Part II

Winky Apparated to a safe spot behind the pheasant house and stretched her magic to locate the Potions master. As expected, he was in the thick of things. Molly Weasley, however, was available. Winky took her hand and did not lose much time explaining, rather she spirited her away to Bramble Cottage. She would tell Master Severus later, first babies rarely were born quickly.

The Weasley matriarch knew that her children and husband were safe and mostly sound, which was why she lent that odd elf an ear. She told her that Mistress Snape was having her baby right now. Molly knew nothing about a secret Snape wife, but then she did not know a lot about the taciturn man save that he took his tea black with two sugars, and that he needed fattening up.

"I do not know where Severus is."

"I will look for him after; you is to help Missus now."

"All right then, let's go." She took the proffered arm and braced herself for Side-along.

...-

Mrs Weasley was about to let loose a barrage of questions when Hermione had a particularly painful contraction. This directed Molly's focus onto more important things than how, when and why Hermione had become Mrs Snape. The young woman was bundled up in more comfortable clothing and told to walk around as long as possible while a bath and the bed were prepared.

...-

Having delivered a thoroughly perplexed Mrs Weasley to Bramble Cottage, Winky left again to look for Severus. After a while she grew frantic when she couldn't locate him anywhere. House-elves usually could find their masters and families and Apparate to their side. The only time this wouldn't work was when the magic of those wizards or witches was failing or suppressed. Which never happened for a good reason. There! Winky detected a very faint signal from the lower dungeon corridors. With a pop she appeared next to the Potions master who was sitting against a wall amidst a lot of rubble.

"Master Snape!"

"Winky! I am glad to see you."

"Is Master hurt?"

"Only scratches. But my magic has nearly burned out again. Please fetch me Pepper-up and a Strengthening Solution from my stores, I have to go back."

"Master, no! You cannot! You need food and sleep! And the Mistress is having the baby right now!"

"Who is with her?" With that he tried to stand up, but failed.

"I bringed the Mistress Weasley to her."

He scrambled up again and managed a wobbly stand, trying to reach a decision. "Winky, please help me to a chair. I will then take a Strenghtening Solution and wait here. You will try to find out as much as possible about the battle and then take me to Hermione."

"But Master, you will hurt yourself more if you take the potion now."

"It will take a bit longer to build up my magic again if I take a potion now, but I won't sleep while my child is born."

This reassured Winky, and it pleased her to no end to hear master talk about his child. The Snapes might think they were married in name only, but the little elf would not give up her dream of serving a real family with lots of children. She popped away to the North tower of Malfoy Manor which would give her a good overview. Seeing only a few skirmishes near the boundaries of the property while on the front lawn people could be heard celebrating, she deduced that the battle was over, one way or another. Concentrating, she Apparated to Dobby's side, who promptly spun her around in circles.

"We won, Winky, we won! Master Harry Potter vanquished the Evil Wizard!"

"I is very glad, Dobby. Please tell me, how are the Weasleys and Harry Potter and the Malfoys?"

"Mr Ronald is being treated for a broken leg, and Mr Fred singed his hair off with fireworks, all the others are well."

"Dobby, tell Master Harry and Master Ron in the morning that the baby is being born."

"What baby?"

"They will know."

...-

The Strengthening Solution was doing its job, but Severus knew that it would last no more than six hours. Hopefully his daughter or son would be born by then.

Molly Weasley had assured him that all was progressing smoothly and sent him to take a shower after checking for injuries and stray hexes, muttering that no one, not even an expectant father was allowed straight from the battlefield into a birthing room.

He was grateful for the shower. Molly had healed his minor injuries, most were from falling masonry in the dungeon corridors. Theo Nott had alerted his former Head of house to a bomb which would trap and kill all the young Death Eater children who were held captive in the dungeons. Voldemort had ordered his followers to bring their children to Malfoy manor under the guise of establishing a Death Eater nursery and primary school. A few mothers had refused and been punished severely, which brought about the compliance of the others quickly.

During his sprint down to the dungeons, Snape had met his former Slytherins, Vincent, Greg and Pansy. To his great relief they followed their former Head of House and herded the children out of the cellars towards safety while the Potions master cast and held his strongest Shield. Before collapsing, he saw Vincent and Greg running upstairs with toddlers under each arm.

Donning a T-shirt and sweat bottoms, he made his way to Hermione's bedroom.

...-

Hermione had stopped walking around as the contractions were coming by the minute. Molly beckoned Severus to sit on the bed behind the expectant mother. He took his place and, after seemingly endless hours, when he felt the Strengthening Solution wane, the young woman was told to push by Molly. Forty minutes later the cries of a newborn filled the room. Hermione gathered her daughter, for it was a girl, close with a tremulous smile, and Severus tightened his arms around both of them. The cynic in him knew that the baby looked like other newborns - angry red face, slightly misshapen head and matted black hair - but still something in him broke irrevocably when first setting eyes on the little girl.

Hermione pressed a kiss onto her - their - daugther's brow and settled more comfortably into his embrace.

"What is her name?"

"I was thinking of Victoria Eileen, if that is all right with you."

They had never talked a lot about his childhood, but somehow his house mate had guessed how important his mother had been to him.

The Potions master could only nod. Thankfully, his tears were lost in Hermione's hair.

Molly cleaned little Victoria up perfunctorily and sent Severus into the other room to dress her while the women attended to the afterbirth. Mrs Weasley deemed everything to be as it ought to be and helped the new mother into the shower. Returning, she noticed that Severus was on his last leg and settled father and daughter into his bed as Hermione's was not quite usable. Cuddling little Victoria close, he fell asleep nearly instantly. Twenty-four hours later he opened his eyes to the sight of his daughter being nursed.

...-

The following weeks were magical. The little family lived in a happy bubble. Due to his magical depletion, Severus' needs were alike those of his daughter: food and sleep. Poppy Pomfrey had come over the morning after the final battle, pronouncing both mother and child perfectly healthy, the father less so. The former spy had protested at first against bedrest but had acquiesced soon after; it came out that Victoria fell asleep best while nestled against her father's chest.

The boys had come as well, bringing a now much used gift, a magical camera.

Although every hand was needed for the repairs at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore could do nothing else but lending them an elf for cooking and laundry, not if he wouldn't risk a gruesome death at Minerva's and Poppy's (and Molly's) hands.

Little Victoria Snape was no fussy child. While she woke her mother up every two hours for the first days, she soon enought settled into an easy four-hour-rhythm. The family's sleeping arrangements stayed like they had been the first night, Victoria cocooned between her parents in Severus' bed. Slowly gaining his strength back, the Potions master liked the hours of early dawn best when he woke before Hermione at the baby's first stirring. He then took his daughter up for a snuggle, talking to her, sometimes singing in a low voice. If he walked her, he could sometimes buy Hermione another precious hour of sleep.

Severus would walk up and down in front of the living room window, describing the birdcalls and explaining the various smells of herbs drifting up from the garden to the little one. With her shock of black hair, fair complexion and long limbs Victoria could easily have been his biological daughter. Severus tried not to think too much about a future in which he would not wake up next to her.

...-

Hermione looked out of the window and watched Severus working in the herb garden; Victoria's bassinet was gently bobbing nearby, in the shade of an elder bush. He had his physical strength back, even though he liked to take a nap in the afternoon, together with their daughter. Magically, he had a prolonged recovery before him, but didn't seem to be bothered by it at the moment. Hermione suspected that her usual way of doing things without magic, and both of their conviction that all things pertaining to their daughter's care were best done without magic helped as well. A nappy-changing charm was handy for sure if you were standing with a wet and cranky baby in a queue at Flourish and Blotts, but in day-to-day life she would not want to miss gently washing the little one, talking nonsense to her and listening to her cooing back, blowing raspberrys on her belly and tickling her toes. Neither did Severus, apparently.

During the last few years the young woman had dated superficially. Education and later work had always come first. The weeks after Victoria's birth had brought the insight that her life with Severus at Bramble Cottage was very close to how she had envisioned her marriage and family life as a girl: similar interests (books of all kinds and passion for magical theory and research), spirited discussions, a partnership of equality and mutual respect and enough personal space.

She was startled to realise how important Severus' well-being had become to her. Due to his magical depletion his Occlumency shields were non-existent; he had no recourse to stem the effects that the end of twenty years of dual slavery and carrying the weight of guilt, a very climatic battle and the birth of his child had wrought on his psyche. His emotions were all over the place, and he would start to cry at the drop of a hat. For instance, when the corners of Victoria's mouth twitched in sleep. Or when a mocking bird sang in the evening. At first Hermione tried to give him privacy, but soon her instincts won over. She would lay a hand on his shoulder or snuggle up to him or offer an embrace.

This led to several long conversations, mainly about the Potions master's childhood. Little by little did she teach Severus not to be embarrassed by his tears. When her efforts started to succeed, his episodes were already becoming rarer, but not due to new Occlumency shields. He had already told her that he would not employ permanent ones again, now that he was no longer spying. Hermione, who had always thought of herself as the antithesis of gentle and nurturing, found it surprisingly easy to do things Severus would like: making sure his favourite jam was always on the breakfast table, training Winky to dry his T-shirts in the sun instead of with a drying charm, meticulously marking articles in books they discussed as he liked to re-read them after their verbal sparring. In short she did everything to make a whole range of expressions appear on his face she had never witnessed during her school-days: contentedness (relaxed nostrils), mild exasperation tinged with slight mocking (right eyebrow up, lips pursed, eyes glittering), the half-smile (one corner of his mouth drawn up), the real smile (both corners, obviously) and the laughing smile (both corners up, eyes crinkling). The last one was usually reserved for Victoria, but once or twice Hermione had been its recipient and it frightened her a bit how much she craved its reappearance.

...-

Hermione went to join Severus and Victoria at the window. She took care to approach her husband with enough noise as she had learned early on in their cohabitation not to startle the former spy.

Putting her arm around his waist, she ignored that his posture was stiffening. This had been his reaction to casual touches during the last two weeks. Hermione put it down to their growing awareness of each other as a man and a woman.

"Severus, are you up to a trip to New Zealand? I want to introduce Victoria to her grandparents."

"If we travel by Portkey, it would be all right. But Kingsley might need my testimony."

She pondered this. "The trials won't start for the next two or three months. You do not have any new knowledge about possible whereabouts of fugitive Death Eaters that Lucius Malfoy could not supply as well."

The Potions master was silent. Victoria had heard her mother and had realised that she would rather feed than stay on her father's arm. Hermione followed Severus into the kitchen and sat down, her daughter latching onto her breast. Her husband busied himself with cooking breakfast. His wife used a true and tried interrogation technique - saying nothing. Finally, he relented and adressed the real issue.

"Do you truly want to introduce me as your husband to your parents? They might prefer a single mother to someone married to a former teacher simply because of archaic customs in a backward society."

"We are married, and we will stay married, won't we? I will tell my parents how everything - Victoria's conception, our marriage and the initial reason for it - came about."

"Initial reason?"

He had sat down across from her, after having prepared her tea and toast exactly to her liking. Hermione thought this moment was as good as any other to talk about her thoughts on their marriage. "We have lived together amicably for seven months now. We complement each other perfectly as researchers. We are Victoria's parents. If I had had time to think about a perfect future relationship during the last few years, what we have together would come very close."

Severus stared into his cup. "Are you sure you would still think so if we hadn't been thrown together in isolation for months?"

She knew she had to tread very carefully now. "I do not think you would have learned to see me as a colleague rather than an obnoxious former pupil quite as quickly if we hadn't lived together. As to my feelings - I have always respected you and craved your appreciation. I even nursed a short-lived crush on you after finding out that you were a spy."

He snorted, but couldn't quite hide his smile. "How long did it survive?"

"Second potions lesson of that year."

"Ah, not so dashing anymore?"

"Ahem. No, 007 wouldn't have eviscerated Neville quite as thoroughly."

"I am not proud of it, but I lived on Ulcer and Fortifying potion in those years." He sighed, stretched and continued, "I will think about it. When would you want to go?"

"There is no hurry, but it will be easier if the trip is concluded before Victoria starts to take solid foods."

...-

Severus took only two days, or rather nights, to decide. He would accompany his little family. He even suggested travelling to Chicago from New Zealand, to tell Victoria's biological father of her existence.

...-

An international Portkey dropped them in Christchurch; the rest of the journey was made by taxi. Victoria had been cranky for the whole time, but the hum of the car put her to sleep.

Hermione approached the doorbell while Severus waited a little further away.

"Hermione!"

Mrs Granger hugged her daughter tightly, shedding happy tears. Mr Granger, who had seen Severus, though not the baby in her carrycot, alerted his wife to another person before greeting his Hermione as well.

"Mum, Dad, this is Severus Snape, my husband, and our daughter Victoria Eileen."

Both Grangers stared slack-mouthed until Monica collected herself enough to usher them inside. Severus was prevented from the third grade by his father-in-law by asking Mrs Granger for the bathroom to change the baby. Hermione in the meantime prepared a corner of the settee for laying down her daughter and asked her father for patience and tea.

Oohing and aahing could be heard from the bathroom, and Wendell Granger knew he stood no chance if he wanted to play inquisition with his little girl's former teacher.

With growing bewilderment the Grangers heard about a guitar-player in Chicago, about ancient custody arrangements in the wizarding world and about a marriage of convenience that might have started to become more. Mrs Granger exclaimed, "But we only have the one guestroom!"

"That won't be a problem, Mum. We sleep in one bed with Victoria in the middle. She is used to this."

They settled into their room, leaving the baby with her enchanted grandparents.

"That went rather well, don't you think?"

"Mhm."

Severus seemed to be far away. The Grangers had been shocked, sure, but they had not been shocked by who he was. He did not know how much Hermione had told her parents about the war. Even if they did not know about his Death Eater past, they must realise the age difference between the two of them.

"Hermione, how old are your parents?"

"Mum is 64 and Dad 76. Why?"

"They seem so accepting."

"It would be hypocritical of them, if they were against me marrying my former teacher when Dad was Mum's lecturer at University, plus I think they basically trust my judgement. They have asked me for my opinion from a very early age on, one of the perks of being an only child, I suppose. We will be questioned more later, I think, and separately. I am bound to get a lecture on contraception from my mother."

"They don't know about my past, then?"

"They do. And they wrote to the headmaster about it at the beginning of my fifth year, same as they did after my third, about Remus. My parents are thoroughly disenchanted with Dumbledore; they did try to persuade me more than once to leave the school."

"So I guess it helped that we told them that we kept your pregnancy and our marriage secret from the headmaster."

"It helps for sure, but they would have judged you on your own merit anyway. They are just like that, I suppose."

...-

Over the next few weeks the Grangers and Severus relaxed considerably. Hermione was just glad that she had help with Victoria and got nearly enough sleep. Mrs Granger never lectured her daughter about contraception but rather embarrassed her with pointed questions of how she thought to convince Severus of more than a mere marriage of convenience. Hermione was ready for more but thought her husband was not. Their time in New Zealand was wonderful for healing, but after all he had been through, he just needed more time.

When they decided on a date to leave for the States, Severus sat himself down and analysed his feelings for his wife and daughter. Towards Victoria he felt like a real father, and he even could say that he was quite confident that he would be a good father to her. Towards his wife he sometimes felt like a fraud. He cherished the time spent with her, he thought with fierce fondness of their debates over magical theory, he desired her body, and he acknowledged that Hermione was one of the few persons whom he could stand being around for longer than an hour. She seemed to read his moods and did not mind them, and he was sure that she understood far more about him than any other living person. His wife was now his best friend by a wide margin, and he would have done nearly anything for her, but he could not be sure that he loved her in the way she deserved to be loved.

After wrestling with that point for two sleepless nights, he tapped into his Gryffindor side and took her for a walk on the beach alone. Hermione sensed the importance of the excursion and grew rather tense. He started to talk twice with a sharply indrawn breath. "What are your long-term expectations from our marriage?"

That was an easy question for Hermione, and she opted to speak her mind without taking possible motives for his question into account. "We continue to live like we're doing now. I might go back to work part-time when Victoria is a little older, but that depends on your plans too. When we are comfortable with each other, we'll take our relationship to a physical level. I hadn't planned on having a child so early but rather in my thirties. If you are amenable we could have one or two more children. I am not comfortable with more than three, but that might change. You know I like and respect you, and that our life together is as close to perfect as I could have imagined. I feel I can come to love you deeply quite easily."

Severus seemed deep in thought and finally answered, "And there is the problem. I desire you. I love Victoria, and I cherish our life together very much. But I do not know if I am capable of love. I would not want you to be trapped in an unequal relationship. I know the pains of unreciprocated feelings. There were moments during the last few months when I could have easily said something unforgivable."

Hermione had already worked out that something along those lines might be at the bottom of his hesitation. "Severus, even a saint would have snapped sometimes during that time. We were living through a war, closeted with very little outside communication and were both in a vulnerable state emotionally and physically. It says a lot about us that nothing more has happened. And I cannot think of anything unforgivable you could say to me."

"You can't?"

She pondered that and choose to reveal something that might ruin any respect Snape had for Ron.

"When I went to the ball in my forth year with Viktor Krum, Ron called me a whore. I was hurt beyond comprehension, particularly as I really fancied him then and was already disappointed that he would not recognise me as a girl. I did not forgive him easily, but I did eventually. And I think he had much less provocation than you had."

He did not respond immediately.

"Severus, could it be that Lily had started to fancy James Potter and was very confused about it? Not listening to your apologies might have been one way for her to make her life less complicated."

The Potions master smiled slightly at this. "You are too kind to Lily. We were already growing apart by then, and she was likely sick of me and my friends as well as the Marauders. Potter Sr. wasn't part of the equation until their seventh year. I still shouldn't have called her that."

"No, you shouldn't have. But you were humiliated and lashed out with the one epithet probably most prominent in the Slytherin common room of that time. Just as Ron used the word he heard in the Quidditch changing room. Harry inadvertedly made it worse for me by telling me that Ron had not used `whore´ as a derogative term for girls because he thought it impossible that Krum could be interested in me in that way, but that the term was used in the team for the weather, the opposing team, a bludger - you name it."

They had sat down were a formation of rocks sheltered them from the wind. Hermione continued, "The war is over, but I think something fundamentally has changed in you since you were drained of your magic. I may be off, but I sense a lot less tension and anger in you."

"No, you're right. And our talks when I had my weepy spells helped a lot. But the fact remains that I have no positive role-model for being a father or a husband. What if I hurt you or Victoria?"

"You will. And I will hurt you, and I will hurt her as well."

"I meant more than words."

"Severus, have you ever raised a hand at a pupil or any other child or a woman?"

"I threw a jar of cockroaches at Potter."

"It would have hit him if you had wanted it to."

"I gave a five year old Draco a clip round the ear when he snuck into the lab during brewing."

"If Victoria ever does something like that, I will do that as well."

"I backhanded Bellatrix when I was seventeen."

"That shows admirable restraint on your behalf. If Necromancy weren't frowned upon, I'd like to resurrect her and do worse. Love, everyone with more than two brain cells knows that the deed is what counts for you. Most third year students figure that out by themselves. You don't suffer fools gladly, you were a spy and you are the most intelligent person I know - of course you are able to reduce nearly everyone around you to tears of blind anger and humiliation in under two minutes."

"Figured me out then, have you?" His tone had grown colder.

"No. That will likely take decades. But I want you to know that I have thought a lot about us."

"Mhm."

The ensuing silence was not a comfortable one.

"What about you, Hermione? You are passionate about footnotes in homework essays, for Merlin's sake! You cannot tell me that you will be content in a marriage in which your husband might never be able to give you the love you deserve. Intellectual companionship, parenting and regular sex are all well and good, but in a long-term relationship one has to show one's partner that one cares. God knows I have listened to enough bickering, both from males and females, to know how much disinterest can hurt."

"I know you care! I do not need flowery confessions and declarations! You show it daily. The way you nudged the footstool over when I forgot to put my swollen feet up because I was so caught up in something or other. The way you sniff my tea to find the exact moment to pour the perfect cup. How you look at Victoria and me when I am feeding her - as if we were the most wondrous and precious beings in the world. The way you divert my mother because you know her unsubtle hints make me cringe with embarrassement."

She felt him relax and tilted her head to rest against his shoulder. They sat for a while, watching the incoming waves. Severus threaded his fingers through hers. "I am scared." His voice was barely above a whisper.

"I am too. But I am also thrilled."

He angled his body towards Hermione and tilted her chin up. Their lips came together with a sigh on both sides.

...-

After some time Severus put a little distance between himself and Hermione. They really should be going back. Holding out a hand to help her up, he quipped, "I do not think I can make love to you in your parents house with Victoria in the same room – Silencing Charm or not."

His wife had to laugh. "Ah, yes. My mother would be impossible if she happened upon Victoria in a bassinet in front of our bedroom door. Let's find a hotel with a suite in Chicago."

They went home hand in hand. Monica Granger could not put her finger on what had changed between them but was able to let them go on to Chicago without a heavy heart. Of course a lengthy visit to Britain was decided upon soon.

...-

Mrs Kacerovsky was surprised when her son Tomas turned up on her doorstep with a couple from England and a baby, but she served them dumplings and borshtsh. She listenend with astonishment to their tale. Her most prominent fear was that the little girl, Victoria, was not yet baptized, but it was soon put aside when the baby woke up and looked up at her grandmother with a toothless smile.

...-

Mr and Mrs Snape had found the perfect suite. And they had the perfect daughter: Victoria decided in Chicago to sleep from midnight to seven in the morning, with a nap after her first feeding. Her parents lovelife got a real boost from that.

...-

Hermione and Severus Snape used their Order of Merlin stipends to start up a researching business and were rather successful in tailoring potions and charms to specific needs. They came to love each other deeply and without reservation.

Simon Lucius Snape was born 18 months after his sister Victoria; the twins Milena and Marcus surprised their parents two years later. The Snape family remained in Bramble Cottage as the house had been in the Potter family before James Potter had given it to the Order as a safe house, and now was Harry Potter's belated wedding gift to the couple. Victoria visited her biological father and grandmother regularly. In Chicago, she learned to play the guitar quite well, but her real passion became cooking. She trained in the Muggle and the wizarding world and would later own a highly successful chain of restaurants.

Simon followed in his parents' footsteps as a researcher and joined their firm as Arithmancy consultant.

Milena and Marcus, to their mother's horror, became hightly successful beaters for various Quidditch teams and were instrumental in England's win of the World Championship in 2028.

The End