In Sin and Error Pining

I own nothing you recognize from canon, and the things you don't recognise, JK Rowling won't want. I make no money from this, nor does anybody else. I worship at the altar of Jo and thank her for letting us play in her universe.

My deepest thanks, as always, to the most fabu betas in the universe, GinnyW and Annie Talbot. And special thanks to mylifeasanamazon for Brit-picking and more. Thank you, ladies. You rock!

And a special thank you to all who nominated Care of Magical Creatures in the Best Epic and Best Angst categories of The Moste Potente Passions Awards, and me for Best New Author. I'm thrilled!

And finally, a special thanks to Potter Place for putting this chapter on their Christmas wish list and to SW69 for the gorgeous banner. Ladies, here it is!

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IN SIN AND ERROR PINING

The scar ran all the way down to her navel.

She was hideous.

And it all came crashing back on her, the screaming and the stench and the maniacal laughter and the threat and the wild woman standing over her and blood, everywhere, blood...

An explosion of blood, blood raining down on her, and she stared at the scar in the mirror and suddenly it was open and wide and raw and blood was pouring onto her, into her...

She screamed.

She clawed at the scar and screamed.

"Lumos." Strong hands closed around hers and pulled them away. "Wake up," he soothed in her ear as he pulled her into the curl of his body. "It's over. She's gone. It's over."

She pulled the white shirt closed around her. "Don't look!"

But he was too strong, too determined, and he rolled her as easily as if she were dandelion fluff and she didn't want him to see her but she wanted him, needed him to hold her, because now she could hear his heartbeat and touch him and she sobbed into his hard chest, his beautiful angel-white skin and closed her eyes to see blood, more blood...

"Hermione!"

She jerked her head away from him.

"Miss Granger!"

She tossed it from side to side, clutching the edges of the shirt together over her shame. "Don't look," she begged. "Don't look."

And then he was holding her, rocking her, and she sank against him and sobbed until there were no more tears.

"I won't look if you don't want me to."

She shuddered against him.

And she would have relaxed, she would have, but his fingers were drifting down the scar, painting it with an unguent that smelled of eucalyptus and spearmint. She seized his hand and looked up at him in horror.

His face was a contrast of light and shadow made alive by flickering candle light, his eyes closed. Slowly he opened them. "Don't deny me this, too."

"Deny you?"

"If I can't look at you, if I can't touch you..." He let his voice drift off, but the ache in it was as real as the ache in her own heart.

"How could you even want to?"

"Stupid girl," he said, and his voice was tender where his words were not.

Again, he touched the scar, this time watching his finger trail down. "It's so much better than it was, and it will be better still, but even if it doesn't change at all, why do you think I would care?"

"She did this to me," she whispered.

His eyes turned to cinders, burning and hollow. "Because I didn't kill her when I should have."

"No," she said fiercely, "because I didn't do it properly when it fell to me."

"The first time," he said.

A shiver shuddered through her. "I only thought there was too much blood the first time... but then, at Godric's Hollow..." She closed her eyes against the memory, and instead, the nightmare came back, only it wasn't nightmare, it was real. "Her blood... it coated me, it... it..." She clawed at her chest. "It got in me. It got in me!"

This time, he pinned her hands down on either side of her and his lips trailed down the scar and she couldn't move, couldn't push him away. She forced herself still as his breath puffed over her skin.

"You have been checked by Albus..." Kiss. "By Poppy..." Kiss. "By me." Kiss.

And then he was at the base of the scar, and she held her breath as his lips tantalised her navel before finally returning to her jaw, her cheek, her eyelids.

"We've found nothing, no Darkness, in you. Whatever happened, you are unscathed. You are still..." He kissed her earlobe. "You."

"But..." She couldn't stop the words from coming. "If she's in me...what if she's in me with your baby..."

"She's not." He dug his fingers into her hair, and the scrape of his nails against her scalp sent tremors through her.

"Your son," she breathed, trying to imagine this new fact, that this tiny growth in her was indeed a son.

His movement ceased. "Our son."

"Your son," she repeated, feeling more herself as her thudding heartbeat slowed. "Yours." But she let her hands trail down his body so that her nails could draw the same tantalising patterns on his thighs that his did on her scalp. "And you're sure Poppy didn't tell Professor Dumbledore?"

"Has he twinkled more excessively than usual?"

"No," she said, realising he was right. If Poppy had told anyone she was pregnant, it would be the headmaster, and the headmaster clearly didn't know. Her secret was safe for now.

"This is going to be a very long day," he said, stroking her hair.

"An ordinary day," she said in wonder. "Christmas Eve."

"Yes, and if you insist upon making me miserable and forcing me to go to your Muggle midnight mass..."

She moulded her body against his and, comforted, gave herself up to sleep.

XX

"Happy Christmas," she said to Russell and thrust a basket of Christmas presents into his hands. She'd always bought something for each of the staff, and even if she'd relied on impersonal gift certificates this year, she hoped that the care she'd given when choosing particular shops would count for something.

She tightened her bare fingers on Severus's...despite the cold, they both needed that skin-on-skin contact too badly to even consider gloves...and dragged him further into The Grange. She had expected this moment, this night, to be momentous in its very ordinary-ness.... Instead she felt clenched tight inside. Her stomach tightened in a knot as she anticipated revisiting this place that she'd last seen in an explosion of noise and blood....

This time, the entrance hall was strewn with evergreen garlands and fat silver bows. She'd never considered how positively Slytherin her mum's design choices often were. Sconces of candles burned on the walls, and a tall Christmas tree decorated with silver spun-glass globes and fairy lights held court in the centre of the oxblood medieval-tiled floor.

"They're in the family drawing room, Madam, Professor," Russell intoned.

She thanked him and tugged the Professor after her down the narrow hallway and into a room with their family Christmas tree, from which dangled an odd assortment of decorations made from anything from glass to felt to coloured paper that she had brought home from school during the first ten years of her life.

Her parents stood immediately; there was no disguising the expressions that mixed suspicion with relief when they saw her. She released his hand and rushed forward to meet them, first disappearing into her father's embrace and then turning to her mother, who held her at arm's length and took in her appearance.

"You haven't worn that dress for two years. I'm amazed it even fits you." Her eyes swept down the wine-coloured velvet that covered her from neck to ankles, barely hugging her thin hips.

"It's so warm, and you know I've always loved the way it feels," Hermione said in a rush, not admitting that she chose it because it covered scars and, more importantly, the effects that loss of appetite and queasiness had wrought on her body.

Her mother's eyes returned to her face. "Darling, you're..." She broke off and pulled Hermione into her arms, and Hermione almost choked on Chanel No. 5. Then her mother released her and rose to her full height, slightly taller than Hermione but only because of her very unsensible heels. "How far along are you?"

"Oh, Mummy." She could tell by just looking? "Not quite ten weeks..."

"Do you mean," her father said, "that she's...you're...pregnant?" He turned to Severus with a glare. "What kind of a world do you live in, where an eighteen-year-old girl is drawn into war and married off like chattel and now..."

She turned to see Severus's face drain of colour and jerked from her mother's arms.

She spun away before they could see the tears stinging her eyes, the pain beneath her anger. She'd come here for comfort, for something that was familiar and reassuring, and instead was two breaths away from crumbling. But her Professor, oh, her Professor, took one look at her and took one of her hands in his and rubbed his knuckles softly against the nape of her neck. Her emotion quivered through her even as she felt his flare within him.

"Mother, Father," she said, certain that the absent affection of Mummy and Daddy was felt by both. "Happy Christmas. I believe we'll be going to the cathedral without you, and if I don't see you in all the crush, Happy New Year, as well."

"Oh, really, Hermione, let's not overreact," her father said crisply.

But before she could spit out a response, Severus was speaking. "Sir Alistair," he replied, his tone icy, "perhaps I do owe you some reassurance..."

"No, Severus," she said, shaking her head fiercely. "You owe him nothing."

But he ignored her, his eyes never leaving those of her father. "I certainly find it hard to blame you for what you're feeling. But you should know, I had the benefit of sharing your world during my formative years, and I can assure you that I couldn't escape it fast enough nor stay away from it long enough. The wizarding world holds no corner on cruelty, bigotry and despair. In fact I am only here tonight because it meant so much to Hermione to come here, to take part in a childhood tradition. Her traditions mean much to her, as I've learned to my consternation. I did not ask for the situation we are all in, and I certainly didn't set out to marry and impregnate your daughter..."

Both her parents flinched at the cold word, impregnate, but Hermione pressed closer against him and gripped his fingers tightly.

"...but we are bound by more than you can ever understand, and it all began with the traditions she loves, your traditions, your Muggle vows which I took most unknowingly and unwillingly. Your world means nothing to me. Your god, less than nothing. But your daughter..." He broke off, then forced himself to continue. "She is my goddess."

Hermione felt the world tilt at those words and stared up at him in confusion. And then he turned his eyes to her, his black eyes that offered her the world in their depths.

"Severus..." she breathed. "I can't be that. I can't be that...that perfect."

The corner of his mouth twitched, and she recognised the smallest of smiles. "You saved me, you wretched girl, and damn near saved our world. How could you be less than a goddess?" And though his words seemed aimed at her father, his eyes never left hers. "I have vowed to love your daughter, to comfort, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health...to worship and adore her, for all the days of our lives. I hope that is enough for you, because it's the best I have to offer."

Hermione stared up at him...and burst into tears.

"Oh, fucking hell," he sighed and pressed a handkerchief into her hand as he buried his face in hair.

"I need a drink," her mum said, her voice quavering oddly.

"Well," her father muttered, clearing his throat suspiciously, "he should have said so sooner. It would have saved us all a lot of bother."

"Daddy," she said, turning back to her father, "please show Severus the wine cellar. He's very interested in your collection. But don't keep him long." She slowly pulled her hand from his. "Mum..."

"Come with me, darling," her mother sighed. "We have things to discuss."

XX

Severus followed the older man down a hallway to a narrow stairway, bracing himself for a well-timed Obliviate if any trace of the carnage remained and caught her father's attention.

He felt the recoil before he even stepped through the door and into the darkened cellar. Sir Alistair pressed a switch and the rows of wine were revealed, but Severus had to fight to breathe through the magical residue.

He scanned the floor, the wall, all the surfaces that Hermione had described and could detect not a drop of blood. The Hogwarts house-elves had done their job. But the magical signatures were overwhelming, and beneath it all he still felt her presence.

Bella.

He cast a quick look at Miss Granger's father. The man had not even a modicum of magical sensitivity or he'd feel it as well, but he was examining bottles.

He finally pulled one out and offered it. "I know she won't be drinking any in the foreseeable future, but as I recall, you'll be even more appreciative of a good vintage. Pregnancy..." He gave his head a wry shake. "Well, it doesn't always bring out the best in a woman."

Severus bristled but bit back his retort as he noted the pain in the depths of the man's brown eyes.

"Her mother lost two before Hermione. Please." He raised his eyes in entreaty. "Please take care of my girl."

"I am," Severus said. "And I will." He accepted the bottle. "She didn't tell me about her mother."

"She most likely never knew."

Severus's mind raced, considering the ramifications, the potential potions and treatments should the need arise. And beneath it all, he felt the itch, the ache, the urgency. "I think perhaps I'd like to have a more complete tour at a later time, but now..."

"Yes, let's go back upstairs, why don't we?"

Severus watched the cellar door close behind them and regretted his inability to cast a cleansing charm, but eventually the magical residues would fade on their own.

Again, the urgency twitched within him, and he found it difficult to maintain the easy pace Sir Alistair set as he took the stairs ahead of him. When they entered the drawing room again, Hermione and Lady Granger were sitting close together, heads bent over a book. A small pile of more books was on a side table beside them.

He had hardly entered the room when Hermione leapt to her feet, the book...alarmingly titled Husband-Coached Childbirth...clutched to her breast. And then she was darting across the Aubusson rug to his side, this time not content to twine fingers but instead, rubbing her palm against his to increase the connection, and he felt her soft sigh match his.

"Will you fix my hair? I never can do it without a mirror," she asked, and he could only imagine what she'd done to have half of it dangling down her back, but from the state of her eyes and cheeks, tears and most probably maternal embraces had been involved.

And of course, she wouldn't have wanted her mother handling a magical hair comb.

He sighed and refused to allow any hint of colour to flush his skin, absolutely not a single capillary to swell, as he briskly twisted her hair into a knot and tucked the hair comb into place.

"It's a beautiful comb," Lady Granger remarked. "And I've never seen your hair look so lovely."

"The comb was my mother's," he replied. "And her hair is perfectly..." He broke off short of horrid. "Obviously her mother's." He left it there, hoping it sounded like a compliment.

XX

Christmas dinner was arranged in the small dining room with her parents at either end of the table and Severus across from her. She would have preferred him beside her, but to suggest so would have been awkward.

"I feel so...so responsible," her mother sighed. "I should have insisted that you come back to London and go on the pill."

Hermione froze and saw Severus's jaw tighten. "The potion I took has a higher efficiency rating than birth control pills," she said slowly and then turned her face to her mother's. "This baby is intentional."

Her mother held her soup spoon suspended and stared at her, astonished. "But darling, you're only eighteen and you had so many goals..."

"I still have the same goals," Hermione interrupted sharply. "I'm studying and doing everything I intended. I have it from the highest authority that I'm an overachieving little minx, and now I get to prove it."

"But..."

"We have it all planned. Really."

Her mother drew back a fraction of an inch and then inclined her head in a reluctant nod. "Well. I'm sure you have."

Hermione returned to her soup, but her mother did not.

"About these potions... what are you taking now?"

This time Severus tensed visibly.

"I'm only taking an occasional potion for nausea, that's all. But if I need anything else..."

"And how safe is this potion?"

"These aren't new potions. They've been in use for a long time, and they're safer than you can begin to imagine."

"But these Squibs you told me about. Can you be sure that they weren't because of some little known side effect of one of those safe potions?"

"Mother!"

"I want you to see my doctor."

"It's not necessary. In fact, with the magical issues during childbirth, dealing with a nonmagical doctor could be a nightmare." Hermione took a deep breath. "Mum, listen, our mediwitch at school has already done the early wand-scans and..." She shot a quick smile at her father. "It's a boy."

"You already know that?" he asked, astounded, his eyes lighting up.

"It is a perfectly healthy boy."

"I'm...I'm sorry. I'm sure you will do what's best." Her mother reached for her wine glass, and Hermione was shocked to see that her hand trembled. "You don't know what it's like to have a pregnancy fail and then find that some 'safe' drug you've been taking has been recalled because it's not safe at all, and to never know for sure if that's why...if that's why..." She broke off and seemed to remember the glass in her hand. She took a deep drink from it. "I didn't take a single pill, not a single drug while I was carrying you, and I was sick as a horse. But I never regretted it."

"Mum," Hermione said softly.

Her mother grabbed her hand and they sat there in silence, broken only when the soup course was cleared.

When the platter of sole was placed before her, Hermione's throat tightened. But before she could cast an air-clearing charm, her father spoke up.

"I think we'll be skipping the fish tonight, Hammond. Oh, and hold back the sprouts, as well." Her father gave her a wry smile. "It hasn't been so long ago that I've forgotten."

The sole was whisked away and the roast took its place.

"I can't help but notice, my dear," her father said, straining for some semblance of normality as he sliced a bloody bite of beef, "that you still call your husband 'Professor.' There must be a reason."

"The reason, Sir Alistair," the Professor in question announced, "is that she is insufferable and likes to constantly remind me of the ridiculous difference between our ages."

"And he calls me Miss Granger to keep me in my place," Hermione added, gifting said Professor with her sweetest smile.

All while beneath the table her stockinged feet were snug between his.

"It's like that, is it?" her father muttered. "Well, lest you get any strange ideas about what is appropriate, you may call me Ali, Severus. All my friends and family do. Always have."

Hermione bit the inside of her lip as she noted the almost imperceptible shift in Severus's demeanour as he considered the proposition with horror.

"Except for me," she said blithely. "I call you Daddy. Professor, darling, you could call him Daddy, too, if you don't like..."

"Which is exactly the kind of strange idea I am nipping in the bud, young lady."

"Let me know how that works out for you, Sir Alistair."

Hermione met her husband's smirk with a smirk of her own, but up until the moment when, ordinarily, the men would disappear for cigars and brandy, her head spun with thoughts of pills and potions and lost siblings and lost magic, and she found it difficult to swallow anything at all.

XX

"I made this when I was five years old," she said, pointing out what appeared to be an egg infected with splotchy-ticked skin disease, only glossy.

He grunted noncommittally as she lifted it gingerly from the tree branch.

"I used my mother's nail varnish to paint it. My fine motor skills left something to be desired."

Nail varnish. On an empty eggshell. Dangling from a Christmas tree branch.

Slowly, reality dawned. The tattered oddments that clung here and there on an otherwise ordinarily decorated tree were all hers. He found himself taking the delicate egg from her fingertips. "You made this thirteen years ago. And it's not even cracked."

"My mother packs it in cotton wool. She adds these decorations herself. All the others at The Grange are done by staff, and the tree in the entrance hall by a professional team." She stroked a bedraggled pipe cleaner reindeer with one fingertip. "Of course, once I entered Hogwarts there were no more Christmas ornaments."

"Of course." He watched her re-hang the egg and thought of Malfoy Manor. If Draco had ever brought home anything as insignificant and unlovely as this egg or reindeer, it would have been Vanished within the day.

But before he could think further of it, she was pressed against him, her face upturned. "Kiss me," she whispered, her eyes haunted as they were all too often these days. "Now."

Now? He dipped his head and their lips joined. They could walk in any moment...her parents...they would find him kissing their precious daughter, and he would rather die than suffer the indignity, but he'd rather suffer that indignity than deny her even a kiss.

When it ended, she simply buried her face against his chest and sighed.

"As you requested," Russell's voice announced dryly from behind them, "the..." He broke off as if steeling himself and the last word dripped with disdain, "hounds."

Severus turned, astonished at such barely-restrained insolence from a servant, only to see a mischievous smile on the old man's lips.

And then, a sense of magic as he felt Hermione throw up a shield.

And finally, a thundering sound of paws on stone as a veritable herd of mutts skidded and slid their way around a corner and exploded into the drawing room.

Hermione squealed with delight and flung herself into the middle of them.

XX

If anyone had asked him what his Christmas experience at The Grange might entail, the last guess he would have ventured would have been the four of them...Sir Alistair, Lady Granger, Hermione and...he shuddered...himself, sprawled on the floor amidst a disarray of coloured paper, ribbons, open boxes and seven dogs lounging wherever they saw fit to lounge.

Hermione's insistence upon supervising the creation of three different fragrances of bath salts for her mother (lavender & verbena, milk & honey, and pure peppermint) had brought its own reward, as he caught the woman taking quick sniffs of one jar or another whenever she thought nobody was looking. The shaving soap created for Sir Alistair had been simple vetiver, and Lady Granger couldn't keep her nose out of that one, either.

Hermione managed to stay wedged between his thigh and a particularly disreputable looking beast, long and lanky with wiry grey hair and whiskers that bordered on beard. He appeared to have special affection for Miss Granger, which she returned in full, as could be attested by her constant stroking of his coat and an occasional brush of her lips upon his head.

Once the beast even licked her full across the mouth, and she only laughed.

Laughed.

He closed his eyes and pushed back the resentment that a dog made her laugh, when he hadn't heard that laugh in days, if not longer.

And she'd better not be expecting him to kiss those lips before she indulged in a good face wash.

It became patently obvious that the shields Hermione raised had been because of this dog. The others had all calmed immediately and wandered the room sniffing but without disrupting anything. None of the others wagged tails so fiercely that they would topple the tea set from the low table. None of the others bounced off the shield around the tree. None of the others was as obviously daft as this particular beast, so of course he would be her favourite.

"What is his name?" Severus finally asked, aware that even though she still stroked the dog, her body was pressed against his side and a slight tension was still evident.

She didn't answer.

He looked up and met her parents' gaze and realised that they were all silent and, it appeared, embarrassed.

Finally, Sir Alistair cleared his throat. "We meant no disrespect, of course. It just seemed rather..."

"Obvious," his wife concluded.

"To all of us. At the same time," Hermione added, "which never ever happens. We usually argue about names for days before Mummy wins just by being most persistent with them. They're her dogs, after all. Mostly."

"I see." Severus pinned her with a gaze. "Which explains everything but his name."

They spoke as one.

"Albus."

At which point, the dog sprang to his feet and began barking.

And Severus first choked, then sputtered...

Then exploded with laughter.

At which point, the beast covered his face with tongue.

Repeatedly.

Hermione finally wrested the mongrel under control. Before Severus could reach for his own, Sir Alistair handed him a handkerchief. "Welcome to the family, Severus."

Lady Granger raised a small bell from the low table and gave it a sharp ring. Russell appeared at the door almost instantly. "I believe the dogs have Christmas dinner waiting for them? You are dismissed for the night, Russell. Don't forget the presents for the grandchildren."

He gave a slight bow and smile. "Milady."

She gave a short whistle, immediately bringing all the dogs to full alert. A gesture, and they padded softly to the door where Russell prepared to usher them to their leftovers.

Only Albus didn't follow.

Hermione grabbed him by the ruff on either side of his neck and buried her face in his side. "Don't be an idiot," she said, and Severus had a feeling she'd used that tone on Weasley more than once. "Go on, before they get all the goose."

At that, the dog took off, leaving a flurry of tissue paper in his wake.

And Hermione turned and kissed him.

Full on the lips.

With no thought to dog.

Or her parents watching.

And then she sighed happily and he could begrudge her nothing.

The presents were alarming in their thoughtfulness. Explaining that he understood quills were more common, Sir Alistair had given him a fountain pen that felt and looked expensive, and Severus instantly wanted to see how its gold nib felt sliding across parchment.

After opening his next package, he'd barely managed to get the cashmere jumper out of the range of dog hair, all the time pondering what it was about black turtlenecks that appealed to women. He already had the one from Narcissa. He had only worn it the once, when he needed to look more like a Muggle. But as he'd raised this one from its box and held it aloft, he had caught Hermione and her mother exchanging a smug look.

After fretting for days over her birthday, he'd had little time to devote to thinking about Christmas presents, much less any opportunity to actually shop. He couldn't leave her for anything, and certainly not to wander Diagon Alley in confusion.

He'd owled an order to his tailor, and at least the results of that had been adequate, if the delight on Hermione's face and the impressed nod from her mother were any indication. Her mother had even propped her reading glasses upon her nose to examine the needlework.

And finally, there was the other gift, this gift that was hardly a gift at all. He reached into his frock coat and pulled out a long, narrow box. It had no wrapping, only the label at the end and the name of the shop in script down the side.

Without a word, he placed it in Hermione's hand.

She froze.

He finally opened it himself and withdrew the length of vine wood with its delicate spiral of carvings climbing its length. As soon as he placed it in her hand, he felt the magical surge of connection go through her and knew it was right. "Your wand had a twin," he said.

Her grip clenched over it and a choked sob escaped her lips.

Alarmed, he drew her to him.

"After what I did?" she sobbed. "I don't...I don't deserve..."

He had to stop her, had to silence her before she revealed too much. He pulled her to her feet and swept her into his arms and opened his mouth to say something...anything...to her parents.

"I think she needs to rest."

Her father nodded benignly. "We have two hours until we leave for the cathedral."

Her mother added with a strange smile, "She's pregnant. Get used to it."

With that strange benediction, he Apparated her into her bedroom where he lay her on her bed and clutched her to him as she wept, all the while feeling everything click into place...her refusal to go to Ollivander's, her insistence that with wandless magic a wand was superfluous.

After what I did, I don't deserve...

"Stupid girl," he whispered into her ear, inhaling the scent of her hair. "You stupid, stupid girl. You saved my life. You saved both our lives, maybe all our lives...."

He would have said more, but he realised she was asleep.

She's pregnant, he told himself. Get used to it.

And he settled in to listen to her breathe, to feel her heartbeat connect with his, to soak in the solace of her soul... and keep watch over the slender fingers clutching the vine wood wand, as if afraid to let it go.

XX

"They're boy jeans, 501s," she had said snappishly, "and it's not as if I don't wear your clothes all the time."

"I know what 501s are," he'd snapped back. "That doesn't mean I have to fucking wear them."

But then it had got worse. Not only was he wearing her Transfigured jeans, but he wore the black cashmere turtleneck under his cloak, as well. "You'll blend better," she had insisted as she'd pulled on her own jeans and jumper, and he'd given up arguing. Although if all it took was a glance at the hollows under her pleading eyes to twinge his guilty conscience and bring him into line, he was in for a very long nine months.

Only when they'd emerged from her room and he'd seen her mother's gaze crawl down his body and the appreciative glance she'd shared with his Hermione did it finally click into place. The harridan had picked it out because she liked the way he looked. Which meant even Narcissa had been trying to get him into such a sweater, which meant, even Narcissa...

Fucking hell.

Even now, surrounded with a thousand Muggles...maybe more...all singing Merlin knew what with a procession of choirs and men in robes that would have tweaked Albus's fancy...even now his cheeks flamed at the thought, and he wanted to transfigure the jumper into something...anything...but black cashmere that made women look at him with that gleam in their eyes.

He didn't bother to hold a hymn sheet because he didn't bother to pretend to sing, but she didn't care, nestled against him and holding her own, her own voice raised with those of her parents as candles burned around them and incense wafted into the air, its fragrant smoke visible as it climbed to the vaulted ceilings high above their heads. And as she nestled against him, she rubbed her cheek against his chest and her free hand stroked his back beneath the cloak and...

Fucking hell.

She liked the fucking jumper.

He sighed and pulled her closer.

As the music soared and his eyes traversed the familiarity of the 900-year-old cathedral...enough like Hogwarts in many ways to be disconcerting...he pondered the connections. Had wizards been involved in this building, this architecture? Unlikely, or they wouldn't have a crypt that had been underwater for eight centuries, nor would they have had to drain it and restore the foundation by hiring a lowly deep-sea diver to spend years doing the work....

Had wizards taken inspiration and even knowledge from the Muggles?

The Muggles had built this and spent centuries worshipping their Muggle god here, and now, despite his best efforts at disdain, he felt a surge of emotion, of...of spirit...as he found himself surrounded by the sheer sensuality of their worship. The scent, the sound, the glow, the movement, and finally, the warmth of Miss Granger tucked under his arm and swaying gently with the music.

It was nothing short of transcendent.

And purely Muggle.

And it hit him. Hard. Between the eyes. In the gut.

He would know this music. He would know this world. He would know this.

The music ended and people all sat just as Severus's knees threatened to crumple. He sat down heavily, staring blindly at the Perpendicular architecture as a voice...a prayer...echoed in his ears.

The Dark Lord would know this. Did know this.

And he would have destroyed it.

And this was the blood that ran through his veins.

He found himself staring at Sir Alistair who sat so erect and yet comfortable in this place, whose blood ran deep in these stones, whose ancestors had protected them, and whose love for his wife and his daughter was a tangible thing that you could almost reach out and touch.

Severus's limbs turned to stone, his hands to ice. This wasn't his world and worse, this girl, this woman in his arms...he would break her. He would destroy her. He didn't know how to do anything else. He had no pattern, not from his Muggle stepfather and certainly not from his...

He shuddered. He couldn't even voice the word in his mind.

But he forced himself.

He forced the word, "Father," and felt the bile rise in his throat.

He had tried to make her understand, tried to force her to understand. As soon as he could bear to, as soon as he thought she was strong enough to hear it, he'd told her the entire story. Who he was. Who his father was...

And she had stared at him, her brow wrinkled, her eyes cloudy, and finally let out a satisfied sigh and said, "Well. That explains a lot, doesn't it?"

She was supposed to recoil, to react in horror, and instead she seemed pleased to have a tantalising riddle solved.

"He did feel a connection to you, and so, is it any wonder you felt that?"

And then, she stiffened, and he braced himself for whatever delayed reaction she was about to have.

Only to have her stare at him in consternation and demand, "Does this mean we can't keep the crystal?"

And he found himself sending the wooden box of elfen crystal to Filius to test, furious with her because she wasn't taking this seriously enough, she didn't understand what it meant.

"What am I supposed to be upset about?" she asked. "Your father was Tom Riddle. He wasn't Lord Voldemort. He wasn't the Dark Lord. He wasn't half-snake. He was a half-blood named Tom Riddle." And then, with a brush of her lips across his temple and a whisper in his ear, "And he isn't you," she dismissed his fear as if he were a boy and she his mother, reassuring him in a way so fuckingly patronising he didn't know whether to snarl at her or...or weep in relief.

So he had snarled.

And she had pushed him into the flowered chair and climbed on top of him and made him forget everything but her scent, her taste, her body....

And now she was leaning across him to whisper to her mother, and now she had his ice-cold hand tugging, and now she was pulling him out of his seat and into the side aisle.

Concerned, he reached to touch her face, to ask if she was ill, only to have her shush him and pull him around a corner and...

Disillusion them both.

He felt the ice cold trickle pour down his body, watched her disappear, then felt her warm hand grab his and guide him along the aisle, around another section of seated worshipers, and finally behind the quire and to the stairs that led down to the Crypt.

He heard her soft giggle as the chain blocking the way dropped silently, and then he followed her invisible form down into the darkness until a ring of soft wand light appeared, showing their way deeper until they were swallowed up in the recesses, icy water swirling around his ankles. "Fuck," he whispered, casting a quick Impervio, a lot of good it would do now, though.

And finally, "Finite incantatem!" and she was standing before him, her smile beatific. Then she winced. "I forgot about the water. I suppose when we came magically we simply didn't feel it."

"Evidently." He glanced around at the low Norman arches, at least two centuries older than the Perpendicular architecture above them in the nave. "I suppose you wanted to return to the scene of the crime?" he asked with a twist of his lips.

"I brought you down here for your Christmas present."

"How romantic."

She scowled. "If you're going to sneer..."

"My fucking feet are wet."

"Well, are you a wizard or aren't you?" she snapped, and before he could, she dried his feet with a flick of her fingers and evidently added a warming spell to boot. "Now. Your present." She reached deep into her jeans pocket and retrieved something that flashed gold in the wandlight. She closed her fist around it and suddenly looked hesitant. "But, you don't have to.... You can just keep it with... you know... with your things, if you want to."

He took her hand in his and slowly opened her fingers.

A simple gold band...a man's wedding ring...nestled in her palm. Clearly old, clearly much worn. "It was my grandfather's," she said. "Daddy said I could have it, and I thought since...since we don't have the Ministry rings, and I have your mother's but you don't have one...although you never wear jewellery and if you don't want to, I mean, I know it might get in the way of brewing and..."

He silenced her the best way he knew how. Closing her hand with his to secure the ring safely, he kissed her, and what began softly turned into true hunger as she pressed against him, opened her lips to him, and drew him in.

Abruptly, she pulled away. "It might not fit," she began again, and before she could continue her babbling, he touched her lips with his finger and having her full attention, held out his hand.

Staring into his eyes, she slipped the ring over his fingertip and then, sliding it slowly down his finger, said, "With this Ring I thee wed." And as it passed over his first knuckle, "With my Body I thee worship." And as it slid home, "And with all my worldly Goods I thee endow."

And it fit. It fit the way she fit next to him, the way he fit inside her, like missing pieces rejoining and becoming whole.

Something hard and cold inside him broke open, and overhead, music broke forth, beautiful and glorious music with strings and horns and choirs, and down in the dark beneath he held music in his arms, more beautiful and more glorious.

In the dark, she was his light.

In the crypt of the Muggle god, she was his goddess.

In the depths of his despair, she was his hope.