Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Ron and Hermione could not work, I think. That adoring wife in the epilogue was just as much character assassination as many other parts in that book.
Hermione is stubborn and takes matters in her own hands, not always wisely. But she is very young, and who is there to guide her? Not Dumbledore, not McGonagall, and certainly not the Ministry. Severus could, I think, and she'd be strong enough to accept his darker aspects. The Severus we got to know, at least, not the zombie from book 7.