Epilogue

Epilogue

Hermione hated her thighs. To be quite honest, most women feel they are a bit on the squidgy side, no? But Severus secretly adored her supple softness: the way his fingers sank into the flesh when he grasped her hips. He reckoned one would be hard pressed to find a single straight line on her entire body – he himself had spent a particularly languid afternoon examining her with close attention and found nothing but curves. He called her his 'little nectarine', for she was sweet, ripe, juicy – and more sophisticated than your average peach.

They had once spent hours, fingers entwined, wrapped up in the drama of skin on skin – the warmth. Feeling the blood running, the pulse under the thin skin of the wrist, tracing the bones of the top of the hand, the soft pouches of skin underneath the fingers. Seeing the blue tracery of veins under skin as clear as skimmed milk. The place under the fingernail where the skin transitions to the hard, shell-like nail with a slight catch. Slow sensuous stroking of fingers on skin made tactile and rough with sweat. The struggle for dominance when the fingers interlace and the web of one junction presses tight against another, the light scraping of fingernails – the clink of their rings.

The rings were a custom design in platinum – a parade of letters spelling out a phrase with special meaning for them, enciphered with a Muggle computer trick called 'rot13' and charmed to shuffle their order at random intervals so that no one else would ever know their secret.

She kissed his ear and whispered, "I love you."

He repeated, "I lobe you?" They laughed.

He gently lifted the mass of hair off the delicate, vulnerable, hidden spot at the base of the skull. He nuzzled the back of her neck. "I nape you."

She huffed an excited shiver. "You certainly do 'Snape me'!"

"Oh, is that what the children are calling it these days?"

They both laughed.

She kissed his eyelids. "I vitreous humour you."

He kissed her forehead. "I prefrontal cortex you."

She kissed the tip of his nose. "I aquiline you."

He pressed the side of his face to her chest, listening to her heart beating. "I ventricle you."

She tugged his head up for a kiss – a long langurous, voluptuous kiss. She impishly whispered in his ear, "I tongue you," and she blushed.

He pulled back to be able to look her in the eyes, and then he blushed too.

She splayed her hand across his chest, stroking the soft skin covering his breastbone. "I clavicle you" – she dipped her fingers into the intercostal notch and followed up with a soft, breathy kiss.

Then she darted down in a surprise attack and nibbled on a nipple. "I nip you!"

"Aha, Madam Snape! Two can play at that game!"

---***000O000***---

"I had a dream about you, about us . . ."

"And was your behaviour suitably reprehensible?"

"I patted you on the bum, but that's the extent of it. We had two children, though, so reprehensible actions can be inferred."

"Two! Boys?"

"A boy and a girl."

"I've heard that the fashion nowadays is to name children modern Muggle names – a touch of the exotic."

"No, no – they had proper Wizarding names. Justinian – named after a Roman emperor, just like you" – a quick glance at him, but he smirked and shook his head in a negation.

"Family name, I'm afraid."

"Well, it was my dream, and in my dream you're named after an emperor and so is our son, only we called him Justin, for short. And the girl was Eileen, for—"

"My mother." A pause. "Thank you, your unconscious is remarkably solicitous."

"I try."

"I had heard that you were trying . . ." She whapped him on the arm and favoured him with a mock scowl. He held her face in his hands and placed small, precise kisses on her scowl lines before brushing his lips across hers.

He sat back and looked intently at her face.

"What's the matter? Do I have a spot? Am I displaying the signs of Parani Fever?"

"No, no . . . nothing is amiss. Everything is as it should be. I'm just astounded that even your faults, your flaws, your glowers fill me with a tender regard for you. I must be going soft in the head."

"Clearly. Is there anything that can be done to halt the decline? I'd hate to see the great Severus Snape drooling and muttering, fit only to kiss the hem of his wife's robes."

---***000O000***---

She sat on one of the comfortable chairs, reading – her profile backlit and knife-sharpened by the fire in the grate. Watching the contours of her face wax and wane in the inconstant light, Severus was reminded of another time he had watched her.

"I have a question for you, my dear . . ."

Hermione placed the bookmark in the crease, closed the book and looked up at him. Her face was open and reflected an engaged interest.

"When we went to the concert, in New York, were you wearing stockings with a suspender belt?"

She gave a slight start and a sputtered laugh. "What? Just now, you were wondering if I was wearing girly-girl stockings?"

"I am not in my dotage, Hermione. My memory is as clear as ever. Something put me in mind of it, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to Answer. The. Question."

"Yes."

"'Yes', you'll answer the question, or 'yes', you were wearing stockings?"

"Both," she said with a smirk.

"The further question remains as to whether you took the traditional route of also wearing, shall we say, special occasion knickers?" Severus tried very, very hard to seem as though this question followed logically from his first query and not that it was the end goal he had had in mind.

"No."

"No, you won't answer the question, or 'no', you weren't wearing fancy knickers? Hermione, this is getting quite tedious."

"Is it? I thought I was having quite a success, teasing you." She got up from her chair and walked over to him. At a slight gesture, he sat upright and presented her with a level lap on which to perch. She sat sideways on his knees and twined her arm around his shoulder, under his hair and tucked it into the soft part of his neck. She leaned close to his head and whispered into his ear. For a full breath, he was perfectly still. Hermione was seen to blush. From that point proceeded physical declarations of love and affection that were entirely pleasing to both parties.

The End