*
Adult
*

"Are you mad at me, is that what this is?"

Hermione's head shot up from her second years' sketchings of what were supposed to be Horklumps(12). "Why? What am I doing to make you think that?"

Remus threw his quill aside. "You've been brooding over something ever since Severus left, and you won't allow me in on it."

Well and truly caught, Hermione pushed a sound of frustration through her front teeth. "I just didn't want to get you as riled up about the issue as I already am."

"Tell."

"All right, but you have to listen all the way through, promise?"

Remus flattened his lips together. "Mmhm."

"I want another tattoo, which normally wouldn't be an issue, I would hop off to my place, have it done, be back by dinner, that sort of thing. It's different this time, though, because," Hermione tapped her heel nervously against the floor, "because it's not the experience I want so much as the end result, you get it?"

Remus nodded.

"My skin boasts of you and Zev, I won't leave Severus out of that, but I don't want to do this alone. It hurts and I want you to hold me but you can't because you can't leave here and the likelihood of me getting someone who knows how to do this to come here seems rather small."

Hermione's hands had clenched into tight, shaking fists. Remus took one in both his hands. "Can I speak now?"

Hermione broke into a small, unhappy smile. "Chitter away."

"Would that I could, love, you know that. Being that things are otherwise, have you spoken to Gin or Nymph? You know either one would do this for you in a heartbeat."

Hermione laid her head down atop their hands. Feeling raw and just a bit petulant she said, "They're not you."

"One of these days you'll win all your fights and the only person who will have the right to tell me where I can and cannot go will be you."

"You don’t believe that."

"I didn't," Remus admitted. "Then you made way for Severus and myself to relearn the motions and commitments of friendship. You made him laugh. You did things that I would have told anyone who'd asked were impossible. I'm allowed to change my vote of confidence."

"He was waiting for us," Hermione downplayed her role.

"We were waiting for him, the whole thing still took work."

Hermione couldn’t refute either part of that statement, so she remained silent.

"Where are you putting his name?" Remus finally asked.

"I'm not," she side-stepped.

"Then what?"

"The ingredients of the current Wolfsbane, wrapped around my right bicep as far down as it needs to go. I think he'll like that more. Severus wasn't something he even chose for himself, but the Bane was his child through and through."

Remus wriggled one of his hands free to stroke at her hair. "Add 'ice mice' last."

"Maybe."

"It'll be brilliant."

"I hope."

"I'm glad," Remus's breath caught, "I'm glad you wanted me to be with you, even if I can't. I wouldn't…well, just, make sure they give you the Numbing Potion, yes?"

"Yes, da," Hermione mocked.

"Can I show it off to him?" Remus asked in a whisper. "Undrape you this time, pull his attention toward it? I can only imagine his face. I can't imagine anyone's ever done anything quite like it for him. Nobody had for me."

Relieved that he had found some part of the experience to claim for himself, Hermione acquiesced. "Undraping, eh? I feel like a piece of furniture."

"Expensive, but comfortable," Remus told her.

"You'd best shut that hole of yours up while you're still ahead."

"How long ago was that?" Remus wanted to know.

Hermione wondered if there ever had been such a time. If there had, she didn't really want to remember it.

*

Hermione added the ice mice. Her artist, Trevor, the same who had been taking care of her ever since that first lightening bolt, perused the list of ingredients and laughed when he came to that one.

"Ice mice? They have to eat candy to keep from becoming all-" He curled his fingers up in the imitation of claws.

Hermione was glad he didn't distort his face, or use the word 'monsters' or act like the candy kept them from turning into rampaging killers. "It just helps with the taste."

"Right." He handed her a vial. "Good thing you mentioned wanting that ahead of time. I wouldn't normally've had one on hand for you."

Hermione drank the Numbing Potion down. She set the vial aside in the second before her fingers lost feeling, the numbness spreading from her throat outward. Behind her, someone giggled (Nymph?) as she fell back against the cushioned chair in which she was sitting. There was a slight pressure on her left arm and she flopped her head to see Nymph standing there, one hand wrapped tightly around the arm.

"Working then?" Nymph wanted to know.

"Uuu," Hermione did her best to respond in the affirmative.

"Sure yes, that," Trevor laughed. She felt pressure on her right arm and summoned the requisite energy to turn her face in that direction.

Trevor's lips moved as he set the fire wand to her arm, weaving the Binding Magic that made the tattoos so much more desirable than the normative needle-inflicted skin art. Fire tattoos were actually wound into a person's magical essence, it was why the Ministry had chosen them as the preferable type of registry tattoo. In a person who chose to have the tattoo placed on her, the magic exchange merely made the art more lustrous, more alive than most body-art. In Hermione, it heightened her awareness of her body, its strengths and weakness, limitations and allowances.

Hermione watched the fire cut into her skin, not completely sure of what to do with her own sense of removal. She was so used to being intimately connected with the process, holding the pain in and taking it as part of the marking. For a brief, frightening moment she missed the sharp burn, the adrenal reaction it brought in its wake.

Trevor etched the L for the lobalug venom, though, curved and lovely, and Hermione watched the red of the fire calm, dying into the black burn that would heal into a tattoo. The actual movement of Trevor's hands, the process of the art came together for her in a way it had never been able to before.

When it had been about the pain, an end to a means, time had always seemed indeterminate. The pain went on forever and not nearly long enough, and the world was cocooned within that experience.

Time stretched and folded without the pain, but not in the same way at all. Now the minutes were determined by the caress of the fire, doing nothing more than tickling at her skin even as it charred and smoldered and scarred. Hours were made as fluid as the words being transcribed onto her, words that meant, "I, I love, I love you," even as they said, "…venom, ground mimbletonius, scalded nightroot…"

Trevor finished up, immersing the wounds in a Keeping Potion and dressing them. When he spello-taped the last of the bandage shut he ruffled her hair, "Just wait a bit, girl. It wears off quickly."

Nymph chatted with Trevor, probably thanked him, while Hermione waited for her body to return to her keeping. When it did the low throb of pain that greeted her was neither welcome nor unwelcome, merely familiar. "Nymph, baby."

Alerted to Hermione's re-emergence by the clarity of her words, Nymph asked, "Ready to be gone?"

"Remus," Hermione answered.

Nymph pulled her up from the chair by her left arm, clasping it tightly as they Apparated to the edge of the wards and further, as she accompanied Hermione all the way back into the school. They trudged up the stairs to find Ginny entertaining Remus and Zev in Hermione's room.

Remus didn't waste a minute, sweeping her off her feet once she was in the door, laying her down on their bed. Zev paced at the edge of the bed, as though afraid to move her perch even the slightest of inches. "Zev, honey, Remus is being dramatic, I'm perfectly fine."

Zev climbed onto the bed, each landing of his hands and knees ever-so-light. He cuddled up on her left, wrapping lengthening fingers around the Porlock tattoo. It made her dizzy, whether from the after-effects of the potion or the sensation of Zev's touch, Remus's stare, Gin and Nymph's ubiquitous friendship, she didn't know. It was as unknown to her as the pain was an old acquaintance, but it swirled in her head, vaguely comforting, and Hermione decided she didn't mind.

Remus leaned over her and kissed her forehead. "Fey's on the headboard, she's been awaiting your return. I'm entrusting your safekeeping to her until I get back from dinner."

"Excellent choice," Hermione murmured. "Bring me food?"

"I want you to sleep."

"I will, and then I'll wake up famished," she guaranteed.

"Midnight snack then, I'll have it when you come 'round."

"I'm done with that, you know, the fire. At least until you can come with me."

"I have a million places to take you before we go there," Remus informed her. "But maybe, just maybe, that will be one of our stops."

She pulled away from the safety of the pain, hooking her fingers in his, straining toward the dangerous and unfamiliar feel of his idealism.

*

Remus had been sent to pull Severus up to the bedroom, tug him inside with the words, "There's something I want you to see."

Hermione was sprawled out over the bed, not a scrap of clothing on her, the room slightly overheated so as to keep her from getting chilled. Remus prompted, "Notice anything different?"

Severus' eyes swept over her, immediately stopping at the new tattoo. Hermione asked, "When did you get to know me so well?"

Severus crossed to the bed where he could skim his fingers lightly over the almost healed skin. Remus snuck up behind him, watching. Severus whispered, "You added me."

Hermione tugged at the sleeve of his robe with her left hand. "Off."

Stunned into obeying easily, Severus stripped. Remus followed suit, climbing in on the other side of the bed. Severus settled down carefully, as awkward as Zev had been about jostling her. Hermione rolled onto him for a kiss. "It's been a full five days and I heal quickly. I would tell you if you were about to hurt me, honestly."

"Why-" Severus asked, "I was fine with, being the third, I suppose. The auxiliary."

Remus sighed wetly against Hermione's back. She shivered slightly, causing Severus to reach down and pull the covers over them. Hermione answered, "Because I suspected you might still think you were the auxiliary, when there isn't one at all."

"You don't get to be the only one who cares in this situation," Remus added, but there was fondness to the rebuke.

Slinking over her favorite post atop the headboard, Fey hissed. Hermione took it to mean, "Even Fey's in agreement on this one, and you gave her to me, she has reasons to be loyal to both of us."

"If we could," Remus spoke in a small voice, "we would come to you sometimes. It's not that we want you to always be the one making the effort."

Severus swallowed. "I had forgotten. That can't be easy on you."

Hermione offered, "That's a bit like saying that Voldemort wasn't very fond of Muggles."

"Ah."

Hermione felt Severus find Remus's hand and hold it, resting on her thigh. Severus continued, "Then I shall have to endeavor to make up for time wherein you would come to visit."

"That's unnecessary," Remus's voice was flat, plainly miserable.

"No," Severus disagreed, "it's not."

"This is the worst part," Hermione explained, "being caged." The words felt wrong, as if they didn't belong to her. There were no bars in front of her, but she knew Remus, inside and out, knew what being kept here was doing to him. Not for the first time, she silently gave thanks that she had rescued him from Mungo's. At least this cage was gilded.

"They shouldn't have to be." Severus's statement wasn't fervent or angry, the way hers always came out, just an issuing forth of Basic Truth. "None of them."

The calm of these sentences seemed to seep into Remus, who melted against her back. "What is, is."

Hermione snorted. "Hardly, but for the moment, I'll let you hold to that." She rubbed her backside up against Remus while grinding slightly into Severus. "What say we go about forgetting everything important or otherwise?"

A crush of skin, and she had her wish.

*

Charlie was laughing at Hermione. She flirted with the idea of letting him get away with it for all of a second before turning the tables. She finished her sentence informing the students of an Antipodean Opaleye's(1) size and said, "Actually, we have a treat today."

In true Pavlovian style, the childrens' ears perked up at the word "treat." Hermione continued, "You all know Charlie Weasley, Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Charlie used to work with dragons, so he'll be teaching this lesson for me."

It was Hermione's turn to laugh as a look of terror stretched across Charlie's face shortly before he covered it and stood to meet her challenge. As she had suspected, Charlie was an excellent teacher. He knew how to tell a story that informed rather than lead off the subject, he was patient with the students' questions and he owned the subject inside and out.

At the end of the period, when half the children lingered to ask Charlie more questions or just listen to his stories, Hermione worried that she might never live up to their now-raised standards. Finally left alone, she mused, "That may have backfired."

He kissed her cheek. "Hullo. Maybe, but I appreciate it. I'm going mad locked up in that office with people whose words mean nothing and whose actions tend to cause more harm than good."

"So you visited in the middle of the day just to escape a bit?" It wasn't impossible, but she found it unlikely.

Charlie's expression was wistful. "If only. I should already be back there, I just came because the news was so good I wanted to deliver it in person. I may have yelled at Kingsley about being allowed my joys. He was rather insistent that I send an owl."

"Poor man, most of the time I think he likes that office about as much as you like yours."

"Definitely a necessary evil. I tried to get him to accompany, I know he was jealous, but you know him, work before play."

"Constantly. Minerva and I have been discussing tactics of changing this, she thinks that my ability to mold Severus to my whims extends to everyone in the universe. I'm afraid I'm about to sorely disappoint her. More's the pity, because the man really does need to live a little." Hermione bit her lip and held Charlie's gaze. "I didn't sacrifice Harry and Ron for everyone to go about like zombies, and they sure as hell didn't take the leap so that their friends could sit about in offices all day and never actually see the effects of their labor."

"I see you're doing better with that," Charlie acknowledged softly.

"Please don’t think I'll ever let go or forget or dishonor their memory."

Charlie touched her cheek. "Not a chance. Gin, that girl she keeps around, and I have spent too long getting you here to ruin it by worrying about my brother and his lover who are already dead over you. A person does have to move on."

"And you're," Hermione wiggled her whole body slightly, "you're all right with whom I've done it? Both of them?"

Charlie settled a calming hand on her shoulder. "They're both good men, despite some of their attempts to prove otherwise. Nothing like the first two, but there isn’t a doubt in anyone's mind that they both love you and you return the feeling, and really, what else are we supposed to ask for?"

Hermione clasped her hand over the one he had laid on her shoulder in silent appreciation of his support. "Enough stalling, what's this good news you've brought me?"

Charlie grinned. "The board sat this morning for voting."

Hermione clapped her free hand over her mouth, "Merlin, Mer- Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?"

"The trips were approved, almost unanimously."

Hermione gave a little shout and jumped in a circle, making clumsy twirls. Eventually, she calmed down enough to listen to Charlie, "We think the whole situation with the families wanting their kids back and the kids leaving and there being absolutely no new infections over that time period was what really tipped the scales. Werewolf transmission has gone down so completely that the only documented case island-side this year was the Knoll biting. The Ministry is very happy with what it feels is a 'model for regulating dangerous creatures in a humane manner.' I'm positive I'm going to vomit on the next person who uses that phrase with me, but, physical illness or no, you have a releaser, one day out for each member of the School community, no more than thirty at a time."

Hermione did quick math. "Four trips, then."

"To anyplace that will agree to let you in. Oliver and Katie petitioned months ago to allow for a section set aside for your group. The affirmative came down last week but we didn't want to say until it was confirmed that the information would actually mean anything."

"Just in time for Christmas," Hermione chirped. "Fantastic. One of the places we've chosen is actually Muggle, so all we have to do is inform them that we're a school wanting to visit, and Hydrea has connections that she's been taking reckless advantage of in the third place. I think we'll take two groups to the Muggle spot, since I expect a bit of interest in it anyway."

"Where are you taking them?"

"Muggle amusement park, feel like joining?"

Charlie shrugged, "I've never been, and I doubt Nora has either. I figure you could probably use as many chaperones as you get, and the Ministry'll put less fuss up the more non-werewolf companions there are along for the jaunt."

"Obviously. We'd love having both of you." Hermione paused and then threw herself at Charlie, squeezing him for all she was worth.

He took it as long as he could before gasping, "Breathe. Want. To."

Hermione let go. "Sorry, it's just, this is brilliant. I'm so glad you came to tell me."

He pushed a loose tendril of hair from her face, "Me too."

"Wait until I tell Remus," she practically sung the words.

"I'm going to leave you to do that."

"You don't want-"

"I do, but it's not really my efforts that this is rewarding, and you deserve it more than I do. Also, I do need to get back. I'm sure Kingsley is going to ream me a new one when I return. Give Remus and Zev and the rest of them my best. I'll see you at the change, if not before." He gave her one last peck on the cheek and headed to the edge of the wards.

Hermione watched him go, turning and doing her best to walk with measured steps back to the school. She was running within two paces.

*

Hermione thought she was going to have to do some subtle maneuvering to land both Remus and Zev going to the Quidditch game, but the minute she started dealing, Kieran ruled, "They're family, they go together."

Hermione pressed her wrists to her chest and choked out, "Family."

Kieran smiled, and kindly didn't mention that she was misting up. "Of course," he countered, "It means Redda and I are first on the list of chaperons for the History of Magical Inventions Museum."

Not trusting herself to speak, Hermione scribbled their names at the top of the list.

Which was how it happened that she spent nearly two hours the night before the game listening to Hydrea and Kieran rhapsodize about the evolution of magical use by humans, noticing the very similar expressions of fond amusement on Ruel's and Redda's faces.

The morning of the game began with Remus pouncing on her, knocking the air from her lungs so that she awoke to a mental dictum to breathe, girl, oxygen into the lungs, carbon dioxide out. Remus had the good sense to look slightly ashamed of himself when she managed to gasp, "'Morning to you as well."

He pulled her out of bed by her hands. "I'm taking you on a date. Well, a group date, but I'm paying for all edibles and souvenirs."

Hermione was having trouble remembering how to brush her teeth, reeling from the force of his excitement. She scrubbed harder, putting out effort to make up for lack of technique. When she finally gave up and rinsed, she reminded him, "Zev's coming too, I'm sure he'll want stuff."

"I'm taking care of that too," Remus announced grandly, "Like a real father."

Hermione yanked the hairbrush she was holding through a particularly determined snag. "You were a real father to him that day when he broke the door of the ward down and you were the only person who bothered to stay with him while he sicked up all over the place."

Remus rushed around, evidently trying to assemble every piece of Puddlemere paraphanalia that he owned. "Maybe, but now I get to take him out and show him things-"

"You show him things every day. You show him counter-curses, and ways to defeat demons and-"

"I want to show him the world."

Hermione wrestled with her hair until it twisted back and into the clasp she was using to pin it. "I know that this isn't good enough for you, but this is his world. This is the place that treats him with dignity and kindness and allows him a level playing field. I understand that you feel suffocated here but he doesn't. He has friends here, and lots of open space and me and you and Severus and that's all he's ever asked for. Please don’t make him want things I can't give him."

Remus pulled his jumper all the way over his head. He stared at her for a bit before starting, "I didn't know you thought I felt this wasn't good enough."

"It's not that I don't feel for you, were I in your situation-"

"You should never have to feel like something you've done isn’t good enough for me." He crossed to where she was standing in front of the mirror, his bare feet rustling over the heavy rugs. "Min. You sacrificed everything you knew for us, me and him, everyone at this school, us. It's because of you that over eighty children who would most likely have died are instead learning the ways of a wizard and how to function within a community. I wouldn't have you think for a minute that something like that is somehow beneath me."

"Sometimes I get to feeling like I've tried to give you the world and instead have only managed a fractured facsimile," Hermione admitted.

Remus shook his head slowly. "I don’t need the world from you. Or maybe you are the world, I'm not sure. I just know that you've yet to disappoint me, you shouldn't think otherwise for a second."

Hermione stood, taking a moment to compose herself while pretending to be looking for the perfect robe for the day. "Just in case though, in case I ever did, I'd want to know. Because I have all these plans for us, things I want and I can't imagine something worse than suddenly finding out I've diminished this place, us, you, in my desire for my own goals. I can be rather single-focus, y'know."

Remus picked a dark purple robe that Hermione knew was one of his favorites and handed it to her. She took it willingly, glad to have the decision wrested from her.

"I've noticed that," Remus responded. "It's just that your focus tends to be wider than most people who claim that trait. Honestly, you're aware of the consequences, you always have been."

Hermione swallowed twice before attempting, "Sometimes I go ahead and do things regardless of knowing."

"No, you weigh pros and cons and make a decision, you don't do anything regardless of consequence."

Hermione met Remus' eyes to make sure they were speaking of the same thing. They were. "I just don't want to make a mistake that costs me everything again."

"There's no Voldemort this time." The words sounded as though they were as much a revelation to Remus as they were meant to be for Hermione. They probably were.

"There's other things, maybe bigger," Hermione reminded him.

"And you'll defeat them, just like you did last time, only with more finesse."

"It's the finesse part that I worry over."

"Let me do the worrying for you, you just fight the battle."

Hermione was used to being the worrier, used to being forced into letting someone else fight, that was how it had always been. After all, Harry had been the Savior, the Champion, the Boy Who Was Never Allowed To Be A Boy, and Ron, his sidekick. Hermione had been the thoroughly beloved third wheel. Not much room in that description to don heavy armour and hie out into the fray. All her sword wielding had been mental. It felt odd to share the weight with someone else, odd to know that someone was at her back, rather than expecting her to be at theirs. "Maybe we should both fight a little and worry a little together."

Remus pulled her pajama top over her head to make room for the Oxford button down she was moving to slip on. "That might work."

"I think it could." She buttoned the front of the shirt quickly, her fingers practiced from all their nights with Severus.

"I'm definitely willing to try."

"Forever," Hermione pulled the robe up over the top.

"Longer," Remus straightened her collar and kissed her approvingly.

*

The wind was positively biting and rain that threatened to turn into ice fell intermittently, but neither children nor adults seemed to notice. True to his word, Remus had bought Zev a pair of Omnioculars and was now busy discovering all the new gadgets included that hadn't graced his last set.

Hermione was splitting her attention between them and the rest of the group, watching that everything went smoothly. The last thing wereworld needed was bad PR. It was due to this self-assigned distraction that Severus was able to sneak up on her, complaining, "Only morons would stand atop elevated seating structures in the midst of freezing, forty kilometer per hour winds to cheer on a group of flying incompetents."

Hermione tried to siphon some of her enthusiasm off. "Glad you could join the moron squad."

His look was obviously meant to be one of someone resigned to his fate, but Hermione knew him too well. She kissed him just to add to the happiness that lurked beneath his carefully constructed persona, "He'll be so thrilled. They both will."

"You overestimate my importance," Severus dismissed her statement.

Hermione was about to reply, but Remus had evidently felt the eyes drilling two precision-perfect holes into his back, because he turned. The grin of surprised pleasure that spread over his face made Severus move to back up before realizing there was a seat immediately behind him.

Hermione laughed, "Or not, luv."

Remus tapped on Zev's shoulder, wrenching his attention away from the still-empty field. Zev turned, irritated for a second before his excitement took over, "Professor!"

"Good morning, Mr. Granger."

"I didn't know you liked Quidditch."

Severus winced. "It is a tolerable game."

Zev laughed. "Tolerable, heh. Well, enjoy!" He screwed himself back around to his front and resumed sweeping Omniocular-covered eyes across the field. Remus climbed over the back of the seat next to Zev to be in the same row with Hermione and Severus. The other students immediately descended upon Zev, asking to look at his newest toy. Zev shared, seemingly as content to be the center of attention as he was to sharpen in on where the action would be played out.

Remus threw his arms around Severus, not letting go until well after Severus gave up struggling against him. "Thank you."

"I'm here due only to the invitation of a Ms. Katherine Bell."

Hermione shoved him, "Shut your face, you practically flunked Katie her third year, she's still working on overcoming her antipathy toward you."

"Well, I'm certainly not here to interact with mongrels who are intent on watching overgrown children fly around on sticks and aim blunt objects at each other," Severus clarified.

"There's a non-mongrel section right over there," Remus pointed out past the partition.

Severus looked over as if considering. "The children over here are better behaved."

"Probably has something to do with the fact that we scared them silent lest they ruin their own chances to leave the school again in their lifetime." Remus's voice lost any trace of warmth.

"Had I been able to affect such terror," Severus affected wistfulness, but his hand stole out and disappeared into the lengths of Remus's robe to rub against his back. Hermione watched as some of the hurt dissipated from Remus's frame.

Remus extended his version of a peace pipe as the players flew out, announced one by one, "Bet you're quicker than anyone on that field."

"I would be a fool to take such a bet," Severus sniffed.

Hermione dragged herself away from watching Zev nearly jump up and down as his favorite player was introduced. "Figure of speech, Severus."

"Obviously," he sneered.

"Bet none of those men can make me want to strip in the middle of freezing weather and forget that I'm practically in the middle of a Quidditch pitch at game time."

Severus closed his mouth quickly, but not so quickly that Hermione didn't catch the gaping she had induced. "That might be a safer bet for me to counter."

"No," Remus disagreed, "I think you're wrong about that."

"A field full of young, athletic, Potter-like Quidditch jocks-"

"And I want the willowy, sadistic, book-addicted, angry, bitter, reluctantly loving, loyal Hogwarts professor."

Remus piped up, "And the plucky, dashing werewolf obscured by said professor's ridiculous height."

Hermione peered around Severus. "Him too."

"I'll refrain from remarking on the possible state of your sanity, or lack thereof." It took Severus several tries to say it, his mouth opening and shutting compulsively.

"Quite dear of you," Hermione slipped up to her toes and kissed Severus.

Puddlemere scored and the children started screaming. Severus whipped around, obviously instinctively ready to yell. Zev's hands waved in the air, and Severus physically drew in, softening his stance. Remus slid his arm around Severus's back, tugging with his fingers at Hermione's robe. Answering the insistent call, Hermione wrapped her arm around Severus from the other side, clasping her hand over Remus's arm.

Severus scorned the other team's keeper. "Flight ability of a two year old squib."

"That's the spirit," Remus encouraged. Severus grunted. Remus acted like his, "I'm glad you came," followed perfectly from his last comment.

Severus stiffened slightly in their hold as Hermione added a, "Yes, me as well."

After an eternity of quaffle interplay, Severus drew in a breath. "Right, well, I'm here."

Hermione took her eyes away from the game to watch Remus take the words as a cue to burrow in closer to Severus. In her peripheral vision, Zev was whispering something to a girl two years older than him who was blissfully unaware of having nabbed his heart. In the pit of Hermione's stomach Ron was making fun of the Beater who kept missing his targets and Harry was trying to find the snitch before either Seeker did.

Careless of the looks it would draw, of the way it took Severus time to accept and understand each act of physical affection, Hermione threw her other arm around him in a sideways hug. Remus caught on immediately, copying her actions. Giving into the inevitable, Severus pulled her in even closer with an arm about her waist. She could feel the impact of Remus being drawn in on the other side.

"Yes," she breathed, "we all are."