Summary: [HG/SS] AU/Crack: Severus Snape has to deliver the acceptance letter to the Granger home thanks to Minerva being sick with the cat flu. He has no idea how this one event will change his life forever.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard, and the visiting flyby, dragged in, lured off her knitting podcast, Worrywart

Warning: Dastardly deeds committed by someone. Utterly heinous in nature. Consider yourself warned.

Big Things in Small Packages

Chapter Two

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

Robin Williams

"Hello there, little one," a voice called down from below. "Could you, perhaps, share with us your grand haul? This is the only patch of glow pods on this side of the forest."

The young fey dragon popped her head out of the pile of glowing pods she had stuffed into a tree hollow and looked down with a chirr.

Centaurs milled out below her carrying baskets.

"I am Magorian," a chestnut centaur called from below. "I lead the centaur here in the forest. "This is Bane, Firenze, and Ronan—" He jutted his head at the other centaur stallions. "Starchase, Sunfall, Steadfast, and Sunspot."

The fillies and foals nickered in protest at being forgotten.

"And this is Juniper, Belle, Brightfoot, Clover, Racer, and Leafsmack."

Hermione cocked her head at the last name.

The foal lowered his head in shame.

Magorian chuckled. "We are often named twice— the name we are born with and the name we earn by some trait or deed that we become known for. Leafsmack has a habit of running straight into tree foliage."

Leafsmack whickered sadly.

Hermione flitted out of her hollowed out stash and used her body to cascade a rain of glowing pods out of the tree. It rained glow pods, and the foals frantically tried to catch them in baskets.

The centaurs' eyebrows raised as far more pods came out of the tree hollow than should have fit.

The little fey dragonet clung to the side of the tree looking slightly apologetic even as even more pods rained down.

And more.

And even more.

And apples.

And pinenuts.

And acorns.

And persimmons.

And more glow pods.

And colourful gourds and squash— one of which bonked Bane on the head.

Hermione chirred in embarrassment.

Magorian let out a loud bellow of laughter. "Thank you, my little friend. Won't you come down and allow us to greet you properly?"

Hermione fluttered down, zipping around each centaur to inspect them individually before landing on Magorian's outstretched arm.

Magorian smiled, using his thumb to rub under her chin and behind her frills.

Hermione purred happily, all her frills shaking with pleasure.

"Thank you for sharing your spoils, my friend," Magorian said. "We appreciate your generosity. You are welcome amongst us anytime."

Hermione warbled happily. She curled her claws around his arm and tugged at him, leading him.

Magorian allowed himself to be guided through the forest, even as half of the centaur remained behind to gather up the (still raining) food.

Hermione led him to a large oak tree, and she hopped over to the trunk and dug her claws in. The bark pulled away exposing another hollowed-out area full of stashed goodies. Perfectly preserved dates, figs, mangosteens, coconuts, and more filled the hidden hidey-hole. Stashed amongst them were shiny wrapped candies with the Honeydukes' label on them as well as a number of glossy Muggle packages filled with lemon sherbets.

Magorian burst out laughing, hugging the little dragonet tightly. "I dub thee Glimmer amongst us, little friend. You may have other names, but this one is yours here with the herd."

Hermione warbled, crests waving in approval.

Hagrid looked up at the ceiling as he nestled in to sleep and saw a large acorn wedged between the thatch of his roof. He'd heard scratching night after night and had assumed it was birds picking and pecking around or bats trying to wriggle between the tiles.

The acorn was an oddity.

It gleamed, almost sparkling, as if it was magical instead of an acorn.

Hagrid sighed, sitting up and then rubbing his eyes. He stood up and reached out to take the offending acorn out of his roof.

Pluck!

Hagrid's cry of surprise was muffled by about a metric ton of stashed forest nuts that came careening down from his roof, burying him.

The chipmunk that had been walking by the door to Hagrid's hut squeaked as Christmas came early, and it frantically tried to stuff acorns into its cheek pouches and carry them off.

Only Hagrid's head stuck out of the huge pile of acorns.

"Um. Help?" Hagrid cried, unable to even move.

Barking like mad, Fang went running off toward Hogwarts.

Albus walked by the gargoyle that guarded his office to take a walk, but he did not notice the mini-gargoyle perched on top of the larger gargoyle's head. Bright, prismatic eyes watched him leave before a blur of colour zipped into his closing office door.

Snape blinked a few times as he stepped into the liberally expanded former closet he had designated for Hermione's use as her own personal storage bin. His eyes looked one direction and then another as neat piles of shiny things awaited his "approval."

Having cut down on the amount of approving he had to do by allowing edibles to be stored without his direct permission, he realised that Hogwarts was not exactly helping the shiny-seeking fey dragonet's incurable hoarding addiction.

There were things upon things upon things stashed in the room—

Some of them even had the distinctive gaudy look of the headmaster's own rather questionable taste in fashion— fashion that seemed to belong to some bygone age where gold tasselled lampshades and crimson crushed velveteen were both quite commonplace.

Snape sighed.

"Apprentice."

Hermione chirred from his shoulder, her tail snugly tucked around his neck.

"Did you happen to find yourself in the headmaster's office by chance?"

Hermione hung her head guiltily.

Snape rubbed her chin. "Well, maybe he will acquire some better taste in fashion and decorative— whatever in Merlin's name this is."

Snape tilted his head. "In the future, try not to make the headmaster suspicious. I do not wish for you to gain his attention. It could be terribly dangerous for you."

Hermione rubbed her head against his cheek in agreement. She zipped into the pile of things and vanished completely.

Snape frowned.

Her head poked out from an otherwise empty space.

He reached out to touch her, and he felt her warm body moving out from under something. It felt like— some kind of sheer cloth?

He pinched it with his fingers and lifted, and a pile of other trinkets tumbled out from under it, the little fey dragonet squeaking with glee as she bodysurfed down the treasure pile.

Severus moved the "fabric" up his arm and watched his arm disappear from sight. "Well now," he said, his lips forming a thin line. "This certainly explains a great many things indeed."

"It's got to be Snape's fault," Ron hissed angrily. "He hasn't stopped watching us since!"

"How? We were invisible, Ron! There is no way he could possibly know anything!" Harry whispered back in a harsh protest.

"Then why does the old git keep bloody staring at us all the time!" Ron retorted.

"Look, just ignore him, alright?" Harry whispered. "I have a plan."

"Wut?" Ron blurted. "What plan?"

"Would you be quiet?!" Harry hissed. "Shut it and listen, mate. Just— never mind." Harry stood up and took his books with him. "I'll see you later. I have something I need to do."

Harry stormed out, and Ron slowly turned to look at the Head Table where Snape was scowling in his direction. "Bloody Slytherin git."

"Bloody hell, Harry! Where did you— How did you— You weren't here a second ago!" Ron blurted.

"I've figured out how I'm going to get to cloak back."

"Brilliant!" cried Ron. "But how?"

"I'm going to use the thing Dumbledore gave me to help out with my studies."

"What thing?"

"Look, I can't tell you what it is, mate, but I promise it's going to work."

"What's that in your hand?" Ron asked, seeing that harry was fiddling with something in his hand. He made a grab for it.

"Will you stop, Ron!" Harry yelled, snatching it away, continuing to adjust.

"I want to see it!"

"Ron, just let me—"

"I just want to SEE IT!"

"Ron!"

Ron lunged; Harry's hand jerked, and the little golden hourglass went spinning wildly as it tumbled through the air.

There was a swish of black fabric as the two boys saw a furious Snape towering over them.

The glittering golden pendant went careening directly at Snape's head.

Klinkkk!

A small prismatic blur collided with the tumbling object.

There was a short, terrified shriek as the object and the blur disappeared.

Snape turned deathly pale as his skin drained of blood. His breath caught sharply in his throat as he clutched at his head, his fingers touching the laurels of his master's circlet. The goblin silver burst into particles as the gems fell to the floor. Snape let out a low, tortured moan, his hands clawing at his neck. He hastily pulled off his cravat, gasping for air. The triple bay of a cerebus echoed through the very walls of Hogwarts, and the walls trembled as ancient magick surged up searching, seeking for the missing piece that had once occupied Hogwarts.

Snape sprawled on the ground, a splotch of black against the cold stone floor. His pale hands twitched as he tried to pull himself up but failed.

"H-ermione," he gasped. His fingertips touched the magical red diamond that had fallen from his circlet. His black eyes glazed over as the diamond disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Snape's hand fell lifelessly to the floor.

"Oh—" Harry said, his face paling in horror.

"Fuck," Ron added, his eyes very wide.

There was an explosion of blinding blue-white light as the moving image of a young black-haired wizard suddenly appeared, the boy clearly injured, his robes torn and schoolbooks scattered all over the floor.

"You alright there, Snivellus?" a mop-haired boy asked mockingly.

"Greasy git."

The pair took turns kicking the other boy while he was down, making sure the boy's wand was kept far from his reach.

"Nothing good ever came from Slytherin," another sneered— a short, ratty-looking boy with two front teeth that seemed better fitted to a rodent than a human. He giggled, then cast a spell that gave the fallen wizard a wedgie.

"What do you think, Remus?" the mop-haired boy asked, grinning madly. "What should we do with this greasy Slytherin git?"

"I dunno, James," Remus replied slowly. "He looks pretty uncomfortable."

"Let's make him more comfortable, eh?"

They used a series of spells until their victim slumped weakly to the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "P-p-potter—"

"What's that, Snivellus? Can't hear you."

"I hate you."

"Awww, Snivvvellwuss hates us."

"I HATE YOU!"

The boys snickered as they pulled down a curtain and used magic to suspend the other boy in the air.

"You used permanent sticking charms on your posters at home, right Sirius?"

"Right, mate."

"Well, practice makes perfect, doesn't it?"

The boys levitated their victim up to the ceiling and stuck the curtain to the rafters, forming a makeshift hammock.

"Have a nice rest, Snivvellwuss," James heckled.

The boys cackled meanly, leaving the hallway.

The boy in the curtain hammock winced, coughing harshly. He groaned as he held his own arm, then winced again as the movement caused him even more pain. A whorl of golden magic opened up and a multi-coloured dragonet was dumped out into the boy's lap.

The little dragonet whimpered in pain even as the young boy whimpered with his own.

The pairs' eyes met.

"Hello, you," the young wizard said, wincing. He carefully extended his hand to touch his unexpected visitor.

The multi-coloured dragonet crawled into the crook of his arm, her tail wrapping securely around his thin limb like an anchor.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered in awe.

The dragonet crooned, nuzzling under his chin as the golden ancient magick swirled around them and bound them together in a cocoon of healing light.

Bound together

In a future time.

Found again

In a past paradigm.

The bond they share,

We will preserve.

The trust they'll have,

That they deserve.

Future rewritten.

The past forgot.

Change what was

To what aught.

Selfish desires

Hurled her back,

But selfless love

Shall right the track.

Together they were

Meant to be.

Bound as one,

Forever free.

As the warm, golden magic slowly dissipated, the young Snape curled up in the makeshift hammock, his prismatic new friend snuggled tightly up against his body, tucking herself between his arm and body as her head rested against his neck. Their wounds took on a radiant glow as they mended together.

Snape snuggled into his newfound companion, hugging her against him like a beloved plush toy. He buried his nose against her warmth.

He would recall countless years later that it had been the first time he had ever slept feeling comforted that things were finally going to work out at long last.

As the years passed, the Marauders inexplicably found themselves stymied at all corners of Hogwarts.

Their treasured map had a large pile of flaming rainbow poop in the middle of it, and the only names that showed up now were those of the Hogwarts house-elves. The invisibility cloak would seem to work to the Marauders but everyone else could see them, at least around Hogwarts. Their things would move around. Their bookshelves would end up in pristine alphabetical order that shocked them if they attempted to put a book in the wrong place.

Their candies would fart in their faces whenever they took a bite.

Angry purple unicorns would chase them across the grounds, but when they ran towards others, yelling for them to run for their lives, they only stared at them like they were totally mental and continued to loaf on the green.

Dark dragons loomed in the hallways, breathing flames, but when they screamed for help from the staff, nothing was there and they were given detention.

Their shirts and trousers would turn into frilly blouses and skirts the moment they stepped into class, and their robes somehow couldn't conceal the changes no matter what they did, much to their classmates' amusement and giggling.

Sometimes, their clothing would grow to be three times their size, and their outer robes would billow as if by some invisible wind, even as their socks and shorts became painfully tight and constricting and their ties bit them randomly, making them curse out loud in class, earning them detention.

Had they actually thought about it, perhaps they might have realised that such unfortunate things only happened to them right after they attempted to "prank" others, but they stubbornly continued to attempt to get ahead only to fall behind further and further each time.

Worse—

The bushy-haired new transfer student refused to even give them the time of day, ignoring and foiling them at all attempts to get the upper hand on her. Worse, Snivellus seemed to be the only one who could get close to her, and since she was apprenticed to Madam Pomfrey, of all people, she lived in quarters behind the infirmary with her master.

She was untouchable.

And yet somehow Snivellus was allowed into that protective bubble of Madam Pomfrey's legendary wrath.

Even worse, Lily was paying even more attention to Snivellus now that his attention wasn't on her.

It was a nightmare that the Marauders couldn't quite seem to fix, and they were determined to make it right.

Snivellus deserved it.

"Good morning, Severus," Hermione greeted him as she delivered a breakfast tray to one of the patients.

"Hi," he replied, flushing as she smiled at him.

"Are you here to talk to my master?"

He shook his head. "Actually, I thought maybe we could study together before class?"

Hermione beamed. "I'd love to. Did you decide if you want to become a potions apprentice?"

"Do you think Madam Pomfrey would really be okay with having two apprentices?"

Hermione chuckled. "She asked, didn't she?"

Snape flushed. "I guess. I think I was expecting maybe Slughorn—"

"You don't even like him."

"He's an imbecile."

"Severus!"

Snape sighed. "I guess I forgot that healers really have to know their potions too."

"They just don't have much time to brew them anymore, I think," Hermione said. "People keep getting sick and hurt all the time."

Severus rubbed his head. "I'd have to leave Slytherin."

Hermione tilted her head. "Real friends should always be there for you regardless of where they live."

He winced. "I always saw myself as Slytherin."

Hermione shrugged. "You can do whatever you feel is right, Severus. What you really want. It's about your life and future career, you know? Anyway, you'd still be a Slytherin, just with a new address."

Snape snorted at that. "I guess you're right. You're still an insufferable Gryffindor."

Hermione huffed, setting another breakfast tray down for a patient.

Snape smiled. He shuffled his feet, looking down. "You'd be okay sharing a cramped apprentice quarters with me?"

Hermione grinned. "It's not quite as small as you think."

Snape perked. "Really?"

Hermione beamed. "Why don't you accept and find out?"

"Are you sure you're not Slytherin?"

Hermione poofed into her fey dragon form and zipped into his hair and curled around his neck, her colours shifting to look like his uniform.

"Hey, Sev," Lily called from the door. She had an unattractive scowl on her face. "Let's go study before class, okay?"

Severus looked down, conflicted, but Hermione tightened her grip around his neck and snuggled in closer. "Coming, Lily."

As he rushed to catch up with Lily he muttered, "Should have been Slytherin, definitely."

Something rather odd was going on at the school, Dumbledore decided.

He couldn't read the Snape boy's thoughts anymore. Where once it was so very easy, now it was like trying to read individual drops of water in a rushing river or leaves in a windstorm.

Lily, on the other hand, was still an easy read even without the use of Legilimency.

But Snape—

Whenever he'd try to do a scan of the boy's thoughts, he'd get a blast of utter strangeness like stampeding herds of pegai, dancing giant squids, or whomping willows playing cricket.

He didn't understand how it was even possible.

Children should not possess a talent for Occlumency. Even if they did have a remarkably guarded mind, it shouldn't be giving him such strange and disquieting thoughts.

Then, there was the increase in unfortunate incidents involving the Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew boys when before he'd believed they were merely boyish pranksters. Only, recently—

They seemed to be the ones constantly causing trouble in quiet halls, peaceful greens, empty classrooms, and even their own dormitories.

They also seemed to be unnaturally fixated on the transfer student— another mind he could not read without getting a mind full of fluff. Literally fluff. Images of soft cotton, dandelion heads, fluffy kittens, down, fur, wool—

Surely the girl wasn't so airheaded that all she thought of was fluff?

He sighed and slowly walked down to the dungeons.

Slughorn had informed him that the Snape boy had just accepted an apprenticeship with Madam Pomfrey. Poppy already had an apprentice, but apparently she felt she could take on two at once. He wasn't happy about it— there was something decidedly odd about the pair that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

The strange new girl had no past, yet her name had been recorded in the book. No history. No lineage. Just Hermione Granger.

It was all terribly mysterious— and he didn't like being on the receiving end of a mystery.

Poppy said that her old friend Hector Dagworth-Granger had taken the girl in after a distant cousin of his, Edgar, had died in a tragic accident— both he and his wife, Claire. Hermione was supposedly related to him—

Albus just wasn't quite sure what to believe.

Maybe it was because Snape seemed so much more comfortable now, and in that he was far less easy to influence. He had been hoping to groom him slowly to the point where the boy would see him as his sole benefactor— but bloody Poppy had totally ruined that. He had planned to get Slughorn to lure him into his little club and collect him, get him apprenticed after he sat his N.E.W.T.s. Then, he'd feel obligated—

But no, he was already apprenticed now.

He had been successfully grooming the Gryffindor boys to take care of Remus Lupin, so he could be made useful later, but now he was starting to think that perhaps the boys weren't very capable of keeping Lupin suitably under wing.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even notice the slight tingle of his senses as his foot connected with a hidden tripwire and a large branch stolen from the Whomping Willow smacked him square in the face, knocking him flat on his arse and down the stairs— stairs that were coated liberally in bacon grease.

"You alright there, Snivellus?" some very familiar voices chuckled maliciously.

"Did it hurt?"

"I really hope it hurt."

"Now you really are the greasy git that everyone knows you are."

"Innit right?"

So, Albus thought grimly, this is likely the reason young Snape learned to guard his thoughts so well. A pack of tormentors stalking him. Perhaps that is what drove the Granger witch to protect herself as well—

Still, it is an odd kind of protection.

Albus slowly and painfully sat up from where he had tumbled, and the collective shocked gasps of Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew heralded the End Times for the group of malicious pranksters.

"Aw, fuck me!" Sirius blurted in horror.

"We got the bloody Headmaster!" Peter wailed shrilly, looking for all the world like he was prey and there were a hundred-some predators watching and waiting for him to so much as twitch.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, famed vanquisher of the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald, stood up and dusted himself off before fixing the malicious pranksters with a baleful stare that held no trace whatsoever of his famous twinkle. "My office, gentlemen. Now."

He waved his wand, and the thick coating of grease on the stairs promptly disappeared.

The four boys seemed to melt into the ground as they slunk off toward the headmaster's office with their figurative tails between their legs.

As the gawkers stared and gaped in shocked disbelief, Madam Pomfrey herded her two apprentices (both laden with trunk and parcels) in front of her toward their shared infirmary quarters.

Kzzzt!

Hermione hung her head in shame as a perfect red beryl bonked Severus upside the head.

"Bless you," Severus said, placing his hand over her head.

Hermione cuddled against his warm hand with a croon, her tail wrapping neatly around his wrist.

He cuddled her against himself as he placed the deep red gemstone into a small box with the Gringotts logo on the desk. The gem disappeared within a seeming black hole with a pop.

Hermione purred, exposing her vulnerable belly for rubs, and Severus found himself doing so even as he read his textbook out loud. The dragonet hummed her approval.

"You're such a sucker for attention," Severus tutted amusedly.

Hermione, much like a feline, did not deny it but instead sprawled even more possessively against his arm.

"Hey, Sev," Lily's voice came from the door.

FOOP!

Hermione disappeared in a panicked whoosh of camouflage.

Snape frowned as the soothing warmth of the dragonet disappeared. He looked up with an annoyed huff.

"We're still studying together, right?" Lily inquired eagerly.

Severus just grunted noncommitably.

"I have this really great idea for my potions project."

Severus arched a brow. "And?"

Lily huffed at him. "Blemish remover."

"Been done."

"A better one, for spots and freckles too."

Severus tilted his head to regard Lily. "You do realise that Madam Pomfrey already has this in her arsenal, yes? She's had to rid students and staff of all manner of unsightly skin complaints like warts, pitting acne, dragon pox scars, hippogriff rash, yodeling boils and more."

"It isn't available to everyone!"

"It is if they simply ask for it," Severus countered.

Lily scowled. "I want this to be something that every single witch should have in her beauty arsenal."

Plink!

"OW!"

Lily yelped and rubbed her head as a large horse chestnut suddenly pegged her on the head. She looked up and around, frowning when no culprit could be found.

"WHAT THE HELL, PEEVES?!" Lily screeched furiously.

Madam Pomfrey stormed into the study area from the infirmary, an irritated scowl on her face. "Miss Evans, I am going to ask you to leave my infirmary at once."

"But I—"

"Now."

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Lily bit out, flushing bright red with mingled embarrassment and anger. She grabbed up her potions book and stormed out in a huff.

Poppy sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "Merlin, what was that all about?"

Fffffip!

A blur of frolicking fey dragon zipped back and forth around Poppy's head.

Poppy caught the playful little dragonet and cuddled her close. "Try not to disturb our recovering patients, my dear. I know it wasn't you, but causing silly young witches to lose their marbles is probably not helping our patients get sufficient rest."

Hermione cooed softly and hung her head in assent. She rubbed her head against Poppy's face before zipping back to curl herself around Severus' neck.

Poppy chuckled. "Be sure to finish your homework before any frolicking on the green, you two."

"Yes, Master," Severus said.

Chi-rir! Hermione replied.

From: Alastor Moody

To: Aurors, All

Who the bloody fucking hell dumped a bunch of bleeding Horcruxes on my desk?!

From: Alastor Moody

To: Amelia Bones, HBoM

I can't explain it, but there are five bloody Horcruxes on my sodding desk. No one seems to know where the hell they came from. Are you trying to make me spontaneously combust? How am I supposed to get anything done when I can't even touch my desk? Who knows what range these damned things have— or what's guarding them.

From: Amelia Bones, HBoY

To: Alastor Moody

Having you spontaneously combust would hardly be helpful to anyone. What do you mean there are five Horcruxes on your desk?

Amelia's eye was twitching, and she had no idea what to do about it.

It had only been a few years since she had taken on the massive fuster cluck that was the Department of Mysteries, and it seemed like Alastor Moody was trying to single-handedly make her lose her ever-loving mind.

Horcruxes.

There were bloody Horcruxes on his desk.

Not legend or myth, either. No, these were the real thing mixed in without about a metric ton of random shiny things, Dark artefacts, shinier things, Dark-er artefacts, the shiniest things short of the sun, and Horcruxes (arguably the Darkest of the Dark, Dark anything that anyone could potentially run across).

It was hard to catch a break.

No one wanted to pay anyone for what they were worth.

The Ministry had a real problem paying Unspeakables because they couldn't actually know exactly what they were paying for. To tell an entire Ministry would defeat the entire purpose of being an Unspeakable in the first place—

They didn't have the money for budgeting housing— something they desperately needed to keep the Unspeakables and their families safe.

She left a pair of her best agents with Alastor to both keep him from spontaneously combusting and flying off the metaphorical handle at the same time.

There was a distinct tingle in her wards—

The wards she had in her secret rooms— the safe rooms. The ones you could only access by Portkey.

Only the Portkey itself hadn't even been created yet. It was but a mere concept at this point. Only on parchment. In her head—

She rushed into her office, her wand out. She hit the bookshelf secret latch in the fishbowl, ignoring the fish's rather disgruntled glare.

The bookshelf slid open. She pointed her wand at the hidden door. "Alohomora!"

What seemed like approximately five metric tons of everything promptly spilled out of the room— vases, candles, jewelry, figurines, toys, quills, plates, platters, goblets, tea tins, cutlery, chocolate frog cards with the ultra-rare shimmering gold foil trim… and a vast hoard of gaudy gems, sparkling gems, priceless gems, fake gems, astral sand vials, time sand vials, time-turners, hourglasses, geodes, brain-flower pollen grains, unicorn hair, dragon saffron stamens, fairy wings both with and without the fairies still attached, pearls, assorted eggs, seashells, crystals, chandeliers, beads, and—ohhhh Merlin, was that really a pristine first edition of Hogwarts: A History?

Amelia sat down hard, utterly gobsmacked.

What in the bloody blue blazes was going on here?!

Kzzztt!

A flawless egg-sized red diamond bonked Amelia squarely on the forehead.

She rubbed her head slowly, wincing, as she felt the warm gemstone in her hand. It pulsed with tremendous magical power even as it sparkled as though the sun itself was reflected in its facets. It was perfectly "cut" as if by a master goblin jeweler to resonate with the magic held captive within.

Amelia looked up to see a small fey dragon peering out at her from the top of one of the vases, its prismatic eyes very wide.

"Hello there, little one," Amelia said softly, trying carefully not to sound either stupid or angry.

The dragon slid down a pile of coins and stepped onto her knee.

Squeak?

"Is this for me?"

The little dragon nodded.

"Do I know you?"

The dragon tilted its head and made an oddly conflicted face. After a moment, she picked up a time-turner in her mouth and placed it in Amelia's palm. The turner itself was clearly broken, the sand having long since escaped, but the date was—

Amelia sighed deeply. "Ah, so I knew you— in the future?"

The fey dragon shook her frills and lay her head on Amelia's wrist.

Amelia rubbed her finger gently against the dragon's frills. "There is obviously much more to you than meets the eye, my dear."

The door opened and the dragonet poofed and disappeared in a wisp of magic.

"Ma'am, Alastor is looking for yo—" The messenger tripped on a vase and went sprawling face first into a pile of tea tins.

Amelia waved her wand, closing the secret door and bookshelf with a scowl. "Mr Beachum. Your inability to follow instructions after being told repeatedly that you are never to enter my office without my permission means you have gotten on my very last nerve. You are to report to the Portkey office at once and transfer out to the Giza cotton fields. Master Mahmoud will be expecting you. Now get the hell out of my office."

Amelia's face darkened. "Obliviate."

There was no way she was going to expose the poor fey dragon to the likes of Marcus Skeeter Beachum, whose tongue was notoriously loose and whose desire to gossip was unmatched by any bored house-witch she had ever known. Thankfully, there were countless other reasons, all of which were in writing, to transfer the insubordinate imbecile to the Giza outpost to make sure the Maruvian Cotton Fairies remained protected from the hordes of Gizan fairy poachers.

Mr Beachum coughed and spit out a shiny tea ball. "What happened?"

"Congratulations on your transfer."

Hermione cautiously peered over the rafter, her tail looping and unlooping as she watched Lily and Severus studying together. She gnawed on a pinecone, stripping the protective layers away from the plump pine nuts within. She chewed up the pine nuts until they were all eaten then let the stripped cone drop.

Bonk.

"OW!" Lily looked up, glaring daggers at… nothing.

Severus didn't look up, his lips curved slightly upward so he quickly hid the amused expression behind his hand.

Lily tried to flip to another chapter.

Crik. Crick. Crikikik. Crunch-crunch-crunch.

Bonk.

Lily stood up, pointing her wand in search of the unseen offender. "IMMOBULUS!"

A stunned bat crash landed on Lily's head.

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Lily shrieked at the top of her lungs.

She frantically beat at her head and body to rid herself of the unfortunate mammal trapped in her long red hair.

The dark spectre that was an absolutely livid Madam Pince stormed through the library with a silent screech on her thin lips. She grabbed Lily up by the collar of her robes and frog-marched her out of the library despite her vociferous protests.

Severus stayed seated at the desk, flipping a page in the book he was reading.

Zip!

A warm body promptly wrapped itself around his neck as a tiny tongue licked his earlobe.

He rubbed her body with his fingers as he tilted the book up so the now-purring dragonet could read the pages along with him, a smug smile plastered on his face.

A highly enthusiastic dragonet was mauling a durian to access the succulent fruit within the armoured shell. Snape wrinkled his nose at the smell that came from the broken shell but couldn't help but smile as Hermione pillaged the golden fruit on the inside, making happy nomming noises.

"Wherever did you get that monstrosity?" Snape asked, his nose tingling.

Hermione chirred and nosed the halved durian over to him.

Severus gave her a dubious, highly suspicious look.

She nipped his finger, giving him a draconic glare that seemed to say "try it, you dunderhead."

Snape sighed, sliced a piece off the soft yellow innards and put it in his mouth, chewing as if expecting turpentine. His eyes widened as the taste blossomed into something enjoyable. "This is good."

Hermione shook her frills at him.

Severus pulled the dragonet close to him, snuggling her tightly. "You're amazing."

Hermione crooned blissfully.

Severus wasn't sure how it happened. His life had gone from torment to some sort of schooling dream-world— where he had a master that cared for him and a friend who never failed to be on his side, study with him, and didn't seem to give a flying fig about popularity.

Lily was trying to spend more time with him, but he felt that it was more about getting ahead on her studies than about friendship.

Hermione, on the other hand, seemed more than happy to spend just as much time with him as he wished to, often snoozing around his neck as if he was the comfiest napping spot ever.

He actually found it hard to concentrate when she wasn't there— and he only had to have her in the next room or curled up in a chair nearby— as it seemed strangely lonely now without her warm presence.

And at night, no matter if they went to bed separately, the warm dragonet would sneak under the covers and burrow her way into the crook of his arm with a happy little sigh. No matter how fitful his sleep might be normally, he fell asleep almost instantly with her there by his side.

It was made utterly amusing in the morning when he woke having drooled on her, but she remained obliviously on her back, feet up in the air, belly exposed as her soft snores vibrated his arm.

For the first time in his life, he had money in the bank— and more than enough to pay for whatever he might want. The goblins had all too happily created for them a shared banking account at Gringotts, complete with a portable deposit box in which to spirit away Hermione's highly coveted sneezed gems and metals.

The goblins seemed perfectly willing to bend over backwards to assist them in setting a more than fair contract with them taking a small cut for converting the gems to galleons—

And Merlin's beard there were a lot of those— especially after Hermione accidentally snorted ground dragon pepper.

A young goblin named Griphook said they would slowly filter the gems into the market so they wouldn't lose their value, but not to worry. The gems were in great demand globally, so what didn't get sold in Britain could easily be sold to eager collectors of rare gems in Japan or the United States, and the more "Muggle" gems that only had minor magic held within easily found their way to places such as Sotheby's and the rising technology market for rare earth metals.

Honestly, Severus had no idea all the uses and where certain things went, but the goblins did and were more than ecstatic to enter into what must have been a great financial partnership.

Also— Hermione was a real charmer, and she seemed to be the living skeleton key that led one into the goblins' most positive regard.

He knew better than to go splurging his new financial status, however. He wanted no fair weather friends or people who might find him interesting only for his money— or, more importantly, interested in how they had acquired it.

No, he was perfectly happy being able to get school supplies as he needed it, robes that fit him, and the occasional treat from Hogsmeade when Madam Pomfrey escorted them. Since the mediwitch took care of both of her charges' needs when it came to supplies and uniforms, it left them both in the position to spend their galleons with more freedom.

Poppy, he knew, was using her share of the apprentice-master earnings to provide improved supplies for the infirmary. She, too, seemed uninclined to reveal any change in finances lest people ask questions.

But what was the most surreal about all that had happened since he was apprenticed was that Potter and his merry band of wankers had finally decided to leave him well alone.

Well, after Madam Pomfrey had caught them trying to sneak into the infirmary in search of a little "justice" only to painfully discover that the mediwitch knew exactly where to aim her spells to effectively disable any would-be attacker.

Part of him still worried that they would find him as they always seemed to before.

Yet, now he had something he hadn't had before—

Hermione.

His scaly goddess of vengeance and petite draconic wrath.

If one could even consider a little dragon that could transform into a very big dragon (or whatever else) to be "petite"—

It was odd, though. There was the strong bond between himself, Hermione, and their master— but he felt far more connected to Hermione. She felt like home, or what he'd imagine home to feel like if he'd had one he actually wanted to go back to.

Thank Merlin he didn't have to go back to that hellhole ever again.

Being Madam Pomfrey's apprentice had the enormous benefit of him being able to stay with her and Hermione during all holidays. Hogwarts seemed particularly invested, having remade the infirmary to look more like a lush forest— fresh breezes, running water, and perfect humidity.

Flawless living potions ingredients now grew within easy reach for the utmost efficacy of potions.

However, Madam Pomfrey found herself having to tolerate Pomona Sprout's shenanigans with the herbology professor eagerly poking around their living infirmary.

At least until Hermione chucked about a hundred-some different rare seed pods at Pomona's head one day. The delighted witch couldn't get them back to her greenhouses fast enough—

Lily wrote Severus almost every day, and it was always about how "Tunie" wouldn't stop picking on her and how she wanted to hex her so bad and wished he was there.

A part of him felt a twinge of guilt that he wasn't there to keep her company as he always had been before, but a stirring in his gut whispered to him that she didn't write about how she missed him as much as she wanted someone to commiserate with.

Just when he started to feel sad, however, Hermione would be up to her antics again, sticking her tiny snout into his business, chewing on his fingers, and exposing her belly for rubs. Unlike most felines, she actually enjoyed having her belly rubbed. It was never a trap.

Even if she mock mauled his hand, she never once broke the skin.

And even when she was in human form, she'd casually lean up against him like he was her most favourite place in the world, sharing her time with him in whatever form.

Oddly, he never felt suffocated by her affectionate presence.

She always felt— so genuine.

He felt as though he didn't deserve such wonder.

But true wonder it was indeed, and it seemed quite firmly embedded in his life. So, perhaps he did, in fact, deserve it even if he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

To go "home" back to Cokeworth would just give his father more reason to take things out on his hide— or his mum's. And most of the violence he witnessed was all because of him.

"He's a bloody freak! I married a freak! You gave birth to a freak!"

No, he reasoned, returning home would be a farce. There would be no welcome waiting for him at Spinner's End, only the hatred of a man who blamed his wife for giving birth to his hated freak of a son.

He had long since given up on appeasing his father or trying to save his mum.

They had both chosen each other, and they had both chosen to live with each other in torment rather than leave the other.

Once, his only respite from his family had been afternoons spent with Lily. She was always so eager to learn about the magical world when he had been her only window to a land where dragons and unicorns were real.

But from the very moment she had been Sorted into Gryffindor, Lily had changed the nature of their relationship. He was no longer the mentor, but neither were they equals. Popularity measured worth. How many people agreed with you made you right.

He was the lowest of the low in the social popularity game.

He was not attractive.

He was not of a wealthy pureblood family as far as anyone knew, and it wasn't as if the Prince family was truly aware (or cared) of their traitorous daughter's elopement with a Muggle man.

His financial well-being was kept as hidden as any sort of attractiveness on his part, but he found comfort in his master's kind yet firm guidance and his fellow apprentice and friend.

He didn't mind how she fixated on his buttons, trying to pry them off with her teeth when they were extra shiny and squirrel them away. He chided her for nicking loose jewelry, shiny quills, and shiny sweet tins from the students, and had her (begrudgingly) put them in the lost and found box so they could be returned to the students who lost them.

He wasn't sure where all her hidden stashes were or even what was in them all, but she did, at least, pile up things for him to inspect before whisking them off to places unknown.

Well, one place wasn't as unknown even if it was more intimidating—

They'd been summoned for tea at the Ministry, and Madam Pomfrey had introduced them both to Master Healer Manfred Morgan— an intimidating beast of a healer in the literal sense. His breath healed as a dragon's would harm, and he looked like the snarling creatures from ancient Mayan ruins.

Hermione had zipped over to greet the dragonbat with an excited embrace (much to Snape's initial horror) wrapping her arms around the creature's thick neck as she completely ignored the jagged teeth and ferocious snarl.

Master Morgan seemed to chuckle as he wrapped a wing around the young witch, and he seemed to know that Hermione was more than she appeared. That was confirmed when she popped into dragon form and perch-clung to his shoulder and let out a string of happy warbling croons that might have been language compressed into the span of a few seconds.

"So, you're the one vexing our poor Amelia," the elder Healer chuckled, startling Snape who hadn't expected English to come out of that mouth at all. "I am glad to see you are not just a hallucination the poor woman has started to swear you were."

Hermione slumped a little, drooping her wings and head, but then she was ultimately charmed by Master Morgan's ear decorative wraps and his healer's circlet.

"Poppy, you evil woman," Master Morgan said. "Keeping such a prize in two apprentices so far from us."

Snape blinked. They'd heard of them?

Pomfrey poured tea into cups and a drinking bowel with a sly smile. "Come now, Manfred. Someone has to keep you guessing."

"I've heard great things of you, Mr Snape," Manfred said. "Both you and Hermione have been the pride of the Healer's guild. Whether you realise it or not."

Snape's eyes widened.

"Your potions work has been quite impressive so far, and Miss Granger's work in applied and touch-healing as been equally exciting to see. I am very glad to see that none of that had gone to your heads. Such a thing would be a pitty." Morgan said.

Hermione crooned happily, rubbing up against the dragonbat's warm ear and muzzle, playfully chew-tugging on the irresistible ear-toy.

Morgan's mouth snapped over the fey dragon with a click, trapping the little creature between his teeth.

Hermione made a sad sound of mischief denied.

Manfred chuckled, releasing her, and she zipped around his muzzle and body before returning to Snape, transforming into a delicate-looking orchid adorning his apprentice circlet.

Severus eyed the flower on his circlet with suspicion and a weary sigh.

Master Morgan chuckled. "Come, my dear Poppy. Let us discuss your lesson plans for the upcoming term, then let the children enjoy their summer with you."

Poppy nodded and saluted him with her teacup.

It was then and only then that Severus realised that Master Morgan had been and was still Poppy Pomfrey's master, and the bonds between master and apprentice were every bit as lifelong as he had been told.

"Look, Sirius, it's Snivellus."

"Are you in twubble, Snivelly?"

The all-too-familiar voices of the two hecklers made the hair rise up on the back of Snape's neck.

"This is a public garden," Severus said coolly, turning a page in his book. Three years of harassment by the Gryffindor gang hadn't helped his instinctive tensing, but he was surprised that he hadn't gone straight for his wand.

Hermione wouldn't like it much if he hexed them first. Finish it, well, she wasn't the type to deny him the final blow—

He smiled at the thought. Hermione was exceedingly kind-hearted, but she was always fair. She believed in him, and for that, he would do anything he could to not disappoint her. He wasn't so naive to think he'd always succeed, but would try to be the person she believed in. She made him believe he was capable of being something far better than he had believed in himself.

"I think Snivellus got himself banished to the Ministry, mate," Potter snorted rudely with a sneer you could practically hear in his voice.

"We still owe you a bit of payback, Snivellus," Black said with a sniff.

"I haven't done anything to you," Snape replied, the muscles in his jaw tightening.

"Consider this interest, if you will, on what you deserved."

"And still do."

"We know you like to play with Dark curses and hexes."

"That makes you fair game."

"What's fair is fair, after all."

"So true, mate. So true."

"Mammae emacuerunt!"

Snape tumbled off the bench he was sitting on, his hands clutching at his pained gonads, tears streaming from his eyes at the sudden agony.

The two Gryffindor boys laughed raucously in their enjoyment of his pain. "Good one, Sirius!"

"Et versa reflectunt!" Hermione's furious voice rang out. "Duplicatum!"

Severus felt the pain between his legs ease as…

"AHHHHHHHH!" the boys cried in horror as their trousers suddenly burst open and their penises and scrotum enlarged exponentially to the point where they fell flat on their stomachs— right on top of their highly erect, protesting, engorged and enlarged phalluses. They screamed even louder as they sprained something that wasn't meant to be bent quite that way.

Snape felt Hermione's hand enclosing his as she helped pull him up. She said nothing to him. Her gaze did not linger on his tears, nor did she seem to focus on his loss of dignity. She just stood by him, silently supporting him.

"Can't even defend yourself," Potter gasped at him but the words got projected into the dirt of the arboretum. "Had to have a girl protect you."

"You attack someone in a peaceful public park, and you have the gall to accuse them of being unable to protect themselves," Hermione seethed. Her hair was rising like serpents around her head—"These grounds are warded to record every single spell cast and the caster of said spells within its space. What, pray tell, do you think they will find? Like maybe how you managed to get in here without being seen at no less than three checkpoints?"

The small witch seemed larger than life, her magic flaring around like a solar flare.

"Peace be upon you, witchling," a low voice rumbled, and Severus and Hermione saw a man of shorter but proud and broad-shouldered stature walking past the third checkpoint with an armed squad of Aurors at his side. "I, Orion Black, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, seek forgiveness for the unsavoury actions of my elder son, who has clearly forgotten all of the decorum and manners which his mother and I have attempted to instill in him since birth."

Hermione's fury seemed to slowly abate, or at least her hair stopped fighting to gain sentience and choke whoever and whatever it could reach.

Severus' own indignation of being taken down even temporarily faded with the demonstration of smouldering fury turned into fiery reality on his behalf. Hermione could have done many, many things, but she had chosen to face the danger as a human witch, standing at his side in all her brilliant, scary glory.

The Aurors took the wands from the two lying moaning on the ground as another came up to Severus and Hermione.

"Wands, please," he said. "Protocol, you understand, Apprentice Granger, Apprentice Snape."

Hermione handed hers over with a grim expression even as Severus pulled his out from an inner pocket to give to the Auror.

"Thank you," the Auror said politely.

Severus placed a hand on Hermione's shoulder and silently gestured to a nearby bench with his chin. She took in a deep breath and nodded, sitting down with him.

The Aurors cast a few spells on the wands as the others carefully examined the wards around the arboretum.

Hermione scooched over to snuggle closer to Snape, leaning on him for comfort after having wiped the floor with Potter and Black. Severus' eyes widened but he smiled.

Hermione was such a contradiction. Fierce and fiery but shy— confident and yet seeking comfort.

"They used a shrivelling curse, Lord Black," the head of the Auror group stated. "Apprentice Granger used a reflective reversal and amplification spell. The original curse was aimed at Apprentice Snape's, erm, privates, sir. When it was reflected and amplified in reverse, it, uh— ahem—"

Orion Black's eyes flitted down to see his son and his son's best mate's enlarged predicament with a tightening of his jaw. "I believe I can piece together the rest on my own, Auror Matthews."

Another man, his black hair almost completely silver with age, stormed into the Arboretum with two more Aurors hot on his heels.

"Mr Potter! Please!"

The elder Potter yanked his son up by the collar and shoved his hand into the boy's pockets. He pulled out a shimmering cloth and fingered a small, pearlescent button on the clasp. "Did you think I would not realise that you stole my father's cloak, boy? That I could not track you? Do you think me an old fool?"

Potter's inflated bits hung on display in front of him, shrivelling slightly under his father's wrath but still exceedingly large— far too large to ignore by anyone with functioning eyes… even in the next room over.

"Sir, what shall we do with them?" one of the younger Aurors asked.

Auror Matthews narrowed his eyes.

"Charge them both with theft," Fleamont Potter demanded.

"And assault as well," Orion Black said, his teeth practically bared.

"And indecent exposure!" a little old witch cried from the next room.

Auror Savage looked like he was trying really, really hard not to laugh himself silly.

Auror Proudfoot was not succeeding at all.

"Get these two idiots the hell out of my Arboretum," Amelia Bones roared as she seemed to float over the ground in her fury. "I want tracking bracelets placed on their ankles and suppression of any and all the magic that isn't part of the school curriculum on the Hogwarts grounds! I want them spitting rose petals and farting rainbow unicorns by the time they leave here! Change these bloody wards to incinerate any trespasser foolish enough to attempt to breach our security!"

"Ma'am!"

The Aurors scrambled like ants fleeing from a magnifying glass on a bright sunny day.

"Lady Bones," Orion said, bowing politely at the waist.

"Lord Black," Amelia said, giving him a swift curtsey. "How in Merlin's name were those two able to get past three separate checkpoints to get into this place?"

The elder Potter patriarch scowled in response. "I fear that is a story for the charges against my own son for stealing our family relic for his own selfish use."

"But father! I'm your son!"

Fleamont Potter shot him a quelling look. "Yes, and you think that makes you entitled to take something without asking to use for your malicious little pranks and skullduggery? Did you even think of how crushed your mum would be? Do you think because you grew up with every possible opportunity that you could just take whatever you want without any repercussions?"

Snape felt Hermione snuggle a little closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around her protectively as the adults took down two of the four menaces to his life peg by peg even as little old witches fainted as they walked by, having gotten an eyeful their "indecent exposure."

Justice was sweet.

Hermione yawned squeakily from atop the pile of treasure on top of Amelia's desk— all the remained of the filled-to-the-brim room of shiny things left to be sorted. As it turned out, as she was unable to stop herself from the collecting of shiny (literally or magically) items, she did tend to focus on the lost and neglected rather than things that were blatantly cared for and used.

Amelia had started her own version of a Room of Lost Things, allowing Hermione to hoard to her heart's content as long as the little dragonet allowed Auror-escorted people to come reclaim that which was truly theirs. Some people had been so happy to find their long lost whatever from great, great aunt Whoever, that they didn't even question how it had gotten into a lost and found collection.

Many people thought things just showed up in the room and begged Amelia to reveal how she enchanted it, but Amelia kept her lips sealed.

Hermione, in a fastidious and almost obsessively organised manner amidst the chaos, kept books and tomes in one area alphabetically sorted by author, tools in another, artefacts in another sorted from darkest grey to lightest grey, coins sorted by colour and weight, and gems by size and colour. She did indulge in a bit of tummy-sliding down the piles of coins and gems from time to time, but Amelia found that even more amusing because Hermione go back to sorting them shortly after, unable to help herself.

Already, Hermione had single-handedly helped the DoM solve their most pressing financial issues with just a sneeze, guaranteeing her a place of honour amongst those in the know in the DoM. It wasn't that she needed the extra cred, as it were. Both Hermione and Severus had already made a reputation for themselves as being studious and highly talented in the fields of healing and potions. Hermione seemed to enjoy touch healing and energy field work as well as the art of Arithmancy, and Severus preferred the subtle art of potion-making and defence against the Dark arts. Together, they would make quite a formidable team.

Hermione yawned again and—

POP!

There were suddenly two identical writing quills on her desk.

A knock startled Amelia shortly after.

"You free, boss?"

Amelia eyed the second quill. "Come in."

As the door opened—

FIP!

The second quill disappeared as one of the wizards from accounting stumbled in. "Oh! I seem to have tripped over my own feet! So sorry, ma'am!"

Amelia tried not to smirk too obviously. "Not a problem, Jeffries. Have a seat."

Years passed and the dreaded rise of a certain Dark Lord ended with the sputtering of helium from a balloon when the arrogant Voldemort walked straight into a fire-fight thinking himself immortal.

The Daily Prophet spewed incredulously for weeks upon months about how "he just walked in there and dared them to kill him!"

And the Aurors, glad to be of assistance, did precisely that.

The Horcruxes were destroyed shortly after in a blazing Fiendfyre of "covering all the bases."

The Death Eaters, who had been of the mistaken belief that their Dark Lord had a grand master plan, apparently hadn't bothered to make any plans of their own.

They went down as fast (if not faster) than their beloved lord.

The majority of the pureblood children in Slytherin were ultimately either orphaned and ostracised for having parents "stupid enough" to put their lot in with a wizard who believed he was immortal and wasn't even a pureblood to boot.

The truth— hurt.

Suddenly, there were people like Dolores Umbridge, who had built a web of lies around her being a Pureblood to gain respect and power who were finding out that being Pureblood wasn't exactly the best idea. It put every move she made under a microscope, and that was something that those like her could simply not abide.

The woman ended up having a complete nervous breakdown in the middle of the Ministry atrium and getting into a raging wandfight of the most epic proportions— with a cloud of endangered bats she swore up and down were actually inhuman vampires.

Hours later, Umbridge found herself convicted of about a thousand counts of bat persecution from the Muggle law enforcement officials alone.

Oddly enough, no one stood in the way of the Muggle constables that came to arrest Dolores.

Even stranger, no one seemed to question how the Muggles even knew about it or how they found her to arrest her—

Or how she happened to accidentally lose her wand that day—

Or how she had the strange bracelet on her ankle that no one could take off or break or otherwise remove—

No, Dolores Umbridge's climb to power had most definitely hit a wall.

A very strong, reinforced, well-padded, magically warded, bat-infested wall.

Suspicious trails of corruption within the Ministry regarding exactly where the money was going to and from places it shouldn't have entangled many people and even entire families, and some families were discovering they were firmly in the doghouse with doors closing all around them for having foolishly chosen to support a Dark Lord.

And while some families truly seemed to suffer from this discovery, there were those such as Lucius Malfoy that seemed all too happy to watch his father being interrogated and forced to imbibe Veritaserum.

There was that small matter of Abraxas Malfoy having forced his son to take a Dark Mark to the Dark Lord to "prove he was a man" while he himself remained Mark-free.

Lucius Malfoy was now the youngest full heir of the Malfoy fortunes as his father, Abraxas, was summarily stripped of his title and sent to Azkaban. The list of what he was charged with was sealed and not released for public consumption. As a Wizengamot spokesperson put it, "Some things are far too heinous and unspeakable to be reported in any public venue."

Severus and Hermione didn't learn what those unspeakable things were until now, in their seventh year at Hogwarts and on the cusp of their completed masteries as Potion Master and Master Healer, the blindingly light-haired Lucius and his wife Narcissa, made a special trip to the Hogwarts infirmary to petition Madam Pomfrey to allow her apprentices to take on their case.

Apparently, Abraxas had done something so terrible, so hideous to the minds of the Wizarding World that no one wanted to talk about it, let alone read of it: he had repeatedly used the Cruciatus curse on his pregnant daughter-in-law to induce a miscarriage and then made use of the foetus of his unborn granddaughter in ways that were far too horrifying for any normal person to contemplate.

Not until he had been sentenced to Azkaban for the remainder of his days did Lucius and Narcissa dare to contemplate starting a family again. Sadly, the curse damage done to Narcissa's reproductive system would make that a near-impossibility and so the young couple had come to Hogwarts basically seeking a miracle in potion form.

It was more than a small challenge.

It was clear enough that the twisted reason Abraxas had for torturing Narcissa was to bring his defiant son to heel—

As for why he would endanger his own future heir… the details of that, however, remained so traumatic for them that it sent Lucius into a fit of the shakes and Narcissa into panicked whimpering with her lovely blue eyes filled with terror. Master Morgan, when consulted, believed the unlawful and horrid deed was done to provide the rising Dark Lord an ingredient for forbidden potion— the kind of think one did with one's enemies to benefit your own family back when the Dark Ages were well and truly Dark.

Hermione believed that Narcissa's and Lucius's emotional trauma needed to be healed before they could even consider conception remedies, and that was something fit more for Madam Pomfrey than herself. Severus had never been one for saying the right thing to comfort anyone, and Hermione was more of a solve problem by inserting proper tool into appropriate slot or finishing a complex equation kind of witch. Neither of them were therapeutic communication specialists, and Master Morgan had rubbed off them a little too much for that to change.

So, Madam Pomfrey covered the therapeutic communication and therapy, Severus worked on a potion to ease the painful muscle and nerve damage, and Hermione worked on healing the painful knots, trigger points, and scars that surrounded Narcissa's abdomen as well as various other places.

Lucius, too, had multiple places where his bones had been broken and healed without the use of Skele-grow or magic, multiple muscles and ligaments had been torn and twisted, and there was even scarring on his head where his hair had been forcibly grabbed so hard that it had been pulled out by the roots.

Dumbledore had had to be convinced, of course, into allowing two people who weren't students or staff to become regular visitors to the school infirmary, but perhaps he had hoped to garner some better public opinion for the school in permitting the project to proceed.

It seemed to place the Malfoy family in a slightly better light, as well, at least for Lucius and had both been unwilling victims in a war, and no matter what the public may have thought about purebloods in general, the microscope they had been put under subsequently had proven unequivocally that they had been tortured and forced to endure the kind of duress that no one wanted to hear about let alone confirm that it had actually happened.

As if the horrifying degree of sheer physical violence itself hadn't been more than enough in itself.

Severus and Hermione found themselves content with their lot in life, provided they were able to be close to each other. That, however, was rarely challenged thanks to their superb track record in working together. Those that knew them rarely ever saw them apart. The only other person who seemed to want to spend time with "scary Snape" was one Lily Evans.

The only problem with spending time with Lily was that the red-headed witch never bothered to even try to get on with Hermione, and Hermione was not one to stick around where she clearly wasn't wanted.

Perhaps, Snape mused, it was because Lily had known him for longer, and that caused a bit of a fuss. Did she feel somehow possessive of him because of it? Honestly, he had no idea what she was on about.. He couldn't quite understand how a person with so many friends could be weirdly possessive over him. After all, it wasn't as if Lily wanted to date him.

So, after spending an afternoon studying with Lily, Severus would trek out into the woods and coax the sulking fey dragon out of one of her notoriously well-stuffed loot stashing places or Floo back to the DoM and lure her out of one of the DoM's Room of Stashed Things— aka Master Manfred Morgan's quarters or one of Amelia's "safe rooms."

Hermione was, he had to admit, never mad at him for long. She always returned to snuggle into his arms and commandeer his pillow with equal zeal, but as a human witch—

It was always harder to get her to come out of her shell when she was human. Again, he wondered if it was because he was a wizard and she was a witch and there was some odd loss in translation that would never quite make itself known.

There was a lot of talk of lifelong relationships at Hogwarts, amongst the seventh years especially. Many people were pairing up, some more healthy than others, but Severus wasn't exactly looking.

He admitted, at least to himself, that if he were to even imagine sharing a lifelong commitment of marriage with Lily Evans, his horrified brain immediately tried to jump off the nearest cliff. Even contemplating a life without Hermione in it made his heart beat terribly fast as a swift feeling of dread and anguish simmered and roiled in his stomach.

He wondered precisely when it had all changed.

Lily had once been his rising sun and moon— his ultimate ideal of magic, love, and beauty, even as a child. Even without her older and more refined physical beauty as a witch, she had held his fascination. But where Lily tendered her regard based on what she desired and received from those around her, Hermione wanted only her books, learning, along with his respect companionship—

Well, and shiny things, of course.

Even in that, she and Lily were as different as could be.

Lily's chasing of the ultimate shiny was about a sign of wealth and prestige— something she had never truly had when sharing space with Petunia. Hermione's idea of shiny was quite literal, as in a foil sweet wrapper, a bit of tinsel, a polished beaker, stirring rod, a gleaming acorn, or a decorative tea tin.

It was the irony of ironies that Hermione sneezed out riches that would make the likes of most purebloods sob with envy, but she really couldn't be bothered to do more than slide down the massive heaps of galleons on her belly with joyous abandon.

What Amelia didn't know was that Hermione's obsessive organisation skills seemed to be limited to the DoM itself and the Hogwarts bookshelves. In the privacy of her own vaults, Hermione would be utterly disorganised like it was a guilty pleasure, being far more inclined to enjoy belly surfing down piles of coins and gems rather than bothering to sort and alphabetise it all. Severus blamed it on her need for approval— something she couldn't quite quell.

At least when they were together, she was able to relax a little.

So, too, did he, if he were honest.

Hogwarts in general wasn't a very relaxing place, but when they were together, it was them against the world. They had each other and their master, and the DoM, and that was perfectly fine.

Hermione peered over the cauldron to look at what he was doing. She cast her hand over it, a flow of Arithmancy swirling about her fingers and into the mix, combining with his brewing in synchronisation. While her touch healing remained a strong talent, her Arithmancy was equally strong due to her passion for it.

Her hair, which he swore was sentient, seemed to slither across his face, pulling him closer. His nostrils flared as he inhaled the scent of her— the mixture of herbs from their brewing, the hint of forests, parchment, and ink.

The scent of her was intoxicating, and a shiver ran down his back.

They'd always been so focused on their work.

The war.

Defending themselves against his sworn enemies—

For the first, real moment, he felt the call of her power mixed with the scent of his Amortentia.

He winced, unsure, his hands weaving into her sentient curls.

He cupped her face, his lips parted in a whispered pant as desire gallivanted in his gut like a wild thing. "Hermione," he breathed her name.

His lips dragged across her temple as he looked into her eyes.

Their magic seemed to flare, sending tendrils to weave into the other.

Why had it never done this before? He thought.

He was staring at her lips, drawn to them. He bowed his head to capture them even as she whispered his name, her hands reaching to weave into his hair and draw him down into what would be their first kiss—

"Sev, it's time to study!" Lily's voice rang out in the next room. "Where are you?"

Mortified, Hermione's face paled completely.

PFFFT!

The fey dragon was gone, zipping out of the window and escaping into the evening darkness.

Severus stiffened, a strange sort of pain in his chest as she left even as Lily saundered in, her arms laden with study books. Even as a part of him realised Lily had saved them from being caught in a compromising position in the middle of the infirmary laboratory, a part of him remained in the strange agony with his first realisation of true desire for a witch denied—

Severus wasn't sure if Lily was intentionally trying to be a pain in his arse or literally had the worst possible timing.

Was it possible to have both at the same time?

Perhaps, looking back, he'd been oblivious to some other element.

When Lily had found out that he'd already taken his N.E.W.T.s and was actually graduating from his mastery, she'd made a point to study even harder with him, and that—

That was the only thing that caused Hermione to be scarce.

Hermione would dive into her healer duties, working with Lucius and Narcissa, or helping students with broken limbs or other such physical damage.

All of it was perfectly normal for a healer of her calibre, but—

He couldn't help but notice how much happier Lily was around him and how the fey dragon just slinked off into the Nether, away from sight and away from him.

Their brewing sessions were always intimate— close both physically and magically. It had always been so, but with the realisation of desire to be even closer with the fey dragon-witch, the parting was utterly maddening.

Hermione had always been quite generous with her touch and warmth, and while that hadn't changed exactly, he couldn't help but feel like he wanted more— that she was holding back.

Meanwhile—

Lily seemed to be having a relapse back to when they were little kids— touching him, taking his wrist, brushing his fingers with hers.

But his magic didn't respond to her like it did for Hermione.

Her hair didn't try to draw him near like the tendrils of a tentacula.

Her warmth didn't linger upon his skin like the memory of a hug.

Yet, lately, it was like she was trying to be there for him, and that was rather mind-boggling.

"Severus," Hermione's voice broke him out of his musings with a blink.

"Hermione," he replied, revelling in the sound of her saying his name. His full name, not some shortened nickname meant to be cute or easier to say. Severus was the name of the Roman he was named for— something to be proud of.

"You should be proud of your name, Severus," Hermione had told him. "It's the name of Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax, the Roman emperor."

"He started a reign of Roman despotism," Severus said, frowning slightly.

"He changed an entire world," Hermione pointed out. "We may not approve of the end result, but the feat itself was quite impressive, just as the Roman Empire was, even if it was oppressive and cruel, it was also undeniably effective."

"I don't want to be a despot," Severus commented wryly.

Hermione laughed. "Don't be, but you can be a force to be reckoned with. What you do with it is up to you."

Severus admired his view of Hermione, the sunlight in her hair creating a glorious halo about her heart-shaped face. He could see wild magic sparkling around her tendrils— hear the soft tinkle of distant chimes.

"Yes?" he answered her inquiry.

"I—" Hermione flushed slightly. "It's Hogsmeade weekend. I was thinking—"

"Sev! There you are!" Lily cried as she rushed in, taking his hands. "Come down to Hogsmeade with me, won't you? They're having a winter festival!"

She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Severus on the cheek.

Lily looked at Hermione. "You could come with us," she added.

Hermione looked at how Lily's arm was looped around Snape's, her hand possessively touching his hand. She looked down and stepped away. "You go on ahead," she said quietly.

"Hermione—" Severus said, reaching for her.

Hermione shrank away, her eyes flicking to Lily and saw her confident, possessive expression.

"I— have work to do." Hermione slipped away in a swish of her robes.

Severus only barely felt Lily dragging him off as he watched the place Hermione had disappeared with confused turmoil burbling in his stomach.

Snape found himself restless the entire Hogsmeade trip. While Lily was his friend, she had never really been interested in his life as much as her social circles. It was curious and strange that she was making a point to draw him into things in their seventh year— outside of studying, anyway. While Lily wasn't exactly horrible in Potions, she preferred charms, and Severus found charms to be a lot of excessive wand-waving that annoyed him with the flourish and poise. Lily always insisted on testing her spells on him as her study partner, and her most favourite charms were, as always, appearance related.

There was a time, he realised, he encouraged such behaviour by never complaining when she botched things up— back when she was the only friend he had. By the time it had really started to annoy him, the few times he did she always told him "well, you never complained about it before, so stop fussing."

Hermione would always set things right later: fixing his hair, his skin, his nose and even his teeth from various adjusting spells. At least, he reasoned, Lily didn't screw with his spine or something like his voice.

Hermione said she loved his voice, odd as that was to him. She always had. Reading aloud to the dragonet had been a habit, and that had carried over even when she was in human form.

Strangely, Lily kept watching him whenever he looked at things for himself, perhaps expecting to just snap it up and pay for it on the spot, but Severus and Hermione had always been careful not to spend outside their means as apprentices, despite their wealth. They never wanted the extra attention. Poppy provided as their master, and they got quite a bit from the DoM working on side potions and healing. It was enough to be quite comfortable without flaunting around like one of the pureblood families with excess conspicuous consumption.

He figured that was what Potter and Black did to keep people interested in them even when they were carting their bits around in front of them in a wheelbarrow. Potter, strangely enough, seemed to have learned something out of it, and with his remorse and repentance, his enlarged embarrassment shrank. He was able to return to classes under a new leaf— not that Severus and he wanted to be friends or anything. He doubted that would ever happen.

Sirius, on the other hand, was about as remorseful as a rabid dog, and sometimes or most of the time, his attitude was similar. He was flooed to Mungo's every weekend to be treated, but every Monday he would return, just as cursed. Poppy said the healers there said the curse was tied the original intent.

They had wanted the curse to last until Snape "became a decent bloke" which was to say "never" in their minds. Thus, when Hermione reflected it back on them, their cure was tied to "becoming a decent bloke." Potter had apparently straightened out his priorities by focusing on his studies and put an end to the ceaseless pranking. Black— not so much.

He wondered how Regulus ended up as such a decent sort when his brother turned out to be such a wanker. After meeting Orion Black, it was obvious the Lord of the House of Black was anything but rude and horrible like Sirius. It was boggling. Then again, he'd never met the mum, either. Who knew what horrors could lay there like Snape's own father stained his childhood.

Severus pulled the wrapped book he had purchased from the bookstore close to him. He knew Hermione had been looking forward to getting it, but time and studies had kept her from going— an odd concept for a fey dragon who could poof to places faster and quieter than a Apparate.

If anything, the outing had proven to Severus that he'd really rather have had Hermione with him, but at least he'd gotten her something he knew she wanted. Lily had boggled at why he had wanted a book on in depth dental magic, but other than wanting to look in the book to see if there was anything about shining teeth, she lost interest in it.

When he returned to the infirmary, Hermione had already done the evening chores and left the evening mediwitches to watch over the patients that remained— something that hadn't existed until Hermione research on evidence-based practice on the dangers of relying on only one healer for an entire school as being dangerous should Poppy ever have to take a day off for her own illness or just need a mental break—

Things were looking quite good for Hogwarts when it came for medical treatment, and the Board of Governors had caved under the weight of Hermione's mountain of evidence, arguments, Arithmancy, and inescapable logic.

They also wanted Hermione on board after she gained her mastery, and they weren't above using Severus by offering him a position in Potions just to keep them both. Then again, so, too, did the DoM, St Mungos, and quite a few other magical hospitals. So did the goblins, and the goblins were willing to provide an ample apothecary, stocks, and accommodations within Gringotts proper— something utterly unheard of for the majority of the Wizarding World.

After all the drama that happened in Hogwarts, looking elsewhere was seemingly like a more logical choice to start after their masteries, but there was also the swirl of panic in his stomach at the thought that Hermione would take a job where far and away— away from him.

The thought of Lily moving on with her life hadn't bothered him since Hermione had literally fallen out of the air and landed on him in the midst of his most humiliatingly exposed, tortured moment.

He hadn't felt alone since then, but thinking about Hermione travelling far and away filled him with dread.

As he walked into their shared sitting room, he found practically buried in her mastery paperwork, final essay scrolls, fee papers, and applications. Hermione herself was asleep, her face plastered upon the writing desk with her hair threatening to conquer England by sending tendrils out in every direction.

His expression softened. He placed the book on the desk beside her project, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Hermione, love, you're going to end up with a kink in your neck."

Hermione stirred groggily, rubbing her neck absently. "Mmmfff…. Sevmmffrus."

Snape's eyebrow cocked. "Bedtime for you, miss."

Hermione lay her head down on the book he had brought, fluffed it, and closed her eyes. After a moment, her eyes opened and she startled, her eyes going across the cover. She looked up at him soundlessly, her eyes very wide.

"For you," he said.

She touched the book reverently, beaming in delight as she opened the cover. The look on her face made his chest seize painfully in a strange sort of ecstasy. So often had she been there for him, and he wanted her to know he would be there for her for long after Hogwarts— for life.

She stood, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face against his chest. Without even looking inside, her joy was palpable.

"You thought about me," she whispered.

"Always," he promised her.

The feel of her pressed against him was a delicious agony. The scent of her was so perfect, like Amortentia itself. Her tender warmth spread all over him and he didn't want the moment to ever end. His lips pressed against her temple, and he tilted her head up to look her in the face.

"Hermione, will you at least consider me? As a suitor? I cannot even begin to imagine my life without you in it."

Hermione's lip quivered as she touched his face. "You'd— want me?" Her voice was shaky, unsure.

"There had been no one else," he whispered.

Hermione gently traced his lips with her fingers. A shiver of powerful magic passed between them. "But— then you could end up like me. Impure. Not human."

He held her even more tightly against him. "If undergoing a significant physical change is what I must do to be with you, Hermione, I would gladly embrace it, just as I would you. If any were to not accept you for who you are, then I would not accept them either. We could make a wonderful life wherever we want to. With you, it would not matter where."

She looked at him with such hope; he never, ever wanted to disappoint her.

"I do want to be with you," she said quietly, as if admitting it would blow him away on the wind.

He dipped his head to capture her mouth in what might have started out as a tentative, even shy kiss, but Hermione's gasp of pleasure and the tightening of her arms around him stoked the blazing fire he hadn't ever realised had been threatening to overcome him.

They staggered together, struggling to stand under the sheer force of their combined desire, their magic flaring brightly in response to their mutual need.

Severus barely managed to scoop up his witch in his arms, dragging her off to his bedroom as her hands sought to touch every single inch of him, even as he struggled to release them both from the confines of their Merlin-damned clothes.

With a growl of pure frustration, his magic flared, and their clothes flew off them in random directions. Hermione gave a short, draconic squeak, but it turned into an enticing moan of his name as he affixed himself to her neck and pressed feverish kisses in a trail across her skin, intense suction pulling her skin between his teeth as he pressed the imprint of his teeth upon her body.

Instinct drove him to touch every part of her, kiss every part of her, and listen to what caused her breath to hitch, her grip to tighten, her moans to give away her pleasure.

Had they been paying attention to anything other than themselves, perhaps they might have noticed the ring of pretty glowing mushrooms that popped out along the floor in a ring around Snape's bed. Each shimmered and pulsed with magic as they released a cloud of particles that each seemed to breathe in without ever noticing.

Maybe, they might have even noticed that they now seemed to be in the middle of a primordial forest where the trees were as white as snow with purple-veined leaves and the sky was a smoky teal.

Maybe, but they didn't.

Perhaps, had they not been so engrossed in their own pleasurable discoveries in each other, they would have noticed two adult fey dragons looming in the forest with gleeful draconic grins on their faces or even the bushy-haired human-changeling with pointed doe ears, goat horns, and equinesque legs— all clapping and bouncing in sheer delight.

Perhaps.

Or maybe it was never theirs to notice but only to be with themselves at that moment in time as things far older than they paid witness to the age-old consummation that united the world of the fae with their often-fleeting mortal playground— a consummation that was nothing less than a frenzied week of completely oblivious, utterly joyous lovemaking .

It might have been the magick that sustained them without food or drink.

It might have been amidst the land of the fae.

Perhaps, it was the dramatic transformation that was taking place inside Snape's very soul and innate magic every time he and Hermione coupled, writhing in glorious ecstasy in each others' nearness.

Assuredly, he didn't even seem to notice anything but her as they entwined— the iridescent and obsidian fey dragons curled together in a ball of sublimely sated coital bliss.

No, whatever changes he embraced, he did so willingly and wholeheartedly, his faith and desire for the only one that truly mattered to him both tested and found that it exceeded expectations, and Hermione was not complaining.

Nope, not at all.

In fact, if the fey were truly hard-pressed to have their own children, Hermione's body seemed to have neglected to read the memo, as the tiny flutters of forming, fertilised eggs grew within her in clear defiance of the rules.

But all these things, neither Hermione nor Severus noticed, even as their cooling bodies remained entwined on Snape's bed as the fey-magic released them from the land of the fey— two shimmering silvery bands set with entwined opal and obsidian encircling their left ring fingers.

Bands in the shape of dragons curled around a treasured post-sneeze gem— deep from the heartland of the fey— a blessing from two ancient, fey dragon parents to their daughter and her chosen mate.

Hermione snuggled into the soothing warmth of her mate, oblivious to anything but his ever so tempting, all-encompassing masculine presence. Severus' arms pulled her close even in sleep as the last of the enchanted mushrooms sank back into the magical land from whence they came.

Mysterious Faerie Rings Pop Up All Over England! Wild Intoxicated Dancing and Revelry Ensues! Some Awaken With Donkey Heads; Others Wake Up Married!

We're not quite sure what inspired the spontaneous eruption of magical fungus that popped up all over England last week, but we are only now able to recover enough to report on it. One week of utter madness held England in its grip, and absolutely no one was safe. St Mungos has since been flooded with newly pregnant witches, couples who didn't even start off the week as couples, and various enchantments that seem to have a preference for altering the head into something more animal and decidedly less human.

Auror Alastor Moody reported to work to find Aurors Savage and Proudfoot dealing with a crazed witch with a giant beetle head stuck in a filing cabinet— a witch who turned out to be none other than Ms Rita Skeeter, the infamously controversial reporter-cum-gossipmonger from this very newspaper. Even more baffling, it seems Ms Skeeter is now married to none other than the equally shamed and stigmatised Dolores Umbridge, self-coined pureblood, liar, and former toady-on-the-rise at the Ministry.

Interestingly, Ms Umbridge is apparently sporting a rather obnoxious braying ass head, as if her previous shame wasn't deep enough. Several of her former colleagues, who wish to remain anonymous, expressed their astonishment that Umbridge was "gifted" with an ass head rather than a toad's, admittedly much to this reporter's amusement.

While the enchanted faerie rings seemed to have only induced dancing and fun for the minors in our society, all those of age who were caught in their magic were either blessed or cursed with marital magic, transformation, or something in between.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, has reportedly been inflicted with a rather stunning goat head with an impressively long white beard that any billy goat would surely envy.

Those who were already married, at least so it seems, were left only with vague memories of week-long revelry and apparently highly-potent fertility. Lord Lucius and Lady Malfoy, for instance, are now expecting— triplets.

While most of the chaos has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Wizarding World, at least in Britain, many are wondering when and if the animal heads will wear off.

As with most ancient and primordial magic, all the healers at St Mungos seem to agree on one answer: we don't know.

"It is extremely difficult to get through the main doors of the library with the head of a hippopotamus," Ministry Archivist Claudius Donner exclaimed to this reporter.

The main archives of the Ministry as well as other departments have been under construction to accommodate the unexpected changes in its staff.

Time Passes

"Draco Severus, Lyra Hermione, and Carina Poppy, you will stop fidgeting this instant!" Narcissa snapped as she corralled her children at the train depot, wiped their faces, straightened their clothes, and then scowled at them to make sure they were looking acceptable.

"But mum!" they protested. "Ella, Tania, and Kalen are already on the train!"

"And they aren't going anywhere!" Narcissa tutted. "I'm quite sure they will have saved seats for you!"

"Having— problems?" Severus' voice drawled amusedly as he noted the fuss.

Narcissa let out a sigh. "Nothing holding them back a year or two won't fix."

The children gasped in horror, immediately going on their very best behaviour.

A lanky, black-haired child walked up with an enormous owl cage clutched in his arms, barely able to see where he was going. Hermione walked up behind him, an amused smile on her face.

"Dad! I found him! His name is Archimedes!"

"I don't see how you could possibly miss him. He's ruddy huge," Severus said, one eyebrow arching.

Hermione laughed. "Don't fuss, Severus. Foster simply wanted to make absolutely sure he had the right owl."

"Only because he ate all the other owls," Severus quipped.

Foster got a horrified look on his face.

Hermione put a hand on his shoulder. "Your father is only joking, love."

Foster looked somewhat unsure but smiled anyway.

"Kiss your mum goodbye, my dear. Your brother and sisters are saving you a seat on the train." Hermione smiled at him.

The black-haired child set down the cage carefully and tackle-hugged his mum and kissed her cheek and then hugged his father in a slightly more conservative fashion. He placed the owl cage on his trolley and moved it up to where the attendants were taking them, helping the young boy carry his owl cage onto the train.

The seven steadfast friends plastered themselves against the window and waved to their parents before settling in the compartment.

"Eleven years old already," Lucius sighed, idly tapping his cane with his fingers. "Seems only just yesterday—"

Severus nodded. They both scowled together as they saw a scruffy black dog-headed wizard and a witch with a golden cocker spaniel head pushing their heathen spawn, ahem— child, towards the train. The child thankfully had a very human head, unlike her parents.

Nearby, a stag-headed wizard and witch with a red macaw's head herded a mop-haired boy into the train even as a gaggle of ginger-haired trouble-magnets pushed ahead of him as he said his goodbyes.

Somehow, the macaw-witch managed to screech instructions at the poor boy, and he hustled to obey, his small arms quite full of owl cage as a disgruntled-looking snowy owl hooted her displeasure at being tossed about like a sack of grain.

Lily hadn't really spoken much to Severus since her embarrassing transformation into a bird-witch and getting herself married off to Potter. Severus had a feeling that Lily could have done better for herself, but she could have also done far, far worse. She could have been married to Greyback, whose entire "pack" was transformed into a tribe of toothless puppy-headed folk.

Magic, apparently, did have a sense of justice as well as humour.

Lupin was fortunate enough to avoid that ignominious fate and ended up married to the rather pretty Mary McDonald, who had (perhaps during the one week of delirious dancing and shagging), also contracted lycanthropy. But, as if magic was looking out for them, on full moons they transformed into remarkably fluffy, sickeningly adorable, non-contagious, and playful border collies.

So was it really lycanthropy anymore? Or more like canidantropy?

Who knew?

Their kids apparently took mum and dad on moonlit walks at night, and no one was ever going to accuse the Lupin family of not loving each other— as odd as they might seem to outsiders.

They weren't nearly as odd as the Lovegood family, though. The young witchling, Luna, carried a floating jellyfish around on a leash like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Severus almost pitied the staff of Hogwarts in the coming years— the current one especially due to the week-long event his and Hermione's rather abrupt marriage had brought about. The train was packed to the gills and had extra cars added on to accommodate the current influx of students— something of a first for Hogwarts.

He and Hermione enjoyed their life shared between the DoM and Gringotts, patching up the wounded and running an apothecary that had people owling in orders from all over the world. Thanks to both the DoM and goblin discretion, that they were ever-unaging would never be an issue.

Both were no strangers to the fine art of keeping secrets.

Life was more than good, and the Dark Lord had faded into shamed obscurity as those who had brought him into power suffered other punishments.

Severus still wondered why the owner of the Hogshead Tavern burst into tears of laughter every time Albus walked by.

Maybe he found goats comical?

As the train pulled out, Severus crossed his arms over his chest, his robes billowing in the wind. Hermione waved to the children as they frantically waved to her and Narcissa. Oddly, Lucius looked ready to cry, but Severus wasn't about to bring that up. They'd become friends over the years, and he'd rather not be hexed to the face.

Regulus would have taken it for the joke it was, but he was far more even tempered than Lucius in the face of jest— well, of Severus' dry humour at least. Hell, Remus had laughed himself silly when Severus had sent him a gift-wrapped case of dog kibble for Christmas along with his and hers matching charmed flea collars.

Hermione chose just then to purr in his ear, and he immediately felt a shiver run down his spine as many others areas became pointedly interested. His wife was such a seductive little minx.

"The home shall be empty save for the two of us, my love," she whispered heatedly in his ear.

Lower things immediately twitched in eager contemplation of that idea.

He growled lowly, pulling his mate closer as he willed them away back home, their bodies Disapparating with a hurried crack.

"We should probably get home as well," Lucius said to Narcissa as the Snapes left.

"Hrm?" Narcissa said, watching as the train disappeared on the horizon.

"Severus and Hermione just left. The last time they were up to their shenanigans, we went from infertile to the parents of triplets."

Narcissa's eyes widened. "Do you really think their—" she eyedarted. "Ah, passion will remain that potent for the rest of us, my love?"

Lucius breathed on his wife's neck. "Mine certainly is, wife."

Narcissa let out a girlish squeal as Lucius' arm wrapped snugly around her waist and they too Disapparated with a crack.

British Baby Boom Revisited!

A surge of new pregnancies are flooding the hospitals United Kingdom, magical and Muggle alike, as hordes of new couples and old have flooded in for prenatal checkups this month. Many seem to think this mirrors what happened twelve years ago, and the subsequent effects of the flood of children all entering the schooling system at once have set the nation ablaze with educational as well as health concerns.

Hogwarts has been quite proactive in preparing for the oncoming onslaught ever since it learned of the remarkable surge of pregnancies the first time around, but only a month into the first year of Hogwarts' class of baby boomers, it remains to be seen just how effectively they have prepared.

Already, many of your favorite Diagon Alley shoppes are rushing to offer everything from infant and children's clothing and toys to daycare services and rent-an-elf establishments.

Incidentally, the Aurory would like us to remind everyone in advance that brawls and wandfights over house-elves will not be tolerated.

To all those newly expecting, we offer you our most sincere congratulations!

Severus pressed his nose into his wife's halo of sentient curls and took in a deep breath. She murmured softly in her sleep, cuddling closer to his warmth. They had joyfully chased each other across the skies, between the trees, and even through the halls of the DoM before finally settling into an actual bed, and their antics hadn't truly stopped save for work. They were hardly going to let Mungos go without their potions.

Hermione was, at the very least, insatiable for her mate's loving attentions, but it wasn't solely for his talent in bed (not that she was exactly complaining there either, mind!) Cuddling while reading in their extensive library, long leisurely walks, brewing together, debating potion ingredient efficacy, complaining about the dunderheads in the latest Potions Weekly, and all things inbetween filled their time together, and he couldn't help but feel eternally grateful for the chance he had been given. The beginning of his life may have been horrible indeed, but the memories no longer tormented him.

His long-time enemies had long since been punished. His life had gone from a study in shameful neglect to more than fair treatment. His wife was his best friend. They argued but never failed to make up, and loved each other all the more.

And some twelve years after their first clutch of children, he and Hermione had met a charming couple in Diagon Alley— a couple that seemed so utterly mundane and human but—

There was something oddly familiar about them.

Something close.

Hermione's face lit up with joy upon seeing them, and they had quickly engulfed her with hugs and kisses.

"There you see, Hazel? I told you she'd grow up right, our Hermione."

"Found your way back to us, I see." The man was chuckling.

Then and only then, he noticed the tufted points of ears almost hidden in their hair and the slight glint of fae magic in their eyes.

The two not-quite-humans looked upon Severus with knowing smiles. "You foster enough fae, and they start to rub off on you, my lad," the man said. "I'm Easton. Easton Granger. This is Hazel, my lovely wife. We've been doing this for many, many long years— but none were as surprising as our lovely Hermione. Real parents are in the magick-lands where the fae live— usually. But to those like us who have treated their kind well, we gain a few special gifts here and there."

Severus could only gape at them in utter astonishment. He had had no idea— and still didn't.

Hazel gave him a kiss on each cheek. "You take care of Hermione, my dear," she said with a smile. "She travelled a long way to set things right."

Hermione was hugging her "father" tight with a soft sigh of pure contentment escaping her lips.

"Mum! Mummy! There is a big old ginger half-Kneazle in the shoppe! His name is Crookshanks! Can I get him for school?" A young boy with crazy brown curls and bright brown eyes bounced up eagerly. He had his school uniform on, which meant there had been some items on the list that they had either forgotten or needed replacement so soon in the school year.

"Let's go get a look at him, son," Easton said, herding his child before him.

Hazel smiled. "That one is Alvin. He's ours. A hundred percent. We'd never had our own child before. Then, twelve years ago, it was like we had to try, and we did."

Hermione beamed, and Severus tried to hide his blush in his collar. Surely, they didn't know— hopefully. How embarrassing.

"I love you, Mum," Hermione said, exuding relief.

Hazel took Hermione and Severus into a hug. It was warm and welcoming. "I love you, too, Sweetie," she said, kissing her forehead. "Be sure to come home for Christmas dinner."

"Yes, Mum!" Hermione said automatically.

"It is good to see you again, Hermione, Severus," Hazel said with a genuine smile. "I need to catch up with Easton and Alvin before they buy up the entire pet shop. We came here to get a new cauldron after some boy named Seamus blew up our son's."

Hazel winked at them both and disappeared down the Alley street.

Severus stood in place, dumbfounded.

"What just happened here?" Severus murmured.

"You just met my parents," Hermione gushed, beaming. "Aren't they wonderful?"

"How did they know who I was?"

Hermione paused, frowning. "They met you before when you weren't my husband. When I was a child— like Alvin."

It was then that Severus remembered the stories Hermione used to tell him— stories he'd thought she'd made up as some hypothetical him: a man that hadn't ever had a proper friend—

About parents she didn't know if she'd ever see again—

About how glad she was to have found him again.

Again.

Full circle.

She really had fallen back in time and found him again.

She had saved him.

"I love you," he blurted out, unsure where it had come from, but feeling it deep in his very soul.

Hermione stood up on her tippy toes and kissed him on the nose. "I love you, too." She beamed at him so brightly that the very sun seemed dim by comparison. "Always."

"Always," he whispered, taking her into his arms and holding her tight.

Yes, that was right.

It would always be right— the two of them, together.

Fiip!

Two fey dragons happily zipped off into the Diagon Alley sunset, chasing each other as they darted to and fro like a pair of hummingbirds and off into the encroaching night sky.

"Ahh, there they go," Easton said contentedly to his wife, taking her into his arms.

"I'm so proud of her, love," Hazel said, getting a little weepy.

"Me too, my love. Me too."

"Mummy! Come look at the book I got from the free pile over at Flourish and Blotts!" Alvin cried, waving the book about proudly.

A glittering fey dragon curled up on the cover on a pile of shimmering gemstones. The title of the book was: The Little Dragon That Could.

"It's perfect, darling," Hazel said. "Let's get you back to that tall bearded man so you can get back to Hogwarts."

"Okay, Mum!" Alvin said, hugging them both while clutching his things— his book, a half-Kneazle, and the new cauldron.

"Mum?"

"Hrm?"

"Do you think fey dragons are real?"

Hazel and Easton smiled down at their son. "As real as real gets, love."

Alvin Granger beamed. He was ready to take on the world. One book at a time.

HEA—The End!

A/N: Happy Halloween, everyone! My favourite holiday of the whole year! I hope you enjoyed this little fey dragon adventure! Thank you for your patience. You never realise how busy you are until you try to have time for writing! My thanks to Dragon and the Rose for putting up with my utterly random-hour shenanigans!