Winter's End

A/N: I have said before that it takes a village, and in writing these final six chapters, the village has grown. I have to thank the superb GinnyW (who is always right!) for all the feedback and tough love she has given me, beginning with the very wise advice to complete Care of Magical Creatures before posting any more. This has given me the opportunity to get it right, to hopefully eliminate loose ends (though if you find any, they are all my fault and not that of my betas). Because of her sage wisdom, I can now post these final chapters close together and you, my dear readers, won't have to wait long for updates. The story is finished, and soon, it will be yours.

So hold on, the end is nigh, and it begins here. Thank you for all your reviews and support. I don't have enough words to express how much they mean to me, and now all I can do is sit back and wait for you to read....

62. WINTER'S END

~*~January~*~

Her sleep was both deep and uneasy. Deep, almost as if drugged. Uneasy, because even in the deepest sleep, she felt a desperation, an awareness that to awaken meant awakening to nausea and misery.

Beside her, he snarled, a deep gargling sound as words tried to form but couldn't break the surface of his own sleep.

His nightmare.

Instantly, she was awake and murmuring a soft but desperate, "Petrificus Totalus", catching him before the thrashing started.

She rolled from her place, snug in the crook of his arm, and eased onto his naked body, full contact, skin to skin from shoulders to legs. "Just a dream," she whispered, stroking his hair from his face. "A dream.... It's not real."

She rubbed her cheek against his, whispering, until she felt his eyes pop open and felt his surge of rage...

That gradually calmed to despair.

And she released the curse and nestled into him as his arms clutched her tight. "Just a nightmare," she murmured, as if what he suffered could ever be referred to so dismissively.

His hands rubbed against her back, tangling and sliding through her hair. "Did I..."

"No," she said quickly, her throat tightening with sick. She fought it down, fought the wave of nausea, the ever-present nausea, and felt her eyes stinging with tears.

If only he would tell her what haunted him, what memories or fears brought him such violent terrors that she had to protect herself by casting full Body-Binds and then fighting to bring him out of his ordeal as gently as possible.

If only she knew the words to help him, knew what horrors to chase away.

She swallowed thickly and took shallow breaths.

If only she could sleep, just sleep, and forget everything.

If only...

He rolled her gently sideways and she felt the flicker of his magic as he cast a calming spell over her. Sometimes it helped. Please, let this be one of those times.

She nuzzled into his neck, inhaling the faded scent of shaving soap, a scent that, to her despair, sent her hurtling to the toilet if it was flung into bathwater, but still brought her comfort when on his skin.

And finally, the sound of his steady breathing a benediction in the darkness, she found the depths of sleep again.

XX

The sense of emptiness that awakened him proved, even before he flung an arm out, that she wasn't beside him.

The bathroom door was ajar and soft light shone in a wedge across the cold stone floor.

He sprang from the bed and found her, curled on her side on the floor by the toilet, cocooned in her grandmother's faded, rose floral duvet.

"Fucking hell."

"Stating the obvious, Professor?" she responded weakly.

"You are not to use a Muffliato when you're sick!"

"It gave you fifteen more minutes of sleep." Her eyes welled with tears and left him feeling like the worst of bastards.

"Please," he said, "let me help you."

"Today is your birthday..." Her voice broke off, choked. "...and I wanted it to be perfect, and I...I can't do anything but lie here and..."

"You can't be bloody serious." He scooped her cautiously into his arms and rose, no sudden moves, then braced himself until she settled against him, lost in the folds of pink, rose and green that should bring up sick faster than getting jostled, yet she seemed immune. "Perhaps you could take one of my anti-nausea potions, if you're so wanting to please me," he sneered.

"This will be over soon. Morning sickness only lasts a few weeks," she said, as she'd said so many times before. "It's not worth the risk to your baby."

"That your mother refused to take Muggle medications may be admirable but for you to refuse time-proven potions..."

"None of which are totally without risk," she interrupted. "And this isn't your choice. It's mine."

Other than a soft growl, he didn't bother to respond. Hadn't they argued this point too many times already, with her sticking to her mother's theories rather than accepting the relief he could give her? With a flick of a finger and a wordless command, the bath started filling and steam rising.

"You gave me a perfect birthday," she said, her voice aching with sadness and her cheek cold against the bare skin of his chest.

"Your condition is affecting your memory," he snapped. Bracing one foot on the side of the bath, he steadied her and eased her out of the quilt, then pulling her back against him, sank into the water.

"Fucking hell," she whimpered against him.

He stiffened, preparing for a hasty Evanesco.

"How did you do that... without toppling us both into the water?"

He felt his heartbeat slow. "A strong sense of balance."

"Thighs like rocks," she corrected, her voice not much more than sigh. "So strong..."

And then she relaxed against him, into him, as the water crawled up their bodies.

I wanted it to be perfect, she'd said.

He was thirty-eight years old, but he felt as old as Albus, ancient and twisted inside and out. Yet here he sat in a bath with a naked young woman three deep breaths from vomiting and with every reason to hate him...

Yet she didn't hate him. Instead she fended off his night terrors as if he'd never caught her with a blindly thrown arm. Her belly was beginning to swell with an infant she'd never wanted, she was joined to him irrevocably, and yet she didn't even seem to mind....

"Foolish girl," he said brusquely. "As if you could give me anything but a perfect birthday."

"Yes, and maybe you'll get lucky and I'll vomit on you."

"Insufferable," he growled.

He felt her lips curl against his neck, felt her smile.

He was dazed by the wonder of it.

"Read to me," she sighed.

"Read what?" he asked, distracted.

"Arithmancy..."

But of course she'd be revising, even now.... He Summoned the text and, as it hovered in front of them, read until she slept.

~*~February~*~

Twenty-one minutes.

She turned her face up to the bright sunlight and tried to enjoy it, when every fibre of her being simply wanted to be back in their quarters with her professor. She'd chosen a garden bench with fragrant white roses blooming out of season, thanks to the sixth-year Herbology classes, but other than being relieved that their scent was light and diffused, she paid them no mind.

Twenty-two minutes.

She didn't feel the ache yet. This was a good thing, she reminded herself. This was the point, after all. Forty-five minutes, and they could call it a success. But the very need for such exercises simply made her guilt that much more difficult to live with.

Twenty-three minutes. They'd passed the halfway point.

Footsteps sounded on the gravel, but not his. She would sense if he were the one approaching her. She prepared to Disillusion herself. Then she saw the longish, mussed red hair glinting in the sunlight.

"'Mione!" Ron came into full sight as the path he followed emptied into the centre of the rose garden and its fairy fountain. He picked up speed as he saw her, but stopped short of grabbing her into a hug. "Erm...don't suppose Snape would like me to do what I want to do, so...erm...consider yourself hugged."

"Professor Snape," she said sternly, and then, she couldn't help it. She laughed. "And duly considered."

He stopped, clearly uneasy. "Do you mind? That I came to see you? I saw you from Gryffindor Tower and..."

The fact that she didn't mind hit her sudden and hard. "No," she said, surprised. "I don't mind at all."

He crouched on the gravel before her, grinning. "Bloody hell, you look good. Tired, but good. Better than Harry, at least. I was worried about you."

"Worried?" And privately, I look good? After everything I've been through?

"Nobody's seen you and Snape. We didn't know what to think. It's been since October, since the battle...."

Of course she knew they were worried. At some level she'd known and simply hadn't cared, hadn't had the energy or the emotion to care about anyone but Severus. In deference to her desires, he'd timed their outings to be when they were least likely to be observed... what few outings they'd had beyond laundry days at Spinner's End which they'd spent curled together, reading, whilst the ancient twin tub did its job. And in fact, she hadn't expected anyone to be around today, or she would never have chosen such a public spot. "It's Valentine's Day and a Hogsmeade weekend. Why are you even here?"

His cheeks flushed red. "The witch I'm interested in isn't exactly..." He swallowed and plucked a rose from near her head and twirled it between his fingers. "There's not much point."

"And you a war hero," Hermione chided. "Afraid of a witch?"

"Not afraid," he said, bristling. "Just... she's a pureblood."

The fucking Marriage Law. How had she forgot? And then it hit her. Of course he was still smitten with Lavender Brown, who was not good enough for him, no matter what he might think. If it weren't for this horrid law, time could pass and he could get over it, but now there was such a sense of desperation...

His soft smile was bitter. "People were beginning to protest but then, well, it worked out for you, didn't it?"

She had no answer, no words to express the rage that somehow what happened to her and her professor could be attributed in any way or fashion as a success of the Marriage Law. And then, the niggling of an idea took root and she gasped.

"Oi, you're looking dangerous," he said.

"I just thought...I just realised..." She looked into his blue eyes and felt a surge of purpose. "...that maybe there's a way to bring the law down."

He stared at her. "Seriously?"

She swallowed. "It's just an idea," she said. "But..."

"I'll put your ideas against the fucking Ministry's any day." He flexed his wrist as if to toss the rose aside, then belatedly, grinned and offered it to her. "Milady."

She took it and sniffed carefully, her mind racing ahead to Arithmantic equations, to new realms of research. She studied the rose more closely. Either the rose's scent was unexpectedly soothing, or she was at long last getting beyond her sensitivity to scents. She hoped fervently it was the latter. But a new trouble seized her. "What did you mean, that I look better than Harry?"

"Oh, he's pretty chipper in the day, but at night...nightmares like you wouldn't believe. He's not getting much sleep."

"Ah..." She felt a twitch of concern. "What kind? Does he tell you?"

"No, never. But he's...he's cried out a couple of times, before he remembered to cast a Silencing Charm." Ron was carefully avoiding her eyes.

"What is it?" she demanded. "What aren't you telling me?"

"They're about Snape."

Even now, Harry so resented Severus that he had nightmares about him? And they wondered why she didn't want to submit herself and her marriage to their stares and speculations?

She stifled her annoyance. They all had their own nightmares, she supposed. "If there's...if there's anything I can do, will you let me know?"

"How the bloody hell? We can't get owls to you, and you never come out that hole you live in. It's as if you're hiding..."

She glanced up to see him studying her, his brow knit in concentration.

"What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"Bloody hell," he breathed, and then the strangest, softest smile transformed his features. His eyes flickered down to her lap, and then back up to her eyes again. "Are you going to have a baby?"

Well.

She'd known it would happen, but had never once expected it to be Ron, of all people.

And then, again quite unexpectedly, she realised, she didn't mind.

It was time.

"You're the first to notice," she said, her smile matching his.

"How could anybody notice if you stay hidden away all the time?" he demanded. But then his grin spread. "Really? I'm the first?"

"Well, Severus has known from the beginning, of course, and Madam Pomfrey and my parents."

"You mean...not even Professor Dumbledore knows?"

"Not even. And Ron, he has seen me." She pressed her hands against her stomach. "It's not that obvious, yet. It isn't due until almost July." There, that sounded vague enough, and Ron was unlikely to ask for a specific date. She felt her cheeks warm, and not from the unaccustomed sun. The nature of her pregnancy was intensely private, and that most certainly meant she didn't want the date of conception easily deduced.

"If you don't want anybody to know yet, I won't tell, but..." Ron's eyes clouded over. "Are you hiding it? Is that why you never come to meals?"

"No!" she said. "That's not it at all! It's just that...I'm not ready for the stares. Not because of this." She put her hands over her small stomach and marvelled that he'd even noticed it. "But because... I already felt like a bloody display, ever since we married, with everybody staring and gawking all the time, and especially at meals, and now, I just want to study and... we need each other. It hurts to be apart, and so we must... well, get over that, or else I'll never be able to take my N.E.W.T.s." She stared blindly at the rose in her hand. "What I did when I broke my wand...being separated physically and spiritually and magically...was really horrifying," she said softly. "It takes time to heal that kind of wound."

"But you're happy."

It wasn't a question, and she smiled at him for understanding. "Beyond measure."

"Even in the dungeons?"

That was definitely a question. "Especially in the dungeons. It's..." She stopped, unable to find words that she wanted to share. They had been her refuge and her safety and now, they were the centre of everything she loved. "It's our home," she finally said. "And we do get out, just not when people are around."

"And you're studying 'round the clock."

This time she laughed. "Well, yes, pretty much." Then it hit her. "Your schedules...do you need me to..."

"With Ginny around? Are you mad? She's cracking the whip over Harry and Neville and me. She hardly leaves us time for Quidditch!"

"Well, somebody has to worry about your N.E.W.T.s!" Hermione grinned.

But Ron didn't. "Bloody hell, Hermione. You might have a Slytherin!"

She felt the small knot form in her stomach. "It could happen, yes."

He blinked, his mind visibly whirring the same way it did when studying a chessboard. "That could be bad. The baby could...well, when it..."

"He," she said.

"He?" He grinned briefly and then looked even more concerned. "If he gets sorted into Slytherin, he could have a target on his back and no friends to protect him."

She couldn't allow herself to think such thoughts, not now, when she had trouble even imagining the baby as a real baby. "I'm sure it will all work out," she said, but she heard the doubt in her own voice.

Ron's eyes brightened, not with mirth but with determination. "Well, then. I guess it's up to some of us Weasley men to find Slytherin brides and make sure somebody's got your wee one's back, isn't it?"

"That's preposterous! You can't go looking for a Slytherin just to..."

"Oh, now, did I say that was the only reason?" And this time his eyes definitely shone with mirth. "In fact, there are a few Slytherin witches who are quite easy on the eyes...."

Hermione blinked in confusion. "All right, who are you?" she demanded, leaping to her feet, her hand flung forward and fingertips splayed in threat. "And what have you done with Ron Weasley?"

"Oi, don't hex me. I can't fight a pregnant woman!" Ron backed up, holding his hands up defensively.

Hermione clutched her hands over her stomach. "That still doesn't explain you and...and a Slytherin!"

"You should have seen her, Hermione," he said, suddenly embarrassed. "You should have seen her at Godric's Hollow."

Hermione's mind raced. "Tonks?"

"Parkinson." His grin was back in place. "Luckily for the little Snape in your belly, Valentine's Day isn't over. I guess I may have to make my move, after all."

And with that, he pressed a quick kiss on her forehead and bounded off down the path, spraying gravel in his wake.

Bloody fucking hell. She was going to try to bring down the Marriage Law so that Ron could pursue Pansy Parkinson? Hermione stared after him and then suddenly realised that she wasn't alone.

She spun, feeling the presence at the same time she felt the need in her surge. "Severus? Professor?"

A shimmer dissolved, revealing him near the fountain. "Fifty-two minutes," he announced crisply. "And to my amazement, it is the most dunderheaded Weasley who worked it out."

She flung herself into his arms and pressed her face into his neck and suddenly found it easier to breathe, to exist. "He's smarter than you think," she said, soaking his warmth into her body.

She felt him nuzzling his nose into her hair and felt his heavy sigh. "Fucking hell."

She felt a cold little knot in her stomach. "He saw me and came. I couldn't send him away."

"Merlin, woman. You think that's my problem?" He rubbed his cheek against hers in the way that had become so familiar. "I'm just wondering how the House of Slytherin will survive an invasion of Weasleys."

Relief coursed through her and laughter bubbled up from deep inside her and grew even stronger when he clearly did not share her mirth.

"You realise what he didn't say, don't you? What others will say? That you're giving birth to a new Heir of Slytherin?"

"Well," she huffed. "I'm married to an Heir of Slytherin, so where's the surprise in that?"

And then...she gasped and grabbed her stomach. "Professor! It moved!"

He stared at her abdomen in consternation. "How can you tell?"

"I felt it! It felt all... fluttery!"

"And you're sure that's normal? Fluttery?"

"I...I think so."

"We're going to see Poppy. Can you walk?"

He was already bending as if to lift her, and she drew back just far enough to say firmly, "We don't need to see Poppy, and I can walk. We'll look it up in my books."

"You and your fucking books."

"No, not the fucking book, the baby book." She smirked. "We can look at the fucking book after."

She pranced down the gravel path with her hands pressed over her abdomen, leaving him to follow, cursing not quite under his breath.

She had a new project, and this one...this one...was important.

XX

"Professor..."

Her breath gusted softly into his ear. He rolled toward her, rousing himself enough to cast a calming spell, something he now could...and often did...perform in his sleep.

Her skin, warm and soft against his, soothed him. Her pubic hair, coarse and tingling where it rubbed against his thigh, did not.

"Miss Granger," he groaned, "you're...you're dreaming." And then he waited for her to awaken, to come back to reality, and most likely, head for the loo to be sick.

"Professor..."

This time, she was whispering into his other ear, raised on an elbow, her breasts pressed against him, and he fought to still his body's automatic and treacherous reaction. Skin contact...as much as possible...brought both of them comfort beyond measure. But the more carnal benefits of such skin contact had been sweet and gentle and rare in recent weeks. He reminded himself with a grinding of teeth as he held her pregnancy-ravaged body that even that was more than he deserved.

Her hand stroked down his bare chest as she arched her back. Her fingertips brushed the top of his cock and he bit back a groan.

This time when she whispered in his ear it was to ask, "Severus... are you awake?" as she dragged her fingernails lightly down the length of him. "I'm awake. Are you awake?"

She sounded... playful.

Blood, heat, need...all pulsed at her touch.

"You're not ill?" he managed to say.

She took his hand and brought it to her pubic mound, to the tight, thick curls that made a nest there, and guided his fingers deeper into the folds until his forefinger brushed against the evidence that she wasn't ill, not at all...the swollen bud of nerves that brought a gasp and a whimper to her lips as, stunned, he pressed and circled and pressed again, until she seized his hand and ground against it and...

"Is this...is this that hormonal state your books predicted?" he growled, doing his damnedest to control the surge of raw need that rose within him.

"No..." She tightened her hand on him, began the slow, sensuous slide up and down the length of him until he thought if he didn't get control of the situation, it would end before it started. "This is me feeling like myself again...."

She latched onto his left earlobe and suckled.

In one swift, fluid movement he rolled her onto her back and, trembling, landed between her thighs, aching, aching...

And without hesitation or further preparation, shifted his weight until his cock found its place, its hot, wet entrance to her body...

And plunged home.