Entry tags:

fic, hermione, remus, snape

Special delivery for ellaselenelupin
Title: Past is Postscript
Author: i_octopus
Recipient's LJ name: ellaselenelupin
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Remus/Hermione, Severus/Hermione
Word Count: ~10,000
Warnings (if any): character death, first time
Summary: A tale of love: lost, remembered, found. "Deathly Hallows" is wilfully ignored: what kind of fool kills off Remus Lupin and Severus Snape?
Authors notes: Thanks to my irrepressible beta – you know who you are.

1. Sink, Sinking, Sunk

( i )

Hermione hummed softly to herself as she filled the kitchen sink with hot, almost scoldingly hot, water. She squirted some Muggle dishwashing detergent against the streaming water, smiling to herself as the sink filled with bubbles. She plunged two champagne flutes and a wine glass into the soapy water. She sponged the glasses with rhythmic efficiency, rinsing them with cool water before tipping them stem up to stand on the dish rack. She placed the next assortment of used utensils in the sink, continuing her post-party ritual.

Sun streamed through the large windows, framing Hermione in its warm glow. Remus paused upon entering the room, admiring the view of his wife wearing no more than one of his tee shirts over her knickers as she featured in his personal portrait of domesticity. He fit himself snugly behind her, hands resting upon her bare thighs, chin upon her shoulder, as she battled a particularly stubborn sangria stain from her favourite tea cup.

"They have magic for these sorts of things," Remus advised in his deplorably arousing, just-awoken, rumble.

Stain removed with one last firm swipe of the sponge, she placed the cup with the other clean crockery. She moved on to the collection of shot glasses soaking in the basin below.

"I had heard something to that effect."

"You had?" Remus skimmed his hands up the length of Hermione's thighs, past her cotton clad arse, to tantalisingly pause against the soft skin of her stomach.

"Mmm," Hermione moaned her affirmation, in pleasurable distraction. Leaning her head back against his broad chest she explained, "I find it therapeutic."

"Do you?"

"I do."

"I think of one or two other things you may find therapeutic in nature," Remus breathed against Hermione's neck.

"Such as?"

"Such as..." Remus' words trailed away as his fingers trailed below the band of her skimpy knickers, edging ever so expertly through the coarse terrain of her pubis, to slide between the slick folds of her cunt.

"Yes," Hermione sighed, "that's quite good." She squeezed his fingers appreciatively between her legs as she placed the spotless shot glasses on the counter to dry.

"Oh, I think I can do better than 'quite'," Remus chuckled deep in his throat.

Remus turned Hermione toward him and lifted her up, sitting her on the edge of the sink in one graceful display of strength. Hermione squealed in surprise at the move. She glanced over her shoulder confirming the hem of the tee she was wearing was indeed immersed in the washing-up water.

"Now I'm wet."

Remus groaned at Hermione's mock-complaint.

"Darling," he chided, "you were wet before that."

He peeled the shirt from her body, the tee leaving a line of soapy suds dripping down her back, and flung the unwanted garment to the kitchen floor. Hermione wrapped her legs around her husband's uncommonly talented hips, her damp hands running through his grey streaked hair, as Remus kissed her eagerly. He crushed her breasts against his chest, his sandy coloured chest hair tickling her nipples. Remus buried two fingers knuckle deep into Hermione's dripping pussy. He crooked his fingers in a cum-producing fashion. Hermione edged enthusiastically toward the orgasm Remus' fingers wantonly beckoned. Continuing his ministrations, Remus lowered his briefs enough to release his cock with one awkward hand, as the other was occupied with the task of pleasuring the witch before him. The elasticised top of his briefs slid down the length of his shaft, effectively restraining his balls in the cotton confines of his shorts. Remus hastily bunched Hermione's sodden knickers to one side, raising himself onto the balls of his feet; he manoeuvred his half-exposed cock into her mostly revealed cunt.

They hissed in tandem at the contact.

Remus rubbed at her thrumming clitoris with the sure, firm touch of a man familiar with eliciting mewls of satisfaction from willing women. Hermione clenched around Remus' generous girth. They clung to each other as they panted nonsensical affirmations of pleasure, slipping and rocking, in and out and against one another. Hermione climaxed first, her mouth unlatching from Remus' to groan in exquisite completion. Remus guided her forward, lifting her almost completely from the sink's edge, to push entirely into her willing flesh; the feeling of his shaft encased entirely in the heat of Hermione's cunt, her folds pressing wetly against his fabric trapped testicles, the quivering post-orgasmic spasms of her quim, all culminated in one cock-gratifyingly stream of ejaculation.

"Was that sufficiently therapeutic?" Remus panted.

"Very."

"I knew we could do better than 'quite'," Remus replied with smug satisfaction.

( i i )

Hermione kicked her black heels off, shifting them to the side of the hallway with one stocking-clad foot, the effort she exerted entirely disproportionate to the action required. No one had warned Hermione of the physicality of grief. How unassumingly she had dismissed talk of being weighted down by grief, of grief's heaviness, as if grief were measurable, capable of being weighed and in the act of weighing could be measured away. Now she knew better and the knowledge was sour. Small things: buttering toast; boiling water; answering a phone, became substantial tasks, complete with a resentful aftertaste of achievement when done. She felt as though every breath, every onerous oxygen-filled lungful, was an effort and every selfish exhalation left her feeling lighter than she ought. She ached indiscriminately. She saw her grief in gauzy remembrances of Molly Weasley: the leaden step; the stooped shoulders; the downward turn of her mouth, and yet grief is not comparable and the attempt at comparison left Hermione nauseous at the thought of bitter competition.

An unexpected owl distracted Hermione from the bile that so regularly threatened to rise. The span of the owl's brown feathered wings skimmed the framed photos that dotted the entrance hall where Hermione stood. The owl hovered energetically mid-air whilst Hermione untied the parchment from the bird's leg with cumbersome tugs of the string. Fumbling as the owl flapped away as soon as the bow about its leg was loose, Hermione watched the note spiral to the ground. Bending to retrieve it, she felt a dizzying rush of blood from her heavy feet to her light head and back again as she straightened once more. With clumsy hands she unfurled the letter and read the words until they blurred into lines of ink, as unintelligible as a sonorous charm cast at a concert, the music amplified to sound and the resulting noise distorted until unrecognisable from the original.

My darling Hermione

I feel sometimes as if my life is a series of goodbyes - perhaps that is all any one life amounts to, but I ache at the many friends I have farewelled. Darling, no goodbye will break my heart quite so irreparably as this one to you.

I believe the most remarkable accomplishment of my life has been loving you. Not because loving you is a hardship, quite the contrary, but because it is the act I was best at. Loving you has been like shaking one of Albus' Muggle snow globes, an ordinary scene is transformed into something magical, and we never stopped moving you and I, we kept on whirring from scene to unconstant scene.

Loving you helped me make sense of my past. Loving you helped me find meaning in a life I sometimes despaired was meaningless. Loving you was the first time since I befriended James and Sirius all those moons ago (so many moons) that my life was on my terms. Those friendships, our love, couldn't be legislated against, certainly couldn't be denied. I thank you, deeply, for your love.

The last five years have taught me so much about living in this world of ours. Promise me that you will do whatever that amazing mind of yours considers possible, that you will keep on living the extraordinary life I had the good fortune to share with you for a short while.

I can't bear the thought of you grieving for me. I promise you that I do not fear my rendezvous with death; I believe I've many friends I shall be reunited with. But please do not for a single moment think that I welcome death, for the life I have had with you has been spectacular beyond measure and I never wanted it to end and cannot bear it ceasing so soon.

I love you.

Goodbye, Remus

Hermione slid to the floor, the letter from her husband pulling her down with the weight of his words. With her knees drawn to her chest and her hand clutching at the paper she had the curious feeling of sinking deeper into herself and floating outside of herself and anchored only to the disagreeable present by the desperate need to be sick.

( i i i )

Severus sat at his paper strewn dining table, at which, little dining ever actually occurred. He was reading intently Remus Lupin's exacting documentation of his worsening condition. One hand rested atop Remus' purposeful scrawl, the other held a quill hovering over lines of his own cramped script. Severus shared Remus' hope that understanding what made lycanthropically impaired immune systems susceptible to Werewithal Syndrome could further their research into removing the lycanthropic strain in its entirety. He paused in his reading mid-line, registering a faint knock at the front door. Lowering his quill, he pushed away from his makeshift study. He opened the door to reveal a determined Hermione Lupin.

"Can I help you?" Severus asked, not unkindly but with a certain incredulity at her impromptu appearance.

Hermione stood in the doorway of Spinner's End; her hair dishevelled from neglect, face pale, eyes red-rimmed, the jeans she wore were tea-stained, the grey sweater was so baggy, Severus suspected it was actually Remus'.

"I've come to help you," Hermione replied with forced cheer. She pushed the loose sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows and slipped past Severus into his home. Severus shut the door, turning to see Hermione making a disconcertingly direct path to his current research. He strode swiftly to interrupt her intent progress, pausing when he had sufficiently blocked her view of Remus' journal.

"And yet, I am not in need of your assistance."

Hermione quirked a disbelieving eyebrow in disagreement. "Then what's all this?" Hermione gestured to the copious notes that littered the surface of the dining table.

"Personal research. I am yet to resume our experiments, when you are ready --"

"I am ready!"

Severus remained impassive, saying nothing to dismiss her bold claim.

"I'm not thick," she persisted.

"I never suggested you were."

"I know Remus left you his notes on Werewithal's."

"The crucial point being he entrusted them to me."

"As Remus' wife, I'm sure he'd allow me to assist."

"As Remus' friend, I won't allow it."

"But, I can help you with the research."

"No," Severus informed her simply, "you can't."

"Damn it Severus, I know the details, I lived the details."

"I'm not so unfeeling as to permit you to relive those details in their excruciating minutiae," Severus snapped in exasperation.

Her breath hitched upon hearing the word 'excruciating', her stony resolve crumbling, her eyes welling with tears.

"Hermione, I know you want to be useful, but not like this, not yet," Severus gently qualified.

Hermione nodded, tears shaking loose and down her cheeks with the movement. She bit her lip in the vain hope the pain would allow her to focus on not crying. She failed in the attempt.

Severus closed the small distance between them, simply wrapping her in his arms. He held her tightly as she cried. Hermione melded into his solid embrace, her hands clasped before her prayerfully, caught comfortingly between her chest and his. Her cheek rested against the warm heat of his woollen jumper oblivious of whether the contact was irritating or soothing - all that mattered was contact. She inhaled ragged breaths, registering, and yet not, the smell of smoke and of freshly cut wood. Hermione's head was tucked tenderly underneath Severus' chin, his cheek pressing against the pillow of her bushy hair.

Severus hugged her with a strength, sincerity, and selflessness others misguidedly thought him incapable of. Severus dashed a myriad of misconceptions as he held Hermione, held her with an unhurried stillness that centred her grief, held her until her tears subsided and her breathing evened. He held because it was all he could offer; she was held and it was everything she needed.

2. Right, Writing, Rote

( i )

Hermione trudged through the long grass, following the path Remus beat before her. He swished his wand with quick, light strokes, cutting away the bothersome stalks of flora that would have otherwise impeded their progress through the Irish fields.

Hermione admired the undeniable athleticism of Remus' stride. He moved with a surefooted grace she was unaccustomed to. He moved so differently to Ron and Harry's scurrying, scrambling, jostling and mostly hasty movements from one place to another, that Remus' purposeful motion was all the more striking.

Remus turned to gaze back at Hermione. She looked glorious in her flowing lemon coloured sundress, honey coloured curls escaping from her braid, her face prettily pink from their hiking.

"Do we need the bark of the Braithwaite tree?" Remus called to Hermione.

She pulled Severus' list from her satchel and checked what he required.

"No," she puffed as she closed the distance between them. "No, we need to find Briarberries. Severus was quite explicit we bring them to him unbruised."

"I bet he was."

Hermione smiled conspiratorially at Remus' slight of their co-collaborator. "We also need to collect the stems of the Bovary flower, but we've gathered everything else on the list."

"Briarberries and Bovary flowers," Remus repeated the outstanding items to himself, as he led Hermione through the thicket of Braithwaite trees that separated the grassy field from the dense meadow blooming with innumerable natural delights.

Hermione pointed at the base of one the trees as they approached.

"Remus, is that a Bovary flower?"

"Indeed it is, well spotted."

Remus set down the basket which contained their pickings and samples. Kneeling beside the thatch of flowers he removed two pocket knives: handing one, handle first to Hermione; the other revealed it’s blade with a flick of Remus' wrist. They worked together in harmonious tandem, nicking the stems at their base, beheading the flowers and placing the remains on an opened glass press.

Hermione dropped her knife, gasping in pain. Remus grabbed her hand - "Did you cut yourself?" he asked urgently.

Hermione bit her lip, eyes watering in pain. "No, a sting --".

Remus assessed her blistered fingertips, the result of contact with a stray stinging nettle hidden amongst the flowers, and instinctively brought the injured digits to his mouth. He sucked at her fingers, laving the angry pads of flesh with relentless, relieving strokes of his tongue. Her whimpering disrupted his attentive mouth. She looked at him like a blossoming flower reveals itself to the sun. Remus slackened his grasp on her wrist, her fingers slipping from the warm enclave of his mouth, moistly resting against his lips. His breathing beat a ragged tattoo, his breath unintentionally puffing soothingly against Hermione's hand.

Remus stared with hungry eyes as Hermione replaced her fingers with her mouth, her petal soft lips pressing lightly against his own. The gentle touch of lips like the practiced formality of a momentary introduction, a solitary salút, before duelling. The engagement began: en garde - they kissed tentatively; on guard - they kissed exploratively; unguarded - they kissed with unchecked abandon. Lips and tongues instinctually engaging in the requisite thrust and parry of the duel, Hermione crawled closer to her opponent so that her knees straddled his, their hips brought scandalously together. Remus' hands drifted to the deliciously plump globes of Hermione's arse, her hands occupied with running through Remus' short, thick hair, fisting the occasional tuft when his tongue unexpectedly flicked against the sensitive roof of her mouth. Hermione ground her pelvis against Remus', repeating the movement when the friction provoked the most tantalising fizzing in her mind that sizzled southward.

Remus pulled back to suck in a sharp breath. "This is madness. I --".

Remus was silenced with an impatient kiss. When Hermione pulled away it was to scold breathily in an arousingly bossy fashion, "Don't you dare apologise! I've wanted to snog you senseless for months." With that said, Hermione diligently returned to snogging the man senseless. Again Remus pulled back. "Be that as it may, if we don't stop soon," he paused, his hands stilling her eager hips, before growling, "I'm going to come in my pants like a ruddy third year."

"Well we can't have that." Remus looked a disappointed shade of relieved, until Hermione began to fumble with his belt.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm removing your pants, obviously."

Remus rose to his feet, grunting with exertion, Hermione wrapping her legs reflexively around his waist just as her hands sought immediate purchase, clutching at his shoulders, amazed and aroused at his sudden movement, at his obvious strength. Hermione clung to Remus as he backed the determined witch against the peeling bark of the tree. With three resolute steps, Remus rocked his cock between her parted thighs like a ship knocking between neighbouring docks before mooring.

"And this? You've wanted this?" Hermione struggled to discern if he was demanding or pleading but his need was as plainly heard as it was to see. "Yes," she hissed, pushing her pelvis against the hard form of Remus' body. Pressing her forehead against his she told him, "I want this. I want you." He sealed her expression of want with a kiss, satisfied of some subconscious need half-formed or forming and given voice. Wordlessly, Remus spelled his jeans and briefs to pool about his ankles, his cock twitching at the sudden unimpeded contact with Hermione's cotton covered cunt.

"How did you do that?" she gasped.

"Magic," he teased; his eyes alight with a mischief long forgotten. Her eyes bright with curiosity, she asked specifically, "What spell?"

"Demitto," Remus enunciated each of the three syllables for her benefit.

"Demitto," Hermione repeated, focusing her magical attention on removing her knickers, which shimmied past her hips only to stop when impeded by Remus' cock. She scrunched her nose in consternation at the spell's ineffectiveness.

"Abeo," Remus incanted and the bothersome scrap of cotton disappeared.

"How?"

"Removal spell," Remus grinned at his ability to dumbfound Hermione. "Follies of a misspent youth," he apologised, deceptively sincere.

Hermione groaned as Remus rubbed the head of cock along the slit of her cunt. "I want to know more about that." Hermione managed to say as her mind filtered images of a younger Remus lowering the briefs of some unidentified partner, his wand expertly swishing as he intoned various debauched spells. "But," the tingling in her core begged for her attention, prompting her to be Remus, "right now I want you." He nudged her clit. "Please, Remus," she begged earnestly. Hips jostled against unclothed sweaty hips; and Remus' strong grip pinned Hermione against the tree whilst he manoeuvred himself with a swift bend of his knees to reposition himself at her moist entrance. Easing the head of his cock in, his lips lingered above the indecent little 'o' of Hermione's mouth. He thrust forward, Hermione eagerly mirroring his movement. The sting of her hymen splitting elicited a gasp from Hermione. She prevented Remus from belabouring the now moot status of her virginity by claiming his mouth in a bruisingly needy kiss; mouths missing and then connecting in rhapsodic harmony and discord. He pushed into the hot, wet, heat of her centre, against the spasms of her cunt, his cock nestled entirely within her, the slick curls of her pubis tangling with his own, his tight balls jiggling as he jerked shallowly up with a flex of his arse, the momentum driving from shifting his balance from flat foot to the balls of his feet. He repeated this rocking back and forth to slide up and out as he concentrated on the delicious reward of being in. He thrust with urgent, gentle, filling strokes, desperately keen to satisfy and soothe with each plaintive push and pull of his cock in and out of her unaccustomed and yet demanding cunt. They moved together and yet apart like two vessels carried upon the same current and yet cresting upon different waves. They came separately yet shared the same violent core shaking orgasm that they would only ever share with each other.

Hermione's legs slackened their grip about Remus' waist and slipped down the sides of his trouser-less legs, her tiptoes brushing against the blades of grass below. Remus lifted her off his spent cock and lowered her to the ground. Her dress floated back down to her knees, the fabric rumpled, betraying the debauched activities it was party to. Remus pulled up his briefs and refastened his jeans. He looked at Hermione in all her post-orgasmic glory and wanted to Apparate her to his home and make languid love to her until they both collapsed from exhaustion. He wanted to hide her away and never share her with anyone again, for no one could appreciate her the way he did. He wanted to take out an ad in the Daily Prophet and declare his feelings for Hermione Granger to the entire Wizarding world. Above all else, he hoped he never hurt her and worried instantly that he acted inadvisably, that it was all too much, too soon. She reached out to him, caressing his cheek, retrieving him from muddled thoughts with her steady gaze.

"I think I'll enjoy benefiting from your follies."

"Do you?"

"I do," she insisted. Her smile was as warm as the breath that fluttered against Remus' face. She knew intuitively what to say, her words unforced and infused with the feeling that being with Remus was unquestionably right; his contrary thoughts fading in the light of her own conviction.

( * )

Remus returned to the lab in the basement of Twelve Grimmauld Place with the potions stores Severus had sent for. He carefully placed the basket filled with vials and slim sheaths protecting assorted seeds, stems and bulbs on the running board nearest the Potion Master's preferred workbench.

Severus was studiously stirring a cauldron full of what Remus suspected was Wolfsbane Potion. He moved closer to the potion to confirm it was indeed for him. "Thank you, Severus."

Severus sniffed in acknowledgement of Remus' gratitude.

"You smell of sex," Snape sneered.

Remus laughed at the unexpected accusation. "You can't possibly know that."

"Please," Severus chastised, "you're practically preening at your conquest."

Remus did a very poor job at hiding his pleased smile.

"Out with it," Severus coaxed, "who was it?"

"Did I ask why you sheared your hair off?" Remus deftly avoided naming names.

"If you recall, Lupin, there was no need with Miss Granger present to do your questioning." Remus shrugged. "You shear a sheep, not a man. I cut my hair, which does not warrant explanation."

"If you say so."

Severus' nostrils flared in vexation. Wandlessly he cast Leglimens at the exasperating werewolf. Severus was confronted with the image of himself being harangued by Hermione Granger. Remus' memory of the event contained very little of Hermione and Snape's heated exchange about the shock of cropping his long hair and Snape's jibes that perhaps her own hair would be more manageable if it underwent a similar pruning - instead providing a backing track of his howls of mirth. Snape pushed past this memory, trying to delve into Lupin's most recent past. The scene dissolved and reformed to reveal Lupin leading Hermione through a sun drenched landscape. Snape watched the man turn to face the woman, his gaze - gone. The scene blank. Remus occluded any further prying in his mind, his Occlumency shields raised so quickly and so forcefully Snape staggered backwards at the magical surge.

"Tell me you're not --"

"Jealous?" Remus snapped.

"Hardly."

"Good."

Severus half-raised his hands in a conciliatory fashion. "This is bound to end badly."

"Then I simply shall not let it end."

Severus had no rejoinder for the solemn sincerity of Remus' declaration.

"Don't embarrass Hermione with this."

"You can hardly blame me if she's embarrassed of you, Lupin."

"I'm serious, Severus, it's new." Remus ran a scarred hand through his messy fringe. "If you could keep this to yourself, I'd appreciate it."

"Of course."

"Not like how you kept my lycanthropy to yourself, yet the Board of Governors mysteriously became aware..."

"You have my word."

"Thank you." Remus smiled unsurely at Severus. In some ways it seemed they would always be small boys fighting over secrets, unable to forget past wrongs, past revelations, past allegiances. What Remus felt for Hermione conjured future desires and diminished past wants - what he felt for Hermione required him to trust in Severus Snape, and so he did.

( i i )

The kettle whistled, signalling the start of Hermione's unthinking routine of brewing her morning tea. She levitated her preferred pot, cup and milk jug, alongside her as she carried the latest edition of Le Monde Magie though to the back patio adjoining the kitchen. The wrought iron of the small, circular table and two chairs were covered in a glossy coat of paint Remus once described as 'unquestionably Gryffindor red'. She laid the newspaper on the tabletop, the French Minister for Magic and her new Muggle husband stood together, waving at the eager press and the curious viewer before returning their adoring gazes to one another. Hermione scanned the column accompanying the photo as she poured herself a cup of tea. She pieced together phrases like 'le scandale de la saison', ' revelation' and 'amour', but the rest of the report was lost on Hermione. She wished Remus were there to translate, to share his unique blend of glib awareness. The repetitive strain of that wish tugged at the periphery of her thoughts.

The spitting of an envelope from an unnoticed owl into Hermione's lap thoroughly jarred Hermione back into the present. Picking up the delivery, she watched the owl swoop through her backyard and out of her line of sight. The gummy seal of the muggle stationary yielded under the pressure of her fingernail. She removed the card inside.

My darling Hermione,

I love you.


That's all I have to say because it's everything I have to say. I want you to know how long, how desperately, how sincerely, how surely, how deeply, how madly, how truly, I have loved, do love and will always love you.


Love, Remus
p.s. love is NEVER an afterthought - don't settle for love in postscript!

She looked at the card, reading and rereading its contents, the character of its every word, its every letter. She smiled at his post script, his writing pinched to fit in the small space between his name and the edge of the card. She stared at the space after 'I love you', concerned at the blot of ink that started the 'T' below. It looked as though Remus started to sign off his letter but hesitated, his hesitation marked with a deeper hue of purple ink than the adjoining letters. It was as though Remus was overcome with the compulsion to write of his love for Hermione, to document it in one overwhelming gush of words, and Hermione worried that her husband failed to know just how much she knew that, without the written proof. She nursed that uncertainty as she traced his familiar cursive with a tender fingertip.

( i i i )

Sitting in one of the mismatched chairs at the small kitchen table, Hermione watched Severus slip into his role of considerate host. With a flick of his wrist he set the kettle boiling, the gurgling of the water drowning out the electric buzz of the refrigerator. Severus opened the fridge door, the rubber sucking together in a pitiless kiss before relenting with a groaning pop, to retrieve the milk. He removed two Delft patterned china teacups from the cupboard overhead, their saucers floating mid-air on their flight from shelf to tabletop. His parents had managed to leave little unscathed during their doomed domesticity, but three of the original set survived relatively intact.

Severus spared a fleeting thought for the countless ineffective Reparo spells he had cast on various pieces of crockery and furniture throughout his strained adolescence. Busying himself with the polite routine of preparing tea for his guest, it became apparent to Severus that the act was mutually for his benefit. Pouring the steaming tea into his Hermione's cups, he silently acknowledged the unused teacup sitting patiently upon its shelf and the man who had held its fine gilt handle for too brief a time.

( * )

Hermione's eyelids trembled as she slept, or perhaps slept is too generously vague a verb to adequately capture all that flutters behind her closed eyes; inside her mind. Severus notices how still she is, sitting side-on to him on his misshapen lounge, wan cheek propped against the scratchy rug thrown over the back of the lounge - the stillness throwing the tiny flare of her nostrils and fluttering flesh hiding her eyes into dangerous relief.

He lifted her up as easily as Hermione scoops up Crookshanks when he falls asleep across her feet. He carries her up the rambling flight of stairs to his bedroom, not with the tenderness of a lover, but with the familiarity of a friend. She mumbles something unintelligible into his neck as he lays her down atop his bleak, beige quilt. He casts Abdo with perfunctory precision; her sneakers sliding off her feet to fall softly on the floor. Varying the intent behind the spell the quilt wriggled underneath Hermione's sleeping form before crawling up to cover her. Leaving her to her uneasy rest, Severus returned downstairs to his interrupted research.

( * )

Severus reads his analysis of Remus' journal, his right knee bouncing in anxious wakefulness, reminiscent of late night study from his Hogwart’s days. The narrative is bleak and no amount of scientific objectivity can conceal the personality of the man at the centre of the observations.

June: passing reference to lethargy, reduced strength. Cf lunar cycle. 1st phase of symptoms?

July: Wb reduced effectiveness - loss of consciousness/compromised human awareness. Reduced capacity to heal. See blood samples, cf earlier samples.

August: Degeneration of scar tissue. Onset of fits: shaking, shivering, sweaty. No control over/warning of fits. Similar to Muggle ... poisoning?

September: Increase in frequency of fits. Hallucinations. Weight loss. Wb completely ineffective.

October: Invalid. Hallucinations/delirium constant.

November: .
Properties of Wb cf altered blood samples (RL)

A single blot of ink indicates all that Severus cannot bring himself to clinically reduce Remus to. Severus pushes back his chair, the quick friction of wooden legs across decades old synthetic weave, warms the carpet underfoot. With a single easy movement he shook his wand from his sleeve as he rose and banished his and Remus' notes out of sight. The tabletop bears no trace of Severus' undertaking, merely the dints and grooves of incalculable pen strokes and quill scratches.

3. Know, Knowing, New

( i )

Remus downed the steaming goblet of Wolfsbane Potion with dignified distaste.

"I realise our efforts are concentrated on remedying lycanthropy but could you two work on improving the taste of this until we do?" Remus swallowed, his throat to his tongue tasting of metallic powder as if he had licked the barrel of a warm gun.

"Have you any preferences?" Snape asked impassively. "Mint perhaps?"

Smiling at Severus, Hermione suggested, "Peach?"

"Or would you rather chocolate?" Severus countered.

Remus folded his arms in mild annoyance. "I don't think either of you appreciate just how vile the potion tastes."

Snape imperiously assured Remus that he was not the least bit sympathetic to the plight of his poor taste buds. Lacking immediate support from his lover, he impulsively claimed her mouth in a devouring kiss. Hermione pulled away from him, resisting the reflex to gag that rose with Remus' tainted tongue plunging down her throat.

"That's disgusting," she gasped.

"Indeed it is," Severus said, sneering at the spectacle.

"I'm glad you agree." Remus smirked at Severus, who merely narrowed his eyes dismissively in reply.

(*)

In the cellar of the small home he shared with Hermione, Remus diffidently disrobed, piling his clothes neatly in the corner. He stepped inside the magically enhanced cage, picking up one of several blankets strewn inside and wrapped it sensibly about his waist. Hermione's footsteps clacked against the wooden steps as she descended into the cellar. Remus smiled through the bars of his self-designed prison at the sight of his wife. She held up two books for his approval: William le Loup-garou and Märchen, both published centuries earlier in Runes.

"I really think that these medieval fairytales could provide an insight like Beedle the Bard did with the Horcrux search." Hermione set the books down atop Remus' clothes.

"Perhaps," he replied with his customary caution. Hermione strode purposely from the flagstones underfoot to the blanket-covered square that held her wary husband. "More than perhaps," she promised him. She covered his weary smile with a kiss that spoke more of her conviction than any words could. Remus deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers. She shifted her face slightly, their mouths unlatching, and licked her ludicrously defined jawbone with one needy swipe of her tongue. Teeth poised to nibble at the fleshy lobe of his ear, she murmured, "You taste minty."

"Is that a fact?" he asked, to which Hermione hmmed her affirmation. Remus kissed her with renewed investigative fervour.

"You taste of tea."

"That'd be the thermos-full I drank between the Bodleian and here."

"Did you find what you were after?" Remus inquired of Hermione's venture to the Magical section of the underground stacks of Oxford University's impressive library.

"I did, but we can discuss that tomorrow. How long...?" Hermione exhaled sharply rather than supply the omitted sentence ending.

"Not long."

"But long enough," Hermione surmised, leading Remus to the corner of the cage.

"That depends entirely on what you mean by 'enough'."

"I mean," Hermione specified, kneeling atop a balled up blanket, "enough time to suck you off." She tugged at his makeshift wrap, immodestly exposing his hard cock. "Before..."

"What about you?" His hands in her hair guiding her mouth closer to his erection, moderating any concern his voice held.

"We can save that for tomorrow, too," she spoke to his bobbing cock before placing a soft kiss upon its leaking slit. One hand wrapped in Hermione's hair, the other grasping a cage bar, Remus remained still, defiantly controlling the urge to pump his hips so the head of cock hit the back of her throat, so his balls slapped at the underside of her chin, again and again, until he came in a gratifying gush of pleasure. Instead he marvelled at the feel of Hermione's sweet little mouth inching down the length of his shaft, her sweaty palm cupping his balls, lifting them, squeezing them, letting them go to skim the cleft of his buttocks, to tease within. "Fuck," he hissed. Remus jerked in surprise at the ministration. Hermione's nasal inhalations became more laboured as she ran her teeth firmly up the veined underside of his shaft. Sucking on the head with cheek-hollowing finesse, Hermione tongued the fleshy knob until it parted and her mouth was filled with stringy cum. Remus fell to his knees before Hermione, kissing her madly, lapping at the taste of his most primal self that lined her tongue and mouth. Hermione pulled reluctantly away, standing unsteadily, she exited the cage.

Sitting, spent, Remus watched her spell the cage shut, the buzz and thrum of magic trapping Remus within. He shut his eyes and let her almost unstilted reading of the Runes weave its meditative strain over him. With deep concentration Remus attempted to transcend the bone-altering, flesh-tearing, mind-crushing pain of Transformation as the rising moon revealed his werewolf state. His success was limited in this regard but nonetheless he was pleased he hid the full extent of his pain from Hermione. He curled himself into a ball; muzzle tucked into limbs, all the while Hermione continued to read aloud the unfortunate tale of William the Werewolf.

( * )

Segments of tangerine coloured dawn spliced through the round cellar window, splashing light over the sleeping couple, wrapped in each other’s arms and a worn woollen cover.

( i i )

Kneeling in her backyard garden bed, Hermione turned the soil over with her small spade, preparing the ground for the planting of an Elderberry shrub. She swiped at the sweat trickling down her neck with a coarse gardening glove covered hand. Falling into the temporarily gaping hole before her was a not discarded by a disgruntled owl. Hermione peeled off her gloves with itchy briskness and retrieved the delivery.

My darling Hermione,

I've just spent the most wondrous morning with Elodie. She's so like you: vibrant and inquisitive and desperately wanting to know everything about the world. She's also unfathomably sensitive - did you know she asked me it would hurt the daisies if we picked them? She looked at me with your trusting eyes and I assured her the flowers wouldn't feel any pain. But why shouldn't flowers feel what we other living things feel? They breathe, they grow, they bleed - perhaps they do feel, and yet I hope, selfishly, that they don't. I couldn't bear for Elodie's trust to be misplaced in me.

We sat in the field and I taught our daughter how to knot daisies in a chain. I placed the flowery crown atop her head, her hair a childishly soft and wispy interpretation of my own.

We spun around in circles, arms outstretched, laughing madly until we fell giddily to the ground. I held her chubby child's hand as we stared up at the endless blue sky watching clouds crawl across our vision.

I wished you were there.

I suppose rightly I should have wished I was there. It's getting harder to distinguish between my memories and my dreams. Things I wished and things I feared to hope are blending together and appear to me so vividly I'm not quite sure what's real anymore. Except for you - I always know that you are real, that your love is real. Were Elodie real you would have been there too, in my memories.

I wonder if it's possible to dream on the other side. I hope I see you and Ellie again, even if it is only in my dreams.

I love you, Remus

She tucked Remus' letter into the front pocket of her overalls. She planted the shrub as she had set out to. She then lay on the ground, looking up at the cloudless sky, imagining what Remus had imagined - one hand touching the blades of grass yet to be mown, the other resting atop Remus' letter, upon her heart.

( i i i )

Hermione recast her heating charm, the biting westerly wind cutting through the initial magical barrier she had placed between her and the cold winter's day. Despite the magical enhancement, she still tugged her hand-knitted beanie down over her ears and her matching muggle gloves up over her wrists.

Rifling through her Mary Poppins inspired purse she pulled out a plain chicken sandwich and the latest volume of the European Journal of Potions. Swishing her wand, she transfigured a twig near her lunchtime companion into a sturdy outdoor chair. Hermione settled herself in the chair and took a bite of her lunch before proceeding to the exciting purpose of her visit. Flicking the journal open with obvious relish, Hermione spread open the introductory pages of her and Severus' newly published research.

"What do you think of the title?" she asks, her finger tapping against the heading boldly announcing "Initiating and Werewithal-propagating Cells in Muggle and Magical Associated Lycanthropy".

"Intimidatingly scientific?" Hermione suggests filling the silence.

"Mum and dad have ordered a ridiculous number of copies of the journal. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up framing the thing; or maybe just the page with my name...

"Anyway, this --" pausing, Hermione shook the journal for emphasis, "--wouldn't pass the 'Harry and Ron test', with which you're familiar. So Luna agreed to run a story the pair would understand and, even better, want to read." Retrieving her purse from the ground Hermione plucked out the latest copy of The Quibbler. The Headline shimmied across the top of page:

Duo with the Wherewithal to Cure Werewithal Syndrome

The photo accompanying the piece captured Severus and Hermione seated at Luna's dining table, turned slightly toward one another as they shared a copy of their research with their interviewer. The moving picture caught their ease with one another, their surprise at having their picture taken, and their desire to explain the significance of their success. Hermione's face broadcast her feelings in the three phases of the photo: relaxed, shifting to startled, before settling into beaming delight. Severus' features, whilst more reserved than his collaborator, were apparent to the attentive observer: unperturbed became imperceptibly startled, morphing into a genuine, though tight-lipped smile.

"Luna said the paper is garnering lots of attention from the piece and the wider press will undoubtedly run opinion pieces on the breakthrough.

"Anyway--" Hermione packed away the paper and her half-eaten sandwich. "--I wanted to share this with you."

Standing with a quick flick of her wand and quietly spoken Finite Incantum her seat returned to a stick on the ground. She knelt on the cold ground, unnoticing of the lapsed heating charms, and traced the grooves of the stone before her.

"Remus, I miss you so much." Tears tracked disregarded down Hermione's blanched cheeks. "I miss talking to you. I miss laughing with you. I miss holding you. I muss having you there, having you here, for when something massive like this happens." Hermione blinked frosty tears from her lashes. "And I'm so afraid that one day I'll stop missing you like I do."

Hermione pressed her palm against her husband's headstone, heedless of the afternoon chill, and continued her single-sided conversation until the sun sank behind the building tops opposite the cemetery.

4. Ring, Wringing, Wrought

( i )

The regular crowd occupies their regular spots in the comfortably crowded Boar's Head Hotel. Remus and Severus are seated in their usual corner booth, pints near to hand, engaged in animated conversation.

"I've asked Hermione to marry me!" Remus shared his news with irrepressible enthusiasm.

"I take it from your silly grin she said yes," Severus dryly commented.

"She did!"

"She's not pregnant is she? Hormones may explain why an otherwise intelligent woman would behave so irrationally."

Remus' joy clouded instantly. "You're a right bastard, you know that?" he glowered.

"Would that I was the fatherless mongrel everyone assumes."

Remus slapped his open palm on the table between them causing their near empty pint glasses to shake on the vibrating surface. "I love her," Remus declared fiercely. "I have no desire to see her hurt, to see her pregnant with a wee bairn that would die at the first full moon, to be the cause of that pain."

"I didn't know --"

"Evidently."

"I..." Severus was at a loss for what he could say to repair the rift with, what he suddenly recognised was a friend. "Congratulations." Severus was struck by just how all-encompassing and wholly inadequate the word was to convey what needed to be said.

It not being in Remus' nature to harbour ill will towards others, even those as hurtfully petty as Severus Snape, he stiffly accepted the tidings.

( i i )

Hermione cradled her cup of mid-morning coffee, brows furrowed as she contemplated the possible words that would fit the empty squares of the Quibbler crossword. Every morning it was a new exercise in infuriating ingenuity. She sat outside, undeterred by the frigid breeze that blew through the Hogsmeade side streets.

DOWN. 6. Cause distress (5)

She took a sip of her simple espresso. A disconcertingly familiar owl swooped in a disciplined arc over her table to drop its delivery atop her puzzle. Remus' writing greeted her once more.

My darling Hermione,

I'm scared. I don't want you to know that, but I am. I’m not as brave as I thought. I hope Death is gentle with me.

I'm plagued with half-imagined scenes of Lily and James and Sirius. None of them expecting to die, none of them knowing like I know, what is inching inevitably nearer. I wonder like Elodie, if it hurts. I'm not sure it's possible to hurt more than I do. Gustave knows, and Albus, of course. How did he bear the deterioration of his very self? I wish I had their strength.

I'm thankful that my parents didn't live to see me like this. And despite these morbid musings, in spite of this disease, I love my life - how could I not? If I wasn't so happy, I wouldn't be so scared of dying.

I'm so sorry that I'm as selfish as I am, because I'm so very thankful that you're here with me. Forgive me.

Love, Remus.

Her coffee stood half-drunk as a cold reminder of what Remus' words had intruded upon. She had known of her husband's increasing pre-occupation with death as he lay dying - but somehow seeing the shaking penmanship she knew now something more than she had known before.

Her heart ached at his mention of Elodie. Her mind raced at the implication of Gustave. Her breath hitched at his remembrances of his friends.

Hermione picked up her pen and resolutely wrote over the 'W' with an 'R', filling in the four blanks squares of six down with the remainder of her husband's name.

( i i i )

Hermione propped forward on her stool, leaning her forearms on the surface of the lab counter. Severus stood before the steaming cauldron, glaring at the swirling liquid below.

"I believe I could adapt this potion for your benefit." Severus' eyes remained fixed on the potion, his mouth apparently intent on moving with a volition other than of his normally sensical mind.

"Mine?"

"I could remove the lycanthropic strain from the samples Lupin provided."

Hermione tilted her head in confusion, observing Severus' staid demeanour. "Oh!" Hermione openly stared at Severus in stunned understanding. He continued looking fixedly at the now bubbling cauldron.

Taking a deep breath, she confided in Severus: "I think that may be the kindest and the cruellest offer I've ever received."

Severus blanched.

"I thought --"

"I wanted Remus' child?" Hermione finished. She smiled wanly, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. Severus faced her, his eyes shining with regret and nodded.

"I did, and if Remus were still alive, your offer would be incredibly generous."

"But as he's not, mine was a callous reminder," Severus supplied in a low voice. Hermione slid off her stool to stand beside Severus. She reached out to him, wrapping her small hand around his clenched fist.

"You are neither cruel nor callous." She squeezed his hand. "Life, fate, whatever --" Hermione huffed as she grappled to articulate the injustices she felt, "is merciless, as you well know. It's not fair that Remus isn't here, that he can't know it's possible for him to have a child who will never know the pain of being part werewolf. It's not fair I can't share that life with Remus. But I fear if I accepted your offer it would be for the wrong reasons: because I want a part of Remus back with me, and that wouldn't be fair to the child. So no, I don't want to have Remus' child - not without him by my side. Can you understand that?"

Severus unclenched his fist, his fingers slipping comfortably between Hermione’s; he pressed her hand firmly in his.

"I can," he told her sincerely. For Hermione always made sense, whether she was talking at length about the magical properties of Muggle science or the inadequacies of journalism in the Wizarding press or now, sharing her mingled fear and desire of a future wrenched from her grasp. Or at least, he realised, she always made sense to him.

5. The difference between lost and lust, is you

( i )

Looking up from her spot on Harry's leather lounge, Hermione caught her husband staring at the shelves of books behind her. Her smile is unreturned as Remus looks through her. She waves her hand, interrupting his line of sight, the movement reeling Remus back to the present.

"Lost in thought?" Hermione asks. Remus belatedly returns her smile.

"Oui. Souviens toi, ce jour là, toi et mo."

"Thinking of me?" Hermione guesses.

"Toi." Hermione gestures to Hermione. "Et mo." Remus pokes himself in the chest indicating himself.

"Oh, us," Hermione sighs.

"Trés bien," he congratulates his wife on her rudimentary comprehension, although in fact it is his miming more than his words she understands.

Hermione pads the short distance from the lounge to Remus' seat to straddle his accommodating thighs.

"You, sir, are impossibly sexy when you speak French."

"Are you suggesting I'm less sexy when I speak my native tongue?"

"Mmmm," Hermione mulls over the question. "I'd say you're resistibly sexy"

"Is that a fact?" he asks playfully.

"It's certainly a challenge," she replies in kind.

Remus guides her head to the crook of his neck where she gladly inhales his uniquely masculine scent. His voice adopts the deep resonant tones familiar to Hermione from countless episodes of seduction, to rumble obscenely, "But, darling, if I told you in French that I wanted to tongue your cunt until you beg for my cock - you'd not have the foggiest idea."

Hermione nestles further into Remus, rubbing denim-clad crotches together. Arching her neck back to look Remus in the eye, she agrees. "How very considerate then, that you should indicate your indecent plans in a language I understand." Hermione grins mischievously.

"Ah," Remus interjects," a language you can both understand and resist." Remus lifts Hermione from his lap and deposits her on the table before him.

"I take it back!"

"Too late," Remus laughed, folding his arms across his chest, his head leaning back against the high-backed chair, to smile triumphantly.

"You're impossibly sexy whatever language you speak," she concedes.

"Latin?" he asks with a quaint inflection.

"Dead sexy."

"Quite right," he agrees before demonstrating his proficiency in the language with a well-enunciated Demitto sending her jeans sliding down her thighs and calves to bunch at her ankles.

Hooking his ankles about the legs of his chair, he tucks himself into the table between Hermione's indecently spread legs; thighs parted, knees apart, ankles loosely brought together by her lowered jeans. Remus runs his hands up her bare thighs, fingers kneading the pliant flesh as he lowers his head to suckle on one moist nether lip, teeth sliding against the rosy fold of flesh. Hermione wriggles wantonly onto Remus' delectably devouring face.

One hand threaded through his hair, tugging and massaging, the other splayed behind her, supporting her, as her head falls back in a curve of pleasure, resulting in a provocative pose of uncensored sexual expression.

Remus nibbles up one sensitive lip of her labia and down the other before settling his mouth in the centre of her folds. Plunging his dexterous tongue into the welcoming wetness of her cunt, he darts and laps and curls his tongue: into, and the length of, and within her throbbing cunt, repeatedly, rhythmically. Then he stops. He pulls his face away from his brazen enterprise, smiling in the face of Hermione's censure.

"Comment sa va? He idly enquires, his tongue darting to swipe her wetness from his lower lip.

"Please, Remus, I'm so close." Hermione ignores his question, begging instead with her plaintive words and her hands attempting to steer his head back to the delicious task of before.

"Ask again," he challenges, "in French."

"S'il vous plaît," she pleads in her best schoolgirl French.

"S'il vous plaît..." he prompts, his hands firm on her knees keeping them tortuously apart.

"S'il vous plaît..." she wracks her mind for any French she can conceivably use in this instance when she recalls an overheard expression of Fleur's - "Base moi!"

"Base toi?"

"Moi, Toi. Whatever - I need you, in me. Now."

In a flurry of movement Remus is on his feet, his pants are lowered and his cock is buried within Hermione's needy cunt. He fucks her hard, pressing her into the table; she lies flat upon its surface, her legs dangling off its edge, whilst he is wedged between them thrusting urgently. His centre rocks chaotically in contrast to his solidly planted feet and mostly stationary upper body laying over Hermione. His thighs bang against the table, jarring it, with each erratic thrust of his hips. She shudders at the sensation. All she can feel, see, hear, smell, taste, is him and she soars and plummets on that note.

( i i )

Severus handed Hermione a familiar looking folded piece of parchment, her name penned in the same mauve ink Remus had used for his previous posthumous letters to her.

"You?" A tumult of emotions competed for prominence upon Hermione's distraught face.

Severus nodded.

Hermione gaped at the man before her, her mind whirring with questions and yet unable to articulate anything more comprehensive than, "Why?”

"Because he asked." Severus found he wanted to desperately explain all that had transpired between himself and Remus and his dying request, but found the simple answer that his friend asked and he answered rather summed up the situation fully. "This is his last letter."

Hermione slid her thumbnail under the purple wax that sealed her husband's words. Her eyes flickered across the words as she absorbed each line of text. Swallowing thickly, she handed the letter to its bearer. Severus furrowed his brow at the gesture, he made to return the note but Hermione insisted on his reading it.

My darling Hermione,

I know you don't approve of anything more than a cursory acknowledgement of Valentine's Day, but I couldn't let the day pass in silence.

There is so much I want to say, that I have said but that needs to be repeated, that I want you to know.

Know that I am proud to have known you.

Know that I am proud to have called you mine.

Know that I would change nothing of the life we led together.

Know that I am sorry I cannot be here now.

Know that I love you.

Remus

Hermione watched Severus, anxiously awaiting his reaction.

"You don't care for Valentine's Day?" was Severus' unexpected response.

Hermione laughed a surprised, teary laugh. "No, never have."

"I never knew."

"I think it's me that never knew about you."

(*)

"I'm not like Lupin. I see life for the series of disappointments it actually is. But," Severus confessed. "My days are considerably less disappointing spent with you." Hermione smiled at his admission. "But I don't know that your days are any less disappointing with me."

She raised her hand to cup his stubbled cheek. "Then I suppose it's just as well I'm not like you..."

Whatever Hermione was going to say was lost in the kiss that Severus silenced her with.

"Severus, that was irrefutably the absence of disappointment."

(*)

Severus looked at the small slip of parchment, turning the torn edge of paper compulsively over in his fingers. How could six words contain so much information? How could he possibly live up to the expectations of a dead man? What did he ever do in his miserable life to deserve all that those six meagre words entailed?

Severus tucked the paper into the hidden pocket of his robe sleeve.


Severus,

Love her.

Your friend, Remus

( i i i )

Hermione sat at her dressing table watching her reflection in the large gilt mirror brush her hair with long laborious strokes. Severus appeared in the corner of the frame, his gaze appreciatively centred on the expanse of creamy flesh bereft of the paisley patterned silk of her robe as her arms rose to brush back her hair.

He moved further into the foreground of the reflected portrait. Sweeping her hair to one side, Severus lowered his head to chastely kiss Hermione's exposed neck.

"You look ravishing," he breathed.

"Yes, please."

Severus quirked an eyebrow in amused disbelief.

"Here or bed?" Hermione asked mater-of-factly.

"Bed I should think." Severus skimmed her gown off her shoulders, exposing her nude form in the mirror before her. Severus watched, rapt, as his hands trailed over her rounded belly, tracing the ragged scar that stretched to purple faintness across her stomach, to lightly caress her swollen breasts.

"Exquisite."

Hermione turned in Severus' arms to face him and capture his dry lips in a lingering kiss. He led her to their bed, his clothing shed along the way. She crawled atop him, confident in her movements, to ease herself onto his twitching erection. He gripped her hips as she lifted and lowered herself up and down his cock - the pace maddeningly slow, the friction impossibly tight.

Hermione threaded her fingers through Severus', clutching his hand between the valley of her breasts as they lay facing each other in post orgasmic splendour. She murmured, "I've been thinking about names."

"And what, m'dear, has that prodigious mind thought of now?" Severus' eyes sparkled with interest.

"He has to have his own name - be his own person --"

"Unlike some poor wretches who shall remain nameless."

"Well, exactly," Hermione agreed, "why Ginny let Harry name their first born --"

"You must admit it is so very predictably Potter."

"Still."

"Well there's no fear we're going to be naming our son James Sirius."

Hermione laughed, "None!"

"What of names?" Severus prompted.

Hermione looked down at their clasped hands, appearing to find the impetus to share her recent desire in the connection. "I've read that the spirit lives on in a name. My middle name is after my gran and I like to think she lives on in me." Hermione lifted her gaze to Severus'. "I'd like to name our son something Remus Snape."

"Something Snape has a certain charm to it."

"Severus," she said seriously. Her expressive face exposed a litany of unsure expectations. Severus leaned over the mother of his unborn child, brushing the slickened strands of her hair behind her ears. "I cannot think of a more admirable man for our son to share a legacy with." He pressed his lips firmly against hers, capturing her smiling mouth in a searing kiss. He pulled back slightly to tease, "Despite being a Gryffindor." Hermione yanked at the short strands of Severus' hair, eliciting a laughing 'ow' from the insufferable man.

"Actually," Severus hesitantly admitted, "I've a suggestion for a name other than Something." Hermione waited with unwavering attention for him to continue. He cleared his throat in an endearingly expectant manner. "Felix."

"Felix Remus Snape," Hermione tested the words. In her mind she tried different permutations of the name: Felix R. Snape; F.R. Snape; Snape, Felix Snape. She beamed at him. "I love it," she assured him. "Latin in origin, meaning 'happy'." Severus' lip tugged upwards in a small smirk, "Five points to Felix's house for his mother being an impossible show-off." Hermione grinned, asking cheekily, "Any extra points for naming the ingredients required for Felix Felicitus?" Severus grumbled good-naturedly, "I think not."

~finis~

Disclaimer:
- Billy Elliot: The letter that Billy's mum writes to Billy contains the lines: "know that I am proud to have known you/proud to call you mine".
- Waitress: Keri Russell's character tells her unborn baby the following after the most perfect hug from Nathan Fillion's character: "Dear baby, I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for twenty minutes straight and that's all they do. They don't pull away. They don't look at your face. They don't try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you in their arms without an ounce of selfishness in it."