Chapter 26

XXVI.

Her mother didn't even have to say anything. Daphne Granger just looked at her daughter with worried hope in her brown eyes, and Hermione caved. Nodding her head, she found herself scooped up in her mother's arms, her mother's voice whispering fiercely in her ears.

"I'm so very happy for you! And very scared at the same time, and you're awfully young for it, but you'll make an outstanding mum--and I could kick your husbands kilted little arse all the way to the Isle of Man and back for doing this to you without thought for the consequences, but you're going to have a baby! I've got a new son, and I'm going to be a grandmum, and I'm so happy to know that you were properly married before all of this happened!"

Hermione stiffened a little at that last bit, but her mother continued breathlessly--squeezing her daughter breathlessly, for that matter.

"Not that you'd be the type to get knocked up, but you're my little girl and you're obviously passionately in love with your husband, and I'm just so very glad things look like they're going to work out for you!" Releasing Hermione's shoulders, Daphne leaned back. Hermione hastily covered up her shock with a dazed but hopefully pleased-looking smile. "Now, I don't care what the wizarding world has to say about pregnancy, there's nothing like the knowledge of an actual mum, so don't you hesitate to call on me, or on Molly--especially on Molly!" Daphne laughed, "--for any sort of advice or reassurances you'll need!"

"Er...yes, of course..."

Jeffrey embraced her next, a squeeze around the shoulders as soon as his wife released them. "I suppose this means I can't use my staple-gun on him, if he's going to be the daddy of my little grandson or granddaughter?"

"--Dad!" Hermione choked, unnerved by his off-handed remark. God, what must Severus think of the madhouse of all of this?

Her father kissed her on the forehead. "If I didn't throw the contents of the knife-block at him last night, sweetie, he's mostly safe from me." Releasing her, he held out his hand to Russel. "I expect you to do your duty as a good husband to her."

"Of course, sir," Russel returned, gripping palms with the somewhat older male.

Harry touched Hermione on the shoulder. "You look a bit pale, Hermione--are you alright?"

Mum thinks I'm passionately in love with my husband, whom you think is Russel, and you like Russel but you loathe Snape, Ron looks green enough to be vomiting up slugs without being mis-hexed by his old, broken wand, I'm pregnant, and you want to know if I'm alright?

But shouting that, just like shouting in the middle of Harrods that she was a wife, not a niece, would not have been appropriate. No matter how much the shock of her situation had just impacted, inside her head. Instead, Hermione closed her eyes and sagged into his arms. Awkwardly, he rubbed her back, then patted it. A moment later, he shifted her into a different pair of arms.

Hermione didn't have to open her eyes to know who she was leaning against now. The comfortingly familiar scent was enough to tell her who held her, and she found her frustration soothed just by clinging to Russel; after their meeting with Poppy, he'd spell-scoured any traces of ingredients from his clothes, leaving only his own male musk for her to breathe. His amethyst-purple shirt was a long, far cry from his black teaching robes, his gentle touch a counterpoint to the way she knew he'd always held himself aloof as a professor. Russel or Snape or Severus, he smelled the same...even without the faint traces of potions ingredients from brewing the Eiterubrenner Salve.

"It's been a long day," Russel murmured quietly over her head. "We should go back to the Burrow and gather our things, then Apparate to the Granger residence, as planned."

"Yes; we wouldn't want my little girl overwrought with too much more excitement," Daphne agreed. "She's going to be a mum, and needs to start conserving her energy!"

It almost felt like she sprained something, Hermione rolled her closed eyes that hard.

...

It was during Aunt Cecilia's lecture to Russel on how a 'proper' marriage should have gone--none of that eloping in a civil ceremony, then just a private ceremony with immediate family and a handful of friends, but rather one conducted in an Anglican cathedral with extended family, friends and neighbors--that Hermione slipped upstairs. She tried to be discreet about it, but her uncle caught up to her on the first floor landing just as she reached her bedroom door, tugging on one of her locks to catch her attention.

"--Hey, little curls," Uncle Jonathan teased her. Dropping the hand that was rubbing the bridge of her nose, Hermione faced him with a smile that wasn't entirely pasted-on, but wasn't entirely carefree, either. He frowned at her, a slightly pudgier version of her father, but with a little bit more in the way of grey-edged brown hair. "Are we giving you a headache?"

Her answering smile was rueful. "Yes. Sorry."

He ruffled her curls. "We should be apologizing to you. I've got some analgesics in my bag, if you'd like?"

"No, thanks, Doctor Granger," she teased, though she couldn't quite hide her pained wince. Her father had gone into dentistry, but her uncle had gone into general-practice medicine. She glanced up and down the hall, then leaned in and whispered, "I was just going to fetch a potion to share with my husband. If he hasn't got a migraine already, it's probably a miracle."

"You know I can't approve of any of these potions of yours, Hermione," he chided her, following her into her bedroom. "At least my analgesics have medical-board approval! And the government watchdogs their manufacture Who oversees and approves your potions? And how do they know the...the eye of newt wasn't past its expiration date?"

"Shh! Uncle Jonathan!" Hermione protested, unable to help the laugh that escaped her. It was impossible to hide the truth of her magical nature from her father's twin, though only her mother, father, and uncle knew, of all of the family. Not even her uncle's late wife, Diane, had known Hermione was a witch. "This potion was brewed by Madam Pomfrey--she's practically a G.P. herself, she knows so much, and has to practice so much, what with all the students who constantly get themselves into trouble!"

"I'll believe that when I see her at work," he snorted. Then licked his lips, as Hermione pulled out the small vial of red liquid she'd been saving for today's anticipated stresses. "Is she...pretty?"

"She's plump, middle-aged, hides the fact that she wears spectacles to read, and is very no-nonsense when it comes to her patients. Compassionate, as a good school nurse should be, but efficient. And she has a sense of humor," Hermione added, popping the cork and taking a small sip of the cinnamon-flavoured brew.

"Oh? How so?" her uncle prodded.

It felt odd, to be match-making Poppy Pomfrey with Jonathan Granger, but Hermione had to admit she'd done odder things. Licking the spicy liquid from her tongue, she shrugged. "Oh...I had some issues with Russel a few weeks ago, and when I went to her for a check-up and a headache-potion, she commented on those issues, I quipped it was more like a subscription, and she and I had a good giggle over it."

"Ah. So your husband isn't all Mr. Perfect Canadian, then?" he enquired, folding his arms across his chest in a manner entirely unlike his twin's. Jeffrey Granger preferred to plant his hands on his hips.

"Nope. But he's my husband, and I've accepted him, flaws and all." A second sip would make her feel good, but Hermione wanted to save that for when she rescued the husband in question from the clutches of her relatives. Corking the vial, Hermione cupped it in her fingers and tucked her hand into the side-seam pocket of her burgundy skirt.

Her husband had teased her about not ever wearing one, after having only seen her in jeans and slacks in the months since the midnight gown with the constellations that she'd worn to the wand-exhibition. She'd threatened to make him wear trousers in front of her Muggle relatives, and he'd threatened to spank her for her temerity. Alas, the sound of her father calling them and Harry down to breakfast had curtailed any follow-throughs to those threats. But she'd worn a skirt just to prove that she did in fact own something feminine.

Shaking her head, she shooed her uncle out of her bedroom. "I've got to get this to Russel, before he throttles Aunt Cecilia with her support hose, or something."

Jonathan choked on a laugh, smothering it behind his hand.

Descending the stairs, she found her husband still trapped on the sofa by her mother's aunt. Grey eyes met her tawny brown ones with the mute hope of a drifting shipwreck survivor wondering if that blot on the horizon was a bit of palm trees and sand, or just another lumpy storm-cloud. Biting her lip against the urge to giggle, Hermione stopped next to the arm of the sofa, thumbed the cork free, and discreetly tipped a small mouthful past her lips while the elderly woman droned on and on about what sort of job a good husband should have, instead of 'a government job', as Russel had explained his career to her relatives.

Re-corking the vial, she dropped it into her pocket next to her wand, leaned over the arm of the chair, and claimed his mouth with her own. She timed it so that he had parted his lips to answer one of her aunt's many yes-or-no questions, and passed some of the spicy, crimson draught straight into his mouth. The moment he tasted the brew, his throat vibrated in a hum of pleasure. The curling of one arm around her waist, dragging her over the arm and into his lap, only made her giggle as the second, larger dose of the potion--even shared as it was--made her feel very relaxed, and very good.

Arms wrapping around his shoulder and neck, Hermione snogged the daylights out of her husband. It didn't matter if Aunt Cecilia said anything or not, at that point. There wasn't much point in anyone saying anything to the couple, until Russel finally let her droop back over his arm, her calves still dangling over the sofa arm. One of her flats had fallen off, and the other dangled stubbornly from her toes, but she didn't care. She felt good, and from the silly smile on Sev--oops, Russel's--face... She giggled and kissed him again, chasing down and savouring the last bits of cinnamon in both their mouths with her tongue.

The shriek-like giggling of several of her cousinly nieces and nephews on her mother's side, caused by them chasing each other through the living room with Christmas toys, broke their kiss. Out of pain, unfortunately. The temptation to sip more of the cinnamon draught was strong, but after even that small of a shared mouthful, Hermione knew the two of them were in danger of melting right off of the sofa from too much relaxation. Apparently her wizard mate wasn't thinking along the same lines; he tucked his lips next to her ear and muttered, "One good, solid Silencio and we'd have peace and quiet for at least an hour..."

Some piece of devilry within her made her twist to reach his own ear, and mutter back, "...On the kids, or on Aunt Cecilia?"

"Both," he snarked, making her glad his expression was hidden by the mass of her hair. Grinning, she lifted her lips to his for another kiss.

"--Look! Aunt 'Mione has a pretty stick!"

Shite! Twisting, Hermione all but fell out of Russel's lap, trying to grab her tow-headed niece, Amalie. But it was too late; the child had already snatched her vinewood wand from her pocket; it had crept halfway out, thanks to the sloped angle she'd been sitting at, in her husband's lap. The little girl was a Muggle, and wouldn't be able to conjure anything, but Hermione really, really didn't want to have her wand stolen and damaged, again.

Amalie stopped on the far side of the coffee table, hauled her arm back, and lashed it forward, playing with the 'pretty stick' like it was a toy wand. Hermione, rounding the end of the coffee table, banged her shin painfully into the corner when a jolt of golden sparks shot out of the wand like a miniature comet, slamming into the wall next to the Muggle picture of her in her fourth-year dress-robes, taken when they'd been bought late that summer, just before departing on the Hogwarts Express. The sparks left a blackened spot on the wallpaper.

Snatching her wand from Amalie's seven-year-old fingers, Hermione acted with a flash of complex thought, snapping her wand in a cobbled-together, mass-Stunning Charm.

"Gens toutarette!"

That much magic, set to blanket the whole house, exhausted her the moment the white sphere of light blasted outward. But it froze everyone in place--neatly side-stepping any nasty, inexplicable bruises from falling--and it allowed her to go to her husband and touch his forehead first with the tip of her wand, muttering finite. His eyes darkened as he blinked and stared up at her.

"...What was that spell?"

"Erm...something I made up on the spot?" she offered weakly. "Look, the Aurors are bound to notice all of that magic I just used, and they'll no doubt be here shortly to start modifying memories," Hermione fretted. "Do you think you should leave, just to be on the safe side?"

"If my disguise will hold in the face of Alastor Moody's magical eye, it'll hold in the face of a lesser Auror," he returned. "Just don't ask me to do any magic in their presence. Seriously, where did you find that spell?"

"Erm...it was an amalgamation of ideas that just sort of...coalesced. In my head. At that moment," Hermione shrugged as he frowned. "Should I unfreeze my parents and Uncle Jonathan now, or wait for the Aurors?"

The look he gave her was somewhere between wary and thoughtful. "Wait for the Aurors."

Almost as if cued by his advice, the doorbell rang. Hermione jumped, then smoothed her skirt with nervous fingers and dodged around the coffee table and the frozen little girl who had started the mess. Going up to the front door, she peered through the spy-hole. She recognized both Aurors from that first time with the Chronomancer, Mr. Lubbock. Violetta, she knew from the Order. The other one, a non-descript, sandy-blond wizard, she didn't know his name, but she knew his face. Opening the door, she ushered them wordlessly inside. They slowed at the sight of her frozen relatives, but allowed her to close her door.

"...I presume you have an explanation for casting magic on so many Muggles, Miss Granger?" Violetta enquired.

"Erm, well...my niece, here," Hermione explained, gesturing at Amalie, whose arm was still in the cast-forward position, "stole my wand out of my pocket, and before I could stop her, she...well, she flung a bolt of sparks at the wall--you can see the scorch-mark there. And since everyone was looking at her at that moment, I just put an All-Stop Hex on the whole house, knowing that you Aurors would be coming shortly, and I figured you could just use it to make your task that much easier in modifying all these memories. Well, except for my parents' memories, and my uncle's, since they know...and I think my cousin Julia and her husband Phillip should probably know that their daughter's going to be getting a letter from Hogwarts in a few more years," she finished with a lopsided smile. "They were in the kitchen, last I knew."

"I see," the wizard stated. "Is that what happened?" he asked Russel, who had stood up from the couch.

"Yeah."

"You look...familiar."

"Russel Fawkeson. And you?"

"Mark Walsingham. You're not from Britain, are you?"

"Born and bred. I've just spent several of the last years in Canada."

"Right... Which ones are your parents, Miss Granger? And why your uncle?" Auror Walsingham enquired.

"My father and my uncle are twins," Hermione explained, shrugging. "You can't keep secrets from twins."

"Right. I've never seen this spell before. How do you unfreeze everyone?" he asked her.

"Well, I just applied Finite Incantatem, and that seems to work."

"You don't know?" Violetta enquired.

Hermione shrugged. "I just made up the Charm. It works, so I'm not going to complain."

Walsingham eyed her askance. "You don't work for the Unspeakables, by any chance?"

She shrugged. "Not yet."

"Jane, cast it again! They're thawing!"

Hermione glanced over her shoulder at Russel's sharp command. The Muggles in the living room were starting to move. "Gens toutarette!"

Again, the white light burst outward from her wand in an encompassing shell. Resisting the urge to sag onto the coffee table from the expended energy, she unfroze Russel, Mark, and Violetta. As they blinked and shook off their stupor, she shrugged sheepishly.

"...It seems like it only lasts for a few minutes. You'd better hurry to modify all these memories. Only the ones in here would have seen anything unusual, thankfully."

"Right." Pushing on her partner's shoulder, Violetta started with the child, then moved on to the spot on the wall. "...I'll leave it up to you as to when and how to explain to your relatives about this little girl's future, after we're gone. But don't hesitate to call on us to modify their memories, if they pitch a fit."

Her husband nudged her towards the little girl, then returned to his end of the sofa. "You'd better take your position behind her."

It wasn't until after the Aurors had finished their work and left, after everyone had unfrozen and she had carefully explained to Amalie that good little girls didn't go stealing fancy, long, wooden hair-pins from their favourite aunty's pockets, that Hermione realized she hadn't unfrozen Harry during the commotion. Of course, he'd been in the dining room, enjoying some colourful, complicated card game with his new cousins, but she knew she owed him an apology. Later, though. First, she had to figure out when and where to approach her mother's niece and nephew-in-law...and find a moment to discreetly swallow another sip of headache-posset.

It was shaping up to be a very interesting holiday season, with all of this excitement.

...

"I wish there was a book we could give her," Harry murmured as he worked beside Hermione, carting cups and plates by hand to the rubbish bags or the kitchen, depending on what material they were. "Something to prepare her, something to warn her that her whole life is about to change in just a few years--something for her parents to read that's more than just a letter."

"Harry, she's only seven. She's not mature enough to keep such a huge secret," Hermione pointed out.

"I know, but...like a fairy-tale book," the dark-haired wizard offered. "Or rather, a series of them. When they start out, they're just stories for her to read and enjoy, and if any other Muggle were to read them, they'd only think, 'What an imaginative story.' But later volumes would start treating it like it's real, if still like a story, so that when she was let into the secret, she'd be better-prepared than most Muggle-borns and Muggle-raised usually are. You being the know-it-all exception, of course," he teased her with a grin.

Hermione slugged him on the arm. "You and Ron were total prats to me, those first two months! It was awful, not having any friends."

Harry winced, but didn't protest. He just rubbed his bicep for a moment, then gave her a one-armed hug. "We're not prats at heart. A little thick at times, but not prats. And if we hadn't been so horrid to you, we wouldn't have felt so bad about it, and we wouldn't have gone looking for you." He squeezed her shoulders. "I think that we suffer for a reason. That, so long as we don't stay nasty towards one another, that we honestly try to make amends, it serves a greater purpose in the end."

Staring at him, Hermione wondered if he knew just how hypocritical his hatred of Severus Snape was, in the face of those words. Hang on, Hermione, she chided herself, catching a glimpse of Russel carrying a stack of plates from the study to the kitchen as he passed by the living room. All he knows about Snape is that he 'turned traitor' back last spring. He doesn't know Snape is Russel, that he's still been doing a lot of good things...and that he's still on our side, however unorthodox his means.

Lifting her gaze back to her brother, she gave him a lopsided smile. "I hope you really do believe that, Harry."

...

"Ms. Granger. Mr. Fawkeson."

Hermione and Russel stopped in the doorway of Madam Pince's office. They hadn't expected to encounter Minerva McGonagall in the school library, but the Headmistress was waiting for them. "Professor," Hermione acknowledged. "Is there something you wanted to discuss?"

"Yes. Arthur said Russel, here, was going to find out what he could," Minerva returned, folding her arms across her crimson-clad chest. "I feel it is time for another one of your progress updates. My office."

"We have to work on the potion," Russel interjected quietly. "But...the first part will only take half an hour, then we will have about an hour to discuss matters. You could come to us at that time, if you wish."

"No, I want you in my office. The password for the stairs is 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'...and if you come by Floo, it's 'Peter Rabbit'," she informed them, peering over her spectacles at the pair. "Where are Messrs. Potter and Weasley?"

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Moody challenged us to try sneaking around this afternoon without being heard or seen, and, well...we weren't very good at it, what with all the creaking floorboards and such. They're still practicing. He only let me go because I have to handle the potion."

"Mm, yes, 'constant vigilance'. Sneaking around is a good skill to have," the Headmistress allowed. "Especially since you've been spotted once or twice in these very halls...when you weren't supposed to be seen at all. My office, in just over half an hour."

"Yes, ma'am." A subdued nod of her head, and Hermione hustled the wizard at her side out of the library, heading for the seventh floor.

One could Floo out of the Room of Requirement, but one couldn't Floo into it, unfortunately. Not unless someone was in the room, anchoring the requirement of a Floo-connected hearth. They'd learned that one the hard way. Trying to Floo to an address that didn't exist at that moment only spun the person around very dizzily, and spat them out of their original hearth. About the only good thing that could be said for such a sooty, dirty, vertigo-inducing endeavor was that it did seem to clean the chimney flue, though it dirtied the carpets.

Thus, roughly half an hour later, Hermione and Russel spun out of the Floo connecting the Room of Requirement with the Headmistress' office. Her husband had looked less and less like Russel as the half-hour progressed, and more and more like Severus, despite his blond hair and grey eyes. She had carefully addressed him by his disguise-name when informing him that the next simmering stage was upon them, and had watched him rebuild himself with a deep breath. But the grey eyes that he averted from hers were dark and troubled.

She didn't have to be a Seer to accurately guess why. On spilling out of the hearth, she watched him dust himself off and resolutely not look at the portrait-lined walls. Instead, he focused his attention on his former colleague, now the Headmistress of the school. "...You wanted to see us, ma'am?"

"Yes," Minerva agreed, peering at him over the tops of her spectacles. Hermione wasn't even the recipient of that look, and she felt like a truant schoolchild. "It is time you reported to me. Hopefully this will take less than an hour, since I realize you have to return to your mystery potion. But there are certain protocols that need to be discussed.

"Hermione may be your wife and your most immediate contact, but you claim to be a member of the same side as Albus, and Albus has confirmed this matter. Therefore you will report to me, upon occasion, as I am the new general of our side's more covert forces...and a spy among the Dark Lord's numbers is about as covert as it gets. What have you found out about the attack at the Ministry of Magic, Christmas Eve?"

He clasped his hands behind his back, adopting a sort of militant, parade-rest stance. "Not a damned thing, ma'am."

The Headmistress arched her brow at that, visibly torn between surprise and skepticism. "You've had three days!"

"I returned, I listened, I skulked, I asked the most innocuous questions I could safely manage...and I heard nothing. Saw nothing. Learnt nothing," Russel drawled in his North American accent. "Unless you want to know the 'presents' given to the Dark Hoser for his enjoyment. A subject, I assure you, that is not fit for civilized people to hear, however strong-stomached you may think you are."

"Nothing unusual happened? No one was absent? Not even a normal activity disrupted for some excuse that you couldn't confirm?" Minerva queried probingly. Hermione had to admire her sharp mind, when the lattermost question made Russel frown softly.

"There was one, now that I think about it... Bones was absent, the night in question. There were a handful of others who weren't around, myself included," he dismissed, then shook his head. "But Bones is one of the oldest and most loyal of his followers. He is never sent away on a mission, though he is not always Summoned. Bones is a close relative of the Groswights; he manages some of their northernmost properties, and cannot be absent for long because of this visibility. Of all of those who were punished after the Dark Lord's return--and we all were punished for our lack of faith, or for being imprisoned in Azkaban, or for lying about our loyalties--he was the only one who has never been harmed. I have never seen the Dark Lord angry at Bones, either.

"He is there for all of the major revels," Russel revealed slowly, thoughtfully. "He is also the only one the Dark Lord entrusts with the safety of the brand that binds us through the Dark Mark."

Hermione bit her lip to keep from gasping at that information. This Bones was the man they'd have to look for, the man who held Voldemort's most cunning Horcrux. There was the Mirror of Erised's vision of destroying the brand during the moment a new Death Eater was being made that she and her friends would have to heed, yes, but it would be good to know who held onto the thing in the meantime, to know who to look for when it was being brought forth.

"But he wasn't there, Christmas Eve, when nearly everyone else had been invited to attend. I wasn't there, but I was excused, on the understanding that I was supposed to further insinuate myself into my wife's life, and the lives of the other Order members."

"Yes, yes," Minerva dismissed. "But you learnt nothing at all?"

He shook his head, then shrugged. "I still have a few more avenues of enquiry, but they will have to wait until I have a suitable opportunity to employ them."

"Make sure you do," Minerva ordered him. "And report back to me on the results. That's an order."

"...I only take orders from my wife, ma'am."

Hermione quirked her brows at that. So did Minerva. Russel was smiling, but it wasn't necessarily a friendly smile.

"I beg your pardon?" the Headmistress said, sitting back a little.

"I may work with you, but I don't work for you, ma'am."

"Now see here, young man--"

"--I spied for Albus Dumbledore, and only Albus Dumbledore. Now I spy for Hermione Jane. As a courtesy to her, I have given my report to you," Russel stated arrogantly, lifting his chin and making himself look like a Canadian-accented, dark-blond Lucius Malfoy for a moment. "Do not make the mistake of thinking you command my loyalties, ma'am. Respect, yes. Loyalty, no."

Minerva looked at Hermione, who shrugged helplessly. She didn't know what game Russel was playing, either. The older witch peered past him at the wall. "Albus? Is this true?"

At the familiar voice, Hermione turned halfway so that she could see him more easily, but the man at her side didn't move.

"It is true, Minerva. Indeed, he only works for Hermione because I ordered him to do so," the painted figure of the former Headmaster stated.

"Well, then, order him to work for me!"

"I'm afraid I cannot do that, Minerva," Albus countered calmly. "The situation is more complicated than you realize, and it involves oaths of a nature I cannot reveal in front of others." He smiled benignly as his replacement bristled and added, "You would all have to take a 'prefect patrol' before I could discuss the matter. And even then...it would not be guaranteed. Not until I had heard his report and gauged it accordingly."

The portrait of Phineas Nigellus snorted. "Even as a portrait, you're still trying to run the world, Albus!"

"Not the whole world, Phineas. Just managing those of my original plans that cannot be shifted aside, nor discussed in front of anyone who is not privy to this particular secret. ...Well, Minerva?" Albus asked her. "Are you going to order the others to leave with you so that I may have a word with this gentleman? Or shall we go on about our business? They have a potion to brew in about forty minutes, if I remember correctly."

The former Transfigurations professor stared at the wizard on the wall. Finally, she sighed. "All others, please leave the room for twenty minutes. That's all I can give you, Albus. Come, Miss Granger."

"She will remain," he countered. "At least, for a few minutes."

The look Minerva McGonagall gave him should've curled his paint, but the Headmistress let it go. Sighing, she rose and headed towards a door tucked next to a display case. "There are days when it is difficult to fully trust a manipulator like you, Albus. And nights, too, like this one."

"I can only plead that I am trying to do what is best for our world."

Silently, the other portraits retreated out of the room. When they were gone, Albus waited a moment, more, his gaze patiently resting on the back of the younger wizard. Hermione, standing at her husband's side, could see he had closed his eyes and fisted his hands, as if bracing himself for torture.

"Severus. Severus, turn and look at me."

"I can't...I can't--I must go--" Whirling, head bent low, he strode for the door.

"Severus Snape, stop!"

He halted.

"Severus Snape...look at me," Dumbledore commanded. As Hermione watched, understanding unfurling within her, Russel lifted his ash blond head, meeting the older wizard's gaze with glistening eyes, and a body so rigid, Hermione wondered why she couldn't hear his bones creak. "Severus Snape...I forgive you."

A wordless scream escaped that tanned throat, crawling its way free with an intensity that made Hermione shiver. She expected him to grab one of the objects on the table next to him and hurl it at the older wizard's portrait...but instead, her husband collapsed with a raw, rough sob, slumping on his knees, his hands fisting in his hair. Torn with the need to go to him, yet give him his space and what little dignity was left, Hermione glanced at Albus' portrait, unsure if she should even approach. Albus nodded, silently confirming her choice. Crossing to Severus, she knelt by the crying, spell-tanned man.

He tried to shove her away, when she wrapped her arms around him. Tightening her jaw, Hermione pulled him back against her, holding him firmly, but not bruisingly. He was, she suspected, not a man accustomed to being given physical comfort.

He's probably a man accustomed to crying alone, because no one would care long enough to comfort him, thanks to the unpleasant personality he cultivated. A man who had a less-than-lovely childhood, for that matter, she reminded herself. Parents who cheated on each other, who separated, and then died, abandoning him. One in a car-crash, the other in a murder. And given how no one ever mentioned his own mother being one of the teachers at this school...he probably received very little affection from his parents while they were still alive...

"Severus, listen to me," Albus stated as the other wizard's grief subsided into near-silent, shuddering breaths. "You took a calculated risk. One that I admit I goaded you into making. One that I demanded of you. It succeeded...on all fronts, more or less as expected. The fact that I am where I am now is not meant to trouble you, but to give you strength, and hope."

That's an odd thing to say...the fact that Professor Dumbledore is dead is something that's meant to give Severus hope? Hermione thought, frowning softly in confusion.

"...As for you, Hermione, I am pleased to see you are taking my advice to heart."

The man in her arms stilled. That meant he was listening. Hermione flushed and averted her head, muttering an epithet under her breath. "Bastard."

Severus twisted in her arms, pushing her over. Hermione found herself lying on the carpet, her blond-haired husband nipping at her mouth, one hand tugging up her jumper so that he could slide his hand under the fabric, cup her breast, and knead her flesh. Parting her lips to demand an explanation for his sudden behaviour, to protest in embarrassment that they really shouldn't be doing this in front of their late Headmaster, she found her ability to speak muffled by his tongue commandeering hers. It really wasn't fair that he was such a good kisser; a man whose tongue was notorious for lashing and cutting others shouldn't have so much talent when snogging his wife...

The fingers massaging her nipple through the cup of her brassiere slid down her abdomen again. Tugging briefly at the waistband of her jeans, they abandoned the garment. A tap at her hip and a slither of Transfiguring fabric made her tip her head back with a gasp; he'd replaced her denim trousers with some sort of skirt, and was now rucking up the fabric, pushing it out of his way. His mouth sucked on her jaw, then on the tender flesh of her throat.

"Se...Russel!" Hermione hissed, eyes fluttering open but unseeing; his fingers had found the leg-band of her knickers and were burrowing their way underneath. "Not in front of him!"

The scrape of lips and teeth were briefly interrupted for a low, loud growl. "Get out."

"...I was just thinking of doing that, myself. I'll, erm, go talk with the others. Don't forget about that potion you have to brew!"

Throat under renewed attack, hips wanting to flex under the rubbing, circling caress of his fingers against her dampening folds, Hermione strained to see the walls of portraits. She caught a glimpse of purple robes vanishing through a frame in the corner, and felt relief at being alone. "...What do you think you're doing, attacking me like this? In front of him?"

Lifting his head, he stared down at her. His grey-coloured eyes were a little reddened around the edges from crying, his thin lips a little swollen from kissing her. Breath escaped in heavy pants from his lungs. A shift of his lower body nudged her legs apart, and his fingers came back, pulling the crotch of her knickers aside; his own undergarment had already been tucked down out of the way. Glans nudging against her opening, he sniffed to clear his sinuses, and gave her an arch, arrogant look.

"Lesson One, wife. Anytime...anywhere!" He thrust forward on the last word. She wasn't completely wet; he only lodged about halfway inside, but gentle rocking lubricated their connection, allowing him to slide deeper. His hand came back, delving below the rumpled folds of her Transfigured skirt and his kilt. Lowering his head, he nipped and suckled her lips, a two-front attack, for his fingers slotted to either side of her clitoris and began squeezing and rubbing in rhythm with his thrusts.

Hermione gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment. Intercourse on a hard wooden floor, even if most of her back was lying on a tapestry-rug, wasn't entirely comfortable, but just lifting her knees eased the pressure on the small of her back. He moaned into her mouth, his palm caressing and kneading the muscles of her thigh, lifting it higher in encouragement.

"Mmmh, good...mmmh, good!"

The words were half-muffled, but the sounds were just as greedy as ever. He wanted her. However it had come about, he wanted her enough to take her on the floor of the Headmistress' study, uncaring of who might have seen. The hand down at her folds kept her undergarment pulled to one side even as it rubbed and massaged. The other one, elbow braced on the floor to take up a fraction of his weight, buried its fingers in her curls, holding her head at the perfect angle for a ravishing kiss.

Rising towards her peak, left leg now twined high on his hip and her right knee bent by his thigh, Hermione vaguely heard something click, heard something thump rhythmically. But what was happening to her was too distracting, too delicious to focus on the importance of those noises. He was grinding himself into her now, his right hand freeing itself from where they were joined, slotting instead between their mating, panting mouths, bringing the scent of sweat and sex and musk to entangle the last of her senses. Both of them licked at her moisture, tongued meeting and sliding between his fingers. She was almost there, almost--

"Hermione? Russel--oh, dear god!"

Head thunking on the edge of the carpet her body arched, Hermione barely registered the shock of being interrupted; it was lost in the shock of her climax, in the scent of her own musk, the moaning of her throat, the dampness on his hand smearing onto her chin, the hot puffs of her husband's breath as he groaned her middle name. She felt his stomach clench, felt the twitching of his shaft, the tickling pulses of his ejaculate filling her deep inside.

The door slammed shut. That clearly registered. An unwitting laugh escaped her, part humor, part embarrassment, part bone-deep, lingering pleasure. The dark blond head resting in the curve of her neck lifted itself, then flicked impatiently to shift the long strands of hair out of his way. His tanned face was flushed, with just a hint of embarrassment behind a facade of unconcern. "What?"

"We probably looked like Tonks and Remus!" she laughed, unable to help herself. At his puzzled look, she choked back most of her giggles and rolled her eyes. "It was a while ago--the boys, Minerva and I all Portkeyed into Headquarters, and there they were, on the carpet in the library, completely oblivious to us!"

"Well, I would like to be completely oblivious," a familiar voice sneered from nearby, "but unfortunately, I had to come back in time to see that! "

It was Phineas Nigellus--the only Slytherin to ever become Hogwarts Headmaster, as far as Hermione knew. She squeaked in embarrassment, but a wide-eyed glance at the wall showed him to be the only occupant in the portrait frames, an occupant who had turned his back on them. He spoke again, his voice somewhere between bored and impatient, and just a little bit snarky, as if trying to hide his envy.

"If you're quite finished, I've been delegated the unwitting victim of waiting until you're decent, then fetching the others. They seem to think that a reminder of the joys of martial bliss might make me a nicer man, instead of reminding me that I am dead."

Russel levered himself up enough to slide free of her body and discreetly readjust their clothing under the covering folds of his kilt. "Considering what I've seen some of the Hogwarts portraits get up to when they think no one's watching late at night, being a bunch of oil daubs is only as miserable an existence as one's personal prudery will demand."

He started to rise onto his knees, then flashed Hermione a wicked grin. Backing down the length of her body, he lifted the red wool of her skirt and threw it over his head. Breath sucking in sharply, she checked the paintings to be sure the only one occupied was Phineas, then dropped her head back to the floor, feeling him pulling aside the damp crotch of her undergarment. A nuzzle of his nose, an audible, deep inhale, and he lapped and sucked at the liquid trickling from her depths.

Still sensitive from her climax, Hermione gasped again, this time with a buck of pleasure; it took only a few strokes of that wicked tongue to tip her back over the edge of her pleasure. This time, she fought to stay silent. Shuddering, she clutched at the carpet until he finally stopped, then slowly relaxed, panting heavily. A tap of her skirt Transfigured it back into jeans as he extracted himself. Crawling up the length of her body, he cradled her limp head in his palms, and shared their combined flavours in a deep, musk-scented kiss.

Someone knocked on the door, impatiently. Breaking the kiss with a sigh, Russel stood, pulling Hermione up with him. Her limbs felt like they'd been hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx. Embracing her, half-supporting her, he kissed her thoroughly again. That didn't exactly help her regain her equilibrium; all it did was make her muscles tremble and her body ache with returning need.

"Come in, Minerva! They're upright...though I wouldn't call them decent," the portrait of Phineas added snidely. "Whoever this Russel fellow is, he surely would've been a Gryffindor, to be so brash and brazen like that."

Pulling back as the Headmistress re-entered her study, Russel tossed over his shoulder, "Slytherin, actually. I can't help it if you were born with an icicle for a di--"

Hermione smothered his mouth with her hand, blushing. Minerva shut the door, her cheeks flushed with spots of colour. The look she leveled on the two of them was pointed, and disappointed.

"My office is not an appropriate place for such...for such shenanigans! You are both adults, and you should know when and where such behaviour is acceptable, and when and where it is not!--Twenty points from both your Houses, for sneaking back onto the school grounds for a snog--and five more apiece, for doing so in this office!"

Her sharp chastisement reminded Hermione of being caught by Filch, the first time she'd snuck Russel into the school. Grinning up at the man still holding her, she asked, "...Well, Bob Sherleigh, that's twenty-five points each from our alma maters. Was it worth it?"

"Of course it was. And don't call me Sherleigh," he added, making her do a double-take at the Muggle joke. He shuddered a little. "I'd rather not be related to Argus, thank you."

Minerva stared at them as if they'd both lost their wits. Shaking her head, she fixed Russel with a sharp stare. "Well. You were supposed to talk things over with Albus, about obeying my orders."

"--We discussed things, yes," Albus interjected, striding in from the corner of the room as he returned to his portrait. "And it was decided that, like Harry, Hermione and Ron, Russel should remain something of a free agent. You must understand, Minerva," he added chidingly, peering at his successor over the tops of his half-moon spectacles, "that a spy cannot take the same level of orders as a more normal sort of participant in this war.

"Russel is under orders to do whatever it takes to maintain his position as our most carefully hidden spy. The fact that he is now in a relationship with Hermione both complicates and compromises that secrecy, even as it advances our cause! We cannot put any more pressure on the lad than we already have--and I will not have you bearing down with the final ounce of weight that will break his back!"

"Really, Professor," Hermione interjected quietly as the two stared each other down, past Headmaster versus current Headmistress, "it's no different than what Harry, Ron and I are doing right now. And you have my word that I will keep an eye on what he's doing."

Minerva snorted inelegantly. "--You don't even know who he is!"

"Actually, she does. But don't bother asking, ma'am," Russel warned her. "None of us will tell you, for your safety's sake."

"I don't like operating blind!" she protested, scowling at all three of them.

"We know," Hermione soothed. "But the Muggles have a phrase, 'plausible deniability'. It means if you don't know about something, you cannot be held accountable for whatever happens, regarding it."

Studying the three of them, Minerva heaved an irritated sigh. "It seems the three of you are determined to pursue this matter in your own fashion, no matter what course I might think would be better suited for you. Very well. Do what you must and do what you may, even if you'll damn us all to hell by it."

Russel gave her a coaxing smile. "You don't really think that, do you?"

A pointed look over her spectacles killed any hope that his blond, tanned, Canadian charm might have won her over. "You have a potion to finish, Mr. and Mrs. Fawkeson...or whatever your surname is. I suggest you get to it--but you will report to me in two week's time, at least one of you, as to how your project is faring. Dismissed."

Exchanging wordless looks, Hermione and Russel stepped up to the hearth. He paused after he reached for a fistful of Floo powder, looking up at the purple-clad wizard above and to the left of the mantel. Hermione could see a muscle working in his jaw, before he stated quietly, "...He was asking after you, during a visit to Hogsmeade, wanting to know if you were...alright. What should I tell him?"

"That I'm fine," Albus shrugged. "A little bored of the view, but fine."

"Do you need anything?" Russel asked the portrait of his former employer. "A painting of a library, or of a bedroom or something?"

"I'll be fine. I can go wandering through the other paintings late at night, if I want a different venue, though I try not to do so outside the hours of curfew. It wouldn't do to upset the students," he stated gently. The younger wizard looked away, at that. "Remember my words, Russel. They should be a comfort to you, if you can accept them as true."

Casting the powder into the flames, Russel caught Hermione's hand, pulling her into the flames with him, without answering the older wizard.

...

"...And stir five times clockwise, then simmer, covered, over ashen embers of olive wood for three weeks, adding one and a third cups of water per day," Hermione stated, lifting her gaze from the book. She watched her husband enchanting the brazier on which the cauldron currently rested; a bin of olive wood chips sat nearby. A few glowing runes, and the bin would supply the embers in the brazier with a steady supply of wood for fuel while they were busy elsewhere. Another slash of his wand as he stepped through the first of the protective ward-circles, and his clothing and hair ruffled, spell-cleansed.

"I will need to check on the simmering each night and add the water, but it should be fine," he stated, cleansing himself again as he passed through the second layer of protections. "We have a few things to discuss, now that we have the time to do so."

Closing the tome on its bookmark, Hermione lifted a brow. "Oh? What things?"

"The other night--Boxing Day," he clarified, "--you cast a spell you claimed you made up on the spot." Grasping a tall laboratory stool, he carried it over next to the lectern and straddled it as soon as he set it down. "Explain how you managed that particular feat."

The order was a bit autocratic of him, but Hermione didn't protest. She settled back on her own stool with a shrug. "Well, I knew I had to stop everyone, to freeze them in place. But I'd forgotten about...um...that is..." Her fingers had brushed against the bracelet on her wrist. Flushing, she removed them and cleared her throat. "Well, I'd read about Hazel Plinkington's treatise on Stasis Charms and how they were Arithmantically similar to Impedimenta. And in Lyskell's book--the one I borrowed from you, Expanding Enchantments--there was a section on how to increase the coverage of the Stasis Charm across a range of similar objects, like several cauldrons, or a bed of daisies.

"But for something like that, the spell requires a specific limitation, such as the walls of a chamber or a house, or the brick border of a garden plot, that sort of thing. Otherwise the spell won't work," she explained. "That's the problem I've been running into, with the Protean-Forging Charm you wanted; you didn't say if you needed it specifically to work within a room, so I'm having to develop practically from scratch, rather than just an arbitrary boundary that I don't know if it'll work, let alone be broad enough in its scope. So, anyway, I used the boundaries of my parent's house, specified that it was for people, and commanded that everything stop.

"Of course, I used the langua magica francaise, because in the book Languae Magicum, it discussed how French was particularly effective at multiple-target Charm-work, and Professor Flitwick taught us back in first year that magic is best expressed in a foreign language, because we don't consciously think of the actual meaning of a word in our native tongue when we use it. But when we speak in a foreign tongue--Latin, being a dead language, is the most commonly used one--we force our minds to concentrate on the meaning behind the words we're reciting, and that focuses the mind, which focuses the magic, which allows the new spell to take shape. And that's how I came up with the All-Stop Charm," she concluded. "It's adaptable to other things besides people, but it does have the drawback of not lasting for very long, as you yourself pointed out."

He stared at her.

"What?" Hermione asked defensively, as he just stared at her with those grey eyes.

"...You have a true affinity for Charms work," her husband finally replied. "As sure a talent for it as I have for Potions. I couldn't have thought of all of that on the fly, as you did. Not unless it pertained to improvising brews and draughts."

Blushing at the praise, Hermione looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. "Well...I've been thinking about what I should do with myself, after the war. I was thinking of apprenticing myself to Professor Flitwick, since I do have a knack for it, and he says he's getting on in years..."

His fingers plucked her wrist from her lap, lifting her bracelet into view. "Jane, what is this thing? You never remove it. What is it?"

She flushed and looked away, not wanting to give away her secret.

"What. Is. It?" Russel enunciated.

"It's a...a gift. From someone." Under his pointed, heavy stare, she fidgeted. "I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. What is it, Hermione?"

He used her first name. Hermione bit her lower lip, undecided for a long moment. Giving in, she sighed. "It's a Velocitemplet. A magical artifact made by Mr. Lubbock--he's a Chronomancer. You sent me a message about rescuing him, last summer. The first message you sent, via the rings."

"I remember. What, precisely, does it do?" Russel enquired. "It's not a Time-Turner, I trust?"

"It, um...well, it sort of speeds up my perception of time, making everything else seem to slow down. For a few minutes, at least--look, I don't want to talk about it," she told him bluntly. "I don't want the Dark Lord inkling it out of your mind, because that's how I escaped him, that time I was kidnapped. It's really exhausting to use, and I don't know what it'll do to me if I used it while I'm pregnant. If it would harm...anything. I haven't tried to use it since...um...since I removed your amulet."

"Take it off. Please," he added as she gave him a chiding look for his command. "I would like to examine it up close."

She tried. It wouldn't budge. "I don't think I can. Leastwise, not while it's still charged with time. I have to charge it, you see, sitting still on my bed for up to twenty-four minutes of not being able to anything. Then I can use it in four-minute bursts, at up to six different speeds. It's got twenty-four slots, see? They darken from mother-of-pearl to abalone, when each slot is used."

"Perhaps you should test it," he suggested. "One minute, at the slowest speed. If you have to use it in a future emergency, better to know now how it reacts to your pregnancy."

He had a point. Nodding, Hermione grasped the inner ring, and clicked it forward once. Nothing much really happened, save that the faint haze of steam coming from under the lidded cauldron at the far end of the chamber slowed to a misty crawl. When the bracelet clicked, however, she felt a jolt of nausea, and quickly pressed her hand to her stomach.

"--Urgh!"

"What?"

"I think I'm finally experiencing morning-sickness, that's all." She grimaced at the thought. "I'm really not looking forward to more of that.

His eyes narrowed in thought. "Maybe, and maybe not. Use up a few more minutes, maybe at one of the higher settings. Not too fast or too much, though."

Hesitating, Hermione waited until the nausea faded, then clicked the bracelet, enough for two minutes at three times normal speed. The nausea built up a lot faster, this time while time itself was slowed. Jolting back into normal-time, she clamped her hand over her mouth. Twisting off of the stool, she stumbled away from Russel, and vomited into the bucket the Room of Requirement thoughtfully provided in answer to her sudden, overwhelming need.

Warm hands caught her as she collapsed to her knees from the strength of her heaves. The clips in her hair held her locks mostly out of the way, but the ends still dangled close to the bucket. He gathered the ends behind her back, and summoned a warm, damp cloth and a mug of water as the nausea slowly quelled its attack on her system. Wiping her mouth, Hermione waited a few minutes, then wished the bucket away when her body didn't try anything more.

"That...definitely...gave me morning-sickness."

"Use up the rest of the minutes, one at a time," the wizard at her back directed her, "remove the bracelet, and hand it to me."

"Excuse me?" Hermione challenged him, quirking her brow. "It's my bracelet!"

"And it clearly taxes your system more than is safe for you and our child to endure," Severus returned firmly, sounding like a strange mix between the commanding of Snape and the cadjoling of Russel. "Do not argue with me! Lesson Number Five: when I give you an order that is clearly meant for your own safety, you will obey it, without questioning or arguing."

That made her snort, though it reminded her throat of how sore it was from its most recent activity. "As if! What you might consider to be dangerous or safe, and what I consider to be dangerous or safe, are two differ--"

His hand covered her mouth, silencing her. Before she could issue a muffled protest, he breathed in her ear, "You said this marriage is the lynch-pin of winning this war. You are far more protected than I am, right now, thanks to our rings. Giving me the bracelet will give me an edge against the others, in addition to protecting both you and our child from the side-effects of temporal distortion. Do this, Jane...and I will concede that Lesson Six will be the same as Lesson Five, applying conversely to me. Do we have a deal?"

It didn't take Hermione long to weigh the potential threat to her pregnancy if she kept the bracelet for herself, versus the threat to their only spy if she kept it. "...We have a deal."

One click at a time, Hermione divested her bracelet of its stored supply of time. The nausea was stronger than the first time, though not quite bucket-summoning in strength. Almost strong enough to need the bucket at the end, but not quite. Tugging and twisting carefully, she got the bracelet to release itself from her flesh.

"You'll want to wait until just before bedtime, before charging that," she offered as he wedged it over his hand, settling it onto his right wrist under the cuff of his jumper. "And be in a safe place, too. I wouldn't advise doing it at Death Eater Central."

"I'm not that stupid," he muttered, pushing to his feet. "I'll charge it at the hotel. In the meantime, I want you to show me that place you mentioned, where you found Mother's barrette."

Nodding, Hermione accepted the hand he offered, helping her to rise. A thought struck her. "Wanting the Defence position, all those years--did you want it, in the hopes of maybe finding out something from when your mother was the Defence Professor? Something about her lover?"

"A little bit," he confessed reluctantly. "But I didn't find anything. Perhaps she left a clue in this little grotto of hers."

"Perhaps," Hermione agreed, though she didn't hold much hope for the matter. Concentrating, she made the door to the junk-room materialize.