*
Child
*

Hermione had been peripherally aware of the fact that magic probably sped up the construction process, but she hadn't been expecting to be staring at a veritable castle in place of what had been her somewhat cozy house in the space of a month. It allowed for the ex-Mungo's crew to be moved in by mid-May and the doors open to anyone who would come by early June, as Hermione had planned.

With a significant amount of research, Snape's insights and a bit of help with the tweaking from Remus and Ginny, the Oath Magic had been woven into the foundation that the house stood on and the roots of the foremost trees on the property, binding the werewolves to the ground, rather than the somewhat more fallible structure. The Oaths would have to be renewed every six months and could be broken at that time if necessary.

After a week of persistent nagging, Kieran had agreed to take the position of Headmaster on the condition that Redda was given control of the gardens and grounds. She had been a landscape artist for several magical tourist gardens before being bitten, and missed working with plants.

Emmett spent his first month in the house working day in and day out with Zach, making sure the wards were as infallible as any wizard could hope to make them. Millicent developed a soft spot for Emmett and gave him a kneazle on the grounds that, "They're good at sensing danger. He'll know if something's wrong."

Emmett named the kneazle Pandorus. Pandorus and Guinevere had the run of the house within two days.

Ruel was placed as the administrative head of faculty and staff, but in truth was Hermione's right hand man in cases of needing to liaise with other institutions, most particularly the ministry. Verona had been in charge of updating Astrology textbooks for a publishing firm, and knew the subject backward and forward. She agreed to teach it so long as Steven was given the position of Quidditch Coach. Hermione wasn't too bothered by that, since Steven had worked as a team strategies leader for a private wizarding firm after nearly a decade announcing Quidditch games for the minor leagues. Gerard finally broke down and admitted to having a bit of the Sight when they were all scrounging to find him a spot he would enjoy and feel comfortable in. Hermione asked, "Is that something you're going to feel comfortable trying to convey and teach to students?"

"It can't be taught."

"The techniques," Hermione specified.

Gerard flushed. "I made money on the side doing Readings for people when I was a kid. It's kind of a hobby."

Hermione was convinced those made the best kind of jobs. She told Remus he was taking Defense Against the Dark Arts and refused to speak to him about it until he saw things her way. It didn't take too long for him to come around. It took him protesting, "Let me at least actually apply," and her responding, "My whole third year was your application."

As she had planned, Hermione stole Care of Magical Creatures for herself. By the time the first twenty students had arrived in late June, there was a cook on hand, a bevy of housekeeping and maintenance workers, a Healer, and Arithmancy, Charms, Transfigurations and History professors.

By mid-August Redda agreed to double as the Herbology professor should nobody turn up. Two days later, a twenty-four year old kid, two years a werewolf, three years previous experience in a cultivating lab showed up and offered to try his hand at the profession. Hermione asked Redda, "Know anything about Potions?"

Redda didn't, so Hermione found herself back in Snape's labs. They hadn't much spoken beyond what was necessary since he had flooed out of the house in such a hurry. She brought biscuits that the cook, Marissa, had whipped up for the kids earlier that day. They had walnuts in them. Hermione wasn't entirely sure how she knew it, but she knew walnuts were Snape's favorite nuts.

He bit into one of the biscuits. "Resorted to house elves, have you?"

"No, Marissa is wolvish, not elvish."

"I owled to say the batch of Dreamless was going to run a day or so late, did you not get the message?" His expression conveyed the direct thought that he less than trusted anyone in the house to have actually gotten it to her.

"Ruel handles communications from the outside, I got the message within minutes of when it arrived." Ruel and Snape had meant once before during one of Zev's last lessons prior to the summer hols. They approved of each other in a general sense.

"You could have simply owled back to tell me that."

Hermione breathed out sharply. "If that was all I had to say to you, I would have."

"Of what new favor shall I be the lucky requestee?"

Hermione didn't waste time. "Your colleague, in New Mexico, what's the likelihood that he would move here and take a position as my Potions professor?"

"No otherwise suitable applicants?"

"No applicants at all," Hermione clarified. "I have everything else I need, but that position, well, you know how hard it is to find someone who's made that their life's work, and I'm working with a somewhat limited community, not to mention the number of wizards who are willing to teach amongst a population of almost entirely werewolves. Believe me, I've asked around."

"My colleague runs his own research center in New Mexico. He spent over ten years gathering enough money and support for the place. He has people under him, responsibilities; children that I doubt he will make pack up and leave. No, he's not the answer."

Hermione rubbed her eyes. She fought back the desire to cry from sheer exhaustion. "Didn't hurt to ask, I suppose."

She was nearly out the door when he offered, "I'll think of something. I'll send my suggestion along with the Dreamless."

In her surprise, she forgot to say thank you. She hoped the biscuits were really good.

*

In direct contrast to what he had promised, Snape sent the Dreamless along with his suggestion. The suggestion came in the form of a Thestral, who caused pandemonium both by wreaking havoc on the wards and being visible to most of the faculty watching over the children on the front lawn and nearly none of the children.

Hermione burst out of the house, wand in hand, just in time to see the wings shrink back down into shoulder blades, the hooves separate themselves out into fingers, the snout reform into a human visage. The woman left at the end of the Transfiguration somewhat resembled her alternate form. She was long and muscular, and while she wasn't exactly ugly, her skin didn't quite seem to fit her right. She broke into an abashed grin at the sea of faces staring at her -- as the children who couldn't see her as a Thestral had seen her appear in bits and pieces and the adults hadn't been expecting anyone -- "Um, sorry 'bout that. Don't like Apparating, tend to splinch myself."

Hermione stepped forward, wand still at the ready. "Hermione Granger."

"Hydrea Jigger. Severus said that he'd tell you I was coming but I can see he conveniently neglected to mention it." The girl spoke with an accent that suggested native English birth but schooling elsewhere. Which had to be the case, since she looked no more than a couple of years in either direction from Hermione and Hermione was relatively sure she hadn't forgotten anyone from Hogwarts just yet.

"Jigger. Are you-"

"Arsenius' niece," Hydrea filled in. "My parents died in the first uprising and he took care of me."

"You should be around my age. Why don't I know you?"

"A few years older, actually, but yes. My parents had been teachers at Durmstrang while still alive. My uncle sent me there. I've heard all about you. Igor could not shut up when he came back after the tournament. Herm-own-ninny this, Herm-own-ninny that. Until then, we'd quite thought him a poof."

Hermione couldn't help smiling at the combination of mirth and mock put-out quality of Hydrea's monologue. "No, definitely not. I'll assume Snape had some point in sending you with three months of Dreamless strapped to your back?"

Hydrea tucked long, slightly discolored fingers under the straps of the bag flush against her back. "Severus mentioned you might need a Potions teacher."

Hermione glanced behind her to where she still had an audience. "Let's get you inside. You must be knackered. Tea?"

Hydrea responded with a polite, "Please."

Hermione watched out of her eye to make sure that the children went back to their games as her and Hydrea made their way into the school. She led Hydrea up three floors and around several bends, twists and turns until they were at a room guarded faithfully by a portrait of a woman with a wreath of flowers in her hair and a rather motherly air about her. Hermione greeted the portrait of Kieran's late wife, "Afternoon, Cassia."

"Hello dear. Who's the new thing?"

"This is Hydrea Jigger."

Hydrea offered, "Pleasure to meet you."

"Indeed, Miss Jigger. Password?"

"Tarantella."

Cassia's grin was toothy, "Fantastic twirl-about that one is. Go on ahead girls, he's just sorting some paper."

Kieran looked up from his paper expectantly when the two women came through the door. "Afternoon. Have a seat."

Both women did as suggested. Hermione conjured some tea for the three of them. She took a sip of hers before introductions. "Headmaster, this is Hydrea Jigger. Miss Jigger, Headmaster Kieran O'Dunn."

Hydrea leaned over the desk to offer her hand. "A pleasure."

"Miss Jigger was sent by one Severus Snape as a candidate for our position of Potions Master," Hermione explained.

"Oh," Hydrea interrupted, "See, there's the thing. I'm in something of a spot, to be honest. As you probably both know, my uncle was among those lost in the second uprising. I was near to finished with my Master's Certification when he died and I was in no mind to finish the thing, so I left to help the Slug family handle the business. As it turns out, though, retail isn't really my thing. I sold my half to the Slugs and used the money to enroll myself in a part time program in order to finish my Certification. I should be done by the end of the year but I'm not quite there yet. So you'd be hiring an unknown quantity in that, without any type of degree."

Hermione glanced at Kieran before asking Hydrea, "How do you know Snape?"

Hydrea blinked. "He's been a regular customer since I was in trainers. I've known him for as long as I can remember. He's been a great help to me these past several years, talking shop whenever he would come to pick up an order, making suggestions when I was trying new things out. I'd most likely have lost my edge and had to retake courses if it hadn't been for him."

Hermione told Kieran, "Your turn."

Kieran leaned back into his chair. "Do you read The Daily Prophet Miss Jigger?"

"Only when I need a laugh. I have other ways of keeping myself aware. I know what this place is. I know you're practically all werewolves." Her facial expression remained bland, but her voice had just the tiniest note of strain.

"That scares you." Kieran's comment wasn't judgmental, merely statement of fact.

"For…of course it scares me. I was raised by wizards. Of course it bloody well-" She broke off. "Look, Severus would never put me in a position wherein I would be harmed. He brews the Wolfsbane himself and there isn't a person in the Potions community, here or otherwise, that I trust more to complete a Potion correctly. He also tells me that I'm perfectly safe in my Animagic form should anything go wrong with the Bane. I'm doubly guarded, as I see it."

Kieran pursed his lips. "Well then, I think we've got ourselves a Potions professor."

*

The first day of classes was an all-out disaster. The younger kids kept getting lost on their way in between classes, the older kids seemed to see it as their duty to act out and question authority, the kids in the middle didn't want to have anything to do with anything. Hermione had expected most of this: overwhelmingly, the youngest ones were newly bitten and scared at being away from what they had thought of as home, the older kids had very likely been mistreated since infection, and those in the middle were a mish-mosh and at an age where it was easiest just to disappear. Still, it had been a maddening experience, trying to teach classes.

While the staff and faculty had all been equipped with wands (albeit, on the condition that they must be relinquished whenever a werewolf left the property) the students, even those of age, were kept wandless. Those who were eleven years and older had wands, but they were kept in the hands of the staff, who handed them out for classes and collected them at the end of the day. Since most of the children, even the older ones, hadn't had any experience with a wand, this was the tactic the faculty had voted upon to keep damage from over-exuberant students and emotionally challenged teens to a minimum. Still, there had been mishaps, and the Healer had already attended to a boy sprouting feathers rather than hair from his head, and a girl who couldn't stop skipping.

The staff met in the much expanded kitchen to have a couple of drinks and whinge about their day. At near to midnight, Remus and Hermione gave their excuses to anyone still standing and snuck off to her room. Remus still technically had a room of his own, but he hadn’t much used it since the week he had spent in hers while on the Anti-Silver Potion.

Hermione claimed the bathroom first, brushing her teeth and combing out her hair. She threw on some pajamas and relinquished the room to Remus. He pattered out a few minutes later and sat down on the edge of the bed. Hermione had been going over her notes regarding tomorrow's classes. She abandoned them to sit down next to him. "Hey."

"This is real." He said the words quietly, as though afraid to jinx it. "I taught in a classroom today. I'm going to sleep in a bed tonight. Next to you."

Hermione leaned in to kiss him. It was meant -- like all their other kisses had been meant until now -- as comfort, as friendship, as a grounding point. It might have stayed that way if Remus hadn't placed his hand firmly on her lower back. There wasn't an immediate flood of passion in response to the gesture, but Hermione stayed with the kiss, let it lead places that it hadn't before, let it become playful, caring, and just a little bit aggressive.

She hadn't even noticed Remus' hands playing at the buttons of her top, inch by inch stealing it away from her skin, but she noticed when he pulled back and, catching a glimpse of her, breathed, "Holy- Min."

Hermione crossed her hands over her breasts in a futile gesture. Remus peeled them carefully away. "It's okay, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting it."

"I forgot," Hermione admitted. It was the first time in nearly three years that the statement was true.

"Why did you…what are they about?"

Hermione, who had spent every day since she'd burnt the first fire-tattoo into her flesh hiding them for fear that someone would ask, forced the word, "Pain," past her lips.

Remus' eyes reflected more empathy than Hermione wanted. "Pain?"

"When I…this one was first," Hermione traced the jagged lightening bolt dissecting its way between her breasts. "I picked it up right after, to have something of him in me, on me, near me. And it hurt. I screamed, a lot. But it." Hermione stopped, stared at her hand.

"Distracted you from things that were worse?"

"Almost entirely."

"So you got another one."

"And another, and another, and another," Hermione added.

"How many, total?"

"Eleven to date."

"That why you keep yourself so covered all the time?"

Hermione clenched her fists. "I've melded my issues into my skin. Doesn't mean I want everybody to see it."

Remus's breathing became sharp. "Will you let me?"

Hermione hesitated. Remus tipped the scales, "I only want you more than I did before I saw them. It's like I said, this is real. You're real."

So Hermione traced the line of devil's snare growing over the tips of her shoulders and explained how she had saved the boys from a nasty patch of it once. She lay back so that Remus could peruse the werewolf baying at the moon gracing her left rib, and bared her throat to display the full glory of the phoenix resting in its hollow and spanning out across her upper chest. She inched her bottoms off in order for him to see the entirety of the snake coiled twice around her abdomen and lower back, its head resting comfortably upon her right hipbone. She spread her legs slightly to reveal the fancy chess knight on her inner left thigh and to give the full effect of the Thestral wrapped around the entirety of her upper right leg. She rolled over displaying the tattoo of Morgause standing in between her shoulder blades and flowing down her back. Above Morgause, at the very base of Hermione's neck, lay raido, the rune representative of journeys, earthly and otherwise. She held out her arm so that he could look at the Porlock, locked in its defensive stance, standing on her bicep. Finally, she sat up and held her right wrist out to him, showing the letters Z-E-V fire carved on the underside, right were Zev's and his contained a not-so-random assortment of numbers. "That's the most recent one. I picked it up while trying to pass WERE."

Remus held the wrist in both his hands. "I would have gone with you, if you'd wanted."

"There are some things-"

"I know, but I thought it needed to be offered."

Hermione nodded. "Do you mind if we don't- I just wanna snog until we fall asleep in the act. Is that-"

Remus saw to it that she got what she wanted.

*

She had to ask around to find Zev, which was worrying in the first place. Finding him curled up in the pantry was near to heart-attack inducing. She put on her best unphased act, crawled inside the pantry with him and asked, "Whatcha doing in here?"

Zev pouted. "Yeah, like you care."

Hermione would have laughed if he hadn't seemed so convinced that he was right. "What exactly could you possibly mean by that?"

"Go away. Go do stuff with all the other kids. They need their teacher." He spat the last word.

"I don’t want to be with the other kids, I want to be with you."

"That's a first." Zev kicked her leg. "Go away!"

Hermione reached out in the small space and bodily pulled Zev to her. She held on while he squirmed and screeched and generally did his best to get her to let go. Hermione was exhausted when he calmed down. Finally, though, he gave into the fact that he wasn't going anywhere and went limp. Hermione just squeezed him tighter. "Zev. Some of those kids have been here less than a week. They're nervous and confused. A lot of them were kept by parents who did things to them like yours did, or worse. They're not ready to accept that we're not going to lock them up, or hurt them or make fun of them. So yes, they do need me. I need to be there for them. But they're my students, and you're my son. I adopted you so that I could say that. There's never going to be a time that if you tell me you need me, I'm going to choose them over you."

Zev grunted. "You haven't even helped me with my homework at all this week. Or tucked me in. You treat me like one of them."

Hermione pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I don't want the kids to tease you, baby. If you want me to come and tuck you in, you got it, okay? And you know you can always come up to my room and ask me for help when you need it. I can’t read your mind, though. I'm not even any good at Legilimancy. Professor Snape is."

Harry had been. Once he'd applied himself. Hermione swallowed the thought whole, pushing it away for later.

"What's Legi- Ligilili- that thing that you said?"

"Legilimancy. It's a type of magic that allows one wizard's thought to be revealed to another."

Zev perked right up. "That's neat! Are there books on it?"

Hermione giggled. "Yeah, I bet the professor has some. I can ask him the next time we talk."

"Ask him to come to dinner, too. I want to tell him all about Professor Jigger. She's so cool. She let my class help her brew a Softening Serum, even though we're too young for wands. She has a really large collection of rare ingredients, you should see it. I could show you," he offered, just a bit shyly.

"I'd like that," Hermione agreed, even though she'd already spent several hours in Hydrea's classroom helping with lesson plans and briefing her on necessary werewolf information.

"So you'll invite him?"

"Invite who? Oh, Professor Snape. Yes, I will." Already she was planning how exactly to convince him that eating in a hall full of werewolves was a good idea for him.

"And you'll help me with my history homework?"

"What era are you guys studying?"

"Post-Merlin."

Hermione felt some of the tension of the last few weeks slip from her frame. "That's one of my favorites."

*

The first full with everyone at the school was a mirage of exhaustion and pandemonium. The staff made sure that all the children got Wolfsbane before they did and then were extra careful to take the required dosage themselves.

Hydrea and Hermione spent all three nights in their non-human forms and all three post-change days in their own skin, making sure that everyone was fed and watered and kept as comfortable as possible.

On the fourth day, students arrived at the Potions labs, none the worse for the wear, to a sign: "Potions cancelled until Professor Jigger can see straight again. Report to Great Hall for study period."

Hermione, for her part, made it through the day, if just barely. She spent the following two explaining why, exactly, she had confused a common Ashwinder(1) with the more rare Fire Elf and re-teaching the entire lesson.

Four days after, the weekend mercifully hit and Hermione collapsed into her bed at seven Friday night, not to wake again until nearly noon on Saturday. Remus came up with a tray a little after she had finally opened her eyes. "Hey, you're with us."

Hermione offered her opinion, "I don't think I did this quite right."

"It was your first time," Remus soothed. "Lunch?"

Hermione was hardly above temptation. "What'd you bring me?"

"'Rissa made that saffron pumpkin soup she does."

Hermione's stomach gurgled in appreciative anticipation. "'Rissa? Been flirting up our cook?"

Remus spared Hermione a roguish grin. Marissa was old enough to be his great-grandmother. "She isn't someone I'd want pissed off at me."

Hermione took a spoonful of soup. "Mm. Good point."

While she ate, Remus told her about the Quidditch game that the staff had put on for the student's benefit the night before. He whispered, "I took Zev up afterward."

Hermione thought she should probably scold him. "Did he like it?"

"Loved it, didn't want to come down." The look in Remus' eyes suggested he had been less than fond of that part of the evening as well.

She settled for a stern, "You better hope he doesn’t say anything to the other kids, Remus J. Lupin, or you'll be up there all day and night. Then you'll know how I felt this week."

Remus took the finished bowl of soup from her and set it on the nightstand. "We have to figure out a better system for that. You and Hydrea need sleep as much as any of the rest of us during that time."

Hermione amended, "Well, maybe not quite as much. But it is needed, yes."

"Maybe if you guys switched off-"

"There's too many of you. Even with two of us, it was overwhelming."

Remus's brow creased. Hermione lay her hand over his, "Hey, it'll get sorted. Honestly, after all of this, it's a joy to have to worry about something like that."

"You still look tired."

"A bit," Hermione admitted. He started as though to leave and she clamped her fingers around his wrist. "Stay with me. Just a bit."

Remus was the type of man who paid his debts, so he didn't argue, just waited for her to get settled and laid down beside her, wrapping himself over her. "Min?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be here when you wake up."

*

He wasn't there when she woke up. What little light was peeking through the drawn curtains indicated that it was getting well on into the afternoon. Hermione pushed the covers back from herself and sat up.

Inch by inch, she made her way to the bathroom, where she was brushing her teeth when Remus came back. "I left for ten minutes, and those had to be the ten you woke up in."

Hermione smiled around the toothbrush. She leaned over the sink to rinse and spit. "Ah the excuses of an inconstant man."

Remus leaned up against the sink corner. "Sleep well?"

"You positive you didn't dose the food?"

"I'm pretty sure for my part, but 'Rissa's a different situation." Remus tucked a damp curl behind Hermione's ear.

She made a face, "I'm all sweaty and sleep-crusty."

"Sleep-crusty?" Remus pulled her in between his legs. "Lemme see." He bit lightly at her lower lip, letting go and sucking on it, waiting for her small pant of pleasure to actually kiss her. The peppermint of her toothpaste interacted to create a slightly bitter taste with the small tinge of sweetness -- honey? -- on Remus's tongue. Neither of them stopped.

Without pulling back, Remus moved one hand from her back to her knees and picked her up, making his way slowly to the bed. He sat on its edge when he got there, still cradling her in his lap. Only then did he break the kiss, mouthing his way over her chin, down her throat, into the hollow, where the phoenix head perched. He outlined what he could reach of the tattoo with his tongue. It wasn't much. "Min-"

"Whatever."

He lay her back on the bed, her legs still dangling off the edge, and pushed her top over her head and arms, throwing it aside. Tugging her slightly further up the bed, he straddled her and went back to redrawing the phoenix with his mouth. His hands cupped over one breast each, gently caressing at first, pinching the nipples when he moved his mouth to the lightening bolt.

"Fuck," Hermione breathed. "All right."

She allowed him to travel further, his tongue meeting the outstretched one on the snake, before gathering all her resources and rolling over on to him. "Stay."

As Remus didn’t seem inclined to disagree, Hermione deftly stripped him of his robes and the shorts underneath. There was a time for seduction in undress, but Hermione hadn't touched another human with the intent to get good and properly laid in over three years; this wasn't it. With none of the eager patience Remus had shown, Hermione bent down to swallow his cock, gently massaging one ball in each hand.

Remus bucked. "Shit. Shit."

Hermione rode the wave of surprised reaction, humming with self-satisfaction. Which only made Remus draw upon his evidently extensive collection of swear words. Right when his breathing got a little more frantic, his body a little more still, she drew back.

"Min," he threatened.

"Relax."

Hermione stretched out over him, grabbing her wand from beneath her pillow. She cast a few necessary Charms as she wiggled out of her pajama bottoms. Setting aside her wand, she lifted herself up and sank down onto Remus's cock without a word of warning.

Remus spit out broken, garbled phrases that Hermione imagined were really quite dirty when enunciated. She responded with a pleased, "Mm," and rode him. Remus' hands wrapped around her hips, one caressing the head of the snake, the other moving to make runs up her spine and back down to the hip. At the top of one run he exerted pressure to the crown of Morgause's head, bringing Hermione's mouth down to his.

The hand that wasn't keeping her mouth where he wanted it snuck in between the two of them, over her clitoris. He rubbed while she rocked, losing his mind to the shock of orgasm only a few minutes before she arched back and made tiny, lovely mewling sounds.

She collapsed onto him in the aftermath.

He managed to form the words, "Still crusty?"

"Ugh. Gonna be if I don't move."

"Romantic."

"You want romantic, Louise Murmin has a crush on you. I'll bet she'd spout poetry after every rousing love-making session."

"Louise is seventeen."

"Yeah, well, it's not like there isn't cradle-robbing going on anyway here."

Remus smacked her lightly. "That wasn't what I meant, although, ew. I just meant, seventeen year old girls do things like that."

"I didn't."

"You," he said pointedly, "were never seventeen."

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

Hermione tried to say something. Tried to say it had been good for her, which it had been, or to ask him not to leave, or to tell him she was going to take a shower. When it became evident that her vocal abilities had ceased to function within a two second time span, Remus kissed her forehead, "You were brilliant."

She remembered being good at this, so it wasn't exactly surprising, but still, nice to know some things hadn't changed. "Thanks."

She was glad he seemed to catch on to the larger implications of the word.

*

It took three owls and an undue amount of rhetoric, not to mention the invocation of Zev, to force a visit out of Snape. Hermione was willing to lay money on the fact that her capitulation, "We won't eat in the Hall," had been the point of reluctant agreement for him.

Marissa agreed to let her take over a corner of the kitchens for the dinner. It was tiny, but she could fit herself, Zev, Remus and Snape into them. When Hydrea heard about the visit she hinted, "Have room for one more?"

There wasn't, really, but Hermione just nodded, "We'll squeeze you in somewhere."

She was glad for the decision later, when Snape allowed a rare expression of pleasure to settle on his features upon seeing her. His curt, "Miss Jigger," was greeted with an exasperated snort, "Hello, Severus." After that, nobody interrupted as Zev spent most of the meal talking about all the things his class had been helping Hydrea brew and asking questions that came to him as he was recounting. Hermione wondered if he would have even stopped to listen to the answers if it hadn't been Snape.

Granted, Snape was only semi-forbidding with Zev, as opposed to acting the part of full blown bastard. Still, even toned down, he didn't come off as someone Hermione would want to interrupt, given the choice. She was glad she had the advantage of no longer being ten years old.

When dinner was finished, and Hermione had sent Zev to his dorm, allowing three rounds of "Ten more minutes, Min, pleeeeease," Hydrea begged off with excuses of papers to grade. Remus brushed by Hermione, "Mind if I start an early dorm check?"

Hermione made a face. "How'd you get stuck with that?"

"Emmett's been looking like cold walking death with all the additions he's making to the wards. I told him I'd handle inside security for a couple of nights so he could get some rest." Remus's tone revealed that he might be regretting the promise.

"You're sweet," Hermione infused the words with the suggestion of what such sweetness was probably going to garner him later.

"Yeah, all right." He slunk out of the kitchen, off to deal with rambunctious teenagers and tired children.

Hermione turned to where Severus had reseated himself at the table after helping clean up. She sank into the seat across from him. "Thank you for coming."

"You would've owled repeatedly until I capitulated."

"Doesn't mean I don't appreciate an easy victory."

Snape huffed. "How is Miss Jigger working out?"

"Brilliantly, but then, I have no doubt she's told you that herself."

"It was conceivable that her assessment of the situation was different than yours."

Hermione offered, "Thank you for her."

It calmed him. "It's fortunate for everyone that it worked out."

"Indeed." Hermione put her elbows on the table, locking her fingers together. The sleeves of her robes slid down her arm. No longer covered by the long sleeved undershirts she had worn since the war, fire-tinged ink spilled to the outside of her wrists. She had stopped wearing the shirts the same day she had gotten the latest tattoo, the one peeking out from the inside of her left wrist. Two days after Remus had woken her up with his tongue in her vagina and kept waking her up until she was practically off the bed, not breathing. After he had held her and repeated, "You're brilliant."

Which was just different enough from, "you were brilliant." Just different enough to grit her teeth and let her tattoo artist brand the letters R-E-M-U-S across from the ones Z-E-V on the opposite wrist. Just different enough not to enjoy the too harsh heat of the sensation.

Snape noted the ink, she could see the brief flicker of his eyes to the spot where it betrayed itself. He didn't ask. "Zev is acclimating?"

Breath poured out of her. "Well, as much as is to be expected. Almost none of them are used to being around other people, being allowed to interact with other people, all those things that we take for granted. But, nobody's killed anyone yet, so I like to think things are working out."

Snape smirked. "Gryffindor."

"Yeah," Hermione admitted. "We all have our dirty secrets."

Snape shot back, "Some of us more than others," but it wasn't cold, just aware.

"Pot," she accused.

"Kettle," he returned.

"Having any luck with the Wolfsbane trials?"

She listened to him talk about love in completely different terms than she was accustomed to. She asked questions and made suggestions, some of which he actually laughed at, and didn't mind. When he ran out of things to say and stood, she invited, "Don't stay away."

*

Hermione gave in a week before the third full moon of the semester was due and called in reinforcements. Ginny, Charlie, Nymph, Nora, Zach, Millicent, Dean, Oliver, Katie, Terry and Luna all agreed to help without pause, working a schedule out between them so that the minimal amount of work would be missed by everyone involved. On the fourth night, Ginny invited her out to the pub with all of them, "First monthly WAC celebration."

"Wack?" Hermione inquired.

Nymph grimaced. "Werewolf Aid Corps. Talk to Luna, she thought it up."

"No need to, that explains things." Hermione turned away from the doorway where Ginny and Nymph were waiting for her answer. "Babe?"

Remus sauntered out of the bathroom, one hand still towel-drying his hair. "Hullo girls."

"Hullo," came the unison answer.

"Need something?" He pointed the question at Hermione.

"I got invited to go out. You wouldn't mind…" She stopped at the odd expression on Remus's face. "What?"

"Gin, Nymph, can you give us a minute?"

Ginny pulled Nymph back and shut the bedroom door. Remus started, "Min, when was the last time you went out?"

"Last week."

"Not for a supply run."

Hermione was still thinking about it when Remus charged, "That's what I thought."

"It's not like I don't have everything I want here," Hermione protested. "You and Zev. A whole community."

Remus kissed her for that. "If Zev and I could leave this place, wouldn't you want us to?"

"Obviously. I mean, there are things I'd wanna show Zev, places I'd wanna go with you. That's why I did this, in the hopes that eventually all of you can live your lives the way everybody else is completely free to, c'mon, you know all this."

"I'm not saying this to be mean, but you're not one of us. You can go out. And I'm not such a jealous bitch that I'd deny you that because I can't. Honestly, go see your other friends, I bet they miss you. Dean looked like it was his birthday all over again when you gave him that hug the first morning he got here."

Hermione winced. "All right, I get it, you want me to go. I just wish you could go with me, that's all."

Remus's, "Give everyone a hello for me, yeah?" was a bit subdued.

Hermione closed in for a hug, tucking her head beneath his chin. "Of course."

"You should have a lover who can do more than get you off."

"Say another word and I'm stepping on your toes."

"You can't tell me you never want to go on dates."

"It's not like Harry and Ron could take me out on dates either, always the risk of too much publicity. I've been missing it for this long, it can't possibly be that essential to a relationship."

Remus held her slightly back from him. "I think that might be a case of can’t-miss-what-you-don’t-know more than anything else. It doesn't really change my opinion on the matter."

Silently agreeing but unwilling to give him the leverage, Hermione asked, "Want me to bring back a pint from Fortescue's? We can get fat together. Almost as good as dating."

"Toffee banana?" Remus requested.

"Willing to compromise on a banana marshmallow?" Hermione negotiated.

"Anything for you."

The words should have been light, playful, but Hermione practically shivered at their impact. "Banana marshmallow it is. I'll be back around one."

"I'm not waiting up."

Hermione didn't believe him for a second.

*

Hermione woke with a headache and the intense urge to cry. She stood under scalding water for twenty minutes straight instead, emerging to find a dressed and curious Remus brushing his teeth.

She joined him, allowing the peppermint scent of her toothpaste to drive away any vestiges of pain that the water hadn't managed to reach.

Remus rinsed his mouth. "Thought you said you didn't drink."

"Didn't." Hermione wanted to leave it at that.

Remus evidently wasn't up to playing fair though, as he didn't try and get any more information from her, just went about brushing his hair in a manner that suggested Hermione could be like all the other people who distrusted him or not, it was her decision. She picked up her own hairbrush, working violently through the snags until Remus stopped her, taking the brush out of her hands and working it carefully through each curl. The progress she had made on not wanting to cry was completely obliterated.

"Nightmare," she managed to squeak out, right before her entire face turned into a flood plain.

Remus continued brushing her hair, down to the last gnarled strand. "Ponytail?"

Hermione hiccupped in between sobs. "Yeah."

He swept one of the hair ties that she left laying everywhere off the edge of the sink and set to pulling her hair back, one stroke of the brush at a time. The process took a long time, as hair fell repeatedly out of his unpracticed hands and he struggled to calm the bumps that unruly curls caused atop her head. Finally, though, he stood back, surveying his work, his eyes rising to meet hers in the mirror.

When she had drawn a deep breath and let go of it without collapsing back into hysterics, Hermione offered a somewhat gravelly, "Thanks."

"Was it about Zev?" Remus knew about Hermione's fairly regular nightmares regarding Zev being taken away, or the school being disbanded and its inhabitants left without recourse.

Hermione shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure you want to hear this any more than I want to talk about it."

"Ron and Harry, then," Remus supplied sharply.

"It's always a dream at first," she told him, "because they're still alive. They're playing chess, or Quidditch, or eating chocolate frogs, something harmless, right?"

She sighed. "Then I get there, and I'm bloody well excited to see them. I always know, I know what I did in the dream, I know they should be dead. I run up and I go to kiss Ron, or Harry, whichever first, and they won't let me get near them. Ron backs up every time I take a step forward and just laughs when I can never reach him. Harry…Harry calls me things, names. Stuff we used to call Death Eaters, Malfoy, people who were our enemy. Traitorous little bitch, Dark whore, those are some of the nicer ones. And I'm trying to explain, I'm trying to get them to understand, I just did what I thought I had to do, but neither one is listening and eventually they stop paying attention to me altogether, just turning back in on themselves, on their game, whatever, and pretending I'm not there. I scream and plead and even physically assault them, but nothing. That's generally when I wake up."

"I see Sirius, locked in Azkaban for twelve years partly on my word of conviction in my nightmares a lot." Remus was slow to choose each word. "I see him accuse me of not being good enough to protect him or Jamie's son."

"Nothing could have protected Harry. If there had been something-"

"You would've made sure he was privy. I know, that's my point. It's not Harry saying those things, or Ron. It's you, it's the part of you that can't accept what you consciously know is true."

"I miss them. All of them, but mostly Ron and Harry. Sometimes I feel like I lost seven years of my life when they died. Like I killed seven years of my life."

"I know."

Hermione wanted to negate his understanding, the way she had been able to with nearly anyone else who had ever given it to her, but those two words weren't sentiments of placation from him. They were basic recognition of common suffering. "My hair looks nice. Better than when I do it."

Remus massaged her neck gently with one hand. "I think I was probably trying harder."

"Probably."

"All right?" He murmured.

"Better, thanks." She stood, leaning over the sink to splash a bit of water on her face. When she straightened up, he was there, a towel ready in his hand.

*

"Halloween had me thinking, if we made it some sort of event then nobody would notice if every last one of you suddenly stopped taking the Wolfsbane and was released upon the populace to have your wild ways."

"Yeah," Ruel agreed, "that could work."

"All right, then," Hermione stood up to leave. "I'll get right on that."

"Wait," Ruel blinked up at her, "what?"

"Oh, you're admitting that you've been paying more attention to your navel than me for the last twenty minutes?"

Ruel grimaced. "Sorry. You wanted a field trip, I was with you that far."

"Correct. Not all of us at once, I don't think anyone's gonna go for that. Maybe in fourths, that's a slightly less than twenty kids at a time, with perhaps one adult for every two kids. Plus, I thought if we did it at a holiday, maybe if we began lobbying now for Christmas of next year, perhaps, people might be feeling a little bit more 'in the spirit' of it all."

"Fair enough, but where would we go?"

"That, my friend, is the beauty of the fourths idea. Each group can go to a different place. Thereby, none of the places have to deal with all of us and varying interests can be represented."

Ruel pursed his lips, "For instance, one group could go to a Quidditch match, maybe in the minors, less audience and Steven still has contacts, then another could go to an art museum?"

"I've heard good things about the wizarding one outside York, and not as many people get up there as the one near Diagon. Anyway," Hermione waved a hand, "details later, you get the idea."

"It is a good place to start, getting them out a little at a time. I'm going to suggest we appeal to the Subsection for Maintaining Standards in Wizarding Education. Overwhelmingly they’re kind of crusty down there, but there's been a movement by a few of the newer employees to revolutionize the entire wizard schooling system. They might be willing to listen to us."

"Want me to do the initial contacting?"

Ruel rolled his eyes. "No, I'll go in, fangs bared. Yes, I want you to handle first shout."

"Don't roll your eyes at me, you were agreeing to allowing all the students to go on a feeding frenzy at the beginning of this meeting."

"My mind was on other things."

"Oddly enough, I noticed. Mind if I ask what things?" Hermione inquired lightly, leaving it well open for him to refuse.

Ruel hesitated. "Might as well tell you, the chit will if I don't."

"Chit?"

"Professor Jigger."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Since when do you have permission to call her a chit?"

"Since she asked me to take dinner with her in the kitchens."

After the private dinner with Snape, Redda and Kieran had taken a meal in the same kitchen corner. Following that, said corner had turned into the hot spot for anyone who wanted to have a private -- read, romantic -- meal. "I thought Hydrea was chatting up Emile."

Emile, the shy, kind Herbology professor of a boy had immediately caught the eye of several of the female faculty and not a few of the older female students. Hydrea had wasted no time in snatching him up.

"She was. Evidently, he's too introverted for her, so she says."

Hermione bit her lip so as not to laugh. Hydrea could be a bit intimidating at times. "Are you going to say yes?"

"Say yes?"

"Dinner, in the kitchens, ring any bells?" Hermione prompted.

"Oh. I don't know. It seems a bit reckless, to date when there's no chance of leaving if it doesn't work out."

"We agreed to do away with staff-fraternization prohibitions because this was to be a community first, school second," Hermione reminded him.

"No," Ruel corrected, "you agreed to do away with it on those grounds. The rest of us just couldn't bear to see Steven, Gerard and Verona pretend they exist without each other."

"Doesn't change the fact of agreement."

"She's not one of us."

Ruel's words came so quickly, and were so out of place, that it took Hermione a moment to understand them. "Neither am I."

"And nobody's willing to say it but we all think Remus a perfect arse for shagging you."

Hermione consciously kept herself from drawing back. "Because I've obviously shown you all time and again that I'll up and leave the moment things get rough. What with the way I learned a new discipline to be able to stay with even non-medicated werewolves during the change and spent nearly two years of my life drafting and lobbying for legislation to alleviate werewolf living conditions."

"Actually," Ruel bit each syllable out, "we think that because it limits you. You can't go beyond the kitchens with him, if you want to marry him, they'll make you take on his number as a sign of your responsibility toward him as a pet. You would be forced to take on the consequences of any actions on his part, along with him. We find that spectacularly unfair to you."

"Ruel." Hermione drew back the sleeves on her robes, far enough to display the markings on her inner wrists. "Legal or no, I'm already bound in responsibility to both of them. Believe me, Remus has all the same concerns the rest of you have, I just refuse to allow them to matter. I…what we have is stronger than other people's hate. I refuse to let it be any other way."

"I can't say the same about Professor Jigger."

The slight shadow in Ruel's eyes made Hermione quip, "Not now, you can't."

"It's hardly my right to initiate something that could lead-"

"You didn't initiate it. What's hardly your right is to 'protect' Hydrea from dangers that she knows about and is obviously willing to face. Honestly, chauvinistic chivalry is a bit outdated, don't you think?"

"I take it you want me to say yes."

"Say yes and bring flowers to the table. Half of the attraction to Emile was the flowers, she enjoys colors."

"You just said chivalry was outdated."

"Chivalry," Hermione stressed, "not courtly behavior."

Ruel snorted. "Semantics."

*

In place of the once regular but no longer needed Transfigurations tutorials, Minerva and Hermione had worked out a schedule of tea-time planning meetings wherein they put together lessons, ate shortbread and caught up on each other's lives. It wasn't terribly unusual for one of them to be forced to cancel last minute, so the hours only happened about once every two weeks, as opposed to the twice a week generally counted upon.

Hermione was warming her hands on her teacup and musing on the interest that some of her seventh-years had shown in the biomechanics of werewolf transfiguration when Minerva interrupted her thoughts. "It's been a mess here."

Hermione made a noise to indicate she was listening. Minerva explained, "The Ministry is making changes to the OWL/NEWT curriculum, and while I actually believe what they're doing is for the eventual best, it's wreaking havoc on my school. It's not like staff is easy to find these days, what with half a generation practically gone, and those who remain of the long-time faculty are all straining at the bit to leave. Sinistra's been offered a cushy little job at an Irish University, and Vector wants to retire and bury herself in theoretical research. With so many jobs having been vacated there's opportunities aplenty and nobody wants to return to their alma mater and take on the rather thankless job of pounding information into hapless children's minds."

"Have you looked abroad? Last I checked Beauxbatons was turning out quite the cadre of astrologers. Arithmancy might be harder, although I heard that admissions at the University level were picking up in that field. Seems Algernon Gorey's latest read on it has perked some interest." Gorey had published a history of arithmancy that was meant to be understood at a popular level, something the subject had never yet seen. Hermione chanced, "On the upside, Potions is a wretch to get anyone to teach and Snape hasn't expressed any intent on walking out on you, I should think."

Minerva's smile was anything but happy, "No. I sometimes fear Severus will follow the way of Binns. I should force him out, but I'm terribly selfish."

"What, has he become more of a terror?" Hermione found this hard to believe.

"To the contrary, he's been quite mild these past few years. Down to three students in tears a week, he's practically a paragon of teaching."

Hermione smirked. "Then why force him out, if this is where he wishes to stay?"

Minerva pressed her fingers together in steeple formation. "Why did you leave Hogwarts when the war was over, despite our best attempts to keep you where you were safe and cared for?"

Hermione swallowed a gasp. "Minerva, it wasn't- I just couldn't be here right then. It was like eating too much at every meal, only in an emotional sense."

"It was for all of us, that was why we let you go. It was why Filius retired and Argus finally made good on his threats to disappear into the Muggle world. As soon as was possible I went away for several months, went to visit old friends, see things I had always told myself I would. Sinistra left around the same time and Vector was gone before either of us and back after both. Severus, though, Severus never left."

"He." Hermione flinched. "Never?"

"The farthest he went was London," Minerva confirmed, "and then only for supplies or to attend the trials."

Hermione made several aborted attempts to speak before Minerva rescued her. "Everybody assumes that Severus's only loss was Albus, and that he was able to coldly ignore that loss. But Severus lost students just as we all lost students. Graham and Adrian, obviously, but also Stewart Ackerly, who had worked closely with Severus in potion development from the time he showed talent for it in his first year. And losing Harry…he has not taken what he sees as a failure to pay a life debt easily."

"That's ridiculous! Hate him as I may have for it, Snape saved Harry's life more times than I could count. Does he think the debt obligated him to ensure Harry's immortality?"

"Most likely," the words were fond. "He is impossible."

"You would miss him if he left, that was what you meant by saying you're being selfish."

"Quite." The word was imbued with sadness.

"Perhaps if you were to convince him to get away for a bit," Hermione suggested. "It worked for you."

"As though I haven't tried. You're welcome to, however. The infuriating git sometimes listens to you."

Hermione practically spit her tea through her nose. "Right."

Minerva didn't say anything. She stared at her ex-pupil in a way that always reminded Hermione of Dumbledore at his most omniscient. When she spoke up again it was to say, "You're thinking of introducing a physiological aspect into Care of Magical Creatures?"

Hermione took the distraction and ran with it.

*

Hermione's full-well intention to do Minerva the favor of at least approaching Snape about a sabbatical was derailed by the near chaos that erupted from two events in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

The first was the only arrival of a new student since the start of term. Eight year old Kassie Knoll was bitten outside the forests of her hometown on the third night of the full-moon that rose in mid-November. She survived the attack solely due to her older brother's arriving on the scene upon hearing her shouts and performing an Avada Kedavra on the figure that had already eclipsed his younger sister.

The dead werewolf, Morrell Childers, had been -- as Hermione could only assume others were -- hiding from wizarding authorities, hoping to live out his life away from everyone, unwilling to be told where to go. She found this information by defying the wishes of the Knoll family and seeking out Childers's family. His family hadn't seen him in most of the years since his being bitten, but were aware of his philosophy toward the Ministry's actions regarding werewolves. Hermione was relieved to find them willing to give him space in the family's burial plot, as fighting to get him interred in one of the public cemeteries had not been something to which she looked forward.

In pursuing decent treatment for Childers's, Hermione had nearly missed the ruckus being created by the Knoll family, who wanted Kassie back for holidays and summers. Hearing of the Knoll case, four other families came to the front, families that had regularly visited and sent letters, demanding they be granted the same rights as the Knolls.

Once aware of the fact, Hermione divided up her time between working out logistics with Ruel, speaking with Charlie about what he thought was viable, and devoting more energy than before to making the kids whose families so blatantly didn't want them feel loved. Several nights, Hermione startled awake to the feel of Zev climbing between her and Remus. She wrapped an arm around him, and stayed awake until she felt him fall into sleep again.

The main issue with the Knolls, Briens, Rosares, Dunstens, and Ferrers taking their children for Christmas and other breaks in the school year was far from any objection on the part of the school's staff. It was the concessions Hermione had made on the part of actual legislation in WERE in the pursuit of getting the Enactment passed. In the spirit of compromise, Hermione had allowed that once werewolves came to the school to break the Oath Magic binding them there was to sign their own warrant of exile. So while any of the adults could choose to leave at any time, the choice came part and parcel with leaving England. There wasn't a werewolf alive who wasn't aware of the fact that though the British Ministry's policies toward werewolves might be incrementally harsher than other nations, given the unease with Dark Creatures left in Voldemort's wake, no other nation was particularly jumping to naturalize werewolves into their society. The school was, for all intents and purposes, their best bet.

Children, on the other hand, weren't allowed quite so much "agency," as Hermione had taken to thinking of it. Once admitted to the school, their Oath must be renewed every six months without fail, allowing them no more than a day away from the grounds without feeling the residual tug of the Oath. Left to tug long enough, the Oath would deplete the child of his magic, leaving him a squib at best, dead at worst. Two weeks for Christmas was risky. Three months for the summer was unthinkable.

Hermione, who did her best to ignore the Prophet whenever given a chance, couldn’t help feeling torn over the headline that Kieran shoved under her nose, "Werewolf Lover Revealed to be Child Jailer!" On the one hand, it wasn't doing her reputation any favors. On the other, the article played the students up as children rather than cubs. Hermione was smart enough to recognize progress when she saw it.

Still, on the second week when Hermione was working all hours of the night with Charlie and Ruel to get an amendment to WERE drafted while still teaching classes and receiving Howlers nearly every morning at breakfast, she was willing to admit that a little positive press couldn't hurt. Which made the fact that Snape showed up with a small batch of Wolfsbane, just enough for one, and the offer, "I thought you could use some good news," of more significance than perhaps it should have been.

Hermione gave the test batch to Remus. She would have chosen Zev, but the fact that something could go wrong was exactly what made it a test, and Remus had more of a sense of what the consequences of things going wrong could be, more of an ability to make the choice to take it without blinders. Remus owled Snape a thanks for both of them, sharing Snape's terse, "It hasn't worked yet. You're welcome," with Hermione.

Successful improvements or no, Snape had brushed the hair out of her eyes after leaving it on the table next to her, commented, "Sleep aids the mind. Diminishing returns, Miss Granger," and swept out of the room. It shouldn’t have reminded her of Ron's shrill, "Do you ever bloody well sleep?" or the way he used to push her into bed and not let her get up until at least six hours of sound unconsciousness had passed. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Hermione wrote herself a note in the flap of her teacher's notebook: "Snape. Tropics. Discuss."

With one week to go before Christmas and two days to the full, Charlie's request that his department be able to process and handle all amendments to WERE was granted, and a concession went in that if a child's family wished to see that child out of term, one parent could be bound into the Oath, with the child as anchor, thereby allowing the child to travel in between a family home and the school while in the company of that parent. Should the parent ever leave the child for too long when away from the school, the results would be the same as though the Oath had never been diversified. It wasn't ideal. The changing of the Oath Magic meant several more sleepless nights spent in brainstorming sessions with Nymph, Ginny, Emmett, Kieran and Acacia Lewan, the school's Charms professor.

Grey Brien jumped into his father's arms when the man came to pick him up. Fifteen year-old, too-cool-for-much-of-anything Grey. Hermione hid a smile and scurried away for a power nap.

*

Hermione refused to leave Zev and Remus for Christmas, so Ginny, Nymph, Charlie and Nora (the two of them had begun dating after a couple of months of WAC duty) came to her. Minerva had duties at the school, where Kingsley was joining her. Millicent was spending the holiday with the significant portion of Zach's surviving family. Dean had been invited to the home of one of the Muggle-borns he had so diligently kept safe.

Ginny and Redda ganged up together, festooning the halls with poinsettas, small evergreens and, of course, mistletoe. Nymph cajoled Marissa into brewing large quantities of eggnog, both child-friendly and adult appropriate. Charlie went around singing Romanian Christmas carols in a loud, steady baritone.

By the time Christmas supper rolled around the adults of the school were well into recalling how it felt to have a holiday with other people around and things to celebrate, and those children who had never really known that feeling were catching on. Remus and Hermione sat on either side of Zev for the meal, regular seating having been suspended for the occasion. Zev's closest friend, Abel, was sitting across from them, sandwiched between Ginny, Nymph, Charlie and Nora.

Charlie was re-telling the story about the Christmas Molly had given him a statuette of a Hebridean Black(10) and how this had started him on his path of reckless disregard for his own life and an unnatural love for dragons, when Zev piped up, "Professor!"

Zev was generally held spellbound by Charlie as a phenomenon, so Hermione quickly realized that he wasn't calling out to just any of the school's teachers. She followed Zev's line of sight to see that Snape was stopped at Hydrea's table, evidently giving his best to her and Ruel. Though he hadn't looked up at Zev's excited yell, it wasn't long before he broke off talking to Hydrea, heading over to Hermione's table.

Snape nodded politely when he arrived, "Mister Granger." He addressed his, "Would there be a place for one more?" obliquely to Hermione and Remus. Hermione moved over to allow him a spot next to Zev. After all, she had been the one to invite him.

Granted, the invite had been a scribbled off note, delivered by owl, "Doing Christmas here, join us?" with ulterior motives and his response had been equally terse, "Not much for holidays," but an invite was an invite.

Snape greeted the Weasleys, Nora and Nymph, allowed an introduction to take place between him and Abel, and then looked expectantly at Charlie, "I believe you were saying something, Mr. Weasley."

Charlie loved telling stories. He never forgot where he was, no matter what happened to interrupt the telling. He dove right back in at his stopping point. Hermione whispered to Snape, "I was of the belief you weren't coming."

"Sorry to disappoint," Snape pulled a roll from the basket in front of him and fished with his eyes for the butter.

"Don’t be an arse. I held off telling you the results of the potion to see if I could draw you in."

The small start as he reached for the butter plate told her it had worked. "Manipulative chit."

"I got you a present to make up for it."

"You could have just asked," Snape buttered his roll with smooth, practiced strokes.

"I did, you refused. That wasn't the answer I wanted."

Snape muttered something about persistence and "bloody smart freak occurrence Gryffindors." "Did it work?"

"Not enough to make you happy, but enough for us."

Snape didn't hurry his chewing, waiting until he had swallowed to demand, "And that means, precisely?"

"The pain was considerably lessened, but the displacement is standing at status quo."

Snape growled, "I suppose I'll change over to that formula then. For the time being, anyhow."

"You'll get it right," Hermione reassured him. "Remus thinks you're just missing inspiration."

"Potions," he corrected her stiffly, "is about trial and error, not flights of fancy and frivolous Eureka moments."

"I sat through your class," she reminded him. "1352, Thumbelina Twittlethorp falls into her own well without a wand, not to be rescued until nearly a week later. Within a month, she had invented the first Levitating Potion. 1769, Reginald Falstaff is eating his wife's rather awful cooking when he feels himself beginning to process thoughts more quickly. He realizes that the sugar in the crushed berries reacting with the heated iron of the skillet added into the magically created fire to cook the entire mix creates a Sharpening Spirit. Potions has its fair share of off the cuff or personally-motivated invention."

"That was never my area." He met her eyes as he said it and she could tell by the curve of his mouth that it was meant to be cutting, to send her into contrite silence.

"Just because you're afraid of letting it be. I'd imagine it was, once," Hermione was caught up enough in holiday cheer not to spell out just exactly when that once was.

"Perhaps that is a sign that my only creative impulse is one best left unexplored." The clink of his silverware against his plate as he transferred a side of meat onto it was shockingly loud.

"Creativity is channeled by you, not vice versa," Hermione argued.

"What are you trying to create?" Nymph chimed in, alerting them that others were now paying attention.

"A potion," Snape offered helpfully.

"You." Nymph made a face at him then competently steered the conversation one hundred and eighty degrees away from him.

*

Snape stayed until morning, stayed to step carefully around the mayhem of nearly eighty children ripping paper and popping box tops and squealing. Stayed to hand Hermione a box and rumble something that sounded close to, "Happy Christmas."

Hermione handed him a roll of parchment, shut with her most elegant seal. She leaned up to kiss his cheek, "You too."

The box was tied up neatly with what seemed yards of bow. Hermione slowly picked apart the bow, unhurried. With Zev, first thing that morning, she had practically torn apart her first present in reaction to the boy's sense of urgency, hugging him tightly and proclaiming her love for the bracelet he'd made her to all who came within shouting range. It really was quite lovely, Hermione suspected the aid of Ginny, who was brilliant with all things metal. Zev's card confided, "I was hoping you’d wear this on the wrist with my name. It would look pretty there."

Hermione doubted she'd ever remove it.

She'd watched Zev tear into his presents, the herbal from Snape, the peppermint creams from Remus, the chess set from Hermione. The chess set that Remus recognized, the chess set that Hermione's note explained was, "very important to someone I loved." She'd watched Zev reverently touch each piece before putting them back into the box they'd come out of, one by one.

"No jealousy," Hermione had chided, and handed her gift to Remus.

He opened it, peeling the paper back from the Firebolt, gleaming from the polish she had reapplied nights before. The card read, "From Sirius to Harry to you. I didn't think you would mind it not being top of the line anymore."

Remus kissed her in front of the whole school, causing children to shout, "Ew," and Ginny and Nymph to make cheering noises, and most of the staff to laugh.

Now, holding Snape's gift in her hands, she took her time untying and unwrapping. When the bow was lying at her feet, coiled and silky as the snake on her hips, she plucked the top of the box from its resting position. Inside lay a book, old by the look of it. Beautifully gilded with illustrations of four-legged creatures baying at the moon, it was entitled, "The Legends and Lore of Werewolves."

Hermione cajoled it out of the box and cradled it in her arms. "It's gorgeous."

"Muggle, the man I bought it from thought it was eighteenth century. His knowledge is generally to be trusted. It caught me as something you might be interested in." The last was relayed quietly, as though he was ashamed to admit to any type of awareness regarding her.

Hermione passed a hand over the raised lettering of the title. "I can't wait to read it."

Snape cracked the seal of the parchment resting in his hand. He unraveled the piece, reading silently for a few moments, his eyes swimming back and forth with the rhythm of Hermione's prose. "I can hardly accept this, you realize."

"You can hardly not accept it. Besides the sheer fact of it being rude, which I have no question only incites you to reject it out of hand, I've already spoken with your colleague, and he is expecting you."

"Miss Granger," the parchment crumbling slightly into his clenched fist was the only warning she was given of danger, "I do not pry into your personal affairs and introduce myself into the parts of your life wherein I have no permission to be. I would appreciate it should you deign to treat me in the same manner."

If he'd dropped the formality, granted her a reason for his anger she would have apologized and backed down. As it was, she squared her shoulders. "No."

"Beg your pardon?"

"You should," Hermione counseled, "but I sincerely doubt you will. If you go and have a horrible time, you can abuse me endlessly over the whole affair, but I scheduled the holiday directly when Hogwarts has let out for spring, so I well know you have the time. Your colleague was thrilled at the chance to meet you in person, and what's more, you could use the time away from the school, badly. Only everyone is too afraid to poke their nose where they sense it doesn't belong. Unfortunately for you, I've dealt with much scarier things than you, Severus Snape. You're going to New Mexico."

"Minerva needs me-"

"On a constant, overarching basis, I agree completely. But one week's separation won’t hurt either of you."

"I hardly think spending a week in a center for werewolves constitutes the relaxation that you evidently had in mind when you stirred up this rather volatile little gift of yours."

"I gave it to you because you came here." Hermione's expression sharpened. "I decided that if you came, spent the evening and morning with us, that you could be trusted to go there. Besides, if you had read far enough, you would have seen that I've arranged for you to sleep off the grounds of the center so that there's a place awaiting you should you need to escape."

Snape skimmed the last of the letter. "Always thinking of everything, weren't you, Miss Granger?"

"It's a curse."

"I should like to meet my correspondent," Snape acquiesced. Only by margin of his demeanor was his defeat made graceful.

It reassured Hermione. "I hear New Mexico is glorious that time of year."

Snape pursed his lips. "I suppose I shall see."

*

Remus looked about to swallow his tongue when Hermione reluctantly stepped out of the bathroom. "Bloody hell, Min."

"You bought them for me," she scowled, feeling everything from her nipples to her fingertips turn red. "I just wasn't cut out for this sort of thing."

"That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen in my life."

"Probably one too many Obliviates. Want me to look into it?"

Remus bounded off the bed and across the room, catching her by her hips, forcing her to still. His hands were warm through the sheer cream silk of the two-piece lingerie bit he'd bought her for Christmas. The present he'd thankfully thought to have her open out of Zev's all too curious gaze.

"Remus-"

"Harry thought you were beautiful," Remus stated.

"Harry didn't think one way or another about that part of it. I was great in bed, and I never neglected him and he respected my intelligence. He loved me, I know that, but how I looked wasn't part of it. Not for him, or Ron, to whom I was mostly a friend with several benefits and some intense emotional responsibility. I wouldn't change a moment of it, I didn't need them to tell me I was gorgeous, I just needed them." She was all too conscious of the past tense in her final statement. All too conscious of the fact that it was true.

"I think," Remus began slowly, "that Harry and Ron were seventeen year olds with mush for brain and no ability to verbalize what they saw in front of them. Trust me, no seventeen year old boy looks at a girl like Harry used to look at you without thinking she's the most glorious thing alive. He could've walked into a room full of veelas and been less affected."

"I suppose it’s a good thing neither of us is seventeen any longer."

Remus ran a hand up the length of her back. "I reserve the right to think you're beautiful."

"Everybody has the right to be insane, Remus, it's just a matter of how that insanity is dealt with by those around them."

"Gonna send me back to Mungo's?" Remus joked.

"Never," Hermione didn't find it funny.

"I got you another gift. It's not much now, next to the Firebolt. Which, I have to admit being a bit brassed about, seeing as I planned this to be quite the to do, and then you have to go and outdo me without even knowing it."

The corner of Hermione's lips quirked. "What did you do?"

Remus walked to where his wand lay, and waved it over his arm with a short, "Finite Incantatum." A patch of relatively unblemished skin melted away revealing the artwork underneath the glamour. Encircling his upper arm were words, wrapping his arm in a continuous band. They read, "She is stronger than the moon."

Hermoine remembered the process of the Porlock's lines smoldering their way into her skin. She remembered barely being able to use the arm for nearly a week after, exulting in the lingering pain for over a month. "Remus. Baby."

She must have looked as horrified as she felt because he frowned. "If you don’t like it, I can get it Healed, it's not too late."

"It's the best thing anyone has ever done for me, and if you even think about doing it again, I'll castrate you and send the parts to Snape for testing purposes."

"Naturally," Remus replied, not for a minute letting her believe that he understood.

"I don’t want you hurting yourself like that for me. Ever."

"I suppose the fact that you bear my name on your wrist isn't going to enter into this conversation," Remus parried.

"It's not the same, as you well know. You're not psychologically imbalanced."

"Neither are you," came Remus's protest. "You're…were, were hurt. You found the best ways of dealing with it that you could."

"I don't want to think of you in pain because of me." Hermione figured she was entitled to at least not have to take on any more guilt.

"Hon, you do know there's stuff you can do, to make it not as bad? And, not to shock you or anything, but I have a pretty high pain threshold, being a werewolf and all. Don't tell anybody 'bout the last, deal?"

Hermione was able to hold onto her righteous horror for all of a minute before she broke and kissed him. "It really is amazing. Maybe you could, um, wear some sleeveless tops this summer? Let everyone else see?" She bit her lip.

"Claiming me, are you?" Remus stroked his thumb on the underside of her ear.

"Claiming you is when I purposely lift my arms and let my robes pool, flashing everyone my left wrist. This is just…showing off."

"I'm not much of a thing to show." His hands came to her waist, moving upward, bringing the silk top with them.

"And I'm not beautiful, but we're all allowed our idiosyncransies." The top slid over her head and for a moment, she let herself be lost in a soft, cream-colored world.

*

"I've been talking about you behind your back," Remus confided. It was right before they went to bed and he knew she wasn't very likely to work up the energy to be upset, the cunning bastard.

"Oh?" She delivered the question calmly, unwilling to give anything away.

"To Severus."

Just a bit more archly, "A man you can't be in the same room alone with for more than ten minutes?"

"We've been owling on and off since I apologized, back before the school opened. More on than off."

Hermione flinched at that.

"Not about you," Remus was quick to clarify. "That's recent, since Christmas. Mostly we talked shop. Dark Arts, potion developments. I'm not as good as him in either, but I carry my own."

Hermione gently shut the book on werewolves, Snape's gift to her, and set it atop her nightstand. "Why didn't you tell me you were owling? I mean, if it was just conversation, it shouldn't have been a secret."

Remus fidgeted with the blanket. "I just…see, as far as friends go, Severus is your friend, you know? I didn’t want you to feel like I was trying to edge in on that as well, when you've shared Ginny and Nymph and everyone else with me. Zev. We talk about Zev a lot."

Hermione yawned. "I think you're misconstruing our agreement. Just because I don't want to share you, doesn’t mean I don't want to share with you. And Snape could use some friends beyond Minerva and me."

"Understatement. Still, I think at this point we work better as owl buddies then actual companions."

"What have you been saying about me?" Hermione redirected the conversation back to its beginning.

"Don’t get mad."

"Remus," Hermione warned.

"You know that argument we had, about the after-moon WAC party?"

"The one where you told me I needed to get out more?"

"That's the one. Well, Severus agrees with me."

Hermione got the feeling that wasn't the whole story. "In what sense? This had to have come up somehow and forgive me if I seriously doubt you write to Snape about our domestic disturbances."

"Hardly," Remus drawled. "He was a bit…piqued by your Christmas present. Nervous, I would say, knowing him as I feel I do at this point."

"And?" Hermione knew, instinctually, that this was not going anywhere harmless.

"I suggested that he take someone with him, someone to make him feel less out of place, but someone who wouldn't be a constant reminder of Hogwarts, which took Minerva straight out of the running."

"No."

"Listen to me, you need a vacation-"

"No, I made those arrangements so that he could get away from all of this-"

"He doesn't think of you as part of all of this-"

"I meant for him to relax, I'm not someone he relaxes around-"

"You're the closest thing to it," Remus ended the verbal squabbling with the harshness of this edict. "I'm sorry. I know that's not a responsibility you need right now, but it's the truth. He can talk to you, as much as he can talk to anyone, and he trusts you. You do need a vacation, nearly as much as he needs one and you're being just as bloody stubborn as he is."

"I thought you didn't want to share me." It was mean, Hermione knew, but it was all she had left.

Quietly, Remus admitted to a defeat that Hermione didn't want to know about. "Somewhere along the way I stopped paying attention, and you changed the rules on me. No, I don't want to share you. But I feel the compulsion to be selfish in regard to you even less. You need this, and I won't be the one to keep you away from it. If Zev wasn't a mere ten years old, he'd be saying the exact same thing."

"He is only ten years old," Hermione stressed.

"It's a week, Min. Bring him back a souvenir. Take pictures. If there's anything to forgive in the first place, he'll forgive it."

There was a small hollowness right at the front of her chest, carved out by the weariness in his voice. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean…what I said before, about the sharing. I didn't mean that."

Tired as he evidently was, Remus pressed his advantage, "Sorry enough to let me win?"

"One week in New Mexico and you'll let off about me getting out for the length of next term," Hermione wasn't one to just roll over.

"Deal," Remus held out a hand.

She shook on it, pulling him closer for a more thorough apology.