Entry tags:

fic, remus, snape, tonks

Special delivery for kereia - Part 1
Title: Never Trust an Epilogue - pt. 1
Author: violet_quill
Recipient's Name: kereia
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Snape/Tonks, Remus/Tonks
Summary: The future that Tonks knows is one where Voldemort still lives in hiding, Death Eaters have resorted to terrorist attacks, and families have been broken and splintered… though also one where she has two wonderful sons and a husband who loves her. But then some powerful dark magic brings her face to face with different futures, including one where Harry Potter lives a normal life with three children, she is dead, and "all is well." What makes one future the "right" one?
Warnings: outdoor sex, some dirty talk, character death (major implied, minor depicted), implied adultery, either AU or epilogue-compliant depending on how you look at it
Word Count: 13,000
Notes: There are parts in this fic that borrow very heavily from the DH epilogue, mostly in structure but at times, complete quotations. This story began as an extremely complicated time travel tale, but after dealing with plot holes that I could drive a train through, this version emerged instead. I know that this is a bit of an unconventional form of EWE, keiera, but I do hope that you enjoy it! Many thanks to S, who listened to me wibble about my plot issues for months, and to the WL mods for truly saintly patience.

one.

Autumn seemed to come early that year. The morning of the first of September was soggy and grey as a melancholy ghost, and as three figures huddled close together made their way across the station, the fumes of exhausts mingled with cold breath and muggy fog in the air. The tallest boy pushed a single trolley with a small cage settled atop it, and beside him, the younger boy held tightly to the woman's hand.

No one seemed to notice the small family as they pushed towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten, even though they made quite a trio, with hair of blue, purple, and black. Tonks felt her younger son's hand slightly slippery in her own as Teddy rambled on, continuing what he'd begun in the car.

"Your father will probably disown you if you're in Gryffindor."

"I won't be!" Brian squeaked. "I want to be in Hufflepuff like you and Mum."

"Teddy," Tonks said with a hint of warning in her voice. "Now you know there's nothing wrong with Gryffindor - your dad was a Gryffindor."

"Yeah," said Teddy, "but so's Victoire Weasley, and she's a stuck-up little - "

"Weasleys are always in Gryffindor," Brian said knowledgeably. "Not like us. You were in Hufflepuff and Teddy was in Hufflepuff, but his dad was in Gryffindor and my dad was in Slytherin - "

"You'll probably be in Slytherin, too," someone giggled, pushing past them towards the platform, and Tonks turned just in time to see Rose Weasley disappearing into the barrier.

"Rose!" Hermione shot them an apologetic look before hurrying after her daughter.

"I wouldn't mind being in Slytherin," Brian mumbled. "At least I wouldn't have to worry about Dad being my head of house."

"That was dead embarrassing for a while," Teddy said, patting Brian's back. "But if you are in Hufflepuff, just don' t let on. After all, you and Mum don't have the same last name. I mean, that's what saved me. I was Teddy Lupin and she was Professor Tonks, and after a while everyone just forgets."

"Yeah, but I've got the same last name as Dad," Brian groaned, letting his head fall down onto his suitcases. The tiny brown owl in the cage skittered around nervously, trying to get farther away from him.

"Too bad for you!" Teddy said cheerfully. "But you should be grateful. After all, he used to be Head of Slytherin and Headmaster."

"Teddy," Tonks said sharply, and he immediately quieted. He knew better than to speak that way in front of his stepfather, at least. There were some topics that just were not discussed in their family. She turned to Brian and added, "And there's nothing wrong with having a parent… or two… as a professor. The Longbottom twins did very well last year; they were quite popular."

"More Gryffindors," Teddy reminded Brian.

"Weasleys are always Gryffindors," the younger boy repeated.

“Whatever you do, don’t date one of them,” Teddy warned. “That Rose might be looking kind of cute now, but – “

“Teddy!” Brian’s cheeks flushed a bright pink. “She teases me.”

Tonks gave her older son another reproachful look as well. “Honestly, Teddy. Just because it didn’t work out between you and Victoire—“

He quieted at that, and she wasn’t about to push the subject. To be honest, none of them were as close to the Weasleys as they had once been. Teddy and Victoire had played together all the time when they were small… but that was before Tonks’ second marriage. Some grudges hold fast, apparently.

The three of them approached the barrier. Teddy winked at his younger brother and took off at a run towards it. Tonks held Brian’s hand as they ran towards it together, squeezing when she saw him wince as if expecting a collision. Of course, none came.

“You’re coming on the train too, right?” Brian asked anxiously as they made their way down the platform, following Teddy’s shock of bright blue hair just ahead of them.

“Of course I am,” Tonks assured him. “I’ll even sit with you if you want, but only if you want me too.”

Brian nodded. “And Dad will be there when we get there?”

“You’ll see him in the Great Hall during Sorting. Don’t worry; he wouldn’t miss it.”

The fog was dense, and everyone shivered under thick coats and pulled-up scarves, making it difficult to make out anyone’s faces. Voices were hushed, as if no one wanted to be heard. Though Tonks could make out enough to catch a common theme. Everywhere, parents warned their children to be careful. Be careful, we love you, be careful. She didn’t blame them. She wasn’t sure how well she would be handling this if she weren’t going to be at Hogwarts to keep an eye on her son.

She thought she heard Percy Weasley somewhere discoursing loudly on safety regulations, the sort you always heard when in public places with large groups these days, and she was grateful for the excuse not to stop and say hello. It had been over fifteen years since their failed romance, but she suspected that that too had left a sore spot with the other Weasleys.

“Hey, look who it is!” Brian suddenly blurted, and darted forward in the crowd to where Draco Malfoy was standing with his son. Tonks followed after him, and Teddy veered that way as well, until the five of them stood together in the fog. She thought that Draco looked exceptionally warm, in a dark coat buttoned up to his throat. She always felt poorly groomed next to him, and yanked on her pink and orange polka-dotted scarf absently.

“Hi, Scorpius!” Brian enthused at the boy his age who resembled Draco to an almost eerie degree. The two of them had been born only weeks apart, and each’s father was the other’s godfather. Draco’s wife had died three years ago in an attack on Diagon Alley, where she had been shopping.

Scorpius for his part was a bit more reserved, but he did smile at Brian and say, “Hello. Are you nervous?”

“Nothing to be nervous about,” said Draco, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. He turned his attention to Tonks then, and nodded once. “Hello, Cousin.”

She smiled. “Hello.” It had been strange at first, having the Malfoys in her life. But it had been many years since Lucius had escaped from Azkaban along with the other Death Eaters and Draco had publicly disowned him, liquidating all of his family’s assets and striking out on his own. Anyone would be hard pressed to label him as a Voldemort sympathizer, despite any mark on his arm. Tonks knew that as well as anyone.

“You’re very lucky to have your godfather and your cousin at Hogwarts with you,” Draco said, looking down at Scorpius. “They’ll take good care of you.” It was a pointed statement, and he’d glanced back up at Tonks as he said it. She nodded almost imperceptively.

“Everything will be fine,” she assured Scorpius and Brian. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

She thought she heard Teddy snort, and imagined what he was thinking. That’s what they told us, too, before half of the Ravenclaw seventh years ended up dead two years ago.

Tonks didn't want to tell them how much worse things would have been were it not for the protections afforded to them by the castle.

“Look, it’s Rose Weasley,” said Brian softly, and they turned to see Hermione and Ginny standing together, along with their children.

Hermione looked frazzled, her brown hair escaping in all directions from an obviously hastily pulled up bun. With some sympathy, Tonks thought that the years had not been kind to her. Rose had been not yet two when Ron died, and Hermione had thrown herself into her work, as if she had to make up for the other two thirds of a trio that no longer existed. Rose, meanwhile, had grown up more with the rest of her family than with her own mother, spending a lot of time under the wing of Bill and Fleur, Molly and Arthur, Ginny and Neville, and even George, the perpetual bachelor. Tonks wished that she could have been more help herself, but she was already living at Hogwarts by then, juggling teaching with two young sons.

It was unsurprising, then, that Rose had a bit of an independent streak, and she was talking animatedly to the twins, Harry and Helena. The pair of them had been some of Tonks’ favourite students last year, taking up the Weasley tradition of being the stars of Gryffindor. Beside them, Ginny held the hand of Veronica, age nine, who held the hand of her sister Abigail, age six. And little Freddy was balanced precariously in Ginny’s arms.

Soon, Tonks realized, she’d have more Weasleys than she knew what to do with, even if they were Longbottoms.

Her attention snapped back when Draco said, “It’s nearly eleven; you three should be getting on board.” He held a gleaming silver pocket watch etched with the outline of a serpent.

Tonks turned to Teddy and said, “Promise me you’ll keep the house in order? You know, it’s not yours, your stepfather could pop in at any time and check on things…”

Teddy snorted. “Don’t worry, mum, no wild parties. And as soon as I get a better job I’ll see about getting my own place anyway. I’d like to live closer to town.”

“Kingsley has offered to pull some strings for you at the Ministry,” Tonks offered, not for the first time.

“No thanks, Mum. If this new freelance gig doesn’t work out I promise I’ll apply at The Prophet.”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead and he rolled his eyes, then leaned over and ruffled his younger brother’s hair. “See you later, Brian. And don’t worry about what House you end up in, there’ll be cute girls in all of – “

And that’s when the bomb went off.

The platform erupted into chaos as people screamed and tried to dodge flying brick and debris. Parents covered their children. Spells flew erratically, and people splinched themselves trying to Apparate out of danger, leaving bits of their bodies behind. The explosion had come from the wall between platforms, the bomb obviously thrown in from the Muggle side. The Muggles swarming King’s Cross right now probably had no idea what was happening between platforms nine and ten.

It took Tonks a moment to recover from the shock, and she realized that Brian was clinging to her waist, sobbing, but unhurt. Teddy was on the ground at her feet, looking dazed, blood swelling from a cut on his forehead.

Nearby, she heard a woman’s voice screaming hysterically above the rest of the din – at first she thought that it was Ginny, but then recognized it as Hermione instead. Through the dust and smoke, Tonks saw the woman on the ground, cradling a small body as blood pooled around her.

Tonks fought a choked sob.

“I’m all right, Mum,” Brian whispered.

“I know,” she said, clinging to his hand. “I am too.”

Tears streaked her cheeks and she wished that her husband was there with her. How could they tell their children that everything was going to be okay? How could anyone say that? It was not okay. Things were not okay.

All was not well.

*

Tonks was still shaking by the time she pushed open the heavy doors and slipped into the familiar bedchamber that she shared with her husband. He must have heard by now, surely, but there was an air of complete calm in the room. She recognized his dark outline against the firelight, where he sat in his chair with a book in one hand.

"Rose Weasley is dead," she said quietly.

He lowered the book onto the side table where she recognized the shape of a bottle of firewhiskey and a mostly empty glass.

“And one other,” she added, moving closer to him. “Lionel Everstone’s father. And there are a dozen others in St. Mungo’s. The beginning of the term has been postponed for at least a week.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, his voice low and grave.

“Severus…” She was standing right behind his chair at that point.

“Where is Brian?” he asked.

“Here. He and Teddy are both here, sleeping in Neville’s room. He left to be with his family. And… and with Hermione. I… I didn’t know if we would be safer here or at Spinner’s End, but I just wanted us all to be together right away.”

She thought she saw him incline his head slightly, but still he didn’t move from his chair. She wondered what he was thinking. In the past twelve years, she’d done a lot of that.

When he said nothing, she moved in front of him, and it took her only a second to realize that his stoic face was etched with grief. Just seeing that from him was enough to make her break down, and she sank to her knees, clinging to his heavy black robes with her head in his lap, sobbing.

He stroked her hair until she quieted, and when she finally lifted her tear-streaked face to him, he said quietly, “Thank Merlin it wasn’t you. That it wasn’t Brian.”

“It could have been!” Tonks insisted, hands balling up in the material of his robes. “Teddy had to have three stitches from one of the mediwizards on the scene. I saw… I had to see… god, Severus, the way that Hermione clung to her, covered in blood. Her own arm was broken so badly that there was bone protruding from her skin and she didn’t even seem to notice. The sounds she was making, Severus, my god, it was… all the death I’ve seen, and the grief, it’s never been that close together before, never seen anything that raw. She’s lost everyone, everyone to this fucking war. Twenty years, and where are we? I just want it to be over!”

Severus winced, and Tonks took a deep breath, calming herself, because she knew her hair had probably gone black again. It tended to do that when she got too angry, and she knew that Severus thought it made her look like Bellatrix. Not exactly one of his favourite looks on her.

She intentionally turned her hair back to purple and looked up at him, waiting for something. Anything.

It was no secret they had married because of Brian. It wasn't that Tonks hadn't loved him, it was that she'd never thought about loving him. Because she'd never thought that it could be anything like that for him. Their affair had been one of convenience and mutual loneliness, not of passion.

After Remus' death nineteen years ago, Tonks' heart simply hadn't been in the job. She couldn't risk her life anymore, not while being a single parent, and Teddy deserved a real mother, not to be constantly pawned off on his grandmother when Tonks had unpredictable assignments. And there was also the fact that she was afraid that if she let herself go too far down a certain path, that she would become consumed by revenge. Every time that she heard word of Antonin Dolohov, her fingers itched with death. She could replay the moment again and again in her head, the moment that Remus threw himself in front of the curse meant for his wife, but it always ended the same.

When she tendered her resignation, Kingsley had done all he could for her as acting Minister - pushed through an appointment at Hogwarts, for the now direly needed Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Interestingly, Kingsley had also been the one to push that Severus not be summarily banned from teaching.

The evidence in his favour after the smoke from the battle had cleared, particularly the Pensieve that as much as exonerated him for Dumbledore's death, was enough to save him from Azkaban, no matter what atrocities had been visited upon the Hogwarts students in the previous year. Testimony from various students, once pieced together, showed how he had actually tried to help them, even though none of them had realized it at the time.

Still, with so few Death Eaters captured, most of them having escaped with Voldemort after Harry's death had shockingly left him weaker, scapegoats were at a premium. Snape managed to keep his job by the skin of his teeth, though of course had been stripped of the position of Headmaster, as well as Head of Slytherin. By the time Tonks had come to Hogwarts, Severus Snape was only the potions master.

Their relationship had progressed slowly. First he had to learn to tolerate her, after all. From that it turned into a somewhat grudging respect, and then into something resembling a friendship as Tonks grew to realize that he was actually a very interesting man beneath the unpleasant disposition and he grew to realize that intelligent company was better than complete solitude. They played chess a lot (though Severus nearly always won), shared an interest in exotic tea, and over time Severus shared his personal library of Dark Arts texts and tomes. He even gained a grudging appreciation for Teddy, who had an innate knack for languages, and at age five could babble to Severus in passable Latin.

In the five years following Remus' death, Tonks' only romantic entanglements were with Charlie and Percy Weasley, respectively (with no small amount of pushing in the right direction from their mother), but Charlie turned out to be gay and Percy a workaholic. She really had no way of meeting men, as she rarely left the school, and what little spare time she had was taken up with caring for Teddy. More than one seventh year boy over the years had tried coming onto her - well, until she hit her late thirties - but she had always had the good sense to resist that particular temptation. And the only professors were decades older than her - with the exception of Neville Longbottom, who had married Ginny Weasley nearly as soon as she'd graduated from Hogwarts, and Severus. Of course, even now he considered himself too old for her, and she had to remind him that he was the same age as her first husband, who had been a werewolf to boot. Apparently she liked her men slightly damaged, even though he yanked away every time she started to trace the mark on his forearm.

They had fallen into bed together not long after the Death Eater attack on the Ministry, the largest attack to date, with a body count of over thirty before it was all said and done. It was the first time that they had used Muggle weapons. No one had seen that coming. Bombs, of all things, bits of plastic and metal and fire. Tonks still could not wrap her head around it. Arthur Weasley had died in that explosion. That was also the one where Hermione had acquired her limp, after being trapped underneath a piece of ceiling for several hours.

Sex with Severus the first time was awkward, as if they were both convinced that the other could not possibly enjoy it. But simply the fact that he had asked her to remain in his bed afterwards, that he held her while she fell asleep and tried not to dream of explosions, that was enough to make her want to do it again. And it seemed like each time it got better, something that she could swear was still true to this day, where their sex life, while not mind-blowing, was still pretty fantastic.

Their affair was not public, but nor did they take great measures to hide it. Her pregnancy came as a surprise to both of them, but nothing surprised her more than Severus' reaction to it. He had practically begged her to keep the baby, as if she had even been considering anything else. And he had proposed right away, making it abundantly clear that he wanted no bastards. He wanted to be a good father. It wasn't a trait that Tonks ever would have suspected of him, but somehow, it made sense.

She wouldn't have married him if she hadn't loved him - it was something that she had realized before her pregnancy - but Brian was nearly two years old before Severus said the words to her. At least, by that time she knew that they really meant something.

"Nymphadora."

…and after all these years, he still refused to call her Tonks.

She lifted her head and slid back a little on her heels as he got to his feet. Then he reached down and took her hand, pulling her up as well. His hand was warm from where he had been gripping the teacup.

"Tomorrow we will go away," Severus said, quietly, though in a way that suggested the subject was not up for debate. "Hogwarts is not as safe when it is empty. However, I am reluctant to return to Spinner's End. The Dark Lord's followers are becoming more bold, and my childhood home is no secret."

"You think they will come after you?" Tonks asked, alarmed. "After us?"

Severus sighed. "What bigger traitor than I?"

Tonks bit her lip. "I suppose the Weasleys might put us up - or Draco."

Severus lifted an eyebrow. "The latter being the second biggest traitor, and the others would probably just assume hand me over to the Death Eaters."

Tonks opened her mouth to argue, then wasn't sure that she could.

"You still hold the deed to Grimmauld Place, do you not?"

Tonks blinked. "Ah… I suppose so. I haven't thought of it. I mean, I haven't been there since Harry's death." Since Harry had had no next of kin - at least none that Wizarding law recognized - the ownership of Grimmauld Place had reverted back to the Black family. Sirius and Regulus were dead, as were all three Black sisters. Bellatrix had no children, so the deed to the house fell to Tonks since her mother was older than Narcissa. Of course, the only thing she had done about it was make sure the place was sealed and that Kreacher would remain at Hogwarts. She could hardly believe the old elf was still alive after all these years, but she caught a glimpse of him every now and then around the castle. She was always careful not to say a word to him, afraid he might interpret something as an order.

"You want to go there?" she asked weakly, thinking that she'd certainly had better vacations…

"Just until the school is full again and the wards reactivate," Severus said. "I don't want to risk it. Not after what happened at the station today. They are growing bolder."

Tonks flashed to a mental image of Brian lying in a pool of blood as Rose had been, and nodded through a shudder.

"Tomorrow," Severus repeated, and lifted her hand, letting his lips graze her knuckles. "Let the boys have a restful night's sleep."

"And us? Do you feel restful?" As she said this, Tonks brought her free hand up to her neck and began to unbutton her blouse, fingers smoothing over creamy skin until she reached the swell of her breasts.
She saw his breath catch, one of the small tell-tale signs she had picked up after years of dealing with the subtle nature of his passion. Perhaps the current mood was not one for such things, but Tonks only knew that she wanted to feel something, anything, just not what she was feeling now. And it had been nearly a week since she had seen her husband, since he had left their summer convalescence at Spinner's End to go back to Hogwarts to prepare for the new school term.

"This bed has been cold without you," he murmured, and still gripping her hand, led her back towards it. By the time she sank down onto the mattress her blouse gaped completely open, and he leaned over her, pushing it over her shoulders and then lowering his head to kiss her neck, mouth moving lower to her collarbone, shoulder.

Tonks could keep herself young if she wanted to. She could make her breasts larger, perkier, could smooth the wrinkles that had formed on her face and hands. But she didn't. Not only because she knew that Severus wouldn't like it, but because she had always preferred to remain mostly herself. Even with her multi-coloured hair (which was so her at this point that she had kept it even as she moved into her forties), she had always maintained her basic true appearance. And now as she grew older, she thought that she could see more and more of her mother in her face.

Severus slid his hand over her not-as-perky breasts and unfastened her bra which hooked in the front. She sighed as his fingers grazed across a nipple. He was still fully clothed, swathed in those layers of heavy black material as usual. He too was older, but he looked nearly the same as he had fifteen years ago. Granted, he had seemed prematurely aged when he was younger - now it seemed to simply have caught up with him. She sometimes teased that he would stay young because he would never develop laugh lines.

It wasn't that Severus was a handsome man, but there was something appealing about his appearance. She liked the lankiness of his body, how everything was long, from his legs to his nose to his fingers to his… well. She also suspected that he had begun taking more care with his personal hygiene after he'd started having sex on a regular basis, and his long, dark hair usually felt like silk in her fingers. She'd always thought that a potions master could do something marvellous with shampoo if he ever put his mind to it.

Rather than pushing her back on the bed, Severus dropped to his knees, and he pushed her long, flowing skirt up over her knees. She was wearing boots that laced up and hit halfway up her calves, and he carefully removed them, then the neon green socks that she was wearing underneath (she thought she heard him snort in amusement as he often did about her fashion choices), then gently massaged her feet and calves.

Then his hands moved up her legs, and she let them fall apart, skirt bunching up around her waist. She felt her breathing begin to quicken in anticipation of what was to come. When his thumbs hooked into the waistband of her knickers (the yellow ones that said "Once Upon a Time" on the front and "The End" on the back), she lifted her arse off of the bed a little so that he could easily slide them down and off.

When he lowered his face between her legs, she took a deep breath and licked her lips, then moaned quietly at the first touch of his tongue to her cunt. As he licked at her, he slid one finger deep inside her, and her hips bucked off the bed slightly as she groaned and threaded her fingers in his long hair.

"Ohmerlinplease," she gasped as he added another finger, crooking them inside her as he flicked his tongue over her clit.

She had her eyes closed for a while, but then she opened them to watch him, to look down and see the way that his head moved as he fucked her with his tongue and fingers. He made small sounds as he worked, small sounds of pleasure, and she could feel the vibration from them up through her body.

Her fingers tightened in his hair. "Severus, oh…" When she came, it was quick and powerful, muscles contracting around his fingers, short pulses of ecstasy causing her to cry out and pull his hair.

When he lifted his head, she looked down at him through glazed, sated eyes. "Severus…"

His lips were moist and glistening, and he brushed them across her belly, just below where the elastic from her skit hit her skin.

And then she was on him, off of the bed and yanking at his clothes, pulling away the heavy dark robes, fumbling with the buttons on the coat underneath. She could just use magic to divest him of his clothing, but that always struck her as cheating. It was much more fun this way.

By the time she was rewarded with slivers of pale, naked skin, she was ready to devour it with her mouth, and as she pushed off his shirt she lathed her tongue over his chest, though she had to stand on her tip-toes to do so since she was barefoot and he was quite a bit taller than her.

He seemed pleased with the way things were progressing, and things went faster as he began to help, and when he yanked off his thin grey y-fronts she got rid of her skirt as well. Naked, she spun him around so that his back was to the bed, and pushed him down onto it.

His lips quirked up into the half smile that she loved, and then she relished the expression of surprise and arousal in his eyes as she simply straddled his hips and lowered herself onto his cock without pretence. Her cunt was already soaked and she took his erection easily, moaning and riding him slowly, canting he hips forward and backwards.

He settled his hands on her waist, directing her movement somewhat, but mostly just enjoying the ride. "Severus…" she whispered, "oh Severus…"

He rarely spoke during sex, and it had taken her a while to realize that he didn't mind if she did, as for a while she'd rather felt like a schoolgirl again - "Can you not go five minutes without running your mouth off at the hinges like a twit, Miss Tonks?" - but now she was more uninhibited. He, however, was a man of few words.

"Oh yes!" she gasped, when one of his hands snaked from her waist to between her legs where their bodies joined, his thumb rubbing her clit as she rode him. She was still sensitive from her earlier orgasm, but the combination of his fingers and his cock would be enough to make her come a second time, she knew. She had once been surprised at what a skilled lover Severus was, but then she realized that he approached sex with the same methodical perfectionism that he approached potions making. For a while she had been worried that he didn't even really enjoy sex… but that was no longer the case.

He suddenly groaned loudly, his hips bucking up, back arching against the mattress. She felt the familiar warmth of his spill inside her, but it was his reaction as much as anything else that aroused her - the way his mouth opened, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, his body shuddered involuntarily. It was the moment that Severus Snape lost control, and she loved it.

Tonks had been on the verge of coming again herself. She let out a squeal of surprise when Severus, his cock still inside her, pulled himself up into a sitting position so that she was straddling his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely as his fingers found her cunt again.

She whimpered and moaned shamelessly into his mouth as they kissed, wriggling in his lap as he stroked his fingers just there until she let her head fall back, gasping out his name as the pleasure rushed over her again.

She rested against his chest, breathing heavily, for several minutes. Then she climbed off of him, feeling him slip out of her, soft and sated. They both settled down onto the mattress, one of his arms around her. They usually wore nightclothes because Severus got cold easily, but didn't generally bother after sex - the body heat was apparently enough to last them until morning.

"I love you," she murmured.

"And I you," he said, his voice almost grave in the darkness. But then he pressed his lips to her temple and added quietly, "Sleep restfully, Nymphadora. Tomorrow we will be together and all will be well."

And despite all the horrors of the day, for right now, that was enough for her.

Continued here