Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

...

SWACK! SWACK! SWACK! SWACK!

The hand that set down the hairbrush returned to its target, delivering soothing strokes instead of stinging smacks across the rounded, reddened, naked flesh.

"And that's for complaining in the lobby, of all places. You will cooperate with the purpose of this trip, got that?" Hermione shifted her thigh, refusing to let him rock his erection against her flesh. A whinge-like sound huffed from Severus' lungs. He was strong enough to overpower her, but he had put up an unpleasant fuss about coming to this place. Trailing her fingertips around his testes, she slid one up to the bud of his anus, rimming it gently with the tip of her nail. "I said, you will learn to ski, and like it. Got that?"

"Yes, Mistress!" he gasped. A droplet of pre-cum dripped onto her calf.

She smiled. She hadn't ever actually asked him to call her 'Mistress', but since he did it of his own volition...and insisted that she call him 'Professor' when their roles were reversed...it pleased her whenever he did. "Good. Now, get up here and fuck me. Skiing can wait."

He rose from her legs, allowing her to turn around in order to scramble further onto their hotel bed. Before she could turn back again, she felt his hands grabbing her thighs, parting and spreading them widely. In the next moment, his hands left her flesh, only to SWACK down in a double-blow, one palm per upturned nether-cheek. "Oy! Severus...!"

"What have I told you about using vulgarities to describe what we do when we're in bed?" he demanded. He swatted her again when she didn't respond, and a third, even harder time. Pausing, he waited for her to say something, but she remained stubbornly silent. He smacked her bottom again, increasing his strength in a stinging, bottom-bouncing whallop.

"...We make love, we don't fuck! We make love, we don't fuck!" she gasped at the fifth set of double-blows. "Oh, God...make love to me, Severus!"

He scrambled to comply, twisting her onto the mattress and climbing up behind her, but someone banged on the wall behind the bed. "Hey! Keep your kinky shit to yourselves!"

Severus, about to mount her from behind, collapsed with almost helpless laughter. He managed to land next to her, rather than on top of her, and received an armful of equally giggling Hermione. She squirmed around enough to face him and kissed him. Then rubbed their nose-tips together. At his uncertain frown, she grinned. "When in Alaska, do as the Athabascans do...right?"

"I am not making love in an igloo. And you were rather loud, just now," he stated.

"You stung my bum rather hard, just now. Are you going to soothe it?" she challenged him.

"Ask nicely."

"Severus, sweetie, would you pretty please make love to me, hard enough to make our neighbor bang on the wall again?" she managed to ask with a mostly straight face, before dissolving into laughter again.

Pushing her over onto her belly again, Severus mounted her from behind. Nudging her knees apart with his thighs, he lowered himself into prodding range, then slowly sunk inside her slick flesh. Contrary to her teasing claim, Hermione grabbed the quilted bedding, stuffing it into her mouth so she wouldn't moan too loud. It didn't stop noises from escaping her as he set up a slow, deep-thrusting rhythm, but it did muffle the sounds. It just felt so good to be with him, even after half a year of loving and fighting and making up together, she didn't want to share it with anyone else.

"You forgot to do something, earlier, Cindy," he told her, leaning down so that he could inhale the flowery scent of her hair. At her wordless noise of inquiry, he said, "You forgot to correct the desk-clerk when he called us Mr. and Mrs. Miller. One must wonder at the way you gave both of us the same surname. Or rather, at the hidden reason for doing so...considering we're not married, yet."

Her heart thumped in her chest. Freeing her lips from the duvet, she asked, "Is, erm, that a proposal?"

He stilled, sunk halfway into her. Several seconds passed as he considered her enquiry. Finally, he sunk all the way inside, lowering his body to rest on top of hers, pinning her gently to the bedding. "Yes. Since you acted so sneakily...arranging the thought of it ages ago with the similarity in our assumed last names. I think I'm rather proud of having managed to corrupt you."

"You're not head of Slytherin anymore...and I am not a Gryffindor. That means I'm free to corrupt you, you realize," she retorted. As always in their relationship, at least since the night she had rescued him, she spoke her mind honestly, not wanting misunderstandings to lead to any more lies between them. "I do want to marry you. I also would like children someday...but I'd like to hold off for several more years before having any. Two and a half years from now, we're going to run out of the past, catch up with the present, and start heading into the unknowns of the future.

"That means we'll have to be careful with how we acquire our money, what jobs we might take, positions we'd hold, research we'd do...and the people we'll meet. Eventually, we'll be back in our rightful time...and I do miss my parents."

Sighing, he pulled out, rolling onto his side. Propping his head on his palm, he studied her. "I have given that some thought. I miss teaching...do not give me that look, not when your hairbrush is still within reach," he warned her. "I had to be nasty to maintain discipline, as a young man...and then I had to be nasty to ensure no one got close to me...and I kept myself miserable and unapproachable because I wanted to punish myself for all my mistakes in life.

"But if I can be more like Minerva or you were...well, I did hear something about a 'Sasquatch High' when we were passing through the wizarding district in Seattle. I am competent at not only Potions and Defence, but also Charms and Arithmancy. All categories in which you could also succeed, 'Professor Miller'. They might even have an opening for a teacher or two, and it wouldn't hurt to enquire at the end of our doubled time."

"Sasquatch High?" Hermione asked. "Not Hogwarts?"

He shook his head. "I cannot go back there. And I should not. Even if all the memories didn't threaten to haunt me, I'd never get rid of the suspicions that would be dogging my heels...yes, everyone thinks of me as a war-hero. A martyred war-hero," he reminded her. "A living one would have to face repercussions, old resentments, questions and suspicions that a presumed death has automatically absolved for me...and I find I am tired of the war. Tired of having been Severus Snape, greasy bane of every young British witch and wizard's existence. I would rather start over as a new man."

"As 'David Miller', for real?" she asked. He nodded. Hermione chewed on her lower lip, considering his words.

"I will not deny you the right to stop being Cindy and resume being Hermione," he told her quietly, tucking a stray curl of her growing blonde-brown hair behind her ear. "But I have no reason worth returning to the U.K. and all the troubles that would ensue. Particularly if your friend, Mr. Potter, still believes I'm in love with his mum." His long, thin nose wrinkled in distaste. "I do not think he would take well to the additional information that I not only lusted after his mum, I now lust after you...and worse...from his perspective...that I wish to marry you."

"Er, no. I don't think Harry would take that at all well. Nor would Ron," she agreed. "I do have to return long enough to tell Kingsley something about my mission...but what should I tell him?"

This time, it was his turn to bite his lower lip, grimacing in thought. Finally, he spoke. "...Tell him the truth, but swear him to secrecy about it. Convince him that a dead Snape is an asset to the new regime, but that a live one would only stir too many political pots, threatening to make them boil over with old grievances. And...get used to calling me 'David'. In private, as well as in public. It's not a bad name. I have no ill memories associated with it, unlike my own."

"We'll fix your identity so that you're David Severus Miller," she told him, and smiled wryly. "I'm not sure I could enjoy shouting 'David' nearly as much as I enjoy shouting 'Severus' when in the throes of lust, however much our neighbors might object."

"Cheeky swot! Where's that hairbrush?" he mock-demanded.

"Watch it, or I'll make you go skiing without having finished what we just started," she teased.

"I am not going to risk breaking my 'third leg', never mind either of the other two," he countered, climbing back over her. Nuzzling her shoulders with his nose, he added, "I don't care if this is a Muggle resort. I'm casting a tumble-triggered Cushioning Charm on both our clothes, just in case. You do not want to break me before you've finished binding me as your husband, do you?"

"Well, no...but I'd better cast the spells, so that your magic isn't traceable. Speaking of marriage, we'll still have to wait until time resumes its normal course before getting married," she told him. At his wary look, Hermione explained. "...Shortly after the war ended, I dated Ron for a while...oh, stop grimacing, we gave up for good after months of nonstop arguing...and then I dated a couple of other men. I'd really rather not cuckold you, even if it's only temporally. I respect you too much."

"Good. You will be faithful to me," he stated, slotting their flesh together. "As I will be faithful to you."

A thrust of his flesh drove his point home.

...

"Hermione! The tiger lilies worked!"

Startled, Hermione barely had time to brace herself before Ron swept her into a rib-aching hug. The redhead laughed and swung her around, then set her on her feet, grinning.

"Dinner was wonderful, the flowers were wonderful, the Ferris Wheel was wonderful, and she was wonderful...!"

Katie Bell. That's right. Remembering what...for her...had happened five years ago, she managed a smile. "I'm glad you and Katie had a great time, Ron."

He grinned back and nodded, then blinked and eyed her. "You look different, somehow...facial? I know...new haircut!"

Hermione self-consciously touched her curls. She had grown out her hair over the last three-plus years, trimming off the bleached bits until it was more or less like her old hairstyle. Severus had grumbled a bit about her returning to looking "like a school girl", but had admitted he preferred longer hair on women. The compromise would be that, after her meeting with Kingsley, she would get her locks streaked with highlights, since he said that sort of "outdoorsy" colouring suited her better than plain brown.

Considering he himself had agreed to trimming his hair stylishly short and growing a goatee, Hermione knew she could put up with the tangled mess it made if she forgot to braid it at night.

"Yeah, you got a haircut," Ron asserted, eyeing her speculatively. "And you look like you've lost some weight, too. You're looking real good, Herm."

"Thank you, Ron," she said, smiling.

He puffed up his chest a little. "That's right; I'm a modern bloke! I notice these things, these days...you would've liked Katie's dress last night. All blue and flowery, and it clung in all the right..."

Hermione laughed and cut him off, raising her hands. "...I'm sure it was lovely, Ron, but I have an appointment to see the Minister this morning...and then I'll be off on an assignment overseas, if everything goes right."

"Overseas?" her best friend asked, frowning in puzzlement.

"I'll tell you about it later!" she promised, backing up toward the lifts. Waving, she turned and made her escape.

A short time later, the Minister's secretary escorted her into the highest office in wizarding England. Hermione waited until the door shut behind the other woman, then waited further while Kingsley swept his wand through the air, casting Impeturbable Charms on the walls, ceiling, and floor. He gestured at the padded chairs in the conversation corner of his office, and joined her in taking a seat.

"...Well? You look a little different, so I presume you went back?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "I went back. I created my disguise, set the Time Turner...and misjudged the moment of my entry back into the world. I was attacked by Lord Voldemort...I thought he was leaving the Shack at the time, but now I wonder if he wasn't actually going to the Shack...and in the attack, my hand struck the Time Turner's dials. I was flung back in time to just before the start of Severus' second year as a teacher at Hogwarts. The Time Turner was blazing hot at that point, utterly unusable...and being temporally stranded for roughly a year, I managed to convince Albus into hiring me as 'Professor Cindy Miller' in the Defence Against the Dark Arts post."

"Understandable. And cleverly done. You taught my cousin, Weston Alderpot, but I'd just left school the year before," Kingsley told her. "I remember him raving about how good Professor Miller was."

"I knew I'd be raising a generation that would have to face the Death Eaters all over again, so I wanted to do a good job," she admitted.

"Of course, you were very careful about not contaminating anyone with knowledge of the future, right?" the Minister of Magic dryly asked her.

"Of course. I did make a friendship of sorts with Severus," she confessed. "But I realized that, if I was so far back in time, I had the opportunity to not just see what had happened to him, but to possibly save him, if I could. And, well...I succeeded. I gained his trust, I cycled forward in time in modest increments, and I managed to get him the antivenin for Nagini's poison, and a blood-replenisher, and I Apparated him to a safe location to recover...and then took him to a safe-house to wait out the intervening years."

Kingsley eyed her hair. "If you followed through on your plan to cut and colour your hair...shouldn't it still be different?"

Hermione blushed. "Erm...no. Because I managed to make up a friendship with Severus, and the friendship has since become, well, a bit more than friendship."

"Hermione..." Kingsley eyed her askance, but in a gossiping sort of way, not an affronted one. Then he wrinkled his dark nose. "With Severus?"

"He's since taken on a new identity, and a new personality, now that he's free of the war...and free of all the suspicions and expectations and hatreds. He has a request to make, in fact," she stated, bracing herself for Kingsley's reaction. "He wants to remain dead, as Severus Snape. He doesn't want to come back, he doesn't want anyone but you and I to know he's still alive, and he requests, in the name of all that he has done for the wizarding world, that you do everything in your considerable power as Minister to ensure that Severus Snape stays dead to the world."

Kingsley Shacklebolt was not a hasty man. He sat in silence for a long minute, absorbing her words. "...What about his career? Hogwarts? How is he making his money?"

She blushed again. "Well, erm...being stuck in the past as I was, I made a few prudent investments in the Muggle realm. But he's since accepted a good job and is making a good salary. As am I. And, erm...I'd like to be let go from the Department of Mysteries, because I like my new job a whole lot more...and because we plan to get married."

Choking at that, Kingsley coughed and wheezed, struggling for breath. Hermione leaned forward and whacked him on the back a few times until he recovered. He blinked at her, cleared his throat a couple of times, then asked, "Are you sure we're talking about the same Severus Snape, the man who has been obsessed with Lily Evans Potter for most of his grown life?"

"People change. And before you ask if I'm hexed or dosed with a potion, I'm not. I've also been living with the same man, Severus Snape, for over three years," she added tartly. "Trust me, I have no illusions about him. I have to nag him to brush his teeth more than once a day, and he always snores like the Hogwarts Express when he's had anything with caffeine in it after seven o'clock at night. Let me tell you, that puts a real dampener on any attempt to have chocolate for dessert unless I make him a different sort of pudding just for himself.

"And trust me, I never want that man to get another head cold, ever," she swore, cutting her hands between them. "He wasn't just cranky and snarly, he was whingy! He was worse to deal with than a spoilt third-year! I almost left him, at that."

Kingsley eyed her. "So...why didn't you?"

She smirked. "I'd tell you, but then you'd beg me to Obliviate you, and I'm sure there's a law somewhere against doing that to the Minister of Magic. Besides, I can give as good as I get. After his ears stopped ringing when he finally snapped my patience and realized how snotty he'd been, he was very sweet about making it up to me."

"I can hardly picture the word 'sweet' being used in conjunction with 'Severus Snape'," the Minister muttered. At her stern look, he sighed and raised his hands. "Alright. He's a changed man, you're not under any undue influence, and he doesn't want to come back to life. So...erm...when is the wedding? I'd go myself, but that would probably draw too much attention to him."

"Well, first I have to break it to my parents that I'm seeing an older man. And that I'm quitting the Department. And that I'm moving overseas, and that I'm going to become a teacher. And I have to break all of this to Ron and Harry and the Weasleys," she said. "I have four weeks set aside to settle all my affairs on this side of the pond before I have to go back to work...I'm paying for a substitute, and that's all I can afford before dipping into our savings. Once all of that is settled, the wedding is set for next summer, when we're both off work."

Kingsley asked, "Defence again? And is he teaching, then?"

"He got that one. I'm teaching Charms," she confessed.

"Someone would actually hire him? With his classroom attitude?" he joked dryly.

Hermione leveled him a look. "He no longer has to shove people away, he's free of the stress of maintaining a cover as a spy, and he's actually a lot more like Minerva in his teaching style these days. I have a reputation as the worse teacher, right now. Mountains of homework, and woe betide anyone who spells a word wrong. He just bleeds red ink all over their assignments and abuses them verbally in front of their peers. I actually make the little blighters do their homework all over again."

Kingsley chuckled at that. "Well, if anyone needs a recommendation for either of you on your past work...I'll set up vouchers for the two of you. That is, I presume Severus is now operating under a new name? Do I get to know what it is?"

"David Severus Miller. But keep that to yourself, and if you absolutely must mention him, then just call him David Miller." She wrinkled her nose. "I hate the thought of lying to my family and friends...but as far as they're to know, I met David during my days in the Department of Mysteries...which in its own way is true enough...and then we fell in love and I decided to follow him to, well, where we're living now. Only I'll supposedly be going to live with him now, instead of having been living with him for a few years already. That's the biggest lying part.

"If I could, I'd lie to you, to keep him safe...but you put your trust in me to save him, and I owe you for the chance that let me do so," she said.

"I appreciate your honesty. And...I can understand why he'd want a new life, free from the shadows of the old one," Kingsley agreed. "If I weren't in public office and thus in the public eye so much, I'd be there to raise a toast to the both of you next summer. Let him know that I do understand his choice to 'remain dead', and that I'll respect it and keep it a secret. As for letting you go from the Department...that's harder for me to do. I'd like to be able to keep you on retainer, if I may. Your department head says you're quite talented at figuring out certain puzzles...and if we send one or two your way from time to time...well, I know David likes solving puzzles, too. So I'd get two brilliant minds for the price of one, yes?"

"Only if you paid me at least one and a half times the usual rate for each puzzle," Hermione retorted. "If not double the going rate. Remember, I have all those re-done homework papers to grade."

He laughed again, then stood and helped her up, clasping her hand. "I'll have your department wade through the paperwork for your new 'consultant' position by the end of the week...you are going to turn in the Time-Turner, right?"

Hermione patted the golden chain that disappeared below the neckline of her blouse, then extracted a spell-shrunk packet of papers from her pocket. "I have a report on the side-effects of excessive temporal displacement, carefully worded to avoid all mention of what I was doing while traveling through time. All it requires is your authorizing signature, and I can hand it in to the head of the Chronomancy sub-department."

Unshrinking it, she handed over the packet, reseating herself as he sat down and skimmed through her report. When he was through, he rose, crossed to his desk, and scrawled his authorization on the appropriate lines. "...There. Authorized. If you think of anything else that might be helpful for your situation, let me know. Or if I do, I'll let you know, since you'll still be around for a few more weeks...

"Take care of yourself, Hermione. And do take care of him, too. He deserves whatever life he wants," Kingsley told her. "At least, so long as it's a happy one. And if he is happy with you..."

"Absolutely," Hermione swore. "Even if he gets whingy again, I'll make sure he's happy. After his tantrums are through," she promised, though she mock-wrinkled her nose at the thought. "I'm not about to reward any ill-behavior. I learnt that lesson as a teacher."

Laughing, Kingsley hugged her.