'd reached the end of her tether. "You're to go to bed this instant."

Very nice, Miss Granger! Snape thought for the second time that night. In spite of his conviction that none of this was any of his concern, he felt curiously pleased with her show of parental authority.

Violet – her voice still pitched high, although the volume was now blessedly lower – responded to the angry witch's rebuke with a sullen, "It's not fair. I only want to make Daddy happy."

If the further stiffening of her shoulders was any indication, Miss Granger was a "Daddy" or two from completely losing her temper and recovering a bit more of Severus's respect.

"Bed. Now," she ordered. "And you won't be going to Uncle Harry's in the morning, either."

"But it was for Daddy!" Violet cried mutinously.

Unsure of what compelled him to do so, Severus leapt from the bed before his dau... the little girl's rebellious references to her father could have the effect he'd predicted.

"Violet!" he called sharply, stalking to the centre of the room as he spoke.

A small, pale face, surrounded by a swarm of dark, unruly hair escaping a messily tied braid, peeked around Miss Granger. Its owner couldn't have been more than six years old. More likely, she was even younger.

"Yes, Daddy?" She stepped closer, lifting her black eyes to meet his.

Merlin. Heredity is an unkind architect. Violet Eileen Snape had the misfortune of having her paternal grandmother's eyebrows.

"Is that the way you're meant to speak to your mother?" Severus was shaken by what he saw – the stick-thin arms jutting out from the too-short sleeves of a too-large pyjama top; the way Violet's long legs appeared to disappear in the equally too-large bottoms – but he knew from experience that both his voice and expression conveyed only the much-dreaded air of severity he'd perfected over so many years.

His double in nearly everything save her nose, gender and stature – Well, the eyebrows, too; I was spared those. And the texture of her hair; clearly, that mess came solely from her mother – merely stared at him, looking curious.

"You're not my daddy," she said after a long silence.

Thank God for that!

"It would seem not," Snape told her, "but that does not answer my question. Does your father tolerate you speaking to your mother in that fashion?"

Her face fell, scrunching up a bit, as if she might cry. Severus knew that face well enough to catch the calculation that had preceded the crumple. When she whispered a morose, "No," as her answer, he wasn't fooled in the least.

"What will he say when learns how you behaved tonight?"

At first, Violet's eyes widened with shock. Then they darkened as look of even deeper cunning crossed her familiar features. Miss Granger, a quick glance told Severus, watched with interest and something akin to amusement.

"Daddy says only a fool shows his hand to any other fool who asks."

Bugger, this child is a menace! She dares throw my own wor... er, her father's words back at me? The cheek comes from Granger.

Snape gave no outward sign of his inner turmoil. The child would likely sense blood and go in for the kill, he decided.

"Are you calling your mother a fool?" he asked aloud. "Are you suggesting that I, or your father, would be so foolish as to marry a fool?"

Violet's little face lost all its nascent cunning. Severus felt the tiniest flicker of regret when her thin shoulders slumped and she bent her gaze to her outsized feet.

Poor little Pogrebin.

"No," she whispered.

"In that case," said Severus, "I believe there is something you need to say now."

She turned to Miss Granger and said, in a voice that was as quiet as it was contrite, "I'm sorry, Mummy." Then she turned back and lifted dark, tear-filled eyes to his. "I'm sorry, Undaddy. I didn't mean to call you and Mummy and Daddy foolish."

An unpleasant sensation, only vaguely familiar and from so far in his past he wondered that he even half-recognised it, nearly cracked his mask of neutrality. It was as if his heart had grown too big to fit in his chest.

SS~HG

Severus stood outside the bedroom which had once been his, waiting for Miss Granger to join him. He didn't know why; he knew the house (theoretically, anyway) and what he wanted (for the moment, but anything additional lay on a road he wasn't ready to travel). There was really no reason not to find the kitchen and something to replace the second cup of coffee he'd been denied.

Except, there was... something keeping him from walking away. He leant back against the wall, trying without success not to think about what he'd inadvertently found out.

Violet had insisted that her "Undaddy" help "tuck me in," and despite her mother's protestations that they shouldn't impose upon their "guest," he'd given in. He hadn't been able to do otherwise.

He hadn't been prepared for Violet's interrogation, though now he told himself he'd held up well enough.

"Where's your tattoo?"

"I haven't got one. I've never, erm, travelled before tonight."

"Oh." She frowned as she ruminated over that, but remained undaunted in her pursuit of information and (most likely) extra time awake. "Have you got a Violet?"

The corners of his mouth lifted without his permission.

"I have many in my garden in summer, but not one like you."

Violet's nod was strangely solemn, almost sad.

"Undaddy Two Eighteen hasn't got one, either. She died before she was born. Did your Violet die?"

Even now, he wasn't sure how he'd managed to answer without choking over his words. The memory of that second Miss Granger's sad eyes struck like a hex.

"No," he said, sounding to his own ears strangely, criminally... normal. "I never had one to begin with."

"Why not?"

His eyes met her mother's; this Miss Granger's sorrow was different, not as deep.

"I never had a Hermione," he told the little girl, but his gaze didn't waver from the witch.

Miss Granger hadn't allowed any more questions after that. Violet had given them each a good night kiss and advised Undaddy No-tattoo to look for his Hermione when he got home.

"Two Eighteen Undaddy and Unmummy had another baby after their Violet died, you know."

"Sorry," Miss Granger said. Her voice was soft and more cautious than he'd ever heard it sound before. "Sometimes... sometimes she says too much."

"I expect that's a trait she inherited from her mother."

SS~HG

She was Fifty-three, she eventually told him as they sat facing each other across the same polished table he'd sat at he-didn't-know-how-long ago.

Only it wasn't, really. She told him that much. It wasn't the same renovated kitchen he'd sat in two stomach-churning travels ago. Everything looked the same, as far as he could remember that other kitchen. But all he could truly be certain of was that he wasn't in his own kitchen.

He did not watch Miss Granger prepare cocoa just as her predecessor had done. This woman disturbed him in ways the other three had not. Everything about this place did.

Violet Eileen Snape was most disturbing of all.

He sipped his coffee, forcing memories of the past twenty minutes to the back of his mind.

Miss Granger wasn't watching him, either.

No surprise there.

He suspected she didn't want to answer the questions he wasn't ready to ask.

"I suppose now you want to know everything," she'd said when they reached the kitchen.

"Not really," he'd said. It hadn't been a lie. Knowing would mean acknowledging he might not be dreaming, or considering he might not be the victim of a curse. He wasn't ready to deal with either possibility. "I'd rather have another go at the coffee that was snatched from my hands – or were my hands snatched from it? Whichever, I want another if you can accommodate me."

After a long stare, Miss Granger had only a slight shrug and a nod at the percolator to offer.

"You'll have to make your own," she'd told him. "I do well enough with the cafetiere, but Severus says that's cheating. He says, 'Any idiot – even your dunderheaded friends – could learn to brew a halfway decent cup using a cafetiere. Doing the same with a percolator takes a master.' I suppose I should be honoured he thinks I'm clever enough to figure it out, but I'm not actually brave enough to keep trying using his coffee!"

Her bark of laughter had rung false, but Severus, not knowing what to say, had simply started grinding the beans.

"I suppose the cat's out of the bag now, if it wasn't already. Two Eighteen said she slipped with one of you. Then, so did I – with Violet, I mean – so you've caught us out, I'm sure."

He'd moved to the roaster with an assurance that was mostly show, then ground the beans without giving away a hint of the disquiet thrumming through his being. Her voice, unexpected and unexpectedly bereft, had stopped him pouring grounds into the uppermost chamber.

"It's such a simple thing." Her sigh had held the weight of the world. "Doing it that way." She'd been standing at the cooker, already heating milk for her chocolate, and had nodded in his direction.

"It's quite difficult, actually," he'd countered. "Any idiot – even your dunderheaded friends – could learn to brew a halfway decent cup using a cafetiere. Doing the same with a percolator takes a master."

Severus hadn't been sure why he'd echoed those words or why a comforting warmth had washed over him at doing so.

Twisting her lips wryly, she'd said, "Shut up. You know what I mean." But her attempt to rally her spirits was an utter failure, he'd seen. She'd immediately sank back into herself and her despair. "Why didn't I take the time to learn? It's such a little thing. Why couldn't I be arsed to do that for him?"

And in defiance of all his promises to himself, Severus had wanted to ease away her pain.

"I could show you."

For a moment, he'd thought she'd accept his offer. For the briefest of instants, the fear and anguish had disappeared from her eyes and been replaced by hope.

"I really should tell you what we know."

Once again, her words startled him back to the present. Not that he gave any outward sign.

"We don't know how long I'll have you," she continued. "We can't even figure out what's happening. I should tell you what I can. Now. I should start, at least."

I don't want to know.

He needed to know.

"All right, Miss Granger." He sipped at his coffee to hide a grimace. "Or is it Mrs Snape?" He looked pointedly at her hand before returning to her face.

Fact: Miss Granger does not wear a ring. Had any of the others?

Her smile was, again, wry. But there was less sorrow in her eyes when she glanced up at him this time.

"It's Snape. Severus says there's no sense in me having a ring if he won't wear one. And he won't since he brews for a living. 'The whole world knows our business,' he likes to say. 'Everyone knows you married your greasy old professor.'"

He only had to raise an eyebrow at the unflattering description for her to rush in with more.

"Those were his words, you understand." She laughed again, this time with more humour. But she sobered almost instantly. "Before I get started, I want you to understand something, Mr Sna... Severus. I love my husband; he knows that and loves me, as well. We love being a family. It's important you understand that much."

SS~HG

It took the better part of another ninety minutes for her to bring him up to speed. Knowing from experience she could supply far more information than a question warranted, he kept those at the bare minimum. To his surprise, she offered little information that was extraneous to her stated purpose. Still, the process involved lengthy dissertations on theory – both magical and scientific – as well as select readings from two books she produced for the purpose.

The Notebook, he recognised readily. The second, much thinner volume, she explained, was called "The Account."

"The Notebook is how the Council communicate and where we record our observations. We put all sorts of things there. The Account holds only the research we all agree might one day be made public, though I doubt it will ever be truly public in any of our worlds. The Severuses have written as much of it as the Hermiones, actually."

The Council of Hermiones had two hundred ninety-four members. Most of them had a vested interest in stopping the Severuses travelling.

"I'll lend you The Account if you want to understand better, but for now I'll just say any one of the Council could have ended with one of you. Molly One keyed the spell that way, though she didn't realise it at the time. If there was ever a chance – if there was ever a moment, after the war – for us to be together, Molly One's spell affects that Severus.

"You're probably wondering how it happened. Us, I mean. You probably can't see what that 'moment' might have been. None of us have ever really figured it out. Even the most similar of us came together in different ways. But I can't tell if hearing how Severus and I fell in love would help you understand what's happening. I can't tell if you'd want to know."

Severus didn't want to know and told her that.

"Right, then." She straightened in her seat. She'd been leaning towards him as she spoke. He wasn't sure whether or not she noticed. "A little over forty percent of us are Snapes, if you count Sixty-eight, One ninety-eight and Two forty-eight. As you can imagine, most of us aren't keen on sharing."

After learning the "Three Eights" consisted of polygamous marriages which included Weasley – "You must have been at the Sixty-eights'. None of the Known Severuses would have struck Ron for that!" – and that the Fifty-fives and Seventies were "swingers," Severus hadn't been sure he wanted to learn more.

"That's good to know, actually," she'd said about his short time with the Sixty-eights. "If there's a pattern to this, we'll be able to see it, eventually. As long as the others update The Notebook. Based on what everyone has written thus far, I'd guess you seem to be following the other Unknown."

Except they weren't. He'd been with this... Hermione – the name was more accurate than Miss Granger; it was safer than Mrs Snape – for more than two hours and the only abdominal discomfort he'd experienced had been in reaction to the revelations she and her daughter offered. How could he be following this other Severus Snape if neither was going anywhere?

She refused to allow The Notebook out of her direct possession.

"It's too important," she explained, her tone apologetic. "Vital. We had to find a way to talk to each other, didn't we? After we sort of worked out Molly's spell, we probably could have done one keyed to the Hermiones, but the Severuses voted that right out. I don't blame them, I suppose."

Several madly curling strands had come free of the hair tie as she talked about what was clearly a favourite topic. She periodically raked them back with her expressive hands, never seeming to pause for breath. He wanted to brush the wild locks back from her flushed face with gentle fingers.

"So, we came up with The Notebook. I guess you could say it sort of works like adding memories to a pensieve. We put in entries through a spell we developed, combining the Protean charm with a sort of memory extraction spell. Only, we get to keep the memories. And once the spell is activated, anything we see is recorded in The Notebook. Hang on." She waved her hands in an intricate series of familiar gestures. "That's how to end it," she told him. "I had to do that when Violet told you about the Two Eighteens."

After another series of gestures, she continued.

The spell – a curse, really – which started the travelling had been created by Molly Weasley One.

"She goes by Molly Prewett for work purposes," Hermione supplied. "But among the Council it's just easier to use our numbers. We're used to it by now."

Six years earlier, incensed over the break-up of Hermione One and Ron Weasley One and the former's subsequent romantic partnership with one Severus Snape One, the powerful witch had started planning.

"As I was telling the other Unknown when you arrived, the spell she came up with was quite ingenious. It combines Muggle physics and magic. I honestly don't know if anyone other than Arthur Weasley's wife would ever have thought of it."

Hermione was sounding excited again, Severus noted. And it showed in her gleaming eyes, in her inviting smile.

In spite of the pain and anger and sadness she'd revealed, talking about Molly Weasley's spell ignited the scholar in the witch – the wife.

"If it hadn't been for his interest in everything Muggle, she might never have discovered Star Trek. Or Wildcat. And our lives never have crossed."

By the time she got that far, Hermione was yawning and Severus wasn't doing much better. It was a lot to take in, but as he hadn't travelled again in – he glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall – in the past two and a half hours or so, he wasn't worried that breaking off now would be a bad thing.

I am beginning to believe her, accused the voice he'd tried to ignore earlier. He didn't deny himself. The story was compelling. And it was far too fantastical to have been bred in his own imagination. Moreover, he snapped back at himself, I am exhausted. Why would that be so if I am asleep?

He didn't realise he'd started to succumb to his exhaustion until he felt delicate fingers pushing the hair back from his face.

"Sorry!" She was snatching her hand back even as he was jerking away from her touch. "I shouldn't have... I'm sorry."

She shook her head, then for the third time in as many minutes, her mouth stretched wide.

"Perhaps" – he had to force out the words – "Mrs Snape..."

"Hermione," she cut in. "Please, Severus."

"Perhaps, Hermione," he began again, and saw her close eyes at the sound of her name on his lips. She seemed to savour it as much as he was trying not to do.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "It's only... you're so like him. I mean, of course you are. But the Knowns know of each other, and so they all try to be a little different when travelling..."

"Perhaps," he said for the third time, his voice tight, "we could continue this later. Whatever is causing me to... travel seems to be... to have gone into remission for the time being. In any case, you've given me enough information to aid me should I find I've been taken elsewhere while we rest."

The truth was, he wanted time to absorb and examine what she'd already told him before more was added to his overwhelmed mind. He needed time away from her – from his confusing desire to touch her and let her touch him.

"Oh, of course! Forgive me," she said, rising so quickly, she swayed a bit. It took all his control not to reach for her. "This must be even worse for you than it is for us. We're used to something similar, at least, and we all agreed an occasional bit of separation was a small price to pay. It's just... different this time. Not knowing is..."

The strength of her wretchedness hit him like a blow. He ignored an urge to comfort her. He wouldn't know what to do, anyway; he had no idea what she would find acceptable.

How much more of this must I watch her endure? How much must I endure? He didn't ask himself why any of it mattered so much to him.

As if she could read what he was feeling – She probably can! She's married to "you", after all! – Hermione started moving towards the back door, saying, "We built a sort of guest house in the garden. Usually, the other Severuses stay there if we're dong a longish trial. I'll take you there."

His head still whirling with all the information he'd yet to process, Severus followed her out into the winter night, hardly noticing they were both wearing only slippers on their feet.

A/N: It occurs to me that I should acknowledge the fact that this chapter has fewer humorous happenings than the others. I've no excuses except to say, "Life isn't all fun and games. A bit of sorrow makes the fun times funner." It sounds like a load of bollocks, but it's true, really. At least, it's the truth as I've lived it.